The Last Waltz

by Mary Balogh

  “It is going to snow,” he said, holding out one hand and looking at the dark surface of his glove. A white flake landed even as he watched. “Not even future tense, in fact.”

  Everyone gazed upward.

  Christina was not at the fire. The earl made as accurate a count as was possible with so many people milling about the servants and the chocolate pots. Everyone else was present except her and Tess. The child had been playing earlier with the other children. Christina had been gathering mistletoe with Luttrell, who was now flirting with Susan. Perhaps Tess had grown cold and Christina had taken her back to the house.

  But none of the other children appeared to be noticing the cold.

  He stood a little apart from everyone else and peered among the trees to see if he could spot them. It did not take much effort. He caught a glimpse of red in the distance— Tess was wearing a red cloak. Perhaps she was not interested in bonfires and chocolate and the company of other children. Perhaps her mother was playing with her.

  “Excuse me a moment,” he said and strode away from the lake.

  At first he thought they really were playing. Certainly they were both laughing. He always felt a pang of something—anger? bitterness? loneliness?—when he heard Christina laugh. She seemed able to do it with everyone except him.

  “I will have this all worked out in a minute,” she was saying, and they both laughed again.

  They were sitting side by side on the branch of an old tree, Christina’s arm protectively about her daughter’s shoulders. They were not very high off the ground, but it was clear that they were stuck. The Earl of Wanstead strolled toward them.

  The countess openly winced. “Oh, dear,” she said, “I was just trying to persuade myself to swallow my pride and yell for help. I would have done so in a moment if I had known you were about to come to our rescue.”

  “Stuck, Tess?” he asked. “You are trying to rescue your mama?”

  “I would not jump,” Tess told him and laughed with apparent glee. “Mama said jump and I would not. And then she climbed up to get me and now we both cannot get down.” But such was her childhood trust in the security of a mother’s arm that she did not look at all alarmed.

  “She was just out of arm’s reach,” the countess explained, “both when I was standing on the ground and when I climbed the trunk. But now I seem to have no way of getting her to the trunk short of lifting her across my body. I am quite reluctant to try that. This branch is higher than it looks from down there.”

  She was wearing half boots with a drab gray cloak—part of her old wardrobe, he had guessed when he saw her earlier. But the flush of cold and embarrassment in her cheeks added becoming color to her appearance—and the inch or two of bare flesh between the top of her boots and the hem of her cloak added definite allure. He wondered if she was aware of that glimpse of leg she was showing.

  “I am taller,” he said, stepping closer and raising his arms. “I can almost reach your ankles, Tess. Will you trust me and jump into my arms? I will not drop you, I promise.” He winked at her. “On my honor as a gentleman.”

  “If I hold her under the arms and lower her a little—” the countess began, but Tess had simply leaned forward and dropped straight into his waiting arms. He was aware of baby curls and a soft little cheek and small clinging arms and feather lightness—and a delighted little laugh as his arms closed tightly about her.

  “There,” he said. “One rescued princess.”

  “And I, I suppose,” Christina said crossly, “am the dragon.”

  “Breathing fire and brimstone,” he agreed, grinning up at her before setting the child’s feet on the ground and letting her go with surprising reluctance. “There is a bonfire through the trees there, Tess. You can see it from here. You will miss the chocolate and the fun if you do not hurry.”

  She went skipping off without a backward glance.

  The earl folded his arms. “I assume,” he said, looking up at Christina, “that you are not in need of rescuing.”

  She was still sitting on the branch, glancing uneasily at the trunk a foot or so distant with its very easy hand and toeholds.

  “Oh, dear,” she said and laughed. “This should be easy.”

  “If you are,” he said, “just say the word.”

  “Oh!” She glared accusingly down at him and then spoiled the effect by dissolving into laughter again. “You are enjoying this.”

  “Especially,” he said, “the inch or perhaps the inch and a half of space between the tops of your boots and your hem.” She shrieked.

  He stepped closer again and reached up his arms. “You had better do what your daughter just did, Christina.”

  “I’ll climb down on my own, thank you,” she told him, on her dignity. “Go away!”

  But when he turned obediently to leave she shrieked at him again. She hurtled downward almost before he was ready for her. He went staggering back under the impact of her weight and turned only just in time to brace his back against the tree trunk and save them both from falling to the ground.

  She was laughing helplessly—no, giggling—against the capes of his greatcoat, and was pressed to him from her forehead to her knees. He guessed that she was not fully aware of that fact yet. He was—uncomfortably aware of it despite the protective layers of both indoor and outdoor garments between them. He could smell lavender.

  “I have never had much of a head for heights,” she said.

  “And I suppose,” he said, “it never occurred to you to summon someone else to rescue Tess even though there were any number of persons with steady heads all about you?”

  She laughed. And then stopped laughing and stood very still against him. And then tipped back her head and looked up at him. It did not seem to occur to either of them at that moment to release the death hold they had on each other.

  They gazed at each other. She drew breath and her lips moved, but she did not say what she had been about to say. He did not even try to speak.

