Mischief and Mistletoe

by Jo Beverley; Mary Jo Putney; Patricia Rice; Nicola Cornick; Anne Gracie; Joanna Bourne; Susan Fraser King; Cara Elliott

  Damaris laughed. She actually laughed. She could not remember the last time she’d felt free enough to express her joy. Before she could recover her equilibrium, Viscount Trevelyan’s big arms swept her from the floor, and a man’s demanding lips covered hers.

  The first crush of his mouth created more excitement than even her dreams could have produced. She reveled in the smell of horse, leather, and man, the scratch of bristles on her cheeks, the strength supporting her. She boldly wrapped her arms around his neck, showing him the thrill his words and his touch raised in her heart. He clasped her close, until their hearts beat as one, and she melted into his embrace. His kiss became fiercer, and she responded with all the courage she’d never known she possessed.

  She did not know how it came about, but she knew deep in her soul that they were connected, that somehow guardian angels had brought them together.

  And perhaps those angels resembled the three cherubs waiting impatiently for their return.

  Damaris greedily claimed her first real kiss and vowed to be everything Adam Trevelyan needed, as long as she could be this woman he was kissing now.

  It promised to be a merry Christmas, after all.

  ON A WICKED WINTER’S NIGHT

  Nicola Cornick

  Chapter 1

  Newport, Pembrokeshire, Wales—December 1814

  It was a stormy night, black as pitch, the wind high in the branches of the bare trees and the sleet drifting like a ghost across the road. Some way back they had passed an inn, the only sign of life in a landscape as bleak as the night. He had pulled aside the curtain and for one brief moment the carriage lamps had illuminated the sign swinging in the wind: THE SILENT WENCH. There had been a picture of Queen Anne Boleyn, smiling demurely, and behind her the shadow of the executioner. Someone in this godforsaken place, Johnny thought, had a dark sense of humor.

  Surely it could not be much farther to Newport Castle. He had traveled for three days over roads that the mild winter rain had set awash, staying in execrable coaching inns with flea-infested beds, feeling as though he were journeying to the end of the world. The weather had turned colder as they traveled west. The driver was probably frozen to his box by now. They should have spent the night in St. David’s and covered the final few miles in the morning. Or, preferably, stayed in London. He remembered with astonishment that only four days ago he had been filled with ennui for the city. London could be damnably tedious for a viscount who could buy anything he wanted and had done so, repeatedly, over the past few years. Nevertheless it was surely preferable to this wasteland.

  It was his wasteland now. Conscience pricked him. His uncle had been an absentee landlord. He had no intention of following in the old man’s footsteps.

  The carriage was picking up speed as it rolled downhill, rocking, creaking, the axles straining. It was too fast. A notable whip, Johnny recognized the precise moment the coachman lost control. He braced himself for the crash, heard wood snap like a gunshot, felt the first dreadful lurch as coach and horses parted company, and then he was falling while the world smashed and broke around him, tumbling over like a cork in a stormy sea.

  Johnny was not sure how long it took for the carriage to steady and come to rest, canted over at what felt like a dizzying angle. It was impossible to stand, for the floor sloped away sharply. Instead he slid with more speed than elegance out of the space where the door had once been.

  Ice cracked. He landed in freezing water up to his knees. He swore, pulled himself out of the ditch and up onto the track. It was perishing cold and the snow swirled, thicker now. Almost at once he found himself surrounded.

  “We’ve come to rescue you, sir, take you to the inn.”

  They swarmed around him, boys scarcely into their teens. How had they appeared so swiftly, so late, and in such a benighted place? Two of them were calming the horses with impressive efficiency. Another pair supported the dazed groom and coachman. Three more encircled Johnny, inspecting him.

  “Have you broken your arm, sir?” The tallest, the ringleader, sounded eager.

  “Or perhaps a leg?”

  “Or hit your head?”

  “I am quite well, thank you.” Johnny was touched by their solicitude. He had been lucky; although he ached, there was nothing broken.

