by Meg Harding
Cursed Miracles
By Meg Harding
Two hundred years ago on Christmas Eve, William Mashinter was frozen in time, cursed by his wife to roam the world on his own, waiting for the love of his life to find him. The love of his life, whom she killed. Time hasn’t healed this wound, and William is tired of the happy holiday and the constant reminders of a love that’s been taken from him. But then the impossible happens, and maybe… maybe he can get a new Christmas perspective.
Brady Gallagher has lived three different lives, always aware of the first and most important, yet unable to find the man who will fill in the missing pieces and let him know he’s not crazy. He encounters him at a work event, of all places, but is he willing to throw everything else to the wind and embrace the miracle laid out before him?
Table of Contents
Blurb
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Epilogue
About the Author
By Meg Harding
Visit Dreamspinner Press
Copyright
Chapter One
TWO HUNDRED years ago, William Mashinter the Third learned a very important life lesson. One he won’t forget—even if he lives two hundred more.
Don’t piss off a witch.
As he sits at his large oak desk, staring out at the city of Chicago with its sky-high buildings and abundance of snow flurries, he thinks back to the Christmas Eve that changed everything. The day where his life went to complete hell after being sunk partially in it for a too-long time. The events that led to it. When everything had been ripped from him because he’d dared to try and touch the stars.
He scowls.
He hates Christmas. It’s the only time of year he gets reflective. The one period of time when his pain is more present than ever. So many years later, and it’s still a raw wound. He doesn’t think it ever won’t be.
The scenery outside his window changes, his office vanishes, and he’s standing in an old Victorian room, staring at his father from across the man’s desk. His father, Lord Mashinter the Second, is an imposing man with iron-gray hair and an attitude that has people naturally bowing to him. His face is lined with age, his stomach going soft. His eyes are hard, like flint, and they’re not prone to displaying affection. This isn’t an exception. He’s staring at William like he’s talking to an underling, and for all intents and purposes, that is what William is to him.
“Lord Granger has agreed to marriage terms between you and Lady Jennifer Granger.” He says it casually, while barely looking up from the paper he’s reading.
William’s stomach feels like it plummets to his feet. The nightmare he’s avoided his whole life is finally here. Marriage. To a woman he doesn’t love. When he loves someone else. He has to reach for the chair back in front of him, grip tight to keep from falling. His world is being flipped upside down. “Father,” he says, protest on the tip of his tongue. He’s made his feelings on this matter as clear as he could without revealing the truth. He loves Lord Brady Gallagher. And he knows—is painfully aware—that their love isn’t conventional. That it won’t ever be accepted amongst these people he calls friends and family.
His argument falls on deaf ears. His pleas are ignored. His father couldn’t care less that William isn’t ready for marriage. That he doesn’t even know his wife-to-be. He’s met her a handful of times, exchanged all of five words with her, if even that. If he has to live this lie, she wouldn’t be the one he’d pick. He tries to express all this without actually saying, “Father, I love a man and cannot marry this woman.”
His father’s word is law, and there’s no changing it.
The stuffy office with its tacky animal heads (hunting trophies that make his stomach turn) and dusty bookshelves filled with ledgers fades away, and he’s sitting in an empty horse stall, in an abandoned barn, his forehead pressed to his knees. There’s a soft knock on the wooden door, and then Brady’s quiet footsteps are making their way to him. He sits, warmth pressing all along William’s side. William turns to Brady, curls around him, trying to melt and become one with him.
His wedding is tomorrow. He can’t hold on tight enough.
Brady won’t be the one waiting at the altar for him. Brady with his tall and lean frame, all gangly legs. His laughing green eyes and his curly, wild auburn hair that’s always a shade too long to be truly respectable. He has freckles covering every bit of his face, and they’re on his body too, like a beautiful map sprawling all over. William’s spent many a night trying to count them, tracing them with his fingers and then his tongue. His skin is milk pale beneath the marks, absolutely refuses to tan no matter how much sun Brady gets. When he smiles, it splits his face. He’s got a big mouth, plump lips. There are dimples in both his cheeks. Just looking at him makes William feel light inside.
“We can run away,” William says, lips moving against the sensitive skin of Brady’s neck. “I can leave everything behind.” He’d do it. There’s nothing here that matters as much to him as Brady. Not even close.
“We can’t.” Brady is the voice of reason. “Where would we go? There’s nowhere that would accept us. Where we could truly be us.” He smooths William’s curling black hair out of his face, tucking it behind his ear. He looks heartbroken, devastated as he stares into William’s brown eyes. “It was always going to come to this. We’ll do what everyone else does. It’s not ideal, but that’s… that’s how it is.” His tone says he wishes that weren’t true. “If anyone can make it work, we can.”
William closes his eyes. He doesn’t get how there can be so many same-sex affairs in their society and yet it’s frowned upon. Taboo. Completely unacknowledged. So many people feel this way, and yet they’re forced to hide it. Forced to fake love for someone they hate and sneak around to be with the person they love. He didn’t—doesn’t—want to be one of those people. But he will be if it keeps him from losing Brady.
