Christmas Miracles

by Mary Balogh

  But he was keeping her children away from her on Christmas Day. He looked at her and smiled rather ruefully, but she lowered her eyes to her plate and reached for the piece of cake she had already eaten.

  He did not leave immediately after tea. He carried one of the trays back to the kitchen and then returned to the drawing room to join them all in singing carols and other songs and to hear Mrs. Berlinton—what the devil was her name?—continue a story of adventure and intrigue that she had obviously been inventing over many evenings for her children’s entertainment. And then he told a story, using an imagination he had not suspected he had, about a fierce dragon and a princess in a white silk gown with lace frills and satin bows and a prince disguised as a stagecoachman and blowing loudly on his coachman’s horn as his horses came prancing to the rescue.

  “The princess had a dress like my doll,” the little one said.

  Matthew giggled. “Did the horn whistle, sir?” he asked.

  “Indeed not.” Lord Heath raised haughty eyebrows. “It blew so loudly that the dragon’s head vibrated for a whole week after and made him horribly dizzy and sick. He did not breathe flames for a whole month afterward. The prince was able to rescue his princess and take her away in the stagecoach without even having to use his magic sword.”

  “Magic?” the little one said, her eyes widening.

  “There is a story attached to that sword,” he said. “But it will have to wait for another night.”

  “Ah,” she said while her brother groaned.

  The groans were renewed when their mother announced quite firmly that it was bedtime—an hour past bedtime, in fact.

  And even then he did not take his leave. He remained alone in the drawing room after shaking hands with Matthew and taking Katie’s tiny hand into his own and raising it to his lips. Her eyes clung to his and looked wounded again before she was led away to bed, but he could say nothing to reassure her.

  “Good night, little one,” he said. “Sleep well.”

  He waited alone in the drawing room, one arm propped against the high mantel, gazing into the flames. He waited for her to come back downstairs. He tried not to think about how he might have ruined her Christmas.

  He was still there. She had half expected to come downstairs to find him gone. She had half hoped he would be gone. She had almost panicked at the thought that she might find the drawing room empty. But he was still there, gazing into the fire. He did not turn when she came back into the room. She sat down quietly on a chair some distance from the fire.

  What was she going to do?

  She hoped that at least she would have the strength to insist that it happen on another day, in a place where her children were not. She did not know if she had even that much strength. She had been beguiled all day by his kindness and his gaiety and his smiles—and his hopeless attractiveness. And by that certain something that was Christmas.

  He turned his head and looked at her. If empty air could crackle between two people who were some distance apart, she thought, then the air between them did just that.

  “Please,” she heard herself say, “would you grant me one wish?”

  “What is it?” he asked her.

  “Will you promise not to touch me?” she asked. “If you do not touch me, I believe I might be strong enough to resist what you have come here to do. I am being honest with you, you see. You know that I desire you. You know too that I do not wish to give in to that desire. And so I ask you not to touch me. I appeal to your honor.”

  “What is your name?” he asked her.

  She looked at him with raised eyebrows.

  “I cannot continue calling you Mrs. Berlinton,” he said. “Berlinton was your husband’s name. What is your name?”

  “Fanny.” She was whispering again.

  “Fanny,” he said. “Did you love him? You had two sweet children with him. Do you still mourn him? How long has he been dead?”

  “For over three years,” she said. She would not answer the other questions. She was bewildered at the turn in the conversation. Though she had admitted that it had been longer than three years. That was what he wished to know. “Yes, my lord. It has been that long.”

  “Is that your only reason for desiring me, then?” he asked her. “Would you desire any reasonably personable man who happened to be standing here at this moment?”

  She closed her eyes tightly and lowered her head, feeling the hot flush in her cheeks. “You are impertinent, my lord,” she said.

  “I want you to desire only me,” he said. “I am jealous even of your husband.”

  She kept her eyes tightly closed. “I cannot play your games,” she said. “I have no skill or experience. I would desire only you. So much so that I would make a horrid scene when you had done with me and would hate myself for the rest of my life. I beg you to leave. Please leave.” She was going to be strong enough after all. She had been wise enough to look into the future and know without any doubt what it would be like, what it would feel like. She got to her feet and raised her head to look at him. “Please leave. And please do not come back.”

  He did not move. Or say anything for a while. “Smile for me, Fanny,” he said. “Let me once see you smile.”

  He was not an honorable man after all. He was not going to play fair. Why had she expected that he would?

  “It is more than desire, is it not?” he said. “Tell me it is more than desire.” But he raised a staying hand even as her vision blurred with the welling tears and she swallowed awkwardly. “No, that is unfair. It is just that I have no skill or experience either. Not at this. I want to bring up your children with you, Fanny. I want to spend my life with you. Ah, that is bland. I love you. I love you so much that my whole world has been turned upside down. I love you so much that I am terrified of leaving here and stepping out into the void. If you send me away, you see, I will make a horrid scene and hate myself for the rest of my life.” He smiled crookedly—and looked quite impossibly adorable. “Tell me it is more than desire you feel for me.”

