It Happened One Christmas: Christmas Eve ProposalThe Viscount's Christmas KissWallflower, Widow...Wife!

by Carla Kelly

  When he’d seen her slip, he’d rushed to her, despite the stiffness in his leg, eager to keep her from tumbling into the thorny bushes. He hadn’t expected the weight of her in his arms to singe him as if he’d grasped a hot iron. It’d taken every ounce of gentlemanly control not to claim her parted red lips as she’d stared up at him, her deep brown eyes wide with surprise. If he’d given in and tasted her, it would have confirmed her low opinion of him, the one he’d caught in her comments and the wary looks she’d flung at him from across this very table.

  It’d hurt to let go of her on the path, just as it’d burned to turn away from her on the dance floor four years ago, but both times he’d had little choice. Decorum demanded he let go of her today. His father had commanded him to disregard her at the ball. Determined to show his father he was a Marbrook and deserving of paternal respect, he’d done the old man’s bidding. In the end, it’d gained him nothing but regret and wounded the person who’d shown him the most kindness that day.

  ‘I should have ignored my father and helped her up. I should have apologised today.’ He banged his fist on the rough table, making the plants shiver, unable to comprehend what had tied his tongue when he’d faced her. ‘I can direct estate workers, command men into battle, yet I can’t spit out one much-needed and long-overdue apology. What’s wrong with me?’

  He looked down at the dog sitting beside him. The dog licked its lips but did nothing more, as silent on the matter as Gregor had been with Miss Rutherford.

  ‘Yes, I know, the army taught me a number of things, but not how to seek a woman’s forgiveness.’ He picked the animal up and plopped it down on the table where it sat, its wagging tail brushing the terracotta pot holding the plant. ‘Neither did my father, nor my mother for that matter.’

  He rubbed the dog behind its ear, making it cock its head to one side in dreamy satisfaction. ‘I might have had difficulty today, but there’s still tonight and tomorrow. Correct?’

  The dog yawned and Gregor picked him up, tucked him under his arm and made for the house.

  There would be other opportunities to speak with Miss Rutherford and correct at least one of the wrongs he’d committed in his life. He’d apologise to her and be worthy at last of the warm friendship extended to him by the Rutherford family.

  Chapter Three

  Noise filled the dining room as the entire family—children, the aged aunt, parents—and Gregor sat around the long mahogany table. It’d been quite a feast and the half-devoured pudding still decorated the centre, with two tall, silver candlesticks festooned with evergreens standing guard on either side. To Gregor’s surprise, the children had been included in the supper and were still seated at the far end of the table and attended by their nurse. The twins chattered together, joined by their three-year-old cousin and Miss Daisy, who didn’t look happy at being seated with them. Once in a while she would flash Gregor a bright smile which he gladly returned, more amused than annoyed by her fascination with him, though it was Miss Rutherford’s attention he longed to capture tonight.

  She sat beside him, appearing as unhappy about her place at the table as Daisy. It was as if the laughing woman hurling snowballs at her sister and brother had never existed and he very much wanted her to return. Whenever he tried to draw her into conversation, she offered him little more than simple answers to his questions before turning away to speak with her brother-in-law, leaving him to the aged aunt who sat on his other side and had no end of stories to tell.

  When at last the aunt fixed her attention on Laurus, and the brother-in-law turned to speak to his wife, Gregor leaned close to Miss Rutherford, catching the notes of her lily-of-the-valley perfume over the rich nutmeg spice of the pudding. He took a deep breath, allowing himself the brief indulgence of her scent before he spoke.

  ‘I may have to adopt him.’ He nodded to where Pygmalion sat beside his chair. ‘He won’t leave my side.’

  She studied the dog. ‘Aunt Alice is very attached to her dogs, all of them. She isn’t likely to part with even this little terror. Pygmalion may make you stay here.’

  ‘Won’t your parents mind?’

