by Mary Balogh
“The servants will be waiting for their Christmas boxes,” he said, “and for their mince pies and wassail. We had better go down and fulfill our duties.”
“You want me to come?” she asked.
“You are my countess, are you not?” he said. “The Countesses of Wycherly have always waited on the servants in the drawing room for this one hour of Christmas Day. You know that from experience. Come then.”
She set her hand in his and got to her feet. Was it possible that life could resume almost where it had left off more than three years ago? Could they possibly just close the book on the past and move on into the future? Was there after all a future for them?
“Out into the nursery, then,” he said, turning to look at Jeffrey and chuckling at his obvious impatience, “to see if you can yell louder than the other children. Away you go, son.” He looked in the other direction. “Ah, baby is snugly wrapped. Take her out to show the other children, Jane. Is she sleeping?”
“And Pamela too,” Jane said. “Bring her, P’pa.”
He picked up Pamela with his free hand and carried her through into the incredibly noisy nursery to set her down on a chair as a silent spectator of the proceedings there. Jane bent forward and kissed her on the cracked, painted lips, careful not to wake her baby.
“John,” Antonia said as they descended the stairs together, “how clever of you to buy her a baby doll. I gave her a splendid doll for her birthday, a doll that far outshines the shabby Pam. She sits in solitary splendor in one corner of the schoolroom at Lanting and hardly earns a glance in a week.”
“Perhaps,” he said, “with tortoise-like speed, I am learning some wisdom in my dealings with the women in my life, Antonia.”
There was no opportunity to explore the meaning of his enigmatic words. They had reached the drawing room, and the butler had been sent on the formal mission of summoning the servants to join them there.
The day proceeded at its usual hectic pace. There was the Christmas dinner, after which it was imperative either to exercise or to fall asleep. Most of the older relatives nodded off beside the large fire in the drawing room or withdrew discreetly to their own rooms. Most of the younger people, including those who had children, went outdoors. There were to be organized games for the children, but inevitably the whole thing quickly degenerated into an energetic snowball fight.
The earl helped Jane mold snowballs and helped her throw them at relatives who were kind enough to step within a foot of her and then pretend to be amazed and wrathful at being hit. Jane, he discovered, had a delightful and infectious giggle. He was soon laughing merrily with her. She was also, he noticed with interest, becoming a general favorite. His young cousin took her up on his slender shoulders and bore her off in pursuit of his young lady. The next time she came into sight she was riding, solemn and dignified, on George’s broader shoulder.
And then there was tea in the drawing room with all the children present and everyone stuffing away platefuls of rich food while all the time protesting that they were about to burst. They could all fast for the next month, after all, Uncle Horace said, as he did every year. Inevitably someone suggested blindman’s buff again as soon as all the tea things had been removed.
And so it would go on, the earl knew, until bedtime—a late bedtime—put an end to the day’s frolicking. Any private moment on Christmas Day had to be quite ruthlessly stolen. When blindman’s buff was moving into the third round, he removed himself to the only room where he could be almost sure of remaining undisturbed—his study. He sent his butler to ask his countess if she would wait on him there.
He was not really sure how he was going to proceed. He only knew that wonderful as everything seemed between them today, they could not drift on without some decisive moment marking the beginning of a new life. Once Christmas was over, once everyone else had gone back home or back to town or wherever they were going next, there would be an awkwardness between them, an invisible barrier.
He was standing staring into the newly lit fire, his hands clasped at his back, when she came. She was wearing green this afternoon, the color that looked best on her. But it was still a dress of simple design in contrast with the fussy creations many of the other ladies had donned for the occasion. Her beauty, of course, did not need artificial enhancing.
She stood close to the closed door, looking at him. The color was high in her cheeks. Her eyes were bright—and wary.
He was acting from instinct. He had no plans. He reached out one arm toward her. “Come,” he said quietly.
She came. She hesitated for a moment when she was close, her eyes on his, but she came the rest of the way. Her mouth was open when it met his. He kissed her hungrily, his tongue licking into her mouth, tasting her. Through the barrier of his clothing he could feel her slender, very feminine curves arched in against him. He set his hands on her hips and pressed her close.
“I have never stopped desiring you,” he said, lifting his head away from hers.
“Or I you,” she said.
“We will continue with our marriage, then?” he said. “We will start anew, Antonia, as if this were the beginning? As if last night was our wedding night? We will put the past behind us as if it never were? Would that be best? Is it possible?”
She opened her mouth and drew breath as if she would speak, but she closed it again and shook her head and shrugged at the same time.
“You know I still love you,” he said.
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Or should we talk about it?” he said. “Do we have to first go back if we are ever to go forward? I am afraid that if we go back, if we talk about it, we will find that after all we cannot move ahead. I cannot bear to lose you again. I have been so very lonely without you.”
He had not thought of loneliness as his main problem in the past three and a half years. But he knew that he had spoken the truth. He had been lonely without her. Unbearably lonely.
