by Sophia James
He would take her here in the snow if she allowed it. Already she could feel her nipple under the fabric of her dress, rising where he touched her, and she parted her legs as if to welcome him in.
He did not offer love or lies. He only offered himself. Fully and without constraint.
When she breathed out she heard the shake of surrender in it.
But so did he.
He cursed even as she watched him, his eyes refocussing and flattening.
Hell. He was like a beast. He would have had her here in the snow, a hundred yards from Stevenage, in full daylight, with the winter against her skin already causing redness, the ache of cold all around them.
He took in breath and held it, claiming calm, finding sense. The Christmas fir pricked at them and her hair fell in long wet strands.
Even to consider it. A woman who had told him her history of an unwanted husband and two nothing lovers. What was he thinking? Was he going to rip up her skirts and enter her, spilling his seed into the wet warmth of her centre and then...?
She deserved more. Much more. She deserved the delight of the season and the care of his ardour. And yet even now he was hard pressed to rise and end it.
His hand cupped her chin and he raised one finger along the line of her cheek. ‘You are the most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes upon, Ariana Dalrymple, and I promise you right here and now that you will know the truth of what I say soon.’
‘The...the truth?’
‘I want you. I want every piece of you. Your soul, your heart and your body. I want to see you in the moonlight, unclothed and ready, arching up for my touch, melting under my caress. I want to enter you and know that you want me too. Until the very end. Until we are so far into each other that there is no beginning. Melded. Spent. Only one heartbeat of infinity.’
He saw how she shivered at his words, at the promises and the stated intention.
‘I would always keep you safe, sweetheart.’
He added the endearment because he could see she needed it—and because he needed it, too.
‘I haven’t been...’ Her words were whispered.
‘I know.’
With care, he stood and helped her up and the world came back. Stevenage, the day, the fallen branches, people waiting. Like a drawing done in ink and clambering into colour right before his eyes.
Ariana was straightening her hair, pulling at it with cold fingers, fastening it back with the pins that had loosened.
He lifted the branches onto his shoulders. He wanted to say more but the moment was gone. Reality was settling back, his father and her aunt were waiting, and a servant was hurrying towards them with an offer of help to carry the fir boughs.
There was no quiet time here—no way of taking her off into oblivion.
He tried to smile, and she did too, but all he could think about was the looming night-time and the possibility of more.
Chapter Six
The Christmas boughs were set along the mantel and the fragrant candles placed in the spaces between the branches were lit. There were oranges there too, and small red paper flowers that had been brought in by a maid. It looked festive, and unusual, and Ariana felt her happiness at the sight bubble up.
A proper Christmas. A family Yule.
Her parents had never bothered with the tradition, and Henry Dalrymple had scorned her for even mentioning the thought.
But Christopher Northwell’s enthusiasm was catching and touching. People who loved Christmas loved life, she decided, for they had not given up on joy, had not settled into the nothingness of disappointment.
She admired his resilience, and his tenacity, and elected to make more of an effort with her own. Their tryst in the snow was still warming her blood and sending shards of delight through her, adding to the heat that was rising in her with each passing moment.
He wanted her. He had said as much. And she wanted him back with a longing that was surprising.
She wished she had met him six years ago, when first she had returned to London—before the two ill-chosen and disastrous lovers, before her reputation had suffered as a consequence.
But perhaps there was such a thing as a second chance, and Christmas with all its promise and exaltation seemed particularly suitable.
Looking at the decorated green boughs, she smiled. And Christopher Northwell caught her eyes, his brows raised in question.
‘Merry Christmas, Ariana, and may the joy of the season stay with you all year long.’
‘Perhaps you are persuading me to think more of the tradition than I used to.’
‘Then I am glad for it. In America I once stayed with a family who celebrated Christmas by draping the walls of their cabin with evergreen garlands. The decorations were all natural. Little pine cones, nuts and bright bittersweet berries that took the place of holly. They also had many activities, such as kissing under the mistletoe, storytelling and charades. Dinner would be of the best quality possible, including mincemeat pie and plum pudding made with fruits that grew close by in the forest.’
Ariana could imagine it—a far-off Christmas in the woods of a new land, full of all the games, decorations, food and fun that she had never known. She wished all of a sudden that there might be mistletoe hung above them here—a way of getting closer again, sharing laughter.
She was so tired of trying to survive on her own, picking at the small bits of the life she had been left with, keeping her head down, trying to be brave.
Christopher Northwell was showing her a life that could be lived if she took a chance and simply reached for it—left the past behind and moved forward without looking back.
As her aunt and the Duke returned from their viewing Ariana knew that there were as many undercurrents in the Northwell family as there had ever been in her own: a very public scandal with the burning of Stevenage, and the more private battle of suicide disguised as an accident.
