Once Upon a Christmas Wedding

by Scarlett Scott

  “But she didn’t seem to mind being there once she was,” Fabian cut his friend off before he could draw the same conclusion he’d been trying not to draw for days, that he’d done something underhanded and unforgivable. Even if it had seemed glorious at the time.

  “Still,” Matthew went on. “The facts are clear. Lady Alice might have enjoyed your activity the other night, but she is wary of you now. Her father is a bully who, it appears, has her under his thumb and has forced her into marriage with you.”

  “But we get along so well,” Fabian argued, then sighed heavily. “At least, we did.”

  They both resumed pacing on opposite tracks, moving away from each other as they strode to the far corners of the room, then toward a spot where they crossed in the center of the room.

  “Let’s examine another fact,” Matthew said after one turn about the room. “Lord Stanhope’s other daughters were given away in marriage alliances as well.”

  “Except that the youngest eloped with Lord Thaddeus Herrington,” Fabian added.

  “But she would have been wedded to that disgusting, old brick, Sloane, if she hadn’t,” Matthew said.

  “And the oldest was forced to marry Garland before being whisked off to America,” Fabian finished the thought. He reached the end of the room, turned, and shrugged. “I am not half as disagreeable as either Sloane or Garland. At least, I hope not.”

  “You aren’t,” Matthew reassured him. “But in Lady Alice’s eyes, you’re the same as them.”

  “God, I hope not.” Fabian sent his friend a wary look as they crossed.

  Matthew only made it a few more steps before stopping and turning back to Fabian, his expression brightening. “But, you see, that is both the problem and the solution.”

  The mention of a solution caught Fabian’s attention. He interrupted his pacing to stride up to Matthew’s side. “I’m open to any solution that will end with Alice happily in my arms, as smiling as she was at the house party and as sinful as she was in my bed.”

  Matthew squared his shoulders as though he were a university lecturer about to give a speech. “Lady Alice has been distant because she is being forced to marry you. Her father is a tyrant, and she feels as though she is caught in his trap. It doesn’t matter how sweet the bait is, she still feels as though she is being sent to the guillotine, not the altar.”

  “But what can I do about that? How can I make her see that I am her champion and, dare I say it, her savior?” Fabian asked, nearing the end of his rope.

  “You can’t.” Matthew shrugged. “At least, not as long as she feels marriage to you is succumbing to her father’s plots. However….” He arched one eyebrow, teasing Fabian with a grin.

  “Don’t toy with me, Matthew,” Fabian growled.

  Matthew laughed and shook his head. “The solution is simple, really. Lady Alice doesn’t want you because her father does. But I believe, based on the evidence at hand, that if her father didn’t want you, she would rush into your arms like a moth to a flame in an instant.”

  Fabian frowned, but Matthew’s words had the ring of truth to them. “It can’t be that simple.”

  And yet, a voice at the back of his head whispered that it could. Alice had been beyond biddable in his bed. She’d sighed and moaned with pleasure, taking more of him than he should have given. And in the morning, she had been as sweet as a ray of sunshine, admitting that she liked making love with him, even though he’d been a brute. There was absolutely enough between them to build a happy life with, if he could just take advantage of it.

  He blinked out of his thoughts and focused on Matthew once more. “Are you suggesting that if Lord Stanhope suddenly believed me to be a bad match for his daughter, if he pressured her to call off and end things, Alice would do exactly the opposite and cling to me?”

  “I believe so,” Matthew said with a smile.

  “So what do I need to do to convince the blackguard I’m a bad match?”

  Matthew shrugged. “He pursued you for your fame and fortune, as well as your good name.”

  “I’m not eager to part with any of those things,” Fabian admitted stiffly.

  “You don’t actually have to part with them,” Matthew went on, the light of mischief in his eyes. “You only need to make Lord Stanhope think you’ve lost everything.”

  “And how do I do that?” Fabian asked, beginning to warm to the plan he could see his friend forming.

  “Leave it to me,” Matthew said, grinning. “All I ask is that you pretend we had more than a few brandies before the ball.”

