it-her eyes glowing like sister stars, her cheeks flushed, her lips parted-when he had given her the ring two years before, on the occasion of their betrothal.
“Look, my lord,” she had said-she had not called him by his given name until he had asked her to on their wedding night a few minutes after he had finished consummating their marriage. “Look, my lord, it is a bright star in a dark sky. And this is Christmas. The birthday of Christ.The beginning of all that is wonderful.The beginning for us.How auspicious that you have given me the Star of Bethlehem for our betrothal.”
He had smiled at her-beautiful, dark-haired, dark-eyed, vivacious Estelle, the bride his parents had picked out for him, though his father had died a year before and unwittingly caused a delay in the betrothal.
And holding her hand, the ring on her finger, he had allowed himself to fall all the way in love with her, though he had thought that at the age of thirty there was no room in his life for such deep sentiment. He had agreed to marry her because marriage was the thing to do at his age and in his position, and because marrying Estelle made him the envy of numerous gentlemen-married and single alike-in London. She would be a dazzling ornament for his home and his life.
It would have been better if he had kept it so, if he had not done anything as foolish as falling in love with her. Perhaps they would have had a workable relationship if he had not done that. Perhaps after almost two years of marriage they would have grown comfortable together.
“Well,” he said, looking down at the ring in his hand and carefully keeping both his face and voice expressionless, “it is no great loss, is it, Estelle? It was merely a diamond. Merely money, of which I have an abundance.” He tossed the ring up, caught it, and closed his hand around it. “A mere bauble. Put it away.” He held it out to her again.
Her chin lifted an inch as she took it from him. “I am sorry to have taken your time,” she said, “but I thought you should know. I would not have had you find out at some future time and think that I had been afraid to tell you.”
His lips formed into something of a sneer. “We both know that you could not possibly fear my ill opinion, don’t we?” he said. “I am merely the man who pays the bills and makes all respectable in your life. Perhaps the diamond fell into the pocket or the neckcloth of Martindale last evening. You spent enough time in his company. You must ask him next time you see him. Later today, perhaps?”
She ignored his last words. “Or about the person of Lord Peterson or Mr.
Hayward or Sir Caspar Rhodes,” she said. “I danced with them all last evening, and enticed them all into anterooms for secret dalliances.” Her chin was high, her voice heavy with sarcasm.
“I believe we said-or rather yelled-all that needs to be expressed about your behavior at the Eastman ball-or your lack of behavior-last night,” he said. “I choose not to reopen the quarrel, Estelle. But I have thought further about what I said heatedly then. And I repeat it now when my temper is down. When Christmas is over and your parents return to the country, I believe it will be as well for you to return with them for a visit.”
“Banishment?” she said. “Is that not a little gothic, Allan?”
“We need some time apart,” he said. “Although for the past few months we have seen each other only when necessary, we have still contrived to quarrel with tedious frequency. We need a month or two in which to rethink our relationship.”
“How about a lifetime or two?” she said.
“If necessary.” He looked at her steadily from cold blue eyes.
Beautiful, headstrong Estelle.Incurably flirtatious. Not caring the snap of a finger for him beyond the fact that he had had it in his power to make her the Countess of Lisle and to finance her whims for the rest of a pampered life, despite the occasional flaring of hot passion that always had him wondering when it was all over and she lay sleeping in his arms if she had ever gifted other men with such favors. And always hating himself for such unfounded suspicions.
She shivered suddenly. “It is so cold in here,” she said petulantly.
“How can we be without fires in December? It is quite unreasonable.”
“You are the one being unreasonable,” he said. “You might be in the morning room now or in the library, where there are fires. You might have slept in a bedchamber where there was a fire. Chimneys have to be swept occasionally if they are not to catch fire. Half the house yesterday; the other half today. It is not such a great inconvenience, is it?”
“It should be done in the summertime,” she said.
“During the summer you said it could wait until the winter, when we would be going into the country,” he reminded her. “And then you had this whim about having Christmas here this year with both our families.
Well, I have given you your way about that, Estelle-as usual. But the chimneys have been smoking. They must be cleaned before our guests arrive next week. By tomorrow all will be set to rights again.”
“I hate it when you talk to me in that voice,” she said, “as if I were a little child of defective understanding.”
“You hate it when I talk to you in any voice,” he said. “And sometimes you behave like a child of defective understanding.”
“Thank you,” she said, opening her hand and looking down at the ring. “I wish to get dressed, Allan, and go in search of a room with a warm fire.
I am grateful that you have seen fit not to beat me over the loss of the diamond.”
“Estelle!” All his carefully suppressed anger boiled to the surface and exploded in the one word.
She tossed her head up and glared across at him with dark and hostile eyes. He strode from the room without another word.
Estelle returned her gaze to the ring in the palm of her hand. The back of her nose and throat all the way down to her chest were a raw ache.
The diamond was gone. It was all ruined. All of it. Two years was not such a very long time, but it seemed like another Estelle who had watched as he slid the ring onto her finger and rested her hand on his so that she could see it.
It had been Christmas, and she had been caught up in the usual euphoric feelings of love and goodwill, and the unrealistic conviction that every day could be Christmas if everyone would just try hard enough. She had looked at the diamond and the sapphires, and they had seemed like a bright symbol of hope. Hope that the arranged marriage she had agreed to because Mama and Papa had thought it such a splendid opportunity for her would be a happy marriage. Hope that the tall, golden-haired, unsmiling, rather austere figure of her betrothed would turn out to be a man she could like and be comfortable with-perhaps even love.
The ring had been the Star of Bethlehem to her from the start and without any effort of thought. And he had smiled one of his rare smiles when she had looked up at him and named the ring that. Looking into his blue eyes at that moment, she had thought that perhaps he would grow fond of her. She had thought that perhaps he would kiss her. He had not, though he had raised her hand to his lips and kissed both it and the ring.
He had not kissed her mouth at all before their marriage. But he had kissed her afterward on their wedding night in their marriage bed. And he had made a tender and beautiful and almost painless experience out of what she had anticipated with some fright.
She had thought… She had hoped…
But it did not matter. The only really tender and passionate moments of their marriage had happened in her bed. Always actions of the body.
Never words.
They had not really grown close. He never revealed much of himself to her. And she shared only trivialities with him. They never really talked.
They were lovers only in fits and starts. Sometimes wild passion for three or four nights in a row.And then perhaps weeks of nothing in between.
She had never conceived. Not, at least… But she was not at all sure.
The only thing consistent in their relationship was the quarrels. Almost always over her behavior toward other gentlemen. His accusations had been unjust at first. It was in her nature to be smiling and friendly, flirtatious even. She had meant nothing by it. All her loyalty had been given to her new husband. She had been hurt and bewildered by his disapproval. But in the last year, she had begun to flirt quite deliberately. Never enough to deceive the gentlemen concerned. No one except Allan had ever been offered her lips or any other part of her body except her hand. And never even one small corner of her heart. But she had taken an almost fiendish glee in noting her
