Christmas Beau

by Mary Balogh

  But then, did he?

  She had her chance. Her chance to avoid his revenge despite the care with which he had set it up. He would get even with her if he could. But he could never force anything on her. He could not ravish her.

  If she was the virtuous lady she appeared to be, he thought, watching the brandy swirling slowly in his glass, his jaw hardening, then she would find some excuse for not accompanying him that afternoon. She would save herself. And if she did so, if she refused to come, then he would let her go at the end of the week. Perhaps she would feel regret. Perhaps she already expected a declaration from him. Perhaps she would be disappointed-severely so maybe. It would be a sort of revenge. Not as satisfactory as he had originally planned, but good enough.

  Truth to tell, he was becoming somewhat sickened by the whole thing. He wished her husband had not died or that he had never heard of it. He wished he had not heard that she was in London or that he had ignored the knowledge. He wished to God that he had never seen her again.

  "Perhaps her mother will want to come with her," Mr. Corn well said.

  The marquess looked up blankly. "Judith?" he said. "She has promised to come walking with me."

  Mr. Cornwell raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips. "Has she, now?" he said. "In that case, Max, I shall have to assure the lady that the girls' house will be quite full enough with twenty-two children and three adults."

  "Thank you," the marquess said. "I would appreciate that, Spence."

  "I am not surprised, of course," Mr. Cornwell said. "It would have been pretty obvious to a blind man in the past couple of days. Your aunts have been nodding and looking very smug behind your back.''

  Lord Denbigh got abrupdy to his feet and set his half-empty glass on the tray. He put the stopper back in the decanter. "It is not quite what you think, Spence," he said. "We had better go and see if any of my servants or dogs have been worried to death yet."

  His friend chuckled and set an empty glass down beside his.

  ***

  "You are quite sure you want to go?" Judith was stooped down tying the strings of Kate's hood beneath her chin.

  Two large dark eyes looked back up at her and the child nodded.

  "You want to be with the other children?" Judith smiled.

  "Daniel is going to carry me on his shoulder," Kate said.

  "You like Daniel?" Judith asked.

  Kate nodded again.

  "And you do not mind if Mama does not come with you?''

  Kate put her arms about her mother's neck and kissed her cheek. "I'll tell you about it when I come home," she said.

  "Well," Judith said, "Aunt Amy will be with you." She need not feel guilty, she thought, or as if she were neglecting her children. Rupert had already raced from the room and downstairs. And Mrs. Harrison, Mr. Cornwell, and Amy had all asked-separately-if Kate might be taken along too so that she would not be the only child left alone.

  "Of course you must not feel obliged to come," Amy had said when Judith had expressed her concern. "Goodness, Judith, do you not believe that I will guard the children with my life? Besides…" she had added, but she had looked uncomfortable and had not finished the sentence.

  Besides, she wished for some time alone with Mr. Corn-well? Amy had not been looking very happy all morning. Or rather, she had been looking too determinedly happy. Judith had seen her looking so once or twice when her father and her brothers had persuaded her to forgo some expected outing that might take her into too close a communication with strangers.

  Had things not gone well for Amy at last night's ball? Judith wondered. Amy had been so very excited at the prospect of attending a ball. And she had danced several sets, two of them with Mr. Cornwell.

  But there had been no announcement or private confidence during the evening-or this morning. Had Amy too been expecting, or hoping for, a declaration and not received it?

  Kate reached up a hand to take hers and they left the nursery almost to collide with Amy, who was coming to meet them.

  "Are you ready, Kate?" she asked. "Oh, and all nice and warmly dressed. Are you going to hold Aunt Amy's hand?"

  "Ride on Daniel's shoulder," Kate said.

  "Ah, of course," Amy said. "Daniel." She smiled brightly at Judith.

  There was noisy chaos in the great hall. Mr. Rockford was solemnly shaking hands with all the children while the Misses Hannibal were kissing them. Two balls had escaped from their owners' hands. Someone was demanding to know what time it was since he had forgotten to wind his watch. A chorus of voices answered him. Mrs. Harrison and Mr. Cornwell were organizing the children into twos for the walk to the village. The marquess was standing cheerfully in the middle of it all.

  "All right," Mr. Cornwell said in the voice that always drew everyone's attention, "before we quick march, what do you have to say to his lordship?"

  "Thank you," twenty voices chorused. "Guv," someone added.

  "Hip hip," Mr. Cornwell said unwisely.

  "Hooray!" everyone shrieked, and caps and mittens and balls flew upward and then rained down on the great hall.

  "Hip hip."

  "Hooray."

  "Hip hip."

  "Hooray."

  The marquess grinned as everyone broke ranks to retrieve lost possessions.

  "We may be out of,here before nightfall, Max," Mr. Cornwell shouted over the hubbub.

  "I shall send the carriage for you and the children, ma'am," the marquess said to Amy.

  “Oh, please do not," she said to him earnestly. “We will enjoy the walk."

  "As you will," he said, glancing from her to Mr. Cornwell and back again.

