Under the Mistletoe

No Room at the Inn

The White Hart Inn, somewhere in Wiltshire-it had never been important enough for anyone to map its exact location on any fashionable map or in any guidebook, fashionable or otherwise-was neither large nor picturesque nor thriving. It was not a posting inn and had no compensating claim to fame-not its location, nor the quality of its ale or cuisine, nor the geniality of its host, nor anything, in short. It was certainly not the type of place in which one would wish to be stranded unexpectedly for any length of time.

Especially at Christmastime.

And more especially when the cause was not a heavy snowfall, which might have added beauty to the surroundings and romance to the adventure, but rain.Torrential, incessant rain, which poured down from a leaden sky and made a quagmire of even the best-kept roads. The road past the White Hart was not one of the best-kept.

The inn presented a picture of squatness and ugliness and gloom to those who were forced to put up there rather than slither on along the road and risk bogging down completely and having to spend Christmas inside a damp and chill carriage-or risk overturning and celebrating the festive season amidst mud and injuries and even possibly death.

None of the travelers who arrived at the inn during the course of the late afternoon of the day preceding Christmas Eve did so by design. None of them did so with any pleasure. Most of them were in low spirits, and that was an optimistic description of the mood of a few of them. Even the landlord and his good lady were not as ecstatic as one might have expected them to be under the circumstances that they had rarely had more than one of their rooms filled during any one night for the past two years and more. Before nightfall all six of their rooms were occupied, and it was altogether possible that someone else might arrive after dark.

“What are we going to give ’em to eat?” Letty Palmer asked her husband, frowning at the thought of the modest-size goose and the even more modest ham on which the two of them had planned to feast on Christmas Day. “And what are we going to give ’em to drink, Joe? There is only ale, and all of ’em are quality. Not to mention the coachmen what brought ’em ’ere.”

“It’ll ’ave to be ale or the rainwater outside,” Joseph Palmer said, a note of belligerence in his voice, as if his guests had already begun to complain about the plain fare at the White Hart. “And as far as vittles is concerned, they’ll ’ave to eat what we ’as and be thankful for it, too.”

But the guests had not yet begun to complain about the food and drink, perhaps because they had not yet had an opportunity to sample the fare on which it seemed likely they would have to celebrate Christmas.

Edward Riddings, Marquess of Lytton, cursed his luck. He had been fully intending to spend the holiday season in London as he usually did, entertaining himself by moving from party to party. The ladies were always at their most amorous at Christmastime, he had found from experience. Yes, even the ladies. There was always pleasure to be derived from a sampling of their charms.

But this year he had been persuaded to accept one of the invitations that he always received in abundance to a private party in the country.

Lady Frazer, the delectable widow, was to be at the Whittakers’ and had given him an unmistakable signal that at last she would be his there. He had been laying determined siege to her heart, or rather to her body, since she had emerged from her year of mourning during the previous spring. She had the sort of body for which a man would be willing to traverse England.

Yet now it was evident that he was neither to reach that body in time for Christmas nor to return to London in time to console himself with the more numerous but perhaps less enticing pleasures of town. Even if the rain were to stop at this very instant, he thought, looking out of the low window of the small and shabby room to which he had been assigned at the White Hart, it was doubtful that the road would be passable before Christmas Day at the earliest. And there were still twenty miles to go.

The rain showed no sign of abating. If anything it was pounding down with greater enthusiasm than ever.

If he were fortunate-but events were not shaping up to bring any good fortune with them-there would be a beautiful and unattached lady of not quite impeccable virtue also stranded at this infernal inn. But he would not allow himself to hope. There could not be more than five or six guest rooms, and he had already seen five or six of his fellow strandees, none of whom appeared even remotely bedworthy.

It was going to be some Christmas, he thought, gritting his teeth and pounding one fist against the windowsill.

Miss Pamela Wilder gazed from the window of her room and felt all the misery of utter despair. She could not even cry. She could not even feel all the awkwardness of her situation, stranded as she was at a public inn without either maid or chaperon. It did not matter. Nothing mattered except that her first holiday in more than a year was to be spent here at this inn, alone. She thought of her parents and of her brothers and sisters, and she thought of Christmas as she had always known it-except last year-at the rectory and in the small church next to it. There was warmth and light and wonder in the thought, until nostalgia stabbed at her so painfully that the memories could no longer bring any comfort.

They did not know she was coming. It was to be a surprise. Lawrence, one of Sir Howard Raven’s coachmen, had been given a few days off for Christmas and had even been granted permission to take the old and shabby carriage that was scheduled for destruction as soon as the new one was delivered. And his home was not ten miles from the rectory where Mama and Papa lived. Pamela had broached the subject very tentatively and quite without hope, first with Lawrence and then with Lady Raven, and wonder of wonders, no one had raised any objection. It seemed that a governess was not particularly needed at Christmastime, when young Hortense would have cousins with whom to play and greater freedom to mingle with the adults.

Pamela was free until two days after Christmas. Free to go home. Free to be with her family and spend that most wonderful time of the year with them. Free to see Wesley and hope that finally he felt himself well enough established on his farm to offer for her. Free to hope that perhaps he would at least ask her to betroth herself to him even if the wedding must be postponed for a long time. Having an unspoken understanding with him had not soothed her loneliness since she had been forced to take her present post more than a year before. She craved some more definite hope for the future.

Yet now she was to spend Christmas at the White Hart, eight miles-eight impossible miles-from home. Even if the rain were to stop now, there seemed little chance that she would make it home for Christmas Day. But the rain was not going to stop now or before the night was over at the very earliest. There was no point in even hoping otherwise.

She was hungry, Pamela realized suddenly, even though she was not at all sure she would be able to eat. How could she do so, anyway? How could she go downstairs alone to the dining room? And yet she must. She was not of any importance at all. There seemed little hope of persuading anyone to bring up her dinner on a tray.

What a Christmas it was going to be, she thought. Even last year had been better-that dreadful Christmas, her first away from home, her first in the status of a servant and yet not quite a servant. She had been able to celebrate the coming of Christ with neither the family nor the servants. Perhaps after all she would be no more alone this year than last, she thought in a final effort to console herself.

Lord Birkin stood at the window of his room, his lips compressed, his hands clasped behind him and beating a rhythmic tattoo against his back.

What a confounded turn of events.

“We should have come a week ago, like everyone else,” Lady Birkin said, “instead of staying in London until the last possible minute.”

She was seated on the edge of the bed behind him. He knew that if he turned and looked at her, he would see her the picture of dejection, all her beauty and animation marred by the rain and the poverty of her surroundings. She would hate having to spend Christmas here when they had been on their way to spend it with the Middletons and more than twenty of their relatives and friends.

“You would have missed the opera and the Stebbins’ ball,” he said without turning.

“And you would have missed a few days at your club,” she said, a note of bitterness in her voice.

“We could not have predicted the rain,” he said. “Not in this quantity anyway. I am sorry that you will miss all the Christmas entertainments, Sally.”

“And you will miss the shooting,” she said, that edge still in her voice. “And the billiards.”

He turned to look at her at last, broodingly. Marriage had turned out to be nothing like what he had expected. They were two people living their separate lives, he and Sally, with the encumbrance of the fact that they were legally bound together for life.

Were things quite as bad as that? They had been fond of each other when they had married, even though their parents on both sides had urged the match on them. He still was fond of her, wasn’t he? Yes, he was still fond of her. But somehow marriage had not drawn them closer together.

The occasional couplings, now no more frequent than once or twice a month, though they had not been married much longer than three years, brought with them no emotional bond. They both behaved on the mornings after the couplings as if they had never happened.

“I am sorry about the sparsity of rooms,” he said. “I am sorry we must share.”

His wife flushed and looked about the room rather than at him. It was going to be dreadful, she thought. Dreadful to be alone with him for what would probably be several days. Dreadful to have to share a room with him and a bed for that time. They had never shared a bed for longer than ten minutes at a time, and even those occasions had become rarer during the past year.

She had married him because she loved him and because she had thought he loved her, though he had never said so. Foolish girl. She must have appeared quite mousy to such a blond and beautiful man. He had married her because it was expected of him, because the connection was an eligible one. She knew now that she had never attracted him and never could. He rarely spent time with her. Their marital encounters were a bitter disappointment, and so rare that she did not even have the consolation of having conceived his child.

She knew about his mistresses, though he did not know that she knew. She had even seen his latest one, a creature of exquisite beauty and voluptuous charms. She herself had come to feel quite without beauty or charm or allure.

Except that she had not allowed herself to give in to self-pity. She had had a choice early in her marriage. Either she could retreat into herself and become the mousy, uninteresting thing he saw her as, or she could put her unhappiness and disappointment behind her and live a life of busy gaiety, as so many married ladies of her acquaintance did. She had chosen the latter course. He would never know for what foolish reason she had married him or what foolish hopes had been dashed early in their marriage.

“There is no point in apologizing for what cannot be helped, Henry,” she said. “Under the circumstances I suppose we are fortunate to have a roof over our heads. Though I could wish that it had happened at some other time of the year. It is going to be an unimaginably dull Christmas.”

She wondered what it would be like to lie all night in the large and rather lumpy bed with him beside her. Her breathing quickened at the thought, and she looked up at him with an unreasonable resentment.

“Yes,” he said. “Whoever heard of Christmas spent at an inn?”

“It would not have happened,” she said, hearing the irritability in her voice and knowing that she was being unfair, “if we had come a week ago, like everyone else.”

“As you keep reminding me,” he said. “Next year we will do things differently, Sally. Next year we will see to it that you are surrounded by friends and admirers well before Christmas itself comes along.”

“And that you have plenty of other gentlemen and gentlemen’s sports with which to amuse yourself,” she said. “Perhaps there will be some gentlemen here, Henry. Perhaps you will find some congenial companions with whom to talk the night away and forget the inconvenience of such congested quarters.”

“I can sleep in the taproom if you so wish,” he said, his voice cold.

They did not often quarrel. One or other of them usually left the room when a disagreement was imminent, as it was now.

“That would be foolish,” she said.

He was leaving the room now. He paused, with his hand on the doorknob.

“I doubt there is such a luxury as a private parlor in this apology for an inn,” he said. “We will have to eat in the public dining room, Sally.

I shall go and see when dinner will be ready.”

An excuse to get away from her, Lady Birkin thought as the door closed behind him. She concentrated on not crying and succeeded. She had perfected the skill over the years.

It was an excuse to get away from her, Lord Birkin thought as he descended the stairs. Away from her accusing voice and the knowledge that the worst aspect of the situation for her was being forced to spend a few days in his dull company. She did not sleep with any of her numerous admirers. He did not know quite how he could be sure of that, since he had never spied on her, but he did know it. She was faithful to him, or to their marriage, at least, as he was not. But he knew equally that she would prefer the company of any one of her admirers to his.

But she was stuck with it for several days. And at Christmas, of all times.

The Misses Amelia and Eugenia Horn, unmarried ladies of indeterminate years, had left their room in order to seek out the innkeeper. The sheets on their beds were damp, Miss Amelia Horn declared in a strident voice.

“Perhaps they are only cold, dear,” Miss Eugenia Horn suggested in a near whisper, embarrassed by the indelicate mention of bedsheets in the hearing of two gentlemen, not counting the innkeeper himself.

But her elder sister was made of sterner stuff and argued on. They were bitterly disappointed, Miss Eugenia Horn reflected, leaving the argument to her sister. They would not make it to dear Dickie’s house fifteen miles away and would not have the pleasure of their annual visit with their brother and sister-in-law and the dear children, though the youngest of Dickie’s offspring was now seventeen years old. How time did fly. They would all be made quite despondent by her absence and dear Amelia’s. Dickie was always too busy, the poor dear, to have them visit at any other time of the year.

