A Christmas Bride / A Christmas Beau (28 page)

“Of course,” the duchess said, “Alistair does both those things to perfection, but he reserves them for pretentious people. I can remember a time when I was
reduced to near-destitution, Cora. I can remember the fear. I was fortunate. Alistair came along to rescue me.”

“There are all too many ladies who are not so fortunate,” the Marquess of Carew said gently. “The instinct to survive is a strong one. I honor those who, reduced to desperation, contrive a way of surviving that does not involve robbery or murder or harm to anyone else except the person herself. Lady Stapleton is, I believe, a lady who has survived.”

“Oh, Hartley,” his wife said, patting his hand, “you would find goodness in a murderer about to be hanged, I do declare.”

“I would certainly try, love,” he said, smiling at her.

“I know the Countess of Severn,” Jane, Countess of Greenwald, said. “She and the earl have befriended the Stapletons. They would not have done so if Lady Stapleton was impossibly vulgar, would they?”

“There, my love,” Lord Francis said, setting an arm about Cora’s waist. “You might have had more faith in your friends and in me.”

“Yes,” she said. “Thank you. Now I wonder how poor Helena will be feeling about all this. Edgar and his surprises! One is reminded of the saying about bulls charging at gates.”

“I believe both Edgar and Helena may be trusted,” Lord Francis said. “I do believe those two, by hook or by crook, are going to end up quite devoted to each other.”

“I hope you are right,” Cora said with a loud sigh.

“What was that, Francis?” Mr. Downes called across the room. “Edgar and my daughter-in-law? Of course they are devoted to each other. He went off to bring her this secret present and she has been moping at his absence. I have great hopes. Not even hopes. Certainties. What say you, ma’am?” He turned to Mrs. Cross.

“I will say this, sir,” she said. “If any man can tame
my niece, Mr. Edgar Downes is that man. And if any man deserves Helena’s devotion, he is Mr. Edgar Downes.”

“Precisely, ma’am.” He patted her hand. “Precisely. Now where is that son of mine with our new guests? It is almost teatime.”

H
ELENA LOOKED FIRST
at the woman, who was standing to one side of the fireplace. A very genteel-looking young lady, she thought, slim and pretty, with intelligent eyes. She smiled and turned her eyes on the man. Pleasant looking, not very comfortable. Decidedly uncomfortable, in fact.

And then she recognized him.

Panic was like a hard ball inside her, fast swelling to explosion. She turned blindly, intent on getting out of the room as fast as she could. She found herself clawing at a very broad, very solid chest.

“Helena.” His voice was impossibly steady. “Calm yourself.”

She looked up wildly, recognized him, and was past that first moment and on to the next nightmare one. “I’ll never forgive you for this,” she whispered fiercely. “Let me past. I’ll never forgive you.”

“We have guests, my dear.” His voice—and his face—was as hard as flint. “Turn and greet them.”

Fury welled up in wake of the panic. She gazed into his face, her nostrils flaring, and then turned. “And
you
, Gerald,” she said, looking directly at him. “What do
you
want here?”

“Hello, Helena,” he said.

He looked as quiet, as gentle, as peaceful as he had always appeared. She could not believe that she had looked at him for a whole second without recognizing him. He had scarcely changed. Probably not at all. That
outward appearance had always hidden his sense of rejection, insecurity, self-doubt.

“I have the honor of presenting my wife to you,” he said. “Priscilla, Lady Stapleton. Helena, Mrs. Edgar Downes, my dear.”

Helena’s eyes stayed on him. “I have nothing to say to you, Gerald,” she said, “and you can have nothing to say to me. I have no right to ask you to leave. You are my husband’s guest. Excuse me, please.”

She turned to find herself confronted by that same broad, solid chest.

“How foolish you are, Edgar,” she said bitterly. “You think it is enough to bring us together in the same room? You think we will kiss and make up and proceed to live happily ever after? We certainly will not
kiss
. You foolish, interfering man. Let me past.”

“Helena,” he said, his voice arctic, “someone has been presented to you and you have not acknowledged the introduction. Is that the behavior of a lady?”