  She swallowed again and tried not to grasp too tenaciously at her Christmas gift. “It is more than desire,” she whispered. Why was she always whispering?

  “How much more?” He looked at her so wistfully that no one seeing him now for the first time would guess that he had a reputation as a rake.

  “I love you.” She forced herself to speak out loud.

  “Will you do two things for me?” he asked.

  “Yes.” But she hoped she did not know what one of them was. Not tonight. Not under the same roof as the children.

  “Will you smile for me?” he asked.

  She smiled—and he smiled back.

  “And will you rescind your request?” he asked. “Will you let me touch you? Only to hold you and kiss you, my love. I will not bed you until our wedding night. Not even if you beg me. Will you marry me?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  He smiled again. “Yes, I may touch you?” he asked. “Or yes, you will marry me?”

  “Both,” she said.

  She was in his arms then and all the breath was whooshing out of her. Before she could gasp in another lungful his mouth was on hers—open and yearning and dizzyingly wonderful.

  “Fanny, my love, my love,” he was saying against her mouth.

  “Yes,” she told him. “Yes. Oh, my love.”

  The children, she thought fuzzily. She must ask the children. She should have asked them before she said yes. She would ask them tomorrow. Surely they would say yes too. Surely they would. Oh, surely they would.

  She wrapped her arms about his neck and abandoned herself to the embrace. She trusted him to end it before they had gone too far. She trusted him. She loved him. He was going to be her husband.

  Oh, he was going to be her husband. Lord Heath. Roderick.

  Katie could not sleep no matter how much she tried. No one had said anything. Not once had anyone called him Papa even though Matt had said to her when they were alone that he
wished the gentleman could be their father. But that had been only a wish. No one had said anything. Perhaps, Katie thought, she would wake up in the morning and he would be gone and would never come back again.

  Perhaps he was not her papa after all.

  She had had a doll. She would not have had the doll if she had had a new papa. That was proof enough. But he had acted like a papa.

  There was nothing else for it, she thought at last, but to go back down and ask straight out. Mama would be dreadfully cross and perhaps Papa—if he was Papa—would be too. Perhaps she would have to sit in the punishment chair tomorrow. But she had to go. Otherwise she would never sleep.

  When she opened the drawing room door, everything was so quiet that for one awful moment she thought that he must have gone home and Mama had gone to bed. But they were there, both of them, and Katie’s heart leapt for joy. The gentleman was hugging Mama very tightly and kissing her. And Mama was doing it right back to him. She had known they liked each other. And she would bet anything that that was what mamas and papas did when their children had gone to bed. She closed the door quietly behind her and gazed. Mama called the gentleman “My love,” though she did not stop kissing him while she did so.

  And then the gentleman opened his eyes and stopped kissing Mama and hugged her less tightly and spoke to her. He spoke very softly, but Katie heard.

  “We have company,” he said, and Mama’s head shot around and Katie could almost see the punishment chair looming.

  The gentleman stretched out a hand toward her. “Come here, little one,” he said and he smiled at her. He did not look cross at all.

  He stooped down when she came close so that his face was much closer to hers, and he took her two hands in his. She had not noticed that she was cold.

  “You cannot sleep?” he asked. “I might as well ask you tonight then instead of waiting until tomorrow. May I be your papa, Katie? Your Mama has said yes but I will need you and Matthew to say yes too. May I?”

  Oh. She would sit in the punishment chair all morning if she had to and all afternoon too and not once squirm or ask to get down. Oh.

  She nodded.

  “It was your Christmas wish,” he said. “You wished for a new papa. You told me you had someone in mind. Was it me?”

  “Katie!” Mama said, sounding half scolding and half laughing.

  But Katie looked only at the gentleman and nodded.

  “I am your Christmas gift, then,” he said. “And you are mine. You and your mama and Matthew—if he will have me. I have a whole family for my Christmas gift.”

  “Matthew said he wished ever so much that you could be our papa,” Katie said.

  “Oh, Katie.” She could tell from the tone of her mother’s voice that there would be no punishment chair in the morning after all. There was definitely laughter in it.

  Katie took a step forward and put her arms about her new papa’s neck. She shivered.

  “You are like a block of ice, little one,” he said, clucking his tongue, and he wrapped his warm coat about her and held her against his warm shirt and waistcoat as he stood up with her and drew Mama closer with his free arm so that there was warmth against Katie’s back too.

  “She is already half asleep,” he said. “Now that the suspense is over, her body is reminding her how tired she is.”

  “Oh, Roderick,” Mama said, “did you know? Did she tell you? How embarrassing!” But she was half laughing.

  “And how very touching,” he said. “I fell in love with your daughter, ma’am, long before I fell in love with you.”

  “But it has been only five days,” Mama said. She was laughing outright.

