Mistletoe Wishes

by Anna Campbell

  He scraped his teeth along her throat, making her shiver. A few tugs, and her hair tumbled down in a slippery mass. He sucked hard at the sensitive place where her neck met her shoulder, until she was shaking and gasping. When his hand shaped her breast, she started with excitement, and her nipple beaded against his palm.

  It wasn’t enough. He needed to touch her skin.

  He dragged her bodice down, some frothy pink concoction cut low across her bosom. As she murmured encouragement, his hand closed around one exposed breast. Warm flesh, silky skin. Arousal shuddered through him, and he thrust his hips forward.

  Instead of withdrawing, she angled in and hooked her hand behind his neck. As if he was drunk, he staggered toward the wall opposite the closed door. Serena landed with a bump that jolted the breath from her.

  Giles raised his head and caught the blazing excitement in her face. She’d never been more beautiful. His heart gave one huge thump, then another. His love for her was inescapable.

  “For pity’s sake, don’t stop,” Serena said in a broken voice he hadn’t heard before.

  “Never,” he vowed, staring down at her breast.

  Satiny white skin gleamed in the candlelight. He bent to draw the raspberry nipple between his lips. Her taste set his senses rioting, and he sucked hard, reveling in her cracked cry of pleasure. She sagged against the wall, and his grip on her waist tightened. His tongue and teeth teased her breast, until she was gasping and arching. She was pure flame in his arms, everything he’d dreamed and more.

  “That’s…wicked,” she whispered.

  He smiled into her flesh and bit down softly. A delicious shudder rippled through her. Without conscious thought—he operated on animal instinct alone—his hand clenched in her filmy skirts and edged upward. He thirsted to learn the secrets of her body. He thirsted to claim her.

  When he raised his head from her breast, she leaned against the wall as if her legs wouldn’t support her. Her eyes were closed, and the erratic breath escaped between her parted, swollen lips. The glimpse of straight white teeth behind reddened lips was devastatingly erotic.

  He leaned in to nip her lower lip. When she opened, he swept his tongue inside, tasting her hot, wet sweetness. While his seeking hand inched closer to the hot, wet sweetness between her legs.

  The scent of her arousal made his head swim. When his fingers brushed her bare thigh, she jerked in response. He deepened the kiss until the blood thundered in his ears.

  How he ached to take her. She was trembling and eager, and God knew, he’d been ready for years.

  His fingers pushed up the loose drawers, tracing a silky path to bliss. She shifted to give him access. When his fingers slid across soft, intimate curls, he groaned in infinite gratitude. She gave a muffled cry, and her grip on his shoulders tightened.

  Giles cupped her mound and dipped his fingers in the liquid honey of her desire. She tipped her head back against the wall and bit her lip to muffle a long moan of surrender. The urge to proceed, to discover and possess all her mysteries, beat around him like a thousand wings.

  He was so close, so close…

  The door slammed open. As Serena stiffened in his arms, a harsh, angry voice smashed through his idyll.

  “You unmitigated bloody bastard!”

  ***

  Paralyzed with horror, Serena stared over Giles’s shoulder to where Paul filled the doorway, large, furious, and undoubtedly hurt.

  The vivid heaven of Giles’s kiss had flung her a thousand miles from considerations of sin, propriety or scandal. But as she read the stark betrayal on Paul’s face, acrid shame set her belly heaving and made her skin break out in goosebumps.

  “Stop…” she muttered to Giles, who still crushed her against the wall where, devil curse her recklessness, he’d been within inches of taking her.

  Like a doxy at a tavern.

  And in her father’s house, with her family celebrating Christmas only a room away.

  “Serena, it’s all right,” Giles whispered.

  “No, it’s not,” she grated, pushing him with agitated hands that seconds ago had clutched him to her.

  “Get away from her, you sodding mongrel,” Paul snarled, barging into the room and crashing into a delicate gilt table, overturning it.

  “Keep your blasted voice down.” With agonizing slowness, Giles straightened away from her and turned to face Paul. “Do you want every man and his dog in here?”

