He'd spent his dreams trying to explain to her how he'd lost his soul somewhere on a journey he'd never intended to make. And he'd begged forgiveness of an angel he wanted to fall into his arms.
But she'd only said to him, in that sad, soft voice, what he already knew ...
You don't deserve a son like Gabriel
Tristan yanked at the knot of his cravat, the neckcloth impossibly mussed, the face above it set in the lines of the damned. She would be gone, soon. Out of his house. Out of his life. Like Gabriel.
He opened the door and stalked down to her chamber, intending to get the parting over with as hastily as possible—hopefully before Gabriel awakened, Gabriel with his unnatural attachment to the woman who had brought a wisp of Christmas into his life.
Yet, as he approached the doorway where he'd left Alaina MacShane the night before, he saw it stood wide open, sunshine streaming through it to pool in the corridor.
He hastened his step, glancing into the room. It was as if she had never existed. Nothing was out of place, the coverlets smooth. His heart gave an odd thud. She was gone.
He should be rejoicing. If he'd had any sense at all, he would have flung the woman out last night, before she could stir up trouble in the first place. What insanity had prompted him to allow a complete stranger to sleep under his roof anyway? It would serve him right if the woman had stolen every bit of silver in the place.
But there had been only one treasure Alaina MacShane had shown interest in, Tristan realized with a jolt. Gabriel, with his angel-gold curls and dark, solemn eyes. Gabriel, who had trusted her completely.
Tristan swore, alarm making his heart pound with dread. He raced to his son's room, his belly knotted, his fists clenched, his mind in fierce denial. The nursery was silent. The bed...
Tristan ran over to it, his gaze fixing on the smooth coverlets, the pillow still crushed into a soft hollow where Gabriel had dreamed. Yet most horrifying of all was the fact that the threadbare stuffed horse lay there, abandoned. Even if Gabriel had been swept up to heaven, he would have clutched that treasured toy.
What if the woman had stolen Gabriel away? Taken him? And the child had gone with her believing that she was an angel sent by his mother?
Perhaps you can convince God to make other arrangements . . . the bitter words of the night before echoed in his mind.
He wheeled, then raced through the corridor, bellowing his son's name, desperation squeezing his heart. Cook hobbled from the kitchen; Burrows hastened to Tristan as fast as his gouty leg could carry him.
"Master Tristan, what is it? What's wrong?" Burrows demanded.
"It's Gabriel. Have you seen Gabriel?"
Cook paled. "Why, no, sir. I thought he was still abed. Didn't wake him, poor lamb. No point, what with Christmas canceled."
"Sweet Jesus," Tristan gasped, more prayer than curse. "Search the house—every cranny. There was a woman here last night—she must've taken him."
"A woman, sir?" Burrows gaped at him as if he'd said a mermaid had taken up residence in Cook's washtub. "But how ... Who ..."
"She broke into the house, and I let her stay." Tristan cursed himself. "I let her stay."
"You let a stranger..." Cook began, then swallowed hard, flushing scarlet at her own impertinence for questioning her master. "Even so," she said, "that don't necessarily mean the lady took him. He might be playin' one o' those games he's so fond of up in the attic. Says he don't disturb anyone there."
Tristan didn't need the mournful look in Cook's eyes to realize what the servant was saying. Gabriel took his games to the attic so he wouldn't disturb his father.
"I'm going out to search," Tristan said. "You rake through every inch of this house. If you find him ..." Tell him I'm sorry. Tell him I didn't mean it. Tell him I love him ... The words turned bitter in Tristan's mouth because he knew he'd never have the strength to say them aloud.
"We'll let you know when we find him, sir," the butler assured his master.
Tristan rushed out the front door. Last night's storm had left London a wonderland of white, drifts smoothing out the slope of the stairs and thickening the branches of the trees, crowning the lampposts and masking the cobblestone carriage circle.
Where was he even going to begin to look? Tristan wondered. His heart leapt as he noticed two pairs of footprints leading away from the house in the new-fallen snow. One the tiny imprint of a child's boot. Gabriel.
