by Mary Balogh
“Eh?” he bellowed back, cupping one ear. “I’m strangely deaf this morning, Ellie. Must be the snow. Here—catch!” And a soft, wet lump of snow collided with her bosom.
And then the silent figure striding toward the house from the direction of the stables and coming to a halt at the bottom of the steps, his greatcoat and hat immaculate and quite free of snow. And the embarrassment and guilt and the restored knowledge that she had no business doing what she was doing. And the usual stubborn defiance and conviction that she did not care what he thought or what sort of chilly lecture he cared to give her later. She threw back her head and shrieked and stooped down to mold a fresh snowball.
It caught him somewhere on the jaw, halfway between his chin and his ear. It was the most horrid place of all for a snowball to land, for it would be impossible to brush it all away without at least some of it finding its way in an icy trickle down the neck. She looked at him and laughed and bent down for more snow, her eyes picking out Uncle Sam, who had scored a hit on her elbow a few moments before.
Then suddenly her feet disappeared from under her and she was shrieking and kicking them on air. It was Wilfred, she thought indignantly until she looked up to see who had scooped her into his arms and was striding with her away from the fight. He looked grim. Oh dear, she thought, now she was for it. She had wounded his aristocratic pride. She giggled.
But it was not quite in the direction of the house that he strode. Suddenly and quite alarmingly he swung her to one side and then tossed her so that she shrieked in good earnest and her arms and legs flailed uselessly as she flew through the air. She came to land deep in the snowbank that had been the children’s playground earlier. And of course she landed with her mouth open and was soon sputtering and thrashing about in a vain attempt to find her feet in the snow. It was too deep and too soft.
“Allow me, my lady.” His voice was chilly, but the hand that was stretched out to her looked reassuringly solid, and the gleam in his eyes might have been anything from anger to triumph to amusement. She reached up a cautious hand and set it in his.
She came to her feet in such a hurried scramble that she stopped only when she came against the solid wall of his chest. She looked up into his face.
“Sometimes,” he said, “it is more effective to take one’s adversary to the snowball than the other way around. Especially when that adversary is unwise enough to laugh after scoring a direct hit.”
She bit her lip, not sure whether to laugh or look contrite, and his eyes flickered down to follow the gesture. And heavens, she thought, she was still against his chest. Just as if she were incapable of standing on her own two feet. Which perhaps she was.
Then sounds of laughter penetrated her consciousness and she realized that this time everyone was laughing in unison. The fight had stopped and everyone had witnessed her toss in the snow. Most of the fighters were brushing at themselves and shaking coats and cloaks and slapping mittens together.
“That’s the way, lad,” Uncle Sam called out. “Treat ’em rough. They like it that way.”
“Oh, Uncle Sam!” There was a chorus of indignant protests from the female cousins. Everyone knew that Uncle Sam always treated Aunt Irene as if she were a goddess from one of those old Greek stories, as Papa had always put it.
Eleanor pushed away from her husband, thoroughly uncomfortable, and brushed at her cloak, which was caked with snow. Heavens, for one moment she had thought that he was going to kiss her. She had felt a flaring of heat despite the fact that she had snow inside her clothing as well as outside. And then a large, firm hand was brushing at the back of her cloak and she felt the heat again.
“I think, my lady,” he said, “we had better take our guests inside for breakfast if we are to gather Christmas greenery this morning.”
“Yes,” she said, taking his offered arm. The children, she saw, were building a snowman. Everyone else seemed to be talking all at once—a characteristic of her family.
SINCE THERE WAS TO be no shooting after all and it was likely to be close to noon before everyone was up and ready to go out looking for Christmas greenery, the Earl of Falloden had decided to go out early and conduct some business that he would otherwise have had to fit in later in the day. He came home expecting to find only the most hardy of his guests beginning to drift down to the breakfast room.
