Christmas Beau

Chapter 4

He liked her children. He supposed that it might have been easier if he had not done so, and he had not particularly expected to do so since they were hers-and Easton's. But then in many ways it was not surprising. He had something of a weakness for children.

He liked the sister-in-law too. She was unfortunately plain, with several pockmarks marring her complexion, and she was unusually small. He guessed that she was about his own age, well past the age of marriage for a woman. But there was an amiability about her and a kindness that he sensed. It was a pity that such women were so often denied the fulfillment of husbands and families.

Her friendliness, of course, and that of the children-even the little one could not maintain her shyness when there was something important to be said-could only make his task easier. It would all depend, he supposed, on the amount of power Judith Easton held over them and how well she liked to use that power even against their wishes. Her behavior of the afternoon before had suggested that making them happy was important to her. She had put up no fight against the proposed outing.

The Marquess of Denbigh rode out to the river and across the Blackfriar's Bridge during the morning. The icy fog that had gripped the city earlier was lifting and there was a magical, almost fairytale quality to the view below him on the river. Booths and tents were lined up in close and orderly formation on either side with a wide avenue of roughened ice between. Hawkers were loudly advertising their wares. Shoppers, sightseers, and the curious were wandering from stall to stall. There was a tantalizing aroma of cooking food wafting up to him.

It would do, he thought. He was fortunate that the rare occurrence of the Thames freezing over had happened at such an opportune time. He turned his horse's head for home again.

By the afternoon the fog had lifted right away and the sun was even trying, though not quite succeeding, to break through the high cloud cover. There was no significant wind. It was still cold, but pleasant for an outing. And the Eastons liked daily outings.

They were all ready to leave when he arrived, and came downstairs to the hallway without delay. The boy was openly excited. The little girl clung to her mother's cloak and smiled shyly at him from behind one of its folds until he looked at her. Then she disappeared altogether.

He bowed to them and bade them a good afternoon.

"The air is crisp," he said. "But you are all dressed warmly, I see. And there are warm foods and drinks down on the river, I have heard, and even a fire where meat is being roasted. I could smell it this morning."

"A fire on the ice?" Amy asked in amazement. "Will it not all melt?"

"Apparently not, ma'am," he said. "The ice is very thick indeed."

"Amazing!" she said.

He handed them into his carriage, lifting the little girl and setting her on her mother's knee. The boy scrambled in without assistance. Judith Easton had not said a word beyond the initial greeting and sat quietly and calmly smoothing her daughter's cloak over her knees.

"From my observations this morning," the marquess said, seating himself opposite Judith, his knees almost touching hers, and addressing his words to Amy, "it is quite a festive scene. The sort of excitement such an occasion engenders can also serve to make one quite unaware of the cold."

"To be quite honest," Amy said, "I would prefer extreme cold to extreme heat if I had to make a choice. Very hot summer days can quite sap one of energy."

The two of them carried on an amicable conversation during the journey while Kate stared wide-eyed from one

to the other of them and Rupert sat with his face pressed to the window, watching what passed outside.

"Oh," he said eventually, stabbing a finger against the pane, "there, Mama. There, sir, do you see? Look, Aunt Amy."

And then they were all leaning toward the one window, gazing down from the bridge at London's newest street.

"May we get down?" Rupert demanded. "Oh, just wait until Uncle Maurice hears about this."

'' We may," the marquess said. He looked across at Judith for the first time. The moss green of her bonnet and velvet cloak became her well, he thought. "Shall I instruct my coachman to return in two hours' time, ma'am?"

"As you wish," she said.

Two hours should be long enough for a start, he thought. He must not be impatient.

But the time passed quickly. There were vendors of everything one might want to buy from lace to boots, from books to smelling salts. And hawkers to persuade a person that he needed an item he had never felt a need of before. There were the tempting aromas of roasted lamb and pork pies and tarts and chestnuts and the less tempting one of cheap ale. And there were fortune-tellers and portrait painters and card playing booths and skittle alleys. There was everything one could possibly imagine for the entertainment of all.

Amy was enjoying herself. She was in London and at the very heart of its life and activity. And she was not alone but with her sister-in-law and nephew and niece. And they had the escort of a handsome gentleman. She felt more light-hearted than she had felt for years.

"I am going to have my fortune told,'' she announced recklessly when they came to the fortune-teller's booth.

Judith smiled at her.

