A Very Matchmaker Christmas

by Christi Caldwell

  He inclined his head. “I am certain. I’ll see myself off after I finish my brandy.” The pebble of guilt sitting in his belly grew to a boulder at the bold lie.

  “Very well, then,” Munthorpe said. Winnie’s brother hesitated at the door, his hand on the handle. He straightened his shoulders and turned about once more. “You are a good man, Ballantine. Far more so than you give yourself credit for.” Then as though uncomfortable with the uncharacteristically serious discourse between them, James cleared his throat, opened the door, and then quickly took his leave.

  Trent swiped a hand over his face. Would a good man take the coward’s way and not ask for Winnie’s hand?

  “He is right, Trent.” Winnie’s low contralto sounded from over by the curtains and sprang him into movement.

  “Bloody hell,” he cursed, and then swiftly closed the door. He spun back and his heart leapt.

  Winnie leaned against the wall, her palms pressed to the red satin wallpaper. Her crimson curls had been piled on her head, with one strand hanging haphazardly over her shoulder; she was sin and innocence blended into one dangerous temptation. She spoke in soft, even tones, so calm when the sight of her robbed him of all rational thought. “Do you think him such a snob that he’d not allow you to court me?”

  Trent stalked over to her with his gaze trained on her oval-shaped face. He stopped. A hairsbreadth apart, Trent leaned close so that his lips nearly caressed the shell of her ear. “Not court you.” Ah, God, what hold did she have upon him? He was powerless where she was concerned.

  Her breath caught on a gasp, but he touched his lips to her earlobe. “But…”

  He drew back and studied her. She worried the flesh of her lower lip. “What?” he asked quietly, and tucked that long curl back over her shoulder.

  “You do not intend to court me?” The stricken expression that marred her features wrenched at him.

  Ah, Winnie. How did she still not know her hold upon him? He palmed her cheek. “You really have no idea, do you, just how ensnared I’ve been by you? How utterly and completely captivated I am?”

  Her lips parted on a soft moue and she gave a slight shake. “Y-you’ve been rather convincing in your disinterest.”

  How could that be so when he’d despised every gentleman who’d waltzed her about any and every event she attended? “I do not want to court you,” he repeated, capturing her lips in a soft, fleeting kiss. “I want to marry you.”

  His words hung on the air between them. Joy spiraled through Winnie, and filled every corner of her being. She leaned up and briefly kissed him. “I love you, Trent Anderson Ballantine.” He’d owned her heart since he’d taught her to bait her first hook. Their fates had been inextricably linked. And now their lives would be forever entwined.

  Trent lowered his mouth to hers once more, and she slipped out from under his arm. He looked at her, a question in his eyes.

  “I have something for you.” She slipped inside the folds of the red velvet curtains that had long proven her hiding place and retrieved the items on the window seat. The curtains gaped open, and mindful of the crystal windowpane, offering a view up into the room, Trent hastily drew her out of the alcove and yanked the curtains closed behind her, shielding them from any possible passersby.

  With shaking fingers, she handed over the purse she’d selected at the Frost Fair. He took the bag and then froze, his gaze riveted on the ice-skate. At his protracted silence, she shifted. A gentleman such as he had little need for such a piece, and yet… “You have always loved to ice skate…and I’d thought this way, even in the summer when you miss the winter cold…” She gestured lamely to the purse. “You will have this memory of…” Us. He picked his head up at last, and her cheeks burned. “It is silly, no doubt—”

  “It is perfect,” he said gruffly.

  Her heart missed a handful of beats, and uncomfortable with the powerful emotion spilling from his eyes, she cleared her throat. “And I had also thought,” she lifted the embroidery scissors, “you could carry a piece of me within that purse, close to your heart.” His eyes took in her every movement, as with unsteady fingers, she made to snip the curl she’d instructed her maid to deliberately hang over her shoulder.

  “Here.” Trent’s voice emerged hoarse. “Allow me.”

