by Mary Balogh
“I don’t,” she said, smiling. “We live in a house next door to the main inn. Papa owns several, you know. I help Mama with the running of the house. Twice a week I help teach school. Sometimes life is a little dull.” She pulled a face.
Well. So much for the mobcap image.
“We had better find the others,” he said, and she walked beside him, her mistletoe clutched in both hands, and they exchanged stories of school and university. She had attended school. Latin and history had been her favorite subjects. Cricket had been his. They laughed merrily.
He hoped fervently that they would not emerge from the trees to find Mr. Benjamin Transome waving a marriage contract before his nose. But the man, of course, was helping haul in the Yule log. When Sir Albert thought of the probable size of the log, though, he was not much consoled.
But by damn she was a pretty little thing. And sensible and good-humored. And now that it was too late, he wished he had lingered for just a few seconds longer over his enjoyment of her lips.
9
IT HAD BEEN A SOMEWHAT EXHAUSTING DAY. There had been the early business of the morning and the snowball fight—all seeming as if they must have happened days ago. And then the long trudge through the snow out to the woods to bring home the Yule log and the greenery. And luncheon followed by the loud and busy decoration of the drawing room and dining room and hall and stairway, a dozen voices at least giving firm orders and a dozen more contradicting them. It was amazing, the Earl of Falloden thought when it was all over, that it had got done at all and that his house had been so transformed. It looked warm and festive and smelled wonderful.
There was the kissing bough, the proud creation of Aunt Ruth and Jane Gullis, in the center of the drawing room, and sprigs of mistletoe in all sorts of unexpected places so that the most unlikely couples were suddenly finding themselves stranded beneath some while a chorus of voices crowed with delight and demanded a kiss. His wife and Hagley, for example, who had looked startled and uncomfortable enough when they had almost collided in the drawing room doorway and who had both turned a bright pink when they had been forced to peck each other on the lips. And Sotherby and Muriel Weekes at the pianoforte bench, though the earl had a suspicion that perhaps that one was more contrived—as the encounter between George Gullis and Muriel’s sister at the foot of the staircase certainly was.
And as if they had not expended enough energy by the time evening came, they all decided by mutual consent—it was frequently difficult with the Transomes, the earl was finding, to discover just who made an initial suggestion—to play a vigorous and highly competitive game of charades. The earl was surprised to find that he had some skill at the game—which he joined in despite the fact that he never played charades and despite the fact that he felt somehow as if his home and his life had been taken over by some alien horde—especially when cheered on by an enthusiastic team, which attributed its resounding victory to his acting abilities.
He was feeling rather pleased with the day and was beginning to wonder if there was not after all something to the fuss other people always seemed to make over Christmas. And his wife was looking rosy and cheerful and lovely. They had not once quarreled all day, he thought, though of course they had not been alone together all day either. He remembered suddenly the teasing of her uncles about the mistletoe over her bed and felt a not altogether unpleasant quickening of his breathing.
He was feeling relaxed, he realized in some surprise. Surrounded by Transomes, not quite master in his own home, not at all sure that he and his friends would ever get out to do some shooting, he nevertheless was feeling—happy. Was it a suitable word to describe his mood? Was he feeling happy?
ELEANOR WAS NOT FEELING at all as happy as she was at pains to look. Wilfred had hardly moved from her side all day, and apart from the misery his proximity was causing her, there was the fear that someone was going to notice. Her husband, for example. Everyone else must have known that they had not been indifferent to each other for the past year and more even though they had never shown their affection in public.
He had walked beside her on the way home with the pine boughs, and he had contrived to be the one handing her the ribbons and bows to be twined among the holly wrapped about the banisters on the staircase. He had been part of her team at charades. And now, when tea had been ordered, he had tried to maneuver her to the pianoforte to find a piece of music that had been played the evening before. There was a sprig of mistletoe hanging over the pianoforte.
She could stand no more, she decided. She was ready to burst with the tension of having her husband and the man who was to have been her husband in the same room together.
“We must talk,” she murmured to Wilfred, and she raised her voice to tell those within earshot, her husband included, that she was taking him down to the library to choose a book to take to bed with him. It seemed an unexceptionable excuse, she thought. George and Mabel had already made an excuse to go downstairs to the long gallery—not to look at the paintings, but to gaze out at the snow and stars. But George and Mabel were all but betrothed, of course, and no one made any objection, though Aunt Beryl told Mabel to be back in half an hour.
Eleanor set down the branch of candles she had brought with her on the library desk and turned determinedly to face Wilfred. She wished he had shut the door, but she did not want to walk around him to do it herself. Besides, it was perhaps as well that the door remained ajar. There were servants whose good opinion was important to her.
“Ellie,” he said, striding toward her.
But she set up a staying hand. “Don’t come any closer, Wilfred,” she said. “Please.”
“How can I stay back?” he asked, nevertheless stopping and looking at her, longing in his eyes. “Ellie. My love.”
