A Christmas Promise

by Mary Balogh

  “And, I will be bound, the dearest papa too, dear,” she said.

  Aunt Beryl explained in strident tones that Aunt Ruth had had palpitations that very morning at the thought of coming to Grenfell Park, though why she should have taken on so when they had been accustomed to dining with Lord Sharples while the late Mr. Weekes had been one of his more prominent tenant farmers Aunt Beryl could not explain.

  Eleanor glanced several times at her husband, her chin lifted, expecting his contempt. But there was nothing except careful courtesy in his expression.

  And then, just a little later, Aunt Catherine Gullis, sister of Eleanor’s mother, arrived with Uncle Harry and Cousins George, Susan, Harvey, and Jane. Uncle Harry was a very successful cloth merchant in Bristol and almost as wealthy as Papa had been. His grandfather was a baronet and he had taken with the greatest good humor a good deal of ribbing for the fact from Papa and Uncle Sam and Uncle Ben. Aunt Catherine held Eleanor wordlessly in her arms.

  “Poor Ellie,” she said at last. “A brilliant marriage and the passing of your poor papa all at once, dear. It must be very bewildering.”

  And then on their heels came Cousin Aubrey Ellis, a tenant farmer—actually Papa’s cousin, who had grown up almost as a brother to him. Cousin Aubrey was a widower. But he had not come alone. And after all there were to be twenty-one members of her family as guests. Cousin Aubrey’s son had come uninvited.

  Wilfred. Looking tall and slim and very blond. With fire burning in his eyes as he took her hand in his and leaned forward to kiss her on the cheek.

  “I thought you would not mind my coming, Ellie,” he said rather loudly, “since the family is always together on such occasions. Indeed, Papa and I agreed that your invitation was probably intended to include me.”

  “Of course it was,” the earl said, holding out his right hand. “We fully intended that every member of my wife’s family be here to celebrate Christmas with us.” He looked inquiringly at her.

  “Wilfred Ellis, my lord,” she said. “My second cousin. A shipping clerk in Bristol.”

  “Oh, no longer anything so lowly, Ellie,” he said, setting his hand in her husband’s. “I have been given a partnership. Did you not know?”

  “No,” she said. “I did not know. Congratulations, Wilfred.”

  Too late. Not quite two months too late. Had this happened two months before, he would have answered her letter differently. He would have had the position and the income as a partner in the company to make her his bride. She felt as if she were suffocating. She thought of the kisses they had shared and the love promises they had exchanged during the summer at Muriel Weekes’s coming-of-age party. She willed her mind to blankness and looked at her husband, who was turning over the last of the arrivals to the housekeeper’s care with all the graciousness of his rank.

  And then suddenly they were alone together in the hall, though sounds of animated conversation were coming from the salon. She looked into his eyes and raised her chin.

  “Everyone has arrived safely before the snow, and for that we must be thankful,” he said.

  He looked so elegant and quiet and refined, she thought, the hall seeming very silent after the boisterous and almost chaotic arrivals of all her family members. She felt very much on the defensive. It was not that she was ashamed of her family, she assured herself. She certainly was not. She loved them all dearly as she always had. But they were from a totally different world from that inhabited by her husband. And she did not wish to see them through his eyes. She wished now that she had not invited them.

  “I am not ashamed of them,” she almost hissed at him. “Don’t expect me to be.”

  His eyebrows lifted and his eyes turned cold and they looked back intently into hers. “Was there any need of that?” he asked. “Have I been playing the part of haughty aristocrat, my lady? Have I shown any signs of condescension—or contempt?”

  “No,” she said. “Of course not. You are a gentleman.” And as such an expert in hiding his feelings.

  “Ah,” he said. “It is that fact alone that has helped me mask my scorn, is it?”

  She said nothing. She wished fervently that she had not started this. What did his opinion matter anyway?

