The Christmas Countess: A Valor of Vinehill Novella

by K. J. Jackson

  Her hand unconsciously went to her hair, smoothing the rumpled strands from her face. She should have looked in the mirror before coming down out of Maggie’s room.

  Domnall tilted his head to her, motioning to his men. “Lady Leviton, ye will recall Rory.”

  “Of course, it is so good to see you again.”

  “And may I introduce Colin and Bailey.” He motioned to her. “This is Lady Leviton.”

  Karta shook her head. “Please, it is Karta. In this odd situation I find myself in here at the abbey, it would be foolish to keep up the pretense of titles.”

  The three men, all of them big and thick, but not quite reaching the height of Domnall, bowed their heads to her and moved past her, disappearing down the hall. Silent Scots. The exact men Domnall would surround himself with.

  Domnall didn’t follow them, instead, standing at the entrance to the dining room, staring at her.

  Staring so long in silence, it unnerved her.

  His right forefinger tapped on the side of his leg against his black trousers. “The doctor reported to us that Maggie should recover, or was he being overly optimistic?”

  “I think she will be better. Her breathing has been much more even today and she opened her eyes and almost seemed to recognize me—it’s been days since that has happened.”

  “And you?”

  “Me what?” Her eyebrows lifted.

  “You were up all night tending to her, weren’t ye? And then all day?”

  “I—yes, for a good portion of the night and the day. How did you know?”

  “You’re tired—and hungry.” His look ran down her body along the simple black wool dress that the housekeeper had found, and back up again. “I can see it in your face. In your eyes.”

  She really should have glanced in the mirror. Her hands went to her face and she rubbed her fingers under her eyes to try and perk up her skin.

  He reached out and grabbed her wrist, stopping her motion. “You’re as beautiful as ever. Don’t worry on how you look. The true reason I know you’re tired is because every time I peeked into Maggie’s room last night and today, ye were at a vigil by her bedside.”

  “You looked in? I didn’t hear you.”

  “You may not remember, but I can be stealthy.” The corner of his lips twitched. “I didn’t want to disturb. She is fortunate to have you.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I am the fortunate one. She has been steadfast and loyal to me throughout the years.”

  He turned to the side and pointed into the dining room. “There is still plenty of food. My men just wanted to eat early as they were out all day in the barns and clearing the snow and were ravenous.”

  Karta nodded, starting to move past him. A mistake, for he still filled most of the entryway and didn’t move.

  It wasn’t until she was squished to the side and had to brush against him that she realized her error.

  His heat.

  The shock of heat from him that had always overwhelmed her and filled her body with a hunger for him that took her breath away. It encapsulated her, tightening her chest, sending her heart pounding.

  For what she had admitted to him last night—how he broke her heart—she didn’t want this. Didn’t want his attention. Didn’t want his words. Didn’t want his heat.

  She wanted the cold comfort of the drafts. Of the safety of the chill far, far away from him.

  She could already feel her hatred for him waning and while she knew she should hold steadfast to it, stoking the coals of animosity was hard when he had just saved her life. And Maggie’s life.

  Her foot darted out fast and long, and she jumped past him, moving quickly into the dining room.

  “Do ye mind if I join ye?”

  She glanced over her shoulder at him. “It’s not necessary on my account. I’m accustomed to eating in solitude.”

  His eyebrow cocked. “Solitude?”

  She nodded, not willing to say the word again for how pathetic she realized it sounded. But she had eaten alone for years. In her father’s home. In her husband’s home. Long, grand tables with only one place setting.

  “It is for me, truth told.” He stepped back into the room with her. “I didn’t eat as much as the men, for I wanted them to fill their bellies first. I stayed inside all day, shuffling through the mess of papers that was left with the estate, so I wasn’t as hungry. But then Cook appeared with another full platter of roasted grouse just as they were finishing. So there is plenty for all.”

  Karta smiled. “Your cook is already proving her worth with the new master. Feeding hungry Scots is not an easy task.”

  He chuckled. “No, no, it is not. They’ve all more than earned their keep, the staff that is here. Especially for opening up the house as quickly as they did last night. There’s nary a cold spot left in the abbey.”

  “Well, if you walked in as my new employer, I would jump fairly fast as well.”

  “Ye would?”

  “You are intimidating, Dom.” Her mouth quirked in a tease as she pulled a clean plate and a fork and knife from the sideboard and sat down at the table. “You do remember that, don’t you?”

  A scoff expelled from his lips as he copied her motions and sat down at the end of the table adjacent to her. “I forget, sometimes. Especially when I’ve been surrounded by the men for a long time. Or when I’m at Vinehill. Everyone there is far past being intimidated by me.”

  He cut into the roasted grouse and set a large chunk of the meat, dripping with steaming juices, onto her plate. “You haven’t eaten anything today, so you need to catch up.”

  “You were watching that as well?”

  His gaze caught hers, the dark blue of his eyes almost shifting into grey in the light. “I was.”

  Of course he was.

  Domnall crushed her heart years ago, but he would still be the most attentive man she’d ever known. Infuriating.

