An Affair in Winter (Seasons Book 1)

by Jess Michaels

  “He spoke of me? I’m surprised to hear Mr. Danford is so complimentary,” she whispered.

  Felicity frowned. “He is a little hard on Celia,” she explained to Lady Folworth. “You know how protective he is.”

  Lady Folworth paled, but she didn’t look surprised at Felicity’s assertion. Rosalinde clenched her fists. It seemed Gray’s disparagement of Celia had gone beyond just his family. And yet Lady Folworth was kind to Celia, at least.

  “Indeed, I do know of Gray’s proclivity to ride to the rescue when it comes to Stenfax or you, Felicity,” the lady said. Her tone was tight, but when she spoke again, it was softer. “And yet whatever he thinks, he clearly does like you, Mrs. Wilde. Just before they started talking about Whigs and what’s going on in America, Gray was just telling us what a fascinating woman you are.”

  Rosalinde felt heat flooding her cheeks. Heat that multiplied when Felicity turned her attention toward her. The viscountess had a certain expression on her face, but Rosalinde couldn’t tell if it was supportive or in upset.

  “Fascinating?” Felicity repeated, still staring at Rosalinde as if she were seeing her for the first time. “That is interesting.”

  “I—I’m sure, Mr. Danford is only referring to the fact that we have similar taste in literature,” she whispered. “We discussed it when—”

  She broke off. Great God, they had discussed books the night they spent together at the inn. Now her cheeks felt like they were on fire.

  “—we discussed it over supper one night,” she said, formulating words that somehow resembled the truth. She glanced toward the doors where her sister had departed. “You know, I ought to go after Celia. Make sure she’s all right.”

  Felicity was still staring, but she nodded. “Of course.”

  “It was lovely speaking to you both,” Rosalinde managed through tightly clenched teeth. “I-I will see you later, I’m certain.”

  The two said their farewells, and Rosalinde began to make her way through the crowd. She felt their stares on her back, felt Gray’s stare on her back, as she did so and a thin layer of sweat made itself known on her brow. Gray’s offhanded comment had certainly raised the interest of the women, which was bad. And yet the fact that he was telling people who were important to him that she was fascinating still warmed her to her toes.

  She exited to the terrace, shutting the door behind her. The night air was chill, which meant no one else was outside, and she breathed a sigh of relief. At least she could have a moment without eyes watching her.

  She looked around, expecting to find Celia standing at the wall or pacing the length of the terrace. But her sister was nowhere to be found.

  Rosalinde walked out farther, seeking Celia in the shadows. “Celia?” she called out, but to no response. A breeze blew across the walkway, and she shivered. Celia had been out here for a while, she had to be freezing.

  “Celia!” Rosalinde repeated, this time louder. She moved along the length of the terrace, worry building in her. Could her sister have gone to the garden? In this chill? She would catch her death.

  But just as Rosalinde moved toward the steps to go down and search, she caught a glimpse of movement in a window nearby. Relief flooded her. Celia sat in one of the other parlors which was also attached to the terrace. But through the window, Rosalinde saw her sister’s head in her hands. She was weeping.

  Rosalinde caught her breath and rushed to the terrace door, pressing it open and entering the chamber to join her sister. Celia looked up, her red face pained and tear-streaked.

  Rosalinde shut the door and rushed to her, putting her arms around her. “Oh, Celia!” she murmured, drawing her closer.

  Celia let out a gasping breath and then continued to cry, this time into Rosalinde’s shoulder.

  “This is a mistake,” she sobbed, her words garbled by her tears. “Oh, Rosalinde, whatever am I to do?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Rosalinde caught her breath as she smoothed Celia’s hair gently. “A mistake?” she asked, even though she knew exactly what her sister was referring to.

  “This marriage,” Celia wailed.

  Rosalinde squeezed her eyes shut. It was as she feared. And despite what had been said earlier, she knew full well this was more than mere bridal nerves.

