Have Yourself a Merry Little Secret : a Christmas collection of historical romance (Have Yourself a Merry Little... Book 2)

by Collette Cameron

  “That is the worst hiding place anyone’s ever chosen,” he quipped, moving closer. “And what are you not wearing? I’ll tell you. A proper housecoat for running around these drafty corridors. Instead, I can see through your gossamer gown precisely how you feel the chill.”

  Following his gaze, she spied her nipples at full mast.

  “A gentleman wouldn’t look or comment,” she said, wishing she knew at least one gentleman.

  “A lady wouldn’t be running around the halls at this hour. But I must admit, seeing you like this has reminded me once more you are the jammiest bit of jam.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “Why are you doing that?” he demanded. “Don’t you care for a compliment?”

  “At least you didn’t say I was a diamond of the first water.” She’d heard the insipid phrase rolling off the tongue of half a dozen men since she’d arrived in London.

  “What if I had? You are,” he insisted, and he was so close, she could see the gold flecks in his brown eyes.

  “Terribly clichéd,” she insisted. “I would have screamed if you’d said such a trite and overused term.”

  “You may scream anyway,” he warned, placing a hand on the wallpaper on either side of her head, rocking the marble bust which he knocked with his arm and then quickly steadied with his broad hand.

  “Careful,” she warned, even as her mouth went dry at his words. She’d screamed at his touch before, out of her mind with pleasure.

  Denbigh smirked. “I know how you care for valuables.”

  “Nonsense, but if it goes crashing to the floor, even if your oafish foot doesn’t get broken, then everyone will be out in the hallway in a flash. And I was hoping for a little quiet time. In fact, I was heading to the library for a book. If you’ll excuse me.”

  She tried to push past him, but he didn’t lower his arms or move an inch. Instead, he got closer, pressing himself against her, his hips tilting into the cradle of her hips.

  A familiar tingling danced down her spine. Placing her hands on his chest, she intended to push him away but instead grabbed his coat with her fingers and drew him closer.

  When he bent low, his gaze on her lips, she closed her eyes, feeling his warm breath on her mouth. At the last moment, she turned away. She was not his little trifle, or at least, not in the hallway.

  Undeterred, he chuckled and kissed the edge of her mouth, and then her jaw, trailing more whisper-soft kisses down her neck, which she arched as well as she could with the ugly wallpaper behind her head. He didn’t stop his sensual assault, but nibbled over the swell of her breasts.

  “Denbigh!”

  He raised his head. “You make my name sound like a vicious oath.”

  “At moments of extreme exasperation, you do come to mind,” she confessed.

  “Tell me why you were roaming Lady Macroun’s hallways, and don’t give me any library nonsense.”

  “Tell me why you were coming over to the single women’s side of the house.”

  They stared at one another in the dim light, their noses practically touching.

  “Fine,” he said. “I’ll confess first. I was coming to see you.”

  She considered his words, which were unlikely. Yet she could certainly push him for the truth. “And now you see me. What do you want?”

  His experienced mouth spread into a smile. “You know what I want.” And he tilted his hips against her again. While she could feel his interest in her, she knew that wasn’t his true goal. He’d been patrolling the halls on duty.

  “Liar,” she said, although without vehemence. “You’ve been fighting your attraction to me since we arrived.”

  “Mayhap I gave in and stopped fighting.”

  For a moment, she wanted to do precisely that. With her body clamoring for his touch, growing a little damp in places and reminding her of how good it felt when they were joined in bread and butter fashion, she sighed. He was trying to hoodwink her.

  “Very well.”

  He froze, then he frowned. “Very well what?”

  “Very well, let us retire to my room and do this properly. While a good fuddle against the wall is sometimes welcome,” not that she’d ever experienced it, “it’s probably best if we be discreet. It’s the Yuletide, after all.”

  His eyes had grown a little wider with each word she spoke. The next move was his. If he took her back to her room, it would be bliss between the covers. If he walked away, it would be disappointing, and she would retire to her bed to dream of him.

