A Christmas Waltz Read online

  He smiled, and they held each other’s eyes as the dance came to an end. He dropped his hands from their waltz position, she took his arm, and once again he covered her hand at his elbow and held it as he walked her across the floor.

  “I did not ask a single thing after your life this last year,” she said when they reached the group of matrons still sitting in the same chairs they’d occupied when he’d taken Marta to the floor. Only the increased curiosity in their eyes had changed, but Mother smiled at them as they approached, and David nodded in acknowledgement of her approval.

  “Well, then,” David said as he bowed over her hand. “I shall ask now for next year’s waltz.”

  She smiled and held his eyes a few seconds longer. “I shall look forward to it. Happy Christmas, David.”

  “Happy Christmas, Marta.”

  Tenth

  David

  David stood in the doorway and looked around the ballroom. He’d thought about not coming this year, but then he thought that every Christmas. Every Christmas he came. Every Christmas Marta surprised him in one way or another. Every Christmas he went back to his suite and considered staying through the fortnight-long house party to have more time with her. And every year he woke up at dawn, saddled his horse, and returned to his grandfather. His feelings for Marta were complicated, but his respect of her position as a married woman had always remained in place.

  This year may very well change everything, and his eagerness and anxiety to see Marta made it feel as though his entire body were vibrating like a bell just rung.

  “Mr. Woodbury?”

  He turned to see Marta’s mother and worked quickly to hide either the surprise or the disappointment she might see in his reaction. He dropped his eyes and inclined his head. In the garden that night two years ago, they had formed a sort of alliance, but he did not know her ongoing opinion of him. Especially now. “Good evening, Mrs. Connell.”

  “Might I ask a few moments of your time in the library? My sister has kept it lit, for the guests not as inclined to dance.”

  David nodded, but his mouth was dry. He looked about the ballroom again. He did not see Marta amid the other guests bedecked in their Christmas finery. He looked back at Mrs. Connell. “Has something happened to Marta?”

  Mrs. Connell’s expression was impossible to read in the moments she regarded him before answering. “No, Mr. Woodbury, but I am certain that you are aware of her husband’s passing this last November.”

  He couldn’t look her in the eye as he nodded. “Please accept my condolences.”

  “Yes, thank you,” she said slowly, her expression not changing. “Will you please join me in the library so that we might speak more freely?”

  He followed her from the bright ballroom filled with celebratory chatter. The library was as trimmed for Christmas as the ballroom had been—garland arranged on the mantle and woven through the bannister that led to the upper balcony, which offered access to several additional rows of books. There were two elderly men reading on one side of the room—possibly the same men who had been here the last time he’d come into this room, two years ago. His eyes lingered on the door to the veranda where he’d taken Marta in hopes of sobering her up more quickly. Instead, she’d pressed against him and . . . he pushed those memories from his mind. Now was not the time. He followed Mrs. Connell into the recesses of this room for a conversation he was anxious to be a part of.

  Mrs. Connell led him to a private corner, and his anxiety was replaced with curiosity when she stopped at a small table set with a pen in stock and a fresh sheet of paper.

  He looked at the items and then up at Marta’s mother who, he realized, had the same bright-blue eyes as her daughter. “Mrs. Connell?”

  “Marta is in mourning and therefore sent her regrets to the annual house party; I am sure you can respect her position in staying out of society for the appropriate period of time.” Her gaze remained pointed, and David only just kept himself from shifting his weight like a schoolboy. He’d thought they shared an accord after that fateful evening in the garden, but she was as intimidating as ever and impossible to read.

  “Of course.” Yet he was disappointed. He had not expected they would dance; she would be in mourning for at least six months. He’d simply wanted to see her. Get a sense of what she thought now that she was free to think . . . anything.

  “She wrote you a letter of explanation.”

  He looked up from staring at his shoes as a folded paper appeared from what seemed to be nowhere in the folds of Mrs. Connell’s full skirt. She held the folded paper out to him, and he took it, noting that it had not been sealed.

  “I told her I would only deliver a letter I was allowed to read,” Mrs. Connell explained. “Two months ago, she was a married woman, and as you have reminded me in the past, it will always be my responsibility to take care of my daughter. I will not therefore support anything shameful.”

  “Nor would I,” he said, holding her eyes this time and feeling a little irritated that after all these years and all his proper behavior she would still think to question his intentions. Intentions which were now different. Very different. Perhaps her vigilance was wisdom.

  She stared back, then nodded. She waved a hand over the table. “I will take a response to her under the same terms.”

  “You will read what I write?”

  She nodded crisply and then lifted her chin as though challenging him to object. He would not dream of it.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “I shall return in half an hour and collect your letter.”

