Under The Mistletoe (7 page)

Separation from him after Christmas this year was going to be very much more painful than it had been last year, she thought as she let herself quietly into the nursery. Last year she had been upset, but she had also been disillusioned too. Part of her had been relieved to find herself alone. This year, though, she had seen another, warmer, more charming, more fun-loving side to her husband's personality. This year he had kissed her beneath the kissing bough and smiled at her. The house was going to seem empty indeed when he left.

Her life was going to seem empty indeed.

But she had been firm with her mother. She had asserted herself as mistress of Wyldwood. She had made progress. She was proud of herself.

Jeremy was waiting for her with noisy impatience, she heard even before she entered his room. She smiled. For longer than three months he had been her world, her life. He would continue to be after Christmas. How could she even think of emptiness when there was a baby to nurture and love?

Edward Chambers's baby and hers.

 

Elizabeth was sitting by the window of Jeremy's room in the dim light of one flickering candle, the baby at her breast. She looked up when Edwin opened the door from the nursery quietly and stepped inside, and pulled hastily at Jeremy's blanket in order to cover herself.

“I beg your pardon.” He moved a few steps closer to her. “I did not intend to embarrass you.”

But he was not going to go away either—not unless she directly asked him to. They had circled about each other for too long, he and his wife. He wanted to be a part of their son's life. Oh, yes, and of hers too.

She gazed at him tensely for a few moments before lowering her eyes and relaxing back into the chair. She smoothed her free hand over the soft golden down of the baby's hair, just visible above the blanket.

Edwin clasped his hands behind his back and watched.

They did not talk. The only sound that broke the silence was the hungry sucking of their child.

If only this moment could be immortalized, carried with him forever, Edwin thought. He felt absurdly close to tears. But he wondered which Elizabeth would leave the nursery with him when she had finished feeding the baby. The cold, dignified aristocrat he had known her as until today? Or the warm, smiling, quietly assertive woman she had been for much of today?

Was it just Christmas that had effected the change in her? Would she be herself again once Christmas was over? Even tomorrow, perhaps? But who
was
her real self? He really did not know her, did he? He had met her twice before their wedding, there had been the two weeks after it, and he had spent a few days here after Jeremy's birth, always with her mother in attendance. They were essentially strangers.

He had never been particularly shy with women. He had not known many sexually, but he was acquainted with many as friends and had looked forward to making a marriage for companionship and affection as well as for physical gratification. He still had female friends. But Elizabeth was different. It was not so much that he was shy with her as that he was a little in awe of her—though he was not in awe of her mother. Elizabeth seemed the perfect lady to him, someone far above him in some indefinable way. The feeling annoyed him. He had never been awed by social rank.

The sucking noises gradually slowed and then stopped altogether. Edwin stepped forward and lifted the sleeping baby from his wife's arms as she set the bodice of her dress to rights. He turned and set the child down gently in his crib after kissing his soft, warm cheek and breathing in the baby smell of him.

It was Christmas Eve, he thought. He did not want to end it.

He held the door open for Elizabeth to precede him into the nursery and then the door into the corridor beyond. He closed it behind them.

She turned to say good-night to him. He could read her intent as she drew breath.

“Elizabeth,” he said quickly, before he could be caught again in the grip of his eternal awkwardness with her, “may I come to you tonight?”

He knew even as he asked that she would not refuse. She had always been the perfectly obedient wife—he must grant her that. But he desperately wanted to see the light of something more than duty in her eyes.

“Yes, of course,” she said with her customary quiet dignity.

He offered his arm and she took it, her hand exerting very little pressure on his sleeve. They did not speak a word as he led her to her room, opened the door for her, and bowed. She stepped inside, and he closed the door from the outside.

What had happened to the warmly happy woman he had seen a few times in the course of the day? he wondered. She seemed to have disappeared. Was this to be an ordeal to her? And why would he want it when the two weeks following their wedding had brought him no pleasure at all?

But he was mortally tired of wondering and guessing. He wanted her. It was up to him, he supposed, to bed her in such a way that at least it would not be a repulsive experience for her. But damn it, that was exactly the attitude with which he had approached her bed during those two ghastly weeks. It was up to him to see to it that their coupling was a pleasurable experience for her.

He turned in the direction of his own room, next to his wife's.

 

Elizabeth stood looking out through the window. The snow had stopped falling, but the sky must still be cloudy. There was not a star in sight. The snow made the landscape unnaturally bright, though. It was Christmas Eve, soon to be Christmas Day

She shivered. Not that she was really cold. There was a fire burning in the hearth, and she was wearing a long-sleeved, high-necked nightgown—the lace-trimmed one she had worn on her wedding night last year. Indeed, she felt almost too warm.

With what high expectations she had awaited him on that night just a little over a year ago. She had fully expected a happily-ever-after. How disappointed she had been.

And this year? Did she have expectations now? She knew what it would feel like, not unpleasant but . . . disappointing. She longed for it anyway, for that touch of intimacy, that illusion of closeness.

And what were her expectations of the future?
Was
there a future? It was best not to think of it. After all, there never was a future, only an eternal present moment, all too often lost because human nature had a tendency to yearn toward the nonexistent future. What did it matter that he might leave the day after tomorrow and not return for months or even a year? Tonight he was here, and he was coming to her bed.

There was a light tap on the door of her bedchamber even as she thought it, and it opened before she could either cross the room or call out.

He was wearing a long dressing robe of green brocade with slippers. His blond hair had been brushed until it shone. He was freshly shaved.