  “I fall in love fast,” Papa said. “Lead the way to her bed. I will carry her up. Katie, are you still a little bit awake? I will not be here when you wake in the morning. But I will come soon after breakfast to talk with Matthew and to wish you a good morning and to give your mama a kiss. That is a promise. I am your papa, little one, and always will be. Soon I am going to take my new family to live with me in my own home, but your mama and I have to have a wedding first. Are you warm enough to go back under the bedcovers?”

  She was. Though her bed did not smell nearly as nice as he did. Not that she really noticed the difference or even felt herself being put down. She was sinking into a warm, safe world where there was a papa as well as a mama and always would be.

  She had a mama and a papa.

  Next year she was going to ask Papa if he would give her a new brother or sister for Christmas. She did not mind which. He could choose. Perhaps Mama would help him.

  Christmas was over. But it had been wonderful as it always was. And always would be.

  She was going to get Papa to tell them the story of the magic sword tomorrow. Papas always told one stories.

  And when she went to live at Papa’s house, she was going to get him to show her how to play that harp.

  Guarded by Angels

  Mary Balogh

  By midafternoon on the day before Christmas Eve all the family and guests of the Duke and Duchess of Dunsford had arrived at Hammond Park, their country seat, except for the two most anxiously awaited. Not that anyone would admit to feeling anxiety, or even great curiosity. Even the duke himself did not refer to either of them by name when he remarked with hearty good humor at tea in the drawing room, rubbing his hands together as if washing them, a characteristic gesture with him, that the gathering would be complete by dinnertime.

  “And Christmas will begin,” the duchess said, clasping her hands to her bosom and beaming at her guests. Nothing pleased the duchess more than having a houseful of guests, and she always made quite sure that it happened at Christmas. The family came and a large number of friends besides. The nursery was always crammed with children, who tended to spill over into other areas of the house once the serious business of celebrating began on Christmas Eve.

  “The weather is clear and mild,” the duke added, turning almost everyone’s attention to the window as if his pronouncement needed to be confirmed. “There will be no trouble at all on the roads.”

  Almost all of them had been traveling on those roads either yesterday or today and indeed there had been no trouble. It had been a treat to find the weather so much in their favor, though there were those among them—as well as most of the children abovestairs—who looked hopefully and in vain for signs of snow.

  The two people still to come were Elliott Nichols, Viscount Garrett, the duke and duchess’s grandson and heir, and June Nichols, Viscountess Garrett, the duchess’s great-niece, or step-great-niece, if there was such a relationship. She was the daughter of the man the duchess’s niece had married. And she was Elliott’s estranged wife. They had been married for five and a half years—and separated for five and a quarter years.

  Since they were both independently members of the duke’s family, they both belonged at family gatherings. But it had become understood that they would not attend together. And so it became customary to invite them alternately.

  Until this year.

  This year the duchess had reached and passed her seventieth birthday and the duke, to the alarm of his family, had suffered a series of chest pains during the summer. He seemed well over them now, and his physician had assured him that he might live another twenty years if he was sensible. But they had been reminded, the two of them, of their mortality. And they had been reminded of the unhappiness of their beloved grandson and his wife. And of the fact that they might not live to see the birth of their heir. There might never be an heir of that line.

  And so this year the duchess had suggested playing Cupid. It was June’s turn to come. Why not invite Elliott too, she had suggested at dinner one evening in late November. They could suggest to him, without openly lying, that June was not coming this year after all.

  The duke had hemmed and hawed and muttered about deceit being deceit and about interference between a man and his wife. But he was inclined to agree nonetheless. What did Martha think?
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br />   Lady Martha Nichols was their youngest daughter, the only one who had chosen not to marry though she had had a number of suitors during her youth. Martha was the religious one of the family, though she was never stuffy. Children of the family always adored Martha and dragged her into activities in which they would not have dreamed of involving their parents.

  Martha had thought carefully before answering. But she had smiled her customary placid and kindly smile eventually and directed it at both her parents.

  “Yes,” she had said, “it is time. June was too young when they married and Elliott was too soon home from the wars. But they should be together now. They are bound together for life even if they never again set eyes on each other. And they both need companionship and love and—well, and children. But they may never get together unless someone pushes them into it. Yes, Mama, I do believe you are right in what you suggest.”

  “You do not think it is—wrong, dear?” the duchess had asked, all conscience now that it appeared she was about to get her way.

  “No.” Her daughter had answered quite firmly. “Nothing that is done out of love and concern for the lasting happiness of others is wrong.”

  The duke had coughed gruffly. “I should have taken a whip to the boy’s backside five years ago,” he had said.

  And so the matter had been settled. The viscount and his estranged wife were both on their way to Hammond Park for Christmas, neither knowing that the other was to be there too.

  They were late arriving and the last to arrive. Curiosity as to what would happen when the two met again grew as tea progressed in the drawing room. The driveway below the windows, at which many glanced covertly from time to time, remained empty.

  Martha, seated behind the tea tray, quelled her anxiety with a silent prayer.

  Perhaps we have interfered where we should not, she confessed to God. But we meant well. We love them and want to see them happy with each other. Let it happen. This is Christmas, the season for love. Let them love again. Show them that only love matters.