“I thought the point of caroling was to sing,” a deep, achingly familiar voice drawled from the shadows.
Lily jumped and whirled, kicking out a spray of snow. She squinted into the darkness, trying to decipher shape from shadow, and could not help but gasp aloud when James stepped forward from beneath the eaves of a shed. He held a single candle, the light from it illuminating his face.
“What… what are you doing here?”
He stepped closer and the circle of light enveloped her in its rosy glow. “I asked Lady Heathcliff where I could find you. She was very helpful.”
Sarah, who had begged off the evening’s festivities because of a head cold. Sarah, who had known James would come looking for her. Sarah, who was not long for this world once Lily got her hands on her.
She shook her head. “I do not understand.”
“I know,” James said softly. “It should not make sense, but it does.”
“What does?”
He held her gaze, his dark, soulful eyes unblinking and for once she could read the emotion swirling behind the wall of stone. It struck a chord in her heart, pulling her towards him even as she dug in her heels and did her best to resist. “You. Me. Us. We make sense,” he said. “I do not know how, or why, but we bloody well do. You know it as well. I know you do.”
Lily bit her lip and looked away. In the distance she could hear the joyful notes of a familiar Christmas ballad and she was reminded of the date, and all the implications it carried with it. She twisted away, giving him her shoulder. “You are only saying this because you feel obligated. You shouldn’t,” she said, more sharply than she intended. “There will be no… no complications from our time spent together and it was as much my fault as it was yours, so do not think you have ruined me. I ruined myself.”
“Lily.”
She tensed at the sound of her name on his lips. Had he ever spoken it aloud before? She didn’t know. She could not remember. “If you are here out of pity or some foolish sense of—”
He stepped forward, closing the distance between them in one long, loping stride. His hand fell heavily on her arm and he spun her around. Yanked her tight against his chest. “I came here for you,” he said fiercely.
She tilted her head back, searching for the truth in his eyes. What she saw left her breathless. Still, she dared not believe what was right in front of her. Dared not believe such a thing was even possible. “If that is true, where have you been?”
“In Edinburgh and London and every other bloody place I could think of to secure a special marriage license.”
At that, Lily’s vocal chords quite simply stopped working. Her lips parted, but no sound came out save a squeak that James seemed to find quite amusing if his sudden grin was any indication. It was there and gone again before she had time to blink, but the trace of it lingered in his eyes and touched something deep inside her heart.
“I’ve been granted one from the archbishop,” he said, answering her unspoken question, “and the parish priest is ready to marry us. We can be wed tonight, if you wish it, and you need never worry again for the future of your family. Between myself and your father’s will, they shall be well provided for.”
“T-tonight?” Lily croaked. “But… but it is all happening so quickly.”
James steadied her against his chest when she would have pulled back. His arm tightened around the curve of her hip, holding her against him, refusing to let go. “Do you think my feelings will be any less a month from now? Or a year? For the first time in a long time I know exactly what I want, Lily Kincaid. And nothing will change that.”
“You barely know me.” Lily didn’t know why she was resisting. This was what she wanted. What she’d dreamed of. But to wish for something wondrous to happen and then to actually be granted such a wish were two very different things entirely. How could James possibly want her? She’d been rude to him. Tricked him. Called him names. And loved him, a softer voice intruded. Listened to him. Held him while he slept. Treated him as a man, not a monster. Seen him as he is now, not who he used to be.
James slowly slid his arm from around her back. He cupped her jaw, his thumb reaching up to trace along the delicate curve of her cheekbone. “I know you are intelligent. I know you are witty. I know you are beautiful. I know you are brave and strong and stubborn to a fault. I know you make me want to be a better man.” He took a deep breath. “I am not healed, Lily. I have scars on the outside and within. I am not perfect, but I know we are perfect for each other. We may have only known each other for a short time, but my soul knows you, Lily. I know you.”
Her lips parted. She scrambled to think of the right thing to say but her heart was melting, and her mind was quickly following suit. In the end, she said what she felt in the depths of her soul. Staring up into James’ eyes, seeing the love shining through as bright as the stars in the sky, she whispered, “I know you.”
And she did.
EPILOGUE
In the end, they were not married on Christmas Eve.
Lily did not want James to think the only reason she was marrying him was to preserve the inheritance, and even though he was adamant to the contrary, she stood firm.
“Stubborn brat,” he told her with great affection.
“Goose livered nincompoop,” she replied before she looped her arms around his neck and kissed him senseless.
They told Lily’s mother on Christmas morning. She wept, and declared it was the best present she had ever received. The two families dined together, and Natalie and Elsa were already on their way to becoming the very closest of friends.
The only damper on an otherwise perfect evening was the arrival of Cousin Eustace and Venetia, who came uninvited while dessert was being served. Lily still wasn’t certain what James said to her cousin; all she knew was Eustace vowed not to lay a finger on her dowry and left with all haste, dragging his squabbling wife behind him.
