Once Upon a Christmas Wedding

by Scarlett Scott

  They’d been seated at the table with the earl and his family—a clear move to thrust Thaddeus and Violet into each other’s company. While the earl engaged in business conversation with the man seated to his right, Adelaide and the countess sat farther down the table sharing smug glances as Thaddeus and Violet fell into easy, spirited conversation with each other.

  Maxwell sat directly across from Josephine at the very center of the table.

  It was the lieutenant’s presence that set her on edge the most, and he hadn’t even spoken to her the entire evening. He simply ate his fill of each course, while stealing occasional glances at her. She felt her cheeks flushing each time those unsettling eyes came to rest on her, probing and intense. He hadn’t bothered to be covert about it, staring at her as if trying to solve some great mystery. And, God help her, she was just as shameless, stealing looks at him when she was certain her stepmother wasn’t paying attention. Adelaide seemed content with Josephine’s comportment, and gave all her attention to the countess. While the two women chatted about their days as schoolmates, Josephine spent the evening watching Maxwell and wishing for him to speak to her again.

  However, it soon became apparent that the lieutenant did not wish to speak to anyone. It almost seemed as if he couldn’t, despite the fact that the table was made up mostly of his family. His two sisters—Lila and Rose—sat with their husbands at another table filled with guests, but here were his parents and brother an arm’s reach away, and still he seemed uncomfortable. He sat as if wearing another man’s skin, his expression bleak and giving no hint to his thoughts.

  She hardly tasted the offerings of the dessert course, mechanically taking bites of cheesecake, raspberry pudding, and pear and apple dumplings without being able to tell one from the other. By the time the men parted from the women for their port and cigars, Josephine had been left feeling as if she’d taken fire from the inside. Her corset felt too tight, her demure evening gown of apricot silk constricting.

  Eventually, the men and women reconvened in the drawing room, where Josephine resumed her silent vigil in a chair near one of the hearths while the pianoforte was played and a few of the young ladies were coaxed into bouts of song. Lieutenant Davies stood near the mantle of the hearth opposite hers, leaning on his walking stick while looking as if he wished to blend in with the wallpaper. All the while, he’d gone on watching her just as he had at dinner, leaving her with damp palms and a fluttering pulse.

  Relief only lasted so long once she and Violet retired to their room for the night. Even undressing for bed and putting two floors of the house between herself and the lieutenant did little to offer her comfort. She still felt entirely too hot, the high neckline of her nightgown making her all too aware of how her pulse pounded at the base of her jaw.

  She tucked herself into bed with a novel, reading by the light of the lamp on the bedside table while Violet slept. The girl had fallen fast asleep after twirling about the room with a smile on her face, singing the praises of Lord Thaddeus Davies. She’d drifted off with a soft smile curving her lips, her cheeks rosy with the blush of youth and vitality.

  After an hour of trying to read and realizing she’d scanned the same page several times, Josephine left the bed with a huff of frustration. It was several hours past midnight by now, and after the journey to Hazelwood Manor and the long day that followed, she ought to have collapsed from exhaustion by now. She knelt before her trunk, sifting through her remaining novels to see if anything captured her interest. They were all tomes she’d read countless times, so she decided she simply needed something new to keep her attention. Before dinner, the countess had indicated the direction of the library, inviting her guests to help themselves to its offerings.

  This time of night, the entire household and all the guests should be in a sound sleep, leaving the lower level of the house uninhabited. No one would see her if she went quickly to the library and found a book to take back to her room. Normally, she wouldn’t dream of traipsing about another person’s home in her nightgown, but she reasoned with herself that it wouldn’t matter if she went unseen. Acting before she could change her mind, Josephine took up her dressing gown and belted it tight at the waist, then she took up her lamp and slipped quietly into the corridor. She took one last look back at Violet to ensure she remained sound asleep before closing the door with excruciating care.

