The Last Waltz

by Mary Balogh

  “Well,” he said, “my dear friend. Any comments?”

  “Yes.” She set her head to one side and regarded him closely. “You have a great deal of energy, Gerard—restless energy. You have always been in search of something, I believe, and have still not found it. Don’t settle for anything less than that something even if you still do not know what it is. Don’t force yourself into believing that Miss Gaynor is the wife for you—unless you know she is. You would end up unhappy and bound for life to your unhappiness.”

  “Perhaps,” he said, “it is of you I think more than of Lizzie Gaynor.”

  She shook her head. “We have known each other for many years, Gerard,” she said. “Ever since I was a schoolgirl. You would have known by now.”

  “And yet,” he said, “you are one of the dearest friends I have ever had, Jeannette, man or woman.”

  “You need more than friendship of your life’s partner,” she said. “I have never seen it in action, but I sense deep passion in your nature. Just as there is in mine, though perhaps very few people realize it. One day I am going to share the sort of love with a man that poets write of.” She smiled impishly.

  “I envy him,” he said.

  “No, you do not,” she said. “You need only my friendship, Gerard, as I need yours. It is said, you know, that hatred is very akin to love.”

  “There is too much dislike,” he told her. “There are too many irritants. There is too much bitterness and lack of trust. There is too much—”

  “Passion?” she suggested. “My feet are cold. Are you going to take me walking, or are we to stay here until I am standing on two lumps of ice?”

  He offered her his arm. “Shall we walk?” he suggested.

  Chapter 10

  THE rest of the day was filled with various activities. The earl gave a tour of the house after luncheon and then took most of the younger guests out riding while the countess ordered around the carriage and the gig and went into the village with another group. There were a few shops there at which some modest purchases might be made, as well as a Norman church to explore, and an inn at which to take a pot of tea before the return home. Christina, Lady Langan, and Mr. and Mrs. John Cannadine then took their children outside for a game of chasing across the wide lawns and a vigorous game of hide-and-seek among the trees. In the evening, after dinner, the card tables were set up and most of the guests settled to play. Clara Radway won the grand sum of five shillings and everyone else boasted lesser wins or lamented lesser losses. Not by any stretch of the imagination could the drawing room have been called a den of vice.

  Although a few of the gentlemen ended the day with a game of billiards, most of the guests retired for a respectably early night in anticipation of another busy day on the morrow. Their services would be required for the gathering of greenery with which to decorate the house for Christmas, the earl had announced at dinner, and no one was to be excused. Sir Michael Milchip had complained halfheartedly about his gout until Lady Milchip had declared for everyone at the table to hear that it was the first she had heard of his suffering with any such malady. The baronet had looked sheepish as he winked at Margaret seated opposite him, there had been a general burst of laughter at his expense, and that had been the end of any attempt to shirk the hard labor.

  The mood at breakfast the next morning might have been gloomy, given the fact that the daylight beyond the windows of the breakfast room looked almost as murky as the night that had preceded it. But as Viscount Luttrell remarked, standing at the window with his quizzing glass to his eye, those were snow clouds not so very far up there if he was not very much mistaken.

  “All the more reason why we should go outside without delay once breakfast is over,” the earl said. “The snow will be falling by noon or very soon afterward. I have it on the authority of the head gardener, who made the prediction in the hearing of my valet. Sit down and eat, Harry, or you are going to have to work on an empty stomach.”

  “Dear me,” the viscount said, lowering his glass and turning toward the warming plates on the sideboard. “Work— whatever is that, Gerard? It sounds decidedly nasty.”

  “It means scouring the countryside for holly and ivy and pine boughs and mistletoe,” Mr. Ralph Milchip said. “It means chopping and tearing and climbing and suffering bleeding fingers, Harry. And then it means dragging heavy loads to the house. And, as a reward when one has done all that, it means the pleasure of climbing and balancing and pinning all over the house merely so that one may see indoors a meager shadow of what one can see outdoors any day of the week without any effort at all. It is for this pleasure that Gerard has invited us all here.”