  “Well,” he said, “at least you will have that consolation in the coming days, my lady. At least you will know that I am too genteel to reveal my disgust at having to share my home with a crowd of vulgar tradesmen and such. An innkeeper? Goodness me. And a butcher? The mind shudders. But only the mind. The body and the voice will remain courteous.”

  She had started it. She could hardly blame him. But she could not apologize, either. What if he spoke the truth? What if he really did despise her family—the people who had always made up her world? Well, what if he did? She was making her own misery, she knew, but could not seem to do anything about it.

  He was holding out an arm for hers and bowing to her. “Shall we join our guests?” he asked.

  She set her arm on his and they entered the salon together. And smiled—about them but not at each other.

  Wilfred had come, she thought with a great sinking of the heart. He was upstairs at that very moment. Soon he would come down and she would be forced to look at him and converse with him and smile at him. Just as if he had never been any more than a cousin to her. Just as if the mind would not be making comparisons.

  For the first time since her arrival at Grenfell Park, happiness had deserted her utterly, leaving leaden depression in its place. She suddenly missed her father. The missing him was like a fist slamming against her stomach, robbing her of breath.

  PLAYING THE PART OF courteous and sociable host did not always come easy, the Earl of Falloden found during tea and later during dinner. He had somehow expected that his wife’s family would be awed at the fact that they were guests at Grenfell Park, their host an earl. He had expected to have to use all his social skills to set them at their ease. Even the boisterous arrivals during the afternoon and the cheerful conversation during tea had not quite alerted him to the truth. As soon as they were all seated at the dinner table in a more formal setting, he had believed, they would all freeze.

  It was with some amazement, then, that he discovered that conversation at the table was lively and noisy, with a great deal of laughter and several raised voices. Not many of his guests observed the genteel rule that one converse only with one’s immediate neighbors. Uncle Sam and Uncle Ben in particular, who were seated at opposite sides and almost opposite ends of the table, often felt it necessary to exchange witticisms. And each one aroused a general burst of laughter.

  His friends were looking amused, the earl found when he glanced at them curiously. Except Bertie, who was deep in conversation with Rachel Transome. Uncle Ben’s daughter? Yes, Uncle Sam had only the married son—Tom. The earl was diligently trying to sort out his in-laws. His in-laws. These people were all related to him by marriage, he told himself incredulously. The fact had still not quite sunk home.

  He glanced at his wife, who sat opposite him at the foot of the long table. She too was smiling until she caught his eye and the smile faded and she looked at him defiantly.

  Had she done it all deliberately? he wondered. Had she invited her whole family to join them during their first Christmas at Grenfell Park in the hope of discomfiting him? Or had she invited them merely because they were her family and she needed them with her this first Christmas without her father? But the answer was obvious. She showed no sign of grieving, but the lift of her chin showed clearly that she was defying him.

  He could have cheerfully shaken her. He had nothing against her relatives. Indeed, they were a remarkably cheerful lot. But even so he had no idea how he was to entertain them, since already it seemed clear that they were not going to conform themselves to any recognizable rules of behavior.

  And he had been looking forward to Christmas for perhaps the first time in his life!

  In the drawing room after dinner the entertainment looked after itself. He had bee
n prepared to organize tables of cards for the older people and perhaps to encourage the younger people to gather about the pianoforte.

  But Uncle Sam loudly demanded to know of his niece when Christmas was to begin, and in a moment everyone was making animated plans to raid his park the next day and drag inside all the greenery they could lay their hands on.

  “Mistletoe?” his wife said in answer to one question. “Is there any in the neighborhood, my lord?”

  There had always been a kissing bough in his grandparents’ day. “There are oaks in the woods to the north of the house,” he said. “I believe that is where the mistletoe used to come from.”

  It was settled, then. They would raid the woods as well as the park. And while they were about it, they would find a Yule log and drag it back to the house.

  “After all,” Uncle Ben said, “we cannot have Christmas without a Yule log, now can we, Randy?”

