The Earl's Wagered Bride: Christmas Belles, Book 1

by Cerise DeLand

  She strode toward him and placed her open palms on his heaving chest. Always whenever he’d become angry as a child or young man and she had been near, she’d been able to reason with him. And she’d done it when no one else could calm him. “Listen to me, please.”

  He clamped his big hot hands over hers, his eyes full of fury. “Well?”

  “I need money. I need more money than the pin money you so generously give me. I’m good at Hazard and cards. My father, may God grant him pardon for his sins, taught me well. I even won a pot from you tonight.” She tipped her head and tossed him a mischievous grin.

  “How much do you need? I’ll give it to you.”

  “I don’t want your money. I won’t take it, either.”

  “If as you say it is legal tender and you can spend it, why not?” He bit off the words.

  “Because you have given me enough. All these years. Too much, I’d say.”

  “I have it. Why can’t I share it?”

  “Because,” she said and toyed with the gold buttons on his chest, “it is yours. I want something that is mine. Only mine.” From all those people who cheated my father. I want what is mine returned for Bee and Del and me.

  “I don’t want you hurt.”

  “I won’t be,” she said, hoping she was right. Remembering the gypsies’ predictions.

  He lifted up her chin, searching her face for signs of subterfuge. “There is something you’re not telling me.”

  “Yes,” she admitted.

  “Why not?”

  Because if you knew what I planned, you’d not approve. “It’s my plan. My hope. And I must do this by myself.”

  “Let me help you.”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Why not?” He stroked wisps of hair from her cheek. Gentle Griff was the man who mesmerized her.

  All these years, he’d been gone to war and she’d had daydreams of him as kind and careful and charming as he was now. And devil take it, she had to reject him. “Because you’d want to know what it is. You’d pester me.”

  He dragged her close. “You pester me.”

  “I don’t want to. I—“

  He pulled her right up against his firm warm body. All these years he’d been gone and now she had him this close and she wanted to sob her delight. Heaven help her, she couldn’t let him take this revenge from her. Not by enchanting her.

  “I’ve thought about you over and over since I was home after your brother’s death. When we mourned together.”

  That news socked the breath from her. She’d recalled how they’d clung to each other in a chaise longue in the library here. She’d been crying at the loss of George her older brother, who’d died in the battle of Toulouse along with Alastair’s older brother, William. The loss of both men, part of their little band of childhood friends, had gutted them. After all had departed the house after the funeral, Griff had discovered her sobbing alone in the library. Without a word he’d taken her in his arms and carried her to the chaise where she nestled against him, wrapped in each other’s embrace. Then what began as grief, became consolation, comfort and with a few words of condolence, kisses of ripe and heady passion.

  “Marjorie,” he said now with certainty, “that afternoon was not simply grief.”

  She lifted one hand to dare to touch his hair. She stroked her fingertips through the thick wealth of it and whispered, “I know.”

  “Do you remember the day you cut my hair?” he asked, his voice raw.

  “I do. You’d taken my doll and I wanted it back.” She loved the fine satin threads of his short curls.

  “You gave me a bald spot above my ear.”

  She grinned at him, her fingers idle, the scamp in her giddy at the memory. “Should I do it again?”

  “I’d have to explain to our guests my unfashionable mien.”

  A desire, urgent and fierce, seized her heart. “Tell them Delilah came round looking for Samson.”

  “She did,” he whispered, then urged her flush to him. Her awareness of his lean contours was heady, inspiring hot waves of need through her bloodstream. That mist of desire she felt in his arms rose up and swirled around her. The combination inside and out enchanted her. “I’ve been through hell and come home, Marjorie. I want peace and comfort. I want a normal life. Boredom! Dying in my bed.”

  She circled her arms around him and hugged him so tightly her arms ached. “Oh, Griff, the war’s over. You won’t die for a very very long time.”

  He cupped one cheek. “I want to walk in my fields and talk with my tenants. Raise pigs and chickens. Catch rabbits and ride my very fine horses that I left here when I went to war.”