  As expected, she made her way to the grand staircase without encountering another soul. The house was so quiet, she could hear the sound of her own breaths, like a saw going at a piece of wood in the eerie silence. The lamp cast her shadow over the carpet as she made her way down the stairs on silent feet, headed toward the library.

  She entered the room, leaving the door ajar as she began perusing the shelves. Josephine moved past several dusty tomes on philosophy and the sciences before striking gold. A smile split her face when she found an entire section devoted to novels, and she ran her fingers over the spines while reading over the titles. She’d just settled on one when a man’s voice reached out to her from the doorway, frightening her out of her wits.

  “Find something interesting?”

  She muffled a yelp and turned, finding Maxwell Davies lingering in the doorway. Her throat constricted at the sight of him in a state of partial undress. He stood before her in his shirtsleeves and trousers, a pair of braces running in two black lines over his broad shoulders. He’d rolled the sleeves to his elbows, displaying sinewy forearms dusted with dark hair and bulging with prominent veins running to the backs of his hands. One of those hands tightened on the head of his walking stick, and when she looked back up to his face she found his intent gaze focused entirely upon her.

  “I apologize,” he said when she simply gaped at him in silence. “I was on my way outside for a breath of fresh air when I saw the light of your lamp.”

  Swallowing past the nodule that had lodged itself in her throat, she raised her chin. “There is no need to apologize. This is your home, after all.”

  Taking a step into the room, he rested his walking stick on the floor with a heavy thump. “I didn’t intend to frighten you, I mean. You’re a guest here, and should feel free to use the library to your heart’s content.”

  “I did find something,” she replied, raising her book. “I couldn’t sleep.”

  His gaze traveled past the book in her hand, slowly perusing her attire. Her face and neck flushed, and she felt as if he stared straight through her robe and the flimsy nightgown she wore beneath it.

  “I understand the problem well. I hardly ever sleep.”

  Sympathy flooded her at his admission, her mind running wild with thoughts of the sorts of memories and dreams that kept him awake at night.

  “I am sorry to hear that.”

  It seemed a pitiful sentiment given what this man had been through, and she regretted that she couldn’t fathom it enough to express anything other than pitiful sympathy.

  “I am used to it by now. Besides, I quite enjoy the quiet hours of the night, when no one else is awake or about. Being able to walk the halls without worrying who might see me or want to draw me into conversation is liberating.”

  It wasn’t the sort of sentiment a man ought to share with someone he wasn’t more acquainted with, but Josephine was coming to see that this man never spoke unless he had something to say, and every word was the bluntest form of the truth.

  “I feel the same,” she admitted. “I often spend hours reading long after Adelaide and Violet have gone to bed. Those hours feel like something I’ve stolen for myself.”

  “I would imagine you have very little to call your own. I am glad that you’ve found something for yourself.”

  When his response stunned her back to silence, he emitted a rough sigh and shook his head.

  “Forgive me. Thaddeus is always reminding me that speaking so honestly is not necessarily polite.”

  “Think nothing of it. Truly, I find your blunt way of speaking refreshing.”

  He scoffed. �
�You happen to be the first person I’ve met who has expressed such a preference.”

  She offered him a tentative smile. “Well, being in my position, I’ve grown accustomed to innuendo and veiled insults. I take it from your previous statement that you’ve heard the gossip surrounding my background.”

  He pulled a face, as if he’d just swallowed something bitter. “I place no stock in gossip, but … I am aware of your place in the Burton family, if that is what you are asking. It matters little to me.”

  I have no place in the Burton family, she thought bitterly.

  She’d never felt as if she belonged anywhere. She had lived most of her life in a state of limbo, counting the years until her twenty-first birthday. Upon receiving her inheritance, it was Josephine’s aim to leave Adelaide and Violet for good, and strike out into the world to make a place for herself. There had to be more for her than being forced into a family that did not want her. Her father had meant well when making the amendment to his will. She could not complain after being educated at one of the best girls’ schools in the country, and catered to in relative luxury most of her life. It had saved her from a life of squalor … but it never escaped her that it had also thrust her into a world she didn’t completely belong in. Her darker skin would always set her apart from Violet, serving as a reminder to everyone who her mother had been and her low birth.

