by Cach, Lisa
Whatever feelings he was experiencing, Mr. Goodman held them under tight rein, asking only, “Was he drunk?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then he should be out of danger’s way for the moment. I’ll send word to the inn to have someone keep an eye on him.” She heard him take a breath, his hold on his temper apparently not quite as solid as she had assumed. “That was an unkind, manipulative thing of him to say to you, and I hope you do not allow it to trouble your thoughts. Mr. Rose is responsible for his own actions, and you are in no way to blame for whatever he does or does not do.”
She touched her temple, brushing back a wisp of hair, feeling the dampness of perspiration on her brow. She tried to meet Mr. Goodman’s eyes in the dim light, still not as certain of her innocence as she wished to be. “Have I behaved badly toward him?”
He came closer, to where she could make out his features. His expression showed no hint of judgment, his eyes telling her that he understood what she was feeling. “You did not behave badly. There is no way to save a heart from being crushed, when you cannot return its regard.”
Did he mean the he would have to do the same to her? She gazed intently into his eyes, and suddenly knew it was not so, however much her fears may have tried to persuade her otherwise. This warmth in his eyes was meant for her alone, speaking of a desire that matched that in her own heart. A tingling awareness of his nearness ran across her skin. She wanted to touch him, and wanted him to touch her. She wanted to feel his lips pressed against hers, and his arms coming around her, enveloping her in the quiet strength that hid beneath his humble exterior.
She swayed toward him, one hand rising to lie against the broad warmth of his chest. He inclined his head to where their lips were a bare inch apart, her breath mingling with his. She caught a faint scent of spices and soap from his skin, and felt his heart beating beneath her palm.
They held the pose for an eternal moment, their breathing the only sound in the dark corridor, and then he reached up and clasped her hand on his chest, bringing it down. “Your family will be wondering where you’ve gone off to,” he said, drawing back.
She ducked her head, disappointment cold upon her skin. At his prompting she slid her hand up to the crook of his arm, and let him lead her back to the party.
*
It was almost 2:00 a.m. and still Catherine could not sleep. Amy breathed heavily in her bed, only her face visible under the mound of covers, and the house was quiet. Despite the late hour, despite the eggnog from earlier in the evening, and despite the questionable relief of having made a final, irrevocable, face-to-face rejection of Mr. Rose, she could not rest.
It was not the anticipation of Christmas morning that had her tossing and turning. It was that long moment in the hall, when she had been on the verge of kissing Mr. Goodman. He had known what she wanted, and had wisely, honorably, chosen against stealing a kiss from her in the dark hallway of her brother’s house, while she was yet vulnerable from the trouble with Mr. Rose.
Damn Mr. Goodman, and his noble heart. She had wanted that kiss.
And what if she had gotten it? What if she had squeezed a declaration of love from Mr. Goodman, what would she have done then? Would she truly be willing to stay in Woodbridge, to be Mr. Goodman’s wife, if he would have her?
In a heartbeat.
The opera, the symphony, the theater, the artists and the writers, the bustle and sense of something new around the next corner that was New York; all that she would gladly give up, perhaps even without Mr. Goodman to go to. She suddenly knew she was weary of New York, and the lifestyle in which she did not naturally fit except with constant effort. She preferred unsophisticated Woodbridge, where her awkward watercolor could hang upon a wall without comment. She could be herself here, and most especially she could be herself with Mr. Goodman.
She heard a faint jingling of sleigh bells, jing a jing a jing, coming from outside, breaking into her thoughts. A reluctant smile sneaked its way onto her lips. St. Nick?
Jing a jing a jing.
Who would be out at this hour? She slipped from under the covers, and wrapping her robe around her against the chill, went to the window, picking up her spectacles on the way. She put them on, and moved aside the curtain to look at the moonlit night.
A sleigh was coming down the middle of the icy lane, drawn by two bay horses. As she watched, it came to a halt and a figure in a bulky bearskin coat hopped out, rummaged in the bags of goods piled in back, and then came toward her house.
