A flutter moved through her belly at those noble words, but she doubted he meant them. Still, it was a nice gesture and she wished she could lean upon his strength, both physically and mentally. She missed that aspect of being with a man so much.
“I have your best interests at heart.” Colin gained his feet and when he moved to sit beside her, Lucy sprang into a standing position, battling to remain upright in the tilting coach.
“No. I cannot wait here for death.” I cannot put myself in a position to let him hurt me further. “If you want to remain for the sake of the wager you’d risk everything for, God bless you and I wish you well.” With the carriage blanket in one hand and the strings of her reticule about the wrist of the other, she unlatched the door, waited until it swung open and then she hopped down into the deep snow drift that came a few inches past her knees, for she was shorter than Colin. “I must do something to save myself. I have to see my children. I will not pass another Christmas in misery.”
“Lucy!” Was that panic in the one-word cry? Surely not.
She ignored his call. Instead, she wrapped the carriage blanket about her upper body and slogged through the snow, moving away from the coach that tilted drunkenly to one side. After a handful of steps, it was obvious that she’d made a huge error in judgment, for her foolish, pretty slippers of gold satin with kid soles were not made to hike through snow or the damp, even the handful of inches on the ground, for she tried to skirt around the deeper drifts. Neither was her thin skirting adequate protection from the frigid wind that insisted on blowing her over. A great shiver wracked her body, but she ignored the painful discomfort of the snow and cold that stung her limbs. The only way to reach a goal was to continue, so that’s what she did, regardless of the big snowflakes that stuck to her hair and eyelashes, or the pressing chill.
I cannot wait for a rescue that will not come. I have to survive, just like I always have—without Colin.
She didn’t know how long she’d trudged through the snow, but her feet felt like blocks of ice, the wind stung her face and froze the tears to her cheeks, and her fingers could no longer move even if she wished to let go of the blanket.
“Lucy Hudson, I demand that you stop this instant!” Colin’s shout echoed eerily in the frosty air. The snow-laden branches of both deciduous and fir trees muffled any sound save the hiss of snowflakes landing upon countless others.
But his use of her maiden name brought her to a halt. She yelled over her shoulder, “I haven’t been that girl for many years.”
“And well I know it.” His boots made a crunching sound as he came closer. “That has been the trouble during this whole trip, I think. I’ve been struggling under the notion that you were the same girl I knew back then, when you are clearly a completely different woman, though we share memories.”
Lucy continued her path. She didn’t want to help him through a muddle of thoughts. Not now, not when her own were fragile and still sparkling with a silly hope. “Some things are best left in the past.”
“I don’t accept that.” Two seconds after his words faded, something cold and wet slammed into her back, hitting right between her shoulder blades. “Memories are a good foundation, and I refuse to consign you to them.”
The man had thrown a snowball at her! With a huff of annoyance, Lucy swung around to look at him through the falling white flakes. “What the devil are you on about, Colin? This is hardly the venue for conversation.”
“Oh, indeed, I agree. However, this conversation has been brewing between us this whole week. Perhaps longer, and I won’t delay it further.”
Her breath puffed around her, but he was already scooping up another handful of snow. When he lobbed it in her direction, she darted out of the way. “You insufferable man.” They were not children any longer; his actions were outside of enough. Willing her frozen fingers to work, Lucy bent down and quickly formed a snowball of her own, patting it into shape, the snow hopelessly wetting the thin kid of her gloves. “I have nothing else to say to you.”
Then she hurled the snowball. It hit his left shoulder but did no damage.
“Is that really true, though?” Again, he threw a snowball. Lucy wasn’t quick enough and the icy cold missile smacked her in the chest. Tiny shards escaped down her bodice. “I saw the questions in your eyes, the need, and quite frankly, I’m of the hope that what you want mirrors my own wishes.”
“Temporary insanity, nothing more.” Flutters filled her belly, but she ignored the response. “What you want is reaching the Hall to win your father’s wager. It’s always been about that.” She formed another snowball and threw it. “Ha!” When it knocked his top hat from his head, she grinned. Then she sobered. “When the coach broke a wheel, you panicked because it’s already dusk and you’ll not make it home.”
