A Christmas Bride / A Christmas Beau (17 page)

Edgar’s first intention, which was to marry quickly and quietly in London, had been set aside—partly by Lady Stapleton’s choice. There was no point in undue stealth. The truth would soon be known whether they tried to stifle it or not. And neither one of them made any attempt to stifle it. She had announced the truth to her aunt; he had confessed it to his sister and brother-in-law. She had talked about it quite freely and unblushingly during the party at which the announcement of their betrothal was made—just as if there were nothing shameful in such an admission and nothing ungenteel about such a public topic of conversation.

But then Lady Stapleton had always been known for her outspoken ways—and for treading very close to the edge of respectability without ever stepping quite beyond.

Lady Stapleton and Mrs. Cross had shared a carriage to Mobley Abbey with Cora and her youngest child, Annabelle. Lord Francis had ridden with Edgar, one or other of the former’s three sons as often as not up before them. The Duke and Duchess of Bridgwater with their infant son, the Earl and Countess of Thornhill, the Marquess and Marchioness of Carew, the Earl and Countess of Greenwald, all with three children apiece, had left London in a vast cavalcade of carriages a day later.

Before any of them had arrived, wedding preparations had been in full flight at Mobley—Cora had written again to her father. And the elder Mr. Downes had greeted his future daughter-in-law with hearty good humor, regardless of either her age or her condition.

For a few days there was no chance to think about Christmas. The wedding superseded it in importance and excitement value. Edgar had brought home a Christmas bride.

H
ELENA ARMED HERSELF
with scorn—for herself and her own weakness in agreeing to this marriage, for Edgar’s foolish sense of honor, for the whole hypocrisy of the joyful nuptials for which everyone seemed to be preparing.

She had prepared herself to find his father coarse and vulgar. She found instead a man who was loud and hearty and who bore an almost uncanny physical resemblance to his son—but who was not vulgar. He lacked Edgar’s refinement of speech and manner—he had, of course, had his son educated in the best schools—but he was no less genteel than many gentlemen of her acquaintance. She had prepared herself to find Mobley Abbey a garish and distasteful display of wealth. A great deal of wealth had quite obviously been expended on its restoration so that its ecclesiastical origins were breathtakingly
apparent; at the same time it was a cozy and comfortable private home. Every last detail gave evidence of impeccable taste.

It was disappointing, perhaps, to have little outside of herself on which to turn her scorn. But then she had never deceived herself about the main object of her bitterness and hatred. She had always been fair about that at least.

At first she decided to wear her bronze silk for her wedding. But she had an unaccustomed attack of conscience just the day before. None of these people—not even Edgar—had deserved such a show of vulgarity. She had an ensemble she had bought for a winter fête in Vienna and had worn only once—she had never found a suitable occasion on which to wear it again. She wore it for her wedding—a simple, expertly designed white wool dress with round neck, straight, long sleeves, and straight skirt slightly flaring from its high waistline; a white pelisse and bonnet, both trimmed with white fur; and a white muff and half boots.

At least there was an element of irony in the simple, elegant, eminently respectable attire, she thought, surveying herself in the mirror before leaving for the church. It was a wonderfully virginal outfit.

She did not want to marry. Not Edgar. Anyone but him. But there was no choice, of course. She would not allow the twinge of panic she felt to grow into anything larger. She smiled mockingly at her image. She was a bride—again. She wondered if she would make as much a disaster of this marriage as she had of the first. Undoubtedly she would. But he had been warned. He could never say he had not been.

She had asked the Marquees of Carew if he would be so good as to give her away, though she imagined that that foolish formality might have been dispensed with if she had talked to the vicar. The idea of a thirty-six-year-old
widow having to be given away to a new husband was rather absurd. She had asked Lord Carew because he was a mild-mannered, kindly gentleman. Sometimes he reminded her of—no! He did not. He walked with a limp and had even been thoughtful enough to ask her if it would embarrass her. She had assured him it would not. It rather fascinated her to observe that the marchioness, who was many times more beautiful than he was handsome, nevertheless seemed to worship the ground he trod on. But Helena had never denied the existence of romantic and marital love—only of it as a possibility in her own life.