  Seconds later, he was alone with the mother-approved letter from the woman he loved and had known for so long he could not have. What if their connection had simply been a distracting game for her these years, and now that the barrier between them was gone she would not want more than a single dance once a year? What if she did not want even that?

  He thought back to the regret he had felt when his father had died, regarding the loss of potential between them. Did she feel that? At last year’s ball she had been at peace with her life; perhaps she was now returned to the chaos she felt after her father’s death. If only he could go to her, see her, be with her. But there were still barriers between them. Sometimes it felt as though there would always be such preventatives.

  After lowering into the straight-backed chair, he took a breath and unfolded the paper.

  Dear David,

  Please reserve next year’s waltz for me. Happy Christmas.

  Yours,

  Marta

  One. More. Year.

  Eleventh

  Marta

  When his hand wrapped around hers on the dance floor and his other hand went to her waist, the rightness settled into her bones. She said nothing, only held his eyes as the music began and they fell into step.

  “I received your letter,” she said. It had not been difficult to commit what he’d said to memory:

  Dear Marta,

  I suppose I could do that. Happy Christmas.

  Always,

  D’Artagnan

  “I assumed as much,” he replied. “Since you are here and we are dancing. How are you?”

  She held his eyes, not even blinking to interrupt the energy moving freely between them. “I am well, David. How are you?”

  “I am well too, Marta.”

  “I was sorry to hear of your grandfather’s passing.” Sophie had written to her about the death of their grandfather in July. Marta had resisted the temptation to share her condolences with David directly. Greggory had been gone nearly a year by then, but having never contacted him outside of their waltz before, she decided to wait until she could share her condolences in person.

  “Thank you,” he said, inclining his head. “He was a good man and lived a good life. He’s left me a respectable legacy to continue.” They danced a few silent steps before he spoke again. “How are the children coping?”

  Not your children. The children. Perhaps our children in
not too long a time? “Would you like to meet them?”

  His eyebrows jumped, but then a smile crept up, first one side of his beautiful mouth and then the other. She wondered how long until she could run her fingers through his increasingly silver hair and rub his cheek to see if it was prickly or smooth. “If you feel it appropriate for us to be introduced, I would love to meet the children.”

  “They are delightful, David,” she said, realizing that it sounded a bit as though she were trying to convince him. “They came with me to the house party for the first time this year, and we have had a wonderful time so far. They’ll come down with the other children for the lighting of the Yule log.”

  “Wonderful. Has it been a difficult year, then?” David asked. “Adjusting.”

  “I am so grateful that Greggory and I were in a good place when he died, David.” The ability to be this honest with him was invigorating, and still a bit frightening. But she was determined to keep their pact and be honest with him. If they were to have a life together, which she sincerely hoped they would, it would require honesty and trust. When he did not speak, she continued. “I am grateful to have had a reason to truly grieve and glad that my children had the chance to know their father. But we are—all of us—ready to step into a new future with new possibilities. If you stayed for the house party, we would all have the opportunity to become more comfortable with one another.”

  “How will your mother feel about that?”

  “Grateful.”

  His eyebrows jumped again, and he gave her an incredulous look that made her laugh out loud. She remembered their first dance and how she’d had to clamp her mouth closed to keep from laughing. Not anymore. She had endured enough sorrow now to smile when she felt like smiling and laugh when she felt like laughing. “I will always be honest with you, David,” she said, just softly enough that he had to pull a fraction closer in order to hear her over the music. “Mother understands what you have been to me all these years.”

  “And what is that, exactly?”

  “A friend,” she said, squeezing the hand that rested on his shoulder. “A trusted friend who did his best by me in every circumstance, even when I did not deserve it.”

  “You have always deserved the very best, Marta.”

  “If that is true,” she said coyly, “and you are the best of men, what does that mean?”

  He said nothing, simply grasped her hand a bit tighter and smiled without looking away from her eyes. There was a promise in that look. A future.

  They danced in silence a moment, and then she noted the French doors that led to the garden. It had been four years ago that David had taken her through those doors and helped her begin her journey back to wholeness.

  “Come with me,” she said suddenly, then broke from their dance position without letting go of his hand.

  He stumbled behind her but did not pull her back. At some point he anticipated her goal and stepped ahead of her in time to open the door to the garden and usher her through. Neither of them looked to see if their escape was noticed.

  The biting cold took her breath away, but the rush of excitement ran hot enough in her veins to counter the effect. With her free hand, she held up her skirts as he led her down the stairs—cleared as she’d expected—and onto the footpath. Like that night four years ago, a light snow was falling like a whisper, but she was in full possession of her senses tonight and had none of the hazy disconnect that accompanied her memories of their first venture here. They were both laughing by the time they took a bend that finally hid them from the ballroom, though the light spilled through the gaps in the dormant shrubs. He turned to face her, his breath clouding in front of his face and his cheeks already pink from the cold and the exertion. Without breaking eye contact, he removed his coat and stepped close enough to throw it over her bare shoulders. She turned her head and inhaled the scent of him still lingering in the warm fabric.

