A Christmas Promise

by Mary Balogh

  “Does it take twenty people or thereabouts to light one fire?” her husband asked her, turning to glance over his shoulder.

  “It does,” she said, “when they are Transomes.”

  Her answer won a grin from him, the first she could remember him directing at her. It made him look boyish and very handsome. It made her turn slightly weak at the knees.

  “Look, Eleanor,” he said, “six abandoned sleds. Shall we take one of them?”

  “Oh, yes.” She looked up at him eagerly. She had ridden down hills with almost every man present except him. “Do let’s. The longest hill. It has been used so many times that it is marvelously slippery and dangerous.”

  “Which makes it marvelously irresistible,” he said, taking one of her hands in his and the rope of one of the sleds in the other.

  “Did you do this all the time when you were a boy?” she asked as they trudged upward.

  “Not often,” he said. “There was never anyone to slide with. It is not nearly as much fun doing this sort of thing alone.”

  “You were a lonely child,” she said, looking up at him. “I was an only child too, but never lonely because there were always cousins.”

  “And your aunts and uncles to swell the numbers of the children,” he said.

  She looked at him sharply. But he was smiling, not sneering. “And Papa,” she said. “He was always there too. Before his illness he had a great deal of energy and loved fun. You saw him only when he was close to death.”

  But mention of her father only reminded them both of facts they wished for the moment to forget. The reason for their marriage. The bitterness they had both brought to that marriage. A silence—an uncomfortable silence—fell between them as he positioned the sled at the top of the steepest run. He straightened up and looked into her eyes.

  “He always wanted what was best for me,” she said. “He thought this would be best for me. That was his only reason.”

  But his lips tightened and he still said nothing. He waited for her to seat herself at the front of the sled and then lowered himself into position behind her, his legs and arms cradling her. She leaned back against his chest and wished that she had not mentioned her father. She wished that he would do what Wilfred had done earlier and kiss her cheek. But he was arranging the rope in his hands.

  “A confession,” he said. “I have not been on this particular run yet this evening. It looks alarmingly steep, does it not?”

  She smiled. “If you wish,” she said, “I will follow you over to the smallest run. If you think you will feel safer, that is.”

  For answer he lowered one boot to the snow and pushed them off. But perhaps his response to her taunt had been a little too violent. Or perhaps it was just that the runners of numerous sleds had made the slope far slicker than it had been earlier. Or perhaps it was that she turned her head to smile right into his face. Or the fact that he had pushed off with only one foot instead of two.

  Perhaps there was no one single reason. And certainly they had no time to analyze it anyway. The sled was out of control from the first moment, swaying from side to side as he tried to hold it steady, gathering speed to a quite alarming degree, catching soft snow at an awkward angle halfway down, lifting into the air sideways, and pitching its cargo headlong into deep snow.

  Eleanor had been too frightened even to shriek. But when she landed—on top of her husband, his arms locked about her—she found that they were both laughing helplessly. Giggling might be an apter word for what she was doing, she thought, but she was powerless to stop herself or produce a more dignified sound.

  “Who wants to count arms and legs?” he asked when he could. “Do we have four of each between us?”

  “Oh, I think so,” she said breathlessly. “But I dare not count fingers and toes. You see? I told you we should be on the smallest run. It is for novices like yourself. We might have avoided disaster.” She resumed her giggling.

  “Disaster?” He had his own laughter under control. “Who said anything about disaster? I maneuvered that sled with consummate skill. Did you think I meant to take you to the bottom?”

  She lifted her head and looked down into his face. And somehow forgot to giggle. And forgot even to breathe for a moment.

  “Did you?” he whispered to her.

  “Yes.” She swallowed awkwardly.

  “I meant to have us tossed into this deliciously cool feather bed,” he said. “Quite out of sight of the fire gatherers, you see.”

  She could think of no answer to make. Not that she seemed to be called upon to say anything. His hand was at the back of her head, against her hood, and it was easier on her neck muscles to give in to its pressure and settle her mouth against his. And then she was glad she had done so. His lips were cool on hers, but his breath was warm against her cheek, and when his mouth opened over hers, it was warm too. And so was his tongue, sliding along the seam of her lips and then, when she opened her mouth, slipping inside. All the way deep inside.

  There was none of the terror or revulsion that had set her to fighting blindly on her wedding night. Only warmth, beginning at her lips and spreading through her mouth and downward through her throat and her breasts and her womb until it throbbed there where he had been with her the night before. She wanted him there now. Inside her. Warm and hard and wonderful.

  “Mmm,” she said as his tongue withdrew from her mouth and he kissed her lips, her cheeks, her eyes.

  “Mmm,” he said, kissing her mouth again, darting inside with his tongue. “It is a very cool bed, is it not?”

  He was lying full-length in the snow. She was on top of him. Even so, there was snow melting in uncomfortable places. And her feet were tingling with cold. She was lying on top of a man on an exposed hillside for all her relatives to see if they cared to step a few yards away from the fire, making an utter wanton of herself. For the moment it did not seem to matter that he was her husband. Ladies did not display open affection for their husbands.

