He hadn’t shown at the ball. Hadn’t shown until the day after.
And the pain of that moment—of that destruction he’d caused in her heart—still vibrated six years later in her amber brown eyes.
Pain he needed to make disappear.
Pain he had no words to lessen.
He stepped toward her, closing the space between them, his body brushing against her arms clamped in front of her.
His hands clasped onto her face and he leaned down, his lips meeting hers in a storm. She stilled for a second, her body going rigid, almost as though she was to fight it.
But then her lips parted to him.
Parted to him, but angry. Angry that he was here. Angry at what they had lost. Angry that she still could not deny him—deny how their bodies needed each other. He absorbed all of that in the kiss as she met him with fire in every breath, every swipe of his tongue against her lips.
She didn’t back away. She met him move for move like she always had.
He pulled slightly up, his voice raw. “Whatever you thought, Karta, you have it wrong. You were always the one—the only—important thing.”
She flinched, her voice cracking. “Then where were you?”
“I don’t even know.” He shook his head, his look going to the ceiling. “Out for the marquess, checking on the new flocks, if I recall. But I do remember I was muddy and exhausted and I had to clean myself before appearing at your father’s home and I thought you would understand.”
“So it was just another time you chose the almighty Vinehill estate over me.”
His look dropped to her, skewering her. “Ye ken that’s not true. That it was never true.”
“Wasn’t it? Because your bloody loyalty to them was all I ever heard about from you. Every excuse I ever heard from your lips was lined with the needs of Vinehill.”
Her arms unthreaded from her chest. “We couldn’t be together because I was betrothed to Vinehill men—first Jacob, then Lachlan. We couldn’t be together because the marquess needed you to scour the estate for his blasted sheep. We couldn’t be together because Lachlan needed you to tramp about the countryside with him, scouting roadways. We couldn’t be together because you had to go out to collect the rents. We couldn’t be together because you couldn’t leave the family in crisis after the fire that took Jacob. We couldn’t be together for hundreds of reasons and every single one of them had to do with Vinehill.”
His lips pulled inward, this battle that he’d fought with her a thousand times rearing up from deep in the past. “Ye know why I’m loyal to them. Ye cannot ask me to be otherwise.”
“I can’t?” She grabbed his upper arm, the touch sending fire into his veins.
The first time she’d voluntarily reached out and touched him since he’d found her in the snow.
Her look pinned him. “I know you were an orphan. I know they took you in. I know that they built you up to be all that you are. I know that they are your family. But what about me, Dom?”
His stare shifted from her, fixating on the silver platters of food on the sideboard.
“Look me in the eye, Dom.” Her fingers dug into the muscles in his upper arm.
His jaw flexing, his gaze dropped to her.
“What about me? What about living for yourself? For me? That was what we were going to do. Us, together, a farm, a flock of sheep—I didn’t care. All I wanted was you. And you know the marquess would have given you whatever you asked for. He’s a wicked old devil, but he rewards those that are loyal—and there have been none more loyal than you. He regards you as one of his grandsons.”
Everything she said he knew to be true. And that grated on him all the more. “I had planned to do all of that, Karta. But I didn’t know I was on a blasted time limit.”
“You didn’t know?” She shook his arm. “No, don’t try that, Dom. I told you—I told you how important it was for you to be at that ball. I told you our life together depended upon it.”
“Yes, but you’d said that before, again and again—our future depended on me being somewhere—at a ball, at the horse racing your father sponsors, at the Vinehill dinners. Our future always depended on those things—but all those I missed, it was because I was working on our future, working on how I would exit Vinehill.”
Her body stilled, her hand dropping from his arm. “Yes, well, you ran out of time.”
She took a step backward—away—and her hip bumped into the chair.
“Don’t move away from me, not now.” The words came out in a low roar.
“Why not now, Dom?”
“Not when you are in front of me for the first time in six years and I realize exactly how I failed ye. Not when there is the slightest possibility that I can right whatever wrongs there were of the past. Not when I want ye more than I ever have. Not when this unlikely gift of the two of us together again—trapped, with nothing but time—appeared out of nowhere just before Christmas.”
He stepped closer, staring down at her, waiting. Waiting for the slightest motion, the slightest indication that all was not lost between them.
Her dark lashes fell closed. Her chest rising in one breath. Two. Three.
Her full lips parted. “It can’t be the same, Dom.”
He stared at her closed eyes. She was teetering. Opening up her heart to the possibility.
His words rumbled low from his chest. “I don’t want it the same. I want you. However you come to me now, I take ye.”
Her brown eyes, warm with streaks of honey gold, opened to him. Uncertainty, but it was there in her look. The possibility.
His mouth descended on hers, taking her into a kiss.
He felt it instantly, the quiver that ran through her, that sent her body pressing into his. He parted his lips, edging hers open. No resistance. Plunging. Descending into the depths of the kiss, the draw of how their bodies had always needed to be touching.
His tongue slipped out and tasted the sweetness of her mouth. Sweetness and heat. Matching him with every swipe of his tongue, every shift of his lips.
