Marian's Christmas Wish (21 page)

The earl chuckled and traced the lines in her palm with
his finger. “Well, then, Marian, let me ask you something.”

There was a knock at the door.

“Damn,” muttered Ingraham. He made no move to rise, but
sat with his lips tight together. He let go of Marian’s hand.

“Sir? My lord, are you within?” asked Washburn.

Marian looked at Gilbert. “You can’t hide, you know,”
she said. “Servants always know your business.”

“If this one knew my business, brat, he would not
knock,” he said in a testy voice. He sighed. “Yes, Washburn, drat you, I am
within. What is it?”

There was a moment of injured silence. And then, “My
lord, I have a letter. It is from London.”

The earl groaned and opened the door.

“It was locked, my lord,” said Washburn, making no
effort to hide the wounded tone in his voice.

“So it was, so it was,” Ingraham said impatiently. “London, you say?”

“Yes, my lord. The road is entirely open.” He held out
the letter. “And from the looks of this envelope, it has been to Picton, back
to London, and now here. It is from the Foreign Office, so I knew that it must
be important.”

“Then hand it over.”

“And, my lord, the others are assembling in the parlor.”

Lord Ingraham pressed his lips tight together again. “We’ll
be along soon enough.” He took the letter and closed the door again, walking to
the window and breaking the seal.

Marian looked down at her hands while he read the
letter. She started up in amazement as Gilbert uttered a great oath, wadded the
letter into a ball, and threw it into the fireplace.

He turned back to the window and stared out at the
snow, his hands deep in his pockets. In another moment, he leaned his forehead
against the glass and closed his eyes.

Alarmed, Marian leapt up and hurried to his side. She
touched him timidly on the back. When he did not respond, she cast aside her
better judgment and put her arm around his waist. He said nothing, but he
draped his arm over her shoulders and leaned away from the window.

“Bad news?” she ventured at last.

“The worst.” He let go of her and then took her by both
shoulders, staring into her eyes. “And I have to do it, don’t I?” Mystified, Marian
stared back.

“I mean, when your king and country expect it . . .” He
touched her under the chin. “I wish . . .”

She managed a crooked smile. “You used up your
Christmas wish, Gil,” she reminded him.

“So I did.” He gathered her close for a second and then
released her. “And you must trust me, then, since my wish is gone.” He smiled,
but his eyes were bleak. “Or at least, not fulfilled yet.”

“I really don’t understand, Gil,” she managed.

“You’ll know soon enough,” he said grimly, “and you
must trust me. Promise?”

“I don’t . . . Yes, I promise,” she
said quietly.

He looked at her another moment, as
if memorizing her face, and then offered her his arm. “Come, Marian, we are
wanted in the parlor.”

If I stay far away from Lord Hammerfield, I shall rub
through this evening, Marian thought grimly as she entered the parlor and
smiled at those assembled. She looked about her. Lord Hammerfield dozed on the
sofa, his hands cradling his belly. Alistair and Surtees had resumed their conspiratorial
conversation in the corner, and Lizzie Hammerfield was sorting through the
music at the pianoforte. All appeared safe enough. Lord Ingraham saw her seated
in a chair by the fireplace, and took his leave.

Lord Hammerfield woke at his wife’s prodding and looked
around in surprise. He stared for a moment at Marian and then chose, to her
great relief, to ignore her. Everyone’s attention was claimed by Lizzie, who
announced a Beethoven sonata and seated herself with some ceremony at the
pianoforte.

Marian relaxed. Lizzie performed with a diligence that
would have caused the composer no disgust, considering particularly that he was
deaf. Lizzie’s curls bobbed on the accelerandos, but she kept her tongue
between her teeth and both feet on the pedals and came to the end of the music
in the measure Beethoven intended.

When his niece graduated to Mozart, Lord Ingraham
returned and sat beside his mother. They conversed quietly until Lord
Hammerfield harrumphed them into silence. They were all spared an encore by the
arrival of the tea tray, with two kinds of Chinese brew nestled among cakes and
biscuits and slabs of

the same bread that Marian was acquainted with from
breakfast. She hesitated between the bread and the little Christmas cakes.

“Take both, by all means,” suggested the earl as he
handed her a cup of tea. “You must keep up your strength. Don’t look at me like
that. I have a contest in mind when you have finished.”

Marian obliged him, only grateful that Lord Ingraham
was not still down in the dumps. He appeared to have made up his mind about
something and she was glad to see the hunted look gone from his eyes.