She dropped the curtain, heart thumping, standing frozen for a moment, and then she threw off her robe and dashed for her clothes, cursing under her breath at all the fastenings it took to get them on.
Corsetless, her skirt half unbuttoned and her coat covering the equally undone state of her bodice, she dashed down the stairs in her socks and sat on the seat by the door, shoving her feet into her boots, wrapping the laces several times around her ankles in lieu of lacing them. She was out the door a second later, taking only a moment to notice the two small packages on the front step, running carefully on the icy ground to where the sleigh now waited, several houses down.
She reached it just as Mr. Goodman returned from another house. He stopped in his tracks when he saw her. Her breath was coming in gasps after her slippery sprint, and she hung onto the side of his sleigh.
“Miss Linwood!” he whispered loudly, “What in God’s name are you doing out here?”
“As if you should be the one asking me such a question, Mr. Goodman! What are you doing out here, is more to the point,” she whispered back, as conscious as he of how easily their voices would carry in the night.
“It’s a secret. No one was supposed to see me.”
“You might have thought to take the bells off your horses, if you were so anxious to go undetected.”
“I did,” he said with exaggerated patience.
“For heaven’s sake, I heard them from my room,” she said, moving toward the horses to point out his obvious error. She squinted, then moved her hands over the leather harnesses. There were no jingle bells.
He raised his brows at her from over the backs of the horses.
“But… I heard them,” she said. “Did someone else go by?”
“You’re the only moving creature I’ve seen. You know, Miss Linwood, you have an uncanny knack for catching me at tasks where I would prefer to remain undiscovered.”
“Poor you,” she said, and gave him a mock pout. She climbed into the sleigh.
“Miss Linwood! Come down from there!”
“I am going with you. I couldn’t sleep, and this promises to be much more entertaining than staring at the ceiling all night.”
He hesitated a moment longer, then climbed up next to her and took the reins, setting the horses in motion with a light slap. “I’m going to be out all night, you know. You’re going to get very cold.”
She found the buffalo skin that was shoved to one side in a crumpled heap, and shook it out. “I shall be quite comfortable.” As the horses trotted down the center of the street, it began to snow, light feathery flakes that fell gently around them. “Look, it’s snowing,” she said, then cocked her head to the side, frowning. “It’s odd to see that, with the moon so bright.”
He looked up at the night sky with her, to where the sky was nearly free of clouds. “Perhaps it is being blown off the trees and rooftops.”
“Mmm,” she said doubtfully. There was no wind.
The snow, as if possessed of a mind of its own, followed them in gently gusting flurries as they made their rounds of the town, and traveled out to the neighborhoods where the mill workers lived with their large families, Mr. Goodman stopping at houses where there were children and leaving gifts upon the doorstep. The snow swirled behind them as they drove out to farms, and it covered their tracks when they left, removing all traces of their passing. At the far edge of her hearing, Catherine thought she could detect the faint jingling of sleigh bells.
Cat
herine soon took the reins, leaving Mr. Goodman free to dig in his sacks for the right gift for the next house, and she did not feel the cold. They worked in silent concert, anticipating the needs and movements of each other. The hours of the night seemed to stretch into infinity, even as they flew by. It should not have been possible to make as many stops as they did, Catherine knew, yet somehow there was always time for one more, until the sacks were empty and the first faint light of dawn reached into the sky.
With dawn turning quickly to morning, she handed the reins to Mr. Goodman and he drove her back to her house. He helped her down from the sleigh, and led her up the walk to her front steps. During the night they had said nothing of what was in their hearts, and yet Catherine felt that an understanding had been silently reached, that during their early morning ride a bond had been formed between them that was meant to last a lifetime.
“Mr. Goodman,” she said softly, looking up at him, as he paused with her atop the steps.