“Why did you not believe me?” she asked, lifting one hand to wipe at a single tear that had spilled over and rolled down her cheek. She moved back just far enough that they were no longer touching. “You still do not, do you, even though you have been kind to her today. You want Jeffrey here and you want me here and you have decided that if Jane is to stay too, she cannot be ignored. I think you have even begun to love her a little. But you still do not believe me.”
“Why did I not believe you?” He frowned. “When? Over what?”
“When I wrote to you,” she said. “You never answered the letter though I know very well that you received it. You never acknowledged her birth. You never sent for me to come home. I took such care with the letter. Why did you not believe me?”
“The letter.” He was still frowning. But he was blanching too. There was a buzzing in his ears. “The one you wrote just after her birth?”
“The day after,” she said. “I felt so guilty and so bleak. I remembered how you had watched Jeffrey’s birth. I was so very sorry for withholding the truth. And so I wrote to you as soon as I was able to sit up. But my punishment only became worse. You would not forgive me or believe me. Worse even than either—you ignored me. Can you understand the full horror of that punishment, John? Can you even imagine what it was like waiting day after day, watching day after day for the delivery of the post? Or perhaps for the arrival of your carriage? I expected you to be angry. I was prepared to deal with that, even to accept that you had more reason to be angry with me than I had to be angry with you. I was even prepared for things to be strained between us for a while. I was prepared to work very hard at our marriage. But you ignored me.”
“You asked forgiveness,” he said, his voice troubled, “and I did not grant it. Perhaps I would have if I had read the letter, Antonia. And perhaps I would have asked forgiveness too. I am sorry now. We have wasted more than three years of the lives we have together. I was very deeply hurt, but that was no real excuse. I had hurt you too. Let us forgive each other now. You have done well with h
er. She is a sweet and an irresistibly lovable child. From this day on she will be my child too—my daughter. I will never think of her otherwise.”
But she was staring at him with wide eyes of disbelief. “If you had read the letter?” she said. “If . . . You did not read the letter?”
“Forgive me.” He could picture her now the day after giving birth, pale and weary and lonely and troubled, writing to him, choosing her words with great care, begging his forgiveness, when he had never begged for hers. And waiting, endlessly waiting for his reply. “Ah, forgive me, Antonia. I had received word of the birth only hours before your letter arrived. I cannot imagine living again through more wretched hours and coming through them sane. It somehow seemed worse that the child was a girl. I had so wanted a daughter of my own. I tossed your letter onto the fire without even breaking the seal. By the time I managed to retrieve it with the fire tongs, it was burned to ashes. I never did it again. I read every letter that came from you. I read the words and read between the lines and—”
He lunged for her then as she swayed on her feet, one hand pressed against her closed eyes.
“Forgive me,” he said, lowering her into the chair that was behind her, going down on one knee and chafing her cold hands with his own. “I am so very sorry. Forgive me.”
She had her head against the back of the chair. Her eyes were closed. “John,” she said, “I have never lain with any man but you.”
His hands stilled on hers. There was that buzzing sound again. “What?” His voice came out as a hoarse whisper.
“It all went too far,” she said. “It became a nightmare. Suddenly I had power. I was delirious with it. And frightened by it. And tempted by it. I gave in to it.”
“Antonia—” he said.
She had not opened her eyes. Her hands lay limp in his. “I was shattered,” she said, “totally, utterly shattered when I found out about what you—when I found out about you. I wanted to die. And I wanted you to die. And then I wanted to hurt you—very, very badly. I did not think it would be possible. I thought you did not care for me at all any longer. But I tried anyway. I . .”
“Started to collect a court of admirers about you,” he said when she hesitated. “Started to accept escorts to every ton event of the Season. Started to look glitteringly happy. Started to have no time to spare for your husband.”
“It was all unexceptionable,” she said. “It was little more than wives are expected to do. Wives are not expected to hang on their husbands’ coattails. I was very careful not to be a subject for gossip, not to disgrace you. All I wanted to do was hurt you—if it was possible. I wanted so badly to hurt you.”
“I was hurt,” he said softly.
“And then I found I was with child again,” she said. “I suppose I had known for some time. But for a while I thought it was merely that I was very unhappy, very upset.”
“Antonia—” The pain was coming back in all its rawness. “The child was born a month early.”
“No,” she said. “She was two weeks late.”
He surged to his feet suddenly, dropping her hands, and turned to stare sightlessly into the fire. He dared not believe. He dared not. He would come all to pieces. He had had no marital relations with her during the last three months they had been together. The child could not possibly—
“When I told you,” she said, “I was going to tell you too how unhappy I was, how much I wanted to patch up our marriage. I was going to tell you that I forgave you but that I desperately hoped there would be no more—no more women. I was going to ask if we could have a marriage again, a real marriage, not a typical ton marriage. I had planned so carefully what I was going to say. I got no farther than telling you I was increasing.”
