To Wed His Christmas Lady

by Christi Caldwell

  Oh, God. Her words ran ragged through him, twisting the knife of pain at the sight of her suffering. A muscle jumped at the corner of his eye and he stretched a hand out. “Oh, Cara mia.”

  She ignored that offering and he let his arm fall to his side. “I do not want your pity,” she spat. “I neither want it n-nor need it.” Her attempt at aloof disdain was ruined by that faint tremor. And with her revelation, the mask she’d donned at last made sense. Cara sought to protect herself. She’d been so hurt and broken by those who should have loved and cared for her that she’d transformed herself into a person who sought to bury all emotion. That realization only gutted him all the more.

  “I do not pity you,” he said quietly. He ached for her hurt and would make it his own if he could, but never pity.

  With angry eyes she searched his face. Then wordlessly, she presented him her back. She wandered over to the carriage. Her shoulders shook in a silent expression of grief and he’d rather be run through than witness the sight of her suffering.

  William strode over and settled his hands on her shoulders. She stiffened. If he gave her softly whispered platitudes, she’d reject them. “If I could take your pain and make it my own, I would own all this hurt and every other you’ve known leading up to it,” he whispered against her ear. Cara’s shoulders quaked all the more. He placed his lips against her temple and allowed her the freedom of her tears. They remained there, with their presence taunting the fates into an eventual discovery. William wrapped his arms about her and drew her back against his chest. He braced for her rejection, but then she folded her arms over his and leaned into him.

  “My father forgot me.”

  For a moment, William’s ears tricked him. “My father forgot me,” she repeated and those words were spoken more to herself.

  “He forgot you?” he managed to squeeze out past tight lips.

  At her brusque nod, he swallowed down a black curse. What father forgot his child? Even in his years of traveling the Continent and the Americas, his father and mother’s missives had invariably found him. Letters with words of love and pride and questions of his travels. The manner of family Cara spoke of was a foreign one to him. Knowing Cara’s own life had been devoid of such familial love caused a dull, throbbing ache in his heart. William curled his hands tightly and she winced. He forced himself to relax his grip. “When?” Emotion gave the query a gruff undertone.

  She shot a look over her shoulder at him. “N-now.” Cara wrinkled her nose, and he’d wager his future title of duke that her tremulous reply was not a product of the cold. “Well, n-not now.” With quaking fingers, she ran them over the gold crest emblazoned on the carriage. He took in the snarling lion. “This is not his seal. This is not his carriage.”

  Confusion rang in his ears. Not his seal? “I do not understand,” he said slowly, attempting to follow her disjointed explanation. He opened his mouth to ask the identity of the bastard who’d so callously forgotten her; needing to know the name of that miserable sire. But the stark pain in her eyes quelled all words and the moment passed. For in this moment, knowing that man’s identity would not erase the pain Cara now knew; the pain she’d always known.

  “This is a carriage loaned by another young lady’s father after my father forgot to send his ’round to Mrs. Belden’s.” A mirthless laugh spilled from her lips. “He, no doubt, wished me to spend my holiday at the empty school, where even the head dragon despises me.”

  Vitriolic hatred spiraled through him for the man who’d sired her and then subsequently forgotten her. An unholy, powerful urge to find the man and take him apart with his hands momentarily blinded William. While he’d spent the past eight years of his life resenting his father for expecting him to wed the Duke of Ravenscourt’s daughter, he’d still been permitted freedoms and assured of his father’s love. Where had Cara’s happiness in life been? Where had been the person to love her and care for her? He ceased rubbing her shoulders and gently turned her around. Bold and unabashed as she was in every way, she squarely met his gaze. “You deserve more,” he said quietly. “You deserve to love and be loved. You deserve to laugh and know there is no shame in feeling.”

  Her lower lip quivered and she lifted up her palms. “What does it say of me that my own father cannot love me?”

