Mismatched Under the Mistletoe

by Michaels, Jess

  A few partygoers approached the ballroom from the direction of the retiring area. Despite the masks, she recognized one of them as Lady Abigail. A woman Cav had seemed to show some interest in. Jealousy rushed back through her instantly, and she pivoted away.

  She needed to not be here until she could gather herself and act like the rational adult she was. She staggered down the hall in the opposite direction. She wasn’t thinking, she wasn’t making logical decisions, she was just…running. Perhaps not physically, but in every other way one could do that.

  She turned and threw open a door without thinking. As she entered the chamber, she stopped. She’d blindly made her way to the library. The place where Cav had first kissed her days before and unleashed this torrent of unexpected feelings and experiences.

  Why had she come here, of all places, in this big house?

  But she didn’t leave the room. Instead she stepped inside and moved to the very spot she’d been standing when he kissed her that afternoon a lifetime ago. She shut her eyes and she could picture it now. See the tension coiled in his body as he tried to protect her from what would be unleashed if she allowed it.

  Did she regret what they’d done? Right now, when she felt spun upside down, did she wish she had walked away instead of lifted her mouth in offering to him?

  “No,” she said out loud. And she meant it. She didn’t regret one moment. When she thought of the alternative…of not experiencing all the pleasure he had given her, she could not wish things had been different.

  “Emily.”

  She didn’t open her eyes for a moment even as she heard Cav’s voice say her name. Even as she heard him quietly shut the door behind him.

  He was here. Of course he was here. He was always here, wherever here was, when she was weak or weary or unsteady.

  “You are upset,” he said softly, gently, like he was approaching a spooked mare. “I have not seen you so pale in a very long time. If I’ve caused you grief, please let me help. What is it?”

  She opened her eyes at last and forced herself to look at him. She had looked at him so many times, in so many lights and ways, and he had never been so handsome as he was in that moment. His mask covered half his face, but his dark blue eyes still mesmerized. His well-defined jaw had been freshly shaven for the ball, and she longed to cup it, trace the line there, brush her own cheek against it. His hands, so strong and big but also so gentle, were gripped against his sides as he awaited her answer to his question. He leaned forward slightly, like a bull ready to charge forward toward her, catch her if she were to falter.

  “Emily,” he repeated. “You are frightening me.”

  She swallowed. “I-I can’t do this, Cav. I’m not…like you. I can’t turn off desire or emotion back and forth from one room to the next. I’m apparently incapable of not connecting my body to my—” She cut herself off and dropped her gaze from his. “—to anything else.”

  His eyes went wide as he stared at her for a beat, for two. Then he reached up and tugged the mask from his face. He tossed it aside in frustration and took a long step toward her. “Is that what you think I do? Separate my emotions from my body?”

  She was breathless now that he was so close. Just the flutter of her hand and she could touch him. Kiss him. Ruin everything once and for all.

  “That is what rakes do, is it not?” she asked. “You must be practiced in it, for you do it so well.”

  “No,” he said, his voice suddenly low and dangerous. “I’m not. What I am practiced in, Emily, is tying them together and then hiding it so that no one will ever see. You will never see. I’m practiced at loving you and knowing you will never love me in return.”

  Her mouth dropped open and her ears began to ring, her arms tingle.

  His face was a mask of pain, frustration gone and replaced by the pure truth she had never understood, never seen, never allowed herself to accept.

  “I…I love you,” he repeated.

  Chapter 13

  Cav had never intended to make his confession tonight, here in the library where they’d begun it all. But a few words from her and he’d had no choice. The feelings that had burned within his heart for nearly a decade had fallen from his lips, and now they hung between them.

  Emily’s eyes shone with tears beneath her beautiful mask, her mouth dropped open with shock at what he’d told her.

  “Please say something,” he whispered.

  She swallowed hard and backed toward one of the chairs in front of the fire. She sat down hard and stared up at him. “You are…in love with me?”

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  “How…long have you felt this way?” she asked. Her voice broke as she said it.

  He shifted because he knew the truth would hurt her, perhaps even anger her. Despite that, he couldn’t lie. He’d spent too many years doing that already. “Emily—”

  “How long?” she repeated, her tone louder and sharper.

  He paced the bookshelf and fiddled with the spines a moment as he tried to find the courage for what would come next. The courage to face what he’d always allowed himself to hide away from.

  He turned toward her slowly. “From the first moment I met you. Nine years ago.”

  “Cav,” she said, and the way she gripped the armrests of the chair spoke volumes. She shook her head over and over, and finally she asked, “Did he know?”

  They both knew who he was. There was no need for clarification.

  “No,” he said immediately. “I would never have told him that—it would have served nothing but to hurt him, hurt you. You were his. He loved you and you loved him. And I…I loved you both.”

  She lifted her hand and covered her mouth, and now her entire face was a mask. Only her wide eyes told him anything about her feelings.

  “I sat back,” he continued, “And never would have ever interfered. Even after he died—”

  “Cav!” she burst out as she leapt to her feet.