Who? He had turned to a block of ice with a furnace at his core ready to erupt. He could almost hear again the words he had said to her. Who is he? Give me his name. He is going to die.
“I begged you to listen to me,” she said.
Whore! he had said. Who is he? Who has fathered his bastard on you? Over the years, he realized now, he had blocked the memory of those words. He could hardly believe he had spoken them.
“You called me something terrible,” she said. “You called me a whore. That changed everything. I thought of the unfairness of it—of what you had done and of what I had not done. I was furious at your moral outrage. Again I wanted only to hurt you. I wanted revenge.”
She had smiled at him. You will never know, John, she had said coolly, unless the child has the misfortune to physically resemble his father.
“And so I let you believe it,” she said. “I do not suppose I intended for you to go on thinking it. When you left me alone in that room, I thought of Jeffrey and the unborn child and the ruin of what we had once known together. But then you came back.”
Stand up, he had told her, rather like a sergeant talking to his rawest recruit. Your belongings are being packed, my lady. You will be taken to Lanting House tomorrow. You will be leaving at first light. You will live out the remainder of your life there. You will continue as my wife in name and I will continue to support you provided I never see your face again. Do you have anything to say?
Jeffrey? she had whispered.
Jeffrey will go with you, he had said, and remain with you while he is in his infancy. Then I will take him back.
He held out his hands to the flames now. He was shivering.
“I held onto my anger,” she said, “until Jane was born. The labor was even longer and harder than it had been with Jeffrey. I knew that she would have your name. By sending me away you had proclaimed your decision to allow no scandal. But she was a tiny innocent, far more real after she was born than before. I could not bear the thought that in your eyes she would always be a bastard. I wrote to you.” There was a lengthy silence. “And you burned the letter.”
Something was trying to get through to his consciousness. He reached up one arm and rested his wrist against the high mantel. He bowed his head and gazed into the very center of one of the flames.
“She is mine,” he said at last. “Jane is my daughter.” He turned his head to look over his shoulder. But he could not see her clearly. “She is ours. We have a daughter, Antonia.”
“Yes.” He had not seen her get to her feet. He felt her fingers brush lightly against one of his cheeks and was aware of the wetness of his own tears. He wrapped both arms about the slender form of his wife, drew her close against him, and wept against the side of her head.
Yes, it had been necessary to talk. It had been tempting to agree with his first suggestion, that they put the past behind them, that they start afresh today with last night as a new wedding night. But there had been more than just themselves to think about. There had been Jane.
It had been right to talk. He had believed her after all. He had never read the letter. She had never even considered that possibility. She had sent it by personal messenger and had been assured that it had arrived and had been placed in his own hands. She had never thought that perhaps he had not read it.
He released her a long time after he had stopped sobbing and turned his back on her while he drew a handkerchief from a pocket and firmly blew his nose. When he turned back his eyes were red and watery—and smiling. He cupped her face with both hands.
“And you said you had no gift for me!” he said. He laughed softly and looked so happy that her heart turned over. “A daughter is not a gift, Antonia? Jane is not the most precious gift the world has to offer?”
She had time only to smile back before he kissed her firmly and warmly.
“Thank you,” he said against her lips. “Thank you. She is beautiful. Dainty and pretty. Eyes as soulful as her mother’s. You must know that she had enslaved me even before we came to this room.”
“She has her father’s curls,” she said.
She could see him accepting the truth of it—that his daughter was half him. He laughed again. “We have a son and a daughter,” he said. “A family.”
“Now we can go forward,” she said. “Now we can put the past behind us once and for all, John. We can, can we not? I know I will blush because I always did when talking of such matters, did I not? But I will say it anyway. Last night’s wedding night was every bit as wonderful as the first.” She could feel the heat in her cheeks. He had used to tease her because she was never comfortable talking about—she had never even been able to get her mouth around the word, short as it was. About sex.
But he had stopped smiling. He was gazing into her eyes, the warmth and the happiness gone. His arms dropped away from her and he stepped back. He turned toward the fire again.
“Antonia,” he said, “I have been unfaithful to you.”
She did not want to go back to the past yet again. She had lived through that pain already. She had forgiven him.
“It is the present and the future I want,” she said. “I want to forget the past. It will not happen again, John. I know it. You love me. You see? I believe it now. I would not believe it then, would I, though you said it over and over again. I did not believe it was possible that you could do—that with someone else and yet still love me. But it is over. I believe that you love me and that it will not happen again. I trust you.”
“Once,” he said. “I was unfaithful once. A little less than a year ago.”
Her mind had stopped functioning. She could not seem to calculate times and dates.
“She was a dancer,” he said. “I was planning to set her up as my—as my mistress. I had decided that I could not live celibate for the rest of my life. Just once it happened. Once too many times. It was horrible. Horrible.” His hand, resting by the wrist against the mantel, clenched and unclenched. “She was not you.” He drew a deep and audible breath.
Less than a year ago. Had they not been separated for longer than that? She searched the confusion of her mind. Jane was almost three years old.
