Mischief and Mistletoe

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

  She stopped as Johnny put out a hand and caught her sleeve. “I do believe you were not attending,” he said. “I am staying here.” He slung both jacket and shirt over his shoulder and made for the door.

  “You can’t walk around like that!” Lydia knew she sounded like a maiden aunt, but the amount of naked man on display was rather overwhelming. She had seen one before, but she did not remember ever feeling like this, so hot and dizzy and confused.

  “Someone might see you,” she said. “The staff, the other guests . . .” There were none, but Johnny was not to know that.

  He grinned, unrepentant. “What are you afraid of? That they will think they have stumbled into a bawdy house?”

  “Oh!” He always had been able to drive her to madness. “You are infuriating.”

  “Of course. But may I have a room for the night, please?”

  He asked so charmingly that Lydia could feel herself weakening. It would only be for one night and then she would be rid of him. The late Lord Newport had never troubled to deal directly with his tenants, sending his man of business to collect the rent and check the ledgers. Nothing would change under this new incumbent. Johnny was a man who had always appeared to prefer the entertainments of London to the dubious charms of the countryside. Once he had assumed control of his new estate, very likely they would never see him again. Everything would go back to the way it had been before. She felt the constriction in her chest ease as the thought brought relief.

  “Where is your valet?” She eyed Johnny’s state of undress with increasing disquiet.

  “Valet and luggage went on ahead.” Johnny spread his arms wide, which only served to give Lydia another fine view of his muscular chest. “I have only what I stand up in.”

  “Which is decreasing even as we speak.” She hustled him out of the parlor and along the stone-flagged corridor to the crooked staircase. He stood aside with an ironic bow so that she might precede him. The treads creaked beneath her feet, and the beams bent low; Lydia was very aware of Johnny’s presence behind her as they climbed the stair. She could feel his eyes on her every step of the way. The hair on the nape of her neck, beneath the sensible chignon, seemed to rise as though he had pressed his lips to her skin. She shivered. Such a foolish fancy when Johnny had never viewed her as anything other than a rather tiresome little sister he had wanted to help out of trouble.

  They reached the landing, and Lydia threw open the door of the first chamber on the right. Darkness pressed on the diamond windowpanes. Winter wind blew down the chimney and raised the worn rugs on the bare floor. In that instant Lydia saw the room as Johnny would, not as a comfortable and familiar refuge but as a bare, cold and empty space. She put her candle down on the dresser, hurried across the room and drew the curtains shut with a clatter.

  “But this is your room.” Johnny had followed her in and closed the door behind him. The room seemed to shrink, the space dwarfed by his physical presence. Lydia felt a quiver of awareness pierce her again.

  He picked up the battered novel that rested on her bedside table, examined the spine and put it down again. Her belongings were scattered about the room. They told a story, one that Lydia knew Johnny would understand. Darned stockings across the arm of a chair, starched caps and aprons stacked on the dresser, on the shelf a pottery vase she had made herself as a child, a ragged doll Eliza had dropped in a corner . . . This was her life now, Lady Lydia Cole, the daughter of a duke, fallen far in the eyes of the world and now landlady of the Silent Wench, a dubious hostelry at the back of beyond. She would not exchange it for all the salons in London. She had hated society even before it turned its back on her.

  “The best guest chamber has a leaking roof, and the chimney of the second-best chamber smokes in a northerly wind,” she said.

  “And the rest of the rooms?” Johnny was watching her closely with that disconcertingly direct blue gaze.

  “The beds are not aired.” Lydia smoothed her palms self-consciously on her apron. “We do not have many visitors in the depths of winter.” She started to gather up her belongings. Johnny put out a hand to stop her.

  “Lydia,” he said, “there is no need—”

  “I insist.” The guest chambers overlooked the courtyard, and tonight, despite the inclement weather, the men were due to bring in the latest consignment of contraband brandy, lace and tobacco. She certainly did not want Johnny to witness that. “I’ll send a servant to light the fire,” she added, “and fetch you soap and warm water. I’ll share Eliza’s chamber next door. It’s no trouble—for one night.”

