The Winter Wish

by Jillian Eaton

  “But… But why?” Sarah asked, her forehead creasing.

  “Because when you are cold you cannot feel alive, and when you are not alive you cannot feel love.” With a soft murmur Devlin eased the gray down to a walk, and then a halt. Securing the reins he turned to Sarah and gently drew her hands into his, his fingers tracing across the delicate bumps of her knuckles as he gazed earnestly into her eyes. “But I do not feel cold around you, Sarah. I feel alive, as I have not in years. I loved another once, and when she broke my heart I swore never to open myself to such pain again.”

  It was beginning to dawn on Sarah that Devlin was trying to tell her he loved her, albeit in a rather roundabout way. She drew in a deep, trembling breath and tried to still the hope that quivered wildly within her breast. Hope had not served her well in the past, and she dared not set it free now, not when there was still a chance her heart could shatter as surely as Devlin’s had all those years ago. “What are you trying to say?” she pressed, searching his eyes for the answer to the most important question of all.

  “What am I trying to say?” Devlin repeated wryly. Before she could brace herself he had his arms around her waist and she was whisked into his lap. Stifling her gasp of surprise with a quick brush of his mouth against hers, he cradled her against his chest as if she were made of the finest glass and whispered in her ear, so soft as to barely be heard: “I love you.”

  “You… You love me?”

  “And I want to marry you.”

  “You want to marry me?”

  “Yes, you silly girl.” Stroking his fingers through her hair, he loosened the knot that held her braid in place and began to unwind the sections until it laid like a waterfall of tousled gold over her shoulders. “I loved you from the first moment I saw you, even though I was too proud to admit it. I loved you on that first sleigh ride when you were so delightfully nervous you could barely speak a word, and I shall love you to the last one when we know each other so well no words will need to be spoken. You are my light, Sarah Mine. My heart. My love.” He punctuated each declaration with a kiss to her cheek, his lips chasing away the tears that fell from her lashes. “Do not cry,” he murmured, pulling her even closer. “You should be happy, not sad.”

  Tipping her head back Sarah gazed up at him through her tears and managed a choked laugh. “I am happy,” she assured him. “Happier than I ever dared to be.”

  “Good.” He nodded. “Now tell me you love me as well.”

  “I love you as well,” she said obediently.

  Devlin’s brow furrowed. “That did not sound very convincing.”

  Clasping her arms around his neck, Sarah squeezed him to her as tight as she could. “I love you.” She kissed his chin. “I love you.” She kissed the tip of his nose. “I love you.”

  Devlin frowned. “You missed a spot,” he said, pointing to his mouth.

  “Did I?” Sarah blinked innocently. “Well, I shall have to fix that.”

  “At once,” he said.

  “At once,” she agreed.

  Laughing, the two lovers clung to each other in an embrace so passionate that for a moment, a moment so quick if you blinked it would be missed, the sun shone a bit more brightly and the snow, for the first time all winter, began to thaw.

  READ ON FOR AN EXCERPT FROM A BROODING BEAUTY, THE FIRST NOVELLA IN THE WEDDED WOMAN QUARTET BY JILLIAN EATON!

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Marcus, I want a divorce.”

  Marcus William Thomas Windfair, the seventh Duke of Kensington, looked up from his ledgers to stare dispassionately at his wife. She gazed back at him unflinchingly, her rosebud mouth set in an uncompromising line and her sapphire blue eyes alight with a stubborn glow he knew only too well.

  When Marcus first met Catherine Nettle at her debut ball four years ago she had been the most fetching girl in the room. He had been drawn to her almost immediately, entranced by the bewitching curve of her lips and the musical sound of her laughter. Unfortunately, womanhood had only served to take his wife from enchanting to breathtakingly beautiful.

  She was petite, almost ethereally so, with a willow like build, soft ivory skin, and a tousled waterfall of gleaming blond hair. This morning she was dressed in a blue gown that accentuated her nipped in waist and delicate features. Her hair was swept back in a loose chignon and pearl earrings hung daintily from her ears. The earrings had been his wedding gift to her, and she had taken to wearing them only when she wanted something.

  “No,” he said flatly before turning his attention back to the row of figures he had been calculating. A slim hand descended on his desk, grasped the ledger, and plucked it away. “Catherine,” he sighed. “You are being childish. I do not have time for one of your tantrums this morning.”

  “Tantrums?” A golden eyebrow shot up. “I do not have tantrums, darling, I have moods. Now I have all the paperwork in order. All I need is your signature.”

  “For the third time,” Marcus grinded out, “we are not getting divorced. It is simply not done. Now give me the ledger and get the bloody hell out of my study.”

  “Not done often,” Catherine corrected him, holding the ledger just out of reach. “But it is done. We do not love each other, Marcus. We never have.” She gazed at him beseechingly; her blue eyes swirling with emotion.

  Marcus wondered absently if she would begin to cry. Catherine was a magnificent actress, a talent he unfortunately had not discovered until after they were wed. Following their first tumultuous year of marriage they had more or less gone their separate ways. He lived at Kensington estate during the winter months while she flitted from ball to ball in London, and she came to the country with the rest of the Ton during the summer while he conducted his business from the city. It was a convenient arrangement. Or at least it had been until she got the ridiculous notion of divorce stuck in her head.

