Christmas Brides

by Suzanne Enoch

  She was trailing her fingers along the keys in a lingering, loving caress—the first hint of physicality or sensuality he had seen.

  “Why not now? I’d love to hear you play.” He flung himself into one of the large armchairs in the corner and prepared himself to be surprised.

  But she didn’t oblige him. She snatched her fingers back as if they had been burned. “Oh, no. I couldn’t.”

  “Why not? You must do as you please.”

  She looked at him as if the idea were as foreign and far-fetched as a South Seas island.

  “Truly, Anne. If we marry it will be your pianoforte—I don’t play. It will be your house, to do with as you please.”

  But even this piece of generosity—and he thought it enormously generous of himself to give his marvelously comfortable house, that he had paid for with his own prize monies and made into such a comfortable haven, over to her without a sigh—could not produce a smile. Her solemn gravity lightened not a whit. In fact, she looked dangerously close to tears.

  “Is this how you always get your way?” Her eyes were wide and luminous, and her voice, quiet and ravaged. “By charming everyone into doing your bidding by giving them their heart’s desire?”

  Ian had forgotten what it was to feel pity. He couldn’t afford such a costly emotion in his professional life. But his heart ached for her, this girl whose expectations of life were so low that he could have so easily and unthinkingly provided her with her heart’s desire.

  But he had no idea how to stem the tears. He could only tease.

  “Yes.” He rose, and went to her, and took the hand she had raised to cover her mouth. And provided her with his most cajoling smile. “Exactly. I should very much like to give you your heart’s desire. And I have already got you to do my bidding. That’s fifty-odd words already, by my count.”

  It worked.

  “Fifty-two.” She tried to make her whisper tart, to pull away and hide behind the shield of her solemnity, but she could not hide the luminous sweetness of her first watery smile.

  He felt his lips stretch into an answering grin. “Oh, Miss Lesley. I really ought to warn you, I’m desperately fond of impertinence. And pert intelligence most especially. If you get any more pert, I think I might just have to kiss you.”

  Chapter Six

  Anne felt a slow spreading panic—like the strange, suspended lethargy of a dream, where she tried and tried to run but could not manage to move—creep upon her. Even her breath felt heavy and mired in indecision. It was not like her, this indecision, this not knowing what to think. Inaction she was accustomed to—bottling up her reactions and wants—but indecision, never.

  “Why would you want to do that?” It was an idiot’s question—a nonsensical placeholder until she could adequately order her wits, and use that pert intelligence he was teasing her about.

  And he was teasing. He must be with his strong hands, and his slow smiles, and his soft, crinkled blue eyes as inviting as a warm bath.

  “Because you are letting me.” His answer was low and languorous, and he watched her steadily, his eyes open and his attention settled singly upon her. By slow increments, he lowered his head toward hers. So, so slowly, as if it were some sort of test of patience she did not know how to pass.

  So she held herself still and watched him approach, until she could no longer meet his eyes. Because she had to look at his mouth—his laughing, teasing, open mouth—as his lips continued to descend toward hers. And then, because she did not know what to do, other than try to hold herself entirely still, she turned awkwardly with him when he ducked, and then angled his head so his lips might finally reach hers.

  But they did. He was kissing her.

  His lips were softer than she expected, and harder all at the same time. Firmer, she supposed, not knowing how one was supposed to describe a man’s lips. But she thought his were like raspberries—pliant velvet with the barest hint of prickle.

  He brushed his lips across hers, once, twice, back and forth, testing her out before he settled more properly upon her. The whiskers just lurking beneath his clean-shaven chin roughed gently against her skin, and she felt everything—every part of her body and every inch of her skin—come to startled, prickling awareness,

  His lips plucked at her gently, imploringly, begging for her attention as he had done on the beach. But he had all of her attention, all of her alertness, all of her astonished hope. But her astonishment soon faded, leaving in its empty path awakened curiosity.

  She wanted to catalog and remember each and every strange and interesting new thing about him—he tasted of claret and the sweet winter orange he had eaten at dessert. He smelled aromatic and exotic—of sunny, sandy places beyond the sea. He was warm and tall and patient, lacing his fingers through her hands. He played his lips across hers until she was doing the same, and kissing him back.

  Little sips of kisses, tentative and polite—not wanting to do it wrong, or embarrass herself by presuming too much.

  And then the ordinary, orderly wheel of her brain simply stopped turning, and she could not think. Because his tongue was in her mouth, invading her, filling her with nothing but the taste and feel of him within her.

  She turned her head abruptly and shut her mouth, and shut her eyes. But that only made her more aware of the height and weight of him. He rested his forehead against her temple, his breath hot and unruly against her cheek. “Too much too soon?”

  She hardly knew. She had no idea of the correct progression of the passage of time vis-a-vis the allowable amount of kissing. And for the first time her determination wavered, and she had no idea if she really could submit herself to this marriage. And to this man.

  For he was young and handsome and a man of the world, who teased and kissed as easily and naturally as he breathed. He made her tremble with a feverish mixture of uncertain hesitation and certain want. For already she wanted to kiss him again—to taste again the astonishing raspberry of his lips.

