by Mary Balogh
“Except for Harry,” Wren added. “Let us hope that the wars will be over by this time next year and we can all be together. Including this babe,” she added, patting her abdomen.
They were not the first to arrive, early though they were. Althea and Elizabeth, Alexander’s mother and sister, had come the week before, and Thomas and Mildred, Lord and Lady Molenor, had arrived the day before with their three boys, who had been let loose from school for the holidays—that was how one of them described their presence to Viola anyway. She loved them instantly—Boris, aged sixteen, Peter, fifteen, and Ivan, fourteen. They were polite, charming boys, who looked to her like three kegs of powder just awaiting a spark so that they could explode into activity and mischief.
Camille and Joel arrived the next day with Viola’s mother and the three children. Sarah fell instantly in love with Boris, who lifted her to one shoulder almost as soon as her feet were inside the nursery and galloped about the room with her while she clutched his hair and shrieked with fear and joy. Winifred eyed Ivan and informed him that he was her first cousin once removed since he was her mama’s first cousin and that he was four years older than she. If he would tell her when his birthday was, she would be able to tell him exactly how many more months than four years. Ivan looked at her rather as if she had two heads.
“March the twenty-fourth,” Peter told her. “Mine is May the fifth.”
“And mine is February the twelfth,” Winifred said. “I think.”
“You think?” Ivan said.
“I am not quite sure. I was an orphan before Mama and Papa adopted me,” she explained. “I was in an orphanage. Papa grew up there before me. And Cousin Anna.”
“Really?” Ivan’s interest had been caught, and Viola went back to the drawing room to speak with her mother.
Most of the other guests arrived before dark—and an unexpected one in the middle of the evening, long after dark.
“Whoever can that be?” Matilda asked when they heard the unmistakable rumble of wheels on the terrace below the drawing room.
“I hope it is not Anna and Avery and Louise,” her mother said. “The baby should be in her bed already.”
“And it is never safe to travel any distance after dark,” Matilda added. “Surely it is not them. Louise is far too sensible. Or perhaps they were afraid it would snow and so pressed onward.”
Alexander laughed. “There is one way of finding out,” he said, getting to his feet. “I shall go down.”
He came back less than five minutes later with a single traveler, a young man who strode into the room one step behind him, looked about him with eager good cheer, and went striding off toward his mother, arms outstretched.
“Hired carriages are an abomination,” he said. “I am convinced every bone in my body is in a different place from where it was when I started.”
Viola was on her feet without any awareness of how she had got there.
“Harry!” she cried before she was enfolded in his arms and hugged tightly enough to squeeze all the breath out of her.
“So,” he said, looking down at her while noise and exclamations of pleasure erupted about them, “where is the happy bridegroom?”
* * *
• • •
Viola felt as if at last she had come to the end of a tumultuous journey of close on three years. She was in the drawing room of Brambledean in the early evening, two days before Christmas, surrounded by her family—all her family except for the very young children, who were upstairs in the nursery, and she was thoroughly contented. She tested the word happy in her mind, but decided that contented was the better choice. Contentment was a good thing. Very good.
Finally she was able to accept with her whole being that Humphrey’s family was indeed hers too, even though their marriage had never been a valid one. They were her family because they had chosen her, not only during the twenty-three years when really they had had no choice, but in the close to three years since when they could have disowned her. And at last she had chosen them to be her family.
She gazed about the room from her position on a small sofa beside Althea, Alexander’s mother. They were all here—the Kingsleys, the Westcotts, and their spouses and older children. Ivan and Peter were playing a duet of dubious musical distinction on the pianoforte, and Winifred was leaning across the instrument on her forearms, watching their hands and making what were probably unhelpful suggestions when they hit one of their frequent wrong notes or contested the middle keys with some sharp elbow work. Viola’s mother and Mary were in conversation with Humphrey’s mother. Jessica and Abigail were squeezed onto another sofa on either side of Harry, while Boris was perched on a pouf in front of them. They were all absorbed in some tale Harry was telling. Camille and Anna had their heads together, talking about something. Wren and Joel and Avery were in conversation together.
It was, in fact, a warm family gathering. And there was even an extended family member present—Colin, Lord Hodges, Wren’s younger brother, who was currently living eight or nine miles away at Withington House, Wren’s former home, where Alexander had met her less than a year ago. He was a good-looking, good-humored young man who had caught the attention of both Abigail and Jessica earlier in the day. He was currently standing by the window, talking with Elizabeth, who was perched on the window seat.
