Christmas Brides

by Suzanne Enoch

  Viscount Rainesford slowly sat up from his slouch, like a canny fox scenting up the wind. “What goes on here? How much did she bring?”

  Anne knew enough to answer swiftly, “A thousand pounds.”

  The viscount subsided into his usual, curling sneer. “Is that all you could afford?”

  “He did not ask for more, sir.” Her father returned his own canine smile—the cagey dog guarding the henhouse, who knew the fox will always come to him.

  The viscount smiled back, though it was clear he did not think it amusing. “No, he wouldn’t have. I would.”

  “Ah.” Her father leaned back into his own chair, and steepled his fingers across his wide chest. “I begin to see why you are here. You think to make the bargaining tougher. Well, do your worst.”

  Viscount Rainesford’s answer was deceptively casual. “Are the settlements not done?”

  Her father answered before either she or Ian could keep him from responding. “Not even begun.”

  “Sir—” Ian tried.

  The viscount was as quick as he was tenacious. “Then how is it that you allowed the chit to marry?”

  Her father looked first to Ian in his confusion, and Anne leapt to try and avert the coming disaster. “It was a love match, sir. My father wants me to be happy.”

  “Yes, of course,” her father added in loyal support. But he was frowning at her, and looking back and forth between her and Ian.

  And Anne could not stop herself from looking to the viscount. Who saw it all. And understood.

  “I knew it. They’re not married. I knew it.” He slapped his palm against the table and pushed to his feet, staring at her, his fierce dark eyes—so unlike his son—boring into her. “This is all some sort of elaborate, godforsaken sham.”

  She could not keep the sweep of mortifying heat from blazing across her face, and he saw and understood. Her face proclaimed her guilt as clearly as if she had spoken.

  “Jesus God.” The viscount spat the curse at his son. “You fool. You stupid impetuous fool. Thank God I came when I did. There’s time enough to stop this unless—” He narrowed his gaze upon her. “Christ Almighty. You were practically buttering her parsnips in the corridor—”

  Another scorching swath of humiliation burned across her face and neck.

  “Enough,” Ian snarled in a voice gone low and quiet with anger. “I’ve already asked you to keep a civil tongue in your head, but I should have known that even that is beyond you.”

  His father paid no mind to his lethal tone. “But have you had her, boy? That’s the question.”

  “It is none of your business.”

  “It is my business to find out if you are married or not!” Viscount Rainesford shot back.

  Ian looked at her then, and she saw the same bittersweet apology in his eyes, almost as if he were asking her permission.

  It would have been easiest to continue the lie. It would have been better for them both if he did. But it would have been wrong. “We are not,” he said.

  “Jesus God,” the viscount swore again. “You’re nothing but a walking scandal.”

  “There will be no scandal unless you make it one. The only people who know are in this house, and are trapped here by the snow. If word gets out, if a scandal is created, then it will have been you who created it. Is that what you want?”

  His father had his answer at the ready. “What I want, is for once in your miserable life, you will do as you are told, and come back to Ciren Castle immediately, and marry the wife I have chosen for you. And mark my words, I will use whatever means I have to, including turning you into a scandal, if that is what it takes to make you obey.”

  Ian advanced on the table. His eyes blazed with the commanding authority he must have used on his ships. “I am not a chess piece for you to move about your board at whim. I am an officer of His Majesty’s Royal Navy. I have a duty and a career—the career you picked out for me—to fulfill. And I will do so, no matter what you threaten. My duty and honor compel it.”

  “Duty. Honor.” The viscount hammered out the words as if he were pounding them on an anvil. “You trot your duty and honor out whenever you don’t want to do as you are told, like guard dogs for your will.”

  Ian leaned forward onto the table, and smiled like a pirate, armed to the teeth with elegant menace. “Mark my words. I will do whatever it will take to convince you that I am not your puppet. Nor is Ross.”

  “Ross? He is not anything anymore.”