  “—you needed me as a friend,” he continued. “And I wanted to be that for you. Truth be told, I needed you too. Only we understood that loss, didn’t we? Only we knew what the other felt or needed in those horrible months and years after he was gone.”

  Her breath hiccupped from her mouth and she gasped, “Yes.”

  He shrugged. “So I still said nothing, all this time. For the same reasons you gave when you resisted coming to my bed. Neither of us wanted to damage what we had. Because it is important and precious and everything to me. But make no mistake, Emily: I love you.”

  She turned away and paced to the window. She stood there, shoulders rolled forward as she stared out at the dark night for what felt like a lifetime. She didn’t face him as she said, “I-I don’t know what to say.”

  He smiled at that. As terrifying as it was to wait for her reaction, as much as he feared that she would pull away, he felt lighter than he had in so long. Because the truth was out. He was no longer in hiding. He was free.

  “I know you don’t,” he said. “Because you didn’t see.” Now she did face him with another soft gasp. He held up his hands in a gesture of understanding. “It’s not an accusation, Em. I never expected you to see. I did everything in my power to keep you in the dark.”

  Her cheek twitched. “Then why…why tell me now?”

  She wanted to close Pandora’s Box. He understood that. How many years had he longed for the same before he finally accepted that his heart would not change? That he had to embrace the pain, and then he could feel the beauty of loving her, whether she ever returned that emotion or not.

  “Because since we came here, since we kissed in this very room, in the very spot where you stood when I found you here tonight, we have connected. I know you feel it, even if you would deny it out of fear or self-preservation or guilt or a million other emotions I see playing over that beautiful face, mask or no mask.”

  “Because you would know me in the dark,” she said, her voice a sob.

  He smiled because she was quoting his
words on the dancefloor back to him. Giving him wild hope he clung to with both hands, knowing it might slip away like so much sand in an hourglass.

  But at least he’d know he’d tried. At least he wouldn’t lay awake at night ever again, recognizing he was too cowardly to cross that invisible line that separated them.

  “I would,” he said. “This is beyond sex for you. If it weren’t you wouldn’t be jealous.”

  Now she gasped and it was with an affronted tone. “I am not jealous!”

  He arched a brow. “Best friends, remember?” She folded her arms and glared at him. “And if it were just sex, I don’t think you’d be pacing around the library, your lips pale. That wonderful mind of yours turning as it does when you are trying to think your way out of something.”

  “I would really like to hate you for knowing me so well. It’s abominable in this situation,” she said.

  Relief flooded him. She was teasing with him, at least a little. Like old times. One more point for wild hope. “Hate away, I can take it.”

  She stepped toward him, but not close enough to touch. “I’m so confused, Cav.”

  He nodded. “And I know that, too. Understand, I don’t expect you to have any answers right now. I’ve had nearly a decade to adjust to the fact that you are the center of my world. The love of my life.”

  “Cavendish,” she whispered, her voice trembling at those words. “What would you have me do with this information, then? You imply you are the expert of the two of us. Advise me.”

  He moved toward her and caught her hand. He lifted it to his lips and kissed her gloved knuckles gently. Her fingers flexed against his. “I only ask you to think about what I’ve said to you tonight. Please consider it. Consider if it is something you could accept. Perhaps embrace? Consider if it is a feeling you could ever…return.”

  Her lips trembled. “And what if I can’t?”

  It felt like the air went out of the room with those words. He was no fool. He had studied this woman and examined his own heart for so long it was second nature to do so. He’d always known that revealing himself would be a risk. And that she might refuse him, either out of lack of feeling, or inability to accept for fear or guilt.

  He drew a few long breaths to refill his lungs. To calm his racing heart. To keep himself from gripping her to him and proving she felt something with a kiss or by making love to her.

  That wasn’t fair.

  “If you could not allow me into your heart, I would always be your friend, Emily. That will never change between us, love or not.”

  “Then you’ll just continue to love me from afar forever?” she gasped. “That sounds almost unbearably cruel.”

  “Life is cruel, love. And sometimes it’s not. I’ve lived with both and so have you.” He released her hand. “I cannot imagine a scenario where I would not love you. Trust me, I tried very hard to change my heart at the beginning and could not. But…”

  She swallowed. “But?”

  He shook his head. “I will move on if you refuse me. I will have to do so—we’ve already talked about that.”

  “Marry, you mean,” she said, her voice so soft it almost didn’t carry despite how close they stood now.

  “Yes, I mean I will marry. And I will have to live my life so I can be happy and not make anyone else in my path miserable.”

  She nodded slowly. “I understand.”

  He let out a sigh. Suddenly he was completely exhausted. Apparently letting go of a secret one had held for a third of one’s life was so cathartic as to make a man dramatically take to his bed. “You’ll need space now. So I’ll go up. I won’t ruin the rest of your beautiful party by putting myself in your way.”