  And then they were on their way, more or less in twos and more or less at a brisk march. Kate and one of the smallest boys rode sedately on other children's shoulders. Mr. Rockford had already gone in search of Sir William in the billiard room. The Misses Hannibal assured each other that they must not catch a chill from the opened front doors and retreated to a warm salon.

  The hall was suddenly very quiet.

  "You will come walking with me, Judith?" the marquess asked.

  Walking? She looked up into his eyes. "That would be pleasant, my lord," she said, noticing how foolish her formality sounded after the night before.

  "Go and dress warmly, then," he said. "I shall meet you down here in-ten minutes' time?"

  "Yes," she said.

  He looked stiff and cold, his face harsh, his eyes hooded. Almost as he had always used to look, she thought, with a quickening of her breath and a sudden strange stabbing of alarm. But then he smiled, and he was Max again.

  She smiled in return and turned to hurry from the great hall to the staircase.

  Chapter 14

  There was a chilly wind blowing so that even though the sky was clear and the sun shining, it was less pleasant outside than it had been for the past two days. She held the hood of her cloak together beneath her chin and clung to his arm.

  She had thought that he must have changed his mind or that perhaps she had misunderstood all the time. Perhaps he really had just wanted to spend an afternoon with her. But she knew soon after they had left the house just where he was taking her. And she was not sure whether to be glad or sorry.

  "You are cold?" he asked her, and he unlinked his arm from hers, set it about her shoulders, and drew her firmly against his side. They walked on through the snow. "Soon you will be warm."

  It was a promise that made her knees feel weak. She rested her head against his shoulder since that seemed the most sensible place to set it.

  "Max," she said at last when they had trudged through the snow for a while in silence, retracing their steps of a few days before, when they had come with the children to gather the greenery for decorating the house, "where are we going?" She was talking for the sake of talking.

  "You know where," he said, stopping and turning her to face him. "You did understand me last night, Judith? You do not wish to go back?"

  There was something. His voice was low. H
e was looking down at her lips. She could feel the warmth of him through his greatcoat. But there was something intangible. Her own conscience? Could she be quite so coolly doing what she was doing?

  She shook her head and he brushed his lips briefly over hers before they walked on.

  She had made no protest at all. Only the question whose answer she must have known. And only the slightly troubled look when he had given her the chance, even at mat late moment, to go back, to be free of him. He held her protectively against his side, feeling her slenderness through the thickness of their clothing.

  But she had shaken her head and looked at him with such a look of-nakedness in her eyes that he almost wished that he could turn back himself or direct their steps somewhere else and pretend that all along his intention had only been to walk out with her. There had been desire in her eyes, as he had intended. And there had been that other in her eyes too-as he had also intended. Except that seeing it there he had been terrified. Terrified of his power over another human being. The same power as she had exerted over him eight years before.

  To be used as cruelly.

  "Max," she said, and her voice was breathless even though they had not been walking fast or into the teeth of the wind. They were turning to take the path through the trees that Rockford and the bigger boys had taken a few days before, the one he had taken that morning. "Are you going to make love to me?"

  "What do you think?" he asked.

  "I think you are." Her voice was shaking.

  "Do you want to go back?" he asked.

  "No."

  He wanted to. He wanted to turn and run and run and never stop running.

  She would not have been at all surprised if her legs had buckled under her. They felt not quite like her own legs, but like wooden ones she was unaccustomed to. There was something wrong about what was happening, something sordid, something calculated. Except that his arm was about her and her head was on his shoulder. And she loved him more than she had ever thought it possible to love. And she wanted to give him something to make up for what she had done to him all those years ago. She wanted to give him herself.

  And it was good that the giving would come before his offer, she thought. It would be a free and unconditional gift. The cottage was in sight, a real cottage, though very small. Not the rude hut she had expected. It was in a little clearing by itself.

  There was not a great deal of light inside the cottage. The two windows were very small, and the clearing was surrounded by trees. He lit a candle with the tinderbox on the mantel and set it on the small table. And then he stooped down to hold a light to the fire he had set that morning.

  "Keep your cloak on," he said, straightening up and turning to her. She was standing quite still just inside the door. He watched her eyes stray to the newly made up bed in one corner of the room. She licked her lips. "This is a small room. It will be warm in here in no time at all."

  "Yes," she said, and raised her eyes to his. They were full of that nakedness again. There were no defenses behind her eyes. She was totally at his mercy. And he was intending to show her none. "Max."

  There was something about his eyes, something about the set of his jaw. Was he having second thoughts? Was he feeling that he had gone quite wrongly about this whole business of courtship? She was having no such misgivings. Since the door had closed behind them a couple of minutes before, she had put behind her all her doubts and all her guilt. She was where she wanted to be and with the man she wanted to be with and she would think no more. She reached up a hand and set it lightly against his cheek.

  He took the hand in his and turned his head to kiss her palm. When he looked back to her, something had lifted behind his eyes and they smiled at each other.

  "This is where I want to be," she whispered to him.

  "Is it?" he asked. "It should not be, Judith. You should turn and run through that door and keep on running and not look back."

