A Very Matchmaker Christmas

by Christi Caldwell

  Yes, it will be, he thought. He liked her brazen confidence. It was infectious, seductive, and it made him want to take her into his arms and kiss her until she couldn’t see straight. No simpering little miss was the Honourable Miss Letitia Ponsonby; she was like a breath of fresh air through a hot, stale room. Or maybe, he thought wryly, more like a hurricane wind.

  The groom had led the two horses out into the aisle. The chestnut stood pawing the stone floor, his hooves echoing in the close confines.

  “This is going to be fun,” she said, her eyes glowing. She lifted the flap of the saddle to check the girth, pulled the billets up another hole, and let the flap settle back down. “Are you ready, Lord Weybourne?”

  Oh, the girl had spirit, he’d give her that. And a reckless bravery that was going to land them both in plenty of hot water if any of this got out. He looked at her standing there, a vision in blue, so deliciously beautiful that the sight of her left his mouth dry and his tongue all but cleaved to the roof of his mouth. But oh, it wasn’t just her beauty that had his blood warming his veins on this cold and snowy morning. It was her boldness, her courage, her complete confidence that all would turn out exactly as she wanted it to.

  “So you need a bit of a scandal to put off this Homer person,” he mused. “Do you think your father will deny my intentions and favor this Homer Trout person’s suit instead?”

  “I don’t know, but Mama did invite him here, so she obviously has plans. If I can create the perfect scandal, perhaps he’ll decide that I’m too wild, too controversial to take an interest in and that will put a swift end to his intensions—and Mama’s plans.”

  “What kind of scandal are you considering, Letitia?”

  “I don’t know yet. It was a matter of deep discussion last night with my friends Pru, Winnie and Jane, and none of us came up with anything that might possibly work.” She led her horse to a nearby mounting block. “I’m told the men will be going shooting this afternoon but perhaps at dinner tonight, you can help me create a minor disturbance.” She paused, catching her lower lip between her teeth, worrying it in a way that caused it to swell and redden prettily and the breath to catch in Tristan’s lungs. “Perhaps—” she yanked down a stirrup iron and turned to look at him—“perhaps I will spill some of my drink on myself and you will grab a napkin and try to wipe it off in front of everyone, and I will pretend I’m outraged and Mr. Trout will question not only my grace and elegance, but your touching me so boldly—”

  He laughed. “Should I take such a liberty, it won’t be Mr. Trout who will be questioning you, it will be your brother questioning me, and demanding to meet me at dawn with pistols or swords.”

  She made a little dismissive gesture with her hand. “That is absurd.”

  “Is it? He is your brother. A very by-the-book, overprotective brother, unless I miss my guess. He will be bound to defend your honor. Not that I’m afraid of meeting him or anyone else at dawn, but if we end up killing each other it would be dreadfully unfair to both you and your family.”

  “You worry too much, Lord Weybourne.”

  “Lettie, I did not come down here to look for a wife,” he said, trying to sound convincing.

  “And I did not come down here to look for a husband.”

  “I have no time for a wife. My horses and my estate keep me busy. I only came here to determine the quality of a mare that Stephen Pemberly asked me to evaluate.”

  “And I have no time for a husband. I only came here because I had no choice.”

  “You could have joined my employ and stayed at my estate in Norfolk.”

  “I could have, as insane and impossible as the idea is. But you kissed me and ruined everything. I had to leave after that.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  They stood looking at each other, each thinking of that stolen kiss and yearning for a way to repeat it.

  Letitia allowed him to hold her mare while she climbed the mounting block, stepped into the stirrup iron, and mounted the horse. She looked down at him, smiling and wishing she dared to reach out and wipe away the snowflakes melting on his cheeks. “We should leave before the house begins to wake.”

  “We should. Because if we stand here gazing at each other for any longer, I might give into temptation, and then we will most surely be delayed.”

  “What temptation?”

  “The temptation to pull you down from that saddle, take you into my arms and kiss you.”

  “Oh!” She flushed pink and hot, but her eyes sparkled and for once, she was at a loss for words.