  “Why?” she said softly. “Tell me what you’re feeling. Tell me what he’s done.”

  Celia drew away from her shoulder. “It isn’t anything he has done. I don’t hate him, I don’t fear him. But I do not love him, Rosalinde. I will never love him. I know that as I know my own face, my own hands, my own heart.”

  Rosalinde nodded slowly. “I see.”

  “And he feels nothing for me either. I see it and I feel it every time he looks at me.”

  Rosalinde steeled herself, for she would have to tread carefully in order to understand. She kept her tone calm and gentle as she said, “But you knew this from the start, Celia. We’ve even spoken before about the nature of your relationship with Stenfax. What has changed that makes you so unhappy with the decision now?”

  Celia rubbed her neck. “I was never fully comfortable. I felt what was lacking between us from the first moment we met, but I somehow convinced myself it might change. I tried so hard to make it change, because who wouldn’t want such a man? When it didn’t, I kept telling myself that I would live with it. That I could live without love or affection or passion of any kind. That it would be worth it. But then…then…”

  “Then?” Rosalinde squeezed her hand. “You needn’t hold back. I want to hear it all—it’s the only way I can help you.”

  Celia nodded. “It will help to say it, I suppose. But then you told me about you and Gray.”

  “Me and Gray?” Rosalinde gasped. “That changed your mind?”

  “You were describing a passion I will never feel.” Celia sighed. “And when I spoke to Gray, there was this…this expression in his eyes that said more than any words. What he feels for you after just a short acquaintance is more than Stenfax has ever felt for me in almost a year of courtship. It is more than the earl will ever feel for me.”

  Rosalinde could not find her breath as she stared at her sister. “You spoke to Gray about me?”

  “Of course,” Celia said with a shake of her head. “If you are involved with the man, I must know he is worthy, mustn’t I? That is my duty as the person who loves you most. And while I do not like him, I cannot deny that there does seem to be a connection between you. From his side as well as yours.”

  Rosalinde fought the impulse to leap to her feet and run away. Celia was saying words she longed to hear, making her want things she had convinced herself were not possible, despite how much she had come to love Gray.

  “Dearest, I don’t know what you saw,” she said. “But he has made no promises or offers to me. So you cannot compare this to your situation.”

  Celia shrugged. “Perhaps not. And perhaps I could have continued on as I was even with that niggling doubt, but then I saw Lord and Lady Folworth.”

  Rosalinde’s lips pressed together. “Their love match.”

  Celia nodded. “I had convinced myself love matches didn’t truly exist in the ton, I suppose. That they were a fairytale. But they love each other, Rosalinde.” Her sister’s tears began to flow anew. “They love each other so deeply and I…I…”

  “You want that,” Rosalinde whispered. “Despite any threats leveled at you by Grandfather, you want it. You deserve it.”

  Celia had gone still and she wiped her eyes slowly. “Yes, Grandfather. If I break this engagement, his punishments to both of us will be swift and vicious.”

  Rosalinde shook her head, even though she knew her sister’s words were true.

  “He will cut me off,” Celia said. “And likely you, too. And there will be nowhere to go for us. We’ll have no money, no references.”

  Rosalinde swallowed past the fears those words left in her stomach. “We would work out a way,” sh
e said, though she could think of nothing. “Because like you, my job as the one who loves you most is to protect you. If you will be so unhappy with Stenfax—”

  “We’ll never learn the truth about our father,” Celia continued, and now her voice was flat and emotionless.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Rosalinde reassured her. “We’ll—”

  Celia pushed from the settee and walked to the fire. She stared at the dancing flames a moment, then turned back to face Rosalinde. “I am being foolish,” she said, her tone suddenly very calm. But her eyes were so empty, so lost that Rosalinde nearly burst into tears herself. “I am reaching for things that most never find, and throwing away opportunities we will never have again.”

