Coming Home for Christmas Read online

  Major Trey Wharton, USA, opened the door himself, making her wonder—not for the first time—if he knew the very sound of her knock.

  “Mrs Nicholls, I wondered if you would stop by today to give me a pithy comment on the nitwittery of Captain Penrose. Who in God’s name would read aloud a letter like that?”

  If Lillian had been holding her breath, she let it out in a little sigh; trust Major Wharton to understand, even if he was an American. Or perhaps because he was an American.

  A handsome one, too. She admired his posture, and the fine cut of his blue uniform, with its gold buttons, epaulets and collar trim denoting an engineer. His uniforms looked tailor-made and expensive, and he always appeared perfectly proper. That aside, her first encounter with the complexity that was Major Wharton had happened in surgery, his well-tailored coat tossed across the room, and the major watching with great interest the surgeon at work. With no hesitation, he had held a retractor when the surgeon required it, then had grinned at her. “Mrs Nicholls, is it? Are you ever amazed how some people meet?” And then he had blushed like a schoolgirl.

  Shyness was another of Major Wharton’s endearing qualities. She had decided early on how much she liked him. Lily was used to men appreciating her company—she had a stillness about her and was ornamental in the way that men of her class seemed to prefer. Once Major Wharton had recovered from a monumental case of tongue-tied-itis, as he had jokingly dubbed it late one weary night, he had become her friend, but nothing more. She chose to be philosophical about the matter. After all, she was here in the Crimea to nurse, not flirt.

  With a smile now, she sat in the chair drawn up before his ornate desk, a gift of Sultan Abdul Ahmed Wasiri. The two men regularly played poker, a game that the sultan always claimed had originated in Persia. The desk had formed part of Major Wharton’s considerable winnings.

  The major sat down in the chair next to her, not bothering to retreat to the other side of the desk to look intimidating, as Captain Penrose would have. He smiled back and Lillian felt her own heart lifting, even as she reminded herself that Major Wharton seemed to want no more than friendship from her.

  It was the smile. Until he smiled, he was handsome in that understated way of capable men. His brown hair was turning gray here and there, and his eyes were dark blue. He had a deep dimple in one cheek and carved lines around his mouth that gave his face character. The smile changed everything because he had a gap between his two front teeth, making what should have been an intimidatingly perfect man quite human. When he smiled, Trey Wharton looked just slightly off-kilter. She knew her mother would find him amusing.

  “Major, you’ll just have to endure Excelsior Penrose,” she reminded him, not for the first time.

  He never failed to laugh when she used the physician’s full name. It was a laugh as comfortable as he was, even in dismal surroundings.

  She looked at an ornate rug he must have recently hung on the wall. It blocked out a portion of the window, which leaked heat notoriously. “More winnings from your disreputable game?” she asked, indicating the objet d’art.

  He nodded. “Our friend the sultan would be worthy pickings for any riverboat gambler I can think of,” he said. “If the British High Command lengthens out the evacuation of patients, I believe I will own Abdul Wasiri’s palace and chattels. Probably the harem, too.” He blushed furiously. “Has he made you any more offers recently?”

  “Not one!” She laughed, remembering one straitlaced London lady who had reported the major to Miss Nightingale for his vulgarity. That bit of self-righteousness had earned her a prompt transfer to another hospital. Flippant the major might be, but he could run a hospital. What’s more, Miss Nightingale knew it.

  “No more offers from the sultan,” she said. “If I am honest, perhaps I did not entirely understand what he was proposing. I will give him the benefit of the doubt.”

  “Wise,” Major Wharton said. And then he was all business: her great friend, but first and foremost a hospital administrator. “I’ll wager you’ve come here to tell me that our patients are a bit morose.”

  Our patients? Lily asked herself. She nodded, pleased that he had included them both. “They are, indeed.”

  “I observed that, too, Mrs Nicholls.” He looked her in the eye, something he was generally too shy to do. “I’ll wager you have a solution. I’ve never known you to complain without a remedy.”

