by Mary Balogh
“It looks rather high,” she said, frowning. “Will you be safe?”
“If I fall,” he said, grinning with some relief at the change of subject, “you can catch me.”
But she did not need to do so. Men do not forget the tree-climbing skills they learn in boyhood, he discovered, though perhaps they are a little more concerned about the well-being of their pantaloons and Hessians and leather gloves.
She was standing a little way from the tree when he came back down. He turned to smile at her.
“Come,” he said softly, knowing that he should not. She had probably healed her life in five years and a few months. He should not deliberately complicate it again. Perhaps she had a lover, though if she did, she must be very discreet. No word of it had ever reached his ears.
She came and stood, not only in front of him, but against him. She spread her hands over his chest, beneath the capes of his coat and lifted her face to him even before he raised the tangled bunch of mistletoe he held in his hand.
He had never before kissed with conscious intent. He had always kissed to gain maximum pleasure. He liked to kiss with opened mouth and with his tongue. He liked kissing to be a prelude to full sexual contact.
He kissed June gently and tenderly with lips that were only slightly parted. He kissed her with no intention of pleasing himself but with the desire to make her feel his sorrow for what he had done to her in the past. He set his free arm loosely about her waist. She could pull away any time she chose.
She leaned her head back when the kiss was at an end, but she made no attempt to draw away from him. They gazed into each other’s eyes.
“Elliott,” she said at last, her voice almost a whisper, “why are we here?”
It was a strange question, perhaps. But he knew exactly what she meant. Unfortunately, he did not know the answer any more than she did.
“I do not know,” he said slowly. “But I think it is good that we are here.”
“Yes.” It was a mere whisper of sound.
“We had better go back,” he said. “Mrs. Parkes wants the mistletoe and Joss wants me to carve some sort of a Nativity scene.”
They need us his words seemed to say. But he knew that really the opposite was true. Strangely true. He and June needed a very ordinary middle-aged cottage woman and her redheaded, freckle-faced grandson. And the cottage itself.
“Yes, let us go back.” But she still did not move away from him for a moment. “Elliott,” she said, “why is it so peaceful there? Why is there such happiness there?”
“Because it is filled with love,” he said. He had felt it yesterday as soon as he had stepped inside the house. Love had reached out to him and enveloped him—and June too. If he had met June anywhere else, there would have been nothing but awkwardness and hostility and stubborn silence between them. But in this cottage they had both been wrapped about with love.
He could explain it no better than that. Even all of that he could not put into words for June. But she understood. She looked into his eyes and read the words there.
“Yes,” she said. “It is so simple really, is it not?”
He leaned down and kissed her again softly and briefly. And then they walked back to the cottage. Back in order to find out why they were there.
If anyone had told her that she would be doomed to spend the evening of Christmas Eve cooped up inside a small and simple cottage with a very ordinary country woman and a young child and—Elliott, she would have recoiled with horror. This was always the busiest and happiest evening at Hammond—and even at the other houses she visited for Christmas on alternate years.
At Hammond the evenings were so full of activities that they were dizzying. There was the concert, in which every member of the family down to the smallest child was required to participate and guests were strongly urged to do likewise. There was the children’s Nativity play that always ended the concert. And then the village carolers, followed by church, all of them trudging the half mile to the village and enjoying the once-a-year most joyful service of all. And then the feasting afterward and the talking and laughing, and the parents trying to get overexcited and overtired children to bed and to sleep.
It was always at Christmas she most regretted that she had no children of her own—and never would.
Here, in Mrs. Parkes’s cottage, there was only quietness. And yet it was a quietness of such contentment that at one time, when she thought about Hammond, she felt that she would not make the exchange even if she could. They were surrounded by the greenery and by the Christmas smells of the pine boughs—and of the mince pies.
Elliott was whittling away at the wood he and Joss had brought in from the shed after feeding the horses again. He had not lost the boyhood talent for carving wood into any shape he pleased. There was no time, as he explained, to make intricately detailed figures, but the simple, rugged shapes he created seemed more beautiful than anything June had seen before. There was a manger and a kneeling Mary and a stooping Joseph and a humble shepherd and a proud king. They came from his hands almost like magic.
Joss, seated on the floor before him so that he could sweep up the wood shavings, watched, his expression rapt and glowing. Mrs. Parkes, her day’s work done, sat in an old rocking chair, moving slowly back and forth, her hands clasped loosely in her lap, her habitual kindly smile on her face.
June, at Mrs. Parkes’s request, was telling the Christmas story again. But it took her a while to tell. When she reached the part at which the angel gave his message to the shepherds and was then joined by the heavenly host of angels praising God and singing, Joss wanted them to sing. And so they sang, the four of them, cheerfully and lustily yet reverently. It seemed rather surprising to June that the child knew all the Christmas songs either she or Elliott started. He knew every word of every verse and sang out joyfully in his lovely soprano voice.
