*
Truly, Penelope Carrington was meant to be Levi’s wife. She hadn’t judged him for his misbegotten entanglement with that woman, and Penelope was sufficiently confident of Levi’s plans to anticipate marital vows with him.
“Penelope, you must be very sure. If my scheme goes awry, I will still offer you marriage, and you will have Sixtus’s funds to see to your family, but there will be unkind talk.” Also, quite possibly, a civil lawsuit for breach of promise, and Levi had no confidence Stoneleigh would be free to represent him in a messy civil case.
“Your scheme will work, Levi, and there will be no talk.” She led him from the feed room, her hand on his arm as if they’d been discussing nothing more scandalous than the recipe for the ladies’ punch at the assembly.
Levi had the sense that by taking him to bed, Penelope was assuring herself of their eventual marriage, a leap of faith he could not entirely share.
Though neither would he disappoint his lady. They were adults, both of them had lost a spouse, and strict adherence to propriety did little to make an otherwise lonely life worth living.
“I will marry you, Levi,” Penelope said when they’d reached her sitting room door. “You or no one.”
“And I will marry you,” Levi said, the words a vow. “You or no one.” Regardless of lawsuits, scandal, ruin, or scheming spinsters.
Penelope slipped through the door, then locked it behind Levi, and wrapped her arms around him.
“I want to decorate this house,” she said against his mouth. “I want to hang mistletoe from every rafter and tie golden bows on all the candles.”
Marriage to Sixtus had been lonely for her, at least in this physical regard. Levi knew what that felt like and kissed her back.
“Your year of mourning ends next week. Decorate to your heart’s content. Sixtus would have wanted—”
Her hands went to his cravat. “I want, but I do believe Sixtus meant for me to marry you, Levi Sparrow.”
Sixtus had been that crafty and that loyal a friend. Levi wished Sixtus was still about, to aid them in their scheme—a daft sentiment.
“Perhaps he did want us to marry. He asked me to take special care of you, to maintain my friendship with the household after the condolence calls had ceased.”
Had insisted—more than once—that Penelope would have no one else she could trust, and Sixtus had apparently been right.
Marrying Penelope might cause all manner of difficulties for their families. Levi let her undress him anyway, as a husband accepted that mundane intimacy from his wife, and returned the courtesy to her.
“You have regained some of the flesh you lost with Sixtus’s last illness,” he said, untying the bow of her stays, something he’d not done for Ann even on their wedding night.
“When he was ill, Sixtus kept trying to shoo me away, kept telling me to tend my rabbits. Franklin bore him company when I couldn’t. What are you—are you kissing me?”
Kissing her, sniffing her, nibbling her. Levi was on his knees behind her, acquainting his nose with the exact contour of the dimples at the base of her spine.
“I’m getting to know you. Were you aware that here”—he grazed his nose straight up her spine as he rose—“you bear the scent of carnations?”
“Perhaps roses and carnations are related. I love your scent—lemons and cinnamon. It’s bracing and soothing, masculine and different.”
She loved his scent. Levi started a list, as if he were taking notes in preparation for joining suit.
“I love your softness,” he said, sinking his fingers into her hair and searching out the pins. “I love that you’re both sweet and fierce. You didn’t allow Sixtus to send you away very often, did you?”
“Two hours a day,” she said, as her braid slipped down over her shoulder. “I cried for some of those two hours, though I visited the rabbits as well.”
A cheering thought befell Levi, despite that his schemes had yet to bear fruit. They’d bring their babies to meet the rabbits, and use the angora wool to blend the softest, warmest weaves for the baby blankets.
“Will you undo my falls, Penelope?”
She turned, wearing only her chemise. “You’re allowed to miss Ann, Levi. Allowed to save a corner of your heart to mourn her to your last day.”
“I will keep Ann ever in my prayers, but right now, her memory is not foremost in my thoughts.” His voice was steady as Penelope undid two sets of buttons with delightful dispatch.
She wrapped her fingers around his shaft. “Gracious, Levi. What is foremost in your thoughts?”
