A Very Matchmaker Christmas

by Christi Caldwell

  Winnie tugged at his sleeve. “You had plans to do what?”

  “Err, I had business to attend in the morning.”

  She shot an accusatory look in Trent’s direction.

  The Countess of Portland leaned past her husband once more and fixed the same disapproving frown she had on them when they’d been children gallivanting through the hills of Kent. “Will you three not be quiet?”

  Brother and sister promptly closed their lips, shamefaced. Trent offered the countess another smile and she tittered behind her hand.

  Henrietta reclaimed her seat at the pianoforte and launched into her next song, which might or might not have been Joy to the World.

  “So, am I to believe Trent lied about your visit to White’s tomorrow?” Winnie whispered.

  He sent a prayer skyward. By God, the lady did not let a matter rest. How could she not know that every moment in her presence was a slow torture where he was tantalized by things that could never be? “I did not lie,” Trent bit out.

  “He did not lie,” James added, rather unconvincingly.

  His sister’s narrowed-eyed gaze said as much.

  “He comes to make His blessings flow

  Far as the curse is found,

  Far as the curse is found,

  Far as, far as, the curse is found.”

  A curse, indeed.

  James widened his eyes and looked between them.

  Oh, bloody hell. He knows. Trent braced for the other man to yank off his gloves and slap them across Trent’s face for betraying their friendship this way.

  Munthorpe winked at his sister. “Ballantine will escort you.” He gave Trent a sheepish look and mouthed an apology.

  Trent and Winnie spoke in unison.

  “What?” He scrambled forward in his seat.

  Excitement glowed from within her eyes. “Splendid!”

  At his shocked exclamation, Henrietta missed several beats to her song. From where they sat at the front, Trent’s mother and brother turned back and glared at him.

  Shifting in his seat, like a recalcitrant child, he in turn glared at his best friend. Damned best friends.

  And with Winnie refocused once more on the performance before her, he damned his best friend’s tempting, lithe sister, too.

  Chapter Four

  Winnie had one day. One day to draw forth the courage and confess to Trent Anderson Ballantine that he owned her heart and more convince him that he felt the same for her. How difficult should it be shoring up the courage to lay her heart open and exposed? But Christmas was nearly upon them. A time of new beginnings and hope and as such, if she never said anything of the love she felt for him, she’d never forgive herself.

  With a drawn-out sigh, Winnie assessed herself in the bevel mirror. She stared forlornly at her nonexistent bosom and her pale purple satin. Turning this way and that, she critically assessed her figure.

  And it was hard not to be critical.

  There was hardly anything about her that would rouse a gentleman to passion. Or desire. Or feeling. She pressed her palms on the edge of her vanity table and peered at her freckled complexion. Her skin was too pale, her cheeks too spotted, and her hair too red. But perhaps if she stood just so… Biting her lip, she quickly straightened and then thrust her chest forward in a bid to create generous curves out of nonexistent ones.

  A knock sounded at the door.

  “Yes,” she called, hastily straightening into a more dignified pose. She swung her attention to the entrance of the room.

  Her maid, Tabitha, stepped inside. “Lord Trent Ballantine has come to escort you to Hyde Park, my lady.”

  Winnie’s heart missed a beat, and she drew in a breath searching for calm. “Must be calm.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  She blinked wildly. “Did I say that aloud?”

  Tabitha smiled gently and then cast a glance over her shoulder at the open door. “You did, my lady.”

  Then, partly fearing James would decide he preferred to accompany them this morning, she sprinted past her maid and rushed down the hall. The carpeted halls muffled the tread of her boot steps and those of the young girl who hurried to keep up. Winnie came to a halt at the edge of the corridor. Heart hammering wildly, Winnie smoothed her palms over her skirts.

  Must be calm… A near impossible feat when even now Trent waited at the base of the stairs. A giddy sensation swarmed her senses. Was he as eager to see her? Surely he felt something more than a sense of obligation where she was concerned. She stepped around the corner.