  Her doubts returned. It was such a small thing. “Nothing grandiose, mind,” she said, ready to explain it away.

  “Say on, Mrs Nicholls. I value your opinion.”

  He did, too, and so he had told her on several occasions. Major Wharton was a far remove from the condescension she was accustomed to from British surgeons. Of course, he made no claims to being a surgeon. “I’m just an observer,” he had said, on more than one occasion. “Miss Nightingale must have had a momentary lapse of judgment to request my heretofore-unknown administrative services.”

  Lily knew better. For six weeks before her transfer to Soulari, she had watched the genius of Florence Nightingale organize order from chaos and recognize such skills in others, even those among US Army war observers. Miss Nightingale was never deterred by red tape. Lily smiled to herself.

  “I want a Christmas tree for the main corridor.” There, it was out in the open and it did sound silly.

  He didn’t laugh, but continued his observation of her. Never was his gaze anything but thoughtful, which reassured her.

  “I’ve never seen any around here, but I hear there are pine trees in the Taurus Mountains. I think it might do wonders for the men’s morale,” she added, then thought to herself, And mine, too. “Would it be so hard to transport a tree here?”

  “Probably not in times of less disorder.” He reached for a neat stack of forms on his desk. “I’ll fill out a requisition right now. One tree, comma, Christmas?”

  She couldn’t help laughing. “Major, you seem to labor under the misapprehension that someone in the commissary department—or should it be the quarter-master’s?—has a sense of humor.”

  He shrugged. “Let’s start with proper channels first. What can it hurt?”

  What, indeed? she asked herself, as she left Major Wharton’s office after a few pleasantries. I know I will miss you, Major, when I am given leave to bid Anatolia farewell and return to my darling boy.

  Chapter Two

  The requisition went on its way that afternoon. It was returned, rejected, in the mail pouch early the next week. Major Wharton brought it to her after she had finished feeding those men too weak to care for themselves and was tidying her small diet kitchen off the main hall.

  Still impeccable, still dignified, he sat at the table and absently folded a pile of laundered dishcloths.

  “Really, Major, I can do that,” she protested, but not too vehemently, in case he should think she actually meant it. With only French-speaking nuns around, she was coming to relish her encounters with the American, even if his English had a distinctly foreign sound to her ears. He was the first American she had ever met.

  “Mrs Nicholls, I can no more sit idle than you,” he said, working his way quickly through the pile of dishcloths as she scrubbed the sink. “Is there anything else to fold? Tablecloths? Deck of cards? A tent, and silently steal away?”

  She laughed, always appreciative of his droll wit, especially when compared with Captain Pompous, who wouldn’t know a joke if it barked in his face. Indeed, the physician had wasted a quarter-hour of her time only that morning complaining about Major Wharton’s levity in a place of contagion and disease.

  You are a nitwit, she had thought, while fixing Captain Pompous with her blandest face. I appreciate a man who can make an entire ward roar with laughter and forget, for even fifteen minutes, that some of them are dying.

  “Nothing else?” Major Wharton asked. He rested his hands on the table. “How about this? If I am not a dreadful nuisance or an opportunist of the grossest sort, would you object to a glass of cha
mpagne?”

  She stared at him, wondering where his shyness had gone. Before she could say anything, he continued, his familiar blush back. This reassured her in an odd way, because it meant all was right in the major’s world again.

  “I know it should be served in a flute, but I have only two drinking glasses, army issue.”

  “Where did you…?”

  “Acquire champagne?” He caught the tablecloth she tossed his way to fold. “It came in the same delivery that brought that prissy note from the commissary officer regarding our Christmas tree.”

  “A consolation prize?” she teased in turn, catching the end of the tablecloth and folding her share.

  He finished folding the cloth and handed it back to her. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, considering that Captain Pompous already thinks I am a vulgarian.”

  “That has never stopped you before,” she said, amused. Her casual treatment of Major Wharton reminded Lily of her relationship with her own easygoing brothers.

