The Last Chance Christmas Ball

by Mary Jo Putney

  He had hurt her again. He had not intended to but he had hurt her nonetheless and he felt like a cad. Caroline was so generous with her love, so sweet, and so giving. There was no artifice in her. She loved him and so she had told him. It was as simple as that. Yet once again he had rejected her love.

  It seemed to take Piers an inordinate amount of time to dress for the ball. He was in an agony of impatience to find Caro again. He was afraid she might have gone off alone somewhere to lick her wounds, but in that he was mistaken. As he entered the ballroom, he saw her twirling through a country-dance in the arms of a rather sturdy gentleman who looked as though he suffered from the gout. Caro was smiling and giving him her entire attention and the gentleman looked dazzled, as well he might.

  As Piers watched the dance came to an end and Caro thoughtfully steered her wheezing companion to a rout chair before stopping to chat with the lady sitting on his left. She had a smile for everyone. She knew them all and clearly she cared about them and their affairs: the families, the children, the Christmas festivities, the weather. She had a word for everyone and an easy charm that set them smiling in return. It made Piers feel inordinately proud of her.

  She looked up and caught him watching her, and for a moment she stilled and the happy light died from her eyes. But then she smiled at him and Piers felt his heart shift and an odd sensation make his chest tighten. He did not seem able to help himself. His rational mind warned him to beware, that he was slipping into dangerous waters, but his heart did not seem to care.

  Caro’s next partner arrived to claim her for the set that was forming and Piers watched again as she lit up the dance, sparkling in her silver gown, exuding a light and warmth that drew everyone to her like moths to the flame.

  He cut Andrew Wright ruthlessly out for the next waltz.

  “Really, Piers,” Caro said, as he spun her into the dance, “there is plenty of space on my dance card. You need not have been so precipitous.”

  “I could not wait,” Piers said, without apology. “You draw all eyes, Caro. Is that a new gown you are wearing tonight? You look different.”

  Her smile cooled. “No, it is not. I have not spent any more money, if that is what you mean.”

  Piers cursed himself for a clumsy fool. “I meant only that you look beautiful,” he said truthfully, “but it is different from the style you have previously chosen.”

  “I was trying to look older before,” Caroline said baldly. The dance swept them onward, their feet moving automatically in time to the music but neither of them concentrating on it now. “All the political events we attend are very daunting. I wanted to”—she paused—“to make a good impression.”

  Piers sensed something wistful behind her words. He glanced at her face, but she looked quite serene.

  “You always made a good impression,” he said. “Everyone has remarked upon it. Why would you doubt it?”

  “Because you never told me so.” Her candid gaze rose to meet his and his heart lurched. “I was trying to please you, Piers,” she said with devastating simplicity. “I dressed to please you. I knew you needed an elegant hostess and so I tried to make you proud of me.”

  Lord, but she was making him feel uncomfortable tonight! Piers acknowledged it ruefully; acknowledged, too, that there was no reason why she should pander to his feelings. He had chosen to shut her out. He had rejected the intimacy she craved from him, not because he wanted to punish her but because he had been too much of a coward to risk loving her. He knew he had to take responsibility for that.

  “Caro.” His voice sounded husky. He cleared his throat. “I am so very proud of you. I want you to know that. I realize now that I haven’t been kind—”

  She stopped him with a touch of the hand. “You are the kindest man I know,” she said softly. “You do so much to help others.”

  Yet he had failed his own wife.

  There was silence between them. The music swooped, lilting and romantic, and they moved through the throng as though in a separate world.

  “Tell me”—Caro’s voice sounded conversational and she was smiling for the benefit of the other dancers—“was there ever a time that you felt you belonged here, Piers? You spent so much time with us—did you ever see Holbourne as home?”

  “No,” Piers said. It felt as though time was rolling back and he was the child, fresh on holiday from Eton, looking through the Holbourne bannisters at the family scene below. He had seen what Edward and Kim possessed, the love of hearth and home, but it was alien to him.

