The Fox And The Angel

by Danelle Harmon

  “I look for miracles, Sir Roger. The little signs and promises that God puts all around us that tell me there is more to this world than just what we can see. And that, to me, is as much of a mystery as the Holy birth.”

  “Your faith is stronger than mine, I think. I’ve long since given up asking for miracles, let alone looking for them.”

  “And now, with my arrival, I have given you yet another reason to find nothing but loss and sadness in this already painful time of year by taking away your painting.”

  “Your painting now, Lady Twyford.”

  “I don’t need the painting. To be honest . . . well, I have been increasingly lonely, and only used it as an excuse to come here and spend Christmas with family. Distant family, yes, but family nonetheless.” She smiled and put her hands back in her warm muff. “The painting obviously means more to you than it does to me. You take it.”

  “That would not be right.”

  “Why not?”

  “You are her descendant. You are all but the mirror image of her. She belongs with you. With the children that you will someday have.”

  “I’d have to be married in order to have children.” She smiled. “And in case you didn’t notice, I am a widow, Sir Roger.”

  “The last I knew, widows could get remarried.”

  “The last I knew, near-penniless widows weren’t high on the list of most desirables.”

  He looked flatly at her, and for the first time, she saw a little smile, one that was fleeting and hesitant and just a little bit roguish, play across his mouth. “I beg your pardon, Lady Twyford, but I find you quite desirable indeed.”

  She blushed like a maiden, suddenly feeling very hot beneath her clothing. “If that is indeed so, Sir Roger, it is only because I look like the woman of your dreams. I am sure that Lady Margaret Seaford and I couldn’t be more different.”

  “I guess that’s something neither of us will ever know for certain, is it?”

  “Indeed not.” The coach was easing to a stop. “And now we have reached our destination. Let’s go inside and complete this business of saving an old horse in need of a Christmas miracle.”

  “Hmph. And, insofar as such miracles exist, is about to receive one.”

  Chapter 7

  Sure enough, it was Sir Roger Foxcote whose presence ensured that the innkeeper didn’t try to take advantage of Angela’s assumed wealth and charge her a fortune for feeding and caring for her new acquisition. It was Sir Roger who neatly negotiated the old gelding’s transfer, Sir Roger who laid a gentle hand on the animal’s neck and scratched him through the thick grey winter coat in the first gesture of love the poor old beast had probably ever received since being weaned from its dam, and Sir Roger who ensured that the horse was fit (and fed) enough to make the short trip back to Blackheath Castle.

  It had been a long time since anyone had cared for the horse, to be sure.

  It had also been a long time since anyone had so cared for Angela, and there was not only a relief, but a powerful attraction in allowing someone else to lead, to make decisions, to take care of a situation so she would not have to. It was a heady feeling. A seductive feeling. And as Sir Roger stood out in the cold, his breath frosting the air as he paid the innkeeper for an extra horse blanket and buckled it carefully around the animal’s girth, Angela found herself gazing at the span of his shoulders, the leanness of his waist and hips, the confident way in which he carried himself, and was unable to look away.

  She should not be attracted to this man, but she was.

  But what to do about it?

  They got back into the coach, the grey gelding tied outside and the team walking slowly so as to accommodate the old horse’s stride.

  Angela looked out the window, craning her neck to see her new acquisition. Last night, she’d been irritated at having him foisted on her when she was not prepared to take on his ownership. But today was a new day, full of possibilities, and excitement began to fill her. With his shaggy white hide and darker grey mane and tail, he was actually quite pretty, and with a bit of love and care and food, she thought he would be a willing and suitable mount. “He needs a name,” she announced. “Help me think of a name, Sir Roger.”

  He shrugged, smiling in helpless response to her sudden excitement. “Jack Frost?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Stormy?”

  “That doesn’t quite fit his temperament, I think.”

  “How about Snowflake?”

  “Snowflake! That is perfect! I shall call him Snowy for short.”