  “You dare to lecture me on decorum?” Paul roared.

  Giles stood squarely in front of Serena, blocking her view of Paul. Which right now was a relief, however cowardly that made her.

  Self-disgust stabbed her, when she glanced down and noticed her sagging bodice for the first time. She realized Giles was giving her a chance to cover herself. With shaking hands, she tugged her dress into place. More shame, sharp as broken glass.

  She couldn’t even blame Giles for what had happened. Every step of the way, she’d been his willing partner. Nausea churned in her stomach. She felt cheap and foolish and used.

  “Paul…” Clutching her dress to preserve her frail modesty, Serena stepped out from behind Giles.

  Unfortunately her intervention made things worse. Paul’s attention focused on her rumpled dress, and incandescent anger flooded his face. The bright blue eyes went as black as coal.

  “You swine, Hallam. What the hell have you done to her?” He surged forward and slammed his substantial fist into Giles’s face.

  Serena cried out as Giles staggered under the force of the blow.

  “Paul, how could you?” She grabbed for Giles. As he fought for balance, his arm was as hard as rock under her hand. She braced for him to reciprocate with violence, but he didn’t move.

  “You had every right to do that,” Giles said stiffly, a muscle working in his lean cheek.

  Paul regarded him with lacerating contempt. “Fight me, you cur.”

  “We can’t brawl in Lady Talbot’s library.” Giles moved away from Serena. “Have some sense, man.”

  “Then meet me at dawn on the field of honor.”

  “Over my dead body,” said Serena’s mother from the doorway.

  Serena sucked in a relieved breath. She had no chance of soothing Paul’s outrage. Her mother, however, might bring some sense into this chaos.

  “Lady Talbot, this isn’t your concern,” Paul said coldly, glaring at Giles.

  Her lips flattening, Serena’s mother stepped inside and shut the library door. She cast a disapproving glance at the overturned table. “If you’re going to bellow your head off like a charging elephant, when I have a house full of people, it does indeed concern me.”

  “I don’t mean to cause trouble…” Paul began, only to receive a blistering look for his pains.

  “Then don’t.”

  Giles’s “Lady Talbot, I must apologize…” clashed with Paul’s furious “It’s a matter of honor.”

  Serena’s mother leveled an unimpressed stare on Paul. “Losing your temper and alerting the world to scandal will damage my daughter’s good name. Is that what you want, young man?”

  Paul’s jaw set in a stubborn line. Serena knew from old acquaintance that when his obstinacy kicked in, he was impossible to shift. “If you knew what I saw when I came into this room, you’d want your daughter’s honor avenged.”

  Serena’s mother subjected the three participants in this drama to a comprehensive inspection. Serena blushed, certain that her mother had a good idea just what she and Giles had been up to before Paul’s belligerent interruption. “High spirits and Christmas cheer have lured you all into being a little more uninhibited than usual. It’s nothing to make a fuss about.”

  Just like that, she transformed potential tragedy into a mild social faux pas. Ridiculously Serena wanted to cry, even as she said a silent prayer of thanks. She’d felt sick when Paul hit Giles. She’d felt worse when the shadow of the dueling field arose.

  “Mamma…” she began, but her mother gestured her to silence.r />
  “You need to fix your dress. It seems to have caught on something.”

  Serena’s blush heightened to fire. It had indeed caught on something. Giles’s exploring fingers. But when she met her mother’s gaze, to her surprise, she found not anger, but compassion.

  That only made her feel worse. She deserved a stinging rebuke. Someone needed to give her a stern lecture and remind her what she wanted out of life.

  “I will, of course, leave Torver House as soon as possible.” Giles stood rigidly, as though he faced a firing squad. The flesh around his eye turned purple. Tomorrow, he’d look like he’d lost a boxing match.

  “Don’t be silly, Giles,” Serena’s mother said, again with a remarkable lack of censure. “It’s snowing like mad out there. You won’t get ten feet from the house.”

  “After what he’s done, you can’t let this blackguard remain,” Paul protested.

  A repressive expression placed his masculine posturing into the same category as a toddler’s tantrum. “In my house, I can offer shelter to anyone I want.”

