A Christmas Bride / A Christmas Beau

by Mary Balogh

  Amy laughed as the children left the room. “What a thoroughly nonsensical idea,” she said. “It was perfectly obvious that he had nothing but a purely friendly interest in me, Judith. And I would have to say that age is the only thing the Marquess of Denbigh and I have in common. No, it is you with whom he is trying to fix his interest, mark my words.”

  “Amy.” Judith covered her mouth with her hands. “Don’t say so. Please don’t say so. He makes my flesh creep.”

  Her sister-in-law looked at her in amazement. “Oh, no, Judith,” she said. “Surely not. He is such a splendid man. But how insensitive I am being. It has been only a little longer than a year since Andrew passed away, has it not? Of course it is a little early for you to think of any other gentleman in that way. But never fear. The marquess is perfectly amiable and civil. He will not press unwelcome attentions on you, I am sure.”

  Amy had given up hope of matrimonial contentment for herself, but she loved to see those she cared for happy. And she cared for Judith more than for either of her other two sisters-in-law. Judith had not had a good marriage, Amy knew, but she had always remained true to it. She had made Andrew a good wife, and she was a good mother—and a good sister-in-law, too. Amy could imagine no greater happiness than seeing Judith well wed. Though of course, she thought a little sadly, when Judith remarried, then she would have to return to Ammanlea.

  Judith used the excuse of the removal of the tray to leave the room herself in order to return to her own room.

  He was stalking his prey. She could feel it. And he was clever enough to get to her through her unsuspecting sister-in-law and children.

  Because after eight years he wanted her back? Because he wanted to fix his interest with her, as Amy seemed to think?

  No, not that. There was a certain expression in his eyes when he looked at her. He was not stalking her out of any soft sentiments, of that she was sure. But why, then? Punishment? Had she so wounded his pride and sense of consequence that she must be punished even eight years after the fact?

  It must be that, she thought. She had made him feel and look foolish all those years ago. Now she must be punished.

  She wondered with some fear and some anger what constituted punishment as far as the Marquess of Denbigh was concerned. Only what she had suffered so far, but at greater length? Embarrassment? Discomfort? Enforced hours in his company?

  Or was there something else?

  She shivered and despised herself for feeling fear.

  4

  HE LIKED HER CHILDREN. HE SUPPOSED THAT IT might have been easier if he had not done so, and he had not particularly expected to do so since they were hers—and Easton’s. But then in many ways it was not surprising. He had something of a weakness for children.

  He liked the sister-in-law, too. She was unfortunately plain, with several pockmarks marring her complexion, and she was unusually small. He guessed that she was about his own age, well past the age of marriage for a woman. But there was an amiability about her and a kindness that he sensed. It was a pity that such women were so often denied the fulfillment of husbands and families.

  Her friendliness, of course, and that of the children—even the little one could not maintain her shyness when there was something important to be said—could only make his task easier. It would all depend, he supposed, on the amount of power Judith Easton held over them and how well she liked to use that power even against their wishes. Her behavior of the afternoon before had suggested that making them happy was important to her. She had put up no fight against the proposed outing.

  The Marquess of Denbigh rode out to the river and across the Blackfriar’s Bridge during the morning. The icy fog that had gripped the city earlier was lifting and there was a magical, almost fairytale quality to the view below him on the river. Booths and tents were lined up in close and orderly formation on either side with a wide avenue of roughened ice between. Hawkers were loudly advertising their wares. Shoppers, sightseers, and the curious were wandering from stall to stall. There was a tantalizing aroma of cooking food wafting up to him.

  It would do, he thought. He was fortunate that the rare occurrence of the Thames freezing over had happened at such an opportune time. He turned his horse’s head for home again.

  By the afternoon the fog had lifted right away and the sun was even trying, though not quite succeeding, to break through the high cloud cover. There was no significant wind. It was still cold, but pleasant for an outing. And the Eastons liked daily outings.