“We would be going to church,” June said rather wistfully when the story was at an end, “if we were at Hammond. If we were not snowed in.”
“Ah, but church is where there are people, dearie,” Mrs. Parkes said. “Where there are two or three—or four—gathered together and turning their minds to worship and fellowship.”
And yes, of course she was right. June caught Elliott’s eye as he looked up briefly from his work, and they exchanged a smile. Yes, this was church. They had worshiped together even if there was no altar and no clergyman and no Gothic architectural splendor.
A chubby little sleeping baby was taking shape in Elliott’s hands. He was smiling down at it, his concentration fully on what he did.
“I have an idea.” June got to her feet and hurried into the bedroom, where she had left her reticule. There was a lace-edged handkerchief inside it. She folded it until the lace was hidden. Lace would not do at all. And then she spotted the bundle of jewelry she had taken from the carriage before she left it. She set the bundle on the bed, opened it, and carefully selected the most precious piece, one she never wore because it had been a wedding gift from Elliott. It was a jewel-encrusted brooch in the shape of a six-pointed star.
Why had she brought it with her this year? She never took it with her when she traveled. She never even looked at it. But this year she had brought it. She set it on the handkerchief and put the other pieces back inside the reticule.
“We must set up the Nativity Scene,” she said as she went back into the main room.
“Familiar words,” Elliott said with a smile. “June always had to set up my carvings into scenes.”
She looked critically at the space below the window and at its faded blue curtains. “Hm,” she said. “We need straw.”
“I’ll fetch some,” Joss said, bounding to his feet and rushing across the room to snatch up his coat and hat. He was back from the shed before five minutes had passed, his arms loaded with straw, which he strewed liberally over the floor between the door and the window.
Mrs. Parkes clucked her tongue. “You make a clumsy little boy, Joss,” she said.
She arranged all the carvings with great care, moving everything about, shifting angles until all was to her liking. Then she took the baby Jesus, wrapped him close in the handkerchief so that no lace showed, and set him carefully on the straw she had spread in the manger. She set him down as tenderly as if he were a real baby. Her own. Elliott, she noticed, was standing silently beside her.
But she had not quite finished. She took the brooch and pinned it to the curtain, directly above the manger. Immediately it caught light from the fire and the candles and shone down brightly on the stable of Bethlehem.
She sat back on her heels and Elliott came down on his haunches beside her. She turned her head to look at him, not even realizing that there were tears in her eyes until she found that his face was blurred. She reached out a hand without even realizing she did it, and his fingers touched hers even though their hands did not clasp.
“There,” Mrs. Parkes said. “It is Christmas again. It works its magic every year. It was certainly His best idea.”
His? June looked at Elliott, startled. But she could see that he had realized, as she had done, that Mrs. Parkes was referring to God. And yes, she was right again.
“One more piece for the scene,” Elliott said, holding out his closed hand and opening back his fingers to reveal another carving. He was grinning. “Mrs. Parkes and Joss will approve. It is an angel without wings. To me he looks like a lad of eight or nine years with spiky hair, which is probably red, and ears that are not quite flush with his head. And freckles.”
He opened the curtains back just a little so that he could place the impish angel on the edge of the windowsill. It appeared to be peering down at the scene below, well pleased with what it saw.
Joss had dissolved into peals of laughter. Mrs. Parkes was rocking in her chair, her apron thrown up over her face, her shoulders shaking with amusement.
It was growing late. Joss was beginning to yawn. Mrs. Parkes set out some supper on the table, and they all sat down to sample the Christmas fare, though Elliott of course had done that during the morning, while it was still hot from the oven.
“Go on up,” Elliott said when Joss’s head began to nod down in the direction of the table. “Go with him, Mrs. Parkes. I will help June with the dishes and I will bank up the fire and set the guard about it and make sure the door is securely fastened. You have had a busy day.”
They went, the two of them, without argument, and it seemed as if there were now only two occupants of the cottage, cozily playing house together. They did the tasks Elliott had listed without talking to each other, though the silence was curiously companionable.
She turned to go into the bedroom eventually, leaving the candle to him. But he was standing by the window, looking through the crack in the curtains, and he called to her.
“Don’t go yet,” he said. “Come and see this. No, better still, come to the door and see.”
He shrugged on his greatcoat and wrapped her cloak about her himself. Then he opened the door and they stepped outside. He kept an arm tightly about her shoulders.
“You see?” he said.
It was almost like daylight. The sky was clear and star-studded. The light gleamed off the snow. But almost directly overhead was the brightest star of all. It seemed to beam down only on them. It seemed to bathe them in warmth as well as in light—a fanciful thought.
“Oh,” she said, “it is the Bethlehem star.”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, it is.”
His head was tipped back, she saw when she looked at him, and his eyes were closed.
“Elliott,” she said almost in a whisper, “what is happening?”
