Christmas Beau

by Mary Balogh

  Judith walked to his side, her eyes on her children, almost as if she believed that he would disappear with them if she relaxed her vigil for one moment. Amy walked at his other side, still gazing about her with bright interest.

  "I'm cold," Kate announced suddenly.

  They were strolling back toward the bridge where the carriage was to meet them, and the slight movement of air was against their faces.

  "It is chilly," Amy agreed, "though you were quite right in what you said earlier, my lord. The excitement of the occasion makes one almost forget that it is a cold winter's day."

  "We will warm ourselves at the roasting fire," the marquess said, leading the way there.

  And indeed the heat from the flames was very welcome. While Rupert dashed forward, his hands outheld, Lord Denbigh lifted Kate down carefully from his shoulder, stooped down behind her and unbuttoned his greatcoat to wrap about her, and held her little hands up to the blaze.

  "Better?" he asked.

  She nodded. He took her hands and rubbed them firmly together and then held them to the blaze again. He looked up at Amy.

  "It feels good, does it not?" he said.

  "Wonderful," she agreed.

  He looked up at Judith. "Warm again?" he asked.

  "Yes, thank you," she said.

  "Only those wot's buyin' meat is welcome to warm their 'ands, guv," the man who was tending the cooking said, and he stretched out a hand to catch the shilling that the marquess tossed to him.

  "Is that better?" the marquess asked Kate after a couple of minutes, rubbing her hands together again.

  She nodded once more to him, turned, and raised her arms to him. He wrapped his coat more firmly about her and lifted her.

  "I think the carriage will be waiting by the time we have strolled back to the bridge," he said. "Has everyone seen enough?"

  "Oh, yes, indeed," Amy said. "This has been very wonderful, my lord."

  "This has been the best day of my life," Rupert said.

  "May I take Kate, my lord?" Judith asked. "She must be getting heavy."

  "As light as a feather," he said, glancing down and realizing that the child had fallen asleep against his chest.

  He had a strange feeling, almost as if butterflies were fluttering through his stomach. She was warm and relaxed inside his coat. He could hear her deep breathing when he bent his head closer. No, it was more than butterflies. He felt almost like crying.

  She might have been his, he thought, if only things had turned out differently. She might have had his dark hair or her mother's fair coloring. He swallowed and shook off the thought.

  Judith Easton had seen to it that that had never happened.

  He allowed his coachman to help the ladies into the carriage and climbed in carefully himself in order not to waken the child. He shifted her in his arms so that she lay on his lap, her head on his arm. Her mouth fell open as her head tipped back.

  "Poor Kate," Amy said. "She has tired herself out. But she has had such a very happy afternoon, my lord. I am sure she will not stop talking about this for days."

  Judith Easton, the marquess saw as he looked steadily across the carriage at her, had her eyes on her daughter. She was biting at her lower lip.

  "But there is so much in London to delight children," he said. "And adults too. You have not yet been to the Tower, Miss Easton?"

  Judith's eyes lifted to his and held. He did not look away from her.

  "No," Amy replied. "But we have been meaning to do so ever since we came to town, have we not, Judith? I am longing to see the Crown Jewels."

  "The menagerie there is not as impressive as it used to be, I believe," he said. "But it is still worth a visit and is the delight of all children who see it."

  "Yes!" Rupert said. "Is there a lion, sir?"

  "There is," the marquess said. "And also an elephant."

  "A lion!" Rupert said. "I wonder if it has ever eaten anyone."

  "Oh, I don't believe so, dear," Amy said. "It must be in a safe cage.''

  Judith lifted her chin slightly. She knew very well what was coming, the marquess thought, his eyes still on hers. And she knew that she was powerless to avert it.

  "There are all sorts of armor and torture instruments on display too," he said, "including the block and ax with which people's heads used to be chopped off. Children inevitably enjoy seeing them even more than they enjoy the lion."

  Rupert made a chopping motion at his own neck with the side of one hand.

  "Perhaps you would allow me to escort you all there one afternoon, ma'am," he said. "It would be my pleasure."

  He watched her mouth lift in a half smile, though there was no amusement in her eyes. She said nothing.

  "Yes!" Rupert said. "May we, Mama?"

  "How extraordinarily civil of you, my lord," Amy said, delight in her voice.

  "Thank you," Judith said softly, that half smile still on her lips. "It would be our pleasure, my lord."

  "Then it is settled," he said as his carriage jolted slightly to a halt outside their home. "Shall we say three afternoons from now?"

  She inclined her head.

  Five minutes later he drove away alone, having laid the child in her mother's arms inside the hallway of the house and declined an invitation to go upstairs for tea.

  So Judith Easton was divining his game, was she? He wondered if she had even a glimmering of an understanding of the whole of it. And he wondered if she would be able to guard against it even if she did.

  He would see to it that she did not. For the plan was now whole in his mind and he was quite confident of its success. The sister-in-law and the children were eating out of his hand already. And she cared for their happiness.

  He would make it succeed. For now more than ever, having seen her again, having had some of the old wounds aggravated again, he wanted her to suffer. Almost exactly as he had suffered.

