O Night Divine: A Holiday Collection of Spirited Christmas Tales

by Kathryn Le Veque

  Prudence could not help but smile. William was a wonderful older brother, caring, considerate, concerned. But at over a decade older than her, he was more a father than a sibling.

  John, on the other hand, was exactly what a brother ought to be. Irreverent, mischievous, and teasing, he was nonetheless loyal. If only he could sort out that misunderstanding with Miss Darby, Prudence was sure he would be truly happy.

  “I had forgotten,” she admitted.

  She should go, really. They were the family of these parts, and it would be scandalous if none of them went to the Christmas Eve service. But if William, Charlotte, and John were already going…

  Alexander would be going, of course. He would lose no time in ingratiating himself with more of the Pendle residents. Her smile disappeared as she considered the change in him she could no longer ignore.

  The Alexander she knew would never bring up money in conversation. He would not haggle over the price of everything, and then proudly tell all those around him.

  What had changed in the last year?

  “Well? Are you coming?”

  Prudence was startled by John’s question and spoke instinctively. “No, I think I will stay here.”

  John waggled his eyebrows. “What, and invite great disapproval from our guest? I’m sure his Reverence is joining us.”

  It was tempting to acquiesce just to see Alexander again, but Prudence forced herself to stick to her initial decision. Attending church on Christmas Eve just to impress him was not a good enough reason to go–and the drawing room was warm and cozy.

  “You go on, I am staying here,” she repeated.

  Her brother leaned against the doorframe. “My my, what will our resident vicar say?”

  It was impossible not to blush as she replied, “Why should I care? I am comfortable where I am, and it will be freezing, coming back from the service. You go and befriend ‘our resident vicar’ if it means that much to you.”

  Every word was spoken as nonchalantly as she could manage, but she was already starting to regret her decision. Perhaps Alexander would see her differently if she attended church–but no. he was going to kiss her under the mistletoe, a proper kiss, then she wanted it to be for herself as she was.

  “Boo to you,” said John cheerfully. “See you later, then.”

  The door closed behind him.

  Prudence sighed. Alexander. He utterly overwhelmed her thoughts, preventing her from thinking of anything else.

  The Alexander Michaels she had known had disappeared. The gentleman staying with them was a man more focused on money than anyone she had ever known.

  He was different. Wealth was all he seemed to talk about. When they had been younger, before titles and riches had fallen into her brothers’ laps, she was sure they probably talked about money all the time. William had been a major in the Army, John had started to follow in his footsteps, and their wages had kept her and Honora in school, she knew.

  Had she changed that much, then? Perhaps it was not Alexander who was different, but all of them. The Lennoxes.

  Prudence fiddled with the pages. It was possible, she supposed, to speak about money in a socially acceptable way–but Alexander did not seem to know it. It was all he spoke about, and if she were truly honest with herself, it was…well.

  Starting to become unattractive.

  Shame rushed through her mind at the unkind thought. It was easy for her. She had been so young, just twelve or thirteen, when William had ascended to the dukedom out of the blue. He had told her they had never starved before then, but it was nothing to the riches they now enjoyed at Pendle Hall.

  If she could just concentrate on her book, the time would disappear, and they would all be back. Alexander would be back.

  Prudence spent a fruitless hour attempting to reach the end of the chapter, but it was impossible. The words simply did not want to stay still on the page long enough to absorb them, and as the clocks chimed five o’clock, she finally placed it down on the table beside her.

  Perhaps it would be best if she retired upstairs to change for dinner. It would not be long, surely, until they would all return from church.

  Just as she made up her mind, the door opened, and Alexander stepped through.

  Obviously startled, he shut the door behind him and stammered, “M-My apologies, Lady Prudence. I believed the family had all gone to church.”

  Unable to force her tongue into anything elegant, she shook her head. “No. I stayed here.”

  Was that all she could say? Here was her chance, the house almost entirely empty save for herself and Alexander, and all she could manage was ‘I stayed here’?

  “Yes. Yes, so I see,” he said.

  The silence grew, and Prudence grasped desperately for something to say. “Why did you not go?”

  He laughed, features softening and discomfort leaving his face. “Is it possible for clergymen to be tired of church?”

  She chuckled, the tension in the room gone. It was only Alexander, after all. Why should she be concerned about making a fool of herself?

  “’Tis strange. I feel as though we have hardly spoken during my visit.”

  Prudence’s heart rose. “I…I suppose not. Much has changed in the last year.”

  Would he understand her? Would he finally look at her and see her not for the child she was, but for the woman she has become?

  It was difficult to tell. Alexander walked across the room and took a chair opposite her. Prudence could feel her skin tingling at his mere presence, and fought the instinct to rise and take a seat closer to him.

  “Yes, much is different,” he said with a look of such intensity it made her breath catch in her throat. “I have finished my second year at my living in Bath, your sister-in-law has been blessed with another child, and you…Prudence, you have become a woman.”

  His words seemed to sparkle in the air, tantalizing, suggestive, but still unclear. Prudence did her best to hide her surprise. After all his nonchalance, he had noticed!

