Snowbound Wedding Wishes: An Earl Beneath the MistletoeTwelfth Night ProposalChristmas at Oakhurst Manor (Harlequin Historical)

by Allen, Louise

  His lips roamed over her jaw, down her neck, nuzzled into the angle of her shoulder, his tongue tracing heat and moisture as she shivered and the lights danced inside her closed lids and her body surged with the feminine power and longing and arousal that she had taught herself to ignore until she had believed it was dead. Until Hugo.

  Emilia found herself lifted, swung up into his arms. For a moment of delicious surrender she let her head fall on to his shoulder, let her fingers sift into the thick dark hair, waited for the words that were the only ones that would make this right. They did not come, so she said, ‘Hugo. I cannot do this.’

  It was not because it was immoral, she was painfully aware of that. It was because she could somehow live with dreams and might-have-beens, but she did not think she could bear to know what it was to lie with him and then to lose him. Because soon he was going to recover from this quixotic fit of gallantry and realise that, instead of the well-bred, reputable, well-connected virgin an earl should be marrying, he had tied himself to a disgraced daughter of a baron who had not even the support of her own family behind her.

  He was halfway across the room, but he stopped and let her slide to her feet.

  ‘Thank you,’ Emilia said with as much composure as she could muster. ‘I will see you at breakfast. Please...do not let the boys guess that anything is wrong.’

  ‘I will endeavour not to do any more damage,’ he said bitterly, turned on his heel and went into the taproom, leaving her shivering in the middle of the kitchen.

  * * *

  Hugo flung himself down on one of the benches, put his elbows on the battered table and sank his head in his hands. He wondered bleakly what the hell had he been thinking of. The answer, quite simply, was that he had not thought at all. He did not trust this new-found emotion of love, he did not know how to speak of it, to express it. So it had been the old Hugo who had proposed, the logical, controlled, disciplined man. She was at risk, she was in the wrong place and working too hard—those were arguments he could make without venturing anywhere near emotion.

  And it was quite clear he had insulted and distressed her. With surgically painful honesty Hugo began to analyse his feelings in a way he never had before. He knew Emilia was not his responsibility, so why pretend she was? Because Lawrence Bond had aroused a violent male possessiveness in him? Yes, if he was honest. Raw male sexual possessiveness, even though she was not his possession, not a mistress or a servant whose services were bought with coin.

  He wanted her, physically, with a passion that was hard to deny. But he was a mature man in control of his desires. He could walk away from that—he had just proved as much.

  Emilia was unsuitable as a wife for an earl and yet that had not weighed with him for a moment. Didn’t she realise what that meant? How was he going to make this right? Worn out with puzzling, Hugo let his head fall on to his folded arms and slept.

  * * *

  He woke in the small hours, cramped and stiff, blinking into the dull glow of the banked fire as he tried to separate jumbled dreams and reality. Making his bed before the hearth was routine now and he managed it without lighting the candle, then lay down and closed his eyes again.

  She will not believe you if you tell her you love her now. Thoroughly awake now, he rolled on to his back and considered the situation as if it was a matter of battle tactics.

  His friends who had made love matches had always been a source of mildly baffled amusement to their fellow officers, but he could understand them now. His happiness was tied up entirely in Emilia and what had seemed important, the fact that she was making her living running a village ale house, became utterly irrelevant.

  He knew she had the courage and the intelligence to become a countess, to help him manage that great estate, to carve a role for herself. She could run a charity, manage a political salon, patronise artists, whatever she wanted, whatever would fulfil her.

  If she wanted to. That was the rub. If she did not want him, could not love him, then he must let her stay here because it was her happiness that mattered, not his.

  Hugo turned over and thumped the pillow. Somehow he had to convince her that he was sincere, that she could trust him, that perhaps, one day, she might come to love him, too.

  But he had insulted her and she was quite right, he had patronised her, characterised the life she had made against all the odds for herself and her sons as something to be ashamed of, something she needed rescuing from. He buried his face in the pillow and groaned at the realisation that he had capped his insulting, and utterly unromantic, proposal with the suggestion that mutual desire was enough to make this all right.

