A Christmas Promise

by Mary Balogh

  Her husband was looking his usual courteous self. Totally unreadable, in other words. She had no idea if his only outburst against her family, on the day of their arrival, reflected his true feelings or if he had merely been responding to the needs of a quarrel on that occasion.

  They had quarreled again on their return home from the village. Oh, not quarreled exactly. They had had words and she had been put in the wrong at the end of it all, so that she still felt thoroughly cross. The wonder of the afternoon had been spoiled.

  “You do realize, I suppose,” he had said as he conducted her upstairs to her room on their return, “that you almost succeeded in giving Miss Brooks an apoplexy in the school by neglecting to behave as a grand lady should?”

  “And that is?” she had said, stiffening.

  “You should have nodded graciously and unsmilingly,” he had said, “and allowed yourself to be conducted to the dais without delay. And you should have listened to the children read and stammer with shaking voices and then graciously recommended that they continue to work hard until they could read well.”

  She had felt furious with him for his insensitivity. Oh, and to think that she had begun to relax and forget that he was of that most despised class, the aristocracy!

  “Well,” she had said, lifting her chin, “what can you expect from the daughter of a cit, my lord? The daughter of a coal merchant? What can you expect but vulgarity? Perhaps you should take me back to town where I can be more effectively hidden away from public view. Where I will have less chance of shaming you.”

  He had opened the door into her dressing room and bowed to her. “What a hedgehog you are,” he had said softly. “If you had let me finish, I was about to say that I was glad you broke with convention. You set the children at their ease so that they enjoyed the afternoon instead of merely being awed by it.”

  But she had looked at him with suspicion. Praise from the Earl of Falloden? Or was it mere condescension again? It was all right this time, dear, but do remember next time that thus and so is how it is to be done. She had swept past him and closed the door behind her. And wondered if they had quarreled or if they had not.

  And now her relatives were planning to go sledding en masse. The trouble was, she thought, that she was itching to go herself. She wanted to streak down the longest hill at fifty miles an hour, if such a speed were possible, and screech her lungs out. She was thoroughly oppressed again by the restraints being a grand lady was trying to impose on her. Gracious, she had never in her worst nightmare dreamed of becoming a countess.

  She glared defiantly down the table at her husband. He caught her look and raised his eyebrows.

  Hedgehog indeed, she thought, thoroughly out of charity with him. She would hedgehog him!

  AUNT BERYL AND AUNT Ruth and Cousin Aubrey remained at the house. The children were not told of the expedition since they needed to go to bed early in preparation for Christmas Eve, Bessie explained. Everyone else trekked out to the hills, warmly wrapped against the crisp cold of the evening, six of them dragging the sleds. Several others carried lanterns, though they were not strictly necessary. The night was bright with snow and moonlight and starlight.

  “Perfect Christmas weather,” George Gullis said, nevertheless using the chill as an excuse to set an arm about Mabel’s shoulders.

  “Perfect lovers’ weather is what you mean, George, my lad,” Uncle Sam called. But if he meant to embarrass the lovers, he was disappointed. They merely looked at each other and grinned, starlight reflected in their eyes.

  “Ah,” Uncle Harry said, stopping in his tracks when they drew close to the hills, “now this is what I call perfect. Hills for the reckless and hills for the chickenhearted.”

  “And plenty of sheltering trees,” Aunt Catherine said. “How lovely they look with their branches loaded down with snow.”

  It really was a lovely area for children, Eleanor thought. Or for the Transomes, who were all children at heart. Including herself. Oh, she wanted to be first down the longest hill.

  “Well,” Aunt Irene said, pointing to the hill with the gentlest slope, “I am not ashamed to admit that I am in the ranks of the chickenhearted. Sam, take me down that one.”

  Harvey and Jane, meanwhile, and George and Mabel and Tom and Bessie were racing up various slopes, sled ropes in hand.

  “Miss Weekes,” Viscount Sotherby said, turning to Muriel, “are you game for the steepest one?”

