Mary Balogh - Christmas Beau

"There," the marquess said, lifting Rupert down to the ground again, "you will be a famous horseman when you grow up."

"Will I? Did you see, Mama?" Rupert screeched, his face alight with excitement and triumph. "I was riding him all alone.''

"Yes." Judith smiled at him. "You were very clever, Rupert."

"Do you think so?" he asked. "Will I be able to have a horse this summer, Mama, instead of a stupid pony? I will be almost seven by then. Will you tell Uncle Maurice?"

She cupped his face briefly with her hands and looked up to thank the marquess. And then she froze in horror as she saw him looking down at a tiny auburn-haired little figure who was tugging at his cloak.

"Me too," Kate was saying.

"No," Judith said sharply. And then, more calmly, "We have taken enough of his lordship's time, Kate. We must thank him and allow him to be on his way."

"Pegasus does not have a saddle for a lady," the marquess said. "But if you ask your mama and she says yes, I will take you up before me for a short distance."

"Please, Mama." Large brown eyes-also Andrew's- looked pleadingly up at her.

But was Kate not terrified of the man? Judith thought in wonder and panic. How could she bear the thought of being taken up before him on the great horse and led away from her mother and her aunt and brother? Kate was not normally the boldest of children.

"Very well," she said. She fixed her eyes on his chin. "If it is no great inconvenience to you, my lord."

He swung back up into the saddle again and reached down for the child, whom Judith lifted toward him. His hands touched her own briefly and she felt that she must surely suffocate. She stepped back as he settled Kate on the horse's back before him, and her daughter stared down at her with eyes that seemed as large as her face.

"How very kind of him," Amy said quietly as they rode away along the path. "There are not many gentlemen who would have such patience with children, Judith-including these children's own uncles."

"Yes," Judith said. "It is kind of him. And also unutterably embarrassing."

He took his leave of them and rode away as soon as he had returned with Kate and handed her down into Judith's waiting arms.

"What a very unfortunate meeting," she said when he had ridden out of earshot and the children's excitement had died down enough that they rushed ahead along the path again.

"Unfortunate?" Amy said. "Oh, no, Judith. You must not feel embarrassed. He was under no compulsion to be so kind to the children. But where did you make his acquaintance? At Lady Clancy's?"

"Yes," Judith said. "And before, Amy. He was-and I suppose still is-the Viscount Evendon."

"Evendon?" Amy was quiet for a moment. "The man to whom you were betrothed, Judith? Really? It is very good of him to be so civil, then." She stared back along the path at the disappearing figure of the marquess.

"Yes," Judith said.

And it was good of him. He had been remarkably civil to take such notice of her children. Why, then, did she feel frightened, almost as if he had attempted to kidnap them? Why did she not feel at all that an olive branch had been extended?

Was it just her guilt? Or was it something else?

***

It had been impossible to discover if she intended to go to the Mumford Ball short of asking the question of Mumford himself. And even he probably would not know since he had expressed a certain distaste for all the elaborate preparations Lady Mumford was making and a determination to stay within the safe walls of White's until he could stay there no longer.

The Marquess of Denbigh did not ask Mumford. He merely spent his days at White's and kept his ears open. It was amazing what gossip passed within the walls of the club. The story of his coming face to face with Judith Easton at Nora's had become common knowledge, of course. Some men avoided the topic in his presence, assuming that he would be embarrassed by a reminder of the way he had been jilted eight years before.

Fortunately, some gentlemen considered that he needed consoling.

"I hear you ran into Mrs. Easton at Clancy's," Bertie Levin said. "Unfortunate that, old chap."

The marquess shrugged. "Ancient history has no particular interest for me," he said.

"Too bad that you had to return at just the time when she is here," Bertie said. "Easton never brought her, you know."

"Is that so?" The marquess polished his quizzing glass.

"She might have interfered with his other pleasures," Bertie said with a chuckle.

"Yes," the marquess said. "They were well known."

"Though why he would want to get into the muslin company when he had such a looker for a wife eludes my understanding," Bertie said. "She is well rid of him if you were to ask me."

"To be uncharitable," the marquess said, "I would have to say that perhaps the world is well rid of him."

"She don't go about much, by all accounts," Bertie said. "It was unfortunate that you ran into her at Clancy's. Especially since you don't go about much yourself." He laughed heartily.

"Yes," Lord Denbigh said.

"She is a model mother, according to Freeman," Bertie said. "Cannot be pried from her children and all that. Walks them in the park every afternoon despite the weather. That would certainly not suit Freeman." He chuckled again. "At least you can be warned about that, Denbigh, and avoid the place."

"Yes," the marquess said, dropping his quizzing glass on its black ribbon. "Though ancient history, as I said before, does not excite me."

"Well," Bertie said, getting to his feet, "I never could understand why she dropped you for Easton, Denbigh. Most females would kill for a chance at you. Maybe money and titles and all that did not interest the chit. And Easton was a handsome devil, one must admit. I have to fetch my mother

from my aunt's. She will shoot me with a dueling pistol if I am late."