  Greeting Emilia tomorrow with the news that he was in love with her was only going to make things worse, he had enough sense to realise that. He must leave tomorrow and try to find a way back to her.

  Hugo roused himself as the old long-case clock hammered out five strokes. He washed, shaved, dressed with the speed learned on campaign, groomed, fed and watered Ajax, put away his bedding, tossed the used linen into the wash basket and then gathered together his belongings to pack the saddle bags.

  That was all, except for his holsters and his sabre. He stretched up to lift them down from the high mantelshelf and his cuff caught folded paper, sending it falling into the hearth. He dropped his sabre and grabbed for it, snatching it from the hot coals at the cost of singed fingers. It was a letter, folded, addressed, but unsealed.

  Lord Peterscroft, Albany Manor, near Bedford.

  Of course he should replace it where he had found it, but this, he guessed, was addressed to Emilia’s father. If so, it might be the one clue he had to find his way out of this maze. Above his head he could hear Emilia stirring, the sound of feet moving about the bedchamber. He followed her in his mind for a moment, imagining her in her plain flannel nightgown, her hair in its heavy plait over her shoulder. She would be soft and warm from her bed, shivering a little in the chill of the room.

  Hugo unfolded the letter and read it. Emilia had written it in a small, neat hand and he formed the impression that she had done so slowly, thinking through every word, every phrase.

  Dear Mama and Papa,

  I know you do not wish to hear from me, or see me, but it is almost Christmas and I hope you will forgive one final effort on my part to reach out to you. I look at your two grandsons, Nathan and Joseph, and see how fast they are growing. I see so much of both of you in them—your eyes, Mama, your height, Papa.

  They are good boys, intelligent, cheerful, hard-working and loving. Dare I hope that you would want to meet them, to have the chance to love them in return as I know they would love you?

  All I ask is a word from you, I would not ask you to see me, just the boys. I hope you are both in good health and spirits,

  Your loving daughter, Emilia.

  Little Gatherborne, Hertfordshire

  Hugo folded the letter, looked again at the address and replaced it where he had found it. Then, schooling his face into an untroubled smile, he opened the door into the kitchen and met the onrush of the twins.

  ‘Merry Christmas, Major!’

  ‘Merry Christmas.’ He scooped them up, one in each arm, and looked over their heads at Emilia who stood at the foot of the stairs. She did not look as though she had enjoyed a wink of sleep. ‘Merry Christmas, Mrs Weston.’

  She came into the room and glanced through the door at his stacked bags. ‘Christmas greetings to you, Major. You are packed, I see.’

  ‘I will be on my way immediately after breakfast.’

  ‘Excellent,’ she said, her smile serene, her eyes dark and unhappy. ‘You must make good time towards home, for the roads will be heavily mired.’

  ‘And I will call on Sir Philip as I pass to make all right about the barn, and the other matter.’

  ‘Thank you. No, boys, stop whining, of course the major must leave. He does not belong here.’

  Brutal but honest, Hugo thought as he ate and talked to the boys and managed not to indulge him
self by glancing constantly at Emilia.

  * * *

  When he had saddled up and was standing in the yard, the twins stood beside their mother and solemnly held out their hands to be shaken. He had no trouble keeping a straight face as he did so, but when he came to Emilia and she held out her right hand he took it, turned it and brought it to his lips.

  ‘Thank you for your hospitality, ma’am. I will not forget it, nor you.’

  Her fingers were cold in his ungloved hand. They trembled a little, but she did not pull away. ‘We will not forget you either, Major.’

  The way she met his eyes, her own dark and shadowed, gave him hope, even while he castigated himself for taking comfort from her pain. Surely she would not care, would be only too pleased to be rid of him, if she did not feel something for him?

  He swung up into the saddle and turned Ajax in the direction she showed him. ‘That will take you to Longfield Manor and Sir Philip.’

  He thought those would be her last words, but she ran forwards and caught the rein, reached up with the other hand to touch his knee. ‘Be safe, Hugo. Be happy.’

