by Mary Balogh
The note had irritated him to the point of fury. He was to be dismissed by a mere kept woman? And one whom he paid and housed and clothed very generously indeed. He would go on Christmas Day, he had decided, and leave her in no doubt about what was what. He would spend as many hours with her as he chose—and then dismiss her. The childish peevishness of his plan only added to his irritation. Even whores, he supposed, had a right to fair dealing. And he had not been quite fair to Lucy in the past few days.
Besides, he had not wanted to spend part of the day with her. He did not want to do so now. But there was only one other thing that he did want to do and that was impossible—despite his shopping expedition yesterday.
She was within walking distance.
She would probably have the door slammed in his face.
He could not spoil Christmas for her.
He did not know if she intended to spend it alone with her children. Probably not. Possibly she had plans to join some party. But this morning they were probably alone. If he went now, or perhaps in an hour’s time, after breakfast . . .
She would covet the morning alone with the children. She would be giving them their gifts. They would perhaps dine early, before they went out. He would be the last person she would wish to see—her would-be seducer of two nights ago. Though she had been just as pantingly eager as he. It was not that she had not wanted it.
Drat the snow. He had planned to go to Lucy’s to take his mind off where he really wanted to go. He had planned to satisfy his appetites on her and imagine that she was . . .
No, no no. That would be grossly distasteful. And quite impossible anyway.
He could call for half an hour—to take the boy a gift as a sort of thank-you for singing at his concert. And one for the infant just because she was an infant and it was Christmas. It was the proper thing to do. The public thanks he had given the boy during the concert needed to be followed up with a more personal thank-you a day or two later. It was mere coincidence that it was Christmas Day.
She would see through his ruse in a twinkling.
So what? He would stay for half an hour and then return home to enjoy the quiet day he had planned for himself.
But he was so damned lonely. The thought was out before he could guard against it. And now it was too late to deny it. He had never before felt consciously lonely. But a few streets away there was a woman he wanted to bed. No, it was not quite that, though undoubtedly he did want to bed her. Very badly. But what he wanted more was for her to smile at him. She had never smiled at him. He had never felt the warmth of her regard. A smile from her would go a long way toward alleviating loneliness—strange thought!
And a few streets away there was a boy who looked at him with trust and liking—and a little infant girl who held up her arms to him and climbed on his knee and felt his whiskers with one tiny finger—and gazed into his eyes without blinking.
A few streets away there was a family of which he was no part. They were celebrating Christmas. Without him. He was alone, looking out at a blanket of snow.
He smiled ruefully and even chuckled when he caught the self-pitying bent of his thoughts. But he did not feel particularly comforted. Just half an hour? He would not disturb her peace for longer than that.
He wanted to see those children again.
And he had to see her again. Just once. Just for half an hour.
He left a note on his secretary’s desk before leaving the house, for immediate attention when the man returned to work. Lucy was to be settled with—quite amicably and quite generously. He would not see her again. He felt enormously relieved at the thought.
He wondered as he lifted the knocker of Mrs. Berlinton’s house later and let it fall back against the door if he had come unpardonably early for a morning visit. There was no sign of life anywhere on the street. His bootprints were the only ones to mar the smooth surface of the snow. But it was Christmas Day, of course, and there were no tradesmen about. It was really not as early as it appeared. The door opened.
She came down alone to the salon into which he had been shown. He bowed to her; she curtsied.
“Good morning, ma’am,” he said. “Happy Christmas.”
“And to you, my lord,” she said. And blushed hotly, and caught her lower lip in her teeth.
“I have brought gifts for the children,” he said, indicating the parcels he had set down on a table.
“That is extremely kind of you,” she said, “though there was no need. Thank you. I shall take them up.” She hesitated. “Thank you.”
Ah, so he was not to have even his half hour. Or to see the children. And she had not smiled—only blushed.
But the door behind her opened again and both children stepped inside the room. Matthew was bursting with excitement.
“I got a stagecoach and horses,” he yelled, “and passengers and parcels that can be taken in and out and doors that really open. And the horses go up and down when you push the carriage along. The coachman has a horn and—”
“Matthew,” his mother said, sounding appalled, “remember your manners and make your bow to Lord Heath.”
Matthew bobbed his head in an approximation of a bow and Lord Heath smiled at him—and at the little child, who stood just inside the door with excitement and wonder in her wide eyes, which were fixed unblinkingly on his face.
“And you, little one,” he asked, “what have you had for Christmas?”
“A doll,” she whispered. She did not move from where she was or take her eyes from his face. Or blink.
He smiled at her and felt a strange pain about the heart. He remembered what she had said to him a few days before. She had told him her secret wish for Christmas. She had wanted a new papa. And she had had someone in mind—the nonexistent fiancé he had asked her mother about.
It was as if a lit candle had suddenly been set in the middle of his head. He suddenly saw the light. She wanted a new papa—and she had someone picked out.
Oh no, little one, he told her with his eyes. Oh no.
But she gazed unblinkingly back.
