Once Upon a Winter's Eve: A Spindle Cove Novella

by Dare, Tessa

  He stared at it. “What makes you think I know how to pick locks?” he whispered. “Just because I’m a spy?”

  “No. Because you were forever stealing pocket money from your father’s top desk drawer.”

  Bloody hell. She truly had been paying attention.

  “I haven’t done that in a decade.” Nevertheless, he took the hairpin. After a few minutes’ gentle exploration and some overt persuasion, the lock responded. “That’s a good girl,” he murmured, turning the door latch and swinging the door open on its thankfully well-oiled hinges.

  They entered the shop. Moonlight washed the room with a milky glow. Peering at the shelves, Christian spied bolts of fabric piled ceiling high. Ink bottles lined neatly as soldiers. Rows up on rows of ribbon spools.

  No boat.

  “What is it we’re here to get?”

  “A lamp,” she said, setting the pistol aside. “Of sorts. Sally Bright showed it to me one afternoon. Said it once belonged to her ne’er-do-well father.”

  Hiking her skirts to her knees, Violet scrambled up a small ladder and reached for an object on the top shelf.

  “Almost have it…” she muttered. Then she announced triumphantly, “There.”

  She climbed down and laid the lamp on the counter between them. Christian recognized it at once. It was a small cylinder fashioned from hammered tin, tightly capped by a pleated metal disc and fitted with a long, tapered spout that stuck straight out. It looked like a rather like the head of a mismatched snowman. Smallish face, round hat, enormous carrot nose.

  “A smuggler’s lantern,” he said.

  She nodded. “I’m going to use it to guide you out of the cove. We’ll work out a system of signals. Otherwise, you’ll only wreck and founder again.”

  Christian considered. That cove had more boulders than a shark had teeth. He had to acknowledge the cleverness of Violet’s idea, but… “I can’t let you take that risk. If we’re seen from the castle, the men might shoot.”

  “The light won’t be seen from the castle bluffs. That’s the entire point of a smuggler’s lantern.”

  “I know.” He picked the thing up and turned it round in his hands. The device was designed to throw a narrow, pinpoint beam of light out to sea. A signal someone on a passing ship might view, if he were looking for it—but one that couldn’t be seen by others on the shore. “Still, I don’t like the idea of you—”

  “Christian, if I’m helping you escape, I’m going to truly help you. Not just bid you farewell and send you to your watery doom.”

  “Thank you.” He put his hand over hers. “For not wishing me a watery doom. That alone is more than I deserve.”

  In a brisk motion, she pulled her hand away. “I haven’t made up my mind on the rest of it yet.”

  In the stillness, he gave voice to his worst fears. “You can’t forgive me. You won’t have me.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  She didn’t refute it, either. She simply went about filling the lantern’s small reservoir with fuel and preparing a wick.

  In his chest, desperation tangled with despair.

  “Damn it.” He pushed a hand through his hair. “Why on earth would you have me? Just look at tonight. Once again, you’re risking your health and reputation for me, when I should be the one championing you. Fighting a duel to preserve your honor. Pulling you from a burning house. Rescuing your kitten. Something, anything, to prove myself. Instead, I’ve given you nothing but pain.”

  She paused. “Well. You did save me from a fire once.”

  He frowned. “I did? When was this?”

  “I was eight. That would have made you…fourteen? It was an autumn night near All Hallows, and we girls tromped up to the garret with the idea to play fortuneteller. Surely you recall it?”

  He did recall it, now that she painted the picture. The game had been the girls’ idea. His sister Annabel had always been close with Poppy Winterbottom, and the two of them let Violet join sometimes. Christian, as always, had been glad for the chance to make mischief. He and Frederick hid in the dormer window, laughing into their sleeves while the girls solemnly lit tapers and invoked the spirits of the beyond.

  “I was already terrified just being there,” Violet said. “My nursemaid had told me so many dreadful stories about ghouls and beasties lurking in the attic. To warn me off exploring, I’m sure. And then Frederick, bless him, jumped out from behind that curtain…”

  “Yes. I remember.”

