The Temporary Wife/A Promise of Spring (51 page)

Walter Carrington took Miss Hetty Morton on his arm, reflecting glumly on the fact that she was not even quite as old as his sister and no foil whatsoever for his advanced eighteen years. It was a great shame that Miss Susan Courtney had been away at her aunt’s since the summer. She was growing up fast, and she was such a very pretty and timid little thing.

The older Miss Morton was proud to have the others see that she walked with two gentlemen, both her arms occupied. It was true that they were only two of the younger Courtney boys. And it was true that she had been privately annoyed to see that child Anna monopolize the attention of Lord Eden again. But even so, it was gratifying to know that there were two gentlemen eager to accompany her. It was something to tell Mama later.

Peregrine held Grace’s arm snug against his side. They both wore woolen scarves wrapped twice about their necks. “You are a marvel,” he said. “There are not many married ladies who would prefer a brisk walk in the December air to a cozy chat by the fire.”

“The sea and the beach are at their loveliest in the winter,” she said. “And you know I love the outdoors, Perry. I just hope these very young persons will not feel inhibited by my very elderly presence.”

He grinned. “I would wager you could outwalk and outwork all of them put together, Grace,” he said. “Your nose distinctly resembles a cherry, by the way.”

“No, no,” she said. “This is the Christmas season, Perry. A holly berry would be a more appropriate comparison, surely. Not that I can see my own nose to judge, of course. But I can see yours.”

“
Touché
,” he said with a laugh. “Ah, look, there is the
sea already. The tide must be almost full. What a pity. I like to see the wide beach when it is out.”

“But this sky looks splendid reflected in the water,” she said. “Look, Perry. Lots of heavy gray clouds scudding across the sky with the sunshine behind them. And the sea looks like silver. Molten silver.”

Peregrine laughed. “Most people would say it is a nasty dull day and cold into the bargain,” he said. “You have a lovely creative mind, Grace. A poet’s mind.”

The valley opened out onto a flat golden beach with steep cliffs either side. But now, almost at full tide, not a great deal of the sand could be seen. They all walked out until they were almost at the edge of the incoming water. Anna squealed as Lord Eden threatened to pick her up and hurl her into the closest breaker.

“Shall we stroll along at the edge for a while?” Peregrine asked. “I don’t think we are likely to be trapped against the cliffs yet. And if we were, we would merely have to climb up.”

“Gracious,” Grace said. “Is it possible?” She gazed up the almost sheer height of the cliff. “I suppose it is something you did during your boyhood, Perry. And something that was strictly forbidden, I presume.”

“Right on both counts,” he said meekly. “It looks as if we were both rather reckless and disobedient young people, Grace. We deserve each other, don’t you think? And we dare to stroll sedately along the beach here, avoiding all those noisy, frolicking youngsters, for all the world as if we never dreamed of behaving in such a riotous manner when we were their age. We are frauds, my dear. Should we turn back, do you suppose, and confess to them?”

“Oh, Perry,” she said, “you speak as if you are an old man already. Do you not long to join in with their high spirits.”

“Join in?” he said. “Good Lord, no, Grace. I am no
boy, my dear. I have been a sober married gentleman for almost two years.”

“Is that what I have done to you?” she said.

He looked down at her, eyebrows raised. “Made a married gentleman out of me?” he said. “Yes, certainly.”

“I meant the sober part,” she said.

“Not at all,” he said. “I distinctly remember laughing at least three times only today. But not frolicking, Grace. That would be somewhat undignified at my age, would it not?”

“I am sometimes afraid that perhaps you crave young company,” she said.

“And you do not think of yourself as young, I presume,” he said. “Do you think that way, Grace? Because I like to tease young girls, perhaps? But I like to tease the older ladies too, dear. Miss Letitia Stanhope would be severely disappointed if I did not pretend each time I see her that I think her cap to be new and most charming. I like women. It is so easy to please them, to make them happy. In a quite superficial manner, of course. But I like to make people happy. You do not think I flirt, do you?”

“No!” she said. “No, I was not being in any way critical, Perry. I was not, believe me.”

