The Bond Street Carolers
Mary Balogh

( From A Regency Christmas Carol anthology, which also includes: The Earl's Nightingale, by Edith Layton; The Mistletoe Kiss, by Elisabeth Fairchild; Make a Joyful Noise, by Carla Kelly and Melody, by Anne Barbour)

The season of Christmas was irrevocably upon them, it seemed. Bond Street in London was crammed with fashionable shoppers, most of whom carried assorted packages and bandboxes and dodged impatiently about those similarly encumbered. Several of them had servants walking a pace or two behind, loaded to the eyebrows with larger, heavier, more unwieldy parcels, and suffering considerable verbal abuse from those whose path they obstructed. Carriages paused to pick up their passengers and were cursed at by impatient coachmen for blocking the thoroughfare. The general mood seemed to be one of irritability.
The rain had stopped for the moment, but the wind that howled along the street as if it were a funnel was damp and chill and cut through fashionable greatcoats and cloaks, setting their wearers to shivering and hurrying—and bumping all the more surely into one another. Both the road and the pavement were wet. Hems of cloaks and dresses were dark and heavy with moisture and boots were muddy. Heedless carriage drivers sprayed passersby with a mixture of dirty water and mud and were roundly berated for their impudence.
There was little evidence of the peace and goodwill for which the season was supposedly renowned.
Yet the group of carolers standing on one corner, red-nosed and bedraggled, exhorted everyone within hearing, the gentlemen in particular, to allow God to rest them merry and let nothing them dismay. The shoppers gave the group a wide berth lest they be importuned to contribute to whatever charity had set the singers to indulging in such blatant self-torture. Most of them appeared not to remember, though instructed to do so by the choir, that Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day. Or if they did remember, there were more important things to occupy their minds for the coming four days—like completing their Christmas shopping so that they might return home and get themselves warm and dry again and rest their sore feet.
It was Christmas—that time of love and laughter and peace and merriment and religious observance. That most blissful of all times of the year. That persistent myth. Roderick Ames, Baron Heath, who was proceeding along Bond Street only because it offered the shortest route from where he had come to where he was going, was as fashionably dressed as anyone else on the street. More so, in fact. His greatcoat boasted twelve capes and his boots and gloves and beaver hat were all new and of the latest design and the most costly materials. But he carried only a silver-topped cane and did not even glance at the shops to either side of him. Their window displays did not entice him. Although he had brothers and sisters and their assorted spouses and offspring for whom to buy, not to mention a resident mistress, he also had a secretary who was perfectly capable of taking the unpleasant task of choosing and purchasing upon himself. He was paid handsomely enough, after all.
Lord Heath disliked Christmas. Traditionally it was always spent at Bloomfield Hall, his seat in Hampshire. His beloved home, except at Christmas, when it was invaded by every last person, he sometimes thought, who could claim some connection with the Ames family, however remote. And every last person's spouse as well, and all their children—and even occasionally their pets. His family had been remarkably prolific over the past century or so.
It was all a merry romp—or so family mythology described Bloomfield Christmases. By his own observation they were fraught with inebriated, overfed, sleepy, short-tempered gentlemen; demanding, complaining, vaporous, short-tempered ladies; frazzled, despairing, short-tempered nurses and governesses; and shrieking, unruly, petulant, short-tempered children. And himself—counting the days until he might expect to have his home to himself again and decidedly short-tempered in the meanwhile.
But not this year. This year the festivities would proceed without him. He did not believe he would be sorely missed. This year he would remain in town and would recognize no obligation to the season except to send off all the presents to Bloomfield and to host the concert that he usually gave during January. That was to be two days before Christmas. Christmas Day itself he intended to spend blissfully alone in his library with perhaps the indulgence of an afternoon or evening visit to Lucy. It would be a pleasant novelty to be able to make use of the services of a mistress on Christmas Day.
The carolers, he noticed with an inward grimace as he drew closer to them, were singing with surprising enthusiasm considering the inclement weather and the lack of appreciation with which their efforts were being greeted. They were also singing with a lamentable lack of musicality. One mature female voice, predominating over all the others, trilled and wobbled in the higher registers. Someone, Lord Heath guessed, had once told her she had a fine voice. He singled her out with his eyes. A buxom woman of late middle years, she sang with closed eyes as if in an ecstasy. The thin and elderly man behind her sang in a lusty bass voice. It took no connoisseur of music to recognize that the owner of the voice was tone-deaf.
"God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen" came to a close just as Lord Heath stepped out into the roadway in order to pass the group. They did have a small audience, he noticed. A lady, holding the hand of a small child, stood and listened to them. Though perhaps, he thought, she was one of them. She was young and doubtless personable, and the child was no more than an infant. Who better to take up the collection between renderings? Who could resist a pretty woman—unless perhaps another less pretty female? And who could resist a tiny child? He lifted one cynical eyebrow and walked on.
But the carolers had begun a new song. Not the whole group. A soloist began singing. "Lully, lulla, thou little tiny child," the voice sang—a soprano voice of such sweet purity that Lord Heath stopped in his tracks and unconsciously held his breath. It was like an angel's voice, he thought foolishly, and waited for the discordant sounds of the choir to join the voice after the opening lines. But it sang on alone.
A young boy he had not noticed before stood in the front ranks of the group, an open book across his two hands, his eyes directed downward at it. He was muffled up against the cold so that only his downcast eyes, two rosy cheeks, and an equally rosy nose were visible—and his mouth, which opened wide to release the heavenly sounds that held Lord Heath spellbound. He rested the tip of his cane on the wet and muddy curb and forgot everything but the music itself.
And the magic—if such was an appropriate word— of the Christmas story.

Fanny Berlinton was embarrassed—and cold. In equal measures. She was wearing a wool dress with long sleeves beneath her heavy cloak, and she had swallowed her pride by wearing her rather ugly half boots and an unfashionable bonnet with a brim large enough to shield her face from some of the wind's force, and from the intermittent rain. But Bond Street felt like an icy tunnel and she was unable even to hurry along it in order to build up some heat or duck inside one of the shops. She could not walk at all, in fact. She was forced to stand still.
She was forced to stand close to the carol singers and be associated with them by proximity. They were a group from the church she had attended since coming to live permanently in London at the end of the summer, and they prided themselves on having gone carol singing and raising money for church repairs every year for the past twenty-seven. With two or three exceptions, the members of the group were the same people who had begun the tradition. Fanny seriously doubted that they had ever been a tuneful choir, but she would give them the benefit of the doubt. Miss Kemp, their leader and star attraction, had perhaps had a passably good voice before it began to wobble with advancing age. Mr. Fothergill had perhaps been able to carry a tune before he lost most of his hearing.
If only Matthew had not opened his mouth one Sunday morning at the sound of a familiar hymn and sung like a nightingale, as the vicar had commented immediately afterward before launching into his sermon. Matthew had been surrounded by kindly parishioners after the service was over, and Miss Kemp herself had announced that the dear boy really must join the carolers and attend weekly practices, it being October already.
He ought to be singing with the choir at Westminster Abbey or one of the other larger, more fashionable churches, the vicar had added, though he had gone on to say that he hoped Mrs. Berlinton would not deprive them of her son's heavenly voice.
Matthew, no ordinary child, had not cringed from the idea of being part of an adult choir, as Fanny had rather hoped he would. He had been charmed by the prospect. Singing came more naturally to him than talking, his mother often thought, and he would never willingly pass by the opportunity to share his talent with an audience.
Not that he was conceited. Far from it. Praise appeared to warm him but not to puff him up with any sense of his own importance.
And so here she was, cold and embarrassed. The carolers seemed to be more than usually off-key. Though as usual she felt her heart swell with pride— and apprehension—when Matthew began his solo. How could anyone on busy Bond Street not stop to take notice? she thought. But what if no one did? Would Matthew notice and be crushed by the crowd's indifference?
She glanced down at Katie, her daughter. She hoped the child was warm. She was certainly bundled up well enough. Katie was a strange mixture of quiet dreaminess and occasional daring boldness. For the moment she was still, content to hold hands and watch her brother's performance. She set her head against Fanny's side even as her mother looked down at her. Christmas would be quiet this year. Fanny had made the decision to let her brother-in-law and his family, with whom she lived because Boris had not left her sufficient funds for an independence on his death, go into the country without her. There would be a large house party there as usual and she had hesitated about depriving the children of the company of others of their own age. But she hated those Christmas parties, during which the adults and children were strictly segregated and the adult festivities consisted of too much eating, far too much drinking, and very much too much kissing and pinching beneath the mistletoe—kissing everyone, that is, except one's own spouse. For the past two Christmases, ever since coming out of mourning for Boris, Fanny had been kissed enough times to send her scurrying to her room on more than one occasion, feeling somewhat nauseated.
This year they would spend Christmas alone. Just the three of them. She hoped she was not being dreadfully selfish. She could imagine nothing lovelier than being in John's house without John and Mercy and their three children—just alone with her own two. Watching them open their gifts. Playing with them and reading to them. Spending the whole day with just them. It seemed like an unbelievable luxury. She still did not quite believe in it.
Matthew was not totally without an audience. One gentleman had stopped to listen. She turned her head to look at him. She recognized him though there was no chance that he would know her. Although she had had a come-out season when she was eighteen and had attended ton balls and parties, she had never moved in quite such exalted circles as Baron Heath— for which fact she had been thankful. Tall, handsome, fashionable, arrogant, and fabulously wealthy, he had also had a reputation as something of a rake, as a man on whom matchmaking mamas need not waste their time.
He still looked elegant and expensive. And supercilious, leaning on his came as if he very well might own Bond Street. But he was listening—and watching Matthew.
Fanny felt a sudden and wholly unexpected wave of loneliness. Boris had been dead for longer than three years and had not been much of a companion when he was alive. Amiable and good-looking and second son of a viscount, he had been a good match for her. But his amiability had concealed laziness, she had discovered after their marriage, and a lack of either strong feeling or principle. He had been frequently from home, spending his time with male companions as amiable and as shiftless as he, gaming, drinking, womanizing. He had not been a vicious man, merely one without character. She had not mourned him as deeply as conscience had suggested she ought.
Since his death there had been other suitors, though it seemed that the only ones she found remotely interesting wanted her as a mistress rather than as a wife. Widows, she had learned, were almost expected to take lovers rather than new husbands. A few of her suitors had seemed genuinely surprised to be rejected.
And sometimes she thought that perhaps she was foolish to have rejected them. Sometimes she longed for closeness with another adult. She had women friends, but they did not totally satisfy. Companionship with a man was important to her—she had discovered that when she had not found it with Boris. But she was not so dishonest with herself that she would not admit she wanted more than companion-
ship. Sometimes she craved physical closeness— touching, kissing, caressing. And, oh yes, she would not deny it, the joining of bodies. She could remember that at the start of her marriage at least she had come to enjoy that. She had come to need it.
But she shook off the loneliness in order to gaze with pride at her son, whose voice had drawn the attention of a few other people on the street. He really did sing like a nightingale. Or like an angel. She listened to the words of the Christmas story he told in song. Perhaps this year Christmas as it was meant to be would come alive again and be more than an orgy of eating and drinking and flirting.
She longed for love and joy and peace and all the other feelings that were associated with Christmas yet were so rarely a real part of it.