  For the past two weeks she had hounded him like a dog worrying a bone, even going so far as to follow him from London to Kensington, something she had vowed never to do barring some kind of life threatening accident, where upon she had informed him she would most gladly come to the country to attend his funeral.

  With distance between them Marcus could begin to forget what his wife smelled like. What she tasted like. He could focus on her bad traits, of which there were certainly plenty to choose from. He could even begin to ignore the pitiable, embarrassing fact that he was still irrevocably in love with a woman who, by all accounts, despised the very ground he walked on.

  Now, however, she was there every time he turned around. In his study, in the dining room at dinner, in the stables with his favorite mare. She had become a second shadow, one he neither needed nor wanted. His wife was driving him mad.

  “I will be leaving to visit Woodsgate on the morrow,” he said as sudden inspiration struck. Wondering why he had not thought of it sooner, his mouth curved in a faint smile. Catherine may have left the luxury of her London townhouse to follow him out to the country, but she would never traipse halfway across Scotland to go to Woodsgate, a small, downtrodden fifty acre hunting lodge that had been left to him by a distant uncle. “I do not know how long I will be gone. It would probably be best if you returned to London in my absence.”

  “Woodsgate?” Catherine echoed. Her lips parted in dismay. “What in heaven’s name for? You have not been there for nearly two years.” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You would not be going there to avoid me, would you Marcus? That would be very ill mannered of you.”

  “And what if I am?” he snapped, standing in one smooth motion to lean into his desk with long arms well muscled from years of riding. “What are you doing here, Catherine? What is all of this? I have told you, there will be no divorce and that is the end of it! Now do as I say and get out.”

  “No!” she shouted back, taking him by surprise. Even when she was in the throes of one of her infamous tempers, his wife rarely raised her voice.

  “No, Marcus,” she said in a calmer tone. “You will not ignore me this tim
e.” The sun streamed through the gossamer curtains at her back and illuminated her entire body in a soft, otherworldly glow. She looked like a furious fairy queen bent on ravaging war against her enemy: namely, him.

  Sweeping his dark hair from his forehead in an agitated gesture, Marcus turned and crossed to his liquor cabinet in the corner of the room. He poured two shots of his finest scotch and downed them both in rapid succession.

  “Drinking before noon?” Catherine sneered. “How like you, Marcus.”

  “Acting like a bitch before noon? How like you, Catherine,” he countered swiftly, keeping his back to her. He heard her gasp of indignation and then his left shoulder exploded in pain. Whirling, he realized she had hurled the bronze stature of a nude woman he kept on the corner of his desk at him. Catherine had always despised the statue; she never imagined it was modeled after her.

  “That bloody well hurt,” he growled, rubbing his throbbing shoulder.

  Her small chest heaving, Catherine crossed her arms and glared at him. “Good! I hope it did! I have said it before and I shall say it again, Marcus. I am not leaving until you give me what I want.”

  In two powerful strides he was across the study and standing in front of her. Before she had time to react he curled one hand around the small of her back and yanked her against him until they were chest to chest, belly to belly, groin to groin. He felt her sharp intake of breath and held her tightly as she tried to twist away. When she raised her small fists to strike at him he captured her delicate wrists in one easy swipe and smiled grimly. Enough was enough. He was done indulging Catherine’s fantasies of divorce. It was time to put her firmly in her place.

  “Marcus! Let me go,” she protested, continuing to turn this way and that in a futile attempt to escape.

  A sharp elbow caught him on the side of his head and he grunted, but did not lessen his grip. “No,” he said, his voice hoarse as her writhing attempts to free herself spurred an immediate reaction in the heart of his loins. “You are my wife Catherine, and while I know that notion no longer holds any appeal for you we took oaths before God. I will not break them!”

  “But why?” she cried desperately. “I am not one of your things to be put on a shelf and left to collect dust. We hardly see each other as it is. We… we have not shared the same bedroom in over three years.”

  A fact Marcus was painfully aware of at the moment. Catherine kept her face turned stubbornly away from him, but he could see the slender column of her throat and the pulse that fluttered there, slight as a butterfly’s wing. The urge to lean in and nip at the exposed flesh, to nuzzle and lick and kiss the ivory skin, was so tempting he released her abruptly before he did something he would soundly regret later.

  “As I said, I will be leaving for Woodsgate tomorrow,” he gritted out, stepping back behind the desk to hide his bulging arousal. “Return to the city and never speak of divorce again. I am done indulging your whims. I am your husband and you will do as I command!”

  Catherine’s eyes rounded as twin blotches of color appeared high on her cheeks. Her mouth curled derisively. “I am not a dog, Marcus. You cannot simply order me to go here or go there and command me to forget things. Go to your rotting shack in the highlands. I shall still be here when you return. I will not stop following you, dearest husband of mine, until I get what I want. I will make your life a living hell!”

  Slowly Marcus sank back down into his leather chair. His jaw rigid, he pinned his wife with a stare that had made lesser men turn and cower. Catherine did not so much as flinch. “Are you threatening me?” he asked in disbelief.