  Margaret laughed.

  “Mistletoe?” Viscount Luttrell had brightened visibly. “If I really must work in order that you will continue to feed me, then, Gerard, I will volunteer to lead that party. Provided, of course, I may choose my own workers and test the efficacy of the product after I have found it.” He turned lazy eyes on Christina and took a seat some distance from her.

  Despite all the grumbling and complaining that ensued, it was clearly understood by everyone that the gathering of the greenery was to be the highlight of the house party so far. It felt surprisingly good, Christina thought as she made her way up to the nursery a short time later to get the children ready for the outdoors, to hear people teasing and laughing and even insulting one another in a purely lighthearted way. And to see people openly willing to enjoy themselves. The house had never been decorated for Christmas. It was a heathen custom, Gilbert had always said, unsuited to the solemnity of a Christian observance.

  Sobriety might be very worthy, but it was also very dull. This year the children were going to have a happy Christmas. She would see to that.

  Fifteen minutes later Christina was back downstairs with her two daughters, all of them dressed warmly against the windy chill of a December day that promised snow at any moment. The hall was already abuzz with the merry sound of voices.

  “Lady Wanstead.” Mr. Geordie Stewart strode toward them as soon as they appeared in the stairway arch, and swept off his tall beaver hat. He beamed first at Christina and then at each of the girls. “I finally have the pleasure of seeing your daughters. Will you do me the honor of presenting me?”

  He bowed formally to Rachel, who curtsied gravely, and took her hand in his to raise to his lips.

  “My pleasure, ma’am,” he said.

  He smiled genially at Tess.

  “I have two broad shoulders, just made for carrying little boys or girls,” he said to her. “My nieces and nephews often make use of them. Would you like to ride up on one when we step outside?”

  “Yes, please, sir,” Tess said. “We are going to have a bonfire and chocolate down by the lake.”

  “After we have helped gather greenery, Tess,” her sister reminded her. “We are going to decorate the house with it,” she explained to Mr. Stewart. “Mama bought yards of red ribbon in the village yesterday. I am excited.”

  She spoke so very solemnly, Christina thought. Those words were strangely touching—I am excited. Would Rachel ever learn to show excitement as well as to feel it? Had irreparable harm been done ... But no. Rachel would see during the coming days and for all the years to come while Christina had any influence over her that brightness and gaiety and excitement were not necessarily evil in themselves.

  “Well, and so am I,” Mr. Stewart said with answering solemnity. “Very excited. There is a magic about Christmas that is always there no matter how old one grows. Last year I helped my nieces make a kissing bough—though they did most of the work and I did most of the watching, it must be admitted.”

  “What is a kissing bough?” Rachel asked.

  When the whole party left the house a few minutes later, to the accompaniment of much noise and laughter, Tess rode on Mr. Stewart’s shoulder while Christina walked on one side of him and Rachel on the other. And he conversed with the girls with practiced ease, avoiding the unfortunate tendency many a
dults had with children of being either over-hearty or condescending.

  It seemed almost, Christina thought, testing the feeling rather guiltily in her mind, like being a family.

  The earl, she could see, was walking at the head of the group with Jeannette Campbell’s arm drawn through his. Their heads were bent close together and they were laughing at something. They looked good together, she admitted reluctantly. There was nothing of the coquette about Miss Campbell and nothing flirtatious in the manner of either of them. But they were clearly very fond of each other.

  She forced her mind and her eyes away from them.

  She was going to enjoy the morning. After so many years the decision simply to enjoy had to be consciously made. She had come, she realized, to accept the notion that enjoyment and sin were synonymous terms. She felt almost as if she had been drugged for ten years and was only now beginning to withdraw to reality.