“I am not your love,” she said firmly. “Not any longer. I am a married lady, Wilfred.”
“But you do not love him,” he said. “You did it for your father’s sake, Ellie. I know you have always despised members of the peerage and of the ton.”
“Nevertheless,” she said, “he is my husband.”
“Ellie.” He took another step toward her and stretched out both hands to her.
She looked at them and clasped her own more tightly in front of her. They were cold. She felt cold to the heart. He looked very tall and lean and boyish, though he was only two years younger than her husband, she reminded herself. “If you had written back to say you would marry me even though you had nothing much to offer me,” she said, “I would have argued further with Papa. I would have stayed firm, if need be, until I came of age, though I do not believe Papa would have held out against me. He loved me. Or if you had written to ask me to wait for you until you could offer more and retain your pride, I would have waited. For five years. For ten. For however long it would have taken. You wrote to tell me that you must set me free. You wrote to tell me to do what Papa wanted me to do.”
“You must know,” he said, “how wretched I felt, Ellie, knowing the marriage your father had planned for you and having so little to offer you myself. You must know that I had to make the noble gesture.”
“And yet,” she said, looking at him with eyes full of hurt, “you came here, Wilfred. Was that noble? And you wrote that letter after Papa died and after I was already married. Was that noble? Why did you come?” She desperately wanted there to be a good reason, though there could be none. She was not accustomed to thinking of Wilfred as anything less than perfect.
“How could I stay away?” he asked. “Ellie, it is an agony to see you, to see him, to know that you belong to him. Oh, how could I stay away?”
“Perhaps for my sake,” she said. “Did you think of what it would do to me, Wilfred, to see you here? To remember? And to know how fate played us such a wretched trick? Oh, Wilfred, did you not know of the coming partnership? Did you not suspect? You could have retained your pride and married me after all. But it is too late. Oh, I wish you had not come.”
He took another step
closer. “You know you do not mean that,” he said. “You know you still love me. Let me hold you, Ellie. Just once.”
“I am married,” she said.
“But not by your own choice.” His voice was urgent. “Tell me you love him, Ellie, or care for him at least. Tell me that and I will leave here tonight. I swear it. You don’t love him, do you?”
“You know I do not,” she said. “I married him because Papa was so set on it and because he was so very close to death and because there seemed no point in hurting him when you had written that you would not marry me. But my feelings for him have nothing to say to anything, Wilfred. The point is that I consented to marry him and did marry him and can no longer indulge my love for you. You must understand that. Oh, please, you must. You must not continue to look at me as you have been looking all day. You should not have come. Oh, I wish you had not come. I cannot bear it.”
“Ellie.” His voice was a groan. “I love you. It was only love that induced me to set you free. I thought I had nothing to offer you. But I was wrong. Nothing matters more than our love. And by now I would have had a great deal besides to offer you.”
“All I ever wanted,” she said softly, “was your heart. I never wanted riches or position. Especially not position.” Her voice was shaking. She fought tears—she could not go back upstairs with red eyes. “Go,” she said. “Please go. I should not have come down here with you after all. I must be alone for a few minutes.”
“Ellie,” he said.
“Please,” she said, and finally he turned abruptly and left the room.
She whirled around to face the desk and leaned her arms on it. She closed her eyes and drew a few steadying breaths. He did not seem to understand that everything had changed, that no matter how they might regret decisions they had made in the past two months, there was no going back now to change matters. She blamed him for coming. And for writing that love letter. And yet she did not want to blame him. She wanted to find excuses for him. But what did he want of her? A clandestine affair? Did he not understand that she was married and that her marriage vows were sacred and quite unbreakable? Did he not know her after all?
She turned from the desk finally, her gaze on the floor. If she did not go back upstairs soon, someone was going to come looking for her. She straightened her shoulders and lifted her head.
Her husband was standing in the open doorway, one shoulder leaning against the door frame, his arms folded across his chest. She stood still and looked at him as he stepped inside and shut the door firmly behind him.
He stood and looked at her for a long while. She was pale, but she was not crying. And she was looking steadily back at him. Of course, she would scorn to lower her eyes.
“Well, my lady,” he said at last.
“I assume you heard all,” she said. “Eavesdroppers rarely hear good about themselves.”
“I did not even suspect that there might be need to eavesdrop,” he said. “He is your cousin. I followed you down to help him choose a book, since I am more familiar with the library than you. But he did not need one, did he? He left here empty-handed.”
“No,” she said, “he did not need a book. But you have nothing to accuse me of, my lord. If you heard all, you will know that.”
“It seems,” he said, “that I was not the only one to give up a previous attachment to make this marriage.”
“No,” she said.
“And it seems,” he said, “that you married me only because you thought your cousin would not have you and because your father was dying and you wished to please him.”
“Yes.”
“Not because you wanted to be a countess and a member of the ton?”