  “But he…”

  Under her mother’s unflinching regard, Paul subsided into disgruntled silence.

  “I believe it’s time you returned to the great hall, Paul.” She glanced across to Giles. “And, Giles, you should go downstairs to the kitchens and get some ice for that eye.”

  “Thank you, Lady Talbot.” Giles bowed. Grimness hardened his features, and that telltale muscle jerked in his cheek. “I’ll call on you tomorrow morning and make my apologies before I leave.”

  “No need to rush off. This is a storm in a teacup.”

  “My lady…” Paul sounded like he was strangling.

  “Our hostess has spoken,” Giles said. “There’s been enough theatrics already.”

  “Well said, Giles,” Serena’s mother murmured. “If you’ll both excuse me, I’d like a word with my daughter.”

  Serena’s stomach sank into her slippers. She should have known a scolding awaited. Feeling ill with humiliation, she prepared for what was to come. Her wanton behavior had nearly sparked a catastrophe.

  As he marched out, Paul shot Giles a contemptuous glare that promised future retribution. On his way, Giles paused beside her mother. His eye had turned a virulent shade and swelled shut. It must hurt like the dickens.

  “I take full blame for what happened, Lady Talbot. Serena wasn’t at fault.”

  Serena bit back a surge of disbelieving laughter. Nobody would credit that, let alone her shrewd, suspicious mother.

  And why should she? It wasn’t true. Serena had leaped into Giles’s arms without the slightest pretense at maidenly reluctance.

  “I trust to your honor,” her mother said calmly.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t,” he muttered, his hand tightening on the doorknob.

  “Don’t talk nonsense.” Serena’s mother continued to surprise her. Perhaps she’d joined Cousin Charles in imbibing too much rum punch. “I’ve known you since you were a boy. You’ve turned into a fine man, Giles Farraday. And you’re always welcome in this house.”

  Serena saw Giles consider arguing, before he decided disagreeing would achieve nothing. After all, no real harm had been done, although if Paul had arrived a few minutes later, the outcome might have been different. Serena had been so lost to passion, she’d have denied Giles nothing.

  “Thank you, my lady.” After another bow, he was gone.

  When Serena’s mother directed that steady gaze upon her daughter, guilt threatened to crush her. “Does everyone know?” she asked in a subdued voice.

  The idea of enduring the rest of the house party under a barrage of curious, judging eyes made Serena cringe. Although given the liberties she’d allowed Giles, she ought to be a pariah.

  A hint of a wry smile curved her mother’s lips. “Darling, don’t take this so hard.”

  “Do they know?”

  “No. I was leaving the hall, when I saw Paul burst in like a wounded bull. The noise from the party masked anything going on in here.”

  The agonizing tension drained from Serena. It was hard enough to acknowledge her own stupidity, let alone having her whole family agog at her lapse. “Why aren’t you furious?”

  “Because you’re human. Because it’s not a mortal sin to steal a kiss or two from a dashing admirer. Because I suspect you already feel bad enough for both of us.”

  “I do,” she mumbled, avoiding her mother’s eyes.

  “So let’s leave it at that. Although I don’t know how Giles is going to explain that black eye. By tomorrow, it will be truly spectacular.”

  “And Paul will be a cranky bear.”

  “A few setbacks might do that young fellow good. He’s become too complacent.”

  Serena frowned. “I thought you liked Paul.”

  Her mother looked surprised. “I do like Paul. But he’ll benefit from the occasional reminder that the entire world isn’t arranged for his convenience.”

  “He’s so angry.”

  “He’ll get over it.”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Come here, Serena.” Smiling, her mother opened her arms. “I hate seeing you so unhappy.”

  For a quaking moment, Serena stared at her mother before with a smothered sob, she rushed into her embrace. When immediate warmth surrounded her, she burst into the tears that had threatened since Paul had turned an act of surpassing beauty into something dirty.

  “I usually love Christmas,” she sniffled into her mother’s shoulder.

  Her mother laughed softly. “Not this year.”

