A Christmas Promise (20 page)

“Well,” Sir Albert said to Rachel, “I suppose that leaves us to amuse ourselves with a sedate walk. Ma’am?” he bowed and offered his arm and she smiled and took it.

And of course their footsteps skirted the trees and then wandered among the closest ones and then led them deeper into the wood. And of course eventually their footsteps slowed and finally stopped altogether. And of course there was a tree trunk against which she might lean her back.

He cupped her face in his hands and looked down into her eyes, lit faintly by the moonlight. “If you wish me to return you to your family, say so now,” he told her softly.

He heard her swallow. And he lowered his head and kissed her lightly, as he had kissed her beneath the sprig of mistletoe. Her face was cold, her mouth and breath warm.

“Mm,” he whispered. “Sweet.”

“Are you a rake?” she whispered back.

He drew back from her, though he still held her face in his hands. “Because I have brought you here without a chaperone?” he asked. “I mean you no harm, Rachel. Believe me. Do you want me to take you back?”

She stared at him for a few seconds and then shook her head slightly.

So he kissed her again. More lingeringly. More deeply. And he moved his body against hers, feeling its slight and slender curves.

Lord. Oh, Lord! He had spent years avoiding just this sort of situation despite the efforts of his mother and sisters. But the thought barely formed in his mind. He would think of that later. Tomorrow he would avoid her again. But not tonight. Not now.

Her arms came about his waist and all thought fled for the space of a few minutes. Or hours, perhaps.

A
UNT
E
UNICE WAS COLD.
Yet when Uncle Ben suggested, with obvious reluctance, taking her back to the house, she would hear of no such thing. What? Leave all the fun behind? They must build a fire, then, Uncle Ben announced, and the idea caught flame long before the one they all proposed to build. Did anyone have a tinderbox? Mr. Badcombe did. And so suddenly most of the revelers, the sleds and the slopes forgotten for the moment, were rushing among the trees to collect firewood.

Eleanor was one of them. But she went alone, ducking out of sight when she saw Wilfred looking about for her. Her husband was up on one of the lower slopes with Susan, who had been too nervous to do anything but stand at the foot of the hills for most of the evening.

Eleanor picked up a few sticks and twigs, shaking them free of snow, stepping a little farther among the trees to find more. And then she stopped and looked about her cautiously. The sounds were low, almost imperceptible. Certainly they were not the noises of people looking for firewood.

Rachel was standing with her back to a tree trunk, Sir Albert Hagley pressing her against it. They were in such deep embrace that they seemed quite unaware of her approach. They were both making quiet sounds of appreciation.

Eleanor froze in her tracks for a few moments before withdrawing backward as slowly and as quietly as she could. It was only when she had put some distance between herself and them and had turned to hurry out into the open that she thought that perhaps she should have made a sound, broken them apart, accompanied Rachel back to the others.

But Rachel! After the talk they had had just that morning. How could she? And with Sir Albert Hagley! The man who despised cits, the man who thought their only use was to be seduced if they happened to be young and female. Rachel was an innkeeper’s daughter.

But in Rachel’s defense, of course, was the fact that Sir Albert was a practiced rake and had two more years of experience than he had had when he had tried to seduce her.

She looked about her in panicked uncertainty. Uncle Ben? Should she tell him? Or Aunt Eunice? But there would be a terrible to-do. Everyone’s evening would be ruined. Perhaps Christmas would be ruined. Perhaps Uncle Ben would feel it necessary to leave altogether. Or perhaps Sir Albert would be asked to leave. And perhaps Rachel, not realizing from what she had been saved, would never speak to her again.

Oh, Rachel!

And then she saw her husband beside the fire that was being built and he was turning and smiling at her.

“Are you going to bring them here, Eleanor?” he asked. “Or are you going to have your own fire over there?”

She looked down at the small bundle of twigs clutched in her arms and hurried over to drop them onto the pile. She caught at his arm.

“Please,” she said, “I must speak with you.”

He walked away from the group with her and looked down at her searchingly. “What is it?” he asked.