  He could not see the boys well in the dark, but he sensed their reaction to his words. They seemed nonplussed. He could feel puzzlement rather than relief.

  “You must be injured, sir.” One of them, the smallest, sounded as though he would take it as a personal affront if Johnny proved to be in good health. “I’ll fetch the doctor.”

  “I assure you there is no need.”

  The boys exchanged glances.

  “Best for the doctor to check you over, sir,” the ringleader said, assuming control once more.

  “Best to come back to the inn.” The others were an eager chorus. “There’s hot water.”

  “Food.”

  “Good brandy.”

  They pressed closer, like a bodyguard, and started to shepherd Johnny down the road. There was no question about it. He had been kidnapped.

  “I need a carriage to take me to Newport Castle.”

  She recognized that voice. It was deep and smooth but with an unconscious note of command. Unmistakeable.

  Lydia Cole paused, one hand on the parlor door. She had heard what had happened that night. Despite what she had told them, the boys had been out again and stopped another carriage. Or wrecked another carriage, more to the point. She had heard that it was ruined and it was only by some miracle that coachman, groom and horses had not been hurt. The horses were now stabled in the yard and the coachman and groom were in the taproom, drunk as lords already with encouragement from the Silent Wench’s barmaid, Tydfil. They would remember nothing of the incident, nor would they have the slightest idea that it had been deliberate sabotage. In fact, both men were already boasting loudly in their cups, convinced they had been the heroes who had saved the day.

  Which left the gentleman who now occupied her best parlor. Lydia had no idea how to deal with him.

  She took a deep breath, smoothed her palms over her apron, straightened her shoulders and pushed open the parlor door. She nodded her thanks to the flustered servant and dismissed him with a jerk of the head. Only then did she turn to the man who was standing before the fire. He looked exactly as she remembered him. She wondered why she had expected him to have changed; perhaps because she herself had changed out of all recognition.

  “I am sorry, my lord,” she said. “The Silent Wench does not possess a carriage, but we can certainly provide you with a horse so that you may complete your journey.”

  The sooner the better, she thought. She looked at him and felt her stomach tighten into a knot of panic and the breath catch in her throat. When had that begun? When had the mere sight of John Jerrold been sufficient to scatter her wits? Certainly not when they had been neighbors in childhood, growing up together. Johnny had never caused her heart to miss a single beat then. Nor had he set her pulse awry when he had turned up unexpectedly at her come-out ball and danced with her on the terrace, beneath a summer moon and a dazzle of stars. It had been ridiculously romantic, yet she had been immune to his charm. She had shown Johnny off like a trophy that night because all her female acquaintance had been aflutter to meet him.

  They had spent a lot of time together that summer, rediscovering their childhood friendship. Her mama had warned her that Johnny was a rake and was dangerous to her reputation, but Lydia had laughed at the mere idea of falling in love with him. A pity that she had guarded herself so carefully from Johnny only to fall in love with a man who had been twice the libertine he was with less than half his integrity. She had been a naive fool. The pang of regret she felt now was so sharp that for a moment it stole her breath.

  He turned fully to face her. He had the same breadth of shoulder beneath a coat that was now soaked and stained and considerably less pristine than it must have been when he had first
put it on. He had the same strong face, square jawed and clean-shaven. His fair hair fell across his brow above those narrowed blue eyes. Lydia remembered the way that his lips curved when he smiled and the way that smile crept into his eyes like sunshine rippling across water. Emotion stirred in her. She blinked; pushed the disturbing sensation away. It was too late for her and Johnny, far, far too late.

  He was staring at her in blank astonishment.

  “Lydia?” he said.

  That neatly answered the question she had not quite dared to pose in her own mind—the question of whether Johnny had come to find her. He had not. Of course he had not. Four years before, she had rejected his offer of marriage. He would not be looking for her in order to renew it.

  Lydia’s heart did a sad little flop down into her slippers, and she was powerless to help it.

  “Mrs. Cole,” she corrected him with just the faintest hint of hauteur.

  His brows rose. “You never were that.”