He was hard, eager, and still wearing too many clothes. “You are. Shall we finish undressing me?”
She had his waistcoat and shirt off, then stood back so he could shove out of his breeches and linen. With Ann, he’d kept a nightshirt on, and she’d remained tucked cozily beneath her covers and nightgown, not a single candle lit. With Penelope, only naked skin to naked skin would do.
“The chemise goes, my dear.”
“How will I stay warm?”
“I’ll keep you warm.”
Her chemise went sailing to the foot of the bed at an impressive speed, and then she was plastered against him, her nose mashed to his throat.
“You are hot as a toasted brick, Levi. Shall we get under the covers?”
“Soon.” Penelope was nervous—Levi was nervous—but the moment wanted savoring. He would be her first. She would be his forever and finally. He cupped her jaw and kissed her with all the respect, hope, and passion in him, all the dreams and wishes one heart could contain.
When she let him up for air several minutes later, Levi scooped her into his arms and carried her to the bed.
“Leviticus Sparrow, those sheets will be freez—!”
He tossed her onto the bed then came down over her. “If you yell, the servants will hear.”
She looked intrigued with the notion. “What if you yell?”
“The entire shire will hear me. The assembly will soon be upon us. Get your staff busy decorating the house, Penelope. The roof of the parish hall is said to leak.”
Levi had made certain of if, in fact.
Penelope kissed his nose. “Decorate with lots of mistletoe?”
“Bales of it.” Mistletoe was part of Levi’s plan. Kissing was apparently part of Penelope’s. She kissed him as if to make up for all the years her late husband had been friend, mentor, companion, and frustration to her. Kissed Levi as if she believed his desperate plan would work without having heard it.
Kissed him until he was poised over her on all fours, suspended between exuberant lust, gratitude for her faith in him, and determination that she have him for her husband and knight before Christmas.
“Levi, I love kissing you.”
I love you. “The sentiment is mutual. I love being naked in bed with you, love making love with you during business hours, love that you’re all over with the fragrances of meadows and gardens in the middle of winter, love—”
She squeezed his backside. “You can write poems about all that, but for now, might we please get on with things?”
“No more poems,” he said, dropping his forehead to hers and threading a forearm under her neck. “This next part might get a tad uncomfortable, Penelope.”
“I wouldn’t want you to suffer for anything, Levi. What can I do to make it less uncomfortable?” Her next squeeze was gentler, followed by a fortifying pat.
God help him. “You have to be patient with me, let me take my time, not rush me.”
She wrapped a leg around his waist. “Very well. If that’s what you need from me, then I’ll be the soul of patience, and if it’s too difficult, you can stop. I know you’ve been alone for a long time, Levi, and I refuse to distress you.”
“I love you,” he whispered, easing forward into her heat. “I purely, simply, hopelessly love you.” He paused, having gained the first increment of penetration and knowing another inch would cost him his powers of speech.
“I love your kindness and pragmatism,” he went on, pushing forward again, gently, gently. “I love your hair, your kisses, your conversations with Franklin. I love”—he withdrew half the distance, all he could manage—“the determination in your eyes when the lads forget to change the straw in one of the pens. I love—ah, God, Penelope, I love all of you.”
She was wet and willing, and the only person in the bed showing signs of distress was Levi, for desire rode him mercilessly as he slowly, slowly joined with his intended.
“This feels…” Penelope’s second leg vised around his flank. “I like this. You’re inside me.”
The words were simple and obvious, the wonder in Penelope’s voice was profound.
“You’re all around me,” Levi said, hitching her closer. “You’re in my arms. In my heart.”
“You’re in my bed. Don’t stop, Levi. I’ll die if you stop.”
So would he. He created a rhythm slower than desire clamored for, but gratifying in the response it wrung from Penelope. She moved beneath him, held him to her desperately tight, and kissed him with an open-mouthed ferocity that nearly cost him his control.
What saved Levi was the last, smallest fraction of his rational mind, the part that always observed, always analyzed. He used that stubborn bit of sanity to catalogue the novel ways Penelope’s passion delighted him.
She sank her nails into his fundament.