Instead he discovered a sight the like of which he had never seen at Grenfell Park before and had never dreamed of seeing. All of his guests, almost without exception, were out on the terrace engaged in a vigorous and noisy snowball fight. Even three of his own friends were among them, he saw as he drew closer. And his wife.
His first reaction was one of discomfort. His grandmother would turn over in her grave! Everything had always been conducted with dignified propriety at Grenfell Park. And what would the servants think? Especially when they saw his wife out there with everyone else, shrieking and laughing and hurling with as much abandon as anyone else. But then, as he drew closer still and came to a halt at the foot of the steps leading up to the house, he felt a certain envy. Except for his years at school, he had been brought up very much alone. At home, both with his parents and with his grandparents, he had been expected to behave with quiet decorum. Even at Christmastime. Even when there was a fresh blanket of snow on the ground. He had never been encouraged to behave with spontaneity.
He felt envious and half inclined to join in the fun. And to hell with any servant who did not like to see their earl and countess frolicking in the snow, he thought recklessly a moment before a snowball shattered against his jaw and found an icy path down his neck. He knew it had come from his wife’s hand even as she laughed and stooped to gather more snow.
He acted from pure instinct—something he almost never did even now, more than nine years after the death of his grandfather. He was not even quite sure what he intended to do with her when he swept her up into his arms and strode away from the battlefield with her. But the snowbank was not to be resisted, he saw almost immediately. He could not remember enjoying a moment more than the one in which he tossed her into it and watched her sail through the air, arms and legs flapping in ungainly fashion, and land deep in the soft snow.
He could have laughed aloud and would have done so if she had not looked up at him with such wary indignation. If she could have seen herself in a looking glass at that moment, he thought, she would have shuddered with mortification. Her cheeks and nose were a shiny red, her hair was wet and marvelously untidy beneath her hood, and she was totally covered with snow. Even her eyebrows and eyelashes were white.
And yet, he found when he had jerked her to her feet and against his chest, he wanted her as he had wanted her almost every moment since their arrival in the country. Despite her less than immaculate appearance, she was beautiful. And something else had been revealed to him. The countryside and the arrival of her family had combined to reveal a warmth and a vibrancy and a spontaneity in her that had him aching with a longing for something he had never known. If this was what she was really like, he thought, and not the cold marble statue he had known in London … The thought somehow interfered with his breathing.
AUNT BERYL, AUNT EUNICE, and Aunt Ruth stayed at the house to hunt out the decorations from the attic. Everyone else came downstairs dressed for the outdoors.
“Wrap that scarf warmly about your neck,” Aunt Beryl told the earl with maternal solicitude. “You do not want to have a chill over Christmas.”
The earl agreed meekly that he did not and wrapped obediently.
“Don’t worry about a thing here, Randy,” Aunt Eunice told him. “We will have everything organized by the time you get back.”
He had no doubt that they would.
“Ellie, dear,” Aunt Ruth whispered, hugging her niece, “such a very handsome gentleman. Dear Joseph did well for you. And not at all high and mighty, which I rather feared, him being an earl and all that. Did you see him sit on the arm of my chair last evening just as if he were one of the
family? Which of course he is, though it was very obliging of him all the same. Oh, bless my soul, and just think of it. Little Ellie a countess.”
Little Ellie, who was a few inches taller than her aunt, bent to kiss her cheek.
“You must be very happy, dear,” Aunt Ruth said with a sigh.
“I am, Aunt,” Eleanor said with a smile, and for the moment she did not lie. Her husband was laughing at something Uncle Harry had said, and he did look almost like one of the family. Almost.
Jenny rode on her father’s shoulders while Davie waded along in the deepest snow he could find. The Viscount Sotherby walked with their family. George took Mabel’s arm through his and Mr. Badcombe was surrounded by Muriel and Susan, Harvey and Jane. Sir Albert Hagley walked a little behind them with Rachel. Aunt Catherine was between Uncle Harry and Cousin Aubrey. Lord Charles was talking with Wilfred. Uncle Sam and Uncle Ben were flanking the earl and his countess.
