Under The Kissing Bough: 15 Romantic Holiday Novellas

by Kathryn Le Veque

  Distress darkened her eyes, and he cursed himself for mentioning his wound. Especially on this first night, when he still edged toward establishing a rapport with his wife. He was surprised and delighted that she didn’t feel nearly as much a stranger as he’d expected.

  “You never told me. Even after you recovered and started your secret missions to secure the peace.”

  “I didn’t want to worry you.”

  She frowned. “Yet you must have known I’d worry anyway.”

  “Did you? I’m sorry. I always tried my best to protect you from the worst of what happened.”

  “I know, and I appreciate your consideration.” Irony twisted her lips. “But even someone as sheltered as I’ve been understood that fighting the French across Spain and Portugal was more than a carefree picnic in the hills.”

  He took a mouthful of wine, savoring the excellent vintage. He’d shoot himself before he drank another drop of sour Spanish red. “When we wrote, we didn’t venture beyond trivialities. You didn’t give me any bad news from here either.”

  “You didn’t need the added burden of hearing about troubles at home—especially when we always managed.”

  “You never spoke of your feelings either. I found myself wondering whether you were happy or sad, lonely or fulfilled, busy or bored.”

  Her expression turned somber. Once more, he noted how the girl he’d married had changed into a strong and intriguing woman. “Right from the start, we never spoke about our feelings. And you never asked. I assumed you preferred to keep our communication on a superficial level.”

  “And in turn, I assumed that’s what you preferred,” he said softly. “We knew each other so little when I left to join my regiment.”

  “Now we’ve been blessed with a second chance,” she said, equally softly. Unspoken lay the words, “when so many others didn’t survive to pick up the threads of family life.” She sent him a straight look. “Let’s not waste it, Canforth.”

  “No, let’s not.”

  Flick’s wry smile shifted the heavy silence that descended. “My tales of the household and snippets of village gossip must have struck you as frightfully flimsy.”

  With a grunt of amusement, he bent to rub his wounded thigh. His leg felt better with every hour he spent away from his horse, but it still ached. “I won’t countenance anyone speaking ill of those letters. They saved my life.”

  Doubt and gratification vied in her expression. “You exaggerate.”

  “Perhaps a little. But not if I say sanity rather than life. So many times, you gave me a smile when things were at their grimmest. And your letters reminded me what I was fighting for.”

  She mightn’t have discussed her feelings or her worries in the letters that arrived so faithfully over their long separation. But that didn’t mean they’d revealed nothing about his bride. Her courage and steadfastness in his cause had been impressive, if no surprise. But what a beguiling discovery her quirky humor had been.

  She blinked, and he caught the shimmer of tears in her pretty eyes. Then to his regret, she looked toward the fire, although her voice trembled with feeling. “That’s a beautiful thing to say. I’m sure those silly letters are unworthy of such praise.”

  “There was general rejoicing in the camp when mail from Otway arrived. We eased many an icy night in the Pyrenees with news of Miss Kelso’s pursuit of the vicar, or the antics of Mr. Brown’s delinquent pig.”

  She took a sip of her wine. “Miss Kelso caught Mr. Harvey in the end, you know.”

  “We toasted her success with the worst rotgut swill I’ve ever had the misfortune to swallow.”

  Flick’s eyes held a trace of her early shyness as she glanced back at him. “It’s true that you read those frivolous stories out to a hardened band of soldiers?”

  Canforth raised his hand as if taking an oath. “On my honor. Never underestimate the power of a bit of whimsy and a few jokes to cast light into impenetrable darkness. You were a heroine to my entire troop, Flick.”

  Her eyes glowed with pleasure. “Oh, I’m glad. When I started to write, I had no idea what might interest you. I’m afraid I was much less generous with your letters. I hoarded them all to myself.”

  His letters had been shorter and considerably less prolific. But every time he wrote, he felt like he made a promise to himself that one day, he’d return to the woman and the life he loved. “I like that.”

  “Now I’m really pleased I didn’t pour my girlish heart out to you.”