Katie Berlinton was a little bit cold. She imagined that the wind was a bad-tempered old man with puffed cheeks and angry eyes. He was a rude man, too. He blew right through a person without having the courtesy to go around. She pressed closer to her mother and set the side of her face against Mama's cloak. She felt instantly warmer. She had realized before that feeling safe was a warm feeling.
She liked listening to the carolers. She did not know the tunes well enough to sing them herself and she did not know all the words. But she did know that she had heard the same carols every year at Christmastime. There was a special feel about carols and about Christmas. A warm feeling. A dreamy feeling. She was glad Matthew had a chance to sing alone. He loved to sing. She had tried to sing like him, but she could not do it. Nurse had told her once that she sounded like a rusty saw, but Nurse had laughed and hugged her as she said it, so the words had not really hurt a great deal. Though the truth of them had made her a little sad. Sad, but not jealous. She loved Matt. He was her hero.
She and Matt were to spend Christmas alone with Mama this year. Uncle John and Aunt Mercy and the cousins had gone into the country, where there would be all the children to play with there had been last year—she could remember the fun they had had. But she did not mind remaining behind as long as Matt and Mama were with her. She especially would not mind if she got what she wanted for Christmas. Numerous people had asked her what she wanted— Mama, Aunt Mercy, Miss Kemp among others—and she always gave the same answer because she knew it was the answer they all expected. She always dutifully said that she would like a doll.
But that was not what she really wanted. She wanted a new papa. Papas were fun. They came to the nursery every day and praised their children even when there was nothing particular to praise them for and pretended to fight with their sons until the boys shrieked with laughter. And they tossed their daughters at the ceiling and caught them and laughed at them for screaming with fright—and enjoyment. And they gave their children gifts even when it was not Christmas or a birthday and took them to the Tower of London and Astley's Amphitheater. They bought ices for them at Gunter's.
Uncles were nice too, of course. Sometimes they noticed that one felt left out and smiled and talked to one. Once they even took one along to Gunter's, though they scolded if one dropped ice cream on one's dress. Their own daughters never did any such bad thing.
Uncles were nice, but they did not belong to one. Uncles had to force themselves to be nice. Papas were always patient and loving. Papas belonged to one's very own self.
Sometimes Mama went driving with a gentleman. Once she went to the theater with one. Katie had seen some of the gentlemen, either by peering downstairs through the banister when she was supposed to be in the nursery or by looking out through the window. But none of those gentlemen had looked like papas.
Katie could not remember her own papa. She had had one. Mama had said so. But he had gone to heaven because God had wanted him. She thought it rather selfish of God, but Nurse had shrieked and looked quite frightened when she had once said so aloud. She had kept the thought to herself since then.
There was a gentleman watching Matt. He was leaning on his cane, and Katie could tell that he was really listening. He was not just being polite. She thought she could probably walk up to him and pinch his leg and he would not notice. But she would not do so. He was an extremely large gentleman—larger than Uncle John. And he looked like the kind of gentleman who would not take kindly to having his leg pinched—even though she did not believe he would notice.
Katie gazed at him. She thought she might be a little afraid if he looked at her as intently as he was looking at Matt. But she also thought that if he were her friend—not that he ever would be because she had never seen him before and obviously he and Mama had never seen each other before or they would be bowing and curtsying and he would be touching the brim of his hat. One never ever spoke to strangers, Mama always said. And so did Nurse. But if he were her friend, she thought, he would be utterly trustworthy. She imagined herself being lifted from the ground by him and held in the folds of all those capes. She would be wonderfully warm. And she would feel marvelously safe. She wondered if he was a papa. How she envied his children if he were. She wished she was one of them.
Secretly and silently she had added a rider to her evening prayers for ages and ages past, even though she knew she was praying to the same God who had wanted her papa and had taken him from her. She had prayed for a new papa, preferably for Christmas. Gifts were always more special at Christmas. And it struck her that it was an eminently unselfish gift for which to pray since if she had a new papa then Matt would have one too—as well as the gift for which he hoped. And Mama would perhaps like one too, though he would not be her papa, of course. Aunt Mercy seemed to like Uncle John and they often went to concerts and balls and things like that together while Mama as often as not stayed at home. Mama would like having someone to take her to concerts— perhaps she would like it. Not that Katie would love her one little bit the less just because there would be a papa to play with her as well.
She wished that gentleman could be her papa. Perhaps she would add that detail to her prayers tonight. The gentleman with the silver-headed cane and the many capes and the big nose and the piercing eyes, she would tell God. The gentleman who had loved Matt's singing so much that he looked as if he had forgotten where he was.
But Matt finished singing even as she was composing the prayer she would recite to herself that evening after she had finished the official version in her mother's hearing. And the gentleman jumped almost immediately into action.
"You!" he said, pointing his cane to Miss Kemp as there was a smattering of applause from some of the bystanders and one of the other ladies stepped forward with an upside down hat to collect money. "You, ma'am. Who is this boy?"
Miss Kemp, looking flustered, bobbed a curtsy. "He sings like an angel, does he not, sir?" she said. "We are proud this year—"
"Who is he?" Nurse would have said he was rude to interrupt, but Katie doubted Nurse would have said so to his face. She doubted that anyone would say so to his face.
"He is Master Matthew Berlinton, sir," Miss Kemp said. "He is—"
"Matthew Berlinton," the gentleman said, turning to Matt, "you have an extraordinary talent. It should be displayed before a larger and more appreciative audience."
"If it had not rained this morning, sir—" Miss Kemp began.
The gentleman was praising Matt just like a papa. Uncle John had once told Matt, though kindly enough, that he must stop singing all the time because he was giving Aunt Mercy headaches. Katie left the almost warm cocoon of her mother's side, completely forgetting what she had been taught about strangers, and crossed the distance to the gentleman. She stood on the curb before him and rugged at his greatcoat.
He looked down, astonishment on his face. He seemed even larger from close to and he did not smile. For a moment Katie felt frightened, but she remembered that he had told Matt that he had an extraordinary talent. Katie did not know quite what that meant, but she could guess from his tone that it was something good.
"I am Katie Berlinton," she said. And then she remembered to add, "Sir."
'Indeed?" he said, and Katie noticed that he did not sound like a papa now—and that from among the folds of his capes he had somehow produced a quizzing glass, through which he looked down at her. His enlarged eye looked somewhat colder than Uncle John's had when she had dripped ice cream down herself. "Yes," she said.

Lord Heath had never particularly liked children. Perhaps it was that he had never had a great deal to do with them and that his numerous nieces and nephews appeared mortally afraid of him. In fact, of course, he had deliberately cultivated the fear by never smiling in their presence and by making free use of his quizzing glass. Only so could he preserve even a modicum of privacy at Christmas while his brothers and brothers-in-law and male cousins were constantly being climbed upon and pestered to come and play. Children, Lord Heath had concluded, shortened male tempers in a hurry. He avoided having his own shortened by the simple expedient of avoiding children.
And now a little cherub of an infant had had the effrontery to pull at his greatcoat in the middle of the street and to present herself to him. After his hand, almost by its own volition, had found his quizzing glass and raised it to his eye, she still clung to his coat and still gazed steadily upward, her head tipped sharply back.
The child's mother, he decided, deserved a severe tongue-lashing for allowing such impertinence—and for keeping a less than careful eye on her offspring. What would she do if he tucked the child beneath his arm and made off with her? There would be nothing she could do except have a first-class fit of the vapors. She would never see the child again. And it would serve her right too.
But the mother—the woman who had been standing watching the carolers when he arrived—was there before him, only a stride or two behind her daughter, and she was pulling the child away and scolding her and looking remarkably flustered—as well she might.
"I do apologize," she said, presumably to him even though she did not raise her eyes to his. She sounded suitably mortified.
But he was distracted. His hearing had just caught up to his thoughts. Katie Berlinton, the child had said. The young soprano was Matthew Berlinton.
"Mrs. Berlinton?" he said.
She looked more mortified than before as she curtsied slightly. But of course, she was a lady. His manners had certainly gone begging. It was not at all the thing to accost a genteel stranger in the middle of the street without anyone to perform a formal introduction. But that boy was too precious to be lost on account of a few social niceties.
"I must commend you, ma'am, on your son's voice," he said. "It is quite exquisite."
"Thank you, my lord," she murmured, curtsying again and gathering the infant's hand firmly in her own before turning with the obvious intention of gathering her son beneath her other wing.
Ah. So she knew him. He did not know her. She was clearly a lady and was well dressed. But she was not clad in the first stare of fashion. There was no sign of hovering servants or of a carriage waiting to convey her home. The other carolers were gathered about, gawking and beaming.
"Pardon me, ma'am," he said, desperation causing him to fling aside the vestiges of good manners, "may I be allowed to present myself?" He did not wait for an answer. "Roderick Ames, Baron Heath, at your service. You may have heard of me as something of a connoisseur of musical talent."
The leader of the carolers, the woman of the wobbly voice, curtsied just as if she were being presented at the queen's drawing room. The other women of the group hastily followed suit, while two or three of the men bobbed their heads.
"Eh?" the tone-deaf chorister said, cupping one hand about his left ear.
"His lordship is Baron Heath, Mr. Fothergill," the lady leader said in a voice that announced his identity to at least half of Bond Street.
The tone-deaf man was also deaf, his lordship concluded.
Mrs. Berlinton did not curtsy again, but she did raise her eyes to his for the first time. He had realized from the start that she was young and probably pleasing to look at. He was surprised to find that actually she was quite exquisitely beautiful, with large hazel eyes, a straight little nose, and a soft mouth that was neither too small nor too large—a mouth made for kissing, in fact. Mr. Berlinton was a fortunate man. Even reddened cheeks and nose could not quite disguise the delicacy of her complexion.
"No, my lord," she said, "I had not heard that. Please excuse us." And she turned back to her children.
"Your son has a talent that is wasted on such an audience," he said, gesturing with his cane at the street around them.
She turned back to him then, and he could see anger in her eyes. "My son is a child, my lord," she said. "He does not need an audience."
Lord Heath was not a man to act from impulse. He was not sure quite what impelled him now, except that the boy's voice was exceptionally beautiful and that it was such an ephemeral gift—it would disappear with puberty. It was not a voice to be wasted on Bond Street shoppers and to be drowned out by an unmusical adult group of carolers.
"I will provide him with an audience, ma'am," he said, "the most discriminating audience in London." He always prepared the guest list for his concerts with care, choosing not necessarily the most fashionable guests, but those with a sincere appreciation for music. Consequently, he knew, his invitations were much sought after and were scarcely ever refused. "He will sing at a concert in my home the evening after tomorrow. I beg leave to call upon Mr. Berlinton to discuss the details."
He could not understand her anger—or perhaps he would in a more rational moment when he would surely recall with some discomfort discussing such matters with a stranger in the middle of Bond Street during a busy afternoon. But angry she was—her eyes flashed and her nostrils flared and she would surely have flushed if her cheeks had not already been fiery red.
"This is distasteful, my lord," she said with all the disdain of a dowager duchess. "My son is not for hire and not for display before the ton. He seeks no remuneration. I assume you were offering to pay him?"
He had not considered the matter. He always did pay the performers at his concerts, those who would accept payment, anyway. Some would not. He opened his mouth to reply. But she had turned from him once more.
"Come, Matthew," she said. "Make your bow to Miss Kemp and the other ladies and gentlemen. I regret, Miss Kemp, that we cannot stay for the rest of the carols. Katie is cold and tired."
Lord Heath shut his mouth with a clack of teeth and turned on his heel. He had been roundly snubbed and deservedly so. But he was not accustomed to being snubbed. He would not wait to see Mrs. Berlin-ton take her leave with her offspring. He could not imagine what had possessed him. He was not given to encouraging child performers—or to engaging performers at the last minute and on the spur of the moment. He had already selected with care, with consideration to both the talent of his chosen performers and the variety of their talents. He already had a soprano on his program, a much acclaimed opera singer, whose services he had felt honored and delighted to attain. She was a woman soprano, of course.
He would doubtless have been laughed at if he had presented a mere boy, of whom no one had ever heard and whose voice, though undoubtedly lovely, was also untrained.
No, he would not have been laughed at. His audience would have been spellbound, as he had been just minutes ago.
He felt an unaccountable wave of sadness—yes, sadness, not chagrin, he thought, testing the word in his mind—at the knowledge that he would never hear that voice again. How the shepherds of Bethlehem, he thought with an unaccustomed flight of fancy, must have found their lives blighted by their inability to hear again the heavenly host of angels after the night when they had proclaimed the birth of a baby in a stable.
His mind ached with the memory of that youthful, pure voice.