  They were all ready to leave when he arrived, and came downstairs to the hallway without delay. The boy was openly excited. The little girl clung to her mother’s cloak and smiled shyly at him from behind one of its folds until he looked at her. Then she disappeared altogether.

  He bowed to them and bade them a good afternoon.

  “The air is crisp,” he said. “But you are all dressed warmly, I see. And there are warm foods and drinks down on the river, I have heard, and even a fire where meat is being roasted. I could smell it this morning.”

  “A fire on the ice?” Amy asked in amazement. “Will it not all melt?”

  “Apparently not, ma’am,” he said. “The ice is very thick indeed.”

  “Amazing!” she said.

  He handed them into his carriage, lifting the little girl and setting her on her mother’s knee. The boy scrambled in without assistance. Judith Easton had not said a word beyond the initial greeting and sat quietly and calmly smoothing her daughter’s cloak over her knees.

  “From my observations this morning,” the marquess said, seating himself opposite Judith, his knees almost touching hers, and addressing his words to Amy, “it is quite a festive scene. The sort of excitement such an occasion engenders can also serve to make one quite unaware of the cold.”

  “To be quite honest,” Amy said, “I would prefer extreme cold to extreme heat if I had to make a choice. Very hot summer days can quite sap one of energy.”

  The two of them carried on an amicable conversation during the journey while Kate stared wide-eyed from one to the other of them and Rupert sat with his face pressed to the window, watching what passed outside.

  “Oh,” he said eventually, stabbing a finger against the pane, “there, Mama. There, sir, do you see? Look, Aunt Amy.”

  And then they were all leaning toward the one window, gazing down from the bridge at London’s newest street.

  “May we get down?” Rupert demanded. “Oh, just wait until Uncle Maurice hears about this.”

  “We may,” the marquess said. He looked across at Judith for the first time. The moss green of her bonnet and velvet cloak became her well, he thought. “Shall I instruct my coachman to return in two hours’ time, ma’am?”

  “As you wish,” she said.

  Two hours should be long enough for a start, he thought. He must not be impatient.

  But the time passed quickly. There were vendors of everything one might want to buy from lace to boots, from books to smelling salts. And hawkers to persuade a person that he needed an item he had never felt a need of before. There were the tempting aromas of roasted lamb and pork pies and tarts and chestnuts and the less tempting one of cheap ale. And there were fortunetellers and portrait painters and card playing booths and skittle alleys. There was everything one could possibly imagine for the entertainment of all.

  Amy was enjoying herself. She was in London and at the very heart of its life and activity. And she was not alone but with her sister-in-law and nephew and niece. And they had the escort of a handsome gentleman. She felt more light-hearted than she had felt for years.

  “I am going to have my fortune told,” she announced recklessly when they came to the fortune-teller’s booth.

  Judith smiled at her.

  “There can be nothing but good ahead for you, ma’am,” the marquess said gallantly.

  Amy stepped inside the dark tent and gazed about, fascinated. Oh, she had always loved fairs, though more often than not after her early girlhoo
d she had been refused permission to go.

  She sat down before the gaudy, veiled figure of the fortune-teller with her crystal ball and waited expectantly, feeling like a hopeful girl again and smiling inwardly at the thought.

  But she was feeling disappointed a minute later—the fortune-teller must have mistaken her age, she thought—but only a little disappointed. She was in the land of make-believe and she refused to allow reality to intrude too chillingly.

  Romance, the fortune-teller had predicted. With a gentleman she had not met yet but would meet soon. And children—lots of them. That was the detail that was most disappointing, since it was so obviously the most impossible.

  But no matter. She would dream of her gentleman in the coming days and laugh herself out of melancholy when he failed to put in an appearance in her life. There was a whole fair waiting to be enjoyed outside the tent.

  “Thank you,” she said formally, getting to her feet.

