A Season For Romance (The Seldon Park Christmas Novella Book 5)

by Bethany Sefchick

  As Dinah drew closer, the figure stiffened, the thick muscles of his thighs flexing. So, an athletic marquess then, she noted absently. If he chose to try to outrun her, he certainly could, and he had every right. She was the invader here; not him. However he did not seem inclined to do so just then. Instead he shifted to his right. At first, she thought the meant to escape into another room but instead, he moved into a murky shadow where a wall sconce’s candle had died out and not been replaced.

  “Yes?” he asked in a deep baritone voice that sent shivers skittering up Dinah’s spine. Though shivers of fear or shivers of something else, she could not say. “May I help you with something?”

  The marquess was tall. Dinah could see that easily as she approached. Though it would not take much to be taller than her as she was a bit on the short side, her late mother never reaching more than just over five feet in height. Therefore, most people Dinah met were taller than her, and she had long since stopped worrying over the matter. There was not much one could do about how tall one grew, after all.

  Now that she was closer to the marquess, even partially hidden in shadow as he was, Dinah could see more muscles bunching beneath his coat as he crossed his arms over his very impressive chest. Rather fine muscles, actually. They were not thick, as a boxer’s might be, but finer and sleeker. Like a jungle cat – not that she had seen many jungle cats in her life. She had seen a sketch of an African lion once, however. Yes. This man reminded her of a lion. Not to mention potentially just as fearsome.

  As she approached, a spicy sort of scent caught Dinah’s attention. The scent was also familiar somehow. Then she remembered the arms. The arms that had pulled her back from the brink of death and held her as if she was the most precious thing in the world. Arms that smelled much like this man did.

  This was the man who had pulled her from the freezing river last night. It was Lord Kingsford himself who had saved her life. Her mind might not quite remember all of the details, but her body certainly did. And it was reacting in a rather inappropriate manner at the moment. Dinah hoped the marquess wouldn’t notice anything amiss, but for as strong and virile and aware as he appeared, he likely would. Especially since her nipples were so hard at the moment that they actually ached. And especially since she had the impression there was little about her that he had not already noticed.

  As Dinah approached Lord Kingsford, she also became aware that her feet were bare and she was wearing only a nightrail, even though the garment covered her from neck to ankles in thick, soft muslin. Still, the entire situation seemed rather intimate. And a bit puzzling as well, for this garment wasn’t hers. It was far finer than anything she owned. Yet another mystery to be solved at a later time, she supposed.

  “My lord, I wish to thank you,” Dinah began, dipping into a deep curtsey. “You have…”

  “Come no closer,” he intoned gruffly and she drew up short, a bit stunned at his harsh tone. “I forbid it.”

  “My lord?” Really, Dinah had been led to believe the man possessed perfect manners. Perhaps that had not been the truth after all. Oh well. He was a beast then. She had encountered such men before; most women had. However, she still was not afraid of him, either. If he were expecting her to be, he would likely wait for all eternity. Dinah was not one to be cowed easily. “Surely you are joking?”

  “No. I am not. I’ve no wish for you to see my deformity. Surely you know most people regard me as a monster. I heard you tell the maid as much. And I am one. A monster, that is.” The marquess sounded rather serious. And ominous, she might add.

  Well, this man hadn’t been either serious or ominous last night when he had scooped her from the river and saved her life. He had been heroic, and truly, how bad could his deformity possibly be? One of Dinah’s old childhood friends, Johnny Richards, had come home from the war missing both a leg and an eye, his face and a good portion of his body covered in thick, twisted scars as well. He had been near a powder magazine when it had exploded and had suffered burns over a large portion of his body.

  For all of Dinah’s flaws, and she could now admit that she had many, she had been one of the few in Westbrook-on-Green who could look at Johnny and not flinch. She hadn’t considered him a candidate for marriage, after all of that, true. Dinah was no saint and, at her heart, had been a rather shallow creature. But beneath it all, beneath the scars and the missing limb, Johnny her still been Dinah’s old, dear friend and she had treated him as such. Looking back, she supposed it was one of her few redeeming moments in her old life. And there weren’t that many of them, really, so they were easy to remember.