Silence held them, and Catherine felt a magnetic pull as he looked at her, the corners of his eyes crinkling, the soft blue loving and accepting her exactly as she was. He bent his head down and his lips gently took hers. She closed her eyes, feeling the warmth of his kiss move through her. His mouth moved over hers, nipping and caressing, and she happily answered with caresses of her own, her arms going around his neck as he in turn held her close, exploring her mouth, her cheeks, her brow.
She did not know how many ages had passed when she came to her senses, her face tucked into his neck as he held her, his cheek resting atop her head. She blinked and pulled back, still slightly dazed. He had the hint of a smile playing on his lips.
“Mistletoe,” he said.
She blinked at him, and he nodded upward. She followed his gaze, to the ball of mistletoe she had forgotten, hanging above the steps.
“I should have brought you here sooner,” she said, mouth crooked in a mischievous grin.
Will laughed in joy, barely believing that he had won her. His lovely Catherine, his angel dusted with snow, his heart. His!
“Just what did you leave for us, anyway?” she asked, bending down to pick up the packages he had left in front of her door. “One for Amy, I see, and look here,” she said, “one for me.”
“You can open it now, if you like.” It was a small, portable set of watercolors meant for use outdoors. Amy had told him that Catherine liked to paint, and he knew she’d done the touching portrait of her grandmother, in the parlor.
She tore the paper off, revealing a flat box covered in pale, silvery-blue silk. She froze for a moment, then touched the silk and glanced up at him with a knowing look.
He was too stunned to speak. That was not the box he had wrapped yesterday afternoon. He had never seen it before, and yet that had been his wrapping paper, and his handwriting addressing the box to Miss Linwood.
She lifted off the lid, and there in the center of a bed of white satin sat a white gold ring. “Oh, Mr. Goodman,” she sighed, and lifted the ring from its bed. It was studded randomly with tiny diamonds. “Snowflakes,” she said, and there were tears shimmering in her eyes.
He bent closer in astonishment, and saw that indeed there were small snowflakes etched into the surface of the white gold, between the glittering diamonds. It was a ring he would have chosen for her if he had had the chance, after their magical sleigh ride tonight. Where had it come from? How…?
She pulled the glove off her left hand, and then held out her hand, fingers parted. He stared at that pale hand, and at the ring she held in the other, waiting for him to take it. There seemed only one thing to say, only one thing to do.
“Will you marry me, Miss Linwood?” he asked, his voice gone suddenly hoarse.
“Do you love me?”
“Beyond words.”
“Then yes, Mr. Goodman, I will marry you,” she said, and a tear like crystal ran down her cheek. “For I love you, too. Beyond words.”
He took the ring and placed it upon her finger as the snow continued to fall, soft and pure as the feathers from an angel’s wings. A small noise caught his attention, and he looked up to see Amy leaning out of her bedroom window, her hair mussed and a smile on her face.
Catherine threw her arms around him, and he closed his eyes in thanksgiving to whatever heavenly force had put that blue box and ring inside his wrapping paper.
He held her, and in the distance heard the faint, magical jingling of sleigh bells.
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Return to Sender
Chapter One
Seattle, Washington
A hand on my shoulder jolted me out of sleep, breaking my erotic dream of being forced into a steel-boned corset by five naked footmen with powdered wigs on their heads. I squinted against the bright light, raised my head off the kitchen table, and discovered that my right arm was dead to the world. My mouth had that dry, fuzzy feel that tells you you’ve been sleeping with your mouth open.
“It’s two a.m., Tessa,” my housemate Lauren said, her voice stabbing me through my fog of sleepy, drunken confusion.
“Murrr,” I grunted, and swung my arm around, growing alarmed as my hand flopped and swayed, as lifeless as a corpse. The rubbery limb hit my wineglass, knocking it over and spilling its remnants of cheap merlot all over the Christmas cards I’d been writing. I stumbled out of my chair a moment too late to keep the rivulets of red from running over the edge of the table and onto the lap of my bathrobe, the blue chenille sucking it in as eagerly as a sailor at a dockside bar, leaving no drop to hit the floor.