  It took a moment for the earl to realize that he was the one being addressed. He pursed his lips and resisted the unexpected impulse to roar with laughter. Randy? He exchanged a glance with Bertie, or tried to do so, but Bertie was again in conversation with Rachel.

  “Is that what we are to call you, dear?” Aunt Eunice asked, lifting her head from a group of ladies close to the fire. “I wondered. Now, where are the decorations, Randy? Those of us who would prefer to stay indoors tomorrow morning will sort through them and have them ready when everything is brought inside.”

  Good heavens. Decorations. Bows and bells and such? Were there any? But there had been some when he was a boy.

  “In the attic, I daresay, ma’am,” he said. “I shall have them brought down tomorrow.”

  “No need,” she said. “We will go up ourselves and save the servants the trouble, won’t we, Beryl and Irene? And do call me Aunt Eunice. And Catherine? You too, Ruth? Or will the dust set you to wheezing? I suppose there will be dust. There always is in attics.”

  The earl had planned to go shooting the next day with his four friends and any of his wife’s relatives who cared to join them. But Sotherby, he could hear, was agreeing to accompany Tom and Bessie and their children to look for holly, and Wright and Badcombe were agreeing with Uncle Sam that yes, indeed, they would be delighted to help with the Yule log. They looked delighted too. The world, at least the world he knew, seemed to have gone mad, the earl thought. Good heavens—Transomes invading his home and his park while he stood by speechless.

  He had the feeling that his home might not be his own again until after Christmas. And he looked about him with the feeling that perhaps he had stepped into a dream. The Transomes and the Weekeses and the Gullises had the strange skill, he noticed, of all being able to speak at once and yet listen at the same time. George Gullis, he saw, had an eye for Mabel Weekes, who was far from indifferent to him. Interesting.

  Then, just when he thought he might have to step in to organize the rest of the evening, the young people wandered over to the pianoforte without having to be encouraged to do so, and Susan Gullis sat down to play. And before any time at all had passed, the room was filled with music, or what might pass for music to an uncritical listener, as the whole family sang Christmas carols with gusty enthusiasm. Sotherby and Badcombe were singing too, the earl saw. And for lack of anything else to do, and because he felt conspicuous with his mouth closed, he joined in.

  This was certainly going to be the strangest Christmas he had ever experienced, the earl thought, his eyes moving about the room until they came to rest on his wife, who was standing beside the pianoforte with Muriel and Mabel Weekes and the youngest Gullis girl—Jane?—and the uninvited Wilfred. She was singing. It was all most strange. He remembered the quiet, genteel Christmases of his grandparents’ time.

  This was his wife’s family, he thought. This was the life she knew. Gatherings like this were customary with these people. Warm, happy, noisy gatherings. And she was amongst them, part of them, one with them. For the first time he had some insight into how strange her new life must be for her. As strange as this life was to him. There was something about it, though, he thought. Something almost enticing. And she was part of it.

  There was a great deal he did not know about her, he mused. A great deal. And he found, examining the idea in his mind, that he wanted to know her. She was his wife. He had lived with her for longer than a month. He had even shared the intimacy of the marriage bed with her on one occasion. Yet she was in effect a stranger to him.

  But a lovely stranger. And a proud and prickly and quarrelsome one. A challenge, no less. Gazing across the room, he felt a stirring in his loins for her and a stirring too in his heart. They had quarreled earlier that day and probably would quarrel again tomorrow. But he knew that for a while at least he would keep coming back for more. Despite everything. Despite her family.

  The realization somehow warmed him, and he smiled down at Aunt Ruth and set her in a flutter by seating himself on the arm of her chair.

  8

  HE HAD BEEN RIGHT, SHE THOUGHT, SITTING ON the edge of her bed shivering at the first impact of air beyond the warm cocoon of her blankets and noticing the strange light coming through the curtains at her windows. Oh, he had been right. She forgot all about the chill of the room, which the newly built fire had not yet dispersed, and raced across to kneel on the window seat and push the curtains aside.