  Trent picked his gaze up from his timepiece and for the sliver of a heartbeat she allowed herself to believe a flare of awareness lit his emerald eyes. “About blasted time,” he muttered. He stuffed his watch inside his elegant black cloak, effectively quashing any such hope.

  Disappointment turned her lips downward and she gave a flounce of her curls, not allowing him to know how very much his indifference chafed. Pasting on a smile, she sailed down the stairs. A footman came forward with her red cloak. “It is a lovely day for a walk, wouldn’t you say?” she asked, as she fiddled with her grommets. Her fingers trembled, and Trent’s astute gaze went to the quaking digits.

  When he looked at her, his expression was curiously blank. “It is cold and gray.”

  “Bah,” she said swatting his arm. “You were never much of a romantic.” Though the papers purported him to be something of a rogue who’d broken countless hearts. Her smile slipped. Blasted rogue.

  Trent’s only response was a pointed yawn as he held out his arm. “Lady Winnie.”

  Lady Winnie, which was only a dash better than Wee Winnie. She sighed. Why could he not simply see her as Winifred; girl turned woman, and determined to make him love her?

  The butler hurried to open the door and they stepped outside into a, as he aptly indicated, very cold and very gray day. Winter wind pulled at the hems of their cloaks and slapped the fabric noisily together.

  “Lovely day, indeed,” he drawled.

  Winnie pinched him. “Oh, do hush. You’re worse than James.”

  “Comparing me to your brother then, Wee Winnie?” He gave her a dark look and for a moment her heart started.

  Why… She widened her eyes. He didn’t care to be likened to James, that much was evidenced by the muscle that jumped at the corner of his mouth. Why? Why unless he did care in some way about her that moved beyond sisterly devotion? She grunted as he all but tossed her into the carriage.

  Winnie bounced on the seat of the open curricle. Or perhaps not. She glared at him. “You needn’t be so surly,” she muttered as he claimed the spot beside her.

  Trent accepted the reins from a waiting servant, and then snapped the team into forward movement. She gripped the edge of the seat as the carriage lurched forward. “Did you not wheedle me into a trip to Hyde Park?”

  “But you used to enjoy visiting Hyde Park,” she felt inclined to point out. Just as he’d enjoyed her company.

  “I also used to play spilikens and Battledore.”

  Humph. Well, he had her there. As they rolled along through the quiet streets of London, she tried to focus on her plans in meeting him this day and not on the powerful length of his thigh against hers. Trent moved his leg and she mourned the loss of that contact. Regret pulled at her as she turned her gaze out at the handful of other lords and ladies who’d braved the winter chill. The gray and white skies suited her mood.

  He spoke, and the concern in his low, deep tone drew her back. “What is it, Winnie?”

  Not scamp. Not, Wee Winnie. But Winnie. A blasted swell of emotion formed in her throat, and she forced words out past it. “I have to wed, Trent.”

  He froze, and momentarily pulled his gaze away from the cobbled streets ahead to look at her. Then, Trent swiftly shifted his attention back to the road. “Oh? And is there a reason you must be in a rush to wed?”

  A strangled laugh escaped her. “It is hardly a rush. I am entering my third Season and my mother would see me wed.”
>
  He narrowed his eyes but did not look at her when he spoke. “And what would you see for you?”

  You, I see you and no other. “I see myself finding happiness,” she said softly. “I see myself finding love.” He stiffened at her side. “I see myself wedding a man who will be devoted to me and love me and will not expect me to fit with society’s mold of a perfect miss.”

  For a long moment, he didn’t speak. Would he simply ignore her no longer secret yearnings? “And do you believe such a paragon exists?”

  “I know he does,” she said without hesitation. For he sat beside her even now.

  Trent urged his team onward, through the entrance of Kensington Garden, and down the quiet riding trails of Hyde Park. In four more months, the walking paths would be filled with couples out for a spring stroll, while carriages would clog the riding paths. Yet for now, it was but they two and a handful of others, and she welcomed the intimacy of this moment. “You must have met him, then.” There was a hard, lethal edge underscoring Trent’s words.

