Regency Christmas (Holiday Collection)

by Jillian Eaton

  James did not hesitate in his response. “A woman who knows exactly what she wants.”

  If only he knew the half of it, Lily thought with the tiniest of grimaces. Again she succumbed to a deep, uncomfortable sense of guilt, but she pushed the feeling aside. She was doing what was best. After all, it wasn’t as though she had twisted James’ arm to get him down on the floor with her. He’d made that choice all on his own, and soon enough they both would pay the consequences.

  “I do,” she said. “I do know exactly what I want.”

  “And that is?”

  She sat up straighter, reached behind her, and began to pluck at the stays on her dress. Her gaze steady on James, she allowed the tiniest, most catlike of smiles to curve her lips before she whispered, “You. I want you.”

  Her gown slithered down to her waist. James’ eyes darkened with lust. He swallowed hard, his adams apple jerking in his throat. She felt an answering pull somewhere deep inside. A pull of need and desire she’d never felt before. Wordlessly he held out his arm. Lily fell into his embrace, and they both were lost.

  Lily was a virgin.

  No, James corrected himself roughly, Lily had been a virgin.

  Now, courtesy of him, she was not.

  The evidence was there on one plump ivory thigh, a stain of crimson where there should have been only pale, flawless cream. The evidence had also been there during their lovemaking. A tightening of her mouth when he first pushed into her. A flicker of pain he had mistaken for pleasure. A cry he took for a moan. So many signs… and yet he’d still taken her on the floor like some rutting beast, deflowering her with all the finesse of a wild animal.

  Disgusted with himself, James rolled away and sat up to face the fire as he fumbled with his clothes. The flames had all but sputtered out, casting the room in shadow and allowing a chill to creep into the air. He felt Lily stir behind him.

  They dressed in silence. He found one of her stockings by the edge of the hearth and pushed it silently towards her. She pulled his shirt from beneath the winged chair and held it out, not meeting his gaze when he took it from her. It wasn’t until James was attempting to button his shirt that he made a sound. It began as a low growl of frustration as he clumsily attempted to secure the buttons with one hand and ended with a snarl that was more befitting a wolf than a man.

  “Let me,” Lily said softly.

  He turned from the fire to face her, rising up on his knees, still attempting to shove the buttons into place. “I do not need your help.”

  “Yes,” she said, and this time she lifted her eyes to meet his, “you do.”

  Staring into those shimmering pools of amethyst James felt a deep sense of shame descend upon him. Shame that he could not do a thing so simple as button his own shirt. Shame that he had taken Lily’s innocence. Shame that he was no longer the man he had once been. It filled him with anger, all that shame, and he reacted the only way he knew how: with deliberate cruelty.

  “This is your entire bloody fault, you know.”

  Lily’s eyes narrowed ever-so-slightly, but her voice remained calm. “It is my fault you cannot button your shirt?”

  Another growl, this one more ferocious than the last. “If it were not for you and that damn dog I wouldn’t even be here! And I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t…” But he could not form the words. He surged to his feet. Lily followed suit, albeit with an elegant grace he could not help but admire despite his anger. She’d donned her undergarments, but her dress must have been too difficult to put on by herself for it was still draped over the back of a chair. Her hair was loose and tangled,the dark curls spilling over her shoulders like a stream of black ink.

  “Please leave Mr. Betram out of this. He did nothing wrong. Now if you would hold still, I can help you with your—”

  “I DON’T NEED YOUR DAMN HELP!” He kicked out at a small end table, striking one of the slender legs. It cracked in half and the table, unsteady to begin with, crashed to the floor. Lily crossed her arms.

  “Well I suppose that is one way to get firewood.”