  Johnny did not move. He watched her for a long, long moment as she gathered up her meagre possessions in clumsy hands.

  “Thank you,” he said. A wicked light leapt in his blue eyes. “Do you know how long I have waited to be in your bed, Lydia?”

  Lydia’s heart gave an errant thump. Her hands shook. He had to be teasing her. There had never been anything other than friendship between them.

  “A pity you had to suffer an accident to get there,” she said sharply, to cover her self-consciousness. “Don’t get used to it. The arrangement is entirely temporary.” She whisked around the door and shut it firmly behind her before he could see how much she was blushing.

  Lying alone in Lydia’s bed was not conducive to a good night’s sleep. Johnny slid deeper beneath the covers, smelling Lydia’s scent on the sheets, feeling her presence wrap around his senses and his body harden in instinctive response. The realization that Lydia was in the next room, separated from him by the thin lath and plaster wall, did nothing to cool his blood. It was going to be a long, uncomfortable night.

  He had not lost a moment’s sleep over Lydia when they had been younger. He had never had siblings, so Lydia had been a substitute sister to him. It was only when he had finished at Oxford and then returned from a tour of the continent that he had met Lydia again and suffered some odd kind of reversal, as though everything had turned inside out and he was seeing her properly for the first time. The plainness he had previously seen in her he now realized was exquisite delicacy. Her quietness was tranquility. She was warm, generous and loving. She took his breath away.

  And he was too late.

  By then Lydia had been in love with someone else, an unworthy scoundrel called Tom Fortune who had abandoned her alone and unwed when she had fallen pregnant with Eliza.

  When Johnny had heard that Tom had ruined Lydia, he had been possessed of such fury that he had not known what to do with it. He had wanted to kill the man, tear him apart with his bare hands. The wash of protective love he had felt for Lydia then had completely floored him. He had gone to her to offer her his protection but, betrayed and desperately unhappy, she had rejected his suit. Johnny had understood then that if he wanted Lydia, he would have to gain her trust slowly and carefully. He had been determined to do so, but Lydia had not waited for that to happen. Lydia had disappeared.

  That had been four years ago. Now he had found her again. Discovered as well that she had thought his proposal had been motivated by no more than kindness. How wrong she had been.

  Restless, Johnny slid from the bed and crossed to the window, pulling back the heavy curtains to look out into the winter night. The inn sign swung in the wind. Hail spattered against the glass. The floor was icy cold beneath his bare feet.

  The Silent Wench was precisely that, silent. Or was it? His ears caught the scrape of iron on stone, the rattle of a bridle, the rumble of a barrel, all sounds that were caught up by the wind and tossed aside. Shadows slipped by the window.

  Johnny let the curtain fall back into place. So the Silent Wench was a haunt of smugglers. His mouth turned up at the corners. Lydia certainly had changed. Long gone was the respectable debutante daughter of the Duke of Cole.

  He thought about her, the neat chignon that restrained all her rich chestnut hair, the sensible white apron and the plain woollen gown beneath. Lydia was bundled up tight, all passion restrained. How he wanted to undo her. He had wanted her for
a very long time. He had loved her for a very long time.

  But Lydia had made a very public mistake when it came to love, and society had punished her for it. Johnny doubted that she would willingly risk her heart again. It was down to him to persuade her that this time it would be no mistake. This time he would not let her run away.

  Chapter 2

  “There’s a man I’d be willing to lead astray.” Tydfil, the beautiful blond barmaid at the Silent Wench set aside the cloth she had been using to polish the cutlery, leaned her elbows on the table and stared in rapt admiration across the taproom to the window seat where Johnny was reading to Eliza. Their heads were bent close, the dark and the fair, and Eliza was listening with a child’s passionate concentration, her ragged doll clutched in one hand. Lydia blinked, feeling a surge of maternal love so strong it shook her. Behind it was another emotion, regret perhaps, or a fierce stab of wistfulness for what might have been.