  “He is alive, and he is your son, and my brother.” Ian spoke as if his grief and anger were burning his mouth. “And if you cannot have some pity and compassion for him, then you are no father to me either.” And with that final salvo, Ian threw himself from the room.

  Anne immediately went to go to Ian, but her father followed her into the corridor so they might speak privately. “Anne? What goes on here?”

  There was nothing to say but the truth. “The lieutenant told his father we were already married. I think he feared the viscount’s interference.”

  “With good reason it seems.” Her father rubbed his hand along his jaw. “They go at each other hammer and claw—two sides of the same tool.”

  “Yes,” she admitted. “And I fear they will injure us all.”

  “Never you fear. Worth will see this out. He’s a good lad, Anne. A good lad. That’s more than I can say for most. I’ll put my faith in Worth.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  She found Ian, gone to cover in the kitchens, where Pinky—dressed in an outlandish getup—was handing him a mug of steaming coffee.

  He raked his free hand through his hair in a now-familiar gesture of rumpled frustration. “I’m sorry that you had to witness that, Anne. I’m used to my father’s vile demeanor, but I dread inflicting him upon others.”

  “It cannot be helped. As you said, you cannot order the weather.”

  “More’s the pity.” He took several scalding gulps, and turned his keen blue eyes on Pinky. The old cherub was wearing layer upon layer of clothing—a woolen coat over a knitted jumper, with several scarves swathed around his neck, and topped off by a bright crocheted scarf that he had knotted on top of his head. Anne had never seen the like of it in her life.

  But Ian did not bat an eye. “Now where do you go in such a sartorially resplendent, top-man’s getup, Pinky? Is the well frozen over?”

  “No, cap’n, sir. Not a’tall. The well is in fine shape, it is. I’m bound for the wood, to fetch in a yule log. I’ve my eye on a good one, I have. I just hope I’ve the strength for it. I’m not so young as I once was, you know,” he said in a confidential aside, as if it were fresh news. “But I suppose I can rouse those lazy coachmen from their naps if the snow proves to be too deep.”

  A low chuckle rumbled out of Ian. “You needn’t try to cozen me with your mock innocent looks, Pinky. I’m onto you. I know when I’m being bamboozled into doing something. And God knows I could use some air after being in the same room as my father. Just let me get my seaboots and coat, and I’ll be ready presently.”

  “Oh, aye, sir! I could certainly do with your good strong help. That I could,” Pinky said with great satisfaction, before he turned his hopeful cherubic charm upon her. “And you, mistress? I could do with your eye as well. Perhaps gathering some holly and ivy to put along the mantelpieces? It would make the old place powerful pretty for the yule.”

  Ian’s smile was an even more powerful charm. “What say you, Anne? Would you like to bundle yourself up for an afternoon in the snow? We’ve nothing else to do but avoid my father.”

  Relief and pleasure made her nearly giddy. “Yes, please.” She would have begged him to include her, had he not asked. Because another plan—an alternative set of words—was wheeling and swooping about her brain. “I should very much like that.”

  * * *

  It was no more than a few hundred yards to the wood. Ian led the way, trudging a path through the deep snow for Anne to follow, but it felt good to be out and movi
ng, doing. He could think better when he was out in the bracing air.

  And he could look at the revelation that was Anne. Out-of-doors she was an entirely different creature than even the shyly happy girl of the corridor in her wine-punch gown. Though she was dressed for the cold with her thick country cloak over a nondescript wool redingote that could only be considered the last stage of fashion, she glowed.

  The cold painted her skin a luminous milky white, and her cheeks a delicious rosy pink. The light reflected from the snow illuminated her hair beneath the hood, gilding the brown with warm shades of cinnamon and amber spice. But it was her voice that brought him to a standstill in the snow.

  Once in the wood, they had wandered slightly apart—Ian to hewing Pinky’s chosen log down to a size to fit into the hearth, and Anne and Pinky to strip ivy from the trunks and trailing branches of trees. And Pinky, being Pinky and some sort of aged guardian angel, had started singing. At first it was only a throaty version of “God rest ye merry gentlemen,” that Ian was sure could only end in a chorus of nautical yo-ho’s.

