Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
On Keeping It Private.
You are not required to kiss under a mistletoe hanging in any public place. Gentlemen, please! Be mindful! Ladies, please! Consider your reputation!
Ben didn’t recognize the woman possessing Lexie’s body; it certainly wasn’t the retiring young lady he’d known since early years.
Proper though she might still be, she was comporting herself with all the confidence of a matron—only perhaps to be expected, considering that she’d fended for herself most of her life.
And still, it surprised Ben. This was not a face she’d ever allowed him to see.
Like nobody’s business, she took charge of the situation, despite that he would have expected his dutiful sister to fulfill the role. Caught off guard, Claire was as dumbstruck as the rest of them.
“Well!” said Alexandra, clapping her hands, and Chloe gave another hapless yelp of pain.
Afterward, all four men scrambled to do Alexandra’s bidding, all at once attempting to lift Chloe, but her husband impatiently shoved everyone aside and swept his wife into his arms to carry her upstairs.
Only Alexandra followed, leaving the rest of them to stare, openmouthed, at their ascending forms, and long, long after they had departed, Ben stood staring up the stairwell as Claire wrung her hands with worry.
“Well,” she said. “We all knew a Christmas baby was entirely possible. But I really didn’t believe it would happen. ”
“I shouldn’t have made the poor dear laugh,” lamented Lady Morrissey. “I—”
“Stop,” said Ian. “We are all to blame for not minding our own affairs, but this was nobody’s fault. That child was due to arrive sooner or later.”
“And nevertheless, do you think she overexerted?” worried Lady Morrissey, and Mr. Cameron snapped, “What I believe, my dear, is that Chloe is very, very pregnant.”
The servants all dispersed, while Claire, Ian, Cameron and Lady Morrissey all remained to pace the hall and to wait for the physician’s arrival. Ben left them to do their worst to the marble floors and ascended to look for Alexandra.
He wasn’t particularly worried. In truth, they weren’t far from the Palace—only a few hundred meters.
Snow or no snow, the doctor would arrive in due time.
There was no way they would allow a member of the Royal House of Meridian—a guest of the Crown—to suffer through childbirth unattended.
Whether the physician had to travel by horse or by foot, he had no doubt the man would arrive within the hour.
And in the meantime, Chloe herself was a doctor, and he found that he was perfectly fascinated—and eager—to learn what more Alexandra knew—Alexandra, the woman he’d so long believed hadn’t the head for anything more sober than ballgowns or jewels.
Waiting for her to emerge from Chloe’s bedchamber, he stood on the upstairs landing, still watching for the physician’s arrival from his vantage of the upstairs window.
His expectations proved entirely correct.
A fine thoroughbred appeared in less than thirty minutes time, and once the man arrived and entered the birthing suite, Alexandra herself emerged, wiping her hands on her satin skirts, with hardly a care for stains.
With a very shy smile, she came to stand by Ben at the window, and said, “Well… wasn’t that exciting? ”
Ben found himself grinning at her, seeing her through entirely new eyes—eyes that had never truly seen her before. “Indeed, it was,” he said. “You were quite the champ.” And he watched as her cheeks bloomed rose.
“I’m sorry if I was rude earlier,” she said, looking chagrined.
He lifted a hand. “No need, Lexie. You did as you should have done faced with a lot of bumbling idiots.”
“Not quite bumbling,” she demurred, and peered down at her hands, then held them primly before her as she glanced out the window. “But sadly,” she said. “I was rather enjoying our conversation…”
For once, she’d refrained from saying, but Ben knew very well that’s what she was thinking, as was he.
And yet, so it seemed, he was the one with the mistake in thought.
Alexandra couldn’t have changed so much overnight.
No, indeed. She was entirely other than he’d ever supposed—more like Claire than even Claire was.
She had a brain, and she wasn’t afraid to use it.
“So was I,” he admitted, and when Alexandra met his gaze, he could see that she had gleaned some of what he was thinking. Her blush deepened, and she peered down at her joined hands, looking for a moment as she had that day he’d wrangled the promise of a kiss from her…
He had been so callow then… and she so artless—all her feelings discernible in her eyes… as they were right now.
Ben had known then that he’d loved her. Something about that lovely, starry-eyed look she used to give him had always made him feel like a king in her presence—and wasn’t that the thing about love? The way one felt in a loved one’s presence?
Until recently, Alexandra had always made him feel as though he was more than he was.
She’d made him long to be the man she wanted him to be…
And then, after the ordeal with her father, he’d found he loathed himself, both in and out of her company.
“She’s too good for you,” he heard the echo of a voice from years past—a grim-faced ghost he should like to forget.
The one thing nobody ever knew—no one but he and Lord Huntington—was that, indeed, once upon a time, Ben had asked for Lexie’s hand in marriage.
Fresh faced, with more balls than brains, and thinking there was no one in this entire world he’d prefer to spend his life with, he’d put himself in front of a monster. And, of course, her father had refused him.
Then later, after his financial burdens were made known, the man had made it a point to remind Ben of their conversation, and the denigrations he’d made. And so, it seemed to Ben that he had managed to live up to every disparaging word.
Not only had he despised himself for what he’d become, he’d feared what he would spy in Alexandra’s eyes… so he’d avoided her entirely. And then, when he saw her again, and she looked at him with such disdain… he simply couldn’t bear it.