Her bridegroom was dressed very elegantly and fashionably in a dark blue, form-fitting tailed coat, buff pantaloons, white linen, and highly polished Hessians. She looked at him dispassionately as she walked toward him along the aisle of the small old church, oblivious to the guests, who turned their heads to watch her approach, and oblivious to either the marquess’s limp or the steadying hand he had laid over her own on his arm. Edgar Downes looked solid and handsome and very much in command of his own life. He looked magnificent.

She experienced a growingly familiar feeling as she stood beside him and the marquess gave her hand into his. The feeling of being small and frail and helpless—and safe and secure. All illusions. His eyes, she saw when she looked up, were steady on hers. She did not want to gaze back, but having once looked, she had no choice. She would not lower her eyes and play the part of the demure bride. She half smiled at him, hiding her fear behind her customary mask.

Fear? Yes, she admitted, turning the mockery inward, too. Fear.

She listened to him promise her the moon and the stars in a firm voice that must have carried to the back pew of the church. She heard herself, almost as if she
listened to someone else, promise him her soul. She watched the shiny gold ring, bright symbol of ownership, come to rest on her finger. She heard the vicar declaring that they were man and wife. She lifted her face to her new husband, feeling a wave of the nausea that had been disappearing over the past week.

He looked into her eyes and then at her lips, which she had drawn into a smile again. And then he took her completely by surprise. He clasped both her hands in his, bowed over them, and raised them one at a time to his lips.

She could have howled with fury. Tears sprang to her eyes and she bit hard on her upper lip. With her eyes and her lips she might have mocked his kiss on the mouth. She might have reminded him silently of his promise never to touch her without her permission. She might have put him subtly in the wrong. His kiss on her hands was startling in the illusion it gave of reverence and tenderness. She had to fight a painful ache in her throat to keep the humiliating tears from spilling over. But he must have seen them swimming in her eyes—he looked into them as soon as he raised his head. How she hated him.

He was her husband. And already he was establishing mastery.

B
EFORE SUSPECTING HER
pregnancy, he had not once thought of marrying her. He had been horrified by his suspicions and even more so by their confirmation. He had felt that he was being forced into something very much against his will. He had not wanted to marry her.

And yet once it had become fact, once he had persuaded her to accept him, once he had acquired the special license, once the wedding preparations had been set in motion, he had felt a curious elation, a strange sense
of—rightness. He found it hard to believe that the obvious had been staring him in the face ever since his arrival in London and he had not opened up his eyes and seen.

She was the very woman for him.

She was a woman of character and experience, someone he would find an interesting and a stimulating companion. He knew that he had a strong tendency to dominate other people, to take charge, to insist on doing things the way he knew they must be done. It was a tendency that worked to his advantage in his professional life. It was a tendency that might well be disastrous in his marriage. He would make a timid mouse out of a young, inexperienced girl—Miss Grainger, for example—within a month of wedding her. He did not want a timid mouse. He wanted a companion.

Even one who had sworn that she would never allow him to touch her. Even one who had promised to lead him a merry dance. Even one who rarely looked at him without that mockery in her eyes and on her lips.

He had always intended to make a marriage with whomever he ended up wedding. He intended to make a marriage with Helena Stapleton. A real marriage. The challenge of overcoming such hostility was strangely exhilarating. And he would overcome it.

The woman herself was exciting, of course. She was extremely beautiful, the sort of woman who was probably lovelier now in her maturity than she had been as a young girl. Or perhaps it was just that he was a mature man who saw more beauty in a woman of his own age than in someone who was little more than a child.