"There can be nothing but good ahead for you, ma'am," the marquess said gallantly.

Amy stepped inside the dark tent and gazed about, fascinated. Oh, she had always loved fairs, though more often than not after her early girlhood she had been refused permission to go.

She sat down before the gaudy, veiled figure of the fortuneteller with her crystal ball and waited expectantly, feeling like a hopeful girl again and smiling inwardly at the thought.

But she was feeling disappointed a minute later-the fortune-teller must have mistaken her age, she thought-but only a little disappointed. She was in the land of make-believe and she refused to allow reality to intrude too chillingly.

Romance, the fortune-teller had predicted. With a gentleman she had not met yet but would meet soon. And children -lots of them. That was the detail that was most disappointing, since it was so obviously the most impossible.

But no matter. She would dream of her gentleman in the coming days and laugh herself out of melancholy when he failed to put in an appearance in her life. There was a whole fair waiting to be enjoyed outside the tent.

"Thank you," she said formally, getting to her feet.

"How very foolish," she said, laughing and blushing when she rejoined the others. "I am to find love and romance soon, it seems, with a gentleman I have never before set my eyes on, and am to live happily ever after. I wonder if she ever says anything different to any lady who is unmarried. One would, after all, feel that one had wasted one's money if one were told that there were only misery and loneliness ahead.'' She said nothing about the many children.

"Perhaps we should put the matter to the test," the marquess said. "Mrs. Easton must have her fortune told too."

"I have no wish to waste money on such nonsense," Judith said.

"Then I shall waste it for you," he said. "Come, we must find what delights life has in store for you."

"Yes, Mama,'' Rupert said, jumping up and down on the spot. "Go on."

"Go, Mama," Kate said.

She looked rather as if she were going to her own execution, the marquess thought, but she went. He in the meanwhile swung Rupert up onto his shoulders when the boy complained that he could not see for the crowds.

"You were quite right, Amy," Judith said when she came out of the tent. "My own fortune was remarkably similar to yours. As if I am looking for love and romance at this stage of my life!" Her tone was scornful.

"And what is he to look like?" Amy asked.

"Oh, tall, dark, and handsome, of course," Judith said, flushing. "What else?"

"Well, there our fortunes differ," Amy said. "Now it is your turn, my lord."

"It would be interesting, would knot?" he said. "I wonder how many tall, dark, and handsome ladies there are in England?"

Amy laughed.

"Down you go, then, my lad," the marquess said, setting Rupert down on the ice again. "I shall take you up again when I come out."

"I see much darkness in your life," the fortune-teller told him a few moments later. "And a great deal of light too. A great deal of light. But the darkness threatens it."

Lord Denbigh had never been to a fortune-teller before. He supposed that there were a few fortunes to be told and that each listener could be relied upon to twist the words to suit his own case. One merely had to be clever with vague generalities. He was amused.

"Ah," the fortune-teller said, "but Christmas may save you if you keep in mind that it is a time of peace and goodwill. I see a great battle raging in your soul between light and darkness. But the joy of Christmas will help the light to banish the darkness-if you do not fight too strongly against it."

Well. That was it? Nothing about romance and love and marriage and happily-ever-afters? That was to be reserved exclusively for the female customers? He rose and nodded to the fortune-teller. It would be a kindness to tell her, perhaps, that if all her women customers were to find the romance she promised them, then men should be alerted to their needs.

"Nothing," he said to the ladies when he went outside again. "There is to be no romance in my future, alas. Only the promise of a happy Christmas if I do not do something to spoil the occasion."

"Ah," Amy said. "How disappointing, my lord. But I am glad that you can expect a good Christmas."

He leaned down and swung Rupert up onto his shoulders again, Judith watched him, her lips tightening.

The marquess bought the children each a tart and all of them a hot drink of chocolate. And when Kate spotted a stall that sold ribbons, he bought her long lengths of green and red over Judith's protests and Amy's exclamations on his kindness.

"It amazes me," Amy said when they paused to watch the portrait painter draw his likenesses, "how he can hold the charcoal and wield it so skillfully without freezing his fingers off. But the portraits are quite well done.''

"Have your picture drawn with your good lady, guv'nor?" the artist's assistant asked, looking from the marquess to Judith. "And with the lovely children too, if you want, guv. 'Alf a sovereign for all four of you."

"No, thank you," Judith said quickly.

