Marry Christmas (Zebra Historical Romance)

by Jane Goodger

  The visit with his mother was the last appointment on their long list of things to do while in London and he was more than glad to return home. He had been back in England for a month and was pleased with the progress being made on the cottages. Roofs were being repaired, walls whitewashed, doors and windows re placed, and every home under his domain would have central heating and plumbing. It was humbling how grateful the tenants had been for even the smallest re pairs, and it made him even more ashamed that they had been neglected for so long. It was difficult for him to believe his father and brother had actually collected rent on some of the places, which had become little more than hovels. It was a modern age and there was no reason anyone should live in such poverty. At least not on Bellingham lands.

  He found Elizabeth pacing outside his mother’s sit ting room, obviously upset about the interview with his mother. As soon as she saw him, she marched over to him, fists clenched. Perhaps she was more than upset.

  “How could you allow your mother to speak to me in such a way?” she demanded in a harsh whisper.

  “I have no control over what my mother says or thinks. She is old and set in her ways. I knew she would be disappointed with my choice in a bride and I believe I warned you.”

  She glared at him, which for some reason he found extremely funny, though he tried hard not to show it.

  “You’re laughing at me,” she declared.

  Apparently he was not at all good at hiding his mirth.

  “No. Well, yes. You look so very…fierce.”

  Elizabeth let out a puff of anger. “She asked me if I were breeding.”

  “Yes. I heard that.” He looked decidedly amused.

  “Don’t laugh at me,” she said, getting quite cross. “I should have told her the truth. That one cannot breed if one does not share a bed with one’s husband.”

  Rand’s apparent delight at her anger vanished immediately. “We should go now if we wish to get back to Bellewood by dark,” he said, turning abruptly away.

  “Yes. As soon as things get the slightest bit difficult, it is always best to turn away,” she shot at his back. She was so sick of being punished for something she was beginning to believe wasn’t that large a crime. Was he to treat her this way their entire marriage?

  He continued walking out the door, his entire body stiff with anger, and Elizabeth walked after him, just as angry that he was angry. When they reached the outside, he turned on her.

  “You made a fool of me. You broke my…trust.” He swallowed and looked away, working his jaw. “That, my dear, is not a slight difficulty, as you say. Not to me.”

  Elizabeth felt her anger immediately deflate and her eyes prick with unshed tears. “We should go,” she said, stepping down toward their waiting carriage. The foot man immediately leaped down and assisted her in, and Rand followed, sitting across from her and gazing out the window.

  It was a long, silent journey home. They stopped once to eat at an inn, then continued on to Bellewood, reaching it after dark. Rand immediately went to the stables, as he had each night for weeks. She had no idea what he was doing inside, because there were no horses to tend to other than the two that pulled their carriage. It wasn’t as if Bellewood wasn’t large enough for him to disappear in so he wouldn’t have to be near her.

  Elizabeth let out a sigh and trudged up the small set of steps that led to the private apartments. She’d been in the massive home for weeks, and still hadn’t seen an entire wing of the house where the formal state dining and meeting rooms were and honestly didn’t much care to. They were no doubt another series of vast, empty and very dusty rooms.

  “Good evening, Your Grace,” Tisbury said, holding out his hand to take her cloak and muff.

  “Good evening, Tisbury. It’s nice and warm in here,” she said. Tisbury had been one of the original servants, and no doubt remembered the chilly days spent inside the place. Elizabeth walked to her room, her footsteps echoing in the long, empty hall, feeling as if she were quite alone even though she knew the house was now filled with servants. When she reached her room, she sat upon her bed, feeling depressed and out of sorts. She didn’t know how to fix things between her and Rand, and desperately wanted to. Simply put, she missed him.

  She missed the way he looked at her, as if she was the most beautiful woman on earth. She missed how he touched her, how he made her feel so incredibly wonderful. She missed feeling his warmth next to her in bed. And she didn’t know how to get it back. That letter had been so damning. No matter what she said now, he would think her actions filled with ulterior motives.