  Surprised, little Violet had shrieked and turned—and in so doing, whipped the fringe of her shawl straight through the candle flame. In a matter of moments, the cheap printed fabric had come ablaze. Fortunately, Christian had been in just the right position to yank loose the dormer draperies and smother the flames.

  “If not for you, I could have been badly burnt,” she said. “As it was, I lost a good six inches off my braid. The house smelled of burnt hair for days. Oh, my parents were furious.”

  “Your parents were furious?” Christian chuckled, recalling his blistered arse. “I ate all my meals standing for the following week.”

  “I know.” Her voice turned pensive. “I know. And that’s what I never understood. It wasn’t your fault. You saved me, but you caught all the blame.”

  “I took it readily.” He shrugged. “It truly was my fault. Everyone knew I was the mischief-maker. Frederick would have never been in that dormer at all, if not for me. And besides, I held up under a thrashing much better than he did.”

  As he spoke of his brother, Christian’s throat swelled uncomfortably. His eyes began to itch. “Not that Frederick was weak, mind you. Not at all. He was brave and decent and…” He pounded the counter with the flat of his fist. “And so dashed good. It wasn’t the thrashing that hurt him so. He couldn’t abide having Father angry with him. I, on the other hand, was well accustomed to the feeling.” He gave her an ironic half-smile. “You know me, Violet. I’ve always been The Disappointment.”

  She ceased fiddling with the lamp. “Christian…”

  He waved off the pity in her tone. “That’s why I signed on for this, you know. The fieldwork. When we lost him, my parents lost the pride of the family. I’m always just scraping by, and George is… Well, he’s George. He was born fifty-eight years old, I think. But they were so damned proud of Frederick, and I wanted to give them that feeling back. I wanted to be a son they could take pride in.”

  “Oh, Christian.” She was rounding the counter now. “You always have been.”

  He blew out a breath. “Hardly. Just look at what I did to you. On the eve of my own supposed redemption, I pulled my worst trick yet. If someone had treated my own sister that way… If some other blackguard had touched you, Violet…” He swore, pushing back from the counter. “I’d kill the bastard.”

  He paced away from her. Damn, this was just intolerable. Whatever course he took, he failed someone. If he went home to marry Violet, he’d be abandoning his duty. Drawing dishonor to the very name he hoped she would take as her own. But if he let her go back to London without him, he risked losing her forever—and losing any chance to right his misdeeds.

  Add to all this, the knowledge that nothing—nothing he did, on this side of the Channel or the other—would ever balance Frederick’s loss. Not in the smallest portion.

  He’d never felt more worthless, or less worthy of her.

  “Should we go for the boat?” she asked.

  What did it matter? What did any of it matter?

  “Damn the boat.”

  Violet cringed, watching him pace the shop from one end to the other, then back. His agitation was plain. She had to calm him somehow, or he’d draw attention to their presence. Aaron Dawes and Rufus Bright were somewhere all too near, keeping watch over the Queen’s Ruby and the rest of the sleeping village.

  “I know you’re angry,” she said.

  “Damn right, I’m angry.”

  “You’re angry that Frederick was killed. It’s perfectly natural.”
>
  “It’s perfect bollocks, is what it is.” He covered the length of the room in three long, tense strides, then turned on his heel. “It should not have been him. It should have been me.”

  “No. Christian, please don’t talk that way. You could not have saved him, and you can’t bring him back. But we will love him, and honor his memory. And miss him. Dearly.”

  He pulled to a halt. “I have missed him.” His head swiveled abruptly, and his gaze snared hers. “But not as much as I’ve missed you, which makes me feel even worse.”

  As he stared at her, his chest rose and fell. “Every morning, Violet. Every morning, I should have awoken thinking of Frederick. Thanking God for any small part I could play in avenging his death. Instead, every morning I woke wanting you. Wishing I could stroll outside to the square, find you there waiting with the dogs. Looking lovely as the dawn. A little smile on your face, because you’d just untangled a new translation.” He cleared his throat. “Like this one. Tumi amar jeeboner dhruvotara.”

