by Multi-Author
“Oh?”
“Two sleighs are being readied.”
She should say no but she was in no danger with a large group, especially Adam’s children, and the time was short before she would return to London and leave Adam’s world forever.
After she finished breakfast, she found her leather boots and laced them up. Already the happy noises of excited children resounded in the hall and several smiling faces, including Adam’s, glanced up to greet her as she descended the stairs. The children’s cousins were also in the group. A different liveried footman went for her coat, mittens, muff and gloves. Then two more came through the busy foyer with handfuls of quilts and blankets.
“May I ride with you, Miss Larkin?” Adele asked.
“You are sitting with me, silly,” George said. He was Adam’s oldest and already had the strong jaw and brow of a Forester male.
“Oh, it’s no bother,” Eloisa said.
Adam held her coat. One glance at him was enough for her to know he was still thinking of their shared night in her bed. “Might I suggest sitting in the sleigh with the foot warmers?”
“Your Grace,” she said, dipping into a quick curtsey.
“Good morning. We are only waiting for you,” he said.
“Then by all means, let us depart.” She turned her back to him and allowed him to help with her coat. She buttoned up, set her woolen hat to her head and slipped on her mittens.
A footman opened the door and there was a mad rush and much squealing as they loaded the sleighs. Adam took her gloved hand. “You are riding with me.”
“Where are we going?”
“Wherever the road takes us.” He laughed. “George, help your sister.”
The air was sharp and cold, just breathing in made her nose and lungs seize. She shivered beneath her coat. Snow covered everything—the tree limbs were draped in it, the building roofs and the lane were coated with an undisturbed layer except for the track made by the sleighs.
The children were scrambling into one of them, the girls helped by the house footmen.
Adam assisted her into the forward carriage and meticulously tucked blankets about her. She pretended to ignore him while she stuffed her hands into her fur muff.
“Are you warm enough? Please say no.” He glanced at her, a smile on his face.
“I am fine.” Her breath puffed around her and she already felt a bone-deep chill.
He squeezed her hand and then went back to lecture his oldest son to be careful with the children. “No crying,” he said to Adele. “We’ll be back before anyone gets too cold and Mrs. Deiter will have hot chocolate and biscuits when we return.”
“Might I ride with you, Papa?” Adele asked.
“Not today, my sweet. Is everyone ready?”
Another happy chorus went up. Eloisa couldn’t help but glance over her shoulder, an acute pain weighing on her chest. Adam had no idea the loneliness that came with being a man’s mistress.
But it was nothing compared to loving a man who would never love her.
Adam hoisted himself up, wobbling the sleigh, and took his seat. She enjoyed the immediate heat of his body flush beside her.
He clucked and slapped the reins against the horses’ backsides. When they settled into a trot down the lane, Adam relaxed beside her.
“Will you not miss me?” he asked, as if to restart their conversation from London.
“I have resolved not to.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“Adam, what do you gain by this little arrangement? Your children are present. You could have enjoyed the time with them much more had you left me at the house.”
He slid his free arm behind her and pulled her close. When he pressed a kiss to her brow, she attempted to pull away.
“Adam! This is very inappropriate.”
“They are too busy chatting to notice what their Papa is doing.” Gentle pressure pulled her near him, tucked beneath his arm. “I am so happy you came.”
Adam was making this as difficult as possible.
They rode in silence for a while, the stillness of the cloaked landscape pierced by the occasional laughter of a child and the crunching of hooves cutting into the snow.
“Mother has given me some sound advice, and I cannot disagree with her,” he said. “I should have realized sooner you wished to be released from our arrangement so you could pursue your own interests. She thought you would like to eventually marry.”
So he was going to give her up.
“Your mother knows about us? Did you tell her?”
“She raised five boys, none of whom was known for their honesty. I believe she figured it out.”
Eloisa drew a cold breath into her lungs and closed her eyes. “Adam, you know I am grateful, but she is right. Neither of us intended that I should be your mistress into perpetuity.”
“I see.”
“So you will let me go with no further impediments?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“I can’t let you go to just any man. He will have to be worthy of you.”
“You will have no say in it, once I am gone. Ever.”
“Have you considered that I know many worthy peers?”
“I don’t want to speak about it.”
After that, Adam talked of snow depth and animal health and the return trip to London.
By Twelfth Night, Eloisa was tired of pretending and weary, knowing Adam had made up his mind that he could live without her.
* * * * *
ANOTHER SNOWSTORM HAD blown in and the family all sat near the great fireplace, taking turns reading from a tome of moral lessons, The Accidents of Youth—one the children found more humorous than instructional. Nor did they absorb the lessons with the seriousness intended by the author.
“‘One day, when the tomcat was in a worse humor than usual, and determined to defend his whiskers, he threw out his paw so nimbly that he scratched me in the left eye.’ Papa, can a cat’s paw burst an eye?” Adele asked.
“I suppose if you are not careful.”
Adam sat next to Adele, helping her with a word now and again. Eloisa sat on the other side.
