A Christmas Bride / A Christmas Beau (46 page)

It sounded like rather a blissful life to Amy.

Silly!
she told herself.

T
HE MARQUESS JOINED
his aunts and Sir William in a game of cards in one of the smaller salons.

Soon enough it would be time to skate. The children, Lord Denbigh thought, would not allow him to forget
that promise despite the fact that they had had a busy day and faced the walk home at the end of it.

There was a large box of skates he would have taken out to the lake. No one who needed a pair would find himself without, though he remembered from the previous year that many of the children preferred to slide around on the ice with their boots. He had already had a portion of the lake cleared of snow.

“What a delightful child little Kate Easton is,” Aunt Edith said.

“And very prettily behaved,” Aunt Frieda added.

The marquess and Sir William concentrated on their cards.

“Maxwell, dear,” Aunt Edith said, “Frieda and I were wondering—it was so long ago that neither of us can be sure—but it seems to us, if we are remembering correctly, that is … Of course, dear, we never went up to town and our brother did not keep us informed as much as perhaps he might. Though of course, he was a busy man. But we were wondering, dear …”

“Yes,” the marquess said. He had grown accustomed to his aunts during several visits in the past few years. “You are quite right, Aunt Edith. And you, too, Aunt Frieda. Mrs. Easton and I were betrothed for almost two months eight years ago.”

“We thought so, Maxwell,” Aunt Frieda said. “How sad for you, dear, that she married Mr. Easton instead. And how sad for her to have lost him at so young an age. He must have had auburn hair, I believe. The children both have auburn hair, but Mrs. Easton’s is fair.”

“Yes,” Lord Denbigh said, “he had auburn hair.”

“How very kind of you, Maxwell, dear, to invite her and her children to Denbigh Park for Christmas,” Aunt Edith said. “Some men might have borne a grudge, since she is the one who ended the betrothal if we heard the right of the story. And I daresay we did as it would not
have been at all the thing for you to have done so, would it?”

The marquess pointedly returned his attention to the game of cards. He had been in danger of forgetting during the morning. But he had a vivid image now of Easton as he had been—handsome, laughing, charming, a great favorite with the ladies, and with another class of females, too.

Lord Denbigh had never suspected that a romance was growing between Easton and Judith, though he had seen them together more than once and Easton had almost always danced with her at balls. He had not seen the writing on the wall, the marquess thought, poor innocent fool that he had been.

And he remembered again as he and Aunt Edith lost the hand quite ignominiously, entirely through his fault, how he had tortured himself after she had run away with Easton with images of the two of them together, of the two of them intimate together. He had walked and walked during that year, constantly trying to outstrip his thoughts and imaginings.

And then the news almost as soon as he finally returned to town that she was with child.

He had been in danger of forgetting during the morning. He had forgotten when he kissed her in the ballroom. He had forgotten everything except his fierce hunger for her and his awareness that he was kissing her for the first time and that she was warm and soft and fragrant and utterly feminine.

Well, he remembered now. He would not forget again. And he was not sorry that young Simon had maneuvered him into kissing her, for there had been a look in her eyes and a slight trembling in her lips. She was not indifferent to him. It was not by any means an impossible task he had set for himself.

“Ah,” Aunt Edith said with satisfaction as they won
the hand, “that is better, Maxwell dear. I thought a while ago that you had quite lost your touch.”

“And I hoped the same thing,” Sir William said with a hearty laugh. “One more hand to decide the winner, Denbigh?”

“J
UDITH
,” A
MY SAID
, letting herself into her sister-in-law’s dressing room after knocking, “do you think this bonnet becoming? Would my green one look better?”

Judith looked up in surprise. Amy had worn her brown fur-trimmed bonnet through most of the winter without once asking anyone’s opinion.

“It will be a great deal warmer than your green one,” she said. “How was the rehearsal?”

Amy came right into the room and laughed. “Quite hilarious,” she said. “Those children flare up at the slightest provocation, Judith. Val, who plays the part of Mary, is the fiercest of all. She thumped poor Joseph in the stomach when he was not paying attention to some of Mrs. Harrison’s instructions. And yet there is a warmth about their presentation that will be quite affecting, I believe. Mr. Cornwell says they have come a long way since they started three weeks ago.”

