The vicar shifted to Callie.
“Miss Callisto Georgiana Middleton, wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honor, and keep him in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?”
“I will,” she said with a voice that trembled slightly, then she smiled.
A few seconds later, they were declared man and wife. Callie laughed, the sound light and joyous. And as if he could not help himself, Graham drew her to him and pressed a kiss to her forehead, then over her nose, and then softly on her lips, ignoring the tittering of the guests in the pews. Powerful emotions darkened his eyes. “I love you, Callisto, most ardently.”
“And I love you,” she whispered achingly.
“Now, let’s go home,” he murmured. “Then we’ll honeymoon in Italy and Paris.”
Home. Lacing their gloved hands together, they turned down the aisle and walked toward their future, which promised happiness.
About Stacy Reid
STACY REID writes sensual Historical and Paranormal Romances. Her debut novella was a 2015 HOLT Award of Merit recipient in the Romance Novella category, while her bestselling Wedded by Scandal series is among the top picks by Night Owl Reviews, Fresh Fiction Reviews, and The Romance Reviews. Stacy spends a copious amount of time binge-watching The Walking Dead, Homeland, and Altered Carbon, watching Japanese Anime and playing video games with her love.
She also has a weakness for ice cream and will have it as her main course.
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The Christmas Countess
A Valor of Vinehill Novella
Chapter 1
Badenoch, Scotland
December, 1822
She was sinking now. Sinking up to her knees.
Every step her boots would descend deeper into the fluffy, bitter torture—the snow crusting about the top edges of her boots, rings of ice around her calves.
One more step.
It had to be only one more step.
When Karta had set out into the storm after the barn door wouldn’t open for the drift in front of it, there’d still been daylight cutting through the greyness of the thick clouds blanketing the land with freezing snow.
It had seemed possible.
Make it to Kirkmere Abbey. It was only an hour walk on a sunny day.
Maggie’s life depended upon her making it there.
But now…
Karta’s look shifted up from the undulating waves of snow, searching through the pellets of ice searing into her skin—each one a freezing pinprick. An eerie white glow from the moon had taken over the land as the snow had stopped falling from the sky, but now the wind whipped across the glen, vicious, blinding her to her own hand in front of her face.
If she could just make it to the woodlands that lined the eastern border of Kirkmere land, the wind would be broken. Broken enough for her to see the path again. Broken enough that her legs could move through the snow without battling the drifts that made every muscle in her body scream against the torture.
Keep forward.
Her breathing had been slight ever since she left the dowager house, afraid to let the freezing air too deeply into her lungs. But exhaustion had set in and she needed air. Real air. Needed to stop her head from swaying.
Karta sucked in a gulp of frigid air. It chilled her from the inside out, the cold seeping even deeper into her bones.
Keep forward.
The only option.
She tucked her chin back down, sinking it behind the edge of the wool cloak she held clasped at her neck and she tugged the edge of the hood far over her forehead.
Thirty more steps—each one a struggle as the snow devoured her legs, holding tight to her feet as she tried to lift them from the heavy drifts—and she felt no further than she had been minutes ago.
She stopped, hunched over against the bitter wind and gasping for air. Her breath so cold it no longer puffed into cloud crystals as she exhaled. Each muscle in her body railed against her, demanding she yield, demanding she stop. Lie down.
Maggie. Maggie was dying. There was no time to stop.
With a screech, she yanked her right foot from the bank of snow it was wedged in. Five more steps and her shoulder knocked into a tree she didn’t see.
The forest.
Almost there.
She just had to make it through a hundred yards of woods and then across the sheep fields and help would be at hand.
Her hand lifted from deep within the thick folds of her cloak, her fingers clutching the bark of the tree through her leather gloves. The forest would guide her. It had to.
Keep forward.
Chapter 2
Domnall Greyford muttered incoherent blasphemies under his breath as he walked to the east side door of Kirkmere Abbey. “Blasted pup, you couldn’t take care of this on the journey here?”
He looked down at his favorite deerhound. No longer a pup, Theodora was full grown now, the wiry grey hairs atop her head reaching the middle of his thigh. Though for how tall he was, she was equally tall among her breed.
She whined again, looking insistently from him to the door. He didn’t move quick enough and she nudged her nose under his hand.
Shaking his head, he opened the door. They’d just spent the last four hours making their way through the snowstorm to get to the abbey and he hadn’t even taken his greatcoat off. Somewhere in that time, Theodora could have stopped to do her business.
The deerhound took off into the eerie white of the snow under the moon. She bounded through the tall drifts, her long legs and compact body only slightly hindered by the banks of snow. The bitter wind had died down, no longer blinding the land, though sudden gusts of whirling snow still danced over the fields.
Theodora kept going. And going.
Directly away from the abbey.
“Theodora.”
He whistled.
She kept moving away, turning into a dark spec bouncing along the white blanket of snow.
