Mary Balogh - A Christmas Promise

Weddings are supposed to be joyous occasions—especially when a couple seems as well matched as Randolph Pierce, Earl of Falloden, and his bride-to-be, Eleanor Transome. Ellie brings to the marriage a vast dowry, while Falloden, though distant, is handsome, tremendously desirable, and possessed of a title most young ladies can only dream of sharing.

Yet Ellie is not most young ladies. She knows that she must honor her dear father’s dying wish for her to wed the proud earl, but she dreads a lifetime in a union without love—and how can Falloden claim to love her when he married her only for her fortune? As Christmas descends upon the Falloden manor, the warmth of the season may yet melt away the trappings of duty and wealth, leaving behind only a man and a woman destined for each other’s arms.

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Lady Blenkenship looked this way and that, her big eyes assessing the crowd to see if anyone was looking directly at them at the moment.
“Would you like to see my . . . sketches?”
She asked it with her eyes downcast, peering flirtatiously up at him through her lashes.
Her sketches?
Was he being propositioned in a crowded salon? Did she intend to lure him up to her chamber? Did he mind? It was a complication, if Lady Blenkenship intended to seduce him, but he was no stranger to complications.
“Show me your sketches, Lady Blenkenship,” he said softly, with the smile he reserved for innuendo.
She instantly reached down behind the settee behind her and produced, to his astonishment, a sketchbook and handed it to him.
“Go on,” she urged on a whisper. “Tell me what you think.”
She’d clasped her hands in front of her, then brought them nervously up to her mouth. Her big eyes liquid with nervous anticipation.
What on earth would he find in it? He looked about the salon just as she had. This way and that, ensuring no one was looking directly at him. He hoped he’d find nudes and was at the same time rather worried he would.
He opened her sketchbook furtively. He turned the first page up by one corner, took a peek. And then he turned it all the way over.
He stared for a good long time at the first drawing.
She nearly bounced on her toes awaiting his verdict.
“Lady Blenkenship?”
“Yes?” she said breathlessly.
“This is a kitten. In a basket.”
She nodded eagerly.
“This is a sketch of a kitten in a basket.”
A fluffy, big-eyed kitten was sitting neatly in a round basket, paws draped over the edge.
“Do you like it?” Millicent was practically nibbling on her knuckles with nerves.
“It’s a kitten in a basket,” he pointed out slowly. As if this was answer enough.
“Look at the next one,” she urged excitedly.
He gingerly turned the page. He stared.
“It’s . . . kittens playing with a yarn ball.” Something like hysteria tinged his voice.
“Ginger, Tom, and Molly!” she announced, stabbing a brown-gloved hand over their images as she announced their names. The amber stones on her bracelet clinked together. “Aren’t they precious?”
He slowly turned the pages, one by one. One by one. Kittens playing with a string. Kittens lapping milk. Kittens sniffing flowers.
“Lady Blenkenship?”
“Yes?”
“Do you like kittens?”
“Oh, I do!” she confided breathlessly.
He sighed, handed the sketchbook back to her, and to her astonishment promptly abandoned her and wended his way through the crowd.
He didn’t dislike kittens. But life was too short to continue this conversation.

Zenobia (tante) snorted. “Don’t tell me you’re going to try for virgin birth, my love. I can’t imagine that it worked very well back in Jerusalem. Every time the bishop talks about it at Christmastime, I can’t help thinking that the poor girl must have had a miserable time trying to get people to believe her.”
“I can’t imagine why you’re bringing scripture into this conversation,” Linnet’s father said. “We’re talking about princes, not gods.”
Linnet groaned. “This dress just makes me look plump.”
Zenobia sank into a chair. “Do you mean to tell me that you aren’t carrying a child?”
“I’ve been saying that. I didn’t sleep with the prince, or anyone else either.”
There was a mournful pause while the truth at last sunk in. “God Almighty, you’re ruined, and you didn’t even eat the gingerbread,” her aunt said, finally.