by Mary Balogh
They were going to decorate the house for Christmas-they, not the servants. They were going to have a kissing bough. She hurried lightly along the corridor to the nursery.
They were going to have fun.
At least, she thought, amending the idea as her footsteps slowed, the children and young people were going to have fun. But she was not in her dotage, she reminded herself. She was not even twenty yet. It just seemed that somehow, somewhere, she had misplaced her youth.
She was a matron with a child. She would be expected to remain at the house.
Lady Templar’s prediction had proved quite correct. Yesterday’s gray, raw day had been transformed into today’s magical white world. A few inches of snow blanketed the outdoors, and more was falling. They were to enjoy that rare phenomenon, Edwin realized early-a white Christmas.
All the parents of young children not only had given permission for them to join the expedition to gather greenery but also had decided to go outside themselves. Only two babies, Edwin’s own included, stayed in the nursery. The remaining children, their parents, and most of the younger cousins gathered in the hall soon after breakfast, bundled up warmly, chattering and laughing and in exuberant high spirits.
Most of the parents and young people were there, Edwin saw. One was conspicuously absent. Had he expected her to come? She had surprised him the evening before by defending him against her mother, but she had done so with a cool dignity that had proclaimed only wifely obedience. There had been no indication that she was enthusiastic about his plans or that she intended to participate in them in any way. It would be as well to take no notice of her absence. She was still the ice maiden he had married, even though she was a maiden no longer. Her cool demeanor had kept him from going to her bed last night, though he had wondered before he arrived at Wyldwood if he would. They were not officially estranged, after all.
But despite himself he hesitated, even as the crowd in the hall looked to him for direction.
“I have forgotten something,” he said. “Give me five minutes.”
He hurried through the arch and ascended the stairs two at a time, imagining with a certain feeling of amusement what Lady Templar’s reaction would be if she should happen to see him. She had ignored him with haughty dignity at breakfast.
Elizabeth was not in her room. She might be anywhere, but he took a chance on finding her in the nursery. He was not mistaken. She was standing at the window of Jeremy’s room looking downward, as if she expected the outdoor party to emerge from the door below at any moment.
The baby was asleep in his crib.
“We are about to leave,” he said.
“Are you?” She turned toward him, straight-backed and regal and unsmiling.
He had wasted his time coming up here to talk to her, he thought. He had probably ruined her Christmas, in fact.
“Does the baby need you?”
“He has just been fed,” she told him. “Your eagerness to see him has certainly diminished since yesterday.” She spoke softly, but the rebuke was unmistakable.
“I came up here early,” he said, feeling a stirring of anger against her. Why had she married him if she despised him so? But the answer to that question was obvious, at least. It had certainly not been from personal choice. “His nurse was changing his nappy, and he was as cross as blazes, though she assured me that he could not possibly be hungry. I held him for half an hour.” He had held his tiny son against his shoulder with an intense ache of tenderness. “He almost deafened my right ear for a few minutes, but he finally found amusement in chewing on the brocade collar of his papa’s dressing robe.”
Not for the first time he wondered how his son would grow up. Would he, too, despise his father and be embarrassed by his origins?
“I did not know that,” his wife said. “Nurse did not tell me.”
“I suppose,” he said, “you do not want to come outside with us?”
“Gathering greenery?” she said. “And engaging in a snowball fight?” She sounded shocked.
“No.” He nodded briskly and turned back to the door. “I did not think so. We will probably be back late for luncheon. You may wish to have the meal set back an hour.” If her mother would permit such a disruption of the household routine, that was.
He was at the door of the outer nursery-deserted this morning-when her voice stopped him. She had stepped out of Jeremy’s bedchamber and was closing the door behind her.
“Mr. Chambers,” she called, her formal words of address increasing his irritation, though he turned politely toward her, “do you want me to come?”
She looked different somehow, less serene, less sure of herself. There was an expression almost of longing in her eyes. She looked suddenly youthful, and he remembered that indeed she was little more than a girl.
She had been eighteen when they married, five years younger than he.
He swallowed his first impulse, which was to tell her that she might please herself.
“Yes,” he said abruptly. And it was true. He was as irrationally head-over-ears in love with her as he had been when he first set eyes on her. If she still despised him for his origins and his willingness to have his father purchase her for her birth and rank, well, so be it. But he had come here to see if something could be made of his marriage before their separation had continued for so long that it would be virtually irreversible.
“Very well,” she said, her cool, reserved self again. “I will go and change. You need not wait for me.”
Had he imagined that look of longing? Was she coming merely because he had asked? Merely because she owed him obedience? Would she be miserable outside in the snow and the cold? Would she spoil the outing for everyone else?
“We will wait outside for you,” he said.
It was still snowing. Thick white flakes fluttered down from a heavy gray sky. The steps outside the front doors had been swept recently, but there was a thin film of snow on them again. Elizabeth stepped out onto the top step and felt as if she were walking into an alien, enchanted world.