By the time his wedding day arrived, Edgar had admitted to himself that he was in love with his bride. He would not go as far as believing that he loved her. He was not even sure he liked her. He did not know her well enough to know if the unpleasant side of her nature she
delighted in showing to him was the product of a basically unpleasant disposition or if it was merely the outer symptom of a troubled, wounded soul. He rather suspected the latter, though she denied having ever been deeply hurt. He faced the challenge of getting to know her. He might well not like her when he did. And even if he did, he might never grow to love her as he had always dreamed of loving a wife.

But he was certainly
in
love with her. It was a secret which he intended to guard very carefully indeed, for a lifetime if necessary. The woman did not need any more weapons than she already possessed.

His wedding was like a dream to him. And as with many dreams, he determinedly imprinted every detail on his memory so that he would be able to relive it in the future. There was his father, hearty and proud—and afraid for the son whom he loved with unabashed tenderness. There was Cora, armed with half a dozen of Francis’s large handkerchiefs because she always cried at weddings, she had explained, but was sure to cry
oceans
at her only brother’s. And there was Francis beside her, looking faintly amused and also solicitous of the wife he adored. There were all the other guests, an illustrious gathering for the wedding of a man who could not even claim the title of gentleman for himself.

And then there was his bride—and once she appeared, nothing and no one else mattered until they were out on the church steps some time later. She usually wore vivid colors and dramatically daring styles and looked vibrantly beautiful. This morning, all in pure white from head to toe, she looked almost ethereal. It was an incongruous word to use of her of all people. Her beauty robbed him of breath and of coherent thought. He felt, he thought in some alarm as she came closer to the altar rail, almost like weeping. He did not do so.

He spoke his commitment to her and to their marriage
in the guise of the words of the nuptial service. He ignored the slight tone of mockery with which she made her promises to him. She would live those promises and mean them eventually. She was going to be a challenge, but he had never yet failed in any of the challenges he had set himself. And success had never been as important to him as it was with this one.

She was his wife. He heard the vicar announce the fact and felt the shock of the reality of the words. She was his wife. It was the moment at which he was invited to kiss her, though the vicar did not say so in words. He felt the expectation in the gathered guests. She lifted her face to his—and he saw the mockery there and remembered the promise he had made her. This was ritual, of course, and hardly subject to that promise. But he would give her no weapon wittingly.

He kissed the backs of her hands instead of her lips and for that public moment made no secret of his feelings for his new wife. He felt a moment of exultation when he raised his head and saw the brightness of tears in her eyes. But he did not doubt she would make him pay for that moment of weakness.

Oh, he did not doubt it. He counted on it!

He led his bride from the dark unreality of the church interior into the reality of a cold, bright December outdoors.

“You look remarkably beautiful this morning, Helena,” he told her in the brief moment of privacy before their guests came spilling out after them.

“Oh, and so do you, Edgar,” she said carelessly. “Remarkably beautiful.”

Touché!

H
ELENA WAS FEELING
irritable by the time she was finally alone in her own bedchamber for the night. The
combination of a wedding and an imminent Christmas was enough, it seemed, to transport everyone to great heights of delirious joy. What she had done by coming here with Edgar and marrying him was land herself in the middle of glorious domesticity.

It was the last thing she wanted.

Domesticity terrified her more than anything else in life.

The elder Mr. Downes—her father-in-law, who had actually invited her today to call him
Papa
—seemed endlessly genial. The noise and activity by which he had been surrounded all day—by which they had
all
been surrounded—had been appalling to say the least. The adults had been in high spirits. There was no word to describe in what the children had been—and there had been hordes of children, none of whom had been confined to the nursery. Helena had understood—she hoped fervently that she had misunderstood—that they would not be this side of Christmas.

She had found it impossible to sort them all out, to work out which children belonged to which adults, which names belonged to which children. The smallest infant belonged to the Bridgwaters, and she
thought
she knew which four belonged to Cora and Francis. Gracious heaven, they were her niece and nephews. But the others were unidentified and unidentifiable. And yet her father-in-law knew them all by name and they all knew him by name. He was Grandpapa to every last one of them—except to the one who could not yet talk and even he had bounced on the grandparental knee, gurgling and chuckling with glee.