  “Oh!” he mimicked playfully, his own eyes warming in a way that made her heart skip a beat and then two. He took her gloved hand in his own and drew it down to his lips, letting them linger for a long moment on the back of her fingers. “So where do we go from here?”

  She gazed down at her knuckles against his lips, smiling foolishly. “How about for our ride, to start?”

  “A splendid idea,” he said, reluctantly relinquishing her hand. Still flustered, she gathered up her reins and watched as he swung up onto his own mount. Together they trotted away from the back of the stables and across the frozen pasture, where the snow had already obliterated the grass and left everything mantled in white.

  “Why Lenore, whatever do you find so fascinating outside that window?”

  The four mamas were breakfasting on tea and rolls in a small drawing room, but Viscountess Penmore, sipping thoughtfully from her teacup, was standing by the great windows and looking outside into the snow.

  Except she wasn’t looking outside into the snow, but down through the snow and toward the stables below where, in the gloom of an open door, she could see two well-bred hunters standing saddled and ready for a ride.

  “Lord Weybourne,” she said, taking another sip from her cup. “And my daughter.”

  The other women, with Lady Weston in the lead, hustled over to join her at the window.

  “I don’t see Letitia anywhere,” said Lady Portland.

  “If you stand here long enough, you’ll see her pass before the open door of the stable,” said Lenore with satisfaction. “Along with Lord Weybourne. Those are their footprints in the snow, leading into the stables.”

  The others pressed to the window. Lady Carlisle gasped in shock. “My goodness! You are correct!”

  “Do note that she is with a man,” Lenore said, taking another sip. “Without a chaperone.”

  “This is quite beyond the pale!”

  “Yes, delightfully so.” The viscountess looked like a cat that had just finished off a bowl of cream. “The perfect scandal, I should think.”

  Lady Weston put her hand to her open mouth, her eyes dancing beneath her pretense of horrified shock. “Someone will have to discover them, of course.”

  “Trust me, Someone will.” She tapped a finger against her top lip. “Time to get my darling Simon roused, enraged, and engaged in his brotherly duty, I think. He has a sister whose honor must be defended.”

  “Oh, do hurry, Lenore. In case your Letitia comes to her senses before you can get her neatly trapped.”

  The viscountess grinned, excitement making her look more like a youthful maiden than a conniving mama. “My daughter abandoned her senses the moment she met the dashing and devastatingly handsome Lord Weybourne. And by the look of him last night, the feeling is mutual.” She drained her tea, set the empty cup down on the silver tray on the table, and headed for the door. Now, if you will excuse me, ladies? I have a daughter to marry off.”

  Chapter Eleven

  It was slippery on the cobblestones, slippery on the short, clipped grass of the lawn, but once out in the pastures where the footing was rougher and more secure, they gave the horses, fretting, prancing, and impatient to be off, their heads.

  “Race you!” Letitia cried, leaning forward and pressing her heels and calves to her mount’s side. The big bay mare all but burst out from beneath her, and laughing, Letitia let her go, the falling snowflakes stinging her face,
frosting her eyelashes, the cold wind whipping her cheeks. Beneath her, the steady, rapid thunder of the horse’s hooves was a familiar thrill. She glanced to her right and saw Tristan keeping pace. He was a natural rider, Letitia thought in admiration, his hands giving and taking in time to the lunge and pull-back of the horse’s head with each stride, his seat secure, relaxed and effortless.

  Ahead was a copse of pine, dark against the gray sky. They slowed their mounts to a walk to let them cool down, plumes of steam blowing from the horses’ wide and flaring nostrils, the snow still whispering down all around them.

  “That was fun,” Letitia said breathlessly.

  “You are a fine rider, Lettie.”

  “You aren’t so bad yourself.”

  She grinned, her eyes sparkling, quietly wishing him closer. He seemed to have the same idea, for a moment later he’d urged his horse nearer to her own so that his thigh was nearly touching her skirts. Shocking, she thought. Delightful.

