“I am a second son,” he went on. The matter-of-fact way in which he enumerated the reasons he shouldn’t belong to her lashed at her for an altogether different reason.
“Do you think that matters so very much?” she asked quietly. He didn’t believe himself worthy of her. How could he not see that he was more honorable and good than any nobleman her family wished to pair her with?
Trent flexed his jaw. She dropped her gaze to his white-knuckled grip upon his reins and then raised her eyes to his face once more. “It does matter.”
“Not to me,” she said simply. “It never did.” What mattered was that when other gentlemen hadn’t wanted anything to do with a peculiarly forthright lady who spoke her mind and enjoyed those pursuits favored by noblemen, Trent had never sought to break her and conform her into who society expected her to be.
He closed his eyes a moment. “It does.”
“To your father it did,” she said gently.
Pain flared in the emerald depths and for an instant, she hated herself for forcing him to confront that age-old hurt. “I suspect you’ve buried that away and not spoken of it.”
“How…?” His words trailed off.
“How do I know?” she finished for him. “My family attended summer picnics with yours. We attended dinner parties. Did you think me so empty-headed that I should fail to note his disregard?” She’d spent the better part of ten years hating his late sire for that cool indifference.
“It matters not, Winnie,” he said tiredly. Trent navigated his carriage through the thickening crowds, onward to the frozen Thames. “The fact remains you are James’ sister.”
She opened her mouth, but he drew the carriage to a halt, effectively ending the discussion. Winnie firmed her jaw. Surely he knew she’d not simply cease speaking on it. For as he leapt to the ground and helped her down, it did not escape her notice that at no point had he denied caring for her in the way she longed for him to care.
With her maid trailing behind them, they moved on to the bustling activity upon the ice. Brightly-colored tents covered the ice, with ladies on the arms of their gentlemen, moving between the peddlers who hawked their goods. All excitement in this event spoken of in the papers and drawing rooms, now dimmed when presented with the truth that her feelings were not unreturned.
His words in the park, following their embrace, and his horrified reaction then and now spoke to a man at war with his conscience. And she was torn between loving him for his sense of honor, and exasperation. For did he truly believe his friend would frown upon a match between them? Granted, James would not care for the kissing part, but the two men had been friends the better part of their lives. As such, how could her brother ever protest anything more between she and Trent?
They stopped at the edge of the ice, and feeling his gaze on her, she looked up. A gentle half-grin was on his hard lips, that smile which was only his pulled at her heart. “Well? Is it everything you imagined it would be, Winnie?” The wind tumbled a blond strand over his brow and her fingertips twitched with the urge to brush it back.
Emotion wadded in her throat, and she managed a nod.
“Shall we?” He held his arm out, and she eyed it a moment.
Surely he knew she’d follow him anywhere.
*
Arms folded at his chest, Trent stood at the edge of a colorful crimson tent. He studied Winnie through hooded lids as she assessed the table littered with the peddler’s wares.
She lifted a leather purse and turned it over in her hands, examining it, and for a moment, he envied the sack for the attention she bestowed on it. Then she set it down and reached for another. Trent clenched and unclenched his hands upon his sleeves. God help him. He’d fought this desire for Winifred these past two years and with that one kiss in the quiet of Hyde Park, she’d wound her way ever deeper into his thoughts, filling him with such a hunger, that no one kiss could ever suffice.
Then, with a harmony of thoughts that had always existed between them, she picked her head up and held his gaze. As the reputed roguish spare to the Marquess of Hollingbrooke, women had courted his favors. They’d desired a place in his bed, with no expectation or desire for more.
None of that matters…
A vise squeezed off his breath. For the desire lighting her eyes afire moved beyond the mere physical he’d come to expect from other women and stood as testament to a woman who wanted—him. He forced his lips into a grin and gave a half-wave.
She smiled. Then the vendor, an older man with graying hair, said something and the moment was thankfully broken. Winnie shook her head and turned over the purse. With a graceful elegance, she picked her way down the long table and paused periodically to contemplate the other goods piling the surface.