  She laughed lightly. “Sometimes, I feel no one else has realized this. William and John certainly treat me the same way they always have. I believe I will always be a child to them.”

  “Not to me,” Alexander said in a low voice. “You are certainly a child no longer.”

  Every inch of her shivered at his words. What did he mean? Was he attempting to tell her he–he felt the same way? That he desired her? Or was it merely a statement of fact, nothing more meaningful than that?

  Prudence swallowed. So young in the ways of love, she had not taken any other gentleman seriously when she had attended balls with her brothers. Why should she? She was already in love with Alexander Michaels.

  Could he see? Could he sense the emotion in her?

  “Thank you,” she said a little awkwardly. “It does not feel that long ago, we were both children, running in and out of the brooks, constantly getting ourselves into trouble.”

  His laughter set her body on fire. “Yes, I remember. I was asked to chastise a child in my congregation only a few weeks ago for scrumping apples, which I felt very wrong about, being just as guilty of the crime myself.”

  The conversation flowed, and Prudence found it was as easy as it always had been; she and Alexander, and nothing else in the world mattered. She could do this every day–she could spend her days doing this.

  Why couldn’t he see it?

  “–I suppose?”

  She blinked. Lost in her thoughts, she had not paid heed to Alexander’s question. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I said,” repeated the clergyman, a little pink around the ears now, “you probably have heaps of admirers following you, I suppose?”

  Prudence blushed. To hear those words from his mouth… “Not really. No, as a matter of fact. I believe William frightened off a few gentlemen, so no one has come close. I have no prior connections of…of that type.”

  Did he understand her? Could she make him understand what she was trying to say?

&n
bsp; “And…and do you want to be married?”

  Where were these questions coming from? Prudence could feel the desperation to answer him well up inside her, but how?

  Before she spoke, her gaze shifted to the window behind him. “It’s snowing!”

  Jumping up, she rushed over to the windows. They were the latest style, what Chalmesbury called disdainfully ‘French windows’; full length and opened by a catch in the middle.

  Without a thought for the cold or her companion, she threw them open and stepped onto the veranda surrounding the mansion. Snow was gently falling from the star-strewn sky, and she reached out a hand to catch the flakes.

  “Snow,” she whispered.

  “You always loved snow,” came a low voice.

  Prudence turned to find Alexander standing inches away. If she leaned back just a little, she would be leaning against him.

  Her body was on fire, despite the Yuletide chill. This was a moment they would always have, just the two of them, standing out on the veranda in the moonlight, watching the snowfall.

  “Yes,” she said, dragging her eyes away and looking out across the grounds of Pendle Hall, now in darkness. “It is so beautiful. ’Tis here and then gone in an instant, cold but warming, utterly different every time.”

  “Reminds me of someone I know,” he breathed.

  Prudence shivered. This was more than she could ever have hoped for, but now she was in this situation, she was not entirely sure what happened next. There was no script for declaring one’s love for a gentleman, especially when that man was someone you had known most of your life.

  How did you tell a gentleman you wanted a kiss under the mistletoe–a real kiss? If only Chalmesbury had placed mistletoe every few yards in the house.

  “Really?” she asked, trying to keep her voice calm. “She…must be an impressive woman.”

  “She is,” came his reply, even closer now. “I have known her for years, and with each passing year, she shines even brighter.”

  Did he mean herself? Surely, he must. Surely Alexander would not be so cruel as to stand here in this intimate fashion and whisper sweet nothings to her about another woman!

  “I would like to meet her,” she said with a smile, still refusing to turn around.

  Alexander sighed, his warm breath on the back of her neck. “You may be a woman, Pru, and a beautiful one, but you have never lost your childlike joy.”

  A wintery breeze moved past them and something rustled. Prudence slowly raised her gaze and gasped.

  There, tied carefully with golden ribbon by the window and now hanging right above them, was a sprig of mistletoe.

  She swallowed. This was it. This was the moment. She could not have planned it better, and it was time to take what she wanted.

  Turning, her sleeve brushing against his jacket, she looked into the fierce gaze of Alexander. He wanted her. He needed an excuse to kiss her, and it would be heavenly, better than her dreams, better than anything…

  “You have never lost your childlike joy.”

  “You have,” she said simply. “Alexander, after years of…of knowing you so well, I wonder whether I do this year. Money has become your object, your reason for existence.”

  “Not at the moment,” he breathed, kissing her firmly on the mouth.

  It was impossible. It was a dream. It was a wild impertinence, coming from anyone else, but from Alexander?

  Prudence threw herself into the kiss, arms around his neck, leaning against him and finding herself wrapped in his arms.

  This was definitely a kiss for a woman, not a child. He had parted her lips carefully, gently, but the intensity of the kiss had deepened, and she gasped at the heady sensations which tore through her body as his lips worshiped her.

  This was far naughtier than a vicar’s kiss ought to be, but she wanted more. This was her first true kiss under the mistletoe, and she was desperate to ensure it would not be her last.

  Alexander broke away, wildness in his eyes. “I-I hope I do not offend, Pru. I simply–”

  She lifted her lips to his and stopped his words the only way she knew how, by kissing him fiercely.