  “I don’t feel as though I have a home,” he admitted. “I was very young when my parents died and although I was my uncle’s heir . . .” He stopped.

  “It was a material inheritance,” Caro said softly, “not an emotional one.”

  He felt devastated by the truth of that. He was materially wealthy but it felt hollow without something—or someone—to add warmth to his life.

  “My parents were madly in love.” He spoke gruffly. It did not feel like a non sequitur but suddenly, desperately important. He had spoken of this to no one. People knew the facts, not the feelings behind them. “My father doted on my mother. He loved her to the exclusion of all else. When she died, he could not deal with the grief. He took his own life.”

  “I’m so very sorry, Piers.” Caro’s eyes were full of kindness. It was not pity, he realized. He would have shrunk from that. No, Caro was watching him with understanding and compassion, and suddenly he wanted to crush her to him and slake all his loss and grief in her sweetness. But first there was more to say. He had to be honest now, as honest with her as she was with him.

  “I grew up to spurn that sort of love.” The words were wrenched from him. “For me it meant nothing but misery and weakness and a loss of control.”

  “I understand.” Her touch on his arm was still gentle, as though she took his words for the apology he wanted them to be. “You have seen only the dangerous side of love, the obsession and the damage it can do. Yet, you should not be afraid to love, Piers. You are not your father. You are a different man. And love is worth the risk of loss.” A rueful smile touched her lips. “I know that to be true.”

  He understood what she meant. She had dared to risk loving him, had continued to do so in the face of his rejection, and now she was still offering him that love no matter how little he deserved it.

  “I think you are almost too loving, my darling Caro,” he said roughly. “I cannot bear to see you hurt.”

  “Oh, Piers.” Caro had her arms about him. It was not an accepted part of the dance, but suddenly he did not care. Everyone was staring at them. He did not care about that either. All he wanted was Caro and the solace she could give him.

  “Come with me,” he whispered, his lips brushing the delicate tendrils of hair that framed her face. “I need you.”

  She did not hesitate. She slid her hand into his and together they walked across to the door, ignoring the curious stares and the stifled whispers, up the stair, along the gloomy corridor, into the warmth and light of the Green Bedroom where the fire burned bright in the grate. Caro felt light and fragile in his arms and yet at the same time she was the strongest and most precious thing he could ever wish for. He reached for her greedily, needing her, taking with an eagerness that bordered on desperation, his kisses fierce and urgent. She responded with the generosity he recognized in her now, holding nothing back, returning caress for caress. And in the end, when at last he abandoned all fear and simply lost himself in her, he heard her tell him again that she loved him and this time he did not run from it. This time it felt good and right and true.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Caro opened her eyes. She felt warm, sated, and very wicked in the most delightful way imaginable. The night had been everything she had longed for—passionate, tender, and exciting. After the initial urgency of their lovemaking had been satisfied, they had lain entwined in tenderness, talking a little, kissing, as the fire died down and the shadows took them. Then they had made love ag
ain and this time Piers had devoted himself to her pleasure, such pleasure as she had never imagined. Caro thought that perhaps her grandmother was right. Marriage was indeed an ideal state.

  She rolled over and realized that she was alone. Piers was sitting on the edge of the bed with his back turned towards her, head bowed. His dark hair was tousled. She felt such a wave of love for him then that it almost stole her breath. She wanted to touch him, to pull him back down into her arms, to lose herself again in their newfound happiness. Yet there was tension in the line of Piers’s shoulders. She caught a glimpse of his profile as he half-turned towards her. His jaw was set in a grim line.

  Cold anxiety breathed goose bumps down her spine.

  Not again. Not now.

  She had been so sure that he loved her, too, even if he had not said the words aloud. He had shown it in every touch, every kiss.

  She put a hand on his bare shoulder. He felt warm and vital, his skin smooth beneath her fingertips.

  “Piers? Is something wrong?”