“We will be leaving soon, Mama,” Lady Hammerfield said,
“although we will allow Surtees to remain with you a few days. He can show
Alistair about.”

“Very well, daughter,” said Lady Ingraham.

The tea tray was removed, and the earl got to his feet.
He snapped out his pocket watch, examined it, and then took Marian by the arm
and led her to a small table. “Sit.”

She sat, her eyes alive with interest and not a little
embarrassment at being the center of attention. Lord Ingraham went to a
cupboard and returned with a chessboard. As she watched in growing
appreciation, he hummed to himself and lined up the players. He picked up a
black and white pawn and held them behind his back.

“Choose.”

“I’ll beat you to flinders.”

Lizzie gasped and looked at her mother.

“Would you like to wager that you just said the wrong
thing to a belted earl?” Ingraham asked Marian, leaning forward and whispering
in her ear.

She nodded, trying not to smile. “But I will beat you.”

“You can try, brat. Choose.”

She laughed out loud and touched his right sleeve. He
produced a white pawn, bowed, and set it before her, turning the board around
until white was on her side.

Marian regarded the board seriously, chin in hand, and
then looked across the little table to her opponent, staring into his eyes.

“You’ll not intimidate me with that ploy,” he declared.
“In case you have forgotten, I am a diplomat. I do not reveal my feelings so easily.
You can study me for days and you will never know what I am thinking.” He
removed his coat, draping it over the back of his chair. “I can tell this is
going to be a long contest. Let us wager on the outcome.”

“Gilbert,” protested Lady Ingraham.

“Turning your parlor into a regular gaming hell, eh,
madam?” he said.

Marian giggled. “Don’t worry, Lady Ingraham. I can
trounce him no matter what the bait.”

“I will wager a copy of Aristole’s
Poetics
that you will do no such thing.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Well?”

“In Greek? I have an English copy, the Barnwell
translation.”

“Of course.”

She thought a moment more. “I have nothing of value to
stake.”

“I contend that you do. Kiss me under the mistletoe
over there and procure me another jar of that ointment.”

“Gilbert,” Lady Ingraham exclaimed again. “You are
absurd!”

“Done, sir,” Marian agreed. “I was never safer, Lady
Ingraham. And you’ll have the ointment anyway.”

The game began. It showed no signs of letting up when
Lord Hammerfield took his family home, muttering something about chits who play
chess.

The earl looked up long enough to flick a careless
finger at his brother-in-law and suffer his sister to kiss the top of his head.

Neither gave an inch of ground without careful
consideration, a serious eyeing of each other’s motives, and deliberation that
bordered on the defiant. Lady Ingraham threw up her hands after midnight and
took herself off to bed. She was followed shortly after by Surtees. The players
barely acknowledged good nights and admonitions. His legs stretched out in
front of him, only Alistair remained to witness the battle raging in silence
across the chessboard.

The clock struck one. Lord Ingraham untied his
elaborate neckcloth and dropped it to the floor. He unbuttoned the top buttons
of his shirt.

“It’s warm in here,” he commented. “Marian, are you too
warm?”

“Indeed I am,” she said, raising her eyes to his after
a minute scrutiny of knight and bishop.

“What a pity! Alistair, be a good fellow and throw
another log or two on the fire.”

Marian glared at her opponent. “You are unscrupulous,
sir.”

“I am when it comes to chess.” He looked over his
shoulder. “Alistair is asleep. Tiresome boy. I shall have to add the logs
myself.” He made no move to rise. “You see, Marian, I don’t care to be beaten
at chess, either.”

Marian’s chin came up. “Go on, say it. You don’t like
to be beaten by a woman.”

“No, that is not it. I merely do not like to be beaten.”
He reached across the table and touched her cheek. “And there is a world of
difference, my dear.”

“I could lose, you know. In three moves, at most four,
I could give up my bishop and queen so gracefully that you would never suspect.”

Lord Ingraham took her by the hand and, before she
could pull back, carried it to his lips. “And you could win—in five moves, I
think.” He released her hand. “If you lose in three moves, Marian Wynswich, I
will turn you over my knee and paddle you. So there. Play on, Macduff.” He
looked at her and laughed softly. “‘And damned be him who first cries hold,
enough.’”

“You think you’re so smart. The next line is ‘Exeunt
fighting,’” Marian declared under her breath. “And so I shall. But it is still
warm in here.”

“Too bad.” The earl removed his cufflinks and started
rolling up his sleeves. He hesitated, and she saw the curious burn pattern on
his left arm.

