A Seduction at Christmas (21 page)

At Huntleigh, the family knew nothing about what had transpired and Nick wasn’t going to tell them. He had a new secret to keep now.

He introduced Andres as a close and valued friend. The handsome Spaniard was an immediate attraction to the young women of their company and served to deflect any notice of the hole in Nick’s riding coat.

His duties done, Nick was anxious to escape to his rooms. He felt strangely detached from all the gaiety. However, before he could leave the hall and escape upstairs, he felt a tug on his coat.

Six-year-old Emma stood by his side, her eyes dancing with mischief and two front teeth missing from her smile. “Look where you are,” she said.

“Where am I?” Nick forced himself to be pleasant.

“Under the mistletoe,” Emma said, laughing. Her other cousins and siblings her age giggled around her. “Cousin Gillian put it up. She says we are now ready for Christmastide.”

“Ah, good,” Nick answered and would have excused himself but Emma wasn’t done.

“You have to give Miss Lachlan a kiss,” she prompted him.

Suddenly, Nick couldn’t stand here and continue to pretend all was fine. It wasn’t. It might never be again.

“I will,” he managed to say to the girl. “Later.” He then went upstairs, escaping to his rooms without further comment.

Once alone, he ordered Gannon to fetch a bottle of brandy. Upon his return with the bottle and a glass on a tray, Gannon said, “Lady Wright wondered if you would be joining them for dinner.”

“Tell her no,” Nick answered and poured himself a healthy draught. As he started to raise the glass to his lips, he said, “And you are done for the night, Gannon. I won’t be needing you.”

The valet bowed out, and finally, Nick was alone.

He drained the glass.

Fiona had a hard time following the conversations over dinner. Her mind and thoughts were with Nick…

His chair sat empty.

Occasionally, someone would ask her if he was feeling well. She didn’t know what to answer. She was thankful for Andres’s presence. The handsome Spaniard had no loss of words for dinner conversation.

Gillian sought her out after dinner. She hooked her arm in Fiona’s as they walked into the sitting room. “I know you have much to think about for tomorrow, what with the plan to marry Christmas morning, but I wondered if you wished to help deliver the charity baskets. It might settle your nerves to keep busy.”

At last, Fiona allowed the fear she had been holding inside to express itself. “I don’t know if we are going to be married,” she whispered. It felt so good to speak her fear out loud.

Pulling Fiona off to the side and away from everyone else, Gillian said, “Please, you must be strong.”

“What if he is having second thoughts?” Fiona allowed herself to say. That Nick would go off on his own, that he would shut her out, hurt. “What if he has doubts about this marriage?”

“He’s not that sort of man,” Gillian said. “I don’t know what happened today but I sense something did.” She paused as if waiting for more information. Fiona studied the floor. She’d not betray Nick’s confidence.

Gillian took Fiona’s hand. “If Holburn wished to cry off, he’d do so.”

“Things have happened between us very quickly,” Fiona answered. “Perhaps too quickly.”

“No, if ever there were two people who are well matched, it is the two of you. From the moment I first met you, I knew you were good for him. I’ve never seen him this happy—”

“He’s
not
happy now,” Fiona asserted.

“I don’t believe it has anything to do with you,” Gillian answered. “Holburn has spent his life alone. He’s never understood that there are so many of us willing to help him. It’s pride and perhaps being under Brandt and Maven’s thumbs growing up. They are relentless. And certainly Duchess Daisy lacks interest in anyone other than herself.”

If only Gillian knew.

“But there is something else brewing, too?” Gillian continued. “Perhaps you are a bit intimidated by the thought of being a duchess.”

That was true, too.
“I haven’t the slightest clue what to do,” Fiona confessed. Life had been so busy, she’d not had time to reflect on what it would all mean. She’d witnessed this afternoon the power behind the title. That Nick had been able to maneuver matters concerning the dowager and Colonel Swanson exactly to his liking was impressive, and daunting. “I haven’t really stopped to consider
what having the title means.”
Other than that it would make her Nick’s wife.

“It’s whatever you wish it to mean,” Gillian assured her. “The cottagers will grow to admire you as much as those of us in the family do. So please say you will join us tomorrow?”

“Of course I will.” How could she refuse?

