A Christmas Bride / A Christmas Beau (19 page)

“There will be the greenery to gather for the house decorations,” Cora said, “and the decorating itself. And the children’s party on Christmas Day and the adult ball in the evening. There will be baskets to deliver and skating parties down at the lake—the ice will be firm enough in a day or two if the weather stays cold. There will be—oh, so much. I am so
glad
that Christmas is here this year. And Helena,
you
shall help with all the plans since you are more senior in this family now than I am. You are Edgar’s wife.” She looked quite unabashed at having been supplanted in the role of hostess.

“It would not surprise me if there were even snow for Christmas,” Mrs. Cross said, looking toward the window and drawing general attention that way. The outdoor world did indeed look gray and chilly.

“Of course there will be snow, ma’am,” Mr. Downes said. “I have decreed that this is to be a perfect Christmas.”

“The children will be ecstatic,” the Earl of Thornhill said.

“The children of
all
ages,” his wife said with a smile. “No one is more exuberant on a sleigh than Gabriel.”

“And no one makes more angelic snow angels than Jane,” the Earl of Greenwald said.

“I may have to challenge you on that issue,” the Marquess
of Carew said with a grin, “and put forward the claims of my own wife. Samantha’s snow angels come with haloes.”

“I notice,” Cora said, “that you are conspicuously silent, Francis.”

“It is against my religion, my love,” he said, “to fight duels at Christmastime. Now any other time …” He raised his eyebrows and winked at her.

“I believe, Corey,” Edgar said, “there are in the hierarchy of heavenly beings warrior angels as well as cherubic ones.”

Francis laughed. So did everyone else at the table, Cora loudest of all.

“What an abomination brothers are,” she said. “You are welcome to him, Helena. Perhaps you can teach him some manners.”

Helena smiled and met Edgar’s eyes along the table—he looked despicably handsome and at ease—but she could not join in the lively banter. It was too—cozy. Too alluring. Too tempting. It continued without her participation.

Edgar must be put in his place this morning, she decided, before he could get any ideas about last night’s having begun an era of domestic bliss. And so at the end of the meal, when he waited at the door to escort her from the room, she ignored his offered arm.

“Oh, you need not worry about me, Edgar,” she said carelessly. “I have things to do. You may amuse yourself to your heart’s content with the other gentlemen or with whatever it is you do when you are at Mobley.”

“You will need boots and a warm cloak and bonnet,” he told her. “Everyone has been so caught up in the events surrounding our wedding during the past few days that my father is feeling that he has been derelict in his duties as host. He is taking everyone on an exploratory
walk about the park. Most of his guests, like you, are here for the first time, you see.”

“Oh,” she said. And so once again she had no choice. She had not been asked if she would like to trek about the park on a gray, cold day, in company with a number of other couples. She was half of a couple now and it was assumed that she would do what Edgar decided they should do. Besides, he was the heir to all this. Of course she must go. It would be ill-mannered to refuse. And she was finding it very hard here at Mobley to be bad mannered.

“Take my arm,” he said. “I will come up with you.”

Staying aloof would have to be a mental thing, then, she decided. And perhaps something of a physical thing, too. Tonight she would reestablish the rules. He would learn that though she had allowed him to touch her once, she had not issued a general invitation to conjugal relations at his pleasure.

“You are feeling well enough to walk?” he asked her as they entered their bedchamber.

It was the excuse she might have thought of for herself downstairs. It was the easy solution. But she would not use her condition as an excuse for anything. She would not hide behind female frailty.

“I am quite well, thank you,” she said, slipping her arm from his and making her way to her dressing room. “Why would I not be? I am expecting a baby, Edgar. Thousands of women are doing it every day.”

“But only one of them is my wife,” he said. “And only one of them is expecting
my
baby.”

She did not even try to interpret the tone of his voice. If he was trying to establish ownership, he might save his breath. He had done that quite effectively yesterday. She belonged to him body and soul. But she would not curl into the safety and comfort that fact offered her.

