Free A Christmas Bride / A Christmas Beau by Mary Balogh Page A

never the same man twice. Men are necessary for certain functions, sir, but essentially they are a bore.”
    Her words, her looks, her manner were all meant to insult. He knew that and felt insulted. At the same time he sensed that he had hurt her somehow. She had asked for his friendship and he had refused. He had refused because he would not be seduced again and knew beyond a doubt that any friendship with Lady Stapleton would inevitably lead eventually back to bed. She must surely know it, too.
    He did not want a thirty-six-year-old mistress.
Rationally
he did not want her. Irrationally, of course, he wanted her very much indeed. He was a rational being. He chose to want a wife who was below the age of thirty, a wife who would give him children for his contentment, a son for Mobley Abbey.
    “I am sorry,” he said.
    “Get out, Mr. Downes,” she said. “I shall be from home if you call again, as I would have been today if I had had any sense. But I daresay you will not call again.”
    “No,” he said, “I will not call again, ma’am.”
    She turned away from him and crossed the room to the window. She stood looking out of it while he let himself out of the room, as she had looked from the window of her bedchamber the night before.
    She was a strange woman, he thought as he left the house and made his way along the street, thankful for the chilliness of the air. Confident, independent, unconventional, she appeared to be a woman who made happiness and her own gratification her business. Other women must envy her her freedom and her wealth and her beauty. Yet there was a deep-seated bitterness in her that suggested anything but happiness.
    She must have had a bad marriage, he thought, onethat had soured her and made her believe that all men were as her husband had been.
    He had, it seemed, been one of a long string of lovers, all of whom had been used and never reused. It was a lowering and a distasteful thought. She made no secret of her promiscuity. She even seemed proud of it. His brief involvement with her was an experience he would not easily forget. It was an experience he was very glad was in the past. He was relieved that he had found the strength to reject her offer of friendship—he had certainly been tempted.
    She was not a pleasant woman. A beautiful temptress of a woman, but not a pleasant one. He did not like her.
    And yet he found himself regretting that he would not see her again, or if he did, that he must view her from afar. She could have been an interesting and an intelligent friend if there had never been anything else between them.

5
    H ELENA SUMMONED HER AUNT FROM THE COUNTRY and felt guilty when she arrived for having encouraged her to leave just a few weeks before. She was uncomfortably aware that her aunt was not a person who deserved to be used.
    “How very thoughtful you are, Helena, my dear,” Mrs. Cross said as she stood in the hallway, surrounded by her rather meager baggage. “You know that I find life with Clarence and his family trying, and you have invited me back here, where I am always happy. Have you been enjoying yourself?”
    “When do I not?” Helena said, hugging her and linking her arm through her aunt’s to draw her toward the stairs. “Hobbes will have your bags attended to. Come to the drawing room and drink some tea. There is a fire there.”
    She let her aunt talk about her journey, about her stay in the country, about the snippets of news and gossip she had learned there. Sometimes, she thought, it felt good to have a companion, someone who was family, someone who loved one unconditionally. Often it was annoying, confining. But sometimes it felt good. Today it felt good.
    “But here I am going on and on about myself,” heraunt said eventually. “What about you, Helena? Are you looking pale, or is it my imagination?”
    “The wind has not stopped blowing and the sun has not once peeped through the clouds for days,” Helena said. “I have stayed indoors.