Fanny was still feeling cross and out of sorts the following morning. And a little guilty, though she had no reason to feel that at least, she assured herself. How dared he address her in the middle of Bond Street, even if Katie had pulled at his greatcoat and introduced herself. How dared he assume that she would jump at the chance of putting Matthew on display for his rakish friends.
Oh no, that was not quite true, of course. After Lord Heath had stalked away in high dudgeon at having his will crossed, Mr. Parkinson, one of the quieter and more genteel of the carol singers, had informed her that his lordship did indeed have a reputation as a connoisseur of good music. He gave an annual concert in his London home at which he gathered some of the most prestigious performers in all of Europe. Invitations to his concerts were much coveted.
Matthew might have sung at such a concert.
But Matthew was an eight-year-old child. She had no wish to put him on display as if he were some sort of circus performer, even if the audience was to be a knowledgeable and appreciative one.
Matthew himself had seen the matter differently, of course. He had been severely disappointed and had made her know it by pouting and being unusually quiet for the rest of the day. The most irritating fact was that he had said nothing, and so she had not had the opportunity to work out her irritation on him. And how dreadful to think that she might have done so.
She had scolded Katie and given her the usual lecture about talking to strangers and about ladylike conduct. And the child had been punished when they arrived home by being made to sit on a hard chair in the nursery for a whole hour without talking and without occupation.
But Katie had borne the scold with quiet, wide-eyed patience, and when Fanny had stood in the doorway of the nursery after half an hour, trying not to give in to weakness and release her daughter early, it had been to find Katie sitting with her eyes tightly shut, her hands pressed together, and her lips silently moving, for all the world as if she were in prayer. She had been deeply involved in some game and had clearly not been suffering unduly from the punishment.
Now today Fanny felt depressed. She had deprived her children of company over Christmas; she had taken Matthew away early from yesterday's carol singing although he had been wildly excited in anticipation of it; she had been forced to punish Katie; and she was more aware of her own loneliness even than she had been every other Christmas since Boris's death.
The truth was, she thought with sheepish annoyance, that she had had a foolish tendre for Lord Heath during her girlhood. All the young ladies of her acquaintance had, of course. Everything about him—his looks, his wealth, his arrogance, his elegance, his reputation—had given him an irresistible appeal. She had been very sensible. She had dutifully looked about her for a suitable husband and had equally dutifully fallen in love with Boris when it had become obvious that he was the one. But it was about Lord Heath that she had woven dreams right up until the time of her wedding. She could recall feeling mortally envious of Miss Dryden, one of her friends, with whom he had danced on one occasion.
And yesterday, she thought with brutal honesty, she had noticed how everything about him had only improved with the passage of nine years—including the harsh perfection of his features and the arrogance of his expression. And she had felt breathless and weak at the knees. How despicable! The very thought made her feel embarrassed, just as if someone had caught her at it.
She sighed and made her way to the nursery. She had half promised to meet a few of her lady friends at the library, but she felt the need to spend the time with her children and to try to mend bridges. She was intercepted before she arrived there, however, first by the sound of the door knocker below, then by the sound of male voices—more than one—and then, as she stood still waiting, by the appearance of John's butler, who had come upstairs to announce to her the arrival of the vicar of her church. She looked down at herself, decided she was presentable enough, ran her hands over her hair to make sure that no curl had broken free of her careful chignon, and went down to the visitors' salon.
The Reverend Josiah Barker was not alone. As he bowed and greeted her with his usual hearty smile and voice, she became aware of another gentleman standing some distance away, before the window. A large man with a many-caped greatcoat. Him. She scarcely needed to turn her head to ascertain the fact.
"Mrs. Berlinton, ma'am," the vicar said, rubbing his hands together as if washing them, "may I have the great honor of presenting to you his lordship, Baron Heath?"
Lord Heath bowed. Fanny curtsied and felt astonishment—and anger. And that weakness in the knees again. He seemed to half fill the salon. He seemed to have sucked half the air out of it.
"A quite astonishing stroke of good fortune, Mrs. Berlinton," the vicar said. "His lordship heard our dear carolers on Bond Street yesterday and was so impressed by their singing that he has engaged them to sing during a concert at his town house tomorrow evening. He has agreed to make a most generous donation to our repairs fund."
His lordship was looking at her quite intently, his lips pursed.
"And his lordship has specifically requested that your dear son sing his solo piece," the vicar said. "I can only applaud his taste, ma'am. It is a great honor for our carolers and for your young Matthew in particular."
How dared he! He had tricked her, made it almost impossible for her to say no.
"It is an evening concert?" she asked the vicar, ignoring her other, silent visitor. "I regret that it will be too late for Matthew, Mr. Barker. But the carolers have functioned very well without him for twenty-seven years. I am sure they will acquit themselves very well indeed without him tomorrow evening."
Lord Heath spoke for the first time. "But I have made my invitation to the carolers conditional upon their bringing your son with them, ma'am," he said.
Ah. So he had her. Miss Kemp and everyone else would be ecstatic. The Reverend Barker was fair to bursting with pride—and with excitement over the projected boost to his repairs fund. And really she had no good reason for preventing her son from sharing his talent with true music lovers.
But she seethed with resentment at the trickery.
"I see," she said as icily as she could, her eyes directly on Lord Heath's so that he would know that indeed she did see. Obviously he had discovered that she was a widow, that her brother-in-law, Matthew's male guardian, was from home. Doubtless he had thought—quite correctly—that she would be easily vanquished.
"I should like to speak with your son," he said. "There is little time for rehearsal, but I would like to discuss with him what he will sing. I would like you to bring him today or tomorrow—or perhaps both days—so that he may practice in the music room and accustom himself to its acoustics."
Her chin shot up. "And has this invitation been extended to the whole group of carolers, my lord?" she asked. "1 shall send to Miss Kemp and find out when they are planning to call at your house for rehearsal."
He pursed his lips again. "A group of carolers may simply be themselves, ma'am," he said. "A child soloist—"
"—will also simply be himself," she said sharply.
He raised his eyebrows and looked at least twice as arrogant as usual. Doubtless he was unaccustomed to being interrupted.
"Miss Kemp has kindly offered to accompany you and dear Matthew for rehearsal, Mrs. Berlinton," the vicar said. "She will call upon you early this afternoon to see if today is convenient to you. The child does indeed have an angelic voice, my lord, as you so perceptively remarked. And a disposition to match."
"May I speak with him, ma'am?" Lord Heath asked, a trace of well-bred impatience in his voice.
Fanny compressed her lips. Perhaps, she thought, she would feel the honor if this offer were being made by anyone except him. She could not reconcile her image of him as elegant rake with that of connoisseur of musical talent. And she did not appreciate the idea that she was being treated as some sort of servant, providing her son to offer entertainment to his tonnish friends. She wondered if she would be kept waiting in the kitchen while he sang.
She was being foolish, she decided. It was an honor. Matthew would be thrilled. And it would happen only once. It would not be wrong for a child to participate in a Christmas concert. Christmas was about a child.
"I shall fetch him down myself," she said, addressing herself to the vicar. "Though I do not know what there is to discuss. He will sing what his lordship overheard yesterday. That is all."
"Yes, do fetch the boy," Lord Heath said, sounding faintly bored as she turned to the door.

