Regency Christmas (Holiday Collection)

by Jillian Eaton

  “Have a bloody sip of wine.” Vivian shoved the glass unceremoniously into Emma’s hand, forcing her to catch it or else let it fall off the table and shatter on the floor below. “It isn’t going to kill you. In fact, I think it might be just what you need.”

  Emma reflexively caught the glass by its slender stem to keep it from falling but she did not take a drink. Instead she regarded Vivian with a small frown, dark brows pulling together over the bridge of her nose. “What do you mean it may be just what I need?”

  “Precisely what I said.” Absently dashing her fingers across her face to wipe the tears from her cheeks, Vivian swiveled on her stool until she and Emma were sitting face to face. “You are a prude, darling. I say that with the greatest of affection,” she said hurriedly before Emma could open her mouth to protest, “but it is true. It’s not a bad thing. Truly it’s not. If you want to remain a spinster for the rest of your life, that is.”

  Emma bit the inside of her cheek. She knew Vivian wasn’t trying to be purposefully cruel, but that did not stop her words from burying themselves under her skin like tiny pricked barbs. If being unmarried and uncourted and unkissed at the age of twenty made one a prude, then she supposed she was. But surely it was through no fault of her own. She attended dinner parties. She went to balls. She danced with men. Perhaps she didn’t flirt with them as openly as some of her peers, but Emma had never been one to fake attraction, no matter the gentleman’s rank or title or wealth. Why pretend to feel something when there was nothing there to feel?

  You felt something with Lord Prescott, a sly little voice intruded. When he touched your wrist you felt a great deal. Do not try to deny it.

  “I am not denying anything,” Emma said defensively.

  Vivian’s brow shot up. “Again? I thought you’d stopped that.”

  Emma was thankful the kitchen was so dark when she felt her cheeks fill with color. For as long as she could remember she’d had a vivid imagination. She supposed it came from always biting her tongue. When one constantly swallowed the words they really wanted to say those words didn’t disappear, but rather manifested themselves into a silent dialogue. Or in some cases a not so silent one. Still, it had been quite some time since she’d become unsettled enough to speak her thoughts out loud.

  The blame, she decided darkly, laid entirely at the feet of Lord Prescott. He had tipped her back on her heels with his debonair charm and sly innuendos. The worst of it was she suspected he’d done it on purpose. What better way to entertain himself than to ruffle the feathers of an innocent? How he must have laughed at her the moment his back was turned!

  Without consciously thinking about what she was doing Emma lifted the wine glass and took a sip. It tasted sweet on her tongue, a pleasant mixture of honey and elderberries. She took another sip, and then another, before passing the glass back to Vivian.

  “Lord Prescott spoke to me.” She studied Vivian carefully in order to gauge her friend’s reaction. Aside from a slight widening of her eyes the blonde beauty did not seem very surprised.

  “Did he?” she said mildly. Picking up the wine bottle she drained the rest of the contents into the glass, refilling it back up to the brim. “I always thought Lord Prescott was quite handsome. Certainly handsomer than Rodger.” Her nose wrinkled. “The man may be wealthy as sin but he is hardly pleasurable to look at. Money cannot buy everything, I suppose”

  “That isn’t very kind.”

  “No, I suppose it’s not.” Vivian glanced down into the murky contents of her glass before her gaze flicked to Emma. “But then I am not in a very kind mood. More wine?”

  This time Emma did not hesitate. “Yes please.”

  For a few moments the two friends drank in silence, their thoughts drifting in very different directions. Emma thought of her age (too old by the ton’s merciless standards) and her marriageable prospects (of which there were none) and the fact that she’d never been kissed before (not even once). Before she quite knew what had happened the glass of wine was empty and Vivian was uncorking another bottle. By the time that bottle was empty both women were feeling rather weepy and just a bit morose as tended to happen when one drank more than they should.

  “I don’t think Rodger loves me anymore,” Vivian said glumly as she tottered to her feet, one of the empty wine bottles swaying in her right hand. Emma held the other bottle in her left and she cradled it against her chest as she stood up before abruptly falling back onto her stool.

