Under the Mistletoe

by Mary Balogh

Lilias was sitting in a chair opposite his own, her feet resting on the hearth. She was smiling. She looked very beautiful. Why had he not told her that out at the lake? Why had he not told her that she looked even lovelier this year in the unfashionable blue gown than she had looked six years before? Why had he allowed himself to get angry instead? Angry at a fate that could treat her so? He wanted her to have everything in the world, and instead, she had almost nothing. Why had he not told her she looked beautiful?

  “Not even one more minute,” he told the girls. “And, as it is, that coach of ours is late. Wherever can it be?”

  He got up from his chair and crossed the room to the window. He pulled back the curtains, which they had closed as soon as they had returned from their walk, and leaned past the evergreen in order to peer out into the darkness. Not that he had really needed to lean forward, he realized immediately. It was not dark outside.

  “Good Lord,” he said. “Snow.”

  It must have started in great earnest the moment they had pulled the curtains. And it must have been snowing ever since. There were several inches of it out there.

  “Snow!” There were three identical shrieks, and three human missiles hurled themselves against him and past him in order to see the spectacle. “Snow!” There was a loud babble of excitement.

  “Well,” he said, “at least we know what has delayed the coach. It is still in the coach house and the horses in the stable, if Giles has any sense whatsoever.”

  Dora shrieked and bounced at his side. “We can stay, then, Papa?” she asked. “We can stay all night?”

  He turned to see Lilias standing before the fireplace.

  “She can share Megan’s bed,” she said hastily. “There will be room for the two of them. You must not think of taking her out if the snow really is too deep for your carriage.”

  “And you can share mine,” Andrew said brightly.

  The marquess laughed. “Thank you, Andrew,” he said, “but I shall walk home. For days I have been longing to set my feet in snow. But I will be grateful to leave Dora here until morning. Thank you, ma’am.” He looked at Lilias.

  She went upstairs almost immediately with Megan to get all ready. He took Dora onto his lap to explain to her that he would go home alone and return for her in the morning. But he need not have worried. She was so tired and so excited at the prospect of spending the night with Megan that she seemed not at all upset at being separated from him. He took her upstairs.

  The door to one small bedroom was open. Megan was crying. The marquess stood still on the stairs and held his daughter’s hand more tightly.

  “Hush,” Lilias was saying. “Oh, hush, sweetheart. You know we had a pact not to talk of it or even think of it until Christmas was well and truly over. Hush now. It has been a lovely Christmas, has it not?”

  “Ye-e-es,” Megan wailed, her voice muffled. “But I don’t want to go, Lilias.”

  “Sh,” Lilias said. “Dora will be here in a minute. You don’t want her to see you cry, do you?”

  “No-o-o.”

  The marquess looked down into the large eyes of his daughter and held a finger to his lips. He frowned. Then he stepped firmly on the next stair. “Here we are,” he said cheerfully. “Two little girls to squash into one little bed.”

  Megan giggled.

  “Four little girls,” Dora corrected him, indicating the doll clutched in her own arms and pointing to Megan’s, which was lying at the foot of the bed.

  Both girls giggled.

  “Four, then,” he said. “In you get.”

  Andrew was no less tired than the girls. He went to bed only ten minutes later. Ten minutes after that the giggling and whisperings stopped. It seemed that all were asleep.

  The marquess was standing at the window, looking out into the curiously lightened world of freshly falling snow. Lilias was seated silently at the fire.

  “Lilias,” he said. He could no more think of the right words to say than he had been able to twenty minutes before. He continued to look out the window. “You must marry me. It is the only way. I cannot let you take on the life of a governess. And Andrew and Megan must not be separated from each other, or from you. You must marry me. Will you?” He turned finally to look across the room at her. And knew immediately that he had done it all wrong, after all.

  She was quite pale. She stared up at him, all large eyes in her thin face. “No,” she said, and her voice was trembling. “No, I will not accept charity. No.”

  But she must be made to accept. Did she not realize that? He felt his jaw harden. He retreated behind the mask that had become almost habitual with him in the past few years.

  “I don’t think you have any choice,” he said. “Do you seriously think that, as a governess, you will ever again have a chance to see your brother and sister? Do you imagine that you will be able to save even enough money to travel to where they are to visit? It will not happen.

  When you leave here, you will see them for perhaps the last time.”

  She was sitting on the very edge of her chair, her back straight, her hands clasped tightly in her lap.

  “Do you think I do not know that?” she said.

  “Andrew will not even be allowed to see you again,” he said. “He will be taken back into the fold, and he will be taught to despise you. Do you realize that?”

  “Yes.”

  He saw the word forming itself on her lips. He did not hear it. “Megan will be an old woman’s slave,” he said. “She will have a dreary girlhood. She will probably end up like you, a governess or a paid companion. Have you thought of that?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Then you must marry me,” he said. “For their sakes, if not for your own. You will be able to stay together.” His eyes strayed down her body.

  “And you will be able to have some new clothes at last.”

  He ached to buy her those new garments, to see the pleasure in her eyes as he clothed her in silks and lace and warm wool. He wanted to hang jewels about her neck and at her ears. He wanted to put rings on her fingers.