  “You’ll have all that, Griff. I know you will.”

  Because she was so delighted he’d survived all the battles and because she’d dreamed of having handsome Colonel Lord Marsden as her own, when he put his lips to hers, she drifted in the fantasy she couldn’t imagine might be real.

  His lips were supple and insistent. His kisses demanding, luring her to more. And she was lost to the pull.

  She cupped his jaw and kissed him back, giving herself up to the heady possibility that he might become hers. He brushed his mouth on hers and took another kiss, deeper. Bending her back over his arm, she pressed to him. His body every solid delight in this world.

  He picked her up and carried her to a settee. He laid her down, sat beside her and bent over her to kiss her again. And again. “Marjorie, darling, I—”

  His endearment broke her enchantment. The word she’d longed to hear from him spurred her to action. She pushed him away and scrambled to her feet.

  Confusion wrinkling his brow, he let her go. But she heard his footsteps as he tracked her to the door. Then he whirled her into his arms.

  “No!” She backed away, hands to the wall. “Please. Don’t say another word.”

  He opened his mouth but only shook his head.

  “I can’t let you know that I—“ Love you. She clamped a hand to her mouth at the sudden realization. “I have to win money. You can’t stop me. Like you need to live your life walking your fields and raising chickens, I need...I need to win money. Lots of it. More than you can give me. More than I would ever take from you. So don’t try to stop me. Please. Don’t even try.”

  And then she fled him.

  Chapter 5

  The upstairs hall clock struck seven bells.

  Griff grumbled. Chin up, he stared in his full-length mirror and allowed his valet one more go at an elaborate tie of his cravat. “I am very late, Walters. I assure you, by now I must be stunning.”

  “Yes, sir. As you say, sir.” The young man gave a flourish to the stock and stepped back, head down, embarrassed. “I’ve finished, sir.”

  Griff had hired him only two days before he returned to France in early spring of eighteen-fourteen. In the interim, the servant had remained at Marsden Court in London and had little to do. “I know you like to fuss over me now that you’ve the chance. I assure you, once I am home for good, I shall allow you all the time in the world.”

  The man pointed to a new red brocade waistcoat and black frock coat.

  “Let’s try the older blue.” The red and black seemed more suited for evening.

  But as he struggled into the older pale blue waistcoat, he realized he’d chosen poorly. He couldn’t button it at the waist. The coat was worse. The shoulders spanned his chest. The sleeves fit his arms like the casing of a sausage. The intervening years in service had deprived him of his youthful lankiness and given him muscle that bulged all the seams. He’d look like a fool to wear this downstairs. Nothing to rival that dandy Riverdale, certainly. But if he was to catch Marjorie alone at her usual early breakfast, he had no time to indulge in changing his clothes. Thank god his new breeches fit him perfectly. A man could not prance about in pants that cupped one’s family assets like a second skin.

  “Quite a tragedy, isn’t it, Walters?” He mashed his lips together.

  “Shall I see, s
ir, if the housekeeper might recommend a seamstress to...um...improve your older clothes?”

  “Let’s donate everything to the church, Walters.” To button his coat, he had to suck in his breath. The lapels gaped like gills. “For this morning, I’ll simply look like a bird with broken wings.”

  “Yes, sir. Leave it unbuttoned, sir.”

  “Fine.” Nothing for it. He had to go. Marjorie always ate early and he wanted to talk alone with her, not with a gaggle of house guests in earshot. “I’ve no time to become prettier.”

  He took the hall and staircase as a run. Halting before the breakfast room doors, he collected his wits.

  “Good morning, my lord.” Simms greeted him, solemn as a priest before an altar.

  “Simms.” He nodded. “Anyone else down this early?”

  “No, sir. The guests are sleeping late, one assumes.”

  “One does. And my mother?” He strolled to the end of the table, intending to sit. “My cousins?”

  “The Countess takes her breakfast in her chambers. Of the young ladies, only Miss Marjorie is up.”

