My Winter Rogue: A Regency Holiday Collection

by Jillian Eaton

  “Hang the bloody pins and look at me.” He grabbed her wrist when she would have stepped past him to search in front of the fireplace. There was a hint of anger in his eyes. More of it lurking in his clenched jaw and the stern line of his mouth. “I just proposed marriage. I have never done that before, nor did I think I ever would. The least you could do is give me a damn answer.”

  Emma blinked up at him in surprise. “You were serious?”

  “Do I not bloody look serious?”

  “Yes but I thought… well…” How to put this delicately? “I thought that was something you said to all of your female… companions… to, er… well…”

  “To get them into bed?”

  “Yes,” Emma squeaked.

  Will’s grip on her wrist hardened ever-so-slightly before he let her go. Turning around he stalked to the nearest window and shoved his hands into his pockets. “If I want a woman in my bed I do not have to promise marriage to get her there.”

  “Then why…”

  “Would I ask you?” he said when she trailed off. He laughed bitterly. “Damned if I know. Because I’m a sodding fool, I suppose. But then I have heard men do strange things when they’re falling in love.”

  Emma was struck completely speechless.

  Falling in love?

  With her?

  But they’d only just met! And he was a renowned rake! Rakes were dragged to the altar. They never went there willingly. This was… this was outrageous. It was preposterous. It was–

  “I know how crazy this all must seem.” He turned back to face her, a humorless smile pulling his mouth to the side. “But I have always been the impulsive sort. Are you opposed to marriage?”

  “No, of course not, I–”

  “Just opposed to marrying me, then.”

  He had said it, not her, but it did not make it any less true.

  “Yes,” Emma replied honestly. What else could she say? What else was there to say? “Lord Prescott – Will,” she corrected quickly when his eyes narrowed. “If anyone asked me to marry them after less than a day I would say no. We know nothing about one another.”

  “I know you like cats,” he pointed out.

  “Yes, well, that is true but–”

  “And I know you are a loyal friend.”

  “That is quite nice of you to say, however–”

  “And I know you want passion in your life. You told me you wanted to know what it was like to long for someone.” He started walking towards her, his stride as sleek and stealthy as a jungle cat. When he reached her he cupped her chin in his hand and tilted her head until their gazes met, dark green against troubled brown. “Long for me, Emma. Long for me as I long for you.”

  “I want to,” Emma found herself whispering. “But it isn’t enough. We have nothing in common. You – you aren’t the sort of man I see myself marrying. I do not tell you that to be cruel,” she said hastily when his eyes flashed and his teeth clenched. “But it is the truth. You would eventually grow tired of me and I… I do not want a husband who keeps a mistress.”

  His thumb skimmed along her cheek. “I could never grow bored of you.”

  “You say that now, but what about in six months? Or a year? Have you ever kept a mistress?” Ignoring the sharp pang of jealousy she felt when he gave a clipped nod she asked, “For how long?”

  “That is besides the–”

  “How long?” she persisted.

  He dropped his hand. “A month,” he said flatly. “Mayhap two. I do not recall.”

  It was the answer she had been expecting even though there was a part of her that wished it had been different. That he had been different. That somehow, someway, she could look past all of their differences and see a future where they could be together as husband and wife.

  But she couldn’t. Try as she might she just couldn’t.

  “I want more than a month, Will. I want an entire lifetime. I am sorry, but I cannot marry you.” Rising up on her toes she pressed a chaste kiss to his jaw before she started backing away towards the door. Hamlet scampered out from beneath a chair and she picked him up in her arms. “I am so sorry.” Holding Hamlet tightly against her chest she whirled around and walked out of the drawing room as fast as her feet would carry her.

  Well he’d royally mucked that up.

  Ten hours later and Will was still brooding. Sitting in a corner by himself in Rodger’s study he stared into the amber contents of his brandy while the other men smoked cigars and talked about women and the women played whist in the parlor.

  He had looked for Emma at dinner but she hadn’t been there. Not that he could blame her after the way he’d behaved and things he’d said. With a groan he threw his head back and stared blindly up at the ceiling through a haze of cigar smoke. Had he really asked her to marry him after rolling about with her on the floor?

  Bloody hell. No wonder she’d looked at him as though he were some sort of monster who’d just crawled out of a muddy pond. Her reaction had been no less than he deserved for acting like a sodding idiot.

  What had he been thinking? He still couldn’t fathom it. Twenty-five years of his life spent avoiding holy matrimony and after less than a day he was ready to take a veritable stranger as his wife. It did not make any damn sense. Then he supposed love rarely did. If that’s even what this was. But what else could it be? Will knew the taste of lust. The feel of it. The need. And this was not that. It was… it was more, he decided. It was as if he’d been walking around his entire life with both eyes closed and then he met Emma and his eyes opened for the very first time, letting in a rush of colors he had never known existed.

  She was his orange and his red. His blue and his green. His yellow and his purple.

  She was his rainbow.

  You couldn’t say that when you asked her to marry you?

  Disgusted with himself he took a long swallow of brandy before setting his glass aside and staggering to his feet.