  “Understood.” Fabian nodded, his smile and his sense of heading into battle growing.

  “And play along with whatever happens at the ball,” Matthew finished. “Play along with everything.”

  The last thing Alice wanted to do was attend a ball. The last thing she wanted to do was be in Sussex at all. She sat by the window in her bedroom, delaying going downstairs to join the festivities, and thumbed through her well-worn pages of The Secrets of Love. She wished she and Imogen and Lettuce were together again, somewhere far away from their father and the misery he wrought on their lives. Of course, she would wish for Lord Thaddeus to be with them for Imogen’s sake.

  That thought brought another that left her squirming with heat and emotion. She wanted Fabian with them as well.

  No, she didn’t. Count Camoni was an instrument of her father’s tyranny.

  But he was magnificent. His body had felt heavenly against hers and inside of her. And he was kind, even if he’d gone along with her father’s plans.

  “It simply isn’t fair,” she wailed aloud, shoulders slumping.

  She took comfort from the only thing that had lifted her spirits at all in the last few months. Well, the only thing aside from Fabian’s wicked, wandering hands, his captivating mouth, and the hot thickness of his cock. She opened her segment of The Secrets of Love to where she’d left off and read.

  “Pleasure breeds contentment, and contentment gives rise to affection. Affection, in turn, demands more pleasure, causing increase in every measure. It is a mistake to think that love strikes us all, like a flash of lightning in a storm. For most, love is the gentle unfolding of pleasure, contentment, and affection in never-ending circles, like the petals of a rose overlapping and expanding as the rose blooms. Let yourself bloom as well. Let your petals unfurl slowly. Explore your lover over a lifetime, and do not be daunted if the bud between you seems closed at first.”

  Alice sighed and sank back in her chair, twisting to glance out her frosty window into the night. The memory of the way Fabian had parted her legs and teased the petals of her womanhood rushed back on her, making her squirm in her seat. She wondered if that was precisely what the author of The Secrets of Love was talking about. It certainly felt as though she’d blossomed under Fabian’s touch. And if she were honest with herself, she had more affection for him after the passion they had shared, in spite of not wanting to give in to him.

  A frown creased her brow and she sat up, setting the ragged pages of her book aside. She couldn’t submit quietly to her father’s wishes. To do so would represent a failure of character on her own part, and it would be an insult to her sisters after the ordeals they had gone through. But Fabian was delicious. She’d come so close to begging him to hold her and take her to bed again in the last two days that she’d ended up forcing herself to stay away from him or be defeated.

  Not that there was a single thing she could do to avoid marrying Fabian. She didn’t have another man waiting to whisk her away, like Imogen had. She didn’t even have a—

  A rough knock sounded on her door before she could finish the thought, and a moment later her father burst into the room without waiting for Alice to bid him enter.

  “What is the meaning of this?” her father demanded, shutting the door behind him and marching across the room.

  Alice leapt to her feat, fear making her dizzy. “The meaning of what, Father?” she asked, shifting away from her chair
and attempting to keep her distance from him.

  “You’ve poisoned Lady Georgette’s mind against me, you little whore,” her father growled.

  “I…I didn’t….” But, of course, she had.

  Her father surged toward her, one hand raised. “Don’t lie to me, bitch.”

  Alice squeezed her eyes shut, certain a blow would rain down on her. But nothing happened. She peeked at her father only to find him stepping back, flexing his hand.

  “It would be noticed,” he said, half to himself. “Questions would be asked. I won’t have questions asked.” He seemed to remember she was in the room. “I wanted Lady Georgette, and now I’m told my suit would be rejected if I should offer it. I blame you for this entirely.”

  Alice swallowed, trying not to cower under the force of her father’s anger. She had finally made her case to Georgette and had been relieved beyond measure to find that Georgette wasn’t in the lease bit interested in her father. In fact, a young viscount that she’d known since the two of them were children had made his intentions toward her clear just a few weeks before, and Georgette believed a Christmas proposal was imminent.