  Their fingers curled together and his tightened as if to pull her up on to the saddle in front of him. Hugo made himself release his grip. ‘One of those wishes is in the hands of Providence, the other... I will see what I can do to bring that about. Goodbye, Emilia.’

  Chapter Nine

  ‘What are your New Year resolutions, Emilia?’ The miller’s daughter leaned against the kitchen-door jamb while Emilia counted out the coppers for the bag of flour she had brought.

  ‘To finish the patchwork quilt I have been struggling with for two years, start a flower border at the edge of my vegetable plot and learn to fly like a bird,’ Emilia replied with a smile, sending the other woman off into peals of laugher. And forget about Hugo, which will be as easy as the flying. ‘What are your resolutions, Maudie?’

  ‘Catch that Willie Carter and get him to propose,’ Maudie said with determination. ‘I’m tired of him flirting with every girl for five miles around.’

  ‘Good luck, I am sure you can do it,’ Emilia encouraged while she told herself that she would forget Hugo sooner if she had not taken his pillow case from the laundry basket and had been sleeping with it under her cheek every night since he had left. ‘Have you time for a cup of tea?’

  ‘Oh, that’ll be a treat, if you can spare it.’

  ‘Major Travers sent me a canister of it as thanks for taking him in during the snow at Christmas.’ It was a wicked pleasure to talk about Hugo. He had not only sent the tea in its big black-and-gold tin, but also a side of bacon, a sugar loaf, a whole round of cheese and a shiny new spice box stuffed with cloves and three kinds of peppercorns with a nutmeg in the centre.

  There was nothing that was not appropriate as a gift under the circumstances and the note was impersonal and respectful, of course, even if it was now folded in her underwear drawer, tied up with a scrap of ribbon.

  They drank their tea and gossiped and speculated on the new curate’s pursuit of the vicar’s eldest daughter.

  ‘I must be off,’ Maudie said at last and Emilia came with her to the door. ‘Look! Fancy that, some nobs have lost their way, I’ll be bound.’

  Emilia followed her pointing finger to where the track came round the barn and there, indeed, was a smart black travelling carriage with a pair of fine bays in the harness and, behind it, a big, raw-boned grey horse she would have recognised anywhere.

  ‘Hugo?’

  ‘Cor,’ Maudie said with relish. ‘I’ll take myself off, then. Looks like you’ve got visitors.’

  He spurred past the carriage and came down the hill, touching his hat to Maudie as he passed and reining in just short of where Emilia stood trying not to let her jaw drop and fighting emotions that ranged from delight, to shock, to anger.

  ‘Good morning, Emilia.’

  ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ she demanded, too shaken for good manners.

  Hugo swung out of the saddle. ‘I have brought you some visitors.’

  The carriage drew up and, with complete incredulity, she recognised the coachman. ‘John?’

  Hugo opened the door and lowered the step before the groom could jump down. ‘We are arrived, ma’am.’

  The woman who descended on his arm stood for a moment staring at Emilia then, with a sound between a laugh and a sob, held open her arms. ‘Lia, darling!’

  ‘Mama?’ And then her father climbed down, bare-headed and startlingly grey-haired in the thin winter sunlight. ‘Papa?’ And then she was running into their arms and crying and being hugged and somehow they were all inside and Hugo was making tea.

  ‘How did you get here? I was going to write and then...’

  ‘After we did not reply to your other letter you decided not to send this one,’ her father said sadly. ‘I should never have written as I did, I cannot tell you how often I have wished those words back.’

  ‘But I wrote three times, after we eloped and then when the twins were born and again when Giles was killed.’ Her hands were locked tight with her mother’s and she just wanted to lay her head down on that familiar, comforting bosom and weep for sheer joy.

  ‘We only received the first and we had no idea where to find you. Oh, my dear, Hugo has told us about Giles. I am so very sorry, he was a charming man, even though he was so wild. But the boys! I cannot believe we have two grandsons, and twins, Hugo says.’

