Mary Balogh - Christmas Beau

"Yes, I remember," she said. "And Papa knew what he was talking about. He was a splendid skater himself. But it has been a long time, Rupert. You must not be surprised if you need to find your skating legs before you can compete with the wind again."

She was down on one knee in the snow lacing the skates over Rupert's boots. People all about her were doing the same thing, though some of the children were already on the ice without skates, sliding and sprawling and laughing. Daniel, she saw with some amusement, was strapping a small pair of skates onto Kate's feet and leading her by the hand to the edge of the lake. He was not himself wearing skates.

"I think your daughter has a champion," the Marquess of Denbigh said from behind her. "You cannot know how fortunate she is to have won his protection. All the other children live in mortal terror of his fists."

"Oh dear," Judith said.

“Watch me, Mama," Rupert called as he reached the edge of the ice and prepared to step onto it. "Watch me, sir."

"I am watching," Judith called. "Oh dear," she said again as her son landed flat on his back even before his second skate had touched the ice.

"Give him an hour," the marquess said. "He will improve. And he does not have far to fall. That is the advantage of skating when one is a child. You are not skating?"

"No," she said. "I came to watch. I never could get a feel for skating. My feet always would move at twice the speed of the rest of my body."

"Ah yes," he said. "Painful."

He left her without another word and skated onto the ice. He did so quite effortlessly, Judith noted with some admiration and envy. And he took Rupert by the hand and one of the little girls and patiently slowed his pace to accommodate their wobbling ankles and stiff legs.

Amy and Mr. Cornwell, she saw, had organized a line of children, all holding hands, Amy between two of them and Mr. Cornwell between two others. The children were moving gingerly forward. Judith could hear Amy's laughter. Skating was something she had always been good at.

Some of the boys and a few of the girls were darting recklessly about on their skates. Others were still skidding about on their boots. Lady Clancy was gliding gracefully about the perimeter of the skating area with Mr. Rockford.

It was a lovely sight, Judith thought, waving at a beaming Kate and glancing at Rupert, who was so intent on frowning at his feet that he did not see her. It was so rare in England and so precious. Snow was still clustered on the branches of some of the more sheltered trees and was banked high about the area that had been cleared for the skating. Scarves and hats and mittens were bright against the white and the gray. And then there were the shrieks of merriment coming from the ice.

Rubert was skating alone finally, his arms outstretched. His pace was slow but he was beaming with triumph and risked one glance at the bank to make sure that she was watching him. She smiled and waved.

And then she was aware of Lord Denbigh stepping off the ice. She thought for one moment that he was coming to speak with her, but he stopped at the box of skates and rummaged among its contents. And then he really did come toward her, a pair of skates in one hand.

"These should fit you," he said. "Let me help you on with them."

"I don't skate," she said. "I told you that."

"I understand," he said. "You cannot skate alone, or at least you think you cannot. You will not be skating alone. You will be with me and I will undertake not to let you fall." He was down on one knee, one hand outstretched, waiting for her to lift a foot.

"No," she said indignantly. "I cannot, and I do not wish to."

"Afraid, Judith?" he asked, looking up into her face.

"Oh," she said, and she could hear the slight shaking in her voice, "I wish you would not."

"Call you Judith?" he said. "I would prefer it to Mrs.

Easton. Quite frankly, I do not wish to be reminded of that name. Will you call me Max? Then we will be equal."

"No," she said, "it would not be seemly. Besides, I do not want to."

She realized suddenly that she must have lifted one foot. A skate was already strapped to it and he was waiting for her to lift the other foot.

"Set your hand on my shoulder," he said, "so that you will not lose your balance."

"I wish I knew," she said as she obeyed, "why you are doing all this."

He said nothing until he had finished his task. Then he straightened up and looked down at her. "But you do know," he said. "I told you in London-at the foot of the stairs in your own home."

She frowned. "But why would you want a second chance with me, as you put it?" she said. "You did not care the first time, did you? It was an arranged match."

She flushed. She had not intended to make such an unguarded reference to the past.

"On your part perhaps," he said. "Take my arm, Judith. When we reach the ice, I am going to set my arm about your waist. Put your own up about my shoulders. And don't even think of falling. You are not going to do so."

For the first minute or so he might as well have carried her, Judith thought with a great deal of embarrassment. Her skates certainly felt quite beyond her own control. Amy went by with Mr. Cornwell and waved at her, and Rupert called to her to watch him. No one seemed to be paying any particular attention to her, she realized finally, with some relief, though she did not believe she had ever felt so foolish in her life.

But someone was taking notice of her. The Marquess of Denbigh was laughing and when she looked up it was to find his face alight with amusement. She had never noticed until that moment what very white and even teeth he had.

"I am too tall for you," he said, bringing them to a halt.

"You are quite unbalanced by the position of your arm. Let us try something different."

He kept his one arm firmly about her waist while he took her nearer hand in his free one. And she did indeed find it easier to maintain her balance.

"Oh," she said without thinking, "this is fun." And she heard herself laughing.

“I have the utmost confidence in you,'' he said. "I daresay that by this time next year, provided we have at least two months of cold weather both this year and next and you practice diligently every day, you will almost be able to skate alone."