  He turned to look at her. There was such desolation in his face that it felt as though her heart snapped in two. She had allowed herself to believe that all would be well now. She had thought Piers loved her in the same way that she loved him—wholly, deeply, completely. Yet he looked stricken, hardly the expression of a man in love.

  Her hand fell to her side. There was something about his rigidity that forbade her touch. There was such misery in his face and yet such longing, and in that moment she saw the child behind the man, the little boy who had seen his father ruined by intemperate emotion, who had lost any vestige of a family that he had known, and did not want to risk loving and losing again.

  Swiftly, following instinct, she wrapped her arms around him and drew him close.

  “I love you.” She spoke firmly. “I love you, Piers, and I know that you love me.”

  She saw the flash of emotion in his eyes, deep, disturbing, infinitely satisfying. He did love her. He loved her as fiercely as she loved him. Emboldened, she ran her fingers along his jaw, and kissed him. He did not move away. That encouraged her.

  “Tell me,” she said.

  For a moment she thought he was not going to answer her, but then he took her hand in his, his fingers tightening convulsively around hers.

  “I don’t want to lose you.” He sounded hoarse. “I never thought I would feel like this.” He pulled her to him and held her as though he would never let her go.

  Against the warm skin of his throat, Caroline smiled. “You will not,” she said. She thought of the lonely little boy who had come to Holbourne Abbey for the first time as a child. “You will not lose any of us,” she said. “You are part of our family now.”

  “I loved you from the start,” Piers said against her hair. “For so long. You were like a flame that drew me, so warm and so bright and so loving. I wanted that love for myself, but at the same time I was afraid to claim it in case I lost it.” He smiled, but there was sadness in it. “My beautiful, bright girl,” he said. “I don’t deserve you.”

  “Now you are just feeling sorry for yourself,” Caroline said, smiling to soften the briskness of her words. “Who was it who let me tag along with the boys’ games, who taught me to ride, who rescued me when I got stuck up a tree? You even rescued me from marriage to Lord Drysdale.” She cupped his face in her hands. “What is life without risk, Piers? What is love without loving wholeheartedly?” She kissed him softly, sweetly. “I love you with all my heart, holding nothing back for fear of hurt.”

  For a moment he looked down into her eyes and then he was kissing her, with passion and demand until her head spun and she tumbled back down into the engulfing bedcovers with him.

  “Darling Caro—” His lips were pressed against her throat, sending delicious shivers over her skin. “I love you like that, too—truly, madly”—he kissed the hollow at the base of her throat—“deeply and forever. I cannot help myself.”

  It was a very long time before they spoke again. Caro, lying sated and very happy in his arms, turned her head against Piers’s shoulder to look at him. The lines of weariness and grief had gone from his face. He opened his eyes and they were soft and drowsy with sleep. He smiled at her and she saw her own love for him reflected in his eyes.

  They had been abed so long that the pale light of a winter dawn was creeping around the bed curtains.

  “I suppose we should go down for breakfast,” Caro said with a sigh, “although I am tempted to hide away and have mine here. I have no great desire to be berated for my shocking lack of conduct at the ball last night.”

  “Coward.” Piers kissed her bare shoulder. “I will be with you. And besides”—he smiled—“I suspect that there will be plenty of other matters to talk about. There was more than one romantic entanglement developing at the ball.”

  Caro’s eyes opened very wide. “Really? How exciting! Who?”

  “Did you not see Edward dancing with Lily Tremaine?” Piers asked. “Or Kim appearing with Miss Hayward?”

  Caro’s mouth dropped open. “But I thought Edward was to marry Roxie? And I did not even know that Kim was here!”

  “I fear we have been very wrapped up in our own concerns,” Piers said. “So even if there is some disapproval of the way in which I hurried you away to ravish you, I am sure that everyone will be happy for us. Your mother will scold, but beneath it all she will be glad we are reconciled, and your grandmother—”

  “Will say she always maintained that marriage was the best and happiest state in the world,” Caro said, giggling. She reached for her wrap and slipped out of bed, padding across to the window in her bare feet. “It has been snowing again. How very pretty it looks, all fresh and bright!”