Gillian smiled her pleasure. “And don’t worry,” she said, giving Fiona’s hand a final squeeze. “Holburn is probably just tired.”

Fiona nodded. Gillian started to excuse herself to have a word with Cook before retiring, but Fiona stopped her. “What of you?” she asked. “Why do you live under this roof instead of your husband’s?”

The smile remained on Gillian’s face, but her eyes grew guarded. “Or do you mean why do I offer advice when my own marriage is obviously not well?”

Heat rushed to Fiona’s face. “I didn’t mean to sound rude. I’m curious, that’s all. In two days, I may marry and what do you know that I don’t?”

“Wright isn’t like Holburn,” Gillian said. “And sometimes we make a mistake in the man we choose to love.”

“I don’t want to make that mistake,” Fiona said.

“You haven’t,” Gillian assured her.

But Fiona wasn’t so certain. She wanted to quiz
Gillian about Wright. She wanted to know why such a vibrant, intelligent, beautiful woman chose to live apart from the man she’d taken in marriage.

“Trust Holburn,” Gillian counseled as if reading Fiona’s mind. “I wanted to trust Wright.” She turned away then, her frown warning Fiona that Gillian felt she’d already said too much.

People retired rather early this evening. The younger crowd of Carter and the cousins his age stayed up around the fire. Fiona headed toward her room. She lingered in the hall, watching Nick’s door and wishing he’d come out and share with her what he was thinking.

She didn’t like it when people withdrew. She’d always been one to confront problems. She’d learned shutting herself off from others never resolved anything.

Sarah helped her undress and Fiona knew she was tired. However, at midnight, she was still tossing and turning in her bed.

The scene between Nick and his mother disturbed her. A woman didn’t arrange for the murder of her child. She couldn’t imagine how Nick must feel, and hated that he had not looked to her for comfort.

In the middle of the night, Gillian’s reassuring words held no meaning. Suddenly, the marriage
that had seemed to be her fondest dream was filled with foreboding.

Fiona and Nick barely knew each other. What if the magic, the haze of love around them disappeared? Then what sort of man would she be married to?

In fact, the later the hour and the more she thought about his reaction to the day’s events, the crankier she became. Her earlier understanding and patience made her feel foolish.

And what sort of man always turned to brandy to deal with the challenges in his life rather than the love she had to offer?

At last, she could take it no more. She rose from her bed, put a robe over her night dress, and headed out the hallway door. She was tired of guessing what he thought. The time had come to speak to him.

N
ick sat in a leather upholstered chair by the fire. The brandy decanter on the table next to him was still half full. Drink wasn’t an answer for what he was feeling.

Instead, he stared at the flames in the hearth. He wanted to remember every detail, every nuance of his father’s death.

He’d always been suspicious. He’d noticed the change in his mother’s behavior, but had lacked the courage to confront her. He could have gone to his uncles, who were his guardians…except that he’d lost one parent. He hadn’t wanted to lose another.

It wasn’t until he’d grown much older that he
truly noticed his mother’s oddities—the stacks of possessions, the overwhelming insecurity—and he placed the blame for those on his uncles or her background.

Nor was any one thing that alarming. He could remember nothing that would have branded her the murderer of her own husband—

Nick caught himself. His father’s death had been an accident. She could have thrown the blotter toward another portion of the anatomy and his father would be alive, and his own life would have been much different…

The door to his bedroom opened. He frowned. What the devil was the time? Gannon should have gone to his bed hours ago, or was it morning already?

A figure dressed in white slipped into his room. He recognized her immediately.
Fee.
She moved toward his bed.

“Nick?”

“I’m here,” he said from the chair and she gave a little start as if he’d scared her.

“I wasn’t expecting you to still be up,” she said. “Not without a candle.”

“I have the light from the hearth.” He set aside his empty glass. She had her hair down around her shoulders. He liked it when she wore it loose and liked her dressed in white. She was the most beau
tiful woman he’d ever known…and he was so unworthy of her. “Why are you here?” he asked, the question sounding brusque because of the pent-up emotion in his throat.

Her Scottish stubbornness came out. “I came because I’m worried about you,” she said. There was a beat of silence and then she added, “You don’t seem pleased to see me. Have you had a change of heart?”