It was like their wedding night all over again. Elizabeth could hear her heartbeat thudding in her ears. She clasped her hands loosely before her and concentrated upon relaxing, or at least upon not showing any of the turmoil of her feelings.

“You told me you have always hated Christmas,” he said, coming closer to her. “Are you hating this one too, Elizabeth?”

“No, of course not,” she said.

He stopped a foot or so away from her.

“Because I am the one asking you, and it would not be at all the thing to say yes?” he asked her, tipping his head a little to one side and looking closely at her.

She frowned slightly before smoothing out her expression again. What did he mean? She did not know how to reply.

“I am enjoying it more than I expected when I arrived,” he said.

“I am glad,” she told him.

“Are you?” He reached out one hand and took one lock of her hair between his fingers—she had had her maid leave it loose.

It was one of their usual conversations, saying nothing and leading nowhere. She had always felt more awkward with him than with any other man of her acquaintance.

He bent his head then and kissed her.

She was taken totally by surprise.
This
was different from their wedding night.

He did not immediately draw back. Instead he parted his lips and settled them more comfortably over her own. She tasted heat and
moisture and wine. At the same time he settled his hands on either side of her waist and drew her against him. She lifted her hands and set them on his shoulders—broad, solidly muscled shoulders. He was solid everywhere, she noticed as if for the first time. He seemed terribly male.

She had never really touched him before, she realized. Not with her hands—she had kept them flat on the bed during all their encounters last year. And not really with her body—she had felt his weight and his penetration, that was all.

She felt his tongue prodding against the seam of her lips and jerked back her head—and then wished she had not done so. He stared into her eyes, his hold still firm on her waist, his expression unreadable.

“Is this just duty to you, then, Elizabeth?” he asked her. “Is this what the whole of today has been about for you?”

What did he expect her to say? What did he want her to say? Last year had been easy in a way. He had spoken scarcely a word to her in her bedchamber—or out of it, for that matter.

“I have tried to do my duty,” she said. “Have I not pleased you? I am sorry about . . . about just now. I was not . . . expecting it. I am sorry.”

He took a half step back from her, though he still kept his hands where they were.

“If this is duty and nothing else, Elizabeth,” he said, “say so now and send me on my way.”

It was not just duty. She would not have dreamed of saying no to him anyway, of course, but it was not just duty. She had wanted him to come. She wanted him in her bed again even though she knew now from experience that the encounter would not measure up to her dreams. It did not matter. She wanted him inside her again. She wanted to feel like his wife.

She had taken too long in answering. He dropped his hands abruptly, turned, and strode toward the door.

“Mr. Chambers,” she said sharply.

“For God's sake, Elizabeth.” He stopped and turned back to her, anger in his face. “Call me Edwin or nothing at all.”

“I am sorry.” She tried not to show her distress. He was angry with her. He had spoken sharply to her. He had said
for God's sake
in her hearing.

“Don't be.” He lifted one hand and ran the fingers through his hair. “There is no need to be eternally sorry. You owe me nothing. You married me in obedience to your parents' will, you lay with me in the
weeks following our marriage, and you presented me with a son in due course. Your life is essentially your own now. You are not my slave. I have never believed in slavery, especially the marital kind.”

“I owe you obedience,” she said.

“You owe me
nothing
.” For a moment his eyes blazed. Then he shook his head slightly, and his anger faded. “I would far rather hear you consign me to the devil than tell me you owe me obedience. But no matter. It is late and we are both tired. Good night, Elizabeth.”

All the joy of the day had been drained away, leaving only an intense pain behind it. His hand was on the doorknob. In another moment he would be gone—and they would be forever estranged. She would not be able to bear it.

“Mr. Chambers,” she said. She lifted one hand to her mouth even as he paused without turning. “Edwin. Please don't leave.”

He turned his head to look at her.

“Please don't,” she whispered.

He did not move and so she did. She crossed the room to the bed, removed her slippers, and lay down on her back, all without looking at him. He stood there at the door for a few moments longer before walking to the mantel and blowing out the candles. There was still plenty of light from the fire and the window to illumine his way to the bed.

And enough light for Elizabeth to see when he removed his dressing robe that he wore nothing beneath it. At first she was shocked, but she did not look away. She had never thought of any man as beautiful. Handsome, yes, but not beautiful. Edwin was beautiful—all well-muscled, perfectly proportioned male beauty.

He lay down beside her and turned to her. He raised himself on one elbow, leaned over her, and kissed her again, his hand cupping her cheek, his fingers pushing into her hair. This time when he parted his lips and touched hers with his tongue, she did not flinch—though she did feel a raw and unfamiliar sensation in her mouth, in her breasts, in her womb, down between her thighs. She parted her lips and opened her mouth, and he pressed his tongue deep inside.

For a few moments she hardly noticed that his hand had moved down to fondle her breasts. She did notice, though, when the hand moved to the ribbons that held her nightgown closed to the waist and pulled them loose one by one. His hand slid along bare flesh to cup her breast. He ran his thumb lightly over her nipple.

She thought she would surely die of pleasure. She heard herself make a sound deep in her throat.

“Touch me,” he whispered against her lips.

She set one hand tentatively against his chest—it was hard and dusted with hair. The other arm she set about his waist. She had always wanted to touch him, she realized, but she had never laid claim to him as her own. Hers had always been the passive role of obedient wife. Was it possible for a woman to claim a man? Was it right? Was it seemly?