by Mary Balogh
The bed was soaked. Fortunately Mrs. Palmer had given them a pile of old rags and told them to spread some over the sheets. There was something about waters breaking, she had mumbled before scurrying away about some real or imagined chore. Pamela and Lady Birkin stripped away the wet rags and replaced them with dry ones. But Lisa was in severe distress. She was panting loudly and threshing about on the bed. Her moans were threatening to turn into screams. "Hot water," Lady Birkin said, trying to keep her voice calm. " have heard that hot water is needed." "Lisa." Pamela had a cool cloth to the girl's brow. "What may we do for you? How may we help?" But there was a feeling of dreadful helplessness, an almost overpowering urge to become hysterical or simply to rush from the room. And then the door opened. Both Lady Birkin and Pamela looked in some surprise at the Marquess of Lytton, who stood in the doorway, his face pale. Perhaps they would have felt consternation, too, if they had not been feeling so frightened and helpless. "I think I can help," he surprised them both by saying. And he grimaced and turned even paler as Lisa began to moan and thresh again. He strode over to the bed. "I think she should be pushing," he said. "The pain will subside soon, will it not? Next time we must have her in position and she must push down. Perhaps the two of you can help her by lifting her shoulders as she pushes." The two ladies merely stared at him. Lisa screamed. "The Peninsula," he said. "I was a cavalry officer. There was a peasant woman. There was a surgeon, too, but he had just been shot through the right hand. He instructed a private soldier and me. The private held her and I delivered." Lisa was quiet again, and the marquess turned grimly back to the bed. "Raise your knees," he told her, "and brace your feet wide apart on the bed. The next time the pain comes, I want you to bear down against it with all your strength. This little fellow wants to come out. Do you understand me?" Through the fog of weakness and pain, the girl seemed to turn instinctively to the note of authority and assurance in his voice. She looked up at him and nodded, positioning herself according to his instructions. T And then the fright came back into her eyes and she began to pant again. "Now!" he commanded, and he pushed his hands forward against her knees through the sheet that still covered her to the waist while Lady Birkin and Pamela, one on each side of her, lifted her shoulders from the bed and pushed forward. Lisa drew a giant breath and bore down with all her might, pausing only to gasp in more air before the pain subsided again. "Send down for hot water," Lord Lytton said while Lisa relaxed for a few moments. "Go and give the instruction yourself, Pamela, but come right back. Someone else can bring it. But wait a moment. She needs us again." He was going to forget something, he thought as he pushed upward on the girl's knees. He would forget something and either she or the child was going to bleed to death. Or there was going to be a complication as there had not been with the Spanish peasant girl. This girl was already weak from a long and hard labor. Soon perhaps after the next contraction he was going to have to take a look and pray fervently that it was the child's head he would see. He could recall the surgeon's talking about breech births, though he had given no details. And then between contractions, as he was about to draw the sheet back, there was a quiet voice from the doorway. It almost did not register on his mind, but he looked over his shoulder. He had not mistaken. The quiet gentleman was standing there. "I am a physician," he repeated. "I will be happy to deliver the child and tend the mother." Anger was the Marquess of Lytton's first reaction. "You are a physician," he said. "Why the hell have you waited this long to admit the fact? Do you realize what terrors your silence has caused Lady Birkin and Miss Wilder in the course of the day?" "And you, too, my lord?" The quiet gentleman was smiling. He had strolled into the room and taken one of Lisa's limp hands in his. He spoke very gently. "It will soon be over, my dear, I promise. Then the joy you will have in your child will make you forget all this." She looked calmly back at him. There was even a suggestion of a smile in her eyes. But the marquess was not mollified. Relief overwhelming, knee-weakening relief was whipping his anger into fury. "What the hell do you mean," he said, "putting us through all this?" He remembered too late the presence in the room of three women, two of them gently born. The quiet gentleman smiled and touched a cool hand to Lisa's brow as she began to gasp again. "How could I spoil a Christmas that had promised to be so dismal for everyone?" he asked, and he moved to draw the sheet