Noel's Wish

by Donna Lea Simpson

  When she timidly brought it up at breakfast the next morning, her new husband had grunted that he hated travel; it made him sick. She felt for him, filling in all the words of apology in her heart that he never uttered. She knew not to expect him that night.

  So their first night at the Beeches, his country home, would be their first as man and wife. It was fitting, she thought. She waited again. Reginald would know how scared she was, she assured herself. He would take her in his arms and tell her he would give her all the time she needed to get used to accommodating a man’s desires.

  He had entered her room at about midnight and crossed to the bed, wearing just a nightshirt. He smelled heavily of brandy. Staring down at her briefly, he had blown out the candle, climbed into bed and in a moment he was on top of her, spreading her legs with his bony knees. He was already aroused. She had felt a tearing pain as he entered her, stretching her young, fresh body for the first time with no preparation, and then came a flood of warmth, and that was it. No words were said, no tenderness expressed.

  He had patted her on the head, after, and left the room.

  That became the routine of their couplings for the first year. Ann learned after a month or so that Reginald had a mistress in London, a woman who was married to another man, but who lived in a house Reginald provided. She had borne him two boys, but as they were not legitimate he still needed an heir, which was why he had married Ann. Her dreams crumbled and the pain became self-loathing for the silly widgeon she had been, to expect love in marriage when she had never seen any evidence of it in her parents’ marriage.

  Occasionally she railed at Reginald, but she found that the fighting aroused him, the only time he took her to bed outside of the dutiful nightly couplings. She hated that more than anything, to know that she had aroused him with her anger, and so she schooled herself to an icy composure at all times. After about a year, with no sign of a child on the way, Reginald had sneeringly referred to her as a barren ice block. He never came to her again.

  A tear trickled down her cheek and Ann impatiently wiped it away, drying her hand on the tablecloth. She took a deep if shaky breath and stood. She had made a new life for herself, one that was serene and tranquil. Importuned occasionally, since Reggie died, for her hand in marriage, she always turned the men down, telling them that nothing could ever tempt her to give up her precious independence.

  She would return to London now. She could ride through this latest annoyance if she refused to surrender ground. It was what she should have done from the first, but she had let the gossips drive her from her city.

  She supposed it was the shock, after so many years, of finding that her social circle could take so much delight in pillorying her. Thomas Madison had seemed an unexceptionable young man and at first had shown no signs of infatuation. But eventually he haunted her, following her to every gathering and glowering angrily at any man with whom she danced or to whom she spoke.

  She had had to speak sharply to him on a couple of occasions. And then he had trespassed unforgivably on her person and she had had to publicly humiliate him. Society had condemned her as frigid for that. If only they knew how restrained she had been!

  But there was worse to come. Just days before she had left London it had been whispered in her ear that she was on all the betting books in all the clubs, or all the less reputable ones, anyway. It was called the Madison bet. Who could bed her first? Who could seduce Lady Ice and warm her frigid blood to gain revenge for poor Madison?

  Humiliated, she had grasped at Verity’s invitation and hurried from London, hoping the chatter would all have died by the time she got back. But evidently even a traveler like Ruston had heard the gossip. Ann balled her fists and struck the table. Maybe that was the explanation for the kiss. Men relished a challenge! Well, she would be no man’s game, and so he would discover.

  • • •

  Ruston stared at his figure in the cheval mirror and adjusted his neckcloth a fraction of an inch. “Okay, Cobb, you may go. I am as presentable as I am going to get.”

  His man left the room and Ruston frowned at his reflection once more and headed for the door. He wondered if Lady Ann would come down to dinner. He had issued an invitation through Sarah, her temporary lady’s maid, but he did not know if she would have gotten over her resentment enough to descend.

  He had been an ass, he decided, and deserved her anger. What was wrong with him? Why did Lady Ann inspire such a swirling confusion of emotions in him? And what on earth had possessed him to be so despicable as to kiss a woman who clearly did not want him to?