“Oh, jeez,” Lauren said, and grabbed a rag to mop up the spill on the table.
Feeling marginally more awake, I dragged myself over to the kitchen sink and hoisted a wad of my robe over the rim, prepared to wring out the drippiest bit.
“Don’t wring it!” a male voice ordered.
I froze, not recognizing the voice, and knowing that my hoisted robe was giving the man a clear view of my granny panties and the pale thighs and butt that went with them.
“Pour white wine on it, or club soda, then soak it in cold water,” he continued, and I heard the lilt of a Scottish accent.
“I know how to treat stains,” I said, embarrassed, dropping my robe back over my legs and turning to face the intruder. “Of course I know better than to wring it, but does a girl have to do the right thing all the time?”
The man grinned at me, his teeth white and straight in his handsome narrow face with its five-o’clock shadow. “I should hope to God not.”
“Tessa, this is my cousin Ian, from London,” Lauren said. “Well, from Scotland originally. Never call a Scotsman an Englishman, if you value your life. Ian, my housemate, Tessa.”
“It’s a very real pleasure to meet you, Tessa,” he said, coming forward, his hand rising just enough from his side for me to realize that he was waiting—very properly—for me to extend my hand to him first.
But I was staring at him like I was a squirrel in the middle of the road waiting for a delivery truck to squish me flat. A blush burned my face, and I hunched down into the sheltering thickness of my robe collar, stupidly hoping that the truck would veer off at the last moment. I gaped and blinked and considered hiding under the kitchen sink. It’s a pathological reaction I have to a good-looking man near my own age. I’m not proud of it, but neither can I help it: men like that scare the bejeebers out of me.
“Pleased to meet you,” I finally mumbled, dropping my gaze from his roughly beautiful face and his gorgeous dark blue eyes. My shy gaze was now resting on the expanse of his chest, covered in a straight black leather jacket and a fine-gauge dark green sweater that looked to my expert eye suspiciously like cashmere. Its slim lines flowed smoothly from broad chest to narrow hips, flattering his lithe frame.
“Lauren tells me you know more about costume history than anyone she’s ever met,” he said, his warm hand gripping mine. His skin was dry, his strong hand engulfing my small, damp squirrel paw. A hand like his promised prote
ction and strength and pure, undiluted male. A twinge of longing pierced my heart, and as he released my hand I scrunched even lower into my robe and tucked my freed hand into its sleeve, my fist closed tight as if holding on to the feel of his touch.
“Lauren’s getting a Ph.D. in chemical engineering—she doesn’t know any other costume historians,” I said, and then wanted to kick myself for sounding so ungracious. It was the shyness doing it to me.
Lauren made a rude noise. “Don’t listen to her, Ian! You should see the things she has in her workroom upstairs, and just get her started on a discussion of historic textiles—”
“I’m going to bed,” I mumbled, embarrassed, and shuffled over to the table to scoop up my soggy Christmas cards. Why on earth was she telling her cousin about my work?
From the corner of my eye I saw Lauren shrug and make a helpless face, a silent communication with her cousin. “I offered Ian the use of the futon,” she said aloud. “He’s only in town for the night, and I’m driving him to the airport in the morning.”
“Okay.” I risked another glance at the divine Ian and made myself smile, although I must have looked like a sickly stray dog begging for attention. “Have a nice flight. I hope you don’t have any delays heading home.”
He laughed, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “I’ll be out of your house before you know it. Sleep well.”
“I didn’t mean—” I started to say in alarm, but then thought discretion the better part of valor and scooted out of there. I escaped through the dining room and down a short hall to the haven of the bathroom. I could hear the murmur of their lowered voices and quiet laughter, and my face heated anew at the thought of what a terrible impression I must have made on Ian. I dumped the ruined Christmas cards into the trash and looked at myself in the mirror.
