Christmas in The Duke's Arms

by Grace Burrowes

  He inhaled sharply and seemed to struggle for control. His kisses grew more insistent, more passionate, and then he retreated from her lips and tended to other parts of her. He kissed the line of her jaw, the tender skin just beneath it, the ticklish part of her earlobe, and the hollow at the base of her throat.

  He worshipped her, kissing and tasting her. She thought he might linger on her breasts, but he surprised her by moving lower and sliding his tongue over her abdomen.

  Hot and insistent need flared in her as his tongue dipped lower. “What are you about?” she gasped.

  He looked up at her, his head almost at the juncture of her thighs. “More wicked suggestions from my naughty books. Do you mind?”

  “I…” Did she mind? She had never dreamed a man, much less Pierce Moneypence, would even consider doing what he was about to do—or at least what she thought he was about to do. As if reading the uncertainty in her eyes, he moved lower and used one hand to part her legs. Oh, she had little doubt what he had in mind, especially when he leaned down and his warm breath tantalized that most intimate part of her. She shuddered and squirmed, but his weight held her in place.

  “I want to taste you,” he said. “I’ve read it can be extremely pleasurable when a man applies his lips and tongue to this part of the female anatomy.”

  His words were so scientific, and yet, they aroused her more powerfully than anything else he’d said.

  “I don’t mind,” she squeaked.

  “Good,” he said, his words vibrating against her inner thighs. “Because I’ve been thinking a lot about this.”

  “You have?” He thought about doing things like this to her? How often? When? And then she could not think at all, because he pressed his mouth to her and the feeling was so delicious, she couldn’t form a coherent thought for several long, long moments. He had an aptitude for this, or had studied his books diligently, because he quickly brought her to a fierce climax. She cried out, and then covered her mouth in embarrassment.

  Pierce slid beside her and nuzzled her neck. “You enjoyed that.”

  “I’ve probably woken the entire inn.” She rose on her elbows to ensure the door was locked. “I do hope the maid doesn’t come to check on me.”

  “Just tell her it was a nightmare.” He was still nuzzling her neck, which was distracting, especially when his hands wandered to her breasts. She pulled at the tails of his shirt.

  “Why don’t you take this off? Take everything off while you’re at it and show me what else you’ve learned from that naughty book.”

  “Oh, no.” He captured her hands in his. “There are far too many other pleasures I’d rather show you.”

  “But what about your pleasure?”

  “Time for that when we marry.”

  She sat up abruptly, and he lost his balance and toppled over into the indention she’d left in the bed. “So this is all some ploy to convince me to agree to marry you, and then once we’re married, you’ll have no use for seduction.”

  He sat, looking bewildered. “No, not at all—”

  “So you don’t want me to marry you.”

  “Of course I do, but I’ll still seduce you after we’re wed.”

  She rose on her knees, hugging the sheet to her. “Why?”

  “Why?” He looked close to panicking, but she was not going to give him the correct answer. “Because you like it? Because I enjoy it?”

  “Get out.”

  “What? Eliza, no, let’s talk about this.”

  She was already up and out of bed. She stomped to the door then paused, looking back at him. He was climbing slowly off her bed, looking as though he’d lost his puppy. “Very well, let’s talk. Do you love me?”

  There was the shocked-deer look she remembered so well. That was answer enough, but the foolish man stammered and stuttered and attempted a reply anyway. She was patient. This might at least be entertaining.

  “I feel—that is to say—I care very much about you. In my heart—the warmth—t-truly I do esteem you, I am very fond—”

  “Fond? You are fond of me? How romantic. A man who is fond of me. Do you do”—she gestured to the bed—“that with all the women you are fond of?”

  “No! Eliza, you know there is only you.”

  “But I don’t know that, Pierce. I am certain you could find any number of other women you are fond of who would be happy to go with you to Switzerland.”

  His chin notched up. “Is that what this is about? You think I want you to abandon your work for the Barbican group. I don’t. You can design weapons in Switzerland.”

