by Mary Balogh
There were people who were already looking beyond Christmas, of course. There was the earl himself planning to return to Canada during the spring; there was Lizzie, for whom the courtship she had expected was not progressing fast enough, making a determined push to bring it to a successful conclusion; and there was Mr. Geordie Stewart, for whom the New Year was to have more happy significance than Christmas.
Christina smiled as her eyes met his briefly along half the length of the table. Then she gave her attention to Lord Langan beside her, who was telling his table companions about his race horses.
Mr. Stewart was to attend another house party—at his sister’s home in Scotland—for the celebration of the New Year. There was to be a lady guest there, a widow, who had chosen to spend Christmas with her late husband’s family in order to inform them of her intention of marrying again during the spring. She and Mr. Stewart were to announce their betrothal next week. He had confided the news to Christina while they had skated together during the afternoon.
How glad she was that she had given up the idea of courting Mr. Stewart for herself. Mrs. Derby, he had explained happily, had three children, all below the age of ten. He was eagerly looking forward to being a stepfather. Mrs. Derby was a fortunate lady.
Oh, yes, Christina thought as the final covers were removed, it had been a happy day. If she did not look ahead, there was happiness to feel and to hold inside, and numerous memories to carry forward with her. And the day was not yet over. The gentlemen were not to linger over their port this evening. There was the concert in the ballroom to be enjoyed—and enjoy it they would even though it had taken some hard work to prepare and many of them professed to feel nervous or inadequate or both. It was nothing so very out of the ordinary, after all. Most of them were adept at providing drawing room performances for small gatherings.
But dinner was not quite at an end after all. Christina looked along the table, expecting the earl to signal her to rise. But he merely smiled at her and got to his feet, holding out his hands to indicate that his guests were to keep their places. Private conversations ended, and everyone turned his way.
“We have made merry today,” he said. “It has been a happy day, at least for me and I hope for everyone else. I wish to thank you, my friends and my family, for coming here at my invitation and making it a Christmas to remember. And I wish to thank her ladyship, the Countess of Wanstead, for acting so tirelessly and so graciously as my hostess.”
“Yes, indeed,” Lord Milchip said, and led enthusiastic applause.
In a few more days, Christina thought, inclining her head in acknowledgment of the compliment, this would all be over. She would come into this room from time to time and gaze at its empty magnificence and try to remember where everyone had sat for Christmas dinner. She would try to remember the Christmas decorations and the smells of the food. She would try to recall how he had looked, how he had sounded, what he had said.
He would be gone.
But there was the rest of Christmas to enjoy.
“It has struck me,” the earl continued, “that this is what Christmas was always meant to be like—family and friends together, simply enjoying one another’s company. But even so I have been aware all day that the peculiar wonder of the church service last night has formed the very basis of today’s happiness. It seems to me that it would be a good idea to recapture some of that wonder now before we proceed to the ballroom for the concert. The candles, if you please, Billings.”
Soon the only candles still burning were those in the candelabra that stood on the table. Their light cast shifting patterns of brightness and shadow over their faces. There was an immediate feeling of intimacy and coziness.
“We are going to listen to the Christmas story again,” his lordship said. “Mr. Colin Stewart has agreed to read it from the Bible. He was the only one of us, you see, who protested that he has no talent to share with us at our concert. But I can recall meetings chaired by him, and I can remember my attention being held by the deep, rich tones of his voice as much as by what he said. Colin?”
The story of the Birth had a beauty and a simplicity that could never be spoiled—even when it had been read in Gilbert’s toneless voice while his family had sat in stiff-backed silence and his servants had stood like stone statues. Its power could never be dimmed—even when it had been read from the lectern of the Norman church with all its rich evocation of history. Repetition and familiarity could never trivialize it.
But this evening there was something about the story that held them all more than usually spellbound. There was the focus on the gathering of friends that the dimming of the candles around them had created. There was the memory of a happy day and the culinary satisfaction of a superb meal just consumed. There was Colin Stewart’s melodious speaking voice with its attractive Scottish burr. There was ...
No, there was no real explanation, Christina thought when the reading came to an end and no one moved or said anything. Christmas was just this—peace, joy, love. But none of those words was quite adequate. Nor were all of them combined. No words could quite describe what it was. She only knew that whatever it was, she would never forget it.
“Thank you, Mr. Stewart,” Winifred Milchip said, the first to break the silence, and doubtless taking herself as much by surprise as everyone else.
Christina met the earl’s eyes along the length of the table, and they both smiled. She got to her feet.
“Yes,” she said. “Thank you, Mr. Stewart. Shall we all gather in the ballroom within the next half hour?”
In one way, she thought as she led the way from the dining room with Lady Gaynor, living in a cocoon was preferable to stepping out into a larger, brighter, freer world. There were light and joy in this world—she seemed to have lived more intensely in the past week than she had done in all her life before. But there was the anticipation of pain too. The house was going to feel quite unbearably empty.. ..
Her life was going to be unbearably empty.
