A Christmas Promise (21 page)

He looked her over unhurriedly from head to toes. “Right again,” he said, his voice maddeningly cool. She would have liked to pound her fists against his chest but would have felt foolish doing so. Where had been the provocation? All he had done was agree with her in the most amiable of manners. “But talking of chills, my feet seem to have changed places with two blocks of ice. Have yours?”

“Why should I have cold feet,” she asked, “when I have none of the delicacy of a lady?”

“I would not know the answer,” he said. “Let’s go down to the fire, shall we?”

I
T HAD ALL STARTED, HE SUPPOSED, IN THE
schoolroom when she had behaved so unconventionally and he had been neither embarrassed nor outraged, only a little envious and perhaps somewhat enchanted. And then there had been his reckless decision to have his home invaded by children and their parents on Christmas Eve, a decision made because of the brightness of her eyes and the smiling challenge in them. And her suggestion that the concert be followed by a party, an idea that had amused him when it should have appalled him.

That had been the start. Then, of course, there was her family—her loud, boisterous, fun-loving family, whom he would have considered unspeakably vulgar just a month before. The suggestion that they spend the evening out on the hills sledding—even the older generation—instead of engaging themselves with some genteel activity in the drawing room had shocked him at first. But then he had thought
why not?
Why ever not? It sounded like marvelous fun.

And he had been able to see that his wife, despite her demure behavior at the dinner table, was bursting with eagerness to get out there herself. She was a Transome to the very core. Strange, he thought, that he had not seen it in London. Or that she had not allowed him to see it.

Before they had left the house he had seen the spring in her step and the sparkle in her eyes that she could not hide. Out on the hills he had watched her race up slopes and shriek down slopes. Just as if she were nine years old instead of nineteen.

He had wanted to be with her. Yet good manners—those eternal good manners that were always opposed to simple enjoyment—had kept him with his guests. He had watched the quarrel with Wilfred Ellis and had guessed at what was being said. He had hoped, at least, that he was right. And he had rather liked the fact that Ellis might well be killing her love for him by his untimely persistence.

It was that thought that had brought into focus all that had been happening since the afternoon. Did it matter to him that her love for her cousin be killed? Whom did he want her to love? Himself? Habit at first drew a denial. But the Transomes were teaching him that habit was sometimes a dreary business.

He wanted to be with her. That was the simple truth of the matter. More than that he did not know—yet. And so he slid down a lower slope twice with Susan until she relaxed and admitted to finding it fun, and then strolled down to the site of the fire to find his wife.

Had their tumble into the snow been deliberate? He was not sure. But he was certain that it had been a very fortunate tumble. Very fortunate indeed. He had, he realized, been wanting to kiss her since he had not kissed her the night before. But she, of course, was not as ready for tenderness as he was beginning to believe that he was. After a brief but fiery response to his kiss she was her usual prickly self again. And on the defensive again, as she had been since he first met her. He had not realized it at first. He had thought her merely hostile.

“Let’s go down to the fire, shall we?” he suggested.

He set an arm about her waist and they waded downward together until they reached the more packed snow that had been worn by many feet and found the going easier. She was looking thoroughly cross, he saw when he glanced down at her. She had wanted a good quarrel and he had denied it to her. But he did not feel like quarreling. He felt like laughing. He wisely held his peace.

“Anyway,” she said as they approached the fire, which was now burning into glorious and incautious life—no sticks or twigs had been reserved for rebuilding it as it died down. It was a typical Transome fire, he thought with the new amusement that was still amazing and delighting him. “I think this is far more fun than wilting in a stuffy drawing room trying to look fragile and delicate.”

“Do you?” he said. He would not give her the satisfaction of saying more. He almost chuckled aloud. He set her between him and the fire and set his arms about her waist and drew her back against him. Uncle Harry and Aunt Catherine were standing thus too, as were Tom and Bessie and George and Mabel. It was all highly improper, of course. One did not touch more than the hand of a lady in public, even if she was one’s spouse.