  James spun away from her to brace his arm across the mantle of the hearth. His chest rose and fell with the force of his breaths, even as a flicker of confusion gave him pause. Why wasn’t Lily running from him in horror? Any other woman he knew would have fled screaming by now, snow storm or no. He’d taken her virginity on the cold hard floor, blamed her for something that had been his own decision to make, and yelled at her with all the tact of a miserable old bear. Yet still she remained, composure in place, not a hint of hysteria in sight. “I wasn’t always like this, you know,” he said gruffly after a long, heavy pause.

  “Moody and temperamental? I find that hard to believe.”

  “No.” Frustrated, he turned and jerked his chin to the left. “Like this.”

  “You mean your missing arm? I assumed you lost it in the war, but I suppose you could have been born without it. Some people are, I hear.” Lily shrugged, as though they were discussing something as benign as the weather instead of his crippling defect. “I am happy for you that you had it as long as you did, to be quite honest.”

  “Happy?” James said incredulously. “You are happy?”

  “Yes. Imagine if you only ever had one arm. You never would have been able to experience life with two. Although perhaps that would have been better.” The faintest of smiles lifted her mouth on one side. “I imagine you would have figured out how to button your own shirts by now.”

  Was she… laughing at him?

  No, not laughing, James realized. Accepting. She was accepting him, one arm and all. The concept was so foreign – not to mention unexpected – that he quite simply could not think of anything to say.

  “I fear I am quite tired,” Lily said, interrupting the silence before it could stretch into something bordering on the uncomfortable. “Would you mind stoking the fire while I ready for bed?” Without waiting for a response she headed for the bedroom, only to hesitate with her fingers curled around the knob. “You will sleep with me, won’t you? For body warmth,” she said quickly before he could manage a word. “I would hate to catch a chill. Come along, Mr. Betram.”

  With a groan and a mumble the old beagle surged to his feet and waddled after his mistress, leaving James staring after both of them in slack jawed astonishment.

  CHAPTER TEN

  28 days until Christmas

  The Winswood Estate

  “Sarah, I need to speak with you at once.” It was only half past ten in the morning when Lily marched into her friend’s foyer and handed her cloak and hat to a servant, but she did not think for one moment that Sarah was still abed. Thanking the maid who had taken her outer garments, she proceeded down the front hallway and into the music room without invitation.

  As predicted (from many other early morning visits just like this one) she found Sarah sitting behind the pianoforte, her fingers hovering in tense anticipation above the ivory keys and her face scrunched tight in concentration.

  “I cannot play this one sequence of notes,” she complained without looking up. “The bridge is particularly difficult, but Devlin talked me into doing a recital before Christmas Eve dinner and I have to do it perfectly.”

  “Where is that husband of yours?” Lily asked before she collapsed into a chair and propped her feet up on a cushioned footrest. The room was warm courtesy of a crackling fire, and she rolled up the sleeves of her light yellow morning dress to mid forearm. The other fireplaces in the sprawling manor must have been going as well, for on her way up the long, twisting drive she’d noted smoke spiraling from all four chimneys, the plumes of gray standing out in sharp contrast against the clear blue sky.

  It was a lovely day, last night’s raging storm only evident in the thick blanket of freshly fallen snow. If she tried hard enough Lily could almost imagine yesterday had never happened at all, until she moved a certain way and the soreness between her thighs said otherwise.

  She and James had woken at first light and left the c
ottage as dawn was cresting on the horizon. He brought her back to where he found her and they parted ways without a word.

  No promises spoken. No betrothals made. Just one long, lingering look that instantly heated her cheeks and caused the breath to stutter in her lungs. When Lily returned home – sneaking through the servant’s door around the side – everyone had still been abed with the exception of the cook, who had taken one look at Lily’s disheveled appearance, rolled her eyes, and slipped silently back into the kitchen.

  She’d bathed her face and chest in cold water, exchanged one set of clothes for another, and set off at once for the Winswood estate which was only a brisk walk down the lane in the opposite direction of where she’d gone the day before.