  He was giving her her last chance. He begged her with his eyes to take it. He should reach behind her, he thought, and open the door and push her out and bar the door behind her. He turned his head to kiss her palm again.

  "I am where I want to be," she said again, and her free hand was on his shoulder and she was his for the taking.

  "Judith." He bent his head half toward her and stopped. Her eyes and her lips were smiling at him, but the eyes were growing dreamy.

  He was afraid. She could see the uncertainty in his eyes, the pleading for something. Reassurance? Was he afraid of bringing ruin on her? Afraid that she would weep afterward and blame him?

  "Max," she said, and she closed the distance between their lips until hers touched his. "I love you."

  And then she gasped and clung to him with both hands as he made a sound that was more like a growl than anything else and wrapped her about with arms like iron bands and kissed her with an almost savage hunger.

  He could not draw her close enough. He wanted her against him, inside his own body, part of him. He had wanted her for so long. Always. He had always wanted her. And he had always wanted to hear those words. Always. All his life. In her voice. Spoken to him. He wanted her. Now. Sooner than now.

  There was heat against his back. He was shielding her from the warmth of the fire. He turned her in his arms, not taking his mouth from hers, fumbled with the strings of her hood, tore at the buttons of her cloak, threw it from her, gathered her against him again, and thrust his tongue into her mouth.

  But he did not want her like this. He did not want to take her. He did not want to master her. He wanted to love her. He wanted her to love him. He had waited so long. So very long. His arms gentled. His mouth moved to brush her cheek, to kiss her below the ear.

  "Judith," he said into her ear, "I have waited so long for this."

  "Yes," she said, and her hands began to work at the buttons on his greatcoat and she was lifting it away from his shoulders and sliding it down his arms. It fell to the floor. “Are you warm enough?'' She was undoing the buttons of his coat.

  "Am I warm enough!" He tightened his arms about her,

  imprisoning her hands against his chest, and laughed down at her. "Have you ever asked a more foolish question in your life, Judith?"

  She laughed back at him, the sound low and seductive and carefree. "Probably not," she said. "But you know what I meant."

  "Let's take our time, shall we?" he asked her, brushing his lips across hers. "We have all afternoon. Let me kiss you silly before we undress each other. Will you?"

  She laughed again. "Kiss me silly!" she said. "I like the sound of it. Let me kiss you silly too."

  She did not need to. Just holding her like this, the heat from the fire warm on his arms about her, her face turned up to his, laughing, made him want to shout with joy. He wanted to pick her up and spin her about and about until they both collapsed from dizziness. But the room was very small. And as like as not they would collapse onto the fire.

  He laughed down at her. "Proceed then," he said. "No quarter given or asked?"

  "Never," she said, and she put her arms up about his neck and lifted her mouth for his kiss.

  The tone of the afternoon had changed. The sexual tension, the total concentration on the physical deed that was to be performed between them, had been replaced by something else. Judith did not even try to put that something into words in her mind, but she felt it and responded to it. There was warmth, affection, love between them.

  She smoothed her fingers through his hair as they kissed each other lightly, warmly, exploring almost lazily with lips and tongues and teeth and withdrew from each other occasionally just to smile and murmur words that they would never afterward remember. Passion was there, held in check tor the moment, to build to fierceness and even frenzy later, but for the time there was the warmth of love.

  His hair, she discovered, was thick and soft to the touch. His lips, which she had always described to herself as thin, were warm and firm and very masculine. And his eyes- those steel-gray eyes wit
h the heavy lids-held her enslaved. Bedroom eyes.

  "Bedroom eyes," she murmured to him and watched those eyes soften into an amused smile.

  "A between-the-sheets body," he said against her mouth, and they both chuckled before he deepened the kiss.

  He had withdrawn all the pins from her hair, slowly, one at a time, dropping them carelessly to the floor about her. She shook her hair when he had pulled free the last one and he ran his fingers through it-full-bodied silky hair the color of ripe corn.

  His hands explored her lightly, unhurriedly, through the wool of her dress. Breasts as full and as firm as they looked, hard-tipped for him, a small waist, shapely hips, flat stomach, firm buttocks. And warm, all warm and delicious and inviting from the proximity of the fire.

  He could not remember a time when he had felt happier.

  "Judith," he murmured to her, lifting his head to look down into dreamy eyes and at a mouth that looked thoroughly kissed.

  "Max."

  "Profound conversation," he said, rubbing his nose across hers.

  "Yes."

  "I think the room is warm enough," he said, and he found the buttons at the back of her dress and began to undo them.

  "Yes."

  Her eyes wandered over his face as he continued his task and then drew the dress over her shoulders and down her arms with the straps of her chemise. She closed her eyes when he had her naked to the waist and held her a little away from him so that he could look at her. He lowered his head to kiss one shoulder and one breast.

  Beautiful. More than beautiful. Need began to burn in him.

  He slid his fingers down inside all her clothing so that his palms were flat against her back, and he lowered it all over hips and buttocks until it fell to her feet. And she kicked free of the clinging fabrics and boots and stockings.

  She marveled at the fact that she was not for a moment embarrassed even though there was a bright fire behind her