A Little Winter Scandal: A Regency Christmas Collection

by Christi Caldwell

  She staggered back a step, a hand clutched tightly to her breast. She knew it had been Danby who’d summoned him. Blast it all.

  “Why would you betray me like this, Your Grace?” she pleaded.

  “Alexandra, I spoke to you earlier about your melodramatics.”

  A harsh, bitter laugh escaped her, filled the air around him, and Nathan felt a stab of pain with the realization that it had been he who’d killed the innocent sound of joy that had first captivated him.

  How had he ever allowed himself to deliberately hurt her? What kind of bastard had he been? The kind of bastard who’d thought he was saving her from himself, the voice on his shoulder nudged. The kind who had been foolishly convinced that she was better off without him.

  Seeing her now, broken and hurting, he was hard-pressed to believe she was, in fact, better off.

  His throat worked painfully. He held up an entreating hand towards her.

  “I—I need you to know, it was never my intention to hurt you.” His words came out scratchy from three days of ill use and fatigue.

  Another one of those mirthless laughs met his words, and he dropped his hand to his side.

  Alexandra pointedly ignored him, choosing to direct her attention to Danby, who was watching their exchange with a hawk-like intensity.

  Alexandra told herself not to look at Nathan. It was a roaring reminder, ripping through her mind with the blaring sound of a crowded ballroom in the height of the Season.

  It was futile. Her eyes found him. Damn her for being a weak creature; the sight of him made her breath quicken.

  Why did he have to be so blasted beautiful? Why must he be over six feet tall and have whipcord strength? His dark hair, with the faintest curl, would have been soft on most men, but Nathan had the look of a fallen angel. His eyes were the color of those same azure blue clouds the cherubs up in heaven danced upon with regular frequency.

  And at the moment, those eyes were trained intently on her.

  He gave the faintest nod in the duke’s direction, alerting her to the fact that Danby had directed a question her way. Or statement. She hadn’t been listening.

  “I beg your pardon, Your Grace?” she snapped.

  Danby smiled with amusement.

  “I’m glad my displeasure so pleases you,” she said, surprised by her audacity.

  “Your recently acquired backbone pleases me.” He tipped his head over at Nathan. “Whether you like it or not, gel, he’s to be my guest. My suggestion is you put aside some of that Whitton fury and open those eyes. I know you have a brain in your head.”

  Somehow it sounded like an insult.

  Danby motioned from Alexandra to Nathan. “Off with you now,” he ordered as though speaking to two young children. “Continue this talk somewhere else. I’ve done my piece.”

  Alexandra’s lips tightened. Yes, he certainly had.

  Nathan was the only one who seemed to remember his manners. He bowed deeply. “Your Grace.”

  Alexandra gritted her teeth so tightly the pain radiated up her jaw and pierced the flesh at her temples. Without so much as a curtsey or further word uttered, she turned on her heel and stalked past Nathan. The faint musky sandalwood that always seemed to cling to him wafted by, its pull a seductive reminder of the embraces they’d stolen.

  She made to shove the door open, but damn him, he was there, intercepting her efforts. Ever the gentleman was Nathan. She laughed almost manically at the ridiculousness of such a thought.

  A gentleman would never lay a wager in the book at White’s about a lady he loved.

  He fell into step behind her, and then his long strides closed the distance, and he was beside her, marching down the long, long corridor towards—well she hadn’t considered exactly where she was going. She’d just known she’d needed to get away from the Duke of Danby and his hellish office.

  “Surely you have something to say to me?”

  Alexandra laughed and faltered. He gripped her arm gently, righting her.

  She shrugged his touch off, trying not to feel the longing for his heated skin on her flesh.

  “Oh, I have a million things to say to you, my lord.”

  A small smile tilted his lips. “I’m sure you’ve counted more.”

  Damn him for knowing all the intimate things about her. Alexandra looked left and then right, confirming they were in fact alone.