“Change of heart?” he wondered confused.

“About the marriage.”

Nick was shocked at the direction of her thoughts. “I
haven’t
. I
wouldn’t
.”

She came around to stand before him. “Then what has upset you?”

He didn’t think he could tell her.

“Please,” she said. “What I heard this afternoon filled me with revulsion. I can understand why you would feel betrayed. She’s a terrible person.”

“She’s my mother. I don’t think of her as terrible.”

Fee didn’t soften. “We can’t help who births us.” She knelt in front of him. “Her actions were wrong. But you were compassionate to both your mother and the colonel. However, I don’t understand your behavior. Why are you closing yourself off from me?”

“Closing myself off?” He was puzzled. “What makes you believe that?”

“You weren’t at dinner,” she said.

“I did need to be alone. Fee, I’d just learned that my mother had a hand in my father’s death. That everything I thought I knew about her was wrong.”

“But that doesn’t mean you shut me out…or does it?”

He was too startled to speak. He’d not realized that was what he had done. It took him a moment to consider the matter.

Unfortunately, she misunderstood his silence.

Fee turned away from him. “I don’t know if we should marry.” Her voice was tight with emotion. It tore at his heart. “I was raised to want to marry well. Being a duchess would have made my mother proud. But life has taught me to consider more than the superficial. Dominic Lynsted, I love you and that means that I don’t just love your title, I love
you,
the man. You could be a footman or blacksmith or a tinker, and I’d still love you. You’ve won my heart with your kindness and your humor and your gentleness. I hadn’t expected to find those traits in a man.”

A tear escaped her eye. She wiped it away with the sleeve of her robe, the gesture defiant. “The other night, you set yourself up as my protector. You promised that nothing could harm me when I was with you. Well, it works the other way also. I’m here to keep you safe. Your battles are
my
bat
tles. I stand beside you, Nick, but I can’t if you won’t confide in me.”

She looked so damn beautiful, like some determined, avenging angel. The firelight had even caught the red in her hair and made it appear a halo.

“It’s not you,” he said. “My mother killed my father. I needed time to understand the matter. I don’t know if what I arranged for her is justice. She’s not right in the head. She can’t be. And yet, there is a steely coldness about her. I don’t seem to know anything any longer, Fee, except I can’t lose you out of this, too.”

The words just flowed out of him.

Fee sank back down to his feet as if her legs had gone out from underneath her. She took his hands and pressed a kiss in his palm. “As long as she can’t harm you, I’m satisfied.”

“I don’t deserve you,” he said.

She didn’t miss a beat. “You don’t when you pull away from me the way you did this evening. I refuse a marriage that is a sham. You are important to me, Nick—the breath of my soul. Don’t ever treat me again the way you did tonight.”

“I won’t,” he promised and her response was a smile so full of grace, he felt transformed.

“An hour earlier, life was very bleak. Now, it’s worth living again.”

Fee laughed. “That’s what we do for each other—we make life worth living. Before you, I had never thought I’d feel whole again. You are my love. My rock. Never again will you be alone.”

She understood him so clearly.

His answer was to kiss her. He lingered on the kiss, deepening it, letting it warm them both, and then lifting her into his lap.

She was so lovely. He undid the belt of her robe. She was naked beneath her night dress. “I should wait,” he murmured. She had to know he wanted her. He was hard, harder than he’d ever been before.

Fee did know. She moved closer to the tightness in his breeches. “We could wait,” she agreed. “But I don’t think I can.”

Her bald admission made him tilt back his head and laugh. Was there any sound more freeing than laughter?

“You are my life,” he said. “You stumbled into it, changed it all around, and I’m blessed to have you in my arms.”

“Well, now that you have me here,” she said, her lilting Scot’s accent more alluring than a siren’s song, “don’t you think you ought to do something with me?”

Nick had plenty of ideas for her and he was
happy to demonstrate what they were. He unbuttoned his breeches, and took her right there.

To his never-ending pleasure, Fee’s lust matched his own.

When they’d finished and she was resting in his arms, he held her and counted his blessings—that all began and ended with his Fee. After that, he carried her to the bed and made good and proper love to her.

Fiona was surprised to wake the following morning in her bed. The doubts that had sent her to Nick had been given a good drubbing. All that was left was a certainty that she was meant to be with this man.