  “How very foolish,” she said, laughing and blushing when she rejoined the others. “I am to find love and romance soon, it seems, with a gentleman I have never before set my eyes on, and am to live happily ever after. I wonder if she ever says anything different to any lady who is unmarried. One would, after all, feel that one had wasted one’s money if one were told that there were only misery and loneliness ahead.” She said nothing about the many children.

  “Perhaps we should put the matter to the test,” the marquess said. “Mrs. Easton must have her fortune told, too.”

  “I have no wish to waste money on such nonsense,” Judith said.

  “Then I shall waste it for you,” he said. “Come, we must find what delights life has in store for you.”

  “Yes, Mama,” Rupert said, jumping up and down on the spot. “Go on.”

  “Go, Mama,” Kate said.

  She looked rather as if she were going to her own execution, the marquess thought, but she went. He in the meanwhile swung Rupert up onto his shoulders when the boy complained that he could not see for the crowds.

  “You were quite right, Amy,” Judith said when she came out of the tent. “My own fortune was remarkably similar to yours. As if I am looking for love and romance at this stage of my life!” Her tone was scornful.

  “And what is he to look like?” Amy asked.

  “Oh, tall, dark, and handsome, of course,” Judith said, flushing. “What else?”

  “Well, there our fortunes differ,” Amy said. “Now it is your turn, my lord.”

  “It would be interesting, would it not?” he said. “I wonder how many tall, dark, and handsome ladies there are in England?”

  Amy laughed.

  “Down you go, then, my lad,” the marquess said, setting Rupert down on the ice again. “I shall take you up again when I come out.”

  “I see much darkness in your life,” the fortune-teller told him a few moments later. “And a great deal of light, too. A great deal of light. But the darkness threatens it.”

  Lord Denbigh had never been to a fortune-teller before. He supposed that there were a few fortunes to be told and that each listener could be relied upon to twist the words to suit his own case. One merely had to be clever with vague generalities. He was amused.

  “Ah,” the fortune-teller said, “but Christmas may save you if you keep in mind that it is a time of peace and goodwill. I see a great battle raging in your soul between light and darkness. But the joy of Christmas will help the light to banish the darkness—if you do not fight too strongly against it.”

  Well. That was it? Nothing about romance and love and marriage and happily-ever-afters? That was to be reserved exclusively for the female customers? He rose and nodded to the fortune-teller. It would be a kindness to tell her, perhaps, that if all her women customers were to find the romance she promised them, then men should be alerted to their needs.

  “Nothing,” he said to the ladies when he went outside again. “There is to be no romance in my future, alas. Only the promise of a happy Christmas if I do not do something to spoil the occasion.”

  “Ah,” Amy said. “How disappointing, my lord. But I am glad that you can expect a good Christmas.”

  He leaned down and swung Rupert up onto his shoulders again. Judith watched him, her lips tightening.

  The marquess bought the children each a tart and all of them a hot drink of chocolate. And when Kate spotted a stall that sold ribbons, he bought her long lengths of green and red over Judith’s protests and Amy’s exclamations on his kindness.

  “It amazes me,” Amy said when they paused to watch the portrait painter draw his likenesses, “how he can hold the charcoal and wield it so skillfully without freezing his fingers off. But the portraits are quite well done.”

  “Have your picture drawn with your good lady, guv’nor?” the artist’s assistant asked, looking from the marquess to Judith. “And with the lovely children, too, if you want, guv. ’Alf a sovereign for all four of you.”

  “No, thank you,” Judith said quickly.

  Rupert shouted with glee from his perch on the marquess’s shoulders. “He is not our father,” he exclaimed to the assistant.

  Kate was tugging at Judith’s cloak.

  “Mama,” she said when Judith looked down, “may I have my pictures?”

  “Your portrait done?” Judith said, smiling down at her and passing a hand beneath her chin. “You would have to sit very still and would get very cold.”