But then cocoons were not necessarily warm, comforting places either.
“How kind of his lordship,” Lady Gaynor was saying, “to insist upon carrying my poor Lizzie down from her room to the dining room and now into the ballroom when he might as easily have summoned a servant for the purpose. Of course, I do believe he is quite devoted to her. Not that I ought to say so aloud, ought I?” She tittered. “Not yet at least.”
“Excuse me.” Christina smiled at her. “I must go up and prepare the children for their play. I do not doubt they are all almost sick with excitement.”
Lady Hannah had scheduled the Nativity Play early in the program. It would have made an excellent finale, she had explained to the earl, but she was afraid that the children would grow tired and restless if they had to wait too long.
It was a great success. The Langans, usually very quiet and refined, were quite convincing as a vulgar, quarrelsome, bad-tempered couple; the three shepherds drew almost constant laughter. Laura Cannadine sang like an angel. But none of the adult performances could outshine those of the children, who had been well coached but whose individuality shone through nonetheless. The angel, decoratively placed behind Mary and Joseph at the manger, moved to one corner of the stable until she had a clear view of her papa in the audience. One of the kings grew tired of her beard and lifted it to her forehead. Another king walked off the stage with his thumb in his mouth before he had deposited his gift at the manger. The Virgin Mary ran after him and took it gently from him. Joseph picked up the baby to show to the shepherds and was seen to be holding it feet uppermost. The third king tripped over his robe and made a grand entrance.
But they played their parts with an earnestness that was endearing and as touching in its way as the reading of the Christmas story in the dining room earlier had been.
The Earl of Wanstead watched attentively. But he was equally aware of two other things—or rather, of two other persons. Lizzie Gaynor sat beside him, her injured foot propped on a stool. She leaned
slightly toward him and turned to him every few moments to share some observation on the play. He wondered uneasily if he had said or done anything to compromise his honor with regard to her. Did he owe her a marriage offer? But then she was not the only single lady he had invited to the house party. Yet none of the others appeared to believe that he had invited them with the sole intention of proposing to them.
And he was aware too of Christina, who was frequently visible off at one side of the stage, directing her players and prompting them. He wondered if she realized how dazzlingly beautiful she looked tonight in her bright red gown. It had the elegant simplicity of design that he was beginning to recognize as characteristic of her. What an idiot he had been, he thought, imagining just two days ago that it would be possible once and for all to work her out of his system if he but completed what they had started at Vauxhall.
He knew that he would be bonded to her forever, more so now than ever before. There was a physical connection now. He wondered if she was with child and how soon she would know. He tried to remember why he hated her, why he would never again be able to trust her. And he wondered again what it was about the events of ten and a half years ago that he had not understood at the time.
But the concert moved onward, and it was certainly his duty to give it his whole attention. There were numerous musical items though none quite the same as the ones that had gone before. The magic act had been placed halfway through the program, not too late to be appreciated by the children. The earl and Christina had not had a great deal of opportunity to rehearse together, but they contrived well enough. She succeeded in looking lovely and charming and suitably startled as he drew colored silk scarves from her ears and—a little risque, perhaps—a gold sovereign from the bosom of her gown. She held his hat while he dropped into it the silk scarves and drew out a silver-topped cane. He bowed over her hand and kissed it at the end of the act while she curtsied to the audience.
She looked, he thought, as if she was enjoying herself. She looked as if she might have put on weight, though that was doubtless an illusion. But somehow the tight-lipped, stiff-spined, too thin look had vanished, and her body appeared more supple, more curvaceous, more alluring. Her complexion appeared to glow with the flush of returned youth.
But he was nervous. Jeannette was to sing a few Scottish folk songs next to her own accompaniment. After that it was Rachel’s turn. He hoped she would acquit herself well. It was hard to know with that child how easily she would hold up under the onset of nerves. She was almost always quietly grave except in flashing moments when one became aware of her as a child with deeply passionate feelings. And he hoped Christina would not disapprove. He did not know why she should. Aunt Hannah and Margaret both had approved. But one never knew with Christina. He well remembered that first afternoon in the ballroom.
Lady Hannah got to her feet after Jeannette’s performance had been properly applauded. But the earl had already moved out of sight beyond the screen that hid future performers from the eyes of the audience. Rachel was there with Margaret, dressed in the flowing white-and-gold gauze dress her nurse, Margeret, and Aunt Hannah had made between them in secret haste, her loose hair entwined from crown to tips with finely cut gold ribbons. She looked terrified. He went down on his haunches and took both her hands in his.
“Remember,” he said, “that you are the most graceful lady of my acquaintance.” She and her mother.
Lady Hannah was speaking beyond the screen. “The Star of Bethlehem plays such an important role in the Christmas story,” she said, “that sometimes it seems almost like an animate character in the drama. It is beautiful and serene and embodies brightness and hope and peace. Tonight we bring the star alive in the person of Lady Rachel Percy.”