The slightest mewl bubbled in her throat and her hand lifted, her fingers burying into the back of his hair. Holding him close, not letting him leave her for even a breath.
His hand on the small of her back trailed upward along her side, his thumb curving under the swell of her breasts. She didn’t jerk away, only leaned into his touch. His fingers went up, rubbing across her nipple, dipping beneath the lace that lined the bodice of her dress. Down. Further. Deeper until he reached the dimpled skin of her nipple. He rolled the bud in his fingers and she gasped, her head slipping backward as a low hum vibrated in her throat.
Her neck bared to him, he descended, his lips hungry on her skin, trailing downward. He was at her nipple before the thought of control entered into his head. He set his lips to it, his tongue swirling over the nubbin, sparking it to strain deeper into his mouth as her hips pressed into him, swaying against his already throbbing cock.
He took the nubbin between his teeth and it sent a gasp of pleasure from her lips. His gaze lifted upward for one moment to look at her, to watch the pleasure flash across her exquisite features.
Heaven. Heaven in front of him.
His head dipped and he took another swipe of his tongue across her nipple. “Hell, Karta, you taste like summer.”
Words that broke the spell she was under.
She jerked away from him, her fingers rubbing her swollen lips. Her left hand tugged the bodice of her dress up over her nipple as her words came out breathless. “I don’t know if I can do this, Dom.”
“Why not?”
“You’re breaking me and I cannot be broken again.”
“I’m not going to break you, Karta.”
Her hands went up between them, pressing against his chest. “I’m not who I once was. I haven’t been that woman you knew for a long time. Those years with the viscount…they changed me.”
His look narrowed at her. “Don’t tell me you’re still loyal to the
man.” A spike of jealousy sent his gut churning. “I don’t know anything of the viscount, but I know he couldn’t touch ye like I touch you.” He pushed forward into her hands on his chest and kissed her so hard there would be no room in her mind for anyone but him.
He broke contact, yet his lips stayed a hair away, brushing hers. “Kiss ye like I kiss you.”
Her head craned back, her eyes wide. “No, Dom—he was different—different than you. He didn’t touch me like you do.”
He blinked hard. And again. She was still talking about the bastard.
The cold clamp of jealousy slithered around his chest. “So ye thought of me when you were under him?”
She jerked back and slapped him, the sting barely registering through the fury that had gripped him at the thought of her under that decrepit old viscount.
“No.” She fumbled to the side, scrambling away from the table and him, her voice in a screeching whisper. “Leonard was frail and he was nothing like you, Dom. Nothing. “
Domnall stepped away from her, his head shaking as he tried to squelch the jealous rage in his chest. “I apologize. That was out of line.”
“It sure as hell was.” She yanked her bodice fully into place and backed away from him. “Make no mistake. The day I left my father’s home was the day I stopped thinking of you.”
His hands curled into fists at his sides and his voice went bitterly hard. “I don’t believe you, Karta.”
She stalked to the door, her fingers waving in the air, dismissing him. “Believe what you must. Whatever sets your head on a pillow and lets you sleep. It’s not my concern and it never should have been.”
{ Chapter 7 }
He was getting too close.
A day in the same house with the obstinate man and he was already too close to finding his way in, to finding out what she’d become.
She couldn’t have that.
It was clear he didn’t know what had happened to her or he never would have approached her—sat down with her.
Kissed her.
And he could never know. Not for the way his face would crumple when he learned the truth. Not for how he would look at her with disgust once he knew.
Leaving Kirkmere Abbey had been the best choice. Her only choice after that scene in the dining hall. His mouth on hers. His strength around her.
Dangerous. All of it dangerous to her very sanity.
Better to distance herself from him now—this very eve—before everything became so complicated there was no way to untangle her heart from him again.
Karta lifted her hand, rubbing the tip of her cold nose with her leather riding glove. It scratched rough against her skin, the leather still not worn soft again after being soaked by the snow when she had walked to the abbey.
From high on the horse she had borrowed from the Kirkmere stables, Karta’s gaze fell to the dark of the trees that lined the side of the Leviton dower house. The moon reflected bright off the white landscape and sent long black shadows of tree branches to snake along the smooth white snow.
Shadows that taunted her, aching to pull her back into the exile of the Leviton dower house.
Her look moved upward, setting straight ahead to the stable behind the dower house. It had been right to leave the abbey. The doctor had agreed to stay with Maggie until she was well. With luck, Maggie would rejoin her at the dower house in a few days. And then Karta could attempt to pretend the last day and a half had never happened.
She nodded to herself. She would be fine on her own for a few days. It would give her silent time when she could work on purging from her mind the fact that Domnall was now living directly across the glen from her.
The horse nickered, snorting as it stepped through the deep snow up the short hill to the stable.
Her eyes scanned the front of the barn as they approached it. Damn. The snow was still drifted in front of the doors leading into the stable. Even higher than before.
Karta halted the horse, staring for a long moment at the heavy black iron latch holding the doors closed. She exhaled a long sigh, then leaned forward, patting the mare on the side of her neck. “Don’t worry, girl. I’ll get you into the warmth.”