They were married the day after Christmas. True to his word James had been able to procure a special license and the parish priest, a short, bald man with twinkling blue eyes and a ready smile, wed them before their closest family and loved ones.
When Lily and James emerged from the church shoes were thrown – for luck – and as if on cue snow began to fall from the sky. Tipping her head back, Lily caught a flake on her tongue. With her face tilted up towards the heavens she saw, for an instant, a bright flash of light. Warmth spread over her, and she tightened her grip on her husband’s arm. He gazed down at her, and she knew the love in his eyes was echoed in her own.
Lily still wasn’t sure exactly when it happened, or how. She only knew she loved the man standing beside her with all her heart, and she was blessed to be able to spend the rest of her life with him. To keep a home with him. To raise a family with him. To love him unconditionally, until her last breath was taken.
Their future together would not be an easy one, Lily knew that as well. They would argue and fight – they were both too stubborn not to. But through all the trials and tribulations she knew their love would shine like a beacon, brightening their lives and always bringing them back to each other in the end.
Again she looked to the sky, this time with understanding. “Thank you Father,” she whispered, “and Merry Christmas.”
The Christmas
Widow
CHAPTER ONE
Beatrice hated winter.
For her it was not a season of snowflakes and sparkling ornaments and family gatherings and sneaking kisses under the mistletoe. Quite the opposite, really. For Lady Beatrice Tumbley it was a season of death and destruction and a constant reminder of who she had loved and lost. Which was why, on the morning of December the first, she ordered her household staff to cover all of the windows in thick velvet curtains.
Beatrice knew what the villagers said about her. What they whispered behind closed doors. What they told their children late at night to keep them inside.
Do not go out… Mad Lady Bea will get you!
&nb
sp; Once she would have worried what everyone thought of her. Once she would have gone out of her way to woo their favor. Once she would have worked tirelessly to repair her reputation as the crazy widow who lived all alone up on the hill. But that was then, and this was now, and she no longer cared what her peers thought of her. Truth be told, she did not really care about anything anymore.
“Close the curtains. Every last one of them,” she ordered, fingers visibly trembling as she held them up to her lips and stared out at the snow softly falling from a moody gray sky. Outside the fields and the woods were being slowly blanketed in a layer of white. Before the night was through everything would be covered, from the tall pines that guarded the entrance to Stonewall Manor to the untended gardens she’d not step foot in for the past two years. “I do not want to see any of it.”
“See any of what, my lady?” one of the maids asked, visibly perplexed.
Beatrice turned away from the window. “The snow,” she whispered as her heart gave a hollow pang inside of her chest. “I do not want to see the snow.”
The long train of her dressing gown trailed in her wake, whispering over the thick Aubusson carpet as she left the front parlor in favor of the library. Inside the dark, cavernous house the library was the only room beside her bedchamber where she could spend any length of time. Careful to close the door behind her she leaned up against it, pale lashes sweeping across her cheeks as she struggled to contain the wave of grief that washed over her thin frame, threatening to drown her from the inside out.
Would it ever get any better? Would this tight knot inside of her chest ever loosen? Would the burden of loss she carried in her heart ever grow less heavy?
With a tiny sob Beatrice pushed away from the door and forced herself to pick up the book she’d abandoned earlier in the day. Curling into one of several leather chairs that faced the crackling fireplace she quickly flicked through the pages to find where she’d left off and began to read. But her mind refused to focus on the fictional characters, and when the words began to blur she closed the book with a hard snap and pressed it against her chest.
It was this season, she thought miserably. It was the sight of snow. The scent of pine. The sound of bells ringing in the air. All constant reminders that this was when he’d been taken from her.
Her love. Her husband. Her Jeffrey.
Nearly two years gone and she mourned him more now than ever before. After his death all of her friends and family had assured her she would eventually move on. You are still young, they’d said. You will overcome this. You will find love again. Except she hadn’t, and deep down she feared she never would.
Her friends and family were now gone, chased away by a bitterness they could not understand and a sense of grief they could not possibly imagine, leaving Beatrice all alone in the large creaky manor up on the hill she’d once shared with her husband.
After his abrupt passing she had clung to her grief as one might a child, using it to anchor herself to the memories of a man she would never see again. Memories of meeting him in Hyde Park one sunny afternoon. Memories of their courtship. Memories of their wedding. Memories of their life together, so perfect and blissful, until one snowy night when everything was torn asunder.
She still remembered it all as though it had happened yesterday.
The hard knock on the door. The grim faced doctor with blood on his collar. The sound of her wailing cry echoing through the foyer when she heard the words that would be forever etched in her memory.
“My Lady, there has been a carriage accident. I am so sorry, but your husband is dead.”
Dead, when three hours before he’d pressed his lips to her temple and promised he would be home before midnight. Dead, when they still had plans to visit their families for Christmas on the morrow. Dead, when the socks she had spent all evening knitting for him were still sitting on the table in the parlor.
Belatedly wiping at the tears that were streaming down her face, Beatrice stood up and walked as close to the fire as the heat of the orange and red flames would allow. She stared blindly into the hearth, watching as the logs used to feed the fire were hungrily devoured.