Miss Eugenia Horn sighed.

Colonel Forbes, a large, florid-faced, white-haired gentleman of advanced years, was complaining to Lord Birkin, the innkeeper’s attention being otherwise occupied at the time. He deplored the absence of a private parlor for the convenience of his wife and himself.

“General Hardinge himself has invited us for Christmas,” the colonel explained. “A singular honor and a distinguished company. And now this blasted rain. A fine Christmas this is going to be.”

“We all seem to be agreed on that point, at least,” Lord Birkin said politely, and waited his turn to ask about dinner.

Sometimes the most dreaded moments turned out not to be so dreadful after all, Pamela realized when the emptiness of her stomach drove her downstairs in search of dinner. Although the dining room appeared alarmingly full with fellow guests and she felt doubly alone, she did not long remain so. Two middle-aged ladies looked up at her from their table, as did all the other occupants of the room, saw her lone state, and took her beneath their wing. Soon she was tucked safely into a chair at their table.

“Doubtless you expected to be at your destination all within one day, my dear,” Miss Eugenia Horn said in explanation of Pamela’s lack of a companion.

“Yes, ma’am,” she said. “I did not expect the rain.”

“But it is always wiser to expect the unexpected and go nowhere without a chaperon,” Miss Amelia Horn added. “You would not wish to give anyone the impression that you were fast.”

“No, ma’am.” Pamela was too grateful for their company to feel offended.

The Misses Horn proceeded to complain about the dampness of their bedsheets and their threadbare state.

“I suppose,” Miss Amelia Horn said, “that we should have expected the unexpected, Eugenia, and brought our own. It is never wise to travel without.”

The rain and all being stranded at the very worst time of the year had appeared to draw the other occupants of the room together, Pamela noticed. Conversation was becoming general. She looked about her with some curiosity, careful not to stare at anyone. A quiet gentleman of somewhat less than middle years sat at the table next to hers. He said very little, but listened to everyone, a smile in his eyes and lurking about his mouth. He was perhaps the only member of the party to look as if he did not particularly resent being where he was.

An elderly couple sat at another table, the man loudly and firmly condemning England as a place to live and declaring darkly that if the government did not do something about it soon, all sensible Englishmen would take themselves off to live on the Continent or in America. He did not make it clear whether he expected the government to do something about the excessive amount of rainfall to which England was susceptible or whether he was referring to something else. Whatever the cause, he was very flushed and very angry. His wife sat across the table from him, quietly nodding. Pamela realized after a while that the nodding was involuntary. They were Colonel and Mrs. Forbes, she learned in the course of dinner.

A young and handsome couple sat at another table, perhaps the most handsome pair Pamela had ever seen. The lady was brown-haired and brown-eyed and had a proud and beautiful face and the sort of shapely figure that always made Pamela sigh with envy. Her husband, Lord Birkin, was like a blond Greek god, the kind of man she had always found rather intimidating. They were clearly unhappy both with each other and with a ruined Christmas. Apparently they were on their way to a large country party. They were the sort of people who had everything and nothing, though that was a flash judgment, Pamela admitted to herself, and perhaps unfair.

There was another gentleman in the room. Pamela’s eyes skirted about him whenever she looked up. On the few occasions when she looked directly at him, her uncomfortable impression that he was staring at her was confirmed. He was not handsome. Oh, yes, he was, of course, but not in the way of the blond god. He was more attractive than handsome, with his dark hair and hooded eyes-they might be blue, she thought-and a cynical curl to his lip. She had met his like a few times since becoming a governess. He was undressing her with his eyes and probably doing other things to her with his mind. She had to concentrate on keeping her hands steady on her knife and fork.

“Oh. On my way home, ma’am,” she said in answer to a question Mrs.

Forbes had asked her. “To my parents’ home for Christmas.Eight miles from here.”

Everyone was listening to her. They were sharing stories, commiserating with one another for the unhappy turn of events that had brought them all to the White Hart. Only the quiet gentleman seemed to have had no Christmas destination to lament.

“I am a governess, ma’am,” she said when Miss Eugenia Horn asked her the question. “My father is a clergyman.” The gentleman of the lazy eyelids-the innkeeper had addressed him as “my lord”-was still staring at her, one hand turning his glass of ale.

The conversation turned to the food and a spirited discussion of whether it was beef or veal or pork they were eating. There was no unanimous agreement.

A governess, the Marquess of Lytton was thinking, daughter of a clergyman. A shame.A decided shame. Governesses were of two kinds, of course. There were the virtuous governesses, the unassailable ones, and there were the governesses starved for pleasures of the sexual variety and quite delightfully voracious in their appetites when one had finally maneuvered them between bedsheets or into some other satisfactory location. He judged that Miss Pamela Wilder was of the former variety, though one never knew for sure until one had made careful overtures.

Perhaps she would live up to her name.

She was certainly the only possibility at the inn. There had not appeared to be even any chambermaids or barmaids with whom to warm his bed. He had the uncomfortable feeling that he might be facing an alarmingly celibate Christmas if Miss Wilder were saving herself for a future and probably illusory husband. There was the delectable Lady Birkin, of course, but then he had never made a practice of bedding other men’s wives or even flirting with them, whether the husband was in tow or not.

Miss Pamela Wilder was the only possibility then. And a distinct possibility she was, provided she was assailable. She was slim, perhaps a little slimmer than he liked his women when there was a choice, but there was a grace about her figure and movements that he found intriguingly feminine and that stirred his loins, though he had drunk only two tankards of the landlord’s indescribably bad ale. Her face was lovely-wide-eyed, long-lashed, with a straight nose and a soft, thoroughly kissable mouth. Her hair was smooth and tied in a simple knot at her neck, as one would expect of a governess, but no simplicity of style could dim its blond sheen.

Two nights, probably three, at this inn, he thought, if they were fortunate. She could help Christmas pass with relative comfort, perhaps with enormous comfort. She might console him for the fact that the consummation of his lust with Lady Frazer must be postponed beyond the festive season.

The innkeeper and his wife did not seem to feel it would be diplomatic to discuss private business in private. Mr. Joe Palmer was refilling the gentlemen’s glasses with ale when the inevitable new arrivals came to the inn, looking for a room. Mrs. Letty Palmer came and stood in the doorway to discuss the matter with him just as if the room were not full of guests who had their own conversations to conduct.

“We don’t ’ave no room for ’em,” Mr. Palmer said with firm decision.

“They’ll ‘ave to go somewhere else, Letty.”

“There’s nowhere else for ’em to go,” Mrs. Palmer said. “We’re full with quality and their servants. They aren’t quality, Joe. I thought p’raps the taproom?”

“And ’ave ’em rob us blind as soon as we goes to bed?” Mr. Palmer said contemptuously, earning a roar of fury from Mr. Forbes when he slopped ale onto the cloth beside that gentleman’s glass. “We don’t ’ave no room, Letty.”

“The woman’s in the family way,” Mrs. Palmer said. “Looks as if she’s about to drop ’er load any day, Joe.”

“Oh, dear,” Miss Eugenia Horn said, a hand to her mouth. Such matters were not to be spoken aloud in genteel and mixed company.

Mr. Palmer put his jug of ale down on the cloth and set his hands on his hips. “I didn’t arsk ’er to get in the family way, now, did I, Letty?” he said. “Am I ’er keeper? What are they doin’ out in this weather anyway if she’s close to ’er time?”

“ ’Er man’s in search of work,” Mrs. Palmer said. “What shall we do with ’em, Joe? We can’t turn ’em away. They’ll drowned.”

Joe puffed out his cheeks, practicality warring with compassion.

“I won’t ’ave ’em in ’ere, Letty,” he said. “There’s no room for ’em and I won’t risk ’aving ’em steal all our valuables. And all these qualities’ valuables. They’ll ’ave to move on or stay in the stable.

There’s an empty stall.”

“It’s cold in the stable,” she said.

“Not with all ’em extra ’orses,” the innkeeper said. “It’s there or nowhere, Letty.” He picked up his jug and turned determinedly to the quiet gentleman. “They comes ’ere expectin’ a body to snap ’is fingers and make new rooms appear.” His voice was aggrieved. “And they prob'ly don’t ’ave two ’a’pennies to rub together.”

The quiet gentleman merely smiled at him. Poor devils, the marquess thought, having to sleep in the stable. But it was probably preferable to the muddy road. He would not think of it. It was not as if the inn itself offered luxury or even basic comfort. The dinner they had just eaten was disgusting, to put the matter into plain English.

“Poor people,” Lady Birkin said quietly to her husband. “Imagine having to sleep in a stable, Henry. And she is with child.”

“They will probably be thankful even for that,” he said. “They will be out of the rain, at least, and the animals will keep them warm.”

She stared at him from her dark eyes with an expression that never failed to turn his insides over. She had a tender heart and carried out numerous works of charity, though she always fretted that she could do so little. She was going to worry now about the two poor travelers who had arrived at safety only to find that there was no room at the inn. He wanted to reach across the table to take her hand. He did not do so, only partly because they were in a public place.

“Will they?” she said. “Be warm, I mean? The landlord was not just saying that? But it will smell in there, Henry, and be dirty.”

“There is no alternative,” he said, “except for them to move on. They will be all right, Sally. They will be safe and dry, at least. They will be able to keep each other warm.”

Her cheeks flushed slightly, and he felt a stabbing of desire for her-the sort of feeling that usually sent him off in search of his mistress and an acceptable outlet for his lust.

“I am going back upstairs,” she said, getting to her feet. He walked around the table to pull back her chair. “Are you coming?”

And impose his company on her for the rest of the evening? “I’ll escort you up,” he said, “and return to the taproom for a while.”

She nodded coolly, indifferently.

Her movement was the signal for everyone to get up except the quiet gentleman, who continued to sit and sip on the bad ale. But Lord Birkin did not wait for everyone else. He escorted his wife to their room and looked about it with a frown.

“You will be all right here, Sally?” he asked. “There is not much to do except lie down and sleep, is there?”

“I am tired after the journey,” she said.

He looked at the bed. It did not look as if it were going to be comfortable. He was to share it with her that night. For the first time in over three years they were to sleep together, literally sleep together. The thought brought another tightening to his groin. He should have slept with her from the start, he thought. He should have made it the pattern of their marriage. Perhaps the physical side of their marriage and every other aspect of it would have developed more satisfactorily if he had. Perhaps they would not have drifted apart.

He did not know quite why they had done so, or even if drifted were the right word. Somehow their marriage had never got properly started.

He did not know whose fault it was. Perhaps neither of them was to blame. Perhaps both of them were. Perhaps she had really been as fond of him as he was of her at the beginning. Perhaps they should have put their feelings into words. Perhaps he should not have given in to the fear that she found him dull and his touch distasteful. Perhaps he should not have treated her with sexual restraint, as his father and other men had advised, because she was a lady and ladies were supposed to find sex distasteful. Perhaps he should have taken her with the desire he felt-surely it was not disrespectful to show pleasure in one’s wife’s body.

Perhaps.Perhaps and perhaps.

“I’ll be up later,” he told her. “Don’t wait up for me.” You may sleep.

I’ll not be demanding my conjugal rights. He might as well have said those words too.

She nodded and turned away to the window, waiting for the sound of the door closing behind her and the feeling of emptiness it would bring. And the familiar urge to cry. It was Christmas, and he preferred being downstairs drinking with strangers to being alone with her.

She looked down into wet darkness and shivered. Those poor people-trying to get warm and comfortable in a dirty and drafty stable, trying to sleep there. She wondered if the man loved his wife, if she loved him.

