Under the Mistletoe

by Mary Balogh

  Aunt Maria got to her feet and seated herself on the pianoforte bench.

  She did not have to call for silence. Somehow it fell of its own accord as she played the opening bars of “Lully, Lulla, Thou Little Tiny Child.”

  They all sang. And they all surely felt the wonder and warmth and healing power of love in the form of the baby, invisible inside his swaddling clothes, and of Christmas itself. Oh, surely they all felt it, Elizabeth thought. She could not be the only one.

  She was aware as Aunt Maria proceeded to a second Christmas carol that Mr. Chambers was standing beside her chair. His hand came to rest on her shoulder as he sang with everyone else, and then, when Jeremy began to fuss, he leaned over her and picked up the baby, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do.

  Elizabeth swallowed against the lump in her throat. How would she ever be able to face her life when Christmas was over and everyone had left except her mother and father? But she would not think of that yet. Not tonight.

  They sang for half an hour before the tea tray was brought in.

  “There is a service in the village church at nine o’clock in the morning, I have been told,” Edwin said after the children had all been sent off to bed, yawning and protesting.

  Everyone looked at him rather as if he had sprouted a second head. They were not much of a churchgoing family. But several people had an opinion.

  “Much too early,” Michael said.

  “The carriages could not be taken out in all this snow.”

  “We could walk, silly. It is less than two miles.”

  “Go to church? On Christmas Day?”

  “Peregrine, you will not call your sister silly.”

  “That is the whole point, my dear.”

  “I’ll come,” Elizabeth said, smiling at Mr. Chambers, and remembering how unexpectedly pleasant it had been to speak his given name a few minutes ago.

  The chorus of comments continued.

  “It would be fitting, after all we have done today.”

  “We could have another snowball fight on the way home.”

  “The service could not come even close to being as affecting as this little ceremony here this evening, though, could it?”

  “And build an appetite for the goose and the plum pudding.”

  “Does the vicar give long sermons, Lizzie?”

  “You never lack for appetite, exercise or no.”

  “Oh, yes, let’s go to church,” Annabelle said. “Let’s walk there through the snow. Together, as a family. What a perfectly delightful Christmas this is turning out to be. The best ever. Thanks to Lizzie and Edwin, that is. You can invite us here every year, you two.”

  There was a burst of hearty laughter and even a smattering of applause.

  “Consider the invitation extended,” Mr. Chambers said with a twinkle in his eye. “And after we have feasted and stuffed ourselves tomorrow, we will go down to the lake and make a slide. Unfortunately we have no skates, though I promise there will be some next year. But a slide we will have-and a contest to see who can skid the farthest without coming to grief.”

  They drank their tea and finally dispersed for the night with warm, cheerful good-nights. Mr. Chambers was talking with a group of uncles and aunts when Elizabeth slipped away to the nursery to give Jeremy his night feeding. Her mother caught up with her on the stairs.

  “It is to be hoped, Lizzie,” she said, “that tomorrow you will exert more control over your own home than you did today. I cannot tell you how shocked I have been-and all this family has been-over the indiscretion of allowing the children out of the nursery to mingle with the adults when their nurses are being paid to keep them under control in the nursery. And the vulgarity of all those decorations, including the embarrassingly amateurish efforts of Oswald to produce a Nativity scene.And the kissing bough. I never thought to live to see such a day in any home occupied by the members of my own family. It comes, of course, of the unfortunate circumstance of your having to marry a cit.

  Tomorrow you must look to me for guidance. I will not be overpowered by such a domineering man.”

  Elizabeth stopped outside the door of the nursery. She had been hoping to avoid her mother tonight. Mama had been looking sour and outraged all day. Elizabeth still did not know when she drew breath to speak if she would have the courage to say what she wanted to say, what she had been longing to say for the past month or two, in fact.

  She had never been able to stand up to her mother.

  “Mama,” she said, “will you and Papa be returning home after Christmas?

  You have been kind enough to stay with me here far longer than you originally intended, but you must be longing to be at home again.”

  “Leave you?” Lady Templar said. “When you do not have any idea how to be mistress of your own home, Lizzie, or how to be a good mother to your son? I would not dream of being so selfish. You must not fear that I will desert you when you have such need of me.”

  “But Mama,” Elizabeth said, her heart thumping loudly in her chest and her throat and ears, “I do not. I have much to learn before I can run a household as efficiently as you, but Wyldwood ran smoothly enough before you came here and will do so after you leave. You trained me well when I was a girl. And truth to tell, I look forward to the challenge of managing on my own again. I have been very grateful indeed for your help when I needed it, but I do not need it any longer. And I believe I am a good mother.”

  “Lizzie!” Lady Templar’s bosom swelled, and her face was blotched with red patches. “Never did I think to hear such words of ingratitude from you of all people. It is the influence of that dreadful man, I expect.

  You were always an impressionable girl.”

  “I am grateful to you,” Elizabeth said again. “But I would not keep on expecting you and Papa to sacrifice your own comfort for me, Mama. It would be selfish of me. And against my inclinations,” she added lest she weaken.