  If Sarah thought it was odd of her friend to show up before breakfast without a carriage or even a horse, she made no mention. Then again, Lily’s eccentricities were well known, especially to Sarah. Adjusting the skirt of her rose colored morning dress, the blond played a few more notes before she turned the sheet music over with a huff and stood up. “Devlin is in London on business. He left directly after the ball, and should be home by the end of the week. Do you want tea and scones? I believe Cook just made fresh ones.”

  “That would be lovely.”

  Sarah waited for the refreshments to be brought out on a silver platter before she sat down across from Lily. She raised her eyebrows. “Well?” she said expectantly. “What is it you have to tell me?”

  Selecting a scone, Lily bit into warm dough, not realizing she was half starved until she wolfed down the first scone and started on the second. “Why do you assume I have something to tell?”

  “Your mother came looking for you yesterday afternoon. I told her you were upstairs changing, and that we were going into town for a bit of shopping.”

  Relief washed over Lily like a wave, only to be followed by something distinctly less comfortable. If her mother believed she had spent the day and night with Sarah, then her reputation would not be ruined as she feared… except her virginity truly had been lost. The irony of it caused her to laugh, and Sarah’s expression grew tight with concern.

  “Lily, what is it? I can tell something is bothering you. I did not want to say anything at the ball, but you have been acting very odd as of late. Is this because of your father?”

  Yes, it was because of her father, but not in the way Sarah meant. Lily took a deep breath. She needed to tell Sarah everything, if only so someone else could share her burden. It was a selfish thing to do, but then hadn’t she already proven that she was, in fact, quite selfish? Taking a sip of tea to settle her stomach, she told her friend everything in a rush, beginning with Mr. Guthridge’s visit and ending with that very morning when she and James parted ways without a word spoken between them.

  Sarah’s eyes grew wider and wider with every revelation, but she did not interrupt and Lily was grateful for her silence. When she was finished, when there was no detail left unsaid, she slumped back in her chair, threw an arm up over her face, and groaned loudly. “And so you see I am now quite ruined. James will not have me, Christmas is right around the corner, and we will soon lose everything to Cousin Eustace.” She opened one eye and peeked under her wrist. “Have I left anything out?”

  “Heavens,” Sarah said dazedly, “I hope not.”

  Lily’s smile was both wry and self-deprecating. “I do not know what to do,” she admitted. “I thought sleeping with James would solve all of my problems, but now I fear I have only made them worse. What if he tells someone what we did? No man would have me after that.”

  “I do not know Captain Rigby overly well, but from what I have heard of him he seems like a man of high moral character.” Sarah’s smile was encouraging. “So you should not worry about him spreading idle gossip.”

  “Yes, no one need know I’ve lost my virginity until my future husband discovers my lack of innocence on our wedding night and tosses me out on my ear.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that either. Seeing as your cousin will soon have all of your money and you will not be in possession of a dowry, no man of consequence is likely to look twice at you.”

  Lily dropped her arm to stare incredulously at her friend. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  “No, I suppose not.” Sarah took a thoughtful bite of her scone. “But I am confident we will come up with a solution. After all, what happened to you is not so different than what happened to me, and look how well everything turned out with Devlin and I!”

  “I fear James is not the sort of man to profess his love over a sleigh ride through the park. He did not say a word, Sarah. Not a word when we parted ways.” The anxiety of it all settled in her chest like a stone, weighing her down and leaving her rooted in the chair where she once would have paced circles around the room. What was she going to do? For once, Lily did not have an answer.

  “Well, did you say anything when you parted ways this morning?” Sarah asked.

  “I… No,” she said after she thought about it. “I didn’t.”

  “There you have it, then!” Sarah said excitedly. A bit too excitedly, Lily thought with a scowl, given the dower circumstances. “You did not say anything so he did not say anything. Perhaps he is sitting in a drawing room somewhere at this very moment, having the same exact conversation we are!”

  “I highly doubt that.”