  “Follow us down if you dare, Jason,” Sir Albert called with a grin. He was already striding up the slope with Rachel.

  “Oh, bother,” Eleanor said to no one in particular. “I wanted to be the first down.”

  “How about third?” a voice asked from behind her. “We will grab a sled as soon as someone is down.”

  She turned and smiled. But some of the joy went immediately from the evening. “Third it is then, Wilfred,” she said. And she looked at his tall, slender figure and imagined how it might have been if events had only been different for the past several months. It might have been a magical evening—sledding down the hills, getting lost for a few minutes among the trees, strolling slowly back home while everyone else walked on ahead.

  She waited for a pang of anguish. Or at least longing. But she could feel only annoyance that he had come, that he was there, a constant reminder of what might have been. And she could not push from her mind the disappointment that he was not after all perfect. He should not have written her that letter, he should not have come, and he should not be seeking her out at every opportunity. And it seemed that whenever she overheard him talking to someone else, he was talking about his new position as partner in his trading firm. Reminding her of how close they had come to that happily-ever-after ending they had dreamed of.

  She had wanted to be first down the hill. With someone else. With … Well, it was only right that she be with her husband most of the time. She sought him with her eyes in the crowd and saw him looking up the slope to where Aunt Irene and Uncle Sam were preparing to push off. She frowned. Why would she want to sled with him? Doubtless he disapproved of this whole outing. She might as well enjoy herself with Wilfred.

  Aunt Irene shrieked and Uncle Sam bellowed.

  Mabel screamed.

  Sir Albert Hagley whooped.

  The children were at play, Eleanor thought, and she allowed Wilfred to grasp her hand a couple of minutes later, as soon as he had one of the sleds, and draw her up the hill, through the deeper snow to one side of the run. She drew in lungfuls of cool air and determinedly set herself to have fun.

  They seemed disconcertingly high up when they reached the top and she turned to look down. But it was a delight not to be missed. She sat down eagerly at the front of the sled and waited for Wilfred to seat himself, his knees on either side of her hips, his arms holding the rope on either side of her shoulders. And warm breath, and lips kissing her cheek.

  “Ellie,” he murmured, “I wish we could slide down the other side of the hill and disappear and never reappear. Don’t you?”

  But she felt only anger. No desire at all. “I want to slide down this hill,” she said, bending her face away from his.

  “He was outside the library,” Wilfred said. “Did he give you a rough time, Ellie?”

  She shrieked loudly. “Let’s go!” she yelled.

  “Come on, Ellie, Wilf.” Uncle Ben, toiling up the hill with Aunt Eunice, stopped to clap his hands and whistle.

  And then they were zooming down the hill, cold air rushing against their faces and into their eyes, and certain disaster seeming inevitable. Eleanor shrieked in real earnest and laughed helplessly when they arrived at the bottom and slid to a halt right-side up and injury-free.

  “Ellie.” Wilfred caught at her wrist as she jumped to her feet, but she pulled away and glared at him.

  “Leave me alone!” she hissed at him, surprising herself. “You did not want me when you might have had me, Wilfred. Well, now you cannot have me. And I will not do things by halves. I belong t
o Randolph”—her tongue almost tripped over the unfamiliar name—“by church and by law, and by inclination.”

  “Ah, Ellie.” He looked at her in misery. “You have been seduced by rank and property after all. I would not have expected it of you.”

  “I have been seduced by marriage,” she said. “He is my husband. Leave me alone, Wilfred.”

  And then he was grabbing her by the wrist and dragging her out of the path of a zooming sled. She came back to reality and looked about her in some horror to see if anyone had witnessed their row. She did not think anyone had unless her husband, who was turning away to look up a smaller slope, had seen. He was too far away to have heard. She pulled her arm free.

  “Lord Charles,” she called gaily to her husband’s friend as he got up from the newly arrived sled, laughing and dusting himself off, “would you care to try that again? With me?”

