Timeless Christmas Romance: Historical Romance Holiday Collection

by Laurel O'Donnell

  Nay. She was not kissing a toy. Instead, she’d consult the book of romantic tales. Knights and ladies kissed in the stories; while she couldn’t remember reading much detail about those kisses, she’d investigate as soon as she could.

  Reaching the gate, she lifted the latch and she and Cornelia stepped through. The gate shut behind them with a click. “I cannot wait to kiss Tristan,” the younger woman said. “He will make the perfect husband.”

  A surprised laugh broke from Honoria. “You hardly know him.”

  “He is a close friend of Radley’s. That says a lot about Tristan’s character.”

  “True, but—”

  “We must make the kissing bough tonight.” Cornelia’s smile turned sly. “The sooner I kiss Tristan, the sooner he and I will be wed.”

  ***

  “You wanted to see me, Sydney?”

  At Radley’s question, Tristan tore his gaze from Honoria. She moved with such elegance, ’twas a pleasure to watch her. Yet, he didn’t want to be caught ogling.

  “Did the sheriff send some news of the investigation into my father’s killing?” Radley asked.

  “Nay, milord,” the steward said. “Regrettably not.”

  Radley exhaled a harsh breath. “One day soon, I hope the sheriff will tell me that the attackers have been identified and arrested.”

  An intense pang of sympathy wove through Tristan. He couldn’t imagine losing a parent the way Radley had.

  “I wish for their capture too, milord,” Sydney said. “Your sire was a fine man who did not deserve to die in such a ruthless manner. What I wanted to discuss, however, was what happened not long ago in the bailey. The captain of the guard will likely speak to you about it, but I felt you should be alerted as soon as possible.”

  Radley frowned. “Go on.”

  “Three men arrived on horseback. They were not tenants bringing rents. Two of them rode into the bailey, while the third did not cross the drawbridge, but waited a fair distance away. When guards questioned the two riders, they claimed to be travelers, going to visit friends for Christmas. They wanted directions to the next town, saying they had taken a wrong turn.”

  “You did not believe them?”

  Brushing a mistletoe leaf from his cloak sleeve, Sydney said, “Few folk get lost in this area. Also, they lingered, as though assessing the castle’s defenses.”

  Misgiving rippled through Tristan. “Did you get a good look at these travelers?”

  “I did not, milord. I was assisting a farmer who had brought his rents, so I did not speak to the riders myself. I do recall that they wore hooded cloaks that shielded their faces, but that is common at this time of year.” Sydney shook his head. “I may be suspicious for no good reason—”

  “But your instincts are usually sound,” Radley cut in. “There is much discontent in England right now. Honorable men are being corrupted by promises of wealth and power if they will rebel against King John and the lords who support him. We must be alert to any potential threats to this keep.”

  “I agree,” Sydney said. “’Tis why I wanted you to be aware of the incident, especially after what happened to your sire.”

  “Tell the guards who questioned the travelers that I wish to speak to them.”

  “Aye, milord.” Sydney bowed and then folded up the ladder and carried it away.

  “I wonder who those men were,” Radley murmured as they started toward the keep.

  “As do I.” Tristan’s foreboding burrowed deeper. His gut instincts were telling him that the rider who had stayed back from the fortress, the one unwilling to risk being recognized, was the man with the scarred face.

  Chapter Five

  “Your sister is fascinated by that book,” Tristan said, sipping his wine. Honoria was sitting by the fire, poring over a tome propped up in her lap—a different one than she’d purchased at the market. The wolfhound named Willow lay asleep at her feet. Several more tomes rested on the oak table beside Honoria.

  She’d joined Tristan, Radley, Lady Whitford, and Cornelia for the evening repast, but as soon as the meal had ended, she’d rushed to the hearth and become engrossed in her book. She was frowning, which suggested that what she was reading was important.