  “I don’t think he would require a great deal of encouragement,” she said. “Lord Jerrold is a very accomplished rake.”

  Tydfil’s eyes lit with appreciation. “Is he so? When I first saw him I thought Christmas had come early. And there was me thinking that all the Newport barons were as ugly as sin.”

  “Clearly they are not,” Lydia said shortly.

  “He certainly takes his responsibilities seriously,” Tydfil said.

  “He does indeed,” Lydia said. It was true; everywhere she turned these days it seemed that Johnny was there, and even in his absence she could not escape him, since his name was on everyone’s lips. It was difficult to believe that he had only been in Newport for two weeks. He had already arranged for repairs to be made to the tenants’ cottages. He had discussed new forms of animal husbandry with Dai at the Home Farm. She had heard he planned to invest in the mines and to expand the village school. It seemed that the new Lord Newport was committed to spending a great deal of time on his estates, and that made Lydia extremely nervous. She had been convinced he would be back in London by now.

  Johnny also had a disconcerting habit of turning up unexpectedly at the Silent Wench when Lydia had thought him safely elsewhere. He had strolled casually down the steps one day when she was helping the cellar man put the contraband brandy away. He had appeared in the kitchen when she had been making Christmas toffee and had flour on her nose. Most disconcerting of all, he had found her in the parlor decorating the mantel with green boughs of holly and ivy. He had lifted her down from the stool she was perched upon, then kept his arms about her.

  “A pity it is not mistletoe,” he had observed, before kissing her swiftly and soundly, arousing in her an earthquake of feeling from one brief touch of his lips. He had released her, smiled and walked away, leaving Lydia shaken and out of temper with herself for the rest of the day. She had not been able to look him in the eye since. She felt hot and disturbed in his company. And she was sure Johnny knew the effect he was having on her, damn him.

  “It’s very odd that he takes such an interest,” she said now, watching Johnny smile as Eliza placed a confiding hand on his sleeve and tilted her head up to ask him a question. “Johnny was always extremely lazy. His most energetic occupation was seducing bored society women.”

  Tydfil shot her a sly glance. “Know him well, do you?”

  “We were childhood friends,” Lydia admitted, aware that she was blushing.

  “Friends, was it?” Tydfil said dryly. “I see.”

  “He is in the way here,” Lydia said, too quickly. “He pries into matters that don’t concern him. The ledgers, the profits . . .” The illegal transactions with the free traders, the dates on which the inn had been full with the travelers the boys had sabotaged on the road.

  “Well, if you need me to distract him . . .” Tydfil left the sentence hanging suggestively, and Lydia sighed. Tydfil’s distractions were notorious in the district. So far she had distracted a dozen of the shepherds, several of the miners, plenty of visiting sailors and Mr. Jones the harbormaster, much to the fury of his wife. It brought plenty of business to the Silent Wench, but Lydia was not sure it was the sort of reputation they wanted.

  Eliza had fallen asleep in the crook of Johnny’s arm, her head resting against his shoulder. She was a very confiding child, trusting everyone because she had never been given reason not to do so. Once, Lydia thought, I was the same as Eliza. I trusted too easily. The love she had for Eliza coursed through her with a fierce spirit. No one would ever hurt Eliza the way she had been hurt. She was determined upon it.

  Johnny looked up, and their eyes met. Lydia felt her stomach tumble away. She got quickly to her feet.

  “I must put Eliza to bed,” she said. She walked over to the window seat and took her daughter gently from Johnny’s arms.

  “I hope Eliza did not pester you too much,” she said, smoothing the silky black hair away from Eliza’s brow. “It was good of you to read to her.”

  “It was my pleasure,” Johnny said. He smiled at her. “She has your curiosity. I remember you were the same as a child, always asking questions.”

  “And you always pretended to know the answers,” Lydia said, “even though you were only five years my senior.” She pressed her lips to Eliza’s soft cheek. “She looks like Tom,” she said suddenly. She was not sure why she had raised it, other than the fact that Eliza looked so like her father that it could not be ignored and she wondered what Johnny thought of that.

