“One more?” Megan pleaded.
Lilias was sitting in a chair opposite his own, her feet resting on the hearth. She was smiling. She looked very beautiful. Why had he not told her that out at the lake? Why had he not told her that she looked even lovelier this year in the unfashionable blue gown than she had looked six years before? Why had he allowed himself to get angry instead? Angry at a fate that could treat her so? He wanted her to have everything in the world, and instead, she had almost nothing. Why had he not told her she looked beautiful?
“Not even one more minute,” he told the girls. “And, as it is, that coach of ours is late. Wherever can it be?”
He got up from his chair and crossed the room to the window. He pulled back the curtains, which they had closed as soon as they had returned from their walk, and leaned past the evergreen in order to peer out into the darkness. Not that he had really needed to lean forward, he realized immediately. It was not dark outside.
“Good Lord,” he said. “Snow.”
It must have started in great earnest the moment they had pulled the curtains. And it must have been snowing ever since. There were several inches of it out there.
“Snow!” There were three identical shrieks, and three human missiles hurled themselves against him and past him in order to see the spectacle. “Snow!” There was a loud babble of excitement.
“Well,” he said, “at least we know what has delayed the coach. It is still in the coach house and the horses in the stable, if Giles has any sense whatsoever.”
Dora shrieked and bounced at his side. “We can stay, then, Papa?” she asked. “We can stay all night?”
He turned to see Lilias standing before the fireplace.
“She can share Megan’s bed,” she said hastily. “There will be room for the two of them. You must not think of taking her out if the snow really is too deep for your carriage.”
“And you can share mine,” Andrew said brightly.
The marquess laughed. “Thank you, Andrew,” he said, “but I shall walk home. For days I have been longing to set my feet in snow. But I will be grateful to leave Dora here until morning. Thank you, ma’am.” He looked at Lilias.
She went upstairs almost immediately with Megan to get all ready. He took Dora onto his lap to explain to her that he would go home alone and return for her in the morning. But he need not have worried. She was so tired and so excited at the prospect of spending the night with Megan that she seemed not at all upset at being separated from him. He took her upstairs.
The door to one small bedroom was open. Megan was crying. The marquess stood still on the stairs and held his daughter’s hand more tightly.
“Hush,” Lilias was saying. “Oh, hush, sweetheart. You know we had a pact not to talk of it or even think of it until Christmas was well and truly over. Hush now. It has been a lovely Christmas, has it not?”
“Ye-e-es,” Megan wailed, her voice muffled. “But I don’t want to go, Lilias.”
“Sh,” Lilias said. “Dora will be here in a minute. You don’t want her to see you cry, do you?”
“No-o-o.”
The marquess looked down into the large eyes of his daughter and held a finger to his lips. He frowned. Then he stepped firmly on the next stair. “Here we are,” he said cheerfully. “Two little girls to squash into one little bed.”
Megan giggled.
“Four little girls,” Dora corrected him, indicating the doll clutched in her own arms and pointing to Megan’s, which was lying at the foot of the bed.
Both girls giggled.
“Four, then,” he said. “In you get.”
Andrew was no less tired than the girls. He went to bed only ten minutes later. Ten minutes after that the giggling and whisperings stopped. It seemed that all were asleep.
The marquess was standing at the window, looking out into the curiously lightened world of freshly falling snow. Lilias was seated silently at the fire.
“Lilias,” he said. He could no more think of the right words to say than he had been able to twenty minutes before. He continued to look out the window. “You must marry me. It is the only way. I cannot let you take on the life of a governess. And Andrew and Megan must not be separated from each other, or from you. You must marry me. Will you?” He turned finally to look across the room at her. And knew immediately that he had done it all wrong, after all.
She was quite pale. She stared up at him, all large eyes in her thin face. “No,” she said, and her voice was trembling. “No, I will not accept charity. No.”
But she must be made to accept. Did she not realize that? He felt his jaw harden. He retreated behind the mask that had become almost habitual with him in the past few years.
“I don’t think you have any choice,” he said. “Do you seriously think that, as a governess, you will ever again have a chance to see your brother and sister? Do you imagine that you will be able to save even enough money to travel to where they are to visit? It will not happen.
When you leave here, you will see them for perhaps the last time.”
She was sitting on the very edge of her chair, her back straight, her hands clasped tightly in her lap.
“Do you think I do not know that?” she said.
“Andrew will not even be allowed to see you again,” he said. “He will be taken back into the fold, and he will be taught to despise you. Do you realize that?”
“Yes.”
He saw the word forming itself on her lips. He did not hear it. “Megan will be an old woman’s slave,” he said. “She will have a dreary girlhood. She will probably end up like you, a governess or a paid companion. Have you thought of that?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Then you must marry me,” he said. “For their sakes, if not for your own. You will be able to stay together.” His eyes strayed down her body.
“And you will be able to have some new clothes at last.”
He ached to buy her those new garments, to see the pleasure in her eyes as he clothed her in silks and lace and warm wool. He wanted to hang jewels about her neck and at her ears. He wanted to put rings on her fingers.
“You must marry me,” he said.
She rose to her feet. He knew as soon as she did so that she was very angry. “Must I?” she said softly. “Must I, my lord? Is this what your title and wealth have done for you? Do you talk to your servants so? Do you talk to everyone so? And does everyone kiss the ground at your feet and do what they must do? Is this how you persuaded your first wife to marry you? And did she instantly obey? Well, not me, my lord. I do not have to marry you, or anyone else. And if it is true that my brother and sister will live less than perfect lives according to the arrangements I have made for them, then at least we will all be able to retain our pride and hold our heads high. I will not sell myself even for their sakes.”
The Marquess of Bedford had trained himself not to flinch outwardly under such scathing attacks. He merely stared at her from half-closed eyelids, his teeth and lips firmly pressed together.
“Pride can be a lonely companion,” he said.
“Perhaps so,” she said. “But charity would be an unbearable companion, my lord.”
He nodded. “I will wish you good-night, then,” he said. “Thank you for giving Dora a bed. And thank you for giving her the loveliest day of her life. I know I do not exaggerate. I hope we have not spoiled your day.”
“No,” she said. The fire of battle had died in her eyes. She looked smaller and thinner even than usual. “You have not spoiled our day. The children have been very happy.”
The children. Not she. The marquess half-smiled, though he feared that his expression must look more like a sneer. He picked up his greatcoat and pulled it on.
“Good night,” he said again, pulling his collar up about his ears.
“Don’t stand at the door. You will get cold.”
He did not look at her again. He concentrated his mind on wading through the soft snow without either falling or losing his way.