  Almost exactly.

  ***

  Judith carried the still-sleeping Kate upstairs to the nursery and laid her down carefully on her bed. She loosened the child's bonnet and slid it from her head, unlaced her boots and eased them off her feet.

  Well, she thought, the Marquess of Denbigh was doing very nicely for himself. If punishment was his motive-and it must be that-then he was succeeding very well. Not only was he ruining the days and the evenings of her return to town and society, but he was insinuating himself very firmly into the approval and even the affections of her sister-in-law and her children.

  Amy was already looking upon him as something of a hero. If she heard her sister-in-law talk one more time about his great civility and kindness, Judith thought, she would surely scream. And if Amy one more time suggested, as she had done after he came to tea and again a few minutes before when the door had closed behind him, that he had a tendre for her, Judith, and was trying to fix his interest with her, she would-scream. She most certainly would.

  He had already won the children's confidence. It was hard to understand how he had done it. The man never smiled, and he had those harsh features and that stiff manner that had always half frightened her. And yet she could not push from her mind the images of Rupert riding on his shoulder and Kate huddled inside his greatcoat, her small hands in his large ones held out to the blaze of the fire. Or of Kate on his shoulder and Rupert's hand in his, her son's voice raised in excitement. Or of Kate asleep inside his coat and on his lap in the carriage.

  Judith smoothed a hand over the soft auburn curls of her daughter and tiptoed from the nursery bedchamber.

  She hated him. All the old revulsion and fear had been intensified into hatred. He was playing a game with her and for the time she seemed quite powerless to fight him.

  She thought suddenly of his hand coming to rest against the back of her neck and the shudders and flames it had sent shooting downward through her breasts and her womb to her knees. And of his soft cultured voice calling her "my love." She fought breathlessness and fury.

  Well, she thought, she could
wait him out. If he thought that she would break, that she would lash out at him in fury- perhaps in public-and give him the satisfaction of knowing that his punishment was having its effect, then he would be disappointed. She could wait.

  There was less than three weeks left before Christmas. He had said that he was going home to the country for the holiday. And it was unlikely that he would change his plans-he had mentioned the fact that he had invited guests. So she had perhaps two weeks at the most to endure. Probably less.

  She could endure for that long. And when he returned to town after Christmas, he would find her gone. She would go back home to the country herself. Perhaps it would be cowardly to do so, but there would also be good reason for going. The children needed the greater freedom and stability of a country home in which to grow up, she told herself. It was all very well to have come to London for her own sake when her mourning period ended. But she would not be selfish forever. The countryside was the place for children.

  Yes, she would endure for another two weeks. And after that he would be powerless to interfere further with her life.

  And she would never give him the satisfaction of knowing that he had ruined this brief return to town for her.

  Chapter 5

  During the next week she saw him four times in all. It was endurable, she told herself. Barely. Surely, soon he would remove to his country estate.

  He was at Mrs. Colbourne's musical evening the day before he had agreed to take them to the Tower. She sat with Claude Freeman and a few other acquaintances, watching the pianist seated at the grand pianoforte in the center of the room, listening to his skilled renditions of Mozart and Beethoven, wishing that her fingers would obey her will as the pianist's did his.

  And all the time she was aware of the Marquess of Denbigh at the edge of her vision to the right. He was staring at her, she thought, until her breathing became a strained and a conscious exercise and her concentration on the music disappeared almost entirely. And yet since he was on a different side of the room from her, it was just as likely that he was staring at the pianist. She could not bring herself to look at him.

  She did dart a look finally, unable to bear the strain any longer. He was watching the pianist. And yet her look drew his and their eyes met for a moment before she withdrew hers.

  Why was it, she wondered, that all the other guests within her line of vision seemed a blur of faces and color while he stood out in startling detail? He was not even wearing black tonight to make him noticeable. His coat was blue.

  Was it that he was so much more handsome than any other gentleman present? Yet she had never thought of him as handsome. Quite the opposite, in fact. His face was thin and angular, his nose too prominent, his lips too thin, his eyes too penetrating, his eyelids too lazy.

  No, he was not handsome. Distinguished looking, perhaps? Yes, definitely distinguished looking in a cold, austere way. She thought suddenly of the fortune-teller's prediction about a tall, dark, handsome man, and shivered. And the woman had told her that she knew the man already, that her love for him would come upon her quite unexpectedly. There had been children in her future too. Several of them. She had once dreamed of having a large family.

  She focused her eyes and concentrated her mind on the pianist and his music.

  The marquess came during the interval to pay his respects and to ask after the health of Amy and the children. He did not stay longer than a couple of minutes.

  “You say that Denbigh escorted you and your family to the ice fair?" Claude said with a frown when the marquess had walked away. "I wish you had called upon me instead, Mrs. Easton. I would, of course, have advised against the visit. It is a vulgar show, or so I have heard. I would not have considered it desirable to have you rub shoulders with ruffians and thieves. And the children might have been in some danger. But then, I do not suppose Denbigh even so much as noticed your children."

  She wished he had not, Judith thought, seeing again the image of Lord Denbigh with Kate on his shoulder and Rupert holding his hand.

