8

Being forced to remain in bed was not as unpleasant as Elinor thought. Everyone in the household paid her a visit that afternoon, even the Fordyce children (who were permitted to stand just inside the door to express their good wishes, but who’d been warned not to step too far into the “sick room”). Then, in the evening, each of the adults called on her again just before dinner, some to show off their evening clothes, some to cheer her up for having to miss the lighting of the yule log, and all to wish her a joyous Noel. Felicia, looking particularly charming in a red Chinese silk round gown, hugged her and said with tremulous sincerity that she missed Elinor’s company and that her absence from the festivities was felt by everyone. Then Julian (breathtakingly handsome in his formal attire) came in with an armload of winter mums that he’d gone all the way to Harrowgate to procure. He must have found her appearance much improved, for his eyes lit up at the sight of her, and he repeated so often how remarkably well she was looking that she almost believed he meant it. Staying abed was turning out to be not unpleasant at all.

It was not until later that night, when she heard the sound of the carriages arriving at the front door to take the assemblage off to the midnight service at St. Michael’s in Leyburn, that Elinor began to feel lonely. Going to the midnight service was a family tradition; this was the first time ever that she would miss it. She ran to her south window, the one that overlooked the drive, and watched the guests as they gathered round the carriages. Since the conveyances only sat four, two were required for the trip. The Earl and Lady Lovebourne with their son and Felicia headed toward the first carriage, and Henry and Fanny Fordyce with their hostess, Martha Selby, meandered toward the second. Only Miles Endicott was missing from the group. Elinor wondered where he could be; he’d always gone to the Christmas midnight service in their company in former years.

The night was cold, and the travelers’ cloaks and greatcoats flapped in the wind as they climbed into the carriages, but they all seemed to be laughing merrily. The only one of the group not smiling was Elinor’s mother, who at that moment, remembering her daughter alone upstairs in her bedroom, looked up at the window where Elinor stood watching. Elinor saw her mother pause on the coach step and wave. “Go back to bed!” Martha mouthed.

“Yes, Mama.” Elinor sighed and turned away to do her mother’s bidding. She lay abed listening to the laughter, to the clunk of the coach doors closing, to the shouts of the coachmen starting up the horses, and to the crunch of the coach wheels on the gravel. But the noises of departure soon faded away. The only sound remaining was the howling wind, a gloomy whine that made the house seem suddenly very, very still. It’s not fair, she thought. No one should have to be alone on Christmas Eve.

She shivered, sighed more deeply than before, and was just about to succumb to a few tears of self-pity when there was a tap at the door. “Yes?” she asked, surprised.

Miles poked his head in. “May I come in?”

“Miles!” Elinor’s spirits lifted at once. “Of course. Why aren’t you with the others, on the way to St. Michael’s?”

He stepped over the threshold. “If I’m to play your lover, ma’am, I may as well do a good job of it. I’d be a poor sort of lover, wouldn’t I, if I went off with the crowd while my beloved lay imprisoned in her room all alone on Christmas Eve?”

“I suppose you would,” Elinor answered, touched.

“Of course I would. So I made my excuses to your mother and her guests, and here I am.”

“How very thoughtful of you,” she murmured, torn between feelings of gratitude for having found a companion for Christmas Eve and feelings of embarrassment at the close presence of the man who’d kissed her a few short hours ago—shocking behavior that neither of them would easily forget.

“Nothing thoughtful about it,” Miles said casually as he crossed the room to poke up the fire. “And I needn’t stay, if you’d prefer going to sleep to making conversation. My mission was accomplished merely by dropping out of the party.”

“Of course I wish you to stay.” She kept her voice as calm and steady as his. If he could be casual, so could she. “How could you believe I would rather sleep than converse with you? Pull up the rocking chair and sit near me. But what do you mean by your ‘mission’?”

“The mission that I undertook for your sake. To play your lover for the edification of Lord Lovebourne.” He pulled the rocker to the bedside and sat down. “I do believe, Elinor,” he added cheerfully, “that your Julian looked a bit put out when I announced my intention to stay behind and to keep you company.”

