A Christmas Promise (14 page)

A snowball landed with a thud against her shoulder and Lord Charles, of all people, stood grinning up at her. At the same moment more people came out through the doors behind her.

“I think we had better help the girls, Harve,” George said. “They look to be in dire straits. Why are you standing here idle, Ellie?”

“I think I’ll join the men,” Rachel said. “Tom has deadly aim. I would rather have him on my side. Are you coming, Ellie?”

And before Eleanor knew quite what was happening or could give further consideration to her dignity, she felt both her arms being taken, one by George and the other, she saw when she looked, by a grinning Viscount Sotherby, and she was hurried down into the fray.

“Don’t worry, Lady Falloden,” the viscount said. “I’ll fight on your side.”

She lost track of time. It might have been ten minutes that passed or half an hour while snowballs whizzed through the air and men shouted and girls shrieked and everyone panted and laughed and giggled or hurled insults as well as snowballs at mortal enemies. More people came out. Uncle Sam appeared fighting on the other side, and Wilfred on hers. She smiled at him quickly before resuming the battle and yelled at Uncle Sam that it was against the rules to throw more than one snowball at a time.

“Eh?” he bellowed back, cupping one ear. “I’m strangely deaf this morning, Ellie. Must be the snow. Here—catch!” And a soft, wet lump of snow collided with her bosom.

And then the silent figure striding toward the house from the direction of the stables and coming to a halt at the bottom of the steps, his greatcoat and hat immaculate and quite free of snow. And the embarrassment and guilt and the restored knowledge that she had no business doing what she was doing. And the usual stubborn defiance and conviction that she did not care what he thought or what sort of chilly lecture he cared to give her later. She threw back her head and shrieked and stooped down to mold a fresh snowball.

It caught him somewhere on the jaw, halfway between his chin and his ear. It was the most horrid place of all for a snowball to land, for it would be impossible to brush it all away without at least some of it finding its way in an icy trickle down the neck. She looked at him and laughed and bent down for more snow, her eyes picking out Uncle Sam, who had scored a hit on her elbow a few moments before.

Then suddenly her feet disappeared from under her and she was shrieking and kicking them on air. It was Wilfred, she thought indignantly until she looked up to see who had scooped her into his arms and was striding with her away from the fight. He looked grim. Oh dear, she thought, now she was for it. She had wounded his aristocratic pride. She giggled.

But it was not quite in the direction of the house that he strode. Suddenly and quite alarmingly he swung her to one side and then tossed her so that she shrieked in good earnest and her arms and legs flailed uselessly as she flew through the air. She came to land deep in the snowbank that had been the children’s playground earlier. And of course she landed with her mouth open and was soon sputtering and thrashing about in a vain attempt to find her feet in the snow. It was too deep and too soft.

“Allow me, my lady.” His voice was chilly, but the hand that was stretched out to her looked reassuringly solid, and the gleam in his eyes might have been anything from anger to triumph to amusement. She reached up a cautious hand and set it in his.

She came to her feet in such a hurried scramble that she stopped only when she came against the solid wall of his chest. She looked up into his face.

“Sometimes,” he said, “it is more effective to take one’s adversary to the snowball than the other way around. Especially when that adversary is unwise enough to laugh after scoring a direct hit.”

She bit her lip, not sure whether to laugh or look contrite, and his eyes flickered down to follow the gesture. And heavens, she thought, she was still against his chest. Just as if she were incapable of standing on her own two feet. Which perhaps she was.

Then sounds of laughter penetrated her consciousness and she realized that this time everyone was laughing in unison. The fight had stopped and everyone had witnessed her toss in the snow. Most of the fighters were brushing at themselves and shaking coats and cloaks and slapping mittens together.

“That’s the way, lad,” Uncle Sam called out. “Treat ’em rough. They like it that way.”

“Oh, Uncle Sam!” There was a chorus of indignant protests from the female cousins. Everyone knew that Uncle Sam always treated Aunt Irene as if she were a goddess from one of those old Greek stories, as Papa had always put it.