  He had held her thus that night at Vauxhall, folded against himself, almost into himself. She had been heart of his heart, almost flesh of his flesh. Had he not loved her quite so dearly, perhaps he would have made her just that among the denser trees beyond the dark path. She would not have resisted. She would have opened for him, received him, trusted him. The human soul yearned always for completeness. He had been within a heartbeat of finding wholeness on that evening. But honor had held him back.

  And so the restless yearning, the incompleteness, unrecognized, firmly denied, had driven him like a scourge ever since.

  Had he been so deceived on that evening? Had she known even then....

  “Did you know on that night,” he found himself whispering to her, “that the very next day you would betroth yourself to him?”

  “No.” She was whispering too. “It is as well we cannot know when the world will end or when we will die—or when everything that makes the world a beautiful place or life worth living will come crashing down about us. No, I did not know.”

  It had not been an act, then, her tenderness and her ardor on that evening. It had been real. She really had loved him.

  “Christina.” There was nothing else to say. Just her name and all the pain of its utterance.

  “I did not know,” she said again and tipped her head to rest her forehead beneath his chin again.

  But she had still chosen money rather than love. Temptation had come in the form of an offer from Gilbert just the day after she had very nearly committed herself to him in the ultimate way—and she had been dazzled. There could have been no other motive than greed for what she had done. Her father, a genial, well-liked man, who was the very antithesis of a tyrant, had always been indulgent of her wishes. He had always liked Gerard and welcomed his visits and smiled kindly on his suit, though no formal offer had been made. Perhaps she had expected that after her politic marriage to Gilbert and the birth of an heir, she would be able to have her lover too.

  Perhaps he had su
rprised her by taking himself off to Canada and staying there. Perhaps he had even succeeded in hurting her.

  And there had been no heir—only two daughters.

  Perhaps now, he thought suddenly, she was beginning to imagine that opportunity had come knocking again. Perhaps she had detected the weakness in him that was undoubtedly there. Perhaps she was indeed scheming for a second marriage.

  “If you have recovered from your fright,” he said coolly, “I believe I would like to return to my guests at the fire. I certainly do not believe either of us would like to be seen like this, would we? Looking as if we are embracing?”

  She pushed away from him hurriedly and turned her back on him before he could see her face. Her voice matched his own when she spoke.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I was weak-kneed for a moment. I am quite recovered now.” And she strode on ahead of him toward the fire.

  And that had been a ridiculous notion, he thought. If she was scheming for anything, it was to get herself as far away from him as possible as soon as possible. For whatever reason—whether it were guilt or something else—she certainly hated him as much as he hated her.

  He pushed away from the tree and followed her.

  Chapter 11

  THE ballroom was not to be decorated until the day after Christmas. It was to be done by the servants under Christina’s supervision. That had all been arranged beforehand. Nevertheless, it was a busy place two afternoons before Christmas. All the greenery had been piled in there ready for use in other parts of the house, and so there was a constant to-ing and fro-ing once the task of decorating had begun. And it was a conveniently large room in which to make the kissing boughs.

  Lizzie Gaynor was the self-proclaimed expert in their construction. She organized two groups, one consisting of Christina, Laura Cannadine, and the children, and the other consisting of her mother, Lady Milchip, and Lady Hannah Milne. She skipped gaily back and forth between groups, doing nothing herself, but freely advising, criticizing, praising, and generally, Christina thought with some amusement, getting in the way. But she was the one who claimed the credit when the children’s elaborate creation was carried to the drawing room to be hung from the ceiling close to the pianoforte.

  “See how clever I am at designing kissing boughs?” she called, laughing and twirling about with exuberance and succeeding in looking very pretty indeed.

  The drawing room had been transformed into a garden of pine-scented greenery and red bows and bells, which the housekeeper had discovered in some corner of the attic. The guests responsible for the room’s decoration, including the earl himself, who was in his shirtsleeves and looking generally somewhat disheveled, all stopped what they were doing in order to admire and exclaim over the kissing bough.

  “You are greatly to be commended, Miss Gaynor,” his lordship said. “It looks like the finest specimen of kissing boughhood I have ever set eyes upon. Congratulations are due the workers too.”

  He grinned at the children, and for one moment his eye caught Christina’s. She looked away. She did not care to remember that foolish incident during the morning, when she had jumped from the branch and landed in his arms and had stayed there far longer than was necessary. For a few dazed moments she had quite forgotten ... For all the changes ten years had wrought in his physique, she had been caught up in very physical memories. And in the sort of yearning that self-discipline had suppressed in her for so many years that she had thought it quite dead.

  “Does it work?” Mr. John Cannadine asked.

  “The kissing bough?” Lizzie asked, her voice still determinedly gay. “Of course it works, sir, and once it has been hung up, I shall be delighted to prove the point with whoever chooses to test it with me.”

  “Since I will be doing the hanging,” the earl said, taking the bough from Rachel and Paul Langan, “then I claim the right to do the testing too.” He looked at Lizzie, raised his eyebrows, and chuckled.