  “Oh dear,” she fretted as her vision blurred and one Vivian became two Vivian’s. “I believe I may have drank a bit too much.”

  ‘A bit’ was an understatement. How many of glasses of wine had they consumed between the two of them? Three? Four? Emma feared she had lost count. Her head felt rather light and fuzzy, as though it were filled with air, like the colorful hot air balloon she’d seen floating over the Thames last autumn. How high it had soared! To the sun and beyond it had seemed. She’d often wondered what it must have felt like to look down at the clouds instead of up at them. Rather like this, she imagined as she struggled to her feet and managed to stand, albeit with a great deal of support from the table.

  “Thank you,” she said politely.

  “For what?” Vivian asked.

  “I wasn’t speaking to you.”

  “Then who were you speaking to? There isn’t anyone else here.”

  “The table.”

  “The table?”

  “Yes. It’s a rather nice table, don’t you think?”

  “You’re completely foxed,” Vivian decided.

  Emma nodded in agreement. “Yes but so are you.”

  “Nonsense,” her friend scoffed. “My head has never felt so clear. In fact, I know just what I need to do.”

  Oh dear. Emma may have been well and truly sotted, but she wasn’t so far gone that she didn’t recognize the wicked gleam in Vivian’s eyes. Whatever it was the blonde beauty intended to do it wasn’t going to be good. It wasn’t going to be good at all.

  “I think we should go to bed,” she said quickly as Vivian headed for the door. Setting down the empty bottle of wine she hastened to follow, not wanting to be left in the kitchen by herself. “It is getting late and the party is nearly over.”

  “Over?” Vivian stopped short in the doorway and looked back over her shoulder, mouth slowly curving into a razor sharp smile that glittered white in the darkness. “Darling, the party is just beginning. Best tighten your garters. It is going to be a wild night.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Will was bored.

  After nearly a decade of debauchery it was going to take more than a dinner party to rouse his interest. Thinking otherwise had been a fool’s errand. Then again, he’d been feeling like a bloody fool ever since he had resumed his duties as earl and heir.

  I am not long for this world, his father’s letter had said. Come home, William. Accept your title as your birthright. Grant an old man his dying wish.

  Dying, Will thought with a snort as he leaned back against a wooden pillar and swirled his glass of amber colored brandy before raising it to his mouth. More like living to the age of one hundred. His father was healthy as a horse and stubborn as a mule. The letter had been a ploy – albeit a rather clever one – to bring his son to heel and it had worked marvelously. For the first time in eight years Will was not spending Christmas in an opium-induced haze at some brothel, but at his family’s estate in the country. An estate he stood to inherit once his father really did kick the bucket which, by the look of him, wasn’t going to be anytime soon.

  Lord George Prescott, sixth Marquess of Ware, was not a feeble man, even at the advanced age of three and sixty. Broad shouldered and bull headed, he’d driven his son away with his constant demands for perfection. Their relationship had always been a volatile one and it had finally exploded on the day Will graduated from Oxford.

  His father had wanted him to return home at once and take on the full responsibilities of earl while Will had wanted a year –
or five – to travel the world and experience life not as a nobleman and son of a Marquess, but as a red-blooded man with wild oats to sow. Needless to say neither father nor son had been willing to compromise and in the end Will had spent the last eight years traveling the continent, indulging in every wicked vice one could possibly imagine, and going out of his way to infuriate his father as much as humanly possible.

  Now he was back; the prodigal son returned. And he was bored out of his bloody mind. The only bright spot in an otherwise dull and trivial evening had come from the unlikeliest of sources: a dark-haired chit with gypsy eyes who had been completely and utterly immune to his considerable charms.

  Or rather almost immune, he thought with the hint of a smile as he recalled how her cheeks had flooded with color when he closed his fingers around her bare wrist. She was an innocent if ever there was one, but there had been no denying the heat that had sparked between them. Heat that had confused her even as it commanded Will’s attention.

