Regency Christmas Proposals

by Gayle Wilson, Amanda McCabe

  Epilogue

  ‘Shh…’

  Despite Isabella’s warning, Guy continued to advance across the room, his footsteps soundless on the thick Turkish carpet. The moonlight from the window behind them haloed Bella and the baby she held like a Madonna and Child from some medieval masterpiece. He knelt before her chair, reaching out as he did so to caress the fine down of his son’s hair.

  ‘Did the night nurse call you?’

  ‘I knew he was awake.’ Her fingers found Guy’s to bring them to her lips. She pressed a kiss against his hand before she freed it.

  ‘How could you possibly know that?’ he asked with a smile.

  She shook her head, her gaze returning to the babe. ‘I always know.’

  ‘Awake or not, he’s well looked after. And you need your sleep.’

  ‘I know, but sometimes… Sometimes I have to hold him, just to make sure it’s real.’

  ‘He’s very real, my darling. I promise you.’

  ‘Not just him. You. This. All of it.’

  He laughed, the sound a breath in the quietness. ‘You’re like a child—afraid the treat someone has given you will be snatched away.’

  ‘More like a soldier, I think. Determined to savour every moment of every day I live.’

  She stirred, and he rose to give her room to stand. He watched as she placed the baby in the elaborate rosewood cradle that had held generations of Wakefield infants. They stood together a moment, watching their son relax again into a depth of sleep only the truly innocent could achieve.

  Finally Isabella turned to him, once more holding out her hand. He took it, bringing it to his lips.

  His body reacted, as it always did, to the scent she wore. Something exotic, which evoked even in the darkness the image of her beauty.

  ‘Come to bed, my darling,’ he whispered.

  She nodded, and then, her hand still clasped in his, led him out through the nursery door. The night nurse was standing vigil in the hall.

  ‘He’s asleep,’ Isabella said to her.

  ‘Very good, my lady. Shall I call you if he wakes again?’

  Guy held his breath as his wife’s eyes found his in the dimness. When she turned back to the woman, she shook her head.

  ‘I think he’ll sleep now. If he does awaken…I’ll leave him in your very competent hands, Rose.’

  ‘Thank you, my lady. Goodnight. My lord.’ With a quick curtsy in Guy’s direction, the nurse slipped back into the nursery, easing its door closed.

  ‘She is very competent,’ Guy reminded her.

  ‘I’m sure she is. Just as I’m sure he’ll sleep until morning.’

  ‘Very prescient, my dear. You never told me you had such remarkable powers.

  ‘Not so remarkable. They didn’t forewarn me about you.’

  ‘Did you need warning?’

  ‘That you would sweep me off my feet and lure me to the wilds of Herefordshire? If I had known, I should have been more prepared, I promise you.’

  ‘To resist my advances?’ he asked with a smile.

  ‘To succumb to them. If I had, I should have saved myself a great deal of trouble.’

  ‘What did your mother tell you? Folly must always be paid for? And with your most valuable coin? You were very foolish to refuse me.’

  ‘Luckily I came to my senses before it was too late.’

  ‘I’m not sure it would ever have been too late. You had only to crook your little finger…’ He raised her hand, taking that particular digit to his mouth as they walked. ‘And I was yours.’

  ‘Your memory is at fault, my love. I had to work very hard to entice you back into my web.’

  He stopped before the door to her bedchamber and, using his free hand, nudged it open. ‘Successfully. By the way, your bed is very cold without you in it.’

  ‘And my abigail is scandalised to find you there every morning.’

  ‘Then you need a new abigail.’

  He allowed her to precede him inside, closing the door behind them. The same moonlight that had flooded the nursery, ridiculously located on the same hall as their rooms, illuminated the tumbled bed they had shared all the nights of their marriage.

  Bella started towards it, but he stopped her by putting his hands on her shoulders. As he slipped off the robe de chambre she wore, he bent to place his lips against her neck. She tilted her head, leaning it against his.

