Lord of Ice (39 page)
Authors: Gaelen Foley
“My lady.”
She froze. Her heart missed a beat. She swept to her feet and spun around, barely daring to breathe.
“Damien!”
He was smeared with black powder and blood. His stare glittered with exhaustion. There was a cut on his cheek and his uniform was torn, but he was whole and alive and standing before her. When he opened his arms to her, she rushed into them with a wild cry, flinging her arms around his neck.
He gripped her hard, holding on tightly around her waist. She could feel his body shaking with the exertion of nine hours of battle and then the long gallop through the darkness to Brussels to come back to her.
“It’s over now,” he ground out in a choked whisper, stroking her hair. “This time it’s over for good.”
“I love you,” she said again and again, standing on tiptoe to kiss his bruised, bloodied face.
Holding her around her waist, he closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against hers. “Sutherland’s dead. I left MacHugh in charge of the regiment, what’s left of it. He didn’t like me leaving, but I told him I made you a promise.” He buried his face in her hair. “Oh, Miranda, I want to go home.”
She kissed him, tears streaming down her cheeks, fevered prayers of thanks spinning through her mind. “Yes, darling. Come with me.” Holding him around his waist, she draped his arm across her shoulders and let him lean on her as they walked out slowly into the starry night.
March, 1816
“Winterleyyyy!”
The long, robust shout echoed out from an upper window of the gleaming white mansion of Winterhaven, with its triangular pediment atop four noble pillars. With perfect pitch and frightful lung power, the feminine war cry carried on the spring breeze over the green fields, over the neatly mended roofs of the cottagers’ hamlet, to the white, split-rail fence where an extremely nervous Colonel Lord Winterley stood, dry-mouthed, waiting, while his brothers smoked with the worldly serenity of men who had been through this ordeal before. His heart pounded with dread and hope and worry, but Robert and Lucien merely watched the foals frolicking among the grazing mares, commenting on what fine stock they were.
“Winterley, you bastard!”
the womanly bellow came again.
“I’m going to wring your neck for this!”
He stared at the refurbished, repainted, redecorated house, then whirled to his brothers in distress. “I should go to her.”
“I do not advise it,” Robert said sagely, his brown eyes dancing at Damien’s discomfiture. “Courage, man.”
Lucien clapped him on the shoulder. “Leave it to the doctor, old chap. That’s my advice.”
He dragged his hand through his sun-warmed hair and stared helplessly at the house, scarcely able to remain where he was, yet afraid to go in. The Battle of Waterloo was nothing compared to Miranda’s first birthing. Their babe had been in no hurry to come, and had no doubt grown to a great, strapping size, for her belly had swollen to such enormous girth she had boasted she was fatter than King Louis.
Just then, the four-year-old Harry came charging ahead of his elegant Aunt Jacinda, who was prepared to embark on her second Season next month. Lizzie and Alec strolled over together a bit more slowly. They all had come to wait with Damien through the excruciating hours of his firstborn’s arrival. Harry climbed up onto the rail and held out his small hand, trying to lure a few of the colts over, to no avail. Lucien plucked the boy off the fence and set him up on his shoulders as Alice ambled over, carrying their six-month-old daughter, Phillipa, who gurgled and cooed with excitement when she saw her papa.
Robert turned with a possessive glow in his eyes as Bel joined them, hugging little Morley in her arms and telling him to look at the horsies. The small heir to their ancient lineage always wore the most thoughtful, curious expression for a tot not quite one year old.
Besotted as he was with his adorable niece and two nephews, Damien was impatient to meet his own child.
“Do you think it’s almost over?” he asked Bel and Alice in desperation.
Bel smiled wisely and murmured, “Soon.”
“Don’t worry,” Alice told him. “She’ll be fine.”
“I don’t think she’ll ever forgive me.”
“She will,” Lucien said, leaning down to give his daughter a kiss on her downy-fine hair. The baby grabbed at his nose, and he laughed.
“My lord!”
Damien whirled around as the butler came hurrying out across the lawn.
“The doctor says you can see her now!”
The women exclaimed in excitement, but Damien was already running, tearing into the house. He froze in his tracks halfway up the stairs when he heard the tiny, angry wailing. Then he doubled his speed, arriving in their bedroom in a state of dazed awe. The physician nodded to him and stepped out of the way with a knowing twinkle in his old eyes.
“Miranda!”
She turned her head on the pillow and gazed at him from the bed, then held out her hand weakly to him. Her face was pale and covered in sweat. Tendrils of her sable hair stuck to her skin.
His heart pounded louder than Wellington’s cannonades as he approached, staring at the tiny bundle sheltered in the crook of her arm. She glanced from it to him and gave him a smile full of mystery and adoration.
He approached slowly, took her hand, and lowered himself to his knees beside the bed, staring at her, then at the baby.
“It’s a boy,” she whispered.
He glanced at her again in amazement. He couldn’t speak. He could barely believe it was real, not some beautiful dream. When he looked down at his son, his eyes filled with tears. The baby was a red-faced, squirmy little thing with barely opened eyes and a tiny tuft of black hair.
Damien began laughing softly in sheer wonder and disbelief. He took a quick count of the child’s fingers and toes and found them all accounted for.
Miranda touched his arm, her smile tremulous, tears welling in her eyes. “Isn’t he the singularly most spectacular thing you have ever seen in your entire life?” she choked out.
“Yes.” Awestruck, he leaned toward her and pressed a lingering kiss to her clammy brow. “I—I think I’m in shock.”
Her smile widened fondly.
“How are you?” he whispered, petting her hair.
She gave him a reassuring nod. “I’m fine. Tell Bel and Alice I want to see them. I want them to see him,” she started, then suddenly stopped, furrowing her brow.
“Miranda?” Damien paled as she blanched.
“Oh, no,” she said. “Get the doctor.”
“What is it?” he cried.
She looked at him in astonishment. “I think—I think there’s another baby coming! No wonder I’m so fat, Damien—I’m having twins!”
He jumped to his feet. “You’re jesting,” he hissed.
Her bellow of pain assured him she was not. He flew to get the doctor, but the man was already on his way in, rolling up his sleeves to bring the second-born into the world. The doctor scooped up the first baby and thrust him into Damien’s arms, herding him quickly into the anteroom.
“Wait!” he protested. “I don’t know how to hold a baby.”
“My dear young fellow, you have just sired twins,” the doctor said in amusement. “I suggest you learn.”
With that, he shut the door firmly in his face.
Damien glanced down in perplexity at his tiny son in his arms and softened his grip as gently as possibly. “Well, then, my laddie,” he whispered, “we shall have to wait here till your brother arrives, then Mama can tell us, all three, what to do.” He eased down onto the nearby armchair, unable to stop staring at his child.
When a second burst of angry but healthy wailing reverberated through the walls, the doctor poked his head out of the room. “Boy,” he announced curtly, then closed the door again.
“I knew it,” Damien murmured, then closed his eyes with a prayer of thanksgiving, leaned his head back against the chair, and laughed, long and quietly.
Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group
THE PIRATE PRINCE
PRINCESS
PRINCE CHARMING
THE DUKE
LORD OF FIRE
LORD OF ICE
Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group
Copyright © 2002 by Gaelen Foley
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Ballantine Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Ivy Books and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Foley, Gaelen.
Lord of ice / Gaelen Foley.
p. cm.
eISBN 0-345-45500-2
1. London (England)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3556.O3913 L67 2002
813'.54—dc21
2001051920
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