A Christmas Bride / A Christmas Beau (10 page)

Edgar bowed.

“I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Downes,” Mrs. Cross said.

“How do you do, Mr. Downes?” He had forgotten how that velvet voice could send shivers down his spine.

“Lady Francis is a very pleasant lady,” Mrs. Cross said. “She is always very jolly.”

Yes, it was an apt description of Cora.

“And quite fearless,” Mrs. Cross continued. “I remember the year the Duchess of Bridgwater—the dowager duchess now, of course—brought her out. The year she married Lord Francis.”

“Ah, yes, ma’am,” he said. “The duchess was kind enough to give my sister a Season.”

“The next dance is a waltz,” the Countess of Thornhill said. “I have promised to dance it with Gabriel, though it is perhaps vulgar to dance with one’s own husband at one’s own ball. But then this is not a real ball but merely an informal dance among friends.”

“I think one need make no excuses for dancing with one’s husband,” Mrs. Cross said kindly.

Edgar could feel Lady Stapleton’s eyes on him, even though he looked intently at her aunt. He could feel that faint and characteristic scorn of her smile like a physical touch.

“Ma’am.” He turned his head to look at her. “Will you do me the honor of dancing with me?”

“A waltz, Mr. Downes?” She raised her eyebrows. “I believe I will.” She reached out one hand, though there was no necessity of taking to the floor just yet, and he took it in his.

“Mrs. Cross,” the countess was saying as Edgar led his partner onto the floor, “do let me find you a glass of
lemonade and some congenial company. May my husband and I have the pleasure of your company at the supper table when the waltz is at an end?”

Edgar’s senses were being assaulted by the heady mixture of a familiar and subtle perfume and raw femininity.

“W
ELL
, M
R
. D
OWNES
,” she said, turning to face him, waiting for the music to begin, “in your school for budding merchants, did they teach you how to waltz?”

“Well enough to keep me from treading on your toes, I hope, ma’am,” he said. “I was educated in a gentleman’s school. They allowed me in after I had promised on my honor never, under any circumstances, to drop my aitches or wipe my nose on my cuff.”

“One can only hope,” she said, “that you kept your promises.”

She was alarmed by her reaction to him. She felt short of breath. There was fluttering in her stomach, or perhaps lower than her stomach, and a weakness in her knees. She had vowed, of course, to ignore him completely tonight. But then she had not planned that very awkward introduction Lady Thornhill had chosen to make. Strange, that. It was just the sort of thing she would normally maneuver herself. But not tonight. She had not wanted to be this close to him again. He was wearing the same cologne. Though it seemed to be the smell of the very essence of him rather than any identifiable cologne. She had fancied even as recently as last night that there was a trace of it on the pillow next to her own.

He danced well. Of course. She might have expected it. He probably did everything well, from making love on down—or up.

“Are congratulations in order yet, Mr. Downes?” she asked to take her mind off her fluttering nerves—and to
shake his cool air of command. “Have you affianced yourself to a suitably genteel and fertile young lady? Or married her? Special licenses are available, as you must know.”

“Not yet, ma’am,” he said, looking at her steadily. He had been looking into her face since the music began. Was he afraid to look lower? But then he had seen all there was to see on a previous occasion. “It is not like purchasing cattle, you know.”

“Oh, far from it,” she agreed, laughing, “if by
cattle
you mean horses, Mr. Downes. I would not have asked you so soon if I must congratulate you if it were a horse you were choosing. I would know that the choice must be made with great care over an extended period of time.”

He stared at her for so long that she became uncomfortable. But she scorned to look away from him.

“Who hurt you?” he asked her, jolting her with surprise and even shock. “Was it your husband?”

The same assumption in two days by two different people. Poor Christian. She smiled at Edgar. “My husband treated me as if I were a queen, Mr. Downes,” she said. “Or to be more accurate, as if I were a porcelain doll. I am merely a realist, sir. Are your riches not sufficient to lure a genteel bride?”

“I believe my financial status and my personal life are none of your concern, ma’am,” he said with such icy civility that she felt a delicious shiver along her spine.

