Christmas Gifts

by Mary Balogh

  “What a fortunate little girl you have been,” Emma said. “These are lovely gifts, Anna. And the muff too?”

  Anna lifted it and rubbed it against Emma’s cheek. And then she raised both arms.

  Emma looked uneasily up at Lord Radbrook. But she had no choice, he was forced to admit as he stared mutely back. He could hardly accuse her this morning of having lured Anna into her arms—any more than he could have the day before, he supposed. She had been right. For some reason Anna had taken a fancy to her.

  “She wanted you to see her gifts,” he said lamely as Emma hesitated and then leaned forward to lift his daughter onto her lap on top of the new dress.

  Anna took her doll in her own arms again and snuggled against Emma’s bosom.

  Seeing her there, Lord Radbrook was reminded of the scent of her he had noticed on several occasions the day before—when they were at the Nativity scene, when they were beside each other at church, when he had stepped close to her in the library. She had smelled of violets as she had always used to do. He had been almost overwhelmed with a feeling of nostalgia as soon as he had stooped beside her to take a closer look at Joseph.

  Now Anna would be breathing in that scent.

  He swallowed. God, he had loved her. It had taken him months even to be aware that the sun was still rising each morning. It had taken him years to get over her.

  Perhaps he never had. Perhaps if he had, he would not hate her so intensely now.

  “Shall we go back to the salon, Anna?” he asked.

  But she shook her head, as he had feared she would, and burrowed closer to Emma.

  And Emma looked up at him with worried eyes.

  “Do you mind?” he asked her.

  She shook her head.

  “I had better see if I can settle this question of the sleigh rides, then,” he said, turning abruptly away.

  Emma did not believe she had felt either so happy or so miserable for many years. She sat in one corner of the drawing room after a light luncheon, holding Anna asleep in her arms. The child’s head was pillowed on her breast, her mouth open, her breathing deep and even.

  Emma ached with a maternal tenderness that had never been allowed to awaken before. There surely could be no more wonderful feeling than just this, she felt, unless perhaps it were to hold a tiny baby to one’s breast and feel it suckling there.

  It was a Christmas to remember. This in contrast to the agony of the night before and its sleeplessness after all the hurtful things he had said to her, after her realization anew of all she had lost in that foolish, youthful decision she had made all those years ago.

  Anna might have been hers, he had said twice. Emma might have had a right to the child’s affection. Emma had completed the details herself during a sleepless night. He might have put Anna, or another child, inside her through the intimacy of married love. She might have had the joy of having his child growing in her for nine months. She might have held the child from the moment of its birth and suckled it herself. She might have had a great deal more than this brief agony of pretend motherhood when the child was already almost six years old.

  She might have. And she might have had his love for the past nine years.

  But she had decided otherwise. Enchanted, exhilarated, and finally terrified by that month of fun and friendship and blossoming love, culminating in his passionate outpouring of love for her and offer for her hand, she had turned to her parents for advice. She had been so very new to life and womanhood.

  Why had they both been so vehemently opposed to the match? she wondered. She had been eighteen, after all, of marriageable age, and Edwin could hardly have been more eligible—a baron in his own right, wealthy, landed, heir to an earldom and an even vaster fortune. Papa had been only a baronet of moderate means. It would have been a brilliant match for her.

  But they had, she knew, felt some humiliation at Peter’s marrying so far above himself. Pride, yes, but humiliation too at being unable to match all the lavish spending on the nuptials that the earl had indulged in. Perhaps they had shuddered at the thought of having to go through it all over again with their daughter.

  Papa had been a proud man.

  And then, of course, Mama had always been of a delicate constitution and had always leaned heavily on her daughter’s care. They needed her, Papa had said. They could not spare her for this or any other marriage. Not for another few years, at least.

  And so she had refused Edwin. And when he had pleaded with her, caught her in his arms and tried to persuade her in other than words, she had torn free of him and raced back to the house and refused to talk with him before her parents had taken her away the following day.