If he would hold her close to keep her warm. If he would offer his arm as her pillow. If he would kiss her before she slept so that she would feel warm and loved even in such appalling surroundings.

She wiped impatiently at a tear. She did not normally give in to the urge to weep. She did not usually give in to self-pity.

The Misses Horn were busy agreeing with Mrs. Forbes that indeed it was dreadful that those poor people had to find shelter in a stable on such a wet and chilly night. But what could the husband be thinking of, dragging his poor wife off in search of work when she was in a, ah, delicate situation? There was a deal of embarrassed coughing over the expression of this idea and furtive glances at the gentlemen to make sure that none of them was listening. She would give the man a piece of her mind if she had a chance, Miss Amelia Horn declared.

The Marquess of Lytton got to his feet.

“Allow me to escort you to your room, Miss Wilder,” he said, offering her his arm and noting with approval that the top of her head reached his chin. She was taller than she had appeared when she entered the dining room.

She looked calmly and steadily at him. At least she was not going to throw a fit of the vapors at the very idea of being conducted to her bedchamber by a rake. He wondered if she knew enough about the world to recognize him as a rake, and if she realized that all through dinner he had been compensating for the appallingly unappetizing meal by mentally unclothing her and putting her to bed-with himself.

“Thank you,” she said, and rested her hand on his arm, a narrow, long-fingered hand. An artist’s hand. Either she was a total innocent or she had accepted the first step of seduction. He hoped for the latter.

He hoped she was not an innocent. It was Christmas, for God’s sake. A man was entitled to his pleasures at that season of the year above all others.

“This is an annoyance and a discomfort that none of us could have forseen this morning,” he said.

“Yes.” Her voice was low and sweet. Seductive, though whether intentionally so or not he had not yet decided. “Do you suppose they are dreadfully cold out there? Was there anything we could have done?”

“The couple in the stable?” he said. “Very little, I suppose, unless one of us were willing to give up his room and share with someone else.”

She looked up into his eyes. Hers had a greenish hue, though they had looked entirely gray from a farther distance. “I suppose that was a possibility,” she said. “Alas, none of us thought of it.”

He had, though he did not say so. Of course, if they did share a room that night, they could hardly go and advertise the fact to the Palmers.

The poor devils were doomed to their night in the stables regardless. A governess.A quiet, grave girl instead of Lady Frazer. A poor exchange, perhaps, though not necessarily so. The quiet ones were often the hottest in bed. And this one was definitely stirring his blood.

She knew that he had offered his escort not out of motives of chivalry, but for other reasons. Her employers entertained a great deal. She had learned something about men during the year of her service. She might have had half a dozen lovers during that time. She had never been tempted.

She was tempted now. She was twenty-three years old, eldest daughter of an impoverished clergyman, a governess. In all probability she was headed for a life of drudgery and humiliation and spinsterhood. She did not believe in her heart that Wesley would ever feel himself in a secure enough position to take her as a wife. Or perhaps he used insecurity as an excuse to avoid a final commitment. The hope of marriage with him was just the frail dream with which she sustained her spirits. It was in truth a dreary life to which she looked forward.

And now even the promised brief joy of this Christmas was to be taken away from her. Except that she could spend it with this incredibly attractive man. She did not doubt that he wanted her and that he would waste no time in sounding out her availability. She had even less doubt that he knew well how to give pleasure to a woman. She could have a Christmas of unimagined pleasure, a Christmas to look back upon with nostalgia for the rest of her life. Now, within the next few minutes, without any chance for her mind and her conscience to brood upon the decision, she could discover what it was like to be with a man, what it was like to be desired and pleasured.

She was tempted. The realization amazed her-she did not even know him.

She did not know his name. But she was tempted.

She stopped outside her door and looked up at him. “Thank you, sir,” she said. “The innkeeper called you ‘my lord’?”

“Lytton,” he said. “The marquess of. Green eyes, gray-which are they?”

“A little of both, my lord,” she said. A marquess. Oh, goodness. He was tall, broad-shouldered. “Thank you,” she said again.

He opened the door for her, but when she stepped inside he followed her in and closed the door behind his back. She had been expecting it, she realized. And she realized at the same instant that this was the moment of decision. She did not have any time in which to think, not even a minute.

“It is likely to be a lonely Christmas,” he said. “You away from your family, me from my friends.”

“Yes.” One of his hands had come up so that he could touch her cheek with light fingertips. She felt his touch all the way to her toes. His eyes-yes, they were blue-were keen beneath the lazy lids. She looked into them.

“Perhaps,” he said, “we can make it less lonely together.”

“Yes.” But no sound came out with the word.

She had been kissed before-twice, both times by Wesley. But the experience had not prepared her at all for the Marquess of Lytton’s kiss. It was not that it was hard or demanding. Quite the opposite, in fact. His lips rested as lightly against hers as his fingertips had against her cheek a few moments before. But they were parted, warm and moist, and they moved over hers, feeling them, caressing them, softening them, even licking at them. When his hands came to her waist to bring her against him, she allowed herself to be embraced and rested her body against his-against this hard, muscled, warm male.

He felt wonderful. He smelled wonderful. And he was doing wonderful things to her body, though his hands were still at her waist and his lips still light on hers. Then his hands moved up to her breasts and she knew that now-now, not one moment later-was the point of no return. Now she must stop it or move on to new experiences, to a new state of being.

She would be a fallen woman.

She was incredibly sweet. He had never known innocence, had never imagined how arousing it could be. She was yielding without being in any way aggressive. She held still to his touch without being in any way cringing. She was his, he knew, with a little skill and a little care.

And yet he knew equally that she was an innocent despite having allowed him inside her room and having allowed his kiss without any hesitation or coyness.

Her waist was soft, warm, small, with the promise of feminine hips below. He slid his hands up to her breasts. They were not large, but they were firm and soft all at the same time. Her nipples, he found when he tested them with his thumbs, were already peaked. She was his, he knew, despite the almost imperceptible stiffening he felt when his hands moved. He felt her indecision, but knew what that decision would be. He raised his head and looked down at her. She gazed back, wide-eyed.

“I had better say good-night,” he said, “before I go too far and get my face slapped. Yes, perhaps we can make each other less lonely for Christmas, Miss Wilder. I look forward to conversing with you tomorrow.”

“Yes,” she said, but he could not tell from her expression if she had been fooled. Did she really believe that he had meant nothing more than pleasant conversation and almost chaste good-night kisses as the means of soothing their loneliness at Christmas? Did she believe that he had not entered this room to bed her?

“Good night,” he said, inclining his head to her and letting himself out of her room. Fortunately there was no one to witness his leaving it.

Fool! he thought, his lip curling into a cynical half smile. He had been issued the sort of invitation he had never before in his life refused, and yet he had done just that. He had wanted her. He still did.

And yet he had put her from him and pretended that he had meant nothing more than a good-night kiss. He did not believe he had ever kissed a woman good-night and not expected more.

She would have had him, too. And she would have been sweet despite her innocence and inexperience. Of course, there would have been her virginity to take-he would wager his fortune that she was a virgin.

Perhaps that had been the problem, he thought, shrugging and turning in the direction of the staircase and the taproom. The thought of taking someone’s virginity frankly terrified him. He might be a rake, but he was not a corrupter of innocence. Especially when the girl was lonely and unhappy and incapable of making a rational decision.

All the men were in the taproom, though it seemed likely that they were seeking out one another’s company rather than their landlord’s ale, the marquess thought, grimacing as he tasted it again. Christmas would be beginning now at the Whittakers’, with all its rich and tasty foods and drinks and with all its congenial company. He pictured Lady Frazer and put the image from his mind with a mental sigh.

Lord Birkin did not stay long. He could not concentrate on the conversation. It was true that she did not seem to find his company of any interest, and equally true that she must be horrified at the thought of sharing a bed with him all night. But even so it seemed somehow wrong to sit belowstairs, making conversation with the other gentlemen guests while she was forced to be alone in their small and shabby bedchamber.

A candle still burned in their room, though she was lying far to one side of the bed with her eyes closed. He could not tell if she slept or not. He undressed, wondering if she would open her eyes, finding it strange to think that they had never allowed themselves to become familiar with each other physically. They had never seen each other unclothed. He wished again that it were possible to go back to the beginning of their marriage. He would do so many things differently. Now it seemed too late. How did one change things when patterns had been set and habits had become ingrained?

He blew out the candle and climbed into bed, keeping close to the edge.

But it was impossible to sleep and impossible to believe that she slept.

She was too still, too quiet. He almost laughed out loud. They had been married for longer than three years and yet were behaving like a couple of strangers thrown together in embarrassing proximity. But he did not laugh; he was not really amused.

“Sally?” He spoke softly and reached out a hand to touch her arm.

“Yes?”

But what was there to say when one had been married to a woman for so long and had never spoken from the heart? Patterns could not so easily be broken. Instead of speaking he moved closer and began the familiar and dispassionate ritual of raising her nightgown and positioning himself on top of her.

All their actions, hers and his, were as they always were. There were never variations. She allowed him to spread her legs, though she did not do it for him, and she lifted herself slightly for his hands to slide beneath. He put himself firmly inside her, settled his face in her hair, felt her hands come to his shoulders, and worked in her with firm, rhythmic strokes until his seed sprang. He was always careful not to indulge himself by prolonging the intercourse. She never gave the slightest sign of either pleasure or distaste. She was a dutiful wife.

And yet he wondered after he had disengaged himself from her and settled at her side why he carried out the ritual at all, since it brought neither of them any great pleasure and was not performed frequently enough for there to be any realistic expectation that she would conceive. Why did he do it at all when his desires and energies could be worked out on women who were well paid to suffer the indignity?

Perhaps because he needed her?Because he loved her? But of what use was his love when he had never been able to tell her and when he had never taken the opportunity to cultivate her love at the beginning, when she had perhaps been fond of him?

Lady Birkin lay still, willing sleep to come. Were they reasonably warm and comfortable in the stable? she wondered. Did the man care for his wife? Was she lying in his arms? Was he murmuring words of love to her to put her to sleep? Did her pregnancy bring her discomfort? What did it feel like to be heavy with child-with one’s husband’s child? She burrowed her head into the hard pillow, imagining as she often did at night to put herself to sleep that it was an arm, that there was a warm chest against her forehead and the steady beat of a heart against her ear. Her hand, moving up to pull the pillow against her face, brushed a real arm and moved hastily away from it.

Breakfast was late. It was not that the night before had been busy and exciting enough to necessitate their sleeping on in the morning. And it was certainly not that the beds were comfortable enough or the rooms warm and cozy enough to invite late sleeping. It was more, perhaps, lethargy, and the knowledge that there was not a great deal to get up for. Even if the rain had stopped, travel would have been impossible.

But the rain had not stopped. Each guest awoke to the sound of it beating against the windows, only marginally lighter than it had been the day before.

And so breakfast was late. When the guests emerged from their rooms and gathered in the dining room, it seemed that only the quiet gentleman had been sitting there for some time, patiently awaiting the arrival of his meal.

Greasy eggs and burned toast accompanied complaints about other matters.

Eugenia was sure to have taken a chill, Miss Amelia Horn declared, having been forced to sleep between damp sheets. Miss Eugenia Horn flushed at the indecorous mention of sleep and sheets in the hearing of gentlemen. Colonel Forbes complained about the lumps in his bed and swore there were coals in the mattress. Mrs. Forbes nodded her agreement. The Marquess of Lytton lamented the fact that the coal fire in his room had been allowed to die a natural death the night before and had not been resuscitated in the morning. Lord Birkin wondered if they would be expected to make up their own beds. Lady Birkin declared that the ladies could not possibly be expected to sit in their rooms all day long. In the absence of any private parlors, the gentlemen must expect their company in the taproom and the dining room. The other ladies agreed. Even Pamela Wilder nodded her head.