The Duke looked as though he had barely weathered these things. He looked as broken as she was, and Ariana felt a kinship with him.
‘You have only been in London for six years or so, I hear, Mrs Dalrymple? Do you enjoy the city?’
North’s father asked this as he reached for a glass of brandy. Ariana noticed that his hand shook quite badly.
‘I always thought I did, but coming here to the country and seeing the beauty and the peace...’ She stopped, suddenly unsure as to what she intended with her answer.
‘My wife loved it here, too...’
There was a hesitation after that, a quick glance towards his son and a decided withdrawal. The Duke had not directly addressed his son once in all the time she had been in his company, but now Christopher Northwell tempered his father’s words with his own.
‘Loved it enough to die for it.’
Unexpected words. Jagged and furious.
The brandy spilt as the Duke slammed it down on the small table beside him. ‘Loved it enough to understand that it needed an heir, too.’
With a short click of his heels the Earl departed the room.
‘This family obviously has its troubles.’ Her aunt said this to Ariana as they readied themselves for dinner. ‘Odette Northwell made painting after painting of the fire in her studio, until there were too many to count, stacked as they were one on top of another. Her son’s face stares out of the flames in nearly every one of them, contorted and disbelieving.’
‘What are you saying, Aunt Sarah?’
‘I think she had gone mad. I think when she finally threw herself off the top of the Stevenage ramparts a few months after returning here she welcomed death because she had lost her son. And I think the Duke blames the Earl for her madness and her dislocation. They don’t speak, Ariana, have you noticed that?’
‘Or when they do it’s with anger. It is why the Earl invited us, I imagine. He wants to try to mend bridges.’
‘Well, it’s not working. If anything, having us here seems to have aggravated things further. The Duke told me Odette wrote to her son every week when he was in America, and yet she never received one answer.’
A new mystery. The Earl had not struck her as a harsh man, or a resentful one. Why would he not reply to the mother whom he said he had loved? Why would he arrive home only after her death?
‘Were there other paintings that held a different subject matter?’
‘A few. One of a dog, and another of a cottage in sight of Stevenage, with its silhouette looming in one corner. They were both propped on easels, which is why they were so prominent. The Duke asked me if I thought they would fetch a good price in London. It made me wonder about the fact that although he has considerable assets he may need ready cash.’
‘His son is said to have come home with more than a fortune...’
‘Perhaps he does not wish to share it?’
‘Christopher Northwell was adamant that he wanted to make peace with his father.’
‘But he has not. Every word that passes between them is toned in fury. If there is no significant improvement on the morrow then I think we should leave, Ariana.’
‘Leave?’
The word went round and round in her head. Leave the hope of another kiss? Leave the Earl in the heartbreak of his discordant family? Leave him to weather the storm without anchor, without anyone on his side?
Because she was, she realised suddenly, on his side—cheering him on, willing him to find at Stevenage some sort of a home that would not send him rushing back to the Americas.
‘You look pale, my dear. I hope you are not coming down with a cough.’
Turning at the words, Ariana caught herself in the mirror and barely knew the woman who stood in its reflection. Her eyes glittered and her lips looked swollen. She had chosen a gown tonight that covered almost all her skin, for hidden in the high folds of her collar were the marks of ardour...quiet, unseen things reddening with each passing hour.
This was a new, less broken version of her old self. And she smiled because in the transformation she felt only strength.
Dinner that evening was as difficult as the afternoon had been, with both men circling as though they wanted to rip the other’s head off.
Her aunt, in her own inimitable way, carried a great deal of the conversation and Ariana was glad of it—because she herself could never have managed it with such aplomb. Her heart ached for father and son, and the green boughs on the mantel, alight with candles, seemed to mock the cold uncertainty in the room and its lack of joy.
Finally she took her chance to speak quietly with Christopher Northwell as her aunt and the Duke talked of people known to them once in Society many years before.
‘For a man who is advocating a truce, you are making a poor show of it.’
He didn’t answer.
‘It’s Christmas, after all. A time of family and good will.’
This time he looked at her directly. ‘I thought you did not believe in the season?’
‘With candles and baubles threaded through pungent green fir only a few feet away from the table it is hard not to.’
‘An unwilling convert?’
‘I just want you to be happy.’
There—she had said it. Blurted it out with no finesse and little thought.
‘Why?’
‘Because I like you.’
He straightened and put down his fork. ‘Do you like me enough to want to kiss me again?’ The beginnings of a smile pulled at his lips.
‘Yes.’
‘Enough to join me in the library for a drink when the others go to their beds?’
She nodded, her heart beating so hard she thought he must see it in her chest under the thin velvet of her gown.
