To Wed His Christmas Lady

by Christi Caldwell

  “Were you laughing at me—” The lady’s indignant question brought his eyes open. “Again?” Cara stood, hands poised on her hips, with fire burning from her blue eyes and a wave of desire rolled through him as in her fiery stance, her shift pulled taut over her breasts.

  “Laughing at you?” His words emerged hoarse. Had he? How could he ever laugh about one such as this tall, Spartan-warrior princess? And more, how could she have no idea he stood like a green boy before her, with lust raging through him?

  She cast a glance up and down the halls and then returned her stare to his. Doubt filled her expressive eyes. “Someone was laughing at…m—” Cara pressed those bow-shaped lips into a flat line. Me.

  Once again the lady fretted over the possibility of anyone smiling with her or about her. What did a lady who, by her birthright and beauty alone, likely commanded ballrooms, worry about people making light of her? That niggling question drove back the haze of desire that had cloaked his senses. To regain a footing in the world, where he was not this unnerved by a golden Athena who cursed like a thief from the Dials, he folded his arms and leaned against the doorjamb. Mindful of her maid sharing rooms on this very floor, he dipped his voice to a hushed whisper. “And do the opinions of others matter so very much that you’d leave your rooms in an inn with all manner of possible danger awaiting you?”

  The first flash of unease lit her blue irises. Cara darted her tongue out and skittered her gaze about.

  He narrowed his eyes. The lady believed him capable of harming her. Of course, she knew him not at all beyond their two previous meetings—both meetings which had been filled with plenty of jeering coolness on his part. He took in the faint tremble of her fingertips as she smoothed her palms over her nightshift and despised himself for giving her reason to be wary of him.

  Cara followed his gaze downward and immediately ceased her distracted movements. All earlier indecision fled, replaced with the stoic calm befitting the lady who’d swept into the inn and made demands of her servants and the innkeeper. She gave a flounce of her hair. “Do not be ridiculous. I am not afraid,” she raked her gaze over him, “of you.” God, she was as bold and fearless as that Spartan princess he’d likened her to. “And,” she edged her chin up a notch. “I hardly care what opinion people carry of m-me.” There was a faint tremor to that last word.

  William worked his gaze down the heart-shaped planes of her face, to the rapid rise and fall of her chest. Did the lady know she lied to the both of them with that hollow pronouncement? “Oh?” He gave her a pointed look.

  Most every other lady would have looked away from the unspoken accusation he leveled. Cara tossed her head and glowered with an austere power that could be taught to future kings. Only, the icy look she adopted was effectively quashed when her untidy chignon tumbled free of the combs loosely wound in her hair. A golden waterfall cascaded about her shoulders, falling in rippling waves to her trim waist. Her eyes widened with the same manner of shock as if she’d just lost that ill-fitting nightshift. “Oh, blast.” The lady quickly set to work gathering those silken tresses in her fingers.

  He froze. His pulse thundered hard and fast, numbing his thoughts and blotting out sound as he stood, bewitched by this siren in white. In his travels, he’d earned the favors of some of the most skilled courtesans; wicked women in the finest satins, with experience in their eyes, and practiced fingers and movements. Not a single one of those creatures of falseness could hold a dimly lit candle to this lady’s brightly burning, and more, guileless flame. Through her hopelessly futile efforts, he remained transfixed.

  One of her hair combs slipped from her fingers and clattered to the floor, and startled him into movement. He gave his head a clearing shake and bent to retrieve the delicate, ruby piece, the same moment Cara bent forward. Their heads cracked together and the ruby heart fell from her hand once more.

  “Bloody hell,” she muttered and teetered sideways.

  He quickly straightened and caught her against him, steadying her. They stood there still, their chests pressed against one another, moving in the same jerky rhythm. As a young boy, he’d been instructed early on of the perils of being alone with an unwed young woman; most of whom would have designs upon his title and, with those designs, could and would jeopardize the match his parents intended for him. In this moment, the lady could have had off with his future title and all the holdings that went with it, and he’d have handed them to her gladly for this moment. Will lowered his head and brushed his nose over the golden crown of her hair. The luxuriant tresses proved as satiny soft as he’d taken them for.