  “I am now.”

  His blue gaze was quizzical on her face. “Did you marry your cousin?”

  “I don’t have one. As well you know.” He knew her family tree as well as she knew his.

  “I thought you might have found one down the wrong side of the blanket.” Fully in control of the situation now, Johnny strolled across to her with all the insolent grace she remembered. He put one hand under her chin and lifted her face to his. Those blue eyes appraised her thoroughly. The touch of his fingers against her skin made her tingle. She wanted to pull away but knew she could not, not without betraying too much of her feelings. Her face warmed beneath his scrutiny.

  “You look well, Lydia.” He was smiling now, that slow smile that she knew. Her cheeks heated. Her pulse tripped. She stepped back.

  “I am well. Thank you.”

  “And how is Eliza?”

  Lydia felt touched that Johnny had asked after her daughter. So many people had wanted to pretend that the child, the proof of her mother’s fall from grace, did not exist. Not Johnny. He sounded as though he cared about her answer. He did care. She knew that. He had offered her the protection of his name out of sheer kindness. Which was one of the many reasons she had had to refuse him.

  “Eliza is well too,” she said. “She is happy here.” She felt a clutch of fear. No one in Newport knew about Eliza’s illegitimacy. They all thought her a widow. If Johnny said anything the fragile security she had built for herself and her daughter would be shattered and they would have to start all over again. She was not sure she could bear that.

  She drew in a deep breath to calm herself. Johnny would never give her away. Besides, he could only be traveling through. He would be gone soon.

  “What are you doing here?” She knew she sounded abrupt.

  “I might ask you the same question.” Johnny had started to unfasten his soaking jacket. Lydia, who had seen him wearing considerably fewer clothes than this over the years, nevertheless felt her throat dry to sand.

  “I am the landlady of the Silent Wench,” she said. Her voice sounded odd, squeaky and husky at the same time. She cleared her throat. “This is my inn.”

  She saw Johnny’s hands check on the buttons. “How enterprising you are.” He looked up. “Did you choose the name? And the sign board?”

  “I did.”

  Laughter crept into his eyes. “Your sense of humor. I like it.” The smile fled. “We all wondered where you had gone after Eliza was born.” He straightened, his hands falling to his sides. “I suppose you told Laura and Dexter and the others where you were?”

  “I . . . Yes.” Lydia could feel what was coming. She could feel his hurt.

  “But not me.” His voice was carefully devoid of expression. “I thought that we were friends.”

  “We were!” Lydia stopped. They had been friends, but that had changed when Johnny had offered to marry her. His offer, her refusal, had changed everything. “I didn’t . . .” She floundered, searching for the words that would mend, not cause further hurt.

  “You didn’t trust me?” Johnny supplied the explanation with lethal politeness.

  “No!” Lydia burst out. “Of course I trusted you, Johnny! I—” She gave a little despairing gesture. “I simply needed to get away, to start afresh.”

  It was inadequate, half an explanation, a quarter of one. When she had run from Johnny, she had been running not only from her past and the shame of her ruin but also from her feelings for him. She had come to value him too late, come to love him too late. Her hands trembled a little, and she pressed them together to still the shaking.

  After a moment she saw Johnny nod his acceptance, saw the distant courtesy in his eyes, and knew it was too late to put matters right between them. The childhood friendship had gone. They were no more than acquaintances now.

  “What are you doing here?” she repeated, trying desperately to bridge the gap that yawned between them. “No one comes to Newport.”

  “I do,” Johnny said. “I am the new Baron of Newport.” He smiled. “Quite a coincidence, is it not?”

  Lydia sat down abruptly on one of the overstuffed parlor chairs. It was very far from a coincidence, but even so she had not anticipated it. Mr. Churchward, the family lawyer, had been the one to find her refuge in Newport, a tiny town on the Welsh coast. Mr. Churchward was also lawyer to Johnny’s family, which was no doubt how he had known of Newport in the first place.

  “Damnation,” she said. “How extremely unfortunate.”

