A Regency Christmas VI

by Mary Balogh, Jo Beverley, Sandra Heath, Edith Layton, Laura Matthews

  It was an unbearably domestic scene.

  They had started as two groups. She was to read Caroline a story. The other children were talking to Timothy—to Lord Morsey—about anything and everything. But she had discovered that the only available books contained moral and dull tales intended for the improvement of children’s minds. And so she had closed the books and told a story instead—a story she had not realized was in her, all about wizards and witches and enchanted, animated forests and the inevitable prince and princess.

  Before she was very far into it, she was aware of silence at the other side of the fireplace and realized that she had an audience of three children. Before she had finished, a few glances across to the other chair revealed that the man too was listening, his head back against the chair, his lazy eyes fixed on her.

  It might have been their own home, she thought treacherously, and their own nursery. These might have been their own children and this might have been a regular daily ritual. He might have been her husband. Her companion. Her lover. When he had touched her outdoors earlier, his one arm coming about Caroline pushing beneath her own, his other arm brushing across her breasts, and when he had turned his head to look at her, his face a mere few inches from her own ... No!

  “And so,” she said, “they lived happily ever after.”

  Caroline sighed with contentment.

  “That was the most beautiful story I have ever heard,” Patricia said with a matching sigh.

  “I liked the part where the tree reached down its branches and caught the wizard and tangled him up forever,” Rupert said.

  Viscount Morsey looked sleepy. And hopelessly attractive. Damn him! She was glad he had used the word the evening before. Just thinking it was a great relief to the feelings. And then he yawned. Perhaps, she thought, he had some reason for being tired. When she had returned to the nursery after an afternoon rest—an unaccustomed thing with her, necessitated by the morning of vigorous outdoor play—he had been down on all fours, an imitation horse being ridden by his two nieces. He had even been whinnying.

  She felt frightened suddenly. She had come down here to make some rational decisions about the future of her brother’s children, to take them back to London with her until some more satisfactory arrangement could be made. She had not expected Lord Morsey to come, but when she had seen his carriage and then him, she had expected that they would coolly and sensibly arrange things between them. She had hoped that he could be persuaded to house the children in one of his country homes and that her own responsibility to them would be reduced to some monetary assistance and the occasional visit.

  She had certainly not expected this. Even when they had decided last evening to give the children a real Christmas despite the fact that they were all in mourning, she had not expected this sense of personal involvement, this sense of—of family. She was feeling almost maternal. She had thought such feelings long dead. She would not have expected that she could feel fond of children, at least not to the extent of doing things with them.

  What could be more tedious than having to spend time with children? Or so she would have thought yesterday. And would think tomorrow, she thought firmly. Was she forgetting the thoroughly satisfactory life she had made for herself in London?

  “Tomorrow is Christmas Eve,” Viscount Morsey said.

  “What is Christmas Eve?” Caroline asked.

  “It is the day before Christmas, silly,” Rupert said. “The day after tomorrow is Christmas. But there is to be no Christmas this year. Nurse said so. It would be disrespectful to Mama and Papa.”

  The lazy contentment of the moment had been shattered. Rupert leaned forward, away from the viscount’s legs and hand. Patricia sat more upright on the arm of the chair, her shoulders hunched. Caroline was silent and big-eyed.

  “There is always Christmas,” Lady Carlyle said quietly. “It is the birthday of Jesus. Do you know the story?”

  “He was born in a manger,” Patricia said.

  “In Bethlehem,” Rupert added. “Nurse told us.”

  “There was a star,” Caroline whispered.

  Her aunt hugged her more tightly. “I will tell you the story again, tomorrow,” she said.

  “And tomorrow,” Viscount Morsey said, “we will go out and gather what greenery we can find in the snow to decorate the house. And your Aunt Ursula will talk to the cook about cooking a goose and baking mince pies. We will sing carols and go to church in the evening if you can all stay awake long enough. It would be disrespectful not to celebrate the birthday of Jesus.”

  “And presents?” Patricia’s voice was almost a wail.

  “Presents?” Caroline echoed her sister on a mere breath of sound.

  “Of course there will be no presents,” Rupert said, using the elder brother voice he tended to use when he was not forgetting himself and being the child he really was. “Nurse said so. Besides, presents come from Mama and Papa, and they have passed on.”

  “I think Mama and Papa would want you to be happy on Christmas Day,” their uncle said. “And since they can no longer give you presents themselves, I believe they would be happy if someone else did instead. Perhaps someone else will. Shall we enjoy Christmas Eve tomorrow and hope that there will be presents on Christmas Day?”

  None of the children said anything. They merely stared at him. Lady Carlyle found herself swallowing hard more than once. They were children—innocent, vulnerable children, totally at the mercy of people and circumstances beyond their own control. And yet she had resented their existence when word came of the death of her brother. She had resented her own responsibility for them. She had hoped that they would conveniently be sent far away from London, where she would not have to concern herself with them beyond a courtesy visit once or twice a year. She still wished it. She did not want anything to change her life. She liked her life the way it was.