  “If I may echo your own words back to you, you happen to be the first person I’ve met who expressed such a sentiment.”

  His lips twitched in the beginnings of a smile, but it never fully developed, the corners of his mouth wilting back into the same tight frown he always wore. A sudden longing swept over her—a desire to run her fingers over the harsh lines of his face and ease them, tracing her way across his brow, then between his furrowed eyebrows, down the bridge of his nose, and over the wide, plush mouth. The notion startled her into action, and she pressed the book against her chest, sweeping toward the doorway.

  “I should get back to my room. Good night, Lieutenant.”

  Holding one arm up, he braced his hand on the doorframe and blocked her path. She came up short, sucking in a sharp breath as he loomed over her, the depths of his eyes crackling with strikes of blue lightning.

  “There seems to be a sprig of mistletoe fastened over this door.”

  Her heart stuttered, her belly roiling as she flicked a glance upward to find that he was right. She’d noticed it earlier—the clusters of mistletoe adorning nearly every doorway on the first floor of the house. A few unsuspecting guests had been caught beneath them, prodded into trading chaste kisses amid laughter and sly quips from the other guests. Josephine spent most of her day remaining out of the other guests’ way, and had no need to think of it until just now.

  The lamp in her hand tilted as her hands began to shake, her legs suddenly feeling as if they were made of water.

  “So there is,” she whispered, her voice strained.

  He was standing entirely too close, giving off the scent of his starched shirt, along with the enticing aromas of sandalwood and citrus. She could see the prickle of stubble beginning to grow along his jawline, as well as the thrum of his pulse at the base of his jaw. It appeared to beat as wild and fast as her own.

  “Tradition demands I kiss you,” he stated, raising one hand.

  She held her breath as his fingers brushed her cheek in a feather light caress, a jolt of sensation darting through her entire body. That single touch sent heat seeping down her jaw and neck, straight to her breasts, then lower, forming an unsettling heat deep in her stomach.

  “I-I do not think it’s necessary if no one is about to see us,” she croaked.

  The moment the words fell from her lips, she regretted them. Josephine had gone twenty years of her life without being kissed, and never truly wanted the experience. To kiss anyone would be to place herself in a precarious position. Her tenuous hold on respectability hinged upon her acting as a chaste lady above reproach. Yet, as she stood there staring at Maxwell and reveling in the touch of his hand on her cheek, she found herself wanting to be kissed in a way she never had.

  “You’re right, of course,” he relented, dropping his hand. “Besides, it’s been so long, I doubt I remember how it’s done.”

  For some reason, that amused her. A little giggle bubbled in her throat.

  “Two pairs of lips pressing together … it seems simple enough.”

  He ducked his head until a lock of his hair tumbled over his forehead, grazing her right between the eyes. She stiffened, going limp against the door frame as she fought to remain on her feet.

  “Kissing is never that simple,” he said, his voice growing deeper and huskier. “There is far more to it than that.”

  Josephine’s eyes went heavy-lidded, her head falling back as she silently begged for what she wanted. Adelaide’s threats and Violet’s warnings meant nothing in this moment. There had been so few indulgences in her life, her precarious position pushing her to act with the utmost propriety. But in the late hours of the night in this quiet house, she might have this one thing. She would hold it close, never allowing anyone to know.

  He braced a hand at the curve of her waist, inching even closer, his breath racing from between parted lips. Josephine lowered the book, the lamp remaining in a precarious grasp in her other hand. She closed her eyes and waited for the inevitable, tension coiling through her body.

  His breath feathered her cheek, his grip at her waist tightening as his chest brushed against her breasts. Her nipples tingled with awareness, pebbling against the taut muscles humming with power and strength.