  A smile curved her lips, but her eyes remained hard as diamonds. “Of course not, darling,” she said sweetly. “I am promising you. Have a wonderful trip. I will see you when you return.”

  With a growl Marcus shot up out of the chair, to do exactly what he had not the faintest idea, but Catherine must have finally recognized the murderous intent in his gaze for in a flurry of blue skirts she fled the room, shutting the door smartly behind her.

  “Bloody hell,” Marcus said wearily. Rubbing a hand down his face he turned to the liquor cabinet and poured another shot. He contemplated the tumbler half filled with scotch, staring long and hard into the amber depths before tossing it back with one hard swallow. Setting the glass down, he went to the front window and pulled one curtain aside to gaze out upon the lawn below.

  He was not surprised to see Catherine crossing the evenly cut grass with long strides, her blond hair cascading down her back in a riot of curls and her small hands clenched in angry fists at her sides. With her back to him he could only imagine the curses she was filling the air with, and a smile rose unbidden to his mouth.

  Even before their marriage Catherine had been vexed with a hot temper that flamed instantly and cooled quickly. Her favorite method for dissipating a bad mood was to go for a vigorous walk. There had been a time when they used to walk together hand in hand, teasing and laughing and saying all the things new lovers said.

  Now, Marcus thought, his lips twisting bitterly at the irony of it all, she walks alone cursing my name and I remain in my study cursing hers. What a conventional marriage we have.

  Brooding, he sat back behind his desk and turned over the next ledger.

  As her husband suspected, Catherine was cursing his name as she stalked across the front lawn at a feverish pace.

  “What an arrogant, pig headed, dim witted bounder!” She crossed the stone drive and turned right; skirting the stables to head towards a trail in the woods she had walked many, many times before.

  Beneath the canopy of broad green leaves, flickering rays of sun, and chirping songbirds she could finally let down her guard and take a deep, relaxing breath. Raising her hands above her head she pivoted in a slow, lazy circle, stretching out the muscles that had tightened in her back and neck from holding herself so stiffly in Marcus’ presence. The man brought out the absolute worst in her.

  If she was completely honest with herself Catherine would be the first to admit the last thing she wanted in the entire world was to divorce her husband. It would be a long process, fraught with gossip and speculation. His reputation would be tarnished and hers ruined completely. But she simply could not stand it anymore. The months of separation, the sparring words they exchanged whenever they were forced together, the way he insisted on ordering her about as if she were one of his poor servants instead of his wife. How different it had been when they first met.

  Marcus had been charming, attentive, and loving; everything she ever dreamed of finding in a husband. After their initial introduction she had been consumed by a whirlwind romance of dancing, long strolls through Hyde Park, and secret, passionate kisses. When he proposed four months later she readily accepted. Both of their parents had approved of the match, as had the entire Ton.

  It had been, Catherine reflected as she leaned against a towering oak tree and hugged her arms to her chest, the perfect fairytale. Until everything changed.

  She could not say exactly when they had begun to grow apart. Perhaps it started when Marcus had gone across the Atlantic to Boston for six months, despite her pleas for him to stay. He had left her alone in Kensington and she remained for as long as she could, but she had still been a young woman of eighteen and with nothing to occupy her time, had returned to London within the month to enjoy the rest of the Season sans her husband. She knew there had been rumors, and accepted the blame as her own for she had done nothing to dispel them.

  She now accepted that a small part of her had been hoping to lure Marcus home with her lascivious behavior, but if he received any of the letters she wrote him, hinting in not so subtle detail at her exploits, he gave no sign.

  When he finally did return he was aloof and standoffish; nothing like the man who had made love to her the night before he left and vowed to think of her every moment of every day until he returned.

  That had been, Catherine thought with a sigh, three and a half long years ago. Since then they had only s
een each other once or twice a year, and then only in passing. Because of their lengthy separation she had thought Marcus would be delighted at the idea of a divorce, and quite frankly she could not imagine the reason why he wasn’t. She even knew he had a mistress, a red haired widow who stayed with him in London and whom he visited often in the country. He thought she had one as well, but she didn’t. She had certainly entertained the idea, as it was not uncommon amidst the Ton for married women to share a bed outside of their husbands. In fact, it was often quite encouraged. But when it had come down to it, Catherine simply could not make herself. She may have been a flirt, but she never had been – and never would be – an adulteress.

  “I need to be free of you Marcus,” she whispered, only daring to say what she truly thought out loud in the privacy of the woods where nothing save the birds and the squirrels could hear her. “I cannot remain married to a man who despises the very sight of me.” I cannot remain married to a man I love. The words echoed in her head, but she could not force them past her lips. Some things could not be spoken out loud, even in seclusion.

  Lifting the hem of her skirts from the forest floor Catherine turned and started back towards the estate, her forehead set in three fine lines as she worried what to do next. There was no telling how long Marcus would remain at Woodsgate. The man was stubborn as an ass, and she had no doubt he would stay away just to spite her. In fact, she was certain of it.

  “But he cannot stay away,” she mused, a smile dawning slowly across her face, “if I go to him.”

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