Christmas Miracles

by Mary Balogh

  She was his wife. This beautiful stranger was his wife of longer than five years. When his grandparents had suggested her as a bride on his return from Waterloo, he had remembered her as a pretty, happy child who had laughed a great deal and who had loved him and followed him about and tried to please him. And when he had seen her again, he had wanted her with an intense longing. She had been seventeen—beautiful, sweet, innocent. He had wanted her and everything she had to give him. Everything he had lost in years of fighting even though he had been only two-and-twenty when it was all over.

  She had been able to give him nothing. And he had made her miserable—for those three months anyway. Perhaps she had recovered later, after she had left him.

  He lay still, waiting for the old bitterness to wash over him and the old hatred and the old sense of guilt. But the bed was warm and comfortable. The room was warm even though it was separate from the kitchen and there was no fire in here. There was a clock ticking somewhere, a rhythmic, comforting sound.

  He should be uncomfortably aware of June in the bed with him. He should be worried about tomorrow, about whether he was going to be able to get to Hammond Park or not. He should be worried about his family worrying about him—and about June.

  But he felt warm and comfortable and sleepy. And strangely at peace. Peace was something with which he had little acquaintance. But he felt it now unaccountably yet unmistakably.

  If he could live with her here forever, he thought as he sank closer to sleep, they could be happy together. They could be man and wife again. They could . . .

  Viscount Garrett, who for years had suffered badly from insomnia, was asleep.

  After she was awake, she wondered why she had woken. Usually in the winter it was because the bed or the room or both had grown cold. Or else it was because she was lying in an uncomfortable position or had had a troublesome dream. None of those things had woken her tonight. She knew instantly that she was in a strange bed in a strange house—not for a moment did she feel disoriented. But she did not believe she had ever felt more comfortable, more at peace in her life.

  She was lying on her side, facing away from the doorway, as she had been when she lay down. Except that now she was in the middle of the bed. Her head was only partially on the pillow. Her neck was settled comfortably over a warm, firmly muscled arm. Her chin was resting on the same arm, which was bent beneath it. She could feel that the hand belonging to that arm was lightly clasping her shoulder. Her knees were drawn up. Behind them she could feel other knees. Along the backs of her thighs she could feel other legs. Around her bottom and along her back she could feel a warm, relaxed body. His cheek was against the back of her head. She could feel his breath warm on the side of her head, just above her ear.

  Elliott!

  She waited to feel outrage, panic.

  She had worshiped him throughout childhood, the older, handsome, accomplished cousin who was really no blood relation at all. She had agonized over his safety during his years away at the wars. She had fallen headlong in love with him on his return. She had married him, fully expecting a glorious happily ever after.

  And then she had been confronted with a dour, moody, incommunicative stranger for a husband. A man who seemed intent on ignoring her except in one capacity. A man who seemed almost to hate her and who resisted all her attempts at tenderness and all her conversational overtures. He had wanted only to do that to her, over and over again, night and day. He had been insatiable and terrifying to her in her naiveté. Always the swift, deep, merciless penetration of her body, followed by the fierce, painful pounding, and culminating in the sobbing of his release. She had felt robbed of personhood.

  Yet she was not afraid now. Or outraged. Or even embarrassed. And she felt reluctant to edge away from him lest he himself wake and find them thus.

  How strange it was, she thought. How very, very strange. Just a matter of hours ago she had been on her way to Hammond Park for Christmas. She had been thinking of how she would go to London for the Season and choose herself a lover at last. She would have been horrified if she had known that Elliott was at that very moment also on his way to his grandparents’. And then there had been that uncannily sudden snowstorm and both of them being rescued and brought here—only now did it strike her that she had not set eyes on Joss before he had arrived with Elliott. Where had he been for the half hour before that? Why had none of the rest of the family been stranded here?

  But here they were, she and Elliott, stranded together at this little cottage. Having to share a bed. In close embrace in its center.

  Yet she could feel no horror. Only deep comfort.

  And then she realized something. His breathing was too quiet for sleep—and yet he was relaxed. And she realized, something else too, something that was so beautiful and so sleep-inducing that she had not even noticed it at first. Mrs. Parkes was singing up in the loft, softly and sweetly. Infinitely sweetly. The child must be having trouble sleeping. She was singing a Christmas lullaby.

  “Lully, lulla, thou little tiny child . . .”

  But no—there were two voices, her own a soft contralto, the other the achingly pure voice of a boy soprano.

  June could scarcely believe that she had not noticed the singing at first, though she knew that it had been there in her unconscious hearing since before she woke. She felt close to tears again, tears of—joy? What was there to feel joyful about?

  “June?” His voice was soft and warm against her ear. “I do not want to die. I want to live.” She heard him swallow. “I want you to live.”

  She did not know quite what his meaning was. Perhaps he had woken from a dream and had not yet shaken off its shreds. Perhaps he was remembering yesterday afternoon. And yet she felt deeper meaning than that. And she realized, though she did not fully understand even now, that those words had been a part of him since his return from the wars. He had wanted to live. That first dreadful month of their marriage had shown him grasping desperately at life—and had revealed her withdrawing from it in bewilderment and fright.