  “She’s eaten already?”

  “She takes her meal in the kitchen, sir.”

  Disappointed, he feigned nonchalance. “I see. How long ago did she go down?”

  “A few minutes ago, sir. If you wish to join—”

  “I will dine here, Simms. But I must speak with Cook first.”

  “As you wish, sir.” Simms folded his hands before him and cast Griff a knowing look.

  Simms was a seer. Was it wise to have a butler who could read minds?

  He sniffed, spun for the hall and the servants stairs to the kitchen.

  He rounded the old wooden stairs and the heat from the huge roasting pit welcomed him down into the inner sanctum of the servants domain. Past the wine cellar, the meat keeper, the linen pantry, he strolled into the kitchen abuzz with preparations for the day’s meals. He could hear the scullery maid at her pots and pans in the far alcove. When he entered, the two kitchen maids stopped peeling vegetables and curtsied. Cook was directing another maid in the mixing of some concoction when she, too, paused, to welcome him.

  “My lord, what may I offer you?” she said, her bright pink cheeks shiny with the heat and her perpetual jolly nature.

  Marjorie, who walked with a steaming bowl of porridge to the far oak dining table, stopped to acknowledge him. She wore a simple lavender gown that accentuated the vibrant purple of her eyes and made him want to kiss away the wariness he saw there. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning,” he bid her and turned to Cook with a grin. “You are looking well. I’m happy to see you.”

  “Thank you, my lord.” Cook greeted him with tears in her eyes. She’d served here for more than a decade and he admired her talents and her dedication. “May I say, sir, we are all happy to see you home and well.”

  “I’m delighted to be here. Thank you for the marvelous supper party last night. I know you will be working very hard here to make the Season bright for us. I intend to make it bright for you.” In the boot of his coach, he’d brought yards of linen from London for all servants to have new bedclothes. But he’d also brought a case of champagne he’d purchased from French vintners near Rheims, all intended for the servants’ Christmas party.

  “Oh, sir. You need not do for us.”

  “You do much for us, Mrs Broom. A small token, it is, of appreciation.”

  “We’ll accept it. Will you eat here, sir?” She extended her hand toward the table where Marjorie sat, but her gaze kept dropping to his ill-fitting coat. “Sorry, sir.”

  He laughed. “I realize I’m fit to be a mime in the park.”

  “Oh, no, sir,” said a young maid whose name he did not know. Admiration shone in her eyes. Perhaps too much so.

  Cook cleared her throat in reprimand.

  The maid hung her head.

  He gave Cook a warm smile. “I’ll keep company with Miss Marjorie and have the same as she.”

  “You did not have to sit here with me,” she told him in an aside when Cook and the maids drifted back to their work and he had before him a steaming bowl of porridge, hot milk, raisins and a pot of tea.

  “I wanted to.”

  “The maids like that you’re here,” she said with a devilish smile to her lips. “Even in your old frock coat, you are a marvel for them.”

  He sifted, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I should have changed.”

  “Don’t apologize to me, Griff. All you have done for us, for England. You’ve a right to wear whatever you wish. Ticking! Burlap! Nothing!”

  “Well,” he said, lifting a spoon to his mouth, “I doubt that would be wise.”

  When he glanced at her, she was silently laughing. Just what he wanted.

  “Marjorie—”

  She shot him a warning look. “Oh, no. Don’t start. Please. I won’t change my mind.”

  “Riverdale is not of a mind to let you win. Not continuously.”

  “I know that. I’ll play others.”

  “Why?”

  She leaned close and he could inhale her signature fragrance of lavender. “None of your business.”

  “You’re in my house.” Smelling like springtime. “So it is my business.”

  She put down her spoon, purple fires in her large eyes. “I won’t be in your house much longer. So don’t despair.”

  Shocked at her impending departure, he clamped her wrist. “What do you mean?”

  She jerked away, her gaze circumventing the room and returning to him in warning. “Oh, Griff. None of this is your concern.”

