It Happened One Christmas: Christmas Eve ProposalThe Viscount's Christmas KissWallflower, Widow...Wife!

by Carla Kelly

  It didn’t take long for Aunt Alice to change from asking questions to telling Lord Marbrook one of her many stories of Christmas past, including the one about the Christmas goose who nearly escaped. Lily listened with a smile. She was one of the few people in the family who never tired of her aunt’s stories. Daisy wasn’t so patient, coming to stand beside Lily, arms crossed over her chest in a huff.

  ‘I can’t believe she’s boring him with that old tale.’

  ‘I can’t believe he’s listening.’ As her aunt paused to take a breath, Lily waited to hear Lord Marbrook make some excuse for rising and escaping the way Charles and Edgar often did. He didn’t, but instead listened to Aunt Alice as though she were in the House of Lords delivering some great speech. It seemed an odd amount of politeness from a Marbrook. The dowager viscountess hadn’t been subtle in her eagerness to escape from Aunt Alice and her tales at Petunia’s wedding.

  ‘I think she’s starting in on the time Grandfather spilled the wassail bowl on Lord Creighton,’ Daisy whispered. ‘I’d better rescue poor Lord Marbrook.’

  ‘Leave him be.’ Lily grabbed her sister before she could walk away. It was bad enough Aunt Alice had cornered Lord Marbrook, Lily didn’t need Daisy fluttering around him like some lovesick butterfly and shocking his already sure-to-be stunned sensibilities. ‘He’s a man and capable of looking after himself.’

  ‘And a very handsome one, too. Now, let go of me before you get paint on me like you did on him.’

  Mortified of being reminded of her blunder, Lily let go and her sister practically floated across the room to stand beside Aunt Alice and stare at the object of her admiration.

  Then the French doors flew open and the twins rushed in with a whirl of cold air, mud and snow. The dogs jumped to their feet to bark at the intrusion, the noise making Lily’s brush slip, leaving an orange streak across the white. She scraped at the mark with her palette knife, wishing her family would better control themselves.

  ‘Uncle Laurus, come sledding with us. There’s just enough on the rise beyond the portico to really make the sled fly,’ John demanded, his brown hair scattered wildly over his head.

  ‘Yes, come at once,’ James added, identical to his brother except for the increased number of freckles covering his snub nose. The boys didn’t wait for an answer, but hurried back outside, leaving the door open behind them and a trail of wet footprints across the wooden floor. The dogs followed them into the crisp afternoon, their barks fading off over the lawn.

  ‘What do you say, Marbrook? Are you up for the snow?’ Laurus asked, shrugging on his heavy coat.

  ‘Oh, yes, let’s go outside and sled,’ Daisy pleaded, plucking her coat from the fender where it’d been left to dry beside Lily’s after their walk outside this morning.

  ‘Only if Miss Rutherford will join us,’ Lord Marbrook added.

  Lily peered around the edge of her canvas, stunned by the invitation.

  ‘I, well, you see—’ Lily’s mind turned to mud as she tried to think of a suitable excuse for staying indoors and failed.

  ‘Don’t stand there like one of your father’s oak trees, go on outside,’ Aunt Alice commanded. ‘The air will do you good.’

  The matter decided, and not to Lily’s liking, she laid down her brush and palette, arranging them on the small table so they wouldn’t be dislodged by anyone passing by.

  ‘Stop dawdling, girl,’ Aunt Alice snapped.

  ‘I’m coming.’

  ‘So is Christmas.’

  Lily slid her coat off of the fender and pulled on the heavy wool, then followed Daisy, Laurus and Lord Marbrook outside.

  Her breath rose in a cloud around her head as she walked across the stone portico to the railing on the far side. Just below it, her nephews threw themselves down the short hill on their wooden sleds, leaving wide troughs in the thick snow. At the bottom, they stood and waved at the adults.

  ‘Uncle Laurus, pull us up the hill,’ James begged.

  ‘Please,’ John pleaded.

  ‘Will you help me, Marbrook?’ Laurus asked.

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t,’ he answered plainly, offering no further explanation.

