by Mary Balogh
“Nah,” a plump little boy told him, the utmost contempt in his voice.
“He’s just a baby.”
“I wanted to play with him,” a little girl added, “but he had to go to sleep. Is he yours? He is Aunt Lizzie’s too.”
Elizabeth led the way to a room beyond the nursery.
“You ought not to have said that about tomorrow,” she said with quiet reproach. “They will be disappointed when you do not keep your promise.
Children do not forget, you know.”
He did not answer. The room was quiet and in semidarkness with the curtains drawn across the window. But the baby was not asleep. Edwin could hear him cooing and could see him waving his fists in the air as he lay on his back in his crib. His eyes focused on his father when Edwin stepped closer. Edwin swallowed hard and was glad that his wife was standing well behind him. He had ached for this moment for almost three months.
Being separated from his child was the most bitter experience of his life. He had considered a number of schemes for bringing him closer, including buying a second house in London for Elizabeth to live in. But there would be too many awkward questions if he and his wife both lived in London but not together. Yet it seemed somehow impossible to set his family up in his own London home, formerly his father’s, even though it was large and tastefully decorated and furnished and well staffed and situated in a fashionable part of town. It was, nevertheless, well known as the home of a prosperous merchant.
“He has grown,” Edwin said.
“Of course. You have not seen him for almost three months.”
Was it an accusation?
“He has lost much of his hair,” he said.
“That is natural,” she told him. “It will grow back.”
“Do you still… nurse him?” He could remember his surprise when her mother and the doctor had been united in their protest against her decision not to hire a wet nurse. It was one issue on which she had held out against her mother’s will.
“Yes.”
She made no move to pick up the child, who admittedly seemed happy enough where he was. Edwin longed to do so himself, but he was afraid even to touch him.
“He looks healthy enough,” he said.
Why was it that with Elizabeth words never came naturally to him, and that the ones he chose to speak were stiff and banal? They had never had a conversation. They had been bedfellows for two weeks he would prefer to forget-she had been a cold, unresponsive, sacrificial lamb beneath him on the bed each night-but they had remained awkward, near-silent strangers.
“You will wish to go to your room,” she informed him. “Will you join us for tea later?”
“I believe I will forgo the pleasure of meeting our guests until dinnertime,” he told her.
She nodded. Even through the cold impassivity of her face he thought he could detect her relief. He gestured to the door so that she would precede him. He did not offer his arm.
It had been a mistake to come-and that was a colossal understatement. He should have stayed in London, where he had had numerous invitations to spend the holiday with friends whose company he found congenial and in whose presence he could relax and be himself. But he had remembered his father and imagined how sad he would be if he could see his son apart from his wife and child at Christmas, just one year after the wedding that had brought all the elderly man’s dreams to happy fulfillment.
Elizabeth, dressed with greater care than usual in an evening gown of pale blue, a color she knew became her well, went down early to the drawing room before dinner. Even so, Mr. Chambers was there before her, standing before the marble fireplace, his hands clasped behind his back, looking like the master of the house. She was relieved to see that he was clothed severely but immaculately in black and white. Had she expected otherwise? She had never seen him look slovenly or heard him speak in anything other than refined accents. He bowed formally to her and she curtsied. It seemed strange to realize that he had been her husband for longer than a year-and that this was his home.
They had no chance for conversation. The door opened again to admit Lord and Lady Templar and Elizabeth’s Aunt Martha and Uncle Randolph.
“Ma’am. Sir,” Mr. Chambers said in greeting to his parents-in-law, bowing courteously. “How do you do?”
“Mr. Chambers,” Lady Templar said with distant hauteur, her hair plumes nodding as she inclined her head. “I trust you are well?”
Elizabeth introduced her aunt and uncle, and Mr. Chambers greeted them with a bow.
“Welcome to Wyldwood,” he said to them. “I am delighted you were able to join Elizabeth and me here for Christmas.”
It was a sentiment he repeated over and over again during the next half hour as the rest of the family came down for dinner. Elizabeth stood beside him, making the introductions and feeling enormous relief. She had feared that he would allow himself to be dominated by her mother, that he would allow her to treat him as a guest-an inferior, uninvited guest. How humiliating that would have been.
He was to be put to a further test, though.
When the butler came to announce that dinner was served, Lord and Lady Templar were close to the door and proceeded to the dining room without delay. Everyone else held back until Mr. Chambers had offered his arm to Aunt Martha and followed them. Elizabeth, on Uncle Randolph’s arm, cringed at the discourtesy of her parents’ preceding a man in his own home, and hoped there was to be no unpleasant scene.
“Perhaps, sir,” Mr. Chambers said with quiet deference when they entered the dining room, addressing his father-in-law, “you would care to take the place at Elizabeth’s right hand at the foot of the table. Ma’am,” he added, addressing Elizabeth’s mother, “will you honor me by sitting to my right at the head of the table?”
With the rest of the family crowding into the room behind them, Elizabeth looked fearfully at her mother, whose bosom was swelling with outrage.
“Lizzie,” she said, ignoring Mr. Chambers, “your papa is the gentleman of highest rank here, and he is head of our family.”
