“That isn’t your choice to make,” he said. “I will weigh the consequences to myself. And I have done. I am asking what you want now.”
Her cheek hollowed; she was biting it, he thought. If she was biting back even a fraction of what he felt, right now, then there was hope for him, surely.
She stood straighter. Smoothed her shawl over her shoulders. “Do you know,” she said—pausing to clear her throat before she continued—“I’m not sure my father has ever passed a Christmas here at Brisbon Hall.”
He frowned, thrown by this segue, but willing to try to follow it. “Ever? That seems unlikely.”
“Well.” She gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Perhaps when my mother was still living.”
He studied her, trying to divine the source of the melancholy that shaded her expression now. “So you must not have spent many Christmases with him.”
She glanced away, her face perfectly remote now. “His career came first. He does love me, of course; he reads my letters very carefully. He can quote them by heart, in fact. But he rarely replies—he’s so busy, when abroad.” She paused. “Still, it would mean a great deal if he managed to reply more regularly.”
“I imagine so.” He felt very uneasy now. Blind, disoriented, unable to guess where she would turn next.
“I wonder if he keeps all my letters,” she said. “I keep his, but they’re only fifty or so. Mine would be . . . why, there would be a thousand of them by now. I expect he couldn’t travel with so great a number. He must have burned them, I think.”
He wanted to take her in his arms so goddamned badly—and to keep her there, heedless of the gunfire all around them, and the beaters crying out. “He keeps them,” he lied.
She blinked. Looked at him directly. “Did you keep my letters? The ones I wrote to you in Munich?”
His jaw clenched. He had burned them in a reckless, drunken despair, and regretted it the next morning, before he’d even opened his eyes, the smell of stale smoke clogging his bedroom. “Georgie. Yours wasn’t the only heart that was shattered that winter.”
She nodded, very pale. “I don’t blame you for not keeping them. I thought about burning yours, too. But I couldn’t manage to do it.” Her smile trembled. “I worry about what that says of me. It seems I’m a person who can’t let go, even when she ought. I’m glad if you’re not like that, Lucas; it is better, healthier, to be able to let go.”
“I never let go of you,” he said fiercely. “Never, Georgiana. I will admit, I tried to do so. But I never succeeded.”
“Then there is my point.” She gazed at him steadily. “For I know you say you would give up your career for me. But you’ve wanted it far longer than you ever wanted me. You have never let go of that dream, even when the odds were against you. Perhaps, once you had lost it, you would realize your mistake. That you valued it above everything else, after all.”
He silently cursed. “You are your father’s daughter,” he said gently, “to put hearts and careers on the same plane. But I was raised by a different father, who did give up his prospects for a woman, and never regretted it. That is my model.”
The quick pull of her mouth suggested frustration. “But I would always know the price you had paid. And it would weigh on me.”
He sighed. “I’m not sure how to convince you.” God knew, if she could only see herself through his eyes . . . She was beautiful, in the pearlescent light. She stood but an arm’s reach away, framed against the broad, sweeping vista of winter-bleached fields, the parkland rolling away behind her toward the gray towers of Brisbon Hall. Close enough for him to count the long, dark lashes that framed her soft brown eyes, and to trace, with his gaze, the sharp peaks of her upper lip, her mouth the shade of roses . . .
The wind struck up, calling fresh color to her full cheeks. He touched her face very lightly, and she flinched.
The recoil sliced him almost more deeply than he could bear. “Don’t,” he whispered. He would not allow it. He leaned down to kiss her—a gentler kiss than he had managed before.
Her mouth was sweet, startled, soft. He drew away before it tempted him to forget their surroundings again.
But there was nothing else here worth his attention but her. There never had been, when she was near.
The beaters were announcing the third drive. Down the field, the other guests were preparing for the trek to the next hides. Lucas took her by the hand and drew her after him.
She threw a startled glance over her shoulder. “You’re leaving your rifle.”
“Enough with that,” he said. “Enough with your father, and the future, too. The day is ours, Georgie. Walk with me awhile.”