“You were not told that you could come downstairs,” Mrs. Berlinton was saying. “We are taking too much of Lord Heath’s time when he merely came to drop off some gifts for you. What very fortunate children you are. Do say thank you.”
The little one’s eyes widened further if that were possible. But she did not look at the parcels, as the boy did, with a whoop of delight. She continued to gaze at him. He felt that he had betrayed her in some way. He wondered if her mother knew about her secret wish and guessed not.
“I would like to see you open the gifts,” he told the children. “I am in no hurry to go anywhere else.” Now he was being unfair to their mother, who had hoped to get him back out through the door almost before he had come through it.
Matthew tore the wrappings off his and gazed in awe at the miniature man’s watch inside. “Oh,” he said, “just like Uncle John’s. Better than Uncle John’s. Oh, thank you, sir. It is the best present in all the world. Look, Mama.”
The little one opened her fur muff and small parasol more carefully. She slipped her hands inside the muff and ran her cheek over the fur. “Thank you,” she whispered. But her eyes looked wounded.
“I want to show his lordship my stagecoach,” Matthew yelled, remembering his primary gift. “May I, Mama? The coachman’s horn actually makes a noise, sir, though it is more like a whistle than a horn.”
“I think his lordship must be eager to be on his way, Matthew,” his mother said firmly. “We must not keep him.”
“But I would be delighted to see the stagecoach,” he said. “And the doll. If I may, ma’am?” He would not exceed the half hour, he promised himself. She need not look so stricken.
“You must not allow them to delay you,” she said, as Matthew raced from the room toward the stairs. She looked down at her daughter. “Katie, why have you started to suck your thumb again? Run along and bring your doll to the drawing room to show Lord Heath.�
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The child went on ahead, her hands back inside her muff. Lord Heath looked at Mrs. Berlinton and extended an arm for hers.
“I shall ring for hot punch and mince pies,” she said. “You must be cold from the outdoors. It was most kind of you to come through all this snow and to bring gifts. But you must not feel obliged to stay long or to allow the children to bore you.”
“I am expected nowhere else,” he said. “And I am not expecting to be bored.”
She blushed. “You are kind,” she murmured.
She smelled of roses.
She wished him a thousand miles away. When a servant had come to the nursery to inform her that Lord Heath was waiting below in the salon, she had wanted to send back the message that they were from home—but it would have been churlish to do so. As soon as she saw him, she wished she had been churlish. And when she knew he was coming up to the drawing room to view the children’s gifts and to partake of punch and mince pies, she wished she had taken the children into the country. She wished she had never met him.
And yet as he gave his full attention first to Katie’s doll and then to Matthew’s stagecoach and even went down on one knee to watch the horses prancing as the carriage was pushed along, she knew beyond a doubt that this was her Christmas gift. Just this. A secret gift she would cherish for days to come. Perhaps weeks. Probably years.
She had seen him smile at her children—his smile transformed him from aristocratic austerity to breath-taking attractiveness. She had heard him say that he was expected nowhere else, rejecting the easy escape route she had offered him. She had held his arm and felt his body heat and smelled his expensive cologne. She had heard him comment on the white silk and the lace frills and satin bows of the doll’s dress and declare that the doll was almost as pretty as Katie. And she had seen him try to blow the stagecoach driver’s horn and laugh as he produced only a sad little squeak.
After half an hour she had enough memories on which to feed for a long time to come. She was, of course—she did not even try to deny the truth to herself—in love with him. It would have been strange if she had not been. A lonely widow and a handsome, virile gentleman reputed to be a rake. Of course she was in love with him.
She held her breath when he got to his feet and turned to her. Half an hour had passed. It was time for him to take his leave. She wished he had not come at all. She wished he could stay forever.
“I cannot help thinking,” he said, “how your children are shut up indoors here, ma’am, while there is a whole world of new white snow out there going to waste. And Hyde Park a mere five-minute walk away.”
“I plan to take them outside after dinner, my lord,” she said, flushing. Did he think that she denied her children all pleasure? And Hyde Park was all of a ten-minute walk away.
“But I will wager,” he said, “that you will not take them sliding along the paths or engage them in a ferocious battle with snowballs or build a snowman with them tall enough to bump his head against the clouds.” He glanced down at Katie, who was as usual gazing steadily into his face. “Or teach them how to make snow angels.”
“Ye-e-es!” Matthew started to jump on the spot. “A snowball fight.”
“Will he hurt his head?” Katie whispered.
“We will give him a hat,” Lord Heath said.
We?
“And it seems to me altogether possible,” he said, glancing at the window, “that the snow might begin to melt by this afternoon.”
We? What did he mean by we?
“We had better go out this morning,” he said, looking directly into Fanny’s eyes. “Would you not agree, ma’am?”
“Yes.” She did not know why both she and Katie were whispering. She cleared her throat. “Yes, my lord, if you can spare the time and if it is no trouble to you.” She rushed onward before she could talk herself out of it. “Perhaps you would care to join us for Christmas dinner afterward.”
He inclined his head to her. “I would indeed,” he said. “Now, who wants to go out into the snow? Within the next ten minutes?”
Matthew cheered and Katie whispered, “I do.”