“That is the most sensible suggestion anyone has made yet this morning,” the Marquess of Lytton said, nodding his approval to Lady Birkin and fixing his eyes on Pamela.

The innkeeper’s wife was pouring muddy coffee for those foolish enough or bored enough to require a second cup. The innkeeper appeared in the doorway.

“You’d best come, Letty,” he said. “I told yer we should ’ave nothing to do with ’em. Now look at what’s gone and ’appened.”

“What ’as ’appened?” The coffee urn paused over the quiet gentleman’s cup as Mrs. Palmer looked up at her husband. “ ’Ave they gone and stole an ’orse, Joe?”

“I wish they ’ad,” Mr. Palmer said fervently. “I wish they ’ad, Letty.

But no such luck. ’E’s in the taproom.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “She’s ’aving ’er pains. In our stable, mind.”

“Oh, Lord love us,” Mrs. Palmer said. The quiet gentleman was still waiting for his coffee. “She can’t ’ave it there, Joe. Who ever ’eard of anyone ’aving a baby in a stable?”

The quiet gentleman smiled and appeared to resign himself to going without his coffee.

“Oh.” Lady Birkin was on her feet. “The poor woman.How dreadful.” She looked at her husband in some distress. “She must be taken extra blankets.”

“There ain’t no extra blankets,” Mrs. Palmer said tartly. “We ’ave a full ’ouse, my lady.”

Lady Birkin looked appealingly at her husband. “Then she must have the blankets from our bed,” she said. “We will manage without, won’t we, Henry?” She reached out a hand to him and he took it.

“Perhaps one from your bed and one from ours, Lady Birkin,” Mrs. Forbes said. “Then we will both have something left.”

“I have a shawl,” Miss Eugenia Horn said. “A warm woolen one that I knitted myself. I shall send it out. Perhaps it will do for wrapping the baby when it is, ah, born.” She flushed.

“And I will send out my smelling salts,” Miss Amelia Horn said. “The poor woman will probably need them.”

“I have a room,” Pamela said quietly. “She must be carried up there.”

“We don’t ’ave no other room to put you in, miss,” Mrs. Palmer said.

“And I won’t ’ave no one in the taproom,” Mr. Palmer added firmly.

“Then I shall sleep in the stable tonight,” Pamela said.

The Marquess of Lytton got to his feet. “Is the husband large and strong?” he asked the innkeeper. “If not, I shall carry the woman in from the stable myself. To my room. Miss Wilder may keep hers. And you will, my good man, have someone in the taproom. Tonight. Me.”

Mr. Palmer did not argue.

“I’ll lend a hand,” Lord Birkin said, and the two gentlemen left the room together, followed by Mr. Palmer.

“Perhaps,” Lady Birkin said, looking at the innkeeper’s wife, who appeared to have been struck with paralysis, “you should have coals sent up to Lord Lytton’s room to warm it.”

“Lord love us,” Mrs. Palmer said, “I ’ave breakfast to clear away, my lady, and dishes to wash before I gets to the rooms.”

Colonel Forbes puffed to his feet. “I have never heard the like,” he said. “I never have. An inn with no help. Where are the coals, ma’am? I shall carry some up myself.”

Mrs. Forbes nodded her approval as her husband strode from the room.

“I shall go up and get the bed ready,” Pamela said, “if you will tell me which room is Lord Lytton’s, ma’am.” She flushed rosily.

“That would be improper, dear,” Miss Eugenia Horn said. “Though, of course, it is not his lordship’s room any longer, is it? I shall come with you nevertheless.”

“Thank you,” Pamela said.

“And I shall go and fetch your shawl, Eugenia, and my smelling salts,”

Miss Amelia Horn said.

“You will send for a midwife?” Lady Birkin said to Mrs. Palmer.

“Oh, Lord, my lady,” Mrs. Palmer said. “There is no midwife for five miles, and she wouldn’t come ’ere anyhow for no woman what can’t pay as like as not.”

“I see,” Lady Birkin said. “So we are on our own. Have you ever assisted at a birth, Mrs. Palmer?”

The woman’s eyes widened. “Not me, my lady,” she said. “Nor never ’ad none of my own neither.”

Lady Birkin’s eyes moved past the Misses Horn and Pamela to Mrs. Forbes.

“Ma’am?” she said hopefully.

Mrs. Forbes ceased her nodding in order to shake her head. “I was forty when I married Colonel Forbes,” she said. “There was no issue of our marriage.”

“Oh,” Lady Birkin said. She looked around at the other ladies rather helplessly. “Then I suppose we will have to proceed according to common sense. Will it be enough, I wonder?”

Pamela smiled at her ruefully and left the dining room so that Lord Lytton’s former room would be ready by the time he carried up the woman from the stable. Pamela had been surprised by his offer both to give up his room and to carry the woman up to it. She would not have expected compassion of him.

The quiet gentleman picked up the urn, which Mrs. Palmer had abandoned on his table, and poured himself a second cup of coffee.

Lisa Curtis’s baby did not come quickly. It was her first and it was large and it appeared determined both to take its time in coming into the world and to give its mother as much grief as possible while doing so. Tom Suffield, the father, was beside himself with anxiety and was no help to anyone. Big, strapping young man as he was, he made no objection to the marquess’s carrying his woman into the inn and up the stairs, Lord Birkin hovering close to share the load if necessary. Tom was rather incoherent, accounting perhaps for his lack of wisdom in admitting to his unwed state.

“We was going to get married,” he said, hurrying along behind the two gentlemen while Lisa moaned, having had the misfortune to suffer a contraction after the marquess had picked her up. “But we couldn’t afford to.”

And yet, Lord Lytton thought, wincing at the girl’s obvious agony, they could afford a child. An unfair judgment, perhaps. Even the poor were entitled to their pleasures, and children had a habit of not waiting for a convenient moment to get themselves conceived.

A strange scene greeted them at the entrance to his former inn room-had he really given it up in a chivalrous gesture to counter Miss Wilder’s brave offer to sleep in the stable? Miss Amelia Horn was hovering at one side of the doorway, a woolen shawl of hideous and multicolored stripes clutched in one hand and a vinaigrette in the other. Mrs. Forbes was hovering and nodding at the other side. The room itself was crowded. He had not realized that it was large enough to accommodate so many persons.

Colonel Forbes was kneeling before the grate, blowing on some freshly laid coals and coaxing a fire into life. Both his hands and his face were liberally daubed with coal dust. He was looking as angry and out of sorts as he always did. Miss Eugenia Horn was at the window, closing the curtains to keep out some draft and a great deal of gloom. Lady Birkin was in the act of setting down a large bowl of steaming water on the washstand. Pamela Wilder was bent over the tidied bed, plumping up lumpy pillows and turning back the sheets to receive its new occupant. Lord Lytton, despite the weight of his burden, which he had just carried from the stable into the inn and up the stairs, pursed his lips at the sight of a slim but well-rounded derriere nicely outlined against the wool of her dress.

What a fool and an idiot he had been the night before! He might by now be well familiar with the feel of that derriere. She turned and smiled warmly at the woman in his arms. He found himself wishing that her eyes were focused a little higher.

“The bed is ready for you,” she said. “In a moment we will have you comfortable and warm. The fire will be giving off some heat soon. How are you feeling?”

“Oh, thank you,” Lisa said, her voice weak and weary as the marquess set her gently down. “Where’s Tom?”

“Here I am, Leez,” the young man said from the doorway. His face was chalky white. “How are you?”

“It’s so wonderfully warm in here,” the girl said plaintively, but then she gasped and clasped a hand over her swollen abdomen. She opened her mouth and panted loudly, moaning with each outward breath so that all the occupants of the room froze.

“Who is in charge?” the marquess asked when it appeared that the pain was subsiding again. He had felt his own color draining away. “Who is going to deliver the child?”

The one Miss Horn, he noticed, had disappeared from the doorway, while the other had turned firmly to face the curtained window. Obviously not them, and obviously not Miss Wilder. He must take her downstairs, away from there. But it was she who answered him.

“There is no one with any experience,” she said. She flushed. “And no one who has given birth. We will have to do the best we can.”

Hell, he thought. Hell and damnation! No one with any experience. A thousand devils!

“Sally,” Lord Birkin said, “let me take you back to our room. Mrs.

Palmer is doubtless the best qualified to cope.”

“Mrs. Palmer,” she said, her eyes flashing briefly at him, “has the breakfast to clear away and the dishes to wash and the rooms to see to.

I’ll stay here, Henry.” She turned to the girl, who was sitting awkwardly on the side of the bed, and her expression softened. “The stable must have been dreadfully dirty,” she said. “I have brought up some warm water. I will help you wash yourself and change into something clean. I have a loose-fitting nightgown that I believe will fit you.”

She looked up. “Will you fetch it, Henry? It is the one with the lace at the throat and cuffs.”

He looked at her, speechless. She, the Baroness Birkin, was going to wash a young girl of low birth who at present smelled of rankly uncleaned stable? She was going to give the girl one of her costly nightgowns? But yes, of course she was going to. It was just like Sally to do such things, and with such kindness in her face. He turned to leave the room.

“I’ll help you, my lady,” Pamela said. She stooped over the girl on the bed. “Here, I’ll help you off with your dress once the gentlemen have withdrawn. What is your name?”

“Lisa,” the girl said. “Lisa Curtis, miss.”

“We will make you comfortable as soon as we possibly can, Lisa,” Pamela said.

Miss Eugenia Horn coughed. “You must come with me away from this room, my dear Miss Wilder,” she said. “It is not fitting that we be here. We will leave Lisa to the care of Lady Birkin and Mrs. Forbes, who are married ladies.”

The Marquess of Lytton watched Pamela’s face with keen interest from beneath drooped eyelids. She smiled. “I grew up at a rectory, ma’am,” she said. “I learned at an early age to help my fellow human beings under even the most difficult of circumstances if my assistance could be of some value.”

It was a do-gooder sentiment that might have made him want to vomit, the marquess thought, if it had not been uttered so matter-of-factly and if her tone had not been so totally devoid of piety and sentiment.

“I think it will survive without your further help, Forbes,” the marquess said, looking critically at the crackling fire. “Let us see if our landlord can supply us with some of that superior ale we had last night, shall we? Join us, Suffield.”

He was rewarded with a grateful smile from Pamela Wilder. Lady Birkin was squeezing out a cloth over the bowl of water and rubbing soap on it.

Miss Eugenia Horn was preparing to leave the room and sights so unbecoming to maiden eyes.

It was strange, perhaps, that for the rest of the day all the guests at the White Hart Inn could not keep their minds away from the room upstairs in which a girl of a social class far beneath their own, and a girl moreover who was about to bear a bastard child, labored painfully though relatively quietly. Her moans could be heard only when one of them went upstairs to his own room.

“They should have stayed at home,” Colonel Forbes said gruffly. “Damn fool thing to be wandering about the countryside at this time of year and with the girl in this condition.”

“Perhaps they could not afford to stay at home,” Lord Birkin said.

Tom could not answer for himself. He had returned to the stable despite the offer of ale and a share of the fire in the taproom. He was pacing.

“The poor child,” Miss Eugenia Horn said, having decided that it was unexceptionable to talk about the child, provided she ignored all reference to its birth. She was sitting in the taproom, knitting a pair of baby boots. “One cannot help but wonder what will become of it.”

“Tom will doubtless find employment and make an honest woman of Lisa, and they and the child will live happily ever after,” the marquess said.