  Sir Roger’s smile was spreading, and Angela could not know that it was her own childlike joy and excitement that had infected him, intrigued him, enchanted him out of his despair. She could not know that he was studying the sudden sparkle in her blue-green eyes, admiring the natural grace of her movements, looking at her full, smiling mouth and thinking of kissing it. She could not know any of that, because she was too busy trying to think of a way she could afford to keep this horse so that he would never again end up in a circumstance where he would be abused, hungry, or unloved.

  “You are smiling, Sir Roger.”

  “So I am.”

  She dared not tell him that he was dangerously handsome when he smiled, and she certainly could not tell him that his reluctant good humor was rather contagious, and added to her own buoyant spirits all the more.

  And she could certainly not tell him that she liked the way his coloring reminded her of a red fox, that the intelligence in his golden eyes intrigued her, that she wondered what he smelled like up-close, tasted like, and what his arms would feel like, around her.

  But no. Any attraction Sir Roger had to her was not based on her own attributes or person, but because he saw her as another:

  Margaret.

  At last, the coach reached Blackheath Castle, and pulled up outside the great medieval door.

  “Where are you going to keep him?” Sir Roger asked, as a footman let down the steps. He exited the vehicle and reached back in to take her hand.

  “Honestly, Sir Roger, I haven’t thought that far ahead. I hope Lucien will keep him here until I can get that all sorted out.” She placed her gloved hand in his, feeling a little shiver go through her at the firm strength of his touch. That hand, she knew, would never let her slip and fall on the ice or snow just outside. It would hold her strong and steady and secure. Best not to think about that, though. That was something that could not be.

  “I’ll keep him for you, if you like. At least, until you’ve arranged accommodations for him. Do you ride, Lady Twyford?”

  “I do, though I am not a strong rider.”

  “Leave him with me, then. I’ll work with him, train him out of any bad habits he may possess, make him safe and suitable for you.”

  “And why would you do that, Sir Roger?”

  He had walked around the coach and was now untying the horse from the ring bolt, patting the fuzzy grey neck once more, smiling a bit as the gelding dropped his head to sniff his fingers, his breath making twin plumes in the cold air.

  “Because I’m moved to do so,” he said simply. He didn’t move as the coach moved away and headed to the stables, leaving the three of them alone. “I was heavy-handed and irritable with you last night. I am sorry for that. It’s the least I can do to make amends.”

  “Well, I was shrewish and demanding with you last night. I’m sorry, too.”

  “So that makes us even, then.”

  “And I have nothing to give you in return.”

  “You made me smile today, Lady Twyford. You made me forget to feel sad for a short time, you took my mind off my troubles, you gave me a most enjoyable afternoon. I am in your debt.”

  The sun was going down; evening came early this time of year. Sir Roger turned to look down at her, and her heart beat just a little bit faster because for a moment, she thought —hoped—that he was going to kiss her. But the moment passed because he was a gentleman if nothing else, and besides, they were standing right
out here in the open where anyone could see them — including the duke, whose library windows looked down upon the drive.

  Perhaps Sir Roger would not give his friend that satisfaction.

  “We should probably put him into the stables,” Angela said, running her gloved fingers through the dark grey mane, tangled with witch’s knots and showing neglect. “But oh, someday . . . someday, I will ride him, and we will fly over the meadows as though he is Pegasus, and I will be grateful that I have such a beautiful horse to call my own.”

  “You can ride him now,” the barrister said.

  “Oh, no, I could not. He is old and thin. And there is no saddle.”

  Sir Roger lifted the horse’s lips and showed Angela his teeth. “He is not that old, and thin he may be, but not lame and certainly not weak.” He looped the lead rope around his forearm and lacing his fingers together, bent so that she could step into them. “Here, I’ll help you up onto his back.”

  “Oh, no, I’ll hurt him!” she cried, wide-eyed.

  And Sir Roger laughed.