The room was lavishly decorated for Christmas and smelled wonderfully of pine. Alexander and Thomas, Lord Molenor, had gone out to the stables and carriage house after luncheon to look at the sleds that had been stored away for years to see if they could possibly be used if it should indeed happen to snow. Most of the rest of them went out to gather greenery from the park—pine boughs and holly, ivy and mistletoe. Then they had all set to with a will to decorate the drawing room and the banisters of the main staircase. Matilda had marshaled a group to make a kissing bough, which now hung from the center of the ceiling and had been visited accidentally on purpose—as Avery phrased it—by several couples and a few noncouples. Harry had kissed Winifred and his aunt Matilda, who had told him to mind his manners, young man, and then had tittered and blushed. Boris had kissed Jessica and turned a bright red, even though she pointed out that they were cousins, you silly boy. Colin had gallantly kissed both Jessica and Abigail, and they had turned bright red.
The Yule log would be brought in tomorrow, Alexander promised, and then it would be Christmas indeed. The carolers would surely come from the village—they had promised anyway to revive that old tradition—and there would be a wassail bowl awaiting them and mince pies and a roaring fire in the hall.
Christmas was a happy time, Viola thought, content to be quiet while Althea knitted beside her and smiled about at the scene before her eyes. It was a family time, a time to count one’s blessings and fortify oneself for the year ahead. For the new year would bring changes, as all years did, some of them welcome, some a challenge. One needed to grasp the happy moments when one could and hug them to oneself with both arms.
Her blessings were many indeed. Someone from Harry’s battalion had needed to come back to England for a month or so to select recruits from the second battalion and train them rigorously for battle before taking them out to the Peninsula to bring the first battalion up to full strength again. He had volunteered for the unpopular task so he could attend his mother’s wedding. The letter in which she had informed him that there was to be no wedding after all had not reached him before he sailed for England. The armies moved about a great deal within Portugal and Spain. Often the mailbags were redirected several times over before they were delivered into the correct hands.
Viola was very glad that letter had not arrived. Harry looked healthier and more robust than he had looked several months ago when he had insisted upon going back earlier than he ought after recovering from his injuries. He was also leaner than he had been and . . . harder. There was something about his eyes, the set of his jaw, his very upright mil
itary bearing . . . It was impossible to put it quite into words. He had matured, her son, from the carefree, rather wild young man he had been at the age of twenty before his world collapsed along with hers and Camille’s and Abigail’s. He was a man now, still energetic and cheerful and full of laughter—with that suggestion of hardness lurking beneath it all.
But he was here, and she felt it would be impossible to be happier than she was right now. After Christmas, when she went back home, she would carry this feeling with her. She would make her happiness out of her family, though they would be dispersed over much of England. Not too far for letters, however, and she liked writing letters.
“Now who can be coming?” Matilda asked, and they all stopped what they were doing to listen. There were the unmistakable sounds of horses and a carriage drawing up outside the front doors. “Are you expecting anyone else, Wren?”
“No,” Wren said. “Perhaps one of the neighbors?”
But it would be a strange time for a neighbor to come calling uninvited.
“I shall go down and see,” Alexander said.
He was gone for several minutes. When he returned, they all looked at him inquiringly. There was no one with him.
“Harry,” he said. “Can I trouble you for a moment?”
“Me?” Harry jumped to his feet and strode toward the door. Alexander ushered him through it and closed it from the other side. The rest of them were left none the wiser about the identity or errand of the caller.
“If there is something I cannot abide,” Louise, Dowager Duchess of Netherby, said when neither man had reappeared after a few minutes, “it is a mystery. Can it be army business? Whatever can Harry do to help?”
At least ten more minutes passed before the door opened again. It was Harry this time, looking every inch the hardened military officer.
“Mama?” he said, and beckoned her.
“Well,” Mildred was saying as Viola left the room. “Is this some new sort of party game? Are we all to be summoned, one at a time?”
Viola stepped outside and Harry closed the door.
“The Marquess of Dorchester wishes to speak with you in the library,” he said. “If you wish to speak to him, that is. If you do not, I shall go and tell him so. I have made it quite clear to him that I will not allow you to be harassed.”
She stared at him in the flickering candlelight of one of the wall sconces.
“Marcel?” she said. “He is here?”
“But not for much longer if you do not want to see him,” he said. “I shall show him the door, and if he is reluctant to move through it, I will help him on his way.”
“He is here?” she said again.
He frowned. “You are not about to faint, are you, Mama?” he asked. “Do you want to see him?”
The reality of it was just striking her. He was here, at Brambledean. In the library.
“Yes,” she said. “Perhaps I ought.”
He was still frowning. “Are you sure?” he asked. “I will not have you upset, Mama. Not at Christmas. Not at any time, actually.”
“He is here,” she said. She did not phrase it as a question this time.
“Good God,” he said, “do you care for him, Mama? He looks like the very devil.”
“I want to see him, Harry,” she said.
He was here. He had come.
But why?
She went downstairs on her son’s arm and waited while a footman opened the library door. She slipped her arm from Harry’s and stepped inside.
And, oh, she could see what Harry had meant when he told her he looked like the very devil. His face was surely thinner than it had been, and harsher. He was wearing his many-caped greatcoat—she never had counted the capes—and looked large and menacing with the light of the fire behind him, his hands at his back. His eyes, dark and hooded, met hers.