  “What if I enjoy my life here? What if I don’t want to go to Switzerland?” A pregnant silence filled the room, and she knew, quite suddenly, that this was the moment she had been waiting for. She held her breath with anticipation, willing him to say the words she wanted. If he couldn’t say I love you perhaps he could show her.

  “It’s only for a few years. We would return…”

  He was still speaking, but she wasn’t listening any longer. He wouldn’t even offer to forgo his plans for her. She wouldn’t have made him give up his ambitions, but she would have known that he was willing to make the sacrifice. If he only cared for her that much, then she thought he might fall in love with her, given time. But he was like every other man, thinking himself better and more important than any woman.

  Better to remain a spinster, a bluestocking with a shocking expertise in weaponry, than trade her soul for a warm body beside her night after night.

  “Out,” she said, pointing to the door. “Take your coat and go.”

  He lifted his coat as though it was laden with bricks. “Eliza, please.”

  “We’ll have to meet elsewhere to discuss the mission from now on. Don’t come here again.” She opened the door.

  She thought he might bow his head and scurry away. Instead, he stepped into the corridor and looked her directly in the eye. “This isn’t the end.”

  She closed the door on him and locked it. “Oh, yes, it is.” She was done behaving as a foolish girl would, hoping he would come to love her, hoping he might change. She had to stop being swayed by her baser instincts. He’d certainly learned new bedsport, but marriage was more than a romp in bed. She had to remember that. Most important, she had to forget the promise of all the other tantalizing talents he’d learned.

  Chapter Six

  ‡

  Pierce hobbled toward the inn, shivering as he cut through the icy yard. The sky was gray and heavy with low-hanging clouds. It would snow again before the day was through. He was annoyed after spending another night in the stable. The annoyance stemmed, in part, from the ache in his back and shoulders and neck and…well, every part of him ached after spending two nights on that cot.

  Pierce also suspected that a reasonable amount of his frustration stemmed from not slaking his needs with Eliza. Why hadn’t he just taken her when she’d offered? Why did he have to be noble, forsaking himself for her pleasure? Why had he tried to speak? He had never been a skilled orator. More often than not, he stumbled over words rather than used them. He’d thought Eliza was different. He’d thought he’d finally found a woman with whom he could be himself, with whom he could share his thoughts and hopes and dreams. But she seemed to want something he couldn’t give.

  Perhaps he should simply lie to her and say he loved her, but even though he was a spy (oh, very well, a clerk to spies), he didn’t like to lie. And he didn’t do it very convincingly. That was no way to begin a marriage. If he could just fall in love with her! As he entered the warm inn and removed several tedious layers, he thought that task might be easier were she to allow him to share her bed. Relegating a man to the stables did not engender warm feelings.

  He spotted her almost as soon as he took a seat at an empty table. He should have been cheered to find she was up early, looking a bit tired around the eyes. But the evidence that she had not slept well failed to cheer him. He knew her. Her mind was set, and she would not change it. Her only w
eakness had been pleasure. She was a passionate woman. He’d taken advantage of that part of her nature, hoped to use it to sway her, but now that avenue was closed to him as well.

  He should focus on the mission. He’d thought of nothing but Eliza all night, when he should have been planning how to trap Mr. Wilson.

  Wilson and his aunt sat together this morning close to the hearth. Mrs. Penter coughed quietly, keeping her handkerchief close to her nose, where she perpetually held it. Did she know her nephew might be the New Sheriff of Nottingham? Pierce glanced at his pocket watch. He had time to break his fast before the first coach arrived, assuming coaches were still traveling this way, considering the number of times the highwayman had struck recently.

  When Peg appeared, he ordered tea, toast, and jam and focused on every corner of the room except Eliza’s. But every corner had a sprig of mistletoe in it. Would it draw attention if he ripped them all down and tossed them into the fire?

  Best to leave the trappings of Christmas in place. He would ignore them. Langrick and Barber sat at a table with Mr. Dowell. Freeland and Cardy were absent, and Goodman was also not accounted for, although Pierce assumed he was either dining in his room or at the duke’s estate.