Not knowing what else to do, feeling lost and desperate, he climbs into Brady’s lap and kisses him with everything he has. He tries to pour all his emotions out, express how much he loves him and hates the world, how he wants to be with Brady forever. For ten years they’ve staved off marriage to others. They’ve slunk around in the shadows and whispered their love where no one else could hear. They’ve played at being best friends and nothing more, flirting poorly with girls for an audience and putting on the front required of them.
They’ve gotten more time than most.
Is it selfish that William doesn’t think it’s enough?
They tumble to the ground, William laid out atop Brady. Their hands are everywhere, rucking up shirts and trying to get through the many layers to skin. Hot, glorious skin. Brady reaches it first, shoving his hands down William’s pants to palm his ass. He squeezes, hitching William forward, grinding their quickly hardening cocks together. Brady raises his legs, framing William’s hips with his thighs as he moves him.
William is shaky as he tries to unbutton Brady’s waistcoat. He still needs to do his shirt. There’s ruffles in his way, and that stupid cravat he’s always got on. Why must they all wear so many clothes? Brady rolls them so William is underneath, and he spreads his legs, letting Brady settle in over him. He shifts his body forward slowly, sensually, dipping his head to kiss William’s nose, his lips. He bites them before he parts them with his tongue and ravages William’s mouth.
William whines beneath him, his fear for the future making everything feel more potent, more like the last time. He has his hands fisted in Brady’s shirt, clutching him tight chest to chest. Brady tries to get his knees under him, to lift his weight and do something, William doesn’t know what. But he needs the contact, and he refuses to l
et him go.
He doesn’t want one bit of space between them.
Brady licks down the line of his neck, bites sharply at William’s collarbone. He’s careful to not actually leave marks. “William,” he says, voice husky and strained. “William. I want”—he gasps, twisting his hips in a way that has William seeing stars—“clothes off. I want to feel you.”
William wishes he could magically make his clothes vanish. He commands his hands to let go, but his fingers remain curled tight around the fabric of Brady’s shirt. He pants against the side of Brady’s face, drags his lips over his sharp cheekbone, stubbled jaw. “I can’t let go,” he admits, and he means it in more ways than one.
Brady’s long, nimble fingers pry his shirt free from William’s grasp. He slides them between William’s, leaning over and holding their hands above William’s head. His knuckles press into the dirt. “I love you,” says Brady, his green eyes dark and shadowed. “I always will.” When Brady lets go, William keeps his hands where they’ve been put. Brady undresses himself, tossing his clothes aside, not caring that they’re getting dirty. And then he undresses William. He takes his time, stroking William’s skin, tweaking his nipples and brushing his fingers lightly, barely over William’s straining cock.
Once they’re naked, they move together. It’s slow rocking and quiet murmurs of moans and encouragement. They have to kiss to keep from being too loud. Have to whisper their praise and love into each other’s mouths instead of into the space between them. They feel the words more than hear them. The air around them is hot and humid, the stall smelling of nothing but sex now. William keeps his legs locked around Brady, his heels digging into Brady’s ass as their cocks slide together, precome leaking and making everything that much better.
William comes first, the cry torn from his throat swallowed by Brady. Their stomachs become slick with his mess, and he shoves a hand between them to help Brady through his own release, stroking his cock urgently. Brady’s come joins William’s, the two of them mixing together, bellies growing sticky. Brady buries his face against William’s neck, hot, puffing breaths flaying his skin.
“Everything is going to be fine,” he says.
William wishes he could believe him.
The body above him melts away, and suddenly he’s in front of an audience, wearing formal clothes and dancing with a petite dark-haired woman. The new Lady Mashinter. His wife. His feet move by pure muscle memory, the ability to dance ingrained in him since he could walk. It’s required of everyone in the ton. They may not know how to tell the truth or be happy, but they know how to put on a show and how to dance.
He spins Jennifer around, the clapping of their audience like death knells in his ears. She’s smiling, her lips reduced to thin slits it’s so wide. Her nose is little and pert. Her eyes are a striking blue and wide like a china doll’s. William is a slight man, average height when it comes down to it, and skinny. She makes him feel broad and like a giant.
They spin out of the wedding and into a sitting room. William is tugging his favorite riding gloves on. A gift from Brady nearly six years ago for his birthday. “I’m going to the club,” he tells Jennifer, studiously not looking at her. Her hands are on her hips, and he knows if he turns he’ll see fire in her eyes. Sometimes he swears there’s literal fire.
They’ve been married a year, and he can only equate it to hell.
He feels guilty to his very bones. For having to let her touch him. For sneaking around behind her back to touch Brady. And it’s like she can sense it. She questions his every move. Berates him over little things. He knows it’s nothing but paranoia, but she’s always watching. At least that’s what it seems like.
“I’d like you to stay home. I have the cook making a special roast.”
William’s shoulders tense. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I already made these plans. It’s business.” It’s not even close to business, but he’s found that’s an excuse hard to argue with. His father runs a shipping company, and William is involved—being groomed to take over—in the financial aspect of the business at the moment. It’s one more thing in his life he never got a say in.
Twenty-eight years old now, and some days he feels eighty and others eighteen.