  Her attention went to the roasted potatoes and she scooped a heaping pile onto her plate. Not looking at him, she fiddled with cutting her meat. “You need to stop that, Dom.”

  “Stop what?”

  “Paying me any mind. As soon as Maggie is well and the snow has cleared, we will be out of your way and back to the dower house. I already regret this imposition upon you.”

  “You regret saving Maggie’s life?”

  She looked up at him. “I regret that of all the places in the world, you were here last night, in the one place I never would have expected you. I regret that it didn’t take me but five minutes in your presence and I was right back in the place I was six years ago. I regret that you—you make me feel alive. Whole. You always have. But I cannot go back there. Feel that. Not now.” She heaved a breath. “And I regret that I’ve hated you for the last six years—and that the hatred that I’ve harbored for so long started to dissipate within moments of being next to you.”

  “You hated me?”

  Her shoulders lifted. “I thought…I thought I did…”

  She cut her own words off before she said more. Before she admitted that what she regretted most was what she’d become—and how that would keep them apart more than anything. She didn’t dare to even imagine how Domnall would look at her once he knew the truth.

  Her forehead dipped forward and she jabbed a piece of the grouse, stuffing it into her mouth to curb her tongue. She’d already said far too much.

  His fault for always listening so attentively to her.

  Another chunk of meat went into her mouth. And another. And another. She’d eaten half the food on her plate, ignoring Domnall’s stare, before she reached for the glass of wine he’d poured for her when he sat down.

  He hadn’t even picked up his fork.

  Three long sips and she went back to the food on her plate. For all that she was accustomed to eating alone, his silence unnerved her. She wasn’t alone. He was sitting a breath away. The only man she’d ever loved.

  But she could never allow herself to think on that again. Think
of him like that again.

  Her shoulders pulled back and she looked at him. “Whatever you hope to achieve with your silence, Dom, it will not work. As I said, I’m accustomed to eating alone and this is no different.”

  He nodded, setting his elbows on the table and clasping his large hands together under his chin. His dark blue eyes sliced into her. “Is it?”

  “I can easily pretend you’re not here.”

  “My size alone would beg to differ.”

  “Your size never intimidated me, Dom. It took me aback the first time I met you, yes, but after that initial moment, you have always been just you.” She jabbed a potato chunk with her fork. “So yes, I can eat in silent peace and not acknowledge you exist.”

  He leaned forward and lifted his goblet of claret, taking a long sip, then picked up his fork. “So you remember the first time we met?”

  She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “Of course I do. It was at the stables at Vinehill. You were in a stall, pitchfork in your hand. You were showing my father and the marquess the mares that would be good options for breeding with the stud my father had just won Newmarket with. My father and the marquess had walked away and I had stopped to stroke the neck of one of the mares…”

  She looked down at her plate, scanning her memory. “Rosalinda—that was the mare’s name. She was a beautiful beast. The prettiest speckling. I was stroking her neck and you moved to stand next to me and you asked me what I thought of her.”

  She paused and the softest smile came to her face. “And I was dumbstruck.”

  “You were?” He set down his wine glass. “Because of my size?”

  She looked at him. For all his certainty of self and purpose, Domnall had always had one insecurity—his size. His height and strength and how it would scare people. Intimidate them. It was obviously still top in his mind.

  “No.” Her head shook. “I was dumbstruck because you asked me the question. Do you know that aside from my grandmother, you were the first person in my life to ask me what I actually thought of something?” Her hand flipped into the air. “Beyond which clothes I should wear or how to style my hair, of course.”

  “Ye were dumbstruck?” He chuckled. “I was dumbstruck. I was lucky I got any words out at all. I do recall I just wanted to hear your voice. Ye could have talked about butterflies for all I cared. I just needed to hear your voice in that moment. Change the enigma of ye into a real person. And then the oddest thing happened.”

  Her eyebrows quirked. “What?”

  “Ye were intelligent. Ye went down a list of the multitudes of considerations for the breeding of each of the mares I had shown your father and the marquess—and not only the attributes that had been discussed, but how those attributes played with the factors I hadn’t considered—the horses’ reactions when approached by a male. Their pride. Their personalities. Not just the length of their stride or the breadth of their thighs.”

  Without taking a bite of grouse, he set his fork down and picked up his glass again, tilting it to her before taking a sip. “And you were right on every accord. Ye designed some of the best matches ever made from the Vinehill stables that day.”

  “Do not short yourself, Dom. You always do that.” She pointed at him with the tines of her fork. “We designed the matches. The both of us. I talked, but you not only asked me questions—you actually listened to my answers. Countered my points. And we were both better for it.”

  She exhaled a breath, her hand gripping her fork dropping to the table as her look went to her plate. Her voice faltered. “We always were.” Her gaze lifted to him. “How did we lose that?”

  A flash of anger flickered across his face. Come and gone so quickly she wasn’t even sure she saw it. Domnall had always been able to do that. Hide each and every emotion he had from her.

  Except for how he had once wanted her. That he hadn’t been able to hide.

  He wanted her. His body, the heat in his dark blue eyes whenever they had been alone in a corridor or in the stables.

  But she hadn’t been enough for him.