  “Now, ma’am,” Viscount Luttrell said to her when they had all arrived at the lake, “you are to be my lieutenant in this mission of ours to provide the gentlemen with endless excuse to kiss the ladies over Christmas. You live here and must therefore know where all the best mistletoe is to be found.”

  “I really do not, my lord,” she said, laughing.

  “Then we must hunt for it together,” he told her. “And if we are not sure when we find it that what we have discovered is the real thing, then we must simply put it to the test. Mistletoe, it is said, makes the lips tingle when set to someone else’s. A poor imitation of mistletoe has the unfortunate effect of making one feel nothing at all.”

  Christina merely laughed as the viscount added Frederick Cannadine and Margaret to his team.

  And she laughed half an hour later when Viscount Luttrell spotted mistletoe high on the trunk of an ancient oak tree and clambered up to gather some. He was far fitter and more agile than his habitual indolent manner might lead one to suppose, she realized. He was soon safely on the ground again.

  “Now,” he said, “to put the product to the test. I do hope, ma’am, that I did not expend all that energy in vain. There is only a limited supply of it. Dare we find out if this is real mistletoe?”

  She smiled at him.

  But his teasing manner did not extend to the way he kissed her. He did something with his lips against her own so that hers parted without any protest at all—-and he pressed his tongue deep into her mouth. Christina was breathless with shock and indignation.

  “I believe, ma’am,” he said, gazing into her eyes from a mere few inches away, his own half closed, “we have discovered the real thing.”

  Which were ambiguous words if ever she had heard any.

  “But I feel severely hampered,” he said, “by the fact that I must keep one arm suspended above your head and by the fact that other persons are likely to hove into sight at any moment and might be shocked by the sight of anything more ardent. Perhaps I can make off with one small sprig of this mistletoe when we return to the house and suspend it in a private place known only to you and me—preferably a place with a comfortable horizontal surface beneath it.”

  Could he possibly mean what she thought he meant?

  But he smiled slowly, and the lazy, teasing look was back in his eyes. “Or perhaps,” he said, “you would like to slap my face without further ado.”

  “The thought has crossed my mind, I must confess,” she said, smiling back.

  “One hates,” he said, “to rush headlong through any game that is worth playing, though sometimes, of course, one is tempted to be gauche.”

  He was not just flirting with her, she realized. He was bent on seducing her—just as Gerard had warned he might. It seemed rather incredible after the way she had lived for the past ten years. She should be both terrified and outraged. He wanted to go to bed with her! But she could feel only amusement and a guilty sort of pleasure in knowing that she was still desirable.

  “I believe, my lord,” she said, “my best move in this game would be to effect a hasty retreat. I shall go and see that my children are safe.”

  “And I believe, ma’am,” he said, “I shall allow you to evade my clutches—for now.”

  Three or four servants could probably have done a far more efficient job than he and his guests did, and in half the time, the Earl of Wanstead reflected an hour or so after they had begun. The piles of holly and pine boughs on the bank of the lake had grown respectably high, but all the gatherers had done at least as much playing as working. And they accomplished whatever they did with a great deal of noise and laughter.

  The earl himself did not set a good example. After setting down his second load of pine boughs, he paused to watch Jeremy Milchip and Samuel Radway make a long slide over the firm ice at the edge of the lake while Susan Gaynor and Winifred Milchip looked on, Susan squealing with mingled admiration and fright. And then his lordship, about to turn back to his work, spotted Rachel watching solemnly from a short distance away.

  She was a strange child—grave and quiet and unnaturally self-contained. And yet on two occasions when she had come to the ballroom to watch the dancing lessons he had seen yearning in her eyes. The second time he had invited her to dance to the music while he practiced steps with Margaret. She had looked anxiously at her mother, but Christina, tight-lipped, had nodded her assent. The child had moved with spread arms and half-closed eyes perfectly in tune to the music just as if—as if she had been a free, graceful creature of the wild.