The marks rounded to the garden. Doubtless the woman had taken him out the back gate because she didn't want anyone to witness her abducting the child. Panic jolted through Tristan, and he ran, hoping that carts and horses and holiday travelers wouldn't have obliterated the footprints beyond the back gate.
He ran along the path his son had taken, praying in spite of himself. He'd just rounded a tangle of dead rose vines when he heard a sound, high-pitched, breathless. A cry of alarm? Gabriel? Had the boy realized Alaina was trying to steal him away?
Tristan charged past the brick wall that enclosed the garden, ready to throttle the woman who had dared take his son. But he'd barely breached the wall when he froze in his tracks.
He'd pictured a thousand horrifying possibilities in the time since he'd discovered his son was missing. Gabriel, struggling in Alaina MacShane's arms, terrified as she dragged him away, or, worse, his little boy oblivious in innocence, being cozened along the path to danger with peppermint drops or tales about star magic and heaven. But none of these visions prepared him for what he saw.
His solemn, earnest son was rolling in the new-fallen snow like a puppy, his frost-nipped cheeks red, his nose pink, his coat covered with snow, while Alaina MacShane heaped armfuls of downy whiteness over his squirming little body.
"You want a cheery snowman, Gabriel Ramsey," Alaina cried. "I'll make you into one myself!"
Another armful of snow rained down on the child, and his cherubic lips rounded over a squeal that struck Tristan to the soul.
Laughter. The sound he'd heard was his son's laughter. Tristan's heart cracked at the knowledge that it was a sound so rare he hadn't recognized it a moment before.
He stood, unable to move, staring at a child as different from the solemn ghost that drifted through the halls of Ramsey House as a unicorn was from a dray horse. And Tristan knew instinctively what enchantress had worked such astonishing sorcery—the woman whose face glowed with the rare beauty of a winter-born rose, her auburn hair tumbled in silken petals about her face, her cloak tangled and mussed from rolling about in the snow with his son.
"Stop, Laney!" the boy squealed. "I have to finish the snowman now! Papa'll miss his hat!"
She caught Gabriel by the toe of a boot, dragging him back to her, tickling his neck through the thick wrapping of his woolen muffler. "Your father will miss his hat, will he? Good! I can't wait to return it to him before he goes!" Gabriel howled in delight, but there was an underlying edge in Alaina's voice that the perceptive child didn't hear. One that displayed in crystal clarity what Alaina MacShane thought of the owner of that hat.
Gabriel wriggled away from her and scrambled to his feet, a fresh drift of snow cascading over his eyes, blinding him. "You can't catch me, Laney! You can't catch me!" he cried, scampering away in an effort to escape. Instead, Gabriel slammed headlong into the rigid form of his father.
Gabriel cried out in dismay as Tristan reached out to steady him, and the child's eyes rounded in alarm as they locked on his father's face. Tristan's gut clenched. Was he such a monster that he could drive the joy from his son's face in a heartbeat?
He strove with all his might to gentle the harsh lines of his features, yet the pain, the self-loathing, was so strong Tristan was certain Gabriel's too-wise eyes would discern it.
"P-Papa. I thought you were getting ready to go. To the office, I mean," the child stammered.
"Tristan!" Why did his Christian name sound so natural on Alaina's lips as she cried it out? She struggled to her feet, a halo of shimmering snow fluttering from every fold of
her cape, her face alight with hope. "'You decided to stay home? I'm so very glad."
For an instant, he drowned in the loveliness of her smile, warmed himself in the golden approval shining in those impossibly beautiful eyes. Then he remembered just how horribly frightened he'd been moments before, when he'd thought she'd taken his son. Taken the son he was about to give away freely, a grim voice echoed inside him. The thought made him angry, made him ache.
He leveled at her the glare that made the clerks at Ramsey and Ramsey quake in their shoes. "I was about to leave for the office when I discovered Gabriel missing, and—" What the devil could he say? I thought you had stolen him away because I told you to make other arrangements for him? Tristan felt like a fool. "Exactly what is this all about?" he demanded, gesturing to the maze of footprints and snowballs strewn across the winter-white garden.
Gabriel sidled away from him, pressing close against Alaina's snow-covered skirts, his chin thrust out at an uncharacteristically obstinate angle. "Alaina said that you were very sorry you had to go to work on Christmas. But since you did, she'd spend the day with me doing the most wondrous things."