  “It is. You are. You have been my concern since—” He couldn’t remember his life without her presence. “Always. Why would you leave here? Where would you go?”

  Shoving back her chair with an ear-splitting scrape of the tiles, she shot to her feet and attracted the attention of every person in the busy kitchen. “Leave it,” she said in a hot whisper. “I’ll tell you when I’m ready.”

  “Ready? When? When you have this...this amount of money you say you’ll win?”

  She rolled her shoulders, her gaze drifting over those that watched the two of them and landing back in his. “Please, Griff. You’re making a scene.”

  “If you don’t tell me all, I’ll make a bigger one.”

  “Ohh! You’re impossible!” She hoisted her skirts and ran to the stairs.

  Furious, he looked from one to the other in the room. All were frozen in shock. Except for Cook. Her old blue eyes had oft connected with his in knowing communion. Now she tipped her head toward the door where Marjorie had disappeared.

  He understood.

  Cook knew his attraction to this infuriating young woman.

  Why had he only recently begun to see it? Was he blind? And if others saw it, why should he hide it?

  Damn.

  He pushed back and went to find her.

  At the bend in the stairs he caught her by the elbow. “Listen to me.”

  “I must go.” She tugged at his hold. “We’re collecting evergreens at eleven. I’ve work to do.”

  He stepped forward and effectively pushed her back to the wall. “I don’t want you to leave here.”

  “I do.”

  “Why? Haven’t you everything you want?”

  That stilled her. She considered his lips with soft sad eyes. “No.”

  “What is it, then? Tell me what you lack. I’ll get it for you. A Christmas gift.”

  “It’s not quite so simple, Griff,” she said as if it were a confession.

  “Why not?” he asked, breathless.

  Her chin quivered. “Some things cannot be bought.”

  “Yet you say you need money to purchase this...whatever it is. Why can’t I buy it for you?”

  “Because I won’t let you,” she said with a venom he’d never heard in her voice. “Now let me go or I shall scream.”

  Undone, unwilling to shame her or himself, he let her step around him. “We’re not done talking a
bout this.”

  She swished her skirts as she climbed the stairs.

  She’d not escape him! “We’re collecting greenery this morning. You’re riding with me.”

  She slammed the upstairs door on him.

  He flinched. Well, so be it. He’d planned attacks against the finest army ever to take the fields of Europe. He’d surrounded thousands and feinted attacks on thousands more. He’d recovered and rerouted innumerable others to conquer foreign forces. What was one stubborn woman compared to that?

  The man was becoming a nuisance. More than.

  Bee would understand.

  She hurried up the stairs.

  Knocking at her sister’s door, she heard voices inside. Their lady’s maid Mary soon appeared and let her in.

  Bee stood with Delphine by the window. Neither looked terribly happy.

  “We must be in the midst of an epidemic,” she said, hands on her hips. “You both look like the world fell on you.”

  “It has,” said Delphine with a toss of her long platinum curls over her shoulders. Still in her morning attire, she had come to see Bee without much ado. “Bromley here is such a shock.”

  Bee strolled to her dress form where her new outfit for the day hung. Fingering the neckline of the royal blue wool gown, she shook her head. “Alastair, too.”

  “But isn’t that what you wanted? Bee? For him to be alive?”

  “Without question. But he wants much now that he’s here.”

  Marjorie wouldn’t push Bee to tell her what Alastair wanted. After all, she knew. She could tell by the way he looked at Bee last night that his intentions, now that the wars were over, were nothing short of matrimonial.

  “And what of you, Del? Bromley wouldn’t be here if he weren’t here to make up for the past.”

  “What if I don’t want him to?” Delphine asked, petulant, but with tears breaking her voice. “He’s free, a widower, but—he’s changed.”

  “If he’s changed in a good way, if he wants you, and I doubt he’d be here if he—”

  Bee pinned her with a sharp look. “What of Griff? You don’t seem especially thrilled to see him.”