“Here, why don’t you let me read for a while?” he asked.
Eloisa stared into the fire, mesmerized by the flames and her thoughts. They’d already determined they would not leave tomorrow as planned. Heavy in heart, she tried to think past the day she would depart the home she’d had the past four years and to leave dear Adam.
His voice soothed her and the children had all stopped squirming to listen to their papa. When Adele leaned toward her, Eloisa draped her hand over her shoulder. She glanced up to see the other children were staring at her as was his mother and the rest of the family.
“And the foolish man nearly lost the treasure he loved.” He stared at her. “And the moral of the story is…”
Adam’s gaze bore into hers and a press of anxiety weighed against her chest.
“Marry the man with the most money,” his mother said. The adults laughed.
“What do you think, Adele?”
“We should love everyone.”
“Do you remember what I told you this morning?”
“Yes, Papa.” Shyly, she turned her face into her father’s side. “But you should say.”
“Didn’t I say that I loved Miss Larkin and I wanted her to be your new mama?”
Adele nodded.
Eloisa heated and tears blurred her vision before spilling down her cheeks. She was unaware of anything but his gaze.
“Will you, Eloisa? Will you be my wife?”
She couldn’t breathe. He reached for her hand but she stood and hurried from the room. She heard him call her name but she was out the parlor door and up the stairs, not able to think past his words. Once she was behind the bedroom door, she leaned back and pressed her hands to her mouth.
Had he said those words? Truly?
“Eloisa,” he said
from his side of the door. He knocked and she felt the gentle push against her back. “Eloisa, let me in.”
She stepped away and he entered, standing tall next to her. He locked the door.
“My heart breaks when I see you cry,” he said before he brushed his thumb over her cheek. He wrapped her in his arms and she sobbed into his chest.
“I hope these are tears of happiness.”
She could at least nod.
“Good. I want you to be happy with me.” His hands cradled her face so that she had to look up at him. “Forgive me, Eloisa. Forgive me for being a man and for not seeing the obvious in front of me and for not recognizing that what you did with me was out of love. Thank God for epiphanies.”
He pressed his lips to hers.
She wasn’t sure what she said, but to her own ears it sounded like babbling.
Somehow he got them to the bed, shedding their clothes as they went.
Such a desperate wave of need washed over her.
“Oh, Adam.”
She wrapped her arms about his neck. He pried them loose and trailed kisses down her throat then laved her breasts. She moaned. Each swipe of his tongue sent delicious pleasure through her.
“I love you.” He kissed the skin on her belly. “I love you.” He kissed at the sensitive spot near her hipbone and then he pressed one of his large hands to the inside of her thigh and spread her.
His wicked tongue licked through the folds of her body and swirled around the throbbing nub of her center. She moaned, arching up to meet him. He clamped his hand behind her knee and lifted her leg.
She gasped, open-mouthed and desperate. Sensual delight spread through her body—she had no control and Adam had no mercy. Tight, aching pleasure built until her urgent moans filled the room.
Finally she soared, leaving Adam behind and briefly seeing the starry heavens. Just as quickly she returned to earth to feel Adam over her and then pushing into her body. He thrust into her and she welcomed him, clutching at his cock. He spent in a tense burst, his breath hot on her neck.
With one last kiss to her lips, Adam rolled and propped himself at her side, his head braced in his palm. His arm lay across her chest and his fingers played with her hair.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I can never replace Nellie. I still can’t.”
“Nell?” He nodded. One finger brushed over her cheek. “My dear Eloisa, someday…someday in the future we will talk about my wife, but not tonight. Tonight is about us. We will marry as soon as the banns can be read, since you have sufficiently aged me with your plan to leave.”
“Have I?”
How could she have believed for a moment she could live without him?
She sighed, closed her eyes and pressed a kiss to his chest, over his heart. The love she had thought she felt for him was nothing compared to what she felt at hearing his words.
“I know what they say about my marriage,” he said after some minutes, as if he searched for the right words. “But I want you to know, to believe, we will have the greatest love. And once I convince you, I will convince all of London.”
His kiss stole her breath away.
It was a magical night with Adam in her arms and her heart nearly burst each time he proclaimed his love for her. Such gifts, she thought, the granting of Christmastide wishes, should be boxed up and handed out every year.
THE END
More from Eliza Lloyd
Eliza Lloyd currently has several novels published with Ellora’s Cave in their 19th Century/Legend historical line including several series: Wicked Affairs, Mad Duchesses and Birds of Paradise and a new series, Cold Play, in the Breathless line. Additionally, she has a new series of self-published books titled Body of Knowledge, stories with a lighter edge and para/proto sci-fi twist along with a contemporary series Far From Home.
Eliza thinks romance writing is nearly as good as the real thing. Given her choice of professions, she would have preferred to be a 19th century archeologist, but she is perfectly happy living in the 21st century and comfortably writing about such romantic but inconceivably inconvenient times instead. She also writes contemporaries, romantic suspense and the occasional sci-fi when plotting and characterization don’t matter and invisibility does.