Mrs. Forbes nodded her agreement.

“It would be comforting to think so,” Lord Birkin said.

Mrs. Palmer, looking harried, was emerging from the kitchen, where she had given the guests’ servants their breakfast and washed the dishes, and was making her way upstairs to tidy rooms.

They were all increasingly aware as the day dragged on that it was Christmas Eve and that they were beginning to live through the strangest Christmas they had ever experienced.

“We might decorate the inn with some greenery,” Miss Amelia Horn said at one point, “but who would be foolhardy enough to go outside to gather any? Besides, even if some were brought inside, it would be dripping wet.”

“As far as I am concerned,” Colonel Forbes said, “there is enough rain outside. We do not need to admit any to the indoors.” No one argued with him.

They all began to think of what they would have been doing on that day if only they had had the fortune or wisdom to travel earlier and had reached their destinations. But the images of elegant and comfortable homes and of relatives and friends and all the sights and sounds and smells of Christmas did not bear dwelling upon.

Lord Birkin went back upstairs with his wife when she appeared briefly early in the afternoon to fetch more water from the kitchen. She had reported to all the gathered guests that there was no further progress upstairs. Poor Lisa was suffering cruelly, but appeared no nearer to being delivered than she had done that morning.

Lord Birkin took his wife by the arm when they reached the top of the stairs and steered her past Lisa’s room and into their own.

“Sally,” he said, “you are going to tire yourself out. Do you not think you have done enough? Should it not be Mrs. Palmer’s turn? Or Mrs.

Forbes’s?”

She sat down on the edge of the bed and he seated himself beside her.

“Mrs. Palmer is frightened by the very thought of becoming involved,” she said. “I can tell. That is why she is keeping so busy with other things. And Mrs. Forbes is quite inept. Well-meaning but inept. The few times she has come inside the room she has stood close to the door and nodded sweetly and clearly not known what she should do.”

“And you do know?” he said.

She smiled. “Some things come by instinct,” she said. “Don’t worry about me, Henry.”

“But I do worry,” he said, taking her hand and holding it in both of his. “And I blame myself for not bringing you from London sooner than I did. This is Christmas Eve, Sally. Have you realized that? You should be with Lady Middleton and all your friends and acquaintances now. You should be in comfort. The partying should have begun-the feasting and caroling and dancing. Instead we are stuck here. Not only stuck, but somehow involved with a girl who is giving birth. This is no Christmas for you.”

“Or for you,” she said. “It really does not seem like Christmas at all, does it? But we cannot do anything about it. Here we are and here Lisa is. I must return to her.”

“What is going to happen when it comes time for her to deliver?” he asked.

He had struck a nerve. There was fear in her eyes for a brief unguarded moment. “We will jump that hurdle when we come to it,” she said.

“You are afraid, Sally?” he asked.

“No, of course not,” she said briskly. But then she looked down at their clasped hands and nodded quickly. Her voice was breathless when she spoke again. “I am afraid that in my ignorance I will cause her death or the baby’s.”

He released her hand, set an arm about her shoulders, and drew her toward him. She sagged against him in grateful surprise and set her head on his shoulder.

“Without you and Miss Wilder,” he said, “she would be alone in the stable with the hysterical Tom. You are being very good to her, Sally.

You must remember that, whatever happens. I wish I could take you away from here. I wish I had not got you into this predicament.”

She nestled her head on his shoulder and felt wonderfully comforted. If this had not happened, they would be caught up in the gaiety of Christmas at this very moment, surrounded by friends. Except that they would not be together. As like as not, he would be off somewhere with some of the other gentlemen, playing billiards, probably, since the weather would not permit shooting.

“Don’t blame yourself,” she said. “Besides, it is not so very bad, is it? If we were not here, I fear that Pamela would have to cope alone.

That would be too heavy a burden on her shoulders. She is wonderful, Henry. So calm and brave, so kind to Lisa. Just as if she knew exactly what she was doing.”

“You sound like two of a kind, then,” he said.

She looked up at him in further surprise. His face was very close. “Do you think so?” she said. “What a lovely thing to say-and very reassuring. I feel quite inadequate, you see.”

He dipped his head and kissed her-swiftly and firmly and almost fiercely. And then raised his head and looked into her eyes as she nestled her head against his shoulder again. He very rarely kissed her.

She ached with a sudden longing and put it from her.

“I must go back,” she said. “Pamela will be alone with Lisa.”

“If there is anything I can do,” he said, “call me. Will you?”

Her eyes sparkled with amusement suddenly. “You will spend the rest of the day in fear and trembling that perhaps I will take you at your word,” she said.

He chuckled, and she realized how rarely he did so these days. She had almost forgotten that it was his smile and the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he laughed that had first attracted her to him. “You are probably right,” he said.

He escorted her back to Lisa’s room, though he did not go inside with her. She felt refreshed, almost as if she had lain down and slept for a few hours. Pamela was leaning over a moaning Lisa, dabbing at her brow with a cool, damp cloth. She looked around at Lady Birkin.

“Two minutes,” she said. “The pains have been two minutes apart for more than an hour now. It must be close, don’t you think, Sally?”

But it was not really close at all. There were several more hours of closely paced contractions and pain to live through.

Everyone moved from the taproom into the dining room for afternoon tea, just so that they might have a welcome change of scenery, Colonel Forbes said with a short bark of laughter. Lord Birkin, strolling to the window, announced that the rain appeared to be easing and that he hesitated to say it aloud but the western horizon looked almost bright.

“But it is happening too late, my lord,” Miss Amelia Horn said.

“Christmas has been ruined already.”

Mrs. Forbes sighed and nodded her agreement.

And yet they were all making an effort to put aside their own personal disappointments over a lost Christmas. They were all thinking of the baby who was about to be born and of the child’s destitute parents. Miss Eugenia Horn was still busy knitting baby boots. Mrs. Forbes, having recalled that she had no fewer than eight flannel nightgowns in her trunk, flannel being the only sensible fabric to be worn during winter nights, declared that she did not need nearly as many. She was cutting up four of them into squares and hemming them so that the baby would have warm and comfortable nappies to wear. Miss Amelia Horn was cutting up a fifth to make into small nightshirts. She had already painstakingly unpicked the lace from one of her favorite caps to trim the tiny garments.

Even the gentlemen were not unaffected by the impending event. Colonel Forbes was thinking of a certain shirt of which he had never been overly fond. It would surely fit Tom and keep him warm, too. By good fortune the garment was in the trunk upstairs-for the simple reason that it was one of his wife’s favorites. Lord Birkin thought of the staff at his London house and on his country estate. There really was no room for an extra worker. His wife had already foisted some strays upon him. He was definitely overstaffed. Perhaps some banknotes would help, though giving money in charity always seemed rather too easy. The Marquess of Lytton turned a gold signet ring on his little finger. It was no heirloom. He had bought it himself in Madrid. But it had some sentimental value. Not that he was a sentimentalist, of course. He drew it slowly from his finger and dropped it into a pocket. Sold or pawned, it would provide a family of three with a goodly number of meals. The quiet gentleman withdrew to the stable after tea to stretch his legs and breathe some fresh air into his lungs.

Pamela Wilder appeared in the dining room doorway when tea was over and immediately became the focus of attention. But she could give no news other than that Lisa was very tired and finding it harder to bear the pains. Miss Wilder looked tired, too, the Marquess of Lytton thought, gazing at her pale and lovely face and her rather untidy hair. Lady Birkin had sent her downstairs for a half-hour break, having had one herself earlier.

“The tea is cold, dear,” Miss Eugenia Horn said. “Let me get you a fresh pot. There is no point in ringing for service. One might wait all day and all night too if one did that.”

But Pamela would not hear of anyone else’s waiting on her. She went to the kitchen herself. The marquess was sitting in the taproom when she came out again, carrying a tray.

“Come and sit down,” he said, indicating the chair next to his own, between him and the fire, which he had just built up himself. “It is quieter in here.”

She hesitated, but he got to his feet and took the tray from her hands.

She sighed as she sat down and then looked at him in some surprise as he picked up the teapot and poured her cup of tea.

“Is she going to deliver?” he asked. “Or is there some complication?”

He liked watching her blush. Color added vibrancy to her face. ”I hope not,” she said. “Oh, I do hope not.”

“Do you have any idea what to do?” he asked. “Or does Lady Birkin?”

“No,” she said, and she closed her eyes briefly. “None at all. We can only hope that nature will take care of itself.”

Oh, Lord. There was a faint buzzing in his head.

“You are a clergyman’s daughter,” he said. “You were never involved with such, er, acts of nature?”

“No,” she said. “My mother made sure that I had a very proper upbringing. I wish I knew more.” She looked down at her hands. “I hope she does not die. Or the baby. I will always blame myself if they die.”

A thousand hells and a million damnations! He reached out and took one of her hands in his. “If they die-and probably they will not,” he said, “they will die in a warm and reasonably comfortable inn room instead of in a stable, and tended by two ladies who have given them unfailingly diligent and gentle care instead of by a hysterical boy.”

She smiled at him rather wanly. “You are kind,” she said.

He looked down at her hand and spread her fingers along his. “You have artists’ hands,” he said. “You must play the pianoforte. Do you?”

“Whenever I can.” She looked wistful. “We always had a pianoforte at the rectory. I played it constantly, even when I should have been doing other things. I was often scolded.”

“But there is no instrument at your place of employment?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “A beautiful one with the loveliest tone I have ever heard. I give my pupil lessons and try to steal a few minutes for myself whenever I can.”

He felt angry suddenly. “They have to be stolen?” he asked. “They are not granted?”

She smiled. “Mrs. Raven, my employer, suffers from migraine headaches,” she said. “She cannot stand the sound of the pianoforte.”

His jaw tightened. “It is not a good life, is it,” he said, “being a governess?”

She stiffened and withdrew her hand from his. She reached out to pick up her cup and raised it to her lips. “It is a living, my lord,” she said, “and a reasonably comfortable one. There are many women, and men too, far worse off than I. We cannot all choose the life we would live. You do not need to pity me.”

He looked at her broodingly. Her hand was shaking slightly, though she drank determinedly on. Did he pity her? He was not in the habit of pitying other mortals. No, he did not think it was pity. It was more admiration for her and anger against employers who evidently did not appreciate her. It was more the desire to protect her and see happiness replace the quiet discipline in her face-the desire to give her a pianoforte for Christmas, all wrapped about with red ribbons. His lip curled in self-derision. Was this unspeakably dull Christmas making him sentimental over a governess?

“What would you be doing now,” he asked her, “if it had not rained?”

She set her cup down in its saucer and smiled down into it, her eyes dreamy. “Decorating the house with the children,” she said. “Helping my mother and our cook with the baking.Finishing making gifts.Delivering baskets to the poor.Helping my father arrange the Nativity scene in the church.Getting ready to go caroling.Looking forward to the church service. Running around in circles wishing I could divide myself into about twelve pieces. Christmas is always very busy and very special at home. The coming of Christ-it is a wonderful festival.”

He took her hand again, almost absently, and smoothed his fingers over hers. He was the Marquess of Lytton, she reminded herself, and she a mere clergyman’s daughter and a governess. Last night he had held her and kissed her, and she had almost gone to bed with him. She was still not sure if she would have allowed the ultimate intimacy or if she would have drawn back at the last moment. But he had drawn back, and now they were sitting together in the taproom, talking, her hand in his. This was a strange, unreal Christmas.

“What would you be doing?” she asked. “If it had not rained, I mean.”