Snow had always meant being housebound. Snow was something one could slip and break a leg on. Worse, snow was something that had to be waded through with an accompanying loss of dignity, especially if one skidded inelegantly. Walking out into the snow, making slides of it, sledding over it, building snowmen with it, clearing it from a frozen pond or lake in order to make a skating surface, were all activities designed for the lower classes, who had no dignity to lose. Fighting with snowballs was simply beyond imagination, even for children.
There were times when she was a child that Elizabeth had guiltily wished she had been born into the lower classes.
They were out there on the great white expanse that was the south lawn-all the children, most of the cousins who were in Elizabeth’s own age group, her brother Bertie, Annabelle, and Mr. Chambers. The children were dashing about and screeching as they chased one another. The ladies were laughing; the men were whooping as they tried sliding on snow that was too deep, and kept coming to grief. They were all very obviously enjoying themselves.
Even Aunt Amelia and Uncle Horace were outside, standing in the snow on the terrace, watching the activities and laughing.
It was a scene so alien to Elizabeth’s experience, so full of wild, uninhibited joy that she felt overwhelmed by it. Could she ever give herself up to such sheer fun? She had been brought up to think that having fun and lacking ladylike dignity were synonymous terms. She almost turned and hurried back inside before anyone saw her. But Mr.
Chambers must have been watching for her. He came wading toward her, his eyes bright with animation, his face already flushed from the cold and exertion. He looked incredibly virile and handsome.
“Take my hand,” he said when he reached the bottom step.
She set her hand in his outstretched one and remembered with almost painful intensity her first enchanted sight of him when he had come to offer her marriage. He would be her escape, she had thought naively then,
from her dull, restricted life into a world where warmth and love and laughter would transform her. She had already met his father and had liked him immensely, despite-or perhaps because of-those qualities her mother had despised as vulgar. Absurdly, she had wanted him as her father. The son was so very handsome, and younger than she had expected.
It had not taken her long, though, to realize that his very correct, unsmiling demeanor hid scorn for her for allowing herself to be bought.
But this morning she would not think of that. He had chosen to come to Wyldwood for Christmas, and he had come to the nursery this morning with the express purpose of inviting her out here.
He released her hand as soon as she was safely down the steps, set two fingers to his lips, and let out a piercing whistle. Elizabeth looked at him in astonishment, as did everyone else.
It was easy to believe over the next couple of minutes that he was a successful businessman, accustomed to organizing and commanding. He announced that the snowball fight was about to begin and soon had everyone divided into two teams of roughly equal numbers and firepower.
Elizabeth would gladly have stood watching with her aunt and uncle, but she was given no choice. She was named to a team and waded gingerly out onto the lawn to join her teammates. Annabelle caught her by the hand and squeezed it.
“Lizzie,” she said, “I am so glad you have come to enjoy the snow. But however did you escape from Mama-in-law?” She laughed and slapped one mittened hand over her mouth. “Forget I said that. Oh, goodness, I have to face both Bertie and Charles on the other team.”
The snow was soft beneath Elizabeth’s feet and not as slippery as she had expected it to be. It reached almost to the top of her boots.
“It sparkles,” she said, “even though the sun is not shining, as if someone has sprinkled the surface with thousands of miniature sequins.
How beautiful it is.”
But she was not given long to admire her first real experience of snow.
The two teams were facing each other across a neutral expanse of it, and Mr. Chambers whistled again, the signal for the snowball fight to begin.
Most of the players, it soon became obvious to Elizabeth, had armed themselves in advance. Snowballs zoomed through the air, and squeals and shouts and laughter revealed that many of them had found their mark.
Elizabeth shied away from all the vigorous action, uncertain what to do herself. She felt the beginnings of misery in the midst of such bubbling animation. She had never been allowed to play and enjoy herself-she did not know how. She was a lady.
And then a snowball collided with her chin and dripped down inside the collar of her cloak before she could brush it away. Another struck her on the shoulder. She could think only of her discomfort, of getting back indoors, where it was warm and quiet and dry and sane and all was familiar to her.
“The best defense is invariably offense,” her husband advised from close beside her, and he struck Peregrine, her chief tormentor, on the nose with a large, wet snowball.
Elizabeth laughed and felt suddenly, unexpectedly exhilarated. She stooped to gather a handful of snow, formed it into a ball, and hurled it, also at Peregrine, who was still sputtering and trying to clean off his face. It struck him in the chest, and Elizabeth laughed with delight, even as another snowball from an unidentified assailant shattered against her shoulder.
After that she forgot about discomfort and cold and dignity and hurled snowballs as fast as she could mold them at any foe within her range.
Soon, without even realizing it, she was helpless with laughter. She was also liberally caked with snow from head to foot. But several minutes passed before she spared a moment to slap ineffectually at her cloak with snow-clogged mittens.
By the time the fight was losing momentum, the children having discovered an even more amusing activity. They had captured Mr.
Chambers, two of them hanging off each arm, one off each leg, while a few others pushed and shoved. With a ferocious roar he went down on his back.
“Bury Uncle Edwin!” Charles shrieked over and over again, and the other children took up the cry until it became a chant.
They proceeded to heap snow over him until only his shoulders and head were visible-and his hat, which had tipped to a rakish angle.
