Marry Christmas (Zebra Historical Romance)

by Jane Goodger

  “No.”

  She put her jaw out mulishly, then smiled. “Wouldn’t it be more fun with people about?”

  “I am ecstatic to be only in your company.”

  “But Bailey is something you really should not miss.

  It’s quite nice there when the seaweed is thin,” she said, wrinkling her nose at some remembered stench.

  “We can go tomorrow. Today we are riding out to Portsmouth.”

  He could almost hear her teeth grinding together and had to stop himself from losing his temper with her.

  Was an afternoon alone with him so distasteful that she would go to such lengths to avoid it? He swallowed down a sharp retort, told himself to be patient with her, and swung himself up onto the phaeton.

  “Would you care to drive?” he asked. She looked at him with shock, then finally showed the delighted smile he’d been hoping to see.

  “Are you certain?” she asked, taking hold of the reins and looking around her as if she were doing something naughty. “I haven’t done this in years so you must be ready to take over at the slightest notice.” She turned back to her maid with a laugh. “You’d better hang on well, Millie, there’s no telling what can happen now.”

  And with a nice little flick of the reins, she got the pretty bay moving forward. Grinning happily, she looked over to Rand, her face glowing with excitement.

  He realized that it would probably take very little to make her happy, just a bit of freedom, allowing her to do things her mother had probably forbidden her to do.

  “All right then, you’re doing fine,” he said as they approached the entrance to Bellevue Avenue. “Pull gently, now.”

  “I have done this,” she said, sounding slightly indignant. Then she gave him another grin. “It was a pony cart, but it’s the same basic principle, is it not?”

  “Oh, Lord,” he heard Millie mutter from behind them.

  Elizabeth seemed nervous, but also exhilarated as she held the horse waiting for a small amount of traffic to clear. “If you see a motorcar coming toward us, take over,” she said, then flicked the reins and pulled onto Bellevue going, Rand noted happily, in the direction of Portsmouth.

  “Do you have many in Newport?” Rand asked, surprised.

  “No,” she said a bit sheepishly. “But I wanted you to be prepared for anything. I did see one in France last year.”

  Rand began to relax now that he could see she was doing fine with the phaeton. “Did you? I have not had the opportunity as yet. Edward has. Lord Hollings, that is. He said it was magnificent.”

  Elizabeth let out another delighted laugh, her blue eyes glued to the road ahead. A tricky intersection was coming up and she deftly slowed the phaeton down. “I would not call that contraption magnificent. It seemed rather loud and smelly to me.”

  “More smelly than a horse?”

  “Perhaps not,” she agreed. “Whoa.”

  She pulled on the reins a bit too harshly, the overreaction of a novice driver. Rand immediately put his hands over her gloved ones and adjusted the tension. “There. Don’t overreact or your horse will, too.”

  “I know,” she said, angry with herself.

  “It takes practice,” he said, letting go of her hands that had held the reins so tightly, he clearly felt her rigid knuckles through her silk gloves.

  Before long they were out in the countryside, Elizabeth still at the reins, seemingly enjoying herself more than he’d ever witnessed before. Newport, and the traffic, was left far behind and they drove along the smooth, hard-packed sandy roads lined by farms and small forests, glimpsing Narragansett Bay in the distance. Rand directed Elizabeth down a narrow road that led in the direction of the bay, leading her to a private little spot overlooking the blue waters and the mainland beyond.

  “It’s lovely,” Elizabeth said, handing the reins over to Rand and dusting off her gloves. “Thank you for letting me drive. It’s the most fun I’ve had in months.”

  Rand hopped down, then went around to help her down, and would have helped Millie, but she was already on the ground trying to heave the basket out of the phaeton. “Here,” he said, rushing around and grasping the basket. He let out an exaggerated groan at its weight.