  “I say, where are you going?” Rodger asked when Will brushed past him on his way to the door.

  “Out,” he said brusquely before he proceeded to do just that. Stopping in the foyer he waited for a footman to bring him his greatcoat before he stepped outside and into the snow.

  Chapter Eleven

  If Emma hadn’t chosen that precise moment to glance over her shoulder she never would have caught a glimpse of Will walking past the window. Certain her eyes were playing tricks on her she blinked and shook her head, but when she looked again he was still there, albeit a little further away.

  “Excuse me,” she said, setting her cards down on the table. “I – I am not feeling well.”

  “Again?” Vivian exclaimed. “Emma, whatever is the matter? You have been acting strangely all day.”

  “Let her go,” Eleanor said without looking up from her cards. “One last person to beat, I say.”

  “Please watch Hamlet for me!” Pausing only to pick up her shawl from the back of the chair, Emma raced out of the parlor. Not wanting to waste time waiting for her cloak to be brought to her – and not wanting to be seen – she slipped outside using a side door.

  The first thing that struck her was the wind. It was much colder than it had been the night before, or maybe it was because she was sober. Swinging her meager shawl around her shoulders she gritted her teeth against the icy slap of wind and proceeded along a narrowly shoveled pathway. After walking around the entire front of the house (ducking every time she passed a window) Emma spied a light flickering in the game keeper’s cottage. Knowing the game keeper was staying in the main house with his wife and children until the storm passed, she bent her head and fought her way through the snow until she reached the front door of the little stone cottage.

  It opened inward before she could reach for the handle. Will stood silhouetted in the doorway, his broad shoulders nearly touching the frame. He squinted at her in confusion. She could tell when recognition dawned for his eyes widened and he sucked in a sharp breath.

  “Emma?
” he said incredulously. “What the devil are you going out here?”

  She could have asked herself the same thing. What was she doing out here in the cold and the snow and the bone-tingling wind? Better yet, why had she come?

  “I wanted to see you,” she blurted out before her sudden surge of courage failed her and she turned on her heel and fled back inside the house. “I have been thinking about you all day and I – I needed to speak with you. May I come in?”

  Belatedly Will seemed to realize he was blocking the door. Snatching hold of her arm he pulled her inside and instantly folded her against his chest. Burrowing his face into her snow flecked hair he said, “You little fool. You could have frozen to death wandering around out here.”

  “The thought did cross my mind,” Emma admitted. She tilted her head back. “Do you mind if I stand by the fireplace? I am afraid this shawl did little in the way of keeping me warm.”

  Will’s answer was to scoop her right off her feet and carry her the hearth where a fire was crackling cheerfully away, the only source of light in an otherwise dim and shadowy room. Sitting her down in a leather chair he yanked off her shawl and threw it over the back of another chair to dry before standing behind her and rubbing warmth back into her shoulders. His hands also helped to ease the tension that had been knotting up her muscles all day and Emma could not help but sigh with pleasure.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly. “That feels wonderful. I – I wanted to apologize for the way I acted earlier when I received your… proposal.” She felt his hands hesitate ever-so-slightly before he resumed rubbing the aches and pains from her tight neck and back.

  “You have nothing to apologize for.”

  “I do. I should have been kinder.”

  “And I should have mentioned the sodding colors,” he muttered under his breath.

  Certain she’d misheard him Emma frowned and twisted in her chair. “Pardon?”

  “Nothing,” he said abruptly. “If you came all the way out here just to tell me that then you’re a bigger fool than I thought. You should go back, Lady Emma. Back to your tea and your whist and your perfect life.”

  “But I don’t want to go back,” she burst. Firelight danced in her hair as she jumped up out of her chair and spun to face him. “That is what I came here to say. I am twenty-two-years old.”

  “I had no idea you were a spinster,” he said dryly.

  Emma shot him a look. “I am twenty-two-years old,” she repeated, “and in the seven years since I made my debut no man has ever looked at me like you do. No man has ever made me feel like you do. No man has ever kissed me like you do.”

  Will’s eyes narrowed. “I should bloody well hope not. I’d have to kill the bastard.”

  “Violence is not trait I am looking for in a husband,” she chided gently.

  “Then what is? What are you looking for, Emma? What do you want?”

  “I want – that is say, I thought I wanted – a husband with whom I shared common interests. A quiet, staid man who would never argue or disagree. One who wanted a simple life free of sin and vice.”

  Will looked positively aghast. “That sounds awful.”

  “And then I met you and you were none of those things and yet… and yet I couldn’t get you out of my mind. I still can’t.” She took a deep breath. “I suppose what I came here to say is that I want to give us a chance. To give this a chance… whatever this is.”

  He was silent for a moment, his green eyes impossible to read in the flickering light. “What are you trying to say, Emma?”

  What was she trying to say? For once in her life she did not have a plan or a clear road forward.

  And she felt all the more alive because of it.

  “Will you court me, Lord Prescott?”

  “Court you?” he repeated warily, looking for all the world as though she’d just asked him to join a traveling circus.