“Business seems to be all you ever do. You can have them over to dinner from now on. You needn’t go to the gentlemen’s club every night.”
She approaches, shoes clicking on the wood floor. She grabs him. Her grip on his arm is hard, her nails digging into him through his clothes. He turns to face her. Jennifer’s expression is pinched. “Who are you meeting tonight? Perhaps I will inquire if their wives are as neglected as I.”
If William closes his eyes and sighs, he’ll be giving himself away and asking for a world of trouble. But he wants to. He wants to collapse from exhaustion over this whole stupid fucking charade. His temper bubbles in his chest, rising up his throat to nearly choke him. He forcefully swallows it down. If he gives her names, she will make inquiries. And then she’ll find out he’s lying. She’s nosy like that.
And there’s the stab of guilt in his stomach.
She’s nosy because she has a reason not to trust him.
“Jennifer,” he says and then stops. Please let this go.
She loosens her hold, rubs her hand over his shoulder and down his spine. He resists the urge to shiver. He can’t help that his skin crawls when she touches him. It’s an uncontrollable reaction he’s had to her since the day they first touched.
“Do you know what this week is?” she asks, tone cool.
He shakes his head. Is he forgetting an anniversary? Her day of birth?
“Christmas. The winter solstice.” She smiles. Her canine teeth are sharply pointed. She’s bitten him hard enough to draw blood before. He has a scar in the juncture of his shoulder and neck from her. “We have an invitation to an Eve ball tomorrow. You may go out tonight, but you will be there, on my arm, tomorrow. And there will be dancing.” There’s a sharp glint in her icy eyes. “You know how I love to dance.”
“Of course,” he says. Jennifer is the belle of the ball. She loves to be seen. To be the envy of all. William is her toy to show off, and he’s proven to be a lackluster one in too many respects.
She drags her fingers down the buttons of his shirt, long nails pressing a little too harshly. “Do you promise?” She taps one sharp nail over his heart.
“I promise.”
“Have fun at the club.”
She brushes a chilly kiss to his cheek. Literally. Her demeanor is cold, but her lips are like chips of ice. He forces himself to return the favor.
“Don’t be out too late. You know how I hate when you wake me coming in.”
She sweeps from the room, and he leaves to meet Brady with an uncomfortable, sick sensation swirling in his gut.
The cobbled path leading from his door fades away, and he’s sitting in an uncomfortable carriage with his wife across from him. She’s staring at him like he’s one of the butterfly specimens she keeps spread around the sitting room in little boxes. He finds it morbid. She calls them beautiful. There’s energy crackling around her, and William knows it’s in his head, knows he’s making up excuses for why he feels so jittery. He has to push down on his knee with his right hand to keep his leg from jumping. He licks his dry lips.
Jennifer smiles, leaning forward to stroke the fingers of her left hand down his cheek. “You’re flushed, darling. Shall I open the window?”
She doesn’t wait for him to answer but slides it open and closes her eyes, face tilted toward the snow now gusting in. William shivers. It’s coming down heavy tonight, coating everything in a thick layer of white. When the snow hits her skin, it doesn’t melt.
“It’s a gorgeous night,” she says, catching a flake on the tip of her forefinger. William fights back his grimace as she licks it. “There’s a full moon.”
She turns to face him, primly crossing her legs. “Did you know, I don’t think we’ve spent a full moon together yet.”
He doesn’t know where this is going. “I hadn’t paid attention.” His skin is prickling with cold.
She’s giving him the look mothers give to their small children when they’re being stupid. Like they’re cute but they pity them for their current lack of understanding.
“You’re always out on them. It’s the business, or the gentlemen’s club, or some manly ritual thing you must do with your fellows.” She flicks a speck of lint off her deep maroon dress. “You were hunting with Lord Brady Gallagher on the last moon, I believe.” She looks up from beneath her long dark lashes. “And you were with him last night.”
William fights the urge to fidget in his seat. He reaches for the window. “I’m getting chilly. Perhaps we should shut this.”
She catches his hand. “I like it open.”
He takes his hand back and folds them together in his lap.
“I’ve heard Lord Gallagher will be here tonight. Of course, everyone who is anyone will be here. It’s odd, don’t you think, a man of his age still being a bachelor? Maybe he’ll meet the love of his life tonight. Wouldn’t that be sweet? Finding love on Christmas? It’d be quite the story.”
William feels like a fly caught in a spider’s web. Jennifer rarely speaks without a point. This isn’t idle chatter, and if there’s one thing William knows, it’s that he’s the love of Brady’s life. While Brady will eventually have to marry—the thought alone makes his stomach turn, hypocritical, he knows—that day hasn’t come yet. And he doubts it will be tonight. “Very sweet,” he forces himself to say.
The carriage draws to a halt, and Jennifer snaps the window shut. “There are rumors,” she says offhandedly, waiting for the door to be opened, “that he already has met the love of his life, though. That he’s meeting them in secret. Has been for years. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you? I do love a good secret. Who’s the mystery girl?”
If a servant doesn’t open the carriage door soon, William is going to burst it open and make an undignified exit. “I don’t know anything about that,” he says, aiming for a bland tone. “We don’t discuss such things.”