“No.” He shook his head, choosing to leave his hat in the snow in favor of approaching her. His lake blue eyes were a vivid contrast against the white snow. “I panicked because you bolted out here like a ninny, and...”
“And?” She lifted an eyebrow while she formed another snowball.
“And I’m not strong enough to lose you again.”
Chapter Fourteen
Lucy tightened her fingers on the snowball. “I find that hard to believe,” she whispered. The wind flapped at her skirts, clawed at her cloak and the frigid blast froze her to the core. “You couldn’t wait to gain the Hall.”
“Because I have a Christmas gift waiting for you, and I wished to make certain all had been arranged,” he explained with a mysterious grin curving his sensuous lips. “I don’t give one damn about Father’s wager, and haven’t for a couple of days. Would you like to know what I’ve planned?”
A shiver ripped down her spine, but despite the weather, curiosity raged. He’d gotten her a gift for Christmas without being prompted, or from guilt. Unable to form words, she nodded.
He took a step closer, and reaching out, he dumped the snowball from her palm but kept hold of her freezing fingers. “I’ve put in an offer to buy Jacob’s London townhouse, Lucy. Those couriers I sent? One was bound for London. I realize he won’t make it by tomorrow, but I hope the property hasn’t already sold. The other courier went to the Hall in the hopes of reaching my father’s solicitor to draw up the paperwork.”
“You did what?” She could scarcely believe her ears as she gaped at him, standing so noble as the snow fell about his head and shoulders. Why would he do such a thing?
“I’ve put forth an offer to buy your townhouse, so you’ll still have a home after Christmas and your children won’t need to be uprooted.” When he smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkled. “It’s my gift to you.” He swallowed hard. “It’s my hope that Jacob now knows I’ve forgiven him. This is what he’d want.”
Tears stung her eyes, made worse by the wind and the constantly falling snowflakes. “While I thank you for the gift, I cannot accept. It’s so much money, when you and I are not...” Words failed her and tears crowded her throat.
“We aren’t at present, but I’d like to be,” he whispered. “The profits of the sale you may put toward your children’s education.” Another grin played at his mouth and this one had heat reaching to all points of her body. “What say you, Lucy? Will you grant me permission to court you and see where we land this time?”
Every fear she’d harbored during their journey had been alleviated with one sweep of Colin’s hand. He’d opened his heart and let the spirit of Christmas come sailing inside, and as she stood regarding him with her head tilted and her heart thumping madly, she offered him a tiny smile. “It’s all so incredible that I scarcely believe this is happening.”
Uncertainty clouded his eyes. “Is that a yes?” He tightened his fingers on hers. The cold numbness recalled her attention.
Did she want to make a fresh start with him, the man he was now, and put the past behind them, keeping only the happy memories? Her pulse accelerated and the warmth of a blush slapped at her frozen cheeks. Perhaps he was all
she’d ever wanted since those halcyon days of her youth. And here he was, willing to try again, and he was a changed man in oh so many ways. Why had she not seen it before?
The last of her worries fell away as if someone had released her from the heavy shackles of grief and regret she’d carried around for so many years. “Yes.” She nodded, and in the event he didn’t understand, she said in a more forceful voice, “Yes!” Then Lucy threw herself into his arms so suddenly and with such momentum that he toppled backward. They landed in the snow, limbs tangled, and she laughed. Oh how good it felt to laugh without anything attached to it that would bring sorrow.
“Ah, Lucy.” Colin wrapped his arms around her and kissed her, long and deep. She forgot about the snow and the cold. Finally, he encouraged her from his body and then helped her stand upright. “Perhaps we should find shelter.” That wicked twinkle reappeared in his eyes. “I’d very much like to continue what we’ve started, but don’t wish to find myself buried in the snow for the rest of the winter.”