  She was honest enough with herself to admit that when she was first married, Henry’s words had filled her with a small amount of solace, and that only compounded the guilt she felt.

  Worst of all, perhaps, was that she had absolutely no one to talk to. Her days were endless and tedious, filled with duty and very little joy. She longed for Maggie, her cousins, even her mother—anyone who would listen to her. She found herself alone most of the time with nothing but her thoughts to keep her company. She’d never thought of herself as a frivolous girl, but how she longed for a ball or dinner or the opera, for one single reason to get dressed each day.

  If the days were endless, the nights were purely solitary.

  Rand never appeared at the dinner table, and never came to her, not even to say good night. Their rooms were so far apart, she hardly even heard him enter his own rooms. If it hadn’t been so very cold everywhere in the house, Elizabeth might have sat in the mansion’s only other furnished room to curl up with a book. But the long walk from her room to the sitting room made such a thought extremely distasteful, especially since the servants did not tend to fires in rooms that were not occupied.

  Like every other night, Elizabeth found herself sitting alone at the dining table, feeling slightly humiliated to be accompanied by only the footman, who stood so still at the door awaiting to serve her slightest need. She hadn’t much appetite, and the large amount of food put in front of her could have fed five people. After forcing down a bit of each course, Elizabeth stood and thanked the foot man and disappeared into her room. It wasn’t even half-past eight and she was done for the evening. Back home, she would have been getting ready for a dinner or a ball or for a night at the opera. She would be chatting with Maggie or her mother about something. Anything.

  She felt much as she had in Newport when she’d been confined to her room and not allowed to participate in any amusements. It wasn’t, she realized, the amusements themselves that she missed, but the basic human interaction. Discussing the weather, the newest fashions, politics, something that would stir her brain a bit. She was surrounded by servants, who still looked at her curiously, and the one other person she could talk to hadn’t mumbled more than a few words since their arrival in England. She looked at her embroidery and grimaced, refusing to take it up out of pure boredom. Elizabeth, along with the finer womanly arts such as pianoforte and needlepoint, had been educated much like a boy, she realized. She was used to being challenged mentally and found herself missing reading the many books her family’s houses always contained. How wonderful it would have been if Bellewood had a large library, but the books, along with everything else, had been sold.

  Rising from her bed, Elizabeth went out into the dining room and toward the entrance, bracing herself against the cold. No matter how warm the rooms were kept, the halls were always chilly.

  “Tisbury, do you know where I might find the duke?” she asked.

  “His Grace is in the stables, Your Grace.”

  “Would you please fetch my cloak and muff,” she said, peering out a window into the darkness. She couldn’t see the stables from that vantage point. Indeed, she wasn’t certain where they were.

  “The stables,” she said, after pulling on her cloak.

  “Behind the west wing, Your Grace.”

  “Thank you, Tisbury.”

  He gave a little bow and opened the door for her, and Elizabeth was immediately
buffeted by an icy cold blast.

  “’Tis a bit raw out tonight. Might snow. Shall I ac company you, Your Grace?”

  Elizabeth smiled. “I shouldn’t think I’ll get lost. Or buried in any snow should it start. Thank you.”

  She followed a gravel drive that swept around the massive home, huddling down into her cloak. It certainly was cold enough for snow, she thought, and found herself longing for the warm days of summer. She turned the corner and stopped, her eyes searching for something that could be the stable. About two hundred yards away she could seen a dim rectangular light and started walking that way, hoping she was going in the right direction. If her eyes hadn’t told her, her nose would have, for the closer she got to the large building, the stronger the scent of hay and horse. As she drew closer still, she could hear pounding, the distinctive sound of a nail being driven into wood. Having grown up with a mother who was constantly redecorating, it was a familiar sound to Elizabeth.

