To Wed His Christmas Lady (The Heart of a Duke Book 7) (9 page)

I am an unmitigated ass.

He steeled his jaw. “Never bind yourself to any such man who’d try and kill that colorful part of who you are.” His words came out gruffer than he intended. For as soon as the words left his lips, an image slithered in of some faceless, nameless bastard who’d lay claim to her body and attempt to purge the happiness from her soul to be nothing more than a polished hostess. A lethal desire to end that imagined man for daring to possess any part of her burned through him. He staggered back and the cold momentarily sucked the breath from his lungs. For how else was there to account for this inability to draw air?

Cara studied him in that silent, assessing manner of hers. Something sparked in her eyes—regret, sorrow, resignation, and then her expression grew shuttered.

And he
knew
.

Knew before she so much as uttered them, what the words poised on her lips would be.

“My future has already been set for me.”

His stomach muscles clenched. He couldn’t, not for eight more years of freedom granted by his father to travel and avoid that shrewish lady waiting for him, force out the question.

She studied her palms. “My father has selected the perfect,” her lips twisted in a macabre rendition of a smile, “nobleman for my husband.”

He had no place caring. Though no formal contract yet existed, another lady waited for him and Cara would exist as nothing more than the tart-mouthed beauty who’d ensnared his attention. Even knowing that as he did, he wanted to kill both her father and that lord who’d received her cold sire’s approval. A shudder wracked her lean frame and snapped him from the red haze of fury blinding his vision. “Come,” he said gruffly and held out his hand.

Cara eyed his fingers a moment and then slid her palm into his. He folded his hand over hers and even through their wet gloves, a charge of heat penetrated through and shot pinpricks of desire running through him.

Wordlessly, they walked the remaining way to the inn in silence.

And before, he’d not wanted to leave this ramshackle inn for the future awaiting him. Now, as he opened the door and Cara slipped inside breaking that contact, he found himself not wanting to leave for the past that would remain behind here.

F
rom where he stood at the hearth, William cast another glance at the stairs. The faint, aged contralto of the old innkeeper’s wife sounded behind him and he glanced back. A collection of greenery littered one of the inn’s tables and she quietly sang as she worked.

Oh! how soft my fair one’s bosom,

Fa la la la la la la la la

Oh! how sweet the grove in blossom,

Fa la la la la la la la la

Oh! how blessed are the blisses

He joined his baritone to her ancient voice.

“Words of love and mutual kisses,

Fa la la la la la la la la la.”

Martha widened her eyes and stopped mid-song. Surprise sparkled in her eyes. “You know the Welsh song then, my—” She stopped just shy of that proper address.

William winked. “I spent one Christmastide season in Wales and learned the lyrics to
Nos Galan
.”

She nodded slowly, approval in that subtle movement. With a jaunty hum of the same tune, Martha returned her attention to her bough.

He pulled out his watch fob and consulted the timepiece. Did the lady plan to sup in her rooms? Of course, that was the proper thing for a lady to do without the benefit of a brother or chaperone’s protection and he didn’t doubt Cara had lived the better part of her life conforming to be that proper English miss. Still, disappointment filled him at the prospect of not again seeing her.

“I expect she will be down soon.”

William spun about. “Hmm?”

Martha sat with her head bent over the wreath while working the threading of her sewing needle with gnarled fingers. “I expect your lady,” she said not picking up her gaze from her efforts, “should be down shortly.” She tied a wrinkled, red satin bow about two branches, connecting the evergreen. A smile played on the woman’s lips. “And her coming will have nothing to do with the lady’s leaking ceiling.” She picked up her head and spoke on a conspiratorial whisper. “Even if she tells herself it is.”

A dull heat climbed up his neck and he resisted the urge to yank at his collar. He, who’d never struggled with words, came up empty when presented with the older woman’s knowing look. Had he been so very transparent in how each moment spent with Cara had drawn him more and more under her spell?

Since early that morning, when they’d parted, he’d not been able to rid his thoughts of the golden-haired beauty. Of what she’d shared. Of her past. Where most young women of eighteen were filled with a carefree innocence and hope, her light had been dimmed by the darkness she’d known at her father’s hands. Through all their exchanges, however, there had been the flicker of light and spirit, and it would kill him the day their paths would eventually intersect once more at a
ton
event when he was the proper duke’s heir and she was the frigid, unapproachable lady he’d first met in this inn.