Elinor’s expression changed. “See here, Miles, you’re off the mark. I didn’t ask you to do this to make Julian jealous. I suggested this masquerade merely to convince him that the rupture of our troth is not his fault but my own selfish desire.”

“Well, ma’am, that may have been your aim,” he said with a tinge of annoyance, “but it isn’t mine.”

She eyed him warily. “Are you saying that you want him to be jealous? I didn’t think you capable of engaging in such … such devious strategems.”

“Be truthful, my girl. Isn’t that what you want?”

“Of course not!” she declared vehemently. “I don’t want to win him by chicanery.”

“Damnation, ma’am,” he growled, “it isn’t chicanery. It’s … er … clarification.”

Her eyebrows rose. “Clarification?”

“You said before that you wished Julian could see you through my eyes. Well, this is how we’ll get him to do it. Clarify his vision, so to speak.”

“But that was not at all my intention when I … when I …”

“When you named me as your lover. I know. But when I agreed to play this game, I did it with intentions of my own.”

“What intentions?”

“To make that idiot Loveboume see the error of his ways.”

“His ways are not in error. All he did was fall in love with someone else.”

“That’s the whole point. To be fool enough to choose the empty-headed Felicia Fordyce over you is error of the worst sort.”

“Well, whatever you wish to call it, Miles, he’s smitten with her. Moreover, it’s unethical, immoral, and … and … humiliating to me to have you trick Julian into changing his mind.”

“Unethical and immoral indeed!” Miles snapped, rising and glowering at her in impatience. “See here, woman, there’s no need to be so overly scrupulous. I’ve told you once, and I’ll tell you again, what I’m doing is not trickery. It’s merely restoring the fellow to his senses.”

Elinor blinked up at him, confused. This behavior was not what she expected from a man who had almost confessed to being in love with her himself, and not more than ten hours before. “I don’t understand you, Miles,” she muttered, her voice quivering. “I thought …”

“You thought what?”

She colored. “I mean … didn’t you tell me that you … when you kissed me … didn’t it mean …?”

He turned his back to her. “It didn’t mean anything.”

“Didn’t it?”

“No! It was just a … a momentary aberration.”

“Oh.” She felt a definite sinking feeling in her chest. “A momentary aberration. I see.”

“No, you don’t see,” he barked, wheeling round to her. “You’re muddling things up, bringing up trickery and chicanery and questions of the ethics of this. Let’s not get ourselves muddled in ethics. Your claim to ethical behavior went out the window when you lied about loving me. As for my ethics in this matter, I excuse my dishonesty by the purity of my motive. The ends justifying the means, and all that.”

“What ends? What motive?”

“Your happiness, of course. To help you win your heart’s desire. What other motive would I have?”

“Do you think I can be happy if I win my heart’s desire by trickery?”

“Yes, you can, if that is truly your heart’s desire. If you truly love the fellow.” His eyes burned into hers. “Well? Do you love him or don’t you?”

Elinor stared up at him, the import of the question bursting on her like an explosion. Did she love Julian? Did she? She was suddenly beset with confusion. Wasn’t the answer a simple yes? Yesterday the answer would have been yes without a moment of doubt. She’d taken her feelings for Julian for granted for so long, it hadn’t, until this moment, occurred to her to question them. “I … I …” she stammered, “I suppose I—after all, I’ve waited five years …”

“That is no answer. Yes or no?”

She suddenly found herself bereft of voice. Something within her was making it impossible to answer him.

He stared at her with a burning intensity for a moment before expelling an explosive breath. “Confound it, girl, you don’t have to answer. I can see it in your eyes. I always could read your thoughts in those enigmatic eyes of yours. The answer is yes. If it weren’t, you wouldn’t be afraid to say so.”

She had to reply somehow. “I … suppose that’s true,” she managed.

“Very well, then,” he said, stalking to the door, “there’s nothing more to be said. As far as I’m concerned, if you want the fellow, you shall have him! Wrapped, tied, and delivered. And before this deuced holiday is over!”