"Twelve," Daniel said loudly. "I 'ave to beat last year's count, sir."
"His lordship's cook may well be in tears,'' Mr. Rockford said. "No mince pies left by the end of Christmas morning. Yes, lad, rest your head on my shoulder if you wish. Now I could tell you a story about mince pies that would have your hair standing on end…"
Amy took Mr. Cornwell's offered arm and walked behind the children with him.
"You must be tired, Amy," he said. "You have had a busy day and have done more walking than anyone else."
"Yes, I am," she said. "But I do not believe I have ever lived through a happier day, Spencer."
"Really?" he said. "You do not find it intolerable to be surrounded by children all day long, listening to their silliness and exasperated by their petty quarrels?"
"But I think of what their lives were like and what they would be like without your efforts and those of his lordship and Mrs. Harrison," she said, "and I could hug them all until their bones break."
"Impossible!" He chuckled. "You are just a little bird, Amy. You would not have the strength to crack a single bone."
"I have always hated even thinking of the poor," she said. "Their plight has always seemed so hopeless, the problem too vast. And I could cry even now when I think of all the thousands of children who might be with us here but are not. But there are twenty very happy children here, Spencer, and that is better than nothing."
"You like children," he said, patting her hand. "I have watched you today talking with them. That is sometimes the most neglected part of our job. There is always so much to do and so much talking to be done to them as a group. I do not always find as much time as I would like to talk with them individually."
"They have such fascinating stories to tell," she said.
He looked down at her. "And all of them quite unfit for a lady's ears, I have no doubt," he said. "I should not have encouraged you to spend a day with us."
"A lady's ears are altogether underused," she said, provoking another chuckle from him. "Perhaps we should be told more of these stories by our governesses or at school
and spend a little less time dancing or sketching or learning how to converse in polite society."
"My dear Amy," he said, patting her hand again, "we will be making a radical out of you and scandalizing your family."
"Is caring about children being radical?" she asked.
“When the children are from the slums of London, yes,'' he said.
"Well then," she said briskly, "I must be a radical."
"All in one tiny little package," he said. "But of course," he added, grinning at her when she looked up at him, "diamonds are small too and pearls and rubies and other precious gems."
“Flatterer!'' she said. She looked back over her shoulder suddenly. "Where are Judith and Lord Denbigh?"
"Lagging a significant distance behind," he said. "I have been in the habit of thinking that Max is as confirmed a bachelor as I have always been. It seems I have been wrong. It is intriguing, though, that Mrs. Easton is the lady who was once betrothed to him. Most intriguing."
"Judith will not have it that he is trying to fix his interest with her," Amy said. "But it is as plain as the nose on her face, and has been since we were in London. I am glad you have noticed it too. I was sure I was not imagining things.''
"And what will you do if she remarries?" he asked.
She was silent for a while. "I have my parents' home to go back to," she said.
"You do not sound enthusiastic about the prospect," he said.
"I will think of it when the time comes," she said.
"A wise thought," he said, curling his fingers about hers as they rested on his arm.
Chapter 11
It did not feel particularly cold. There was no wind and the sky was clear and star-studded. They strolled rather than walked, by tacit consent letting everyone else outstrip them before they were even halfway home.
"Aunt Edith and Mrs. Webber will see to it that your son is put to bed," he said. "He will probably not even wake up."
"They very rarely have late nights," she said, "and the past two days have been unusually active and exciting ones for them."
They strolled on in silence.
"It is Christmas Day," she said. "It always feels quite different from any other day, does it not?"
"Yes." He breathed in deeply. "Even when one cannot smell the goose and the mince pies and the pudding. Happy Christmas, Judith."
"Happy Christmas, my lord," she said.
"Still not Max?" he asked.
She said nothing.
He was close to reaching his goal, he thought. He could sense it. She would not call him by his given name, perhaps, but there was none of the stiffness of manner, the anger even, that he had felt in her in London. She had accepted his escort to and from church without question, and he had not had to use any effort of will to force her to slow her steps on the return walk. The others had disappeared already around a distant bend in the tree-lined driveway.
Perhaps he would not even need the full week. There was triumph in the thought. She had resisted him eight years before, but then of course he had been a great deal more shy and inexperienced with women in those days. She would not resist him now. His revenge, he sensed, could be quite total and very sweet.
Sweet? Would it be? Satisfying, perhaps. But sweet? His triumph was tempered by the fact that he had just come from church on Christmas Eve and been filled with the holiness and joy of the season. He had wished the rector and all his neighbors a happy Christmas. He had just wished Judith a happy Christmas.
He wished suddenly that it were not Christmas. And he wished that his thoughts had not been confused by what he had heard that afternoon. He was so close to putting right a wrong that had haunted him for eight years. So close to getting even.
And another thought kept intruding. If he was so close to reaching his goal, then surely it would be possible to use his triumph in another way. It would be possible to secure a lifetime of happiness for himself.
For he had made a discovery that afternoon-or rather he had admitted something that had been nagging at his consciousness for some time, perhaps ever since he had set eyes on her at Nora's soirйe: He was still in love with her. The love that he had converted to hatred so long ago was still love at its core.
And yet the hatred was still there too. And the hurt. And the inability to trust again. He had trusted utterly before and been hurt almost beyond bearing. He would be a fool to trust her again-the same woman. He would be a fool.
Around the next bend in the driveway the house would come into sight.
Through all the years of her gradually deteriorating marriage, Judith thought, only one conviction had sustained her. Sometimes it had been almost unbearable to have Andrew at home, frequently drunk, often abusive, though he had never struck her. And yet it had been equally unbearable to be without him for weeks or months at a time, knowing mat he was living a life of debauchery, that he would be coming back to her after being with she knew not how many other women.
Only one thought had consoled her. If she had not married
Andrew, she had thought, she would have been forced to marry the Viscount Evendon, later the Marquess of Denbigh. And that would have been a thousand times worse.
She walked beside him along the driveway to his house, their boots crunching the snow beneath them, their breath clouds of vapor ahead of them, and held to his arm. And she was aware of him with every ounce of her being. And aware of the fact that they were alone, that they had allowed everyone else to get so far ahead that they were out of sight and earshot already.