“It is Sir Albert,” she said. “He has Rachel among the trees and is kissing her.”

He raised his eyebrows. “One can hardly blame him for taking advantage of a perfect situation,” he said. “They have favored each other since they set eyes on each other.”

“But,” she said urgently, “he is a—a rake.”

“Bertie?” he said in some surprise. “I think that is rather a strong word, Eleanor. Certainly I don’t think he is about to ravish the girl among the trees with so many of her relatives close by.”

“But he will have no respect for her,” she said. “She is an innkeeper’s daughter.”

His eyes turned cold. “Oh, that,” he said. “Yes, we members of the aristocracy all despise people of a lower class and waste no time ravishing their women if we have an opportunity. Or marrying them for their money, of course.”

“Please.” She caught at his arm again. “I know what I am talking about. From personal experience.”

He looked at her blankly and then his eyes blazed. “Has he tried anything with you?” he asked, his voice tight with fury.

“Yes,” she said. But she tightened her hold on his arm as he looked toward the trees and took one step away from her. “No. Not now. Not since our marriage. Two years ago. We were at a party in the country together and I knew by the way he looked at me that he liked me. But then I found out that he thought I would be of easy virtue because of who I was. He tried to—to touch me, and when he knew that he could not have me, he started sneering and calling me a cit. And soon everyone was calling me that and I had to spend the whole month fighting back. Rachel was allowing him to touch her. She does not know what he is like.”

He was looking intently at her, his jaw set, his face still showing fury. “So you
were
the one,” he said more to himself than to her. And then he relaxed somewhat. “He will not harm her, Eleanor,” he said. “He is my guest, as is she, and they are very close to crowds of other people. It is a stolen kiss, nothing else. But tomorrow I’ll have a word with him. I promise.”

She felt the tension draining out of her. He was right. Of course he was. Rachel would be safe for that evening anyway. And tomorrow her husband would talk with Sir Albert, explain that Rachel was her cousin and his guest. Sir Albert would then feel honor bound to act the gentleman for the remainder of his stay at Grenfell Park. That was one thing to be said in favor of gentlemen. Honor was more important to them than almost anything else in life.

“Does it take twenty people or thereabouts to light one fire?” her husband asked her, turning to glance over his shoulder.

“It does,” she said, “when they are Transomes.”

Her answer won a grin from him, the first she could remember him directing at her. It made him look boyish and very handsome. It made her turn slightly weak at the knees.

“Look, Eleanor,” he said, “six abandoned sleds. Shall we take one of them?”

“Oh, yes.” She looked up at him eagerly. She had ridden down hills with almost every man present except him. “Do let’s. The longest hill. It has been used so many times that it is marvelously slippery and dangerous.”

“Which makes it marvelously irresistible,” he said, taking one of her hands in his and the rope of one of the sleds in the other.

“Did you do this all the time when you were a boy?” she asked as they trudged upward.

“Not often,” he said. “There was never anyone to slide with. It is not nearly as much fun doing this sort of thing alone.”

“You were a lonely child,” she said, looking up at him. “I was an only child too, but never lonely because there were always cousins.”

“And your aunts and uncles to swell the numbers of the children,” he said.

She looked at him sharply. But he was smiling, not sneering. “And Papa,” she said. “He was always there too. Before his illness he had a great deal of energy and loved fun. You saw him only when he was close to death.”

But mention of her father only reminded them both of facts they wished for the moment to forget. The reason for their marriage. The bitterness they had both brought to that marriage. A silence—an uncomfortable silence—fell between them as he positioned the sled at the top of the steepest run. He straightened up and looked into her eyes.

“He always wanted what was best for me,” she said. “He thought this would be best for me. That was his only reason.”

But his lips tightened and he still said nothing. He waited for her to seat herself at the front of the sled and then lowered himself into position behind her, his legs and arms cradling her. She leaned back against his chest and wished that she had not mentioned her father. She wished that he would do what Wilfred had done earlier and kiss her cheek. But he was arranging the rope in his hands.