  SIR ALBERT HAGLEY HAD decided quite impetuously to go into the village that afternoon. And he had ridden beside the second sleigh, talking with all three ladies—though Lady Falloden was too preoccupied with looking at Randolph to hear a word he said—and admiring the one dark-haired little beauty. And feeling uneasy. He had studiously avoided her since the morning of the day before. He did not want to give anyone the impression that he was courting the girl.

  Yet in the village he would have walked with her if she had not immediately linked arms with her cousin and then somehow—he was not at all sure how it had come about—ended up walking with Jason. It seemed that she was not pursuing him either, then. A reassuring although somehow depressing thought.

  Perhaps the day spent away from her company had lowered his guard, made him less careful. However it was, he found himself walking with Rachel Transome out to the hills and chuckling over her amusing anecdotes of family skating parties and boating trips. The Transomes, it seemed, knew how to have fun. It made him think ruefully of how all was prim and proper with his mother and sisters and of how important to them was gossip about those who fell short of their standards.

  When they reached the hills, he found himself grabbing a sled, although there were only six, taking Rachel by the hand, and scrambling with her up the deep snow beside the run that the children had made that morning. And whooping and laughing with her as they sledded down the hill faster than the speed of sound—or so he swore to her, hand over heart.

  “What a bouncer!” she said, laughing merrily.

  He did not think of changing partners at every run as everyone else seemed to be doing. And he did not think of how his evening spent with her would appear. He did not wonder why she showed no inclination to leave him.

  He was just having too grand a time. Randolph’s in-laws, he concluded yet again, certainly knew how to enjoy themselves.

  Then Timothy Badcombe accused them of having more than their fair share of turns with the sleds, and he offered to fight a duel with Tim, and Tim chose the weapons—snowballs—and they pelted each other with furious energy until both of them fell full-length in the snow panting and laughing. But the sled was lost. Tim bore it and young Jane Gullis triumphantly up the hill.

  “Well,” Sir Albert said to Rachel, “I suppose that leaves us to amuse ourselves with a sedate walk. Ma’am?” he bowed and offered his arm and she smiled and took it.

  And of course their footsteps skirted the trees and then wandered among the closest ones and then led them deeper into the wood. And of course eventually their footsteps slowed and finally stopped altogether. And of course there was a tree trunk against which she might lean her back.

  He cupped her face in his hands and looked down into her eyes, lit faintly by the moonlight. “If you wish me to return you to your family, say so now,” he told her softly.

  He heard her swallow. And he lowered his head and kissed her lightly, as he had kissed her beneath the sprig of mistletoe. Her face was cold, her mouth and breath warm.

  “Mm,” he whispered. “Sweet.”

  “Are you a rake?” she whispered back.

  He drew back from her, though he still held her face in his hands. “Because I have brought you here without a chaperone?” he asked. “I mean you no harm, Rachel. Believe me. Do you want me to take you back?”

  She stared at him for a few seconds and then shook her head slightly.

  So he kissed her again. More lingeringly. More deeply. And he moved his body against hers, feeling its slight and slender curves.

  Lord. Oh, Lord! He had spent years avoiding just this sort of situation despite the efforts of his mother and sisters. But the thought barely formed in his mind. He would think of that later. Tomorrow he would avoid her again. But not tonight. Not now.

  Her arms came about his waist and all thought fled for the space of a few minutes. Or hours, perhaps.

  AUNT EUNICE WAS COLD. Yet when Uncle Ben suggested, with obvious reluctance, taking her back to the house, she would hear of no such thing. What? Leave all the fun behind? They must build a fire, then, Uncle Ben announced, and the idea caught flame long before the one they all proposed to build. Did anyone have a tinderbox? Mr. Badcombe did. And so suddenly most of the revelers, the sleds and the slopes forgotten for the moment, were rushing among the trees to collect firewood.

  Eleanor was one of them. But she went alone, ducking out of sight when she saw Wilfred looking about for her. Her husband was up on one of the lower slopes with Susan, who had been too nervous to do anything but stand at the foot of the hills for most of the evening.

