At the Christmas Wedding

by Caroline Linden

“What do you think of Viscount Newton?”

  “Also handsome.” He was barely Charlotte’s own age. “Somewhat boyish.” She preferred men four years her senior. One man.

  “Serena likes Lord Gosling better. And Mr. Jones. She has spent most of the past several days in the company of one or the other.”

  Please!

  Charlotte tried to school her features to mild interest. “Really?”

  “They’re smitten with her, of course.” Alexandra sighed. “Every man is always smitten with her.”

  Charlotte did not point out that one man obviously was not—at least not smitten enough to overcome his scruples about marriage.

  “You know,” Alexandra continued thoughtfully, “if I hadn’t seen her right after Frye was here, I wouldn’t even believe she was the same person. She was positively downcast. That was when Mama decided we must have this party. But I’m starting to believe Serena is pleased at having been jilted.”

  “But I thought she was heartbroken.”

  “If a broken heart can heal so swiftly, I suppose,” Alexandra said skeptically. “For believe me, Charlotte, my sister is not heartbroken now. She’s positively ebullient.”

  “But . . .” Charlotte’s heart was now pattering far too swiftly. “Why would she have pretended to be heartbroken?”

  “Perhaps it wasn’t pretending. Perhaps she has simply realized she did not want to marry Frye after all. And she is so much more interesting now that she has been jilted. Mr. Jones and Lord Gosling certainly think so.”

  “Alexa!” Bridget called from across the room. “Do come rehearse your scene at once. We haven’t got all day to get this right!”

  Alexandra sighed. “The tyrant beckons.” With a private eye-roll to Charlotte, she went.

  But Charlotte’s heart was so full she couldn’t even manage a chuckle.

  Horace had told her that Serena was not heartbroken over the jilting. Alexandra had now confirmed it.

  Swamped with relief and a kind of euphoria that made no sense—after all, whatever affair she had enjoyed with the Duke of Frye was now over—she wandered in a half-daze toward the drawing room. But her eyes drooped as she went. She had barely slept the night before, replaying in her mind every moment she had spent with the jilting duke, every word and touch and kiss. Finally relieved of her burden of guilt and worry over Serena, and quite simply heartbroken herself, at five o’clock in the afternoon she sought her bed.

  Gathering up the ducal courage that ten years of observing his ducal father and another fifteen years of actually being ducal had instilled in him, Frye dismounted the hack he’d borrowed from the inn, handed the reins to a groom, and walked up the steps into the Duke of Wessex’s castle. His heart was lodged in his throat and his head was shouting at him to get the hell back on the horse and ride away as quickly as possible.

  He should not have come. He should have gone straight home to Kentwood, just as he had told Charlotte he intended to do, and begin his life of perpetual bachelordom. That morning at dawn he should not have stood at his bedchamber window at the inn and watched her carriage drive into the snowy distance, then with alarming rapidity convinced himself that he really should go to Kingstag after all. He should not have told himself that he owed Serena an appearance at this party, for the sake of their families and friends, so that in the future there would be no discomfort or blame or unpleasantness of any kind. They had been fond friends for decades. He never wanted her unhappiness. Or so he had reasoned. And he should not have told himself that he needed to ensure that his suspicions about Greyson’s feelings for Serena were correct.

  Because he could just as easily visit Kingstag after the holidays. And he could just as easily write to Greyson and ask him straight out.

  But those justifications had given him an excuse to come here now. Because the truth was that he could not bear another moment apart from Charlotte. It was an unpropitious start to his vow of never seeing her again. But he loved her and this might be the last time he would be in her presence before some lucky bloke snatched her up and carried her to the altar.

  Heroic self-denial could wait until tomorrow.

  Entering a foyer festooned with decorations, he was swiftly reminded of the reason he especially enjoyed playing the part of common Mr. Church: a duke went nowhere without garnering lots of attention. And a jilting duke could not arrive at the home of his jilted bride without garnering even more.