He raised his gaze from their hands, and she was struck again by the keenness of his blue eyes beneath the lazy lids. They caused a strange somersaulting feeling in her stomach. “Stuffing myself with rich foods,” he said. “Getting myself inebriated.Preparing to make merry and to drink even more. Flirting with a lady I have had my eye on for some time past and wondering if I would be spending tonight with her or if she would keep me waiting until tomorrow night.” One corner of his mouth lifted in an expression that was not quite a smile. “A wonderful way to celebrate the coming of Christ, would you not agree?”

Pamela found herself wondering irrelevantly what the lady looked like.

“I cannot judge,” she said. “We all have our own way of enjoying ourselves.”

“Yours is a large family?” he asked.

“I have three brothers and four sisters,” she said, “all younger than myself. It is a very noisy household and frequently an untidy one, I’m afraid.”

“I envy you,” he said. “I have no one except a few aunts and uncles and cousins with whom I have never been close.” He raised one hand and touched the back of a finger to her cheek. “I am sorry you have not been able to get home for Christmas.”

“I believe that everything that happens does so for a purpose,” she said. “Perhaps I was meant to be trapped here for Lisa’s sake.”

“And perhaps I was meant to be trapped here with you for… for what purpose?” he asked.

His eyes were looking very intently into hers. She could not withdraw her own. “I don’t know,” she said.

“Perhaps,” he said, and his voice was very soft, “to discover that innocence can be more enticing than experience. And far more warming to the heart.”

He raised her hand while she watched him with widening eyes and warming cheeks, and set his lips to it.

“I must be going back upstairs,” she said.

“Yes.” He lowered her hand. “You must.”

But the next moment they were both on their feet. Lady Birkin had appeared at the top of the stairs. She was looking distraught and was beckoning urgently.

“Pamela,” she called. “Oh, thank heaven you are there. Something is happening. Oh, please come.” And she turned and hurried out of sight again.

Pamela could feel the color draining from her head as she rushed across the room toward the staircase. She scarcely heard the quite improper expletive that was the marquess’s sole comment.

“Bloody hell!” he said.

The bed was soaked. Fortunately Mrs. Palmer had given them a pile of old rags and told them to spread some over the sheets. There was something about waters breaking, she had mumbled before scurrying away about some real or imagined chore. Pamela and Lady Birkin stripped away the wet rags and replaced them with dry ones. But Lisa was in severe distress.

She was panting loudly and thrashing about on the bed. Her moans were threatening to turn into screams.

“Hot water,” Lady Birkin said, trying to keep her voice calm. “I have heard that hot water is needed.”

“Lisa,” Pamela had a cool cloth to the girl’s brow. “What may we do for you? How may we help?”

But there was a feeling of dreadful helplessness, an almost overpowering urge to become hysterical or simply to rush from the room.

And then the door opened. Both Lady Birkin and Pamela looked in some surprise at the Marquess of Lytton, who stood in the doorway, his face pale. Perhaps they would have felt consternation, too, if they had not been feeling so frightened and helpless.

“I think I can help,” he surprised them both by saying. And he grimaced and turned even paler as Lisa began to moan and thrash again. He strode over to the bed. “I think she should be pushing,” he said. “The pain will subside soon, will it not? Next time we must have her in position and she must push down. Perhaps the two of you can help her by lifting her shoulders as she pushes.”

The two ladies merely stared at him. Lisa screamed.

“The Peninsula,” he said. “I was a cavalry officer. There was a peasant woman. There was a surgeon, too, but he had just been shot through the right hand. He instructed a private soldier and me. The private held her and I delivered.”

Lisa was quiet again, and the marquess turned grimly back to the bed.

“Raise your knees,” he told her, “and brace your feet wide apart on the bed. The next time the pain comes, I want you to bear down against it with all your strength. This little fellow wants to come out. Do you understand me?”

Through the fog of weakness and pain, the girl seemed to turn instinctively to the note of authority and assurance in his voice. She looked up at him and nodded, positioning herself according to his instructions. And then the fright came back into her eyes and she began to pant again.

“Now!” he commanded, and he pushed his hands forward against her knees through the sheet that still covered her to the waist while Lady Birkin and Pamela, one on each side of her, lifted her shoulders from the bed and pushed forward. Lisa drew a giant breath and bore down with all her might, pausing only to gasp in more air before the pain subsided again.

“Send down for hot water,” Lord Lytton said while Lisa relaxed for a few moments. “Go and give the instruction yourself, Pamela, but come right back. Someone else can bring it. But wait a moment. She needs us again.”

He was going to forget something, he thought as he pushed upward on the girl’s knees. He would forget something and either she or the child was going to bleed to death. Or there was going to be a complication, as there had not been with the Spanish peasant girl. This girl was already weak from a long and hard labor. Soon-perhaps after the next contraction-he was going to have to take a look and pray fervently that it was the child’s head he would see. He could recall the surgeon’s talking about breech births, though he had given no details.

And then between contractions, as he was about to draw the sheet back, there was a quiet voice from the doorway. It almost did not register on his mind, but he looked over his shoulder. He had not been mistaken. The quiet gentleman was standing there.

“I am a physician,” he repeated. “I will be happy to deliver the child and tend the mother.”

Anger was the Marquess of Lytton’s first reaction. “You are a physician,” he said. “Why the hell have you waited this long to admit the fact? Do you realize what terrors your silence has caused Lady Birkin and Miss Wilder in the course of the day?”

“And you, too, my lord?” The quiet gentleman was smiling. He had strolled into the room and taken one of Lisa’s limp hands in his. He spoke very gently. “It will soon be over, my dear, I promise. Then the joy you will have in your child will make you forget all this.”

She looked calmly back at him. There was even a suggestion of a smile in her eyes.

But the marquess was not mollified. Relief-overwhelming, knee-weakening relief-was whipping his anger into fury. “What the hell do you mean,” he said, “putting us through all this?” He remembered too late the presence in the room of three women, two of them gently born.

The quiet gentleman smiled and touched a cool hand to Lisa’s brow as she began to gasp again. “How could I spoil a Christmas that had promised to be so dismal for everyone?” he asked, and he moved to draw the sheet down over the girl’s knees. “The blood will probably return to your head faster, my lord, if you remove yourself. The ladies will assist me. Have some hot water brought up to us, if you will be so good.”

Lord Lytton removed himself, frowning over the physician’s strange answer to his question. Lady Birkin and Pamela, moving back to their posts, puzzled over it, too. What had he meant? Christmas might have been dismal but was not? Because of what was happening?

“Set an arm each about her back to support her as you lift her,” the quiet gentleman said. “Your labors, too, will soon be at an end, ladies, and you will experience all the wonder of being present at a birth. Ah.

I can see the head, my dear. With plenty of dark hair.”

“Ohhh!” Lisa was almost crying with excitement and exhaustion and pain.

But all sense of panic had gone from the room. Both Lady Birkin and Pamela were aware of that as the physician went quietly and efficiently about his work and Lisa responded to his gentleness. Her son was born, large and healthy and perfect-and crying lustily-early in the evening.

They were all crying, in fact. All except the doctor, who smiled sweetly at each of them in turn and made them feel as if it were not at all the most foolish thing in the world to cry just because one more mouth to be fed had been born into it.

Lisa was exhausted and could scarcely raise her arms to Tom when he came into the room several minutes later, wide-eyed and awed, while Lady Birkin was washing the baby and Pamela was disposing of bloodstained rags. Lisa accepted the baby from Lady Birkin and looked up with shining eyes into Tom’s face while he reached out one trembling finger to touch his son. But she had no energy left.

“I’ll take him,” Lady Birkin said, “while you get some sleep, Lisa. You have earned it.”

“Thank you, mum.” Lisa looked up at her wearily. “I’ll always remember you, mum, and the other lady.” Her eyes found Pamela and smiled. “Thank you, miss.”

And so Lady Birkin found herself holding the child and feeling a welling of happiness and tenderness and… and longing. Ah, how wonderful, she thought. How very wonderful. She acted from instinct. She must find Henry. She must show him. Oh, if only the child were hers. Theirs.

Word had spread. Everyone was hovering in the hallway outside Lisa’s room. The birth of a little bastard baby was the focus of attention on this Christmas Eve. The ladies oohed and aahed at the mere sight of the bright stripes of the shawl in which it was wrapped. But Lady Birkin had eyes for no one except her husband, standing at the top of the stairs close to the Marquess of Lytton and gazing anxiously at her.

“Henry,” she said. “Oh, look at him. Have you ever seen anything so perfect?” She could hear herself laughing and yet his face had blurred before her vision. “Look at him, Henry.”

He looked and smiled back up at her. “Sally,” he whispered.

“He weighs nothing at all,” she said. “How could any human being be so small and so light and so perfect and still live and breathe? What a miracle life is. Hold him, Henry.”

She gave him no choice. She laid the bundle in his arms and watched the fear in his eyes soften to wonder as he smiled down at the baby. The child was not quite sleeping. He was looking quietly about him with unfocused eyes.

Lord Birkin smiled. What would it be like, he wondered, to look down like this at his own child? To have the baby placed in his arms by its mother? By his wife?

“Sally,” he said, “you must be so tired.” She was pale and disheveled.

He had a sudden image of how she should be looking now, early in the evening of Christmas Eve, immaculate and fashionable and sparkling with jewels and excitement and ready to mingle with their friends far into the night. And yet he saw happiness now in her tired eyes-and breathtaking beauty.

The ladies wanted to hold the baby. And so he was passed from one to another, quiet and unprotesting. He was cooed over and clucked over and even sung to, by Miss Amelia Horn. The occasion had made even the Palmers magnanimous.

“Well,” Mr. Palmer said, rubbing his hands together and looking not unpleased. “I never did in all my born days.”

“I mean to tell Mr. Suffield,” Mrs. Palmer said in a voice loud enough for all to hear, “that we are not even going to charge ’im for the room.”

No one saw fit to comment on this outpouring of incredible generosity.

The Marquess of Lytton reached out both hands to Pamela when she came from the room. She set her own in them without thought and smiled at him. “Have you seen him?” she asked. “Is he not the most beautiful child you have ever set eyes on?”

“I’m sorry,” he said to her, squeezing her hands until they hurt. “I ripped up at the physician for keeping quiet so long, and yet that is exactly what I had been doing all day. You and Lady Birkin were wonderfully brave. I am sorry my own cowardice made me hide a fact that might have made your day less anxious.”

“I don’t think,” she said, gazing up into his eyes, her own filling with sudden tears, “that I would change one detail of this day even if I could. How glad I am that it rained!”

His eyes searched hers. “And so am I,” he said, raising both hands to his lips and continuing to regard her over them. “More glad than I have been of anything else in my life.”

“Anyway,” Colonel Forbes’s voice was declaring gruffly over the babble of voices in the hallway; it seemed that Mrs. Forbes had been trying to force him to hold the baby. “Anyway, this was a damned inconvenient thing to happen. What would have been the outcome if one of our number had not turned out to be a doctor, eh? Whoever heard of any woman having a baby at Christmas?”

The babble of voices stopped entirely.

The Marquess of Lytton’s eyes smiled slowly into Pamela’s. “Good Lord,” he said, and everyone kept quiet to listen to his words, “a crowd of marvelous Christians we all are. Did any of us realize before this moment, I wonder? We have, in fact, been presented with the perfect Christmas, have we not? Almost a reenactment of the original.”

“ ‘How could I spoil a Christmas that had promised to be so dismal for everyone?’ ” Pamela said quietly. “I think someone realized, my lord.”

“The child was very nearly born in a stable,” Lady Birkin said.

“It is uncanny enough to send shivers up one’s spine,” Miss Eugenia Horn said.

“I hope you have not caught a chill from the damp sheets, Eugenia,” Miss Amelia Horn said.