  He must have brought presents too, she thought. Otherwise he would not be raising the children’s hopes like this. He had talked of setting up his nursery within the next few years. Was it just a duty thing with him, the desire to have an heir to succeed him? Did he still want children? But if so, why had he waited nine years since their betrothal ended? Was this what he was going to be like with his own children?

  She felt slightly sick at the thought. Who would share them with him? Who would lie with him and take his seed? Who would bear them for him? Them? Would there be four, two boys and two girls? Would he sit thus in the nursery with his own children and their mother?

  She swallowed again and heard a gurgle in her throat that drew Caroline’s eyes. She smiled. “It is time for your Aunt Ursula to change for dinner,” she said. “And it is almost your bedtime.”

  The child scrambled off her lap.

  “When Mama was home once,” Patricia said, “she came to our rooms and tucked us in and kissed us good night. I remember. I’ll always remember. Caroline was only a baby. She would not remember. Mama was pretty.”

  Yes, she had been. Marjorie had been exceedingly pretty. Adrian, who had probably never spared a single thought to marriage, took one look at Timothy’s young sister and decided to pay her serious court. Or he learned of her large dowry and laid siege to her person in order to acquire it for himself. Which had it been? Lady Carlyle had never been sure. She still was not. For years she had not given him the benefit of the doubt on even one count.

  “After dinner,” she said, “I shall come up and tuck you in and kiss you good night. May I?”

  Patricia smiled eagerly at her. Rupert looked slightly wistful. Caroline gazed up at her and clung to a fistful of her skirt.

  “And I shall come too,” Viscount Morsey said, “to make sure that no corner of the blankets has been left hanging. We must be tidy about such things.”

  Rupert chuckled and the girls turned their smiles on him. Caroline giggled in the totally gleeful way that had quite turned Lady Carlyle’s heart over the first time she heard it outside.

  Lord Morsey was on his feet
too. “My lady?” he said, offering his arm. “Allow me to escort you to your dressing room.”

  She wished it could have been avoided. She hated having to touch him. She had been wise to stay as far away from him as possible for so many years. Her heart had been at peace for many of those years. She wanted it to remain so.

  He bowed formally when they were outside her door, and released her arm. He moved on to his own room next door without a word.

  She wished his room did not have to be so close to her own. She had imagined the night before that she had heard his every movement in bed. And in her imagination she had pictured him there, warm, asleep, tousled. Male.

  She closed her eyes briefly and entered her dressing room. She was going to be very late for dinner if she did not hurry.

  They had scraped through dinner with the sort of conversation that was second nature to them both. They had both contrived to settle their eyes on the silver bowl of fruit in the center of the table when good manners dictated that they lift their eyes from their plates. Doubtless she had been as thankful as he that the table was rather long and that the butler had placed them at either end of it.

  She looked incredibly beautiful. Black was unbecoming on most women, sapping them of color and youth and character. With her red hair and the heightened color that several hours in the outdoors had brought, her black gown looked spectacular. She still had the figure and complexion of a girl, but age had added dignity and beauty.

  They had gone up to the children afterward. She had gone into the girls’ room while he had gone to bid Rupert good night. Rupert had been crying and had dived beneath the bedclothes when he saw his uncle coming. He did not know what was to become of them. He still thought they would be sent to an orphanage. He did not know how he was to make his fortune in order to provide for his sisters.

  Lord Morsey had had to resist the urge to take the child into his arms. It would have been the wrong thing to do. He had sat on the edge of his bed instead and agreed that they had a mutual problem, since they were the two men of the family. He could no longer provide for his sister, he had explained, but he could provide for her children and would do so for a time since he was a man already and already had a fortune. Perhaps Rupert could do his part by loving his sisters now, by learning his lessons well so that he could grow into an educated and informed gentleman, and by doing his part to settle his sisters well in life when they had all grown up.

  Rupert had dried his tears and they had shaken hands on their gentlemen’s agreement. One thing was clear, Lord Morsey had thought as he went to the girls’ room. He was not going to be able to abandon the children on one of his estates with only a competent nurse for company. Had he really ever intended any such thing?

  “In tears,” he had muttered to Lady Carlyle, motioning with his head in the direction of Rupert’s room. “Uncertainty about how he is to provide for his sisters. Treat him like a man.”

  “In tears,” she had murmured in reply, her eyes indicating Patricia in bed behind her. “Realizing that Marjorie is never coming back.” She had hurried from the room.

  The little one had been gazing up at him with her huge eyes. Patricia had been lying with closed eyes and composed face.

  “Good night, Caroline,” he had said softly, leaning over her and touching the back of one finger to her soft, plump cheek. Who knew what went on in the mind of a shy, imaginative infant? “You are going to be safe forever and ever. Uncle Timothy and Aunt Ursula are going to see that you are always safe.”

  She had not smiled or answered. She had yawned hugely.

  Patricia had not moved or opened her eyes when he turned to her. He guessed that Lady Carlyle must have said something to comfort her.

  “Your mama was the prettiest little thing when she was your age,” he had said. “She had Caroline’s hair and your face. She was my sister just as you and Caroline are Rupert’s. I loved her dearly.”