  What had she done to him in her naiveté? What had he done to her in his pain? What had they done to each other?

  She did what some rational part of her mind told her she ought not to do. She turned in his arms so that she was lying against him, front to front. There was the remembered feel of his body, firmly and splendidly masculine, though when she had known it before it had been only the weight of it on top of her as he performed the marriage act. And there was the remembered smell of him—soap and leather and sweat and masculinity. Smells that had always been part of her barely controlled panic.

  Now he felt and smelled wonderful.

  “They saved us, Elliott,” she whispered. “It must have been for some reason, must it not? We are going to live.”

  She sensed that her words had more meaning than she understood even herself.

  “Elliott,” she whispered again. “How did they know we were out there? Why are they singing?”

  He did not answer her first question. He drew her head to rest in the hollow between his neck and his shoulder and settled his cheek against the top of it.

  “They are singing us a lullaby,” he said.

  The lullaby was for the infant Jesus. Or for Joss. And yet his words did not seem in any way absurd. None of this seemed absurd.

  She sighed with deep contentment and slid back into sleep.

  It had stopped snowing by the time they got up. But it must have snowed heavily all through the night. The sun, which had broken through the thin layer of clouds, sparkled off white oceans of snow. The branches of the trees were laden down with it. His curricle, which had had to be left outside the shed occupied by his horses, was a mere mound of snow, like a formless snowman without a head.

  There was to be no possibility of travel today. Despite the sunshine, the air was cold and crisp. There was no hope of much melting.

  He stood in the open doorway of the cottage, waiting for Joss to wind a long striped scarf
about his neck and bury his head beneath yesterday’s enormous cap so that they could go out to feed and water the horses. June was helping Mrs. Parkes set the table for breakfast, a voluminous white apron over the simple yet fashionable wool gown she had worn yesterday.

  He doubted that she had ever helped with kitchen chores, just as he had never been forced to feed his own horses. And yet she looked cheerful and domesticated. As cheerful as he felt.

  He realized something suddenly. Something strange. He had been almost holding his breath when he first opened the door, hoping that travel would be impossible.

  Being stranded in a simple country cottage without his valet and most of his belongings—all he had with him was a bag with a change of shirt and handkerchief and his shaving kit—should have been nightmarish. Especially when he had been stranded with his estranged wife. And more especially when it was Christmas Eve. A Christmas without a large house party and piles of rich foods and liquor and without the endless entertainments was almost inconceivable.

  And yet he had hoped, opening the door, that there would be enough snow to keep him stranded?

  His hopes had certainly been realized.

  “Ready, mate,” Joss said with his cheerful, cheeky grin.

  Elliott remembered the almost ethereal voice singing its lullaby last night. The memory seemed almost like a dream. But he knew it had not been. He had woken up this morning with June still in his arms. And incredibly they had smiled at each other before turning away without a word to get up on opposite sides of the bed. Oh, no, last night had been no dream.

  The most incredible memory to him was that he had felt no real physical desire for her despite the close proximity of their bodies. Only a deep, warm affection.

  It was what had been missing from the first months of their marriage—one of the things that had been missing. There had been only desire then. Though it had not been entirely a desire for sexual gratification. There had been more to it than that. It had been the desire for what she had and what he had desperately wanted—youth and innocence. He had never been able to put himself deeply enough into her body. He had never been able to put himself into her.

  “Come, then, lad,” he said, rubbing his hand over the top of the cap and inadvertently turning it slightly so that it was now worn at a jaunty angle.

  “The porridge will be ready in a quarter of an hour,” Mrs. Parkes called cheerfully after them. “Don’t catch cold, Joss.”

  The child giggled happily as Elliott closed the door and they waded side by side toward the shed.

  She was on her feet all morning and busy the whole time at unaccustomed chores—stirring the porridge, browning toast over the fire at the end of a long fork, washing breakfast dishes, making up the bed she and Elliott had shared, washing out the water jug and basin, helping to make mince pies, jam tarts, and small spicy currant cakes for Christmas, washing up more dishes, peeling and chopping vegetables for the evening meal.

  She could not remember a happier day.

  She could not remember her own mother. She liked to imagine as the day wore on that her mother was just like Mrs. Parkes. She felt the comfortable, loving sort of mother/daughter relationship that she had always dreamed of.

  Elliott and the child were in and out all morning, fetching in wood and water, carrying in armfuls of bright-berried holly and ivy and pine boughs, bringing in the freshness of the outdoors and the wonder of Christmas with them. They decorated the house until it was laden with greenery, perching on chairs, balancing even on the corner of the table at one point. Elliott was down to his shirtsleeves before they had finished. And he was in the sort of lighthearted mood June remembered from his boyhood, a mood she had not glimpsed even once during the three months of their marriage.

  He leaned around her at the table once in order to help himself to a currant cake fresh out of the oven. She slapped his hand without thinking and he grinned at her and told her she had flour on her nose. She retreated hastily to the small washroom and peered into the mirror hanging on the wall there. He had not been lying.