  Freeland’s absence was suspicious. Wilson seemed the more likely suspect, but Freeland was still a candidate. If the highwayman struck, and Freeland was absent, Pierce would not hesitate to have the man arrested.

  As it was, Pierce spent two uneventful days observing Wilson and Freeland as often as possible. The Sheriff did not strike, and Pierce feared not only his relationship with Eliza but the mission as well was lost.

  He attempted to speak to Eliza. He even tried to walk with her, but when she saw him coming, she walked the other way. For a short woman, she could walk quickly. When he endeavored to have a conversation with her, she answered briefly and politely and managed to strike up conversations with another guest or one of the coach’s passengers.

  In the meantime, he slept alone in the cold stable on the uncomfortable cot. The evening of the second night with no sign of the Sheriff, a storm blew in, and at dinner, Pierce could hear the wind battering the walls of the inn and see the swirl of snow through the windows. Most of the locals had stayed at home, not wanting to brave the weather, and it was only Eliza, Langrick, and himself at dinner. Mrs. Penter and Mr. Goodman had taken dinner in their rooms.

  When Eliza retired to her room and Langrick braved the storm to return to his home, Pierce stayed in his seat, turning his mug of Wattles famous ale this way and that. He had no desire to return to the stable. Fiend seize the perpetually full inn. Pierce was weary of spending every night shivering. Better to stay at the inn for as long as Wattles would allow it. Not because he was closer to Eliza here. Not because he could imagine her tucked snugly into her small bed, her pink toes curled under her. Not that he wished, more than anything, he was tucked around her.

  Wattles had been wiping the table beside his for about five minutes. Now the innkeeper was watching him. Pierce drank from his ale.

  “I fear I’m keeping you from your bed. I’ll retire.”

  “No rush,” Wattles said good-naturedly. He righted a beeswax candle and retied the green velvet ribbon. “You look as though you have a weight on your shoulders.” He gave the table one last swipe with the rag then sat opposite Pierce. Pierce clutched the mug, but unless he was willing to subject himself to the cold, he would have to tolerate the man’s presence. It wasn’t such a hardship. He hadn’t spoken to anyone, other than to find out information relating to the Sheriff, in days.

  “Oh, this and that,” Pierce said non-committally.

  “Is Miss Qwillen this or that?”

  Pierce’s chin jerked up, but Wattles merely spread his hands and smiled. “When you are an innkeeper as long as I’ve been, you become an observer of sorts. That’s the way to anticipate guests’ needs. I can see you and the lady are friendly.” He waggled his brows. “More than friendly, perhaps.”

  “I assure you nothing untoward—”

  Wattles waved a hand. “I’m not suggesting or accusing, I’m just saying you look like a man whose heart has been broken. Does she love another?”

  Pierce thought about protesting that he had no idea what the innkeeper spoke of, but why not tell the man? It wasn’t as though Pierce had anything to lose. “Actually,” he said, staring at his ale, “I think she loves me.”

  Wattles clapped him on the shoulder, and Pierce almost fell off his bench. “That’s good news!” Wattles exclaimed.

  “One would think so, but when I asked her to marry me, she said no.”

  “Ah.”

  Ah? What did ah mean? “Is that all you’re going to say?”

  Wattles lifted the towel again, gave it a friendly twist. “The problem seems obvious enough to me.”

  “Oh, does it? Then please enlighten me.”

  Wattles pointed the rag at him. “You’re the problem. You’ve done something to put her off.”

  “I haven’t! I’ve done all I could to woo her.”

  Wattles gave him a dubious look. “Not everything, I wager. What is it she wants?”

  Pierce slumped. He shouldn’t slump. It was bad posture, but it was better than the alternative, which was sliding under the table and hiding. “She wants me to love her,” he muttered. He rather hoped Wattles hadn’t heard him.

  The man nodded and said, “Ah” again. If he said it a third time, Pierce would strangle him. The innkeeper must have seen Pierce’s annoyance, because he sat forward.

  “The solution seems simple enough to me. Tell her you love her.”

  Pierce swallowed the remainder of his ale, the brew bitter as it went down. “Don’t you think I would if I could?”