  And so, ten minutes later, to the accompaniment of laughter and applause and whistles, the Earl of Wanstead was kissing Lizzie Gaynor beneath the kissing bough and taking his time about it too.

  Christina was appalled at her reaction. She watched, smiling as everyone else was doing. And she saw his head bent to another woman’s, his lips claiming hers, his hands spread on either side of her waist while hers came to his shoulders. And she knew exactly how he would feel and smell to the other woman—just as if the sensations were happening to her body. Lizzie Gaynor was surely the favorite to become his wife. Aunt Hannah and Lady Milchip had speculated quite openly about it on the walk back from the lake. And they looked like a courting couple.

  Christina wanted to bawl. She wanted to scream. She wanted to make a noisy, undignified scene. She was—she was jealous! She hated Lizzie Gaynor. And she hated him— perhaps the more so because there was no reason for her hatred. Quite the contrary. She was the one who had wronged him. He had told her that her desertion had hurt him and driven him to Canada. His own dislike of her was a result of what she had done to him. And she knew now that the way she had justified her behavior all those years ago had been all wrong. There had been no justification.

  She had lost all that was most precious in her life.

  She turned blindly and hurried from the room, colliding with Mr. Radway as she did so and then dislodging a ribbon-bedecked bough from the door as she jerked it open. She fled up the stairs to her room. But her room did not provide sanctuary enough. She needed to be quite alone. She needed to be somewhere where she could recollect herself and find some peace.

  There was only one place. She had not been there since ... That had been three years ago. It was three years since she had last been there, but the yearning to go now, to be away from the house where his presence was suffocating her to death, was overpowering.

  She crossed to the window and gazed out. The snow was falling thickly and already settling in a white blanket on the lawns. It looked beautiful in the early twilight. They had all been watching it throughout the afternoon and hoping that tomorrow they would be able to go outside and enjoy it. They had all expressed the hope that it would remain for Christmas.

  It should hinder her from going out. She set her forehead against the glass of the window. But she could not go back downstairs. Not yet. She just could not. The calm that she had imposed upon herself like a heavy armor for years past, the calm that had helped her cope with her life, had deserted her to be replaced with a wild, unpredictable swing of emotions over which she seemed to have no control whatsoever.

  It was the third day of the house party. Her presence at tea was no longer essential. Rachel and Tess were downstairs, but there were other children for them to play with and plenty of adults to make much of them. When the time came, they would go back to the nursery with the other children. She need not worry about them. But if she stayed in her room, someone was going to come knocking at the door sooner or later. She could not face anyone at present.

  A short while later Christina was hurrying down the servants’ staircase and letting herself out of a side door. She approached the trees from the back of the house, lest someone should spot her through the drawing room windows. The snow was powdery underfoot and not very slippery. Neither was it very deep yet. She found her way through the trees to the river and turned north along its bank. It did not matter that the paths were no longer visible. She knew the way well enough.

  She had found the gamekeeper’s hut first when Mr. Pinkerton still lived there. She had used to go there sometimes to sit and talk with him, even to take tea with him. After he had moved to the village, though he came back sometimes and always kept the hut clean and ready for use, she used to go there alone. Not often. She had duties at home. Every minute of her day had been regulated. She was answerable to her husband for every one of those minutes. But sometimes she had found time to be alone, to seek peace, to seek the remnants of herself. They had been among the most precious interludes of her married life— until Gilbert had discove
red her there one day and had put an end to them.

  The door was unlocked. She went inside and shut it. She might have lit a candle with the tinderbox that was in its accustomed place on a shelf. She might have lit the fire that was built ready in the small hearth. But instead she took off her boots and curled her feet under her on the bed in the corner by the window, wrapping about herself her cloak and the sheepskin blanket that had been rolled there. She chose to sit in the semidarkness and in the cold. She twined her arms about her knees, rested her cheek on them, and closed her eyes.

  She tried not to think. She tried to allow the quietness and the dusk to soothe her and heal her.

  The Earl of Wanstead timed the kiss carefully. He did not want it to be so short that it might seem insulting. But he did not want it to be so long that it would raise expectations. And yet even as he tried to make it just the right kiss for the occasion, it struck him as odd that his mental processes should be so sharp when he was kissing the young lady to whom he was considering paying his addresses. He was concentrating so hard on kissing her in just the right way and for just the right length of time that he was scarcely aware of what it felt like to kiss her.

  The drawing room door banged shut and one of the pine boughs pinned to it thudded to the floor just as he lifted his head and smiled. He was planning to turn to Rachel and little Alice Cannadine, who had helped make the kissing bough, and draw each of them beneath it for a kiss too.

  “Is Lady Wanstead unwell?” John Cannadine asked, frowning in the direction of the door. “She seemed in a prodigious hurry.”

  “She has been unusually busy during the past few days,” Lady Hannah said—she was holding the other kissing bough, which was destined for the hall below. “Perhaps she has gone to her room for a rest.”

  Nothing else was said about the countess’s hasty exit. It was time for tea, and everyone was quick to tidy the room and summon those who were still busy in other rooms. The kissing bough was being made much of.