But not of Mr. Chambers’s family, Elizabeth might have pointed out, and perhaps would have if her father had not saved her by exerting his authority-a rare occurrence.
“Take a damper, Gertrude,” he said, and moved off toward the foot of the table.
Lady Templar had no choice then but to proceed in the opposite direction, from which vantage point she displayed her displeasure by ignoring her son-in-law all through dinner and conversing with gracious warmth with Uncle Oswald on her other side. Mr. Chambers conversed with Aunt Martha and Bertie beyond her and looked perfectly composed and agreeable, as if entertaining a tableful of members of the ton were something he did every evening of his life.
Had she expected him to be gauche? Certainly she had feared that he might.
He also looked gloriously handsome. Elizabeth, playing the unaccustomed role of hostess in her own home, was nevertheless distracted by the sight of her husband and by the disturbing memories of their two weeks together last year, and wished he had not come to spoil her Christmas and everyone else’s-including his own, she did not doubt. At the same time, she regretted the sudden death of his father, whom she had liked.
Had he lived, she and Mr. Chambers would very likely not have lived separately for the past year. Perhaps they would have made something workable out of their marriage. She had been quite prepared to make it work. Indeed, she had been eager to move away from her mother’s often burdensome influence in order to become mistress of her own home.
And she had fallen in love with Mr. Chambers on sight.
Lady Templar was still bristling with indignation when the ladies withdrew to the drawing room after dinner, leaving the gentlemen to their port.
“Well!” she exclaimed. “Of all the impertinence! I must say I am surprised, Lizzie, that you would stand by and watch your father humiliated by a man very far beneath our touch without uttering one word of protest.”
“Shhh, Mama,�
� Elizabeth said, mortified, since the words had been overheard by her sister-in-law and by all her cousins and aunts. “This is Mr. Chambers’s own home.” And the man very far beneath their touch was her husband.
“Lizzie!” Her mother’s voice quavered with indignation. “Never did I think to live to see the day when you would tell your own mother to hush. And did you see what happened, Martha? Did you, Beatrice? When I would have stood, as was perfectly proper given my rank and position in this family, to lead the ladies from the dining room, that man had the effrontery to set four fingers on my arm and nod at Lizzie to give the signal.”
Elizabeth was both mortified and distressed. She had never been able to stand up to her mother-not even when informed that she was to be sacrificed in matrimony to a wealthy cit in order to recoup the family fortunes. But Mr. Chambers was her husband, and she owed him loyalty more than she did anyone else-including her mother.
“Mr. Chambers has a right to expect me to be hostess in his own home, Mama,” she said. “I am his wife. It is what all men expect.”
“Well!” There were two spots of color high on her mother’s cheekbones.
“You are the most ungrateful of daughters, Lizzie! I am very vexed with you. Besides, how can you expect to be hostess of such a large house party when you have no experience? And when you have Jeremy to attend to? I have given you almost half a year of my time and this is the thanks I receive?”
“I do appreciate all your help, Mama,” Elizabeth said. “You know I do.”
But her sister-in-law set a hand on her arm and smiled at her. “Come and join the group about the pianoforte with me, Lizzie,” she said. She had had her own conflicts with her mother-in-law during the eight years of her marriage.
Elizabeth, grateful for the excuse to avoid further conversation with her mother, nevertheless felt guilty as Annabelle linked an arm through hers and led her away. She had lied to her mother. She was not grateful.
It was with dismay that she had watched September turn into October and October into November without any sign that her parents intended to return home and leave her mistress of Wyldwood again. Despite loneliness and depression over her apparently failed marriage, she had liked being mistress of her own home for a few months.
It was later in the evening, after they were all assembled in the drawing room, that trouble struck again. There were two tables set up for cards. Another group was gathered about the fireplace, conversing. A crowd of younger people was clustered about the pianoforte, listening to young Harriet perform. Elizabeth was on her feet watching the card games and reflecting on the fact that Christmas was already shaping up to be its usual predictable, tedious self. With what high hopes she had embarked upon a totally different life last year. She really had been happy about her arranged marriage, especially after meeting the jolly Mr. Chambers and then receiving his son. But nothing had come of her bright hopes after all, except that she had Jeremy.
Mr. Chambers was moving away from the fireside group and stopped beside her.
“We will be decorating the house tomorrow?” he asked.
“Decorating?” She looked blankly at him.
“For Christmas.” He raised his eyebrows. “With holly and ivy and pine branches and mistletoe and all that.”
“Oh,” she said.
“And a kissing bough.”
Harriet had just finished playing. At the same moment a lull had fallen on the conversation by the fire. His words were generally audible.
“A what?” Lady Templar asked, looking up from her cards.
“A kissing bough, ma’am,” Mr. Chambers repeated. “And other decorations to make the house festive for the season. Have you made no plans, Elizabeth?”
“We have never used Christmas decorations,” she said. She had sometimes wished they had. The assembly rooms in the village at home had been decorated one year for a Christmas ball. They had looked gloriously festive, and they had smelled richly of pine.
“Then we will this year,” he announced.
There was an audible stirring of interest from the direction of the pianoforte.
