A Countess by Christmas (19 page)

They gave him three rousing cheers. Though, judging from the enthusiasm with which most of the men made straight for the punchbowl, not many of them belonged to the abstemious new religious sect.

‘We’ll drink to your good health, then, My Lord,’ piped up the drummer, who had been among the first to get to the punchbowl.

‘Drink rather to the season,’ he replied.

‘To Christmas!’ they roared.

He stood there for a few moments, watching the villagers enjoying themselves with a satisfied smile hovering about his mouth. She had heard that he only came here at Christmas to preside over the festivities for his tenants, but somehow she had always assumed it was
a matter of duty. Of keeping faith with the generations of tradition he had to uphold as lord of the manor here. But now she was of the opinion that it was far more than that. He really cared about these people.

Could she settle for that much? As his wife, the mother of his children, of course he would care for her—at least as much as he cared for these people. Wouldn’t he?

She did not feel up to following the rest of the guests to the dining room and taking luncheon when they began to file out of the great hall. It was too much to expect her to make appropriate responses to the barbed insults and snide comments that passed for conversation around that table. Not while her own mind was in such turmoil.

So she informed her aunt she would spend the rest of the day with the nursery party, and set off up the stairs.

She dawdled on the landings, since she was not quite ready even to deal with children in her given state. She gazed out of the windows that lit the deserted stairwell, basking in the absence of other people. She needed space to think. She had only until tonight to make her decision.

She sighed, rubbing at a dirty spot on the window with her cuff so that she could see out more clearly. She only wished it were that easy to clarify her thoughts.

She’d had her life mapped out before coming to Alvanley Hall. That was why his proposal had thrown her into such turmoil. If she married him, her whole life would undergo a radical change.

Most women would think the changes all for the better, but they would be women who thought of marriage as the
height of their ambition. Whatever her circumstances, marriage had
never
been part of her plans. This was the first time in her life she had ever really had to examine what she thought about the institution.

When she had thought herself financially secure she’d believed she would be content to live exactly as her aunt had done. Alone, or with a companion, finding fulfilment in the simple life of a country town. Even when all their money had vanished overnight it had never occurred to her to look to a man to take care of her.

Or that she would fall in love.

That fact alone ought to have made her accept him like a shot.

Instead, it was that very fact which made marrying him such a scary prospect. When she had told him she would only marry for love, it was the first thing that had come into her head, she realised. And even then she had been vaguely thinking about an
equal
love. A man and a woman falling in love with each other, as her parents had done, and then finding they could not bear to be apart. Marriage naturally flowed from such strong feelings. She could see exactly why marrying, in their case, had been so right.

But in this case it was all lopsided. She had fallen headlong in love with him. But he appeared to have looked her over, noted down her admirable qualities as though he had some kind of a mental list, and decided that, yes, she would do very well in the role.

Many women would regard that kind of proposal as a triumph. The kind of women who regarded marriage as the
only
respectable state for a female of good birth. Unfortunately she was just not of their number!

Her breath was steaming up the window, obscuring the view she had dirtied her gown to obtain, just as her infatuation with Lord Bridgemere had clouded her judgement. Before coming here she would never have dreamt of marrying a man who saw her as nothing more than a means to prolong his bloodline. Where had her pride gone? She deserved more than that! More than the kind of marriage she’d had such a clear vision of immediately after his proposal, with her pouring out her heart and him taking it as his due.

Her lips tight with strain, she trudged off up the stairs again. She wanted him—oh, yes, how she wanted him! But could she pay the price? That was the question.

When she reached the schoolroom, she was amazed to see the air thick with glistening soap bubbles. Several of the children were sitting at a table, industriously dipping little clay pipes into dishes of soapy water, while the smaller ones were dancing about madly trying to burst them before they popped of their own accord.

Her mouth relaxed into a smile. It was impossible to remain out of sorts in such an atmosphere.