Rupert shouted with glee from his perch on the marquess's shoulders. "He is not our father," he exclaimed to the assistant.

Kate was tugging at Judith's cloak.

"Mama," she said when Judith looked down, "may I have my picture?"

"Your portrait done?" Judith said, smiling down at her and passing a hand beneath her chin. "You would have to sit very still and would get very cold."

"No longer than five minutes, mum," the assistant assured her briskly. "The child's likeness in five minutes, satisfaction guaranteed or your money back. Two and sixpence for the child, murn."

"A shilling," the marquess said. "One and sixpence if it is a good likeness."

"Done, guv," the assistant said. "And worth two shillings it will be if it's worth a penny. Let the little lady take a chair."

Kate smiled wonderingly up at the marquess and her mother and aunt and allowed Judith to seat her on the chair indicated. And she sat very still, her feet dangling a few inches above the ice, her hands clasped in her lap, only her eyes moving.

"How sweet she looks," Amy said. "Would you like to be next, Rupert?"

“Pooh,'' the boy said. "I don't want to sit for my picture.'' But he did squirm to be set down so that he could walk around to the side of the artist and watch the progress of the portrait.

Judith wandered to a book stall a few feet away after a couple of minutes. But she was not to be allowed to browse in peace. A man with one arm outstretched and draped from shoulder to wrist in necklaces of varying degrees of gaudiness accosted her and tried to interest her in his wares. Another man came up on her other side with a tray of bangles.

The marquess watched her laugh and shake her head, looking from one to the other. They moved in closer on either side of her, pressing their wares on her. Her reticule dangled from her right arm.

He walked toward her and set one hand lightly against the back of her neck. "You are not considering buying more baubles, are you, my love?" he asked, at the same time picking up her reticule and tucking it into the crook of her arm.

She looked around at him, her eyes wide and startled.

"These pearls for the lidy, guv?" the necklace seller asked. "Real pearls wiv a real diamond clasp? A bargain they are today, guv."

"I am sure they are," the marquess said. "Unfortunately the lady already has three different strings of pearls." He held up a staying hand. "And all the other jewels she could possibly wear in a lifetime."

The bangle seller had already faded away.

"You're missin' the bargain of a lifetime, guv," the hawker said, and he turned and made his way to a group of three ladies who had stopped nearby.

The marquess removed his hand from Judith's neck.

"That was one reason why you needed a male escort," he said.

"They were harmlessly trying to sell their wares," she said stiffly. "I did not need your interference, my lord."

"You would have been easy prey," he said. "They would not even have had to draw attention to themselves by racing off with your reticule. The bangle seller was lifting it so skillfully off your arm that you probably would not even have missed it until they had disappeared among the crowds."

She looked down at the reticule she now held against her side. "That is ridiculous," she said. "They were merely selling their wares."

"They were merely thieving," he said. "However, since no harm has been done, I suppose it does not matter if you do not believe me. But do be careful. This type of scene is a pickpocket's heaven."

"He was really about to steal my reticule?" she asked, frowning.

“As surely as the clasp on that pearl necklace was glass,'' he said.

She was looking directly into his eyes. He had never quite been able to put a name to the color of her eyes. They were notexacdy green, not exactly gray. They were certainly not blue-not altogether so, anyway. But they were bright and beautiful eyes, the colored circle outlined by a dark line, almost as if it had been drawn in with a fine pen. He had once fancied it possible to drown in her eyes.

"Thank you," she said. She did not smile. He knew that it had taken her a great effort to acknowledge her gratitude. She turned abruptly to the portrait painter's booth.

The portrait was finished and Kate was holding it in her hands and gazing at it wide-eyed. Her aunt was exclaiming in delight over it while Rupert regarded it critically, head to one side.

“Look, Mama.'' Kate held out the portrait for her mother's inspection. Judith took it and the marquess looked at it over her shoulder. A little girl sat stiffly on a chair, her feet dangling in space, her hands in her lap. Two large dark eyes

peeped from beneath the poke of a bonnet. It could have been any child anywhere.

"Oh, lovely," Judith said. "I will have to find a frame for it at home and hang it in my bedchamber. How clever of you to sit still all that time, Kate."

The marquess paid the assistant one shilling and sixpence. Kate was pulling on the tassel of one of his Hessian boots as he put his purse away in a safe inside pocket.

"Yes, ma'am?" he said, looking down at her.