  “Does it amuse you to continue to make light of all that I shared with you? Perhaps there is a current wager you’ve placed as to how many days it would take for me to forgive you for being an utter cad? Well, here is the answer I’d jot in that book at White’s. Never.”

  “Never is not a number.”

  “You know what I mean.” Her voice had risen to a near shout.

  He seemed far too amused for Alexandra. She jabbed a finger at his chest. “Must you come here at Christmastime after humiliating me to thoroughly ruin my holiday season? What joy do you find in my misery? And furthermore, how dare you arrive and appear so bloody well rested. Why, you look as though you arrived a whole evening—”

  His eyes flashed the confirmation to her statement.

  “You arrived before I did?” She thought of Danby’s lack of questions for Nathan. He hadn’t needed to ask any questions because he already had.

  And here was Alexandra, caught off-guard and looking thoroughly rumpled. Danby’s betrayal was now complete.

  “Your grandfather summoned me,” Nathan said quietly.

  “Why did you come?” she asked on an angry whisper.

  “Because I needed to see you, needed your forgiveness. And as much as I’ve told myself I don’t deserve you, I need to explain.”

  Alexandra took a step away from him. “Explain what, my lord? What could you possibly say? And you were correct, you were never deserving of me.”

  A stark flash of pain twisted his features and she hated herself for inflicting that hurt on him. It had been his greatest worry, something he’d frequently spoken to her about, turning out to be the same ruthless man his father had been. He’d told her so many times he didn’t deserve her, she’d ceased keeping count—which was, of course, a great effort for Alexandra.

  “You are right,” he said, at last breaking the silence. “But I still need you to know the whole story.”

  She swallowed past a ball of emotion. “Well, what is the story?”

  Nathan looked around the hall and dragged a hand through tousled, dark hair.

  “Not here.”

  “Oh, where then?”

  “Walk with me?”

  Indecision flared and she silently waged a war with her inner desires; the desire to know the truth, the desire to be with him, and her pride.

  “I-I only just arrived.”

  “Come with me, Alex. Join me. Listen to what I have to say and if at the end, you feel the same way you do now, then I will get in my carriage and make the long journey back to London.”

  Her eyes studied his face, seeming to search for the sincerity of his promise.

  “Do you promise? Or is this another lie?”

  He flinched. “Just a walk. Meet me by the stables.”

  Chapter 9

  With each step she took, the pads of her slippers tapped a soft, rhythmic echo against the floor and in her mind. Mad-mad, mad-mad. “You are mad, Alexandra,” she muttered under her breath.

  First, it was madness to consider a walk in the frigid winter air with a sky threatening snow. Second, it was madness to consider a walk in the frigid winter air with a sky threatening snow beside the man who’d broken her heart. In spite of the hundreds of other rational excuses she could muster, Alexandra continued her course through Danby Castle. The silence surrounded her, eerily crypt-like.

  After an hour of telling herself she would not meet Nathan in the stables—that he could sit there all night and rot—after bathing, paying far too particular attention to the gown she selected, and brushing her hair back into a simple, silken plait, she could now acknowledge the t
ruth—she must see him.

  She told herself she had merely agreed to see him because she wanted him gone from the grounds. Told herself she wanted to rail at him for the pain and humiliation he’d wrought on her life.

  But she hadn’t convinced herself. For against all better reason she simply wanted to see him.

  Alexandra pushed open the kitchen doors, one of the more discreet exits leading to the stables, and met the two dozen pairs of eyes of startled servants hard at work in the kitchen.

  Apparently not so discreet.

  With a flush staining her cheeks, she cleared her throat. “Good afternoon, uh, just continue with what you were doing,” she urged.

  All two dozen pairs of eyes quickly fell away, returning to their work, but the curiosity had been there.

  Wonderful. How much time before Mother learned of her escapade? On the heels of that thought was the defiant part of her. What did it matter? Her reputation was already in tatters.