  She skimmed her gaze over the partially frozen Serpentine. “I have,” she said softly.

  He brought the carriage to such an abrupt halt that she fell against his side. “Trent?” She looked up at him questioningly.

  Emotion darkening his eyes, he captured her chin firmly between his thumb and forefinger. He dipped his head close to hers, and with the risk of but one curious passerby away from notice and gossip, his lips nearly brushed hers. “Who?” he whispered.

  Her lashes fluttered as she sought to gather her flyaway senses. “Who, what?”

  “Who has captured your heart, Winifred?”

  At last, she was Winifred. After years of wanting to be seen as more than the bothersome girl dogging his steps, she was at last, Winifred. That simple, yet potent truth sent warmth spiraling through her. “D-does it matter?”

  “It does,” he said unequivocally.

  Her heart hitched. “Because of James?” She cursed herself as soon as those words slipped out for Trent swiftly released her.

  Suddenly, the close proximity of Winnie’s frame beside his was too much. Studiously avoiding her gaze, he swung a leg over the edge of the carriage and then climbed down. For one cowardly moment, he considered leaving her atop the perch, and storming off so he might avoid talks of her future, and thoughts of her eventual husband, and the vile images of her wrapped in some other man’s arms while he rocked between her cream white thighs.

  “Will you not help me down?” That beleaguered quality to the lady’s words hinted at a woman who had no idea how thin his grasp was on any sensible control.

  He held a hand up and wordlessly guided her down, grateful for the maid’s presence, perched at the back of the carriage alongside his footman. The young servant was the only thing that kept him from taking Winnie in his arms and burning the seal of his kiss on her mouth so she couldn’t even contemplate the suitors her family would line up for her.

  Desperate to avoid the tempting minx, Trent motioned over a boy hovering a short way’s away.

  The lad sprinted over.

  “Will you be so good as to stay with my curricle? There will be more,” he promised, handing over several coins to the wide-eyed boy.

  “Of course, yer lordship,” the child touched the brim of his hat and shifted the reins in his gloveless hands.

  He tightened his jaw. Or rather, his brother’s curricle. It all belonged to another; everything he had was a product of his lot as second son.

  “You are in a foul temper,” Winnie said, chewing at her lip.

  “I did not say anything,” he snapped.

  She gave him a pointed look.

  Trent growled. God, she’d drive a saint to sinning. “I’m not in a foul temper.” Except, the surly edge to his tone served as a contradiction. And to prove as much, he held out an arm.

  Winnie placed her fingertips along his sleeve. He made to take a step forward, but she remained unmoving. With her patent, mischievous smile, she glanced back at her maid and gave a jaunty wave. “You may enjoy your morning, Tabitha.” The girl wisely hesitated, looking between them. “It is just Lord Trent.”

  It is just Lord Trent.

  He balled his hands. No truer words than those had ever been spoken. A second-born son, who’d lived a rogue’s life for the past seven years, had no right to her.

  The woman murmured her thanks and then returned to the carriage.

  Filled with a furious tension, Trent stalked off. In her haste to reach his side, Winnie noisily kicked up gravel. She reached his side, and slid her arm into his. “I swear, I do not know how you are the same romantic gentleman the ton speaks of in the papers—”

  “Do not read the papers,” he gritted out. His neck grew hot thinking of just what she’d read where his name was concerned in those gossip columns.

  Winnie dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Are you worried I’ll believe all the scandalous reports of the ladies you are carrying on with?”

  “I—” He yanked at his cravat, and stole a look about, glancing at the partially frozen Serpentine, at the barren elms, the gray sky, anywhere but at her smiling, knowing visage.

  She patted him on the hand. “You needn’t worry. I’ve never been one to believe what is in the scandal sheets.”