“I hope, Edgar,” she called from inside her dressing
room, making sure that there would be no mistaking the tone of her voice at least, “you are not going to start fussing over me. How tiresome that would be.”

The bedchamber was empty when she came back into it. He had gone into his own dressing room. She was not sure whether he had heard her or not.

The walk was going to be far worse of an ordeal than she had anticipated, she saw immediately on their return downstairs. The hall was teeming with not only adult humans but also hordes of infant humans, too. Every child had spilled from the nursery in order to enjoy the walk. The noise was well above comfort level. Helena grimaced and would have returned to her room if she decently could.

She, it soon became apparent, was to be favored by the personal escort of her father-in-law. He took her arm and directed Edgar to escort her aunt.

And so by association she became the focal point of all the frolicking children as they walked. Mr. Downes had four grandchildren of his own among the group and clearly he was one of their favorite humans. But there were ten other children—Helena finally counted them all—who had fully adopted him during the few days of their acquaintance with him. And so every discovery along their route, from a misshapen, cracked chestnut to a gray, bedraggled bird feather was excuse enough to dash up to “Grandpapa” so that he might scrutinize the treasure and exclaim on its uniqueness. And Helena was called upon to exclaim enthusiastically about everything, too.

The Bridgwater baby was too heavy for his mama and papa to carry by turns, Mr. Downes decided after they had walked through a landscaped grotto and about the base of a grassy hill, which the older children had to run over, whooshing down the far side with extended arms and loud shrieks like a flock of demented birds. And so
he enticed the babe into his own arms and made it bounce and laugh as he tickled it and talked nonsense to it. And then he decided that he would pass along the privilege and the pleasure to his new daughter-in-law.

Helena found herself carrying the rosy-cheeked little boy, who gazed at her in the hope that this new playmate would prove as entertaining as the last. The innocence of babyhood shone out at her from his eyes and the total trust of a child who had not yet learned the treachery of the world or of those he most loved.

She was terrified. And fascinated. And very close to tears. She smiled and kissed him and made a play out of stealing the apples from his cheeks. He chuckled and bounced and invited a repetition of the game. He was soft and warm and surprisingly light. He had tiny white baby teeth.

Helena drew in a deep breath. She had a surprising memory of wanting children of her own during the early years of her first marriage, of her disappointment each month when she had discovered that she had not conceived. She had been so relieved later and ever since to be childless that she had forgotten that once upon a time she had craved the experience of motherhood. There was a child in her womb—now. This time next year, if all went well, she could be holding her own baby like this, though hers would be somewhat younger.

A surge of yearning hit her low in her womb, almost like a pain. And then an equivalent dose of panic made her want to drop the Bridgwater child and run as far and as fast as she could go. She was being seduced by domesticity.

“Let me take him from you, ma’am.” The Duke of Bridgwater was a coldly handsome man, whom she would have considered austere if she had not occasionally glimpsed the warmth of his relations with his wife and son. “He entertains the erroneous belief that the
arms of adults were made to be bounced in. Come along, rascal.”

The child was perfectly happy to be back with his papa. He proceeded to bounce and gurgle.

“Ah, the memories, Daughter,” Mr. Downes said. “Having my children small was the happiest time of my life. I would have had more if my dear Mrs. Downes had not died giving birth to Cora. After that, I did not have the heart to remarry and have children with another wife.”

If Christian had lived, Helena thought, he would be older than her father-in-law was now. He would have been seventy-one. It was a fascinating thought. “Children like you,” she said.

“It is because I like them,” he said with a chuckle. “There is no child so naughty that I do not like him. And now I have grandchildren. I see Cora’s children as often as I can. I will see yours more frequently. I will lure you from Bristol on every slight pretext. Be warned.”

“I believe it will always be a pleasure to be at Mobley, sir,” she said.

He looked at her with raised eyebrows.

“Papa,” she added.

