Mistletoe Kisses and Yuletide Joy (10 page)

Pol's smile could light the dim room.
"Oh, miss! Thank you, miss!"

"
And we're all going to divide our time between here and a lovely house near Uckfield, where we'll create the most wonderful Christmases imaginable."

Tom tucked a tendril of her hair behind her ear, and even that light touch caused a frisson of delight.
"With a journey or two, I think. France, Holland, Italy. The morning light on the Loire, or on the Grand Canal in Venice is not to be missed. Perhaps that should be our wedding journey...."

"
It sounds wonderful." Kitty wanted to ask how soon it could be.

At that moment, Sherry slipped in to pick her way neatly between legs and candle. With a rather disdainful look at the humans, she curled up before the leaping fire. It was hard to imagi
ne her previous wanton behavior.

"
Perhaps," Kitty said, "amid all this contentment, we should let Rochester and Sherry free to enjoy each other."

"
He'll have to wait until she's in the mood, or be ripped to shreds." Tom nuzzled close to Kitty's ear. "Isn't it nice, my queen, that we poor human toms don't have so few shining moments to look forward to?"

The End

THE CHRISTMAS WEDDING GAMBIT

A short romance set in the Regency period.

Chapter One

"
What the hell are you doing here?"

Viscount Greystoke didn't normally swear at ladies, but if any man had excuse, that day he did. He'd just returned from a
neighbour's house where he'd been accused of fathering a child on one of the daughters and been given the choice of wedding the liar or dueling her brother. And now the lying shrew's fat sister was sitting on the sofa in his bedroom like an ominous gray mound.

"
Get out."

Red flags flew in a white, round face, but she responded flatly.
"Not until you've heard what I've come to say, my lord."

Frances
. The name popped into his mind. Frances Guysley. Miss Guysley, in fact, for she was the older sister, though always eclipsed by the younger.

"
Unless you are the unlikely bearer of an apology, Miss Guysley, I have no interest in anything you have to say, and I certainly do not need more complications with your family. Please leave."

Then he realized it was hours after dark.

How had she come here, and how was she to get home?

Was her brother waiting to pounce, and...

And do what? Challenge him to a second duel?

"I will apologize, however," she said. "Celia is behaving atrociously."

He eyed her with new interest.
"You know she's lying?"

"
I assume she is."

"
Why?"

"
Who knows her better?"

"
Will you swear to it?"

"
To what?" she asked with a touch of irritation. "You were foolish enough to linger in a cottage with her, my lord. I can't swear as to what happened there."

"
I..." But he would not explain herself to her. "If you can't prove her a liar, Miss Guysley, then what use are you to me?"

She flushed again, and her lips might have wobbled.

He sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm sure you mean well, but you must see how disastrous your being here could be."

"
You could hardly be forced to marry both of us."

Was she daring to joke about this?
"But your brother would have even more reason to try to kill me."

"
Not if I announced that you'd asked to marry me."

"
What?"

"
Only consider, my lord. If you are engaged to marry me, my parents will not require you to jilt me in order to marry Celia."

"
You're mad."

"
You're not listening. If Celia had claimed to be with child by the head groom, my parents wouldn't demand marriage with him. They want a connection to
Greystoke
, and I'm sure they would prefer a harmonious one."

"
Harmonious!" He laughed, the laugh of a lunatic.

She carried on steadily.
"As they fear I'll never make a worthy marriage, they'll be pleased for two reasons rather than one."

He backed away from the demented female. She couldn't be more than twenty, yet she was making these outrageous statements with hardly a tremor.

Ah. Fury came to a boil again.

"
So that's it. This is all a convoluted plot to foist you off on me. I'll see you and your family in hell, first!"

Color flared again, but her lips tightened rather than trembling.
"You'd rather die?"

"
I'm a good shot."

"
You'd rather kill a friend?"

When he couldn't answer that, she said,
"I'm doing this for Peter as much as anyone. You may not mind the thought of the duel, but he's broken over it."

"
Perhaps I'll choose the marriage instead."

"
I wouldn't if I were you." She looked down very briefly and then met his eyes again. "I hoped marrying me would be the lesser of some very evil evils, my lord, that is all."

"
I could call your family's bluff."

She shook her head.
"It's not bluff. They believe Celia. You have a reputation, you see, and you
were
in that cottage with her."

Greystoke pushed off to pace the room, wishing he could get drunk, but he needed his wits about him now more than ever.

He'd never touched Celia Guysley in an improper way. Unfortunately he had spent about a quarter of an hour in that ramshackle cottage with her last Michaelmas.

He always did a thorough riding inspection of his property on Quarter Days, and when passing near the deserted cottage he'd heard weeping. Of course, he'd investigated and found a disheveled Celia Guysley in a riding habit, with a story of being thrown from her horse, becoming lost, and being terrified of bears.

Bears!

What sort of ninny could think there were bears in
Cumberland? In any part of Britain, in fact?