  But once they set to their assigned tasks, the sentimental old tar slipped into a quiet little rendition of “The Holly and the Ivy.”

  And in another moment or two, Anne’s voice joined his. And Ian was nearly struck dumb. He had heard her in the glasshouse, but she had stopped so quickly, muting herself within his hearing. But today she did not hold back.

  Pinky encouraged her, pitching his warm tenor to harmonize, and let her carry the melody. And as he raised his volume, so too did she.

  “Oh, the holly and the ivy,

  When they are both full grown,

  Of all the trees that are in the wood,

  The holly bears the crown.”

  The song rose, soaring slowly through the empty trees. Her voice was clear and bright, and so soft and intimate and powerful, it was angelic. When she sang, everything about her was clear and bright.

  How had he ever thought her plain? He must be even more of a shallow, ramshackle bastard than even he had thought. Too shallow and ramshackle a fellow to deserve her.

  But he had somehow earned her, and keep her he would. By hook or by Pinky’s crook, which the old cherub leaned on heavily to make his way through the deep, wet snow with an armful of ivy.

  “I’ll just take these in for the mistress.” Pinky toddled vaguely off in the direction of the house. Leaving them alone.

  Alone with the idea Ian had been drawing up in his brain. His father had been crudely specific in his quest for Ian to get him another heir. But if he did beget that heir on Anne, then not even the Viscount Rainesford could gainsay the wedding.

  And with both his invited and uninvited guests, including the coachmen, all at the house with Pinky—and most likely to be kept there by the canny old tar—the small carriage house was empty. The hayloft there would provide just enough comfort and warmth for the endeavor.

  It wouldn’t take much to get either of them so inclined—they had both been on fire for it last night. And in the bright, flat light reflecting off the snow, he would be able to see her, and look his fill, even in the dimness of the hayloft.

  Ian paused with the axe resting in his hand. He would peel back her cloak, and open her coat buttons, and untie her laces and fill his hands with her—

  “Ian?” She was so close it startled him out of his daydream. “Are you all right?”

  Apart from a rousing cockstand, thankfully hidden by both the long hem of his sea coat, and the fall of his breeches, he was. And to prove it he simply gathered her into his arms.

  “I found some mistletoe, to bring the spirit of the spring into the house.” Between their almost-touching bodies, she held up a tiny sprig of green. “It’s an ancient country tradition. It would be powerful bad luck not to honor the spirit of the season.”

  He took the sprig from her hands, and threaded it through her hair. “And how do you think we ought best honor that spirit?”

  “By kissing beneath it.” She held tight to his coat sleeves, drawing herself nearer.

  Ian nuzzled at her ear. “We ought not dishonor the spirit.”

  “No.” Her words were nothing but breath and anticipation. Nothing but nascent want. “We’d best not.”

  “So.” He kissed his way across her throat to the other ear. “I suppose that means that you’d like me to kiss you? On your lips?”

  “I would be much obliged”—there was nothing left of her voice but a thin, taut string of breath—“if you would make it a good one.”

  “Oh, Miss Lesley, you are a clever, naughty girl to taunt me so. You have no idea how very, very much I like pert intelligence.”

  “I was hoping you would show me. And Ian?”

  “Yes, my love?”

  “I’ve been thinking.” She tilted her head to the side, and gave him a small, rather shy smile that struck him as clear as a ship’s bell. It was a winsome smile. In fact, it was his winsome smile, the smile he had tried to give her that first afternoon on the beach, to win her over.

  Ian’s gut tightened from something beyond hunger. “What of?”

  “I might have chanced upon a solution. Your father seemed concerned with…” She took a steadying breath. “Making sure we had not fully…”

  Hunger flooded his veins. But still he could think. And speak. “Consummated our bond?” he supplied.

  “Yes. Consummated.” She nodded, gingerly trying out the dangerous word. “What if we did? What if we did … do that and if I were to…”

  “Get with child?”