  “Do you know what I would love to do someday?” she asked, her heartbeat picking up at his nearness and a breathless sense of need, of longing, heating her blood.

  “What is that?”

  “When he is old enough, I would love to help you train Amir to saddle. To gain his trust, to be the first one on his back, to feel him fly like Pegasus beneath me.”

  His smile warmed. “There are very few people to whom I would entrust such a task, but you, Lettie, would be the first person I would ask.”

  Her eyes grew dreamy. “Are they really that fast?” she asked. “These horses that your father developed?”

  “They are really that fast.” They had reached the copse and the snow whispered silently down around them, mysterious, beautiful, lovely. Already, the sweeping boughs of pine were mantled with white, bowing beneath the weight. Tristan halted his horse and dismounted, holding the reins of both animals while helping Letitia to do the same. She landed lightly on her feet. “And there is no greater thrill on earth than to ride one, except, maybe this.”

  “This?”

  He moved closer, so close that she could feel the heat emanating from his body as he transferred the reins to one hand and slid the other beneath the tails of her riding habit, his fingers warm against her hips, now finding that perfect little spot in the hollow of her back with which to draw her close. “This.”

  And with that, he bent his head and kissed her.

  Letitia melted beneath the onslaught of his lips like the snow that whispered down around them. She was aware of nothing but him. Of the heat of his hand, pressing against the small of her back and drawing her closer to him. Of the hard length of his body, of the feel of his powerful arms. Of his mouth, closing over hers with firm insistence, impatient and demanding, slanting now as his tongue came out and licked at the seam of her lips. She hesitantly opened to him and he plunged inside, the sudden shock of his tongue against hers, in her mouth, sending a jolt of pleasure radiating through her blood and out into the nipples of her breasts. He tasted of the orange he must have had for breakfast, tart and delicious, of sharp cold air, melted snow and hot passion. She felt his fingers stroking the curve of her bottom, tracing it, pulling her even closer up against him. She made a little sigh of contentment deep in her throat, and reaching up, finally did what she’d been longing to do yet again, sliding her hands up into his hair, wet now with melted snow, relishing the silken softness of it, the loose, short, glossy waves and curls threading through her fingers as she molded her hands to the sides of his skull. Standing on tiptoe, she pushed herself more urgently against his mouth and into his embrace.

  Snow fell from the sky, tingling and melting against her face, against his. A now-familiar ache began somewhere in the pit of her belly, in the junction of her thighs, and she knew it for what it was:

  Desire.

  He felt it, too. His mouth slanted against hers, growing more insistent, more persistent, and Letitia moaned as the ache between her legs strengthened and became almost piercing.

  He broke the kiss for the shortest of moments to loop the reins of the horses over a low branch, then they were together once more, both growing desperate, his hands driving between the closure of her riding jacket, pushing beneath the heavy wool to shape her waist, her hips, her bottom. Fiercely, he pulled her pelvis up against him, his cupped hands roving lower and down toward the back of her thighs, lower still, until she felt his fingers gently stroking her down there.

  Letitia let out a little gasp and pulled away, dropping her hot forehead against his open coat.

  “Kiss me like you mean it,” he murmured, his voice husky.

  “I don’t know how,” she said in a little voice. “It’s not like I’ve done this before.”

  “Then let me show you.” Again, his mouth lowered to hers, and he angled his head so their noses wouldn’t touch, so that their mouths fitted perfectly together, so that he could grind his mouth against hers and force his own tongue against her own, until she was kissing him back with a passion that left her breathless and dizzy.

  Snow tingled cold and wet upon her forehead, her nose. She made a little sound of joy deep in her throat and pulling back, rested her forehead against his chest once more, trying to catch her breath. He was breathing as hard as she, and she heard and felt his heart beating frantically beneath his coat. She looked up at him, and he took her face within his hands, gently thumbing her cheekbones as he gazed down into her eyes.

  “I’ve been wanting to do that since you ran away back in Norfolk,” he said hoarsely.

  “And I’ve been regretting that I ran away.”