♦ ♦ ♦
It took no more than an hour, alone with him in the country air, for Georgie to recall all the small details of affection that misery and heartbreak had scrubbed from her mind. How she felt more at ease with him than anyone she had ever known. How fluidly and freely their conversation ranged, from books to music to foreign cuisines; from politics to the new trend for “tea-tray” bustles—quite notorious, he said, in France. And the English fad for bicycles! Lucas did not know how to ride one. “But I do admire modern technology,” he said as he helped her over a stile, “always inventing new ways for bones to be broken. Perhaps I’ll give it a whirl sometime.”
“Oh, it’s grand fun,” Georgie said, “and not nearly as dangerous as a horse. I’ll be glad to teach you.”
Only a fraction of a moment passed before he smiled at her, but it was enough to call her attention to the slip of her tongue—her unthinking mention of a future they would share together.
He put her at ease, then, sensing, no doubt, her inward turmoil. As they walked down the rutted country lane, he pointed out a rogue bluebird that showed an obsessive, nearly amorous interest in a nearby buckthorn bush. Lending the bluebird a gruff, husky voice, he mimed its ardent words of affection to the scruffy-looking plant.
And she, recalling how he had always made her laugh over even the smallest things, entered the game again as easily as though it had never been interrupted by two years of grieving. She pitched her voice high, imitating the plant’s flustered protests, its shrill defense of its virtue. Amidst their laughter, they forgot entirely the shoot occurring a quarter mile behind them; when shots rang out, they both jumped, then fell back together, laughing harder yet.
Two hours later, it felt odd, an imposition, to rejoin the others at Brisbon Hall. In the morning room, Georgie felt unable to do more than smile by rote as the party recounted their triumphs. Sobieski and Obolensky’s friendship seemed to have flourished; they teased each other by congratulating each other’s wives on outshooting them. She felt acutely aware of Lucas, smiling so easily at the men’s bluster, making a charming remark to pull the von Bittners into the repartee. But she kept her eyes elsewhere, knowing that if she looked at him now, everyone would read her face like a book.
Happily, it was the privilege of the hostess to excuse herself to check on the evening’s preparations.
Downstairs, she found the kitchens in a state of organized chaos—Dorking fowl and Norfolk turkeys being plucked and dressed for roasting; goose pies and currant cakes cooling on the broad table, side by side with gingerbread and cheesecake. On the range, wassail bubbled. Pansy, one of the kitchen maids, came rushing up with the Yule log, delivered from the village not five minutes ago. “Waited long enough!” she said. “I thought we’d have to make do with Christmas candles!”
“Oh,” Georgie said, startled and pleased by this idea. “Do bring those to the drawing room too, won’t you?”
“You’ll burn the place down,” Cook warned. “They’ve already added candles to that . . . shrub.”
Cook looked with great suspicion on the Christmas tree; she considered it the first wave of an all-out German invasion.
“Gladys and I had a look through the baggage,” Cook added. “Found nothing, I’m sorry to say.”
Georgie’s spirits faltered. On a deep breath, she
pushed through her disappointment, clinging instead to the magic of the morning. “Thank you,” she managed. “And—yes, I want the entire room to glow tonight. As many candles as possible. You can hide buckets of sand in the corners, if it eases your mind.”
“Don’t think I won’t,” Cook grumbled, but she could not quite catch her smile as she waved Georgie off. “It’s well in hand here, miss. And you look as though you’ve got better places to be.” She lifted a suggestive brow. “With a certain gentleman, maybe?”
Georgie shook her head, smiling, and slipped back into the service passage.
But once on the stairs, she found herself touching her mouth, simply to feel the shape of this silly smile. She fooled nobody.
Some movement drew her attention toward the wall. Startled, she stepped closer to look at her reflection in the mirror. Why, if this was what everyone saw, she did not mind it. She looked . . . pretty. Remarkably so. Rosy and merry and full of life.
She would never be a famous beauty. But if this face forever looked back at her from every mirror she passed, she would never feel inadequate to any circumstance.