  When was the last time he’d felt a lick of fire in his blood when he touched a woman? When was the last time he’d felt genuine need? Not just lust, not just desire, but a need so deep it sang in his bones.

  Lady Emma Sterling. Who was she? Better yet, how quickly could he get her in his bed? He may have been trussed up like some fancy highborn lord, but Will still retained his unscrupulous nature born from a life of vice and sin. He was a man who took what he wanted and did not think twice about it. Particularly when what he wanted was a shy fey creature with hair like ebony silk and skin like moonlight. Coffee colored eyes that were dark and deep and wary. And a full mouth just begging to be kissed…

  “Can I refresh your drink, my lord?”

  Will blinked at the servant dressed in drab gray, his solemn face betraying a faint weariness now that the party was well into its eleventh hour. “To the top,” he said, extending his empty glass. With expert precision the servant filled the glass to the brim without spilling nary a drop before moving on, leaving Will standing by himself in the corner of the parlor.

  Taking a low, leisurely sip of brandy he watched the room with little interest. He knew most of the men and a few of the women – some intimately – who were making their rounds, but he would rather cut off his right hand than engage with any of them. Poor bloody sods. All they cared about was gossip, fashion, and their weekly game of whist. How small their lives were… and now he was one of them, trapped in a hell from which there was no easy escape.

  He could always shun his title and cut himself off from the family, of course. But that would also mean cutting himself off from the family money and then where would he be? Outside on his arse in the cold for aside from a charming smile and a well-earned reputation as an excellent lover he had no marketable skills. At least none that could afford him the lifestyle he’d grown accustomed to.

  So he would play his father’s game – for now. He would attend dinner parties and sit beside his mother at Christmas and even – though it galled him to think of it – begin to look for a wife. And when the old man finally keeled over he would take his title and his inheritance and do whatever the hell he wanted, his father’s wishes be damned.

  A small commotion on the other side of the parlor raised Will’s head. He watched, a hint of amusement festering in the depths of his green eyes, as Lady Vivian demanded to see her husband with a shrill voice that echoed around the room. She was completely sotted, but at least she was somewhat entertaining as she whirled through the parlor like a dervish, arms flung wide and cheeks stained a deep, mottled red.

  “Where is he?” she cried as she swept past Will without sparing so much as a glance in his direction. “Where is that bastard? He’s with her, isn’t he? ISN’T HE?”

  And then she was gone, her voice carrying through the plaster walls as she stormed across the hall with a long line of guests in her wake, each one more eager than the last to catch every word spoken so they could gossip about it on the morrow.

  Fools, Will thought with a dismissive shake of his head before he indulged in another swallow of brandy. It slid down his throat like the caress of a lover’s hand, the strong cinnamon notes and woodsy undertone helping to soften the burn. With the careless abandon of one who drank far too often, he tipped the glass back to finish off the rest… only to spit it back up with a sputter when he saw Emma stumble into the room.

  By the looks of her flushed face and unsteady movements she was even more foxed than Lady Vivian and all the more miserable because of it. Without thinking of what he was doing Will set his brandy aside and crossed the parlor to catch Emma by the arm before she fell face first into a platter of fruit.

  “Oh,” she said dazedly as she steadied herself against his firm chest. Tilting her head back she blinked up at him, revealing eyes that were a little too bright and a nose that was a little too red. “It’s you again. Hello.”

  “Hello.” Fighting back a grin that would have come solely at the expense of Emma’s current condition, Will helped guide her to the nearest chair, a thick velvet settee with intricately carved armrests. Thankfully the parlor was all but empty following Vivian’s little show and no one bothered them as he knelt before her and squeezed both of her hands. They were cold to the touch, causing him to stroke his thumbs across her long, elegant fingers.

  Pale and delicate her hands were the epitome of everything an English beauty should be. Soft and smooth with just a touch of understated grace. His own hands were oafishly large by comparison, his nails bluntly clipped and his skin permanently stained a dusky gold from too much time spent at the races, a mug of ale in one hand and a busty blonde in the other.