Katie had not been at all sure her prayers would be listened to, let alone answered, since she had been sitting in the punishment chair when she had said them. Sometimes she wished Mama would simply spank her when she was bad as Aunt Mercy did with the cousins, but Mama never did spank.
But perhaps God had thought the tedious time in the chair punishment enough, because He had answered her prayer. At least she thought He had answered. That gentleman had come this morning—Matt had returned to the nursery after being taken down by Mama and had said that it was the very same man who pointed his cane at Miss Kemp and looked at her, Katie, with his huge, magnified eye.
And now this afternoon they had come, the three of them, with Miss Kemp, to the gentleman's own house and had been shown into a huge room with a pianoforte set right in the middle of it and a big thing beside it that Mama said was a harp. Matt was going to sing, and he was so horribly excited that he had been unable to eat his midday meal even though Nurse had tried to coax and even force him.
Katie did not know how coming to this house so that Matt could sing was going to make the gentleman into her papa, but she trusted God. At least she thought she did. She still remembered uneasily that He had wanted her first papa and had taken him away without a by-your-leave.
Even after the gentleman had come into the room and bowed and she and Mama and Miss Kemp had curtsied and Matt had bowed, she did not know how he was going to be her papa. He looked far smarter in his clothes than Uncle John did, but he did not smile and Mama did not smile and for some reason there was a terrible stiffness in the room despite the fact that Miss Kemp was telling the gentleman what a splendid room it was. But she did not have to tell him that. He must have known it for himself.
His eyes warmed when he looked at Matt, though, and he spoke to him as if he were a real person.
"Well, Matthew," he said, "do you find the room daunting?"
"No, sir," Matthew said, but Katie could tell from his voice that he did really, though she could only guess at the meaning of that unfamiliar word.
Katie did not listen closely to what followed. They talked about what Matt would sing. He would sing only one song, Mama said, sounding firm as she did when Matthew tried to wheedle her into letting them stay up a little later at night. But the gentleman said there would have to be something else called an encore. Miss Kemp said something about the harp, causing the gentleman to frown. And then he had Mama and Miss Kemp sit down on two chairs close to the pianoforte and had Matt stand beside it. And Matt started to sing the song about the little tiny child. His voice wobbled almost as Miss Kemp's always did and the gentleman told him to stop, to draw a few breaths, to take his time, and to try again. After that Matt sang more properly. The gentleman went to stand a long distance away, near the door.
Katie wondered if she had been mistaken, if perhaps he could not be her new papa after all. He had not once looked at her. She could not quite imagine him wrestling with Matt or tossing her at the ceiling. Though she wished he would try it. He looked very big and strong. If Uncle John could catch the cousins, she was sure this gentleman would catch her. She would not even shriek in terror. She would know that he would not drop her.
She wandered away from her place after a minute or two. Mama did not notice, or anyone else either. They were all listening to Matt, whose voice sounded very loud in this great room. She walked toward the gentleman. She wanted to test her own feelings. She rather thought she would be frightened when she got close, but she was not sure. His pantaloons were very tight, she thought. In fact, if they had been pink, she would not have been quite sure they were not simply skin. The thought amused her and she reached out a hand to feel them, to assure herself that they really were just pantaloons and not biscuit-colored skin.
He looked down at her, startled, and she almost jumped back in alarm. But she did something else instead, something really very silly because Nurse had told her long ago that it was a babyish thing to do. She stretched both arms above her head.
The gentleman continued to look down at her, just as if he did not quite know what it was she wanted— or as if he did not want to know. God was playing tricks with her, Katie decided, and was about to let her arms fall. She thought she very well might cry, but that was a really babyish thing to do and she would not do two such things in a row. She was four years old and no baby.
And then he stooped down and picked her up. She was amazed at his strength. Up she went with seemingly no effort at all, just as if she weighed a feather.
She came to rest seated securely and comfortably on one of his arms, with her face only inches from his own. He turned away when she gazed into his eyes, and looked back at Matt. They were blue eyes. She liked the idea of a papa with blue eyes.
Matt faltered and Miss Kemp had to remind him of the words. He started again.
There was something strange about the gentleman's face. It looked different from Mama's or Nurse's. Katie stared at it until curiosity got the better of good manners. She touched his jaw with one finger and ran it lightly downward. Smooth. She ran the finger upward. Not quite so smooth. She pressed harder and pushed her finger upward again. There was a funny tickling feeling.
And then she looked up to find the gentleman's eyes on her. "Well, little one," he said very softly, "did I not shave closely enough for you this morning?" And for the merest moment—she almost missed it—his eyes smiled at her.
It was at that moment that Katie fell irrevocably in love with him and decided that she must, she simply must have him as a papa. Uncle John had never almost smiled at her in quite that way. And she had been quite right in her guess yesterday. She felt wonderfully safe up where she was.
"No, sir," she whispered, not knowing quite what his words had meant but giving the reply she thought he wanted. His lips twitched. He wanted to smile outright, she thought, but would not do so for some reason.
A few minutes later Katie was sure that she was bound for the punishment chair again as soon as she arrived home. Mama spun about, her eyes grew as large as saucers, her hand flew to her mouth, and she jumped to her feet. Miss Kemp was saying something to Matt about expression. But the gentleman spoke up.
"I beg you not to agitate yourself, ma'am," he said out loud. "She is safe here with me. You will find, Matthew, that in a room that has been designed for music, as this one has, you do not need to sing with full volume in order to be heard. I would like you to sing again, forgetting the presence of your mother and of Miss Kemp, forgetting my presence. Let yourself feel the room and what it requires of you. Listen to your own voice and work with the room. Relax and let your own musical instinct guide you."
Miss Kemp sat down without another word. So did Mama. Katie gazed at the gentleman, who had understood that Matt felt small and bewildered and frightened. He had not softened his voice as adults usually did when they wanted children to think them kind, but Katie had understood his kindness anyway. So had Matt. He visibly relaxed.
"Well, little one," the gentleman asked quietly before Matt started singing again, "and what do you want for Christmas?"
A doll, she almost said in answer to the familiar question. But she stopped herself. "It is a secret," she told him. "But I will whisper it to you if you wish."
He raised his eyebrows. They arched very nicely. She must look in the mirror to see if she could do that.
"I want a new papa," she whispered to him.
"Indeed?" His eyebrows lifted even higher. "And do you have anyone in mind, pray?"
She nodded firmly and felt a shiver of excitement all along her spine. But soon it was a shiver of something else. His look of near amusement disappeared and his eyes flattened if eyes could do that. They looked as if they had flattened.
"Indeed?" he said again. Matt started to sing again then and Katie could tell immediately that he had forgotten his excitement and indeed everybody and everything except the carol he sang. The gentleman watched him intently, and she could tell that he had forgotten all about her. She was glad of it. He did not want to be her papa, she thought. She had been very bold and had almost told him that that was what she wanted, but he had turned chilly and flat-eyed and had said, "Indeed?" in that voice she would try to imitate when she was alone with her dolls. How she would make her dolls tremble!
She felt again a little like crying but stayed still until Matt came near to the end of his song. Then she wriggled.
"Down, please," she demanded, trying to use the same expression and tone of voice as he had used when he had said, "Indeed?"
He set her down without a word and she scurried back to her mother, wishing that she had asked God only for a doll for Christmas. She was more sure of getting a doll than a papa. There would be less chance of disappointment. But it was too late now. She had made her wish and set her heart on having it granted. She was going to be awfully disappointed.
Perhaps the gentleman had merely meant that he wished her to say no more so that the Christmas gift would be a surprise. Perhaps that was what he had meant and why he had sounded so chilly when he had said, "Indeed?" Perhaps after all he was going to be her papa.
Her mother took her firmly by the hand.

Lord Heath halfheartedly supervised the decoration of his hall and his music room the next day. Really, he conceded, his servants were quite efficient and needed no direction from him at all. But the idea of decorating for Christmas had struck him just yesterday morning as a good one. Although his concert was an annual event, it had never before come within two days of Christmas. He might as well make it a suitably festive occasion.
The thought had quite buoyed him up. He had forgotten for a moment that his very reason for remaining in town this year was so that he might avoid Christmas altogether. After all, he had thought, there would be children present at his concert this year. Children would appreciate some of the atmosphere of Christmas. He had forgotten too that he had remained in London so that he might avoid children.
This morning he was feeling irritable. And sorry that he had decided to make the connection between the concert and Christmas. And sorry about a number of other things. That he had not gone to visit Lucy last night, for example. He had intended to go. He had sent word to her. He had got ready to go. He had even left the house. But at the last moment he had rapped on the front panel of his carriage and instructed his coachman to take him to White's instead. It had been almost deserted so close to the holiday and he had spent a tedious evening and come home early to lie awake half the night staring at the canopy above his bed. Perhaps he would have felt better this morning if he had spent the night in Lucy's bed, even if it had been an equally sleepless night. At least his sleeplessness would have been more productive and infinitely more pleasurable.
She had more than a lovely face—he was not thinking of Lucy. She had thick and shining chestnut hair, whose glory she disguised but could not quite hide in a careful chignon. She was not slender. Neither was she fat or even buxom. She had a mature woman's full and shapely figure, and she carried herself proudly and gracefully. He had noticed her beauty and appreciated it during the morning visit to her home with the vicar of her church—he was a connoisseur of female beauty as well as of music. He had noticed it again during the afternoon. He had even felt a stirring of the loins for her—he was a perfectly normal male after all. She would undoubtedly be satisfying to bed.
What he had not noticed was any personal emotion toward her. Not, that was, until that strange and impudent child had said what she had—and how foolish he felt to remember that he had been somewhat touched by her lack of fear of him, almost honored by her raising her arms to be picked up, and charmed by her innocent curiosity about his whiskers.
She wanted a new papa for Christmas. And she had someone in mind. The Widow Berlinton was being courted, then, by a gentleman wise enough to court her children also. And he must be very close to success if the child hoped to net him as a papa by Christmas. The widow was about to remarry. Fortunate man!
But that had not been Lord Heath's first thought. His first thought had been of another man's hands releasing and burying themselves in that glorious hair and of another man's body lying atop hers, pleasuring both her and himself. It was a thought so unexpected and so startling—and so mortifying—that he had indulged it for several seconds before ruthlessly suppressing it.
But not quite in time. He had made himself irritable and restless and he had done a somewhat foolish thing considering the fact that she was about to remarry. He had assured her that the boy would need another rehearsal this afternoon. He had mastered both the acoustics of the room and his own nervousness and had sung even more beautifully than Lord Heath had expected, but the day of the concert would bring fresh nerves to so young a child. He must come back, then, to accustom himself to the atmosphere, to settle his excitement. And since there would be little point in Mrs. Berlinton's returning home with her children afterward merely to come back again in the evening, she must agree to join his other guests and dine with him. His housekeeper would be quite delighted to look after the children. He would make a guest room available for them and for her, so that she might change into evening clothes.
Miss Kemp had not been included in the invitation. However, he had assured Mrs. Berlinton that the house would be filled with milling servants and guests all day so that there would be no impropriety in her coming alone with her children. He had emphasized the benefits for her son, of course, and she had accepted, though with obvious reluctance.
And so he was pursuing an interest in a widow who was about to remarry. A widow with two young children. He never pursued other men's women. He rarely consorted with widows. Too many of them were eager to return to the married state. He always avoided women with children. He liked to be assured of the undivided attention of the women he bedded.
Besides, Mrs. Berlinton was dignified and aloof and even hostile. He knew from an instinct developed through long experience that she would not easily enter upon a sexual liaison for the mere sake of pleasure.
He had known that before he invited her.
"No," he said now to his housekeeper, who had interrupted his thoughts to ask if he wanted any mistletoe pinned up. No mistletoe. The very thought made him shudder. If he was to kiss her, it would not be through such trickery.
If he was to kiss her?
All his irritability returned. This was the day for which he had planned meticulously for months past, the day he had looked forward to more than any other since his last concert. He wished to be able to focus all his thoughts, all his energies, all his emotions on the music with which his guests were to have then-spirits lifted into another dimension this evening. He wished to anticipate in some excitement the sensation the boy soprano was certain to create.
He did not want to be thinking, like a randy schoolboy, about stealing kisses from lovely widows.
And he did not want to be remembering, he thought with a grimace, that his concert was to end with a rendition from a group of carolers whose enthusiasm and good intentions could not in any way make up for the fact that they murdered every piece of music they chose to attack. But such had been the price of his boy soprano—and of his lovely widow.

