“You love me, Allan?” She closed her eyes even more tightly.
“I always have,” he said. “I knew it the moment I put the Star of Bethlehem on your finger two years ago. I am not good at showing it, am I?”
She raised her head suddenly and gazed into his eyes. “How is it possible,” she said, “for two people to be married for almost two years and live close to each other all that time and really not know each other at all?”
He smiled ruefully. “It is rather frightening, is it not?” he said. “But think of what a wonderful time we have ahead of us, Estelle. I have so much to tell you, if I can find the words. And there is so much I want to know about you.”
“I may find too many words,” she said. “You know that I can’t be stopped once I start, Allan.”
“But always to other people before,” he said. “Very rarely to me, because you must have thought that I did not want to hear. Oh, Estelle.”
He hugged her to him and rocked her.
Her arms were wrapped about his chest. She held up her two hands behind his back and giggled suddenly. “I love my two presents,” she said. “One on each hand. But I love the third present even more, Allan. The one I hold in my arms.”
“This was an inspired choice of location for mistletoe,” he said, kissing her again. “Perhaps we should take it upstairs with us, Estelle, and hang it over the bed.”
She flushed as she smiled back at him. “We have never needed any there,” she said.
He took her right hand in his, smiled down in some amusement at his Christmas present, which he had placed there, and drew her in the direction of the door and the stairs and-for the first time in their married life-his own bedchamber.
The servants had been called into the drawing room to receive their Christmas gifts, the cook first, as she flatly refused to abandon her kitchen for longer than five minutes at the very most.
The Earl of Lisle allowed his wife to distribute the presents, contenting himself with shaking each servant’s hand warmly and conversing briefly with each. He wondered if he was looking quite as glowingly happy as Estelle was looking this morning. But he doubted it.
No one was capable of glowing quite like her.
Anyway, it was against his nature to show his feelings on the outside.
He doubtless looked as humorless and taciturn as ever, he reflected somewhat ruefully, making a special effort to smile at one of the scullery maids, who clearly did not quite know where to put herself when it became clear that she was expected to place her hand into that of her employer, whom she rarely saw.
But, the earl thought, startling the girl by asking if she had quite recovered from the chill that had kept her in bed for two days the week before and so showing her that he knew very well who she was, it was impossible-quite impossible-for Estelle to be feeling any happier than he was feeling. He hoped that she was as happy as he, but she could not be more so.
For he knew that the glow and the sparkle in her that had caused all attention to be focused on her since she had appeared in the breakfast room before they all adjourned to the drawing room to open their gifts-he knew that he had been the cause of it all. She glowed because he loved her and had told her so and shown her so all through what had remained of the night when they had gone to bed.
Indeed, it was amazing that she was not yawning and that she did not have dark rings beneath her eyes to tell the world that she had scarce had one wink of sleep all night. When they had not been making love, they had been talking. They had both tried to cram a lifetime of thoughts and feelings and experiences into one short night of shared confidences. And when they had paused for breath, then they had used even more breath in making love to each other and continuing their conversation in the form of love murmurings and unremembered nonsense.
It seemed that the only time they had nodded off to sleep had been just before his valet had come into his room from the dressing room, as he always did, to pull back the curtains from the windows. It was fortunate that the time of year was such that the earl had covered Estelle up to the neck with blankets, because she did not have a stitch on beneath the covers any more than he did.
Poor Higgins had frozen to the spot when he had glanced to the bed and seen his master only barely conscious, his cheek resting on a riot of tumbled dark curls. The poor man had literally backed out of the room.
Estelle, fortunately, had slept through the encounter until he woke her with his kisses a few minutes later. And he had gazed in amusement and wonder at the blush that had colored her face and neck-after two years of marriage.
Estelle had just given Nicky his present and, child that he was, he had to open it right there. She sat down close to where he stood, one arm about his thin waist, heedless of the presence of all her guests and many of the other servants. She looked into his face with a smile and watched his look of wide-eyed wonder and his dropped jaw as he saw his watch for the first time.
She laughed with delight. “It is a watch for you, Nicky,” she said, “so that you will always know what time of day it is. Do you know how to tell time?”
“No, missus,” he said in his treble voice, his eyes on his new treasure.
“Then I shall teach you,” she said, hugging him and kissing his cheek.
“And when you move to the country with your mama and your sister, you will know when it is time to come to the stables to groom the horses, and when it is time to go home from school. Happy Christmas, sweetheart.”
He traced the silver frame of the watch with one finger, as if he were not quite sure that it was real.
“His lordship and I will be going into the country after Christmas too,” she said. “We will meet your mama and your sister. What is her name?”
“Elsie,” he said, and then added hastily, “missus.”
“You will want to run along,” she said, kissing his cheek again. “I hear that one of the footmen is to accompany you and carry a basket of food to your mama and then go back for you tonight. Do have a lovely day.”
“But he don’t need to come for me,” the child said with some spirit, “I know the way.”
Estelle smiled, and the earl held out his hand gravely. “Happy Christmas, Nicky,” he said. “Her ladyship and I are very happy that you have come to us.”
The child forced his eyes up to the dreaded ones of his master, but he saw nothing but a twinkling kindness there. He turned to leave, but at the last moment whisked a crumpled rag out from the band of his breeches and almost shoved it into Estelle’s hands.
“For you,” he said, and was gone from the room before she could react at all.
“Oh, Allan, he has given me his seashell,” she said to her husband in some distress before being caught up again in the noise and bustle of the morning.
An hour passed before there was a lull enough that the Earl of Lisle could take his wife by the hand and suggest into her ear that they disappear for half an hour. She picked up the half-forgotten rag as they were leaving the room.
“I wished you a happy Christmas very early this morning under the mistletoe,” he said with a smile when the study door was safely closed behind them, “and early this morning after I had quite finished waking you. But I feel the need to say it again. Happy Christmas, Estelle.” He lifted her hands one at a time to his lips, kissing first the ring he had given her, and then the one she had given him. “We have established an undying reputation for eccentricity, I believe, with two almost identical rings, one on each of your hands.”
“They are identical in meaning too,” she said, gripping his hands and stretching up to kiss him on the lips. “Allan, what am I to do with this seashell? He has treasured it so much.”
“He really wanted to give it to you,” he said. “Let’s have a look at it, shall we?”
They both stood speechless a few moments later, their foreheads almost touching as they gazed down at the Star of Bethlehem nestled on her palm inside the rag. And then their foreheads did touch and Estelle closed her eyes.