She nudged the horse forward another four steps and then dismounted, dropping with a thud into a drift of snow.
Her fingers were already cold, but there was nothing for it. She couldn’t leave the magnificent beast standing in the freezing cold, nor could she let her own horses go any longer without food and water.
She trudged through the snow, the top layer of it now crusted over to a thin sheet of ice that shattered apart against her knees with every step as she pushed against the drifts.
She stopped before the door on the right, kicking at the drift in front of it with her boot, and then she unhinged the latch and grabbed the black handle, pulling as hard as she could.
The door only opened a hand’s width.
She looked over her shoulder at the horse. “No, you’re a bit bigger than that, aren’t you?”
She swiped the bank of snow a few more times with her feet. It didn’t take long to realize she was getting nowhere, and she bent over, scooping clumps of snow about her legs and tossing them behind her.
The snow now cleared in a small triangle about her boots, she yanked on the door again. It moved. Slightly.
She exhaled out a deep breath of air, the puff freezing into moon-lit crystals before her face. The whole damn area in front of the door would have to be cleared.
Stifling a sigh, she dropped to her knees, sweeping her arms across the snow in long strokes, pushing it away from the door.
Fifteen minutes of shoving snow on her hands and knees and she was panting with sweat on her brow. She looked up from the spot she was in. Only a quarter of the way to the hinges of the door.
Her arms screaming with the effort, she tucked her chin into her chest and dug her knees into the cold ground to keep moving, keep clearing.
How was there this much snow in the world?
Her focus stayed on the white mounds of freezing torture until she heard a faint bark. Or what she thought was a bark. It could have been an angry squirrel, irate that all its nuts were lost under the snow.
Another bark, closer, louder, and her horse whinnied, stepping in place, anxious to be out of the cold.
Karta’s head popped up from below the bank of snow and she searched the white landscape, the moon sending it into an eerie glow. A horse and man appeared beside the main house with a deerhound bounding in front of it, barking, leaping in and out of the snow.
A dog she knew.
A man she knew.
She stayed on her knees, watching him approach, her chest lifting high with each heaving breath she took into her lungs.
By the time his horse sidled up to hers, she’d caught her breath from the exertion of pushing the snow, though it still quivered in her chest, ready to be taken away at any moment.
Domnall always did that to her—quickened her breath, threatened to steal it. Some things never changed, no matter how she pretended that they had.
“Ye bloody well left, Karta.” The thunder in his voice as he halted his horse told her everything she needed to know about his opinion on the matter.
Her gloved hands thudded onto the front of her thighs. She looked up at him as a gust of wind hit her cheek and she cringed against it. “I did.”
Shaking his head, grumbling, he swung his leg over his horse and dismounted, his heavy boots landing on the ground and sending vibrations under her knees.
He moved to tower over her, blocking the light of the moon and sending her into a deep shadow.
“Ye left to roll about in the freezing snow?”
Her look went to the stars in the clear sky. “I still cannot get the door open enough to get the mare in. I was digging the area free.”
“Ye shouldn’t be out here, Karta—you almost froze to death once in the past day, let’s not make it twice.”
“But I need to get the mare in.
”
He looked to his left at the horses. His stare dropped back down to her. “Or you can come back to the abbey.”
Her throat collapsed on her and she shook her head. “I cannot.”
From what she could see in the deep shadow shrouding his face, his bottom lip jutted up as a growl bubbled from his chest.
He turned from her, stomping through the snow to the side of the stable, and he disappeared around the corner of the field stone building. She could hear him tromping about, muttering nonsensical words to himself.
He reappeared, a long plank of wood in his hands. Moving to her side, he towered over her again. “Then get yourself up and out of the blasted snow.”
“I can do this, Dom. I don’t need your help.” She bent down, swiping at the snow, her look down and avoiding him. “I didn’t ask you to come after me.”
He grabbed her wrist on mid swipe, his fingers digging into her flesh through the leather of her gloves. “No. But I’m here and I’m not going to watch ye dig out the snow. Nor let your damnable pride set ye into freezing to death.” He shook his head. “Hell, Karta, you’re already shaking with the cold.”
He released her wrist and wedged the wood into the drift next to him. His hand dove into his greatcoat, pulling free a silver flask he thrust to her. “Drink this. It’ll warm you faster than anything else. And move away from there.” He pointed to the spot she was working on clearing.
She drew a deep breath, then looked about the snow still piled all around her, drifted higher than her head in some spots.
For how much she wanted to argue it out with him, she was cold.
And tired.
And her bothersome pride usually did get her into trouble.
She grabbed the flask from him and rocked back onto her heels, then stood, stepping back into the small area she’d managed to clear. Opening the cap of the flask, she took a sip as she watched him start to shovel the snow aside with the plank of wood. The sting of the whisky curled her tongue, burning down her throat.
But the burn was good. Strong against the chill her body was quickly slipping into now that she had stopped moving.
Domnall dug back heavy scoops of snow, moving them from the side of the barn outward. Swearing at her the entire time under his breath.
The Christmas Countess: A Valor of Vinehill Novella Page 4