Matthew had vomited once during the morning and had been so restless with nervous energy that his' nurse had sent for Fanny and suggested that perhaps they should send for a physician. Fanny had taken her son on her knee, something he would rarely allow these days since he was eight years old, cuddled him, and asked if he would like her to send word to Lord Heath that he would not sing at this evening's concert.
"You must really not feel that you are being pushed into it, sweetheart," she had assured him. "No one is going to force you to sing against your will."
Katie had stood beside them, silent and wide-eyed,
and had also regressed a couple of years. She had put her thumb in her mouth and sucked on it.
But then Matthew had almost panicked in the conviction that she would forbid him to sing.
"I want to, Mama," he had wailed, "more than anything else in this whole wide world. I want to please him. He knows about music and he understands about me."
Fanny had hated to admit that he was right. Lord Heath had shown unexpected sensitivity the afternoon before and had calmed Matthew and helped him with a few well-chosen words. He had not calmed her, especially when she had seen him with Katie on his arm, but that was quite beside the point.
And so now they were at Lord Heath's house again and Matthew's rehearsal was quickly finished—he was relaxed and confident now that they were here, his excitement under control. Lord Heath's housekeeper had borne the children away to give them their tea and to see to it that they lay down and had a rest while Fanny was to take tea in the drawing room with the guests who were to stay at the house tonight. But Lord Heath was in no hurry to take her to the drawing room. The milling servants and guests he had promised just yesterday certainly were nowhere to be seen in the music room. He seated himself in the chair beside hers.
Fanny looked around surreptitiously for mistletoe, but she could not see any among the holly wreaths and the pine boughs and the ribbons and bows with which the room was lavishly decorated. It looked like Christmas here, she thought, and felt a moment's unreasonable pang when she remembered that in just two days' time she and the children would be spending Christmas alone in John's house.
"Your son has enormous talent, ma'am," Lord Heath said. "But I am sure I need not tell" you that. Not only does he have a pure and uniquely lovely voice, but he also has a rare feel for music. His voice, alas, will change within a few years, but the musicality will remain and perhaps his man's voice will be as lovely. Does he show aptitude on any instrument?"
John's two daughters had pianoforte lessons, but Mercy was prone to migraine headaches and John had decreed that the privilege should be extended to no one else, his own son included.
"I do not know," she said.
He stared at her for a long time. His very blue eyes and his proximity made her uncomfortable, together with the subtle fragrance of some expensive cologne that clung about him. She tried to breathe evenly. How humiliating it would be if she became breathless and he were to suspect that she found him attractive—knee-weakeningly attractive.
"Does he have voice lessons?" he asked.
"My brother-in-law believes in bringing up boys to be masculine, my lord," she said. "He is my son's guardian." She tried to keep the bitterness from her voice. Matthew's love of music must be squashed, John always said, or he would be laughed at when he went to school. Besides, Mercy's migraines ...
"I see," he said. "Are you not his guardian too, ma'am? Could you not at least see to it that he have an audition with a reputable church choir? At Westminster Abbey, for example? There he would be among boys like himself and would not appear strange or less masculine than they."
She was angry. How dare he take it upon himself to advise her or suggest that she had less than total control over the upbringing of her children. That he was right did not lessen her anger. "He is a child," she said. "I will not have him exploited."
"He loves music, ma'am," he said. "My guess is that he would love nothing more than encouragement to pursue his talent—and his dream."
"My lord," she said, no longer trying to hide her anger, "do you presume to know my son better than I know him?" But he was quite right. Oh, he was right. Perhaps Boris would have understood. Perhaps ...
She gazed down, startled at the ringed, well-manicured, very masculine hand that reached across and covered her two hands in her lap. And looked up into his blue eyes.
"Will you permit me," he asked quietly, "to have a word with your brother-in-law? He is the elder son of the ailing Viscount Milford, I believe? My word on musical matters carries some weight, I do assure you, and no one has ever questioned my masculinity. Not to my face, at least."
Two men deciding the fate of her son? Fanny's nostrils flared. But anger was all mixed up with desire. He had not removed his hand
"I am Matthew's mother, my lord," she said. "I will speak myself to my brother-in-law when I feel it necessary to do so."
"Some men," he said, "feel it a weakness to grant the wishes of a woman." His fingers, she noticed with a twinge of discomfort and intensified desire in the pit of her stomach, had curled about her two hands so that he held them fast. His hand was warmer than hers. "Perhaps you could persuade your betrothed to speak with him."
"My—betrothed?" She frowned at him. "To whom do you refer, my lord?"
"I understood," he said, "that you were about to remarry. Did I misunderstand?" Who could have given him such an idea? The vicar? But she did not even have a regular suitor.
"I am not betrothed," she said, "or about to remarry, my lord." She spoke with unwise lack of consideration. "There is enough male interference in my life and in those of my children without my giving up all my freedom again to another."
He looked steadily into her eyes for several moments before glancing down once at her lips. She felt the terrified certainty that he was going to kiss her— and that she was not going to stop him. But then she felt merely foolish. He squeezed her hands once, released them, and got to his feet.
"Come, ma'am," he said. "My guests will be in the drawing room by now and you must be ready for your tea. You must not be afraid for your son tonight. I have experience with talented performers. All the excitement and nervousness and sometimes even illness that precede a performance invariably disappear when the time comes and merely ensure that the performance itself is flawless. Tonight your son will leave even you breathless with wonder."
There was a rush of tears to her eyes and she blinked them back, feeling foolish. "Are you ever wrong?" she asked.
He took her hand and drew her arm through his. "Rarely," he said. "On this particular matter, never. But you will not believe me, of course, until the performance is over."
He had a very firm and steady arm. She felt comforted even though her terror for Matthew was still like a ball of ice deep inside her.
How had he known she was terrified?
What was that cologne? she wondered. She had never smelled it on any other man.

Katie was all dressed up in her red Christmas dress with white stockings and shoes and a white bow in her hair. All the ladies in the music room had smiled at her and told her—or Mama—that she looked like a princess or a doll or an angel. But Katie had sat down beside Matthew in the front row of chairs that went all about the room and had taken hold of his hand. He had not shaken her off as he sometimes did, but had clung, his own hand cold and damp. Katie had not cared for anyone but Matt at that moment. Matt was dreadfully afraid and terribly excited, but he was going to be wonderful. Katie just knew he was. She sat quietly telling him so with her hand while a lady with a limp played the pianoforte and then a great fat man sang with a deep voice and then another lady played that harp—Katie was going to play it too when she was grown up. It sounded lovelier than the pianoforte and the lady was able to play it with great sweeps of her arms that made her look very pretty.
And then it was Mart's turn. When he got up and dropped Katie's hand, she got up too and sat on Mama's lap, and the gentleman came and sat down beside them. Katie gazed at him. He was all in black and white tonight and looked marvelously splendid. She wished she could tell everyone that he was to be her papa, but she was not quite sure it was true. This morning for a few minutes she had even been afraid that they were never going to see him again. She had found herself doing something dreadfully babyish. She had sucked her thumb.
He did not look at her or at Mama. He looked at Matt—and Matt looked at him with great frightened eyes. And then the gentleman's eyes did what they had almost done for her yesterday. Except that it was definite this time and lasted a long time. His eyes smiled at Matt and he beamed at him without moving any part of his face. That was another expression Katie was going to practice. She had had no success with her eyebrows this morning. She wondered if she could smile without moving her face.
And then Matthew started to sing and Katie, who had been contemplating getting down and climbing onto the gentleman's lap, sat very still because Mama was holding her very tightly indeed. Matt was wonderful, as Katie had known he would be. He was more than wonderful, but she did not know another word. She was going to tell everyone when the concert was over that Matt was her brother.
A funny thing happened when he had finished singing about the little tiny child. Everyone clapped, as they were supposed to do, but some people started roaring—at least, it sounded like roaring—and some even jumped to their feet and started calling out that word the gentleman had used yesterday—"Encore!" Mama was holding her so tightly that Katie felt short of breath, and Mama was crying. And the gentleman—well, he was blinking fast. He was crying too, Katie thought, but he would not want anyone to know. Matt always said that men never cried.
She wriggled free of her mother, got down, and climbed up onto one of the gentleman's legs. "I knew he would be wonderful," she whispered to him as the noise about them began to subside. "I could have told you so. Matthew is my brother."
And then he hugged her even harder than Mama had done. "You can be justly proud of him, little one," he said. "And he of you."
She gazed up into his face as Matt began to sing again. The gentleman closed his eyes and frowned. He looked as if he were in pain, but Katie understood that it was only the music and the sound of Matt's voice that were almost too much for him to bear. She heard him swallow during one pause in the music.
He hugged her again when Matt was finished and everyone was roaring again, and kissed her on top of the head, right where her bow was. Then he got to his feet and set her back on Mama's lap before walking over to set a hand on Mart's shoulder and to tell everyone what a privilege they had all been permitted to experience tonight. Almost, he said with a smile, as if they were the shepherds outside Bethlehem listening to angel voices—except that it was one day early.
Katie knew the story of the shepherds outside Bethlehem. They had been looking after their sheep, but no one had been able to tell her what happened to the sheep when the shepherds went to Bethlehem to see the baby.
And no, the gentleman said, there would be no other encore. Matthew must be allowed to rest his voice.
And then Matt was sitting beside them again and cuddling against Mama, his face hidden against her side. Katie, touching his hand, found that it was cold and trembling now that it was all over.
The gentleman had understood that he could sing no more. And he had said Matt was someone to be proud of. And that she was too. He was like a real papa. He was proud of them even though she had done nothing of which anyone could be really proud. And he had smiled at them and been kind to them and had had that lady give them the creamiest cakes for tea that she had ever tasted. She had eaten two. And before he had crossed the room to Matt, after setting her down on Mama's lap, he had looked into Mama's eyes and touched her hand. He liked Mama, and surely Mama liked him. How could she not? Christmas was soon. Not tomorrow. Two more sleeps, Mama had said when Katie had asked earlier. After two more sleeps she would really have a papa. She just knew it. She was not even going to worry about it anymore. She yawned and set her head against her mother's bosom. Someone was playing a violin.

Well before the end of the concert Lord Heath had suggested to Mrs. Berlinton that his housekeeper take the children to the guest room set aside for their use and put them to bed until it was time to take them home. The little one was fast asleep against her mother's bosom, her cheeks flushed, her mouth open. Matthew was clearly exhausted, both physically and emotionally. He picked the boy up while she got carefully to her feet so as not to wake the child.
And so the concert continued and came to its grand finale with the carol singers. They were not nearly the disastrous anticlimax he had feared. They were all dressed up in their finest outdoor garments and all carried sheet music except for the two appointed to hold high lit lanterns. Lord Heath had the presence of mind to signal for all the candles in the room to be extinguished so that the atmosphere would be right and. distract attention from the inferiority of the music.
But the warbling voice of Miss Kemp sounded almost musical, and Mr. Fothergill sounded—merely earnest. Everyone else did a passable job of singing for that jolliest and holiest of all seasons. And the audience, pleased and mellowed by an evening of exceptional music, sang along with the group after the first carol and declared afterward that the idea of hiring carol singers had been an inspired one on his lordship's part. Now they were all fully in the mood to celebrate Christmas Day just the day after tomorrow.
Drinks and dainties were served in the dining room immediately after the concert, and the guests divided themselves between the music room, the drawing room, and the dining room. It was a merry, festive occasion, far more so than was usual with his concerts. It was not so much the hiring of the carol singers that had been inspired, he thought, but the placement of the concert so close to Christmas. He must do the same every year.
"My lord?" Mrs. Berlinton was standing before him—it had irked him that the demands of being host had kept him away from her since the end of the con-" cert. Crofton, that damned rake, had been engaging her in conversation for all of fifteen minutes. "If you would be so good as to order around your carriage, we will be taking our leave. I am anxious to get the children into their own beds."
He turned with her to leave the room and picked up a branch of candles from the hall table. He walked beside her up the stairs, having sent a message to the coach house with a servant. There was nothing left to say. He could not keep heaping praises on her son, and he would not renew his offer to speak with her brother-in-law. Though it was imperative that someone do something for the boy.
He would not see her again, he thought. There would be no reason to. And did it matter to him that he would not? There was no fiancé or favored suitor waiting in the wings, it appeared, but that made no difference to anything. She was a virtuous woman. He was a—well, yes, he supposed the word applied to a certain degree. He was a rake. Certainly he had no honorable intentions where women were concerned.
Tomorrow, he decided, he would spend the whole afternoon with Lucy, and probably the whole night as well. He would immerse himself in an orgy of sensual delights. He would stay for the whole of Christmas Day. To hell with the notion of spending part of the day quietly in his library. A boudoir was a better place for forgetfulness. He would forget about virtuous widows and about their immensely talented sons—and their curiously adorable daughters.
They walked in silence—up the stairs and along the dark, deserted corridor to the chamber where the children slept. There was a small table a short distance from their door. Lord Heath stopped when he came to it and set down the candlestick. She stopped walking too.
She looked at him quietly, with noncommittal eyes. In the flickering of the candlelight her skin looked like porcelain and her eyes large and mysterious. Red lights tangled with the darkness of her hair. Her pale gown was modestly cut but it did not disguise her magnificent bosom or the beginnings of cleavage.
She must know what was coming, he thought, yet she was making no attempt to turn the moment. He set his hands on either side of her waist and drew her toward him.
Her lips were cool, soft, trembling against his own. She smelled of roses. Her breasts were firm against his waistcoat. Her hands were on his shoulders. He parted his lips and traced the seam of her lips lightly with the tip of his tongue. When her lips parted and her mouth opened, he slid his tongue deeply inside, feeling the warmth and moisture of her, delving into the very essence of her.
Her breasts were generous and youthfully firm. He caressed them with his hands, drew down the light fabric of her gown until he could set the pads of his thumbs against her bare nipples, and rubbed lightly. He slid his hands down her back, spread them over her firm buttocks and drew her snugly against him, pressing her against the pain of his erection. Her arms were about his neck. She was making soft guttural sounds in her throat.
Someone might come upstairs at any moment.
"Stay with me," he said softly against her mouth. "The children will sleep." To hell with his guests downstairs.
"Come to bed with you?" she asked, opening her eyes. "Is that what you mean?"
"It will be good," he promised her. "Believe me, it will be good."
"I believe you," she said. Her eyes were becoming more aware. "The answer is no, my lord. Take me to my children, please."
He held her against him for a few moments longer while he closed his eyes and tipped back his head. He swallowed twice. He released her and picked up the candlestick.
"Why not?" he asked her. A stupid question. He knew very well why not.
'There has to be more," she said. "More than just the physical."
"Like love?" he said. "And marriage, I suppose."
"Yes," she said. "Like love and marriage."
"I am not the marrying kind," he told her. "Or the loving kind."
"No," she said. "I know. And / feel no love for you. Nor any desire to marry you. Only to lie with you. It is not nearly enough."
Well, he had asked for it. Now he would not even be able to console himself with the sneering conviction that she had been trying to trap him into marriage.
"On the contrary, my dear," he said, "it is everything. But I will not waste any more of your time. I can see that you are not to be either convinced or seduced. I thank you for allowing your son to share his talent with me and my guests. I will never forget this evening."
"Neither will I," she said quietly.
Neither will I. Neither will I. The words echoed in his head for the rest of the long evening, after she had left with her children, and for the rest of a longer night. They echoed in his head for all of the following morning, even after he had sent to Lucy to instruct her to be ready for him during the afternoon.
He did not go to Lucy's during the afternoon. He went shopping instead. In person. On Bond Street.

