They gazed at each other. She drew breath and her lips moved, but she did not say what she had been about to say. He did not even try to speak.
He had held her thus that night at Vauxhall, folded against himself, almost into himself. She had been heart of his heart, almost flesh of his flesh. Had he not loved her quite so dearly, perhaps he would have made her just that among the denser trees beyond the dark path. She would not have resisted. She would have opened for him, received him, trusted him. The human soul yearned always for completeness. He had been within a heartbeat of finding wholeness on that evening. But honor had held him back.
And so the restless yearning, the incompleteness, unrecognized, firmly denied, had driven him like a scourge ever since.
Had he been so deceived on that evening? Had she known even then....
“Did you know on that night,” he found himself whispering to her, “that the very next day you would betroth yourself to him?”
“No.” She was whispering too. “It is as well we cannot know when the world will end or when we will die—or when everything that makes the world a beautiful place or life worth living will come crashing down about us. No, I did not know.”
It had not been an act, then, her tenderness and her ardor on that evening. It had been real. She really had loved him.
“Christina.” There was nothing else to say. Just her name and all the pain of its utterance.
“I did not know,” she said again and tipped her head to rest her forehead beneath his chin again.
But she had still chosen money rather than love. Temptation had come in the form of an offer from Gilbert just the day after she had very nearly committed herself to him in the ultimate way—and she had been dazzled. There could have been no other motive than greed for what she had done. Her father, a genial, well-liked man, who was the very antithesis of a tyrant, had always been indulgent of her wishes. He had always liked Gerard and welcomed his visits and smiled kindly on his suit, though no formal offer had been made. Perhaps she had expected that after her politic marriage to Gilbert and the birth of an heir, she would be able to have her lover too.
Perhaps he had surprised her by taking himself off to Canada and staying there. Perhaps he had even succeeded in hurting her.
And there had been no heir—only two daughters.
Perhaps now, he thought suddenly, she was beginning to imagine that opportunity had come knocking again. Perhaps she had detected the weakness in him that was undoubtedly there. Perhaps she was indeed scheming for a second marriage.
“If you have recovered from your fright,” he said coolly, “I believe I would like to return to my guests at the fire. I certainly do not believe either of us would like to be seen like this, would we? Looking as if we are embracing?”
She pushed away from him hurriedly and turned her back on him before he could see her face. Her voice matched his own when she spoke.
“Thank you,” she said. “Iwasweak-kneed for a moment. I am quite recovered now.” And she strode on ahead of him toward the fire.
And that had been a ridiculous notion, he thought. If she was scheming for anything, it was to get herself as far away from him as possible as soon as possible. For whatever reason—whether it were guilt or something else—she certainly hated him as much as he hated her.
He pushed away from the tree and followed her.
Chapter 11
THE ballroom was not to be decorated until the day after Christmas. It was to be done by the servants under Christina’s supervision. That had all been arranged beforehand. Nevertheless, it was a busy place two afternoons before Christmas. All the greenery had been piled in there ready for use in other parts of the house, and so there was a constant to-ing and fro-ing once the task of decorating had begun. And it was a conveniently large room in which to make the kissing boughs.
Lizzie Gaynor was the self-proclaimed expert in their construction. She organized two groups, one consisting of Christina, Laura Cannadine, and the children, and the other consisting of her mother, Lady Milchip, and Lady Hannah Milne. She skipped gaily back and forth between groups, doing nothing herself, but freely advising, criticizing, praising, and generally, Christina thought with some amusement, getting in the way. But she was the one who claimed the credit when the children’s elaborate creation was carried to the drawing room to be hung from the ceiling close to the pianoforte.
“See how clever I am at designing kissing boughs?” she called, laughing and twirling about with exuberance and succeeding in looking very pretty indeed.
The drawing room had been transformed into a garden of pine-scented greenery and red bows and bells, which the housekeeper had discovered in some corner of the attic. The guests responsible for the room’s decoration, including the earl himself, who was in his shirtsleeves and looking generally somewhat disheveled, all stopped what they were doing in order to admire and exclaim over the kissing bough.
“You are greatly to be commended, Miss Gaynor,” his lordship said. “It looks like the finest specimen of kissing boughhood I have ever set eyes upon. Congratulations are due the workers too.”
He grinned at the children, and for one moment his eye caught Christina’s. She looked away. She did not care to remember that foolish incident during the morning, when she had jumped from the branch and landed in his arms and had stayed there far longer than was necessary. For a few dazed moments she had quite forgotten ... For all the changes ten years had wrought in his physique, she had been caught up in very physical memories. And in the sort of yearning that self-discipline had suppressed in her for so many years that she had thought it quite dead.
“Does it work?” Mr. John Cannadine asked.
“The kissing bough?” Lizzie asked, her voice still determinedly gay. “Of course it works, sir, and once it has been hung up, I shall be delighted to prove the point with whoever chooses to test it with me.”
“Since I will be doing the hanging,” the earl said, taking the bough from Rachel and Paul Langan, “then I claim the right to do the testing too.” He looked at Lizzie, raised his eyebrows, and chuckled.
And so, ten minutes later, to the accompaniment of laughter and applause and whistles, the Earl of Wanstead was kissing Lizzie Gaynor beneath the kissing bough and taking his time about it too.
Christina was appalled at her reaction. She watched, smiling as everyone else was doing. And she saw his head bent to another woman’s, his lips claiming hers, his hands spread on either side of her waist while hers came to his shoulders. And she knew exactly how he would feel and smell to the other woman—just as if the sensations were happening to her body. Lizzie Gaynor was surely the favorite to become his wife. Aunt Hannah and Lady Milchip had speculated quite openly about it on the walk back from the lake. And they looked like a courting couple.