  She relinquished the scissors to his hold, and with steady, sure movements he easily cut the curl. Winnie unwound the ribbon in her hair and handed it over to him. He set the scissors down and for a long moment just studied the red lock in his hand. Then taking the proffered red velvet ribbon, he tied it gently about the strands. The muscles of his throat worked and, as though he handled the Queen’s Crown, tucked it carefully inside the purse. “That way, you shall always remember where we were the moment you ceased to be a dunderhead and loved me, at last.”

  Their soft laughter blended together. “Oh, Winnie.” Trent tucked the purse inside the front pocket of his jacket and then cupped his hand around the curve of her neck. “How do you still not know that I loved you forever?” He lowered his mouth and claimed hers and she parted her lips in invitation, wanting to taste him.

  His tongue met hers in a bold thrust and parry. He slid his hands down the swell of her buttocks and dragged her close to his center. She moaned and he deepened the kiss in the way of one who sought to burn the taste of her upon his lips, forever. Winnie reached on tiptoe and pressed herself against him. With a groan, Trent drew her closer. “I will never have enough of you,” he whispered raggedly against her mouth.

  He shifted his attentions to her neck and she tipped her head to the side, allowing him access to the sensitive flesh there. Trent slowly drew the fabric of her skirts up, and the cool air slapped her heated skin. “You are so beautiful,” he said hoarsely, trailing his lips along the exposed flesh of her décolletage. He drew her leg up and wrapped it about his waist. That slight, erotic movement brought his hardened shaft flush with her wet core. He ground himself against her until she was reduced to a bundle of thrumming nerves of awareness. “Tr-Trent.” A soft cry slipped past her lips.

  As though down a long, empty corridor, she registered the faintest click.

  Trent stiffened. With a curse, he spun away and she struggled to keep upright. Her satin skirts fluttered noisily back to her ankles and horror lapped at her senses.

  Her brother slammed the door behind him and remained frozen in the entrance of the room. Shock, horror, and black rage etched the planes of his face.

  “What are you doing here?” she whispered.

  It was the wrong thing to say. Gooseflesh dotted her arms at the black look he leveled on her. Never had he looked at her with such…loathing…and disgust. “Imagine my surprise,” he bit out, “when headed to my clubs, I glanced up and saw you in the billiards room.”

  Oh, no.

  “Oh, yes. And even as I told myself it was foolish to imagine I should have any concern about my sister being in the same room where I’d left my closest friend.” A spasm of pain contorted Trent’s face at the sneer on James’ lips. “I came back anyway.” Then, eyes flashing fury, he settled a deadly stare on Trent. “You bloody bastard.”

  Her brother’s angry hiss echoed through the room like a shot fired in the dead of night. She clutched at her throat. Oh God.

  Did that desperate entreaty belong to her or Trent?

  “It is not how it appears.” As long as she’d known Trent, he’d been composed and calm in all regards. This instance was no different. She curled her toes into the soles of her slippers in mortified shame. How could he be so coolly unaffected being discovered in such a compromising situation?

  “And how does it appear?” A seething barbarity hinted at a man one word away from storming the room and taking Trent apart with his bare hands. “As though you are about to tup my sister?”

  She recoiled at his vulgarity. For her brother’s plain-speaking through the years, he’d still never spoken with such crudity. “James—”

  He snapped his attention to her and she
staggered closer to Trent under the vitriol he directed her way. “Not a bloody word,” he bit out. In the past, she would have chafed at his high-handed commands. It was hard, however, to be prideful and bold when you’d been discovered with your gown rucked about your waist in the arms of your brother’s best friend.

  Trent held up his palms. “I tried to tell you this morning,” he began.

  “You tried to tell me?” James stilled. “That is what you’d say?” Shock underscored that question. Then he narrowed his eyes. “This is my goddamn sister. Surely you don’t think I’d allow her to wed a rogue who has had every eager widow in London.”

  His words tore viciously into her heart. Trent clenched his jaw, and he gave her a long look. Wordlessly, he slipped his hand into hers and squeezed.

  With a roar, James charged the room. Trent set Winnie aside, just as her brother lowered his shoulder and rammed into him.

  He grunted.