Her aunt seldom stayed up late, and she imagined the Duke would take to his bed early as well—though a sudden sound had her looking round to see that the older man was bent over and choking.
Her aunt was on her feet, but the Earl was quicker, wrapping his arms around his father’s chest and squeezing with force.
Nothing happened. The Duke’s face was set in surprise and fear, his mouth opening without sound as he pulled at his collar.
North tried again, this time making it a double movement so that the first squeeze came directly after the second. A piece of roast beef shot out from the Duke’s mouth and he began to breathe again—hoarse, desperate tugs of air at first, relaxing into more normal ones.
Tears ran down his cheeks, and as his hand slipped into his son’s the similarity between them was apparent. ‘Th-thank you, Christopher. If you had not been here...’
He couldn’t continue, the shock of his narrow escape making him shake.
‘You are all right now—although you might have a few bruises from my ministrations come the morning.’
‘I can live with those.’
The Duke had brushed the tears away and looked more himself. The distance was back, the isolation returned, though there was something in the air that was different. A sense of resolution, Ariana thought, on the part of the Duke. But she had no idea as to what that might mean.
He excused himself then, and a servant came forward to shepherd him off. The Earl stood there watching, with a look on her face that broke her heart.
‘It is lucky you knew a method to make certain he could breathe again,’ she said.
‘He’s a tough old thing. It would take more than a piece of beef to kill him.’
‘Though perhaps your mother’s death broke his heart?’
‘It was broken long before that, Ariana.’
Picking up his drink, he finished it in one swallow—just as her aunt stated her intention of going up to her room and resting.
‘All this excitement has exhausted me.’ Aunt Sarah’s voice sounded small.
Then there was just the two of them, and the servants fussing around, cleaning up the shattered glass that had fallen from the table and putting away the food and plates.
When both her aunt and his father were gone North held out his hand and turned to her. ‘Come—the library will be warmer and it is a much nicer room.’
She took his fingers and wondered at the coldness in them.
The library was a beautiful space, small and well furnished, and the leather chairs near the blazing fire were welcoming. All over the walls were pictures of sunny landscapes and gardens, and an earlier version of Stevenage Manor, with no flames in sight.
‘Your mother did these?’
‘She did.’
‘What was she like?’
‘Fragile. Uncertain. Loving. Needy.’
‘Everyone is a mix.’
‘Are you?’
The question was a serious one, so Ariana took some time to answer.
‘I think I am a hidden person and have been for a long while.’
‘Secrets do that to one, I suppose. Veiling what has happened for fear of what might occur next is too important.’
‘Like the glass star you gave me...full of prisms that show parts of it from different angles but never the whole.’
‘There’s protection in that, I suppose. No one is ever all good.’
‘But neither are they all bad.’
His smile reassured her.
‘I like talking to you, Ariana. I like being with you. More than any other person I have known.’
‘Thank you.’
He smiled again. ‘Come with me to America. Come and see a different land.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know what you are asking...’
‘Do you not?’
He leaned across and took both her hands in his. He was about to speak when a servant came rushing in to find him.
‘It’s the Duke, my lord. He has insisted on sitting
up on the roof and I cannot get him to come in again.’
North was on his feet immediately, and she followed, up one flight of stairs and down a corridor. The window of the Duke’s bedchamber was wide open. Small drifts of snowflakes were coming in to the room, and two manservants hovered by the lintel.
‘If you will wait outside, Mrs Dalrymple and I will deal with this.’
The servants did as he asked and then it was only them and the old Duke, perched a few feet away on the roof, his feet bolstered by the raised stones that ringed the lower end of the guttering.
In one easy movement the Earl vaulted the window ledge and joined his father, sitting next to him but not touching him at all.
North wanted to grab him and hold on tight. He wanted to cradle him and rock him and make him understand that his mother had never meant any of it. But he wasn’t sure if his words would incense his father or calm him.
‘I won’t jump, Christopher. I just want to sit here for a while and remember.’
‘Remember Mama?’
‘Remember our family a long time ago, when things were good.’
‘She was sick, Papa. She didn’t understand what she was doing. She loved Stevenage, I think, but her demons were stronger.’
His father laid his head in his hands and breathed out. ‘And I let her get away with it. I let her ruin you.’
‘It was not your choice.’
‘Wasn’t it? You were crucified for our secrets. You bore the brunt of your mother’s madness with the scars on your arms and your isolation...’
He didn’t seem to be able to carry on.
‘I’ve survived—prospered, even. America is good for me and to me. Without it I’d have been like Andrew Shawler, directionless and lost. The burning of Stevenage did not break me, Papa, and what happened next was my choice.’
‘No.’ His father’s fisted hand slammed down. ‘It was my shame. The shame of wanting your mother to survive above all else. And that was wrong because I failed you.’