  The foyer swiftly filled with people, none of whom, alas, were the woman he had last seen walking from the Fiddler’s Roost Inn as his ribs crushed his heart.

  “Good evening, everyone,” he said with a nervous gesture of his hat to the crowd. Good God, he was as trembly as a schoolboy reciting his letters. But these were not only his friends and acquaintances; they were also Charlotte’s. A perverse part of him wanted anything she heard of him to be glowing.

  “You may have noticed there was a bit of a snowstorm out there,” he said more steadily, “which made the roads fiendishly difficult to pass through. I hope better late than never isn’t just a saying, but a sentiment.”

  From within the ever-thickening cluster of people, Serena’s wide-eyed stare met him.

  He bowed and attempted a dashing smile. “Lady Serena. My apologies for my late arrival.”

  “Frye.” She remained immobile all the way across the foyer from him. “How good of you to join us,” she said stonily.

  Since dashing obviously wasn’t working, he would try for mildly clever.

  “I hope I haven’t thrown off your numbers,” he said.

  Finally she smiled. And then her lovely features performed a series of mild contortions, all of which he was unable to read and which was, admittedly, shocking. In twenty years he had never seen her so much as frown.

  Then she whirled about and disappeared.

  So much for hoping she had forgiven him.

  Frye greeted friends and endured introductions. As soon as he could manage it, he escaped the foyer. He had visited Kingstag often enough to know where to find brandy. He headed for the dining room sideboard.

  There he found Greyson Jones alone, thoughtfully nursing a glass of port.

  “Frye, old man.” Greyson stood and came toward him, extending his hand.

  Frye clasped his friend’s hand and then his shoulder.

  “Tell me at once, Grey, is this gathering a dull bore or are you having the time of your life? If it’s the former and you are eager to have an excuse to flee, now that I’ve shown my face and done my duty by our hostess, I will happily invent an excuse to drag you away at first light tomorrow.”

  The words were a test, and he watched his friend carefully. Greyson moved away, rounding his chair as though he might sit again but instead peering at the floor.

  “The truth of it is, Frye, I am having the time of my life. And I’ve told our hostess as much.” He lifted his eyes.

  There it was, all the proof Frye needed in his friend’s eyes: confidence, certainty, happiness, and just a hint of belligerence. The look said “She’s mine now, so don’t even think of trying to reclaim her.”

  A weight slid off of Frye’s shoulders.

  He grinned. “Fancy a game of billiards, Grey?”

  “I will demolish you.”

  “You will try, I’m sure.”

  “Actually, in fact, I’ve got someplace else to be right now—somebody, a lady, to find.”

  Frye smiled. “I expect you do.”

  With a grin of his own, Greyson passed him by and went out. Frye set down the glass of brandy and went to find Charlotte Ascot.

  Charlotte accidentally slept through dinner. Rising groggily, she rubbed the blur from her eyes and went in search of tea. She was wending her way through the labyrinthine corridors when a door opened ahead and Serena came through it, followed closely by Mr. Greyson Jones.

  Even in the dim lighting Charlotte could see that Serena’s coiffure was in thorough disarray, her gown wrinkled, and Mr. Jones’s cravat entirely undone
.

  Then, Lady Serena Cavendish—whom every gossip columnist and every society matron in England praised for poise, elegance, modesty, self-possession, and exceptional breeding—giggled, threw her arms about the gentleman’s neck, and kissed him.

  The kiss was neither brief nor superficial.

  Breaking apart, they murmured words to each other that Charlotte could not hear and set off along the corridor, holding hands.

  Charlotte could not move.

  Serena was happy. Obviously very, very happy. Charlotte had never seen her friend so happy, in fact. And she knew Serena would never behave in such a manner if she weren’t in love and fully confident of the gentleman’s intentions. This was the best possible scenario.

  Yet there was so much pain in her chest she could hardly breathe.