  She tossed him a sly little smile and even without the glow of sheer joy on her face, she was gorgeous. Her hair was drawn up in ringlets at the back of her head, the faint gold in the brown made darker by the red ribbon wound through her locks. She wore a dark-green velvet dress dotted with leaves embroidered in a lighter green thread which shone with the candlelight whenever she moved. ‘As long as you don’t disturb them while they’re with their plants, or trample the seedlings, you could be a herd of elephants residing in the house and they wouldn’t notice.’

  He fingered the small spoon next to his plate. ‘Then I think I’ll stay.’

  This struck the smile off her face and she reached for her wine glass, taking a long sip before seeming to regain her courage. ‘Won’t your mother miss you?’

  ‘No.’ Gregor let go of the silver before his tight grip bent it. ‘I wasn’t her favourite son, as she insists on reminding me every time she tells me it should have been me and not Stanton who died of smallpox.’

  ‘How can she be so cruel?’

  ‘She didn’t want me. She barely wanted my brother, but Stanton was her duty. I was the spare my grandfather, who controlled the money at the time, demanded. My mother is none too happy about Stanton’s death proving my grandfather right.’

  ‘I’m sorry she’s so severe.’ She touched his arm, the sweet care which had first drawn him to her years ago filling her round eyes. He stared at the creamy hand resting on the dark blue of his coat, the pressure of each fingertip as vivid as if she’d touched him naked. As if feeling the spark, and remembering their place among so many people, Miss Rutherford withdrew her hand and folded it with the other in her lap.

  ‘They were as severe as yours are amiable...’ Gregor breathed.

  She settled her shoulders and glanced around the table, pursing her lips in disapproval. ‘My parents are too amiable. As you can see, they allow everyone and everything to run wild.’

  ‘Don’t wish for too much discipline. My father was a man of stern self-control who expected obedience from his wife and children. He demanded we always behave in ways which would instil awe, if not fear, in those around us. It’s why we didn’t get along. I didn’t hold with his notions of our importance because I knew it was a lie. My parents put on a façade of unity and strength in public. In private, they were bitter, miserable people with no love or real purpose in life except to make everyone around them wretched. We never celebrated anything like your family does, or enjoyed a house filled with such laughter. Your parents love each other and you, as do your siblings. Learn to embrace it, Miss Rutherford.’

  * * *

  If only it was so easily done. All her life, she’d stood in the midst of her family’s chaos, attempting to carve from it some tranquillity, yet they kept intruding, laughing and calling her dour when she asked them to understand. They didn’t, they couldn’t and they never would. Even when it came to Lord Marbrook, they didn’t see things the way she did. Once when Lily had asked her mother why she continued to encourage Laurus’s friendship with Lord Marbrook, her mother said if he was Laurus’s friend, then he must be good and it was only Lily taking things much too seriously which left her tainted by the ball. Lily had tried to make her mother see how Lord Marbrook’s actions had influenced others against her, but it was no use. Her mother agreed he’d behaved poorly, but thought there must have been a good reason for it, though Lily could never guess what beyond Marbrook arrogance it might have been. Her mother failed, like the rest of the family, to realise the damage the viscount had done, though recognising reality was never a Rutherford strength.

  She looked around the table at her sisters and their husbands. Rose’s hand rested lovingly on Edgar’s forearm as she smiled at her sons where they sat at the end o
f the table. James smiled back, but John was too busy stroking Toddy, the second-smallest dog and the most docile, the one he liked to carry around whenever he was here. The dog would muddy up the boy’s bed later and track in more dirt than was already soiling the carpets. Yet Lily seemed the only one to ever notice or care. Even Lord Marbrook was taken in by the charm of it, but he couldn’t see the extra work it meant for the servants or how yet another set of sheets would be stained beyond repair, money paid to replace them.

  Nor could he see how far outside the circle of love and contentment she sat. While her sisters enjoyed the comforts of husbands, homes and children, she was left to grow old with nothing but her paintings. She was fast becoming a spinster aunt.

  ‘Miss Rutherford, our conversation in the greenhouse—I wish to discuss what happened between us at your sister’s wedding,’ Lord Marbrook cautiously began in a low voice, drawing Lily from her gloomy musing.