The fire snapped and hissed noisily. William balled his fists. He’d not think of a world where that was again the woman she became. He’d remember her as she’d been, lying on her back in the snow, joy dancing in her eyes and etched on the delicate, angled planes of her face as she stared up at him. From where she sat working on her Christmas bough, Martha cursed drawing him to the moment. A small smile pulled one corner of his lips. And he’d forever recall Cara as the lady who cursed with an inventiveness possessed only by a poet’s turn of phrase. He made his way over to the table. “Did I mention I had a good share of experience making Christmas boughs?”

She looked up with a glimmer of surprise and, in an assessing manner, took him in. A twinkle lit her rheumy eyes. “I would wager a charmer such as yourself has a good deal of experience with the kissing boughs, hmm?” She waggled her stark white eyebrows.

He winked, eliciting a laugh from the old woman. She motioned to the colorful bows and fabrics scattered about her table. “I’ve but the three branches for the boughs.” He followed her sad gaze over to where her husband shuffled with pained movements about the taproom. He pushed the broom over the dusty floor. “Every year we would go out and collect the green together.” Her eyes lit with a blend of happiness and sadness converging as one with that old memory. “How very fast time goes. You are making those boughs one Christmas to kiss your love and the next,” she held up her gnarled hands, “and the next you cannot even make your fingers move.”

The passage of these eight years was testament to the rapidity of time. What would he have become thirty-eight years from now like this aged couple? Where they knew love and joy in their marriage, his would be a cold, calculated affair that, if he was fortunate, would bring him children and very little misery. “Here,” he said quietly.

Later that evening, her wet garments cast aside for another borrowed dress from the innkeeper’s wife, and the chill gone from her jaunt into the storm, Cara hovered at the base of the stairs outside the taproom.

Since her return, every last thought had belonged not to the misery of being the unwanted, unloved, and often forgotten daughter of the Duke of Ravenscourt, or the misery staring down at her if… She gave her head a shake,
when
she wed that pompous, also unfeeling, future duke. Instead, Will had laid claim to her every thought, so that her skin still tingled with remembrance of his touch, and her heart yearned to speak with him once more.

Heart racing, Cara peeked around the wall with the same surreptitiousness she’d shown as a girl listening on silently while her mother wept in the privacy of her rooms. She took in Will’s exchange with the old innkeeper’s wife. What manner of man was he? One who spoke Italian with the ease of one who’d lived there for the whole of his life and also sang Welsh carols with an equal fluency alongside the old servant. She fought to swallow past the emotion in her throat as she continued to observe him speaking to Martha.
Martha
. Not the innkeeper’s wife. Not a servant. But a woman whose name he knew and whom he spoke to with such kindness and gentleness that went against the cruelty and pompousness evinced by her father.

Fear stuck in her breast. With trembling fingers, she grabbed the bannister and pressed her back against the wood. She’d prided herself on needing no one. She’d convinced herself that she neither wanted nor cared about the opinions, thoughts, or feelings of another person. Cara slid her eyes closed. The world shifted under her feet with the staggering truth—she craved that connection with Will. She wanted a man such as him in her life; a man who saw past the surface to the woman she was, a man who wanted her to be
real
, and not flawless and fake.

Cara drew back and dropped her desolate gaze to the shadows that danced upon the floor, cast by the taproom hearth. This fledgling bond to another soul was a potent aphrodisiac, shown her by a stranger, no less. She touched her lips and heat burned through her. Though, was Will truly a stranger? How could he be when he’d been the first man to challenge her, and kiss her, and whom she’d shared those most pained, intimate memories of her mother with?

She forced her hand back to her side as regret turned inside her. Ultimately, however, that is what Will was. He was a stranger who would ride out on his horse to… She swallowed hard. To where she knew not because she knew nothing of him. Nothing beyond how he made her feel and what he made her wish for. And she could not, nay, would not, go through the rest of her life without knowing more of him than those insufficient pieces.