  She went somewhat blindly the rest of the way to the drawing room. There she found tea, and biscuits that she couldn’t stomach, but she forced herself to eat them anyway.

  Somewhat restored, she started to actually listen to what the others at the tea table were talking about. Which was how she discovered that the Duke of Frye had arrived at Kingstag.

  Then she was looking across the room and into his beautiful eyes.

  He smiled.

  The pain in Charlotte’s chest abruptly dissolved.

  He remained where he stood as she set down her teacup and crossed the room and went out the door. She found a nearby corridor unlit by candle or lamp.

  He found her there.

  “You came,” she said.

  “I should not have.” He halted not a foot away from her.

  She leaned her shoulders against the wall. “But you could not stay away from me.”

  He smiled again.

  “It seems that Serena is not heartbroken,” she said.

  “Now you believe me?”

  “I did not disbelieve you before.”

  “You did,” he said.

  “I did not.”

  “You really did.”

  “We must agree to disagree.”

  “We rarely agree,” he said. “It is one of the things I like excessively about you.” His gaze slipped down her face to her chin and throat and neck and all the way to her breasts, which she supposed was reasonable since she had worn this gown precisely because of its minuscule bodice. Desperate for distraction of any sort, she had hoped that it would inspire Lord Gosling to take notice of her. He had, offering her his arm to walk in to luncheon. But his pretty compliments had not inspired any of the heat and tingling that the Duke of Frye’s mere glance inspired.

  “I think Serena likes Mr. Jones,” she said, not knowing quite how to throw herself at him and wishing he would just grab her. “Excessively.”

  His gaze caressed her shoulders. “He likes her excessively too.”

  Tingles skittered through her. “Does he?”

  His eyes rose to meet hers.

  She gasped. “Mr. Jones is the reason you broke off the betrothal!”

  “One of the reasons,” he murmured. “Charlotte, I could stand here in the dark gossiping with you for hours . . .”

  “But?”

  “How long will you make me wait to kiss you again?”

  Invitation enough.

  She threw herself at him.

  And quite swiftly she discovered that kissing a man while she was wearing a minuscule bodice was a markedly different experience than kissing him while she was wearing a more modestly designed gown.

  She had thought that she would never feel anything so indescribably good as his hand on her most intimate parts. His mouth on her breasts was at least as good. Possibly even better. It was only moments before she was considering asking him to do both at once.

  His lips returned to hers and she was happy, deliriously happy with this too.

  “I did not come here for this,” he said, kissing her jaw and throat and beneath her ear and then her mouth again.

  She smoothed her hands over his chest and wished she could feel his skin again. All of it.

  “Then why did you come here?”

  “I had to see you.” His hands were tight around her ribs, gorgeously firm and strong, and his gaze was all over her face. “You are even more beautiful tonight than you were this morning. How can that be? How can you grow more beautiful in only eight hours?”

  She pressed her bared breasts and her hips and thighs to him, and she lifted her hand to his face to smooth away the creases on his brow. Then she pushed onto her toes and drew him down to her and kissed him. Then she kissed him again. Then again. With her lips and hands and body she told him what she thought of his decision to come to Kingstag.

  “We must stop this now,” he said in a very deep pitch.

  “Why?” She trailed her fingertips down his waist and, brazenly, over the fall of his trousers. “Didn’t you come here for this?”

  “No.” He broke from her and backed away. “Charlotte, I beg of you. Don’t.”

  “Beg?” she whispered over a horribly uncomfortable clog in her throat.

  “I am not a saint. I am only a man. A catastrophically imperfect man at that.” He raked both hands through his hair. “This curse—this disease—whatever it is that twists my body into convulsions works the same black magic with my thoughts, more often than I can tell you. Sometimes—sometimes I actually believe I am losing my mind.”