down over the girl's knees. "The blood will probably return to your head faster, my lord, if you remove yourself. The ladies will assist me. Have some hot water brought up to us if you will be so good." Lord Lytton removed himself, frowning over the physician's strange answer to his question. Lady Birkin and Pamela, moving back to their posts, puzzled over it, too. What had he meant? Christmas might have been dismal but was not? Because of what was happening? "Set an arm each about her back to support her as you lift her," the quiet gentleman said. "Your labors too will soon be at an end, ladies, and you will experience all the wonder of being present at a birth. Ah. I can see the head, my dear. With plenty of dark hair." "Ohhh!" Lisa was almost crying with excitement and exhaustion and pain. But all sense of panic had gone from the room. Both Lady Birkin and Pamela were aware of that as the physician went quietly and efficiently about his work and Lisa responded to his gentleness. Her son was born, large and healthy and perfect and crying lustily early in the evening. They were all crying, in fact. All except the doctor, who smiled sweetly at each of them in turn and made them feel as if it were not at all the most foolish thing in the world to cry just because one more mouth to be fed had been born into it. Lisa was exhausted and could scarcely raise her arms to Tom when he came into the room several minutes later, wide-eyed and awed, while Lady Birkin was washing the baby and Pamela was disposing of bloodstained rags. Lisa accepted the baby from Lady Birkin and looked up with shining eyes into Tom's face while he reached out one trembling finger to touch his son. But she had no energy left. "I'll take him," Lady Birkin said, "while you get some sleep, Lisa. You have earned it." "Thank you, mum." Lisa looked up at her wearily. "I'll always remember you, mum, and the other lady." Her eyes found Pamela and smiled. "Thank you, miss." And so Lady Birkin found herself holding the child and feeling a welling of happiness and tenderness and. . . and longing. Ah, how wonderful, she thought. How very wonderful. She acted from instinct. She must find. Henry. She must show him. Oh, if only the child were hers. Theirs. Word had spread. Everyone was hovering in the hallway outside Lisa's room. The birth of a little bastard baby was the focus of attention on this Christmas Eve. The ladies oohed and aahed at the mere sight of the bright stripes of the shawl in which it was wrapped. But Lady Birkin had eyes for no one except her husband, standing at the top of the stairs close to the Marquess of Lytton and gazing anxiously at her. "Henry," she said. "Oh, look at him. Have you ever seen anything so perfect?" She could hear herself laughing and yet his face had blurred before her vision. "Look at him, Henry." He looked and smiled back up at her. "Sally," he whispered. "He weighs nothing at all," she said. "How could any human being be so small and so light and so perfect and still live and breathe? What a miracle life is. Hold him, Henry." She gave him no choice. She laid the bundle in his arms and watched the fear in his eyes soften to wonder as he smiled down at the baby. The child was not quite sleeping. He was looking quietly about him with unfocused eyes. Lord Birkin smiled. What would it be like, he wondered, to look down like this at his own child? To have the baby placed in his arms by its mother? By his wife? "Sally," he said, "you must be so tired." She was pale and disheveled. He had a sudden image of how she should be looking now, early in the evening of Christmas Eve, immaculate and fashionable and sparkling with jewels and excitement and ready to mingle with their friends far into the night. And yet he saw happiness now in her tired eyes and breathtaking beauty. The ladies wanted to hold the baby. And so he was passed from one to another, quiet and unprotesting. He was cooed over and clucked over and even sung to, by Miss Amelia Horn. The occasion had made even the Palmers magnanimous. "Well," Mr. Palmer said, rubbing his hands together and looking not unplease