She pointed upward and smiled at him. He stooped down closer to her.

"Ride up there," she said.

She weighed no more than a feather. He swung her up onto one shoulder and wrapper* an arm firmly about her. She put one arm about his head beneath his beaver hat and spread her palm over his ear. And she sat very still and quiet.

It was his one regret. No, perhaps not the Only one. But it was one regret of his life that he had not had children of his own. He had dreamed of it once, of course. When he was twenty-six years old he had been very eager to marry and begin his family. He had hoped that Judith would want several children. He had suffered too much loneliness himself from being an only child.

He should, he supposed, have shaken off his disappointment and his heartache more firmly and chosen again. He might still have found contentment with another woman and he might certainly have had his family.

But it seemed too late now at the age of thirty-four to begin the process of finding a woman with whom he might be compatible. He had loved once, and the experience seemed to have sapped all his desire to search for love again.

Rupert was holding his free hand, he realized suddenly, and telling him in his piping voice how he would skate like the wind if he only had skates with him. Faster than the wind. He would skate so fast that no one would even see him.

Judith walked to his side, her eyes on her children, almost as if she believed that he would disappear with them if she relaxed her vigil for one moment. Amy walked at his other side, still gazing about her with bright interest.

"I'm cold," Kate announced suddenly.

They were strolling back toward the bridge where the carriage was to meet them, and the slight movement of air was against their faces.

"It is chilly," Amy agreed, "though you were quite right in what you said earlier, my lord. The excitement of the occasion makes one almost forget that it is a cold winter's day."

"We will warm ourselves at the roasting fire," the marquess said, leading the way there.

And indeed the heat from the flames was very welcome. While Rupert dashed forward, his hands outheld, Lord Denbigh lifted Kate down carefully from his shoulder, stooped down behind her and unbuttoned his greatcoat to wrap about her, and held her little hands up to the blaze.

"Better?" he asked.

She nodded. He took her hands and rubbed them firmly together and then held them to the blaze again. He looked up at Amy.

"It feels good, does it not?" he said.

"Wonderful," she agreed.

He looked up at Judith. "Warm again?" he asked.

"Yes, thank you," she said.

"Only those wot's buyin' meat is welcome to warm their 'ands, guv," the man who was tending the cooking said, and he stretched out a hand to catch the shilling that the marquess tossed to him.

"Is that better?" the marquess asked Kate after a couple of minutes, rubbing her hands together again.

She nodded once more to him, turned, and raised her arms to him. He wrapped his coat more firmly about her and lifted her.

"I think the carriage will be waiting by the time we have strolled back to the bridge," he said. "Has everyone seen enough?"

"Oh, yes, indeed," Amy said. "This has been very wonderful, my lord."

"This has been the best day of my life," Rupert said.

"May I take Kate, my lord?" Judith asked. "She must be getting heavy."

"As light as a feather," he said, glancing down and realizing that the child had fallen asleep against his chest.

He had a strange feeling, almost as if butterflies were fluttering through his stomach. She was warm and relaxed inside his coat. He could hear her deep breathing when he bent his head closer. No, it was more than butterflies. He felt almost like crying.

She might have been his, he thought, if only things had turned out differently. She might have had his dark hair or her mother's fair coloring. He swallowed and shook off the thought.

Judith Easton had seen to it that that had never happened.

He allowed his coachman to help the ladies into the carriage and climbed in carefully himself in order not to waken the child. He shifted her in his arms so that she lay on his lap, her head on his arm. Her mouth fell open as her head tipped back.

"Poor Kate," Amy said. "She has tired herself out. But she has had such a very happy afternoon, my lord. I am sure she will not stop talking about this for days."

Judith Easton, the marquess saw as he looked steadily across the carriage at her, had her eyes on her daughter. She was biting at her lower lip.

"But there is so much in London to delight children," he said. "And adults too. You have not yet been to the Tower, Miss Easton?"

Judith's eyes lifted to his and held. He did not look away from her.

"No," Amy replied. "But we have been meaning to do so ever since we came to town, have we not, Judith? I am longing to see the Crown Jewels."

"The menagerie there is not as impressive as it used to be, I believe," he said. "But it is still worth a visit and is the delight of all children who see it."

"Yes!" Rupert said. "Is there a lion, sir?"

"There is," the marquess said. "And also an elephant."