  “It had best be in my wing of the house,” Denbigh suggested. “There are too many nosey, humpty dumpty maids roaming around your wing. I don’t have my valet, and neither does the nib next to me.”

  She felt her mouth drop open. Did he really think she was going to stroll along to the bachelor’s hall, spend the night with him, and then come out in the morning like a fusty blowsabella? She might be new to the ton and to the title, but she had her pride.

  She would resist his magnetism until he was as desperate for her as she for him. With a grimace, she ducked under his arm and hurried away.

  “Do you enjoy riding out to the hunt?” Lady Macroun asked Sarah as she tugged on her warmest fur-lined gloves.

  Sarah considered telling her the truth, that she’d never participated in a fox hunt before in her life, but with Lady Frances standing nearby, she hated to mark herself as an outsider. Lord Worthington had hunted as a younger man, but certainly no longer at his age when they married, and then he ran out of time. There had never been an opportunity for her to participate in a hunt.

  In answer to her hostess, Sarah replied, “I am looking forward to it today, to be sure.”

  However, as the day wore on, she decided if this was how hunts usually went, then she might never participate in one again and could truthfully say she did not enjoy it.

  It started out miserably and ended in disaster.

  At the Master of the Hounds’ command, the male guests, who’d had a little tipple of tawny port in their stirrup cups, rode away with a great deal of vim and vigor, although not much speed. Denbigh was among them. Lady Macroun’s two huntsmen, who held the hounds’ leashes, started off next, running along behind for a few paces. Soon, however, they released the hounds from their leashes, and let the dogs go. Amazingly, the dogs stayed out from under the horses’ hooves and the horses appeared unbothered.

  Sarah was bundled into one of four open-air carriages. In hers, with incredibly bad luck, was Lady Frances and two of the younger wives, Lady Clayson and Lady Hollingsworth. With two able-bodied horses apiece, the four carriages followed in the general direction the men had taken. Since they had to remain on cart roads for the most part, they lost sight of the hunting party on a number of occasions, and then the carriages abruptly turned into a relatively flat field.

  Besides the ride being bone-jarringly bumpy, the sky was gray, and the air, being extra cold, held the promise of the long-awaited snow. The temperament in the carriage was even chillier, at least as it was directed toward Sarah. The two wives didn’t care for having an ace of spades in the midst of the house party, as far as she could tell, from their flared nostrils and the way they eyed her askance. Young widows had a nasty reputation as a threat to the home, hearth, and happiness of the wife. As a married man at a ball once said to her, “A slice off a cut loaf is not missed.” Sarah had refused to let him enjoy a slice of her. Still, the ladies looked at her as a salty bitch-dog in heat.

  And Lady Frances had her usual sour expression whenever she glanced in Sarah’s direction. The earl’s daughter had sussed out that Denbigh preferred her, a fact made evident from the moment Sarah and he had arrived together.

  The three ladies kept up a steady stream of chatter, never once including Sarah or inviting her to respond to anything. They were firmly in the pink of the mode, and she was just as firmly an outsider. She didn’t care to, in any case. She was planning how to return a necklace to Lady Abingley.

  “There they are,�
�� Lady Macroun called out from the carriage ahead of theirs.

  Unclenching her gloved hands inside her muff, Sarah withdrew one so she could raise the collar of her burgundy pelisse against the chill and looked out over the landscape to her left. True enough, the men were scattered across a field, dogs ahead of the horses, their noses to the ground, apparently not yet having picked up the scent of some poor half-starved fox.

  If it knew what was good for it, it would stay in its den. Sarah decided she, too, ought to have stayed back at the snug manor. She could have returned the last two pieces of jewelry, as Denbigh had assumed she would.

  If she hadn’t gone on the hunt, however, he probably would have remained at Forde Hall with her. Then, not only would she not have accomplished her tasks, but they probably would have got into mischief of the amorous sort. That wouldn’t have been such a bad thing. Quite the opposite—the notion excited her, imagining his hands caressing her and his lips nibbling at all her sensitive parts. Mayhap she was a salty bitch!

