“Lizzie!” Her mother’s bosom swelled with outrage.
“Stow it, Gertrude,” Elizabeth’s papa advised from the other card table, exerting his authority briefly for the second time in one evening, without raising his eyes from his cards.
Elizabeth met her husband’s gaze but then looked sharply away. Her heart was beating a wild tattoo in her bosom. She had just openly defied her mother! But how could she not have done so?
“Excuse me,” she said abruptly. “I must go up to Jeremy.” He would be ready for his night feeding. She just hoped her milk had not been soured.
She had never seen Mr. Chambers smile before today, she thought as she hurried up the stairs. But he had smiled at the children this afternoon, and he had done more than that to all her young cousins in the drawing room-he had actually grinned at their enthusiasm over his plans for tomorrow. And he had suggested something that sounded so much like fun that her heart ached with longing.
Fighting in the snow.
Gathering greenery in the woods.
Decorating the house.
Making a kissing bough.
She had never been kissed-a ridiculous truth in light of the fact that she was a wife and mother. But he had never kissed her. And she had never had a beau before him.
They were going to decorate the house for Christmas-they, not the servants. They were going to have a kissing bough. She hurried lightly along the corridor to the nursery.
They were going to have fun.
At least, she thought, amending the idea as her footsteps slowed, the children and young people were going to have fun. But she was not in her dotage, she reminded herself. She was not even twenty yet. It just seemed that somehow, somewhere, she had misplaced her youth.
She was a matron with a child. She would be expected to remain at the house.
Lady Templar’s prediction had proved quite correct. Yesterday’s gray, raw day had been transformed into today’s magical white world. A few inches of snow blanketed the outdoors, and more was falling. They were to enjoy that rare phenomenon, Edwin realized early-a white Christmas.