  “I’m sorry,” Alice whispered all the same, misery pressing down on her like a cloud of smoke.

  “You should be,” her father hissed. “And if you so much as dare to interfere with any future marriage alliances I might wish to make, I’ll have your hide.”

  Alice gulped. Only when her father turned away from her and began pacing her bedroom did it dawn on her that in two days’ time she would belong to Fabian and not him. How much could he hurt her if she were another man’s wife?

  He could hurt her by demanding he live with her and Fabian. He could hurt her by reminding her every day that she owed everything to his cleverness and his negotiations. He could tell her that without him, Fabian never would have looked twice at her.

  She watched him as he strode to the fireplace and began fiddling with the various decorations arranged there. “There are bound to be eligible young women with fortunes at tonight’s ball,” he said, picking up a porcelain shepherdess, turning her over, and then setting her down again. He reached into his pocket with his left hand, drawing something out but concealing it. “You will not interfere if I make advances to them,” he went on, picking up a small wooden box and opening the lid. “Do you understand?” he demanded, turning to face her.

  “Y-yes, Papa.” Alice wrung her hands in front of her, praying her father would leave. He was a tyrant in the best of times, but he had always made her ten times more nervous when he lingered in her bedchamber, as if he were contemplating the unthinkable.

  He nodded with a grunt and faced the mantel once more, replacing the wooden box where it had been. “I want you to smile and be sweet and to request that your soon-to-be mother-in-law, the duchess, introduce me to the cream of her acquaintance tonight.”

  “I-I shall do what I can,” Alice stammered.

  “You will do as I say,” her father bellowed, walking away from the fireplace to glare at her. “You will continue to do as I say even after your marriage. Count Camoni may be your stud, but I am your master and I always will be.”

  Tears stung at Alice’s eyes but she nodded all the same. A horrible image of her father watching as Fabian mated with her the way they had in the morning, with her bent over as if in prayer while he lost himself in her, turned her stomach.

  Her father took a step back, studying her with narrowed eyes. “Now. Get downstairs and join your fiancé. Dazzle his mother. Impress her friends. Recommend me to their daughters. Do you understand.”

  She nodded, but couldn’t manage to say a word. She understood all too well. Not even marriage would free her from her father’s grasp, and not even Fabian could save her.

  Chapter 6

  Alice’s spirits were as low as could be as her father escorted her downstairs to the ballroom, or rather, dragged her. The last thing she wanted to do at the moment she felt the shackles close around her was to be seen in public, carousing and dancing, as her father demanded she do.

  But almost from the moment she entered the ballroom, everything changed.

  “Ah, Lord Stanhope. I see you have deliv—I see you have delelivered—I see you’ve devolverived—” Fabian slurred his words, unable to complete his sentence, and finished the whole thing with an indecorous burp. “You brought Alice.”

  A sound that was something between a gasp and a giggle caught in Alice’s throat. She clapped a gloved hand to her mouth. Fabian was obviously in his cups.

  “Count Camoni,” her father growled, eyeing Fabian derisively. “Is something the matter?”

  “The matter?” Fabian echoed in a voice higher and sharper than hers when she experienced a shock. “Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no—” He lowered his head as if executing a slow bow with each no, but stopped when he was nearly bent double, like an automaton that had run out of energy and needed to be wound up again.

  Alice’s eyes went wide as she watched him and made another choking, laughing sound. She never would have dreamed of seeing someone as elegant and noble as Fabian behaving like a child.

  “Sir!” her father snapped. “Remember yourself.”

  Fabian snapped straight so fast that he nearly smacked a middle-aged couple crossing out to join the dance forming as they walked behind him. “I am Count Fabian Anthony Eduardo Camoni,” he announced in a loud voice, drawing even more attention. Instantly, his shoulders sagged. “And I am ruined.”

  Alice dropped her hand from her mouth but continued to gape, sympathy and worry bubbling through her. “I’m so sorry to hear that, my lord,” she said.

  “What do you mean, ruined?” her father barked.