Her spirit had gone much the same way as the logs. Charred to black and burnt to ash as it fed the flames of her despair. For she hadn’t always been like this. No. Once she’d been lively. Happy. The belle of the ball, as it were, flitting from social event to social event, nary a blonde hair out of place or a button left undone. Before she married Jeffrey and retired with him to the sleepy village of Blooming Glen she’d been the toast of London, her presence demanded at countless balls and plays and luncheons. She had been renowned for her beauty and charm. Celebrated for her quick wit and enchanting smile.
Now… now, Beatrice reflected as she gazed down at her wrinkled night dress and limp, lifeless hair trailing down over her shoulders in strings of pale yellow, she was disheveled. Defeated. Downtrodden.
And perhaps just as mad as the villagers claimed her to be.
CHAPTER TWO
As it had two years ago, the sound of knocking woke her.
With a jolt and a soft cry Beatrice sat up, clinging to the plush arms of the leather chair as she oriented herself to her surroundings.
She’d fallen asleep in the library.
Again.
A thoughtful servant had draped a blanket over her lap and she wrapped it around her shoulders as she stood up, wincing slightly as her bare feet met the cold floor. In the hearth the fire had dwindled to a smoldering heap of ash and burnt logs, a tell-tale sign that many hours had passed since she’d first entered the library.
Padding to the closest window she pulled back the curtain and peaked beneath it, gaze flicking out across the snow-swept landscape. The moon, nearly full and bright as a shining pearl, illuminated the soft drifts of white in an iridescent glow. A lone fox, its red hide gleaming silver in the moonlight, followed the edge of the forest heading away from the manor, its tiny black paws padding silently across the top of the snow.
How beautiful, Beatrice thought before she caught herself and released the curtain with a jerk, fingers dropping the heavy velvet fabric as though it had burned her.
Yes, the snow was beautiful.
Beautiful and deadly.
With a tiny shiver she drew the blanket closer around her shoulders as she left the library to wander the halls, as comfortable moving about the house in the dark as she was in the light. After Jeffrey’s death she’d walked through the empty rooms and corridors nearly every night, unable to sleep for the dreams that had haunted her whenever she closed her eyes. With every passing month they came less and less frequently, but at least once a week she still awoke in a cold sweat, calling out for a man who could not answer.
Sometimes the dreams were good, and sometimes they were bad. Born half of memory and half of fiction they alternated between visions of the past and brief glimpses into a future that would never be.
Rarely did she dream of that night, for which she was eternally grateful. Experiencing her husband’s death firsthand had been nightmare enough. If she had to repeat it every time she went to sleep… it did not even bear thinking about.
Beatrice was at the foot of the grand staircase when she heard it.
Rap. RAP RAP RAP.
Knocking.
At the front door.
In a flash she was brought back to two winters ago when a similar pounding had brought her into the foyer. She’d been sleepy and a bit bewildered, foolishly expecting Jeffrey to be on the other side of the door. But it hadn’t been him. By then he’d already been dead for over an hour, his body pinned beneath the heavy wheels of a carriage.
RAP RAP RAP RAP RAP.
The sound of a fist striking wood echoed through the silent house. As her knees trembled and threatened to give way Beatrice grabbed the heavy oak balustrade to hold herself upright. It cannot be, she thought with a disbelieving shake of her head. It simply cannot. She was dreaming. Yes, that was it. She was still curled up in
the chair in the library, and this was all happening inside of her head, for surely no one in their right mind would be knocking on the front door in the middle of the night.
“I am going back to sleep now,” she said aloud, using the sound of her own voice to bolster her confidence. “I am going back to sleep because this is a dream. A horrible, horrible dream.”
Turning away from the staircase she began to do precisely that… only to freeze in her tracks halfway across the foyer at the sound of a stranger’s angry bellow.
“I can hear you in there!” a masculine voice shouted. “Open the damn door. I am bleeding!”
Beatrice’s mouth dropped open, but no sound emerged. Like a deer caught in the crosshairs of a hunter’s bow she stood and stared at the door, eyes wide as two silver shillings.
“I will kick this bloody door down,” the stranger threatened. “I swear I will!”
“D-do not,” Beatrice gasped, shaking free of her paralysis as the door shook from the force of a boot heel being driven into it. She raced across the foyer, the hem of her dressing gown billowing out behind her like a ghostly white cloud. Her hand shook as she reached out and grasped the doorknob. The metal was icy cold to the touch. “W-who are you? W-what do you want?”
“Not to die out here on your front step!” Another kick shook the door, this one harder than the last.
“Please s-stop doing that,” Beatrice implored. Her hand tightened on the doorknob, fingers flexing. At least she wasn’t having a nightmare or worse. Whoever the man was on the other side of the door, it certainly wasn’t her dead husband come back to haunt her. Jeffrey would have never spoken in such a vile manner. He had been a gentleman through and through, always treating her with the utmost respect.
Regency Christmas (Holiday Collection) Page 15