She looked at him scornfully. “You would naturally assume that,” she said. “There would seem to you to be no higher pinnacle to which a woman could aspire. I prefer real people, my lord. I prefer people who work to achieve what they want to those who live off the work of others and then squander their wealth on riotous and irresponsible living.”
“As I did,” he said, “to get myself so deeply into debt.”
“Yes.”
“Well.” He looked at her broodingly. “Things are not always what they seem to be. I could enlighten you, but frankly I have no wish to do so at the moment.”
You know I do not, she had said when her cousin had asked her if she loved her husband. Those words and the scornful tone in which she had spoken them were echoing in his head. And he felt wounded by them. Foolishly hurt. He had known that. There had been no pretense of either love or affection on either side. Quite the contrary. And yet her words had hurt him. Perhaps because they had been spoken to someone else? Because someone else now knew the emptiness of their marriage?
All I ever wanted was your heart, she had told her cousin, her voice soft and wistful. Those words compounded the hurt. She loved Wilfred Ellis but had firmly spurned his advances. Her behavior had been commendable. Perhaps he wished it had not been. He had no cause for fury and yet he needed the outlet of anger.
“Don’t just look at me like that,” she said, raising her chin. “Either say something or let me go.”
“It seems we are not on an equal footing after all,” he said. “We did not have equally base reasons for marrying.”
She said nothing.
“And I suppose,” he said, “that this family gathering, this merry Christmas that you are all enjoying so greatly, was deliberately planned to show me how very little you need me.”
“You told me I might invite guests of my own,” she said.
“You really do not have any great need for me, do you?” he said. “Your father left you almost half his fortune, and you have family members who would be only too happy to take you in.”
“If you think to rid yourself of me so easily, my lord,” she said, “you will be sadly disappointed. You are under no compulsion to live with me, I suppose, since you have several homes. But you are obliged to house and to provide for me. I will not leave you. Do not expect it of me or hope for it. According to the morality of my class, the marriage vow is taken for life.”
“Apparently Mr. Wilfred Ellis does not know that,” he said.
“I cannot answer for Wilfred,” she said. “Only for myself. I am the troublesome little something that came along with what you really wanted when you married me. The money can be quickly and easily spent. I do not doubt that you will be as penniless and as hopelessly in debt after one year as you were two months ago. But there will still be me, my lord. You must accustom yourself to the fact.”
“I intend to,” he said. “We had better go back upstairs to the drawing room before all our guests wonder what has befallen us.”
“Oh,” she said, “doubtless they will think that we have stolen a few minutes to be together. I would not worry about our reputations, my lord. We are newlyweds, after all.” Her voice was bitingly sarcastic.
“And so we are,” he said, walking toward her. “It would be a pity to disappoint them, would it not? They should be able to look at you when you return and see all their happy suspicions confirmed. You should have a just-kissed look.”
He stopped when he was close to her, set a hand behind her neck, and lowered his mouth to hers. She stood like a marble statue, though he persisted for a while, moving parted lips over hers, trying to soften them and force some response. Her eyes, he saw when he opened his, were not closed.
“You will live with me,” he said, raising his head, “as long as I do not touch you? Is that the way it is? As it was with your father? Don’t touch me? Don’t hug me?”
“My father was in pain,” she said. “It hurt him to be touched. But I have no right to refuse your touch. I made no objection, my lord.”
He laughed. “Beyond schooling every muscle to rigidity,” he said. “You are my wife, as you have just been at pains to remind me. Much as we both may wish that it were not so, reluctant as we both may be to continue what we both freely started, it is so. And by God, you will be my wife
, my lady, from this day on. Expect me tonight in your chamber and every night henceforth.”
“Yes, my lord,” she said.
She had a way of being totally submissive and yet of sounding and looking so thoroughly aloof that she seemed like an impregnable fortress. He might have her body, she told him beyond the medium of words, but she would not allow him to touch any other part of her being. Her heart and her soul belonged to her and he would never be permitted a glimpse into either.
He felt chilled, and he wanted suddenly to get back upstairs, where there were people and gaiety and the beginnings of Christmas. Where there was the illusion of warmth and family and even love. Her family.
He made her a formal bow and extended an arm to her. “Shall we rejoin our guests?”
“If you wish, my lord.” She set her arm lightly on his. “And if you have changed your mind about giving me that just-kissed look.”
“I shall leave that for later, in the privacy of our own apartments,” he said, his voice as cold as her own.
And he realized for the first time consciously what had been happening to him in the last few days and even weeks. He had wanted to make something of their marriage, he had decided, because it had seemed the sensible thing to do in light of the fact that he was honor bound to spend a year with her. And yet inclination had had as much to do with his decision as good sense. He had wanted her, had begun to find her attractive. And not just physically. He had seen, especially since her family’s arrival, that she was capable of warmth and laughter and spontaneity.
Well, so much for good sense and inclination. She had married him because her father wanted it and because the man she loved had refused to marry her. She hated the aristocracy in general and despised him in particular.