  “I don’t understand what’s wrong with me—and I still don’t know why you aren’t sending me to bed without any supper.”

  “Do you want me to haul you over the coals? It’s late, and I’ve got a house full of people to cater to, and what you did wasn’t all that terrible in the great scheme of things.”

  Serena drew away and stared, puzzled, into her mother’s face. “But I kissed Giles.”

  The smile was definitely in evidence now. “And very nice I’m sure it was.”

  Better than nice, but a girl couldn’t tell her mother that. “Don’t you care?”

  “Of course I do, but you’re young, and the house is overflowing with mistletoe, and spirits are high. If you can’t break a few rules at Christmas, I don’t know what the world’s coming to.” She paused as Serena struggled to make sense of her mother’s astonishing tolerance. “I love your father with all my heart, but if I was twenty-one and a handsome fellow like Giles Farraday wanted to kiss me, I doubt I’d hesitate.”

  “Paul’s the handsome one,” Serena said, and wondered when that had become so unimportant.

  “Oh, yes, he’s handsome, too. But when I was a girl, I always had a yen for the dark, intense type.”

  “But Papa is—”

  “The jolliest gentleman in Creation. I know. Yes, well, our first impulses don’t always prove to be the best ones.” Her mother drew away and passed her a handkerchief. “Now, dry your eyes and go upstairs and get some sleep. You’ve been fretting yourself to a shadow. Trust me, darling. Everything will work out in the end.”

  Serena stifled the impulse to confide the whole mess from the beginning. After all, if anyone knew of her abiding fondness for Paul, it was her poor, longsuffering mother. She’d endured endless hours of listening to Serena extol his perfections.

  And what was the point of confessing her sudden, powerful penchant for Giles? It wasn’t as if he’d offered her anything beyond a couple of kisses.

  Anyway, after a lifetime of plotting to marry Paul, how could she trust this attraction for Giles? Mere days ago, he’d been more a stranger than a friend.

  Now…

  Now he wasn’t a friend, and he wasn’t a lover. He certainly wasn’t a suitor.

  A passing madness was the best way to describe her unexpected weakness for the Marquess of Hallam.

  Only a fool would discard a secure future in favor of a brief affair. Especially if one were un
married, with until now, an unblemished reputation. No, far better she scotched this passion, however hot, however bright, and stick to her plans to marry Paul.

  If he could overlook tonight’s sins.

  The idea that he might scorn her as a light-skirt shouldn’t make her feel better.

  “I think…I think I’m going insane,” she admitted in a low voice, mopping at her sodden cheeks.

  Her mother’s smile was loving. “Just follow your heart, Serena. It won’t lead you astray.”

  But as she lay awake and troubled in bed that night—she couldn’t face returning to the party—she knew her heart was too unreliable to make the right decision.

  Chapter 12

  After the Christmas festivities, the house lay quiet on Boxing Day morning. Serena sat alone at breakfast, staring with heavy eyes through the closed French doors to snow-swept gardens. The outlook matched her mood. Cold. Gray. Miserable.

  Her attention returned to the eggs congealing on her plate. She wasn’t hungry. She should have stayed upstairs. But she’d brooded most of the night, and she’d been desperate for a change of scene.

  She couldn’t understand what had happened in the library. Giles had touched her, and she’d tumbled into his arms without thought for the rest of the world. Propriety. Reputation. Morality. She hadn’t given a fig for any of them, compared to the heady joy of Giles’s caresses.

  Sighing, she shifted on her chair. She’d tried to concentrate on the horrible aftermath and feel suitably chastened. But her wicked thoughts kept shifting back to those glorious moments, when Giles had kissed her as if he starved and his hand had stroked her naked breast.

  How distressing to discover that a brazen hussy lurked beneath her respectable shell. Given her flagrant behavior, Paul might have had a lucky escape. Imagine if this wild woman emerged after they married.

  She’d enjoyed everything Giles had done, until Paul spoiled it. And undoubtedly saved her virtue. She should be more grateful.

  But mostly she was disappointed.

  It was clear that she was unfit for decent society.