  Before she knew it, he had pushed her and pinned her up against the wall. Snow seeped into her shoes, but she did not care. The sensation of the brickwork against her back and Alexander’s strong chest against her own was enough to make her cry out, but she could not–his mouth simply would not release her, and she melted in his arms.

  Eventually, their second kiss ended.

  “I have wanted to–”

  “I had no idea you–”

  They laughed nervously, their words spilling over each other. His hands were on her waist, holding her steady against the wall for which Prudence was grateful. She felt unable to stand, her heart beating frantically, her legs turned to jelly.

  “I had hoped,” she breathed, “to find you under the mistletoe. During your stay here, I mean.”

  Alexander smiled, his face lit up by the candlelight streaming through the drawing room windows. “By God, I am glad you did.”

  He leaned forward, and this time Prudence knew exactly what she wanted. Her fingers moved to his cravat, pulling at it as his tongue teased and worshipped her neck.

  “Oh, Alexander,” she murmured, unable to stop herself. “Yes…”

  He groaned. “God, Prudence, I want–I want what I shouldn’t want.”

  “I know,” was all she could manage. “I-I want it, too.”

  Before she knew what was happening, their instincts took over, and he crushed his mouth on hers once more.

  Prudence was barely able to think, only able to feel, and it was wonderful. This was more than she could ever have dreamed of, and it was Alexander, and he wanted her, and–

  A door banged. “Prudence Lennox!”

  Chapter Four

  It was with great reluctance that Alexander let go of Pru as he stepped away. Every part of his body was desperate for more, wanted to keep the connection, hated that they had been interrupted.

  Interrupted by…

  Alexander looked through the open door and saw William standing in the drawing room, mouth open and hands clenched.

  Only then did he realize his chest was heaving, his breath literally taken away by the woman he loved.

  Damn and blast! It was the most unvicar-like thought, but he could not help it. The instant he finally gave in to temptation, to the desires he felt for Pru, he knew it would end badly.

  And by her older brother!

  “’Tis not what it looks like, William,” Pru said quietly, stepping away from the wall and into the candlelight pooling onto the veranda.

  “I know what it damn well looks like, Pru, you think I was born yesterday?” William snapped. You–John, come here.”

  Alexander’s stomach dropped another few feet. Pru’s other brother had now stepped into the room, Charlotte on his arm, and the smile on his face quickly disappeared as he took in William’s glare.

  “What has happened?” he asked urgently.

  William’s gaze did not leave Alexander’s face as he said, “Him. With Pru.”

  John shut the door behind him with a snap. “You are jesting with me–his Reverence?”

  Despite the frantic thumping of his heart, Alexander felt a little resistance enter his soul. His Reverence?

  The elder brother nodded. “I said to come inside, Pru. Now.”

  Alexander stepped back to allow her to pass and then followed her inside, shutting the French doors behind them. The room felt stifling hot after the cold of the outdoors, numbing his mind, making it difficult to think.

  What was going to happen now? It was not as though they had been found in bed together, after all, and–Alexander’s mind suddenly thrust an image of the two of them, entangled in sheets, loving each other, discovering each other, and he shuddered.

  This was not the time to lose himself in fantasy. He needed to concentrate, to focus.

  He had expected Pru to step across the
room and seat herself near her brothers, but instead, she remained standing by his side, and her hand slipped into his. It felt perfect. As though she should have been there his entire life, and it was only now the world was righted.

  He squeezed her delicate fingers, and she squeezed back. They did not need words to understand each other.

  “Now, William,” Charlotte said quietly as she lowered herself into an armchair. “Do you not think you are slightly overreacting?”

  “Over–overreacting?” William spluttered. “I haven’t done anything yet!”

  “We do not know the whole story, and I, for one, would like to hear it,” said Charlotte softly. “How do you think we would have felt if we had been caught when–”

  “That was completely different,” snapped her husband, though Alexander noticed his cheeks redden. “That was–we were practically engaged to be married at that point, we were perfect for each other. It was only a matter of time. This blaggard has turned up at my house and dishonored my sister! She is a child!”

  “I am eighteen years old,” said Pru calmly.

  “Poppycock,” said John fiercely, who had pulled off his jacket and was now rolling up his sleeves, his face thunderous. “Damned poppycock.”

  This was starting to look rather serious, and Alexander was not sure a few practice routs of boxing in his student days would be sufficient to protect him from John, who looked like he knew what he was doing.

  His heart was still racing, but it was now from fear and a little anger, rather than the passion which poured between himself and Pru. Would John really fight him? Would the Marquis of Gloucester challenge him to a duel–did the man have pistols somewhere?

  Alexander swallowed, forcing down the bile of panic and feeling Pru’s fingers, like an anchor keeping him steady in a gale.

  Prudence.

  She was…well, everything. Everything he wanted. Everything he had not realized he needed.

  Beautiful, witty, but more than that–a woman he had known for years, cared for over those years.

  Love.

  It had confused him, and he had done his best to ignore it, but now he stood here with her, the taste of her lips still on his, he knew what it was.