The Christmas Countess: A Valor of Vinehill Novella

by K. J. Jackson

  Her lips pursed, but she didn’t argue. She was listening.

  He would take it.

  “All I can tell you, Karta, is that I would change the past if I could. It was never because I didn’t love you. I would have moved mountains for you. I still would.”

  He paused, shaking his head. “But I can’t change the past. I know that.” He reached out, setting his hand gently on her knee. “I can only speak to now. To this moment. And now—now I am beholden to no one. Not the marquess. Not Vinehill. I’m only beholden to that pile of stones across the glen that I inherited.”

  Her look had dropped to his hand on her knee.

  He wasn’t sure if she was about to flick it off of its perch or grab it.

  A long moment passed.

  She grabbed it.

  “It’s not exactly a pile of stones, Dom.” Her brown eyes lifted, meeting his gaze. “The structure is actually quite beautiful—I’ve always admired it.”

  A change in subject.

  It wasn’t forgiveness, but it wasn’t continued vilification. Progress.

  With a shrug, his hand flipped over under her fingers, setting his palm flat against hers. “The abbey is crumbling in areas. It’s going to take much work to right it. To right the estate after the neglect it has suffered the last several years.”

  “I didn’t know the last Lord Kirkmere had neglected it so. Though I’ve heard very little gossip about the area. The staff here is tight-lipped about everything around me. They regard me as a suspicious lowlander.” She shivered. “Maggie at least has traces of her Highland accent, so she has gotten on well enough with them.”

  He slipped his hand out from under hers and set his arm around her shoulders, tugging her back onto him. She didn’t fight him, flattening her cold body against his chest once more.

  “The last Kirkmere was quite addled at the end, from what I’ve been told. He apparently became quite confused about what age he was living in—the poor old chap thought the war in America had just begun. Just before the war ended, his only son was drunk in Stirling when he was pressed onto a warship and then died before it even reached America. So I guess that’s the time he wanted to live in—when his son was still alive.”

  Her head shook. “Tragic. I can imagine going back in time like that in the end of life—especially to happier times.”

  He looked down at the top of her head. “When would you live?”

  She angled her face to look up at him, a grin playing about her lips. “I think I’ll refuse to answer that for fear the control we are exhibiting would be ruined.”

  She took the last sip of her brandy, then tucked the back of her fingers holding the glass against the center divot of his chest. “Well, if anyone can right the estate, it is you, Dom. You’ve been holding Vinehill together for ages—doing the hard work of running an estate like that—so taking over Kirkmere Abbey should be an easy task for you.” Her words slowed, thick, and she nuzzled her head along his shoulder, finding just the right spot to settle it.

  “Your confidence in me is odd.”

  “Why?” The sleepy word was whispered with a deep breath.

  “That you still have it in me. Even after I failed you.”

  Silence.

  He waited, his breath held for seconds that dragged on far too long before he realized she’d fallen asleep. Too much brandy. Too much whisky. Her fingers had gone limp on her glass, and he tugged the tumbler from her grasp. He set it on the side table to his right, clinking it next to his own glass.

  This he would also take. A thousand times over.

  Karta sleeping on him, the shivers that had held onto her body long since dissipated. Karta peaceful, not teetering on that constant nervous edge she’d balanced along ever since she had woken in the abbey to see him. Karta without harsh words of his devastating betrayal on her lips.

  This he would take.

  It wasn’t all of her. But he had time for that now.

  As much time as she needed.

  { Chapter 9 }

  She was slow to wake. Not like she usually did, with her eyes popping open, alert, the moment the slightest semblance of lucidness hit her.

  No, she stayed in the state between sleep and awake, reveling in the warm comfort she was encased in.

  Warm, safe comfort. Where she was always meant to be. Home. Home in a cocoon of strength.

  Strength.

  Damn.

  Domnall. Domnall’s arms were about her. His cocoon. His strength.

  And yet still, she fought opening her eyes. She wanted this as long as possible, selfish though it may be. For once he found out the truth of her, she’d never have a moment like this again.

  He moved beneath her and she realized how fully she was on top of him. Somewhere during the night he’d shifted them, leaning back in the corner of the settee for support with a leg long on the cushion. She’d draped herself fully along his body.

  So fully she could feel a rather large, rather stiff reminder jutting into her abdomen of how intimately their bodies were entwined.

  Yet still, she couldn’t let go of the moment. Of the warmth.

  Domnall cleared his throat, his hand moving along her back.

  Karta refused to look up at him, keeping her face buried in his lawn shirt just above the cut of his waistcoat, her voice a whisper just in case he was still asleep. “Dom?”

  “Yes?”

  “I lied.”

  “About what?”

  “I did think of you.”

  He didn’t answer for a torturous moment. Maybe he was talking in his sleep.

  Then his chest lifted in a heavy breath.

  “When?”

  “All the time.” She braved the tilt of her chin, her eyes upward to see his face. “Every day. In moments of happiness. In moments of sadness. In moments of nothingness. All the time. I wished you were by my side all the time.”

  Without a word, he dragged her body upward, his lips meeting hers in a brutal, searing kiss. A kiss that she’d imagined thousands of times over.