But she had looked so once before. And that happiness had melted away like a dream upon waking.
She watched her smile fade. Here, now, was how she would look if Lucas lost his own joy—as he surely would, if her father destroyed his career in punishment for his marrying her.
She forced that thought away as she continued up the stairs. She would not think on that today. Today was her Christmas gift to herself: a carefree celebration, in keeping with the season.
As she stepped out into the hallway, she caught sight of Lucas in conversation with Mr. Sobieski. As easily as that, her smile came back. Eagerly, she went forward to meet them.
Chapter Nine
“Ladies and gentlemen!” Countess Obolenskaya waved for attention. “Miss Trent has just told me of a very lovely tradition among the English. Who wishes to walk to the stables with me?”
Georgie shared a sideways smile with Lucas. They had been warming elder wine in a saucepan over the fire, Lucas’s hand over hers holding the pan steady above the flames—a very respectable touch, to which nobody could object.
The rest of the group lounged in voluptuous abandon, glasses of wine and wassail dangling from their hands. It was half eleven: stockings had been hung amidst giggles, carols had been sung, and the remaining chestnuts roasted, but the Yule log still blazed, promising another hour or two of warmth. Nobody felt particularly inclined to venture into the cold.
But as the countess’s face fell, Georgie bestirred herself to encourage the crowd. “No Christmas Eve is complete without going to see if the oxen kneel,” she said. “Not in England, at any rate. And you are all honorary Englishmen, this Christmas.”
“What is this?” asked Mr. Sobieski, sitting forward with a frown. “You talk of the livestock?”
“The oxen,” the countess said. “They are said to kneel at midnight, as they did the night that Christ was born, to warm the babe with their breath.”
Mr. Sobieski snorted. “Shall we take a wager on it? I’ll stand against, for fifty pounds.”
“I will take that wager,” Georgie said.
“He’ll hold you to that,” Lucas murmured in her ear as Sobieski bounced to his feet.
“I hope so,” she murmured back.
He gave her a mystified look, then helped her to rise. Meanwhile, the countess was reasoning with her husband, who proclaimed himself content to wait inside for their return.
“Oh, leave him be,” said Mr. Sobieski. “Spoilsports are not welcomed.”
“Oh, no,” the count muttered. “I’ll not be held to that account.” He heaved himself up.
Thus did the entire party find themselves bundled against the chill, picking their way through a clear, starry night to the stables. By prearrangement, the stable master, Mr. Handy, was waiting; at their appearance, he smiled and hauled open the double doors.
As the group stepped inside, they loosed a chorus of delighted exclamations. The stable had been trimmed in evergreens and wreaths of rosemary, the scent of which mingled pleasantly with sweet dried hay. Moonlight streamed through the cracks in the wooden slats, illuminating motes of dust that shimmered like stars. A horse put his head out of his box stall, whickering curiously.
“This way,” Mr. Handy said. He led them down the aisle, floorboards creaking underfoot, to the pen at the end of the stable.
There waited a handsome Brown Swiss ox, with a wreath of silver tinsel twined about his neck, and two fat red bows tied to his horns.
Lucas laughed. “When did you plan this?”
“Me?” Georgie offered an innocent smile. “If it was not on the program of events, then I had nothing to do with it. It must be a Christmas miracle.”
“We’re drawing close to midnight now,” Mr. Handy said. “Gather round, to see if this ox is a Christian!”
The diplomats crushed in, the countess leaning over the rail to pet the creature’s nose before her husband grew nervous and pulled her back. Georgie and Lucas were pushed to the edge of the group; after a moment, she seized Lucas’s elbow and pulled him away. “We’ll have a better view from the hayloft,” she said, and rucked up her skirts before mounting the ladder.
At the top, she turned back to find him still planted on the ground, gaping up at her. “Aren’t you coming?”
“I was hoping you might come back down,” he said, “and climb for me again.”
The giggle that escaped her felt girlish and silly and drunken, though she’d refrained from more than a sip of the elder wine. “Come,” she said, stretching out her hand to beckon him. “Hurry. Mr. Handy will only do this once—he’s his own family waiting for him in Swanhaven.”