  She stifled a cry as Trent fell into the curtained alcove, in a tangle with her brother. The force of their movements brought the velvet tumbling from the wall. It spilled to the floor like a crimson waterfall, covering Trent and James.

  “You were my bloody friend,” James spat as they fought free of the fabric. “I trusted you to escort her about town, the way I would a brother, and this is how you betray me? By tossing her skirts up like she’s one of your cheap doxies?”

  “I love her,” Trent’s pledge came out raspy from his exertions.

  On another furious shout, her brother punched him in the nose. “You’re a bloody rogue who has tupped every scandalous lady in London and now you’d ruin my sister?”

  The muscles of her stomach twisted at the sight of Trent’s suffering. “Stop,” she cried out and covered her mouth with her hands as blood seeped down his lips and chin. And yet, he made no move to strike her brother in return. It was as though he welcomed the other man’s fury. Oh, God. For the years and years of friendship, she’d come between them in this irrevocable way.

  “I allowed you into my home, and all these years you’ve been coming here, bastard that you are, and lusting after my sister.” James leveled another blow, this time with such force that Trent’s skull noisily struck the floor. “She is not a doxy you’d take in some Pleasure Gardens. She is my bloody sister.”

  “I love her,” Trent slurred past cracked and bleeding lips.

  An agonized groan escaped her and she raced over. “Please stop,” she pleaded, scrabbling at James’ back. Her touch seemed to penetrate his momentary departure from sanity, for he cried out, and stumbled away from Trent’s limp form.

  “I called you friend, and this is how you betray me? I welcomed you into my family’s fold as though you were one of us, and then you come into my home and…and violate my sister in this way.” He gave his head a disgusted shake. “I do not want to see you again. Get yourself out.”

  She fell to a knee beside Trent and caressed his cheek with trembling fingertips. He flinched, and at causing him pain, agony knifed at her. “I am so sorry,” she whispered, taking in his eyes that no doubt would be blackened in a few hours. Then he slid his gaze away, and she lost him. Panic slipped in and drove back all her previous mortification and shame. Winnie stitched her eyebrows into a single, angry line. “How dare you, James?” she hissed. “I love him. I—”

  Trent settled his large hand on her shoulder. “Do not,” he said, in such deadened tones that a chill ran along her spine.

  She gave her head a shake. She’d not allow him to play martyr and throw away their happiness out of some misbegotten sense of honor and a code of loyalty between friends. “I love you. I love him,” she said again to James. He eyed them both through a narrow-eyed, emotionless stare. The taut set to his shoulders and the muscle that leapt at the corner of his eye, hinted at a man a heartbeat away from pummeling Trent once more. “And—”

  “This was a mistake.”

  Winnie froze. “It was not a mistake.” A future between them was right and more… “You love me.” She despised the desperate quality to those three words. “That is all that matters to me.”

  Trent pressed a kerchief to his bleeding nose, and his face contorted. Regret, agony, and love poured from his eyes. He shoved himself to his feet. “I love you,” he said, his voice hoarse. He made to help Winnie up but James’ sharp growl froze him mid-movement, and he dropped his arm to his side. “And nothing anyone says,” he slid his gaze momentarily over to James, “will change that.”

  Winnie stood and hope blossomed in her breast as Trent squared his shoulders. He would fight for her. The resolute set to his jaw restored that giddy fluttering in her belly.

  “Go now,” James said coolly. “And if you enter this house again, I swear I’ll see you dead on a field at dawn.”

  All warmth died inside her. A thick, furious tension filled the room with the force of that pledge. Winnie took a staggering step away from Trent and walked numbly over to James. “You wouldn’t,” she whispered. “He is your best friend.” How could everything they shared be forgotten because of this?

  “A man who lifts up my sister’s skirts like she’s a street-side doxy is no friend of mine,” he spat.

  She winced as with his words her brother sullied any intimate moment she’d shared with Trent.

  James looked over her head at the man who’d been another part of their family through the years. Hatred shadowed his eyes. “No, he was my best friend. Not any longer.” Trent sucked in a breath, and she would have traded her soul in that moment to spare him that pain. “Now, go.”

  This time, Trent did exactly that.