Even if she was a twit, she was a young lady in distress, so he'd done the honorable thing and calmed her before returning her to her home. That had been close to three months ago and now she claimed to be with child.

"I could leave the area and wait it out." He threw it at the lying jade's sister like a spear. "Time will prove me honest."

"
Unless she truly is with child."

"
It won't be mine."

"
But you can't prove it. And if she claims to miscarry, you won't be in any better situation. You'll still have ruined her and be required to marry her."

Her grim logic made him want to throttle her.

He hadn't even had the satisfaction of making Celia Guysley lie to his face. She was, her weeping mother had said, too distraught.

Had the Celia business been a ruse to force him to take the unmarriageable sister? He didn't know the Guysleys well -- they'd only leased Green Brow House two years ago -- but he wouldn't have thought them capable of that degree of cunning. On the other hand, she was here with marriage in mind.

He remembered his mother's warning. During her visit last Christmas, she'd pointed out that the Guysleys were trying to capture him by means of their pretty daughter. He'd noticed the chit's blatant flirting, but been confident of dealing with her.

His mother was a wise woman.

The ugly daughter was pretending to study the chess board set before the fireplace, perhaps deliberately giving him opportunity to think.

Unfair to call her ugly, he supposed. Beneath the padding of round cheeks and double chin, her features were as regular as her sister's. She had a firmer set to her lips, but that could come from this situation. Those lips were as nicely curved and her complexion was excellent.

What's more, there might be cock-eyed merit to her plan. It wasn't a marriage he'd choose, but it would thwart Celia, which would give him great satisfaction, and avoid a dangerous duel.

He knew little of this woman's character, however, and her sister's didn't augur well.

On the other hand, she'd displayed calm, control and logical thought and he valued such things. He also admired her stillness as she waited for his move. He refused to be duped, but if her offer was honest, it could be the lesser of evils and give him victory of sorts.

He considered the chessboard of his life and made a move.

"Miss Guysley."

She started as if she, too, had been lost in thought, but then she turned those apparently calm eyes toward him. Blue eyes. Ordinary, but as eyes went, acceptable.

"Yes, my lord?"

"
You say you have slipped away without your family being aware of it. How?"

"
We are hardly prisoners at Green Brow, my lord. I retired to bed, then dressed again and left the house."

"
You walked here?"

"
It's only two miles, and there's a moon."

"
Weren't you afraid of bears?"

She blinked at him.
"
Bears
, my lord?"

"
They have been spoken of hereabouts," he said, tempted to smile as if they shared a joke. She was going to think him mad. "You will not be missed?"

"
No one intrudes on me after I have retired."

"
You don't sleep with your sister?"

A wry smile twitched her lips.
"Neither of us would like that."

He went over it again, looking for danger.
"You weren't afraid? I might easily be inclined to take my anger out on you."

"
You wish to add murder to your crimes?"

The irony caught him unawares, but he liked her for it. It tipped the balance.

"Then I propose this, Miss Guysley. If this is an elaborate deception, someone from your family has to have escorted you here and must be outside in case you need help."

"
It's not," she protested.

"
I must guard against it. If your father or brother is out there, after a time, they must come in to try to find out what's happened to you. Therefore, you will stay here until first light. Don't worry -- I have no designs on your virtue. If no one attempts to find out what has become of you, I will accept your story."

"
This is nonsense. If this is a plot, they'd be happy to have you compromise me."

"
That's been tried already."

She frowned at him, but he saw impatience rather than fear or guilt.
"Very well, my lord. And when nothing happens, you will accept my plan?"

Her calm unnerved him and he hesitated.
"Why are you willing to do this, Miss Guysley?"

She gave him a wry look.
"Why am I willing to marry a handsome, amiable, wealthy viscount? To leave the house where I am plagued by a selfish, tempestuous sister and neglectful parents, and an existence where I am considered beyond hope? I'm attempting to take ruthless advantage of my sister's wickedness, Lord Greystoke, with the happy satisfaction of averting tragedy at the same time."

A laugh escaped him, but didn't last. In the end, he'd still be forced into a marriage he didn
't want. He wished the entire Guysley family to hell and beyond and was strongly tempted to throw the grey mound out and let the devil do his worst.

No, dammit. His better side would insist that he at least escort her home, even though there was, as she said, a moon.

An excellent moon for traveling, which was why his mother, his younger brother, and his sister and her husband would arrive in three days. They'd arrive expecting merry Christmas and find what? A rural scandal? Him dead, or a murderer fled to the Continent?

An unexpected betrothal would definitely the least of many evils.

He realized with clarity that he'd far rather present this woman to his family as his Christmas surprise than Celia Guysley, pretty though she was.

"
You will stay here," he said, "and I will think more on this. At first light, we'll return to your home, either to sneak you back into the house or to announce our happy news."

She met his eyes.
"If I stay and we are not interrupted, my lord, you
will
accept that I'm telling the truth and we
will
announce our betrothal. But not like that. I will return to the house undetected and then later, I will inform papa."