Season's Regency Greetings by Carla Kelly Page B

you failed one little boy?”
    He raised his hand and she steadied herself, because she knew it was going to hurt, considering his size and the look in his eyes. Almost without thinking, she grabbed him around the waist and pulled him close to her in a fierce grip. She closed her eyes and waited for him to send her flying across the room. She tightened her grip on the ties on his waistcoat. All right, she thought, you’ll have to pry me off to hurt me.
    To her unspeakable relief, the file dropped to the floor and his arms went around her. She released her grip and began to run her hands along his back instead. ‘Trevor, it’s going to be all right. Really it is,” she murmured.
    He began to sob then as he rested his chin on her hair. “I line up a row of bottles and drink my way through Christmas Eve, Christmas, and Boxing Day, Cecilia,” he said, when he could speak. “I almost died last Christmas, but damn me if one of the other barristers at the Inn didn’t come knocking on Christmas afternoon. I woke up with a surgeon’s finger down my throat!” He leaned against her until his weight almost toppled her. “Please stop me! I don’t want to die!”
    Holding him so close that she could feel his waistcoat buttons against her breast, she understood the enormity of his guilt, as irrational as it seemed to her logical mind. She moved him toward the sofa and sat down. He released her only to sink down beside her and lay his head in her lap. She twitched her shawl off her shoulders, spread it over him, and rested her hand on his hair—did he never comb it, ever?—as he cried. Sitting back, she felt his exhaustion and remorse seeping into her very skin. As he cried and agonized, she had the tiniest inkling of the Gethsemane that her dear foster father spoke of from the pulpit, upon occasion. “Bless your heart,” she whispered, “you’re atoning for the sins of the world. My dear, no mortal can do that! What’s more, it’s been done, and you don’t have to.”
    â€œ That’s your theology,” he managed to gasp, before agony engulfed him again.
    â€œ And I am utterly convinced of it, dear sir,” she said. Cecilia pushed on his shoulder until he was forced to raise himself and look at her. She kissed his forehead. “Even someone as young as Davy understands that we celebrate Christmas because Christ gave us hope! Dear man, you’re dragging around chains that He took care of long ago.” She kissed him again, even though his face was wet and slimy now. “I really think it’s time you stopped.”
    â€œ But Jimmy’s dead!”
    It was a lament for the ages, and she felt suddenly as old and tired as he, as though he had communicated the matter into her in a way that was almost intimate. She considered it, and understood her own faith, perhaps for the first time. “Yes, Jimmy Daw is dead,” she whispered finally as he lowered himself back to her lap, his arm around her this time. “And you have done more to honor his memory than any other human being. Every child you save is a testimony to your goodness, and a memorial to Jimmy Daw. I know it is. I believe it.”
    He didn’t say anything, but he had stopped crying. She knew he was listening this time. She cleared her throat, and wiped her own eyes with a hand that shook. “May I tell you how we are going to celebrate Christmas Eve next year? We are going to remember all the children you have saved . We are going to thank Kind Providence that you have the health and wealth to do this desperately hard work.”
    â€œ We are?” he asked, his voice no more than a whisper.
    â€œ We are,” she replied firmly. “You are not going to do it alone ever again.”
    What am I saying? she asked herself, waiting for the utter foolishness of her declaration to overtake her. When nothing of the kind happened, she bowed her head