  She caught her breath, and he could see she wished to talk him into pretending things were normal. He held up a hand to stop her. “And I need some of that space myself to think about what happened tonight, too.”

  He stepped closer to her. She didn’t back away. He traced her cheek with his fingertips, let his thumb press to her lower lip. She tilted her face up, just as she had the first time he kissed her, and she was an undeniable temptation. He leaned into her and took her lips.

  He wanted to devour her. He always wanted to do that. To press her as close as he could because he’d been forced to keep her so far for so long. But tonight he remained gentle. Not quite chaste, but not driven.

  Her hands found his forearms, and she clung to him, her groan soft against his lips. When he stepped away at last, her gaze was blurry and dilated with desire.

  “Think about it,” he asked again.

  She nodded. “I-I will think of nothing but.”

  He turned from her and left the room. As he headed for his chamber, his knees shook like a green boy who had just discovered his first object of desire. If he lost her, he knew how broken that would make him. The last decade of unspoken and unrequited love would be nothing compared to that moment of refused love. But at least he had put his cards on the table.

  At least he finally had something to hope for. And so hope he would. For as long as she needed to think about what was, what had been and what could be if her heart could open.

  * * *

  Emily dropped both her hands against the back of the chair as Cav left the room, and leaned there with all her weight. She drew in ragged breaths one after another as the tremor of what had just happened ripped through her body and her heart and her every belief.

  Cav loved her.

  That fact hung like a weight around her neck and she drooped beneath it. “Nine years,” she breathed. “How could I have been so blind for nine years?”

  “My lady?” She jolted at the sound of Cringle’s voice behind her and turned to find the butler standing at the doorway. “I am sorry to disturb, Lady Rutledge, but we are running short on wine. Would you like me open a case of madeira?”

  For a moment, Emily had the wild desire to laugh. After all, she had just been hit by a lightning bolt, but here the world was…still turning. Wine drunk, jigs danced, servants waited as if the rug hadn’t been pulled straight out from beneath her.

  “Would two cases be better?” she asked with a smile for her butler as she crossed to the door and motioned him to follow her into the hall. They walked back toward the ballroom together.

  “I think they will be drunk if they are opened,” he said.

  “Then do so,” she said. “Thank you.”

  He gave a low bow and moved off to fulfill that duty, and Emily stared into the ballroom from the distance. The party was in full swing. And as much as she wished to go hide in her chamber and digest Cav’s confession, this was where she needed to be.

  So she drew a long breath and entered the room. She had not made it three steps inside when Lord Allington approached. The earl was very handsome in his dark attire and mask adorned with crow’s feathers.

  “There you are, Lady Rutledge,” he said as he sidled up to her. “I was told you were wearing a peacock mask, and it is delightful.”

  She smiled up at him. “And you a devious crow.”

  “I was inspired by Cavendish’s recital of Jago’s ‘The Blackbirds’ a week back.”

  Emily had to fight to keep her smile on her face. Cav’s reading of that poem had led to so much. It said so much about him and how he always stepped up to protect her.

  “It was…inspiring,” she managed to croak out.

  “Yes, birds of a feather and all. Where is the man, anyway?” Allington looked around, past her toward the hall.

  She swallowed. “You are asking me?”

  “Well, you two are friends. Wherever one is, the other seems sure to follow,” Allington said.

  Emily could not deny that. She didn’t want to deny it. Her friendship with Cav was the most important of her life. Many didn’t understand it. They couldn’t picture a friendship between a man and a woman that didn’t involve something more.

  But of course, their friendship always had involved something more. She just had been blind to it unt
il the moment he kissed her.

  “Lady Rutledge?”

  She blinked as she realized her distraction was causing Allington to look at her far more closely than she wished to be examined. “I did see Cavendish,” she admitted. “He complained of a slight headache and excused himself.”

  “Ah.” For a moment Allington shifted and seemed truly troubled by the fact that he could not speak to Cav. But then he flashed her a grin and the worry seemed gone from his countenance…or at least the part she could see. “Well, we’ll just have to make a party without him, won’t we? Would you care to dance, Lady Rutledge?”

  Emily nodded, for there was no way to refuse. Perhaps it would give her racing mind a rest. So she took to the floor and danced. She put on a show for her party until long after midnight.

  And all the while she screamed inside, thinking of what Cav had told her. Running over and over the look on his face when he’d admitted his heart. And wondering what in the world she should do…how she should respond when everything felt so important and close.

  She would have to decide soon. Cav had, apparently, been waiting a long time. And the longer this hung between them, the more she feared it would grow into a wall she could not surmount. And that would be a tragedy.

  Chapter 14

  Twelve Fiddlers Fiddling

  “It has been a good party.”

  Emily jolted as Lady Hickson slipped up beside her, and they stood together, watching the fiddlers play at the final official gathering of the season. The party had gone to Epiphany services together a few hours before. For some they seemed far too early after such a ball the night before. Gifts had been exchanged, games played, and now the group sat quietly, listening to the music, talking to each other softly.