Christmas Beau

"I am right, am I not?" she said. "I did hurt you?"

"I loved you," he said. "Does it surprise you that a man who had none of the charm or easy ma

She swallowed and closed her eyes. "I did not know, Max," she said. "I had no idea."

"You are forgiven," he said shortly. "There, does that make you feel better? Now what must I do to win your forgiveness? Marry you? I owe you that after yesterday. Is there a chance that you are with child? Should I summon the rector here to speak with both of us? Or should I ride in to the village alone after luncheon?"

"Max," she said, "don't."

"My apologies," he said. "You are a romantic, I suppose. You want sweet words and bended knee? Well, you can have them if you wish, Judith."

She took several steps toward him across the room. "I did not sleep last night," she said. "I don't think you did either. Certainly you were awake and not even in your room when Rupert awoke with his usual dream. I did a great deal of thinking last night."

"You need not have worried," he said. "I am giving in, you see, without even a fight.''

"I hated you when I left you yesterday afternoon," she said. "I thought it had all been a plot of revenge. I thought it had all been cold calculation. I thought I had been right about you from the start. But I was wrong. You still love me, don't you?" She could feel herself flushing, but he was not looking at her. He had turned his head away again and set his forefinger against his mouth.

"Perhaps you did not hear my words," he said, "or fully comprehend their true meaning."

"Oh, yes," she said. "Loud and clear. But they were just words, spoken at the end of it all. I think perhaps they were what you had pla

He laughed again. "That good, was it?" he said.

"You know it was," she said. "And thinking about it last night and remembering, I knew that I could not have been mistaken. I could not have been. Even if I had had no experience with such matters I would know beyond any doubt that I was not mistaken. But I have had experience. I was married for almost seven years. I have been made love to many times. But yesterday you were not making love to me or I to you. We were making love with each other. That has never happened to me before, and I could not possibly be

mistaken. It was no game you were playing, Max. It was love. I know it."

"So." He turned his head to look at her, and his eyes were weary, bleak. "What do you want me to do about it?"

"I don't know." She shrugged her shoulders. "Forgive me in your heart as well as with your mouth. Forgive yourself. Let go of all the bitterness. Move on into the future. There is so much goodness in your life. I will be gone within the hour. Let me go-right out of your life. Start again."

He stared at her, nodding his head slowly. "And you?" he said. "You will move on too?"

"Yes," she said.

"And if you are with child?"

"I will know," she said. "Whatever you may say, I will know that the child was begotten and conceived out of love. That is all that will matter. I do love you, you know, and it will always hurt me to know that I was pain and shadow and darkness in your life for eight years. But you can be free of me now, partly because you got even, but more importantly because you have forgiven me. And I you."

"Judith," he said. "We have given each other so much pain. That can have nothing to do with love, surely?"

She shrugged. "I don't know," she said. "It obviously has a great deal to do with life.''

He reached out his free hand toward her and she took a few steps closer to him until she could set her own in it. He drew her closer until she was against him, and his arms closed loosely about her and hers about him. She turned her head to lay against his chest and closed her eyes.

They stood thus for many minutes, comforting each other wordlessly for pain and guilt and for all that might have been.

"And so," he said finally, "in one hour's time you will be gone and we can both start to reconstruct our lives."

"Forgiven and forgiving," she said.

"Pardon and peace," he said.

"Yes."

His cheek rested against the top of her head briefly. "It ca

She heard a gulp of a sob suddenly and realized in some horror that it had come from her. “I don't know," she said, and she tried to push away from him.

But she was pulled back against him by arms that were suddenly as hard as steel bands and when she raised her face to avoid suffocation against his neckcloth it was to look into eyes that were themselves brimming with tears. He lowered his head and kissed her fiercely, a wet and breathless kiss.

"Let us do it, Judith," he said. "Let us give life and love and peace a chance together, shall we? I ca

He took one of her hands and held the palm to his mouth. She stood smiling up at him until gradually he relaxed and smiled back.

"I think we had better get married and be done with it," he said. "Don't you?"

Her smile deepened.

"You are holding out for the poetic speech and the down-on-one-knee business, aren't you?" he said.

But before her smile could give place to laughter they were interrupted. One of the doors opened slightly and two little figures appeared around it.

"Mama," Rupert said, "Aunt Amy is not back yet and it is begi

"The dog was sick all over the floor," Kate said.

"Oh, dear," the marquess said, keeping his arms firmly about Judith when she would have pulled away. “You must have been feeding him muffins again, were you?"

"And toast," Kate said.

"May we, Mama?" Rupert asked.

"How would you like to stay forever and a day?" the marquess asked. "If your mama would just consent to marry me, you know, you could do so. And go sledding and skating and have plenty of company from the children in the village. And I could teach you to ride a real horse, Rupert, and to play cricket as well as your papa. And Kate could see the puppies when they are born in the spring and train one to sleep on her bed all night without once wetting the blankets or being sick all over the floor.''

"Ye-es!" Rupert yelled. "Famous. Will you, Mama?"

Kate had crossed the room and was clinging to a tassel of the marquess's Hessian. "A black puppy?" she asked. "All black?"

"I shall see what I can arrange," he said.

"Will you, Mama?" Dark and pleading eyes gazed up at her from beneath soft auburn curls.

"Will you, Judith?" Lord Denbigh's eyes smiled into hers. "Will you make it unanimous? It is already three against one."

“One thing I have noticed about you from the start,'' she said, "is that you will quite unscrupulously get to me through my children."

"Guilty," he said.

"And it works every time," she said.

"Does it?"

"Yes."

"This time too?"

"Yes."

"You will marry me?"

She smiled broadly at him.

He sighed. "Kate," he said. "Stand back if you will. And watch carefully. This is going to happen to you one day. And you watch too, Rupert, my lad. You are going to have to do this one of these fine days. I am about to get down on one knee to propose to your mama."

"My Christmas beau," Judith said fondly, smiling down at him as he suited action to words.