A Christmas Promise (26 page)

The church, Eleanor found, was filled with familiar faces, to most of which she could even put a name. There were the merchants and wealthier tenants whom she had met in the assembly rooms the day of her arrival at Grenfell, the poorer tenants and cottagers whom she had visited either by invitation or as the bearer of baskets of food and medicine, the poorer people of the village and countryside who had been at the concert and party that afternoon, and the carolers.

She smiled about her as she walked down the aisle with her husband to their front pew and found that almost everyone was smiling back. Perhaps, she thought, oh, just perhaps, it was not so bad after all being a countess. She gave a specially bright smile to elderly Mrs. Richards, who had been almost too ill to sit up during her visit the week before.

A Nativity scene had been set up at the front of the church. The organ was playing and the church bells were ringing. Eleanor seated herself and breathed in the atmosphere of Christmas. It was the most wonderful Christmas she could remember, she thought, though she had always loved the season as the very best time of the year.

If only … She watched her husband’s hand as it reached for a prayer book. But she must not try reaching for the Bethlehem star. She must be content with what she had. And what she had was very good if she considered the very inauspicious beginning her marriage had had less than two months before. If only this amity—this warmth—could continue when Christmas was over and their guests had returned home, she would be very content indeed.

Well, almost, anyway.

And yet she felt guilty suddenly. She had just thought that this was the best Christmas ever, and yet Papa was not there. He was dead. Gone forever. She remembered his last hours, when he had been seeing and talking to her mother. He was gone and yet she was enjoying Christmas less than two months later—as he had requested.

There was an ache and a tickling in the back of her throat suddenly and she swallowed against both. The Reverend Blodell was ready to begin the service.

M
ANY MEMBERS OF THE
congregation stood outside the church for well over half an hour after the service had ended and fifteen minutes after the bells had finished pealing. Everyone, it seemed, had to greet everyone else and shake hands. The earl would not have been surprised to find that all the inhabitants of the village and its surrounding farms had been invited back to Grenfell Park. But it was not so. And finally they were walking home.

There was a great deal of exuberance of spirits. Some throwing of snowballs. Susan got herself tossed, shrieking, into some soft snow beside the driveway by a gang of cousins and Lord Charles. There were, of course, the laggards. George and Mabel and perhaps Lord Sotherby and Muriel, who had been walking with them when they left the village. Sir Albert and Rachel.

The earl wished he could lag behind with his wife, but it did not seem quite right to wait until everyone else had walked on out of sight merely so that he could draw her against him to kiss her with all the stars of Christmas overhead. He would have to wait, he decided, until the night. At least he had that advantage over the unmarried couples.

“Did you know that Sir Albert talked privately with me this afternoon?” Eleanor asked him suddenly.

“He asked in my hearing,” he said, looking down at her.

“He apologized to me,” she said, “for his shabby behavior two years ago.”

“Ah, did he?” her husband said. “I am glad. You have not liked him, have you, Eleanor? Will this help?”

“Yes,” she said. “I am no longer embarrassed to catch his eye. Why did you hit him?”

“Did he tell you that?” he asked, frowning.

“No,” she said. “But people who run into doors do not usually have bruises beneath their jaws. Unless it is a very low door. Why did you do it?”

He shrugged. “I will leave you to make your own interpretation,” he said.

“He told me something else,” she said. “Something that I think you were trying to tell me last night when I stopped you. They really were not your debts, were they?”

“They were appallingly large,” he said, “and some of them to moneylenders before your father bought them all. I had no experience in dealing with debt.”

“So,” she said quietly, “neither of us had a particularly base reason for marrying the other, did we?”

“Except,” he said, “that I suppose it is never right to marry solely for money or solely to please a father.”

It was the wrong thing to say. He knew that even as he was speaking the words. It was a downright foolish thing to say.

“And so,” she said, and he could hear the strain in her voice, “all the blame is to be laid at my father’s door. He is the one who bought your debts and gave you very little choice of action. And he is the one who persuaded me to follow his wishes. All you and I have been guilty of is weakness of character.”