  “Yes.” Her mouth curved. “I believe that courtship, not marriage, is the next step after mutual interest has been decided upon. You will first have to meet my parents, of course, and ask for my father’s permission. I imagine he will be more than happy to give it since he fears I will never marry.”

  “The devil I do,” Will exclaimed. “I have never met anyone’s parents before.”

  “After a suitable length of time has passed,” she continued, fighting back a grin, “and we are still of the same mindset as we are now, you may ask me to marry you.”

  “How long is a suitable length of time?” he asked suspiciously.

  Emma thought about it for a moment. “Six months,” she decided. “Mayhap seven.”

  “Six months?”

  “Mayhap seven.”

  “That is more than half a year! How can I be expected to wait as long as that?”

  “Haven’t you heard?” Emma murmured as she stepped up to him and pressed her hands flat against his chest. “The best things are always worth waiting for.”

  Epilogue

  Six or Seven Months Later

  “Wait!” Emma called out frantically. “I cannot forget Hamlet.”

  Vivian paused in the middle of arranging a bouquet of cheerful white daises. “Were you serious about carrying him down the aisle? I thought you were joking!”

  Marching over to where Hamlet was sleeping in a pool of sunshine Emma plucked him up and tucked him inside a wicker basket she’d fashioned with a bright blue ribbon. “Of course not. It would hardly be a wedding without him.”

  “And what does Lord Prescott think about this?”

  “It was his idea,” Emma confided as she, Hamlet, Vivian, and Lady Sterling all piled into a gleaming black carriage. A flick of the reins and they were off, trotting briskly down the dirt road that would take them into the village square and the small church where she and Will had chosen to speak their vows.

  It was a beautiful day; the sky a deep, endless blue and the sun brightly shining. A far cry from the snow and the bitter cold on the night Will and I first met, Emma reflected. A smile danced on the corners of her mouth as she recalled everything that had brought her to this moment.

  A stranger’s heated glanced across a crowded room.

  Far too much elderberry wine.

  A kiss… or three.

  And a proposal, one from him and one from her.

  “Are you ready, my dear?” Practically beaming from ear to ear Lady Sterling held the short train of Emma’s dress as she descended from the carriage.

  As Emma had predicted, both of her parents had been absolutely delighted when Will, looking quite disgruntled, had asked for their permission to court their daughter. Since then the two families had spent time together on several occasions and Emma was proud to say that she’d help Will mend his tattered relationship with his father to the point where the two could be in the same room without yelling.

  When she stepped into the church a hush fell over the small crowd of family and friends that had gathered to see her and Will become husband and wife. Emma did not notice a single person as she proceeded down the aisle. She only had eyes for one man.

  Will was not perfect, and she feared he never would be. They argued from time to time and he teased her more than he should have. He was still far too impulsive and stubborn for his own good, but he was also kind and loyal and whenever they kissed her blood burned and her heart threatened to pound out of her chest. He made her feel alive in the best possible way and even though he wasn’t what she’d been looking for she wouldn’t trade their love for the entire world.

  “You brought the cat, I see,” Will said with a narrowed glance at Hamlet. His black tailcoat and white linen shirt concealed a scratch that Hamlet had delivered the night before when Will had tried to sneak into Emma’s room and climb into her bed. He had been furious, Hamlet had been inordinately pleased, and Emma had laughed so hard she’d cried.

  “No getting rid of him now,” she said.

  “I could get you another cat,” he offered. “A better one. A nicer one.”
<
br />   As though he could somehow understand every word Will was saying Hamlet flattened his ears and hissed. Emma just grinned. “I like this one just fine, thank you very much.”

  Will gave an exaggerated sigh. “I thought you’d say that.”

  “You knew I’d say that,” Emma corrected.

  “Yes I did, which is why I brought this.” And from his pocket he removed a glittering cat-sized emerald collar that matched the emerald ring he had given her when he’d proposed a second time. “Here you are good sir,” he said, leaning forward into an exaggerated bow before he slid the collar over Hamlet’s head.

  “What?” he said defensively when Emma merely stared at him in open-mouthed astonishment. “I did not want Hamlet to feel left out. Our house has quite a few curtains, you know.”

  Her laughter rang out through the entire church. “How I love you.”

  “And I you.”

  The priest cleared his throat. “Do you mind if I get started now?”

  “Please do,” Emma said.

  She was finally ready to marry her rake.

  The Winter Duchess

  A shy wallflower, Caroline hasn’t the faintest idea why the Duke of Readington chose her to be his bride. She could ask, but that would mean speaking to him…and truth be told she’d rather have a conversation with the devil. Her new husband may be one of the most powerful men in all of England - not to mention the handsomest - but he’s also cruel, callous, and has a heart colder than ice.

  Eric married Caroline for one simple reason: he wasn’t in love with her. Having seen firsthand how love can bring a man to his knees, he’s determined not to make the same mistakes his father did. Which is why he’s going to spend just enough time with his new bride to assure himself of an heir before he leaves her and returns to London. At least that was the plan until a winter storm leaves them stranded. Now every time Eric turns around he finds himself stumbling over the wife he never wanted...but is slowly beginning to desire.