She gazed at him in utter incredulity. He dared instruct her on ladylike behavior? And to reprove her in the hearing of other people? She turned and looked at the woman. And walked toward her.

“Lady Stapleton. Priscilla,” she said quietly, bitter mockery in her face, “I do beg your pardon. How pleased I am to make your acquaintance.”

“I understand,” the woman said, looking quite calmly into Helena’s eyes. Her voice was as refined as her appearance. “I had as little wish for your acquaintance when it was first suggested to me, Helena, as you have for mine. I have had little enough reason to think kindly of you.”

How dared she!

“Then I must think it remarkably kind of you to have overcome your scruples,” Helena said sharply.

“I have done so for Gerald’s sake,” Lady Stapleton
said. “And for the sake of Mr. Downes, who is a true gentleman, and who cares for you.”

The woman spoke with
dignity
. There was neither arrogance nor subservience in her and certainly no vulgarity—only dignity.

“I could live quite happily without his care,” Helena said.

“Helena.” It was Gerald this time. She turned to look at him and saw the boy she had loved so dearly grown into a man. “I never wanted to see you again. I never wanted to hear your name. I certainly never wanted to forgive you. Your husband is a persuasive man.”

She closed her eyes. She could not imagine a worse nightmare than this if she had the devising of it. “I cannot blame you, Gerald,” she said, feeling all the fight draining out of her. “I would have begged your pardon, perhaps, before your father died, at his funeral, during any of the years since, if I had felt the offense pardonable. But I did not feel it was. And so I have not begged pardon and will not do so now. I will take the offense to the grave with me. I have done enough permanent damage to your life without seeking shallow comfort for myself.”

“I must correct you in one misapprehension,” he said, his voice shaking and breathless. “I can see that you misapprehend. Forgive me, Priss? I met my wife under circumstances I am sure you are aware of, Helena. She had been forced into those circumstances, but even in the midst of them she remained cheerful and modest and kind and dignified. She has always been far my superior. If anyone is to be pitied in this marriage, it is she.”

“Gerald—” Lady Stapleton began, but he held up a staying hand.

“She is not to be pitied,” he said. “Neither am I. Priss is the love of my heart and I am by now confident in the conviction that I am the love of hers. I am not in the
habit of airing such very private feelings in public, but I have seen from your manner and have heard from your husband that you have bitterly blamed yourself for what happened between us and have steadfastly refused to forgive yourself or allow yourself any sort of happiness. I thought I was still bitter. I thought I would never forgive you. But I have found during the past day that those are outmoded, petty feelings. You were young and unhappy—heaven knows
I
was never happy with my father either. And while youth and unhappiness do not excuse bad behavior, they do explain it. To hold a grudge for thirteen years and even beyond is in itself unpardonable. If it is my forgiveness you want, then, Helena, you have it—freely and sincerely given.”

No. It could not possibly be as easy as that. The burden of years could not be lifted with a single short speech spoken in that gentle, well-remembered voice.

“No,” she said stiffly. “It is not what I want, Gerald. It is not in your power.”

“You will send him away still burdened, then?” Priscilla asked. “It is hard to offer forgiveness and be rejected. It makes one feel strangely guilty.”

“It is Christmas.” Edgar stepped forward. He had been a silent spectator of the proceedings until now. Helena deeply resented him. “We are all going to spend it here at Mobley Abbey. Together. And it is teatime. Time to go up to the drawing room. I wish to introduce you to my father and our other guests, Stapleton, Lady Stapleton.”

They had not been introduced?
Lady Stapleton
had not yet been introduced to the Duke and Duchess of Bridgwater, the Marquess and Marchioness of Carew, the Earl and Countess of Thornhill, and everyone else? She would be
cut
. And she must know it. She must have known it before she came. Why had she come, then? For Gerald’s sake? Did she love him so much? Would she
risk such humiliation for his sake? So that he, too, might find a measure of peace? But Gerald had done nothing to regret. Except that she had refused to accept his forgiveness.

“Take my arm, Priss.” Gerald’s voice was tense with protective fear.

“No.” Helena stepped forward and took the woman’s arm herself. Gerald’s wife was smaller than she, daintier. “We will go up together, Priscilla. I will present you to my father-in-law and my sister-in-law and my aunt. And to all our friends.”