  He remembered her laughing eyes and open expression when he had caught her playing with the kitten. She had looked at him with lighthearted delight, and it had . . . yes, his feelings had frightened him. He had wanted to freeze that moment in time, to pull her to him and see her eyes close and lips part in sweet submission. Was that why he was so harsh when he came back down the hall and found her cuddling his little girl? Was that why he had kissed her, not with gentleness but with anger? Was the anger at himself for allowing his heart to wish?

  He jammed a ruby stickpin into his neckcloth and stabbed his finger. Cursing, he sucked the blood from his finger and strode from the room. It was enormously uncomfortable to feel himself in the wrong, but he had been deliberately cruel to her, and he was not deliberately cruel to anyone, ever! He had killed the soft, gentle light in her eyes on purpose, and he felt utterly reprehensible. Could he make it up to her? Or would she have retreated for good into her Lady Ice persona?

  And was that maybe the best thing that could happen for both of them?

  • • •

  Nervously, Ann patted down the rose silk dress. It was one of her favorites, the one she had brought to wear Christmas Day at Verity’s. Its snug bodice was encrusted with a diamond pattern of pearls, as were the tiny puff sleeves, and the skirt was deep rose with an overskirt that was gathered with tiny silk roses. Long rose satin gloves finished the ensemble. Her hair was done up simply in a Psyche knot with curls dripping from it, since Sarah was not experienced with hair as her own Ellen was. A tortoiseshell comb with pearls held her heavy hair in place.

  She needed every bit of her self-confidence to face Ruston again at dinner after that shattering kiss. Her anger had burned off quickly, like morning fog, leaving her feeling curiously vulnerable and longing for the armor of her fury. All she had left was her cloak of icy composure, and that would have to carry her through. When the invitation to dine had come her first thought had been to reject it, but her pride would not allow Ruston to think he had bested her. She would prevail, and win back her serenity.

  She descended. The viscount was speaking to the butler, but at the sound of her footsteps, as quiet as they were in her satin slippers, he turned with a calm expression and looked up at her. Then his eyes widened. His voice was husky when he spoke. “My lady, you look absolutely lovely. Of course I cannot imagine you looking otherwise.”

  Despite herself, Ann flushed. Ruston, himself, was breathtaking. Tall and sturdy, he wore his evening clothes of unrelieved black handsomely. His white evening gloves stretched over broad hands and he held one out to her as she descended the last step. He bowed and placed a kiss a polite inch above her hand, in the air. His demeanor was faultless.

  “I am delighted you decided to honor us with your presence at dinner. Mossy will be especially pleased,” he said.

  “I thank you for asking me.”

  “And me!”

  The small voice from above made them both look up. With the instincts of a debutante, Mossy paused at the top of the stairs to display her lovely white dress tied with a sash of moss green. Her blonde hair was tied back with a matching ribbon, and she carried Noël—also wearing a matching ribbon—in her white-gloved hands.

  “Well, lucky me!” Ruston said, a smile of pride on his square face. “I am to dine with the two prettiest girls in England.” He held out his hand and Mossy came down the steps to take it. With just a moment�
�s hesitation he held out his other arm for Ann.

  She gazed up into eyes the color of darkest amber and took his arm. They went in to dinner.

  • • •

  From the formality of their entrance, dinner soon disintegrated into chaos. Mossy insisted on keeping Noël with her, and the kitten was irrepressible. From a solemn little gray-and-white ball of fluff he could turn into a whirlwind of manic energy in the time it took to blink.

  Ann tried desperately to maintain the air of imperturbable calm she intended to employ to convince Ruston he had not upset her equilibrium with his words or kiss, but with Mossy and the kitten, calm was out of the question.

  Mossy was enchanting. Ann was completely captivated by the silliness that Ruston not only permitted but encouraged at his dinner table. From turbot on toast to cream on chicken, the child had a long list of silly requests.

  “Cream on chicken?” he said, making a face and pretending to gag.

  Mossy giggled, but Ann put on her best haughty air and said, “My dear sir, do you not know that Prinny himself will eat it no other way? Are you so out of style that you do not know this?”