  She stared blankly after his retreating form, silently pleading for him to return.

  “Winnie…” Her brother touched her shoulder, and she shrugged off his touch, wrenching away from him.

  “Do not,” she rasped. Her raggedly drawn breaths filled her ears.

  James let his hand fall to his side, and not meeting her eyes, stalked from the room.

  Tears blurred her vision as she slid into the nearest seat.

  In the end, he’d chosen not to fight for her. A broken sob burst from her lips and she buried it in her fingers.

  And with the crushing agony of Trent’s retreat, she allowed the tears to fall.

  Chapter Seven

  Trent stood at the window and stared out as servants filed from his brother’s townhouse, carrying trunk after trunk to the waiting carriages. His bruised and swollen visage stared mockingly back at him; the impressive purple and green lacerations compliments of Munthorpe’s rage. And it spoke to the kind of bastard that he was, the miserable friend, because of the years of friendship they’d known, it was not the broken relationship he considered.

  It was her.

  Never let me go…

  He glanced down at the small purse in his hand and his heart spasmed. Ah, God. For years, the world had seen a shiftless, carefree rogue who’d lived for his own pleasures. Only that had never been the truth. He’d lived for her…and he was nothing without her. And yet, he’d run…Trent looked up. In the crystal windowpane, he caught a glimpse of his mother as she sailed into the room, ever the regal, proper marchioness. Hurriedly he stuffed the purse into the front of his jacket. His family had long mocked and frowned at any sentimentality.

  “We leave within the hour, Trent. Are you—” Her words ended on a gasp, as he turned. “My goodness.” Horrified shock filled her eyes and she gave a shudder. “Whatever have you done to yourself?”

  “Mother,” he said reassuringly. “I am all r—”

  “It is fortunate we are retiring to the country.” She pursed her lips. “Whatever would people say if they were to see you like,” she gestured to him, “this?” His lips twisted with bitterness. Of course. How foolish to believe she’d had any maternal concern for his welfare. The marchioness patted her curls. “As it is, the servants have no doubt seen you and you know they do whisper.”

  His brother stepped into the room. “What are my servants w
hispering about?”

  He tamped down a curse as Hollingbrooke entered the room. His brother took one look at him and snorted. “I suspect I should just be glad you didn’t meet the irate husband on the dueling fields at dawn.”

  Trent curled his hands tight at his sides. He’d spent the earliest years of his youth trying to prove his worth to his unimpressed parents and pompous brother. Somewhere along the way, their ill opinion of him had ceased to matter. Or he’d thought it had, anyway. Standing there, silent to their recriminations, he was humbled by the truth—since he was a boy he’d ached to love and be loved. He’d wanted to know the close familial bond evinced by his best friend’s family. And with her, with Winnie, she loved him in all the ways he’d denied needing to be loved.

  “Regardless,” the marquess pulled out his watch fob and consulted his timepiece. “We are to leave in a quarter of an hour.”

  “There was no irate husband,” he said between gritted teeth. Nay, it had been an irate brother who wanted him dead. A man who’d been more brother than this stranger before him now. What did that say of Trent’s self-worth? Guilt stabbed at him not for the first time since he’d left Winnie yesterday morn.

  “We leave for Leeds,” Owen said with his familiarly dismissive haughtiness. “Be sure you’re ready. I hardly want us kept around waiting on you.”

  He went silent as his mother and brother took their leave. Yes, their indifference had once mattered, but they were a mere chance connection of two people who shared blood. They’d never been his family. He’d found the woman who represented home to him…He scrubbed his hands over his face. An agonized hiss slipped past his lips.

  “Oh, Trent, you look horrible.”

  He let his arms fall to his side. His sister hovered in the doorway. Concern lined the planes of her plump cheeks. “Henri,” he greeted with forced cheer.

  Proper and silent around all but him, she sighed. “What did someone do to you?”

  Something pulled at his heart. What did someone do to you? She did not look to him as blameworthy. He grimaced. Though, in this, she should. He rolled his shoulders and winced as that slight movement assaulted him with pain. “An irate brother,” he conceded. He should feel some compunction in sharing that honest piece with another.