  She tilted her head, puzzling over the phrase. “That’s not Hindustani.”

  “Bengali. It means ‘You are my life’s bright star’ in Bengali.” The sweet words were edged with frustration, not tenderness. His knuckles cracked. “Obviously, I was saving that one. For the right morning.”

  A forceful pang in her heart left her breathless.

  He loved her. He truly did love her.

  Christian cursed and resumed his pacing, hands clenched into fists at his sides. “But now, it will never be the ‘right morning’ for us. So yes, I’m angry. I’m goddamned furious with myself for somehow losing both you and Frederick forever. And I very, very, very much want to hit something.”

  He pulled up short, eyeing a row of crockery, and she panicked. If he crashed a fist through that shelf, the noise would be frightful.

  “Here.” She darted out from behind the counter. “Hit this.”

  In the corner of the shop sat a padded dress form, wearing a dotted muslin frock and a wide-brimmed straw bonnet. The Brights used it to display the newest wares.

  Violet grabbed the mannequin by the waist and swiveled it on its casters. “Go on,” she said. “Do your worst.”

  For a tense moment, he stared down the dress form. Violet edged to the side, her neck prickling with apprehension. His rage was palpable, even from the other side of the shop.

  At last, he raised his fist and made a fierce, lunging attack—

  Only to pull up short at the last moment.

  And let his fist drop.

  “I can’t,” he said, grimacing. “I can’t hit a woman.”

  Violet laughed. “Nellie’s not a real woman.”

  “She has a name?” Turning way from the dress form, he threw up his hands. “That seals it. So much for throwing punches.”

  He braced both fists on the sales counter and bent over them, lowering his brow to the polished wood. A sound of raw anguish wrenched from his chest.

  Violet couldn’t stand to watch him suffer this way. Tears welled in her eyes as she approached and laid a hand to his shoulder. “Christian, I’m so sorry. I’m so very, very sorry. I know how much you loved him.”

  “I never told him.”

  She stroked the tense muscles of his neck, ran her fingers through the heavy locks of hair at his nape. “He knew. Of course he knew.”

  “You didn’t know.” He lifted his head. “I should have told you, Violet. I should have told the both of you, every day.”

  A single tear spilled down her cheek. “I know now.”

  He seized her in his arms. In the faint light, his eyes were wild with emotion. “Do you, truly?”

  In answer, she kissed him. Curled both hands around his neck and pulled his head down so she could kiss his jawline, his cheekbone, the razor-thin scar along his throat. She even kissed the rugged slope of his twice-broken nose.

  And then his lips found hers. Hot, desperate. His arms lashed around her middle as they kissed, his big hands clutching fistfuls of her gown. Her breasts flattened and ached against his hard chest. She wanted him to hold her like this forever—so tightly, there could be no room for secrets.

  His kiss was fierce, intense, imbued with all the passion with which he’d always lived his life. He kissed her as though this were life itself—the only time they might have together. And she kissed him the same way, holding nothing back. There would be no shyness for Violet tonight. She would leave no emotion unexpressed, no desire unfulfilled. She wanted to caress and explore and possess every part of him, body and soul.

  A beam of light swept them, originating from outside the shop.

  Christian froze. “Who’s there?” he whispered against her lips.

  “Dawes and Rufus,” she breathed. “Quickly, hide.”

  She prodded Christian toward the storeroom at the back of the shop. Inside the closet, they waited breathless in the dark. Listening.

  Please, Violet prayed. Please, just let them go past.

  The front door of the shop creaked open. “Hullo?”

  Blast.

  “You wait here,” she whispered sternly to Christian. “I’ll go out.”

  “I’m not letting you go out there alone.”

  “It’s only the two militiamen Lord Rycliff assigned to stand watch in the village. The others couldn’t have found us yet. These men know me. I’ll talk my way out of this, just like I did in the kitchen at Summerfield.”

  “But you were supposed to be at Summerfield. There’s no reason for you to be here.”