“A kissing bough,” young Sukie said, and there was a titter of self-conscious male laughter and the higher trill of girlish giggles.
“I always did like a few tasteful Christmas decorations in a house,”
Aunt Martha said with an apologetic glance at Lady Templar. “We had some one year when we remained at home for the holiday. Do you remember, Randolph? But never a kissing bough, I must admit. I believe that might be vulgar.”
“There will certainly never be one in this house,” Lady Templar said in the voice her family recognized as useless to argue with. “Such bourgeois vulgarity would not be tolerated in this family. I will direct the servants tomorrow, Lizzie, to bring in some greenery, if it is Mr. Chambers’s wish, but I will give strict instructions about what is suitable.”
“Oh, it is my wish, ma’am,” Mr. Chambers assured her. “But the servants need not be burdened with the extra task when I daresay they are already far busier than usual. Half the fun of Christmas decorating is doing it all oneself. I will go out and gather the greenery tomorrow morning. There should be more than enough in the west woods. Would anyone care to join me?”
A number of the young people spoke up with cautious enthusiasm, and a few others stole self-conscious glances at their parents and Lady Templar and would have spoken up if they had dared, Elizabeth thought.
She stared silently at her husband, marveling that he would defy her mother yet again. He had seemed so quietly obedient to his father’s will last year that she had concluded he was a man easily dominated.
“I must ask the gardeners,” he said, “if there is mistletoe anywhere in the park. It would not be Christmas without mistletoe.”
The young people tittered and giggled again.
“The children must come too,” he said. “I promised to play with them tomorrow. I also promised to exhaust them. Gathering greenery and then decorating the house will serve both functions.”
“The offspring of this family,” Lady Templar said with awful civility, “will remain in the nursery with their nurses, where they belong, Mr.
Chambers. Children may be allowed to romp about the houses you are accustomed to frequent, but such is not the case in genteel society.”
Elizabeth bit her lip. She dared not look at her husband.
“Well,” he replied amiably, “we must allow their parents to decide, ma’am. Now, we will need to be up and out early.” He held up a staying hand when there was a collective groan from the direction of the pianoforte. “Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. There will be all the decorating to do afterward, and it must be done well. It is going to be a busy day.”
Uncle Oswald cleared his throat and set down his hand of cards. “I do some whittling now and then,” he said, looking embarrassed. “I daresay I could put together some sort of Nativity scene if you wish, Chambers. It seems to me that I did it a few times at Christmas when the children were young.”
“Yes, you did, Papa,” Sukie said. “Please, please may I go out gathering greenery with Cousin Edwin? May I, Mama?”
“I used to help you, Papa,” young Peregrine added. “I would help again this year, except that I don’t want to miss the outing.”
“You can do both,” Mr. Chambers assured him. “You can help your father in the afternoon while the rest of us hang up the greenery.”
“Martha and I were planning to take a drive into the village tomorrow morning,” Aunt Beatrice said. “I daresay we will find some satin ribbon in the shop there if we look. Will we, Lizzie? It will be needed to make the decorations pretty,” she added without looking at Lady Templar.
“I doubt you will be able to take the carriage anywhere tomorrow, Beatrice,” that lady said, a note of triumph in her voice. “Neither will anyone be able to set foot beyond the door to gather greenery. It is almost certain to snow before morning, and we will all be housebound.”
“But I a
m counting upon its snowing, ma’am,” Mr. Chambers assured her.
“All work and no play would make for a thoroughly dull Christmas Eve. A snowball fight would be just the thing to lift our spirits, get the blood moving in our veins, and yet not slow us down fatally. We will definitely need to make an early start, though.”
There was a smell of unabashed excitement from the younger people at the mention of snow.
Lady Templar got to her feet and surveyed the gathering with haughty disdain. “I, for one, will not stand for such vulgar nonsense,” she declared. “And if Lizzie will not assert herself as mistress of this house, then I-”
“Mama!” Elizabeth cut her off sharply. “If Mr. Chambers says that our home is to be decorated for Christmas, then it will be decorated. Even with a kissing bough.”
“Lizzie!” Her mother’s bosom swelled with outrage.
“Stow it, Gertrude,” Elizabeth’s papa advised from the other card table, exerting his authority briefly for the second time in one evening, without raising his eyes from his cards.
Elizabeth met her husband’s gaze but then looked sharply away. Her heart was beating a wild tattoo in her bosom. She had just openly defied her mother! But how could she not have done so?
“Excuse me,” she said abruptly. “I must go up to Jeremy.” He would be ready for his night feeding. She just hoped her milk had not been soured.
She had never seen Mr. Chambers smile before today, she thought as she hurried up the stairs. But he had smiled at the children this afternoon, and he had done more than that to all her young cousins in the drawing room-he had actually grinned at their enthusiasm over his plans for tomorrow. And he had suggested something that sounded so much like fun that her heart ached with longing.
Fighting in the snow.
Gathering greenery in the woods.
Decorating the house.
Making a kissing bough.
She had never been kissed-a ridiculous truth in light of the fact that she was a wife and mother. But he had never kissed her. And she had never had a beau before him.