Judith smiled at her sister-in-law’s enthusiasm.

“Rupert is a shepherd,” Amy said. “Mr. Cornwell suggested it and Mrs. Harrison said it would be all right.”

“Oh dear,” Judith said, “I hope he was not making a nuisance of himself.”

Amy laughed. “Mr. Cornwell said that there are so many shepherds anyway that one more will be neither here nor there.”

Mr. Cornwell. Judith looked at the bright spots of color in her sister-in-law’s cheeks.

“Are you ready?” Amy asked eagerly. “I would hate to find that everyone has left without us.”

But everyone had not, of course. They were all gathered in a noisy group in the great hall.

“Where’s that nipper?” someone demanded loudly, and Kate chuckled and left Judith’s side to be borne away on Daniel’s shoulder.

The lake was only a few hundred yards to the west of the house, not a long walk. Judith walked there with Mr. Rockford and watched with interest as Amy took Mr. Cornwell’s arm and chattered brightly to him. She did not even look unduly short in his company. Her head reached to his chin.

Amy had never had a beau. Judith’s heart ached suddenly. She hoped that her sister-in-law was not about to conceive a hopeless and quite ineligible passion.

“Mama.” Rupert rushed at her as soon as she reached the lake, a pair of skates clutched in his hands. “Help me put them on. I want to show you how I can skate. I can skate like the wind. Papa said, remember?”

Andrew had done so little with his children. But it was good, Judith thought, that her son remembered at least one thing and one occasion when his father had been kind to him and shown him some affection. He must have loved Rupert, she thought. He had been ecstatic with pride at his birth. He had been far less so at Kate’s. He had wanted another son.

“Yes, I remember,” she said. “And Papa knew what he was talking about. He was a splendid skater himself. But it has been a long time, Rupert. You must not be surprised if you need to find your skating legs before you can compete with the wind again.”

She was down on one knee in the snow lacing the skates over Rupert’s boots. People all about her were doing the same thing, though some of the children were already on the ice without skates, sliding and sprawling and laughing. Daniel, she saw with some amusement, was strapping a small pair of skates onto Kate’s feet and
leading her by the hand to the edge of the lake. He was not himself wearing skates.

“I think your daughter has a champion,” the Marquess of Denbigh said from behind her. “You cannot know how fortunate she is to have won his protection. All the other children live in mortal terror of his fists.”

“Oh dear,” Judith said.

“Watch me, Mama,” Rupert called as he reached the edge of the ice and prepared to step onto it. “Watch me, sir.”

“I am watching,” Judith called. “Oh dear,” she said again as her son landed flat on his back even before his second skate had touched the ice.

“Give him an hour,” the marquess said. “He will improve. And he does not have far to fall. That is the advantage of skating when one is a child. You are not skating?”

“No,” she said. “I came to watch. I never could get a feel for skating. My feet always would move at twice the speed of the rest of my body.”

“Ah yes,” he said. “Painful.”

He left her without another word and skated onto the ice. He did so quite effortlessly, Judith noted with some admiration and envy. And he took Rupert by the hand and one of the little girls and patiently slowed his pace to accommodate their wobbling ankles and stiff legs.

Amy and Mr. Cornwell, she saw, had organized a line of children, all holding hands, Amy between two of them and Mr. Cornwell between two others. The children were moving gingerly forward. Judith could hear Amy’s laughter. Skating was something she had always been good at.

Some of the boys and a few of the girls were darting recklessly about on their skates. Others were still skidding about on their boots. Lady Clancy was gliding gracefully about the perimeter of the skating area with Mr. Rockford.

I
T WAS A LOVELY SIGHT
, J
UDITH THOUGHT, WAVING
at a beaming Kate and glancing at Rupert, who was so intent on frowning at his feet that he did not see her. It was so rare in England and so precious. Snow was still clustered on the branches of some of the more sheltered trees and was banked high about the area that had been cleared for the skating. Scarves and hats and mittens were bright against the white and the gray. And then there were the shrieks of merriment coming from the ice.