He made quick work of the ladder. The moonlight through the small window showed his delighted smile as he looked around the loft, wide enough for four men, which usually held winter hay. “You planned this, too,” he murmured, touching the blanket she’d spread across the scattered remnants of straw.
“I come here to read sometimes.” As a girl, she had spent long hours dreaming in this hayloft. “Come, look!”
He followed her outstretched finger. Gasps rose from the diplomats. At a hidden signal from Mr. Handy, the ox had begun to kneel.
In the distance came the sound of the church bells in the village. The cascading silver-toned carol, a peal of jubilation, sent goose bumps chasing over her skin.
“Merry Christmas,” Mr. Handy called, grinning.
The countess and Mrs. Sobieska burst into applause. Mr. Sobieski put his hands on his hips and turned around, casting a scowling look down the aisle.
Georgie yanked Lucas back, out of view.
“Fifty pounds the poorer,” came Obolensky’s taunt.
“This was a con,” Sobieski complained. “That ox was trained!”
“Ha! Who’s the spoilsport now?”
“Shall you go collect?” Lucas asked, amused. She shook her head and put a finger to her lips. Smiling, he sat back; they waited in silence as the diplomats and Mr. Handy walked out of the stable.
The doors groaned as Mr. Handy shut them. Below, the streamers of dust sank back into darkness, and a horse released a snorting sigh.
Lucas’s hand cupped her cheek, the lightest touch. “Merry Christmas to you,” he whispered.
She waited, breathless, for him to kiss her. But as her eyes adjusted, she saw from his expression that he had no intention of doing so. He was studying her with odd gravity—focused, it seemed, on his thumb stroking over her cheekbone. His thumb dipped lower; he watched himself trace the outline of her lips.
Her mouth went dry. “May I ask for a gift from you?”
His gaze lifted to hers. “Name it.”
“Lie with me here.”
His smile faded. She swallowed, knowing how brazen she must seem. But here, now, was the only chance they might have. And she would not let her father take this from her, too.
Perhaps he d
ivined her thoughts, for his hand slipped away. “I will leave with the others tomorrow,” he said quietly, “only because I must. It would look odd for me to stay. But I am not leaving you, Georgie. I hope you haven’t told yourself so.”
He was going to argue. He was going to be honorable. She loved his honor. But had he possessed a shade less of it, he might have voiced his feelings to her in Munich, instead of asking her father’s permission first.
Heaven knew she would have welcomed his words. That autumn in Munich—parties filled with candlelit nooks, lovers always embracing just out of sight—had made her grow so impatient. Fevered, desperate, longing for him to touch her. Had he declared himself to her, she would not have waited longer. She would have touched him.
They would have been inseparable then. Her father’s trick would never have worked. They would not have doubted each other.
She was a quick learner. She never repeated a mistake twice.
“I imagined bringing you here on our honeymoon,” she said. “I spent. . . a thousand afternoons hiding here, as a girl, reading romances and dreaming of the man I would marry. And I thought . . . how fitting it would be, to bring him here. To . . . have him here.”
Her face was flaming now. She had never imagined she could be so bold.
“Georgie,” he said, his voice strained. “That is . . .” He exhaled. “The most marvelous, extraordinary . . . damnable invitation. If we could but table it for a week—long enough to—”
“No.” She leaned into the starlight to show him her face more clearly. “Lucas. Two years, I’ve waited. Will you keep me waiting longer? Or will you give me my gift?”
His inward battle played over his face—nostrils flaring, jaw tensing as he glanced toward the stable doors.
She reached for him. He caught her hand; pressed a hot kiss to her palm. “You will marry me,” he said hoarsely.
“This is our honeymoon,” she whispered. “You are mine.”
Some sound came from him. Too sharp and low to be a sigh. And then his mouth was on hers; he was kissing her desperately as his arms came around her, as he laid her gently down on the blanket.
What Happens Under the Mistletoe Page 33