  He peered at the label. “A bottle of Perrier-Jouët came from General Albert Pasquier. He seemed to think I had something to do with getting most of his wounded troops transferred home to Paris ahead of schedule.”

  “You know you did—what a nice effort that was, considering that his son was among the wounded,” she said gently.

  He sighed. “I only wish we could have moved him sooner, so his papa could have had more time with him. It’s nice of the general to remember me.” He looked at her again, his gaze direct, with no blush this time. Lily had noticed that he never seemed shy when talking hospital policy. “If I ran this war, there would be a change in the transport of wounded. As it is, thank goodness for your Miss Nightingale. She does all she can.”

  “The champagne is payment for your impressive sleight of hand with a bunch of wounded Frenchmen?” she asked, smiling in spite of herself.

  “Absolutely. Care for some bubbly?”

  She did, actually, and told him so. While she waited in the kitchen, Major Wharton returned to his office and came back with a dusty bottle and two glass receptacles used for blood cupping.

  “Can’t find my glasses,” he muttered. “I think one of the nuns has decided to organize my desk. Stand back, madam. No telling how far this Perrier-Jouët will fire. I’d hate to lose you after the war is over.”

  He popped the cork expertly and the bubbles fizzed out demurely. “Ah, it is a dignified wine,” the major said. He poured a respectable amount into the cup and handed it to her. “What shall we toast? The war is over and we’re still languishing in this most trying backwater.”

  “To Christmas and the tree I still want,” Lily said.

  He nodded and clinked her cupping glass. “Fine. To next Christmas at home?”

  “I would have preferred this one, but, aye, I’ll drink to that,” she said.

  The major propped his slippered feet on the table as he leaned back in his chair. She watched him over the rim of the cupping glass, remembering their first encounter a year ago, when he had arrived unannounced, with the astounding directive from Miss Nightingale herself to install him, a US Army observer and an engineer, as administrator of the overstretched satellite hospital.

  Such an assignment was unheard of, but both surgeons on staff had been forced to swallow their objection to the directive, because it was also signed by FitzRoy Somerset, Lord Raglan. Within a fortnight, Major Wharton had organized the hospital until it ran like a top. Modestly, he gave all credit to a month of observing Miss Nightingale’s genius for organization, which mollified the British Army physicians.

  It had been Lily’s turn to provide the libation late one night, when only the two of them had been still awake and ward walking. The drink had been rum instead of the cupping glass of champagne she held now.

  “Major, I believe we used cupping glasses with that rum I stole from the densest surgeon in the British army.”

  “I believe we did,” he said. He tipped his chair down and poured more champagne. He amazed her by leaning forward and touching her hand lightly. “I have never thanked you for being my champion with those twits with cotton wadding for brains.” He raised his cupping glass. “Let’s toast the late Lord Raglan, may he rest in peace— Thank you, sir, for recalling both twits home and sending better surgeons in their stead!”

  She drank to that, enjoying the way the bubbles worked on her brain. The major tipped his chair back again and he sipped slowly. She watched him, remembering that earlier evening of rum. Maybe the alcohol had loosened his tongue. He had told her about himself, unabashedly describing his wealthy Philadelphia family—part of the Main Line, he called them—and the general uses of wealth and influence. His parents had had no objection to West Point—America’s premier, and only, engineering school—but they had expected him to resign his commission after a dignified time and join the Wharton’s banking firm. He had told her this over rum last year, after a long and exhausting day of disease and death.

  Since then, there had been little time for such leisurely chat. She sipped her champagne and remembered that earlier conversation, when they had become better acquainted.

  “My parents rejoiced when I was selected to accompany Captain McClellen, and Majors Cooke, Delafield and Mordecai to the Crimea as observers,” he had said. She remembered that his voice had turned a little bleak then. “Observation of others’ fighting methods is a time-honored military tradition.” He had shrugged. “I have always been more interested in how things run. Hospitals interested me more. I intend to write a whacking fine report to vindicate my choice. In fact, I promised Miss Nightingale I would.”