  She looked up, and finally met his gaze with eyes glowing with topaz hope. With desire. “Yes.”

  The word was like a rumble of thunder rolling through him—every part of his body vibrated with anticipatory heat. The rush of blood from his brain nearly made him stumble.

  But he did not. He was sure-footed. And sure-handed. He was sure.

  Ian picked her up in his arms and forged his way through the snow to the stable. He set her down on the threshold and followed her in, rubbing his hands together and clapping the snow off his boots to ward off the cold, damning himself for his impatience.

  Ian felt his own body quicken and heat another ten degrees at just the sight of her, standing and looking at him with her innocent lust shining in her eyes. He would make it good for her.

  He gifted her with his most disarming smile, furrowing his brow and tilting his head to starboard to tease her. “Are you sure, Anne Lesley? Are you quite sure you’re ready for me to rend you asunder?”

  Her voice held the whisper of a smile. “You said you would make love to me.”

  “And so I did. And so I shall.” He stepped closer, and kissed her.

  And fell under the spell of her wide, pliant lips and honeyed taste. He kissed her until he began to think of backing her against convenient stall walls and having his way with her there without bothering with the hayloft.

  His lips were on her mouth, and his hands were in her hair. And he was finally, finally going to do exactly as he wanted. She was already kissing him back, already returning his heated, openmouthed kisses with a fervor all her own, and he felt himself falling into her softness and sweet, intense solemnity.

  Ian saw it then—her beautifully refined passion he had mistaken for rage. It wasn’t anger that had burned in her luminous brown eyes, it was passion—all the passion she must have denied herself for years. All the passionate thoughts and passionate feelings that had lived behind the wall of her tongue-tied shyness. Not just physical passion, but a passion for life, a passion for living, and living right. He saw all the life in her.

  She wasn’t a wren at all. He had been fooled by her camouflaging plumage. She was a small, nimble sparrow hawk—a small, swift, elegant falcon.

  * * *

  His kiss was everything he was—confident and brash and exuberant and strong. So strong and sure and powerful, she felt as if the strength of his hands along the line of her jaw was the only thing holding her up.

 
; Because she couldn’t feel her knees. She could only feel the rough, taut texture of his lips, and taste the tang of rum-laced coffee on his tongue. She could only hear the rush of his breathing, and smell the sharp, heated spice of his body. She could only understand that this, more than the hand-holding, or foot-rubbing, was at last pleasure.

  So much pleasure it left her shaking—quaking like an aspen in the winter wind.

  He wasn’t shaken at all. He looked solid and sure, and in his right senses, as if he were well used to the powers of such pleasure—well used to the ride. But his voice had none of that surety. It was softer, blunted around the edges, as if he had taken a blow to the head and could not see straight. “My God, Anne.”

  She drew the pins from her hair slowly, one by one, for the first time not caring if she loosed a riot of curls springing from her hands, unladylike and untamed.

  His sigh of satisfaction was very nearly a groan. “I like your hair down—I love it. I want to tangle my hands in it.” He matched action to words, and set his hands drawing through her hair, tugging on her scalp sending streaks of warm, tingling sensation sliding deep into her belly and back out to surface just below her skin.

  He was on her, around her, picking her up in his arms, slinging her legs around his waist while he walked into the harness room and set her upon an empty worktable there.

  He leaned his forehead against hers, and looked at her with those fathomless blue eyes, as if he could see all the way through her. As if he could see who she really was inside—the passionate person she was in the privacy of her own head. The person she felt herself to be when she played the pianoforte. Clever and intelligent.

  Not shy. Never again shy.

  His fingers emboldened her to do the same, to spear her fingers through the short waves of his hair. To find the sensual delight for herself in the feel of the thick, glossy strands slipping through her hands, as well as to give him pleasure.

  He kissed her again, pressing his height and his weight and his being upon her, giving her everything of him. His mouth was on hers, and his hands were around her back, and at the back of her neck, holding her to him, supporting her as kissed and kissed and kissed her.