"Oh," she said, laughing again. "I don't believe that was a compliment, was it? How lowering."

"Relax," he said. "You are tensing again. You cannot skate when you are tense."

"Oh," she said, looking up at him. And the laughter died. She was aware suddenly of his closeness, of his one arm tight about her, the upper part of it pressed against her shoulder.

He was staring back down at her, the amusement gone from his face too. His eyes were intent, steely gray beneath drooped lids. It was the look that had always terrified her when she was a girl. A look that she had not at all understood at the time, though she believed that she understood it very well now.

"You are not sorry you came, Judith?" he asked. "I did trick you into coming. You realized that. You would not have come if I had asked you alone, would you?"

"No," she said.

"And are you still sorry?" he asked. "Would you return home tonight if you could?"

She swallowed and looked sharply away from him. "The children are having a wonderful time," she said. "And so is Amy."

"You know," he said, "that that is not what I am asking you, Judith."

"I don't know," she said, and she looked back up into his eyes again. "I don't know. There is something about you I do not trust."

“Is there?'' he asked. "Or is it something about yourself? Do you not trust yourself to keep on believing that you did the right thing eight years ago?"

She drew in a sharp breath. "I must believe that," she said fiercely. "There are Rupert and Kate."

"Yes," he said. "You are right there, Judith. There are your children. But that was then. This is now. It is not the same thing at all. We are both older."

"Yes," she said.

And she wondered if he was right. Was it herself she did not trust? But it was not that. There was something about him. There was still that something.

But perhaps she was wrong. Surely she must be wrong. He had come very close to declaring an affection for her, to demonstrating to her that he was indeed trying to fix his interest with her.

Was it possible? Was it possible that after all this time and all the humiliation she had dealt him he was considering renewing his offer for her?

The idea was absurd when put into words in her mind.

And yet there were his looks and his words.

But then there was that something else too.

"Can we go to see the dogs, guv?" someone yelled across the ice.

"Oh, yes, can we?" There was a chorus of voices.

"I fear the house is about to be invaded by the canine kingdom," the marquess said. "I had all the dogs confined to the stables out of respect to my guests. But these children know very well that several of the animals normally live in the house. I hope no one has a fit of the vapors when tiiey take up residence again. Will you?"

"We have dogs at home," she said.

"Ah, yes," he said. "You mentioned that once before." He raised his voice. "Off to the stables, then. But no biting the dogs, mind."

There was a burst of raucous laughter as the children scrambled off the ice and tore impatiently at skate straps.

"I get Rambler," Daniel announced loudly. "Come on, nipper. Up you come."

Judith watched her daughter being borne away toward the stables.

"Your grooms will have forty fits apiece, Max," Mr. Cornwell said. “I had better go after them. Would you like to come, Miss Easton?"

"I shall be along too," the marquess said. He looked down at Judith. "But I cannot leave you stranded in the middle of the ice, can I? Do you wish to see the dogs too?"

She was being given a chance to shorten this encounter with him? A chance to return to the house alone or with Mr. Rockford and Lady Clancy?

She put up her chin. "Yes," she said, "I would."

***

Christmas Eve. It was snowing again, the flakes drifting lazily down without the aid of wind. There was enough to freshen up what had already fallen, Lord Clancy announced after a morning walk, but not enough to bury the house to the eaves.

Miss Edith Hannibal was afraid that the carriages would not be able to take them to church that evening.

"And it never quite seems to be Christmas without church," she said. "Indeed, I cannot remember a year when we did not go to church. Was there ever such a time, Frieda? But of course there was the year Mama was so sick. Indeed, she died the day after Christmas. We did not go to church that year, but then it did not seem at all like Christmas that year anyway."

The marquess assured his aunts that most of them would enjoy the walk since the church was only a mile away. There were two sleighs to convey those who would prefer to ride.

No one was quite as busy as on the day before. Except the servants, that was. By midmorning, tantalizing smells were already escaping from belowstairs and those people who were still in the house were invited down to the kitchen to stir the Christmas pudding in its large bowl.

Judith clasped her hands over Kate's and they stirred together, both laughing. Rupert took a turn alone.

Amy had left the house soon after breakfast, declining the marquess's offer to call out one of the sleighs, choosing to walk to the village instead.

“I have offered to play the pianoforte for the angel choir,'' she had told Judith the night before. "Mrs. Harrison plays only indifferently and was most grateful for my offer. And Mr. Cornwell says that the children will cheer when they know I am willing to join their caroling party. They are always delighted to have someone among them who can hold a tune, he says." She laughed merrily. "We will be going all about the village as soon as darkness falls, coming to the house here last. It all sounds quite perfectly splendid."

Mr. Cornwell had also been talking with Amy about his future plans for the homes. And Amy had apparently suggested to him that in future it might be a good idea to have a home in which there were both boys and girls.

"It will be more like a real family, I told him," Amy said. "There would be problems, of course, which Mr. Cornwell was quick to point out to me, but it would be a lovely idea, would it not, Judith? What it would need, of course, is a married couple to oversee it. A couple whose own children are grown up, perhaps, or who have been unfortunate enough never to have had children of their own. Then it would be a splendid experience for them too."