  Wattles crossed his arms over his expansive girth, the towel dangling at his side. “What’s holding you back?”

  “I don’t know that I do love her, obviously,” Pierce said. “I don’t want to prevaricate.”

  Wattles shook the towel. “You London types are all the same. You think too much. It’s obvious you love the girl. Tell her and marry her.”

  “How?” Pierce demanded. “How is it obvious?”

  “Look at you.” Wattles slapped the rag on the table.

  Pierce flinched and looked down at himself. His coat and cravat were still neat and straight. He wasn’t foxed, and he didn’t think his hair was tousled.

  Wattles caressed his towel and chuckled. “I mean, your face is so long, you might be a hound. You’re sitting here all alone, dreading going to your bed.”

  “That might be because I have no bed—”

  “You’re the very picture of a heartsick man.” Wattles ignored his mention of the lack of a bed. “All alone under the mistletoe.” He glanced at the decaying foliage hanging above them.

  It occurred to Pierce that Wattles was married. “Do you love your wife?” he asked.

  “Of course. Loved her when we married six and twenty years ago, and I love her now.” The towel received another caress. “How could a man not fall in love with a woman as pretty as my Mrs. Wattles?”

  “How did you know you loved her?”

  “Ah.”

  Pierce was about to reach across the table and grab Wattles’s neck, but the innkeeper continued, “That’s an easy one. But you’re not asking because you care about my romance with Mrs. Wattles. You want to know the signs for yourself.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Very well, then ask yourself this. Do you think about her all the time?”

  Pierce thought about her quite a lot.

  “Are you willing to sacrifice for her? By that I mean, is her happiness more important than yours?”

  He thought of the nights he’d seduced her, forgoing his own pleasure for hers. On the other hand, she was against him going to Switzerland. Could he give that up for her? He looked around the empty room and saw the rest of his life. Yes, to have Eliza at his side, he could give up Switzerland. He could find ways to advance his career he
re. If he asked, Baron would help.

  “Lastly, would you do anything for her? Would you give up your life for hers?”

  Pierce wasn’t certain of the answer to that one.

  “I remember when Mrs. Wattles was delivering Peg. Poor woman had so much trouble with that birth.”

  Pierce reached for his ale and drank the last three drops. If he had to hear a tale involving childbirth, he needed a drink.

  “She screamed and screamed, and the midwife thought the baby would never come. We thought they’d both die. I tell you what, my boy, I went down on my knees in this very room and begged God to spare her. I pleaded with the Almighty to take me and not her. And I meant it too. I would have done anything, even traded my life, so she could live. But all’s well that ends well, as the poet says. My Peg was born, and Mrs. Wattles recovered, though she was abed for a good long time. I supposed it was all the blood she lost. I never seen so much blood—”

  The room spun, and Pierce held up a hand. “No talk of b-blood, sir, I beg you.”

  Wattles squinted at him. “Are you ill, sir? You look a bit peaked.”

  “Thank you for your insights,” Pierce answered. “I’ll give it some thought.” He rose. His legs were a bit wobbly, because he still had the image of blood in his mind, but he thought the cold air might revive him. He started for the door, but Wattles called out.

  “Don’t think, Mr. Moneypence. That’s your problem. You love the girl. That’s as plain as day. Tell her and be done with it.”

  Pierce stepped into the wind and the snow. Later, when he lay on his cot shivering, the sound of the horses and the wind whistling through the stable’s cracks keeping him awake, he thought of what Wattles had said. He wanted to love Eliza, but he wasn’t certain he did.

  *

  Eliza sipped her morning tea in the common, her gaze on Freeland and Wilson over the rim. For a change, Goodman was also seated in the room. He had his paper open and did not look receptive to conversation, but after the long, cold night, even he wanted to stretch his limbs a bit.

  For three days the Sheriff had not struck, and she had high hopes for today. The first coach would arrive in less than an hour, and the weather was perfect for an attack. The sun shone on the new-fallen snow. That new snow would slow the coach and the horses who had to tromp through it. That slowing might work to the highwayman’s advantage.