  Had she taken a sword and splayed his heart open, it could not have hurt more than this piercing agony ripping through him. Emotion graveled his voice. “It says nothing of you and everything about him.” A man he’d gladly throttle if he ever had the misfortune of meeting him. But I won’t. My words will never again collide with hers after this Christmastide interlude. Pain stuck in his stomach, dragging the air from his lungs.

  “Perhaps,” she said noncommittally giving him a sad smile. “But perhaps not.” She gave a toss of her curls. “Not that it matters. Christmas is really just any other day of the year. There is nothing so very special in it.”

  Memories flitted through his mind. What the holiday season had been like for him as the Duke of Billingsley’s son—the laughter, the celebration, his one-time child’s excitement for Cook’s Shrewsbury cakes. He’d sell his soul on Sunday for the right to show Cara that it didn’t have to be the cold, lonely time of year.

  As a taut silence fell between them, William accepted he could not ride out this day as planned. Not with all she’d revealed and not with the truths she’d shared. More than ever, he wished to spend the remainder of his days showing her that every day was one to be celebrated. He leaned close and touched his lips to the lobe of her ear. She tipped her head and opened herself to that subtle caress. He took her by the hand. “Come with me.”

  “I thought you were leaving,” she said but allowed him to pull her from the stables and outside into the snow. Her teeth clattered noisily. A light gust of wind whipped the fabric of their cloaks together. Her words pealed with hope and relief and a joy ran through him that shouldn’t even matter.

  “Not yet,” he said helping her through the drifts, ignoring the painful bite of the winter’s chill. William guided them away from the stables and off to the juniper trees in the distance. They stepped into the copse, where the snow-covered trees enveloped them in privacy. He released her hand and crouched.

  Cara folded her arms and rubbed them, as though trying to bring warmth to her chilled limbs. “Wh-what are you doing?” Cara asked as he gathered snow into a ball.

  He glanced up and his chest tightened at the tracks left by her tears. William managed a half-grin. “Don’t tell me you’ve never made a snowball.”

  She eyed it and then looked questioningly to him. “Never.”

  He made to rise, but her words brought him up short. “Never?”

  Cara shook her head and dislodged several golden curls. She stopped rubbing her arms and gave her gloves a tug. “My father wouldn’t dare permit such inanity.” Her mouth tightened.

  He gave thanks for the restoration of her spirit that blotted out her earlier misery. Oh, he’d no doubt her pain went far beyond those handful of tears she’d silently cried, but she deserved to turn herself over to all those emotions—the anger, the hurt, the resentment, the pain. “When I was a boy, I’d throw rocks in the summer and balls of snow in the winter when I was upset.”

  A sound of annoyance escaped her. “I am not upset. I am m-merely c-cold.”

  His lips twitched at her indignant response. “Of course,” he replied solemnly. “Regardless…” He held out the rounded missile.

  Cara wrinkled her nose, reddened from the cold. “I am not throwing a snowball, Will.”

  He quirked an eyebrow. “Because ladies do not hurl snowballs?”

  “Prec—oomph,” She widened her eyes as though she’d received a pistol ball to the chest and glanced at the smattering of snow left on her cloak. “Why…why…you hit me.”

  “With a snowball,” he amended. “You need to release the tight reins you have on your control.” From where he squatted, he hastily assembled another and hurled it at her skirt
s.

  Cara stepped out of the way, but the snow slowed her movements and his missile found its mark. If looks could burn, she’d have melted the snow with the outrage in her eyes. “S-stop. Hitting. Me. With—” He tossed another and it connected with her abdomen. “That is quite enough,” she muttered and stooped. With quick, angry movements she made a—

  A laugh burst from him. “What in blazes is that?” He jabbed his finger in her direction.

  She pursed her lips and stole a glance about. “What is what?” Then she followed his gaze to her misshapen snowball. “Th-this is a snowball,” she said with the same indignation she might if he’d questioned her parentage.

  William snorted. “That is most assuredly not—” Cara drew her hand back and hurled her poorly constructed missile. He easily leaned out of the way and it sailed past. “A snowball,” he finished.