“I suppose so,” he said after a pause.

“He is to blame, then,” she said. “But we are the ones left alive. There was really no basis for a workable marriage, was there?”

Her voice was bleak. But a little pleading? He was on the point of agreeing with her. Certainly she was right. There had been no good basis. Quite the contrary, in fact. Their marriage should have turned out quite as badly as he had expected from the start. But for all that it was not turning out that way. Somehow, though all the odds had been against them, they were making something workable of their marriage after all. It now seemed to have all the ingredients necessary for contentment and perhaps even happiness.

No, he could not agree with her. But of course, she did not want him to. She had asked the question in the hope that he would contradict her. Yes, she had. He knew her well enough now to recognize that. She wanted a good marriage, just as he did.

“No, there was not,” he said, “but …”

But Aunt Beryl and Aunt Ruth had slowed their pace and drawn level with them.

“Ruth is a little breathless,” Aunt Beryl announced in her usual forthright manner. “You will not mind if she takes your arm, my lord?”

“Of course not.” He drew Aunt Ruth’s arm through his free one and looked down at her in some concern. “I should have had the sleigh come to pick you up at church.”

“Oh, no, no,” she said, flustered. “I am quite sure the fresh air is good for me, my lord. And such beautiful weather. And such a wonderful service. Was it not, Ellie?”

“It was,” Eleanor agreed. “Very wonderful, Aunt Ruth.”

“I was just saying to Beryl,” Aunt Ruth went on, “that I wish we could have the Reverend Blodell in our parish. Such an imposing figure of a man.”

The earl smiled and took up the conversation. But he was going to have to complete that other conversation before bedtime, he thought. Otherwise he was going to find himself in bed with either a marble statue or a hedgehog. The thought fueled his smile.

“B
RISTOL,”
V
ISCOUNT
S
OTHERBY SAID
to Muriel, finding himself unexpectedly alone with her after their footsteps had lagged with George’s and Mabel’s until finally that couple had made it quite clear that they would be very happy to lose themselves among the trees for a few minutes. “It is a place I do not know. Is it attractive?”

“I like it,” she said. “We moved there from the country after Papa died.”

“Perhaps,” he said, “I shall pay it a visit when spring comes. Especially now that I know some people who live there.”

“That would be pleasant, my lord,” she said.

“Did you know I had been married?” he asked her.

“No.” She looked up at him with widened eyes.

“She died,” he said. “In childbed a little more than two years ago. I would have had a daughter. I was fond of my wife.”

“Oh,” she said, “I am so sorry.”

He smiled. “Fortunately or unfortunately,” he said, “grief fades and life goes on. But I liked being married. I liked the comfort and security of it. The bachelor life does not much suit me, I am afraid. I came here to shoot, expecting a somewhat bleak Christmas. What a treat it has been to be part of a family Christmas after all.”

Muriel smiled. “I cannot imagine Christmas without family,” she said. “Or life, for that matter.”

The driveway was deserted, George and Mabel having disappeared among the elm trees. And no self-respecting male could be expected to be alone with a pretty girl under the stars and not kiss her.

Lord Sotherby kissed Muriel.

“Bristol in March,” he said when he raised his head. “Will there be primroses?”

“And daffodils,” she said.

A promise that was rewarded with another kiss.

G
EORGE AND
M
ABEL AND
the viscount and Muriel had perhaps lagged behind most of the family, but not as far behind as Sir Albert Hagley and Rachel.

“The stars,” he said, looking up. “They seem so close that one could almost imagine reaching out to pluck one.”

“My star is still there tonight,” she said, looking up with him. “It is even brighter than it was last night.”

“That one?” He pointed to a star close to the moon. “That is not your star. It is ours.”

“Oh, is it?” She turned her head to smile at him and he released her arm in order to set his own about her waist and draw her closer to his side.

“You have sometimes avoided me recently,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “And you have sometimes avoided me.”

“For the same reason?” he asked.

“I think not.” She smiled gently. “I was told you were a rake, though I do not believe it is true. But it is Christmas and a wonderful time for flirtation. Except that I do not believe I am much good at flirtation.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“I cannot be fond of someone one day and forget about him the next,” she said.