“You do that remarkably well,” she said. “Did all opposing counsel crumble before you in court? Were you a very successful lawyer? No, I will not make that a question but a statement. I have no doubt you were successful. Do all your employees quiver like jelly before your every glance? I would wager they do.”

“I treat my employees well and with respect,” he said.

“But I will wager you demand total obedience from
them,” she said, “and require an explanation when you do not get it.”

“Of course,” he said. “How could I run a successful business otherwise?”

“And are you the same in your personal relations, Mr. Downes?” she asked. “Am I to pity your wife when you have married her—after congratulating you, of course?” With her eyes she laughed at him. Her body was horribly aroused. She had no idea why. She had never craved any man’s mastery. Quite the opposite.

“You need feel nothing for my wife, ma’am,” he said. “Or for me. We will be none of your concern.”

She sighed audibly. “You are naive, Mr. Downes,” she said. “When you marry into the
ton
, you will become the concern of the
ton
. What else do we have to talk about but one another? Where can we look for the most fascinating scandals but to those among us who have recently wed? Especially when the match is something of a misalliance. Yours will be, you know. We will all look for tyranny and vulgarity in you—and will hope that there will not be only bourgeois dullness instead. We will all look for rebellion and infidelity in her—and will be vastly disappointed if she turns out to be a docile and obedient wife. Will you insist upon docility and obedience?”

“That will be for me to decide,” he said, “and the woman I will marry.”

She sighed again and then laughed. “How tiresome you are, Mr. Downes,” she said. “Do you not know when a quarrel is being picked with you? I wish to quarrel with you, but I cannot quarrel alone.”

For the first time she saw a gleam of something that might be amusement in his eyes—for the merest moment. “But I have no wish to quarrel with you,” he said softly, twirling her about one corner of the ballroom. “We are not adversaries, ma’am.”

“And we are not friends either,” she said. “Or lovers. Are we nothing, then? Nothing at all to each other?”

He gave her another of those long stares—even longer this time. He opened his mouth and drew breath at one moment, but said nothing. He half smiled at last—he looked younger, more human when he smiled. “We are nothing,” he said. “We cannot be. Because there was that night.”

She almost lost her knees. She was looking back into his eyes and unexpectedly had a shockingly vivid memory of that night—of his face this close, above hers.…

“Do you understand the etiquette of such sets as this, Mr. Downes?” she asked. “It is the supper dance. It would be unmannerly indeed if you did not take me in to supper and seat yourself beside me and converse with me. What shall we converse about? Let me see. Some safe topic on which people who are nothing to each other can natter quite happily. Shall I tell you about my dreadful experiences in Greece? I am an amusing storyteller, or so my listeners always assure me.”

“I believe I would like that,” he said gravely.

She almost believed him. And she almost wanted to cry. How absurd! She felt like crying.

She never cried.

I
T WAS AMAZING HOW FEW CHOICES COULD BE LEFT
one sometimes, Edgar discovered even more forcefully over the following month. He tried very hard not to fix his choice with any finality, simply because he did not meet that one certain lady of whom he could feel confident of saying in his heart that, yes, she was one he wished to have as his life’s companion, as his lover, as the mother of his children.

Miss Turner was of a suitable age, but he found her dull and physically unappealing. Miss Warrington was also of suitable age, and she was livelier and prettier. But her conversation centered almost entirely upon horses, a topic that was of no particular interest to him. Miss Crawley was very young—she even lisped like a child—and had a tendency to giggle at almost any remark uttered in her hearing. Miss Avery-Hill was equally young and very pretty and appealingly vivacious. She made very clear to Edgar that she would accept his courtship. She made equally clear the fact that it would be a major condescension on her part if she stooped to marry him.

That left Miss Grainger—and the Grainger parents. He liked the girl. She was pretty, modest, quiet without being mute, pleasant-natured. She was biddable. She would doubtless be a good wife. She would surely be a good mother. She would be a good enough companion.
She would be attractive enough in bed. Cora liked her. His father would, too.