  Johnny shrugged his jacket off, revealing a soaked linen shirt that clung rather too closely to his muscular chest for Lydia’s peace of mind. She swallowed hard and fixed her gaze on the beams of the ceiling where a cobweb drifted.

  “I was not too pleased about it myself,” Johnny said, “but why should you mind?”

  “Because you are my landlord,” Lydia said. “The Silent Wench belongs to the Newport estate.”

  “Really?” There was a smile in Johnny’s voice now. “How piquant. I must check the ledgers to make sure you are not fleecing me.”

  “You would not know what to look for.” Lydia risked another glance at him and regretted it immediately. He had removed the shirt now. The firelight ran over his shoulders and chest in slabs of bronze and red, burnishing his skin, picking out the tiny golden hairs on his forearms.

  “You might have saved that for the privacy of your room.” He had caught her staring and she had to say something. She tried to sound stern rather than breathless.

  “You hadn’t offered me one, and I was about to perish from the cold and wet.” He smiled, boyish and rakish at the same time. “Besides, I’ve been taking my shirt off in front of you since we were children.”

  “We’re not children now.”

  It had been the wrong thing to say. She realized it at once as his gaze fixed on her, darkened.

  “Indeed we are not.”

  The air between them heated, fizzing with something sweet and fierce.

  Lydia cleared her throat. “I did not offer you a room, but I did offer you a horse to take you to Newport Castle.”

  “I would rather stay here.”

  She would rather he left. Now, while the shreds of her composure were still intact and before he ruined the fragile existence she had carved out for herself and her daughter.

  “You can’t stay,” she said.

  “This is an inn,” Johnny said. “You should be open for business.”

  “A moment ago you wanted to leave.”

  The gleam in his eyes was intense and disquieting. “And now I’ve changed my mind. I’d like to stay here tonight. Possibly longer.”

  There was more than a hint of challenge in his voice. Lydia’s heart bumped against her ribs. Johnny had been challenging her since the nursery but not like this, not in a way that made the awareness shimmer down her spine.

  “Besides,” Johnny added, “the doctor tells me that it is dangerous for me to be left alone. I sustained a blow to the head in the accident. I need to be under cons
tant supervision.”

  Damn Doctor Griffiths. He was a regular fixture in the taproom of the Silent Wench. The children, Lydia thought, must already have pressed him into service to assess Johnny’s state of health and would have pocketed some shillings for their good work in putting business his way.

  She sighed. “Dr. Griffiths was probably too drunk to give an accurate diagnosis.” She surveyed Johnny critically from tousled fair hair to scuffed boots. “You look to me to be in fine health,” she said dryly. “Certainly you do not have a concussion. If you did, my life would be a great deal easier—” She broke off, turning scarlet, aware that her tongue had run away with her.

  She felt Johnny’s fingers again against her hot cheek. “Are you wishing amnesia on me, Lydia? I am sorry to disoblige you.”

  Lydia stepped back, away from that provocative touch. “Of course not! Don’t be foolish—” Her voice cracked. Suddenly tears seemed perilously close. Of course she did not wish that Johnny had been injured. If she had imagined it even for a moment it was an unworthy thought, borne only out of fear that his sudden appearance might endanger Eliza’s future.

  “Everyone here thinks I am a widow,” she said, by way of excuse, unable to meet Johnny’s gaze.

  There was a silence. “Surely you know I would never do anything to hurt you, Lydia,” Johnny said. All mockery was gone from his voice now. “I would never give you away.”

  “I know.” Lydia risked a look at him. There was such tenderness in his eyes. It hurt her to see it, yet she could not look away. “You have always been everything that is kind,” she whispered.

  “I assure you that kindness was not what moved me to offer for you, Lydia,” Johnny said. There was exasperation and ruefulness in his tone. He ran a hand through his hair, disordering the tousled locks still further. “It seems a little late to be having this conversation.”

  “Of course it is!” Lydia grabbed thankfully at the chance to get matters back on an even keel. “Now, I shall go to the stables and find a horse to take you to Newport—”