Eliza wrote her first romance novel after years of yearning. She finally woke up one day and asked, “Why the heck am I not writing?”
She enjoys traveling, movies, everyone else’s novels and a good meal out with friends on Saturday night. Her greatest flaw is that she believes there is such a thing as true love. Please don’t tell her otherwise.
You can find me at most online retailers.
A Christmas Kiss
by
Jess Michaels
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Author’s Note
Dear Readers,
I love nothing more than reunion stories, especially a reunion around a holiday with such romance emotional impact as Christmas. The idea of a couple sitting by the fire, exchanging gifts, enjoying the snow and falling back in love makes my heart beat a little faster. So that’s the story I chose to tell for Amelia and Stephen in A Christmas Kiss.
And if this is the first story you’ve read from me, I hope you will join MY NEWSLETTER for all the newest release information and check out MY WEBSITE for a list of the erotic Regency romances I’ve written. Enjoy Amelia and Stephen’s story. And a very happy holiday season to you all!
Jess M.
Blurb
Amelia, the Countess of Blackgrove wanted nothing more than a happy ending with her beloved husband. When she discovered on their wedding day that he never cared for her as she thought he had, she ran. Now her husband Stephen has one regret: losing her.
He's tricked her into coming to their country estate to prepare for a Christmas celebration and once they're alone together, he intends to prove to her, by whatever means necessary, that he can be the man she always wanted him to be.
Chapter 1
THE CARRIAGE RUMBLED through the gate of Hillbury Castle and Amelia barely contained the shudder that threatened to work its way through her body. At least the drive was so long that it would take another quarter hour before they would reach the door…before she would be forced to face her nightmare.
“You are very pale, Lady Blackgrove,” her longtime lady’s maid, Helen, said. “Are you well?”
Amelia shifted. With any other servant, she would be reticent to speak the truth, but Helen wasn’t the average maid. The two had all but grown up together. She considered Helen to be a friend, even if the servant held herself slightly apart, as was proper.
“I will admit,” Amelia said slowly. “I’m not looking forward to this exercise in humiliation.”
Helen reached out to briefly take Amelia’s hand. “I hope it will not be as bad as all that.”
Amelia drew a pained breath. “How can it not be? I’ve been summoned to the country home of my husband of six months—a husband I am estranged from—in order to prepare for a farce of a Christmas celebration with our two families. It is bound to be dreadful.”
She turned her face and stared out as the drive wound through dense, beautiful woods for a few moments. She couldn’t help but think of the last time she’d seen Stephen. It had been the day after her wedding…and her wedding night. She had still been basking in the glow of having the man she loved introduce her body to such pleasures and then…
Then she had found out the terrible truth about him.
“My lady!”
Amelia jolted at Helen’s sharp tone and found her servant was now holding out a crisp handkerchief. She blushed as she realized that a tear had escaped her eye and was winding its way down her cheek.
“At least I’m doing this in the safety of my carriage,” she muttered as she swiped the errant tear away. “I certainly don’t want to weep in front of his servants so they can report it to him when he arrives next week.”
Helen nodded. “You’re strong, m
y lady. You’ll manage.”
“I will,” Amelia agreed. “I must. For the sake of our families and the upcoming holiday. I certainly won’t let Lord Blackgrove see that his lack of affection causes me any pain. Luckily I have seven days to make certain I hide the bitter truth.”
Helen had stopped looking at her and was now staring out the carriage window. Her face was suddenly pale and her eyes wide.
“My lady,” she began, then trailed off.
Amelia wrinkled her brow at the servant’s obvious dismay. “What is it?”
“It—it’s…” Helen pointed out the window as the carriage stopped. “It’s him!”
Amelia moved to Helen’s seat, all but shoving her poor servant out of the way, and pressed her face close to the glass. From this angle she could see the front entryway of her husband’s castle. And there, standing no more than four long strides from her carriage, was the man himself.
The Earl of Blackgrove. Stephen. Her husband. The man she loved.
The man who had made it utterly clear that he cared not a whit for her and had married her only for money.
* * * * *
STEPHEN DREW A long breath as the carriage stopped along the drive. The increased air did nothing to quell his anxiety, and as the footman stepped forward to open the door, Stephen’s heart began to pound at double the normal rate.
The first to exit the vehicle was not his wife, but her lady’s maid. The seemingly ever-present Helen shot him what could only be described as a glare before she turned back and spoke softly into the dark carriage. Stephen leaned forward, but couldn’t hear the words the women exchanged.
But did he need to? It was all too evident that his wife didn’t want to exit the carriage now that she realized he was here, not back in London where she had expected him to be. Amelia didn’t want to see him.
Not that he blamed her.
He cursed himself for his stupidity, as he had for months, and marched forward.
“Excuse me, Helen,” he said, gently setting the maid aside before he climbed into the carriage, shut the door and took a seat across from his wife.