  “Too much, I think. But not too soon.” He eased away, but kept his fingers enlaced with hers, holding their hands between them. “Not too soon to discover that you kiss very sweetly, Miss Anne Lesley.”

  She felt all the pleasure and heat of the compliment blossom across her cheeks. She found herself ducking her head instinctively, trying to hide.

  He would not let her. “Are you sure I cannot convince you to play?”

  “No. I cannot. Not in front of other people.” Certainly not in front of her mother—who was not there in person, obviously, but who was no doubt straining to listen from the other room. And most certainly not in front of handsome Lieutenant Worth, who she barely knew except for his charm and his kissing and his height.

  “Then I must tempt you with something else to try and find your heart’s desire.”

  Her heart’s desire was turning out to be a fickle changeable thing. For at the moment Lieutenant Worth’s lips were featuring prominently. As was his charm—you kiss sweetly, he had said.

  The lieutenant steered her out of the music room, and down the unlit corridor to another room. “This is my book room,” he said as he opened the door. “And if you like, and marry me, it can be your book room as well.”

  The room was a small jewel box of dark, lacquered wood and bright, colorful bindings. The man Pinky had heaped up the fire so the room was warm and toasty and glowing with mellow, yellow light.

  She stepped into the room the way a novitiate must walk into a church—full of awe and wonder. “Are these all your books?”

  “All.” He was smiling again, that incorrigibly pleased smile that curved up one side of his mouth, and made a dimple slide deep into his cheek.

  And she wanted to kiss him again. She wanted to fling herself at his chest in wonder and joy and thanks. Of all the things she had come to think and expect since her arrival, she had never thought that he—so breezy and athletic and careless and tall—would be a reading man.

  But he had turned, gesturing to the shelves. “They
are all mine, and if you are very kind, and forgiving to me, and marry me,” he said again, “then they will all be yours as well. But only if you are sweet, and very, very kind.”

  “I don’t know,” she said honestly, “if I can.”

  “Be sweet, or kind?”

  “Either.”

  “Of course you can. Just say yes. Or come here and kiss me. Or both.”

  Lieutenant Worth sprawled himself back in a chair, his long, long booted legs stretching out to nearly touch hers. He was all manly, animal ease, like a great unthreatening dog lying in the sun, who would be pleased to have his belly scratched. And he was still smiling that roguish, sideways smile.

  Anne had very little experience of humor, and even less experience of men—the combination of the two was proving maddeningly perplexing. “Are you laughing at me, sir?”

  “No. At myself, perhaps. A little. Why don’t you come sit, so we can talk and get to know each other better without the distraction and anxiety of kissing?”

  Goodness, but he had an easy way of stating the obvious—something most other people tried to avoid like the blackest plague. Even when such forthrightness mortified her, she could not but approve. “Thank you.”

  She stepped around his feet, and sat in the armchair facing his. The fire was warm and cheering, and she hoped, a cover for the flush still heating her cheeks.

  He finally turned the amused focus of his devastatingly clear blue eyes elsewhere, to the dark walls hovering just beyond the circle of the fire’s bright light. “I take it from your expression that you approve of the room. Do you like to read?”

  Did he not think her capable, or educated enough? “I love to read. It is my greatest pleasure.” Doubtless because it was solitary—a pleasure she could only take in the absence of her mother, who took no pleasure of any kind from books.

  “Ah. So noted. I think I will have something more to say to that point later, but for now, I should like to gift you with this room. You can read here, anytime, anyway, anything you like. The collection”—here he looked around, and gestured at the shelves with an expression of great fondness—“is extensive, gathered in my travels. What do you like to read?”

  “Everything.” She would show him—and herself—that she had something of refinement to go along with her pert intelligence, even if she did look as plain and dull as dishwater. “Poetry and history. Novels.”

  Let him make of that what he would. Let him try not to show his contempt.

  He astonished her by looking surprised. He turned his mouth down at the corners, and his eyebrows rose, all at the same time. The effect was comically charming. “Excellent. I have a great number of novels. I already have all three volumes of Emma, the new novel from the author of Pride and Prejudice. I defy even you to resist such a lure.”

  “Even me?” What on earth could he mean? “Lieutenant Worth, I—”

  “Just Worth, if you can’t manage Ian. Or Worthless, if you should like to join the opinion of many of my intimates.”

  “—don’t think you know me well enough to make such a judgment.”

  “Perhaps not.” His smile showed he took no objection to her hot tone. “But I’m getting to. Getting to know you better and better with each and every word above the recommended more than two.”

  He was teasing again. And possibly even flirting. She had so little practice, she did not know. “Are you amusing yourself at my expense? Mocking what you no doubt see as my naïve provincialism?”

  “No. I am intrigued by what I see as your naïve provincialism.” The lieutenant let his flyaway eyebrows resume their lazy position shading his too-bright, too-sharp eyes. “Deeply intrigued.”

  The pulse at the base of her throat began to pound at a seriously indecorous pace. He was flirting. In his book room. How very … strange. And interesting. And nice. “And what do you read?”