“Of everything we can do this day, and all your excitement in coming here, Lady Winnie, you choose to shop?” he called out.
“Do, hush,” she scolded, not removing her attention from the goods. “There will be time enough for skating later.”
Despite the madness of wanting her as he did, and the ways he betrayed Munthorpe with his every thought and wish for her, his smile grew as he recalled the years he’d spent trying to instruct her how to ice skate. “You’re as eager as ever to take to the ice, then?”
An inelegant snort escaped her. She’d been as rubbish at skating as she’d been at billiards. Her eldest brother hadn’t cared to be bothered with her company on the ice, and Trent hadn’t been able to bear the sight of her trembling lower lip as she’d stood on the edge. Then her face lit and she settled her fingers on a small purse. She reached into her reticule and fished out several coins and handed them over to the vendor.
“At last,” he said, shoving away from the edge and wandering deeper into the tent.
“I am not done yet.” She wagged a finger at him. “You’re as impatient as you’ve ever been.”
“And you’ve developed an unexpected taste in shopping.”
With a saucy wink, she returned her search of the vendor’s tables. The older man frowned at Trent, apparently taking offense to him trying to rush off the only customer in the shop. “Ahh,” Winnie said, on a reverent whisper.
Trent curiously studied the small embroidery scissors. Setting down her recently purchased purse, she fished around her reticule for further coins and then handed them to the man. He hurriedly accepted them, as though he feared she’d change her mind.
With another smile for the peddler, she scooped up her just-purchased items and skipped over to Trent.
“At last,” he drawled.
“As I said, we shall have plenty of time for skating.” They stepped outside the tent and a wave of winter wind yanked at the fabric of their cloaks.
He gave silent thanks for the restored camaraderie between them. The charged awareness hung heavy between them; that now unspoken of embrace, her words of love. But now, she was the young woman he’d spoken candidly to, and a woman who’d not simpered or preened for his affections. Rather, it had always been as though he, simply Lord Trent Ballantine, was enough and because of her, he’d come to believe that and know it as truth.
Why can’t I just accept the love she offers…?
“Trent, first—”
“We skate.” Because the alternative was to accept the gift she offered and friendship to her brother be damned.
She made a sound of protest but allowed him to pull her along to the makeshift ice-skating rink set up on the frozen Thames. Other skaters glided over the smooth surface with a graceful elegance. Winnie groaned and dug her heels in. “Must we?”
“We must.”
“Your fascination with skating is abnormal, Trent. It is unnatural for a person to move about on those vicious metal blades.”
A ragtag young boy with a cap covering his blond curls rushed over. He eyed them a moment. “Ye needs skates for ye and yer lady, do ye?
They spoke in unison.
“We do.”
“We do not.”
Then the la
d’s words registered. “She is not my lady.” Trent looked about at the other revelers, but where the ton pried and peered with their stares through all fashionable Societal functions, when presented with a momentary diversion from the rigidity of their world, they only knew joy in the inanity.
The boy doffed his hat and scratched at his head. “Skates fer yer sister, then.”
“She is not my sister.”
“I am not his sister.” Winnie glowered at Trent.
And taking mercy on the young lad who appeared one more protestation away from finding out another pair to peddle his wares to, Trent held up two fingers. “Skates for me and the lady.”
She groaned. “You are trying to humiliate me. That is all there is to it.”
“Indeed,” he drawled and motioned her maid forward. The young woman rescued Winnie’s reticule and recently purchased wares from her mistress. “Now, sit.”
“I am not a dog,” she muttered and with a beleaguered sigh, went and claimed a spot on the wooden chair set out beside the makeshift tent.
The boy rushed over with the two requested pairs. Trent shifted his weight and balanced, putting on the first skate. He shifted and then put on the other.
“It’s hardly fair that you should be so graceful on bladed feet.”