  ‘Then it’s up to you and me, Daisy,’ Laurus informed her.

  ‘But... I...’ she protested, looking back and forth between him and Lord Marbrook.

  ‘Come on or we’ll have no peace.’ Laurus took her arm and pulled her down the hill to where the twins were waiting on their sleds for their obliging uncle and pouting aunt.

  ‘I suppose it’s below a Marbrook to frolic in the snow with boys,’ Lily remarked with more edge than intended.

  ‘If only I could.’ He let out a long breath and it rose like a wraith around his head before fading away. ‘I took a musket ball in the thigh in France and have a difficult time managing hills, even small ones, when they’re slippery with snow.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ Lily wrapped her arms around herself, shivering more in embarrassment than cold. It seemed nothing she did around Lord Marbrook was ever correct.

  They stood together in silence for some time as she struggled for a topic to fill the awkward quiet. ‘Would you like to see Father’s hothouse? A friend in Mexico sent him a beautiful new plant, though I don’t suppose such things interest you.’

  They rarely interested anyone outside her parents and their botanist friends.

  ‘I’d like to see it. Please, lead the way.’

  She gaped at him before she recovered herself and led him across the portico and down the steps. They followed the curving stone path past the square beds of bare rose bushes, accompanied by the boys’ laughter and Daisy’s complaints. Pygmalion trotted beside Lord Marbrook, as loyal as any hunting dog. They made for the end of the garden where a brick-and-glass building with four faux chimneys and an arched door meant to mimic the front of Helkirk Place stood. Numerous windows made up the walls, each covered with a fog marred by large beads of water which streaked the grey surface. Lord Marbrook moved forwards to pull open the door and Lily sighed as the moist heat swept over her. Inside, the air was heavy with the heady aroma of the lilies and the large rosemary bushes along the sides. She revelled in the smell of warm earth and herbs as she moved down one side of the long table covered with green-leafed plants with long stems topped with brilliant red flowers. Lord Marbrook strolled down the other side, admiring the plants.

  ‘They’re called poinsettias. The priests in Mexico decorate their churches with these as a reminder of the star of Bethlehem,’ she explained as they stopped near the centre, facing each other across the flowers. ‘Here they don’t thrive outside the hothouse.’

  ‘Very few things bloom in the absence of warmth.’ He shifted on his feet, grimacing as he moved.

  ‘There’s a bench there if you need to sit.’ She motioned to the nook behind him, not wanting him to stand in pain on her account.

  ‘I’m not quite so fragile, Miss Rutherford. My time in the army taught me to deal with deprivation.’ He fingered one red petal, pulling it down a touch before letting it go to bob back into place. ‘Cold, hunger and musket balls don’t care whether a man is a viscount’s son or butcher’s brother.’

  ‘Was it very painful being shot?’ She near groaned at her stupid question as his mouth turned down at the corners. She should have limited the conversation to the plants instead of alighting on such a dreadful topic, one which demanded a certain intimacy she was reluctant to engage in. This kind of leading question had been her downfall with him before.

  He stared past her out the far window at the garden covered in snow and she knew he saw more desolation than the bare trees encased in ice and the small winter birds hopping among the few bushes poking up through the snow. ‘Not as bad as laying in a barn for three days until another officer found me.’

  Lily’s hands flew to her mouth in horror. �
�How awful.’

  ‘Yes, but at least it kept the surgeons from taking the leg and allowed the wound to heal without corruption.’ He brushed his thigh with his fingers and she knew at once where he’d been struck. ‘I was one of the lucky ones. Most of my men died in the mud or on the surgeon’s table.’

  He pressed his fingers against the table top and leaned hard on his shoulders. His jaw moved as if he wanted to say more but couldn’t. She waited patiently for him to continue, as ready to listen now as she’d been four years ago, her grievances paling in comparison to his. As many times as she’d cursed him, she wasn’t cruel enough to wish something so terrible on him, or to think it just deserts for what he’d done to her.

  At last he straightened, tossing her the kind of small smile meant to convince her his experience didn’t still haunt him, but it was plain it did. ‘Please excuse my melancholy turn.’