  “You must marry me,” he said.

  She rose to her feet. He knew as soon as she did so that she was very angry. “Must I?” she said softly. “Must I, my lord? Is this what your title and wealth have done for you? Do you talk to your servants so? Do you talk to everyone so? And does everyone kiss the ground at your feet and do what they must do? Is this how you persuaded your first wife to marry you? And did she instantly obey? Well, not me, my lord. I do not have to marry you, or anyone else. And if it is true that my brother and sister will live less than perfect lives according to the arrangements I have made for them, then at least we will all be able to retain our pride and hold our heads high. I will not sell myself even for their sakes.”

  The Marquess of Bedford had trained himself not to flinch outwardly under such scathing attacks. He merely stared at her from half-closed eyelids, his teeth and lips firmly pressed together.

  “Pride can be a lonely companion,” he said.

  “Perhaps so,” she said. “But charity would be an unbearable companion, my lord.”

  He nodded. “I will wish you good-night, then,” he said. “Thank you for giving Dora a bed. And thank you for giving her the loveliest day of her life. I know I do not exaggerate. I hope we have not spoiled your day.”

  “No,” she said. The fire of battle had died in her eyes. She looked smaller and thinner even than usual. “You have not spoiled our day. The children have been very happy.”

  The children. Not she. The marquess half-smiled, though he feared that his expression must look more like a sneer. He picked up his greatcoat and pulled it on.

  “Good night,” he said again, pulling his collar up about his ears.

  “Don’t stand at the door. You will get cold.”

  He did not look at her again. He concentrated his mind on wading through the soft snow without either falling or losing his way.

  She sat back down on the edge of her chair
and stared into the fire. She would not think. She would not remember… or look ahead. She would not think. She would not. She would sit until some warmth seeped into her bones, and then she would go to bed and sleep. She felt bone-weary.

  But she would not think at all. Tomorrow she would work things out.

  She would sit there until she was warm and until she could be sure that her legs would support her when she stood up. And until she could see to climb the stairs. She blinked her eyes determinedly and swallowed several times.

  But she would not think.

  She sat there for perhaps fifteen minutes before leaping to her feet suddenly and flying to the door to answer a loud hammering there. She pulled it open, letting in cold and snow. And she closed it again, setting her back to it, and watching in a kind of stupor as Bedford stamped the snow from his boots and tore off his coat and hat and threw them carelessly aside.

  “Listen to me, Lilias,” the marquess said fiercely, turning to her. But he stopped talking and looked at her in exasperation. He reached out and took one of her hands in a firm clasp. “No, don’t listen to me. Come with me.”

  He did not take her far, only to the middle of the parlor. She looked up at him in mute inquiry.

  “You will not even be able to slap my face,” he said, drawing her against him with his free arm. He glanced upward at the mistletoe. “It is a Christmas tradition, you see.” He bent his head and kissed her.

  She stood still, rigid with shock. It was a hard and fierce kiss.

  “Don’t,” he said against her lips. His very blue eyes were gazing into hers. “Don’t, Lilias. Don’t shut me out.”

  And then she could only cling to him and sag against him and eventually reach up to hold him more firmly by the shoulders and about the neck. He was no longer a slender boy, kissing her with the eager kisses of a very young man. He had a man’s body, hard and firmly muscled. And his kisses were a man’s kisses, deep and experienced and full of a knee-weakening promise.

  But he was the same, nonetheless. He was Stephen as she remembered him, as she had dreamed of him and cried for him, and as she had consigned to the most treasured memories of her young life. He was Stephen as she had longed for him and yearned for him through six years when she might have married any of several other worthy men. Stephen, whom she had loved at the age of fifteen, and whom she would love at the age of ninety, if she lived that long.

  She did as he asked. She did not shut him out. At long last, she lowered her guard and did not shut him out.

  “Lilias.” He held her head against his shoulder and looked down into her face. “I said it all wrong. I did it all wrong. Right from the start.

  Six years ago. How could I ever have left you? After Claude died, my father impressed upon me that I was now his heir, that I must put behind me all that was humble and beneath the dignity of a future marquess. And when he died soon after, I was dazzled by my own importance and popularity. I forgot you. I married Lorraine.”

  “I understood,” she said, reaching up a hand and touching his cheek with her fingertips. “I did not expect any different. Even before you left, I never expected more from you. Only friendship and an innocent romance. I was very young. Too young to have any expectations of anything beyond the moment.”

  “I never allowed myself to think of you,” he said. “You just became part of the dream of a perfect childhood and boyhood.”

  “I know,” she said. “You became my dream, too.”

  “I did only one good and worthy thing in all those years,” he said, “and had only one claim to happiness: I begot Dora.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I know.”

  “I have had her only since last spring,” he said. “And as Christmas approached, I knew I had to bring her here. I remembered that Christmases here were always perfect. I thought it was the snow and the sledding and skating. Memory can sometimes be so defective. I was wrong about that. But not wrong in the main. Christmas was always perfect here, and it has been perfect this year, even though the snow has only just come. It was because of you, Lilias. Because you were always there.