“Little bugger.” The last thing he wanted was to go back out in the blasted cold. They’d only just made it here. He looked over his shoulder with a sigh. It wasn’t as though it was any warmer in the abbey.
Two days from Christmastide, most of the staff had left the abbey to celebrate with their families. Only the head butler, the housekeeper, and the cook had stayed in residence.
Not that he minded. He’d not sent word that he was arriving and he’d rather the employees enjoy the days away—the last thing he wanted with his new staff was to ruin their Christmastide. The only issue upon his arrival with three of his men was that there were only two fires burning in the abbey, and both were in the servants’ quarters.
It would take some time for his men to get the fires lit and for warmth to eke back into several of the main rooms.
Domnall stuck his head out the door, took a deep breath, and sent a long piercing whistle into the land. Theodora always came to that whistle. Always.
His eyes scanned the white terrain under the glow of the moon.
Nothing.
He whistled again.
Barking.
Short yippy barks, echoing over the fields. Like nothing he’d ever heard from the deerhound.
“Dammit.” Domnall stepped out of the abbey, tugging the door closed behind him as he crunched into the first drift of snow. It reached up past his shins, just below his knees. Deeper than he’d thought it was. The horses had been champions, trudging through the drifts with steadfast endurance.
The barking stopped an
d he whistled again.
The barks resumed.
He saw Theodora running toward him, leaping over banks of snow. Good.
He waited for her, another whistle poised on his lips were she to go rogue again.
A hundred paces away from him, she stopped, her short yippy barks firing into the air.
Barks, then she twisted in the snow, jumping high over a drift and running away from him again.
“Bloody mutt.” He pulled the lapels of his overcoat tight up against his chin and trudged forward. He would throttle the hound when he got a hold of her.
It wasn’t until he was halfway across the field that led out to the east of the abbey that he realized he was doing exactly what Theodora wanted him to do.
Follow her.
He’d thought he’d been chasing the miscreant—a fun game for her and no one else—but after the fourth time she turned around, coming back for him and then ran away through the snow in front of him, he realized she was leading him.
Three quarters of the way across the field, Theodora stopped, barking, her wiry head popping up and down behind a drift to make sure he was still following.
He sped up his steps in her tracks.
His breath coming in pants for the exertion of trudging through the snow, he reached the last tall drift ten paces away from his hound.
He saw it. The dark lump half buried in the snow. Theodora licking deep into the folds of the cape.
He barreled his way through the last drift, sending snow flying.
A dark cloak covering the body, the head. A woman curled into a ball on her side. He bent over, brushing snow away from her shoulder and he rolled her onto her back.
Her body moved easily, not stiff. Possibly not even dead.
With frozen fingers he shifted the hood of the cloak away from her face to set his hand at her nose to feel for breath.
Hell.
A face he recognized. A face he would always recognize.
No. Impossible. It couldn’t be.
But it was.
His hands fumbling through the folds of the cape, he found her shoulders and gripped them, shaking her. Too hard, he knew. But she couldn’t be dead. No.
He shook her again.
Her eyelashes crusted over with ice, she didn’t open her eyes. But her hand lifted, searching until she found the sturdiness of his arm and grabbed it with all her might, weak as it was.
Her mouth opened, her voice raw wisps. The wind howling through the trees just beyond them drowned whatever sound escaped her lips.
“What? Tell me again.” He leaned down close to her mouth, his ear next to her lips.
“Mag—Maggie—m—m—maid. Dying.” Her words stuttered as she gasped a breath that shook her whole body. “Everyone’s g—gone at the Leviton dower h—h—house. Doc—doctor. She needs a doctor. Send a doc...”
Her last words drifted into nothing.
Her hand fell from his arm, her body giving up.
For one long breath he was frozen in time, frozen above her, unable to move for the horror of finding her here like this.
Theodora barked, nudging her cold nose into his neck.
He sucked in a breath and bent over. Sliding his hands deep into the snow under her legs and back, he picked her up, clutching her to his body.
“I got ye, Karta. I got ye.”
Chapter 3
Her feet. Warmth pressing into them. Heat where there was none. Again and again, the muscles of her feet bending, twisting into the swaddle of heat.
The sensation so odd, it pulled her mind from the blackness it was in.
Fire was near her. Warmth on her left cheek. The scent of smoke filling her nostrils.
Heaviness on her body, weighing her down—her arms, her torso, her thighs. But not her feet. Her feet were in the air.
Karta opened her eyes, instantly realizing that the ice that had formed on her lashes was now gone. The cold was gone. It had set deep into her bones, still freezing her from the inside out, but all around her was heat. Not cold.
Her eyes blurry for a moment, she had to concentrate hard on the figure by her feet. She squinted, her look clearing.
No. Not possible.
She squinted harder, the bright white of his shirt hurting her eyes for the darkness they had just been drowning in.