  Eleanor picked up a few sticks and twigs, shaking them free of snow, stepping a little farther among the trees to find more. And then she stopped and looked about her cautiously. The sounds were low, almost imperceptible. Certainly they were not the noises of people looking for firewood.

  Rachel was standing with her back to a tree trunk, Sir Albert Hagley pressing her against it. They were in such deep embrace that they seemed quite unaware of her approach. They were both making quiet sounds of appreciation.

  Eleanor froze in her tracks for a few moments before withdrawing backward as slowly and as quietly as she could. It was only when she had put some distance between herself and them and had turned to hurry out into the open that she thought that perhaps she should have made a sound, broken them apart, accompanied Rachel back to the others.

  But Rachel! After the talk they had had just that morning. How could she? And with Sir Albert Hagley! The man who despised cits, the man who thought their only use was to be seduced if they happened to be young and female. Rachel was an innkeeper’s daughter.

  But in Rachel’s defense, of course, was the fact that Sir Albert was a practiced rake and had two more years of experience than he had had when he had tried to seduce her.

  She looked about her in panicked uncertainty. Uncle Ben? Should she tell him? Or Aunt Eunice? But there would be a terrible to-do. Everyone’s evening would be ruined. Perhaps Christmas would be ruined. Perhaps Uncle Ben would feel it necessary to leave altogether. Or perhaps Sir Albert would be asked to leave. And perhaps Rachel, not realizing from what she had been saved, would never speak to her again.

  Oh, Rachel!

  And then she saw her husband beside the fire that was being built and he was turning and smiling at her.

  “Are you going to bring them here, Eleanor?” he asked. “Or are you going to have your own fire over there?”

  She looked down at the small bundle of twigs clutched in her arms and hurried over to drop them onto the pile. She caught at his arm.

  “Please,” she said, “I must speak with you.”

  He walked away from the group with her and looked down at her searchingly. “What is it?” he asked.

  “It is Sir Albert,” she said. “He has Rachel among the trees and is kissing her.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “One can hardly blame him for taking advantage of a perfect situation,” he said. “They have favored each other since they set eyes on each other.”

  “But,” she said urgently, “he is a—a rake.”

/>   “Bertie?” he said in some surprise. “I think that is rather a strong word, Eleanor. Certainly I don’t think he is about to ravish the girl among the trees with so many of her relatives close by.”

  “But he will have no respect for her,” she said. “She is an innkeeper’s daughter.”

  His eyes turned cold. “Oh, that,” he said. “Yes, we members of the aristocracy all despise people of a lower class and waste no time ravishing their women if we have an opportunity. Or marrying them for their money, of course.”

  “Please.” She caught at his arm again. “I know what I am talking about. From personal experience.”

  He looked at her blankly and then his eyes blazed. “Has he tried anything with you?” he asked, his voice tight with fury.

  “Yes,” she said. But she tightened her hold on his arm as he looked toward the trees and took one step away from her. “No. Not now. Not since our marriage. Two years ago. We were at a party in the country together and I knew by the way he looked at me that he liked me. But then I found out that he thought I would be of easy virtue because of who I was. He tried to—to touch me, and when he knew that he could not have me, he started sneering and calling me a cit. And soon everyone was calling me that and I had to spend the whole month fighting back. Rachel was allowing him to touch her. She does not know what he is like.”

  He was looking intently at her, his jaw set, his face still showing fury. “So you were the one,” he said more to himself than to her. And then he relaxed somewhat. “He will not harm her, Eleanor,” he said. “He is my guest, as is she, and they are very close to crowds of other people. It is a stolen kiss, nothing else. But tomorrow I’ll have a word with him. I promise.”

  She felt the tension draining out of her. He was right. Of course he was. Rachel would be safe for that evening anyway. And tomorrow her husband would talk with Sir Albert, explain that Rachel was her cousin and his guest. Sir Albert would then feel honor bound to act the gentleman for the remainder of his stay at Grenfell Park. That was one thing to be said in favor of gentlemen. Honor was more important to them than almost anything else in life.