  Rosalinde stood and moved toward her sister. “Celia, you were just describing a highly unhappy and empty marriage. You cannot pretend—”

  “There is no choice!” Celia interrupted, her voice elevating to near hysteria. Then she took a long breath and grew calm again. “The deal is done, the contracts signed, the license obtained. There is no choice in the matter. And the alternative if I made another choice is bleaker than anything I shall endure if I marry as planned.”

  “Celia,” Rosalinde whispered, moving toward her.

  Celia caught her hand and squeezed. “I was only feeling bridal nerves,” she said. “That is all. Please forget all I said here tonight. It matters not, and we will continue on just as before.”

  She released Rosalinde and moved to a mirror on the opposite wall where she smoothed her gown and pinched her cheeks to put color back in them. Rosalinde watched her perform the motions and her heart broke.

  Celia faced her again. “I should return. It is rude of me to be gone so long from a party in my honor, after all. Please promise me you won’t say anything to anyone about my foolishness tonight.”

  Rosalinde caught her breath. She had so much to say to Celia. So much she wanted to do. But she could see her sister would not allow it. She was determined.

  “I won’t say a word,” Rosalinde whispered.

  Celia nodded and then moved to the parlor door where she stepped out and left Rosalinde alone.

  She stood at the fire a few moments, shocked and numb from what had just happened. She had promised not to say anything about her sister’s hesitations, and she would do her level best not to. But she could not make the promise to forget. She would never forget Celia’s panic, her uncertainty, her regrets.

  But Rosalinde had no idea what to do about any of it. She had no idea how to save the person she loved most from a future that might crush her beneath its weight.

  Hours after the ball had ended, hours after everyone else had retired to their beds, Gray sat in his chamber at a table near the fire. He was wide awake. The papers delivered by Folly were spread out before him. He had read them over and over again until he could almost repeat them verbatim without looking at the pages.

  Agatha Fitzgilbert had not married, as had always been reported. She had certainly not married anyone who was deemed appropriate by Society. No, Celia and Rosalinde’s mother had run off with a former servant of her father’s. No one knew his name, no one had a record of him, it seemed Fitzgilbert had very carefully taken care of that information.

  But the bare bones were enough to ruin the young women. They were not only bastards by law, but bastards created by a scandalous relationship with a man far below their mother’s status. Even Stenfax would have to think twice about a marriage now. After all, he was trying to not only return the coffers of their family to their former glory, but make people forget the shameful decisions that had emptied those coffers in the first place.

  Marrying a bastard daughter of a servant would do little to elevate him.

  Gray knew that he held a bullet in his hands that would jeopardize the engagement he had worked so hard to end. And yet he had no idea what to do with what he knew.

  A day ago, he would have been perfectly clear. He would have taken this information straight to his brother and revealed all. He wouldn’t have felt good about it, he wasn’t a total cad. But he would have done it to protect Lucien. He would have calmly reminded his brother about all the issues the information could create.

  He might not have had his way, but it would have been his best play in this game of chess.

  Now, though, there were new revelations, new problems that kept Gray up, staring at the papers before him and completely unsure what to do.

  The Duchess of Kirkford was widowed. And if Stenfax found out and was unattached, there was no telling what he would do. Love was a powerful thing. Even hate couldn’t fully destroy it.

  But love and hate mixed so potently could destroy Stenfax. They had already nearly done so.

  So Gray was left with a choice: leave his brother to marry Celia and risk the harm she might do, or free his brother from this trap only to leave him open to a far more damaging one.

  “Bollocks,” he grunted, slamming a fist down on the tabletop.

  At almost the same moment, there was a light knock on his door. He glanced at the clock on the mantel in surprise. It was after two in the morning. Far too late for anyone to trouble him unless…

  Unless it was an emergency.

  He pushed to his feet and hurried to the door, throwing it open with the expectation that he would see a concerned servant or ragged family member on the other side.