“I believe,” he said as he turned onto a different path, leading the group downhill in the direction of what appeared to be extensive woods, “you will do very well for my son. He has waited perhaps overlong to choose a bride. His character has become set over the years and has grown in strength, in proportion to his successes in life. I was successful, Daughter, as witness Mobley Abbey, which I purchased rather than inherited. My son is many more times successful than I. It will take a strong woman to give him the sort of marriage he needs.”

“You think I am a strong woman?” Helena asked.

“You were a widow for many years,” he said, “when you have the beauty and the rank and wealth to have
made an advantageous match at any time. You have traveled and been independent. Edgar reported to me that he had the devil’s own time persuading you to marry him, despite the fact that you are with child. Yes, I believe you are a strong woman.”

How looks could deceive, she thought.

A lake had come into view through the trees. A lake that was iced over.

“This will be the scene of some of our Christmas frolics,” her father-in-law said. “There will be skating, I do believe. And the greenery will be gathered among these trees. We will make a great ritual of that, Daughter. Christmas is important in this family. Love and giving and peace and the birth of a child. It is a good time to have a houseful of children and other guests.”

“Yes,” she said.

“And a good time to have a new marriage,” he said. “There are worse things to be than a Christmas bride.”

The children were whooping and heading either for the lake or for the nearest climbable trees.

I
T SEEMED THAT
he was fated to have a very prickly wife, Edgar thought the morning after his wedding. He had had hopes after their wedding night that, if they could not exactly expect to find themselves embarking on a happily-ever-after, at least they would be able to enjoy a new rapport, a starting ground for the growth of understanding and affection. But as soon as she entered the breakfast parlor he had known that she had retreated once more behind her mask. She had looked beautiful and proud and aloof—and slightly mocking. He had known that she had no intention of allowing last night to soften their relations. Her rebuff as they left the breakfast room had not taken him at all by surprise.

He watched with interest as they walked outside and
he made conversation with Mrs. Cross. He watched both his father and his wife. His father, he knew, though he had said nothing to his son, was deeply disturbed by his marriage and the manner in which it had been brought about. Yet he talked jovially with Helena and involved her with the children who kept running up to him for attention and approval.

Helena disliked children, a fact that Edgar had come to realize with cold dread. And yet he learned during the course of the walk that it was not strictly the truth. When his father first deposited the Duke of Bridgwater’s young son in her arms, she looked alarmed as if she did not know quite what to do with him. What she proceeded to do was amuse the child—and herself. Edgar watched, fascinated, as all the aloof mask came away and left simply a lovely woman playing with a child. The mask came back on as soon as Bridgwater took the baby away from her.

And then they were at the lake and everyone dispersed on various courses—the children to find the likeliest playgrounds, the adults to supervise and keep them from breaking something essential, like a neck. Cora was testing the ice with a stout stick, his father with the toe of his boot. Francis was bellowing at his youngest son to get off the ice—now! One group of children proceeded to play hide-and-seek among the tree trunks. The more adventurous took to the branches. Helena stood alone, looking as if she would sneak off back home if she could. Mrs. Cross had first bent to listen to something Thornhill’s daughter was saying to her and had then allowed herself to be led away.

Edgar was about to close the distance between himself and his wife, though she looked quite unapproachable. Why could she not simply relax like everyone else and enjoy the outing? Was she so determined
not
to enjoy it? He felt a certain annoyance. But then Cora’s youngest
son, who had escaped both the ice and his father’s wrath, tugged on his greatcoat and demanded that Uncle Edgar do up a button that had come undone at his neck. Edgar removed his gloves, went down on his haunches, and wrestled with the stubborn buttonhole.

When he stood up again, he could not immediately see Helena. But then he did. She was helping one of the Earl of Greenwald’s young sons climb a tree. Edgar had noticed the lad standing forlornly watching some larger, bolder children, but lacking the courage to climb himself. Helena had gone to help him. She did so for all of ten minutes, patiently helping him find his footing on the bark and then slide out along one of the lower branches, encouraging him, congratulating him, laughing at his pleasure, catching him when he jumped, coaxing him when he lost his courage, starting all over again when he scampered back to the starting point.