  A soft sound of longing emitted from her lips, prompting an answering groan from him as he rested his forehead against hers. The sound held mingled notes of longing and agony, both striking Josephine to the very core of her being.

  When the kiss didn’t come, she opened her eyes and peered up at him, finding him gazing down at her with a grim expression.

  “Miss Brewer,” he murmured, his lips brushing hers in a touch so light it could hardly be said to have happened at all.

  “Lieutenant Davies?”

  He squeezed his eyes shut and let out a ragged breath that smelled of brandy and peppermint. Josephine nearly went up on tiptoe then and there to fit her mouth to his. Surely, once their lips touched he would be prompted to take the lead. However, he abruptly released her, one hand balled into a fist, the other clenched around his walking stick in a white-knuckle grip.

  “I can’t,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “I’m sorry, but I … I can’t.”

  She leaned against the lintel, her insides quivering and aching as if she’d just been punched in the gut. In the back of her mind, she recognized the look of fear in his eyes, but the sting of rejection lashed her all the same.

  Josephine raised the book once more, holding it protectively to her chest. Drawing herself up and squaring her shoulders, she did her best not to let her disappointment show.

  “It’s probably just as well,” she said with as much nonchalance as she could muster. “If my stepmother knew I was here alone with you …”

  Maxwell blinked and shook his head as if emerging from a stupor. Clearing his throat, he took a step away from her, then another, leaving a path out into the corridor.

  “Of course. I will not keep you. Good night, Miss Brewer.”

  She swept past him with a swiftly muttered ‘good night’, before rushing toward the staircase as fast as her legs would carry her.

  Chapter 7

  Maxwell Davies, you are a fool.

  The thought echoed through his mind for two days following his near-kiss with Josephine in the library. It resounded through him like the panging of a gong, growing stronger whenever he laid eyes on her—through an open drawing room door where she sat making Christmas cards with the other ladies, out parted curtains as she strolled along the snow-covered house grounds with her sister, from across the salon during an evening card party.

  His gaze rested consta
ntly on her lips, following their sensuous motions as she spoke, ate, or sipped tea. A mouth he might have touched with his own, delved deep into with his tongue. She’d been less than an inch away, breathing the same air as him and beguiling him with dark, innocent eyes. She had been willing, tilting her head back and puckering her lips in that endearing way of a woman who’s never been kissed.

  And it was that realization—the understanding that no man had ever been where he wanted so badly to trod—that had forced him away from her. Josephine was a gently bred woman who deserved more from a first kiss than a broken man who hadn’t done it in so long he couldn’t remember how to do it properly. He would have devoured her in a mindless fit, desperately seeking out contact and closeness. Despite knowing of her innocence, the intensity of his attraction to her would make it difficult to act with restraint. He couldn’t risk losing control, because once he kissed her he didn’t think he could stop himself from taking more.

  He certainly wanted more. He wanted her naked and spread beneath him, her arms and legs embracing him as he buried himself deep inside her. But, common sense said that losing himself in the pleasure of the moment would only be a temporary balm for his pain. When it was over, he would go back to being a hollow shell—only he would have ruined an untouched woman in the process.

  So, he went out of his way to avoid her, seeking out activities that would place him squarely in the company of men. He ensconced himself in dark rooms with port and cigars, played rounds of billiards, and generally did whatever it took to keep from laying eyes on her any more than necessary. He only had to bear her presence in the evenings, when the men and women inevitably came together for dinner. Following the seating arrangements laid out on the first day of the party, he sat across from her each night, tormented by the sight of candlelight playing over her golden-brown skin. His fingers would clench around his fork and knife as he imagined touching her, skimming his hands down the slender column of her throat, then lower, exploring the hills and valleys of her womanly body. Those thoughts only led to him remembering how she’d smelled—a mixture of violets and roses with a hint of citrusy bergamot. That led to him wondering how she would taste, which brought him right back to the botched kiss.