  Once more the fragrance of her skin sent blood roaring through his veins. He would never get enough of her. Of this.

  He allowed her nightgown to fall, the gossamer silk pooling at her feet. His mouth moved down the slender column of her neck and along her shoulder to nuzzle the small depression behind her collarbone.

  He felt as well as heard her intake of breath. Her hand found his cheek, caressing. He turned his head to it, pushing a kiss into the centre of her palm.

  With that she turned to face him, head tilted, lips parted, waiting for his mouth to cover hers. As it did, the breath she had taken was released in a sigh.

  He bent to slip his arm under her knees. He held her a moment, his lips moving over hers with sweet familiarity, before he laid her on the bed.

  He stretched out beside her, propped on his elbow so that he could see the moon-touched beauty of her body. His thumb traced a slow line from her lips downward, following the ridged column of her throat to the centre of her chest. His hand spread over the rounded globe of her breast, catching its already tautened nipple between his fingers.

  She gasped, but he knew too well her responses to hesitate. He lowered his head, exchanging his hand’s teasing caress for that of his mouth. Her breathing quickened as he began to rim the now-sensitised nub with his tongue.

  When he replaced that tantalising stroke with his teeth her fingers locked in his hair, pushing his head downward. Begging for an even closer contact between them.

  One he was more than willing to provide.

  He eased his body over hers, smiling down into her eyes. Wide and dark, they clung to his as he pushed the fullness of his arousal into the warm, welcoming wetness of her body.

  Again and again he thrust, now almost mindless with need and desire. Finally, just when he had begun to believe that this time he might not be able to wait, her eyes drifted shut and the first delicate tremors began to vibrate throughout her frame.

  Given permission, he closed his eyes as well, clenching them against a flood of sensation so overpowering this time that for a moment he was lost in it. Lost in her.

  And after it was over they lay together a long time, unmoving now, his hand covering her breast. Her eyes had once more found his face, and she was content to look at him, it seemed, without speaking. When she finally did, it was nothing he might have expected she would say.

  ‘Do you ever wonder why we have been given this, and so many others…?’

  The question trailed, but he knew what she meant. She had reminded him once before that life was fleeting, meant always to be lived to the fullest.

  Too many of those they had loved—her husband, his father, countless comrades too young by far—were all gone, while the two of them…

  He shook his head, as always humbled, even a little frightened, to acknowledge the preciousness of the gift they’d been given.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said truthfully. ‘I try not to think about that.’

  A superstitious unwillingness to tempt Fate to snatch it all away? Leaving him in a darkness far greater than any he had known before. A darkness whose depth he literally could not imagine.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘They say having babies makes you maudlin. Apparently they’re right.’

  ‘Stop worrying. He’s as strong as his mother.’ He leaned forward to kiss her forehead.

  ‘His mother?’ she asked with a smile. ‘Surely—?’

  ‘The indomitable Mrs Stowe. Fate wouldn’t dare trick you, my darling. You’d tilt your chin up at him and demand what in the world he was thinking to trouble your happiness.’


  ‘However much I was able to convince you of it, I never felt indomitable, I assure you.’

  ‘And when you are old,’ he teased, warming to his theme, ‘you’ll terrify the servants and tell your grandchildren harrowing tales of when you followed the drum. They will hold you in enormous awe. As does your husband.’

  As he whispered the last, his hand trailed lazily across her stomach. And then moved lower still.

  Her eyes widened, but not in protest. ‘Awe?’ she repeated. ‘Is that what this is called?’

  ‘This, my darling, is called adoration. But I promise you we shall proceed to awe very shortly.’

  And, rather spectacularly, they did.

  SNOWBOUND AND SEDUCED

  Amanda McCabe

  Dear Reader,

  I was so excited a few years ago when Harlequin asked me to create an anthology with two of my very best writing friends, Deb Marlowe and Diane Gaston! We had so much fun creating the chaotic, fun-loving, passionate Fitzmanning family in The Diamonds of Welbourne Manor. I always wanted sisters of my own, and the Fitzmannings let me live that vicariously for a while!