“Poor Mr. Chambers,” Aunt Amelia remarked.
“He is a jolly good sport, I must say,” Uncle Horace commented. “You would not catch me letting them do that to me.”
Elizabeth stood and watched while the other adults and young people slapped themselves and one another relatively free of snow and recovered their breath. Mr. Chambers was laughing good-naturedly and putting up only enough of a struggle to amuse the children. She felt as if she were gazing at a stranger. Where was the cold, humorless, dour man she had married? By some instinct, the children had picked out the very adult who would indulge them and play with them and allow himself to be played with. How had they known?
For the first time Elizabeth could see her husband as the son of that hearty, jolly man who had arranged the marriage with her own parents and insisted upon having a private word with her in order to assure himself that she was not being coerced into anything against her will. Her husband, it seemed, possessed the same generous, fun-loving nature, though he had never displayed it for her benefit.
She felt plunged into sudden depression again. He had not wanted to marry her, of course. He disliked her. He very probably despised her.
Five minutes later the play portion of the morning was over and they were all trudging off in relatively good order toward the west woods.
Mr. Chambers had accomplished the transition without any apparent effort, Elizabeth noticed. And indeed, there was no feeling among them that they were now off to dull work. It was as if they were merely heading off toward some new game.
Mr. Chambers had divided them into four groups, two to cut down pine boughs, one to gather holly, and a group of four to search for the mistletoe the gardeners had assured Mr. Chambers was to be found growing on the older oaks. He was himself a part of the last group, as was Elizabeth. The other two were Cousin Miranda and Sir Anthony Wilkins, her betrothed.
Elizabeth could not quite believe she was doing this. The snow was deep and heavy underfoot, her fingers inside her gloves were tingling from the cold, her cheeks and nose were almost numb and must be unbecomingly red, and yet at this point in the morning she would not go back to the house for all the inducement in the world. She knew suddenly that she had never enjoyed herself even half as much as she was enjoying herself today. And there would be only today, and perhaps tomorrow, though Christmas Day had always been one of her least favorite days of the year. After that Mr. Chambers would surely return to London, and it might be a long time before she saw him again. She might never see him quite like this ever again.
“Perhaps you can lead us to where the oaks are,” he said to Elizabeth.
But although she was familiar with the park, she had never ventured deep into the woods. They searched for many minutes before finding what they had come for. Fortunately the snow was not as deep here, as the canopy of branches overhead acted as a sort of roof.
“As I suspected,” Mr. Chambers said when they were all standing beneath a particularly stout, ancient oak. “It is rather far from the ground.”
It was the mistletoe he was talking about. Elizabeth tipped back her head and saw it an impossible distance overhead. Surely he was not intending…
“Are you willing to risk your neck?” he asked, looking at Sir Anthony.
Anthony was in love with Miranda, as everyone knew, and was eager to impress her. And so the two men swung up into the branches of the tree while Miranda gasped nervously and Elizabeth pressed one gloved hand to her mouth. They would kill themselves!
“Don’t slip,” Miranda admonished her betrothed. She lowered her voice.
“Oh, Lizzie, I do so admire Mr. Chambers. He is not at all stuffy, is he? Yet he is not vulgar either. I am very happy for y
ou. Mama said last year that it was a great shame you were forced to marry a cit only because Aunt and Uncle were improvident, but this year I do not doubt she will declare that you were fortunate. He is such fun.”
Yes, he was. With other people. Not with her, though. He did not like her.
“Oh, Edwin, do be careful!” She clapped a hand to her mouth again. His foot had slipped, but he recovered his balance almost immediately and grinned down at her.
Her knees turned weak. Because he had almost fallen?Or because he had smiled at her? And she had, she realized in some embarrassment, called him by his given name.
Anthony was the first down. He held a clump of mistletoe triumphantly in one hand.
“Now, then,” he said while Miranda laughed again, “the victor claims his prize.” And he raised his hand aloft, dangled it over her head while he caught her by the waist with his free hand, and kissed her with smacking relish on the lips.
“Tony!” she scolded. “Mama would have a fit of the vapors.”
“But we have Mrs. Chambers to act as chaperon,” he said.
“Lizzie is younger than I,” she told him.
He turned to look at Elizabeth in some surprise. She was feeling so embarrassed that she would have been blushing rosily if her cheeks had not already been bright red from the cold. She had never before seen two adults kiss. Mr. Chambers had just reached the ground and was looking down ruefully at a deep scuff mark along the inside of one boot.
Elizabeth hoped he had not seen the kiss.
“In that case,” Anthony said, grinning, “you must chaperon Mrs.
Chambers, Miranda.”
“Absurd!” she said, laughing too. “Lizzie is married to Mr. Chambers.
He may kiss her whenever he pleases.”
Elizabeth scarcely knew where to look. She had not stepped away from the tree as the gentlemen descended, with the result that she was suddenly almost toe-to-toe with Mr. Chambers, and he was looking into her face, a question in his own. He was holding mistletoe. Did he think she had held her ground deliberately? Did he think…? She stared back at him.