  She looked back into his face, intending to thank him, but the words died in her throat when she saw that his eyes were focused on her lips. She pushed her arms through the too-long sleeves so that the coat would not fall as she stepped closer. Then she reached her arms around his neck in order to make her intentions perfectly clear. She’d imagined their first kiss over these last few weeks and expected it to be intense and passionate, but now that the moment was here, the mood softened into something perfectly slow and comfortable. He raised a hand to her face, softly trailing his palm and fingers against her skin until he cupped her jaw. His thumb brushed over her lips and paused there a moment as she kissed it. A slow smile spread on his face as he leaned in and replaced his thumb with his lips. Soft, gentle, warm, and so very, very right.

  His arms came around her back, and she drew close enough to forget about the snow and cold completely, as the fire within them became as real as the Yule log, the flickering candles, the mulled cider. All the necessary restraint of the past melted away, leaving behind the years of encouragement and sincere friendship they had built one dance at a time, one day a year, for more than a decade. There had been a time when she’d had to live only in the reality of her choices and circumstances; now she understood that some dreams simply came to be in a way completely unexpected. The connection she’d felt to him had not been a reflection of poor character on her part; it had kept them connected in a way that was safe. She’d grown in ways she’d needed to grow, learned what she’d needed to learn, and now they could be together. He pulled back, resting his forehead against hers as they both attempted to gain control of their breathing.

  “Is it a happy Christmas, Marta?” he asked, breathlessly.

  She smiled and touched his face as she’d once not dared to do. “The very happiest.”

  Epilogue

  Twenty-Five Years Later

  David

  David cleared his throat in order to get her attention. She turned to him and grinned.

  “I am here to collect my waltz.”

  “Of course, good sir,” she said, then took his arm and let him lead her to the floor. He did not move as fast as he once did, and the waltz was the only dance that took him to the floor, but he hadn’t missed one yet and he wasn’t about to start now.

  They reached an open place, and David put his hand at her waist and helped her settle her hand at the right position on his shoulder—just as they’d practiced.

  “I should be humiliated to dance with such an old man,” she said as he lifted their clasped hands in time with the beginning measures of the orchestra.

  “Ah, your grandmother said very much the same thing during our first waltz though I was only twenty and five years of age back then. Now, remember, you will step back with your left foot in three, two, one—now.” He stepped forward, and she stepped back. After a few steps, she even relaxed enough to smile.

  “You’re doing very well, Emma, but if you stumble, simply keep moving. Like life, the steps will sort themselves out if you just keep moving your feet.”

  Emma stumbled. He helped her sort the steps back into place. All these years, and the tenets of the Yuletide Ball had not changed very much. The Yule log, holiday treats, and the final waltz were just as they had always been. Some things, however, were different. The house party was seven days instead of a fortnight, gas lighting had replaced the candlelight, and the society was a blend of old title and new money—Pauly himself had invested in industry and let go of long-held prejudice against trade.

  “Have you enjoyed the ball, Emma?”

  Emma—Betsy’s oldest child—let out a heavy breath and looked longingly toward the refreshment table. “I suppose.”

  David laughed, which only intensified her frown. “Forgive me, but once again you have said a nearly identical comment to one your grandmother said when we had our first waltz.”

  He watched her face change as she looked past his shoulder, and he swallowed his own sorrow regarding the biggest change for this year’s ball. It had become tradition for him to waltz with their daughters, and now
granddaughters, at each girl’s first year at the ball, only Marta was not watching from the sidelines this time.

  “I miss her,” Emma said, her voice soft.

  “As do I, little one, but I am glad to be here with you, sorting our steps, moving forward even though our family has had a stumble.” Last Christmas he’d led Marta to the floor and had talked of the children—six in all and twelve grandchildren already—and how Emma was a young woman now and they would like to go to Brighton in the spring to celebrate their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. And then illness had come in February, keeping people to their homes and doctors running between them with what little they could do. Marta had helped those of their children who had become ill, and she had managed Betsy’s household when she became feverish. David himself had suffered a difficult bout, with Marta beside him, until she herself was unable to rise one day. On a Sunday morning in April, she did not wake at all. They buried her next to David’s parents, and he had visited her grave every day until following through on the plan to present Emma at this year’s Yuletide Ball in Winchester. How he missed her, but oh how grateful he was for every day they’d shared over the years they’d been together and the fine family that would carry on their legacy of love and faith.

  “I thought I might give you a bit of grandfatherly advice, if you’ll have it,” David said, bringing his thoughts back to the present and the girl with whom he danced tonight.