  Johnny’s gaze was very clear as it rested on her face. “She has your eyes, Lydia,” he said gently. “She’s beautiful. But it doesn’t really matter what she looks like. She’s all yours.”

  Lydia was horrified to feel her eyes filling with tears. She hugged Eliza tighter. “Yes,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

  When she came back downstairs an hour later, Johnny still occupied the corner seat by the fire and Tydfil was assiduously polishing his table and sweeping the flagstone floor around him, giving a splendid view of her bosoms as they fought to escape her low-cut neckline. If she edged any closer, Lydia thought, she would land on Johnny’s lap. Johnny had his face politely averted from Tydfil’s advancing cleavage and was reading a three-day-old copy of the Times.

  “Tydfil,” Lydia said, trying not to sound cross or jealous because of course she was neither, “there are customers waiting.”

  As the girl flounced off provocatively Johnny looked up, a twinkle in his eyes as he folded the paper and tossed it carelessly aside.

  “Thank goodness you rescued me,” he said. “I had no notion that cleaning was such a sensually charged activity. I was afraid I would not escape with my virtue.”

  “You should see the way in which she plays the harp,” Lydia said. “It is positively indecent. Do you have any virtue left, Johnny?” she added tartly. “I cannot believe it, since you ran off with Lizzie Waterhouse when the ink was barely dry on her marriage certificate.”

  As soon as the words were out she wished them back, for she knew she had given away far too much of her feelings. Johnny’s rash elopement with one of her dearest friends had happened years before; it had hurt her at the time and it still stung now. But how she wished she had not betrayed the fact.

  She saw the amusement leap in Johnny’s eyes. “Were you jealous, Lydia?” he murmured.

  “No, of course not.” Lydia tried to affect boredom, but the anger and resentment lacerated her again, shocking in its intensity, too extreme to hide. She fought a brief, vicious battle with it and lost.

  “Lizzie said that you were the perfect rake,” she said. She could not seem to help herself. The words were tumbling out now no matter how hard she tried to squash them down.

  “Lizzie doesn’t know that.” Johnny’s tone was expressionless.

  “You spent the night with her!” Lydia burst out.

  “We spent the night talking,” Johnny said. He drew slow rings on the table with the base of his tankard. “We were unhappy.” He looked up suddenly, and Lydia’s heart lurched at the expression she saw in his
eyes. “We were both in love with the wrong people.”

  The silence was thick with emotion. Lydia felt breathless, her chest as tight as though it were encased in a metal band. She had not thought Johnny had ever been in love. She felt jolted, her senses shaken out of kilter, as though she had missed a step in the dark.

  “These things happen when you are young,” she said, trying to sound light and uncaring but knowing that there was a forced note in her voice. “I should know that.”

  Johnny smiled at her. It was a smile of such warmth that it made her toes curl with longing.

  “It doesn’t matter, Lydia,” he said gently. “The past doesn’t matter.”

  The silence extended and extended again. There was such tenderness in Johnny’s eyes that Lydia felt her mistrustful heart start to yield. Yet she knew Johnny was wrong. One could not escape the past.

  The door of the taproom banged open in a jumble of cold air, sleet and loud voices. Lydia jumped. She thought she heard Johnny muffle a curse. The intimacy of the moment was broken, though, and she felt relief as well as a contrary pulse of disappointment. She leaned her palms on the table, feeling the wood cool and soothing against her skin.

  “It’s been two weeks now,” she said. “Why are you still here, Johnny?”

  Before she could move Johnny slid a hand across the table and encircled her wrist. His touch was light, but she felt it all the way through to her bones. “Sit with me and I’ll tell you,” he said.

  Lydia hesitated. Then she sat. There did not seem to be much choice. Johnny withdrew his hand from her wrist. Lydia immediately missed the warmth of his touch. He gestured to Tydfil, and she came across with two glasses.

  “Wassail cups,” she said, with a saucy smile at Johnny. “Made by Mrs. Cole herself. Well known for their aphrodisiac qualities, my lord.”