Rupert was skating alone finally, his arms outstretched. His pace was slow but he was beaming with triumph and risked one glance at the bank to make sure that she was watching him. She smiled and waved.

And then she was aware of Lord Denbigh stepping off the ice. She thought for one moment that he was coming to speak with her, but he stopped at the box of skates and rummaged among its contents. And then he really did come toward her, a pair of skates in one hand.

“These should fit you,” he said. “Let me help you on with them.”

“I don’t skate,” she said. “I told you that.”

“I understand,” he said. “You cannot skate alone, or at least you think you cannot. You will not be skating alone. You will be with me and I will undertake not to
let you fall.” He was down on one knee, one hand outstretched, waiting for her to lift a foot.

“No,” she said indignantly. “I cannot, and I do not wish to.”

“Afraid, Judith?” he asked, looking up into her face.

“Oh,” she said, and she could hear the slight shaking in her voice, “I wish you would not.”

“Call you Judith?” he said. “I would prefer it to Mrs. Easton. Quite frankly, I do not wish to be reminded of that name. Will you call me Max? Then we will be equal.”

“No,” she said, “it would not be seemly. Besides, I do not want to.”

She realized suddenly that she must have lifted one foot. A skate was already strapped to it and he was waiting for her to lift the other foot.

“Set your hand on my shoulder,” he said, “so that you will not lose your balance.”

“I wish I knew,” she said as she obeyed, “why you are doing all this.”

He said nothing until he had finished his task. Then he straightened up and looked down at her. “But you do know,” he said. “I told you in London—at the foot of the stairs in your own home.”

She frowned. “But why would you want a second chance with me, as you put it?” she said. “You did not care the first time, did you? It was an arranged match.”

She flushed. She had not intended to make such an unguarded reference to the past.

“On your part perhaps,” he said. “Take my arm, Judith. When we reach the ice, I am going to set my arm about your waist. Put your own up about my shoulders. And don’t even think of falling. You are not going to do so.”

For the first minute or so he might as well have carried her, Judith thought with a great deal of embarrassment.
Her skates certainly felt quite beyond her own control. Amy went by with Mr. Cornwell and waved at her, and Rupert called to her to watch him. No one seemed to be paying any particular attention to her, she realized finally, with some relief, though she did not believe she had ever felt so foolish in her life.

But someone was taking notice of her. The Marquess of Denbigh was laughing and when she looked up it was to find his face alight with amusement. She had never noticed until that moment what very white and even teeth he had.

“I am too tall for you,” he said, bringing them to a halt. “You are quite unbalanced by the position of your arm. Let us try something different.”

He kept his one arm firmly about her waist while he took her nearer hand in his free one. And she did indeed find it easier to maintain her balance.

“Oh,” she said without thinking, “this is fun.” And she heard herself laughing.

“I have the utmost confidence in you,” he said. “I daresay that by this time next year, provided we have at least two months of cold weather both this year and next and you practice diligently every day, you will almost be able to skate alone.”

“Oh,” she said, laughing again. “I don’t believe that was a compliment, was it? How lowering.”

“Relax,” he said. “You are tensing again. You cannot skate when you are tense.”

“Oh,” she said, looking up at him. And the laughter died. She was aware suddenly of his closeness, of his one arm tight about her, the upper part of it pressed against her shoulder.

He was staring back down at her, the amusement gone from his face, too. His eyes were intent, steely gray beneath drooped lids. It was the look that had always terrified her when she was a girl. A look that she had not
at all understood at the time, though she believed that she understood it very well now.

“You are not sorry you came, Judith?” he asked. “I did trick you into coming. You realized that. You would not have come if I had asked you alone, would you?”

“No,” she said.

“And are you still sorry?” he asked. “Would you return home tonight if you could?”

She swallowed and looked sharply away from him. “The children are having a wonderful time,” she said. “And so is Amy.”

“You know,” he said, “that that is not what I am asking you, Judith.”