  “It looks like fun?” he asked, strolling up to her now and nodding in the direction of the sliders on the lake.

  She did not look away from them. “It must be the loveliest feeling in the world to move like the wind,” she said.

  “Why do you not try it?” he suggested.

  She shook her head slowly. “I would not be allowed.”

  He did not believe Christina would forbid it. She had not forbidden the racing down the hill or the dancing in the ballroom, though she had given only reluctant acquiescence to that. But she had expected him to be angry about the hill incident. She had tried to protect her children from punishment. He frowned. What sort of a bastard had Gilbert been as a father and husband? What sort of a hold did he still have over his family?

  “But I am the one who sets the rules here, remember?” the earl said. “I say you are allowed, and I will tell your mama so if she should wonder. Shall we try it together? I cannot seem to stay on my feet on hillsides, but perhaps I can do better on ice.”

  She reached for his hand and walked solemnly with him to the long, shining slide the two men had made. The earl went first. He had had plenty of experience with ice and kept his balance with no trouble at all. Susan and Winifred clapped their hands while Jeremy whistled.

  Rachel fell at the first two attempts, but she refused help and she would not give up. After a few more tries she was zooming along the ice, her arms outstretched, her face tight with concentration. But finally, after one particularly long run, she turned her head to look at the earl and smiled radiantly at him.

  His heart turned over. She was like a butterfly being released from its cocoon, he thought. Perhaps just in time. Quietness and even solemnity were probably part of her nature. But so was her capacity for joy in the self-expression of movement. Plain as she was at the age of seven, he thought, she was going to grow into a beauty, just like her mother. And her beauty could be vibrant if she was allowed to be spontaneously herself and if she was secure in the love of those around her.

  He had had very little to do with children. He had no experience with paternal feelings. He had never before felt a child tug at his heartstrings.

  He lifted one hand in acknowledgment, grinned at her, and turned back to the task at hand, as did the other four truants, while Langan and his wife and children were approaching to find out what all the noise and excitement were about.

  But finally a couple of gardeners arrived to build the promised bonfire, and everyone was quite happy to accept its lighting as a signal that the work was
at an end. It looked, after all, Mr. Colin Stewart declared, as if they could decorate a dozen mansions with everything that was piled up waiting to be carried to the house. Several servants were on their way to the fire with steaming jugs of chocolate and enough cups for everyone.

  “What a splendid idea, Wanstead,” Sir Michael Milchip said, rubbing his gloved hands together, “to bring a fire and warm drinks to us instead of leading us back to find both at the house. It prolongs the atmosphere of festivity.”

  “Oh,” Lizzie Gaynor said, gazing upward and taking the earl’s arm so that he might lead her to the fire, “do you think it really will snow, my lord? I can think of nothing more exciting for Christmas except that it might well confine me to the indoors. I never could discover how anyone can walk on snow without falling at every step. I would need a secure arm to which to cling.”

  “I cannot imagine, Miss Gaynor,” he said, “that you will be confined to the indoors.” He patted her hand and looked into her eyes.

  “How kind you are,” she murmured.

  The cold air and exercise had brought a becoming sparkle of vitality to her face. She was a young lady who knew what she wanted of life, he thought, and was actively seeking it out. She wanted a good marriage—preferably not with a sixty-year-old duke who suffered from gout. At the moment she believed she wanted a marriage with him. She was pretty, accomplished, well-bred, good-natured. She would, if he decided to remain in England, be the perfect countess for him. She knew the world of ton far better than he. She had been brought up to the kind of duties that would be required of her. He did not love her, but then love was no longer something he looked for in marriage.

  He thought of Jeannette’s warning. He should not marry Lizzie Gaynor or anyone else, she had said, unless he was sure that she was the one he had been waiting for. There was a passion in his nature, she had told him, that needed to be satisfied. Was she right? He did not believe so. His life had been ruled by reason for the past ten years and longer, and he had been the happier for it.