  He shrugged. “I’d have liked that, too.”

  “No, you wouldn’t,” she said in a dry tone. “And your men certainly wouldn’t have.”

  With a brief laugh, he relaxed back in his chair and let the half-empty glass dangle from his fingers. “Perhaps not.”

  He’d soon learned to read between the lines in her letters. Lack of discussion of feelings didn’t mean a lack of feelings altogether. For either of them.

  Before he’d left her, he’d never found the right time to speak his love. Whenever he set out to tell her, uncertainty about her feelings put a padlock on his tongue. The act of sitting down to write, even in the midst of ruin and chaos, had been a way of offering his wife his deepest devotion. And while Flick’s letters might not have declared her love, they proved that she thought of him and cared enough to write.

  “Canforth, I know your life has been grueling and dangerous, and there are things you will never wish to speak about. Or at least not on the night you return home.” She paused, her grip on her wineglass tightening. “But some day, when you feel at ease, and you’re truly back in the world you left behind so long ago, will you tell me?”

  He flinched, before he realized how his reaction betrayed the numberless horrors he’d witnessed. “Flick, it’s not pretty.”

  Her lips tightened, but her brown gaze remained steady. “Nevertheless I want to know.”

  As he stared at her, his instinctive objections faded. The girl he’d married couldn’t have coped, couldn’t even have comprehended. But the woman of twenty-six who had fought her own battles, she perhaps might understand.

  “In that case, then, yes. One day. One day when I’m ready, I’ll tell you a little of what it was like.”

  “Thank you.” Her lips turned down in a self-derisive smile. “And I owe you an apology. That was a poor welcome I gave you. An empty house, and a wife stinking of the stables.”

  Actually when he’d first touched her, he’d caught the scent of crushed flowers and something that was Flick alone. He’d remembered that fragrance immediately—it would always be the aroma of heaven. There might have been a hint of horse and hay, too, but he hadn’t cared. He’d been too busy fighting the urge to bury his face in her hair and tell her how much he’d missed her. Which would have ruined things between them forever. If he leaped on her like a starving wolf the minute he came home, she’d run for the hills.

  “It’s still my home, empty or not, and I gave you no warning I was coming. But you haven’t told me why you’re spending Christmas alone.”

  She took another sip of wine. “I didn’t feel like going through all the hullabaloo this year. It…it seemed easier to miss you here at Otway than in a noisy, happy crowd of people, however much I love them.”

  Shock made him sit up straight and stare at her. “You missed me?”

  The question surprised her. “Of course.”

  “But I’ve been away for ages.”

  She gave a grim laugh. “I know.”

  By Jove, that was dashed nice to hear. Dashed nice. To think, she’d missed him. Perhaps his case wasn’t quite as hopeless as he thought. He leaned back and stretched his legs toward the fire, making Digby grumble at the interruption to his snooze. “Well.”

  A smile lit her eyes to burned caramel. “Well, indeed.”

  She set aside her wine and picked up her sewing, as if she hadn’t changed his world in the space of a second. “It means a plain Christmas dinner, I’m afraid. A returning hero deserves to have
all the stops pulled out.”

  Another silence fell, this one more comfortable than the last. Canforth finished his wine and let its warmth fortify the warmth seeping into his blood with every moment in his wife’s presence. For years, he’d been cold and lonely. Was his exile finally at an end?

  He’d had no idea what welcome awaited him at Otway Hall. But this hadn’t been it.

  Although so far, he had no complaints. He and Flick had never managed a proper conversation before. He prayed this was only the first of many to come.

  “Compared to some of the places I’ve been since I left you, this is luxury indeed,” he said, as if there had been no break in the conversation. She’d been brave enough to admit she’d missed him. He could be brave, too. “And having you to myself for a few days without worrying about an army of servants or an influx of guests is perfect.”

  She looked up quickly. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  She drank from her wineglass to hide another blush. And he still found it charming. “Would you like to go to the midnight service?”