  “Everything,” he admitted. “I have no discrimination. They’re all my books—I’ve read them all, novels, histories and trigonometric instruction alike.” Here he had another sweeping gesture toward the dark shelves. “Why don’t you look for yourself, and see what you can find to your taste.”

  Anne was glad of the chance to stand and move away, down the rows of bright, calfskin-bound titles that glowed like jewels upon the shelves. She trailed a finger along the spines of some large folios with particularly beautifully gilded lettering, astonished at the wealth—both literal and figurative—that the titles must represent. She had no access to such expensive books at home. “You must spend a great deal of time reading.”

  “When I’m here, at home. When I’m not kissing.” He remained sprawled in his chair, with his head tipped back against the back, following her progress along the room.

  There was nothing that she could think to say to that particular piece of provocation. The words that usually whirled around her brain like a flight of sparrows had deserted her.

  “I must say, that for someone who has never been kissed before, you did exceptionally well.”

  Her pulse continued to hammer as if she had run up a mountainside, instead of only walking down a room. Good Lord. She really was a naïve provincial. But he had said he liked that—said he was intrigued by it.

  She took a deep breath, and made a foray into the frigid water of flirtation. “I—How do you know I’ve never been kissed before?”

  His smile spread full across his mouth, like marmalade smeared profligately across warm bread. “My dear Anne—”

  “I don’t believe I’ve yet given you leave to use my Christian name.” Anne was trying desperately for pert, but her voice only sounded breathless and small.

  “Yet.” He laughed and closed his eyes, and rolled his head back against the chair, and he looked warm and edible and delicious. “Oh, my darling Miss Lesley. You may have little experience of men—I can tell—but you’re learning fast.”

  “And is that a good thing?”

  “I think it is a very good thing. It gives a wonderful place to start. I shall remember it always—the night when my wife Anne learned to flirt.”

  “I have not yet consented to be your wife.”

  “But you give me hope with your ‘not yet.’”

  She turned away, and resumed looking at the shelves, but her mind was only half attendant—the other half was still quite firmly engaged in Lieutenant Ian Worth’s large, comfortable, relaxed physical presence.

  “So tell me, Anne—was I right? Have you never been kissed before?”

  There was nothing she could tell him but the truth. “No.”

  He nodded and smiled, and then frowned—concern pinched up between his brows. “Anne, what do you really know about men, and married couples, and what goes on between men and women?”

  Despite her distance to the fire, Anne felt her face flame a scalding red. She was a country girl, and while there were some truths that must be universal, she rather thought he was talking of kissing and flirtation and pert intelligence rather than rude coupling. Still, she could not say so. “Only what my mother has told me.”

  “What has your mother told you?”

  Her face grew so hot, she was going to boil freckles into her skin. “She told me that once we were married, you would rend me asunder,” she whispered, her eyes fixed squarely on the toes of her boots peeping out beneath the hem of her gown. “And that I was to permit it, and bear it without complaint.”

  He laughed out loud at the idea. “How preposterous. I’m not going to rend you asunder, Anne. I’m going to make love to you.”

  Love? In her astonishment, Anne said the only thing that occurred to her. “But you couldn’t possibly love me.”

  * * *

  Anne Lesley’s voice was quiet and threadbare. And absolutely, devastatingly honest.

  With any other woman he would have lied. With many other women, he had lied readily enough. But he could not, he would not lie to this solemn girl. Besides being a very wrong way of starting a marriage, he reckoned that she, with her pert
intelligence and steely self-control, would be able to tell.

  So he spoke as kindly and as truthfully as he could. “No. You are right, Anne. I do not love you,” he admitted. “We have hardly known each other long enough for love. But I have faith that I will—I will come to love you, just as you will come to love me.”

  “How can you say what may happen? You don’t know that any better than I do.”

  She was a cynic, this intelligent, self-controlled girl. The thought of anyone, especially a young woman, being so disappointed by life as to not believe in even the possibility of love made him unbearably sad. He rose and crossed to take her hands again, and lace her fingers through his. “But I do desire you, Anne. Very much. And I do think that is a very good place for us to start. And I also think, despite the fact that you say so little, and show even less, that you desire me, too.”

  She tried to pull her hands away, to turn and evade him, and hide behind the fortress of her self-possession. “That is lust, sir, not love.”

  He held on, insistent but gentle. “Perhaps. Yes, you are right—some of what I felt, and what I feel now, is lust. I feel lust because every time I look at you now, I want to see what lies beneath your clever, conventional camouflage. I want to kiss you intimately. I want—” He wanted to spread her out on the hard, flat expanse of the dining room table, and bury himself in her subtle, controlled rage. But he wouldn’t. “I want to kiss you for my pleasure. And I admit, that is lust.”

  The hot color had drained from her face, leaving her as pale as the dark, cloud-washed sky.

  Ian stepped closer still, so that his chest was just barely brushing hers. “But I want to give you pleasure, as well. To teach you the pleasure and joy of your own body. To show you the joy of our bodies together. And that, my Anne, is all the difference.”

  Chapter Seven

  She turned her face up to him, in censure or astonishment—he was not sure. Nor did he care. He only wanted to kiss her again, and explore the extraordinary sweetness and sensuality—the passion—he was sure floated just beneath the surface of her skin.