  Even then, she was looking for his dashing form and found it among the group. He was magnificent astride his borrowed horse, sitting ramrod straight on the fine, durable hunter from Lady Macroun’s stables. The hounds were going into the low undergrowth, attempting to flush out any foxes that might be hiding.

  Lady Clayson, who’d been discussing the merits of a pearl tiara over a single pearl draped over the forehead, all at once spied her husband and volunteered some information. “Lord Clayson says it’s a struggle between whether the fox can find a hiding place sooner than the hounds can wear him down and overtake him.”

  “Or her,” Sarah said.

  They all looked at her.

  “Pardon me?” Lady Clayson said.

  “Can the fox not be female?” Sarah asked.

  “Why, I don’t know,” the lady replied. “I never thought about it.”

  “And what is the place of the rider then, if the struggle is between the fox and the hounds?” Sarah wondered.

  Lady Frances gave a snort. “You ask as if you’ve never ridden out to the hunt before, Lady Worthington. Obviously, the skill of the rider is essential during a long ride, especially with the demands of jumping brooks and logs. Not to mention keeping one’s seat even when faced with growth and branches.”

  The earl’s daughter was undoubtedly correct, having attended more hunts than a parson’s offspring ever would. All Sarah could do was nod and take another look toward the field of riders. She hoped Denbigh knew what he was about. She would hate to think of him taking a spill and getting injured. However, she wouldn’t venture to say any such thing, as it would draw a measure of ridicule from Lady Frances and speculation from the other two as to Sarah’s ignorance.

  They lapsed into silence since the other ladies had run out of inanities, and Sarah could think of no topic she wished to introduce. “My sister is a jewel thief” came to mind but seemed inappropriate. Besides, Julia meant well, finding buyers for baubles she thought the nobility wouldn’t even miss, and then giving all the proceeds to the poor who lived in the Mint, Devil’s Acre, or the Rookery.

  Their father had instilled in his daughters the importance of charity and assisting those who couldn’t help themselves. But trying to explain to Julia the utter futility of her actions against the overwhelmingly vast problem of poverty had proven difficult. After Sarah’s first tour of London when she became the Countess of Worthington, she’d witnessed for herself the population of a million souls, many of them destitute. Trying to help them with a few coins—or even bags full of them—was like trying to dry up an ocean with a gentleman’s handkerchief. Impossible!

  And giving to the established charities was even worse, as most of those were run by crooks who could make 600 guineas a year pretending to run homes for the poor.

  Sarah sighed. Her sister had promised to stop the dangerous practice when Sarah took her to task in her drawing room, pointing out in the newspaper how upset poor old Lord Devonstone had been at the loss of his beloved ring.

  “And do you want me to get caught returning jewels?” she’d asked Julia, who’d shrugged and told her to stop doing so.

  “As a widow, I have more freedom to make the returns, and if discovered in a man’s room, my reputation is not at stake.” Then she’d beseeched Julia once again to stop.

  “All right,” her younger sister had promised rather vaguely, only after Sarah agreed to help her charitable causes in other ways. They would throw at the problem the weight of the Worthington name—which Sarah couldn’t help feeling she was only borrowing—and try to come up with a productive measure. Perhaps Denbigh might have some good suggestions, if only he would stop trying to pin the robberies on her.

  Meanwhile, the three other occupants of the carriage now had their gazes trained on the hunters, occasionally glimpsed in the fields beside the carriage road. Thus, except for keeping her eye on Denbigh whenever possible, Sarah thought the hunt to be a boring affair, at least while trapped with her companions. Ahead of them, Lady Macroun was in high spirits, with much laughter floating back to their melancholy, quiet carriage.

  After another half hour, feeling stiff with cold, Sarah yawned broadly. If the ride weren’t so jarring as to nearly spill her from her seat every few yards, she thought she might have already fallen into a deep sleep due to the tedium of the hunt. All three ladies stared at her as she belatedly clamped a gloved hand over her mouth. Lady Frances rolled her eyes.

  And then, the huntsman blew his horn. Sarah perked up. At last something was happening. But what?

  The men on horseback went toward the sound. Lady Macroun’s driver turned her carriage to follow and the rest of the ladies’ drivers followed suit. However, instead of a fox, it turned out the excitement was a gentleman who’d been thrown from his horse when he jumped an obstacle.