  “You will allow him to make you as vulgar as he is,” her mother said disdainfully.

  “I do hope so, Mama,” Elizabeth said quietly. “A wife ought to allow herself to be influenced by her husband, especially when he was chosen for her by her own parents. Just as I hope Mr. Chambers will allow himself to be influenced by me.”

  She did not know if her marriage stood any chance of becoming a real one. But she would prefer the aloneness of being a neglected, half-abandoned wife, she had realized today, than the oppression of living under her mother’s thumb, as she had all her life except for the few brief months between Christmas last year and her confinement.

  Her mother turned and walked away without another word, her back stiff and bristling with righteous indignation. Elizabeth fought the wave of guilt that swept over her. She had been polite. She had been grateful.

  But she had said what she had wanted and needed to say for a long time.

  She wanted her home to herself again, to herself and Jeremy and Mr.

  Chambers whenever he chose to visit them.

  Separation from him after Christmas this year was going to be very much more painful than it had been last year, she thought as she let herself quietly into the nursery. Last year she had been upset, but she had also been disillusioned too. Part of her had been relieved to find herself alone. This year, though, she had seen another, warmer, more charming, more fun-loving side to her husband’s personality. This year he had kissed her beneath the kissing bough and smiled at her. The house was going to seem empty indeed when he left.

  Her life was going to seem empty indeed.

  But she had been firm with her mother. She had asserted herself as mistress of Wyldwood. She had made progress. She was proud of herself.

  Jeremy was waiting for her with noisy impatience, she heard even before she entered his room. She smiled. For longer than three months he had been her world, her life. He would continue to be after Christmas. How could she even think of emptiness when there was a baby to nurture and love?

  Edward Chambers�
�s baby and hers.

  Elizabeth was sitting by the window of Jeremy’s room in the dim light of one flickering candle, the baby at her breast. She looked up when Edwin opened the door from the nursery quietly and stepped inside, and pulled hastily at Jeremy’s blanket in order to cover herself.

  “I beg your pardon.” He moved a few steps closer to her. “I did not intend to embarrass you.”

  But he was not going to go away either-not unless she directly asked him to. They had circled about each other for too long, he and his wife. He wanted to be a part of their son’s life. Oh, yes, and of hers too.

  She gazed at him tensely for a few moments before lowering her eyes and relaxing back into the chair. She smoothed her free hand over the soft golden down of the baby’s hair, just visible above the blanket.

  Edwin clasped his hands behind his back and watched.

  They did not talk. The only sound that broke the silence was the hungry sucking of their child.

  If only this moment could be immortalized, carried with him forever, Edwin thought. He felt absurdly close to tears. But he wondered which Elizabeth would leave the nursery with him when she had finished feeding the baby. The cold, dignified aristocrat he had known her as until today? Or the warm, smiling, quietly assertive woman she had been for much of today?

  Was it just Christmas that had effected the change in her? Would she be herself again once Christmas was over? Even tomorrow, perhaps? But who was her real self? He really did not know her, did he? He had met her twice before their wedding, there had been the two weeks after it, and he had spent a few days here after Jeremy’s birth, always with her mother in attendance. They were essentially strangers.

  He had never been particularly shy with women. He had not known many sexually, but he was acquainted with many as friends and had looked forward to making a marriage for companionship and affection as well as for physical gratification. He still had female friends. But Elizabeth was different. It was not so much that he was shy with her as that he was a little in awe of her-though he was not in awe of her mother.

  Elizabeth seemed the perfect lady to him, someone far above him in some indefinable way. The feeling annoyed him. He had never been awed by social rank.

  The sucking noises gradually slowed and then stopped altogether. Edwin stepped forward and lifted the sleeping baby from his wife’s arms as she set the bodice of her dress to rights. He turned and set the child down gently in his crib after kissing his soft, warm cheek and breathing in the baby smell of him.

  It was Christmas Eve, he thought. He did not want to end it.

  He held the door open for Elizabeth to precede him into the nursery and then the door into the corridor beyond. He closed it behind them.

  She turned to say good-night to him. He could read her intent as she drew breath.

  “Elizabeth,” he said quickly, before he could be caught again in the grip of his eternal awkwardness with her, “may I come to you tonight?”

  He knew even as he asked that she would not refuse. She had always been the perfectly obedient wife-he must grant her that. But he desperately wanted to see the light of something more than duty in her eyes.

  “Yes, of course,” she said with her customary quiet dignity.

  He offered his arm and she took it, her hand exerting very little pressure on his sleeve. They did not speak a word as he led her to her room, opened the door for her, and bowed. She stepped inside, and he closed the door from the outside.

  What had happened to the warmly happy woman he had seen a few times in the course of the day? he wondered. She seemed to have disappeared. Was this to be an ordeal to her? And why would he want it when the two weeks following their wedding had brought him no pleasure at all?

  But he was mortally tired of wondering and guessing. He wanted her. It was up to him, he supposed, to bed her in such a way that at least it would not be a repulsive experience for her. But damn it, that was exactly the attitude with which he had approached her bed during those two ghastly weeks. It was up to him to see to it that their coupling was a pleasurable experience for her.