  ‘Now you’re threatening the merriment of the evening by bringing up such a distasteful subject.’ She tried to laugh, but her throat was so dry it hurt. She reached for her wine, the indignity of her current situation, the one he had no small hand in, burning like the brandy-soaked raisins in the pudding.

  ‘I don’t wish to upset you, but I feel I must apologise for what happened.’

  Lily jerked around in her chair so fast, she thought she might split the silk seat covering. ‘Why? What can your apology achieve except an easing of your own conscience? It can’t undo the opinion your behaviour created of me, or force the gossips to take back every nasty thing they said about me.’

  Her voice rose, briefly attracting Aunt Alice’s attention before Laurus drew it away.

  Gregor stared at his plate and the half-eaten slice of pudding covering the fine rose pattern of the china. His jaw worked, but he said nothing and regret began to creep up Lily’s spine. He’d been humble enough to apologise and she’d thrown it back in his face, but there was truth in her accusation, one they both couldn’t ignore.

  At last he let out a long breath to make the candles in front of his place dance. ‘You’re right, but I don’t know where else to start. I’ve regretted what I did from the moment my father escorted me from the ball. It was he who ordered me to cut you, who insisted I act like a Marbrook. I wanted to please him because I thought it would make a difference in how he regarded me and convince him not to send me to France. It didn’t. I should have ignored him and helped you, the way you’d helped me in the alcove.’

  So Mother was right, there had been a reason beyond arrogance to explain what he’d done and it was a good one. It eased a portion of her anger, but didn’t banish it. In the end, no matter what his motives, he’d attempted to relieve his problems at her expense.

  ‘Lily, what is Sir Winston’s daughter’s name?’ Petunia asked from across the table, watching her with a strange little frown, as though something about Lily’s conversation with Lord Marbrook didn’t sit well with her.

  ‘Catherine Fordham,’ Lily replied and Petunia resumed her conversation with Rose and Mama, though not without casting more curious scrutiny in Lily’s direction.

  Lily picked up her napkin and raised it to her mouth, whispering to Lord Marbrook from behind it, eager not to attract any additional attention from anyone else in the family. They weren’t known for their discretion. ‘Why apologise now when it no longer matters?’

  As if sensing Petunia’s scrutiny, he turned slightly in his chair to face Lily, looking at her from beneath his brows with an intensity to make her shiver. ‘Because it does matter, I see it in your eyes when you look at me, I hear the pain in the few barbs you’ve allowed yourself, every one of which I deserve.’

  ‘Lord Marbrook, do you have any experience with water dogs?’ Charles asked, leaning around Lily to address him.

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ he politely answered, as if he and Lily were only discussing the weather and not her disgrace.

  An answer received, Charles returned to his discussion with Edgar.

  Lord Marbrook leaned closer to Lily, his voice heavy like distant thunder. ‘I’d intended to visit your home the day after the ball and apologise, but I couldn’t. The next morning my father packed me off to France. With little more than an hour’s warning, he sent me away to a hell I wasn’t prepared for. Now it’s over and I wish to make right the wrongs my family has done to its tenants, to other families and you.’

  Lily took another sip of wine, struggling through the confusion of her feelings to think and breathe. She didn’t doubt his sincerity, or his need for absolution, yet she withheld it like Pygmalion had gripped her paintbrush, unable to let go of the pain and embarrassment she’d endured in exchange for something as wispy as words. It was wrong and she knew it, but she couldn’t help herself. ‘What do you possibly hope such a belated apology can achieve?’

  He was about to answer when Daisy called out from across the table in a voice loud enough to silence all but Aunt Alice, ‘Lord Marbrook, what are you and Lily discussing in such a serious manner?’

  ‘Daisy, mind your manners and stop making a fool of yourself,’ Lily responded, the interruption disturbing her as much as Lord Marbrook’s sincere revelations. Never before had she wanted her family to leave her alone as much as she did at this moment and all of them seemed intent on intruding, as usual.

  Silence swept up one side of the table and down the other. Even the boys paused in eating their pudding to stare at her with big eyes.