Fanny was feeling mortally depressed by the time Christmas Eve drew to an end. It did not help to remind herself that she would be feeling no better if she had gone into the country with John and Mercy. The point was that she expected to be depressed in the country. She had dreamed of a real Christmas, with her home and her children and her church and nothing to distract them from remembering the meaning of it all and experiencing the peace and goodwill that were supposed to be a part of the season.
The dream had come true, and it was hollow.
The weather had been dreary with heavy gray clouds and a biting wind. It had done nothing to lift the spirits.
Matthew had been suffering from reaction after his success of the evening before. He had been listless and inclined to whine and had asked if Lord Heath would be calling upon them again. She had told him that he would not.
Katie had been more than usually quiet and had been scolded gently twice—once by her nurse and once by Fanny herself—for sucking her thumb. She had said nothing when reminded that there was only one more sleep left before Christmas, but had merely grown wider-eyed, though whether with excitement or with disappointment that she was not surrounded by other children as she had been last year her mother did not know.
Fanny had been unable to settle to anything. She had spent far longer than necessary decorating the house, yet even after she had finished she was not satisfied that the atmosphere of Christmas had been captured. She had wandered down to the kitchen more than once on the unnecessary errand of seeing that all the Christmas baking was well in hand. Yet even the smell of Christmas pudding and mince pies had been unable to stir that old magic that had always been Christmas.
She had remembered with a horrible feeling of embarrassment. She had allowed him to put his tongue in her mouth. Had anyone else ever allowed such a thing to happen? She had allowed him to bare her breasts and set his hands on them. She had allowed his hands to move below her waist, to draw her right against him. There had been no mistaking his own involvement in what had been happening.
They had been in an open corridor. Any of the guests or servants could have come along at any moment. One of the children might have come out of the bedchamber.
He was a man she deeply despised.
He was a man very highly respected in the world of music. He had recognized Matthew's talent and had treated it with respect and something bordering on awe. He had not allowed his guests to cajole her son into singing yet another encore. He had allowed Katie to climb into his lap and sit gazing up at him.
He was a man she had wanted more than she had known it possible to want a man. She had throbbed with desire. She had been almost desperate with the need to open for him, to receive him deep inside, to take his seed into her womb.
It would have been good, he had told her. Of course it would have been good. It would have been the most ecstatic experience of her life. All night and all day too there was a part of her that had cursed herself for not having had the courage to stay with him as he had suggested. Where would have been the harm?
The harm would have been in becoming the mistress of a rake. The harm would have been in beginning an addiction that he would feed only until he grew bored with her. The harm would have been in fornicating under the same roof as her sleeping children. The harm would have been in setting physical pleasure before morality and plain common sense.
Oh, she could go on forever. The harm would have been catastrophic. She was simply not a woman made for casual affairs.
She hated him. And hated her own childishness in feeling such an irrational emotion.
The Christmas Eve church service that evening was lovely. It was not one of London's most fashionable churches—Fanny had chosen it for that reason—and was not very full, several of the parishioners being from home for the holiday. But there was the feeling of being among friends who cared, and the vicar's kindliness went a long way to making up for the tedium of his sermon. And there was the memory as the congregation, most notably the carolers, sang the Christmas hymns with unmusical enthusiasm, of the night before and the way in which they had offered a strangely moving finale to a very professional concert.
Matthew was made much of after the service was over, and Katie, on the verge of sleep, her head against Fanny's shoulder, was fussed over.
"And what have you requested for Christmas?" the vicar asked her in the jovial voice he reserved for children and the very elderly.
But Katie was not telling. 'It is a secret," she said just before her thumb found its way to her mouth. Fanny did not scold, and the vicar and other parishioners who were in earshot laughed heartily.
Fanny stood at the window of her bedchamber late that night, absently brushing her hair and gazing outward on a night that was almost as light as day. She must make an effort at greater cheerfulness tomorrow, she decided. For the children's sake she must be festive. She had been very selfish keeping them at home. She must make them happy.
And then the brush stilled in her hand and she half smiled. What a strange irony it was that it had begun to snow. On Christmas morning, or very close to it—it was not quite midnight. It never snowed at Christmas. Everyone always hoped that it would and sometimes persuaded themselves that it would. But it usually snowed before Christmas, just when people were trying to travel to house parties, or just after Christmas, when everyone was trying to return home. Or not at all. Winter moisture usually came down as chill rain. But it never snowed at Christmas.
Except now, this year, when she and the children were stuck in town. They might have been in the countryside, where there would have been a whole park to frolic in tomorrow. But they were in town, thanks to her.
Perhaps it would come to nothing, she thought, closing the curtains firmly and extinguishing the candle before combing into bed. An empty, cold, lonely bed. She closed her eyes and felt his mouth against her
I 
own and his thumbs stroking and tautening her aching nipples. She felt him hard and large against her abdomen as his hands fitted her against him. She ached with unfulfilled desire. And regret. And self-hatred.
Tomorrow was Christmas. She was going to have to be happy tomorrow.

Sleeping, or at least hovering blissfully on the very brink of sleep, had been easy at church when there were voices droning around her and there had been Mama's comfortable lap and Mama's comfortable bosom to lull her. It had been easy on the way home when Mama had carried her. But it had fled entirely after she had been laid down in her own bed and the candles had been blown out and all was peace and quiet and warmth.
There was only one sleep left to Christmas. If only she could start having that one sleep, Katie thought, yawning loudly, it would come. Yet she was half afraid to have it. Tomorrow was Christmas and the Christmas gifts. If she had a doll, how would she contain her disappointment? How would she smile and look pleased so that Mama would not know that she did not want a doll at all. Or rather she did, but she wanted a papa more and if she had a doll, then that would mean that she was not going to have her new papa.
Mama had told Matt that the gentleman was not going to come again. And he had not come all day. She had waited for him anyway, but he had not come. She had thought maybe he would come to church, but he had not been there.
If she just stayed awake and did not have that one sleep to Christmas, she would never know for sure that she was not to have her new papa. But what if she was? If he was going to come, she wanted to sleep immediately so that he would come quickly.
But what if she had a doll instead?
The choice of sleeping or staying awake was ultimately not hers to make. She slept—and woke with a start, knowing that there were no sleeps left, that it was Christmas, even though it was still dark outside. She felt suddenly almost sick with excitement. There would be presents and that very special feeling there was at Christmas—she could remember it from last year.
She also felt almost sick with apprehension. She knew she had to act quickly, without giving herself time to think. Perhaps his horse or his carriage would be below her window and she would know that her Christmas wish had been granted. She jumped out of bed without even feeling the cold, raced over to the window, and pulled back the curtain with one hand. Her mouth dropped open and her eyes widened.