  “What do you say we take what we need and leave the rest for Millie to sort out,” he said, opening the basket. He laid out a blanket and started tossing food into it while Millie fluttered nearby making small sounds of protest. He gathered the blanket up and hefted it over one shoulder. “There we go. That should be enough to feed us twice over. Millie, you may sit beneath that tree and eat to your heart’s content. Take a nap, if you like. Miss Cummings and I will be right down that small path, just a few yards away. I assure you, you will hear Miss Cummings scream if I decide to push her off the cliff and into the bay.” Millie giggled. “Enjoy your free time,” he said, and began walking down the narrow path fully expecting Elizabeth to follow behind.

  He heard her whisper something fiercely to Millie before she lifted the skirts of her white and green-striped dress and hurried after him. “I don’t believe Mother intended for us to abandon Millie,” she said when she reached him.

  “I don’t care what your mother intended,” he said, then turned toward her. “Do you?” It was a challenge and he could see she knew it.

  A smile formed on her lips so slowly that at first Rand didn’t recognize it as such. Then it bloomed, lighting her face, and he grinned back at her. “You know,” he said, turning back to the path. “You really are quite pretty when you smile. I wasn’t certain I could stand looking at you for a lifetime until I saw it.”

  He heard a snort that could have been a stifled laugh or a sound of outrage. He didn’t know and didn’t care. It was a beautiful day and he was on a picnic—alone—with a beautiful girl who would in just a few short months be his wife. For the first time in a long time, the future seemed a little bit brighter.

  “Here we are,” Rand said, after they’d walked a short way through some tall reeds. It wasn’t much of a cliff, more of a gentle drop-off that probably wouldn’t kill a kitten should it stumble from the edge. But it was a pretty spot and secluded with nary another soul in sight but for some fishermen down the bay on a small skiff. Rand dropped the blanket and spread it out to examine what he’d so hastily dropped into it.

  Elizabeth eyed him with some uncertainty, then fell to her knees to see what he’d managed to pilfer from the basket. “Oh,” she said, a note of dismay. Her gloves, which were not made for anything more strenuous than holding a parasol, were quite ruined. With a small frown, she peeled them off and tugged loose the broad green ribbon that kept her straw hat from flying off, placing it by her gloves.

  “Do continue,” the duke said, a devilish gleam in his eyes.

  Elizabeth pursed her lips and considered putting her gloves and hat back on just to spite him. But it was warm here, despite the shaded area and the bay below them.

  “I’m perfectly fine,” she said, trying to sound haughty and failing miserably. She didn’t feel haughty at the moment and didn’t want to expend the energy to be so. The duke was being very charming and she found herself having far more fun than she would have expected.

  “I believe I owe you an apology,” she said, placing a large piece of fried chicken onto a napkin and handing it to him.

  “Oh?”

  There was nothing to do but plunge ahead, so she did. “I have been avoiding you for the past week and for that I am sorry.”

  “I know you have.”

  She grimaced. “I expected you would,” she said, keeping her eyes on the business of dividing up the food. He clearly had put no thought to what he’d thrown on the blanket, for it appeared he’d put three different desserts and very little actual food. She sat back on her heels and finally looked at him, fearing he’d be angry. Instead, he was looking at her steadily as if trying to see what her thoughts were. His dark gray eyes were disconcerting in their intensity and she quickly pretended to be interested in her piece of chicken
.

  “What other things do you enjoy, other than tearing down the streets on a phaeton?”

  “I’d hardly call what I was doing as ‘tearing,’” she said. “I like riding bicycles.”

  “So you’ve said.”

  Elizabeth was momentarily confused, until she remembered that during one of their very few conversations she had mentioned riding bicycles. She shrugged. “I think it would be better to tell you what I dislike. I dislike hunting, swimming, and boats. My father, as you well know, has a yacht, which he insists we must use for long trips. My seasickness is truly a curse. I cannot even sit on a rowboat in a placid lake without feeling ill. I adore Paris, but the thought of getting on a boat and sailing there is enough to stop me from going. I truly thought I would die when we went to England last year. And then my mother, who has a stomach made of iron, insisted we go to Paris. I have to tell you, I have never been so frightened in my life. On a map, the channel doesn’t seem particularly large or daunting. It was purely dreadful.”