“I wonder,” Lord Birkin said, “if above the heavy rain clouds a star is shining brightly.”

“Fanciful nonsense,” Colonel Forbes said. “I am ready for my dinner.

When will it be ready, landlord, eh? Don’t just stand there, man. I would like to eat before midnight-if it is all the same to you, of course.”

Lady Birkin took the baby from Mrs. Forbes’s arms. “I’ll take him back to his mother,” she said, tenderness and wistfulness mingled in her voice.

“Back to his manger,” Lord Birkin said, laughing softly.

“Well, anyway,” Mrs. Palmer said to the gathered company as she cleared away the plates after dinner, “we didn’t keep ’em in the stable like them innkeepers did in the Bible. We gave ’em one of our best rooms and aren’t charging ’em for it neither.”

“For which deeds you will surely find a place awaiting you in heaven,” the Marquess of Lytton said.

“And yet it give me quite a turn, it did, when the colonel said what ’e did and we all thought of that other babe what was born at Christmas,”

Mr. Palmer said. He was standing in the doorway of the dining room, busy about nothing in particular. “I was all over shivers for a minute.”

“I am sure in Bethlehem there was not all this infernal rain,” Colonel Forbes commented.

“The kings would have arrived in horribly soggy robes and dripping crowns,” the marquess said. “And the heavenly host would have had drooping wings.”

“I am quite sure their wings were more sturdy than to be weakened by rain, my lord,” Miss Amelia Horn said. “They were angels, after all.”

Mrs. Forbes nodded her agreement.

“I think it would be altogether fitting to the occasion,” Miss Eugenia Horn said, “if we read the Bible story together this evening.”

“And perhaps sang some carols afterward,” Lady Birkin said. “Does everyone feel Christmas as strongly as I do tonight despite all the usual trappings being absent?”

There were murmurings of assent. Mrs. Forbes nodded. The quiet gentleman smiled.

“Does anyone have a Bible?” Lord Birkin asked.

There was a lengthy pause. No one, it seemed, was in the habit of traveling about with a Bible in a trunk.

“I do,” the quiet gentleman said at last, and he got to his feet to fetch it from his room.

And so they all spent a further hour in the dining room, far away from friends and families and parties, far from any church, far away from Christmas as any of them had ever known it. There were no decorations, no fruit cake or mince pies, no cider or punch or wassail. Nothing except a plain and shabby inn and the company of strangers become acquaintances. Nothing except a newborn baby and his mother asleep upstairs, cozy and warm because they had been taken from the stable and given a room and showered with care and with gifts.

The quiet gentleman himself read the story of the birth of another baby in Bethlehem, and they all listened to words they had heard so many times before that the wonder of it all had ceased to mean a great deal.

They listened with a new understanding, with a new recognition of the joy of birth. Even the one man who rarely entered a church, Lord Lytton, was touched by the story and realized that perhaps Christmas had not been meant to be an orgy of personal gratification.

Singing that might have been self-conscious, since there was no instrument to provide accompaniment, was, in fact, not self-conscious at all. Lady Birkin, Pamela Wilder, Colonel Forbes and, surprisingly, Miss Amelia Horn all had good voices and could hold a tune. Everyone else joined in lustily, even the tone-deaf Mrs. Forbes.

Lord Birkin left the room after a while. He found Tom Suffield in the kitchen, where he had been eating with the guests’ coachmen. Lisa and the baby were asleep, Tom explained, scrambling to his feet, and he did not want to disturb them. Lord Birkin took Tom through into the taproom.

“I don’t know what you are good at, Tom,” he said. “I can’t offer much in the way of employment, I’m afraid, but I can send you to my estate in Kent and instruct my housekeeper to find you work in the stables or in the gardens. I doubt there will be an empty cottage, but we will find somewhere where you and Lisa can stay for a while, at least.”

Tom shifted his weight awkwardly from one foot to the other. “That be awf’ly good of ye, sir,” he said, “but Mr. Cornwallis needs a cook and a handyman and have offered the jobs to me and Lisa.”

“Mr. Cornwallis?” Lord Birkin raised his eyebrows.

“The doctor, sir,” Tom said.

“Ah.” It was strange, Lord Birkin thought, that even though they had all introduced themselves the evening before, he had thought of Mr.

Cornwallis ever since only as the quiet gentleman. “I am glad, Tom. I hated to think of your taking Lisa and your baby to one of the industrial towns with no job waiting for you there.”

“Aye, sir,” Tom said. “Everyone is right kind. Thanks again for the money, sir. We will buy new clothes for the baby with it.”

Lord Birkin nodded and returned to the dining room.

The Marquess of Lytton found Tom just ten minutes later. “Having a woman and child and no home or employment is a burdensome situation to find yourself in, Tom,” he said.

“Aye, that it is, sir,” Tom said. “But I feels like a wealthy man, sir, with all the gifts. And with your gold ring, sir. And a home and a job from Mr. Cornwallis.” He told his tale again.

“Ah,” the marquess said. “I am glad to hear it, Tom. I was prepared to give you a letter of introduction to a friend of mine, but now I see you will not need it. I would like to give you a small sum of money, though.

Call it a Christmas gift to you personally, if you will. It is the price of a license. You must marry her, Tom. Such things are important to women, you know. And you would not wish to hear anyone calling your son a bastard.”

“Bless you, sir,” Tom said, flushing, “but Mr. Cornwallis is to marry us, sir, as soon as we gets to his home.”

“The physician?” the marquess raised his eyebrows.

“He’s a clergyman, sir,” Tom said.

“Ah.” The marquess nodded pleasantly to him and returned to the dining room. The quiet gentleman, he thought, was becoming more intriguing by the moment. Was he a physician or a clergyman? Or both?Or neither?

Lord Lytton seated himself beside the quiet gentleman and spoke to him while everyone else was singing. “You are a clergyman, sir?” he asked.

The quiet gentleman smiled. “I am, my lord,” he said.

“And a physician, too?” The marquess frowned.

“It is possible to be both,” the quiet gentleman said. “I am a clergyman, but not of a large and fashionable parish, you see. My time is not taken up by the sometimes tedious and meaningless duties I would have if I belonged to a large parish, and certainly not by the social commitments I would have if I had a wealthy patron. I am fortunate. My time is free to be devoted to the service of others. I am not distracted by the trappings of the established faith.” He chuckled. “I have learned to deliver babies. It is the greatest delight and the greatest privilege a man could experience. You discovered that once upon a time, I believe.”

“And the greatest terror,” the marquess said fervently. “I dreaded facing it again today. There was the terror of becoming the instrument of death rather than of life.”

“Ah,” the quiet gentleman said, “but we must learn to accept our limitations as part of the human condition. It is our Lord who controls life and death.”

The marquess was quiet for a while. “Yes,” he said. “We are all of us too busy, aren’t we? Especially at Christmastime. Too busy enjoying ourselves and surrounding ourselves with the perfect atmosphere to remember what it is all about. This unexpected rainstorm has forced us to remember. And you have helped too, sir, by sitting back and allowing us to face all the terror of imminent birth.”

“Without suffering there can never be the fullness of joy,” the quiet gentleman said.

The Misses Horn were rising to retire for the night, and everyone else followed suit. But they did not part to go to their separate rooms without a great deal of handshaking and hugging first.

“Happy Christmas,” they each said a dozen times to one another. But the words were not the automatic greeting they had all uttered during all their previous Christmases, but heartfelt wishes for one another’s joy.

Suddenly this Christmas-this dull, rainy disaster of a Christmas-seemed very happy indeed. Perhaps the happiest any of them had ever known.

And so Christmas Eve drew to an end. A baby had been born.

It was a little different when they were alone together in their room.

Some of the magic went from the evening. It was all right for her, Lady Birkin thought. She had been busy all day and directly involved in the wonder of the baby’s birth. Men were not so concerned about such matters. It must have been a dreadfully dull day for him.

“Henry,” she said, looking at him apologetically, as if everything were her fault, “I am so sorry that this is such a dull Christmas for you.”

“Dull?” He looked at her intently and took a step toward her so that he was very close. “I don’t think I have ever celebrated Christmas until this year, Sally. I am very proud of you, you know.”

Her eyes widened. “You are?” He so rarely paid her compliments.

“You worked tirelessly all day to help that girl,” he said. “You and Miss Wilder. I don’t know how Lisa would have managed without you.”

“But there was a physician in the house, after all,” she said. “What we did was nothing.”

He framed her face with his hands. “What you did was everything,” he said. “The doctor gave his skills. You gave yourself, Sally, despite being frightened and inexperienced.”

“Oh,” she said. She felt like crying. She had tried so hard to impress him since their marriage, dressing to please him, talking and smiling to please him. And losing him with every day that passed. And yet now he was looking at her with unmistakable admiration and… love?

“Henry,” she said, and on impulse she put her arms up about his neck.

“What is it about this Christmas? It is not just me, is it? Everyone has been feeling it. You too? What is so wonderful about it? This inn is not the inn, after all, and the baby is not Jesus, not even born in the stable.”

He slipped his hands to her waist. “We have all seen to the core of Christmas this year,” he said. “We are very fortunate, Sally. We might so easily have never had the chance. We have no gifts for each other.

They are somewhere with our baggage coach. And this inn has provided us with nothing that is usually associated with the season. We had all come to believe that Christmas could not possibly be celebrated without those things. But this year we have been forced to see that Christmas is about birth and life and love and giving of whatever one has to give, even if it is only one’s time and compassion.”

She should not say it, she thought. She might spoil everything. They never said such things to each other. There seemed to be a great embarrassment between them where personal matters were concerned. But she was going to say it. She was going to take a chance. That was what the whole day seemed to have been about.

“Henry,” she said. She was whispering, she found. “I love you so very much.”

He gazed into her eyes, a look of hunger in his own. He drew breath but seemed to change his mind. Instead of speaking he lowered his head and kissed her-an openmouthed kiss of raw need that drew an instant response of surprise and desire. She tightened her arms and arched herself to him. There was shock for a moment as she felt his hands working at the buttons down the back of her dress, and then a surge of happiness.

“I always have,” she said against his mouth. “Since the first moment I saw you. I have always worshiped you.”

She gasped when he lowered her bodice and her chemise to her waist, and her naked breasts came back against his coat. And then his hands were on them, cupping them and stroking them, and his thumbs and forefingers were squeezing her nipples, rolling them lightly until she felt such a sharp stab of desire that she moaned into his mouth.

“Henry,” she begged him, her eyes tightly closed, her mouth still against his, “make love to me. I have always wanted you to make love to me. Please, for this special day. Make love to me.”

She would die, she thought if he merely coupled with her as he had the night before and all those other nights since their marriage. She should not have said what she just had. She should not have given in to the temptation to hope. She should not have begged for what he had never freely given.

But she was on the bed before she could get her thoughts straight, before she could feel shame for her wanton words. She was flat on her back, and he was stripping away her clothes from the waist down, looking at her from eyes heavy with desire as he straightened up and began to remove his own clothes. She was surprised to find that she felt no embarrassment though the candles burned and those passion-heavy eyes were devouring her nakedness. She lifted her arms to him.

She had asked for it, begged for it, wanted it. He would not feel guilt.

This was not the way a gentleman used his wife, but they both wanted it.

They both needed it. He resisted the urge to douse the candles so that she would be saved from embarrassment. And as he joined her naked on the bed, he rejected the idea of somehow restraining his passion. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. For this one occasion, she had said. So be it, then.

He worked on her mouth with his lips and his tongue and on her breasts with his hands and his fingers. She fenced his tongue with her own and sucked on it. She pushed her breasts up against his hands and gasped when he pinched her nipples, hardening them before rubbing his palms lightly over them. Her own hands explored his back and his shoulders.