She was being very foolish, Fanny thought as she hurried upstairs to get ready, Katie’s hand in hers. His motive for showing such an interest in her children was crystal clear. Doing so was the surest route to her affections. Not that he cared about her affections, of course. But clearly he had not given up on his desire to get her into bed. He thought to win her this way. And he might well be right. She was not at all sure quite how strong she was.
There was something overwhelmingly attractive about a man who was kind to one’s children. She could not quite imagine the elegant and immaculately tailored Lord Heath romping in the snow.
Katie had made a million snow angels. At least that was how many the gentleman said she had made. She had counted up to eleven herself, but she knew she was not a good counter. Mama had made two. After the first one she had said the snow going down inside her collar felt horrid and she would make no more, but the gentleman had called her a coward and so she had made one more.
They had thrown snowballs at one another until Matthew had hurled himself backward into the snow, laughing, and she, Katie, had been so helpless with giggles that she had been unable to throw even one more. The gentleman called them all cowards and Mama threw a snowball that hit him right in the middle of the face. And then he threw one that hit her in the face—and it dripped down inside her collar. And so the battle had ended in a draw, the gentleman said, but since his and Katie’s side had thrown the last snowball, he would declare Mama and Matthew vanquished. And so Mama hit him on the shoulder with another snowball, and that was the end of that.
They built a tall, thin snowman. It was so tall that the gentleman had to lift her up to set her handfuls of snow on its head. They had brought coal from the kitchen for eyes and nose and buttons and a carrot for a pipe.
Katie did not think it was quite tall enough to bump its head against the clouds, but perhaps the clouds would come lower later on.
“Where is his hat?” she asked the gentleman, and he took off his own and set it on the snowman’s head at a funny angle so that Katie started to giggle again. But she would not let the gentleman leave the hat there. He might get a cold head, she told him, and he bowed to her and told her she was kindness itself.
Mama would absolutely not—those were her very words, absolutely not—slide along the slippery path the gentleman and Matthew made. Katie was afraid to try. She clung to her mother’s hand and watched. But then the gentleman was bending over her and offering to pick her up and slide with her.
“I will not let you fall, little one,” he assured her.
She knew he would not let her fall even though Matthew had come to grief several times. She lifted her arms. And of course he did not let her fall. She felt as safe as safe could be while they slid along faster than the wind. After a few times, when she kept asking for more, he did fall, but he did not drop her. He merely held her more tightly so that she came to a bumpy but quite safe rest against his chest while he laughed, sprawled out on his back.
“My boots moved faster than we did that time, little one,” he told her.
And then Mama was exclaiming over him and slapping at the snow caked all down his back and telling him he was as foolish as any child and if they did not hurry, their dinner would spoil and she would instruct the cook to blame him.
And so they set out for home again and Katie thought with some longing of the warm fires in the nursery and drawing room. She burrowed her hands deeper inside her new muff.
No one had told her yet that the gentleman was her new papa, and she did not like to ask. But surely he must be. He had praised them and played with them and given them presents. And he liked Mama and she liked him. But no one had said anything yet and so she could not quite let go of her anxiety. Perhaps they would tell her—and Matt—at dinner. Or perhaps at tea. Or perhaps at bedtime.
He was a wonderful papa. Far more
wonderful than Uncle John, though she would never say so aloud to the cousins. She yawned loudly and the gentleman stooped down and picked her up and carried her the rest of the way home even though Mama told him she was no longer a baby.
But that was what papas did. They treated one like a baby when one was cold and tired and wished one really were still a baby. Papas did not force one to remember all the time that one was a big girl. She yawned again.
He had been very selfish and very unfair to her. By the evening it was very obvious that she had had no plans for Christmas Day. No plans that involved any company or party, anyway. Like him, she had probably planned a quiet Christmas at home, just herself and her two children. And he had spoiled that plan by intruding—he, a stranger.
He stayed for Christmas dinner and then he prolonged his visit in order to take coffee in the drawing room. The boy wanted to sing for him and the infant wanted to show him the story book she had received from her uncle and aunt. And that reminded Matthew that the same uncle and aunt had given him a spillikins game and he wondered if Lord Heath would care to play it with him. And so they played game after game. He let Matthew win all but once or twice.
He found himself late in the afternoon stretched out on one side of the floor, his head propped on one hand while the boy sat cross-legged beside him. The little girl had some time before climbed onto her mother’s lap and had watched with increasingly drooping eyes until she had fallen asleep.
The Yule log crackled in the fireplace. The air was perfumed with the scent of pine boughs.
It was an achingly domestic scene. A family Christmas. Except that they were not a family and he had stayed in town this year in order to avoid that shudderingly awful thing, a family Christmas.
Mrs. Berlinton went herself, when it was already getting dark outside, to fetch the tea tray since she was determined to give the servants as much time off as possible. He should have taken his leave then, or at least immediately afterward. She must be wishing him to the devil. The children were not. Matthew chattered to him all through tea, the little one climbed onto his lap and startled him by methodically opening all the buttons down the front of his waistcoat and then doing them up again.