“Thank you, Helena,” Priscilla said quietly. If she was afraid, she did not show it.

“I must show everyone what a delightful gift my husband has brought me on Christmas Eve,” Helena said. “He has brought my stepson and his wife to spend Christmas with me.”

“And our son,” Priscilla said. “Peter. Thank you, Helena. Gerald has told me what a warm and charming woman you were. I can see that he was right. And you will see in the next day or two what a secure, contented man he is and you will forgive yourself and allow him to forgive you. I have seen enough suffering in my time to know all about the masks behind which it hides itself. It is time we all stopped suffering.”

And this just before they stepped inside the drawing room to what was probably one of the worst ordeals of Priscilla’s life?

“I can certainly admire courage,” Helena said. “I will take you to my father-in-law first. You will like him and he will certainly like you.”

“Thank you.” Priscilla smiled. But her face was very pale for all that.

E
DGAR GAZED UPWARD THROUGH THE WINDOW OF
his bedchamber. By some miracle the sky was clear again. But then it was Christmas. One somehow believed in miracles at Christmas.

“Come here,” he said without turning. He knew she was still sitting on the side of the bed brushing her hair, though her maid had already brushed it smooth and shining.

“I suppose,” she said, “the Christmas star is shining as it was when we walked home from church a couple of hours ago. I suppose you want me to gaze on it with you and believe in the whole myth of Christmas.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Edgar.” He heard her sigh. “You are such a romantic, such a sentimentalist. I would not have thought it of you.”

“Come.” He turned and stretched out one arm to her. She shrugged her shoulders and came. “There.” He pointed upward unnecessarily. “Wait a moment.” He left her side in order to blow out the candles and then joined her at the window again and set one arm about her waist. “There. Now there is nothing to compete with it. Tell me if you can that you do not believe in Christmas, even down to the last detail of that sordid stable.”

She nestled her head on his shoulder and sighed. “I should be in Italy now,” she said, “cocooned by cynicism. Why did I go to London this autumn, Edgar? Why did you? Why did we both go to the Greenwalds’ drawing room that evening? Why did we look at each other and not look away again? Why did I conceive the very first time I lay with you when I have never done so before?”

“Perhaps we have our answer in Christmas,” he said.

“Miracles?” The old mockery was back in her voice.

“Or something that was meant to be,” he said. “I used not to believe in such things. I used to believe that I, like everyone else, was master of my own fate. But as one gets older, one can look back and realize that there has been a pattern to one’s life—a pattern one did not devise or control.”

“A series of coincidences?” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “Something like that.”

“The pattern of each of our lives merged during the autumn, then?” she said. “Poor Edgar. You have not deserved me. You are such a very decent man. I could have killed you this afternoon. Literally.”

“Yes,” he said, “I know.”

She turned her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. “She is very courageous,” she said. “I could never do what she did today. She did it for him, Edgar. For Gerald.”

“Yes,” he said, “and for their son and their unborn child. And for herself. For them. You were wonderful. I was very proud of you.”

She had taken Priscilla Stapleton about in the drawing room at teatime, introducing her to everyone as her stepson’s wife, her own manner confident, charming, even regal. She had scarcely left the woman’s side for the rest of the day. They had walked to and from church with Sir Gerald and his wife and shared a pew with them.

“But I did nothing,” she said. “Everyone greeted her with courtesy and even warmth. It was as if they did not know, though I have no doubt whatsoever that they all did. She—Edgar, there is nothing vulgar in her at all.”

“She is a lady,” he said.

“Gerald is happy with her.” Her eyes, he saw, had clenched more tightly shut. “He
is
happy. Is he, Edgar? Is he?” She looked up at him then, searching his eyes.

“I believe,” he said, “the pattern of his life merged with the pattern of hers in a most unlikely place, Helena. Of course they are happy. I will not say they are in love, though I am sure they are. They
love
deeply. Yes, he is happy.”

“And whole and at peace,” she said. “I did not destroy him permanently.”

“No, love,” he said. “Not permanently.”

She shivered.

“Cold?” he asked.

“But I might have,” she said, “if he had not met Priscilla.”