  “No more regrets for either of us, Lettie.” His gray eyes darkened, crinkling a bit at the corners as he smiled down at her and gently stroked her cheek. “Just gratitude. You’re here. I’m here, and I’m glad of it. Glad that I put down my work, my endless pursuit of rebuilding my fortune in order to relax. To come look at a horse that I still haven’t seen.”

  “Maybe there isn’t one,” she said, thinking of how much manipulation had already taken place, and not finding it in her heart to resent any of it.

  “Maybe there isn’t. And I don’t care.” He lowered his lips and let them brush her forehead, warming it against the melting snow. “I almost didn’t come, you know. Figured I didn’t have time, couldn’t take or make the time to get away.”

  “But it’s Christmas, Tristan.”

  “It’s Christmas.”

  “Stand here with me and feel the peace and joy of the season,” she murmured, snuggling up against him and feeling his arms tighten around her, his cheek resting against the top of her head until she felt perfectly enclosed within his presence. At home. And in a place where she knew she’d belonged since time began. “Feel it all around us … in the silence, in the stillness, in the beauty of this deep, quiet world as the snow drifts down around us … life is not all work and the pursuit of goals, Tristan. Once in a while, we all have to stop to smell the roses … to note the beauty of this world that God created for us … to stand in a cold stable and gaze with wonder and joy at the child in the manger.” She bent back and looked up in to his eyes. “Happy Christmas, Tristan.”

  “Happy Christmas, Lettie.”

  He smiled, bent his head to kiss her once more and at that moment, one of the horses flung up its head and let out a long, piercing whinny, startling them both.

  In the split second that it took for Tristan to set her back and firmly away from him, Letitia saw another horse some fifty feet away. Saw the dark blue sea coat, the cocked hat, the anger and murderous fury in her brother’s piercing stare.

  Her heart dropped from her throat into her knees.

  “S-Simon,” she said weakly.

  But he had dismounted and was walking toward them.

  He had seen everything. It was too late.

  Simon’s voice could have carried the length of a quarterdeck.

  “Letitia!”

  He didn’t quite roar, but he didn’t have to; Simon was a commanding enough fig
ure, a man whose authority was ingrained, recognizable, unmistakable to anyone within or beyond his sphere. Letitia flushed crimson and hastily stepped back, her mind whirling from Tristan’s kiss, the shock of being discovered, the necessity of finding a way out of this rapidly deteriorating situation.

  “Good morning, Captain Ponsonby,” said Tristan affably. “I know what this looks like and I can assure you that it is—”

  “I know what the situation looks like!” This time, Simon actually did roar.

  “—as I was about to say, I can assure you that it is exactly what it looks like it is.” Tristan was composed, confident, and if looks were to be believed, not one iota upset or embarrassed by the situation in which Simon had caught them. “I was kissing your sister. I enjoyed kissing your sister, and I would enjoy getting to know her as my wife even better … if you will give your informal consent, Captain, and your father, his official one.”

  Not much took Simon aback, but such a declaration was not what he was expecting. Sheepish excuses, yes. Stammered apologies, perhaps. Even an acceptance of the challenge to meet him at dawn that would have been his next demand. But marriage?

  “Captain?” prompted Lord Weybourne.

  “You barely know her,” Simon muttered, looking from one to the other.

  “I know her well enough that I’m certain I would like to spend the rest of my life with her. Isn’t that enough?”

  Letitia had been silently watching this tense exchange. Now, she raised her chin and sidled closer to Tristan, her heart topsy-turvy, her senses reeling at the speed with which things were happening.

  Marriage?

  “What about you, Lettie?” her brother asked. “Have you nothing to say, for once in your life?”

  She colored and kicked at the snow with the toe of her boot. “Well … I rather enjoyed being kissed by Lord Weybourne. And I would be honored to be his wife.”

  “This is the most half-baked proposal—and acceptance—I’ve ever heard.” Simon shook his head, frowning. “That’s it? You two both think you’ll suit because you enjoy each other’s kisses?”