  Piers had come to stand beside her, his arms about her. “It is a time of new beginnings,” he said. “Happy Christmas, my darling wife.”

  MISS FINCH AND THE ANGEL

  Jo Beverley

  CHAPTER ONE

  December 26, Boxing Day

  Four steaming horses swept the post chaise up the slushy drive of Holbourne Abbey and were halted by their postilions, snorting and stamping, before the impressive pillared entrance. Liveried footmen hurried out, their own breath white in the crisp air, to open the carriage door and extract luggage from the boot.

  First emerged a black-clad valet. Then followed a fashionable young gentleman in a many-caped buff greatcoat and a glossy beaver hat set at an exact angle on golden hair. He regarded the house, smiled slightly, and strode forward to climb the steps.

  “A pleasure to see you, Munton,” he said to the portly butler who stood waiting in the entrance hall to take his hat and gloves and pass them to a liveried footman.

  “And you, my lord. May I offer season’s greetings?”

  “I’m sure you may,” the young gentleman said pleasantly. “All in order?”

  “In general, my lord. Mr. Kimball still chooses a contemplative life.”

  “Even at Christmas?”

  “Indeed, my lord, but the ball will take place as usual.”

  “Of course, it will, especially as it’s the fiftieth. Where will I find Lady Holly?”

  “In her rooms, my lord.”

  Lord Gabriel Quinfroy nodded his thanks and surveyed the hall, which was lushly decorated with greenery that scented the air with bay, rosemary, and pine. So typical of the Stretton family to plunge so generously into Christmastide. He was well accustomed to Holbourne and the Stretton family. The Dowager Countess of Holbourne was his godmother, and he was distantly related to the family, so he’d paid many, long boyhood visits. His father, the Duke of Straith, had not thought his “spare” should become too attached to his home, which had suited Gabriel to perfection. Holbourne was much more fun. He left the hall and ran lightly up the wide, carpeted staircase.

  Soon he rapped at a door and was summoned to enter the dowager countess’s domain. She’d been known to the world since her marriage as Lady Holly—sprightly, beloved, but not without spines,
which could even draw berry-red blood if she was outraged.

  The old lady sat enthroned in a berry-red chair by the fireside, shielded from the direct heat by a fire screen depicting a scene that involved half-naked Grecian athletes. He knew that if she was minded to present a different impression, it could revolve to show a vase of flowers.

  Thespia Holbourne had been a beauty in her youth and known for her saucy ways. She was a beauty still, in her way, with a plumply wrinkled face, clear blue eyes, and frothy white hair beneath a lacy cap, which he saw with amusement was now trimmed with a sprig of mistletoe.

  He obligingly went over to kiss her cheek.

  “So you came,” she said.

  “You commanded, dear heart.”

  She snorted. “It must have suited you.”

  “It did. Crampton’s bride was trying my temper, and quarrels are so very unseasonal, don’t you think?” Crampton was his older brother, heir to the dukedom of Straith.

  He subsided elegantly onto a sofa at a distance from the roaring fire, glancing once at the slender lady who sat to one side quietly stitching something plain and white. Her simple, high-necked gown was in an odd shade he could only think of as mouse-gray, and her plain cap revealed nothing more than that her hair was straight and brown.

  “Don’t know why he married her,” Lady Holly said and he turned back.

  “Forty thousand pounds,” he said. “All my fault, of course. Uncle Milius left me his fortune, but until Father joins the angels poor Cramp must subsist on the income from the heir’s estate. So he’s married money. Now, tell me why you summoned me. Kim?”

  He referred to the younger son of Holbourne, who’d been wounded in the war in more ways than one, and who, he’d been told, was living a hermit’s life in the medieval tower still attached to the classical modern house.