Eleanor pushed away from her husband, thoroughly uncomfortable, and brushed at her cloak, which was caked with snow. Heavens, for one moment she had thought that he was going to kiss her. She had felt a flaring of heat despite the fact that she had snow inside her clothing as well as outside. And then a large, firm hand was brushing at the back of her cloak and she felt the heat again.

“I think, my lady,” he said, “we had better take our guests inside for breakfast if we are to gather Christmas greenery this morning.”

“Yes,” she said, taking his offered arm. The children, she saw, were building a snowman. Everyone else seemed to be talking all at once—a characteristic of her family.

S
INCE THERE WAS TO
be no shooting after all and it was likely to be close to noon before everyone was up and ready to go out looking for Christmas greenery, the Earl of Falloden had decided to go out early and conduct some business that he would otherwise have had to fit in later in the day. He came home expecting to find only the most hardy of his guests beginning to drift down to the breakfast room.

Instead he discovered a sight the like of which he had never seen at Grenfell Park before and had never dreamed of seeing. All of his guests, almost without exception, were out on the terrace engaged in a vigorous and noisy snowball fight. Even three of his own friends were among them, he saw as he drew closer. And his wife.

His first reaction was one of discomfort. His grandmother would turn over in her grave! Everything had always been conducted with dignified propriety at Grenfell Park. And what would the servants think? Especially when they saw his wife out there with everyone else, shrieking and laughing and hurling with as much abandon as anyone else. But then, as he drew closer still and came to a halt at the foot of the steps leading up to the house, he felt a certain envy. Except for his years at school, he had been brought up very much alone. At home, both with his parents and with his grandparents, he had been expected to behave with quiet decorum. Even at Christmastime. Even when there was a fresh blanket of snow on the ground. He had never been encouraged to behave with spontaneity.

He felt envious and half inclined to join in the fun. And to hell with any servant who did not like to see their earl and countess frolicking in the snow, he thought recklessly a moment before a snowball shattered against his jaw and found an icy path down his neck. He knew it had come from his wife’s hand even as she laughed and stooped to gather more snow.

He acted from pure instinct—something he almost never did even now, more than nine years after the death of his grandfather. He was not even quite sure what he intended to do with her when he swept her up into his arms and strode away from the battlefield with her. But the snowbank was not to be resisted, he saw almost immediately. He could not remember enjoying a moment more than the one in which he tossed her into it and watched her sail through the air, arms and legs flapping in ungainly fashion, and land deep in the soft snow.

He could have laughed aloud and would have done so if she had not looked up at him with such wary indignation. If she could have seen herself in a looking glass at that moment, he thought, she would have shuddered with mortification. Her cheeks and nose were a shiny red, her hair was wet and marvelously untidy beneath her hood, and she was totally covered with snow. Even her eyebrows and eyelashes were white.

And yet, he found when he had jerked her to her feet and against his chest, he wanted her as he had wanted her almost every moment since their arrival in the country. Despite her less than immaculate appearance, she was beautiful. And something else had been revealed to him. The countryside and the arrival of her family had combined to reveal a warmth and a vibrancy and a spontaneity in her that had him aching with a longing for something he had never known. If this was what she was really like, he thought, and not the cold marble statue he had known in London … The thought somehow interfered with his breathing.

A
UNT
B
ERYL
, A
UNT
E
UNICE
, and Aunt Ruth stayed at the house to hunt out the decorations from the attic. Everyone else came downstairs dressed for the outdoors.

“Wrap that scarf warmly about your neck,” Aunt Beryl told the earl with maternal solicitude. “You do not want to have a chill over Christmas.”

The earl agreed meekly that he did not and wrapped obediently.

“Don’t worry about a thing here, Randy,” Aunt Eunice told him. “We will have everything organized by the time you get back.”

He had no doubt that they would.

“Ellie, dear,” Aunt Ruth whispered, hugging her niece, “such a very handsome gentleman. Dear Joseph did well for you. And not at all high and mighty, which I rather feared, him being an earl and all that. Did you see him sit on the arm of my chair last evening just as if he were one of the family? Which of course he is, though it was very obliging of him all the same. Oh, bless my soul, and just think of it. Little Ellie a countess.”

Little Ellie, who was a few inches taller than her aunt, bent to kiss her cheek.