  Her hazel eyes sparkling with laughter, Mossy gazed at her with admiration. In the absurdity stakes, Ann had seen her silliness and raised the bet to tomfoolery.

  Ruston, not to be outdone, said loudly to the footman, “That does it! Albert, cream pitchers for everyone! If Prinny does it then we simply must follow. From now on turbot is always to be served on toast, and chicken must always be accompanied by cream pitchers, and . . . and . . .”

  “And a kitten on every table,” Mossy crowed, putting Noël on the cloth-covered surface. The kitten scampered down to where Ann sat, moved to the edge, and with just a brief pause launched himself at her.

  Ruston sat back in his chair and laughed, watching Ann and Mossy playing together with the kitten. What would London say if they could see Lady Ice now? How could he reconcile the stories he had heard of her with this laughing, giggling, breathtaking young woman? Who was she really, the cold, composed creature he had first heard about and met, or this warm, lively woman who would scamper with children and pets with no thought to her consequence?

  Ann, when she sat back to take a breath, was thinking much the same thing. Was she mad? If her London acquaintances saw her right now, gloves stripped off, panting and out of breath from having lunged to catch Noël before he fell from the table, they would not know her. Hoydenish behavior, her father would have called it. And he would have been right!

  Her eye caught Ruston’s warmly appraising gaze. She straightened. A cold wave of fear washed over her. She felt dizzy for a moment, like she was being sucked into a whirlpool, about to drown, and had no way out. This was not right. This was not her life, and she had better not get used to it.

  Ruston, watching her with admiration for her sparkling violet eyes and flushed cheeks, saw the transformation. A rigidity stiffened her backbone and the life died from her animated features. Like Lot’s wife, she was turning into something statue-like before his very eyes, but this time he was at a loss to know what had brought it on. He had been looking into her eyes, and there was a brief second of something like terror, and then . . . coldness descended like a veil.

  She composedly pulled her chair in and took a sip of wine. “I do hope the weather improves soon, so I may go on to Bath. I would not want Verity to worry,” she said in a composed, refined voice.

  Mossy, who had chased her madcap kitten into the other room, came back with the squirming pet. She stopped by Lady Ann, stared at her for a moment with a puzzled expression and drew back, sensing the change. Ruston watched with a sinking heart. He could no longer believe that Lady Ann was naturally frigid, which meant she was that way by choice. She chose to be cold and hard; even when some other part of her took over for a while, she returned to the chilliness that she assumed like a cloak. She was as she was because she wanted to be, and that was worse, somehow, than if she had been frosty by nature.

  Lady Ice.

  Chapter Six

  Mossy was quiet through the rest of dinner and ate her dessert with an abstracted air. Ruston burned. It was just as he thought. Lady Ice would enchant his impressionable little daughter and then go cold, snuffing her fetching personality like a candle, dousing the lovely light in her eyes just as effectively.

  With a sigh of relief after her last bite of dessert, Mossy asked to be excused. “I’m sleepy,” she murmured. “And so is Noël.”

  She kissed her father good night and then hesitated by Lady Ann’s chair, gazing up at her with a searching look.

  Ann looked down at her, desperately wanting to take the child in her arms but so afraid of her own feelings. A child. She did want a child, after all. All of the years of lying to herself were for naught. One day in this household had taught her everything she had missed, and now that it was too late—for after all, one could not have a child without a husband—she understood.

  And if she could choose a child in the whole world to be her own, it would be Mossy. She would have just that piquant, narrow face, just those hazel eyes, just that curling blonde hair. And just that sweet, unspoiled personality. She longed to reach out and smooth back one errant curl but kept her hands folded in her lap.

  “Good night, Lady Ann,” Mossy finally said. She curtseyed, picked up her now-sleeping kitten gently from a saucer, where it had nodded off, and left the room.

  There was silence after, but not a comfortable, companionable silence. It was a tangible, accusatory silence. Ann lifted her chin and stared into Ruston’s brown eyes.