  Will had always preferred wenches with fair hair. Why he was drawn to Emma with her locks of obsidian was a mystery, but drawn to her he was. She’d turned his head from across the room and like a moth to flame he’d had to have a closer look. Now he was so close he could smell the perfume glistening on the under curve of her jaw; a subtle mix of lavender and jasmine.

  “Gotten into the wine, have you?” A gentleman would have never dared make note of such an indelicate subject, but then Will was no gentleman. He never had been and – contrary to what his father believed – he never would be.

  “I am certain I – I have no idea what you are referring t-to.”

  Will lifted a brow. “Your slurred speech would say otherwise.”

  Jerking her hands free of his grasp with surprising quickness given her current state of inebriation, Emma crossed her arms over her chest and scowled down her pert little nose at him “I shouldn’t be talking to you at all.”

  “No,” he agreed, “you probably shouldn’t. But given that I am all you’ve got at the moment, I do not believe you have much of a choice.”

  “What are you talking about? The room is filled with – where did everyone go?” She looked so genuinely befuddled by the empty room as her head swiveled left and right that Will couldn’t help but chuckle.

  “This is not time for laughter,” she said, trying – and adorably failing – to look stern. “Where are the rest of the guests? Is the party over?”

  Will rocked to his feet. “At only half past midnight? Hardly. Our colorful hostess came through a few minutes ago looking for her husband. I imagine she is leading everyone on a merry chase around the estate as we speak.”

  Emma’s face crumpled. “Poor Vivian,” she whispered. “I fear she is very unhappy.”

  “I would think so given who she is married to.” Will was hardly one to advocate fidelity, especially within a marriage, but he held a general disregard for those who openly flaunted their adultery for all to see. If he ever took a wife he fully planned on taking a mistress as well, but to parade his mistress in front of his wife would only be asking for trouble.

  “Rodger is not a nice man. I hate him,” Emma said with a vehemence that caught Will by surprise. Here he’d thought her only capable of generic sweetness, but now he saw there was a feistier side to her. Mayhap one that only emerged after drinking
too much wine, but a feisty side nevertheless.

  “Why did your friend marry him, then?” he asked, genuinely curious to find out the answer. By all accounts Vivian was a beautiful woman from a prominent family which meant she’d hardly been forced into marrying against her will. A debutante in her position would have her choice of suitors and while Rodger was also from a well-to-do family he was hardly the best pick of the lot.

  “Love, I suppose.” A frown tilted Emma’s mouth at the corners. “Why else would you marry someone?”

  Why? Will could think of a dozen reason offhand – wealth, social status, power, and greed being a few – but love certainly wasn’t one of them. His parents had married for love and look where that had gotten them: sharing the same house but living entirely different lives. They made winter look like a balmy summer evening on the coast of Spain whenever they were in the same room together.

  “Love is for fools,” he said dismissively before he rocked to his feet. “Come on. You need to stand up before you pass out in that chair and a servant finds you drooling all over yourself come morning.”

  “I do not drool,” Emma said with an indignant scowl. Ignoring the arm he held out she managed to climb unsteadily to her feet under her own power and remained standing – for all of three seconds. “Oh,” she gasped as she tried to take a step forward, lost her balance, and fell back into the chair instead. “The floor in this room is very uneven.”

  “The architect must have been drunk when he designed it.” Struggling to maintain a straight face he once again offered his hand and this time Emma took it, albeit with obvious reluctance.

  “Where are we going?” she asked as he steered her towards the door.

  “Outside for a breath of fresh air.”

  She started to balk. “But it’s cold outside.”

  “Which I why I am here to keep you warm.” Giving her a wolfish smile Will coaxed her into the foyer with an encouraging hand at the small of her back and waited for the footman to bring him his cloak. When it arrived he draped it over Emma’s shoulders instead of his own and pulled it tight. Designed for his much larger frame the voluminous cloak dwarfed her tiny body, enveloping her in a shroud of heavy black fabric so only her neck and face were visible. She peered up him, blinking her eyes as though she were a little owl peering out from its nest, and had him biting back a grin.