d. "I never did in all my born days." "I mean to tell Mr. Suffield," Mrs. Palmer said in a voice loud enough for all to hear, "that we are not even going to charge 'im for the room." No one saw fit to comment on this outpouring of incredible generosity. The Marquess of Lytton reached out both hands to Pamela when she came from the room. She set her own in them without thought and smiled at him. "Have you seen him?" she asked. "Is he not the most beautiful child you have ever set eyes on?" "I'm sorry," he said to her, squeezing her hands until they hurt. "I ripped up at the physician for keeping quiet so long, and yet that is exactly what I had been doing all day. You and Lady Birkin were wonderfully brave. I am sorry my own cowardice made me hide a fact that might have made your day less anxious. "I don't think," she said, gazing up into his eyes, her own filling with sudden tears, "that I would change one detail of this day even if I could. How glad I am that it rained!" His eyes searched hers. "And so am I," he said, raising both hands to his lips and continuing to regard her over them. "More glad than I have been of anything else in my life." "Anyway," Colonel Forbes's voice was declaring gruffly over the babble of voices in the hallway; it seemed that Mrs. Forbes had been trying to force him to hold the baby. "Anyway, this was a damned inconvenient thing to happen. What would have been the outcome if one of our number had not turned out to be a doctor, eh? Whoever heard of any woman having a baby at Christmas?" The babble of voices stopped entirely. The Marquess of Lytton's eyes smiled slowly into Pamela's. "Good Lord," he said, and everyone kept quiet to listen to his words, "a crowd of marvelous Christians we all are. Did any of us realize before this moment, I wonder? We have, in fact, been presented with the perfect Christmas, have we not? Almost a reenactment of the original." "'How could I spoil a Christmas that had promised to be so dismal for everyone?' " Pamela said quietly. "I think someone realized, my lord." "The child was very nearly born in a stable," Lady Birkin said. "It is uncanny enough to send shivers up one's spine," Miss Eugenia Horn said. "I hope you have not caught a chill from the damp sheets, Eugenia," Miss Amelia Horn said. "I wonder," Lord Birkin said, "if above the heavy rain clouds a star is shining brightly." "Fanciful nonsense," Colonel Forbes said. "I am ready for my dinner. When will it be ready, landlord, eh? Don't just stand there, man. I would like to eat before midnight if it is all the same to you, of course." Lady Birkin took the baby from Mrs. Forbes's arms. "I'll take him back to his mother," she said, tenderness and wistfulness mingled in her voice. "Back to his manger," Lord Birkin said, laughing softly. * * * "Well, anyway," Mrs. Palmer said to the gathered company as she cleared away the plates after dinner, "we didn't keep 'em in the stable like them innkeepers did in the Bible. We gave 'em one of our best rooms and aren't charging 'em for it neither." "For which deeds you will surely find a place awaiting you in heaven," the Marquess of Lytton said. "And yet it give me quite a turn it did when the colonel said what 'e did and we all thought of that other babe what was born at Christmas," Mr. Palmer said. He was standing in the doorway of the dining room, busy about nothing in particular. "I was all over shivers for a minute." "I am sure in Bethlehem there was not all this infernal rain," Colonel Forbes commented. "The kings would have arrived in horribly soggy robes and dripping crowns," the marquess said. "And the heavenly host would have had drooping wings." "I am quite sure their wings were more sturdy than to be weakened by rain, my lord," Miss Amelia Horn said. "They were angels after all." Mrs. Forbes nodded her agreement. "I think it would be altogether fitting to the occasion," Miss Eugenia Horn said, "if we read the Bible story together this evening." "And perhaps sang some carols afterward," Lady Birkin said. "Does everyone feel Christmas as strongly as I do tonight despite all the usual trappings being absent?" There were murmurings of assent. Mrs. Forbes nodded. The quiet gentleman smiled. "Does anyone have a Bible?" Lord Birkin asked. There was a lengthy pause. No one, it seemed, was in the habit of traveling about with a Bible in a trunk. "I do," the quiet gentleman said at last, and he got to his feet to fetch it from his room. And so they all spent a further hour in the dining room, far away from friends and families and parties, far from any church, far away from Christmas as any of them had ever known it. There were no decorations, no fruit cake or mince pies, no cider or punch or wassail. Nothing except a plain and shabby inn and the company of strangers become acquaintances. Nothing except a newborn baby and his mother asleep upstairs, cozy and warm because they had been taken from the stable and given a room and showered with care and with gifts. The quiet gentleman himself read the story of the birth of another baby in Bethlehem, and they all listened to words they had heard so many times before that the wonder of it all had ceased to mean a great deal. They listened with a new understanding, with a new recognition of the joy of birth. Even the one man who rarely entered a church, Lord Lytton, was touched by the story and realized that perhaps Christmas had not been meant to be an orgy of personal gratification. Singing that might have been self-conscious since there was no instrument to provide accompaniment