Snow! Heaps and heaps of white snow just waiting to be played in. Excitement welled in her for a moment and she was on the verge of turning and rushing, shrieking, into Matthew's room next door. But then she noticed that there was no horse and no carriage and no footsteps in the snow. And snow was hard to travel in. It was deep and slippery. She could remember that from some other time. He would not be able to come. She would not be able to have a new papa for Christmas.
She let the curtain fall back into place. And noticed that she was cold. And wanted her mama. She opened her door quietly so as not to wake Nurse in the room opposite and went to her mother's room. She let herself in quietly and closed the door behind her. Mama was asleep and did not stir when Katie stood beside her bed.
A doll would be nice, Katie thought. Surely she would have a doll. She would be happy. She would be able to play with it all day. The doll was probably here already and would not have to come through the snow. Perhaps she would have a papa next year.
She climbed up onto the bed and burrowed beneath the bedclothes, helped by her mother, who stirred, smiled sleepily at her, and drew her close before kissing her on top of the head—just where the gentleman had kissed her that night she had been wearing her white bow. Mama was all warm. Katie put her cold feet against her and wriggled even closer. She sighed and went back to sleep.
Snow! A great heavy blanket of it. Lord Heath stood at the window of his bedchamber, scowling out at it. He would not be able to go to Lucy's today. She lived a considerable distance away, and he knew he would not risk the safety of any of his horses by taking them out until it had melted. Snow this thick would not melt for a day or two at least and then the slush would be even more treacherous.
He had received a letter from Lucy last evening, badly spelled and reeking of her particular brand of perfume. If he could not keep his appointments when he had sent her specific instructions and she had denied herself an outing on both occasions in order to comply with them, she had written, then she knew another gent—another half-dozen gents, in fact—who would be only too willing to engage her services.
The note had irritated him to the point of fury. He was to be dismissed by a mere kept woman? And one whom he paid and housed and clothed very generously indeed. He would go on Christmas Day, he had decided, and leave her in no doubt about what was what. He would spend as many hours with her as he chose —and then dismiss her. The childish peevishness of his plan only added to his irritation. Even whores, he supposed, had a right to fair dealing. And he had not been quite fair to Lucy in the past few days.
Besides, he had not wanted to spend part of the day with her. He did not want to do so now. But there was only one other thing that he did want to do and that was impossible—despite his shopping expedition yesterday.
She was within walking distance.
She would probably have the door slammed in his face.
He could not spoil Christmas for her.
He did not know if she intended to spend it alone with her children. Probably not. Possibly she had plans to join some party. But this morning they were probably alone. If he went now, or perhaps in an hour's time, after breakfast...
She would covet the morning alone with the children. She would be giving them their gifts. They would perhaps dine early, before they went out. He would be the last person she would wish to see—her would-be seducer of two nights ago. Though she had been just as pantingly eager as he. It was not that she had not wanted it.
Drat the snow. He had planned to go to Lucy's to take his mind off where he really wanted to go. He had planned to satisfy his appetites on her and imagine that she was ...
No, no no. That would be grossly distasteful. And quite impossible anyway.
He could call for half an hour—to take the boy a gift as a sort of thank-you for singing at his concert. And one for the infant just because she was an infant and it was Christmas. It was the proper thing to do. The public thanks he had given the boy during the concert needed to be followed up with a more personal thank-you a day or two later. It was mere coincidence that it was Christmas Day.
She would see through his ruse in a twinkling.
So what? He would stay for half an hour and then return home to enjoy the quiet day he had planned for himself.
But he was so damned lonely. The thought was out before he could guard against it. And now it was too late to deny it. He had never before felt consciously lonely. But a few streets away there was a woman he wanted to bed. No, it was not quite that, though undoubtedly he did want to bed her. Very badly. But what he wanted more was for her to smile at him. She had never smiled at him. He had never felt the warmth of her regard. A smile from her would go a long way toward alleviating loneliness—strange thought!
And a few streets away there was a boy who looked at him with trust and liking—and a little infant girl who held up her arms to him and climbed on his knee and felt his whiskers with one tiny finger—and gazed into his eyes without bunking.
A few streets away there was a family of which he was no part. They were celebrating Christmas. Without him. He was alone, looking out at a blanket of snow.
He smiled ruefully and even chuckled when he caught the self-pitying bent of his thoughts. But he did not feel particularly comforted. Just half an hour? He would not disturb her peace for longer than that.
He wanted to see those children again.
And he had to see her again. Just once. Just for half an hour.
He left a note on his secretary's desk before leaving the house, for immediate attention when the man returned to work. Lucy was to be settled with—quite amicably and quite generously. He would not see her again. He felt enormously relieved at the thought.
He wondered as he lifted the knocker of Mrs. Berlin-ton's house later and let it fall back against the door if he had come unpardonably early for a morning visit. There was no sign of life anywhere on the street. His bootprints were the only ones to mar the smooth surface of the snow. But it was Christmas Day, of course, and there were no tradesmen about. It was really not as early as it appeared. The door opened.
She came down alone to the salon into which he had been shown. He bowed to her; she curtsied.
"Good morning, ma'am," he said. "Happy Christmas."
"And to you, my lord," she said. And blushed hotly, and caught her lower lip in her teeth.
"I have brought gifts for the children," he said, indicating the parcels he had set down on a table.
'That is extremely kind of you," she said, "though there was no need. Thank you. I shall take them up." She hesitated. "Thank you."
Ah, so he was not to have even his half hour. Or to see the children. And she had not smiled—only blushed.
But the door behind her opened again and both children stepped inside the room. Matthew was bursting with excitement.
"I got a stagecoach and horses," he yelled, "and passengers and parcels that can be taken in and out and doors that really open. And the horses go up and down when you push the carriage along. The coachman has a horn and—"
"Matthew," his mother said, sounding appalled, "remember your manners and make your bow to Lord Heath." Matthew bobbed his head in an approximation of a bow and Lord Heath smiled at him—and at the little child, who stood just inside the door with excitement and wonder in her wide eyes, which were fixed un-blinkingly on his face.
"And you, little one," he asked, "what have you had for Christmas?"
"A doll," she whispered. She did not move from where she was or take her eyes from his face. Or blink.
He smiled at her and felt a strange pain about the heart. He remembered what she had said to him a few days before. She had told him her secret wish for Christmas. She had wanted a new papa. And she had had someone in mind—the nonexistent fiancé he had asked her mother about.
It was as if a lit candle had suddenly been set in the middle of his head. He suddenly saw the light. She wanted a new papa—and she had someone picked out.
Oh no, little one, he told her with his eyes. Oh no.
But she gazed unblinkingly back.
"You were not told that you could come downstairs," Mrs. Berlinton was saying. "We are taking too much of Lord Heath's time when he merely came to drop off some gifts for you. What very fortunate children you are. Do say thank you."
The little one's eyes widened further if that were possible. But she did not look at the parcels, as the boy did, with a whoop of delight. She continued to gaze at him. He felt that he had betrayed her in some way. He wondered if her mother knew about her secret wish and guessed not.
"I would like to see you open the gifts," he told the children. "I am in no hurry to go anywhere else." Now he was being unfair to their mother, who had hoped to get him back out through the door almost before he had come through it. 
Matthew tore the wrappings off his and gazed in awe at the miniature man's watch inside. "Oh," he said, "just like Uncle John's. Better than Uncle John's. Oh, thank you, sir. It is the best present in all the world. Look, Mama."
The little one opened her fur muff and small parasol more carefully. She slipped her hands inside the muff and ran her cheek over the fur. "Thank you," she whispered. But her eyes looked wounded.
"I want to show his lordship my stagecoach," Matthew yelled, remembering his primary gift. "May I, Mama? The coachman's horn actually makes a noise, sir, though it is more like a whistle than a horn."
"I think his lordship must be eager to be on his way, Matthew," his mother said firmly. "We must not keep him."
"But I would be delighted to see the stagecoach," he said. "And the doll. If I may, ma'am?" He would not exceed the half hour, he promised himself. She need not look so stricken.
"You must not allow them to delay you," she said, as Matthew raced from the room toward the stairs. She looked down at her daughter. "Katie, why have you started to suck your thumb again? Run along and bring your doll to the drawing room to show Lord Heath."
The child went on ahead, her hands back inside her muff. Lord Heath looked at Mrs. Berlinton and extended an arm for hers.
"I shall ring for hot punch and mince pies," she said. "You must be cold from the outdoors. It was most kind of you to come through all this snow and to bring gifts. But you must not feel obliged to stay long or to allow the children to bore you."
"I am expected nowhere else," he said. "And I am not expecting to be bored."
She blushed. "You are kind," she murmured. She smelled of roses.

She wished him a thousand miles away. When a servant had come to the nursery to inform her that Lord Heath was waiting below in the salon, she had wanted to send back the message that they were from home—but it would have been churlish to do so. As soon as she saw him, she wished she had been churlish. And when she knew he was coming up to the drawing room to view the children's gifts and to partake of punch and mince pies, she wished she had taken the children into the country. She wished she had never met him.
And yet as he gave his full attention first to Katie's doll and then to Matthew's stagecoach and even went down on one knee to watch the horses prancing as the carriage was pushed along, she knew beyond a doubt that this was her Christmas gift. Just this. A secret gift she would cherish for days to come. Perhaps weeks. Probably years.
She had seen him smile at her children—his smile transformed him from aristocratic austerity to breathtaking attractiveness. She had heard him say that he was expected nowhere else, rejecting the easy escape route she had offered him. She had held his arm and felt his body heat and smelled his expensive cologne. She had heard him comment on the white silk and the lace frills and satin bows of the doll's dress and declare that the doll was almost as pretty as Katie. And she had seen him try to blow the stagecoach driver's horn and laugh as he produced only a sad little squeak.
After half an hour she had enough memories on which to feed for a long time to come. She was, of course—she did not even try to deny the truth to herself—in love with him. It would have been strange if she had not been. A lonely widow and a handsome, virile gentleman reputed to be a rake. Of course she was in love with him.
She held her breath when he got to his feet and turned to her. Half an hour had passed. It was time for him to take his leave. She wished he had not come at all. She wished he could stay forever.
"I cannot help thinking," he said, "how your children are shut up indoors here, ma'am, while there is a whole world of new white snow out there going to waste. And Hyde Park a mere five-minute walk away."
"I plan to take them outside after dinner, my lord," she said, flushing. Did he think that she denied her children all pleasure? And Hyde Park was all of a ten-minute walk away.
. "But 1 will wager," he said, "that you will not take them sliding along the paths or engage them in a ferocious battle with snowballs or build a snowman with them tall enough to bump his head against the clouds." He glanced down at Katie, who was as usual gazing steadily into his face. "Or teach them how to make snow angels."
"Ye-e-es!" Matthew started to jump on the spot. "A snowball fight."
"Will he hurt his head?" Katie whispered.
"We will give him a hat," Lord Heath said.
We?
"And it seems to me altogether possible," he said, glancing at the window, "that the snow might begin to melt by this afternoon."
We? What did he mean by we?
"We had better go out this morning," he said, looking directly into Fanny's eyes. "Would you not agree, ma'am?" "Yes." She did not know why both she and Katie were whispering. She cleared her throat. "Yes, my lord, if you can spare the time and if it is no trouble to you." She rushed onward before she could talk herself out of it. "Perhaps you would care to join us for Christmas dinner afterward."
He inclined his head to her. "I would indeed," he said. "Now, who wants to go out into the snow? Within the next ten minutes?"
Matthew cheered and Katie whispered, "I do."
She was being very foolish, Fanny thought as she hurried upstairs to get ready, Katie's hand in hers. His motive for showing such an interest in her children was crystal clear. Doing so was the surest route to her affections. Not that he cared about her affections, of course. But clearly he had not given up on his desire to get her into bed. He thought to win her this way. And he might well be right. She was not at all sure quite how strong she was.
There was something overwhelmingly attractive about a man who was kind to one's children. She could not quite imagine the elegant and immaculately tailored Lord Heath romping in the snow.

Katie had made a million snow angels. At least that was how many the gentleman said she had made. She had counted up to eleven herself, but she knew she was not a good counter. Mama had made two. After the first one she had said the snow going down inside her collar felt horrid and she would make no more, but the gentleman had called her a coward and so she had made one more.
They had thrown snowballs at one another until Matthew had hurled himself backward into the snow, laughing, and she, Katie, had been so helpless with giggles that she had been unable to throw even one more. The gentleman called them all cowards and Mama threw a snowball that hit him right in the middle of the face. And then he threw one that hit her in the face—and it dripped down inside her collar. And so the battle had ended in a draw, the gentleman said, but since his and Katie's side had thrown the last snowball, he would declare Mama and Matthew vanquished. And so Mama hit him on the shoulder with another snowball, and that was the end of that.
They built a tall, thin snowman. It was so tall that the gentleman had to lift her up to set her handfuls of snow on its head. They had brought coal from the kitchen for eyes and nose and buttons and a carrot for a pipe.
Katie did not think it was quite tall enough to bump its head against the clouds, but perhaps the clouds would come lower later on.
"Where is his hat?" she asked the gentleman, and he took off his own and set it on the snowman's head at a funny angle so that Katie started to giggle again. But she would not let the gentleman leave the hat there. He might get a cold head, she told him, and he bowed to her and told her she was kindness itself.
Mama would absolutely not—those were her very words, absolutely not—slide along the slippery path the gentleman and Matthew made. Katie was afraid to try. She clung to her mother's hand and watched. But then the gentleman was bending over her and offering to pick her up and slide with her.
"I will not let you fall, little one," he assured her.
She knew he would not let her fall even though Matthew had come to grief several times. She lifted her arms. And of course he did not let her fall. She felt as safe as safe could be while they slid along faster than the wind. After a few times, when she kept asking for more, he did fall, but he did not drop her. He merely held her more tightly so that she came to a bumpy but quite safe rest against his chest while he laughed, sprawled out on his back.
"My boots moved faster than we did that time, little one," he told her.
And then Mama was exclaiming over him and slapping at the snow caked all down his back and telling him he was as foolish as any child and if they did not hurry, their dinner would spoil and she would instruct the cook to blame him.
And so they set out for home again and Katie thought with some longing of the warm fires in the nursery and drawing room. She burrowed her hands deeper inside her new muff.
No one had told her yet that the gentleman was her new papa, and she did not like to ask. But surely he must be. He had praised them and played with them and given them presents. And he liked Mama and she liked him. But no one had said anything yet and so she could not quite let go of her anxiety. Perhaps they would tell her—and Matt—at dinner. Or perhaps at tea. Or perhaps at bedtime.
He was a wonderful papa. Far more wonderful than Uncle John, though she would never say so aloud to the cousins. She yawned loudly and the gentleman stooped down and picked her up and carried her the rest of the way home even though Mama told him she was no longer a baby.
But that was what papas did. They treated one like a baby when one was cold and tired and wished one really were still a baby. Papas did not force one to remember all the time that one was a big girl. She yawned again.