  “Cook at your grandpapa’s used to tell us that it was bad for the system to eat baked goodies when they were hot,” she said, coming back into the kitchen with the flour gone. “She used to say that we would have severe cramps.”

  He clutched at his stomach and doubled over, groaning.

  Mrs. Parkes and Joss laughed merrily. So merrily that, as usual, their laughter was infectious.

  “Idiot,” June said, giggling at her estranged husband. “Clown.”

  “The damage is done now,” he said hoarsely. “I might as well try a mince pie too. Joss?” He tossed one across to the child, who caught it deftly and promptly ate it, and picked up another for himself.

  “Do make yourself at home,” June said in a tone that was meant to be chilling.

  But he merely grinned again, dipped his finger in a pool of flour that had not yet been cleared from the table, and tapped his finger on her nose.

  “That is better,” he said, standing back and looking critically at her, his head tipped to one side.

  They were behaving like a pair of silly children. Whatever would Mrs. Parkes think of them? But she was bent over the fire, placidly pouring boiling water from the kettle into the teapot. She was smiling. And so was Joss, his face strangely radiant as the firelight caught it.

  June felt a totally irrational surging of warm joy. She was so glad that it had snowed heavily enough last night to strand them here for another day. How awful of her to feel that way. All the family at Hammond must be frantic with worry. And they were imposing upon the hospitality of people who were clearly not wealthy.

  “Here,” she said, picking up the tea towel and tossing it at Elliott. “There are more dishes for me to wash and Mrs. Parkes deserves a sit down with her tea.”

  He stood beside her, meekly drying dishes.

  And then Mrs. Parkes noticed that for all the greenery that was draped about the house, there was not even a single sprig of mistletoe.

  “There, dearie,” she said to June. “You have earned some fresh air and exercise. You will go out with your husband to fetch some. Joss will stay inside to help me.”

  Joss laughed. “Yes, Gran,” he said.

  She chuckled with him. For some reason his calling her that always seemed to amuse the two of them.

  It took a while to find mistletoe. Partly because the snow was so deep that they had to wade through it and were looking downward at their feet—or rather at their knees—more than up at the trees around them. And partly because they became very conscious of each other without the accompanying presence of Mrs. Parkes and Joss. And partly because, to mask any discomfort they might be feeling, he started a snowball fight.

  He threw one at the back of her head and it landed perfectly—between the bottom of her bonnet and the neckline of her cloak. She shrieked and whirled around and the battle was on. He would have won handily if he had not been incautious enough to step too close. He realized too late that one slim little foot had encircled his ankle and wrecked his balance.

  He could have taken her down with him, but a gentleman must be a gentleman. He lay sprawled back in the snow allowing her her moment of triumph. She giggled down at him, for all the world like the child he remembered from a long, long time ago.

  He got up and stood with his back to her, slapping at the snow caking his greatcoat. Her giggles had died.

  “I never meant to hurt you,” he said quietly. “Truly I never meant it, June. I was—sick. Not physically. In other ways. I was—very sick.”

  “From the wars?” Her voice shook slightly. “You would not talk to me. You became morose or openly hostile whenever I tried to talk to you. All you wanted . . .”

  He understood why she could not complete that thought. Yes, all he had wanted . . . And yet it was not quite what it had seemed, perhaps. That was not really all he had wanted.

  “I wanted you,” he said, turning his head to look at her. She was standing
staring at him, her cloak speckled with the snow he had been hurling at her just a few moments before. “Not just your body, June, though that is how it must have appeared. You were so young, so innocent, so pure, so sweet. I wanted—I thought perhaps I could regain those things for myself through you. I wanted so desperately to be innocent again. Instead I became more guilty. I hurt you.”

  “Was it so very terrible?” she asked. “The war? Did you fear for your life every moment?”

  “Yes,” he said. “But being a man I could not admit it any more than any of the others could. And so there was all the swaggering and bravado, all the devil-may-care high spirits, all the—killing and pretending that those we killed deserved to die merely because they had been born French. I killed and killed and killed, June. Men who wanted to die as little as I did. Men who deserved to die as little as I did. Men with mothers and grandmothers and wives and sweethearts. I am sorry. I am so sorry to be talking about this now. This is Christmas.” He turned abruptly and looked upward and saw—mistletoe.

  “I thought you were a hero,” she said. “I thought you had fought evil men. But I thought the fighting had made you a little arrogant and a little—insensitive. I was very naive.”

  “No.” He turned his head again. “Never blame yourself, June.”

  “Stepmama told me,” she said, “that when a marriage breaks down, there are always at least two people to blame.”

  “She is wrong,” he said.

  “You were not insensitive,” she said. “You were too sensitive. You had been hurt by the wars. You needed healing.”

  “I was selfish,” he said. “I wanted and wanted. I took and took. I gave nothing. I wanted to take from you. I wanted to take all that was you and make it part of myself. I thought I had nothing to give. Perhaps I was right. But I did not mean to hurt you, June. I loved you. A contradiction in terms, perhaps. Love gives. It does not take. I only took.”

  He both saw and heard her swallow.

  “Mistletoe,” he said, nodding in the direction of a nearby oak tree. “I had better get some for Mrs. Parkes.”