was, in fact, not self-conscious at all. Lady Birkin, Pamela Wilder, Colonel Forbes and, surprisingly, Miss Amelia Horn, all had good voices and could hold a tune. Everyone else joined in lustily, even the tone-deaf Mrs. Forbes. Lord Birkin left the room after a while. He found Tom Suffield in the kitchen, where he had been eating with the guests' coachmen. Lisa and the baby were asleep, Tom explained, scrambling to his feet, and he I did not want to disturb them. Lord Birkin took Tom through into the taproom. "I don't know what you are good at, Tom," he said. "I can't offer much in the way of employment, I'm afraid, but I can send you to my estate in Kent and instruct my housekeeper to find you work in the stables or in the gardens. I doubt there will be an empty cottage, but we will find somewhere where you and Lisa can stay for a while at least." Tom shifted his weight awkwardly from one foot to the other. "That be awf'ly good of ye, sir," he said, "but Mr. Cornwallis needs a cook and a handyman and have offered the jobs to me and Lisa." "Mr. Cornwallis?" Lord Birkin raised his eyebrows. "The doctor, sir," Tom said. "Ah." It was strange, Lord Birkin thought, that even though they had all introduced themselves the evening before, he had thought of Mr. Cornwallis ever since only as the quiet gentleman. "I am glad, Tom. I hated to think of your taking Lisa and your baby to one of the industrial towns with no job waiting for you there." "Aye, sir," Tom said. "Everyone is right kind. Thanks again for the money, sir. We will buy new clothes for the baby with it." Lord Birkin nodded and returned to the dining room. The Marquess of Lytton found Tom just ten minutes later. "Having a woman and child and no home or employment is a burdensome situation to find yourself in, Tom," he said. "Aye, that it is, sir," Tom said. "But I feels like a wealthy man, sir, with all the gifts. And with your gold ring, sir. And a home and a job from Mr. Cornwallis." He told his tale again. "Ah," the marquess said. "I am glad to hear it, Tom. I was prepared to give you a letter of introduction to a friend of mine, but now I see you will not need it. I would like to give you a small sum of money, though. Call it a Christmas gift to you personally if you will. It is the price of a license. You must marry her, Tom. Such things are important to women, you know. And you would not wish to hear anyone calling your son a bastard." "Bless you, sir," Tom said, flushing, "but Mr. Cornwallis is to marry us, sir, as soon as we gets to his home." "The physician?" The marquess raised his eyebrows. "He's a clergyman, sir," Tom said. "Ah." The marquess nodded pleasantly to him and returned to the dining room. The quiet gentleman, he thought, was becoming more intriguing by the moment. Was he a physician or a clergyman? Or both? Or neither? Lord Lytton seated himself beside the quiet gentleman and spoke to him while everyone else was singing. "You are a clergyman, sir?" he asked. The quiet gentleman smiled. "I am, my lord," he said. "And a physician, too?" The marquess frowned. "It is possible to be both," the quiet gentleman said. "I am a clergyman, but not of a large and fashionable parish, you see. My time is not taken up by the sometimes tedious and meaningless duties I would have if I belonged to a large parish, and certainly not by the social commitments I would have if I had a wealthy patr
on. I am fortunate. My time is free to be devoted to the service of others. I am not distracted by the trappings of the established faith." He chuckled. "I have learned to deliver babies. It is the greatest delight and the greatest privilege a man could experience. You discovered that once upon a time, I believe." "And the greatest terror," the marquess said fervently. "I dreaded facing it again today. There was the terror of becoming the instrument of death rather than of life." "Ah," the quiet gentleman said, "but we must learn to accept our limitations as part of the human condition. It is Our Lord who controls life and death." The marquess was quiet for a while. "Yes," he said. "We are all of us too busy, aren't we? Especially at Christmastime. Too busy enjoying ourselves and surrounding ourselves with the perfect atmosphere to remember what it is all about. This unexpected rainstorm has forced us to remember. And you have helped too, sir, by sitting back and allowing us to face all the terror of imminent birth." "Without suffering there can never be the fullness of joy," the quiet gentleman said. The Misses Horn were rising to retire for the night, and everyone else followed suit. But they did not part to go to their separate rooms without a great deal of handshaking and hugging first. "Happy Christmas," they each said a dozen times to one another. But the words were not the automatic greeting they had all uttered