He had been very selfish and very unfair to her. By the evening it was very obvious that she had had no plans for Christmas Day. No plans that involved any company or party, anyway. Like him, she had probably planned a quiet Christmas at home, just herself and her two children. And he had spoiled that plan by intruding—he, a stranger.
He stayed for Christmas dinner and then he prolonged his visit in order to take coffee in the drawing room. The boy wanted to sing for him and the infant wanted to show him the story book she had received from her uncle and aunt. And that reminded Matthew that the same uncle and aunt had given him a spillikins game and he wondered if Lord Heath would care to play it with him. And so they played game after game. He let Matthew win all but once or twice.
He found himself late in the afternoon stretched out on one side of the floor, his head propped on one hand while the boy sat cross-legged beside him. The little girl had some time before climbed onto her mother's lap and had watched with increasingly drooping eyes until she had fallen asleep.
The Yule log crackled in the fireplace. The air was perfumed with the scent of pine boughs.
It was an achingly domestic scene. A family Christmas. Except that they were not a family and he had stayed in town this year in order to avoid that shudderingly awful thing, a family Christmas.
Mrs. Berlinton went herself, when it was already getting dark outside, to fetch the tea tray since she was determined to give the servants as much time off as possible. He should have taken his leave then, or at least immediately afterward. She must be wishing him to the devil. The children were not. Matthew chattered to him all through tea, the little one climbed onto his lap and startled him by methodically opening all the buttons down the front of his waistcoat and then doing them up again. But he was keeping her children away from her on Christmas Day. He looked at her and smiled rather ruefully, but she lowered her eyes to her plate and reached for the piece of cake she had already eaten.
He did not leave immediately after tea. He carried one of the trays back to the kitchen and then returned to the drawing room to join them all in singing carols and other songs and to hear Mrs. Berlinton—what the devil was her name?—continue a story of adventure and intrigue that she had obviously been inventing over many evenings for her children's entertainment. And then he told a story, using an imagination he had not suspected he had, about a fierce dragon and a princess in a white silk gown with lace frills and satin bows and a prince disguised as a stagecoachman and blowing loudly on his coachman's horn as his horses came prancing to the rescue.
"The princess had a dress like my doll," the little one said.
Matthew giggled. "Did the horn whistle, sir?" he asked.
"Indeed not." Lord Heath raised haughty eyebrows. "It blew so loudly that the dragon's head vibrated for a whole week after and made him horribly dizzy and sick. He did not breathe flames for a whole month afterward. The prince was able to rescue his princess and take her away in the stagecoach without even having to use his magic sword."
"Magic?" the little one said, her eyes widening.
"There is a story attached to that sword," he said. "But it will have to wait for another night."
"Ah," she said while her brother groaned.
The groans were renewed when their mother announced quite firmly that it was bedtime—an hour past bedtime, in fact.
And even then he did not take his leave. He remained alone in the drawing room after shaking hands with Matthew and taking Katie's tiny hand into his own and raising it to his lips. Her eyes clung to his and looked wounded again before she was led away to bed, but he could say nothing to reassure her. "Good night, little one," he said. "Sleep well." He waited alone in the drawing room, one arm propped against the high mantel, gazing into the flames. He waited for her to come back downstairs. He tried not to think about how he might have ruined her Christmas.

He was still there. She had half expected to come downstairs to find him gone. She had half hoped he would be gone. She had almost panicked at the thought that she might find the drawing room empty. But he was still there, gazing into the fire. He did not turn when she came back into the room. She sat down quietly on a chair some distance from the fire.
What was she going to do?
She hoped that at least she would have the strength to insist that it happen on another day, in a place where her children were not. She did not know if she had even that much strength. She had been beguiled all day by his kindness and his gaiety and his smiles— and his hopeless attractiveness. And by that certain something that was Christmas.
He turned his head and looked at her. If empty air could crackle between two people who were some distance apart, she thought, then the air between them did just that.
"Please," she heard herself say, "would you grant me one wish?"
"What is it?" he asked her.
"Will you promise not to touch me?" she asked. "If you do not touch me, I believe I might be strong enough to resist what you have come here to do. I am being honest with you, you see. You know that I desire you. You know too that I do not wish to give in to that desire. And so I ask you not to touch me. I appeal to your honor."
"What is your name?" he asked her.
She looked at him with raised eyebrows.
"I cannot continue calling you Mrs. Berlinton," he said. "Berlinton was your husband's name. What is your name?"
"Fanny." She was whispering again.
"Fanny," he said. "Did you love him? You had two sweet children with him. Do you still mourn him? How long has he been dead?"
"For over three years," she said. She would not answer the other questions. She was bewildered at the turn in the conversation. Though she had admitted that it had been longer than three years. That was what he wished to know. "Yes, my lord. It has been that long."
"Is that your only reason for desiring me, then?" he asked her. "Would you desire any reasonably personable man who happened to be standing here at this moment?"
She closed her eyes tightly and lowered her head, feeling the hot flush in her cheeks. "You are impertinent, my lord," she said.
"I want you to desire only me," he said. "I am jealous even of your husband."
She kept her eyes tightly closed. "I cannot play your games," she said. "I have no skill or experience. I would desire only you. So much so that I would make a horrid scene when you had done with me and would hate myself for the rest of my life. I beg you to leave. Please leave." She was going to be strong enough after all. She had been wise enough to look into the future and know without any doubt what it would be like, what it would feel like. She got to her feet and raised her head to look at him. "Please leave. And please do not come back."
He did not move. Or say anything for a while. "Smile for me, Fanny," he said. "Let me once see you smile."
He was not an honorable man after all. He was not going to play fair. Why had she expected that he would?
"It is more than desire, is it not?" he said. 'Tell me it is more than desire." But he raised a staying hand even as her vision blurred with the welling tears and she swallowed awkwardly. "No, that is unfair. It is just that I have no skill or experience either. Not at this. I want to bring up your children with you, Fanny. I want to spend my life with you. Ah, that is bland. I love you. I love you so much that my whole world has been turned upside down. I love you so much that I am terrified of leaving here and stepping out into the void. If you send me away, you see, I will make a horrid scene and hate myself for the rest of my life." He smiled crookedly—and looked quite impossibly adorable. "Tell me it is more than desire you feel for me."
She swallowed again and tried not to grasp too tenaciously at her Christmas gift. "It is more than desire," she whispered. Why was she always whispering?
"How much more?" He looked at her so wistfully that no one seeing him now for the first time would guess that he had a reputation as a rake.
"I love you." She forced herself to speak out loud.
"Will you do two things for me?" he asked.
"Yes." But she hoped she did not know what one of them was. Not tonight. Not under the same roof as the children. "Will you smile for me?" he asked.
She smiled—and he smiled back.
"And will you rescind your request?" he asked. "Will you let me touch you? Only to hold you and kiss you, my love. I will not bed you until our wedding night. Not even if you beg me. Will you marry me?"
"Yes," she said.
He smiled again. "Yes, I may touch you?" he asked. "Or yes, you will marry me?"
"Both," she said.
She was in his arms then and all the breath was whooshing out of her. Before she could gasp in another lungful his mouth was on hers—open and yearning and dizzyingly wonderful.
"Fanny, my love, my love," he was saying against her mouth.
"Yes," she told him. "Yes. Oh, my love."
The children, she thought fuzzily. She must ask the children. She should have asked them before she said yes. She would ask them tomorrow. Surely they would say yes too. Surely they would. Oh, surely they would.
She wrapped her arms about his neck and abandoned herself to the embrace. She trusted him to end it before they had gone too far. She trusted him. She loved him. He was going to be her husband.
Oh, he was going to be her husband. Lord Heath. Roderick.

Katie could not sleep no matter how much she tried. No one had said anything. Not once had anyone called him Papa even though Matt had said to her when they were alone that he wished the gentleman could be their father. But that had been only a wish. No one had said anything. Perhaps, Katie thought, she would wake up in the morning and he would be gone and would never come back again.
Perhaps he was not her papa after all.
She had had a doll. She would not have had the doll if she had had a new papa. That was proof enough. But he had acted like a papa.
There was nothing else for it, she thought at last, but to go back down and ask straight out. Mama would be dreadfully cross and perhaps Papa—if he was Papa— would be too. Perhaps she would have to sit in the punishment chair tomorrow. But she had to go. Otherwise she would never sleep.
When she opened the drawing room door, everything was so quiet that for one awful moment she thought that he must have gone home and Mama had gone to bed. But they were there, both of them, and Katie's heart leapt for joy. The gentleman was hugging Mama very tightly and kissing her. And Mama was doing it right back to him. She had known they liked each other. And she would bet anything that that was what mamas and papas did when their children had gone to bed. She closed the door quietly behind her and gazed. Mama called the gentleman "My love," though she did not stop kissing him while she did so.
And then the gentleman opened his eyes and stopped kissing Mama and hugged her less tightly and spoke to her. He spoke very softly, but Katie heard.
"We have company," he said, and Mama's head shot around and Katie could almost see the punishment chair looming.
The gentleman stretched out a hand toward her. "Come here, little one," he said and he smiled at her. He did not look cross at all.
He stooped down when she came close so that his face was much closer to hers, and he took her two hands in his. She had not noticed that she was cold. "You cannot sleep?" he asked. "I might as well ask you tonight then instead of waiting until tomorrow. May I be your papa, Katie? Your Mama has said yes but I will need you and Matthew to say yes too. May I?"
Oh. She would sit in the punishment chair all morning if she had to and all afternoon too and not once squirm or ask to get down. Oh.
She nodded.
"It was your Christmas wish," he said. "You wished for a new papa. You told me you had someone in mind. Was it me?"
"Katie!" Mama said, sounding half scolding and half laughing.
But Katie looked only at the gentleman and nodded.
"I am your Christmas gift, then," he said. "And you are mine. You and your mama and Matthew—if he will have me. I have a whole family for my Christmas gift."
"Matthew said he wished ever so much that you could be our papa," Katie said.
"Oh, Katie." She could tell from the tone of her mother's voice that there would be no punishment chair in the morning after all. There was definitely laughter in it.
Katie took a step forward and put her arms about her new papa's neck. She shivered.
"You are like a block of ice, little one," he said, clucking his tongue, and he wrapped his warm coat about her and held her against his warm shirt and waistcoat as he stood up with her and drew Mama closer with his free arm so that there was warmth against Katie's back too.
"She is already half asleep," he said. "Now that the suspense is over, her body is reminding her how tired she is."
"Oh, Roderick," Mama said, "did you know? Did she tell you? How embarrassing!" But she was half laughing.
"And how very touching," he said. "I fell in love with your daughter, ma'am, long before 1 fell in love with you."
"But it has been only five days," Mama said. She was laughing outright.
"I fall in love fast," Papa said. "Lead the way to her bed. I will carry her up. Katie, are you still a little bit awake? I will not be here when you wake in the morning. But I will come soon after breakfast to talk with Matthew and to wish you a good morning and to give your mama a kiss. That is a promise. I am your papa, little one, and always will be. Soon I am going to take my new family to live with me in my own home, but your mama and I have to have a wedding first. Are you warm enough to go back under the bedcovers?"
She was. Though her bed did not smell nearly as nice as he did. Not that she really noticed the difference or even felt herself being put down. She was sinking into a warm, safe world where there was a papa as well as a mama and always would be.
She had a mama and a papa.
Next year she was going to ask Papa if he would give her a new brother or sister for Christmas. She did not mind which. He could choose. Perhaps Mama would help him.
Christmas was over. But it had been wonderful as it always was. And always would be.
She was going to get Papa to tell them the story of the magic sword tomorrow. Papas always told one stories.
And when she went to live at Papa's house, she was going to get him to show her how to play that harp.