Mary Balogh - Christmas Beau

And her own dreadful behavior. Unthinkable. Unforgivable.

And his revenge. He had planned it all, moment by moment. She could clearly see that now. Everything, from that first encounter in Lady Clancy's drawing room, had been directed toward achieving his revenge.

But why? That was the question that had revolved and revolved in her brain since the afternoon. Wounded pride and consequence? Would that account for all he had done? Would not some public humiliation have been more appropriate to a revenge from that motive? This revenge would surely not be public enough for such a man, even though there were undoubtedly several people who were expecting them to marry. She did not believe that he would make public the fact that she had given herself to him and declared her love for him.

But if not that motive, then what?

If he had not changed radically in the past eight years, if he had been then in character what he was now, then what must he have been like beneath the harsh exterior? She had never tried to find out at the time. How must he have felt about his betrothal? About her? He was a man now who loved to give happiness, a man who loved children. He loved her own children even though they were hers-and Andrew's.

She had not thought him quite human eight years before. And yet even if he had changed in that time, he had still been human then. He had been a man engaged to be married and within one month of his wedding. A man who had since proved himself to be fond of children…

Judith dashed a tear from her cheek impatiently and continued to stare upward into the darkness.

***

The Marquess of Denbigh sat in his library for a long time after his guests had gone to bed. He was not really thinking. He was just allowing sensation to wash over him and felt too lethargic to drag himself off to bed.

“I love you,'' she had told him when they had first arrived at the cottage. And during the following couple of hours she had loved him indeed with all of herself, with her body and with the part of herself that had looked at him through her eyes.

"I love you," she had told him again, lying warm and relaxed in his arms beneath the bedcovers, smiling at him with love and trust and the full expectation that he would return her words.

A Christinas flirtation! I thought you understood. I am so sorry, Judith.

And this was what sweet revenge felt like. He had waited eight years for this. This was what it felt like. So empty, so very very empty that there was pain.

She had smiled at him almost throughout their second loving and teased him about having to watch her. Was he afraid she would run away if he did not keep an eye on her? And she had told him what she liked and had gasped and bitten her lip and smiled again when he had done it.

"Tell me what else you like," he had told her, "and I will do it."

"I like all of it," she had said. "All of it. All."

He had given her all and they had both laughed until passion had taken away the laughter and replaced it with ecstasy.

He had filled her with his seed-twice. Perhaps even now there was new life beginning in her. His life. Hers. Theirs. A new life. She was going away in the morning. He would be as greedy for news of her as he had ever been. He would want to know, he would need to know if she showed signs of swelling with child.

And if the news of such came back to him, then what would he do?

And if no such news ever came, then what would he do?

He had brought a single candle with him from the drawing room. But he had not lit the candles in the branched candlestick on the mantel with it as he had intended. It stood on his desk, the berry-laden sprig of holly twined around its base giving it a festive glow.

A Christmas candle. All that was left of Christmas. A single frail light in a dark room. He could snuff it with one movement of his fingers. And then there would be total darkness. No Christmas left at all. Nothing left at all.

He jerked to his feet and wondered belatedly and in some surprise why he had not touched the brandy decanter.

He was not the only person in the house still awake, he discovered as he reached the landing at the top of the stairs, holding his single Christmas candle. There was a little figure in a long white nightgown standing there, obviously frightened to stillness by the sight of the approaching light.

"You cannot sleep?" he asked.

"I was on my way to Mama," Rupert said. "To see if she was all right."

"She has probably been asleep for hours," the marquess said. "Will I do instead?"

"I could not find Papa," the child said.

"Couldn't you?" The marquess stooped down and picked up the little boy, who wrapped his arms about his neck and shivered.

"He kept going through doors," Rupert said. "But when I went through them, he was not there. And they all said they had not seen him. Some of them said they had never heard of him. But I could see him going through another door."

The marquess let himself quietly into the nursery. The doors into Kate's and Mrs. Webber's bedchambers were open. Mrs. Webber was snoring loudly. Obviously, she was too elderly a lady to have the night charge of two young children. He went into the boy's bedchamber, pulled a blanket from the bed, and seated the two of them in the nursery again. He wrapped the blanket warmly about the child.

"I knew your papa," he said. "I saw him many times."

Rupert looked up at him hopefully. "They said they had never heard of him," he said.

The marquess smiled. "That was because they were dream people," he said. "Dream people are always remarkably stupid. How could anyone with any sense not have heard of a man who was once on the first eleven at Eton?"

"Uncle Maurice said he once hit three sixes in one inning," Rupert said.

"Did he?" The marquess shook his head. "Then he was a greater champion than I ever was. The best I ever hit was one six and two fours."

"Was I dreaming?" Rupert asked.

"You were," Lord Denbigh said. "The next time you meet those foolish people in a dream, you can tell them that the Marquess of Denbigh knew your papa very well and envies his record at cricket. And he could skate like the wind too, could he not? I am afraid I can skate only as fast as the breeze."