Discomfited perhaps, Alexandra peered over his shoulder, out the window, and then up over their heads, and her breath caught, drawing Ben’s attention to a small sprig of mistletoe hanging over their heads.
He grinned then, hardly inclined to let this pass without pressing his advantage… and yet, before doing so, he intended to give her one last chance to walk away…
“It’s everywhere,” she said apologetically, as though its presence were entirely her fault, and yet she didn’t leave. She stood, glancing again out the window.
Ben waited… but for what, he didn’t precisely know—perhaps to savor the moment, to remember the way she looked this very moment, with her lovely green morning dress and her curls haphazardly escaping her coif.
She did, indeed, look a bit worse for the wear, but it didn’t matter to him one bit.
He and Lexie stood together so long that after a time, Alexandra spied travelers traipsing through the snow and she tipped her chin so Ben would look as well.
Slowly but surely, a company of carolers took form—traveling from the direction of the Palace.
They came laden with gifts, their voices carrying along the sun-warmed winter air, and in that moment, Ben couldn’t explain the swell of emotion that compelled him, but he reached out to take Alexandra’s hand, his heart hammering fiercely.
Much to his relief, she accepted it without question, and still he waited… only wanting her to be certain.
After everything they’d endured, he didn’t want to marry Alexandra to spite her father—that was the furthest thing from his mind. But, in that moment, he knew beyond a shadow of doubt that he still wished to marry her, and he didn’t intend to kiss her until he knew she wanted the same.
Downstairs, the carolers came near enough that they could hear them, singing…
Silent night, holy night
All is calm, all is bright
Round yon Virgin, Mother, Mother and Child
Holy infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace…
And when they were close enough to serenade from the stoop, Ben turned, releasing her hand only to clasp Alexandra by the arms, turning her to face him. “Lexie,” he began, and the world faded away.
There was a certain something in Ben’s eyes… something Alexandra remembered and realized she missed so desperately.
Was this happening, truly?
She held her breath, hardly able to speak, much less breathe.
In the space of a few days, something had changed between them—something she couldn’t put a finger on, but it was evident nonetheless—in Benji’s eyes, in the way he was looking at her right now…
“Are you in love?” asked a child’s voice.
Alexandra gasped aloud, turning to spy the bearer of the voice. “Drina!”
The future Queen of England stood peeking about the bannister, grinning. Tiny as she was at twelve, she was already shedding the bearing of a child, acquiring the command of a queen, and curiosity danced in her clear blue eyes.
Ben gave the child a reverent nod, and said, “Yes, I do believe we are, Your Highness.” And then he turned to Lexie, and asked, “Are we?”
Tears swam in Alexandra’s eyes. “Yes,” she said. “I do believe we are.”
“Well,” said Drina excitedly, clapping her hands with all the enthusiasm of a child on her birthday. “My mother says I shall wed my cousin one day, and I think the two of you should be wed as well!”
There was nothing that could have prepared Alexandra for the majesty of the moment. Benjamin gave the royal child a dutiful bow, then a nod and a smile. “Your wish is my command,” he said to Drina, then he fell to his knees before Alexandra.
“Alexandra Grace,” he said, once again taking Lexie by the hand. “Would you do me the honor of agreeing to become my lawful, wedded wife?”
“Wait!” said Drina. “You’ll need a promise ring!” And she removed a small emerald ring from her thumb and rushed forward to give it to Ben.
Outside, the carolers came closer, sang louder, and if either Alexandra or Ben had any inclination to look, they might have glimpsed the Duchess of Kent amidst other royal guests—King William, too.
Having been apprised of the impending birth of a royal child, they’d arrived bearing gifts and singing a song for the child to be born this eve.
“Will you marry me?” asked Ben, as he held up the gifted ring for her inspection.
Alexandra swallowed her emotion. “I will,” she said, and Benjamin slid the ring onto her small finger.
Peering up then, over her head, he grinned.
And perhaps he shouldn’t have needed to pluck a drupe for this kiss, but very, very slowly, and very purposely, he rose up to snap a drupe, showing it first to Alexandra, and when she nodded, he took her into his arms and drew her close.
And this time there was no hesitation at all as he wrapped his arms about her to collect his long-overdue mistletoe kiss.
From her vantage upon the stairs, Drina clapped very exuberantly and squealed with delight. “Huzzah!” she shouted. “Huzzah!”
Inside the birthing chamber, Chloe howled, and her husband yowled.
Downstairs, in the foyer, the front door opened to admit the royal carolers amidst swirls of snow… but Benjamin Dylan Wentworth wasn’t the least bit interested in what was happening anywhere but here… in his arms.
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you,” she said.
And then, truly, there were no more words.
Benjamin’s fingers splayed on her back, pulling her close…
his lips descended upon Alexandra’s, molding themselves against the soft-warm, supple flesh of her lips.
And he kissed her thoroughly and tenderly…
a smoldering, but gentle kiss hot enough to warm Lexie to the very depths of her soul.
Below stairs the carolers sang a brand-new song.
“Deck the halls with boughs of holly
Fa la la la la la la la la
This is not the end… keep turning the pages until you reach the epilogue—but only if you dare…