  He shook his head. “I’d rather keep my head down for a couple of days, before the villagers discover I’m back. Is that too ungodly?”

  “No, it makes perfect sense. If you’d come back to a house full of servants, keeping your arrival quiet would be impossible. But Biddy and Joe won’t gossip, and this gives you a chance to settle in without anyone bothering you.”

  Not quite true. His wife bothered him a great deal. “Will you go?”

  “Oh, yes. I have so many reasons to be thankful.”

  She smiled, and his lingering misgivings about the future faded to a distant rumble. He was home. He had time to make everything the way he wanted it.

  “So have I. But I’ll say my prayers in private. I doubt the Lord will mind.”

  Biddy bustled in. “Dinner’s ready, and I hope you both enjoy it, as it’s a night for celebration. This Christmas Eve is full of miracles, when we’ve got the master home again at last. Her ladyship has had a dire lonely time of it since you went away, my lord.”

  He caught another faint blush on his wife’s cheeks, but to his surprise, Flick didn’t deny it. “It is wonderful, isn’t it, Biddy? We don’t need any other Christmas present. Nothing could be as good as knowing my lord is safe and well, and back where he belongs.”

  Moved, Canforth stood, stumbling as he put his weight on his injured leg. He appreciated his wife’s tact in not offering to help him, although he knew she watched over him with care. By nature, he was independent, but he was infernally pleased that Flick concerned herself with his welfare.

  He extended his arm as Digby struggled to his feet with not much more grace than his master. “Shall we go through to dinner, my lady?”

  MISTLETOE AND THE MAJOR

  CHAPTER FOUR

  When Felicity returned from the midnight service in Otway’s small stone church, her heart still brimmed with gratitude. Joe and Biddy had accompanied her, and if only they three knew that this Christmas gave special cause for rejoicing, that was good in the Lord’s eyes, she was sure.

  Now she stood in the countess’s bedroom, separated from the earl’s bedroom by a narrow dressing room, and told herself not to resent sleeping alone yet again. She’d slept alone for the vast majority of her marriage. What was one more night?

  Except she was agonizingly conscious that if she walked through the dressing room, she’d find her husband asleep in his bed. As she’d returned through the freezing night, she’d wondered whether Canforth would wait up for her. The thought had made her tremble with wanton anticipation.

  But she’d arrived back at the manor to a note wishing her a good night and a merry Christmas, and saying he’d see her at breakfast. However foolish it might be, she’d kissed the slashing signature, familiar after his hundreds of letters. Thank goodness nobody saw her doing such a nonsensical thing, or she’d have been mortified.

  She’d seen enough of the world now to recognize that Lord Canforth had been a remarkably circumspect bridegroom. During their honeymoon, he’d come to her bed a mere five times. She’d been shy and woefully unprepared. The only child of elderly parents, the marital act had proven a complete shock. Despite her husband’s patience and tenderness, she’d cried and cowered away on their wedding night.

  On the few occasions he’d returned to her, he always treated her with heartbreaking consideration. Gradually she’d started to find pleasure in what he did, but he left before she felt at ease in a man’s embrace. Even a man she loved.

  He’d abandoned her to yearn, but with no memory of satisfaction to comfort her. She’d spent the years since, wishing she’d been braver, more responsive, more welcoming. She hadn’t been a cold bride, but nor had she been a particularly generous one. Constant regret had eaten at her. Regret, and the gnawing fear that she’d never have the chance to be a real wife to Canforth.

  Fate had granted her a second chance. She meant to seize it.

  Bold words. When her husband slept in his room, and she hovered, uncertain and awake, in hers.

  Perhaps he no longer wanted her. Perhaps he’d never wanted her, and that tentative honeymoon was proof.

  Excerpt he’d wanted her enough to propose. And he’d written to her all these years. Tonight when she’d looked into his eyes, she’d felt a new and powerful connection linking them. Surely that couldn’t be just on her side.