Tristan's cheekbones stung at the knowledge that the woman had attempted to sugar-gild the truth—that Gabriel's father was such a selfish bastard he'd said Christmas be damned, despite his seven-year-old son. He started to protest, then stopped. Bastard he might be, but not enough of one to tell the cruel truth and extinguish the starshine in his child's eyes.
"We've already bought some holly from a holly cart and some gingerbread for breakfast. The cookie was so cunning, Papa, made in the shape of a tiny little man with currant eyes and buttons. It made me sorry to nibble off his legs and arms, but he tasted so very good I couldn't help myself."
"I see." Tristan did, far too well. The woman was still defying him. Defying him, but also making his little boy laugh.
"And we made a snowman, Papa, that was s'posed to look like you, with your hat and walking stick and all. But when Alaina made the face it was all scowly. I told her it couldn't stay that way."
Alaina shook back her snow-dusted fall of curls. "Gabriel was just about to fashion the bits of coal into a smile." Why did those words weigh like stones in Tristan's soul? Alaina patted Gabriel's cheek. "You run along and do it now, young man, so your papa can see it."
Tristan wanted his son to wheel around and race to the snowman towering beside a stone bench. He hadn't realized how much he wanted Gabriel laughing and hurtling about, flinging armfuls of snow while his eyes sparkled like the ice-bright flakes that drifted to the ground. But Gabriel walked to the snowman and earnestly began to fashion the coal-chunk frown Alaina had made into a lopsided smile.
Silence fell, so heavy Tristan felt as if he couldn't breathe. In the end, Alaina broke it, her voice so soft Gabriel almost couldn't hear it. "That is all the child wants in the world, Tristan. To see you smile."
Tristan's hands knotted into fists as the words splashed acid on the guilt and resentment he had carried so long— from the year that Gabriel had been born and his own dreams had died.
But that inner death wasn't Gabriel's fault, a voice railed within him. It had never been Gabriel's fault.
Alaina's voice jarred him from the thought. "Do you remember how badly you wanted a pony the year you were twelve?" she asked. "And when you got it—all golden and cream—how elated you were?"
How could she know him to the core of his soul, know so many secrets? Tristan turned burning eyes to hers, shaken, old wounds ripped open. "I remember. But how could you possibly—"
"When I overheard Gabriel's Christmas wish last night, he offered to give up everything—Christmas and puddings and playing Snap Dragon. Even the pony he wants so desperately. He said that he'd trade it all away if his papa would just smile again."
It would have been more merciful if she'd thrust a dagger in Tristan's chest.
"It broke my heart to hear him, Tristan. But what drove me to—to break into your house last night, to bring the kissing bough and the ribbons, was what Gabriel said last of all. He'd been talking to his mother, you see, up in heaven. He said there wasn't any magic, Tristan. And if that was so, then maybe there weren't even any angels."
Tristan raised one hand to the burning void where his heart had once been. God in heaven, he'd never known he could hurt so damn deeply.
"Papa?" Tristan started at the sound of Gabriel's voice. The child had taken the top hat from beside the snowman, carrying it upside down by its brim. Tristan's eyes devoured the sweet curves of his son's little face, the cherub-pink lips, the dark-lashed eyes that had stared out the window so often of late. Now Tristan knew what Gabriel had been searching for. Angels. Magic. The mama who would never return.
"You'll need this when you go to work," the little boy said. "Alaina picked the very shiniest bit of holly for the brim. She said you deserved to look your very handsomest since you are going to work on Christmas."
"Did she, now?" Tristan knew exactly what Miss MacShane thought he deserved. Whatever torment she'd devised, it wasn't bad enough.
"She worked and worked on it, and was so excited about taking the hat back in and putting it on your shelf to surprise you. She said she couldn't wait. Isn't she the nicest angel?"
She'd dealt Tristan the most savage blow his heart had ever known. Yet Tristan could only thank her for it—for opening his eyes, for showing him the vast emptiness that had once been his heart. And for making him see Gabriel— really see him—for the first time since Charlotte had died. He'd be damned if he'd hurt the boy further in what little time was left to them.