  ‘I’m very sorry you had to suffer so,’ she offered with genuine concern.

  ‘It wasn’t all hardship.’ He tapped the table in thought. ‘Before my wound, my men and I used to play like those boys in the snow at our winter quarters.’

  ‘It’s difficult to imagine grown men frolicking.’

  ‘But we did,’ he added, the sadness of mourning tainting the happy memory. It was clear he’d lost friends in France, people he cared deeply about and now missed. ‘I enjoyed the camaraderie of army life. It wasn’t something I’d ever experienced before my father purchased my commission, not even at school. It was almost as if we were a kind of family, albeit a strange one.’

  ‘Yes, I know something about strange families.’ She motioned to the window through which they could see Laurus and Daisy hauling the laughing twins back up the rise.

  ‘I enjoy your family. Mine isn’t quite as—’

  ‘Eccentric?’

  ‘Welcoming,’ he finished. ‘It’s impossible to cultivate many acquaintances when your father believes himself higher than everyone but the greatest dukes and marquesses. The fact our family is descended from a king’s mistress troubled him less than when people didn’t pay him the respect he believed his birthright.’

  She was just about to agree with his assessment of the Marbrook family, but for once managed to catch her tongue before it made a fool of her. ‘Laurus told me your father didn’t approve of your friendship with him.’

  ‘He didn’t approve of any friendship, not even between me and my brother, who was too much like him to care for me. We never played together like those two boys.’ He picked a brown leaf off one of the stems and flung it away, the loneliness she remembered draping him in the ballroom hallway haunting his words. Then he raised his eyes to hers, the green filled with a regret Lily could almost touch. ‘I tried to emulate my father once, in order to garner his approval. It didn’t work and all I did was treat poorly someone who deserved kindness.’

  Lily sucked in the humid air, his expression as bracing as the cold outside. Surely he wasn’t referring to his behaviour at the ball? It must be another situation with a fellow officer or soldier, some comrade-in-arms he’d disappointed, not her. He’d been so mean and aloof after she’d tripped it was difficult to imagine he might regret his behaviour, and yet...

  ‘About what happened at your sister’s celebration—’ He glanced down to where Pygmalion stood beside him, flecks of snow dotting his black nose.

  ‘You needn’t bring it up. I’ve quite forgotten it.’ Heaven help her for lying on Christmas Eve, but she didn’t want him to suspect how much that night had affected her or changed her life. ‘It was a long time ago.’

  ‘It was, but, well, you see...’ His voice faded like the wind through the open glass vent at the top of the hothouse.

  ‘Yes?’ she urged. If an apology was coming, she wanted to hear it, simply because she couldn’t believe it. Everyone knew the Marbrooks were not people to make apologies, but to demand them, even from those they’d wronged.

  ‘I—well—’

  ‘We have you cornered.’ The twins burst into the hothouse and Lily and Lord Marbrook raised their arms to protect themselves from a hail of snowballs.

  ‘Not in here. Father will kill you if you hurt his plants.’ She rushed after them into the biting cold, stopping outside the hothouse door to snatch up a handful of snow and fling it at the mischievous imps. They easily ducked her projectile and she was about to reach for more snow when cold hit the back of her neck and slid inside the collar of her coat.

  ‘I got you,’ Daisy proclaimed while Lily packed another snowball.

  ‘You won’t stay dry for long.’ Lily hurled the snow at her sister, but it flew past her curls to hit Laurus’s jacket.

  Soon, he, too, was throwing snow or ducking behind trees and statues to avoid being hit. Only Lord Marbrook didn’t join the fight. He stood outside the greenhouse, arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the glass and watched, a grin decorating his lips.

  She glanced at him as she hid behind an urn to pack another ball, irked to see him standing outside the fun after claiming he’d enjoyed such frivolity in France. He was probably horrified to see two adults acting like children and laughing at the expense of those around him, not in solidarity with them. Let him judge, she wouldn’t allow him to dampen her mood, even if it meant another story for him to share with those in London who continued to sneer at her lack of grace.