Lucy giggled. She held fast to his hand, suddenly afraid he’d vanish and this swelling happiness would dissolve. “Well, you did tell your driver you knew the area well, though I’m not certain a family willing to share their hearth and home would look kindly upon a couple rediscovering their feelings for one another. The magic of Christmas or not.”
For the moment, she didn’t care. There was her and there was him. They were together.
Lucy sat on the dusty floor of an abandoned cottage Colin had managed to locate through the driving snow. She extended her hands to the cheerful flames as she marveled at how he’d managed to build and light a fire in the hearth. The cottage was cozy enough, and hadn’t been occupied for at least six months, but the windows were sound, the roof dry, and there was no evidence of rodents. It would be enough to wait out the weather.
While he puttered around, her mind spun with recent events, even as her lips tingled with the memory of his kisses. Courted by the viscount. How lovely and a touch... disconcerting. What if he didn’t care for the woman she’d grown into?
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said near her ear, and she started.
“How?” She turned, meeting his gaze as he set about laying out a makeshift pallet, and when he smoothed a pile of blankets and quilts near her position, she moved and let him finish. “I never uttered a word.”
“You didn’t have to.” Colin shrugged out of his greatcoat and then draped it over a straight-backed wooden chair nearby. He toed off his boots and stripped off his gloves, dropping them near the hearth where her gloves rested. “You were holding your bottom lip between your teeth. What are you worried about?”
She sighed as he took her cloak and the lap blanket from her. The garments were draped over a matching chair. “You. Us. The future.” It was highly improper to accept a gift from a man who wasn’t betrothed to her, let alone a whole townhouse, and though he’d spoken of courtship and a future, he never mentioned marriage. I will not fill the role of mistress for him.
Colin sat on the pallet. “I found these quilts and such in a cupboard in the hall. There’s one bedroom, but the mattress is rather worse for wear, so I figured we might wish to pass the night in front of the fire. For warmth.” He peered into her face. “As for us, all will be well.”
“How can you know that? We fell apart the last time.”
“We weren’t ready for what life entailed then. We lived very much in a fairytale, wrapped in innocent love.” With his eyes twinkling in the firelight, he crossed his legs at the ankle and then he encouraged her to stretch out by putting her feet into his lap.
“Colin, what...?”
“Hush. You’re cold, and no doubt your toes are frozen.” He plucked the hopelessly ruined slippers off her feet and tossed them away. “As for life, the two of us have experience and grief between us. It’s a thread that binds and will better suit us for anything we’ll face.”
She didn’t answer for the simple fact that she couldn’t, for he’d begun to massage her feet and toes. His touch warmed her far more than the fire at her back. It was so scandalous being here with him, regardless of the fact she was a widow and little scrutiny would fall upon her. “Colin...”
“Hmm?” With a slight smile curving his lips, he caressed his magical fingers up her calves, rubbing, stroking, building the need he’d started during their kisses at the posting inn. “Are you quite certain you wish to keep conversing?” He inclined an eyebrow. “With words?” And he moved his hands ever higher to sweep across her knees.
“No.” Tingles chased over her skin, intensifying everywhere he touched. She wanted his hands all over her body, to discover how else he could make her feel, to experience all the wonder of having his manly, muscled form pressing against hers, moving with her. Already reclining on her elbows, she looked at him from slightly hooded lids. No, she refused to become his mistress, but she wanted this coupling, in this moment, to soothe the ragged pieces of their fractured past. “Love me, Colin.”
“Ah, my darling, I rather think I’ve never stopped,” he whispered, and he shifted his position until he came over her body just as she’d hoped, his lips on hers.
Lucy gave herself into his care with her only attention returning his kisses and matching his caresses. When she plucked at the buttons on his jacket, he lifted off her to rest on his knees, his hot gaze holding hers. “I want to see you, Colin. All of you, finally, after all these years.” Was that really her voice, that throaty, seductive sound?