  A flurry of inventive curses split the quiet as she set to work building another snowball. She wet her lips and then eyed the object in her hand. With a beleaguered sigh, she held the snowball up for his inspection. Pride warred with uncertainty in her eyes.

  He eyed the rounded ball and gave a slight nod of approval. “That is much imp—” She tossed her weapon made of snow, but it sailed into a sad, quiet heap several feet in front of him. William waggled his eyebrows. “Tsk, tsk, you are not very good at this, my lady.”

  Her teeth chattered. “I-it is b-because this is silly. It is f-freezing and wet out.”

  “And those are excuses.” he said folding his arms at his chest.

  “Th-they are not excuses.” She stomped her foot and then cursed, shooting her arms out to keep from tipping over. “F-furthermore, throwing a rock or a snowball will n-not make me feel better.”

  William strode over to her, taking in the flecks of silver hurt dancing in her eyes. He stopped just a handbreadth a way. “It is not about making you feel better, Cara.” The wind whistled and a loose golden curl danced over her eyes. He brushed it behind her ear.

  “Th-then what is it a-about?” she gritted out between her clattering teeth.

  Leaning close, he whispered against her lips. “It is about feeling something and feeding that emotion. You are angry.” She opened her mouth as though to protest and he gave her a look, which silenced her. “And you should be. No father should forget his daughter.” Rage slithered around inside him so that he wanted to hunt her father down and bloody the man senseless for having hurt her; with his abandonment and in his unfeeling treatment of her through the years. “There is no shame in feeling.” He bent once more and made another snowball. Standing slowly, William held it out for her.

  They stood locked in a silent battle of wills and then tipping her chin up, she took it from his hand. He positioned himself at her back. “You require a target.” He looked about and then gestured to the trunk of a wide juniper. “Draw your arm back. Further,” he urged when she hesitated. “Do not break the movement as you follow through with your throw and then with all the anger you have for your father—”

  “I am not angry,” she bit out, letting her arm fall. “I do not care that he forgot me.” Her earlier unspoken grief stood testament to that lie. He’d not, however, strip her of that dignity.

  “Hurl it at the tree,” he continued as though she’d not spoken.

  Her long, beleaguered sigh stirred the cold air. “Oh, very well.” Following his instructions, she tossed the snowball. It sailed to the left of the tree trunk. “There, are you happy?” she snapped. “Now are we d—”

  William gently wrapped his hand about her forearm, halting her retreat. How many years had she spent retreating from the emotions roiling through her? “I am not happy. That was a pathetic attempt.” She pursed her lips. How hard to go through life concealing who you are and what you felt—even from yourself. He held her gaze. “You need to turn yourself over to feeling, Cara.”

  *

  His words wrapped about her like a lover’s seductive kiss. He waved that tantalizing glimmer of…feeling and challenged her to embrace that part of her, inside, that was very much alive. Emotion filled her breast. How long had she feared being mocked or judged? In her life, the girls she’d had the displeasure of knowing and even her father’s servants had delighted in her flaws. So much so that she’d sought to be the perfect ice princess William had taken her as.

  The old anger and hurt of her father’s disdain rushed to the surface and, with it, the years of solitude and silence she’d endured in a household where she may as well have been invisible to her brother. It is unbecoming for a lady to cry even after her mother’s death…

  With a raspy growl climbing up her throat, she bent and made a flawless, rounded snowball then sent it sailing into the tree trunk. It collided with a loud, invigorating splat. Taken aback, Cara’s mouth fell open and she looked from the powdered residue left as proof of her victory and then to Will. He stood at her side, a gentle, encouraging smile on his lips. “I-I did it.”

  “Of course you did,” he said and stooped forward. He constructed another missile and held it out.

  She claimed it without hesitation. “This is for forgetting me,” she called at her inanimate object. She tossed another ball and it found its mark.

  William proffered another ball.