“I am a regular Maori, my dear, tattooed here and
there. That’s what happens when you chance to lie upon a crisp grate.”

In her turn, Marian reached across the table and took
him by the arm, turning it this way and that, touching the skin around the
scars, frowning at the lack of elasticity.

“They are fainter, of course,” he said, his eyes on her
face.

“I was wearing a shirt, but no coat. I have similar
marks on my hip and thigh. They are fainter still, thanks to my buckskins.”

Marian scarcely heard him. She touched the prominent
scar on his forearm. “I wish there were some way to remove skin and replace it,”
she said, “but I suppose such things can never be.” She released his arm. “But,
sir, do not try to elicit my sympathy by baring your war wounds. I will defeat
you anyway.”

“I would never be so utterly debased,” he replied
virtuously.

“Oh, you would! It is your move, my lord.”

He raised his eyebrows. “‘My lord,’ is it? Dear me!”

The room was silent then, except for Alistair’s snores.
One move. Two moves. A knight changed hands and Marian moved again.

“Check,” she said, barely able to keep the triumph from
her voice.

Lord Ingraham considered the move from all angles.

“Checkmate,” she said, and leaned back in her chair for
the first time all evening. “Make sure it is a good copy, leather-bound, with a
signature by the author.”

“You scamp,” the earl said. “I suppose you will want
Aristotle’s margin notes, too!”

“If you can get them,” she replied calmly, struggling
to keep the dimple from her cheek. “And tuck in a letter from Plato and a
prescription from Hippocrates, while you are about it.”

Ingraham laughed and put the chess pieces and board
away. He stretched and stood before the fire, poking at the embers with his
shoe. He looked over at her then, and he was not smiling. “If I am to do all
that, lady, then I shall insist on a kiss under the mistletoe. There should be
some little reward for crossed eyes and an aching back,” he complained. “The
next time I begin a chess game with you, let it be at noon on a sunny day. Good
God, it must be two at least.”

Marian rose and pressed her hands to the small of her
back. “What a pair of fools we are. Oh, very well
...”
She went to the door and stood under the mistletoe, raising
her face for his kiss. She did not know what she expected.

Ingraham took his time getting to the doorway and then
he put his hands on her waist. “Such a little waist,” he murmured. “How can you
eat so much and remain so small? Is there not an animal that eats . . . Ah! It
is the shrew!”

She opened her mouth to object and he kissed her. He
stepped back a moment, put his hands on her neck, and kissed her again.

On the occasion of her fourteenth birthday, Marian had
sneaked out to the garden and kissed the doctor’s son. She had received a
furtive peck from Alistair’s Eton chambermate last spring when he came down for
a visit. Both events had been singularized by inexperience and the oddest sort
of dissatisfaction. Gil’s kiss bore not the faintest resemblance to her
previous encounters.

The only way to steady herself was to put her arms
around Lord Ingraham, Marian discovered. And his back felt so good that she had
to run her hands up and down it once, and then again. For one wild, disordered
moment, she thought how scandalized her mother would be, and then she did not
give a flea what anyone thought. She thought only of Gil and savored the moment
with some enthusiasm.

Just when Marian thought he was coming to a conclusion,
he kissed her on the earlobe and then that part of her neck that until this
moment had never seemed to serve any useful purpose. And Marian was pleased to
learn that it was not at all difficult to stand on tiptoe and kiss him on the
ear, too. The notion must have met with his entire approval, because he picked
her up so she could reach him easier.

If Alistair had not stirred then and muttered something
in his sleep, Marian would have been content to stay in Lord Ingraham’s arms
until the maids came to clean out the ashes in the grate and open the draperies
to meet the morning sun. She gave a little start, and the earl set her on her
feet again.

He stepped back and she noticed with some confusion
that his eyes were beginning to glaze over in a peculiar manner and his
breathing was somewhat ragged. Perhaps the fireplace was starting to smoke a
bit. She was having a little difficulty breathing, too.

Lord Ingraham put a hand against the wall to steady
himself.

He looked up at the mistletoe in amazement. “Good God,
Marian, suppose I had won?” he managed to say.

She could think of nothing clever or witty in reply.
She touched his face as she wondered if she could ever get her mouth to form
sentences again.

“Good night, Gil,” she finally said. “I shall leave
Alistair to you.”

She hoped he would kiss her again, but he did not. “Alistair
will not be nearly as fun,” he said.

Marian smiled and said good night again. She tiptoed
into the hall, relieved to discover that her knees hadn’t turned entirely to
India rubber. She looked back at the earl, who still stood under the mistletoe.