  In fact, there was something oddly freeing in having a reputation that didn’t need caring for. Alexandra threw her shoulders back and marched proudly through the kitchen.

  She stepped outside and the day’s cold embrace enfolded her. She shivered, tugging her sapphire velvet cloak closer, and marched towards the stables, her brisk movements setting the fabric fluttering.

  A wisp of snow drifted down and landed upon her nose, bringing her feet to a halt. Inhaling deeply of the crisp, clean winter air she tipped her head back and became lost in the shower of flakes raining down silently from their place in the sky. She loved the snow. It was clean, quiet, and the flakes so innumerable she’d always been able to lose herself in counting each different flake as they settled to their spot on Earth.

  “I didn’t think you would come.”

  Alexandra’s eyes flew open and a flake landed on her lid, blurring her vision. She froze. “I’m not a coward.”

  Nathan’s jaw set stonily. “I’m not a coward, Alex. A bastard and a fool, but not a coward.” It was the first real indication of emotion she’d seen from him since…since—

  “Is this is why you’ve come then, Nathan? To argue the merits of your character? Or have you come to further humiliate me? Only this time in the presence of my entire distinguished family?”

  Nathan held his arm out. “Walk with me.”

  It wasn’t a question.

  She eyed his extended elbow suspiciously. After all, it was the same elbow that had bent as he’d scribbled that blasted wager into the books.

  “Never tell me you are, in fact, a coward,” Nathan challenged.

  Alexandra gritted her teeth and bit back a retort. “Fine, then.” She slipped her arm into his and hated herself for the thrill of awareness that shot through her.

  “You still feel it.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, my lord,” she lied.

  Nathan didn’t argue the point any further. Instead they continued their silent, stilted journey with no specific destination, their bodies perfectly synchronized with each other’s movements, his boots and her slippers leaving footprint reminders in the dusting of snow along the ground.

  They trudged up a small incline, and her slipper caught a slick patch of snow. She nearly careened backwards down the hill.

  A strong, steady hand reached out quickly and rescued her from the imminent fall.

  “Thank you,” she said breathlessly.

  “Three hundred.”

  Alexandra blinked in confusion.

  “Three hundred steps we’ve taken in silence.”

  He’d become a counter. She smiled. Then promptly hated herself for smiling. Blast it all. She did not want to laugh with him. She did not want to find him endearing. And she most certainly did not want to feel her heart warm towards him. “I counted three hundred and twenty-five,” she said with a forced edge of hardness to her words.

  Nathan looked as if he wanted to say something but held back the words. Deep blue eyes peered out at the vast holdings below their position on the hill. In those expressive pools, despair, regret, and a whole host of other emotions that made her hope. Foolish, foolish hope.

  “Slippers were not the best idea for a walk.”

  Her lips twitched again. “On that score, I can agree with you.”

  They continued walking in no particular direction, their steps carrying them further and further from Danby’s lair. When she returned, she’d earn an earful from her mother. Nor did she care that the winter chill stole through the velvet fabric, sending frissons of coldness up her spine. For in that moment, she’d achieved what she’d wanted since the Williams’s ballroom—freedom from the prying eyes and questions. In this moment, she was the only person whose questions mattered. So she would have her questions answered, and then she would be free of him.

  The pain of that thought stabbed through her like a jagged icicle spearing the earth with its blade.

  They arrived at a small copse of trees. An enormous boulder large enough to serve as a bench for three people cut across the path. She allowed him to lead her to it, then she took a seat and waited.

  Snow swirled around them a flurry of white piling upon the ground and layering along the brim of his black hat. Nathan doffed it and beat the article against his buff-clad leather breeches, inadvertently drawing her eyes to his muscular thigh.

  Her mouth went dry.

  “I missed you, Alexandra.”

  “It’s only been six days.”

  “But it’s felt like six years.”

  He’d always claimed he was no poet and yet…he had a poet’s soul. With just a few words, he could reach inside her and bring the balm of peace.