  It was a rich, full, wonderful sound, one that she would have given all the money in the world to hear just that once and twice that amount if she could ever hear it again. And then, before she could hesitate further, he seized her around the waist and lifting her as easily as if she weighed next to nothing, set her astride the horse’s bare back.

  Her heart was suddenly pounding. “Sir Roger, this is not proper!”

  “There is nobody here to judge you. Certainly, not me.” He watched as she nervously, excitedly, patted the horse’s neck, then wrapped a hank of his mane around her hand. “We’ll only walk to the stables. That’s not asking very much of him and besides, I think he owes you this after all you’ve done for him.”

  Snowy was rubbing his head up and down against Sir Roger’s shoulder, and the horse's warm hide and barrel, the muscles of his back, felt deliciously, sinfully, warm against the inside of Angela’s legs. With Sir Roger leading him the horse began to move, his hooves crunching through the snow, and as she warmed her hands beneath his heavy mane her gaze went to her companion’s bright head, his wide, elegant shoulders so near as they walked, and she wished she could make this moment last forever.

  He stopped just outside the duke’s stables and there, helped her down, his hands lingering around her waist for a heartbeat longer than necessary.

  She wished he would take a liberty with her.

  It was almost dark . . . nobody would see.

  But he did not. And now, a few heavy snowflakes were drifting down from the night-darkening skies above, falling on her nose and melting, landing on the gelding’s mane and atop Sir Roger’s close-cropped hair. Together they walked into the stables and there, the barrister picked out an empty box stall, waited while a groom filled it knee-deep with straw, and led the grey gelding inside. Shortly thereafter, Snowy was contentedly eating a hot bran mash from a bucket while Sir Roger and Angela looked on.

  It was raw and cold in the stable, and the sound of horses all around them munching their hay in quiet contentment was the most soothing, natural sound in the world.

  “I wonder,” Angela mused, propping her arms on the stall door as she watched the gelding slurping and smacking his bran mash, his whiskers dripping with it and his expression one of happy contentment, “if it was like this when baby Jesus was born. If it was like it is here, now. All cold outside, and snowy and dark, but inside that stable, all warm and content and full of peace. Of a feeling that everything was as it should be, that all was well with the world.” She turned to Sir Roger. “Do you think it was much like that?”

  “I have always found great peace in the sound of horses munching their hay on a winter’s night,” he said. “There is indeed something comforting, and a little wondrous about a warm and cozy stable while all the world outside its walls is cold and snowy and bare.”

  Fox moved closer to her, standing there with her arms crossed atop the stall door, and suddenly, unexpectedly, his best friend’s words echoed again through his head, persistent and demanding to be heard.

  You could marry her.

  The idea, suddenly, wasn't quite so agreeable.

  She was not Margaret Seaford. She was not even the embodiment of Margaret Seaford. She was a living, breathing, beautiful woman in her own right, someone who had come into his life because of the painting that so intrigued him. She was, perhaps, his own Christmas miracle — and the very promise that Margaret's knowing, mysterious eyes, had alluded to all along.

  Yes.

  Marry her.

  In the dim light he saw her tiny, stubborn chin propped in the muff that warmed her hands, saw the darkness of her thick auburn hair. Joy began to take root in his heart. Resolve. Something stirred in his groin. Oh, how he wanted to loosen that thick hair from its pins, pull it down her back, and wrap it around his fists as he buried his face against her neck, how he wanted to kiss its soft white skin and her pretty, amused mouth.

  Instead, he kept himself rigid, ever the gentleman even though the idea of her leaving and going back to wherever she was from filled his heart with a grief far more piercing than the idea of Margaret going with her.

  You are being ridiculous, he told himself. You hardly know her, and surely, this attraction you feel for her is only because she looks like Margaret. That is not fair to her. Any feelings you have for her should be because she is herself, not someone else.