His lips twitched. “They are skates.”
“Blades, skates.” She slashed the air with her hand. Trent dropped to a knee at Winnie’s feet. “You just know I cannot concentrate when I’m on the ice,” she groused. “And you don’t wish me to speak any further about the kiss.” Her whispered words were for his ears alone.
He strapped on the first blade. Except… Her sultry contralto wrapped about that single word and conjured all manner of delicious, scandalous pleasures he longed to know other than that kiss. Trent sank back on the heel of his skates and stared, fixed on her slender ankle as the wind whipped about them. And now he was lusting after her blasted ankle.
“Ahem, yer lordship.” The boy cleared his throat and thrust the other blade at Trent.
“Er, right.” Giving his head a clearing shake, he returned his attention to strapping the other blade upon her serviceable boot. Trent shoved to a standing position and held out a hand. Without hesitation, she slid her palm into his and allowed him to pull her to her feet. She gasped as her legs wobbled and turned in. “Wide arcs,” he murmured.
“I daresay if years of lessons haven’t proven fruitful, this one shan’t either.”
“Wide arcs,” he repeated.
She sighed and held tight to his hands, trusting with her grip and her eyes, as he guided her forward to the other skaters. “Oh, please, not the center?” she pleaded.
“The perimeter then.”
Trent skated backward, leading her by the palms out deeper onto the ice. Her gaze trained on his cravat, Winnie bit down on her lip, not relinquishing that plump flesh. Her furrowed brow was one of concentration. She lifted her gaze a moment, and then promptly stumbled as she scraped her blades awkwardly in a bid to stay upright. He promptly caught her to him and steadied her.
They locked gazes and her expressive eyes were a window into the longing that matched his. “Do not let me fall,” she whispered.
“I will never let you go,” he issued the age-old pledge he’d made her since they’d first skated on her family’s iced country lake.
Her breath caught, and then she stumbled again. “Dratted skating,” she groaned softly.
He shifted her closer and despite the chill of the air, heat ran through him at her body’s nearness. Any other time and any other place he’d care that he held his best friend’s sister in his arms and that Society watched on. He would have cared and flayed himself with guilt for the sinful desire to make her his in ways that moved beyond the physical and included binding himself to her in every way a man could to a woman.
With his name.
Now, he could no sooner set her away than he could lob off his own arm. Trent brushed his chin over the top of her bonnet, damning the garment that robbed him of the feel of her curls. “You are thinking too much on it.”
“You’d have me think on something else then,” she whispered. “What should I think of?”
Think of me. Think of my kiss and how you’d never allow some other undeserving bounder to claim that gift you gave me yesterday.
She slipped and he easily caught her, using it as a shameful opportunity to hold her closer. “Perhaps a song.”
They skated past the sea of twirling couples, those lucky, equally-matched lords and ladies who didn’t have to worry about an age-old friendship and a roguish reputation quashing all hope of more.
Then she began to softly sing.
“Hope ye, in heaven with God at last
To find your blessed abode
Still, as the ground of all your hopes,
Behold the lamb of God…”
They skated to the edge of the makeshift rink and stopped. Their chests rose and fell in a matched rhythm. The air was filled with the harsh, guttural draw of his breath and her slightly whispery ones as they stirred puffs of white into the air.
For years he’d lived his life as a carefree rogue. He’d relished that indolent life in which he fulfilled every negative expectation his father had of him. He was the spare to the heir and not much more. As such, he’d thrown himself into a disreputable lifestyle where he’d taken his pleasures with some of the most inventive courtesans and scandalous widows. Not one of them had offered more than a cold, emotionless physical joining. Their faces had all blended together because there was an absence of joy, love, and warmth. Everything he dreamed of with Winnie, but could never have.
“I love you,” she repeated, allowing him that gift once more.
And the joy and masculine satisfaction that spiraled through him proved he was a bastard. He managed a slight nod. “I know.”