  And she had regretted her decision perhaps every day since then. And still regretted it, now more than ever. And yet she wished herself a million miles away, she thought, smoothing a gentle hand over the side of his daughter’s sleeping head.

  “I don’t understand it, Emma dear,” the countess said in a whisper, despite the buzz of conversation going on all about them, seating herself briefly in the chair beside Emma’s. “There must be a magic about you. Anna will not let you out of her sight.” She patted Emma’s arm with one ringed hand. “It is almost enough to set me to promoting a match between you and Edwin. Indeed, we thought one was in the making many years ago when Sophia married Peter, but nothing ever came of it.”

  Emma looked at her, horrified.

  “Oh, don’t worry.” The countess chuckled before moving off to join another group for a few minutes. “I never have been a matchmaker, dear. I would not so embarrass you. And I do believe Edwin has his heart set on the little Chadwick girl, though I am not at all sure that Anna will approve his choice.”

  But Roberta Chadwick would be perfect for him, Emma thought determinedly. She would bring laughter back into his life. He had used to laugh a great deal. They both had. They had spent a month laughing. And talking. And walking and running and riding and boating. And kissing for that last week. Kissing over and over. He was the only man she had ever kissed.

  Strangely, she had been very free of chaperones during that month. They had been alone a great deal.

  “Emma.” He was stooped down on his haunches before her suddenly, the hostility of the day before gone from his face—for the moment, anyway. “Shall I take her from you? It is not fair that you be so tied down.”

  Tied down!

  “If you wish,” she said, her heart sinking. She realized that tears had sprung to her eyes only when his face blurred before her. She stared at his blurred image, aghast. “But perhaps she will awake. She needs the sleep, I think. She was late to bed last night and quite early up this morning.”

  “Emma, what is it?” he asked softly. She shook her head. “I am sorry about last night,” he said. “You have been remarkably kind to her. She has not known a mother figure for a long time.”

  “Leave her here with me,” she said. “I do not mind.”

  “The sleigh rides are to be delayed until later,” he said, “and are to be for the adults only.” He grinned. “They are far too tame for the children. They are going to sled down the hill by the lake after it has been judged—doubtless by Marjorie—that their luncheons have had long enough to settle in their stomachs. I will be going with them, as Anna doubtless will wish to go too.”

  “The fresh air will be good for them,” she said.

  “She is going to want you to come too,” he said. “You do not have to, Emma. It is cold out there, and there is a longish trek to the hill. I warn you now so that you can have a plausible excuse ready for her.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  He searched her eyes with his own. “Unless you want to come,” he said. “You must do what you wish to do. Disregard what I said last night. Will you, please? I was in a foul mood and believe I spoke many words for which I owe you an apology.”

  “No,” she said.

  “Well.” He looked at her uncertainly and straightened up again. “Anna will be pleased
if you come, Emma, even if only for a short while.”

  She did not answer him, but looked down at the child who might have been hers.

  He was gone when she looked up again.

  Aubrey and Peregrine had set themselves up as leaders of the sledding party, each sitting at the front of a sled, a smaller child behind and clinging to his waist as if for very life.

  Anna would not go with either one. Lord Radbrook could hardly blame her. The hill was long and fairly steep, coming to an end on the wide path and lawn before the bank of the frozen lake. The snow was fresh and thick and the boys reckless and not the best of steersmen. Nine times out of ten the sleds tipped before they reached the bottom and spilled out their two occupants into a snowbank.

  The other children seemed not at all perturbed by the frequent spills. There was a great deal of shrieking and laughing and a large number of insults being hurled about. Lord Radbrook and Emma at the top of the hill and Marjorie at the bottom wisely decided to be deaf for the occasion.

  “I know what it is going to be,” Lord Radbrook said, looking down at his daughter, who was gazing wistfully at her laughing and snow-covered cousins but clinging to Emma’s hand. “I am going to have to take you down myself, aren’t I, Anna? And if I tip over halfway down, I will be the laughingstock for the rest of our stay here.” He was grinning. “Will you come down with Papa?”