  She scrambled to her feet and began to brush away clinging snow. And since when did she care about what ladies did? She did not care. She glanced at him as he stood up beside her, lifted his greatcoat by the capes, and shook it.

  “I’ll wager,” she said, “that you would not have maneuvered it so if you had had the fortune to marry a lady, my lord.” What stupid, petulant words, she thought as she listened to herself almost as if she were a different person from the speaker. She could hardly blame him for looking at her in surprise. “I cannot imagine you rolling in the snow with Miss Dorothea Lovestone, for example.”

  He thought for a moment. “You are right,” he said at last. “Dorothea would not even be out here. She would not so demean herself.”

  “There, you see?” she said, feeling even more childish because his tone was quite reasonable. He had not fired up at all. “She is a lady and I am not.”

  “Right,” he said. “You are quite right. Dorothea, of course, has delicate health and would perhaps not even survive a roll in the snow. Another characteristic of ladies.”

  “While I am robust and not at all given to chills,” she said.

  He looked her over unhurriedly from head to toes. “Right again,” he said, his voice maddeningly cool. She would have liked to pound her fists against his chest but would have felt foolish doing so. Where had been the provocation? All he had done was agree with her in the most amiable of manners. “But talking of chills, my feet seem to have changed places with two blocks of ice. Have yours?”

  “Why should I have cold feet,” she asked, “when I have none of the delicacy of a lady?”

  “I would not know the answer,” he said. “Let’s go down to the fire, shall we?”

  12

  IT HAD ALL STARTED, HE SUPPOSED, IN THE schoolroom when she had behaved so unconventionally and he had been neither embarrassed nor outraged, only a little envious and perhaps somewhat enchanted. And then there had been his reckless decision to have his home invaded by children and their parents on
Christmas Eve, a decision made because of the brightness of her eyes and the smiling challenge in them. And her suggestion that the concert be followed by a party, an idea that had amused him when it should have appalled him.

  That had been the start. Then, of course, there was her family—her loud, boisterous, fun-loving family, whom he would have considered unspeakably vulgar just a month before. The suggestion that they spend the evening out on the hills sledding—even the older generation—instead of engaging themselves with some genteel activity in the drawing room had shocked him at first. But then he had thought why not? Why ever not? It sounded like marvelous fun.

  And he had been able to see that his wife, despite her demure behavior at the dinner table, was bursting with eagerness to get out there herself. She was a Transome to the very core. Strange, he thought, that he had not seen it in London. Or that she had not allowed him to see it.

  Before they had left the house he had seen the spring in her step and the sparkle in her eyes that she could not hide. Out on the hills he had watched her race up slopes and shriek down slopes. Just as if she were nine years old instead of nineteen.

  He had wanted to be with her. Yet good manners—those eternal good manners that were always opposed to simple enjoyment—had kept him with his guests. He had watched the quarrel with Wilfred Ellis and had guessed at what was being said. He had hoped, at least, that he was right. And he had rather liked the fact that Ellis might well be killing her love for him by his untimely persistence.

  It was that thought that had brought into focus all that had been happening since the afternoon. Did it matter to him that her love for her cousin be killed? Whom did he want her to love? Himself? Habit at first drew a denial. But the Transomes were teaching him that habit was sometimes a dreary business.

  He wanted to be with her. That was the simple truth of the matter. More than that he did not know—yet. And so he slid down a lower slope twice with Susan until she relaxed and admitted to finding it fun, and then strolled down to the site of the fire to find his wife.

  Had their tumble into the snow been deliberate? He was not sure. But he was certain that it had been a very fortunate tumble. Very fortunate indeed. He had, he realized, been wanting to kiss her since he had not kissed her the night before. But she, of course, was not as ready for tenderness as he was beginning to believe that he was. After a brief but fiery response to his kiss she was her usual prickly self again. And on the defensive again, as she had been since he first met her. He had not realized it at first. He had thought her merely hostile.

  “Let’s go down to the fire, shall we?” he suggested.

  He set an arm about her waist and they waded downward together until they reached the more packed snow that had been worn by many feet and found the going easier. She was looking thoroughly cross, he saw when he glanced down at her. She had wanted a good quarrel and he had denied it to her. But he did not feel like quarreling. He felt like laughing. He wisely held his peace.

  “Anyway,” she said as they approached the fire, which was now burning into glorious and incautious life—no sticks or twigs had been reserved for rebuilding it as it died down. It was a typical Transome fire, he thought with the new amusement that was still amazing and delighting him. “I think this is far more fun than wilting in a stuffy drawing room trying to look fragile and delicate.”

  “Do you?” he said. He would not give her the satisfaction of saying more. He almost chuckled aloud. He set her between him and the fire and set his arms about her waist and drew her back against him. Uncle Harry and Aunt Catherine were standing thus too, as were Tom and Bessie and George and Mabel. It was all highly improper, of course. One did not touch more than the hand of a lady in public, even if she was one’s spouse.

  Uncle Ben was talking about stars.

  “You see, my theory is,” he was saying, “that it must have taken them far longer than one night to reach that stable. They came from the East, the story says. How far east? One mile? Two? Three kings living just two miles down the road?”