The boy chuckled. "Tell me about Papa," he said.

"Your papa?" The marquess looked up and thought. "Let me see. Did anyone ever tell you how he charmed all the ladies? How he charmed your mama and whisked her away to marry him when I fancied her myself?"

"Did he?" Rupert asked. "Tell me."

Lord Denbigh told a tale of a handsome, charming young gentleman who could dance the night away long after everyone else had collapsed from exhaustion and drive a team with such skill that he was known as the best whip in London and spar with any partner at Gentleman Jackson's without once coming away with a bloodied nose.

Andrew Easton's son was sleeping before the marquess had finished.

Amy was hurrying down the driveway, wondering whether she had the courage to do what she had planned to do or whether when she reached the village she would merely step into the shop to purchase some imagined need. There had been no problem with Judith. She too apparently had something she wanted to do before the carriage was called.

Amy rounded the bend, head down against the wind. It was a chilly morning. There was no sign yet of the cold spell breaking. She lifted her scarf up over her mouth and nose.

"Good morning," someone called. "You are up and out very early."

Her head snapped up and there he was, walking toward her, his chin buried inside the neck of his coat, his cheeks reddened by the cold, his mustache whitened by the frost. And everything she had rehearsed fled from her mind.

"We are leaving," she said. "At noon. I was walking into the village to-to buy something."

"Leaving?" He stopped beside her and hunched his shoulders. "All of you? So soon?"

''Yes,'' she said. “We need to be back. We have engagements, you know. And Judith's parents will be returning from Scotland soon. She is eager to hear news of her sister from them. And I love town. There is so much yet to see there."

"We are going out to collect firewood this afternoon," he said. "We always make a festive occasion out of it. I thought that perhaps you would care to come with us. But I said good-bye yesterday, did I not? It would have been better to have left it at that, I suppose."

"Yes," she said.

He offered her his arm. "May I escort you to the village shop?" he asked.

"Thank you." She took his arm and they began walking toward the village, exchanging opinions on the weather and guesses about when it would begin to warm up and predictions on whether it would snow again.

"I was not on my way to the shop," she said in a rush all of a sudden. "I was on my way to call on you. I remembered that the rector would be busy with the boys this morning."

''Yes,'' he said quietly. ''That was why I was free to walk to the house."

She drew a deep breath. "I have had material comforts and a large home and a protective family all my life," she said, fixing her eyes on the roadway ahead. "And though I have always counted my blessings, I have been unhappy, Spencer. There has been nothing to give my life purpose. Nothing to warm my heart."

He was patting her hand.

“The only bright moments in my life have been the times when my brothers and some cousins came with their children," she said. "I always loved to play with them and talk with them. I used to think that I would give up every last thing, every last brick of the house and rag of clothing just to extend those times. It was foolish, of course. One cannot in reality live without even the basic necessities of life. But I felt it and believed it and still believe it in part."

"Amy," he said. They had stopped walking and he had turned to her.

"You were wrong," she said, her voice agitated. "You said that it would not work. Perhaps it could not from your point of view. But you were wrong about me, I…"

He laid two gloved fingers against her lips. "Don't," he said. "Don't say any more."

But she pulled back her head. "Yes," she said, "I will. It is not fair that just because I am a woman…"

"Sh," he said, and he set his hands on her shoulders and pulled her against him. "Don't say any more, Amy."

"I came to say it." She looked earnestly up into his face. "I will be sorry forever after if I do not. For once in my life…"

"Sh," he said, and he kissed her briefly on the lips. "You

are a woman, Amy, like it or not, and we live in a society which would make you feel ashamed of having to say such a thing. And you do not need to say it when I can just as easily say it myself and propriety will not be outraged. Will you marry me, my dear?"

She gazed mutely back into his eyes.

"I do not need to explain that it will not be a brilliant or even a very eligible match for you. You know that already," he said. "I have an independence, Amy, in the sense that Max does not pay me a salary, only all the expenses of the home. But I cannot offer a wife any sort of luxury. And I cannot give up this work I have begun. I am too selfishly happy doing it. But you would not want me to, I know. I can only feel sorry that I cannot offer you a better life. But the decision must be yours. I am offering myself and my life to you for what they are worth."

"Only because I was going to ask?" she said wistfully. "Only because you are a gentleman, Spencer?"

He chuckled. "I have avoided matrimony for almost forty years," he said. "I do not think I would consider entering it now just to be gentlemanly. I am not much of a romantic, am I? It should have been the first thing I said. It will have to be the last. But it is the most important. I love you, dear.''

"Do you?" She put her arms up about his neck and looked earnestly irito1rirsrrau;. '"Chi, hxti-yvwiznlK, "t^yiKjy;. Larafc. at me."

"A little bird," he said. "A cheerful little singing bird. Will you give me your answer? If it is no, I shall escort you back to the house without further delay. If it is yes, we had better go and break the news to the boys-if you are prepared for a great deal of noise and commotion. But it is dashed cold standing here. A foolish place for a marriage proposal, is it not?"