  “No longer than five minutes, mum,” the assistant assured her briskly. “The child’s likeness in five minutes, satisfaction guaranteed or your money back. Two and sixpence for the child, mum.”

  “A shilling,” the marquess said. “One and sixpence if it is a good likeness.”

  “Done, guv,” the assistant said. “And worth two shillings it will be if it’s worth a penny. Let the little lady take a chair.”

  Kate smiled wonderingly up at the marquess and her mother and aunt and allowed Judith to seat her on the chair indicated. And she sat very still, her feet dangling a few inches above the ice, her hands clasped in her lap, only her eyes moving.

  “How sweet she looks,” Amy said. “Would you like to be next, Rupert?”

  “Pooh,” the boy said. “I don’t want to sit for my picture.” But he did squirm to be set down so that he could walk around to the side of the artist and watch the progress of the portrait.

  Judith wandered to a book stall a few feet away after a couple of minutes. But she was not to be allowed to browse in peace. A man with one arm outstretched and draped from shoulder to wrist in necklaces of varying degrees of gaudiness accosted her and tried to interest her in his wares. Another man came up on her other side with a tray of bangles.

  The marquess watched her laugh and shake her head, looking from one to the other. They moved in closer on either side of her, pressing their wares on her. Her reticule dangled from her right arm.

  He walked toward her and set one hand lightly against the back of her neck. “You are not considering buying more baubles, are you, my love?” he asked, at the same time picking up her reticule and tucking it into the crook of her arm.

  She looked around at him, her eyes wide and startled.

  “These pearls for the lidy, guv?” the necklace seller asked. “Real pearls wiv a real diamond clasp? A bargain they are today, guv.”

  “I am sure they are,” the marquess said. “Unfortunately the lady already has three different strings of pearls.” He held up a staying hand. “And all the other jewels she could possibly wear in a lifetime.”

  The bangle seller had already faded away.

  “You’re missin’ the bargain of a lifetime, guv,” the hawker said, and he turned and made his way to a group of three ladies who had stopped nearby.

  The marquess removed his hand from Judith’s neck.

  “That was one reason why you needed a male escort,” he said.

  “They were harmlessly trying to sell their wares,” she said stiffly. “I did not need your interference, my lord.�
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  “You would have been easy prey,” he said. “They would not even have had to draw attention to themselves by racing off with your reticule. The bangle seller was lifting it so skillfully off your arm that you probably would not even have missed it until they had disappeared among the crowds.”

  She looked down at the reticule she now held against her side. “That is ridiculous,” she said. “They were merely selling their wares.”

  “They were merely thieving,” he said. “However, since no harm has been done, I suppose it does not matter if you do not believe me. But do be careful. This type of scene is a pickpocket’s heaven.”

  “He was really about to steal my reticule?” she asked, frowning.

  “As surely as the clasp on that pearl necklace was glass,” he said.

  She was looking directly into his eyes. He had never quite been able to put a name to the color of her eyes. They were not exactly green, not exactly gray. They were certainly not blue—not altogether so, anyway. But they were bright and beautiful eyes, the colored circle outlined by a dark line, almost as if it had been drawn in with a fine pen. He had once fancied it possible to drown in her eyes.

  “Thank you,” she said. She did not smile. He knew that it had taken her a great effort to acknowledge her gratitude. She turned abruptly to the portrait painter’s booth.

  The portrait was finished and Kate was holding it in her hands and gazing at it wide-eyed. Her aunt was exclaiming in delight over it while Rupert regarded it critically, head to one side.

  “Look, Mama.” Kate held out the portrait for her mother’s inspection. Judith took it and the marquess looked at it over her shoulder. A little girl sat stiffly on a chair, her feet dangling in space, her hands in her lap. Two large dark eyes peeped from beneath the poke of a bonnet. It could have been any child anywhere.

  “Oh, lovely,” Judith said. “I will have to find a frame for it at home and hang it in my bedchamber. How clever of you to sit still all that time, Kate.”