  The stable was a huge stone structure that resembled more of an English country home than a place that housed animals. The windows were dimly lit, as if only a single lamp was illuminated within, and the door leading into the stables was slightly ajar. She heard nothing but the periodic hammering and the rustling of leaves pushed by the wind into the stones. Elizabeth withdrew one hand from her muff and pushed the door open just enough to peek inside. There, at the far end of the stables, she saw a lantern sitting near a sawhorse. She could see no soul in the stable, but for the two carriage horses. She eased her self into the room, immediately struck by how warm it was, far warmer than any room inside the house. A large woodstove near the center of the long row of stalls was likely the source of the wonderful heat.

  Elizabeth padded toward the hammering, her slippers nearly silent on the smooth stone floor, walking past one empty stall after another. Here and there, fresh wood had been nailed to the stalls in apparent repairs, and Elizabeth was aware of the smell of sawdust over the smell of hay and horse. She was nearly even with the wonderfully warm stove, when she reached the stall where Rand worked, unaware she was in the building. She peeked over the stop of the stall and gasped lightly, for he was naked from the waist up, his back glistening with sweat, and she stared with a painful longing at his beautiful form. As he worked, one knee on the stone floor, a hand bracing against the wood where he hammered, the muscles on his back moved in an almost erotic rhythm.

  Desire hit her, swept through her body so unexpectedly, so brutally, she found herself clinging to a rough wooden post gasping for breath. The hammering stopped, and he stood and stretched, giving off an intoxicating groan that sounded, to Elizabeth’s overheated ears, like a man in ecstasy, all those wonderful muscles on his back expanding and contracting. She watched silently hoping he wouldn’t notice her standing there staring at him. He reached for another board and picked up a nail, putting it in his mouth as he adjusted the plank and all the time Elizabeth watched, her mouth going dry.

  Elizabeth slowly turned, mortified by her thoughts and suddenly desperate to get away before he knew she’d been watching him. Rand jerked his head, cocking his ear, and Elizabeth had the ridiculous urge to throw herself down into the nearby stall to hide. And then he turned quickly, taking a combative stance, as if he were about to attack. When he saw her, he straightened and immediately reached for his shirt, which hung limply on the stall gate.

  “Elizabeth,” he said, sounding slightly irritated as he pulled his shirt on and began to button. “I beg your pardon, I didn’t hear you come in.”

  Elizabeth swallowed, her eyes drifting down to his still-exposed chest. “You were hammering,” she said stupidly.

  “So I was. What do you want?”

  What did she want? Not quite what she wanted when she’d left the house to come in search of him. Then, all she’d wanted was a bit of companionship, a conversation about the weather, perhaps. She certainly could not tell him what she wanted now.

  “I was lonely,” she said, which was true enough.

  “I have work to do.” It was a dismissal, and one Elizabeth chose to ignore.

  “May I watch?” she asked. She didn’t care if she sounded pathetic. Certainly watching Rand hammer was far more fascinating than staring at the walls in her room, as lovely as they were.

  He gave her a strange look, then shrugged, and turned back to his work, picking up the board and re positioning it.

  Elizabeth frowned at his back where his shirt stuck to him uncomfortably. “You could take your shirt off again if you like. It is dreadfully warm in here,” she said cheerfully.

  He froze, then straightened slowly, his eyes burning into her. He took a step toward her, then stopped. “Per haps you should return to the house, Elizabeth.”

  Elizabeth smiled to hide the sharp stab of disappointment. Feeling foolish for being so bold, she nodded, then shook her head in disgust for being so meek. He was her husband and she was going to talk to him whether he liked it or not. “I’ll stay,” she said, lifting her chin in a challenge. “I won’t bother you. I promise.” She smiled hopefully.

  Tossing down the hammer in disgust, he muttered, “I’m done for the night, then.”

  “You are a coward,” Elizabeth declared.

  He was at her in two long strides, his hands wrapping around her upper arms. “Tell me, dear wife, what am I afraid of?”

  “Me.”