"The hat is ... quite festive." Tristan reached for it, but Alaina intercepted it.
"Please, Mr. Ramsey. Allow me." She made a great show of brushing the snowflakes from the top hat's brim with her mittened hand. Tristan watched her, suddenly wary at the light in those amber eyes. There was such understanding, compassion, forgiveness, and something that shook him to the core—something akin to ... love?
No. That was absurd, moon madness that had crept into the window with Alaina and Christmas wishes and Gabriel's dreams. He needed to get away for a little while, to pull himself together, to sort out what this all meant. Alaina and the magic, angels and kissing boughs, and Gabriel, willing to sacrifice everything just to see his father smile. Once Tristan reached Ramsey and Ramsey, he'd be able to think straight again.
Tristan raised the tall-crown beaver to put it on his head. A hatful of snow cascaded down his face. It chilled his cheeks, spilled into his mouth, and slipped beneath his collar to rain a frigid path down his bare skin. Gabriel gaped at him, aghast. But the infernal woman beside him was positively beaming.
"You see, Gabriel," she said, smiling up at Tristan with soul-searing delight. "I told you I couldn't wait to return your papa's hat. In fact, I'm sure he knows exactly how much I was looking forward to it." She looked so damned pleased with herself—brash as a pickpocket who had just filched a particularly plum watch.
He should be furious with her or at least under white-faced control, not allowing her to know she'd ruffled him. He should be stinging and angry and hurting. Why did the frigid wash of snow cool the hot guilt inside him, soothe his regrets?
Tristan felt his mouth widening in the first smile he'd been tempted to since Charlotte's death. He removed his snow-spoiled hat and examined it for a long moment. Perhaps he really had run mad, Tristan mused.
Moved by devils he couldn't name, he methodically filled the hat with snow again, then turned it over on top of Gabriel's head. The boy laughed and skittered away under a miniature avalanche, the oversize hat dropping almost to his nose.
"But I didn't play the trick on you, Papa!" he cried, thrusting one mittened hand at Alaina. "She did!"
"Is that so?" Tristan stalked Alaina with a measured stride, his gaze fixed on hers. Just as she scooped up her skirts to run, he lunged, capturing her in his arms. "You know so much about me, Miss MacShane, perhaps you remember the penalty for throwing snow at
Ramsey House. No one was better at revenge than I was."
He scooped up a handful of snow from the bench and planted it squarely on that cheeky grin. Alaina laughed and sputtered, not even trying to get free. Tristan drank in the warmth of her, the vitality, the pure joy in snowflakes and holly sprigs and snowmen that Gabriel made smile.
Suddenly she stilled, her face spangled with melting snow—glowing pink, her eyes wide, her lips trembling. Tristan felt a wrenching in his chest that he couldn't deny, felt himself drawn along the crystal magic this woman had spun on a Christmas morning.
He wanted to kiss her. Wanted it with a ferocity that made his chest burn, his throat ache.
This was madness. Impossible. These feelings she was unleashing in him, the way she plunged deep into his heart. Who was she? he wondered with raw desperation. Where had she come from?
Yet, for the first time, he found himself almost as bewitched as Gabriel, afraid to reach his hand through the veil of magic to grasp reality. Damnation, what was happening to him? A frisson of pure terror sizzled through him.
"Gabriel." Tristan bit out the child's name more harshly than he intended. The boy's eyes widened, and he stood very still. "Take my hat in to Burrows to see if he can dry it." Gabriel's rosy face turned crestfallen.
"Yes, Papa. But please, please, don't be angry with Alaina. Maybe angels don't know any better than to fill hats up with snow. I'll watch her more careful, I promise. I won't let her get in any more mischief if you let her stay!"
"Do as I told you, Gabriel." Tristan battled to gentle his voice, hating the unhappiness that flooded his son's face. "But mind that you tell Burrows to take care with my holly," he added. "And have Cook stir up some chocolate for you, nice and hot."
"But, Papa, my angel—"
"Miss MacShane and I have some matters to discuss— alone."
"But you won't leave without saying good-bye, will you, Laney?" the child pleaded. "You promised not to leave me all Christmas Day!"