during all their previous Christmases, but heartfelt wishes for one another's joy. Suddenly this Christmas this dull, rainy disaster of a Christmas seemed very happy indeed. Perhaps the happiest any of them had ever known. And so Christmas Eve drew to an end. A baby had been born. It was a little different when they were alone together in their room. Some of the magic went from the evening. It was all right for her, Lady Birkin thought. She had been busy all day and directly involved in the wonder of the baby's birth. Men were not so concerned about such matters. It must have been a dreadfully dull day for him. "Henry," she said, looking at him apologetically, as if everything were her fault, "I am so sorry that this is such a dull Christmas for you." "Dull?" He looked at her intently and took a step toward her so that he was very close. "I don't think I have ever celebrated Christmas until this year, Sally. I am very proud of you, you know." Her eyes widened. "You are?" Lie so rarely paid her compliments. "You worked tirelessly all day to help that girl," he said. "You and Miss Wilder. I don't know how Lisa would have managed without you. "But there was a physician in the house, after all," she said. "What we did was nothing." He framed her face with his hands. "What you did was everything," he said. "The doctor gave his skills. You gave yourself, Sally, despite being frightened and inexperienced." "Oh," she said. She felt like crying. She had tried so hard to impress him since their marriage, dressing to please him, talking and smiling to please him. And losing him with every day that passed. And yet now he was looking at her with unmistakable admiration and. . . love? "Henry," she said, and on impulse she put her arms up about his neck. "What is it about this Christmas? It is not just me, is it? Everyone has been feeling it. You too? What is so wonderful about it? This inn is not the inn, after all, and the baby is not Jesus, not even born in the stable." He slipped his hands to her waist. "We have all seen to the core of Christmas this year," he said. "We are very fortunate, Sally. We might so easily have never had the chance. We have no gifts for each other. They are somewhere with our baggage coach. And this it has provided us with nothing that is usually associate with the season. We had all come to believe that Chris mas could not possibly be celebrated without those things. But this year we have been forced to see the Christmas is about birth and life and love and giving of whatever one has to give, even if it is only one's time and compassion." She should not say it, she thought. She might spoil everything. They never said such things to each other There seemed to be a great embarrassment between them where personal matters were concerned. But she was going to say it. She was going to take a chance. That was what the whole day seemed to have been about. "Henry," she said. She was whispering, she found. "I love you so very much." He gazed into her eyes, a look of hunger in his own. He drew breath but seemed to change his mind. Instead of speaking he lowered his head and kissed her an openmouthed kiss of raw need that drew an instant response of surprise and desire. She tightened her arms and arched herself to him. There was shock for a moment as she felt his hands working at the buttons down the back of her dress, and then a surge of happiness. "I always have," she said against his mouth. "Since the first moment I saw you. I have always worshiped you." She gasped when he lowered her bodice and her chemise to her waist, and her naked breasts came back against his coat. And then his hands were on them, cupping them and stroking them, and his thumbs and forefingers were squeezing her nipples, rolling them lightly until she felt such a sharp stab of desire that she moaned into his mouth. "Henry," she begged him, her eyes tightly closed, her mouth still against his, "make love to me. I have always wanted you to make love to me. Please, for this special day. Make love to me. She would die, she thought if he merely coupled with her as he had the night before and all those other nights since their marriage. She should not have said what she just had. She should not have given in to the temptation to hope. She should not have begged for what he had never freely given. But she was on the bed before she could get her thoughts straight, before she could feel shame for her wanton words. She was flat on her back, and he was stripping away her clothes from the waist down, looking at her from eyes heavy with desire as he straightened up and began to remove his own clothes. She was surprised to find that she felt no embarrassment though the candles burned and those passion-heavy eyes were devouring her nakedness. She lifted her arms to him. She had asked for it, begged for it, wanted it. He would not feel guilt. This was not the way a gentleman used his wife, but they both wanted it. They both needed it. He resisted the urge to douse the candles so that she would be saved from embarrassment. And as he joined her naked on the bed, he rejected the idea of somehow restraining his passion. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. For this one occasion, she had said. So be it, then. He worked on her mouth with his lips and his tongue and on her breasts with his hands and his fingers. She fenced his tongue with her own and sucked on it. She pushed her breasts up against his hands and gasped when he pinched her nipples, hardening them before rubbing his palms lightly over them. Her own hands explored his back and his shoulders. She wanted him. He felt a fierce exultation. She wanted him. This was not a mistress. This was his wife. This was Sally. And she wanted him. He moved one hand down to caress her and ready her for penetration. She was hot and wet to his touch, something she had never been before. His temperature soared and his arousal became almost painful. "Please," she was moaning into his mouth. "Please. Henry, please." And so he moved on top of her, felt her legs twine tightly about his, lifted his head to look down into her face her eyes were wide open and gazing back and mounted her, sliding deeply into wet heat. God. Oh, my God. Sally. "Love me," she whispered to him. "Oh, please, Henry. There is such an ache." She was going to come to him, he thought, the realization hammering through his temples with the blood. She was going to climax. He had heard that it was possible with some women. "Tell me when." He lowered himself on his elbows until his mouth was an inch from hers and he began to move slowly and deeply in her. "I'll wait as long as you need." But she did not have to tell him. He felt the gradual clenching of her inner muscles, the building tension of her whole body. He heard her deep breaths gradually turn to gasps. And he watched the concentration in her face as her eyes closed and her mouth opened in the agony of the final moments before she looked up at him, stillness and wonder in her eyes, and began to tremble. He lowered himself onto her, held her tightly, held himself still and deep in her, and let himself experience the marvel of his woman shuddering into release beneath him and crying out his name. Only when he was sure that she had experienced the full joy of the moment did he move again to his own climax. It was the most wonderful night of her life. She did not care if it was never repeated. She had this to hug to herself in memory for the rest of her days, the most wonderful Christmas that anyon
e could hope to have. She was nestled in his arms, watching him sleep. After more than three years of marriage she felt like a new bride. She felt . . . oh, she felt wonderful. And she would be satisfied, she swore to herself. She would not demand the moon and the stars. She had the Christmas star, the brightest and best of them all. She would be satisfied with that. Things could never be quite as bad between them now that they had had this night or this part of a night. He had opened his eyes and was looking at her. She smiled. Don't remove your arm, she begged him with her eyes. Let's lie like this, just for tonight. "You said it," he said. "It seemed to come so easily, though I know it did not. You have not been able to say it in three years, have you? Why have we found it so hard? Why is it so difficult to talk from the heart with those closest to us?" "Because with them there is most fear of rejection?" she said. "Because we have to protect our hearts from those who have the power to break them every day for the rest of our lives?" "I do not have your courage," he said, one hand stroking lightly over her cheek. "I still don't. Sally, my love . . . Ah, just that. My love. Did I hurt you? Did I disgust you?" "Say it again," she said, smiling at him. "Again and again. And do it again and again. I want to be as close to you as I can be, Henry. Close to your body, close to your heart, close to your mind. Not just for tonight. I am greedy." "My love." He drew her closer to him, set his lips against hers. "It is what I have always wanted, what I have always yearned for. But I have wanted to treat you with respect. Foolish, wasn't I?" "To think that being respectful meant holding me at arm's length?" she said. "And giving much of what I have longed for to mistresses? Have I made you flush? Did you think I did not know? Yes, you have been foolish, Henry. And I have been foolish not to fight for your love and not to put you straight on this ridiculous notion that gentlemen seem to have about women. "Would this be happening if we had reached the Middletons' before the rain came?" he asked her. "No," she said. "No, it