“Dom?”
The head on the figure turned to her. “Aye.”
His voice. But he couldn’t be real. She glanced around her. Fire to her left. The back of a long, blue upholstered settee to her right. Hefty wooden beams above her. Layers of heavy blankets atop her. She wasn’t at the dowager house.
Domnall’s hands—his hands on her bare feet were causing the most oddly wonderful sensations about her toes.
A dream. This was a dream.
A dream she wanted to stay in.
Her gaze landed on him. “Are you real or is this a dream?”
“Real, lass.”
Her look drifted from him to stare at the white plaster between the heavy beams above. What sort of cruel world had she fallen into where she was alive in front of a fire with the one man—of all the countless people in the world—that had broken her heart long ago?
She drew in a shaky breath. “We are at Kirkmere Abbey?”
“Aye.”
“I made it?”
“Ye had a spot of help from Theodora.”
Her look dropped to him, her brow wrinkling. “Theodora?”
“My hound.” He inclined his head to the deerhound curled next to the hearth, its big black eyes open and watchful on them, even as it had nestled close into the lazy comfort of the fire.
Her look whipped to Domnall. “Maggie—Maggie—my maid, she’s—“
“She’s sick. Ye told me. I sent one of my men to fetch the physician and two to fetch Maggie.”
“They’re bringing her here?”
“Aye. Ye said there was no one there—or at least there better not be, for why else would ye get it into your fool head to walk into a snowstorm that had whited out the sky.”
“There isn’t. It was just us—the rest of the staff is gone for Christmastide.”
His fingers rubbing her feet stopped and his jaw shifted, tensed, just like it always had years ago when he was beyond irate with her.
She studied his profile. He had the dark scruff of a week’s worth of a beard covering his face, blending up along his cheek into his light brown hair. His dark blue eyes, the color of her deepest indigo dress, were set solidly on the crackling fire four feet to her left. Crinkles of lines around his eyes made him look older. Older than when she’d last seen him six years past.
He wore only a lawn shirt, and at that, he still looked hot. The blazing fire wasn’t helping with that. And had he always been this big, this strong? Or was it that she’d been surrounded by small, thin men for too long?
His head turned to her, his dark blue eyes pinning her. “What the blasted hell were ye doing out in that storm, Karta?”
“I wasn’t about to let Maggie die. I was of no help to her—the only thing I could do was come for help.”
“So you’d have both of ye dead instead of just one of ye? A fool’s mission that was.”
“Dom—”
“Why didn’t ye take a horse?” His hand clamped onto her right foot and squeezed it. Hard, but for how the touch seared heat into her, she’d take it.
“I may be a fool but I’m not an idiot.” She met his glare, the indignant fire in her chest warming her more than the blankets. “I went to the stable first to get a mare, but the snow had drifted in front of the doors and I couldn’t get them open more than a crack. Not enough for me to even get into the barn. I thought there was enough time to get here before nightfall. The snow was easing, but then the wind came up when I was only a quarter of the way here. It blinded me. But I thought I could still make it.”
“You were always too stubborn.” The words grumbled, he tore his gaze away from her, his look landing on the fire. His fingers sta
rted massaging her feet on his lap again.
Heaven. Absolute heaven, even if her bones felt like ice.
She shifted under the heavy blankets, her hand rubbing across her belly.
Bare skin.
She moved her fingers around. Bare skin on her belly. On her arms. On her chest. On her legs.
Her head lifted off the pillow.
“Dom, I’m stripped to the bare under here.”
He met her look straight on. “That ye are.”
“No.” Her head twisted to the side though she kept her gaze locked on him. “Did you?”
He shrugged. “Of course I did. The fire was barely sputtering when I got ye back here. You were soaked to the bone and I had to get the freeze of the snow off of ye.”
“But—”
“But nothing. I averted my eyes.” A slight grin lifted his right cheek. “My hands didn’t slip…much.”
“Dom—”
“I tease.” He patted her ankle. “It was frightening how I managed to undress you with the utmost propriety. Even an Almack’s patroness would have approved.”
She exhaled an exasperated groan and her head fell back down onto the pillow. Coming from any other man, she wouldn’t believe those words. But with Domnall…she believed him. Twinkle in his blue eyes and all.
He pointed to the middle of the blankets. “Are your fingers still blue?”
She pulled her right hand free of the cover of blankets and held it in front of her. Though the muscles hurt—hell, every inch of her body ached raw—the color of her fingers seemed normal. She turned the tops of her fingers to Domnall.
He leaned over her legs, his eyes squinting at them in the light of the fire. “Aye. They look much better than they did.”
She tucked her hand under the heavy wool blankets, watching him as he watched the fire and rubbed her feet.
Impossible.
She couldn’t quite grasp the twist of fate that had sent him here to the baron’s abbey and into her path. She’d given up years ago on ever seeing Domnall again.
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