  “This is for not allowing me to paint.” She tossed another. Her chest heaved with the force of her exertion, but the winter air purified her lungs, spreading its cleansing, healing power through her once-cold being. He continued to supply perfectly molded snowballs.

  “And for binding me to a man just like you.” This time, Cara bent and assembled her own. “And I am nothing like you,” she shouted into the quiet. Only, as she threw, she no longer knew if the furious energy lending her strength came from the sad, sorry little girl she’d been, alone in a loveless world, or the bitter, angry, friendless woman she’d become.

  She threw until her arm ached from her efforts and her breath came fast and hard. And then she stared at the juniper with its branches drooping under the weight of its melting burden. With the tension drained from her, the humiliation of letting Will into her world burned her with the heat of shame. Never had she allowed anyone entry in this way and suddenly she hated him for exposing her. And more, she wanted to be so exposed with another person.

  She ground her teeth. “I am not taking part in this any longer. This is silly,” she complained and snapped her skirts. Only, as she spun on her heel, she propelled with such force in the uneven snow that she flopped backward.

  A startled shriek escaped her and she flung her arms out to prevent a fall. Her efforts futile, Cara landed in an ignoble heap on her back. She closed her eyes and braced for Will’s laughter and when he did, she would never forgive him for forcing her into opening herself and then finding mirth in her retreat. His boots ground the snow in a noisy manner as he strode over. He lay down alongside her, their shoulders pressed together. She opened her eyes and turned her head slightly to look at him.

  He remained with his gaze fixed at the shelter of trees above. “It is beautiful, isn’t it?” he whispered. The blue of the morning sky filtered through the branches.

  Cara managed a nod, but then recalled he could not see her with his stare trained as it was. “I-it is.” Coldness ran through her. It left her hollow and desolate and had nothing to do with the icy snow penetrating the fabric of her lined cloak and everything to do with the truth that she’d never again see him.

  Wordlessly, he came to his feet, and then held a hand out.

  Cara wanted to snap and hiss at that offering, and a couple of days ago she would have sneered words of disdain for that gesture. Now, she placed her fingertips in his gloved palm and allowed him to help her stand. “You will leave today?” She prayed he accounted that faint tremble to the cold of the day.

  Will lowered his mouth to hers and brushed his lips over hers once. “I must.”

  Of course he must. She nodded jerkily, but the swell of tears in her throat made words impossible. It was he
who ended this last stolen moment of bliss she’d ever know.

  Another lingering wind rustled the trees overhead and sent snow falling to the earth.

  Their chests moved in like movements; swift and hard. “We need to return.” Reluctance underscored Will’s low baritone.

  “Yes.” They should have never stolen off into this hidden place and yet she’d gladly trade her respectability and good name to be here with him now.

  He dipped his head and brushed his chin atop her hair. “If we are discovered, you will be ruined,” he whispered into the tangled mass.

  Yes, that was true and, at one time, such a thought mattered. No longer. Cara leaned up and pressed her lips to his. He went immobile as she kissed him and with a groan, he wrapped his arms about her, pulling her close to his chest. He made love to her mouth with his, as she’d longed for since that silent night in the empty hall of the Fox and Hare Inn. She angled her head, learning the taste of him—mint and mulled cider—committing all of him indelibly upon her memory so she might carry it with her always, into the long, cold, lonely future awaiting her.

  Their embrace was one of panicked desperation. Her breath rasped wildly and she twined her hands about his neck. Will opened his mouth and swallowed those shamefully hungry sounds. This was not enough. It could never be enough. He moved his long, powerful hands down her frame and through the fabric of her cloak cupped the soft swell of her buttocks. On an agonized groan, he dragged her against the vee of his thighs.

  Her head fell back and a long, keening moan whispered about them. “Will.”

  Chapter 10

  Cara’s hoarse entreaty was the manner of breathy desire that had driven better men than William to their knees.

  He ran his lips over her neck, gently grazing her skin with his teeth until he had wrung a gasp from her lips. “What hold do you have upon me?”