  If she could look upon Johnny with his extensive injuries and not pull away, she could certainly look upon this man without fear as well.

  She hoped.

  Then Dinah remembered Kingsford’s arms. No man who could carry her so tenderly or hold her so close could be all that bad. No matter how deformed he might be.

  Appearances had little to do with what was in a person’s heart, Dinah had learned. True, she had learned that particular lesson too late, but she had learned it just the same. And it was a lesson that had stuck with her ever since.

  So. Best to start at the beginning, then, if she ever had a hope of holding a civil conversation with this man. Or even a conversation in the light. Dinah found she did not much care for the perpetual darkness of the hallway. She hadn’t noticed the inky blackness that stretched out both in front of as well as behind her before, but she did now.

  But despite all of that, he still did not frighten her as she suspected he hoped that he would.

  “Somehow I rather doubt you are a monster, my lord.” Dinah squinted and tilted her head to the side, considering him. “Do you eat small children?”

  “Er, no.” The marquess seemed a bit taken aback just then, as if he didn’t quite know how to take her question. Good. That was a start. “I enjoy being around them, however. Though that is not what you are asking, is it?”

  Dinah ignored his question. “Are you missing any limbs, then, my lord? A foot or an entire leg, perhaps? Maybe an eye or part of your nose? Possibly a hand? That sort of amputation might be rather ghastly if the wound was not sewn shut properly.” She already knew the answer to those questions, of course, but asked them anyway.

  “Ah, no. I am whole, thank you very much.” Now Kingsford was confused and he paused at length. “How do you even know of such things, if you do not mind me asking?”

  “I have learned quite a bit regarding the world of medical science in the last year, but that is not important.” Dinah waved away that question as well, determined to show this man she didn’t care what he looked like. And that she was thankful to him for saving her life. “Then are you deformed somehow, my lord? Three ears, maybe, or a harelip? Even a missing eye would certainly qualify you as deformed, I would think,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest, both to show her lack of fear and to prevent the marquess from seeing the way her nipples puckered when she remembered being held in his arms.

  “No. As I said, I am whole and do not possess any…extra parts, as it were.” He sounded a bit puzzled now and perhaps a bit intrigued with her line of questioning.

  “Well, my old friend back in Westbrook-on-Green is now deformed, though nothing so horrid as what I just described.” Dinah shrugged and did her best to hold her ground against Kingsford. She had no idea why it was suddenly so important to hold a civil conversation with this man, but it was. Very important. She worried that if she backed away now, she would never speak to him again and that would be a true shame. She just didn’t know why she felt that way. “Johnny suffered terrible burns in the war. He lost his leg and his eye as well. That, however, does not make him a monster, for he is still the same man beneath it all. What qualifies you as one?”

  Kingsford paused for a long moment before drawing in a deep breath and then exhaling slowly. “A gypsy curse.”

  Dinah laughed. She couldn’t help herself. “That again? That is what makes you a monst
er? Some silly curse that doesn’t even exist? Surely you jest, my lord! Or are you serious?”

  “I don’t look like other men,” the marquess growled back at her, but Dinah still refused to pull away. “More than one young lady has looked upon me with distaste. That is not some product of my imagination, I can assure you.”

  Dinah shook her head in disbelief. “Well there is no accounting for looks or what one considers attractive, I suppose, but unless you are truly and hideously deformed which I very much doubt, or perhaps missing an ear or two, I really cannot see what all the fuss is about.”

  Deciding it was time to change the subject and still not really wanting Kingsford to leave, Dinah instead allowed her gaze to take in the length of the hallway. It was elegant and tastefully decorated, at least what she could see of it. It was also, much like the floor in her chambers. It was warm. Very warm, actually, though Kingsford’s presence might have also had a little something to do with the heat she felt.