She had taken her place at the pianoforte, the earl saw when he looked beyond the screen. He squeezed Rachel’s shoulder and released it. He set himself to watch both her and Christina, who was seated in the second row of chairs, a rather sleepy-looking Tess on her lap. She was looking, he thought, somewhat apprehensive.
But he could not keep a great deal of his attention on her during the next few minutes. He had seen the performance a number of times. Indeed, he had helped choreograph it with his cousin and his aunt. He had thought it sweet and musical and graceful. But tonight Rachel made it her own.
She danced as if she had all the stars at her feet, as if she were supreme among them, as if they must surely pay her homage. She danced on air. It seemed as if her silk slippers scarcely touched the floor. And she danced to some inner vision that set her face glowing though she did not once smile.
She was a child with so much beauty, so much imagination, so much passion locked within that one could only guess at the full extent of them and marvel at the occasional glimpse into the treasure that was Rachel.
She looked a little bewildered for a moment when she was finished. But when everyone clapped, she dipped rather stiffly into the curtsy she had practiced. And suddenly she looked again simply the rather plain, grave little girl she usually was.
The earl turned his gaze on Christina. She was not clapping. She was holding Tess and looking as if she had been sculpted of marble. Her face was pale in the candlelight. But when Rachel went to her, she hugged her close with her free arm in such a way that he could no longer see her face.
He did not know if he had made a mistake, if he had taken an unpardonable liberty with her daughter. He tried to feel the old irritation. If she was such a killjoy that she could not bear to see Rachel dance when the child was so very gifted, then perhaps she deserved to be shaken up.
But he could not feel irritation. Only anxiety, Rachel was her daughter, and she was a good mother. They were essentially strangers to him. He knew almost nothing of their lives as they had been lived before his appearance a week and a half ago. How could he presume to know what was best for her child?
Suddenly he felt depressed. Suddenly he wished he had not leaped so impetuously into this plan of coming to Thornwood for Christmas. He should have stayed away. The memories were going to be very sweet, it was true.
They were also going to be unbearable.
The concert was over. Christina had hugged and kissed her children and sent them off to bed with their nurse. Her presence was needed in the drawing room, where everyone was to gather for tea and conversation. After a long and busy day, no one seemed eager to see it end.
But she could not bear to be with everyone else just yet. She felt pained, desolate, guilty, bewildered—she did not know quite what word to put to her feelings except that they were hard to bear and harder to hide.
She let herself quietly into the state dining room, which was in darkness now though she could see quite clearly— the night sky beyond the windows was bright with moonlight and starlight just as it had been the night before. She moved to the table and set her hand on the back of the chair at its head. Where he had sat tonight. Already it seemed like a dream. Already she felt the painful loneliness of the coming weeks and months—perhaps years.
When the door opened and someone stepped inside and closed the door behind him, she felt her heart leap for one moment. But it was not so very dark. She could see clearly enough that it was not he.
“The room is rarely used,” she said. “I enjoyed sitting in here tonight.”
“So did I,” Viscount Luttrell said, strolling toward her. “The candlelight was full on your face and your gown. It was difficult to keep my attention on my food. I understand, though, that it was appetizing fare.”
She smiled at him.
She could have moved away. She could have turned the moment. But she was feeling bruised and lonely and upset, and for a moment too long she thought that she might find comfort in human contact. She made no resistance when he took her in his arms, though there was no mistletoe as excuse this time, or when his mouth came down open on hers. She even relaxed almost gratefully against him. But she drew back when she felt his hand on her bosom.
“Yes,” he ag
reed softly against her lips. “That was indiscreet. My bedchamber later? There is a lock on the door and even a key, I am delighted to say. I am sure you can contrive to get there and back without being seen.”
“No,” she said with a sigh she had not intended to be audible. “You have misunderstood, my lord.”
“Have I?” He still held her close. He looked deep into her eyes in the near-darkness. “Yes, by Jove, I have. You are no tease, are you? No with you means no. What a regrettable fact. You do not by any chance mean no tonight but perhaps yes tomorrow, do you?”
“No,” she said.
“No,” he repeated, “I did not think so. I do not often miscalculate.” He loosened his hold on her. “I beg your pardon if I have caused you distress.”
“You have not,” she said. “Perhaps under different circumstances—” But she stopped abruptly, bit her lip, and then laughed.
He chuckled too and released her. “One can only imagine what those circumstances might be and regret that they cannot be contrived,” he said. “Shall we adjourn to the drawing room?” He bowed and offered his arm.
But she shook her head. “Later,” she said. “There is something I must do first.”
There was not, of course. She wandered about the room after he had left, wishing that she had a shawl with her for greater comfort. She wondered how possible it was going to be to start a new life. She had married at the age of eighteen and had been wed for nine years, nine of the formative years of her life. She was now eight-and-twenty, with no idea how to be happy except in brief moments, and no idea how to create happiness about her. She only knew how to retreat inward to avoid pain.
And she feared that Rachel had learned the lesson as effectively as she.