  “Y-you sh-should n-not…” Her words, faintly breathless, came quickly as though she’d run a race.

  The scent of her wafted over his senses—a heady, citrus fragrance that put him in mind of summer and purity. “I should not what?” he whispered against her ear.

  “Touch you?”

  The lady’s audible swallow filled the quiet corridors.

  William drew back and a small sound of protest caught in her throat.

  *

  Do not stop. Kiss me.

  Those shockingly improper, and all things sinful, words remained unfinished.

  Never in the course of her entire life had she been this close to a man. Nay, any person. As the ice princess this man had called her not even six hours earlier, people did not speak to her, and they certainly did not touch her. When all the girls at Mrs. Belden’s had whispered and chatted about those first forbidden kisses they’d received, a vicious envy had snaked through her—a desire to be that woman who drove gentlemen to dare conventions.

  And now, standing in nothing more than her shift, in the powerful arms of this tall, virile stranger, eying her through his thick-hooded chestnut lashes, she felt—wanted. And there was something so very heady in being wanted.

  William ran the pad of his thumb over her lower lip and her mouth parted slightly. “Cara mia,” he whispered. His breath invaded her senses like a potent aphrodisiac made of ale and peppermint. “Sei bellissima.”

  My Cara, you are beautiful. All those blasted Italian lessons she’d despised her father for insisting she take, worth every moment of suffering and tedium to have William wrap those words in his mellifluous whisper.

  Oh, God. Her lashes fluttered wildly. No one had ever called her beautiful. Since she’d been scuttled off to finishing school, nothing but cruel words and mocking jeers had been leveled at her—words she’d been entirely deserving of. His husky baritone, wrapping about those Italian endearments, caused a warm fluttering in her belly that fanned out and raced through her.

  He lowered his face so a mere hairsbreadth separated them and froze. For one agonizing, endless moment, fear spiraled through her that he’d draw back and she’d never, ever know the passionate kiss of a man who desired her for more than her wealth or status as a duke’s daughter. Then she, who’d cloaked herself in a fictional strength and austerity, whispered, “Please.”

  As that entreaty slipped so easily from her lips, she stiffened. The reality of who she was and who he was, a mocking stranger who’d despised her for her birthright, intruded. He ran his inscrutable gaze over her face as the horrifying possibility that this was all some orchestrated game to bring her shame pebbled in her belly.

  He palmed her cheek. “Please what?”

  Her insides twisted. He’d have her beg? Her father would turn her out and disavow her birthright if he witnessed her pleading with a stranger for his kiss like some wanton harlot. She closed her eyes and leaned into William’s hot caress. Her pulse raced wildly. Yet nothing mattered more in this moment, or any moment before this, than knowing his kiss. “Please, kiss me.”

  His body went taut against hers; the muscles of his chest tightened. Her nipples pebbled the front of her thin nightshift and the air filled with her quick, raspy breaths. For one agonizing moment built on this inextricable, all-consuming need, she feared he would deny her breathless request.

  A groan escaped him as he
crushed her mouth under his with the ferocity of a man who burned with the same hunger consuming her. She whimpered and, desperate to feel him against her, leaned up on tiptoe and twined her hands about his neck. With hard, determined lips, he tasted and explored the softer contours of hers. He slanted his mouth over hers again and again until a long, keening moan climbed her throat and spilled from her lips. William angled her closer and swallowed that sound by deepening the kiss.

  A shock of charged power ran through her as he touched his tongue to hers in a first tender meeting and then an ever bolder, more demanding, caress. Her knees weakened and he easily caught her to him. He angled her so she was anchored between the thin, plaster wall and his tall, broad frame. Through his skilled movements, he never broke contact with her lips. William danced his tongue wildly in her mouth, as though he wished to learn the taste of her and burn it indelibly upon his memory, as she did him. Her heart hammered in her breast as she boldly met his thrust and parry.