  A kiss that would break her.

  Destroy everything between them.

  She jerked away from him, her palms flat on his chest as she pushed herself upward.

  His hands were quick to her upper arms, stopping her motion. “Why do you flinch?”

  “I—I don’t flinch.”

  “You flinch when we are close. You want me—then you push away.”

  She stared down at him, at the confusion in his dark blue eyes.

  Confusion she couldn’t abate. She didn’t dare tell him that she pushed away because of what she’d become. That whatever they started would never be finished once he knew the truth.

  “I don’t pu—”

  A sharp knock on the door interrupted her words. A knock she was ridiculously grateful for.

  She scrambled upright as he released her arms, untangling her legs from his. Gaining her feet, she smoothed down the front of her rumpled dress as she left the drawing room to answer the door. Theodora jumped up from her spot by the fireplace and was at her bare heels. She didn’t even remember taking off her boots last night. Just one more thing Domnall had taken care of.

  She took a breath to steady herself as she reached for the door. With any luck, it was one of Domnall’s men at the door and she could avoid conversation with Domnall for the rest of the morning. The entire day if she was even luckier. Maybe he was needed back at the abbey and she would be granted a reprieve.

  She opened the door with far too much haste, not even bothering to glance out the side windows that flanked the door.

  No—no, no, no.

  Her feet shuffled involuntarily backward, her grip on the door handle the only thing stopping her from backing far across the foyer.

  “Karta, what are you doing answering the door? Why is no one tending the stables?” Her eldest stepson, now the current Viscount Leviton, stepped past her, stomping the snow off his boots. Freezing wet droplets landed on her bare toes.


  She peeked past her stepson. There wasn’t another soul. He’d travelled here alone?

  Karta closed the door and spun back to him, her look shifting between the drawing room entryway and her stepson removing his great coat and shaking it. More frozen droplets on her toes. “George, what are you doing here? And alone?”

  “That is the lackluster greeting I get?”

  Domnall picked that moment to appear in the doorway of the drawing room.

  Panic spiked deep in her gut and her toes curled into the floor in a weak attempt to not leap in front of Domnall and push him back into the drawing room to hide him away from her stepson.

  George’s eyes glanced to Domnall, dismissing him before he even saw him. But then his hands on his great coat froze and his look jerked back to Domnall, taking in his size. “Who is this?”

  Karta stepped between the two men and Theodora flanked Domnall, her wary big eyes not leaving George. “George, this is Lord Kirkmere of Kirkmere Abbey across the glen. Domnall, this is Lord Leviton, my stepson.”

  George’s eyes squinted at Domnall. “And just what, exactly, is Lord Kirkmere doing in my home?”

  His home?

  Karta bit her tongue. Of course the fop would consider this his house. He considered everything his. He had since the day she’d met him.

  A frown captured her face. “Maggie—my maid, do you remember her? She is deathly sick and I went to Lord Kirkmere for assistance two nights past. He had a doctor and Maggie brought to the abbey where she could be taken care of properly.”

  George looked around. “Properly? Where is the staff I pay for?”

  She bit her tongue harder, nearly drawing blood. It was her thirds that paid for the staff. George had made sure of that fact when he’d kicked her out of the Leviton family home.

  She clasped her hands in front of her. “They are with their families for Christmastide. It’s why I had to fetch help. I couldn’t get the stable doors open to get one of the mares out to reach the doctor on my own.”

  “You gave the staff Christmastide off while Maggie was sick?”

  “She wasn’t sick days ago when they left. I presumed we would be fine, and then the storm hit and trapped us here. I am quite certain Maggie would have died had Lord Kirkmere and his men not helped us.”

  The thin set of George’s mouth went tight and he looked past her at Domnall. “So why are you two not at the abbey?”

  Karta flipped her hand up into the air between them. “We came back here to fetch some of my and Maggie’s items, as it seems her recovery will take several days.” She spun around to Domnall, the desperate look on her face begging him not to say a word. “Would you please be so kind as to fetch the bag I packed in my room above—the third door on the left—while I gather the rest of Maggie’s items?”

  “Of course.” Domnall inclined his head to George then looked to his deerhound. “Stay.” He moved to the staircase, disappearing into the corridor above.

  Karta waited until she heard the door of her room creak open and she turned back to George. “What are you doing here, George?”

  He’d removed his gloves and hat, and his bare fingers ran across the thick pomade slicking his blond curly hair tight to his scalp. “I’m here for you, Karta.”

  Her eyebrows drew together. “What? Here for me?”

  “Exactly, here for you. Enough time has passed since father died. Don’t tell me you weren’t expecting a visit from me.”

  “A visit…” Her words trailed off, her tongue at a loss for words as her stomach started to churn in earnest. “It’s Christmastide, George. Shouldn’t you be with your family? Your brothers. Your wife? Your children?”

  He waved his hand in the air. “The bat doesn’t care naught where I am, Christmastide or not. And it is time I took a present for myself.”

  Her head shook slowly, understanding every word he said yet still trying to fight the many grotesque layers of insinuations in his words. “A present—”

  Domnall’s heavy footsteps on the staircase cut her words.