He took her gloved hand in his and squeezed it. “I am not sorry I married you, Grace,” he said. “If that is what you meant.” There was a small silence. “Are you ever sorry you married me?”

“No,” she said.

He waited for her to say more. She seemed about to do so. But she did not.

“That is good,” he said. “I suppose all married people sometimes wonder. But it is difficult to ask, is it not?”

“Yes,” she said. “I am not sorry, Perry. Truly I am not.”

He squeezed her hand. “We should turn around and walk back,” he said. “But it is relatively comfortable
walking with the wind almost behind us, is it not? I am not sure I have the courage to turn around.”

“I think the only alternative is to go up over the cliff, then,” she said. “The tide is coming in fast.”

“And so it is,” he said. “I am sure you would have the energy to climb up, Grace, but you might find it a little too much to haul me up with you. Let’s turn back, then. Ugh! I knew it.”

“Oh,” Grace said. “I feel as if my breath is being blown back down my throat.”

“I almost wish we had chosen to spend Christmas Day alone,” Peregrine said. “I always feel most contented strolling with you. However, I suppose we must be thankful for so many congenial neighbors and friends.”

“Very much so,” Grace said. “And you cannot pretend that you are not going to enjoy the evening, Perry. Music in the drawing room and games and probably dancing. And plenty of conversation and food.”

He grinned. “Trust my wife to know me rather well,” he said. “Grace, you have holly berries for nose and cheeks. And brightly shining ones too.”

“I know,” she said. “I assumed that the wind was having the same effect on my face as it is having on yours.”

As the evening progressed at the house, it seemed that Grace was perfectly right. Peregrine turned pages of music for Miss Hetty Morton and Anna Carrington, whose extreme youth caused the other young gentlemen to ignore them much of the time. He played a hand of cards with the rector’s wife, Miss Stanhope, and Mr. Courtney, and a game of spillikins with the rector’s young children. He danced with his wife and any other lady who happened not to have a partner when the music began. And in a robust game of blindman’s buff, he was roundly accused of cheating when twice in a row he caught a tittering Miss Letitia despite his blindfold.

Grace was standing to one side of the pianoforte late
in the evening when there was a general lull in the festivities following supper, browsing through some music. Peregrine was at the opposite end of the room laughing with a group of others at Mr. Courtney’s protestations that he would not be able to squeeze one more morsel of food inside himself until at least New Year’s Day.

“At least you know that you will not waste quite away,” Mr. Carrington said. “You could lose two stone without anyone noticing.”

“William!” his wife said. “Oh, take no notice of him, Mr. Courtney.”

“Perhaps I should hire myself out to Arabs for desert crossings,” Mr. Courtney said good-naturedly. “Is there a shortage of camels, do you think?”

“Oh, do look,” Mrs. Cartwright said with a titter. “Look where Lady Lampman is standing.”

“The pianoforte must have been moved,” Lord Amberley said with a laugh. “The mistletoe was meant to be directly above the stool. No one seems to have noticed it just where it is.”

“I would wager Lady Lampman does not know it is there, the poor dear,” Mrs. Carrington said.

“Well, Perry,” Lord Amberley said, “what are you going to do about it?”

Peregrine got to his feet while most of the ladies smirked, Miss Stanhope blushed, and Miss Letitia clasped her hands to her bosom.

“Grace,” Peregrine said a moment later, “do you realize the great danger you are in?”

She looked at him, startled out of her concentration on the music. “I beg your pardon?” she said.

“Do you not see what is threatening right above you?” he asked.

She looked up in some alarm only to have the ceiling blocked from her view by his face.

“You are standing directly below the mistletoe,” he
said. “You cannot expect me to resist such invitation, can you?”

And then he kissed her on the lips, quite lingeringly enough to satisfy their audience at the other end of the room. Peregrine heard a smattering of applause, a few giggles, and a “Bravo!” as he lifted his head and grinned down at his wife.

“Perry,” she said. “Everyone will have seen.”

“I’m afraid so,” he said. “And you had better move from there, or I will be forced to kiss you again.”