  She looked up at him eagerly and nodded her head.

  “This may be certain suicide,” he said to Emma, “or may result in a few broken limbs at the very least.”

  “Admit it,” she said. “You have been waiting for just this moment.”

  There was high color in her cheeks, he saw—and at the tip of her nose. Her eyes were dancing, her lips curved into a smile. He felt a sudden jolt of recognition. She really had not changed such a great deal after all.

  “Aubrey!” he yelled, turning away sharply. “I am going to need that sled so that I can teach you a lesson about descending a hill without making yourself into a snowman on the way.”

  “Oh, famous!” Aubrey cupped his hands about his mouth and bellowed at all the other children. “Uncle Edwin is about to make an idiot of himself. Gather around, one and all.”

  “Impudent puppy,” his uncle said. “Come along, Anna. You can sit in front between my knees.”

  Anna was big-eyed and solemn as he settled her on the sled in front of him and the other children gathered around to laugh and cheer and jeer.

  “Here we go, then,” Lord Radbrook said, launching them down the hill at the same moment as a snowball from William’s hand landed with a splat against the back of his coat.

  He felt like a boy again. And Emma had been right: he had been waiting for this moment, hoping that somehow he would find an excuse to take to the slopes himself. He was laughing by the time they arrived—safely—at the bottom. The children were all jumping up and down at the top of the hill, cheering, Emma off to one side of them. He picked Anna up, hugged her in his arms, and made their distant audience a theatrical bow.

  “Now we have only two adult chaperones and one extra little boy,” Marjorie said, clucking her tongue. “However will we manage? And when you go back up there, Edwin, tell William to tie that scarf about his neck or I will throttle him with it when he comes down. This is not the middle of July.”

  Anna was wriggling out of his arms and turning without a backward glance to run back up the slope. She was making straight for Emma, who stooped down and held out her arms as she neared the top. Lord Radbrook narrowed his eyes and watched them.

  “It is most peculiar,” Marjorie said from beside him. “But it was very sporting and kind of her to come all the way out here with Anna, when most of the real parents had a thousand and one excuses for remaining indoors. Is Roberta upset about it, Edwin?”

  “Roberta?” he said. “Why should she be?”

  She looked at him. “Are you not about to offer her the position of second mother to Anna?” she asked. “Or am I being precipitate?”

  “You are, rather,” he said.

  “Am I?” She smiled. “But you paid her such marked attention in town last spring, you know, Edwin, and you did join a party at her brother-in-law’s for a few weeks during the summer. And then they were invited here. You surely cannot blame me—and not only me, either—for putting two and two together.”

  “And coming up with five,” he said.

  “Oh, Julie,” Marjorie said, her eyes going back up the slope. “She shrieks like a hoyden even if she does look like an angel. And I told Peregrine the last time he was down that if he did not lean sideways he would not tip over so often. There they go into a snowbank.”

  But Lord Radbrook was not watching the one sled come to grief on the slope. He was watching Anna draw Emma by the hand toward the other sled and Aubrey hold out the strings to her.

  What the devil? She surely was not intending to come down? But she was. Anna had already climbed onto the front and Emma was lowering herself carefully behind her.

  He had a sudden mental image of Emma as he had first seen her the day before, quiet and demure in her prim lavender frock and white lace cap, the very epitome of a fading spinster. But the image was almost immediately replaced by the memory of Emma, her straw bonnet cast aside, her short curls in riotous disarray about her flushed and laughing face, rowing furiously in a boat race across the lake with him, splashing herself with water at every undignified and unskilled pull of the oars. And of her finally climbing out of the boat and dropping to her knees beside him, where he lay at his insolent ease on the grass, having finished his race many minutes before. She had been giggling like a girl and accusing him of every form of cheating imaginable before he had drawn her head down and kissed her long and soundly.