She twisted her fingers through his hair.
She moaned into his shoulder as passion overcame her in a shuddering, panting, litany of “Oh, Levi, Levi, Levi…”
While he endured, held on, and held her.
“This is marvelous,” she whispered long moments later. “We must be married, Levi, and soon. Say a prayer that we’re snowed in a lot this winter.”
He kissed her ear. “You’re all right, then?”
“I’m glowing inside like the Christmas star itself. Will you get us a special license?”
“Of course. Shall you glow again, Penelope?”
He didn’t want to make her sore—not until they were married and could share a soaking bath the next morning.
She glowed twice more as evening descended, and Levi’s faith in their eventual marriage—or his passion—was such that the last time, he lit up the sky with her, until Penelope slept tucked against his side, and Levi wondered when they’d have a chance to discuss his great, lofty—hare-brained—scheme for foiling Amanda Houston.
Chapter Six
‡
Mr. Stoneleigh was certainly handsome, and Levi claimed he was a dear friend, but he made Penelope a trifle uncomfortable.
“She doesn’t think I can be charming,” Mr. Stoneleigh complained, as if Penelope weren’t sitting in the same parlor.
“Neither do I,” Levi said, jabbing at the logs on the andirons. “I think you can impersonate a charming man, though, much as you impersonate aggrieved innocence and thundering outrage. Please avoid the mistletoe.”
A difficult undertaking when Penelope’s entire house fairly dripped with mistletoe thanks to the ladies on the decorating committee.
“You’ve involved an innocent rabbit in this scheme?” Stoneleigh asked, sipping his punch. “Levi, perhaps you’ve been working too hard.”
Penelope smiled sweetly at Levi’s friend and accomplice. “At last count, Mr. Stoneleigh, Franklin had more than three thousand descendants. He’s not an innocent rabbit, and Levi and I consider him a friend.”
Levi rose and put the poker back on the hearth stand. “Franklin also has no speaking parts in this farce, while you do, Stoneleigh,” he said. “Shall we take our places?”
“The courtroom is a theater,” Stoneleigh muttered, rising and tugging down his waistcoat. “I will be such a warm-hearted, charming fellow, the snow will melt from here to the West Riding. Two decades from now, grandmothers will still remark the year that handsome Mr. Stoneleigh graced the Christmas assembly and broke every heart—”
Franklin, who’d been keeping his own counsel against the French doors, thumped the floor as loudly as a pistol shot.
“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Penelope murmured. She took Mr. Stoneleigh’s arm, while Levi fetched Franklin.
“Give me about fifteen minutes,” Levi said, leaning over to kiss Penelope. “From both of you, I want quantities of charm, wide-eyed disbelief, and convincing dismay. Come along, Franklin. Time for you to be least in sight.”
Levi and Franklin left, the larger of the two confiding something masculine and none too delicate to the smaller fellow.
Mr. Stoneleigh’s expression was more puzzled than charming. “I’ve never seen Levi like this. He used to be the soul of reason, the epitome of logic, and a font of precedent. Is this your doing?”
“I certainly hope so, though Levi took a direct hand in flavoring the punch, too. If I’m to play the part of the bereaved widow reluctantly entertaining my neighbors for a holiday assembly, then you’d best start looking supportive and smitten, Mr. Stoneleigh.”
Levi had taken the Carrington household staff in hand, and the decorating committee had turned Penelope’s ballroom into a fairyland of blue, white, and gold—and mistletoe. Her neighbors were in there, twirling about more merrily by the moment.
Stoneleigh peered down at her—he was as tall as Levi, but his height was imposing rather than comforting.
“Sir Levi is smitten,” he said. “I never thought I’d see the day. Well, ’tis the season of miracles, is it not? Witness, I’m about to be mistaken for charming.”
He patted her hand, then escorted her through the door, giving every appearance of a man doting on his companion.
Truly, barristers were an amazing lot. As half the shire hopped and stomped about on the dance floor, Penelope introduced Mr. Stoneleigh as an acquaintance of her late husband’s—Sixtus had known everybody—and a dear friend of Penelope’s, which he might eventually be.