  Seated beside Tristan at the lord’s table on the stone dais, Radley poured them both more wine from a silver jug. “Father often read to Sis and me when we were children. Honoria loved the stories, and once Father taught her to read, there was no end to her interest in books. She inherited all but the one she bought today from him,” Radley said, before downing some of the piquant red.

  “I see.” Tristan struggled to suppress the memory of his father throwing leather-bound tomes against the wall, parchment pages breaking loose and drifting down to the floor while he ranted that Tristan’s reading was a waste of effort that should be spent honing his fighting prowess. Words didn’t win battles, his sire had railed; weapons did.

  “My sire believed one could learn a lot from books,” Radley added, “if one chose to heed the wisdom written down by those who have lived before us.”

  “He was a wise man.”

  “Aye.” Radley’s tone roughened. “I miss him, as does Honoria. I vow she may never recover from his death.”

  Tristan fingered a drop of wine from the stem of his goblet as he glanced at her again, and then across the large chamber. Apart from Honoria, the hall with its rush-strewn floor and large tapestries depicting scenes from historic battles was empty of all but a few young children sleeping on pallets in the far corner, with mongrels curled up beside them. The trestle tables used by the castle folk for the meal had been folded and stacked along the walls. The servants were away completing their evening chores, but would soon be returning to the hall to lay down their pallets and sleep.

  While folk had cleared up after the meal, Tristan and Radley had talked with Cornelia and Lady Whitford. Her ladyship had soon retired to her bedchamber, and not long after, Cornelia had grown weary of the conversation. With enough drama to make her the lead in a Christmas pantomime, she’d excused herself and gone upstairs to fetch materials needed to make a kissing bough. “What an exciting time we will have when ’tis done,” she’d said.

  Tristan hadn’t responded. He wasn’t going to encourage her; not if she intended to use the kissing bough in the manner he expected.

  The pop of a burning log drew his attention back to the hearth. Fire glow cast golden light over Honoria sitting with her head slightly bowed, her braided hair pulled over one shoulder. The plait skimmed the swell of her breast and ended somewhere near her lap. He suddenly had the wild desire to loosen her hair, to feel the silken strands against his fingers, and to allow more of her tresses to be gilded by firelight.

  He forced the urge aside. Such intimacy between a man and woman implied more than friendship, and he wasn’t interested in courting Honoria or any other lady.

  As Honoria turned a page in the tome, her frown deepened. What was she reading? He’d love to know.

  Beside him, Radley set his goblet down and peered into the wine jug. “’Tis almost empty, and the night’s drinking has only just begun.”

  “Hellfire.” Tristan did his best to appear miffed. He well knew Radley wouldn’t let them run out of wine.

  “I will fetch more from the cellar. ’Twill be quicker than summoning a servant.”

  “I will come with you.”

  “No need. I will not be long. Just stay out of trouble while I am away, all right?” Radley grinned, rose with the scrape of his chair, and headed for the antechamber off the hall.

  Silence spread through the room. Honoria hadn’t moved from the hearth and seemed oblivious to the fact that Tristan was still sitting at the table. She had to know he was there, though.

  Tristan sipped his drink, unable to ignore a rising sense of disgruntlement. Her indifference no doubt bothered him more than it should because he’d drunk plenty of wine tonight. Yet, foolish as ’twas, he couldn’t help feeling slighted. Was he losing his c
harm with the ladies? He’d never been ignored before. Ever.

  ’Twas damned…perplexing. And aggravating.

  Enough.

  He set down his goblet, stood, and crossed to the hearth. Honoria was, after all, his best friend’s sister. There was no harm in deepening their friendship.

  As he neared, she looked up from the book.

  Tristan gestured to the chair beside her. “May I join you?”

  Her fingers curled tighter on the tome’s leather cover, as though she was reluctant to agree. Yet, she nodded. “If you wish.”

  He sat; the chair creaked as he leaned back, folded his arms, and stretched his legs out toward the blaze, being careful not to hit Willow who had stirred at his approach. Head raised, her front paws on the hearth tiles, the wolfhound studied him intently, as though assessing whether he was worthy of being so close to Honoria.