“I have waited a long time indeed to hears those words.” Never had she seen a man undress so quickly or efficiently. Perhaps it wasn’t the most romantic way to accomplish the task, but it got the job done, for soon he waited on his knees in his masculine glory with the firelight burnishing his skin, throwing shadows over his torso accentuating ridges on his abdomen and sculpting muscles of his chest and shoulders.
“Dear Lord, you’re magnificent.” Lucy forgot how to breathe as she raked her gaze over his form. She surged onto her knees as well merely to dance her fingertips along the breadth of his shoulders, stroke them through the butterfly-shaped mat of dark hair covering his upper chest. Her heartbeat accelerated. Need and desire coiled tight within her. Oh, she wanted this man. Fiercely. It had been years since she’d lain with her husband, and though she enjoyed the carnal side of life, no other man had tempted her, not like Colin.
When she reached to cup his impressive and quite aroused equipage, he stayed her hand. “Not until you’re as naked as I,” he murmured. With a few deft tugs of her gown, he had the shimmering, soft fabric off her body. It landed in a heap with his to one side of the pallet. “Do you know how many nights I dreamed of you like this, tortured myself with such an image, knowing I could have had you but our quarrel and my pride lost you forever?” he asked, his voice thick with emotion.
Her chin wobbled as she helped remove her petticoat, stays, and shift until she waited unashamedly bared for his perusal. “I was at fault as much as you.” They’d wasted so much time, years they could have been together, lived with each other, built very different memories than they shared now.
“Tonight, we start again, wiser this time, and ready.” Then he kissed her, gently claimed her mouth as he laid her down on the pallet, his body over hers.
Lucy sighed. She explored him as much as he did her, covering his skin with nips and feather-weighted kisses, tracing his body with the intent of memorizing every bit of him. When she closed her fingers around his engorged length, her sigh blended with his moan, and he wrapped his hand around hers to show her how he liked being pleasured. She smiled with pure feminine satisfaction, for she needed no help—men were all the same—and hadn’t she felt this part of him years ago through the fabric of his breeches?
Soon, kisses and caresses gave way to lips and mouths on sensitive parts, and when he drew a hand between her legs and found that all-important swollen button at her center, Lucy cried out with wonder and need. Over and over he rubbed that
piece of flesh, and all too soon she fell into her first release for at least five years.
Shaking, as waves of pleasure rolled over her, she grabbed hold of Colin’s shoulders and tugged him close. “I need you in me,” she whispered and followed the command with a light bite to his earlobe.
“I live to serve,” he said and once more kissed her until her head spun and her world tilted. He encouraged her thighs wider and then he fit his hips within the cradle of her legs, the tip of his length flirting with her opening. “Damn, Lucy, never in my dreams could I know just how good you feel.” With a gentle flex, he impaled her and didn’t stop until he was fully seated.
“Oh, yes...” Sensations raced through her and she wanted to stretch from the grand pleasure of them, of him. She looped her arms about his shoulders, and lifting her legs, she wrapped them about his waist, locking her ankles at the small of his back. Every thrust scraped the coarse hair on his chest over her sensitized nipples, which loosed an avalanche of awareness over her.
“This feels right,” he said in a low voice as he paused, their bodies joined. “It’s as it should have been long ago.” Colin shifted. He laid her out flat on the pallet, grabbed her hands in his and shoved them above her head, pinning them to the quilts. “I love you, Lucy.”
Oh, to hear those words again after so much time!
And then he stroked into her body, joining them further, irrevocably—forever. There was no returning to the people they’d been before.
She clasped his fingers, stared into his eyes that were dark with desire and shining with the love he spoke of. The rest of her heart he didn’t already own flew into his keeping, and she moved with him until they discovered a rhythm all their own, and the winter world outside dissolved.
All too soon, the pressure building inside broke, and Lucy shattered. A keening cry left her throat. She clung to Colin’s hands as if she’d suddenly vanish or wake up from this wonderful dream. As waves of bliss rushed over her and her inner walls contracted about his member, he grunted, whispered her name and ultimately collapsed on top of her, his hard angles pressing into her softer curves as his ragged breathing rang in her ear.
Wagering on Christmas Page 14