  “I—” Fabian rubbed a hand over his face and sighed. “I cannot talk about it, sir. The pain is….” He paused, shaking his head, then whispered, “Too great.”

  Alice’s insides fell into a jumble of conflicting emotion. It didn’t matter how much of an instrument of her father’s machinations Fabian was, he was clearly a man in distress. Distress that was the complete opposite of the command and sensuality he’d displayed with her the other night. As much as she hated it, he was her fiancé, and he was in trouble.

  “Is there anything I can do?” she asked, taking a half step away from her father toward Fabian, brow lifted in cautious inquiry.

  Fabian glanced to her…and Alice thought she caught a hint of mischief in his eyes. Her heart missed a beat. A moment later, Fabian took her arm and clung to her as though she were a lifeboat come to rescue him from a storm.

  “Stay with me,” he pleaded with her, his pathos so acute that it was unmanly. “Whatever happens next, you must stay with me.”

  “Of course,” Alice answered before thinking about it.

  “Has something happened?” her father asked, jaw tight, darting a glance around the room as more and more people craned their necks to see what was going on.

  Fabian merely shook his head and made a show of reaching for Alice’s hand. He fumbled it a few times, swaying slightly, before catching it and resting her hand in the crook of his arm. “There’s naught to do at a time like this but weep and sing the songs of my people,” he said before taking a deep breath and bursting into some sort of Italian peasant song at the top of his voice.

  All around them, fussy older ladies and stiff gentlemen gasped and started. The ladies fanned themselves in alarm and the gentlemen huffed and quivered in outrage. Alice caught herself laughing before she could stop herself. Fabian had quite a good voice, in spite of the outrageousness of his song. He flung his free arm wide, knocking the old-fashioned wig on a pale-faced woman sideways. Alice laughed harder, smacking her free hand over her mouth.

  “Stop your ridiculous behavior this instant,” her father hissed, inching closer to Fabian but glaring around at anyone who dared to stare at them. “It is unbecoming for a man in your position.”

  “Ah,” Fabian half said, half sang, his shoulders drooping again. “But you see, I am not
a man in my position anymore.”

  “What?” her father’s snapped question drew as much unwanted attention as Fabian’s singing had.

  Fabian drew in a breath. Just when Alice thought she would have an answer to his odd behavior, Lord Farnsworth rushed toward them, thumping a steadying hand on Fabian’s back.

  “You must excuse my step-brother, sir,” Lord Farnsworth told Alice’s father. “He’s had a bit of a shock.”

  “Shock?” her father asked, suspicion pinching his face.

  “Such a dreadful shock,” Fabian sighed with theatrical intensity.

  Alice narrowed her eyes in suspicion as well, but of a different sort than her father’s. Theatrical. Fabian’s eyes sparkled when he stole a glance at her. He was acting. Something was amiss, but she couldn’t begin to imagine what would prompt him to put on such a performance in a room full of his mother’s esteemed guests.

  “I do not see how I will ever recover,” he said with a sob in his voice. A false sob, Alice was sure.

  “You are drawing untoward attention,” her father growled through clenched teeth. “Pull yourself together, man.”

  “Yes, yes, I must do something,” Fabian said, holding Alice’s arm tighter and starting toward the side of the room. “I must do something soon.”

  Alice had the feeling he was about to do something shocking. She skipped along at his side all the same, feeling as though she were a carefree girl again, at play with friends.

  “Count Camoni, I insist you cease this ridiculousness at once and tell me what has happened,” her father demanded, following them to the side of the room. “I am to be your father-in-law in two days. It is my right to know what has befallen.”

  Lord Farnsworth came with them. It was he who answered, “Disaster, my lord.”

  Alice pressed her lips shut, watching Lord Farnsworth with wide eyes. He was obviously in on the joke as well.

  “Spill it, man,” her father hissed.

  Lord Farnsworth took up a position on Fabian’s other side, patting his back as though he were a disappointed child. “His Italian lands, sir,” he said in a hushed voice. “They’re gone.”