  “By the way, why is it warm here?” she asked, looking around again. She wished to move physically closer to Kingsford, but at present, she didn’t think he would allow that sort of intimacy.

  Dinah wasn’t even certain why she desired to be so close to this man. There was nothing between them, really, save for a late-night rescue she barely remembered. That still didn’t change how she felt, however.

  “Excuse me?” Kingsford was clearly confused once more, likely because she had changed the subject so quickly. Well, good. She meant to keep him unbalanced. Though again, she had no idea why.

  Dinah did not normally behave so brashly. She was a good, proper young lady. Or she had been, and she was still trying to be, for the most part, no matter her circumstances. She supposed the reason was because from the moment she had awoken, she felt comfortable here in Grayfield. As if she belonged. Until this moment, she hadn’t really felt as if she had belonged anywhere in a very long time. Not even at her beloved Canton Hall. She wished to hold on to this feeling for as long as possible, no matter how fleeting it might be in the end. She also doubted that the Duke of Ryfell’s home, Cliffside Manor, would be this welcoming.

  Waving her hand in the air, Dinah gestured toward the walls and then to the floor. She prayed the man ignored her still-bare feet. So far, he had.

  “Heat. Warmth. You know. Things we only feel in the summer. While I admit to being more than a little provincial in many respects, I have visited some grand houses over the years and none of them are this warm and cozy.” She peered up at Kingsford as he moved back deeper into the shadows again. For a brief moment while they had been speaking, he had come forward. Now? He was moving back. Drat. “So how do you do make it so warm in here?”

  “Ah…er…pipes.” He finally offered, stumbling over those few words.

  “Pipes?” Dinah was truly curious now.

  “Yes, pipes.” Kingsford pointed to the floor, and it was then that she noticed pipes that were running the length of the hallway directly next to the walls on either side of them. “I’m something of an inventor, you might say, and, as I live here year ‘round, I was tired of being cold all of the time. So? I…ah…fixed the problem.”

  This man was becoming more and more fascinating by the moment and truly, Dinah knew instinctively, if she was not sophisticated enough for a bored, dull gentleman of London then certainly this man was far beyond her touch as well. And even though she had not yet seen all of Kingsford in the light, there was still something extremely compelling about him just the same. There had been from the moment she heard him laugh, unseen, in her doorway. That single laugh, coming from somewhere deep within the marquess, drew Dinah to him like nothing she had ever experienced.

  No man, either in London or back home, had ever captured both her imagination and attention the way this man had with just that single, perfect, lovely laugh. Well, there were those impossibly perfect arms of his, as well. Couldn’t forget those either.

  And she also apparently no longer had the good sense to know when to stop this madness and back away from him, either.

  Oh, well. Dinah was likely already ruined, and she had no future anyway. Given that she had spent the night here alone with Kingsford without a chaperone, even though she was unconscious, she doubted the duke would want her as a governess for his children now. Well, she assumed they were alone save for the servants. If they weren’t, the lady of the manor would have been in Dinah’s room when she awoke, not this man skulking about outside of her chambers.

  In for a penny, then in for a pound, she supposed. Wasn’t that the phrase?

  “That is rather clever,” Dinah replied, strolling away from Kingsford for a moment, even though her body wished to remain a bit closer to the man. “Exceedingly clever, actually.”

  “There is a large hearth in the manor’s old kitchen,” Kingsford finally offered, apparently warming to his subject. And, Dinah hoped, to her as well. “As we know from men of science, heat rises, so I have applied the same idea to these pipes. The fire in that hearth is always kept burning high, and I have devised a way, using water moved by pumps, to essentially move that heat from the large hearth into these pipes. There are other hearths as well, since, well, this is far from a perfect invention, but it keeps me warm enough, especially at this time of year.”

  “Fascinating.” It truly was. How could a man so clever as to invent something to keep houses warm be a monster?