  “What does your family think of you now?” she asked, recalled to the present, even as the champagne infiltrated her brain. “I remember our rum-filled conversation quite well.”

  He glanced at her and laughed. “They want me home for Christmas, probably the same as your family does.” He put his hand to his chest in a gesture worthy of Edmund Kean. “‘All is forgiven, Trey! Return, resign your commission and join the banking firm.’”

  “Oh, dear, you are the black sheep,” she teased, then sighed. “I went with my parents’ blessing, but I miss my son. He will be ten right after Christmas.”

  She held out her class for more champagne, and Major Wharton obliged. “With a young child, why did you do it?” he asked, then held up his hand. “Stop me if I am being intrusively rude, but I have been wondering.”

  “Not at all, Major. My husband, God rest his soul, died of consumption and I decided not to be buried with him.” She took a deep breath.

  It sounded so blatant that she stopped, her hand to her mouth. Again the major put down his chair and touched her hand, as though giving her permission to continue.

  “Two years of the blackest mourning, for Will and me both.” She looked at him, uncertain if she should say more, but he nodded. “My late husband’s family is as rich as you Whartons, I suppose. Major, I couldn’t be an expensive ornament for one more minute, so Will and I escaped to Dumfries, where people eat oats for breakfast and make their own beds. I wanted to prove something to myself.”

  “Did you?” he asked. “No, I can answer that for you— Yes, you did. Mrs Nicholls, you are a useful woman.”

  She smiled at his courage in delivering so much sensible praise with only a slight blush. “What I am is naive and foolish to actually think the war would end in six weeks.” She had to smile at her own stupidity, to keep the tears from welling up. “I miss my son.”

  Lily had to give Major Wharton credit then, despite his shyness. With his little finger, he brushed gently at the tears in her eyes and changed the subject to spare her. “Dumfries, eh? I wondered where that delightful brogue came from,” he said. “And your marvelous red hair?”

  It was her turn to blush. No one had ever described her hair as marvelous. “You should see my father!”

  “There’s more to you than red hair, a brogue and naïveté,” he said. “Now remember, Mrs Nicholls, I am an offi
cial observer. I have a document from the U.S. Army saying precisely that, if you are skeptical. Your mother’s not from Scotland, is she?”

  Why did we never have this conversation sooner? Lily asked herself, charmed by this casual side of Major Wharton, now that the worst press of war was over and they had the time to linger over champagne, even if it was served from cupping glasses. “She was born in Spain and raised in Mexico City. My father met her in San Diego, Alta California. I believe it is one of your states now. He was a prisoner of war.”

  “You’re more interesting than the Whartons!” The major shook his head, his eyes full of something that looked like admiration. “Your father is a surgeon still?”

  “A very good one. So are two of my brothers. The third brother is the family black sheep. He went to Cambridge and became a successful banker. He met my husband there and brought him home once during the Long Vac.”

  They laughed together, conspirators, in the ways of families. She felt a pleasant glow edge down her body. She felt as though she sat close to a glowing brazier, not a handsome man with a gap-toothed smile. Lily sat back, surprised at herself, and wanting a moment to consider what she was feeling.

  That was a split second before she heard labored footsteps up the narrow flight of stairs to the administrator’s office, and a moment later saw the red face of Sister Marie Xavier. She was breathing heavily from her exertions, but not too fatigued to scream “Fire!” in French.

  Chapter Three

  That’s what Lily assumed she said, considering the aroma of smoke that began to drift over the barracks hospital. Equally startling to Lily was the way Major Wharton grabbed her hand and hurried her toward the stairs.

  He didn’t let go of her until they stood a safe distance away from the detached kitchen, where the roof threatened to collapse. Shocked, Lilly counted to twelve, relieved that all the nuns—in various stages of undress, to be sure—were out of their quarters behind the ovens and standing in the walkway between the kitchen and the hospital. And then the major only let go of her to clap his arm around her shoulders as she contemplated the loss of every possession she had brought to Anatolia, except for the clothes she stood in, hairpins currently employed and a pair of scissors in her apron pocket.