  “All the times you told me you loved me. The times you said you dreamed of making me your wife. Were they all lies?”

  Nathan raked a hand over his eyes. “Oh, God. What have I done to you?” His tone was weary. Turning suddenly, he took her by the shoulders. “The only lie I ever told was the bloody wager I scratched down at White’s.”

  It was what she’d longed to hear and yet, how could she believe him?

  “Then, why? Why did you—”

  Then his lips were on hers. Every rational thought slipped by on a sigh of longing. Their lips met in a violent explosion of yearning and pain. His tongue slid between her teeth and mated with hers in a primitive movement of unfulfilled desire.

  Nathan’s hand worked across her body, reacquainting himself with the flare of her hip, the underside of her breast, the silken smoothness of her neck. Then he reached up and tugged free the pins holding her neat chignon in place, sending the silken strands tumbling to her shoulders. He combed his fingers through her hair, deepening the kiss.

  Alexandra, who counted everything from steps to ticks on a clock, lost track of time. All she knew was in that moment, in his arms, the ache of betrayal dissipated into a corner of make-believe, and she felt blessedly alive. Joyous.

  It was Nathan who broke the kiss. Not in a forceful way, but rather with a gentle separation sealed with a kiss on her forehead.

  Alexandra’s breath came in quick, little spurts that marked the air with the whisper of white breaths meeting cold air.

  “I will always love you,” he whispered.

  She pulled back and pinned him with an intent stare. “You come to me insisting that you love me. You claim you didn’t fill my ears with empty platitudes. Yet you speak of goodbye? You owe me answers, Nathan. You owe me the truth.”

  Chapter 10

  You owe me the truth.

  Yes, he did owe her the truth. But at what cost? What kind of bastard would he be if he admitted the reason for his betrayal? And after receiving the Duke of Danby’s blessings, he’d committed himself to confessing every ugly aspect of it. Even if it would hurt her.

  Yet now, with her seated before him, the idea of causing her any further pain made it hard for him to speak.

  Unable to meet her accusatory stare, he looked out at the snow-laden fields. “More than a week ago, I visit
ed your father at his club. I requested a private audience with him.” Nathan still remembered the humiliation of that audience. He’d foolishly believed the Marquess of Tewkesbury had been amiable to his request. “I showed up at your father’s townhouse and asked him for your hand.” Alexandra gasped and he resisted the urge to look at her.

  “I did not know,” she whispered behind him, the words almost booming in the silence of the snow.

  He shook his head and laughed. Even to his ears the sound came out rusty and bitter. “No, I don’t imagine you would have. He…” Nathan drew in a deep fortifying breath. “He spoke to me at some length about my father. He said he would be damned if he ever saw his daughter wed to the whoreson of a bastard.”

  “No,” Alexandra bit out.

  Nathan didn’t know if she was protesting the truth of those words or whether that single word was more a plea. He continued. “The marquess insisted if I truly loved you as I claimed, that I would free you to make a match with a gentleman worthy of you. I told him to go to the devil, insisted that you would never believe I would betray you.”

  “So why did you go along with his scheming?” she whispered.

  Her question was latent with the sting of betrayal. If it were any other person before him, he’d manage one of those affected smiles he adopted for the ton’s benefit, the same smile that allowed him to disregard the condescension and judgment he faced as the son of one of England’s most disreputable lords. Except his predecessor, a man he didn’t think of as father, had been worse than disreputable. He’d been an unfaithful bastard, a whoremonger.

  “I never told you about the day my mother died.”

  My beautiful, patient Alex. She stood there so silent. So silent. Only he knew her as well as he knew himself, and just knew she was counting something. Mayhap she was counting the falling snowflakes or the seconds passing, all to exercise restraint. It was just one of the many things he loved about her. Alex was not impulsive. She was contemplative and thoughtful in ways most members of society were not. In spite of the curiosity lighting her eyes, she was mindful of his feelings.

  “No, you never did tell me about your mother, Nathan.”