When they’d made the rounds of the locals, including no less a personage than the famously reserved—and fashionably late—Duke of Oxthorpe, Penelope brought Mr. Stoneleigh to meet her sisters.
Precisely fifteen minutes after parting company with Levi, Mr. Stoneleigh was seized by a violent, loud sneeze.
“Excuse me,” he said, producing a silk handkerchief and whisking it about under his formidable nose. “Perhaps the greenery affects me.”
In a corner of the ballroom, the sight of Levi passing Miss Houston a second cup of punch affected Penelope.
“Isn’t mistletoe poisonous?” she asked.
Miss Houston took the cup, patted Levi’s lapel in an exasperatingly presumptuous manner, and said something Penelope was glad she couldn’t hear.
“Smile, madam,” Mr. Stoneleigh warned pleasantly as the musicians brought the set to a close. “Levi did, indeed, take a personal interest in that Greek fire you’re calling your punch.”
Which was being served in quantity to the simpering, smiling, sleeve-clutching, lapel-patting, fiancé-stealing Miss Houston.
“I hope she spills it on her bodice and every bachelor in the shire is on hand to lend his handkerchief.”
“Creative, though her kind sometimes enjoys that sort of thing. Where is your guardian rabbit?”
“Where no one will find him. Your eyes look a bit red, Mr. Stoneleigh. Or shall I call you Gervaise?”
She’d surprised him. Penelope hid her glee by lowering her lashes and introducing Mr. Stoneleigh to Mr. Amblewise’s mama, up from Town to join her son for the holidays. Mrs. Amblewise was a merry, substantial lady who doted on her darling boy.
Mr. Stoneleigh sneezed again, and Penelope didn’t think it a theatrical gesture.
“Are you well, Mr. Stoneleigh?”
Out came the showy handkerchief again, waved in all directions. “Quite well. I’m merely affected by the decorations.”
“You are a very convincing actor. Would you like some punch?”
“Dear lady, if I value my health, that punch is the last libation I would allow t
o pass my lips.” He leaned closer as they approached a sprig of mistletoe dangling from a Roman statue’s spear. “They’re leaving the ballroom. Try to look smitten, Mrs. Carrington. With me.”
She went up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “Happy Christmas, Mr. Stoneleigh.”
“It’s your damned perfume,” he said quietly. “I cannot abide roses, though my step-mother favors them.” He moved away, as if to admire the mistletoe.
“Not much longer, Mr. Stoneleigh, and you will look very convincing.”
“I am very convincing,” he snapped, sneezing yet again. “I can’t wait, or I’ll be wheezing like an asthmatic princess.”
“Not yet,” Penelope hissed, pulling him over by a window that had been cracked to let in fresh air. The dancing would soon begin again, and then the ballroom would grow very warm indeed.
“Better,” he said, stuffing his handkerchief in a pocket. He went still, standing very straight, like a hound on the scent. “Good God, I thought you said the rabbit wasn’t to be a part of this.”
“He’s not,” Penelope said. “Not in truth. Why?”
“Because I’m certain I saw a rabbit’s fluffy little bunny-arse disappearing through the door. We haven’t any more time, madam.”
“But Levi and Miss Houston have only just left. Franklin is above stairs, I tell you.” Though Franklin had a way of wiggling open doors that were closed but not latched, of disappearing into the wainscoting and reappearing in interesting locations.
“Two minutes,” Mr. Stoneleigh said, dragging the window open another three inches.
They were the longest two minutes of Penelope’s existence, while all around her, her neighbors milled about, swilling the punch, nibbling cakes, joking, and waiting for her to signal the orchestra to resume. In the small parlor down the hall, Levi was closeted with Miss Houston, while somewhere in the house, Franklin was apparently on the loose and about to ruin Levi’s carefully wrought scheme.
“Mrs. Carrington,” Mr. Stoneleigh declaimed in tones that would wake the sleepiest of judges, “are you telling me there’s a rabbit on the premises? A live rabbit? I cannot abide rabbits. They give me the most hideous sneezing fits.”
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