The Christmas Secret (8 page)

But these Irish were eager to dance, and when they began, Henry could see why. The music was fast and light, and the brave souls who began the dance held their hands clasped behind their back and kicked up their heels in a manner that Henry found quite entertaining.

He noted that one gentleman who did not dance straightaway was Mr. Canavan. Henry had met Canavan when he’d poured him a cup of wassail. Canavan was shorter than Henry, and darker. He was handsome enough, Henry supposed, but he really didn’t see what all the fuss was about—yet fuss there was. Mr. Canavan preened before several young ladies, but Henry couldn’t help noticing that more than once, Mr. Canavan glanced across the room to where Mabe Hannigan and Erin stood with Lady Donnelly.

What he could not determine was which of those ladies Mr. Canavan was admiring.

The music changed; Henry recognized a reel.

“Mr. Bristol!” Molly Hannigan said to him, jostling him from his study of Mr. Canavan. She extended her hand to him. “You cannot think to stand there all alone, aye?” she asked, her eyes twinkling. “You must dance.”

“I am not particularly skilled,” Henry warned her.

“The best thing one might say of Irish dancing is that one does not need to be skilled.” She laughed as she grabbed his hand and pulled him into the mix of persons taking their places for a reel.

The music began, and Molly linked her arm through his, twirling him about, then letting go. He was caught by the next woman, who had laughing brown eyes and ginger hair, and a monstrous ribbon on her crown. “How do you find
Eirinn,
then?” she asked over the music.

Henry was taken aback by her question and felt himself flush. Had they noticed his interest in her? “I have been mostly in the company of her brother.”

“I mean our little island country, Mr. Bristol,” the woman said as she let him go and twirled to the next dancer. “I mean
Ireland
!”

Henry had no time to respond; the next partner had taken his arm. She was older, with fat gray curls framing her face. “You’d be a good match for Molly Hannigan, now wouldn’t you, laddie?” she asked jovially and laughed grandly when Henry blanched. He gathered it was a rhetorical question, as she blithely twirled around and went on to the next partner. He turned, too, and found himself facing Erin. A smile erupted from deep within him. “Thank the heavens,” he said, taking her arm.

“It’s quite fast,” Erin said loudly as they twirled about, one arm in the air.

“Do you think your school would approve?”

“Certainly not!” she said cheerfully, and let go his arm.

They went round again, the music going faster, the dancers twirling faster. When Henry caught Erin again, he was captivated by the gaiety in her eyes. He didn’t want to let go, but someone grabbed her and away she went, and Henry once more found himself with Molly Hannigan, whose cheeks were flushed and whose green eyes glistened.

“I cannot breathe, Mr. Bristol! You must rescue me from this dance before I expire.”

He was happy to lead her out of the small sea of dancers, just as the music came to an end and was wildly applauded. “There he is . . . Mr. Griffin!” she called out and was quickly on her way, having set her sights on a young man with a long neck.

Henry refreshed his drink, and as he sipped liberally from the cup, he noticed Erin standing near the terrace door, taking deep breaths. She smiled when she saw him approaching.

“You suffer from the perils of Irish dancing,” he said.

She grinned as she gulped down another deep breath. “Mr. O’Shay’s interpretation of the reel is vigorous.”

Henry laughed. “Perhaps some air would do you good. The rain has stopped.”

“It does seem rather close in here,” she agreed, allowing him to escort her out onto the terrace.

Outside, a few people were milling about, seeking the cool night air. Henry breathed deeply of the salt-tinged air, felt himself rejuvenated. It was too dark to see the sea that Christmas evening, but Henry could hear it lapping at the bottom of the cliffs.

Erin walked to the edge of the terrace and wrapped her arms tightly around herself; she dropped her head back to breathe it in.

“You’re cold,” Henry said and removed his coat, draping it across Erin’s shoulders.

The garment swallowed her, but she pulled it tightly around her. “Thank you.” She smiled up at him, and in the moonlight that had begun to peek through the clouds, her blue eyes looked unusually bright, her skin pale as milk. “Are you enjoying yourself, Mr. Bristol?”

“Very much,” he said, his gaze still on her lips. “And I would enjoy myself all the more if you would call me Henry.”

“Henry,” she said, as if she was testing it on her lips. “Then you must call me Eireanne.”

“Erin,” he repeated, and she giggled.

“You are a fine dancer!” she said, nodding approvingly. “I had rather feared it, given that your idea of Christmas celebration is to hunt turkeys and sing hymns.”

“Erin,” he said, frowning playfully. “I am not a fine dancer, I can scarcely dance at all. The fact that I even attempted
that
dance will entertain my family for days.”

Her smile seemed to dim a bit. “You must tell them that you looked every inch an Irishman,” she said, and fidgeted with the sleeve of his coat. “When do you see them?”

Henry instantly wished he’d never mentioned his family. He did not want to think of leaving while he was standing here with Erin. He hadn’t thought of exactly when, but it occurred to him that his work with Donnelly would be completed within a week, and he had a family and a business to attend to at home. He’d already been gone for several months—it wasn’t fair to his brother Thomas. Henry knew that he couldn’t avoid the inevitable much longer. “I should think within the fortnight.”

Erin nodded and squinted toward the sea. The sound of the fiddle drifted out through the open door; the song the fiddler played was much slower than the previous dance.

“You won’t leave before the ball, will you?” she asked. “That is, you’ve come all this way, and it’s the Twelfth Night ball, aye?” She risked a peek at him, and her gaze was so earnest that Henry could not imagine denying her anything. Ever.

He took her hand. “I would dare not miss it.”