  As he drew back, a soft moan of protest stuck in her chest, but he only shifted his attention to the soft skin of her neck. “You worry I have been laughing at you, Cara mia. But the moment you smiled in the taproom, you captivated me.”

  His words ran over her like molten heat, this gruff stranger who murmured Italian endearments with the ease of a man from that country. “Will,” she moaned. She dropped her head back presenting herself to his ministrations. He sucked at the sensitive skin of her neck and her breath caught in her throat. How could such a spot be so sensitive and elicit this wild thrill? The primitiveness of that masculine caress roused a pressure between her thighs. Heat pooled at her center.

  A loud howling cut across their forbidden interlude.

  He stepped away and quickly shot his gaze up and down the blessedly still-empty halls. The heightened storm outside matched the one raging between them even now. While he did a cursory search for interlopers, Cara pressed her hands to her chest in a bid to still her erratic heartbeat. Will returned his attention to her and the organ kicked up a frantic pounding, proving all her efforts futile.

  If she were discovered in this in flagrante delicato manner with this man, not even of the same station, she’d be ruined. It would be the level of ruin no lady could ever recover from; the kind that would shame her family and leave her an outcast. And yet, she could no sooner step away from him than she could sever off her left littlest finger.

  Powerful heat radiated from under his thick, hooded, chestnut lashes, momentarily stealing all logical thought. He broke the silence. “You should not be out here alone, Cara.” Had his words been reproachful or mocking, she would have donned the cloak of rigidity she’d worn all these years. Instead, they were gruff, gravelly, and faintly pleading. Did she stir an inexplicable hunger in him, as well?

  The possessive, and more…concerned glint in Will’s blue eyes filled her with—a potent warmth—a desire to be closer to someone. Nay, not someone, him. To go through life with a person who cared for her and about her. A man who saw past her brittle smile and jeering comments to know that, inside, she was a woman who’d sell her soul to the Devil during Sunday sermons just to be cared for and loved. Then the reality of her existence intruded.

  There would be no warmth and love. Not with the future someday awaiting her. The future being the eventual Duke of Billingsley her father would one day bind her to. That equally cold and indolent lord, who even now traipsed about the Continent, hadn’t bothered with Cara since she’d been a girl of ten. Emotion lumped in her throat and a chill stole through her that had nothing to do with the ice-cold hallway and everything to do with the grim existence staring her down.

  “Cara?” His gruff words rang with concern.

  She drew in an unsteady breath. “You are correct. I will return to my rooms.” Cara paused, lingering a moment. Her chest froze mid-movement with a hopeful anticipation he’d protest her leaving.

  Instead, he remained stoic and all things coolly unaffected; a shadow of the man who’d taken her in his arms and given her, her first kiss. With head held high, she turned on her heel and marched the handful of steps back to her chambers, entered her cold, lonely rooms, and closed the door behind her. Cara turned the lock.

  That thin, wood panel between them, she allowed her shoulders to sag and borrowed support against the door. She laid her head upon the aged, marred wood and silently shook her head back and forth. She’d always dreamed of that first kiss, but that explosive meeting had been the heady magic no wishing or fantasizing one could prepare for.

  The soft click of Will’s door closing filled her room and Cara caught her lower lip hard between her teeth. What she’d never anticipated was that one of Will’s kisses would never be enough.

  Chapter 6

  From her position perched at the edge of her lumpy mattress, Cara sat with hands clasped upon her lap staring at the wood panel door—just as she’d been doing for most of the morning.

  A gust of wind beat against her windowpane and she shivered as the breeze cut through the thin walls of the establishment. She cast a glance over to that frosted pane. The winter storm gave no sign of letting up and raged with the same kind of ferocity that had barred the earl’s servant from recovering her belongings last evening. The precious pendant, that last link to her mother which mattered so very much, should occupy her thoughts and worries.

  She’d never been without that piece once worn by her mother. So why was she thinking of something else? Nay, someone else. A very specific someone who, with his bear-like frame and long, strong hands, evinced the power of a man who worked with those hands. Will. The stranger who’d kissed her. She brushed her fingertips over her lips. A stranger who with his unerringly accurate words and charges had been more on the mark than any others in his assessment of her.