  Instead, he found Rosalinde standing in the hallway. She wore a robe tied tightly around her waist, the same robe she’d been wearing that night in the library when the desire between them had overflowed and he’d surrendered to the need he had to touch her.

  “Rosalinde,” he whispered, her name a benediction and curse all at once. Saying it warmed him to his core, but it also reminded him of the decisions he’d made earlier in the day.

  He had to let her go. But staring at her in the hall, seeing her looking up at him, lips slightly parted, hair down around her shoulders, he couldn’t do that. Not yet. Not yet.

  She was silent as she slipped past the space next to him at the doorway. She said nothing as she took his hand and led him back inside.

  He shut the door. He knew what it meant to do so and he still did it. She wound her fingers through his, leaning in until her body brushed his. She lifted to her tiptoes and kissed him. He shut his eyes with a shuddering breath and just sank into the feeling of her soft lips brushing his. He wanted so much to have this. To have her.

  Even if he knew it was yet again, a stolen moment. And that was all they’d ever have in the end. Moments that hadn’t belonged to them. If this was to be the last, then he was going to take it.

  He caught her upper arms, not tightly, gently, letting his thumbs brush over the soft cotton of her robe, feeling her arms tense beneath. He deepened the kiss, opening to her tongue, meeting her with his, tasting the sweetness of her and memorizing it as best he could.

  They backed together toward his bed, and he shivered. It had been a long time since he’d been able to take his time with her. Tonight he intended to do just that.

  He broke the kiss and backed up, looking at her in the dim light of his dying fire. She smiled, just the slightest expression, and he was lost. He was hers.

  He never wanted to be anyone else’s. But he squashed that thought and instead reached out to untie her robe. When he parted the fabric, he gasped. She was naked beneath. Utterly, beautifully and completely naked.

  “Rosalinde?” he groaned.

  She smiled again. “If I found the courage to knock on your door, I couldn’t leave without having you. I knew I couldn’t. If you refused, this was to be my ammunition.”

  “I can’t refuse you,” he whispered as he leaned in to brush his lips along the column of her throat. “You should know that by now. Even when I should, I can’t.”

  She shuddered when he pushed her robe away, but as soon as her arms were free, she lifted them around his neck, leaning into him with a shuddering sigh. Surrender was in
her body, on her lips, in her taste, and he took it gladly.

  “Won’t Celia notice you’re gone?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “She’s asleep. I can’t talk about her now. Later, later we must. But right now I want you. You and only you. I want you to make the rest go away.”

  His brow wrinkled, for there was a soft desperation to her words, her tone, her expression. And it mimicked his own. Like her, he wanted to forget everything else, all the decisions he had to make. She was the only one capable of such a thing.

  So he shut down his mind, shut down his arguments and kissed her once more. Everything else was silent. Silent as he tasted her, molding her to him by gliding both his hands to the curve of her naked backside. Silent when he somehow forced a space between them to unbutton his shirt.

  Silent when she shed that same shirt and stared at his bare chest.

  “The first time I saw you like this,” she whispered, staring at the plane of muscles, “I wondered if you were real. I wondered what I had done to deserve you wanting me.”

  He laughed softly. “You deserved it by being extraordinary and undeniable. By being Rosalinde Wilde.”

  She lifted her gaze to his face. “I want to give you pleasure, Gray. I want that so much.”

  “You already have,” he assured her, reaching up to touch her face with the back of his hand. “Every time I look at you or touch you or taste you, it is pleasure beyond imagining.”

  “Not like that,” she said, her cheeks flaming. “A different kind of pleasure.”

  His eyes widened. “Rosalinde, are you saying you want to—”

  She nodded even as she made a strangled sound. “I want to taste you.”

  He swallowed. Most ladies did not wish such a thing. But this was no average lady. This was sweet and passionate Rosalinde, who, as Celia had said, led with her heart in all things. Gave of herself completely.