Erin smiled softly, leaned her head back once more, and sighed to the heavens. He wanted desperately to kiss the hollow of her throat just above the small gold cross she wore.

She squeezed his fingers. “I don’t care to think of you leaving, if you must know. You seem one of us now.”

“I am flattered.”

“I mean that in all sincerity. It’s been lovely having you dine with us in the evenings, and that has not always been so with Declan’s guests. He once had a Scot here to work the horses with him, and that man was impossibly boorish.”

“Was he?”

Erin glanced over her shoulder at the door, then leaned in and whispered loudly, “He was quite content to discharge the great quantity of air he gulped down with his meal at the
table.
”

Henry couldn’t help but laugh. “I am comforted to know that I shall not be considered one of the boorish ones.”

“Oh, no!
You
are kind and well mannered, and so very interesting with your tales of America, and teasing Declan about the racing. I think my brother has not been so happy as this in a very long time, and racing is his great pleasure. Truly, for all of us, it is a pleasure that we may speak of something more interesting than the weather at our suppers.”

“The review grows more favorable,” he said. “Erin, your company has been the most enjoyable for me.”

She smiled happily.

He admired the lobe of her ear. “When shall you return to Lucerne?”

His question made her sigh, as it taxed her. “In a fortnight, I suppose.”

She seemed almost sad, which Henry thought curious. “Don’t you want to return?”

Erin shrugged lightly and peered up at him. “Would you like to know a secret?”

He wanted to know everything there was to know about her. “I would.”

She glanced around them. So did Henry. Most of the people who had come for air had gone inside. The only other couple on the veranda was moving that way as well.

“I don’t want to live in London,” she said, her voice low.

“Don’t you?”

Erin shook her head.

“But it is an exciting town, Erin. There are many diversions.”

“Many diversions if one has suitable connections,” she said cynically. “My grandmother has high hopes for it, and for a good marriage to restore our name, but I wonder, how shall I get on? I don’t know anyone, I am Irish, I am
Catholic,
for heaven’s sake . . .” She sighed, and shook her head. “I would prefer to come home, where I belong.”

She looked pained, and he wanted to make it better for her. “It may not be as bad as you fear,” he said and put his finger beneath her chin, forcing her to look at him. “Like you, I did not know anyone in London. And if you think the English do not care for Catholics, you should hear their views on overweening Americans.”

Erin smiled.

“I had only a few letters of introduction, but they opened doors to me, more than I would have thought possible.”

“I suppose you are right,” she said. “But when I think I shall be expected to sit about salons and take tea,” she said, shaking her head. “I rather think all they do in London is sit about and natter on. I can’t imagine anything more tedious. I prefer to ride—”

“You ride?” Henry asked.

For some reason, Erin laughed. “You cannot possibly be surprised that Declan O’Conner would abide having anyone in his house who could not sit a horse properly. Which, I am confident to say, I do rather well.”

What was that tiny thrumming in Henry? His heart? “My earliest memory is of a horse,” he said. “My father put me on the back of a workhorse when I was three. He led me around the paddock while my mother cried out to him to stop, to put me down. But I remember the thrill of it. And I held on. And from that point forward, I adored the beasts. I have always had an abiding affection for horses, much like your brother.”

“Do you know that my brother did the same to me?” Erin said, her eyes sparkling with amusement. “He was no more than a boy himself, really, and took me from the nursery where I’d been put to nap. I cannot say how he managed to get us both on the back of a horse—a stallion, no less—but he did, and he took me riding along the moors. Grandmamma said our father came very near to throttling him.”

Henry grinned. “Erin . . . if the weather is clear on the morrow, will you ride with me? I should very much like to have a look about the coastline and would welcome your company.”

Erin’s face lit up at his invitation. “I would like that very much, Henry.”

Something registered in a very primal corner of Henry’s brain. The sound of her voice and the words
“I would like that very much, Henry,”
echoing there. He could imagine that voice, that phrase, echoing well into his life, as if it belonged there.

He wondered if she heard the echo, too, for he could feel something flow between them and he unthinkingly put his hand on her arm, wrapped his fingers around her elbow. Erin did not resist him as he pulled her to him. “I like
you
very much,” he said and dipped his head, touching his lips to hers, as he had longed to do for days, had kept himself from doing for days. The kiss reverberated through him as if he were a kettledrum.

Erin made a sound, a soft sigh or moan, and Henry was suddenly heedless of anything but their mutual desire, spiraling up through him and flaring out to every sinew, every fiber. He moved his hand beneath his coat, which was draped around her shoulders, brushing his knuckles across her décolletage and the small gold cross she wore at her throat. He slipped his hand to her neck and pulled her closer, could feel the rapid beat of her pulse, the way her skin warmed to his touch. His mind was suddenly filled with arousing images of touching her nude body in more intimate places, of feeling the pulse of her desire, the heat of her want.

He wrapped his other arm around her waist and held her there, exploring succulent, delectable lips. He slipped his tongue into her mouth, and Erin responded by tilting her head to better accommodate his kiss.

The kiss set Henry on fire in a way he’d never really felt. The kiss was more intense, more physical somehow than any other kiss he’d ever experienced. He’d not intended it, had been firmly determined not to be so bold with her—she was the sister of his host, for God’s sake! Yet the echo of her voice in his head, the warmth of her smile, the scent of roses in the middle of bloody winter, had tossed him headlong into a territory he had not meant to enter. And at that moment, it hardly mattered—his body was inflamed by her mouth, the softness of her lips, the velvet smoothness of her skin.

Erin was the first to pull away. Henry lifted his head; she was looking toward the open door again and Henry realized that the music had stopped. Moreover, he heard what had caught her attention—the unmistakable sound of a commotion, people shouting and talking at once.