“Marcel,” she said.
“Viola.” He made her a stiff half bow.
* * *
• • •
Marcel had been feeling savage—a not unfamiliar feeling whenever Viola was concerned. This was not something he ought to be doing. It was not something he wanted to be doing. He had never enjoyed making an ass of himself, and to do it deliberately, as he was doing now, was insanity.
Good God, that puppy had treated him as though he were a worm he would squash beneath his foot at the slightest encouragement. And Riverdale had stood just inside the door, as he was still doing now, hard faced and silent, like a damned jailer.
What he ought to do, he thought after the son had gone back upstairs, was leave right now without another word. And without waiting to be dismissed. He should stride from the room and from the house while some shred of dignity remained to him.
But no, it was too late for that. There was no shred left.
He had made a prize ass of himself.
All because he had wanted to prove something to his twins. That he loved them. And even that was a head scratcher. How could he prove he loved them by proposing marriage to a woman who had been about to leave him while they were having an affair, who had told him with perfect clarity after he had announced their betrothal that she was having none of it, who had repeated that rejection when she had come to Redcliffe, who had not uttered one word of protest when he had announced that they were not betrothed, and who had left his house the following morning as though she were being pursued by the hounds of hell?
Sometimes he wondered after all about the upbringing Jane had given those two. How could they have grown up so muddleheaded that they could believe that she loved him? How could they think he could possibly love her? And want to marry her? And why did they care after the way he had neglected them?
But here he was, and there they were, established in two far-from-luxurious rooms at the village inn nearby. They had seen him on his way as though they were sending him to his execution, Estelle teary eyed as she gave him a hug, Bertrand with tight lips and an unreadable expression and a handshake that might have ground to a powder all the bones in a lesser man’s hand.
“Good luck, Papa,” he had said.
It had almost been Marcel’s undoing. It was the first and only time his son had called him Papa. He had never managed even a Father before, but only a deferential sir.
Riverdale had had a servant come in to light the fire and had lit two branches of candles himself before he went upstairs to fetch Captain Harry Westcott and then took up his silent vigil inside and to one side of the door. The fire was warm at Marcel’s back now, but he did not remove his greatcoat. He felt damned silly. Here they were, two grown men standing silently in the same room, as though they had never heard of making polite conversation. The weather at least ought to have been a decent topic. It was surely going to snow, though it had not happened yet.
The door opened.
Estelle was quite right. Viola had lost weight, though not enough to detract from her beauty. And she did have dark shadows below her eyes, though they were not as pronounced as he had imagined. There was not a vestige of color in her face. Even her lips were pale. Her posture rivaled that of her military officer son.
“Marcel,” she said, her lips hardly moving.
“Viola.” He made her a half bow and looked from Westcott to Riverdale, his eyebrows raised. “Do we need nursemaids?”
It was probably not the best start he might have made, but he was damned if he was going to deliver a marriage proposal in the hearing of two men who would as soon run him through with a sword as give him the time of day.
“You can go back to the drawing room, Harry,” she said. “And you too, Alexander. They are all very curious up there to know who the visitor is.”
“There is a footman in the hall outside should you need him,” Westcott said, and they left, shutting the door behind them.
Marcel stared at Viola and she stared back before he
pulled impatiently at the buttons of his greatcoat and tossed it onto a nearby chair.
“I am not going to ask questions,” he said. “Not yet, at least. That would put the burden upon you, and I have been told that doing so would be unfair. I am going to make statements. To begin, I will say again that I thought it was going to be a brief, thoroughly enjoyable affair. I was right about everything except the brief part. I was not finished with you. I was annoyed when you were finished with me. That had not happened to me before. If only you had given me another week or so, I would have been done with you and ready to move on.”
“Marcel,” she said.
“No,” he said, holding up one hand, “I will not be distracted. That was what I thought. Then I made that rash and foolish betrothal announcement and felt angry and injured and blamed you. I had not been given the time to work you out of my system. You were still there when you came to Redcliffe. You were still there when I told everyone I was not going to marry you after all—and after you left. I could not rid myself of you.”
“Marcel—” she said again.
“I am not doing very well, am I?” he said. “I had a speech. At least I think I did. I do not think I planned to tell you that I could not rid myself of you. What I meant to say was that I could not forget you because you were there to stay. Because you are here to stay. In me. I hesitate to say in my heart. I would feel too much of an ass. And I suppose I should apologize for using that word. I am never going to be over you, Viola. I suppose I am in love with you. No, I do not suppose any such thing. I am in love with you. I love you. And if there is any chance, any remote possibility that you have changed your mind since that day on the beach, then please tell me and I will ask you to marry me. If there is no change, then I will go away and you need never see me again or listen to any more of this drivel.”
He stopped, appalled.