  The humiliation of that fact still burned a hole in her gut. Unforgotten. She wasn’t enough. She’d never been what her father wanted her to be. Domnall was just the next in line.

  She stared at her half-eaten food, not able to lift her fork to it. Her appetite had vanished.

  Domnall cleared his throat, his voice rough. “You’re beautiful, Karta—beyond compare. And then I learned ye were smart. That ye took in all that was around you, but ye were never allowed to speak. From the very first, I knew I never had a chance with you. Even though I lied to myself for years on the matter. Ye were destined to marry Jacob. He was heir to Vinehill. After he died, there was one minute where I had hope, but then the marquess deemed you were to marry Lachlan.”

  He shook his head. “One brother to another. And I always knew, deep down, you were made for grand estates and diamonds and London and balls and silk dresses. And I couldn’t give ye any of that.”

  Her fork slammed down onto her plate, her ire spiking. She wasn’t about to let him hide behind that excuse. Not now. Not after all these years. “And that is exactly why you were my match. You didn’t care about any of those things. You couldn’t give me all of that—only you. Only yourself. That was all you could give me and all I ever wanted. The biggest, strongest man in Scotland. A man who saw beneath what my father created in me—the gilded lady that he demanded me to be. You saw everything beneath that. But then I wasn’t enough for you.”

  “What in the devil’s name do you mean, Karta?” He set his goblet down on the table, his own voice rising against hers. “Ye said that last night—I broke your heart. When? When could I have possibly done that?”

  Her lip curled, her head shaking, and she shoved back in her chair, jumping to her feet as she leaned over the table to him. Even standing she barely had an inch on his height. “Don’t even try that. You didn’t come, Dom. I waited and you didn’t come.”

  “Come to what?”

  “The blasted midsummer ball.” Her palm slammed onto the table. “You told me you were coming, but you didn’t. So that was it. That was the end of our time.”

  His brow furrowed. “What? What madness are ye speaking? You left me because of a damned ball?”

  “Not because of a damned ball.” She shoved off from the table, her hand flying in the air. “There was no more time. I made a deal with my father—I risked everything—everything on you. If you came for me by the midsummer ball, he would consider you. Consider letting me marry you. You don’t know what it took to convince him of that. But the only way he agreed to it was if you didn’t come by the ball…if you didn’t, I was to marry the viscount. You had months, Dom. Months. And you swore you were coming. You swore it again and again. But you didn’t show, Dom.”

  Her fingers curled into a fist and she knocked it onto the table, the sound a dull thud. “You didn’t show. So I stood by my word. I left the next morning for the Leviton estate.”

  He pushed back his own chair, standing, towering over her. “I showed up the next day after that ball, Karta. The next day. I bloody well told ye I was coming for you, and I did.”

  Her arms clasped over her chest, her look flinging daggers up at him. “Yes, well, you were obviously delayed.”

  “You’re telling me I was hours late? I missed ye by a few blasted hours?”

  Her shoulders lifted and she took a step toward him, her voice lifting into a growl. “I don’t know—I don’t know when you showed up. No one ever said anything about it and it didn’t matter. I was gone. Done with you. I made the deal with my father and I was bound to it.”

  “Ye should have damn well told me you made a blasted deal with your father.” His words slowed, his head shaking. “Ye set everything upon that moment and ye didn’t even tell me.”

  “If I was important enough—you would have come.” Her palm slapped onto her chest, her neck craning to look up at him. “I trusted you to come because you said
you would. Do you know I stood there that entire night, refusing to dance, my eyes on the entrance? I was in the exact spot where I thought I would be easy to find, in front of the pillars just to the left of the French doors leading to the gardens. And I had the vision of you coming through the double doors, filling the width of them, your blue eyes searching all the corners of the room until you found me. And then you would spot me and cut across the dance floor and pull me into your arms in front of everyone. Marking me as yours in front of my father, in front of everyone. And life would be right—our life, together.”

  The rage in her voice petered and she had to swallow a shaking breath. “I waited until the ballroom was empty and they snuffed the candles, Dom. I waited alone in the dark. And not once in those moments did I doubt you would show. I knew you were coming. But then the morning rays started streaming in. And my father appeared.” Her eyes closed, her head shaking. “If only you would have shown like you promised you would, Dom. But you didn’t.”

  Her lips pulled inward, her gaze skewering him. “You made that choice—I wasn’t important enough.”

  { Chapter 6 }

  “Not important enough?” He looked down at her, at the fury lining her brown eyes, at her strained lips.

  That she could even think such a blasphemy spiked the blood in his veins, his chest twisting at the injustice of it.

  That he’d been vilified for being late to a damned ball. That she’d ever believed she wasn’t important enough.

  And then he saw it. The quiver in her irises. The pain. The pain in her brown eyes that she was trying to cover up with indignation.

  Pain at something he’d done.

  His breath stilled.

  He had promised her he would come to the ball, and he didn’t.

  He’d failed her.

  He’d failed himself.

  And he hadn’t even known it until that very moment.

  He’d always blamed her for leaving him. Leaving without a word. Leaving everything they’d dreamed about being together.

  She had been the one that left him.

  Except she hadn’t.