“Who usually helps you gather the greenery and drag in the Yule log, Randy?” Uncle Ben asked.
“Last year I was not here, sir,” the earl said. “And for eight years before that Grenfell Park belonged to my cousin. I never came at Christmastime. In my grandparents’ day I believe it was the servants’ job to decorate the house.”
“Your cousin lived here and you never came?” Uncle Sam said with a frown. “How big is your family, lad, and where are the rest of them this year? Was there no one but your cousin and yourself?”
“I have several uncles and aunts and cousins,” the earl said. “We have never been close, I am afraid.”
“Amazing,” Uncle Sam said, and he looked across to his brother. “Isn’t it amazing, Ben, eh? No family gatherings? No noise and confusion and insults. Just peace and quiet and being private. Do you think you would like it, eh?”
“Peace and quiet with Eunice?” Uncle Ben said. “I like family gatherings to get away from all the chatter, Sam.”
“Oh, Uncle Ben!” Eleanor scolded.
“Oh, Uncle Ben,” he said, imitating her tone. “So the servants decorated, did they, Randy? And took half the fun of Christmas away from you. And did they eat the pudding and drink the wassail and sing the carols and kiss beneath the mistletoe as well?”
The earl smiled. “Christmas has always been a quiet time with my family and me,” he said. “Very little different from any other day of the year except perhaps a little more depressing.”
“Depressing? Christmas?” Uncle Sam’s voice was a boom. “The two words don’t go together, lad. Not in a million years. Do they now, Ellie? But of course you have Ellie this year to make very sure that they don’t. Eh, lass? You make sure that you whisk away a little sprig of the mistletoe when we get back to the house to hang above your bed. It does wonders for banishing Christmas depression. Is she blushing, Ben, eh? You are closer than I. Is she blushing, eh?”
“I think she is,” Uncle Ben said, “though it’s hidden under the rosiness of the cold. Is Randy blushing, though, Sam? That’s more to the point.”
“I hate to put an end to this delightful exchange of wit,” the earl said, “but we have reached the parting of the ways.”
And to Eleanor’s intense relief, he unlinked his arm from hers and called for everyone’s attention. The pine trees and the holly bushes were to the east of the house, the heavier trees, including the oaks and the mistletoe, to the north. Soon several of the men, including her own husband, were trudging off north to haul in a Yule log, with a few of the girls to gather mistletoe. She went east with everyone else to find the holly and to pull down some pine boughs.
And found Wilfred at her side just when she was trying to recover from the embarrassment of being advised, in her husband’s hearing, to hang mistletoe over her bed. She smiled at him and lengthened her stride so that Aunt Catherine and Uncle Harry would not get too far ahead.
“Ellie,” he said, his voice low, his eyes directly on her, “how are you?”
They had always sought each other out, even before they had realized that they loved each other. Until now it had always seemed right to do so. He was very tall—taller than her husband. She had always liked the way her head barely topped his shoulder. His height had always made her feel small and feminine.
“I am well,” she said, smiling brightly at him. “And you, Wilfred? You must be very excited about your partnership. Tell me all about it.”
“Not very,” he said. “It all somehow seems rather pointless now.”
“Oh.” She laughed. “It must be just that you are not used to your new elevated status yet, Wilfred. Cousin Aubrey must be very proud of you.”
“How does he treat you, Ellie?” he asked. “I will not ask if you are happy. But does he at least treat you kindly?”
“But of course,” she said with another laugh as they approached the pine trees and she remembered how just last summer they had eyes for no one else but each other, how they had held hands whenever they were out of sight of others, and how they had stolen kisses whenever they could. Just last summer. Just a few months before. A lifetime before.
And then they were at the trees and Uncle Harry was organizing them so that the men broke the boughs they wanted from the trees and the ladies dragged them away and heaped them ready for carrying back home. There was much talk and laughter, much hard work. Eleanor, doing her part, watched the Viscount Sotherby smile at Muriel as he handed a bough down to her, and saw from the corner of an eye George and Mabel exchange a brief kiss behind the screen of another bough.