  “Oh, posh.” Sarah waved her hand in the air. “What do you know? Look at what a muck of things you’ve made so far. I must say, this is not at all your best scheming. Which makes it all the more interesting, does it not?”

  “You are talking in riddles,” Lily said irritably, “and not being at all helpful.”

  “I am being incredibly helpful,” Sarah corrected with a beaming smile. “And I have come up with a perfect solution.”

  Hope flickered inside Lily’s heart, hesitant as a newly born flame. Was there a way to fix everything? Sarah certainly seemed to think so. She bit the inside of her cheek, telling herself not to get too excited even as the anticipation nearly drove her up and out of her chair. She wrapped her arms around her chest to contain the pounding of her heart and leaned forward. “Which is?”

  “It is quite simple, really. All you have to do is ask Captain Rigby to marry you.”

  James had not moved from his chair for the past hour. He sat in silence, staring down at his desk and the blank piece of blank parchment resting on top of it. The words that needed to be written on the parchment – a simple letter to a solicitor – echoed in his mind, but try as he might he could not summon the concentration necessary to commit them to paper. His mind was preoccupied, his thoughts very much elsewhere.

  As the second hour began to pass his muscles grew stiff but still he remained in the chair. Not moving, just staring, as though the empty page before him would reveal all the answers he sought if he but studied it long enough.

  “I knocked, but you did not answer. What are you doing?”

  James jumped at the sound of his sister’s voice. He’d been so deep in thought he hadn’t heard her at the door nor, it seemed, noticed when she entered the room. Dressed in a drab gray dress with a white shawl wrapped around her shoulders she looked old beyond her years… and far more serious than any sixteen year old girl should ever appear. “I was thinking about something,” he said honestly. “What are you doing awake and dressed?” He glanced out the window, thinking perhaps more time had passed than he initially believed, but the sun was still rising in the sky, indicating the hour to be quite early.

  Natalie shrugged her shoulders beneath the shawl. “I could not sleep.” Tucking her legs up, she settled into a chair, but kept her gaze on him, her blue eyes inquisitive. “You did not come home last night.”

  “No.” He did not offer an explanation, for what could he say? I did not come home because I was in the process of ruining a young woman’s life. What woman? Oh, the very same one you met at the Heathcliff’s ball. He hoped Natalie would be satisfied with the fact tha
t he was home now and leave the matter alone, but he should have known better. His sister had always been curious and, when it came down to it, often quite nosy. As a girl she’d been caught eavesdropping behind doors on more than one occasion, a habit which seemed unbroken even after all this time.

  “Did you go into town?” she asked, resting her chin on her knees and looking very much like the baby sister he had left instead of the waif like, sad eyed woman he’d returned home to. “Or to the pub? Or perhaps you went—”

  “Leave it alone Natty,” he said, a hard edge to his voice. Her face paled, and he could have kicked himself. “What I meant to say, is my absence is nothing you should concern yourself with… sweetheart.” The endearment sounded odd even to his own ears, but he was determined to be softer with his sister, and what better way than to begin using terms of affection? Unfortunately, it did not have the effect on Natalie he would have hoped.

  “Do not call me that,” she said fiercely.

  James’ forehead creased in bewilderment. “Sweetheart, I did not mean—”

  “STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT!” she shrieked, and in the aftermath of her sudden outburst they were both silent. Natalie was breathing heavily, her small chest pushing in and out quick as a bird’s.

  James noted her fingers were pressed into the arms of the leather chair so hard her knuckles shone white in the drowsy light of morning. She was terrified, he realized dumbly. Absolutely terrified. But of what? Of him? Somehow, he did not think he was the cause. The shell shocked expression on her face was the same he’d seen worn by men on the battlefield after they’d witnessed an unspeakable horror. “Natty,” he began, careful to keep his voice calm so as not to upset her further, “is there something you are not telling me?”

  She shook her head quickly. Too quickly, James thought.