  “What are you reading?” Tristan asked.

  “Old folk tales.”

  “They must be good stories…or rather sinful ones.”

  Honoria looked startled. “Why do you say that?”

  “You have hardly glanced up from that book.”

  A pretty blush reddened her face. “The tales are not that bawdy.”

  Nay? Why was she blushing, then? Resisting the impulse to point that out to her, he merely said, “If you say so.”

  “I do. I would not read such stories. Even if I did, I would not read them in the hall.”

  He savored the spark in her eyes. Teasing her was at least getting her attention.

  “I often read after the evening meal,” she insisted. “It helps my mind settle for sleep.”

  Reading before falling asleep sounded like an excellent idea. Tristan could have used such a tactic during the past weeks, when his disagreement with his sire had kept him awake more nights than he cared to admit. “I must try that sometime,” he said. “Unfortunately, I do not have any books to read now.”

  She closed the tome and set it on her lap. “You said ‘now.’ Did you have books before?”

  Memories crowded into Tristan’s mind, and he couldn’t keep his voice from hardening. “I did once, but my father destroyed them.”

  “Destroyed them?” She sounded appalled.

  “My sire expected his sons to grow up to be famous warriors. He believed that if we had any free moments, we should spend them practicing swordplay, or archery, or fighting opponents in the tiltyards. To sit and read was akin to being idle.”

  Sadness registered in her eyes. “I am guessing your father found you reading one day?”

  “He did.” Tristan uncrossed his arms and leaned forward to brace his elbows on his knees. Heat from the fire warmed his fingers. “To be honest, I never wanted to be a knight. I longed to be a scholar.”

  “Truly?” she asked.

  “Mmm. As I grew up, I wanted to know more about the world around me. The dates, saffron, and cumin that our cook used in special recipes, for example. They were not from England, but brought here on ships that docked in London. What was it like, traveling on the ocean? What did folk pack for such a journey? Were the stars in the heavens as bright over the sea as the ones over my father’s keep?”

  “I have often pondered such questions,” she said, her words warm with excitement. Now he definitely had her full attention.

  “One afternoon, while I was in the local village having the handle of my dagger repaired, I went into a shop and found two dust-covered books,” Tristan continued. “They cost all of my spending money, but they were worth the price to me. One contained the personal writings of a lord who had died nigh thirty years ago. The shopkeeper told me that when King John had seized the keep from the lord’s rebellious heir, almost all of the possessions had been sold off to pay outstanding debts. The items considered to be of little value ended up in the shopkeeper’s premises.”

  “The tome was considered to be of little worth?”

  “Regrettably, aye. Another of the books contained chansons and unfinished compositions. I wondered if the musician had lived in the same castle as the lord.”

  “What marvelous finds,” she mused.

  “They were indeed. When my father found me reading them, though, he was furious. I had skipped archery practice with my brothers so I could read. I apologized and pleaded with my sire, but he grabbed the books from my hands and threw them against the wall. He broke the covers. Parchment pages went everywhere.”

  “Nay!”

  “I am afraid so. My father vowed that if he caught me with a book again, I would suffer a far worse punishment. My sire was—is—not a man to be crossed.” Tristan looked down at his hands. “To this day, I have not bought another tome.”

  “What happened to the ones you had purchased?”

  “I gathered up the loose pages, but had no idea how to restore the books. I knew that if I tried to hire someone to fix them, my father would find out, and he’d view my actions as disobedience.”

  “Oh, Tristan.”

  “In the end I threw the lot into the bottom of my linen chest. I had forgotten about those tomes until tonight.”

  Rustling fabric drew his gaze to her. She offered him her book. “Would you like to see it?”

  “I would indeed.”

  The coolness of the leather against his palms sent a thrill of anticipation rippling down his spine. The book was beautiful. Its cover bore an intricate design of Celtic knotwork. As he opened the tome to read the title page penned in a flourish of black ink, the scent of cured parchment greeted him.