  He stared down at her, pulling so close she had to bend her neck back to see him. She was done with being meek, done with sitting alone every night, done with wanting him and not having him.

  “I am afraid of you,” he admitted, rather nonchalantly, his voice deceivingly soft. “I’m afraid that if I touch you I won’t be able to stop.”

  “You’re touching me now,” she pointed out blithely.

  “Not the way I want to. Not nearly the way I want to,” he said, then brought his head down as if he planned to kiss her. Instead he let out a groan of anger or frustration, Elizabeth didn’t know which. He pushed her from him, his breath coming out harshly and he looked at her as if he hated her.

  “Why are you here?” he demanded again, his eyes, almost unwillingly, dropped to her mouth. He wants me, she thought, feeling the slightest bit of hope.

  “Because I miss you,” she said, opting for complete honesty.

  He closed his eyes briefly, and let out a short breath.

  “I miss you touching me.” She bit her lip, wondering if she’d said too much. He let out a small, tortured laugh, then shook his head as if to clear it.

  “That’s too damn bad for you,” he said, walking stiffly over to the sawhorse and grabbing a saw and a long plank.

  “So this is how it’s going to be? Forever? You’re going to punish me forever?”

  He looked at her as if she’d gone mad. “Punish you,” he said incredulously. He shook his head, clearing his thoughts or shaking away the anger, she wasn’t certain which. “Go back to the house,” he said finally, as he began sawing brutally through the wood. The sharp smell of fresh sawdust stung her nostrils.

  Elizabeth stared at him for a few minutes before turning with a little huff. Stubborn, ridiculous man, she thought as she marched to the stable door. As she passed the last stall, one of the carriage horses whickered at her, and she muttered, “To hell with you, too.”

  When Rand was certain she was gone, he knelt by the board he’d been sawing and pressed his forehead painfully against it, letting out a strangled sound that might have been laughter, but held far too much misery for that happy sound.

  Why had she come out to the stable, his one sanctuary where all he had to think about was pounding and sawing and backbreaking work? Every night after a long day working with his tenants and the men repairing the multitude of houses on his land, he’d come to the stables and work. At first, it had been a way to escape her. If he was in the stables, he couldn’t hear her moving quietly about her room, the way she hummed without even knowing it. Her heavy sighs. The sound of the bed creaking when she finally
succumbed and went to bed.

  Now, he found he enjoyed the work. He missed the physical nature of soldiering, and realized his blue blood needed hard labor to be content. He didn’t think of her; he didn’t even want her. But she’d come to him and now whenever he worked in the stables, he knew he’d see her standing there in the lamplight looking so damned beautiful, her eyes filled with desire, her body soft and so inviting he’d nearly taken her there on the straw-covered floor. She’d wanted him. He’d seen it in her eyes like a stab to his heart. My God, she’d been fairly panting with desire and he’d sent her away. He was either the biggest fool or still half in love with her. Rand squeezed his eyes at that errant thought.

  Perhaps it wasn’t love, perhaps it was the physical re lease that she offered that had him so half crazed. He ached for her, a physical pain that was not going to go away until he had her—or any woman. He should travel to London and look up his old mistress from his days in the Guards. Mary had always been able to slake his needs, and was mighty pretty if a man wasn’t too particular about straight teeth. Even as he thought of Mary’s charms, he knew he would not be able to drive Elizabeth’s face completely from his mind. He did not want any woman; he wanted his wife. He wanted to hear her sigh as he kissed her breasts, the way she whimpered lightly when she was about to come.

  Rand tore a hand through his hair and squeezed until the pain of desire simply became pain. He was aroused and sweating and if he didn’t have sex this night he’d kill someone for merely looking at him strangely. He was damned to live this hell because he knew he didn’t simply want sex, he wanted to make love with his wife.

  And she wanted him.

  Hell, he might as well give them both what they wanted, he thought, throwing down the saw for the last time that night. He’d simply have to find a way to guard his heart.