  And because you were here this year.”

  She turned her face to his shoulder. “I wanted Christmas for the children,” she said. “I did not know how I was to do it. But when I heard that you had come, I knew that you would be able to provide it.

  Not just with money, though that is what I ended up asking for and remembering that ridiculous incident of the Latin lessons. I just felt that I had to go to you and that you would make everything all right.

  But you had changed. I was frightened when I saw you.”

  “Lilias,” he said, and held her head more firmly against his shoulder.

  “How can I say it this time without saying quite the wrong words again?

  If not for your own sake and your brother’s and sister’s, will you do it for mine? Marry me, I mean. Though I don’t deserve it. I left you without a word. For Dora’s, then? She needs a mother. You would not believe what a sullen and bad-tempered child she was when I first took her, and how petulant she can still be when she does not have her way.

  And I cannot say no to her, though I know I must learn how. She needs you, Lilias. And she loves you already. Have you seen that? I want you to be her mother. Will you? Will you marry me?”

  She pulled her head free of his hand and looked up into a face that was anxious and vulnerable.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Not for Dora’s sake, Stephen. It would not be enough. And not for Andrew’s and Megan’s. That would not be enough either. And not for my need. Somehow I will survive as a governess.”

  He opened his mouth to protest. She set one finger lightly over his lips.

  “For one reason only,” she said. “For the only reason that would make it work.Only if we love each other.Both of us.”

  Wide blue eyes looked down into hers. “You have been there for six long and unhappy years,” he said. “The dream of you. I brought my child to you this Christmas, though I did not realize when we left London quite why I was bringing her here. The dream has come alive again. Like a greedy child, I have Christmas and want to keep it forever here in my arms. I don’t want it to disappear tomorrow or the next day. I don’t want that dreary world back, Lilias. I don’t want to live without you.

  Yes, I love you. I always have, but like a fool, I have repressed the knowledge for six years. Will you have me?”

  “So many times,” she said, “I have told myself how foolish I was not to let go the memory of you. I had the well-being of two children to see to, and my own, and I have had two offers since Papa died. We could have been comfortable, the three of us. But I could not let you go, even though I was so very young when you left. Now I know I was not foolish, after all. For whether you marry me or leave me forever tomorrow, Stephen, you will always be a part of me. I will never love any other man. There is only you.”

  He was quite the old Stephen suddenly, his eyes dancing, his mouth curved into a grin. “Now, let me get this straight,” he said. “Was that yes or no?”

  She laughed back into his eyes. “It was yes,” she said.

  “Was it?” He stooped down suddenly and she found herself swung up into his arms. He carried her over to the fire and sat down on a chair with her. “God, Lilias, you weigh no more than a feather. The first thing I am going to do with you, my girl, is fatten you up.”

  She clung to his neck and laughed.

  “And the next thing I am going to do,” he said, “is take you to London and buy you so many clothes it will take you a year to wear them all.

  And so many jewels that it will take two footmen to lift you from the ground.”

  Her laughter turned to giggles.

  “But there,” he said, shrugging his shoulder so that her face was turned to his again, “I was always a fool, wasn’t I, love? The costliest gown in London could not look lovelier on you than this blue silk. And anyway, those things are going to have to come second and third.
A very distant second and third. There is something else I must do first.”

  “What?” she asked, reaching up to touch the silver hairs at his temples.

  “I’ll show you in just a moment,” he said. “But first you had better tell me what time you are planning to kick me out of here.”

  “Mm,” she said. “Give me time to think about it. What were you going to show me, Stephen?”

  He rubbed his nose against hers. “How to play house properly,” he said, grinning at her once more before seeking her mouth with his own again.

  No Room at the Inn

  The White Hart Inn, somewhere in Wiltshire-it had never been important enough for anyone to map its exact location on any fashionable map or in any guidebook, fashionable or otherwise-was neither large nor picturesque nor thriving. It was not a posting inn and had no compensating claim to fame-not its location, nor the quality of its ale or cuisine, nor the geniality of its host, nor anything, in short. It was certainly not the type of place in which one would wish to be stranded unexpectedly for any length of time.

  Especially at Christmastime.

  And more especially when the cause was not a heavy snowfall, which might have added beauty to the surroundings and romance to the adventure, but rain.Torrential, incessant rain, which poured down from a leaden sky and made a quagmire of even the best-kept roads. The road past the White Hart was not one of the best-kept.

  The inn presented a picture of squatness and ugliness and gloom to those who were forced to put up there rather than slither on along the road and risk bogging down completely and having to spend Christmas inside a damp and chill carriage-or risk overturning and celebrating the festive season amidst mud and injuries and even possibly death.

  None of the travelers who arrived at the inn during the course of the late afternoon of the day preceding Christmas Eve did so by design. None of them did so with any pleasure. Most of them were in low spirits, and that was an optimistic description of the mood of a few of them. Even the landlord and his good lady were not as ecstatic as one might have expected them to be under the circumstances that they had rarely had more than one of their rooms filled during any one night for the past two years and more. Before nightfall all six of their rooms were occupied, and it was altogether possible that someone else might arrive after dark.