Uncle Ben was talking about stars.

“You see, my theory is,” he was saying, “that it must have taken them far longer than one night to reach that stable. They came from the East, the story says. How far east? One mile? Two?
Three
kings living just two miles down the road?”

“Have you ever noticed, though,” Uncle Sam asked, “that the Bible never mentions three?”

“Well, then,” Uncle Ben said, “twelve.
Twelve
kings living down the road? No, take my word for it, they came from a long way off and it took them longer than the one night.”

“When I first married Ben,” Aunt Eunice said, “I always used to wait for the inn to fill up at Christmas and then for two weary souls to come looking for a room. I used to picture exactly which stall in the stables I would put them in.”

Uncle Ben chuckled. “You would never guess from looking at her that Eunice is a romantical soul, would you?” he said.

“She must be, Ben,” Uncle Harry said. “I can’t think of any other reason why she would have married you.”

There was a merry burst of laughter.

“You walked into that one mouth first, Ben,” Uncle Sam said. “You must confess.”

“Yes, well,” Uncle Ben said. “I was a handsome lad in my time. Anyway, back to the point here. The point is that that star must have been up there for longer than one night.”

“And it comes back every year,” Rachel said. She was standing beside Sir Albert, their shoulders almost touching. Both of them were rather dewy-eyed, the earl thought, looking at them critically. “That is what you always used to tell me, Papa.”

“Right you are,” he said. “It’s up there now. The Christmas star. The Bethlehem star.”

The group was strangely quiet, considering the fact that most of them were Transomes. They all gazed upward into the blackness beyond the firelight. Blackness and starlight. As if they expected that when they looked down again it would be to see a stable and a baby in a manger and shepherds and kings approaching.

“I think it is that one,” Mabel said. But she spoke for George’s ears only and turned her head so that he could kiss her briefly. Another highly improper gesture, the earl thought, resting his cheek against the top of his wife’s head for a moment.

“That one,” Aunt Eunice said. “It seems strange not to be at the inn for Christmas, Ben. Do you suppose John Pritchard is looking after everything for us?”

“The one close to the moon,” Rachel said, and Sir Albert bent his head closer so that she could point out the star that seemed to her to be the brightest in the sky.

“That one,” the Earl of Falloden murmured into his wife’s ear. He pointed straight upward so that she had to lay her head back against his shoulder to see.

They gazed upward together into the wonder of Christmas and he felt it for the first time—that story of his faith that he had always celebrated at church in most sober fashion every Christmas.

“But it is right overhead,” she said. “It should not be overhead until tomorrow night, should it?”

“Tomorrow it must be over the stable,” he said. “Tonight it can be over us so that we can feel its brightness and warmth.”

“I thought you never enjoyed Christmas,” she said.

“I haven’t,” he said. “But then I have never gone looking for stars before.”
And never with you before.
The words formed themselves in his mind, though he did not speak them aloud.

She laughed softly. “And is one to be found merely because one is looking for it?” she asked.

“But they are always there,” he said. “Sometimes we just forget to lift up our eyes and look at them.”

She let her head remain on his shoulder and gazed upward with him into a vast and mysterious universe that man so often forgot about, although it was always there and was always full of mystery and vastness.

My God, he thought, she was his wife. She belonged to him. She was his. For the first time in a long while he had someone who was his. His own family. His own to bring him comfort and companionship. His own to cherish and to love. My God! He was holding a treasure in his arms. What had her father said about treasures?

“The Bethlehem star is whichever star you want it to be,” Uncle Ben said. “Whichever one leads you to peace and hope and love. Whichever one
feels
like the right star
is
the right star.”

Uncle Sam chuckled. “He used to write poetry as a boy too,” he said.

“Ah,” Viscount Sotherby said. “But it is a lovely notion. It makes the Christmas story seem warmer and more personal.”

“Then that is my Bethlehem star because I choose to make it so,” the earl murmured warmly into his wife’s ear. “Yours and mine.”