  The duke laughed aloud.

  “So glad that you find my misery amusing,” she said dryly, producing another chuckle.

  “You will be happy to know that once we reach England we will be there for a fair number of years. I’ve too much work to do to leave anytime soon.”

  “Oh?”

  He looked down, as if regretting saying anything about his plans. Tossing the well-picked bone onto a napkin, he said, “My ancestral home is in need of work, as well as the tenants’ homes. I fear it will take years before I can return it to its former glory.”

  Years and my father’s money. Neither said such a crass thing, but Elizabeth knew what he was thinking. She wouldn’t have thought it should bother him. After all, it was well-known between the two of them why he was here. “What will be my duchessily duties?” she asked, having fun with him.

  “Duchessily?” He raised an eyebrow and one corner of his mouth tilted up. “I imagine you’ll have plenty to do,” he said, dismissively.

  “You don’t know, do you?” she asked, stunned.

  “I hardly do. I was not home very much growing up and even when I was I didn’t pay attention to what my mother did. She liked to garden.”

  She felt her stomach sinking slightly. “Oh,” she said, a bit bewildered. “Do you think your mother could help me?”

  She might as well have asked if the devil could help her, so horrified was his expression. “Does your mother not want to help me?”

  “My mother.”

  “Yes, she is alive, is she not?”

  His brows furrowed and the sinking feeling got worse. “She’s not, that is to say, she’s unaware that I will be returning to Bellewood with a bride.”

  She stared at him, her mouth slightly agape. “I don’t understand.”

  Suddenly he grabbed her hand, holding firmly even when she would pull away.

  “Brace yourself, Miss Cummings,” he said, making her trepidation grow in bounds. “My mother is a terrible snob. She makes your mother seem like a socialist.

  I did mean to tell you about her.” He made a sick face.

  “Some day. Before you actually met her. She is not going to be happy about this marriage.”

  “Because I am an American?”

  He nodded, still holding her hand, and suddenly she was glad he had. “And because you are not a member of the peerage. She had a list, you see.”

  “A list?”

  “A list very much like the one your mother had. A list of titled gentlemen. But my mother’s is an extensive list of the daughters of peers. It was for my brother, of course. She hasn’t had time to start browbeating me with it.”

  Elizabeth swallowed heavily. The only thing that was good about her marriage was her escape from her mother. But, if what the duke was saying was true, she was simply going from the pot into the fire. She started to laugh. For her entire life, her mother’s primary goal was to get her a fantastic match, a match that would make every mama green with jealousy, the highest title could only be what her daughter would deserve. Never had either of them thought that Elizabeth would be considered unworthy of anyone. The Cummings were second to none in American aristocracy, but they were commoners, rich upstarts, to anyone else.

  “Why are you laughing?” he asking, pulling a bit on her hand. “I’ve just told you the most disturbing thing.”

  Elizabeth waved her free hand at him, begging him to stop talking so that she might stop laughing. “Oh, it is too, too funny,” she gasped. “You are marrying a peasant. And I am marrying a pauper,” she said, nearly losing her breath she was laughing so. Tears of mirth streamed down her face. “Don’t you think that is ridiculous? All this maneuvering and machinations and crying and look at us.”

  The duke put a hand on either side of her head. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” he said, smiling at her. “But we can get through this. All of this.”

  She sobered suddenly and gazed at him, feeling as if real tears were only a heartbeat away. “Do you think so, Your Grace?”

  “Please call me Randall,” he said, his eyes drifting to her mouth so that she knew he was going to kiss her. He moved closer, until his mouth was so close, she could feel his breath against her lips. “Please.”