Grace moved with some haste, and yet there was a warmth of feeling in her as he laid her hand on his arm and took her across the room to join their laughing neighbors. It was a warmth that had begun with their morning of gift opening and entertaining of the servants and had continued with the evening spent with congenial friends.
If it could only be like this always
, Grace thought, seating herself beside her husband and not removing her arm from his sleeve.

The carriage ride back home was a cold one, though they had a hot brick at their feet and a heavy blanket to wrap around their knees. Peregrine put an arm around Grace’s shoulders as soon as they were on the way, and she snuggled her head against him.

“Tired?” he asked.

“Mmm.” She closed her eyes. “I wish every day could be Christmas. There is something so very special about it, isn’t there, Perry?”

“Yes,” he said. And he moved one hand up beneath her chin to raise it, and kissed her.

It was rather absurd, Grace thought somewhere behind the fog of contentment and rising desire she felt over the next half-hour, to be sitting in the chill interior of a carriage with one’s husband of almost two years, both dressed in heavy winter garments, kissing for almost every moment of the journey, softly and slowly exploring
each other’s mouth with lips and tongues, touching each other’s face with gloved fingers, murmuring to each other in words that had no meaning to the ear, but only to the heart.

Equally absurd, and enchanting too, to be taken directly to her bedchamber when she arrived home and to have her husband dismiss her maid and his valet for the night and proceed to undress her himself as he had done on one other occasion and to have him kiss her all the while and worship her with his hands and take her to the bed to make love to her over and over again until finally they clung together damply and drifted toward sleep from pure exhaustion.

And absurd perhaps to imagine that he loved her, loved her with all his being and for all time and not just because it was Christmas and everyone feels love and good will at that season.

“Perry,” she murmured against his warm and naked chest.

“Mmm,” he said, kissing the top of her head.

And they both slept.

P
ERHAPS
C
HRISTMAS WOULD
have stayed with them even beyond the New Year if Grace had not received a letter from Ethel. Certainly the magic of that day and night did not fade in the days following Christmas, but bound them together in the warmth of a deeper affection than they had known before. But the letter did arrive, and it came to drive a wedge between them again.

Not that there was anything upsetting about Ethel’s letter. It was filled with news of the family, in which both Grace and Peregrine were interested, and hopes that the planned visit could be made in February or March at the latest, even though they were all suffering from colds at the moment of writing.

What was upsetting were the two enclosures. One was a separate note from Ethel, for Grace alone. The other was a sealed letter also addressed to her. It was from Viscount Sandersford, Ethel explained. She had not wanted to take it from him or send it in such clandestine manner to Grace. She was sure that Martin would blame her for doing so if he ever found out the truth. But Lord Sandersford had been very insistent. He had told her that Grace would want the letter. He had told her that if she did not send it secretly, he must do so openly and doubtless upset Grace’s husband. Ethel did not know at all if she did the right thing.

Grace felt sick. She sat in her sitting room, Gareth’s unopened letter clasped in one hand. She did not want to open it. She wanted to pretend to herself that Gareth was dead. She did not love him. She wondered how she could ever have done so. She wanted to forget about him. But of course he was not dead and she could not forget. Whether she liked it or not, he was a very real part of her life. She had loved him; she had shared the intimacy, even if not the reality, of marriage with him; he was Jeremy’s father.

She sat for a long time with the letter in her hand. Then she got to her feet, strode from the room, and almost ran down the stairs. She opened the door to Peregine’s study in a rush, not waiting to knock first, and drew to a sharp halt when she saw that he was with his estate manager.

“I am sorry,” she said. “Excuse me, please.”

Both men jumped to their feet.

Peregrine came toward her, his eyes steady on her face. “What is it?” he asked. “Do you need me?”

“It can wait,” she said. “Please excuse me.”

But he held up a staying hand and turned to the manager. “Will you excuse us?” he said. “I shall come and see you later.”

The man bowed and left the room.

“What is it, Grace?” Peregrine turned back to her, concern in his face. “Something has happened to upset you. Was there bad news in Ethel’s letter? Your father?”

She did not answer but put Gareth’s letter in his hand almost as if it were about to scald her.

He looked down at it and turned it over in his hand. “It is sealed,” he said, “and addressed to you, Grace.”