She wanted him. He felt a fierce exultation. She wanted him. This was not a mistress. This was his wife. This was Sally. And she wanted him.

He moved one hand down to caress her and ready her for penetration. She was hot and wet to his touch, something she had never been before. His temperature soared and his arousal became almost painful.

“Please,” she was moaning into his mouth. “Please. Henry, please.”

And so he moved on top of her, felt her legs twine tightly about his, lifted his head to look down into her face-her eyes were wide-open and gazing back-and mounted her, sliding deeply into wet heat. God. Oh, my God. Sally.

“Love me,” she whispered to him. “Oh, please, Henry. There is such an ache.”

She was going to come to him, he thought, the realization hammering through his temples with the blood. She was going to climax. He had heard that it was possible with some women.

“Tell me when.” He lowered himself on his elbows until his mouth was an inch from hers and he began to move slowly and deeply in her. “I’ll wait as long as you need.”

But she did not have to tell him. He felt the gradual clenching of her inner muscles, the building tension of her whole body. He heard her deep breaths gradually turn to gasps. And he watched the concentration in her face as her eyes closed and her mouth opened in the agony of the final moments before she looked up at him, stillness and wonder in her eyes, and began to tremble.

He lowered himself onto her, held her tightly, held himself still and deep in her, and let himself experience the marvel of his woman shuddering into release beneath him and crying out his name. Only when he was sure that she had experienced the full joy of the moment did he move again to his own climax.

It was the most wonderful night of her life. She did not care if it was never repeated. She had this to hug to herself in memory for the rest of her days, the most wonderful Christmas that anyone could hope to have.

She was nestled in his arms, watching him sleep. After more than three years of marriage she felt like a new bride. She felt… oh, she felt wonderful. And she would be satisfied, she swore to herself. She would not demand the moon and the stars. She had the Christmas star, the brightest and best of them all. She would be satisfied with that. Things could never be quite as bad between them now that they had had this night-or this part of a night.

He had opened his eyes and was looking at her. She smiled. Don’t remove your arm, she begged him with her eyes. Let’s lie like this, just for tonight.

“You said it,” he said. “It seemed to come so easily, though I know it did not. You have not been able to say it in three years, have you? Why have we found it so hard? Why is it so difficult to talk from the heart with those closest to us?”

“Because with them there is most fear of rejection?” she said. “Because we have to protect our hearts from those who have the power to break them every day for the rest of our lives?”

“I do not have your courage,” he said, one hand stroking lightly over her cheek. “I still don’t. Sally, my love… Ah, just that.My love.

Did I hurt you? Did I disgust you?”

“Say it again,” she said, smiling at him. “Again and again. And do it again and again. I want to be as close to you as I can be, Henry. Close to your body, close to your heart, close to your mind. Not just for tonight. I am greedy.”

“My love.” He drew her closer to him, set his lips against hers. “It is what I have always wanted, what I have always yearned for. But I have wanted to treat you with respect. Foolish, wasn’t I?”

“To think that being respectful meant holding me at arm’s length?” she said. “And giving much of what I have longed for to mistresses? Have I made you flush? Did you think I did not know? Yes, you have been foolish, Henry. And I have been foolish not to fight for your love and not to put you straight on this ridiculous notion that gentlemen seem to have about women.”

“Would this be happening if we had reached the Middletons’ before the rain came?” he asked her.

“No,” she said. “No, it would not. Perhaps it never would have happened.

We would have kept drifting until perhaps we would have lived apart.

Henry…” There was pain in her voice.

He rubbed his lips against hers and drew back his head to smile at her.

“But it did happen,” he said. “Christmas happened almost two thousand years ago, and it has happened this year for us. Love always seems to blossom at the most unexpected times and in the most unexpected places.

This was meant to happen, Sally. We must not shudder at the thought of how nearly it did not happen. It was meant to be.”

“Do you think we will ever have a child?” she asked him wistfully, snuggling closer to the warmth and safety of him. “I wanted so much today for that baby to be mine, Henry. Ours. Do you think we ever will?”

“If we don’t,” he said, and he chuckled as he drew her closer still, “it won’t be for lack of trying.”

“Oh,” she said.

“Shall we try now?” he said to her. “And perhaps again later?”

“And again later still?” she asked.

He laughed. “After all,” he said, “dawn comes late in December. And there does not seem to be a great deal to get up early for at this apology for an inn, does there? Especially not on Christmas morning.”

“Christmas morning is for babies,” she said.

“The making of them as well as the birthing of them,” he said, turning her onto her back and moving over her.

She smiled up at him.

“Sally,” he said, serious again as he lowered his mouth and his body to hers, “my most wonderful Christmas gift. I love you.”

It did not seem quite the same once everyone had gone to bed and he was left alone in the taproom. Even though he built up the fire and sat on a settle close to the heat, the place felt cheerless again. Christmas had fled again.

He thought of the Whittakers’ large and fashionable mansion and of Lady Frazer’s enticing beauty. He felt a moment’s pang of regret but no more.

He did not want to be there, he realized with a wry smile directed at the fire. He wanted to be exactly where he was. Well, not exactly, perhaps. There was a room upstairs and a bed where he would rather be.

But perhaps not. He could no longer think of her in terms of simple lust. There was a warmer feeling and a nameless yearning when he thought of her. Also a regret for wasted years, for years of senseless debauchery that had brought no real happiness with them.

They would not be able to travel during the coming day, Christmas Day.

Probably they would the day after. The rain had finally stopped, and the sky had cleared before darkness fell. He would have one more day in which to enjoy looking at her and in which to maneuver to engage her in conversation. One day-a Christmas to remember.

And then he looked up from his contemplation of the flames in the hearth to find her standing before him, looking at him gravely. She held a blanket and a pillow in her arms.

“I thought you might be cold and uncomfortable,” she said, holding them out to him. “It was very kind of you to give up your room for Lisa. You are a kind man.”

“I gave up my room,” he said, taking the pillow and blanket from her and setting them down beside him, “because you had tried to give up yours and I wanted to impress you with a show of chivalry. Kindness had nothing to do with it. I am not renowned for my kindness.”

“Perhaps because you sometimes try not to show it,” she said. “But I have seen it in other ways. You came to help Lisa give birth though it terrified you to do so.”

He shrugged. “I came for your sake,” he said. “And I did not help all day long, while you were exhausting yourself. In the event I did not help at all.”

“But you would have,” she said. “The intention was there. Tom showed me the ring you gave as a gift for the baby.”

He shrugged again. “I am very wealthy,” he said. “It was nothing.”

“No,” she said, still looking at him with her grave eyes, “it was something.”

“Ah,” he said, “then I have impressed you. I have achieved my goal.”

She stared at him silently. He expected her to turn to leave, but she did not do so.

“Do you know how you have affected me?” he asked. “I do not believe I have ever before refused an invitation to bed. That was an invitation you were issuing last night?”

She lowered her eyes for a moment, but she lifted them again and looked at him calmly. “Yes,” she said. “I suppose so.”

“Why?” he asked. “You are not in the habit of issuing such invitations, are you?”

She shook her head. “Sometimes,” she said, “I grow tired of the grayness of life. It was so full of color until a little more than a year ago, but there has been nothing but grayness since and nothing but grayness to look forward to. It is wrong of me to be dissatisfied with my lot, and normally I am not. But I thought this was going to be a disappointing Christmas.”

“And it has not been?” he asked.

“No.” She smiled slowly. “It has been the most wonderful Christmas of all.”

“Because of the baby,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, “because of him. And for other reasons, too.”

He reached out a hand. “Come and sit beside me,” he said.

She looked at his hand and set her own in it. She sat down beside him and set her head on his shoulder when he put an arm about her.

“I wanted you last night,” he said. “You know that, don’t you? And why I left you, the deed undone?”

“Because you knew I was inexperienced,” she said. “Because you knew me to be incapable of giving you the pleasure you are accustomed to. I understood. It is all right.”

“Because I realized the immensity of the gift you were offering,” he said. “Because I knew I could not take momentary pleasure from you.

Because any greater commitment than that terrified me.”

“I expected no more,” she said.

“I know,” he said. “That was the greatness of your gift.”

She sighed and set an arm across his waist. “I am going to remember this Christmas for the rest of my life,” she said. “It will seem quite unreal when I get back to my post, but I will remember that it really did happen.”

He turned his head, found her lips with his own, and kissed her long and lingeringly. Her lips were soft and warm and willing to part for him. He nibbled at them, licked them, stroked them with his tongue. But he would not allow passion to grow. It was neither the time nor the place for passion.

“I am a dreadful rake, Pamela,” he said. “My debauched behavior has been notorious for several years. Decent women give me a wide berth.”

She raised one hand and touched her fingertips to his cheek.

“But I have never debauched a married woman,” he said. “I have always held marriage sacred. I have always known that if I ever married, it would have to be to a woman I loved more than life itself, for I could never be unfaithful to her.”

Her finger touched his lips and he kissed it.

“Would you find such a man trustworthy?” he asked her.

“Such a man?” she said. “I don’t know. You? Yes. I have seen today, and last night, too, that you are a man of conscience and compassion.”

He took her hand in his and brought her palm against his mouth. “How do you think your father would react,” he asked, “to the idea of his daughter marrying a rake? Would my title and fortune dazzle his judgment?”

Her eyes grew luminous. “No,” she said. “But he would be swayed by kindness and compassion-and by his daughter’s happiness.”

“Would you be happy, Pamela?” he asked. “Would you take a chance on me?”

She closed her eyes and turned her face to his shoulder.

“It is absurd, isn’t it?” he said. “How long have we known each other?

Forever, is it? I have known you forever, Pamela. I have just been waiting for you to appear in my life. I have loved you forever.”

Her face appeared again, smiling. “I would be happy,” she said. “I would take a chance, my lord.”

“Edward,” he said.

“Edward.”

“Will you marry me, my love?” he asked her.

She laughed softly and buried her face again. She hugged his waist tightly. “Yes,” she said.

He held her wordless for a while. Then he slid one hand beneath her knees and lifted her legs across his. He reached beside him, shook out the blanket, and spread it over both of them. He settled the pillow behind his head, against the high wooden backrest of the settle.

“Stay with me tonight?” he murmured into her ear. “Just like this, Pamela? It is not the most comfortable of beds, but I will not suggest taking you to your room. I would want to stay with you, you see, and if we were there, I would want to possess you. I want that to wait until our wedding night. I want our bodies to unite for the first time as a marriage commitment. Are these words coming from my mouth?” He chuckled softly. “Are these the words of a rake?”

“No.” She turned her face up to his, her eyes bright with merriment.

“They are the words of a former rake, Edward-and never to be again. Does that sound dreadfully dull to you?”

He grinned down at her. “It sounds dazzlingly wonderful actually,” he said. “Pamela and only Pamela forever after. Are you comfortable?”

“Mm,” she said and snuggled against him. “And you?”

“A feather bed could not compete with this settle for softness and ease,” he said. He kissed her again, his lips lingering on hers. “Happy Christmas, my love.”

“Happy Christmas, Edward,” she said, closing her eyes and sighing with warm contentment.

Upstairs, in the room the Marquess of Lytton had occupied the night before, Tom kept watch over the mother of his child, who slept peacefully, and over his newborn son, who fussed in his sleep but did not wake. Tom stood at the window, gazing upward.

A single star almost directly overhead bathed the inn with soft light and glistened off acres of mud. It was not a pretty scene. Not a noticeably Christmas-like scene. The inn, somewhere in Wiltshire, was neither large nor picturesque nor thriving. No one has ever mapped its exact location.