Dora accepted a mince pie, another of the offerings from the hall; the marquess did not. Dora sat very straight on a chair close to the Nativity scene, her usual pinafore protecting her dress from crumbs, her feet dangling above the floor.
“I like Christmas in your house,” she told Lilias and Megan after telling them all about the distributing of gifts to the servants that morning. “I wish we could stay here all day.”
The marquess, Lilias could hear with some delight, was telling Andrew about Tattersall’s. He would make a friend for life. Andrew had a passion for horses.
“You can stay all day,” Megan said. “Can’t they, Lilias? Our goose is ever so big and there are enough vegetables to feed the five thousand.
Lilias said so just a short while ago. We could play house all day. I could be mother and you could be elder sister. And the two dolls can be the babies. Andrew could be the father, but I don’t suppose he will want to be. But that does not matter, does it?”
“I am sure his lordship must have other plans for the day,” Lilias said quietly to Megan, but Dora had already slipped from her chair and crossed the room to stand beside her father’s. She stood there, pulling at his sleeve.
“Papa,” she said, “Miss Angove and Megan want us to stay for the rest of the day. There is lots of food, Miss Angove says, and Megan and I are going to play house all day. May we, Papa? Please, may we?”
“Yes,” Andrew said with some enthusiasm.
Wide-open blue eyes were turned on her, Lilias saw. Accusing? Assessing?
Hostile?Incredulous? It was impossible to tell. She felt herself flushing.
“Impossible, Dora,” the marquess said, getting to his feet. “We could not so impose. You agreed to half an hour, and that must be just about up.”
There was a chorus of disappointed protests from the three children.
“You would be very welcome,” Lilias found herself saying. “There really is plenty of food, and it would be such a treat for the children to have company.”
His eyes burned into hers from across the room. And for me too, she told him silently. For suddenly there was no longer that elusive sense of something missing. There was excitement in the house and happiness.
And Christmas was somehow complete.
And he was there. And there was a chance-she clasped her hands in front of her very tightly-that he would be there for the whole day. Her memorable Christmas would be memorable indeed, for she would remember him as Stephen. No matter how much he was this withdrawn and austere and even hostile marquess, in memory she knew she would erase all facts except the essential one: He was Stephen. And she had never stopped loving him. Maybe she never would.
If he stayed, she would be able to carry him with her in memory with all the other memories of this last Christmas with her family. It would all be complete.
“This is preposterous,” he said, sitting back down again and looking distinctly uncomfortable. “Whatever will Miss Angove think of us, Dora?”
“Hurrah,” Andrew shouted out. “He is going to say yes.”
The girls squealed and jumped up and down on the spot. And when Dora climbed onto her father’s lap to hug him and kiss him, Megan climbed onto his other knee and smiled adoringly into his face.
“Thank you,” she said. “Oh, thank you, sir.”
“Your sister is going to throttle me, little imp,” he said, and to Lilias’s amazement, he hugged the child close with one arm and kissed her cheek. “I had better go outside and dismiss my coachman. He might die of boredom and cold if we leave him out there for the rest of the day.”
The children were enjoying themselves quite noisily. Even Andrew had been prevailed upon to join in the game of house and was currently sitting on a stool having his hair combed and parted down the wrong side by Dora.
They were having a good time, and that was what really mattered, Bedford thought. But what on earth must Lilias think of him for agreeing so weakly to stay for dinner and even for the rest of the day? He had instructed his coachman to return for him and Dora at eight o’clock.
Or perhaps he should not be feeling guilty, but angry. A few days before he would have been angry and suspicious. It would have been very easy for her to set the children to trapping him into this domestic situation and leading him on to making her an offer.
But he found it hard to believe still that her every action since his homecoming had been conniving. And if it were, was it so despicable? She and the children really were in a desperate situation, and they really were facing a bleak future. Would it be so wrong of her to scheme to win for herself a husband who could lift the burden from her shoulders?
“I have never done this before, you know,” he said now, looking rather dubiously at the goose she had asked him to carve. “The meat seems to want to come away in clumps rather than in neat slices.”
Lilias laughed. “I have never done it either,” she said. “That is why I asked you.” She was stirring the gravy. But she paused and looked at him in some concern. “If any of that grease gets on your shirt, it will be ruined.”
He looked down at his white shirt. He had already removed his coat and waistcoat and rolled up his sleeves to the elbow.
“What you need is an apron,” she said, and crossed to the hook on the kitchen door to fetch one.
“But my hands are greasy,” he protested when she held it out to him.
“Lower your head, then,” she said with a giggle he had not heard for years, and she slipped the neck strap over his head. She moved behind him, and there was a moment when her arms came around his waist to grasp the ties of the apron so that she could secure it behind him.
“There,” she said, coming around to the front of him again to survey her handiwork. His hands were greasy, and he held them suspended in the air.
“The Marquess of Bedford in heavy disguise.” She laughed. “Oh, you do look funny, Stephen.”
But the smile froze on her face and faded, and color rose up her neck and into her cheeks, and he watched her swallow. The children’s voices seemed very distant, even though they were just beyond the open door between the kitchen and the parlor. His eyes strayed to her lips.
“The goose awaits,” he said lightly.
“The gravy will be lumpy,” she said simultaneously.
They worked together in the small kitchen in an awkward silence.
The tension eased when they all sat down to dinner. But there was a heightened awareness that Bedford did not find altogether unpleasant.
They sat at either end of the table, Andrew on one side of them and Megan and Dora on the other. Just like a family, all of them playing house in the warm and cozy little cottage. He met Lilias’s eyes across the table and smiled. She looked down hastily and then back at him.
“Will you say grace, my lord?” she asked.
He had never in his life washed dishes. But when the plum pudding was finally eaten and they were all groaning with the good foods they had stuffed into themselves, he rolled up his sleeves and put on the apron again. The children giggled.
“Oh, you must not,” Lilias said, flustered. “Please sit down in the parlor, my lord. The children and I will see to the dishes.”
“No, this is famous,” Andrew exclaimed. “You wash, sir, and Megan and I will dry.”
“My thoughts entirely,” the marquess said. “Your sister thinks I am incapable, you see, Andrew. We will show her, won’t we? You may clear away the food, ma’am, and then we will all have something to do.”
“I want to dry too.” Dora had climbed onto a chair to make herself noticed.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Lilias said, “you may help me put away. I really need assistance with that. Will you?”
Doing dishes had never been so much fun, Andrew declared half an hour later when the wet towels were being hung up to dry. Megan and Dora were still giggling over the cup that had slipped from the marquess’s wet hand and smashed on the floor.