The marquess inclined his head and watched Bertie leave the room. Then he consulted his watch. Scarcely past luncheon time. At what time during the afternoons? he wondered. Early or late? He supposed that the only way he would find out was to ride to the park himself both early and late. He got to his feet.

He was fortunate enough not to have to ride there for longer than an hour. Obviously, early afternoon was the time for their walk. Four of them. Judith Easton herself, the two children, who both resembled Easton to a remarkable degree, and the little bird of a woman who was introduced to him as Easton's sister.

He rode away after giving each of the children a brief ride, well satisfied with the encounter. He knew now for certain that she was indeed planning to attend the Mumford ball. And he knew something else, too, something about her children and something about her sister-in-law.

And something about her, too. Clearly, her children were everything in the world to her.

Perhaps he could make something of those facts. The desire for revenge had burned in him with increased fervor since he had seen her again at Nora's.

Since the park was empty at that time of the day and of the year, he increased his horse's speed to a canter. Fortunately, he would not have to sit around any longer, wondering how he was to come upon her again. He would see her again that evening.

He could scarcely wait for the hours to pass.

***

The Murnford ball was not what might be called a great squeeze-not of the kind, anyway, that Judith had known in her come-out Season. But then, as Lady Mumford explained to her almost apologetically before the dancing began, it was the wrong time of year for grand ton events. Even those people who spent the winter in town wereI beginning to take themselves off for Christmas parties in the country.

Judith did not lament the lack of crowds. There were quite enough guests present to make it a pleasant occasion. Claude led her into the opening quadrille, and Lord Clancy was waiting to dance with her the set of country dances that followed.

And he was not there, she thought with some relief as the second set began. The Marquess of Denbigh was not there. Perhaps it was as well that Amy had mentioned her own plans in his hearing that afternoon, though she had been alarmed at the time. If he had intended to come, surely he would have changed his mind after that.

But her early pleasure in the evening dissipated halfway through the second set while she was laughing at something Lord Clancy said as he twirled her down the set.

He was standing alone in the doorway of the ballroom, dressed in black evening clothes and immaculately white linen and lace. He was the only gentleman clad in black. He looked more than ever like a hawk or some other bird of prey.

He would be as intent on ignoring her, she told herself as another gentleman twirled her back down the set, as she would be on ignoring him. She was not going to let him spoil her evening. She looked very deliberately across the ballroom at him just to prove her theory to herself.

He was staring back, his eyes hooded and intent.

She whisked her eyes away from him and made some remark to Lord Clancy and smiled broadly at him. And she kept her attention on the dance for all of five more minutes without giving in to the urge to look back to the doorway.

He would have moved away from there, she persuaded herself at last. He would have found a group of people with whom to converse. She turned her head to look.

He stood in exactly the same place. And he was still looking steadily at her.

By the time the set came to an end almost ten minutes later, Judith felt quite unnerved. She could not walk without feeling that her movements were jerky. She could not smile without feeling as "if she were behaving artificially. She could not laugh without hearing the trill of her own voice. And she could not talk without losing the trend of her own words or listen without suddenly realizing that she was not hearing a word,

And each time she turned her head, sometimes deliberately, sometimes under the pretense of looking elsewhere close by, he was standing in the same place. Lady Mumford joined him there, but still he looked quite steadily at her, Judith found.

She had not realized that the ballroom was quite so hot and stuffy.

She was wearing an apricot-colored gown of simple but elegant design. It was neither too low nor too high at the bosom, and it was fashionably high-waisted, falling in soft folds to the scalloped hemline. She wore white lace gloves and white slippers. Her hair was dressed as it had been at the soiree.

She looked beautiful, as she had looked in the park that afternoon with reddened cheeks and nose and hair somewhat windblown beneath her bonnet.

The Marquess of Denbigh stood in the doorway of Lord Mumford's ballroom looking at her. If she had been grief-stricken at the death of her husband, then she had recovered her spirits in the year since. She was laughing quite merrily.

He watched her until he knew she was aware of his presence. And then he continued to watch her, knowing that his gaze would disconcert her. He knew that even when she was not darting glances at him she was aware of his steady scrutiny. And he knew that when she looked at people or objects close to him, smiling in apparent enjoyment of the evening, she was really seeing him out of the corner of her eye. He knew that when she looked full at him it was in the hope that his attention had been taken by someone or something else.

He watched her even when he knew that other people must be noticing the focus of his attention and even when Lady Mumford came to speak with him to apologize for the fact that she and Mumford had not been at the door to greet him. He knew he was late, he explained to her. He did not expect them to stand at the door all evening merely in order to greet latecomers.

Finally, after he had stood in the doorway for well over half an hour, a set ended and Judith Easton joined a group of guests and deliberately turned her back on him. It was a very straight back. If she was uncomfortable-and he knew very well that she was-then she was going to do nothing outwardly to show it.

She had always had that control over her emotions even as a girl. Unfortunately, at that time he had mistaken control for sweetness and shyness.

He strolled toward her. Nothing in her posture suggested that she knew he had moved from his position in the doorway. But as he approached another lady said something to her and she turned her head sharply just as he came up to her. He nodded a greeting to the whole group and turned to her.