That forced her into movement. With resolute steps, Cara stepped into the taproom. From where he sat working alongside Martha, he stilled. His broad shoulders tightened the fabric of his black jacket. With the smooth elegance carried by kings, he shoved to his feet and turned.

His powerful frame filled the suddenly small taproom. Cara dimly registered the old woman rising and then dropping a curtsy. The glow cast by the hearth illuminated the knowing glimmer in the woman’s eyes as she slipped away. Heat warming her cheeks, Cara slid her gaze over to Will. Her attention slipped to the bulge of William’s triceps straining his coat sleeves—the cut and color best suited to a gentleman of polite Society than a man whose callused hands and tanned visage bespoke a life different than the foppish dandies about town. Oh, goodness. She fanned herself and then followed his gaze to that telling gesture.

Cara swiftly dropped her hand to her side. From under his thick, dark lashes, Will stared across the length of the small space, singeing her inside and out with the heated desire to taste more from his lips.

You are not to speak to anyone who is inferior to you, gel…is that clear?

But who is inferior, Your Grace…?

Everyone who is not kin to a duke, prince, or king… Now get from my sight. I’ve matters to attend…

A log shifted in the hearth and exploded in a spray of orange and crimson sparks. Years of the stiff, regal reserve drilled into her at the hands of those nurses and instructors hired by her father echoed around her mind. Cara smoothed her palms down the front of her skirts. Abandoning every last ostentatious thought she’d ever carried, she walked forward. With each step, the chains of propriety slipped loose until she came to a stop several steps away from him, free in ways she’d never been before—until him.

She tipped her head back to look at him. He studied her in that inscrutable manner. Cara curled her hands into fists as a sea of indecision lapped at her. Yes, he’d kissed her until their breaths had melded in the same, desperate rhythm but beyond that had any of their exchanges meant anything to him? Doubt needled her mind. She took several faltering steps away.

“Don’t,” he spoke quietly, bringing her hurried retreat to an immediate stop. Passion burned from the depths of his fathomless eyes. “I want you—”

And God help her, she wanted to know that burn. Her heart caught in a splendid way. “What do you want?”

“Ah, my lady, you’ve come to take the evening meal!”

No
! Cara spun about and swallowed back the swell of disappointment over the innkeeper’s untimely interruption.
What?
She silently pleaded with Will. He wanted her to join him for supper? He wanted to discover more of who she was inside? What did he want?
Mayhap he wants me to go….
After all, but for her mother, who’d really ever wanted her around?

Her skin pricked from the curious attention trained on her by Martha’s husband. Cara forced her lips to move. “I have,” she said stiffly. She shifted her gaze from Will and looked to the older man. “That is, I would very much enjoy taking my meal belowstairs.”

“Splendid,” he said with a burgeoning smile.

She took several steps, following the innkeeper, and then stopped. Her heart thumped loudly at the shocking proposition rushing through her head. Ladies did not humble themselves before men. Daughters of dukes humbled themselves before no one. “Will you join me?” she blurted. Heat scorched her cheeks. Never in the course of her life had she so humbled herself before another human being. She felt exposed and bare and wanted to throw her head back with exhilaration and flee all at the same time.

Silence met her inquiry. That painful moment may have been a minute or a year for as long as it was. Only, as he studied her in his assessing way, she ached to call back those revealing four words. The sting of his rejection would wound her in ways her father’s antipathy never had or would. For her father had seen her more as an inanimate extension of himself, that could be used to advance his wealth and prestige. William had seen the cold exterior and challenged her at every turn, defying her to be something other than that ice princess, daring her to be more.

Cara bit the inside of her cheek hard and hurried after the innkeeper when Will placed himself in her path. Her breath caught painfully at the raw strength of him. This was no satin knee-breech-wearing dandy. Will was the manner of man who would put warriors of old to shame. He lowered his head and, when he spoke, his words came out as a low, gravelly whisper, so faint she wondered if she dreamed his response.

“I want to join you, Cara.”

The innkeeper hurried over to pull out a chair for her and she claimed her seat.

The whisper of reason cut across her private yearnings. “I should not be here,” she said faintly, as the innkeeper rushed off. Will froze with his hand on the back of his seat. “We should not be here,” she corrected. For with each meeting in this taproom, and each stolen exchange in the halls and countryside, she risked ruin.