She too might have been stealing glances and kisses, she thought, if the events of the past two months could just be erased. If Papa were still alive. If he had not arranged a marriage between her and the Earl of Falloden. If … If and if.
Her husband had never really known Christmas, she thought. He must have been a lonely child and boy. Christmas had always been just like any other day of the year to him except perhaps a little more depressing. He had a family to whom he had never been close. None of them was at Grenfell Park for this Christmas, while all of her family were. Except Papa. She had not really thought of it until this moment. He had four friends with him but no family at all.
She was swept suddenly by a wave of sadness and longing. But a nameless longing. She could not quite identify its source. She bent to pick out a few smaller, lighter boughs for Davie and Jenny to drag home through the snow and was quite unaware of the burning glances that Wilfred was sending her way.
———
SIR ALBERT HAGLEY HAD not intended to join the party gathering greenery. He had come to Grenfell Park for the shooting and he took it unkindly in the other guests to have changed Randolph’s mind. Not that he blamed his friend, of course. The Transomes were an overpowering lot, to say the least. And then his mood had taken another turn for the worse when he had emerged from a solitary breakfast room and a solitary breakfast to encounter what seemed like several dozen noisy snowmen all pouring in from the outdoors, the Earl of Falloden leading the way, and he realized that he had missed a snowball fight.
Something as undignified as a snowball fight. And Miss Rachel Transome was there with the pack of them, joking and laughing with Harvey Gullis, who was not even a relative of hers if he had got all the relationships straight the evening before, and looking rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed and wet and untidy and altogether as appetizing a little female as he had ever clapped eyes on.
He had been planning to avoid her today. She might be an innkeeper’s daughter and pretty and sensible, and she might have eyes for him as he had for her. But the truth was that the innkeeper was there with her and must weigh eighteen stone if he weighed an ounce. And there were plenty of other relatives there too to defend her honor. Besides, she was a guest in Randolph’s house and a relative of his by marriage. And besides again, he had learned a lesson about women of a lower class from a certain Miss Eleanor Transome, now the Countess of Falloden.
He had planned to give Miss Rachel Transome a wide berth for that day anyway. For if he cou
ld not flirt with her and attempt some sort of seduction, his attentions might be interpreted another way and he might find himself leg-shackled to an innkeeper’s daughter sooner than he could wink.
But she smiled at him as she shook her hood free from her damp hair. And she blushed, though he realized later that her cheeks had been rosy from the outdoors and if she had been blushing beneath it all he could not have known it anyway.
The upshot of it all, however, was that he found himself hunting greenery with everyone after all. His excuse to himself was that he could not be the lone male left at the house with the attic-raiding aunts. Doubtless they would have him peering onto cobwebby rafters if he did anything so unwise. He went hunting mistletoe instead.
And of course he walked with Rachel Transome and talked with her and got himself lost among the oaks with her and only realized their lone, unchaperoned state as he descended the trunk of a gnarled oak tree to place some sprigs of mistletoe in her outstretched hand.
And because they were alone, and because she smiled so brightly up at him, and because he was an utter idiot who could not avoid trouble even when his mother and his sisters were not there to push him into it, he kept one small sprig in his hand and raised it above both their heads as he reached the ground and kissed her soft, cool lips.
Lord, he thought, withdrawing his head after the merest touch of temptation and smiling foolishly at the girl. Lord, he should have stayed away. He should have joined his own family for the holiday. He should not have taken pity on Randolph and come to give him moral support with this unspeakably strange family. Strange, noisy, boisterous, warm family.
“What do you do at your father’s inn?” he asked her. He pictured her in a mobcap, a feather duster in one hand. He pictured male lodgers pinching her bottom and would have liked to line up all those customers so that he might walk along in front of them all, bashing heads together in pairs.