  Seeing Denbigh still in his saddle, Sarah’s immediate concern turned to mild interest until someone identified the man who’d broken his arm as Lord Hollingsworth. His wife, who sat opposite, moaned, went pale, and immediately appeared faint.

  Lady Clayson, seated beside Sarah, pulled a corked vial of smelling salts out of her reticule and, withdrawing the stopper, leaned forward to wave it under the unfortunate wife’s nose. She roused, eyes wide and coughing.

  “Help me down,” Lady Hollingsworth demanded as soon as the carriages came to a stop.

  One of the huntsmen was putting down the step before she even rose. He assisted her to the ground, and she ran toward her husband who was now sitting, looking a little dazed, cradling his arm.

  The Master of the Hunt, the leather strap of the horn now slung over his shoulder, issued orders in a loud, clear voice. The other huntsman gathered the dogs. Sarah, Lady Frances, and Lady Clayson also alighted from the carriage, as did all the other women. Thus, suddenly, in the midst of the dogs, horses, and hunters were sixteen women. Chaos reigned.

  At least it was no longer boring, Sarah thought, while hoping Lord Hollingsworth wouldn’t meet with any permanent injury as a result. Nevertheless, she couldn’t help thinking this was exactly the type of distraction she needed back at the manor so she could return the rest of Julia’s ill-gotten gains.

  “We must take his lordship back to Forde Hall at once,” Lady Macroun insisted. “There is an excellent doctor about an hour away by fast rider, and I shall send for him at once.”

  “Oh, no,” Lady Hollingsworth protested, “my husband would prefer his own physician in London.”

  However, the man in question, wincing with pain, disagreed.

  “No, my love,” Lord Hollingsworth said, his tone tight. “If our hostess has a good doctor in mind, that’s fine.”

  In short order, Denbigh and Mr. Asher assisted the man into the carriage Sarah had vacated. Quick as a whip, the other occupants scrambled back to their seats, Lady Hollingsworth taking the one beside her pale husband and Lady Frances seated opposite next to Lady Clayson.

  Before Sarah knew it, her ride left without her, the injured
man in her place.

  Those remaining glanced at one another.

  “It is unthinkable to continue after such an inauspicious incident,” Lady Macroun declared.

  One rider taking a nasty fall hardly seemed inauspicious for an entire hunt, but Sarah was not consulted so she kept her mouth closed. Glancing at Denbigh, who frowned, she had cause to believe he agreed with her thoughts. After all, they’d all come out for a hunt. The dogs were ready, the horses were saddled, and the Master of the Hunt looked as ready to chase down a fox and dismember it with his own hands as any of the barking hounds with their teeth.

  “Besides,” Lady Macroun continued, “I must head back so I can assure my doctor is summoned and Lord Hollingsworth’s care is handled properly.”

  With a frown line denoting her concern, most likely over her reputation as a hostess, she let a footman assist her into her carriage. Injury at a house party was considered bad form, to be sure.

  Standing still, Sarah was growing colder, the frozen ground seeping its chill right up through the soles of her boots. Wondering if anyone had brought extra blankets, she wished she was back at the hall with a cup of chocolate or a glass of brandy.

  As if reading her thoughts, Lady Macroun said, “I suggest you all follow me back to Forde Hall.” Her suggestion left little room for disagreement.

  A general groan arose from the menfolk. Even the dogs started to whine more loudly, straining up on the leashes to which they’d been reattached.

  The ladies, despite having been eager to attend and with picnic supplies stowed somewhere at the ready, dutifully climbed back into their carriages. When they’d departed and the dirt and grass bits had settled, Sarah still remained. The riders who had dismounted regained their saddles and, along with those who hadn’t bothered to get off their mounts, turned their horses toward Forde Hall.

  “Um,” Sarah said. And then, “Oh bother!”

  One of the huntsmen still held the bridle of Lord Hollingsworth’s riderless horse. Plainly, she had little choice—walk a very long way and probably freeze to death or ride.