  He turned in the direction of his own room, next to his wife’s.

  Elizabeth stood looking out through the window. The snow had stopped falling, but the sky must still be cloudy. There was not a star in sight. The snow made the landscape unnaturally bright, though. It was Christmas Eve, soon to be Christmas Day

  She shivered. Not that she was really cold. There was a fire burning in the hearth, and she was wearing a long-sleeved, high-necked nightgown-the lace-trimmed one she had worn on her wedding night last year. Indeed, she felt almost too warm.

  With what high expectations she had awaited him on that night just a little over a year ago. She had fully expected a happily-ever-after. How disappointed she had been.

  And this year? Did she have expectations now? She knew what it would feel like, not unpleasant but… disappointing. She longed for it anyway, for that touch of intimacy, that illusion of closeness.

  And what were her expectations of the future? Was there a future? It was best not to think of it. After all, there never was a future, only an eternal present moment, all too often lost because human nature had a tendency to yearn toward the nonexistent future. What did it matter that he might leave the day after tomorrow and not return for months or even a year? Tonight he was here, and he was coming to her bed.

  There was a light tap on the door of her bedchamber even as she thought it, and it opened before she could either cross the room or call out.

  He was wearing a long dressing robe of green brocade with slippers. His blond hair had been brushed until it shone. He was freshly shaved.

  It was like their wedding night all over again. Elizabeth could hear her heartbeat thudding in her ears. She clasped her hands loosely before her and concentrated upon relaxing, or at least upon not showing any of the turmoil of her feelings.

  “You told me you have always hated Christmas,” he said, coming closer to her. “Are you hating this one too, Elizabeth?”

  “No, of course not,” she said.

  He stopped a foot or so away from her.

  “Because I am the one asking you, and it would not be at all the thing to say yes?” he asked her, tipping his head a little to one side and looking closely at her.

  She frowned slightly before smoothing out her expression again. What did he mean? She did not know how to reply.

  “I am enjoying it more than I expected when I arrived,” he said.

  “I am glad,” she told him.

  “Are you?” He reached out one hand and took one lock of her hair between his fingers-she had had her maid leave it loose.

  It was one of their usual conversations, saying nothing and leading nowhere. She had always felt more awkward with him than with any other man of her acquaintance.

  He bent his head then and kissed her.

  She was taken totally by surprise. This was different from their wedding night.

  He did not immediately draw back. Instead he parted his lips and settled them more comfortably over her own. She tasted heat and moisture and wine. At the same time he settled his hands on either side of her waist and drew her against him. She lifted her hands and set them on his shoulders-broad, solidly muscled shoulders. He was solid everywhere, she noticed as if for the first time. He seemed terribly male.

  She had never really touched him before, she realized. Not with her hands-she had kept them flat on the bed during all their encounters last year. And not really with her body-she had felt his weight and his penetration, that was all.

  She felt his tongue prodding against the seam of her lips and jerked back her head-and then wished she had not done so. He stared into her eyes, his hold still firm on her waist, his expression unreadable.

  “Is this just duty to you, then, Elizabeth?” he asked her. “Is this what the whole of today has been about for you?”

  What did he expect her to say? What did he want her to say? Last year had been easy in
a way. He had spoken scarcely a word to her in her bedchamber-or out of it, for that matter.

  “I have tried to do my duty,” she said. “Have I not pleased you? I am sorry about… about just now. I was not… expecting it. I am sorry.”

  He took a half step back from her, though he still kept his hands where they were.

  “If this is duty and nothing else, Elizabeth,” he said, “say so now and send me on my way.”

  It was not just duty. She would not have dreamed of saying no to him anyway, of course, but it was not just duty. She had wanted him to come.

  She wanted him in her bed again even though she knew now from experience that the encounter would not measure up to her dreams. It did not matter. She wanted him inside her again. She wanted to feel like his wife.

  She had taken too long in answering. He dropped his hands abruptly, turned, and strode toward the door.

  “Mr. Chambers,” she said sharply.

  “For God’s sake, Elizabeth.” He stopped and turned back to her, anger in his face. “Call me Edwin or nothing at all.”

  “I am sorry.” She tried not to show her distress. He was angry with her.

  He had spoken sharply to her. He had said for God’s sake in her hearing.

  “Don’t be.” He lifted one hand and ran the fingers through his hair.

  “There is no need to be eternally sorry. You owe me nothing. You married me in obedience to your parents’ will, you lay with me in the weeks following our marriage, and you presented me with a son in due course.

  Your life is essentially your own now. You are not my slave. I have never believed in slavery, especially the marital kind.”

  “I owe you obedience,” she said.

  “You owe me nothing.” For a moment his eyes blazed. Then he shook his head slightly, and his anger faded. “I would far rather hear you consign me to the devil than tell me you owe me obedience. But no matter. It is late and we are both tired. Good night, Elizabeth.”

  All the joy of the day had been drained away, leaving only an intense pain behind it. His hand was on the doorknob. In another moment he would be gone-and they would be forever estranged. She would not be able to bear it.