  Her eyes widened. She had known—they had all known—that it was snowing last evening, but she had expected that as usually happened the snow would have turned to rain at some time during the night. She had expected nothing but a slushy landscape to ruin their hunt for Christmas greenery.

  But what she saw made her want to jump with girlish glee. Snow everywhere, a thick blanket masking the outlines of everything, completely obliterating paths and driveway. Snow loading down the branches of the trees and piled inches thick on the sill outside her window. Snow sparkling in the weak sunlight as if by some magic it had been sprinkled with jewels.

  “Oh,” she said to the empty room. “Oh.” And she scrambled off the window seat again and actually took a few steps toward her dressing room before realizing where she was going. She had been going to rush through into his rooms to share the wonder of it with him.

  The very thought was enough to bring color flooding to her cheek. What on earth had possessed her? She had quarreled with him the day before because she had been afraid that he was ashamed of her family, and he had looked at her scathingly as he recalled Uncle Sam’s and Uncle Ben’s occupations. But she had started it. She was so afraid that he would feel nothing but contempt for them all.

  But why should she fear such a thing? she asked herself for surely the dozenth time. Why did it matter to her? The very reason she had invited them all was to defy him because he had a mistress who was refined.

  She looked down at her hands and felt depression threaten her mood again as she realized that she did care what he thought. He was her husband, after all, and despite herself she had felt proud the evening before to look about the drawing room and know that he was hers. Despite the fact that Wilfred had remained as close to her as he could. She had tried not to notice him. She tried now not to think of him.

  But there was snow out there, she reminded herself, looking again at the window with bright eyes. And there were cousins to share it with. She rang the bell for her maid and hurried through to her dressing room.

  And yet, she discovered a short while later when she came back into her room, wearing a warm wool dress, despite her haste she was not the first downstairs. She heard a shriek and sure enough, when she raced to the window, she saw that there were four people outside already. Oh, she was missing the fun, she thought as she ran back into her dressing room to find and to pull on a warm hooded cloak and gloves. And she tore down the stairs a few moments later and went out through the front doors, which a grinning footman held open for her. She did not even think to consider his expression impertinent. She grinned back as she passed.

  Davie and Jenny wer
e out there, taking runs and hurling themselves full length and facedown into the deep bank of soft snow that had drifted against the base of the fountain. Tom and Lord Charles were throwing snowballs at Muriel and Susan—two more persons had arrived since she looked out of the window.

  But pausing at the top of the steps brought good sense back to Eleanor. Gracious, she was the Countess of Falloden and had been about to romp in the snow with her cousins for all the world to see—in particular her servants. It was true that she was a little less than twenty years old and true that she was younger than any of the four adults now engaged in a noisy snowball fight. But she was a married lady and married to an earl, no less.

  A snowball landed with a thud against her shoulder and Lord Charles, of all people, stood grinning up at her. At the same moment more people came out through the doors behind her.

  “I think we had better help the girls, Harve,” George said. “They look to be in dire straits. Why are you standing here idle, Ellie?”

  “I think I’ll join the men,” Rachel said. “Tom has deadly aim. I would rather have him on my side. Are you coming, Ellie?”

  And before Eleanor knew quite what was happening or could give further consideration to her dignity, she felt both her arms being taken, one by George and the other, she saw when she looked, by a grinning Viscount Sotherby, and she was hurried down into the fray.

  “Don’t worry, Lady Falloden,” the viscount said. “I’ll fight on your side.”

  She lost track of time. It might have been ten minutes that passed or half an hour while snowballs whizzed through the air and men shouted and girls shrieked and everyone panted and laughed and giggled or hurled insults as well as snowballs at mortal enemies. More people came out. Uncle Sam appeared fighting on the other side, and Wilfred on hers. She smiled at him quickly before resuming the battle and yelled at Uncle Sam that it was against the rules to throw more than one snowball at a time.