  With snowballs flying this way and that, fresh snow began to grow scarce. Lily spied some piled against the low stone wall surrounding the rosebushes. She had rushed to gather it up before the others reached it when her boot hit a patch of ice. She pitched forwards, tightening as she fell towards the thorny branches when a firm hand about her waist caught her.

  She whirled in Lord Marbrook’s embrace to face him. His hot breath warmed the cold tip of her nose as his tall body arched over hers. She clasped his shoulders to steady herself, her heart pounding in her chest more from his nearness than her near miss of the sharp bush. His lips parted and for the briefest of moments she thought he might lean down to kiss her. Their faces were so near, all it would take was one small movement to close the distance, and to her shame, she wanted him to.

  Instead, he straightened and turned to set her on the centre of the path. He didn’t part from her, but remained close with his hand on the small of her back. The weight of it made her entire body tingle and she locked her knees to stop from sinking against his chest and stomach. For a moment it was just the two of them together, as it’d been in the alcove in London when she’d been naïve enough to comfort him. She removed her hands from his arms and stepped out of his embrace, his former slight dampening her appreciation of today’s courtesy.

  ‘Oh, you were so chivalrous.’ Daisy rushed forwards, beaming at Lord Marbrook like some besotted heroine in a novel. ‘Too bad Lily is so clumsy.’

  ‘I’d do the same for you, Miss Daisy, should you need it.’ He bowed to Daisy, but as he rose he caught Lily’s eye.

  She looked away, embarrassed by both her sister and herself. Despite the poise she’d shown with him on the portico, it seemed as if falling in front of Lord Marbrook was a predetermined reality, not a mere happenstance.

  ‘Boys, it’s time to come in and dress for Christmas Eve supper.’ Rose’s voice carried over the clear air from where she stood at the open doorway, her willowy frame, so much like their mother’s, draped by a puce dress. Like their mother, Rose was refined and serene, a definite contrast to Lily’s clumsiness. ‘You, too, Daisy.’

  ‘But I’m not ready to come in,’ she whined.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s time to dress. Bring her along, will you, Lily?’

  Lily reached for Daisy’s hand, but her sister tugged it away. With a warning arch of her eyebrow, Lily forced Daisy to comply and pulled her out of the garden and up to the house before she could say anything else to Lord Marbrook which might embar
rass her, the family or Lily.

  At the French doors, Daisy trudged past Rose, in as dark a mood as her twin nephews. It wasn’t the children Rose watched, but Lily.

  ‘I saw what happened,’ she said as Lily tried to slip past her into the warmth of the house. ‘Lord Marbrook was quite gallant.’

  ‘If only he’d been so courteous in front of all London. What a difference it would’ve made.’ To both her future and her past.

  Rose laid a comforting hand on Lily’s shoulder, the diamonds in her wedding band catching the low winter sun and sparkling. ‘If you’d face those who laughed at you, you’d defeat them. Join me and Edgar for the Season and we’ll have a grand time and show everyone we don’t care a fig for what they think.’

  ‘No. I’d rather stay here than be ridiculed in London again.’ She stormed inside and towards her room, eager for some solitude. After the dance, with society’s cruel taunts and whispers making her ears burn, she’d retreated to Yorkshire, determined never to set foot in town again. It was a quiet life and despite her ever-present family, at times a very lonely one. Her sisters might have wed, gained houses of their own, husbands and children, but it was difficult to see such a future for herself. Lord Marbrook had played no small part in her current state. An account of his snub had been printed by the newspapers, along with their usual society gossip, so all London could snigger over the incident. Despite his catching her today, and the hint of an apology, there was little he could do short of writing a letter to The Times praising her to undo the damage he’d already wrought on her reputation and her present circumstances.

  * * *

  Gregor didn’t follow the others inside, but retreated back into the warmth of the hothouse, Pygmalion close on his heels. He wandered the length of the room, the heat easing the slight pain in his thigh from his old wound aggravated by the long carriage ride today. He approached the centre of the table and the bright red plants, reaching out to touch the pointed leaves. He rubbed one between his fingers, the softness of it reminding him of Miss Rutherford’s dress against his palm and her supple curves pressed to him.