  Shame filled him. For the truth was, in all the matters the papers misreported on, in this they’d proven correct. “They aren’t wrong,” he said quietly, regret bitter on his tongue. Her smile slipped and she looked questioningly up at him. For their years of friendship, they’d never had lies between them. “I’ve been a rogue, Winnie.” And it was just one of the reasons he had no right to her. Nay, a reason Munthorpe would never support such a union.

  They strolled further down the graveled walking trail. “Are you still a rogue?” Her question emerged with a tentativeness he’d never known from the high-spirited young woman.

  “I…” His mind raced. The actuality was, for the better part of five months he’d not been with a woman because this slip of a lady had occupied all corners of his thoughts and made the possibility of lying with another impossible. She prodded him with her eyes. “It is hardly appropriate speaking about my behaviors.”

  Winnie snapped her red eyebrows together. “But it is all right to speak about my future husband?”

  And said that way, the reality became even more…real… her and some pompous lord. Except… He looked over the crown of her head at a lone bird picking its way around the deadened earth, pecking at the ground. Except, the rub of it was, the future viscount her family would see her wed wasn’t pompous. He was a good, honorable, witty, likeable fellow.

  Which made him ironically hate the man all the more. “This is different,” he said at last.

  She stopped walking and forced him to a halt beside her. Folding her arms at her chest, she glared up at him. “How?”

  “How?”

  Then as though speaking to a child, she spoke, in slow, drawn out words. “How is it different that you should care about the man I love?”

  Oh, God. She may as well have run him through with a rusty blade, drew it out, and then ran it through the same spot for good measure. “B-because…because…”

  “And you look physically pained by the whole discussion,” she fumed, her breath stirring white puffs of winter air. She slashed a hand at the air. “You ask questions about my heart and the gentleman I love.” He gritted his teeth. Would she stop uttering those damned words? “I’m not permitted to ask questions about your heart.” Until her, he’d not believed he had that important organ. “Why should it matter to you who I wed and spend my life—”

  And because he didn’t want to hear another blasted word about her heart and her future husband, Trent yanked her wildly gesticulating hand and drew her behind the towering, ancient oak. The trunk shielded them from her maid’s notice.

  A startled squeak escaped her. “What are you—?”

  He covered her mouth with his and took her lips i
n a hard kiss; tasting the soft, full contours as he’d ached for two years thirty-six days and a handful of minutes. And the taste of her was an aphrodisiac that he’d never have his fill of.

  She stiffened in his arms. Then, with a soft moan, she twined her fingers like ivy about his neck and held on, meeting his kiss as though their mouths were meant to meld as one, as though she’d longed for this moment with the same hungering ferocity that had dogged him all these years. Trent slanted his mouth over hers again and again with intensity never appropriate for any first-kissed miss. He forced himself to gentle the meeting and teased the soft, gentle flesh with his.

  Her legs went weak and he guided her against the trunk of the oak. Winnie emitted a soft, breathless sigh and rogue that she’d accused him of being, he slid his tongue inside her mouth and stroked the inner recesses, learning all of her. Chocolate and honey. The innocent taste of her sucked at him until he wanted to lose himself in all of her.

  Trent drew back to her whispered protestations and continued his exploration of her as he’d longed to. He shifted his attention to the graceful curve of her neck and pressed his lips to the wildly beating pulse there. A pulse that beat for him and not that bloody viscount or any other prospective bridegroom.

  “I have longed to know your kiss.” Did those breathlessly whispered words belong to him or Winnie? He could no sooner set order to his thoughts than he could stop the earth from spinning. Except, if those words belonged to him, he’d have followed them with the hungering to lay her down and explore every satiny inch of her skin. Trent continued trailing his kisses lower, lower. He parted the fabric of her cloak and groaned. He’d ached to strip her bare and worship her velvety soft skin. With an agonized moan he touched his lips to the top of her décolletage. Winnie tangled her fingers in his hair and anchored him close to where her heart pounded.

  “I love you,” she whispered.

  And just like that the earth did in fact stop spinning. He wrenched away from the pliant woman in his arms and took in her flyaway crimson curls. Her flushed cheeks. Her full, wet lips. “Oh, God.”