  “Mercy on us,” Marjorie said, “here comes Emma. The world has gone mad.”

  She was shrieking and laughing helplessly. The sled teetered from one side to the other but miraculously held on course until it slid to a stop just a few feet from where the other two adults stood.

  She was bent forward over Anna, Lord Radbrook saw as he took the few steps toward them, still laughing helplessly. And not laughing alone. Anna too was shrieking with high-pitched delight and leaning back into Emma.

  “We did it,” Emma said, gasping. “That will teach those nasty boys to mock us. Papa will be proud of you.”

  But Lord Radbrook was standing transfixed. God. Oh, God. She was laughing, her face that of a sunny-natured child. She was making sounds.

  Anna bounced to her feet, silent again, and wrapped her arms about his waist. Emma was staring up at him, the laughter dying from her face. She got up slowly.

  “She was not in any danger, I assure you,” she said. “If I had tipped the sled, we would have landed in soft snow.”

  She had misunderstood the look on his face.

  “She was laughing,” he said, his voice curiously tight. But he had to bite on his lip suddenly and turn sharply away so that she would not see the humiliation of his tears.

  He climbed back up the hill afterward while Emma and Anna stayed at the bottom with Marjorie. It was well over half an hour later before they arrived back at the house and Marjorie shooed all the children up to the nursery to comb their hair and wash their hands before tea.

  Lord Radbrook was stooped down dislodging a particularly stubborn knot from Anna’s scarf. She was still holding to Emma’s hand, he could see, though Emma was at arm’s length and had clearly intended to proceed on her own way upstairs.

  “There,” he said at last, straightening up. “The deed is accomplished. Upstairs with the others, then, Anna, to get tidied up if you want some tea.”

  But she looked up at him with eager eyes and across to Emma, who still stood a step away. Anna looked back to him and deliberately up to the ceiling above Emma’s head.

  “Ah,” he said with a sinking of the heart and a strange churning of the stomach. And he knew from the suddenly stricken expression in her eyes that Emma had
just realized too. “I have caught Miss Milford under the mistletoe, have I, Anna? How clever of me.”

  His child released Emma’s hand finally and clung to her skirt instead. And her free arm came about his leg. She gazed upward at them.

  “I have a well-trained daughter,” he said as lightly as he could, setting his hands on Emma’s shoulders and taking the step toward her. “She held you prisoner until I was ready to capture you myself.” And he lowered his head and kissed her swiftly and firmly.

  And was immediately engulfed in the delicate perfume of violets and in impressions of summertime and warmth and youth and laughter and young love. And in memories of Emma and what she had meant to him before all the dreary months and years of pain had made him hate her. And of what she had continued to mean to him despite all the pain and all the hatred. And of what she still meant to him and always would mean to him.

  At least, he thought, raising his head and looking into dazed hazel eyes, he had meant the kiss to be swift. He had no idea if it had been or not. Anna, he realized, was still gazing fixedly up at them.

  “You are beneath the mistletoe too,” he said, stooping and kissing her. “And now that that nonsense is done with, perhaps we can proceed to our tea. I am starved.”

  They ascended the stairs in silence, the three of them, Anna between them, holding to a hand of each.

  They were to keep country hours, the countess had announced that morning, and have their Christmas dinner early. Partly it was so that the young people with their boundless energy would have plenty of time both to go for their sleigh rides and to join in the dancing planned for the drawing room later in the evening, and partly so that the servants could have some of the evening to themselves after the great banquet was cleared away.

  Sleigh rides were always better after dark, anyway, someone said, especially as the storm had cleared away completely and there were likely to be moonlight and starlight by which to drive.

  Emma would not go. She had decided that at teatime. It would not be seemly. She was not either one of the young people or half of a couple. She was merely an aging spinster, in the same category as Aunt Hannah, who had sat beside the fire all day, nodding genially at all the merrymaking proceeding about her.