“You must be very happy, dear,” Aunt Ruth said with a sigh.

“I am, Aunt,” Eleanor said with a smile, and for the moment she did not lie. Her husband was laughing at something Uncle Harry had said, and he did look almost like one of the family. Almost.

Jenny rode on her father’s shoulders while Davie waded along in the deepest snow he could find. The Viscount Sotherby walked with their family. George took Mabel’s arm through his and Mr. Badcombe was surrounded by Muriel and Susan, Harvey and Jane. Sir Albert Hagley walked a little behind them with Rachel. Aunt Catherine was between Uncle Harry and Cousin Aubrey. Lord Charles was talking with Wilfred. Uncle Sam and Uncle Ben were flanking the earl and his countess.

“Who usually helps you gather the greenery and drag in the Yule log, Randy?” Uncle Ben asked.

“Last year I was not here, sir,” the earl said. “And for eight years before that Grenfell Park belonged to my cousin. I never came at Christmastime. In my grandparents’ day I believe it was the servants’ job to decorate the house.”

“Your cousin lived here and you never came?” Uncle Sam said with a frown. “How big is your family, lad, and where are the rest of them this year? Was there no one but your cousin and yourself?”

“I have several uncles and aunts and cousins,” the earl said. “We have never been close, I am afraid.”

“Amazing,” Uncle Sam said, and he looked across to his brother. “Isn’t it amazing, Ben, eh? No family gatherings? No noise and confusion and insults. Just peace and quiet and being private. Do you think you would like it, eh?”

“Peace and quiet with Eunice?” Uncle Ben said. “I like family gatherings to get away from all the chatter, Sam.”

“Oh, Uncle Ben!” Eleanor scolded.

“Oh, Uncle Ben,” he said, imitating her tone. “So the servants decorated, did they, Randy? And took half the fun of Christmas away from you. And did they eat the pudding and drink the wassail and sing the carols and kiss beneath the mistletoe as well?”

The earl smiled. “Christmas has always been a quiet time with my family and me,” he said. “Very little different from any other day of the year except perhaps a little more depressing.”

“Depressing? Christmas?” Uncle Sam’s voice was a boom. “The two words don’t go together, lad. Not in a million years. Do they now, Ellie? But of course you have Ellie this year to make very sure that they don’t. Eh, lass? You make sure that you whisk away a little sprig of the mistletoe when we get back to the house to hang above your bed. It does wonders for banishing Christmas depression. Is she blushing, Ben, eh? You are closer than I. Is she blushing, eh?”

“I think she is,” Uncle Ben said, “though it’s hidden under the rosiness of the cold. Is Randy blushing, though, Sam? That’s more to the point.”

“I hate to put an end to this delightful exchange of wit,” the earl said, “but we have reached the parting of the ways.”

And to Eleanor’s intense relief, he unlinked his arm from hers and called for everyone’s attention. The pine trees and the holly bushes were to the east of the house, the heavier trees, including the oaks and the mistletoe, to the north. Soon several of the men, including her own husband, were trudging off north to haul in a Yule log, with a few of the girls to gather mistletoe. She went east with everyone else to find the holly and to pull down some pine boughs.

And found Wilfred at her side just when she was trying to recover from the embarrassment of being advised, in her husband’s hearing, to hang mistletoe over her bed. She smiled at him and lengthened her stride so that Aunt Catherine and Uncle Harry would not get too far ahead.

“Ellie,” he said, his voice low, his eyes directly on her, “how are you?”

They had always sought each other out, even before they had realized that they loved each other. Until now it had always seemed right to do so. He was very tall—taller than her husband. She had always liked the way her head barely topped his shoulder. His height had always made her feel small and feminine.

“I am well,” she said, smiling brightly at him. “And you, Wilfred? You must be very excited about your partnership. Tell me all about it.”

“Not very,” he said. “It all somehow seems rather pointless now.”

“Oh.” She laughed. “It must be just that you are not used to your new elevated status yet, Wilfred. Cousin Aubrey must be very proud of you.”

“How does he treat you, Ellie?” he asked. “I will not ask if you are happy. But does he at least treat you kindly?”