  After that conversation in the drawing room when they’d ventured closer to confidences than ever before, they’d retreated to lighter subjects over dinner. Canforth had been exhausted, and while he did his best to hide his discomfort, she knew that his leg wound troubled him. She’d bitten back the urge to chide him for not taking a carriage, instead of riding all that way in the cold.

  Tomorrow was Christmas. Today, really, although it wasn’t long past midnight. A decent sleep might restore him. Perhaps tonight, he’d come to her bed.

  If only she could enlist the mistletoe’s magic to make her marriage what she wished. Canforth mightn’t love her, but she wanted him to know that while he’d left a frightened girl behind, he returned to a woman eager to be his wife in every sense.

  Feeling more optimistic, Felicity changed into her white flannel nightgown, plaited her long hair, and picked up her book. She prayed that next time she lay down, she had something more exciting than “The Vicar of Wakefield” to put her to sleep.

  Around her, the old house settled into silence.

  The first groan was quiet. Some animal in the woods outside could have made it.

  The second, hard upon the first, was louder and unmistakably human.

  Felicity set down her book and swung her feet to the floor. Should she go to Canforth? Or would he consider it an unforgivable breach of his privacy? He’d always come to her bed, with no traffic in the other direction at all.

  Curse this strange half marriage.

  Another long cry, sharp with misery, swept hesitation aside. One would need a heart of stone to disregard the anguish in the sound.

  Springing to her feet, she grabbed her candle and burst through the doors separating her from Canforth. When she raised her candle to reveal the large man writhing on the bed, she saw he was too lost in the throes of his nightmare to notice any noise she made.

  She paused on the threshold, tossed back to the uncertain girl she’d been, in awe of her big, strong husband. After a fraction of a second, the capable chatelaine took over. Digby raised his head from near the fire, but seeing Felicity, he lay down again, as if he knew his master was in safe hands.

  She hoped to heaven he was right.

  Despite the cold night, Canforth had kicked the blankets to the floor. The sheet twisted around him. In the flickering light, a sheen of sweat covered his bare chest and shoulders.

  With surprising steadiness, she set the candle on the nightstand and leaned over to place a soothing hand on his shoulder. “Canforth. Canforth, wake up. You’re having a bad dream.”

  H
e didn’t wake, but he turned violently in her direction, like a compass needle pointing to north. The lines of suffering on his face made his scar stand out like a red banner.

  Pity so powerful that it hurt gripped her. She’d known he must have seen and done terrible things, but only now, witnessing this unconscious torment, did the truth stab deep into her soul.

  “Canforth, wake up,” she said in a firmer voice.

  This time he jerked away, dislodging the sheet completely.

  She gasped, although the bare torso should have warned her what to expect. He slept naked. Ridiculous after eight years of marriage to discover that.

  Even as her hand began to stroke him into calmness, she couldn’t stop her hungry gaze from devouring the magnificent sight before her. Like so much else during their time together, he’d been reticent about his nakedness, coming to her in a dressing gown and taking her in darkness. He hadn’t even removed her nightgown.

  As his ragged panting eased, she surveyed this man she’d married.

  Biddy was right. He was too thin. Felicity knew that, even before he’d appeared at dinner in clothes that had fitted eight years ago and now draped loose on his rangy frame. But his thinness made the superb lines of his body stand out in stark relief. The broad shoulders and powerful chest. The ribs clearly delineated under the pale skin. The narrow hips and long legs. She winced to see the knotted scar on his thigh. He’d called himself lucky, and in many ways he had been. But he’d bear his scars until the day he died.

  Inevitably her gaze strayed between his legs, where his rod lay soft in its nest of dark auburn hair. She bit back the forbidden impulse to touch it, even as her fingers curled at her side.

  Without looking away, however brazen that made her, Felicity bunched her bare toes against the cold wooden floor to restore some circulation. She hadn’t waited to put on a robe and slippers before she dashed to Canforth’s side. The night was freezing, despite the fire burning in the grate.

  When she looked up, her husband’s eyes were open. She blushed like fire and whipped her hand away from his shoulder.