“A confession,” he said. “I have not been on this particular run yet this evening. It looks alarmingly steep, does it not?”

She smiled. “If you wish,” she said, “I will follow you over to the smallest run. If you think you will feel safer, that is.”

For answer he lowered one boot to the snow and pushed them off. But perhaps his response to her taunt had been a little too violent. Or perhaps it was just that the runners of numerous sleds had made the slope far slicker than it had been earlier. Or perhaps it was that she turned her head to smile right into his face. Or the fact that he had pushed off with only one foot instead of two.

Perhaps there was no one single reason. And certainly they had no time to analyze it anyway. The sled was out of control from the first moment, swaying from side to side as he tried to hold it steady, gathering speed to a quite alarming degree, catching soft snow at an awkward angle halfway down, lifting into the air sideways, and pitching its cargo headlong into deep snow.

Eleanor had been too frightened even to shriek. But when she landed—on top of her husband, his arms locked about her—she found that they were both laughing helplessly. Giggling might be an apter word for what she was doing, she thought, but she was powerless to stop herself or produce a more dignified sound.

“Who wants to count arms and legs?” he asked when he could. “Do we have four of each between us?”

“Oh, I think so,” she said breathlessly. “But I dare not count fingers and toes. You see? I told you we should be on the smallest run. It is for novices like yourself. We might have avoided disaster.” She resumed her giggling.

“Disaster?” He had his own laughter under control. “Who said anything about disaster? I maneuvered that sled with consummate skill. Did you think I meant to take you to the bottom?”

She lifted her head and looked down into his face. And somehow forgot to giggle. And forgot even to breathe for a moment.

“Did you?” he whispered to her.

“Yes.” She swallowed awkwardly.

“I meant to have us tossed into this deliciously cool feather bed,” he said. “Quite out of sight of the fire gatherers, you see.”

She could think of no answer to make. Not that she seemed to be called upon to say anything. His hand was at the back of her head, against her hood, and it was easier on her neck muscles to give in to its pressure and settle her mouth against his. And then she was glad she had done so. His lips were cool on hers, but his breath was warm against her cheek, and when his mouth opened over hers, it was warm too. And so was his tongue, sliding along the seam of her lips and then, when she opened her mouth, slipping inside. All the way deep inside.

There was none of the terror or revulsion that had set her to fighting blindly on her wedding night. Only warmth, beginning at her lips and spreading through her mouth and downward through her throat and her breasts and her womb until it throbbed
there
where he had been with her the night before. She wanted him there now. Inside her. Warm and hard and wonderful.

“Mmm,” she said as his tongue withdrew from her mouth and he kissed her lips, her cheeks, her eyes.

“Mmm,” he said, kissing her mouth again, darting inside with his tongue. “It is a very cool bed, is it not?”

He was lying full-length in the snow. She was on top of him. Even so, there was snow melting in uncomfortable places. And her feet were tingling with cold. She was lying on top of a man on an exposed hillside for all her relatives to see if they cared to step a few yards away from the fire, making an utter wanton of herself. For the moment it did not seem to matter that he was her husband. Ladies did not display open affection for their husbands.

She scrambled to her feet and began to brush away clinging snow. And since when did she care about what ladies did? She did not care. She glanced at him as he stood up beside her, lifted his greatcoat by the capes, and shook it.

“I’ll wager,” she said, “that you would not have maneuvered it so if you had had the fortune to marry a lady, my lord.” What stupid, petulant words, she thought as she listened to herself almost as if she were a different person from the speaker. She could hardly blame him for looking at her in surprise. “I cannot imagine you rolling in the snow with Miss Dorothea Lovestone, for example.”

He thought for a moment. “You are right,” he said at last. “Dorothea would not even be out here. She would not so demean herself.”

“There, you see?” she said, feeling even more childish because his tone was quite reasonable. He had not fired up at all. “She is a lady and I am not.”

“Right,” he said. “You are quite right. Dorothea, of course, has delicate health and would perhaps not even survive a roll in the snow. Another characteristic of ladies.”

“While I am robust and not at all given to chills,” she said.