  "He was being civil," she said.

  "I should watch his civility, if I were you," Claude said. "You have crossed his will once, ma'am, if you will forgive me for reminding you. I do not believe he would take kindly to its happening a second time."

  Judith looked up at him indignantly.

  "Pardon me," he said. "But people are saying, you know, that perhaps you are regretting your former decision."

  "Are they?" she said, her voice tight with anger. "Are they, indeed?"

  But she caught herself just in time and turned from him to resume her seat. She drew a few deep and steadying breaths. She closed her eyes briefly. She had been about to rip up at Claude in an appallingly public place, to tell him

  exactly what she thought of his impertinent and interfering words and of the ton's foolish opinions.

  And yet her anger was not really against Claude at all, or against the ton. It was against the Marquess of Denbigh, who had arranged all this, who was stalking her relentlessly, and who was intent on making her look a fool in the eyes of society. A rejected fool.

  Well, let him keep on trying. She would never give him the satisfaction of showing anger or any other negative emotion in public. And let people say what they would. People would gossip no matter what. She had no control over that, only over her own behavior. And she supposed that a little gossip was no more than she deserved. She did deserve some punishment for her less than exemplary behavior almost eight years before.

  She did not look at the marquess again that evening.

  ***

  They visited the Tower of London the next day and St. Paul's Cathedral two days after that. If she really had been setting her cap at the man, Judith thought, or even if she had liked him, she would have to say that both afternoons were a great success. Amy and the children certainly thought so.

  Amy and Kate, hand in hand, watched the birds in the menagerie while Lord Denbigh and Rupert lingered over their perusal of the lion and the elephant and other animals. The marquess answered Rupert's questions about them, about where they were from, how they would have lived in those countries, what they would have eaten, how they would have hunted. He delighted the boy by giving all the gory details while Judith stood helplessly and disapprovingly beside them.

  But her disapproval was foolish, she told herself. Boys enjoyed hearing of some of the cruder realities of life. And those realities existed no matter how sheltered she wished her children to be from them. Andrew, she knew, would have wanted his son to grow up a "real man," as he would have put it. And so would Maurice and Henry.

  It was doubtless good for Rupert to be with a man

  occasionally, instead of" always with her and Amy. If only the man were not the Marquess of Denbigh! Perhaps she should have gone to Andrew's family for Christmas after all, she thought fleetingly.

  Amy exclaimed over the Crown Jewels, and Kate, in Judith's arms, gazed at them silent and wide-eyed.

  "Pretty, Mama," was all she said, pointing at a crown.

  Judith looked at the armory and even at a few of the instruments of torture, which the marquess explained to Rupert and Amy. But she refused to look at the block and ax. She turned away with Kate while Rupert laughed and jeered.

  "I should stay with you, Judith," Amy said. "All this is quite ghastly. But I must confess that it is also fascinating."

  Somehow, as they were strolling away from the White Tower on their way back to the carriage, it happened that the children hurried ahead with Amy to gaze down into the moat and Judith was left walking beside the marquess.

  "You have recovered?" he asked. "You looked for a few minutes as if you were about to faint."

  "It is horrible," she said, "what human beings can do to other human beings."

  "You do not believe, then," he said, "that criminals should be punished?"

  "Of course," she said. "But torture? And execution by ax?"

  "Many criminals have themselves used cruelty," he
said. "Many have killed or betrayed their country. Do they not deserve to be treated accordingly? Do you not believe in execution, Mrs. Easton?"

  "I don't know," she said. "I suppose I do. Anyone who kills deserves to die himself-I suppose. But what sort of an example do we set thieves and murderers when we return brutality for their brutality-in the name of law? It does not quite make sense."

  "I would guess that you have never witnessed a hanging at Tyburn," he said. "Some people would not miss such an entertainment for all the world."

  She shuddered and raised a gloved hand to her mouth.

  And then her other hand was taken in a firm clasp and drawn through his arm.

  "Your son loves animals," he said. "He was telling me all about his grandfather's dogs, particularly the one shaggy fellow which is allowed inside the house."

  "Shaggy?" she said. "That is its name, you know. Sometimes it is difficult to know which end is which. There are a few dogs at home too, but I would not allow any to be brought with us because London is not quite the place for pets, I believe. Besides, my father would not have taken kindly to having his home overrun by the animal kingdom."

  "It is one advantage of living in the country," he said. "A great advantage for children. Animals were almost my only companions when I was growing up. Your children are fortunate that they have each other."

  She looked up at him, startled. He had just given her almost the only human glimpse of himself she had ever had. He had no brothers and sisters. She had known that. She had never thought of what that might have meant to him. Son of the late Marquess of Denbigh, his mother dead since his infancy. An only child. Animals had been his only companions. Had he been lonely, then? But she did not want to start thinking of him as a person.

  And she realized that she was strolling with him, her arm drawn firmly through his, conversing just as if they were friends or at least friendly acquaintances. She was relieved to see the moat ahead and Amy and the children standing on the bridge looking down into the water. She used the excuse of Kate's turning to wave a hand at her to withdraw her arm from the marquess's and hurry forward.