  “I should leave you to your port, my lord,” Ann said, rising and shaking out her skirts.

  “Yes, I suppose you should.”

  She turned to go.

  Ruston fought with himself for a moment then said, just as she reached the door, “Lady Ann!”

  Her hand was on the knob. She seemed eager to leave his presence. He should let her go. But she presented a mystery to him; what made her as she was? Why so changeable, so . . . he searched for the word. So afraid. He frowned, wondering where that thought had come from. Was it an insight into her character or an indication of his own desire to exculpate her from the guilt of deliberate cruelty in raising his child’s hopes that she had found a friend, only to dash cold water over them.

  “What is it, my lord?” she said impatiently, turning the knob as she spoke.

  “Will you join me for coffee?”

  Her eyes widened, the thin, dark, arching brows raised on her white forehead. “I-I-I . . .”

  He suppressed a smile, guessing that her ingrained sense of courtesy was warring with her desire to flee his presence. “Please?” he added.

  “I w-would be delighted, my lord.”

  “I will join you in the gold saloon, then, momentarily.”

  “I am at your service, my lord.” She curtseyed, but the look in her eyes was that of a prisoner in the Terror, being wheeled in a tumbrel to her death.

  • • •

  Ann paced around the gold saloon. Why could she not have used the polite fiction of a headache or sleepiness to avoid this meeting? The last thing she wanted was to spend the evening making polite conversation with Ruston. And if she did not miss her guess, he was aware of it. If he was a true gentleman he would not wish to inflict his presence . . . ah, but he had already proved that he was not a true gentleman, hadn’t he? His kiss burned in her memory. She had never felt one like it, and her cheeks flamed at the thoughts that had plagued her after—indecent thoughts, carnal thoughts, thoughts that even now she would forget, if she only could.

  She took a chair by the fire, which burned low in the grate, and rubbed her bare arms, wishing she had not stripped off her gloves in the silly games they had been playing. In her hurry to escape Ruston’s masculine, magnetic presence, she had left them in the dining room. It was chilly and dim in the big saloon, though the gold colors of the draperies and wall coverings kept it from a cold appearance.


  She stared into the glowing embers. She had only known Ruston one day, but he and his daughter had intruded themselves on her mind and heart so that all she could think about was that laughing little girl or her strong, handsome father. The insidious affect of their warmth frightened her badly; she could even admit that to herself, though she wasn’t sure of the source of the fear, only that she felt like she was being dragged against her will into their lives.

  Would her life have turned out differently if she had married someone like Ruston rather than Reggie? Idiotic question! Of course her life would be different; that didn’t mean it would necessarily be better.

  Or would it? Would Mossy be her daughter?

  Widgeon! she scolded herself. Surely if she did not conceive a child in a year of coupling, when she knew her husband able to sire babies, then she was barren, like rocky soil that could sprout no seed. She leaned her cheek on her hand and watched a coal split with a shower of sparks, the white ash falling from it to the fireplace floor beneath the grate.

  She was not meant to have children. Fanny had had a child every year until she had bluntly told her husband not to come near her bed anymore. In one of her whining letters she had complained that other men found mistresses, why couldn’t her husband? At the time Ann had commiserated with her sister. Deep in the misery of her first year of marriage at that time and suffering Reggie’s nightly demands, she would have given anything if he would have left her alone to spend more time with his London woman.

  And then, finally, after a miserable year, Reggie had left her alone, moving permanently to London with his mistress. He had called her a barren, frigid block of ice, and after a year of fighting him she knew enough not to respond. She simply agreed with him and he left, calling her a cold bitch.

  Ruston opened the door to the gold saloon, expecting to see Lady Ann sitting rigidly on the sofa she had taken the previous night. He glanced around in the dimness, not seeing her at all at first. Then he noticed her, a rosy glow near the hearth, with her elbow on her knee and her cheek resting in her hand. She stared into the fire and her profile presented an almost indescribable look of sadness, or loneliness, or perhaps a compound of the two.