  So I also loved the chance to revisit their world in a Christmas novella, which became Snowbound and Seduced. When I started writing my Diamonds story, Charlotte and the Wicked Lord, I didn’t intend for the hero’s sister-in-law Mary to have a romance of her own. But I liked her sweetness and kindness, and she seemed so lost and sad. And then out of nowhere, her old flame Dominick showed up! I saw right away the source of that sadness, and I wanted to give Mary and Dominick their Happily Ever After. What better time to rediscover lost love than at Christmas! It’s the perfect day for family and romance.

  I hope you enjoy their story as much as I loved writing it! (I even cried a bit at the end.) And watch for more Fitzmanning stories in the future….

  Amanda

  For my grandmother Roberta McCabe, who loved Christmas so much! I still miss you every year when I unpack the Santa dolls, Nana…

  Prologue

  Welbourne Manor, Summer 1820

  She should not have come here.

  Mary Bassington paced the length of the little faux-ancient temple and back again, her footsteps soft on the marble floor. Across the garden, Welbourne Manor shimmered in the night, all its windows lit by a welcoming golden glow. The party still carried on there, a merry game of hide-and-seek still in progress, but she had been able to bear it no longer. The walls had seemed to press in on her, suffocating her, and she’d had to flee.

  Not that there was much relief to be found in the little temple. It was a place made for love, for secret meetings and murmured declarations. Little benches were tucked cosily in the shadows, where a marble Cupid laughed down from his pedestal, his arrow at the ready.

  Mary glared at him. He had best not point that arrow at her—not again!

  She stopped at the edge of the stone steps, wrapping her arms tightly around herself as she stared at the house. How very welcoming it had seemed when she’d first arrived, the home of her dear brother-in-law’s best friends! How warm and noisy, and full of fun. She had been reluctant to leave her home at Derrington Hall, leave her mourning for William, gone now for many months. She was sure the Fitzmanning family, renowned for their high spirits, would think her nothing but a fusty widow, old before her time at twenty-six.

  That was not at all the case. They could not have been more cheerfully welcoming. Especially the youngest lady, Charlotte, who reminded Mary of her own three sisters. She had even begun to enjoy herself. Then…

  Then he had arrived. Dominick, as handsome as ever. More so, even, for now his face had reached the chiselled perfection his younger visage had promised. Just as charming, too. She’d felt her heart pound inside her as she had watched him laugh with Charlotte at dinner. She’d hardly been able to keep smiling through the interminable meal, to swallow her wine and go on pretending her placid world had not been suddenly upended.

  She stared at the house, but she did not really see its pale façade. She saw the past romantic, carefree girl she’d been before she’d married William. She saw a quiet veranda at a ball, the flash of her white dress behind a potted palm. Dominick’s teasing smile, the gleam of his guinea-gold hair as he bent his head to kiss her. The gentle, warm touch of his hands on her bare arms

  ‘No!’ Mary shook her head, trying to dislodge those memories. She had pressed them down so hard over the years, tried to forget them, and they had almost disappeared. The Bassingtons and Dominick moved in very different circles: the Bassingtons—except for Drew—with staid country families and Dominick with increasingly rakish friends and fast women. The two circles never overlapped. She’d thought her heart healed, her youthful infatuation nothing but a foolish mistake that was long over.

  It was not. When she had looked out of that window and seen him today, laughing as he swung down from his horse, she had become that silly girl all over again. It had been as if the years, her respectable marriage, her son, Dominick’s scandalous wild ways, didn’t exist. All the old excitement had flooded back over her, and she’d had to clap her hand over her mouth to hold back a cry.

  But the years did exist. She was the widowed Countess of Derrington, with a child and responsibilities, and he was a scandalous rake. The memory of his infamous elopement to France with Lady Newcombe, and that lady’s death in childbirth at Calais, was still fresh in Society’s mind.