  As she’d said, ’twas a book of ancient stories. Romantic ones passed down through the ages. A chuckle welled within him, for he hadn’t been so wrong, then, about sinful stories.

  Raising his brows, he looked at her.

  “Why are you gazing at me so? Do you not like the title?”

  “The title is exactly what I expected.”

  “Folk tales—”

  “Romantic tales.”

  She folded her arms across her bosom.

  He made a valiant effort not to ogle her luscious breasts brimming above her arms; he focused instead on the early pages of the tome.

  “Romantic stories are favored by noblemen and ladies alike,” she said, as though needing to justify what she’d been reading. “Some of the most famous chansons de geste, sung in halls all across England, are romances.”

  “So they may be.” Tristan turned more pages. The craftsmanship of the lettering was exceptional. “Tristan and Iseult,” he said, finding his given name in the tome. “You do not find their tale scandalous? She was promised to his uncle, but Tristan, renowned as a most chivalrous knight, took her as his lover anyway.”

  “They were hardly to blame. They did not know that the potion they drank was magical, and that ’twould make them fall deeply in love.”

  He turned more pages. “Arthur and Guinevere, then. ’Tis rather wicked how Guinevere loved Lancelot when she was married to Arthur, aye?”

  “I suppose.” Frowning, Honoria added, “Where did you learn about the ancient stories? Not from books, I am guessing.”

  He shook his head. “Most I heard when I was training with your brother in Lincolnshire. In the garrison in the evenings, the men-at-arms liked to tell stories.” Pointing to the tome’s thick spine, he asked, “Have you read all of this book?”

  “Aye, several times.”

  So she enjoyed the legends enough to re-read them. There were tame versions of the stories, though, and there were lewd ones. How he longed to know how passionate hers were. “Tell me, in this book, do the lords and ladies hold hands?”

  “Aye.”

  “Do knights rescue damsels and win their undying love?”

  “There is plenty of courtship.”

  “And…do they kiss?”

  Honoria went very still. Her blush returned.

  “No kissing?” he pressed. There had to be kissing. No knight in his right mind would ever miss the chance to kiss a beautiful damsel.

  “So
me of the tales…do involve kissing.” Her last words were almost a squeak.

  And do they couple? The words were on the tip of his tongue when footfalls sounded on the landing: Cornelia was returning.

  Her strides slowed when she saw him sitting by the fire. Her features hardened, but then she continued at a brisk pace to the staircase down to the hall.

  Honoria scooted to the edge of her chair. From her stack of books, she took the one she’d purchased that day. The wolfhound pushed up to standing and stretched.

  “I must help Cornelia now.” Honoria seemed most eager to flee.

  “Of course.” He’d tormented her enough about her book and kissing for one day.

  “When you have finished looking at the tome, please put it with the others.”

  ***

  In the torch-lit antechamber off the hall, servants had cleared serving platters and wine jugs from the table to make room for the basket of mistletoe and other gathered items that Honoria was using for decorating. She went to the table to set down the book. Willow padded along at her side and flopped down near the wall, where she could watch what was going on while washing her front paws.

  Hands on her hips, Cornelia faced Honoria. “What were you doing?” she whispered fiercely.

  “What do you mean?” She’d never seen the younger woman quite so flushed and angry.

  Cornelia thrust a finger in Honoria’s face. “You were sitting with Tristan. Alone.”

  “Not completely alone. Children are sleeping—”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Radley was only going to be gone for a moment,” she said in hushed tones, hoping their discussion wouldn’t carry to Tristan. “Since Tristan and I were the only ones in the hall—”

  “He is mine. Remember?”

  An uncomfortable ache spread through Honoria. Not jealousy. Surely not.

  The flickering wall torch nearby illuminated the hard set of Cornelia’s jaw. “I told you earlier, Honoria. I said he and I would wed.”

  “You did indeed. Should you not consult Tristan, though, regarding your plans to marry him?”