  ‘Lily, apologise to your sister at once,’ her father demanded. ‘The remark was uncalled for.’

  ‘It wasn’t.’ Lily kept her back straight despite the scrutiny being given to her. ‘Can’t you see how she’s behaving?’

  He levelled a forkful of pudding at her. ‘That’s for me and your mother to worry about, not you.’

  ‘You should worry about it. It might be fine here with the family, but what if she does it somewhere else, in front of someone who might mind.’ She looked pointedly at Lord Marbrook. ‘She’ll embarrass herself and all of us.’

  ‘You’re the only one embarrassing yourself tonight,’ her father snorted and stuffed the pudding in his mouth.

  She looked down at her hands in her lap and the orange paint still staining the corner of one thumbnail. She scratched at it but it wouldn’t budge, the skin around it turning red with her effort. She’d wanted so much to appear confident in front of Lord Marbrook. Instead, she’d once again been made to look ridiculous, this time by the people who were supposed to love her the most. A loneliness she hadn’t experienced since she’d sat on the ballroom floor while the other young ladies had laughed at her filled her again.

  ‘Enough scolding for one night.’ Lily’s mother rose from the table, bringing the men to their feet. ‘It’s Christmas Eve and we must enjoy ourselves. If the men don’t mind forgoing their port, we’ll play charades, then Aunt Alice will play the pianoforte so we may all sing carols.’

  ‘I think we can sacrifice our port for tonight of all nights,’ Sir Timothy offered, his usual joviality returning as he held out his arm to his wife. ‘Come along, everyone.’

  The adults filed out of the room, ushering the children along in front of them. The young ones resumed their lively banter, all except Daisy, who stomped away on Rose’s arm complaining bitterly about Lily.

  Lily didn’t rise, but stared at the uneaten pudding in the silver dish in the centre of the table until only she and Lord Marbrook remained.

  ‘You should go with the others, or you’ll miss charades.’ She wished he’d leave, she very much wanted to be alone, but he didn’t.

  ‘I’m sorry about what happened, I didn’t mean to cause you distress.’

  ‘This time it’s not your fault, it’s mine, always mine.’ She snatched the napkin off her lap and tossed it on the table. ‘My family can act as ridiculous as they please, but if I dare p
oint it out, or suggest they show some restraint so they don’t become laughing stocks, I’m the wicked one, not my sisters, my brother or even my nephews. Only me.’

  He laid his hands on the back of the chair beside hers, his fingers long and graceful beneath the crisp white of his shirt cuff. ‘I know what it’s like to sit outside the circle of your family and feel they don’t understand you and how lonely it can make you, even in the midst of so many. Unlike my family, yours is happy and they love you. It’s something to cherish far more than the opinions of others.’

  He was right and she didn’t want him to be right, she didn’t want anything except to be alone with her paints and the patience of the canvas. Instead she was here, being reminded again of her awkwardness and loneliness. If only someone would cherish her. Rose and Petunia had Charles and Edgar, but there was no one to stand beside her and support her when people scolded her for trying to be sensible and there likely never would be.

  Swallowing hard against the pain in her chest, she rose and at last faced Lord Marbrook. The tender sympathy in his eyes tore into her as much as her father’s rebuke. She didn’t want Lord Marbrook’s sympathy, or to appear so pathetic in front of him.

  ‘If you’ll excuse me, I don’t want to miss charades.’

  She fled the room, afraid if she stayed he would see her tears.

  * * *

  It was some time before Gregor slipped into the sitting room to join the Rutherfords in their game of charades. Laurus stood in front of the fireplace, entertaining everyone with what could only be described as a feeble attempt to depict an elephant. It amused the children who sat in a half circle on the carpet in front of him guessing all manner of large animals and roaring with laughter. Gregor allowed himself a small smile at the sight. He’d never sat at his parents’ feet to watch some relative make a spectacle of themselves. He’d never sat on the sitting room carpet in his entire life, even the carpet on the nursery floor had been for walking on, never sitting, or playing or, heaven forbid, laughing.