  Her eyelids fluttered and lifted. “Aunt Ursula said that Papa took one look at her and fell in love with her,” she had said.

  Or with her dowry. But who was he to know what had motivated Adrian Parr’s determined courtship of a giddy seventeen-year-old?

  He had smiled. “I remember a time...” He had told her childhood memories he had forgotten himself until he started to talk.

  And now they were sitting in the drawing room, he and Lady Carlyle, sipping tea and making conversation again like two civilized strangers. Except that the silences between topics were lengthening. Yet from the look on her face, he guessed that she was unaware of any awkwardness.

  “What is it?” he asked when she looked up at him with vacant eyes after one such silence.

  Her eyes focused on him. “Nothing,” she said.

  He should have left it at that. He did not want any part of her life. Not now. Not when it had taken so many years to purge her from his own.

  “It seems to be a night for sadness,” he said. “My guess is that we gave the children a happy day and released them from the deadness within that has been instilled in them over years of instruction on propriety. Tears at the end of what was to be a day of enjoyment. Did we do the wrong thing, do you suppose?”

  He thought she was not going to answer. She stared away from him, across the room. “No,” she said at last.

  “No. They had parents, however little they saw of them. They were an anchor, a source of security. If the loss of those things is left dormant inside them, it might do them irreparable harm. I think the tears were necessary. And perhaps healing. We can only hope so.”

  “I will take them,” he said abruptly, surprising himself. “You need not worry about having your way of life upset or about unwelcome demands being made on your time or your resources. I will have them to live with me, wherever I am.”

  “Oh, no, you will not.” Her eyes flashed at him and her hair glowed. He would swear it glowed brighter. “They are my nephew and nieces as well as yours, I would remind you, my lord. I will have them to live with me. You may visit them occasionally. And my resources are quite adequate to the raising of three children. I am a wealthy woman now, if you did not know it.”

  “Hm.” He leaned back in his chair and regarded her angry face. “Perhaps we will have to allow our lawyers to handle this matter, Ursula. But we will not wrangle over the children. They are people, not property.”

  “Precisely,” she said, but the anger died from her eyes and she visibly relaxed. Her eyes became vacant once more.

  “What is it?” he asked again softly.

  Her eyes came to his and lingered there. “I have been so judgmental,” she said. “I have allowed myself to stifle love in order to do what was right and proper.” His heart jumped uncomfortably until she continued. “He gambled away my childhood home,” she said. “I felt as if part of my identity had gone, my roots. I could not forgive him. And then he would come asking for things, begging loans. Always loans. And he ruined my life.” She bit her lip and closed her eyes, perhaps realizing what she had admitted. “He was always weak and wayward and careless and selfish. But I used to love him. He was my only brother. And maybe I was wrong about one thing at least. Maybe he loved her. Do you think he did?”

  “I have pondered the same question,” he said. “When I discovered that the money I had given Marjorie to feed the children—there were only two then—had been squandered across a gaming table, I told her never to come back. I told her my doors would be closed to her forever after and that any letters she sent would be returned unread. It was no idle threat. And they deserved such treatment from both of us perhaps. But she was my only sister. I taught her to ride and to swim and to climb trees. As a very young child she had a giggle like Caroline’s. Did he marry her for her dowry? I thought so at the time, as did you, though you would not admit as much to me. Or did he love her? They were utterly selfish and they neglected their children. But perhaps they loved each other. They were always together, even at the end.”

  “I wish,” she said,
“that I could go back and tell him that there would be no more money but that my door would always be open to both of them for friendship and comfort and love. I wish I had known their children from the start.”

  “We cannot go back,” he said.

  “No.”

  He was aware that she was crying only when she got sharply to her feet and turned in the direction of the door. But taking that direction would have brought her past his chair. She turned jerkily instead to stand facing the fire.

  “Oh.” She laughed shakily. “I must have got something in my eye.” She dabbed at it—and the other one—with her handkerchief.

  He got to his feet and took the few steps that separated them. He set his hands on her shoulders from behind. “I think you were right, Ursula,” he said. “I think the sadness of the evening has come from the happiness of the day. By deliberately stopping ourselves from mourning them in the conventional way today, we have realized their absence. And we have remembered that they were persons and that they touched our lives and that they gave life to those three children upstairs. Selfish and irresponsible as they were, it is right that they should be mourned fully at last. You need not be ashamed of your tears.”

  He expected that she would turn into his arms. And if she had done so, he would have held her there and comforted both her and himself. But he was glad when she did not. He did not want her in his arms. He did not want them to share grief that closely, that intimately. He felt her bringing herself gradually under control.

  “You are right,” she said at last. “Thank you.”

  But he could not quite leave it at that. His emotions had been rubbed raw. And she had once meant a great deal to him. All the world.

  “Why did you not wait for me to come back to you, Ursula?” he asked. “You knew I would have come. Why did you not come back to me?”

  She spun around, her eyes wide and watery and rather red. “Wait?” Her voice was incredulous. “You would have come back? You expected me...? I would have spat in your face.”