  “I’ll invent one.” She searched her brain for an idea. “I…I’ll tell them I needed female necessities because I’m on my courses. Believe me, that will quash all inquiry. Men never press for details.”

  He clasped her arm. “But Violet—”

  “Shh. Not a sound.” She eased the door open, calling out as she emerged, “Don’t be alarmed, sirs. There’s no intruder. It’s only me.”

  She shut the storeroom door and turned.

  “And who the devil are you?” A man raised a lamp, momentarily blinding her.

  Even though she could barely make him out, Violet instantly knew two things.

  First, this man was neither Aaron Dawes nor Rufus Bright. He was a man she’d never met before, but she knew him well by his reputation. His very bad reputation.

  Second, she knew she must keep Christian hidden at all costs. After tonight, she understood why he’d begged for his assignment in Brittany. And she knew it would destroy him, if that mission were compromised.

  With trembling fingers, she slid the latch on the storeroom door, barring Christian inside. Using the toe of her slipper, she nudged Nellie the dress form in front of the door to obscure any movement or noise.

  And then she turned to face the intruder, Mr. Roland Bright. Sally, Finn, and Rufus’s wayward father. She’d never laid eyes on the man before, but his shock of white-blond hair marked him at once.

  “Answer me, girl.” He waved the lamp in her face. “Who are you? And what do you think you’re doing in my shop?”

  Violet swallowed hard. “I’m Miss Violet Winterbottom. And I didn’t mean any harm, sir. I woke in the night with a…” She crossed her arm over her belly. “With a female complaint. I didn’t want to disturb Sally, so I—”

  “So you came to steal from me.”

  “Not at all, sir.” She gulped.

  His upper lip curled as he dragged a cold look from her toes to her crown. “You woke in the night wearing a silk gown?”

  “I was so tired earlier, I fell asleep without undressing. Silly me.” Violet edged away from the storeroom, back toward the counter where she’d left the pistol. She didn’t want to have to use the gun, but she was very glad she knew how.

  But she had to reach it first.

  Just a few steps to the side…

  He chuckled, and she caught the odor of rum rolling off his breath. “A female complaint, you say? I’m willing to bet I know it. Your little cunny was complaining it’s hungr
y for cock.”

  Violet froze. No one had ever spoken to her that way. The crude words had just the effect he likely meant them to have. She felt small and nauseated. “I… I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Of course you do, you ruttish little baggage.” His boot made a heavy thunk as he stepped toward her. “You think I don’t what kind of soiled doves make their way to this village lately? Sent down here by the high and mighty families that can’t stand to look at their slatternly faces no more. That rooming house…” He turned his head and spat. “Nothin’ but a high-class whorehouse with lacy drapes.”

  “That’s not true.”

  She took another step backward. The counter’s edge bumped her spine.

  So close.

  Violet willed herself not to glance toward the pistol. She needed the advantage of surprise. Instead, she kept her eyes fixed on his ugly, leering face.

  “The ladies at the Queen’s Ruby are quite virtuous.” Mostly.

  “Excepting you, it would seem. Off to meet someone tonight, I’d wager. Come to pocket a few French letters from my top shelf first? A bit of vinegar and a sponge, before you go slumming with a farmhand? The high-class miss can’t risk getting a lowborn brat.” He sneered, revealing a grayed front tooth. “Cunning little whore, aren’t you?”

  She clutched the edge of the countertop as his words backed her into a dark, shameful corner. Cunning little whore.

  This was why Violet had never confided in anyone about her night with Christian. How could she admit to giving up her virtue so easily? Everyone knew well-bred young ladies didn’t do such things. She’d feared they’d mark her as loose, wanton. A cunning little whore.

  And some part of her had feared they might be right.

  But no. It wasn’t right. There’d been nothing salacious or tawdry about what she and Christian had shared. Nothing wrong about what they felt for each other, then or now. He loved her, and she loved him.

  She loved him. Always had.

  “I’m not a…” She straightened her spine. “I’m not a whore.”

  “Well, then.” The black pupils of his eyes glittered. With ominous deliberation, he set aside the lamp. “Mayhap I’ll make you one.”