She stood still against him, looking upward, her head against his shoulder, saying nothing. It was a magical silence for a while, a silence during which he felt closer to her than he had ever felt to another person. A silence during which he could believe that they had become one because they were man and wife. A silence during which he fell all the way in love with her.

But there was not really silence. There were voices around the fire. And there was the crackling of the flames as they died down. His attention was distracted and the magic was gone. Perhaps she stood against him because he had put her there and she was an obedient wife. Perhaps she was silent because she had nothing to say. Or nothing that could be said in the hearing of her family. Perhaps she was as distant from him, as hostile to him, as she had ever been. He felt the chill that succeeded the heat of the fire.

“Anyway,” he said, his voice its more cold and practical self again, “it is a pleasant, fanciful thought, is it not? And what is Christmas for unless for the indulgence of fancy?” He set firm hands on her shoulders and brought her upright and moved away with some of the other men to kick snow onto the dying flames.

“Piping hot chocolate back at the house for everyone?” he said cheerfully, raising his voice so that all could hear him. “And perhaps some brandy while it is being prepared? How does that sound?”

It sounded wonderful. Or so the loud chorus of voices assured him. And soon they were all trudging back to the house in merry groups of people who were, as usual, all trying to talk and all trying to make themselves heard by speaking one shade louder than the next person.

Eleanor, walking back to the house with her aunts and Bessie and Susan, felt cold and alone despite their cheerful chatter. And a little bewildered. Something—a nameless something—had been there within her grasp at the fire. She had leaned back against him and felt his broad shoulder beneath her head and his strong arms about her waist and known quite consciously that she was comfortable, even happy there. Even when she had thought of Wilfred and asked herself if she would be happier in his arms, she had been unable to feel any discontent.

He was her husband and somehow they were going to have to learn to live together. And during the course of the day it had come to seem a less impossible idea than it had at first. It had even begun to be a somewhat attractive idea. There had been that strange, smiling accord between them at the school. There had been his concern over Rachel and his promise to have a word with Sir Albert. There had been that kiss in the snow—her thoughts paused on that memory.

And there had been the fire and his arms and his shoulder and his voice. And the star he had picked out as his. And hers. Theirs. Their Bethlehem star, which was to lead them to hope and peace and love, according to Uncle Ben. She had believed it. Oh, she had been caught up completely in the unreality of the moment. She had believed it, and she had wanted it. With all her soul. With all her heart.

Then his voice again, quite matter-of-fact, telling her that it was a pleasant fantasy. She had been alone a moment later as he had helped put out the fire. She was alone now. Alone with her own foolishness. Only a little more than a month before he had married her, having set eyes on her only once, because he was in desperate need of money to pay off his debts and to enable him to live in the sort of luxury an earl must expect of life. She was of no importance to him. She was merely an encumbrance to him, and an embarrassment too. He had been ashamed of her behavior at the school that afternoon. Her cheeks burned with the humiliation of not having done there what she had been expected to do.

Not that she cared, she told herself. She had never wanted to be a lady. And never ever a countess. He had made her his countess because he had wanted Papa’s money. Well, he had the money. And he had her too. He was just going to have to take her as she was. She would be damned before she would change just to please him.

T
HERE WAS HOPE
. H
E
kept telling himself that. He had to keep telling himself that. There must be hope. It was just that he must be patient. And not greedy. For he knew that he could never have all that he wanted. He could never touch the Bethlehem star even if it did appear directly over his head and even if he did reach out for it.

She could never love him. Not in the way he now dreamed of being loved. Their marriage had been made under too difficult circumstances. She had not wanted to marry him and had not wanted to enter his world. She loved someone else. No, it was unrealistic to believe that she could come to love him.

But there was hope. There was always hope. Certainly there was something he must tell her. There was a barrier between them and it was largely of his own making since he had considered it unimportant when he first married her to force the truth on her. He had disdained to do so. Now he wanted her to know the truth. It was important to him.