would not. Perhaps it never would have happened. We would have kept drifting until perhaps we would have lived apart. Henry . . There was pain in her voice. He rubbed his lips against hers and drew back his head to smile at her. "But it did happen," he said. "Christmas happened almost two thousand years ago, and it has happened this year for us. Love always seems to blossom at the most unexpected times and in the most unexpected places. This was meant to happen, Sally. We must not shudder at the thought of how nearly it did not happen. It was meant to be." "Do you think we will ever have a child?" she asked him wistfully, snuggling closer to the warmth and safety of him. "I wanted so much today for that baby to be mine, Henry. Ours. Do you think we ever will?" "If we don't," he said, and he chuckled as he drew her closer still, "it won't be for lack of trying." "Oh," she said. "Shall we try now?" he said to her. "And perhaps again later?" "And again later still?" she asked. He laughed. "After all," he said, "dawn comes late in December. And there does not seem to be a great deal to get up early for at this apology for an inn, does there? Especially not on Christmas morning." "Christmas morning is for babies," she said. "The making of them as well as the birthing of them," he said, turning her onto her back and moving over her. She smiled up at him. "Sally," he said, serious again as he lowered his mouth and his body to hers, "my most wonderful Christmas gift. I love you. It did not seem quite the same once everyone had gone to bed and he was left alone in the taproom. Even though he built up the fire and sat on a settle close to the heat, the place felt cheerless again. Christmas had fled again. He thought of the Whittakers' large and fashionable mansion and of Lady Frazer's enticing beauty. He felt a moment's pang of regret but no more. He did not want to be there, he realized with a wry smile directed at the fire. He wanted to be exactly where he was. Well, not exactly, perhaps. There was a room upstairs and a bed where he would rather be. But perhaps not. Lie could no longer think of her in terms of simple lust. There was a warmer feeling and a nameless yearning when he thought of her. Also a regret for wasted years, for years of senseless debauchery that had brought no real happiness with them. They would not be able to travel during the coming day, Christmas Day. Probably they would the day after. The rain had finally stopped, and the sky had cleared before darkness fell. He would have one more day in which to enjoy looking at her and in which to maneuver to engage her in conversation. One day a Christmas to remember. And then he looked up from his contemplation of the flames in the hearth to find her standing before him, looking at him gravely. She held a blanket and a pillow in her arms. "I thought you might be cold and uncomfortable," she said, holding them out to him. "It was very kind of you to give up your room for Lisa. You are a kind man." "I gave up my room," he said, taking the pillow and blanket from her and setting them down beside him, "because you had tried to give up yours and I wanted to impress you with a show of chivalry. Kindness had nothing to do with it. I am not renowned for my kindness." "Perhaps because you sometimes try not to show it," she said. "But I have seen it in other ways. You came to help Lisa give birth though it terrified you to do so." He shrugged. "I came for your sake," he said. "And I did not help all day long, while you were exhausting yourself. in the event I did not help at all." "But you would have," she said. "The intention was there. Tom showed me the ring you gave as a gift for the baby." He shrugged again. "I am very wealthy," he said. "It was nothing." "No," she said, still looking at him with her grave eyes, "it was something." "Ah," he said, "then I have impressed you. I have achieved my goal." She stared at him silently. He expected her to turn to leave, but she did not do so. "Do you know how you have affected me?" he asked. "I do not believe I have ever before refused an invitation to bed. That was an invitation you were issuing last night?" She lowered her eyes for a moment, but she lifted them again and looked at him calmly. "Yes," she said. "I suppose so." "Why?" he asked. "You are not in the habit of issuing such invitations, are you?" She shook her head. "Sometimes," she said, "I grow tired of the grayness of life. It was so full of color until a little more than a year ago, but there has been nothing but grayness since and nothing but grayness to look forward to. It is wrong of me to be dissatisfied with my lot, and normally I am not. But I thought this was going to be a disappointing Christmas." "And it has not been?" he asked. "No." She smiled slowly. "It has been the most wonderful Christmas of all." "Because