  “Rand—” He stopped her with his mouth on hers and she found herself leaning toward him, still on her knees, her hands clenched by her sides. He moved his mouth gently, but his body was taut against hers, as if he were straining against a terrible weight. Henry had never kissed her. Never. And this man was kissing her for the second time, making her feel liquid and hot and confused. She didn’t like it, and yet something stopped her from pulling away, something animal and base and full of need that had nothing to do with whether she liked him or not. She put her hands, still clenched tightly, upon his shoulders, not knowing whether to pull him closer or push him away, so she let out a little sound.

  He pulled back, his eyes holding a strange light. “Miss Cummings,” he said with a bemused smile. “I am not going to murder you, I promise.” He glanced at each shoulder where her fists were still clenched. She looked up at him uncertainly, then slowly unfurled her hands. “Much better. Now, your mouth.”

  “My mouth?”

  “It is much more pleasant to kiss when it is not hard as stone,” he said.

  He was making fun of her. How should she know how to kiss when no one had ever taught her? Was there a right and wrong way to kiss? From what she’d seen, it was a mere pressing of the lips, and that’s exactly what she was doing. She wished that Henry had not been such a gentleman, for then she would be able to show His Grace she knew something about kissing. She felt her face grow hot with anger and a bit of embarrassment. “I am so sorry my lips are not to your liking,” she said.

  “Oh, no, Elizabeth,” he said softly. “Your lips are very, very much to my liking.” He touched them with the pad of his thumb and she pressed them closed. “Relax, love. Relax.” He kept moving his thumb over her lower lip, creating such a dizzying sensation she didn’t stiffen when he brought his head closer. “Relax,” he said, his mouth against his own thumb, which continued to move in such a seductive way against her. For once, he didn’t sound imperious or even like a duke, for he was asking, beseeching her, really, and that seemed to make all the difference. He dropped his thumb away and his mouth, warm and soft and hard, pulled at her lower lip and she let out a sigh. “There,” he breathed. Elizabeth clutched at his shoulders only because if she had let go, she surely would have melted to the blanket. She could not have imagined that a man’s lips against hers would feel so completely…intoxicating.

  And then, his tongue, touching her mouth, moving inside, and she felt as if something were taking hold of her, something wild and free and desperate. How did he know such things? His mouth moved against hers, and with a groan, he deepened the kiss and she let him, welcomed him, suddenly forgetting she was nervous, forgetting she did not want to be with him. Forgetting to wish he was Henry. Oh, Lord, hi
s kisses made her forget even who she was.

  Finally, he drew back, his forehead against hers. “That was much better,” he said, laughing a bit. “You are a very good student, my dear.”

  She smiled, ridiculously proud that he seemed so flushed, that she had somehow made him feel the same breathless way he made her feel.

  “Do you know how to swim?” he asked suddenly, jarring her senses yet again. She still knelt, still held her hands against his shoulders, still felt his hands in her hair, strong and sure and oddly wonderful.

  “No.”

  “Then why did you want to go to the beach?”

  They found themselves grinning at each other.

  “To avoid just this situation,” she said, trying to sound affronted but failing miserably.

  “I like this situation,” he said. He gave her a quick kiss, then pulled back to grab one of the small lemon tarts cook had packed.

  She slumped back onto her heels and stared at him through narrowed eyes. Then, without a word, she took one of the tarts and bit into it, almost as if daring him to stop her. It was a small bit of rebellion and one he would never know. Her mother had forbidden her from eating sweets, so she ate this one with relish. And when she was done, she took up another, wondering what it was about this man that made her act and do things she had never done before.

  Chapter 12

  Alva Cummings was in her glory. No one, other than perhaps Caroline Astor, could come close to organizing a grand ball the way she could. It was all a matter of spending more money, making everything more lavish, inviting more important people than anyone else could. And for her daughter’s engagement ball, the last of the summer season, Alva had outdone herself.

  Elizabeth suspected that all those weeks where she had been confined to her room and the weeks that followed, her mother had been planning this event, for there was no way she could have affected such a ball if she had not spent weeks and even months planning it.