  She looked up to him and he held a plump valise up. Where he had found it or what he had put in it so quickly, she hadn’t a clue, as she hadn’t packed a single thing.

  “Your bag, Karta.” Domnall stepped down the last few stairs and set it next to the door.

  George moved to stand in front of Domnall. “On further reflection, I was remiss in not thanking you for the assistance with what should have been my responsibility, Lord Kirkmere. And now that I have arrived, it only makes sense for Karta to stay here with me at the dower house, so her bag will not be necessary.”

  Domnall stood straight, his words slow as his head tilted to the side. “But you have no staff.”

  “I will recall them.”

  “That will take days for how they are scattered throughout the countryside.” Domnall looked over his shoulder through the left side window by the door and poked his thumb in the air. “Your cook, alone, is a three days carriage ride from here.”

  “You seem to know much of the workings of my dower house,” George said.

  “I know the area.” Domnall shrugged. “I must insist that you join us at Kirkmere Abbey.”

  “I’m sure Karta can make a meal or two if necessary.”

  Domnall stepped around George and aligned himself next to Karta. “I’m also sure that Karta would want to be at Maggie’s bedside as she recovers. She has been nowhere but there these last days.”

  The left side of George’s mouth pulled back into a sneer. “A loyal employer.”

  “The most.” Domnall nodded. “I am sure you agree that the Maggie’s health is paramount and Karta needs to be at her side. So I insist. You will come to Kirkmere, at least until the staff arrives back here from their celebrations and will be able to attend to you. Unless you can handle the house and meals on your own.”

  Karta stifled a guffaw—George handling anything with his own two hands was preposterous. Once the laugh was swallowed back, she glanced at George, a strained smile on her face.

  Her stepson’s mouth twisted in a grumble as he glared at Domnall, but then he nodded.

  Thank the heavens.

  Now she just had to make sure George was never in a room alone with Domnall. For if he was—if the two spoke—it was all over for her.

  Domnall would never look at her the same again.

  { Chapter 10 }

  Karta stared at Theodora’s tail swinging back and forth, brushing the drifts of snow on either side of the skinny path that had been worn from the stables to the abbey.

  They walked single file, Theodora leading the way, Domnall directly behind her after he slid in front of George at the last second before the trail through the snow slipped down to shoulder’s width. George had been forced to the rear.

  Much to her pleasure, though she didn’t imagine it was sitting well with George. She hadn’t bothered to look back to see his indignation, not that she could see him past the wall of Domnall—George was half his width, scrawny, even, in comparison. She truly had been surrounded by fragile men these past years and she hadn’t even realized it.

  “But before inheriting the title, I was the steward at Vinehill Castle in Stirlingshire,” Domnall said, his footsteps heavy behind her.

  He’d kept up strained, polite conversation with George the entire way back to Kirkmere Abbey and for how silent Domnall usually was, she knew he did it for her. To take the awkwardness of George’s sudden appearance off her shoulders—when what he really wanted to do was capture her alone and ask her why in the hell her stepson would show up at her door on Christmas eve day. She could feel that question burning in Domnall with every stiff motion he made near her, with every singeing glare he gave her.

  “Vinehill castle?” George asked. His voice went louder to reach past Domnall to her. “The Vinehill men—those were your failed engagements, Karta, weren’t they?”

  She stepped into the clearing of snow around the rear door of the abbey and nodded as Domnall stepp
ed past her to open the door. “They were.”

  George’s smarmy look locked onto her, his smile curling the edges of his thin lips. “One betrothed dead and one betrothal broken, if I remember correctly? You were lucky my father took you after all the scandal of both of those.”

  Domnall jerked the door open and George stepped in front of Karta, cutting her off and stepping into the abbey first.

  George looked to Domnall as he passed him. “So you were part of that merry band of Vinehill men who wreaked terror on the innocent maids in the land?”

  His jaw flexing, Domnall ushered her into the abbey and the slightest squint came to his eyes as he looked at George. “Not exactly.” He closed the door behind him with admirable control. “I am lucky to have worked for the Marquess of Vinehill. I was an orphan and he took me in, raised me. Gave me every opportunity to become more than my circumstances allowed. I am fortunate in all that I was taught, as I am well-versed in running an estate thanks to him. That knowledge will be a tremendous help here, as Kirkmere Abbey has much to be righted.”

  “What a charming story.” Sarcasm thick in his high-pitched voice, George removed his coat and dropped it and his gloves in a heap on the floor as he looked around the small vestibule in the rear of the abbey.

  Domnall stepped in front of him, pointing down to George’s outerwear on the floor. “What are you doing?”

  George looked around, his eyebrows arched in disbelief. “You don’t have someone to collect our gear?”

  “Whether I have someone or not isn’t the point. Don’t disrespect my home by dumping your sopping coat onto my floor. Pick up the jacket, Lord Leviton.”

  For long, agonizing seconds both of the men glared at each other, neither moving a muscle. George bolstered by an inherited sense of pomp and privilege. Domnall not needing to be bolstered by anything—he already was the better man in every which way that mattered.