‘Merry Christmas, miss!’ said one of the nurserymaids as she scurried past with an empty coal scuttle.

‘Merry Christmas to you, Jenny,’ Helen replied.

‘Miss Forrest!’ cried Charles, scampering up to her. ‘Look what I got for Christmas!’ It was a clasp knife and
exactly
, he stressed, what he had been wanting.

Every child, it appeared, had mysteriously received exactly what they had wanted most. She smiled to think of Lord Bridgemere skilfully yet subtly extracting the information from them over the few days they had been here, and then sending somebody—Cadwal
lader, probably—to make the purchases in the nearest town.

‘There were bunches of grapes hanging from the rocking horse when I woke up this morning,’ said Peter, pausing for a moment in his endeavours with his clay pipe. ‘And twists of barley sugar and peppermints…’

‘I got a doll,’ said Junia, holding it up.

Her heart squeezed inside her chest. He was such a darling to do all this for the children. To make sure Christmas reached to the very furthest corners of his domain—be it to the neglected children, thrust out of sight of their selfish parents, or to the meanest cottager inhabiting his estates.

He was a man who ought to have his own children. He wanted a son and heir. She had already noticed that he seemed to approve of the way she was with other people’s children, and now something had made him decide he wanted that for his own.

And if they were hers, too…

Already she had grown fond of this group. It would be quite a wrench to leave them. If she really did become a governess her life would become a continual round of growing fond of children who were not hers and then having to bid them farewell when they outgrew her and she had to move to a new post. If she married Lord Bridgemere it would save her from all that heartache. She could have her own children. Raise them exactly as she pleased. Love them unreservedly.

Whatever problems she might have with their father.

But was it enough?

It was not long after a joyful and rather chaotic
Christmas lunch, which had started with ham and sausage and finished with jellies and creams, that the door opened and to her utter astonishment Nicholas Swaledale and Lady Augustine came in.

The maids glanced at them and dropped curtsies, but did not greet either of them warmly, as they had done Helen. Because they were gentry, she realised, whilst over the week she had been there she had almost become one of them.

She had to lower her head to conceal a smile when Swaledale waved his hand regally, as though granting them permission to carry on.

Then Junia squirmed down from her chair and ran over to them.

‘Gussy, look!’ she cried, her eyes alight with happiness as she held up the doll to show her sister. ‘Look what I got for Christmas!’

Swaledale took a hasty step back. ‘For the Lord’s sake, make sure that child keeps her sticky hands off my clothing, if you please.’

Lady Augustine cast him a look of irritation, then hunkered down and put her arm round Junia’s shoulders.

‘Oh, what a lovely doll,’ she said. ‘I
do
like her dress!’

‘Would still rather be playing with them, wouldn’t you,’ Swaledale drawled, ‘than partaking of more adult pursuits?’

‘I just wanted to see what they’d all got for Christmas,’ snapped Augustine. ‘And you needn’t have come with me if you dislike children so much. In fact,’ she said, getting to her feet, ‘I wish you had not if you are just going to be nasty.’

‘But how else was I to manage to get a few words with Miss Forrest?’ he replied glibly. ‘Now that she has taken to hiding herself away up here?’

‘We have nothing to say to each other, sir,’ said Helen.

‘Oh, but I disagree,’ he replied. ‘Run along, Gussy, do. What I am about to say to this person is not for your ears.’

Helen was the one who tried to move away but, like a snake striking, his hand shot out and grabbed her arm. His grip was so tight that she knew if she resisted the way he was tugging her to a quiet corner his fingers would leave a bruise.

‘Think you are very clever, don’t you?’ he breathed, once they were out of earshot of anyone else. ‘I saw you dancing with him last night. You think you have him eating out of your hand. Though I can’t say I blame him for making the most of what you’re offering. One taste of you was enough to make me want more. And you looked very beddable in that nightgown, with your hair all down your back, from what I can recall. Was pretty castaway, was I not?’ He sniggered, as though they were sharing some dirty secret.