  But maybe Lucien was right. Yes, his infatuation for a painting was unhealthy, but that infatuation had allowed his imagination to run free and to make Margaret into anything he wanted her to be — perfect, really, so that no other woman could ever compare. Fox, unlike the De Montforte brothers, did not have the natural, attractive confidence that went with the brothers’ good looks. He had red hair. He'd been teased for his red hair when he was a lad, and he was just a little ashamed of it. He didn’t have the confidence to do much in the way of courting, he was a second son and had no need to marry, and it had all been easier and perfectly safe for his heart to fantasize about a perfect Margaret even though his head, which was quite reasonable, had told him all along that that was folly. Margaret had died two centuries before he was born. While it was easy to make her into anything he wanted her to be, the truth was, she might have been a most disagreeable soul.

  But Lady Twyford?

  There was much to admire about her, qualities that were hers and had nothing to do with any that Margaret may or may not have possessed. She was good-hearted and kind, venturing out into the cold to retrieve a horse toward which she felt a responsibility. She was impulsive, imaginative and a little bit whimsical. And she had not chastised him for his lack of Christmas spirit, but had listened with empathy and understanding when he had told her about little Lucy.

  Marry her.

  “Thank you for going with me today,” she said, interrupting his thoughts and bringing him back to the present. “You are right . . . I would likely have made a muddle of it if you weren’t there to ensure the innkeeper didn’t overcharge me.”

  “My pleasure, Lady Twyford.”

  She hesitated for a moment. “I give you leave, Sir Roger, to address me by my given name. Angela.”

  “Angela.” He smiled, because of course, that would be her name. It was Christmas. A time, so everyone said, so she said, of hope. Of faith. Of miracles. She had opened his eyes, his heart, put a little crack in his misery and allowed light to shine into his soul, and that in itself was a miracle. Angela. His Christmas angel.

  Of course.

  He turned to her and smiled, drinking in the beauty of her lovely eyes, wondering if this bold invitation to use her Christian name was her way of inviting something more than just burgeoning friendship. He glanced down at her elbow, so near to his own. He looked at her lips, full and pretty and just a little bit mischievous.

  “Angela,” he murmured, letting his gaze linger on hers and feeling all sorts of things stirring inside of him when she did not look away. The invitatio
n was there in her eyes. In her stance. In the quiet confidence with which she regarded him. Turning fully to her, he reached out and took her hand as she pulled it from her muff. It was small and dainty. A lady’s hand.

  He brought it to his lips, caressing it with his thumb through the soft kid of her glove and letting his lips linger there. “We got off to a bad start.”

  “A pity, that.”

  His gaze lifted, and held hers. “Not so bad, now.”

  She held it. “No, not so bad.”

  “I would like very much to kiss you, Angela.”

  “And I would like very much to be kissed by you, Sir Roger.”

  She turned, stepping into his embrace and raising her beautiful face to his. The light from a lantern outside gleamed against her hair, caught the mischief, the beauty, in her eyes and he felt his throat go dry as he took her elbows, let his hands travel up her arms, then back down them again as he fitted one hand behind her tiny waist and with the other, lifted her chin up to his. He lowered his head to hers. She closed her eyes, feeling his thumb gently caressing her cheek, his warm breath against her nose. And then his lips were against hers, tasting of peppermint and his skin, rough now with his morning shave still hours away, smelling like cold air and snowflakes and the faint remains of sandalwood.

  She melted against him, surprised by the depth of her feeling for this man who was little more than a stranger, feeling her own spirits buoyed up like the snowflakes on the wind outside. She was dimly aware of the horse turning from his bucket and moving to the pile of hay in the corner . . . of Sir Roger’s hand warming her cheek, her neck, lightly touching the swell of her bosom beneath her cloak, skimming down her ribs and behind her waist and pressing her closer to him. They fit each other well. Perfectly, in fact. His mouth became more insistent, his tongue came out to touch hers, to taste her, and sensation bloomed between her legs and tingled up her spine as their breaths mingled and warmed each other's cheeks. She moaned softly, giving herself up to his kiss and sliding her own hands up his neck and through his short hair and finally, when it was over, pulling back in dazed surprise.