A Yuletide Treasure by Cynthia Bailey Pratt

them in Naples.”
    “It’s sardonyx, isn’t it?”
    “Yes , but how did you know? Most people think it’s made of carnelian.” Tinarose opened the doors.
    “I read a great deal,” Camilla said and noticed that everyone in the drawing room had turned at their entrance and therefore, they’d all heard her.
    “I’m glad to hear it,” Sir Philip said, putting down his glass. “I tell my nieces that knowledge becomes a woman just as much as her fair face.”
    Camilla shook hands with him. “That looks a little as if you were hoping for the best of both worlds, Sir Philip.”
    “And why not? I always take the best that I am offered. Sherry?”
    “Thank you.”
    He led her to a corner of one of the straw yellow sofas that framed the room. The whole of the drawing room was decorated in warm tones of amber, a spring-like contrast to the bitterness of the season. A large fire burned in the white marble fireplace not far from the sofas, but the heat was tempered by two hand-painted fire screens. She admired the pattern while Sir Philip brought her a glass.
    “Miss Twainsbury, may I present Dr. Evelyn March?”
    Camilla had already noticed him. No woman alive could have failed to notice him. In profile, he might have posed for Tinarose’s cameo head. But this Roman figure was alive, the black coat and white stock of the medical man encasing his broad shoulders and strong neck, the beautifully molded mouth smiling as he shook hands. So good looking a man must cause many maidenly hearts to flutter. She wondered how many of his female patients were truly ill, then reproved herself for the cattiness of the idea.
    “A pleasure to meet you, Miss Twainsbury. Nanny Mallow cannot sing your praises enough.”
    “It is she who was brave,” Camilla said, finding her voice. “I faced nothing worse than a little chill and some inconvenience. I cannot bear to think what she must have suffered before my appearance on the scene.”
    “We must thank Providence that she only wrenched her knee. These elderly ladies can be surprisingly fragile.”
    “And surprisingly resilient, too,” Sir Philip said. “I’ve seen them carry half their households on their backs and still make supper for a village.”
    “Where was that, Uncle Philip?” Tinarose asked.
    “Greece. Pennsylvania. St. Kitts. It’s the same story the world over.”
    “I had no notion you were so widely traveled, Sir Philip,” Camilla said.
    Tinarose answered for him. “Oh, yes. Uncle Philip has been everywhere.”
    “Not quite everywhere. But it’s a very interesting place, our world. I think it behooves a man to see as much of it as he can. My brother preferred to see it from the deck of a ship, but I always liked tramping around on my own two feet.”
    “Better your own two feet than on a horse’s four,” Dr. March said, giving Philip a rueful glance.
    “You did very well,” he answered. “The journey home will be easier yet.” The doctor gave a little groan.
    “Isn’t Dr. March staying here?” Tinarose asked. Camilla glanced at her curiously. Her tone was a trifle too artless to be true. She felt that Tinarose not only knew the doctor would be staying, but she was more than a little pleased by the notion.
    This undercurrent of feeling seemed to go unnoticed by the gentlemen.
    “I’m afraid I cannot, Miss LaCorte. My father is unwell. I must return tonight.”
    Sir Philip offered Camilla a glass of sherry. Since his guest could not dress for dinner, he had not done so either, merely changing his coat from the rough brown fustian he’d worn during the day to a more civilized blue superfine. His cravat was more a la mode than his other, carelessly knotted, one. He, like his niece, had evidently taken some care to arrange his dark hair, since the tracks of the comb were still visible in the dampened strands.
    Though not as jaw-droppingly handsome as the doctor, he looked even more like someone she’d like to know well than the man she’d met in the