They had stopped walking. “Are you fond of me?” he asked.

“That is an unfair question,” she said, her gaze dropping to his chin. “I think perhaps we should not be alone.”

“Because I might kiss you?” he asked.

“Yes, because of that,” she said. “And because I am no good at flirtation.”

“I am not sure I am good at anything else,” he said. “I have had you off alone one too many times, have I not? And I am about to kiss you one too many times. Too many if I mean only flirtation, that is. I don’t believe I would fancy coming to fisticuffs with your father. I value my teeth a little too highly.”

She laughed softly.

“And so I have been at war with myself,” he said. “Telling myself with my head to keep away from you, urging myself with my heart to find you out and to take you apart and to—what? Kiss you? Romance you? I am not sure. I am unfamiliar with the language of the heart.”

She smiled at him a little uncertainly.

“I think I had better ask for a private word with your father when we return to the house,” he said. He grinned briefly. “Before he has a chance to ask for a private meeting with me.”

“You have not really compromised me,” she said, her voice breathless. “And we would not suit.”

“Wouldn’t we?” He gazed down into her eyes. “Because I am a gentleman and you are not a lady? I would have agreed without hesitation before meeting you and before seeing Randolph’s marriage develop into a love match before my very eyes. Now those facts merely seem rather silly. You cannot be summed up with a label. You are Rachel Transome and I have fallen in love with you. Did I actually say those words? They are the most difficult in the English language to say aloud.”

“It is a love match, is it not?” she said. “I worried when I first heard of it. I was afraid that Ellie had been blinded by the splendor of marrying an earl. And she is my favorite cousin. But splendor has nothing to do with it. When one loves a man, it does not really matter if he is an earl or a countinghouse clerk.”

“Do you speak from experience?” he asked.

She nodded. “Or a baronet,” she added.

“Then I will speak with your papa tonight,” he said. “May I?”

She nodded again.

There was that deserted driveway again. And those stars again. The interview with Uncle Ben would have to wait for a while until Sir Albert had finished kissing Rachel quite thoroughly. And then they had to smile at each other and tell each other again what they had said quite clearly before.

And then the new declarations had to be sealed with a kiss.

U
NKNOWN TO ANYONE EXCEPT
Aunt Catherine, Uncle Harry had brought large amounts of champagne with him to Grenfell Park. He had his valet bring them down to the drawing room when everyone had finally returned to the house. It was after midnight, yet no one seemed inclined to go to bed, except perhaps Tom and Bessie, who explained that their children were likely to be up before the lark in the morning.

“I brought it, you see,” Uncle Harry explained, “to accompany an announcement that Catherine and I planned to make on Christmas Day jointly with Beryl. No one, of course, will have guessed what the announcement is to be since the two young people concerned have shown no particular preference for each other during the past few days or indeed during the past two years.”

Mabel blushed and George half smiled as everyone laughed.

“It is a betrothal announcement, you see,” Uncle Harry said, “between our George and Beryl’s Mabel. And so our families are to be linked by one more tie, the first having been between Catherine’s sister and Beryl’s brother. Ellie’s mother and father, may God rest their souls. Before the tears flow and the squeals and hugs begin, then, let the champagne be brought on.”

Tears flowed and the squeals and hugs began and the jokes and the teasing too, so that the newly affianced Mabel was soon blushing rosily and George, grinning sheepishly, came to set an arm about her shoulders.

“The wedding is to be in April on Mabel’s nineteenth birthday,” he said in answer to a question from Cousin Aubrey. “And I want to say a public thank-you here to Uncle Joe, though he is no longer with us to hear me, for continuing to invite us to family gatherings even after Aunt’s passing. For if he had not, Mabel and I might remember each other now only as very small children.”

And then the champagne was being passed around and toasts were being made and drunk to the betrothed pair, to their parents, to Christmas, to good fellowship, to whatever anyone could think of that would achieve an enthusiastic burst of consent and a clinking of glasses.