"A lion!" Rupert said. "I wonder if it has ever eaten anyone."

"Oh, I don't believe so, dear," Amy said. "It must be in a safe cage.''

Judith lifted her chin slightly. She knew very well what was coming, the marquess thought, his eyes still on hers. And she knew that she was powerless to avert it.

"There are all sorts of armor and torture instruments on display too," he said, "including the block and ax with which people's heads used to be chopped off. Children inevitably enjoy seeing them even more than they enjoy the lion."

Rupert made a chopping motion at his own neck with the side of one hand.

"Perhaps you would allow me to escort you all there one afternoon, ma'am," he said. "It would be my pleasure."

He watched her mouth lift in a half smile, though there was no amusement in her eyes. She said nothing.

"Yes!" Rupert said. "May we, Mama?"

"How extraordinarily civil of you, my lord," Amy said, delight in her voice.

"Thank you," Judith said softly, that half smile still on her lips. "It would be our pleasure, my lord."

"Then it is settled," he said as his carriage jolted slightly to a halt outside their home. "Shall we say three afternoons from now?"

She inclined her head.

Five minutes later he drove away alone, having laid the child in her mother's arms inside the hallway of the house and declined an invitation to go upstairs for tea.

So Judith Easton was divining his game, was she? He wondered if she had even a glimmering of an understanding of the whole of it. And he wondered if she would be able to guard against it even if she did.

He would see to it that she did not. For the plan was now whole in his mind and he was quite confident of its success. The sister-in-law and the children were eating out of his hand already. And she cared for their happiness.

He would make it succeed. For now more than ever, having seen her again, having had some of the old wounds aggravated again, he wanted her to suffer. Almost exactly as he had suffered.

Almost exactly.

Judith carried the still-sleeping Kate upstairs to the nursery and laid her down carefully on her bed. She loosened the child's bonnet and slid it from her head, unlaced her boots and eased them off her feet.

Well, she thought, the Marquess of Denbigh was doing very nicely for himself. If punishment was his motive-and it must be that-then he was succeeding very well. Not only was he ruining the days and the evenings of her return to town and society, but he was insinuating himself very firmly into the approval and even the affections of her sister-in-law and her children.

Amy was already looking upon him as something of a hero. If she heard her sister-in-law talk one more time about his great civility and kindness, Judith thought, she would surely scream. And if Amy one more time suggested, as she had done after he came to tea and again a few minutes before when the door had closed behind him, that he had a tendre for her, Judith, and was trying to fix his interest with her, she would-scream. She most certainly would.

He had already won the children's confidence. It was hard to understand how he had done it. The man never smiled, and he had those harsh features and that stiff manner that had always half frightened her. And yet she could not push from her mind the images of Rupert riding on his shoulder and Kate huddled inside his greatcoat, her small hands in his large ones held out to the blaze of the fire. Or of Kate on his shoulder and Rupert's hand in his, her son's voice raised in excitement. Or of Kate asleep inside his coat and on his lap in the carriage.

Judith smoothed a hand over the soft auburn curls of her daughter and tiptoed from the nursery bedchamber.

She hated him. All the old revulsion and fear had been intensified into hatred. He was playing a game with her and for the time she seemed quite powerless to fight him.

She thought suddenly of his hand coming to rest against the back of her neck and the shudders and flames it had sent shooting downward through her breasts and her womb to her knees. And of his soft cultured voice calling her "my love." She fought breathlessness and fury.

Well, she thought, she could wait him out. If he thought that she would break, that she would lash out at him in fury- perhaps in public-and give him the satisfaction of knowing that his punishment was having its effect, then he would be disappointed. She could wait.

There was less than three weeks left before Christmas. He had said that he was going home to the country for the holiday. And it was unlikely that he would change his plans-he had mentioned the fact that he had invited guests. So she had perhaps two weeks at the most to endure. Probably less.

She could endure for that long. And when he returned to town after Christmas, he would find her gone. She would go back home to the country herself. Perhaps it would be cowardly to do so, but there would also be good reason for going. The children needed the greater freedom and stability of a country home in which to grow up, she told herself. It was all very well to have come to London for her own sake when her mourning period ended. But she would not be selfish forever. The countryside was the place for children.

Yes, she would endure for another two weeks. And after that he would be powerless to interfere further with her life.

And she would never give him the satisfaction of knowing that he had ruined this brief return to town for her.