  “I am sorry, Horace. I am.” Her voice shook. “Although, of course, I don’t see any purpose in imagining a future of possible insanity when you are not actually insane at present.” Could a heart actually break in two while it was beating as hard as hers now? “But whatever the long term might or might not bring, I honestly don’t know what it has to do with us kissing and touching each other at this specific moment. It is the most glorious madness I have ever experienced.”

  He laughed. It was a terrible sound, not his rich, gentle laughter that she adored, rather more like the noise of a great wild animal caught in a steel-toothed trap.

  “I could kiss and touch you forever,” he said very simply.

  “Then I think you should at least be able to do so right now.”

  “For pity’s sake, woman,” he said, and then he laughed like himself again. But his eyes were still fevered. “Have mercy.”

  Pulling her garments up over her breasts, she adjusted them. Then, smoothing her hair, she stepped to him and curled her fingers around his wonderfully muscular arm.

  “All right, then, Your Grace, let us go play whatever games everybody’s playing in the drawing room, and you can subtly remind all the gossips what a fine man you are, despite having jilted the hostess of this party mere months ago.”

  “Mm. What fun.” But he was holding her hand firmly to his side and through his ribs she could feel the hard, quick heartbeats that told her everything she needed to know.

  Charlotte tossed and turned on her bed.

  He wanted her. He was determined not to have her.

  She wanted him. She didn’t really see why she could not have him.

  Nothing in her upbringing or education had trained her for this. But nothing had prepared her for falling in love with him even more than she had been in love with him before, and so much harder than she had imagined possible.

  Obviously she must now begin writing her own instruction manual.

  Climbing out of bed, she pulled a wrapper over her nightgown, took up a candlestick, and walked barefooted through the darkened corridors of the castle to his bedchamber door.

  Her hand was shaking when she rapped on the panel. But that was to be expected.

  He opened the door.

  Immediately he started to close it.

  She stuck her foot in the way.

  “Charlotte, don’t—”

  “Let me in, Horace Chesterfield Breckenridge Church, or I will make a scene that will wake the entire castle.”

  He opened the door, she entered, and he closed it behind her. He stepped back, away from her, running a hand over his face.


  “You cannot just force your way into a man’s bedchamber, Charlotte.”

  “Yet here I am.” Her voice shook a little too. She set down the candlestick. “Make love to me. Now.”

  His hand arrested in midair and his handsome features went slack. His throat worked, but nothing came out of his mouth.

  Folding her hands behind her back, she drew a slow breath in an attempt to steady her pulse. He wore only trousers and shirt, not even a cravat or stockings. Despite their tryst on his bed at the inn, she was not at all accustomed yet to seeing him in dishabille, and it was doing deliciously agitating things to her belly and the tips of her breasts.

  “I am perfectly fine with your decision to never marry,” she said, not entirely honestly. But this was warfare and sometimes war required a little subterfuge. He would understand that. “These past several years in America I have, in fact, been considering doing the same. My father has intimated that he might not be entirely against it.” Not entirely included the fact that she had never mentioned this to her father. But she would. If she could not have this man, she would not have another. Her family would simply have to live with that. “In any case, I want to make love with you. And I am fairly certain that if we do, it will be wonderful. Now, before you say that I am a bawd or what-have-you—”

  “I would never say that.”

  “Thank you. But before you decline, you need to believe that I have no designs on you. Also, only the two of us will ever know.”

  “I believe you.”

  “You do?”

  He was completely still, as though paralyzed, yet breathing so hard she could hear it.

  “Charlotte, are you—Have you made love with a man before?”

  She suspected this was an area in which she would be unwise to employ subterfuge.

  “No. I want my first time to be with you. My only time, given that I’m not going to marry. But don’t worry,” she added swiftly. “I am a very quick learn—”

  He dragged her into his arms and his mouth found hers with unerring haste.

  Joy burst into pleasure in every corner of her body.

  “Is this a yes?” she said when he finally released her mouth to trail the most beautiful kisses along her jaw.