Mary Balogh: Christmas Beau

"And toast," Kate said.

"May we, Mama?" Rupert asked.

"How would you like to stay forever and a day?" the marquess asked. "If your mama would just consent to marry me, you know, you could do so. And go sledding and skating and have plenty of company from the children in the village. And I could teach you to ride a real horse, Rupert, and to play cricket as well as your papa. And Kate could see the puppies when they are born in the spring and train one to sleep on her bed all night without once wetting the blankets or being sick all over the floor.''

"Ye-es!" Rupert yelled. "Famous. Will you, Mama?"

Kate had crossed the room and was clinging to a tassel of the marquess's Hessian. "A black puppy?" she asked. "All black?"

"I shall see what I can arrange," he said.

"Will you, Mama?" Dark and pleading eyes gazed up at her from beneath soft auburn curls.

"Will you, Judith?" Lord Denbigh's eyes smiled into hers. "Will you make it unanimous? It is already three against one."

“One thing I have noticed about you from the start,'' she said, "is that you will quite unscrupulously get to me through my children."

"Guilty," he said.

"And it works every time," she said.

"Does it?"

"Yes."

"This time too?"

"Yes."

"You will marry me?"

She smiled broadly at him.

He sighed. "Kate," he said. "Stand back if you will. And watch carefully. This is going to happen to you one day. And you watch too, Rupert, my lad. You are going to have to do this one of these fine days. I am about to get down on one knee to propose to your mama."

"My Christmas beau," Judith said fondly, smiling down at him as he suited action to words.