Free A Christmas Promise by Mary Balogh Page A

never in her life felt more tired.
    If only he had been someone else when she had gone downstairs to the parlor. If only he had been one of her uncles or cousins. She felt sorry again that Papa had chosen not to inform his family of the gravity of his illness. They would have come—Papa’s family always rallied around for a big occasion, even if that occasion was an illness and death.
    If he had been one of her uncles, she could have walked straight into his arms and buried her face against his chest and howled out her loss. She could have done it then. She had needed to do it then. But he was an aristocrat and cold to the very heart. Had she gone to him, he would probably have been more concerned about her tears taking the starch from his neckcloth than about her distress. He would have looked down at her with disdain and contempt. Doubtless in his world it was not considered good
ton
to weep for a dead father.
    Besides, she would not put her feelings on display for him. She would not.
    Papa!
Eleanor spread weary hands over her face and longed for the relief of tears. And longed for someone to go to, for someone’s arms and someone’s shoulder and someone’s soothing voice. But when she thought of her husband again, she could remember only what he had done to her in this very room a few nights before.
    She could not cry. She gave up even trying after a while and moved over to the bed and lay down on it after blowing out the candles. But she could not sleep either. She was more tired than she could ever remember being, but she could not sleep.
    She stared into the fire and wondered what he was doing. And wondered if he would come home at all that night.

5
    O LD HABITS DIED HARD, HE SUPPOSED. SHE CAME back to her father’s house quite early on the morning after his death, fully intending to write letters there to her relatives. And yet when he told her that she might write them at home—in Grosvenor Square—she made no objection. She merely looked blankly at him and agreed to return with him in the carriage. She looked about her almost as if she were in a strange house.
    He had had a sleepless night, and she too looked unrefreshed even though he had sent her home to bed. Her face was pale and lifeless and her eyes dark-shadowed. He wondered, as he had done the evening before, what she would do if he moved closer to her and set a hand on her shoulder or about her shoulders, perhaps. Would she respond to the gesture of sympathy? It was hard to tell. He did not know if her calm was the result of a monumental self-control or if it was a part of her nature. And yet he could find no evidence that there were feelings beneath the calm and the apparent coldness.
    “Your father has been washed and laid out,” he told her gently. “He is still in his bed. Do you wish to see him?”
    She thought for a moment. “No,” she said.
    Perhaps she was afraid. Afraid of death. “Will it help if I come with you?” he asked.
    She turned her eyes on him. “Not at all,” she said. “Thank you.”
    “I shall have a dressmaker summoned to the house,” he told her when they were in the carriage. “It will save you the distress of having to go out. She can make up all the mourning clothes you will need. Do you have a preference for any particular modiste?”
    “No,” she said. “And I will not need much. Only a few dresses for the next few weeks. I will leave off my mourning before Christmas. And you must too—if you intend to wear mourning at all, my lord. I do not imagine you felt any great fondness for my father.”
    “Leave off mourning before Christmas?” he said, appalled. “After only a month?” He ignored her final words.
    “Why wear black for longer?” she asked. “As a show for the world? I do not care to impress the world.”
    “I believe you care very much, my lady,” he said. “Or why was it so important to you to marry a titled man? One can hardly say, after all, that you married me for my money.”
    “Or