  Mary could not afford to be the silly girl she once was. She should leave Welbourne at once. But—but she did not want to leave! The thought of plunging back into dark mourning at Derrington Hall, after glimpsing the bright joy of life at Welbourne, filled her with dread.

  She kicked out at a marble pillar, forgetting she wore satin evening slippers. ‘Ow!’ she cried, pain shooting through her foot. ‘Blast it all.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be out here in the dark,’ a deep, rich-rough voice said. ‘There are too many obstacles in one’s path.’

  Mary’s heart pounded all over again. She spun around on her good foot to see Dominick coming up the shallow steps. He had not come from the house, but along the pathway leading from the pond, so she had not seen him. And he still moved with the silent grace of a forest cat, deceptively slow and elegant.

  His dark evening clothes blended with the night, but the moonlight gleamed on his bright hair. He watched her warily, as if she might kick at him instead of the pillar.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ he said.

  Mary had quite forgotten about her foot in the shock of seeing him again, but now the pain shot up her leg. ‘Only my dignity, I fear.’

  Dominick laughed. The old carefree sound was tinged with a new harshness, as if he, like her, found little enough to laugh at in life. ‘More than your dignity, I think. You can’t even put your weight on that foot.’

  ‘It is quite all right.’

  ‘Nonsense. Here, sit down before you fall over.’

  Before she knew what he was about, he took her elbow in a gentle clasp, his long fingers warm through her silk glove. That part of him—the feel of his touch—it was the same. It made her shiver with long-dormant desires.

  ‘You see, you’re chilled, too,’ he said, helping her sit on one of the marble benches.

  Cupid still looked down at her gleefully, as if he had engineered this meeting himself. As if he had summoned Dominick to be alone with her in the night.

  ‘You shouldn’t have left the house,’ Dominick said, kneeling down beside her.

  ‘I needed some fresh air. As did you, I see,’ she said hoarsely.

  ‘I wanted to smoke a cigar by the pond,’ he answered. ‘And be alone for a moment.’

  As had she. But now they were alone together, and his presence seemed to fill up the night, fill up every inch of her consciousness. The warmth of him, kneeling close to her leg, the clean, smoky scent of him, enveloped her senses.

  ‘I suppose you have no need to play hide-and-seek games,’ she said. ‘The ladies line up in the open for you.’
>
  Oh! Why had she said that? Mary bit her lip, wishing the words back.

  But Dominick just laughed again. ‘Now, why would you think that, Mary?’ The sound of her given name in his voice made her shiver again. It had been so long since she had heard it from him, so long since she had been just ‘Mary’. ‘I see no line forming here, do you?’

  He gazed up at her steadily in the moonlit darkness, his eyes that unearthly blue-green she had once thought she could gaze at for ever. ‘I see only you.’

  She was so captured by those eyes she didn’t even see him reach for her foot until she felt her slipper slide free. Cool night air rushed over stockinged instep, only to be quickly heated by the even more shocking touch of his hand.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she cried. She tried to snatch her foot away, but he held onto her.

  ‘I just want to make sure you didn’t break anything,’ he said gently, softly, as if he calmed a skittish horse. He’d always been so good with his horses, firm but tender; it was one of the first things she had noticed about him when she was young. She’d used to walk with her sisters in Hyde Park every day, hoping to glimpse him riding there.

  ‘Does this hurt?’ he asked, pressing carefully on her toe.

  Mary had quite forgotten her injury in the midst of old memories, but a jolt of pain reminded her. ‘Ouch! Yes, it does. But only when careless people press on it like that.’

  He smiled wryly, carefully rubbing the edge of his thumb over her other toes. The soft touch awakened very different pains inside her, calling up long-suppressed feelings of desire and need. They were feelings she had certainly thought dead—strangled by her husband’s discreet fumblings under her nightdress in the marital bed.

  But, blast it all, with one soft touch on her foot Dominick had sent that need roaring back into flaming life.