“You have nothing else to say?” Her eyes flashed with such hurt and annoyance, Trent slid his gaze over her shoulder, off to the pond.
He took in the laughing couples; the air echoing with the sounds of their mirth. How could those pairs be so casual, so engrossed in their own joys, when his world spun at this dizzying speed?
“I leave in two days,” she continued quietly.
He dragged a hand through his hair. “Would you have me say I would not see you happy? I want to know you are happy and cared for by a man who is worthy and honorable.” A viselike pressure squeezed at his heart. And I will torture myself with that happiness each time you attend a ton function with some blasted paragon who is not a rogue, and who’d been born to title.
Winnie pointedly searched his face. Did she sense the lie in his words? Or did she seek the veracity of his claims? “I have found that honorable man. A man who is more worthy. A man who’d not expect me to be just like every other proper English lady.”
He squeezed his eyes tight, aching to reach out and grasp all she held outstretched for him in offering.
“You are worthy, Trent. A title does not measure a man’s worth. It is his strength of honor and his ability to love and be loved in return.” She held his gaze. “And for your ill-opinion of yourself, you are the most honorable gentleman I know. For with your devotion to James, your sisters,” she looked at him pointedly, “me, you are greatly deserving of that love.”
Trent forced his eyes open. “Your brother—”
She squeezed his fingers, silencing him. “Wants me to be happy.”
A humorless chuckle climbed his chest and slipped from his lips. “And do you dare think for a moment, he or your mama or papa will be happy with their daughter wedding an untitled rogue whom they’ve welcomed into their home for eleven years?”
Winnie hesitated.
“I thought not,” he said, flatly. In the distance, he caught her maid with a hand shielded over her eyes as she skimmed the lake for her mistress. “We should return,” he said reluctantly. For soon she’d be gone and if her family proved successful, she’d be wed in short order to
one of those distinguished guests.
“Do you know the truth?” The whispery softness of her tone pulled him to the moment.
He gave a brusque shake of his head.
“If I live to please my family, and you live to please my brother, and we lose out on the right to forever hold each other, where is the good in that?” She lifted her eyes to his and squarely held his gaze. “A duke or a prince could offer for me, and I’d still only ever want you.”
Real and potent need sucked at him. Warring between the desire to be honorable and the want to take what she dangled before him, he slid his gaze away from hers. “I…” From across the frozen river, a young woman’s peeling laughter rang out, drawing his attention away. Possessed of crimson curls, the lady’s cheeks glowed with her happiness. But it was the blond-haired man who spun her in dizzying circles who froze him to the spot. For as they spun, their faces blurred and melded. In the red-haired woman he saw another—a woman he’d known almost eleven years who’d never cared he’d not been born to title. His gut tightened painfully as he thought about a grinning gentleman who’d someday hold her; a man who would have the right to laugh freely with her and steal more than these clandestine meetings.
Trent forced his gaze away, back to Winnie. The solemn set to her oval-shaped face belied all he’d come to know of the joyous, spirited minx who’d been more friend than anything. And he proved himself as dishonorable as he’d always been. “I love you,” he whispered. Out of a sense of honor and loyalty to Munthorpe, he’d fought everything he felt for Winnie. Except, something mattered far more than her family’s expectations of who she’d wed and the title that gentleman would carry—she mattered. Nay, they mattered. “And I am a bastard because you can no doubt find any more worthy gentleman than myself, but I want you anyway.”
Her breath caught and she fluttered a hand about her chest. Then her bow-shaped lips turned up in a smile. “I love—oomph!” Winnie’s skates skidded out from under her and in a bid to keep upright, she grabbed his hand and dragged him down.
They fell in a tangle of cloaks and limbs. Her back collided with the ice, and he braced himself hard on his elbows. Pain radiated up his arms as he made contact with the frozen surface. Winnie winced and he ran a searching gaze over her person. “Are you all right?” Concern roughened his tone.
Her Christmas Rogue Page 8