  “There you are, miss!” Cecily the maid had finally appeared, a branch of candles in hand. How it had taken the maid so long to find them when they were only a few feet down the hall from the bedchamber puzzled Dinah. Perhaps the woman was blind and navigated by sound? Well, no matter. The maid had brought candles, which was all Dinah cared about at the moment. This was an opportunity she could not pass up. “I thought I had lost you! You shouldn’t be out of bed so soon after that nasty accident.”

  Dinah shrugged and moved towards Cecily, as if she was going to obediently follow the maid back to her bedchamber. “Perhaps not.”

  Then, before the maid could react – and if she truly was half-blind, then Dinah felt horrible about taking advantage of the woman but needs must – Dinah snatched the branch of candles from Cecily’s hand and spun around, casting the soft light upon the marquess’ face.

  “See!” Dinah cried in triumph. “You are no monster. I knew it!”

  “So you say.” Kingsford’s voice was soft but to his credit, he did not chastise Dinah for her rash actions. Instead he raised his head and opened his eyes slowly. In them, she could see pain and she knew she had put that pain there. Perhaps she was not as much changed as she had imagined after all. “Though I bid you to come closer, for this might change your mind.”

  For a moment, Dinah didn’t see what Kingsford was talking about, so she did as he asked and moved closer – not that her body minded in the least. As the light from the candles fell across the marquess’ face, she finally saw what he meant – one eye was the deepest, richest of browns that she could imagine. The other? A blue so bright that it almost hurt to look at it.

  She could also see that his skin was a slightly different color from one side of his face to the other. Not so different up close, really, but he had clearly been tanned over the summer months on only one side of his face, likely making the difference more pronounced several months back. His hair, too, seemed to vary a bit in shade from one side of his body to the other. None of that, however, made him a monster. At least not in her opinion.

  However those were things that Dinah only noticed for a brief moment. The rest of the time she studied him, all she could see was how breathtakingly handsome he was, with high, striking cheekbones and full, sensual lips – lips likely meant for kissing a woman senseless. She knew little about men in that fashion, of course, save for that awful baron’s son. Nor had she really cared to know more before now. But this man? Well, he made her wish to change her mind. He made her wish to know more…about everything. Not just kissing.

  “Are you finish
ed gawking?” Kingsford finally snapped after a rather lengthy silence fell between them. “May I go now, my lady? Pipes! Heat! As if you cared one whit about such things! You were merely biding your time so that you might see my wretched face, weren’t you?”

  “I was doing no such thing!” Dinah snapped right back, her own temper rising. How dare he accuse her so falsely? “And you are hardly wretched, my lord. In fact, I would dare say you are quite attractive.”

  “You lie, my lady.” Turning, the marquess lowered his eyes and began walking away.

  “I don’t,” Dinah shot back, her feet rooted to the spot. “Not about this.” However it was evident from the slump of his shoulders that Kingsford did not believe her.

  “Your curiosity has been satisfied, my lady. Now go back to your chamber with Cecily. I will not trouble you with my cursed presence further.” Then he was gone, disappearing through a door she hadn’t noticed him leaning against earlier.

  This time, Dinah did not chase after him.

  Chapter Four

  Beau did not see Dinah for the rest of the day. Well, not if one wished to be precise in their wording, anyway. He heard her moving about Grayfield rather frequently, but each time she came close to him, he ducked into a room so she would not see him. Having spent almost his entire life within these walls, Beau knew every single part of the manor – including the hidden passages – like the back of his hand.

  He had toyed with the idea of having her confined to the old marchioness’ chambers, but he couldn’t do that to her. Dinah was too curious and full of life. She could never be contained by a single room. Nor would Beau force her to be.

  She was, in a word, fascinating. And Beau was beginning to wonder if he had hit his head on a rock or something during his rescue of her the night before and addled his brains in the process. Because he had not found a woman fascinating in his entire life and he had no idea why he should do so now. At least not as fascinating as he found Lady Dinah Crestfield, at any rate.