of the baby," he said. "Yes," she said, "because of him. And for other reasons, too. He reached out a hand. "Come and sit beside me," he said. She looked at his hand and set her own in it. She sat down beside him and set her head on his shoulder when he put an arm about her. "I wanted you last night," he said. "You know that, don't you? And why I left you, the deed undone?" "Because you knew I was inexperienced," she said. "Because you knew me to be incapable of giving yo the pleasure you are accustomed to. I understood. It I all right." "Because I realized the immensity of the gift you were offering," he said. "Because I knew I could not take momentary pleasure from you. Because any greater commitment than that terrified me. "I expected no more," she said. "I know," he said. "That was the greatness of your gift." She sighed and set an arm across his waist. "I am going to remember this Christmas for the rest of my life," she said. "It will seem quite unreal when I get back to my post, but I will remember that it really did happen." He turned his head, found her lips with his own, and kissed her long and lingeringly. Her lips were soft and warm and willing to part for him. He nibbled at them, licked them, stroked them with his tongue. But he would not allow passion to grow. It was neither the time nor the place for passion. "I am a dreadful rake, Pamela," he said. "My debauched behavior has been notorious for several years. Decent women give me a wide berth." She raised one hand and touched her fingertips to his cheek. "But I have never debauched a married woman," he said. "I have always held marriage sacred. I have always known that if I ever married, it would have to be to a woman I loved more than life itself, for I could never be unfaithful to her." Her finger touched his lips and he kissed it. Would you find such a man trustworthy?" he asked her. "Such a man?" she said. "I don't know. You? Yes. I have seen today, and last night, too, that you are
a man of conscience and compassion." He took her hand in his and brought her palm against his mouth. "How do you think your father would react," he asked, "to the idea of his daughter marrying a rake? Would my title and fortune dazzle his judgment?" Her eyes grew luminous. "No," she said. "But he would be swayed by kindness and compassion and by his daughter's happiness." "Would you be happy, Pamela?" he asked. "Would you take a chance on me?" She closed her eyes and turned her face in to his shoulder. "It is absurd, isn't it?" he said. "How long have we known each other? Forever, is it? I have known you forever, Pamela. I have just been waiting for you to appear in my life. I have loved you forever." Her face appeared again, smiling. "I would be happy," she said. "I would take a chance, my lord." "Edward," he said. "Edward." "Will you marry me, my love?" he asked her. She laughed softly and buried her face again. She hugged his waist tightly. "Yes," she said. He held her wordless for a while. Then he slid one hand beneath her knees and lifted her legs across his. He reached beside him, shook out the blanket, and spread it over both of them. He settled the pillow behind his head, against the high wooden backrest of the settle. "Stay with me tonight?" he murmured into her ear. "Just like this, Pamela? It is not the most comfortable of beds, but I will not suggest taking you to your room. I would want to stay with you, you see, and if we were there, I would want to possess you. I want that to wait until our wedding night. I want our bodies to unite for the first time as a marriage commitment. Are these words coming from my mouth?" He chuckled softly. "Are these the words of a rake?" "No." She turned her face tip to his, her eyes bright with merriment. "They are the words of a former rake, Edward and never-to-be again. Does that sound dreadfully dull to you?" He grinned down at her. "It sounds dazzlingly wonderful actually," he said. "Pamela and only Pamela forever after. Are you comfortable?" "Mm," she said and snuggled against him. "And you?" "A feather bed could not compete with this settle for softness and ease," he said. He kissed her again, his lips lingering on hers. "Happy Christmas, my love." "Happy Christmas, Edward," she said, closing her eyes and sighing with warm contentment. Upstairs, in the room the Marquess of Lytton had occupied the night before, Tom kept watch over the mother of his child, who slept peacefully, and over his newborn son, who fussed in his sleep but did not wake. Tom stood at the window, gazing upward. A single star almost directly overhead bathed the inn with soft light and glistened off acres of mud. It was not a pretty scene. Not a noticeably Christmas-like scene. The inn, somewhere in Wiltshire, was neither large nor picturesque nor thriving. No one has ever mapped its exact location.