Helen felt the bile rise in her throat as his proximity brought the whole episode rushing back to her so vividly that she could almost feel his tongue sliding across her face. Instinctively she tugged her hand free and put it to her cheek, as though erasing the very memory of his intrusive kisses.

‘You know, flinging yourself at him won’t get you anywhere. Even if you’ve gone so far as sacrificing your virginity you won’t get a marriage proposal from him.
He will cast you off without a backward glance when he’s done with you!’

‘How dare you?’ she gasped. Lord Bridgemere had already offered her marriage—and how could this toad imply that his uncle would seduce a female living under his roof? It would be completely out of character! Naturally she was not going to tell Swaledale about the proposal. That was strictly between her and His Lordship! But one thing she
could
refute.

‘Lord Bridgemere is an honourable man. He would never take advantage of an innocent woman then discard her!’

‘My, my, you
are
hot in his defence. He must have really turned on the charm. He can be charming, so I believe. But you would change your tune if you knew what he is really like.’

‘I
do
know what he’s really like.’

‘Oh, do you?’ He smiled nastily, leaned closer and murmured, ‘Do you, perchance, happen to know exactly what became of his first wife?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It is strange, but nobody who was around at the time is at all willing to talk about it. Suspicious, wouldn’t you say—the way they all clam up and look shifty, saying the accident was nobody’s fault? It is almost as if nobody dares to lay the blame at his door. But then the people round here need to keep on his good side. You have seen the power he wields over them.’ He smirked. ‘But my mother has told me there is quite a scandal there. If you know him as well as you say you do,’ he said suggestively, leaning closer still and lowering his voice, ‘then you will already have discovered he has the
devil’s own temper when roused. And Lucinda roused him all right…from what I hear.’

Helen could not help flinching to hear yet another person speak of the very great love Lord Bridgemere had had for his first wife. When he saw
her
as little more than a potential mother for his children.

Swaledale must have seen the hurt flicker across her face and decided he had achieved what he had set out to do, because with one more smirk he turned and stalked over to where Lady Augustine was dipping a clay pipe into a dish of bubbles.

‘Playtime over, Gussy,’ he said. ‘Time to return to the world of adults.’

Her face red, Lady Augustine handed the pipe back to his younger brother, whom he had completely ignored, and they left.

Junia stuck her tongue out as the door closed behind him, and Helen couldn’t blame her. What a toad he was!

What a liar!

Lord Bridgemere would never hurt a lady! And as for implying he could fly into some sort of rage. Hah! Were they talking about the same man? Lord Bridgemere was always fully in control of himself.

She felt a small hand tugging her fingers out of the fist she had unconsciously clenched them into. She looked down as Junia looked up. ‘He always makes me want to hit him as well,’ she said.

Helen knelt down and gave her a swift hug. He would make a
saint
want to hit him. In fact, even though she could not imagine Lord Bridgemere ever raising his hand
to a lady, she could see him becoming so angry with Swaledale that he would do whatever it took to prevent him inheriting his title.

She went cold inside. He would even enter a loveless marriage, provided the woman in question could make him
comfortable
. That was what he thought of her, was it not? That she would make some man a comfortable sort of wife?

And perhaps, if loving his first wife so much had made him grieve for so many years, he would only risk marrying again if he could be sure he would never experience the same sort of hurt.

He obviously thought
she
would not give him a moment’s worry or heartache because he felt certain that his heart would never be deeply touched by her. How could it be? It was buried in the grave with his first wife!

Her hands went to her beads, which she had put on in honour of Christmas Day, even though she did not usually wear jewellery during the daytime, and she thought again of her parents, who had married for love. Their love for one another had carried them through the opposition of both their families, various financial hardships—oh, all their difficulties. She had not seen it as a child, but now she perceived that it had been the best for them, that they had died together. Neither would have wanted to outlive the other.