  A knock sounded at the door. “My lady, can I assist you with anything?” The innkeeper’s wife’s concerned voice came muffled through the door and slashed through her troubled thoughts.

  “I do not require any assistance,” she called back, now for the fifth time since the woman had been arriving that morning. And still for the fifth time, a lie. She’d accepted new garments, also coarser, older, and smaller than a frame such as hers required. Beyond that, she wanted no one’s company this day but her own. For with the solitariness of her thoughts, she could then put her world back to rights—a world where she was the frigid, proper daughter of a duke and everyone accepted that fact as truth.

  Only she’d spent hours trying to reassemble herself and had—failed. For all the years of priding herself on her strength and unflinching aloofness, one forgotten carriage, and an evening at an inn had transformed her into this hesitant, uncertain figure she didn’t recognize. And if she was at least being truthful with herself, she could readily admit she still preferred this pathetic creature to the reviled one all the girls at Mrs. Belden’s gossiped about. And gossiped about with good reason.

  Her half-sister, Mrs. Jane Munroe, slipped into her mind once more. Cara fisted the fabric of her borrowed blue skirts. She’d gotten the young woman sacked. She’d convinced herself that with the young woman, an instructor at her finishing school, gone then she could be free of the constant reminders of the manner of monster her father was. Instead, with those cruel, carefully delivered words to Mrs. Belden, she’d only proven that she herself was just as much a monster as the man who sired her.

  Another knock sounded on her door and this time she was grateful for the intrusion into the guilt pressing on her chest. “Yes?” For the sliver of a moment, her breath caught in anticipation of Will on the other side.

  “Would you care to come down for the afternoon meal, my lady? Or should I bring another tray?”

  Of course it wouldn’t be Will. What business had he at her door? Regret sank her breathless hope.

  “My lady?” The innkeeper’s wife prodded, insistence to her voice.

  “Y-yes.” At that tremulous quake to her words, she flinched. This is what she’d become. Cara lowered
her hand back to her lap. “I’ll take my meal in my room.”

  The faint shuffle of footsteps indicated the woman had moved. Except, with the snow pelting her small, lonely window, Cara furrowed her brow. Well, why in bloody blazes should she take her meal in her rooms? Again? Because some stranger she’d known just a day had cast this mad haze over her logical senses? She squared her shoulders. She’d not hide in her chambers. Not any longer. “Just a moment.” With an alacrity that would have made Mrs. Belden glower, Cara came to her feet and all but sprinted across the room. She jerked the door open and rushed into the hall. “Wait!”

  The old woman stopped and turned to face her with a kind smile on her lips. She started. People did not smile at her. Largely because she gave them little reason to. Even though you’ve secretly hungered for even a scrap of kindness. When she spoke, her voice faintly trembled. “I w-will take my meal below.” Then striving for her smooth affectedness that protected her from the knowing in the old innkeeper’s eyes, Cara tossed her head. “I’ve matters to attend belowstairs.” Which wasn’t altogether untrue. There was the matter of finding her borrowed driver and obtaining her trunks.

  “Splendid!” The innkeeper’s wife widened her smile and then without waiting for Cara to follow, made her way slowly down the remainder of the hall and to the stairs.

  With the woman safely ahead of her, Cara paused and cast a furtive glance over her shoulder at the door next to hers. Was Will still in his chambers? She thrust away the thought as soon as it slipped in. Cara scoffed. A bold, commanding figure such as Will who’d quelled the words on her lips and ordered her servants about, was not one to hide in his chambers. Most especially from a lady such as herself. She wrinkled her nose and started after the innkeeper’s wife. Nor for that matter was he the reason she was making her way downstairs. Only, she knew she lied. Even as that precious gift given her by her mother should be the focus of her thoughts, and not one of those pompous, powerful men who ruled the world, instead her mind and heart raced with an equally alarming speed with the memory of Will. And there it was again. That sentiment she’d been immune to all these years, visiting her not once, but now twice, since she’d arrived at this ramshackle inn—remorse.