He opened his eyes and looked down at her. “I am trying not to ask myself the question,” he said. “I am trying to be purely grateful that it is happening. Christmas and all its holy magic. And more than that. Christmas is for everyone. This seems to be just for you and me.”
“For us.” She closed her eyes as he had done a few moments before. “I did not believe there could ever again be an us. Can there?”
She wanted desperately for the answer to be yes. She ached for what had seemed quite impossible just a day and a half ago. She had always ached for it, she realized. All through those dangerous years when he was gone from England and she was little more than a child. All through those dreadful and bewildering months following their marriage. All through the months after she had left him, when she had expected that he would come to take her back. All through the dreary years since. Now.
“I am beginning,” he said slowly, “to believe in miracles. And in second chances. June.” He lowered his cheek to the top of her head. “June, will you come back to me? Will you give me a second chance to love you?”
For a moment, despite herself, there was terror. Inside the cottage there was a shared bed awaiting them. If she said yes now, they would not share it as they had done last night. If she said yes tonight, they would unite in the act that had only ever been terrifying to her.
But she had been a naive girl then. Then she had expected sweet romance, ethereal love. She had not expected the carnality of physical passion. She had been quite unable to cope with the needs of a man who was trying to escape the demons of warfare through the body of his bride.
She was a woman now. She understood that she was body and mind and spirit and that all parts of her being had to be nourished if she was to be happy and fulfilled. A marriage was between two people. Married love was not just a spiritual thing, not something of the emotions only. Married love was richer than that. It was of the body too.
She wanted her body united with his. She wanted him.
She wanted a marriage with him.
“I will be gentle, my love.” There was doubt, the beginnings of misery in his voice. Her silence had been extended. “If you wish, we will be together only as we have been together yesterday and today. It has been good. We have been friends. It can be enough. If you wish.”
“No.” She nestled her head against his shoulder. “It cannot be enough, Elliott. There has to be everything between us or nothing. I would prefer everything, please.”
He did not move or say anything for a while. But she felt the breath shuddering out of him.
“Yes,” he said at last. “Let us not ask what is happening or why, June. Not yet. Let us allow it to happen.”
He turned and took her back into the warmth and peace of the little cottage.
His hands were trembling, he noticed, as was his mouth. He wanted so badly to be perfect. He had had dozens of women since the breakup of his marriage and dozens before his wedding. And yet he had never, he realized now, made love.
Even to June. Even to his wife, the love of his heart. He had tried desperately to take from her—so that he would have something to give back. He had believed that he had nothing to give that was of any value. Just hands reddened with blood and a heart hardened by familiarity with death and violence. And a soul that yearned for life but did not know where to look to find it except in her body, in her sweetness and innocence.
He had not realized at that time that he did have something to give. Something infinitely precious. The most precious gift of all. He had belittled even his love for her.
He knew now that he had that gift to give. He knew that somehow he had the power to make her happy—happy tonight and happy for the rest of their lives.
And yet now too he was overwhelmed by the immensity of the gift he had to give and the desire to give it perfectly. His hands and his lips trembled.
As did hers.
He came to her naked after blowing out the candle and he lifted away her nightgown and threw it over the side of the bed. They touched each other with trembling, wondering hands. They kissed each other with trembling, yearning mouths. They whispered to each other endearments that they had never used before.
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��My love,” she murmured, her voice throaty with desire. “Yes, come. I am no longer afraid. I am a woman now. Come, my love.”
“Beloved,” he whispered into her ear as he came on top of her. He kept his full weight off her, on his forearms. “There is no longer anything to fear. I have love to give. I have not come to take.”
He mounted her slowly, careful not to jab inward in his need and cause the tense terror he had always felt before with her. But she tilted her hips when he was fully sheathed in her, inviting him deeper, and when he started to move, she twined her legs about his, tightened them, and moved tentatively until she had fit herself to his rhythm.
And he discovered something. He discovered that in giving he also received, that in loving he was also loved. He loved her for a long time so that she would learn that there could be pleasure, so that she would know that there need not be ugliness and pain and terror. He loved her long so that she would know herself adored. He took his time so that he might wipe from her mind and her body memories of desperate selfishness.
And he was rewarded in two ways. He felt her pleasure with every stroke into her body. He felt it grow to something beyond pleasure and realized finally and in some wonder that she was sexually aroused and would come to climax if he gave her the time. He gave it, moving steadily and firmly into her until he felt the cresting very near and held motionless deep inside her. He knew that she was about to cry out and he covered her mouth with his own and absorbed the sound. The sound of his woman reaching the ultimate physical happiness.
He had not been in any way intent on his own pleasure. He had labored only for hers. But at the moment she cried out into his mouth he felt his own powerful release and spilled out his seed deep inside her. He sighed aloud into her mouth and knew as he descended with her into the oblivion beyond fulfillment that the gift they had shared came not just from the two of them but somehow from outside them too. From the whole house surrounding them. From Christmas. From the two people who had found them in the snowstorm and had saved them and brought them to this haven.