There was something missing. Not love, although that was definitely missing. He did not worry about it. If he chose a bride with care, affection would grow and even love, given time. He was not sure quite what it was that was missing with Miss Grainger. Actually there was nothing missing except fortune, and that certainly was of no concern to him. He did not need a wealthy wife. If there was something wrong, it was in himself. He was too old to be choosing a wife, perhaps. He was too set in his ways.

Perhaps he would even have considered reneging on his promise to his father if matters had not appeared to have moved beyond his control. He found that at every entertainment he attended—and they were almost daily—he was paired with Miss Grainger for at least a part of the time. At dinners and suppers he found himself seated next to her more often than not. He escorted her and her mother to the library one day because Sir Webster was to be busy at something else. He went driving in the park with the three of them on two separate occasions. He was invited one evening to dinner at the Graingers’, followed by some informal musical entertainment. There were only four other guests, all of them from a generation slightly older than his own.

Cora spoke often of Christmas and began to assume that the Graingers would be coming to Mobley. She was working on persuading all her particular friends—hers and Francis’s—to spend the holiday there, too.

“Papa will be delighted,” she said at breakfast one morning after the topic had been introduced. “Will he not, Edgar?” Francis had just suggested to her that she write to her father before issuing myriad invitations in his name.

“He will,” Edgar agreed. “But it might be a good idea
to fire off a note to warn him, Cora. He might consider it somewhat disconcerting to find a whole gaggle of guests and their milling offspring descending upon him and demanding a portion of a lone Christmas goose.”

Lord Francis chuckled.

“Well, of
course
I intend to inform Papa,” Cora said. “The very idea that I might neglect to do so, Edgar. Do you think me quite addle-brained?”

Lord Francis was unwise enough to chuckle again.

“And everyone knows that my main function in life is to provide you with amusement, Francis,” she said crossly.

“Quite so, my love,” he agreed, eliciting a short bark of inelegant laughter from his spouse.

“And I daresay Miss Grainger will be more comfortable with Jennifer and Samantha and Stephanie there as well as me,” Cora said. “She is familiar with them and they with her. But she
is
rather shy and may find the combination of you and Papa together rather formidable, Edgar.”

“Nonsense,” her brother said.

“I did, Edgar,” Lord Francis said. “When I dashed down to Mobley that time to ask if I might pay my addresses to Cora, I took one look at your father and one look at you and had vivid mental images of my bones all mashed to powder. You had me shaking in my Hessians. You might have noticed the tassels swaying if you had glanced down.”

“And what gives you the idea,” Edgar asked his sister, “that Miss Grainger will be at Mobley for Christmas? Have I missed something? Have you
invited
her?” He had a horrid suspicion for one moment that perhaps she had and had forced his hand quite irretrievably.

“Of course I have not,” she said. “I would never do such a thing. That is for you to do, Edgar. But you will do it, will you not? She is your favorite and eligible in
every way. I love her quite like a sister already. And you did promise Papa.”

“And it is Edgar’s life, my love,” Lord Francis said, getting to his feet. “We had better go up and rescue Nurse from our offspring. They are doubtless chafing at the bit and impatiently awaiting their daily energy-letting in the park. Is it Andrew’s turn to ride on my shoulders or Paul’s?”

“Annabelle’s,” she said as they left the room.

But Cora came very close that very evening to doing what she had said she would never do. They were at a party in which she made up a group with the Graingers; Edgar; Stephanie, Duchess of Bridgwater; and the Marquess of Carew. The duchess had commented on the fact that the shops on Oxford Street and Bond Street were filled with Christmas wares already despite the fact that December had not even arrived. The marquess had added that he and his wife had been shopping for gifts that very day in the hope of avoiding any last-minute panic. Cora mentioned Mobley and hoped there would be some snow for Christmas. All their children, she declared—if she could persuade her friends to come—would be ecstatic if they could skate and ride the sleighs and engage in snowball fights.

“There are skates of all sizes,” she said, “and the sleighs are large enough for adults as well as children. Do you like snow, Miss Grainger?”

Edgar felt a twinge of alarm and looked pointedly at his sister. But she was too well launched on enthusiasm to notice.