  “Have you ever noticed, though,” Uncle Sam asked, “that the Bible never mentions three?”

  “Well, then,” Uncle Ben said, “twelve. Twelve kings living down the road? No, take my word for it, they came from a long way off and it took them longer than the one night.”

  “When I first married Ben,” Aunt Eunice said, “I always used to wait for the inn to fill up at Christmas and then for two weary souls to come looking for a room. I used to picture exactly which stall in the stables I would put them in.”

  Uncle Ben chuckled. “You would never guess from looking at her that Eunice is a romantical soul, would you?” he said.

  “She must be, Ben,” Uncle Harry said. “I can’t think of any other reason why she would have married you.”

  There was a merry burst of laughter.

  “You walked into that one mouth first, Ben,” Uncle Sam said. “You must confess.”

  “Yes, well,” Uncle Ben said. “I was a handsome lad in my time. Anyway, back to the point here. The point is that that star must have been up there for longer than one night.”

  “And it comes back every year,” Rachel said. She was standing beside Sir Albert, their shoulders almost touching. Both of them were rather dewy-eyed, the earl thought, looking at them critically. “That is what you always used to tell me, Papa.”

  “Right you are,” he said. “It’s up there now. The Christmas star. The Bethlehem star.”

  The group was strangely quiet, considering the fact that most of them were Transomes. They all gazed upward into the blackness beyond the firelight. Blackness and starlight. As if they expected that when they looked down again it would be to see a stable and a baby in a manger and shepherds and kings approaching.

  “I think it is that one,” Mabel said. But she spoke for George’s ears only and turned her head so that he could kiss her briefly. Another highly improper gesture, the earl thought, resting his cheek against the top of his wife’s head for a moment.

  “That one,” Aunt Eunice said. “It seems strange not to be at the inn for Christmas, Ben. Do you suppose John Pritchard is looking after everything for us?”

  “The one close to the moon,” Rachel said, and Sir Albert bent his head closer so that she could point out the star that seemed to her to be the brightest in the sky.

  “That one,” the Earl of Falloden murmured into his wife’s ear. He pointed straight upward so that she had to lay her head back against his shoulder to see.

  They gazed upward together into the wonder of Christmas and he felt it for the first time—that story of his faith that he had always celebrated at church in most sober fashion every Christmas.

  “But it is right overhead,” she said. “It should not be overhead until tomorrow night, should it?”

  “Tomorrow it must be over the stable,” he said. “Tonight it can be over us so that we can feel its brightness and warmth.”

  “I thought you never enjoyed Christmas,” she said.

  “I haven’t,” he said. “But then I have never gone looking for stars before.” And never with you before. The words formed themselves in his mind, though he did not speak them aloud.

  She laughed softly. “And is one to be found merely because one is looking for it?” she asked.

  “But they are always there,” he said. “Sometimes we just forget to lift up our eyes and look at them.”

  She let her head remain on his shoulder and gazed upward with him into a vast and mysterious universe that man so often forgot about, although it was always there and was always full of mystery and vastness.

  My God, he thought, she was his wife. She belonged to him. She was his. For the first time in a long while he had someone who was his. His own family. His own to bring him comfort and companionship. His own to cherish and to love. My God! He was holding a treasure in his arms. What had her father said about treasures?

  “The Bethlehem star is whichever star you want it to be,” Uncle Ben said. �
��Whichever one leads you to peace and hope and love. Whichever one feels like the right star is the right star.”

  Uncle Sam chuckled. “He used to write poetry as a boy too,” he said.

  “Ah,” Viscount Sotherby said. “But it is a lovely notion. It makes the Christmas story seem warmer and more personal.”

  “Then that is my Bethlehem star because I choose to make it so,” the earl murmured warmly into his wife’s ear. “Yours and mine.”

  She stood still against him, looking upward, her head against his shoulder, saying nothing. It was a magical silence for a while, a silence during which he felt closer to her than he had ever felt to another person. A silence during which he could believe that they had become one because they were man and wife. A silence during which he fell all the way in love with her.

  But there was not really silence. There were voices around the fire. And there was the crackling of the flames as they died down. His attention was distracted and the magic was gone. Perhaps she stood against him because he had put her there and she was an obedient wife. Perhaps she was silent because she had nothing to say. Or nothing that could be said in the hearing of her family. Perhaps she was as distant from him, as hostile to him, as she had ever been. He felt the chill that succeeded the heat of the fire.

  “Anyway,” he said, his voice its more cold and practical self again, “it is a pleasant, fanciful thought, is it not? And what is Christmas for unless for the indulgence of fancy?” He set firm hands on her shoulders and brought her upright and moved away with some of the other men to kick snow onto the dying flames.

  “Piping hot chocolate back at the house for everyone?” he said cheerfully, raising his voice so that all could hear him. “And perhaps some brandy while it is being prepared? How does that sound?”

  It sounded wonderful. Or so the loud chorus of voices assured him. And soon they were all trudging back to the house in merry groups of people who were, as usual, all trying to talk and all trying to make themselves heard by speaking one shade louder than the next person.