  ‘But how did Hugo find you?’ She took the cup he pressed into her hands. ‘I never told him your name.’

  ‘I read the letter, the one you never sent. It was on the mantelshelf and it fell off when I took my weapons down. It was unconscionably rude of me, but when I saw the address I guessed who it was for. I thought if your parents were hostile I would not tell them where you were, but they wanted to find you so badly. Can you forgive me for meddling?’

  His eyes told her he wanted forgiveness for more than that. ‘Yes,’ she said and hoped he could read in her face that everything was forgiven.

  Then the door flew open and the boys rushed in shouting for Hugo and demanding to know where the carriage had come from. They stopped dead in their tracks when they saw the two strangers sitting either side of the fire, tugged off their caps and executed, rather jerkily, their best bows.

  ‘Sir, ma’am. Sorry to have made a noise.’

  ‘Nathan, Joseph. These are my mother and father. Your grandparents.’

  They were wide-eyed as their grandmother swept them into a hug and then their grandfather had Joseph on his knee and all four were talking non-stop. Emilia found she was being held very firmly in Hugo’s arms and that she was weeping all down his beautiful linen shirt.

  ‘Thank you,’ she managed when he pressed a handkerchief into her hand.

  ‘Don’t mention it. This is one of a set of very beautifully embroidered handkerchiefs a lady of my acquaintance made for me.’

  ‘Emilia.’ Her mother stood up, one of Nathan’s hands in hers. ‘We are staying at the Sun in Hemel Hempstead. We thought the boys might like to come for a ride in the carriage and to have luncheon with us so we can get to know each other.’

  ‘But, I can make luncheon here,’ she began.

  ‘I think Lord Travers has something he wishes to discuss with you,’ her father said, straight-faced, although she could detect a familiar and much-loved twinkle in his eyes. ‘We’ll be back for dinner, shall we? Say, six o’clock? Then we can catch up on all the news.’

  All? ‘I...yes, if you can cope with them. Boys, you must be on your best behaviour for your grandparents.’

  They were more than eager. Within five minutes Emilia was alone in the kitchen with Hugo. ‘You are the most interfering, masterful, stubborn man I have ever met,’ she said shakily. ‘And I cannot thank you enough. I have taken that letter down every day since you left and then returned it. If I had sent it and nothing had come back I think it would have been the end of the dream that one day I would be forgiven. While it
had not been sent, then I could still hope.’

  ‘I think it is your parents who are asking for forgiveness. As I am.’ He sat down at the table six feet from her with the board between them. ‘I asked you to marry me in a way that could only insult your courage and your hard work and all you have achieved to make a living for your family and to bring those boys up to be the delight that they are.’

  He looked up from his clasped hands. ‘I spoke as I did because I could not express what I truly felt. When you turned me down I was forced to face what I was feeling and I knew I had to learn how to express those emotions. What I had come to feel for you, Emilia my darling—was love.’

  ‘Love?’ She sat down with a thump in the armchair. Darling?

  ‘I could have killed Lawrence Bond, but that forced me to confront why I felt like that.’

  ‘But you didn’t say anything,’ she protested, still unable to believe what she was hearing. ‘You left.’

  ‘I got up on Christmas morning and all I knew was that I had to go away and think about how I could convince you that I truly loved you, that I wanted to marry you and make you my countess. I sensed that to try to say anything after the night before would be a disaster.’

  He grinned when she nodded, and she smiled back, a warmth spreading through her unlike anything she had ever felt before. Her parents forgave her, loved her, wanted her and the boys, and now Hugo was telling her that he returned what she felt for him.

  ‘Then I found the letter. I thought that if I went and tried to reconcile your parents to you, if I could ask your father formally for your hand in marriage, then you might believe that I truly wanted to marry you.’

  ‘I am twenty-five and a widow! I have no need of anyone’s blessing,’ she protested.

  ‘But you would welcome it, I think?’ Hugo was watching her, focused on her face, intent with what she realised was anxiety that she might not have forgiven him, might not feel anything for him.