God had brought them together. Nick could believe in Fate but she knew differently, and couldn’t wait for the ceremony Christmas Day to make their union official.

Sarah arrived with hot water for bathing, reminding Fiona that she had agreed to help with the charity baskets.

Within an hour, Fiona was downstairs having her breakfast. Nick was still in bed, which was good. His would be a healing sleep, the same sort of sleep she’d had after the night he’d exorcised her demons.

Most of the women in the family were up. They gathered in the kitchen and worked together packing the charity Christmas baskets. There was bacon and a ham in each along with a loaf of bread, a jar of jam, and some of Cook’s meat pies.

After an early luncheon, the women divided into groups and set out making deliveries. The Reverend Mosley and his wife also helped.

Fiona liked the reverend. He had kind eyes and a hearty voice. He would be the one officiating at their wedding ceremony and she was pleased.

“Christmas is a popular time to wed,” the reverend said. “Makes it easy for a man to remember his wedding day.” He said the last with a wink and the women laughed.

It took most of the day to deliver the baskets. Fiona watched Gillian carefully, almost overwhelmed by the amount of organization it took for the whole project.

“You have me shaking with terror,” she said to her friend. “I could never organize all of this as well as you do.”

“Nonsense,” Gillian said. “You will be a perfectly wonderful duchess.”

By the time they returned to the house, the men had chopped the enormous Yule log. A section would be burned this evening and every evening over the next twelve days until the log was used
up. The family tradition was that the cinders of the log would be distributed around the grounds as a protection from the devil.

“We’ve been doing it for hundreds of years,” Nick assured her.

“And has it worked?” Fiona teased him.

“Yes,” he said. “The devil is gone. But the Yule log had some help.” He gave her hand a squeeze so that she knew he considered her the blessing.

No one else in the family understood, but they did.

He smiled.

She smiled.

He pulled her out into the hall, away from the others gathered around the Receiving Room hearth. “I had some unexpected news today,” he confided.

Fiona’s first thought was of his mother and the colonel. “Nothing has happened there, has it?”

“No, they are being well taken care of,” he answered. “No, my news is good. A messenger came from my banker. It turns out that an investment I made several years ago in a Scottish lead mine has paid handsomely. Fee, my profit is a hundred times more than what I invested with more to be received in the future.”

“The curse is broken,” she said, happy for him.

“Or perhaps there wasn’t ever a curse, as you
had suggested. Perhaps my superstitions had the better of me.”

“What is past doesn’t matter,” she answered. “We will only look toward the future.”

“Uh-oh,” Emma’s loud voice said. “Look at where you are standing. Your Grace and Miss Lachlan, you are under the mistletoe.”

“The what?” Fiona asked and looked up in the direction the child pointed and realized she stood under a branch of mistletoe tied with one of Gillian’s ribbons.

Before she could blink, Nick kissed her while the relatives hooted and clapped.

That night, Fee slept untroubled until Gillian woke her the next morning.

“I didn’t know if you had a dress to wear,” Gillian said.

Fiona said, “I was thinking of wearing the yellow muslin.”

“I don’t know how you will feel about this but I have my wedding dress,” Gillian offered. “We are about the same size. It wasn’t a lucky dress for me but perhaps it will be for you. Would you like to try it on?”

“Yes,” Fiona said without hesitation. “I’m not superstitious.”

Gillian went to the room to fetch her dress. “It’s
perfect,” Fiona said when she saw it. The dress was a snowy white muslin with pin tucks and rows of pearls across the bodice.

“I thought I could do some holly leaves for your hair,” Gillian suggested.

Fiona laughed. “I adore your holly bouquets,” she said.

“They will really stand out with your hair color,” Gillian answered before saying, “And Aunt Agatha wants to know if you would like to borrow her red cape. It’s warm and will go with my holly bouquets.”

“I deeply appreciate her offer,” Fiona said. She sat on the bed, feeling like the luckiest woman in the world. “I am so blessed to be marrying into such a generous family.”

“No, we are the ones who are pleased,” Gillian said. “For the longest time, Holburn was such a distant figure. When he was a boy, he was closer to all of us. Then, when his father died and he inherited the title, everything changed. His uncles were like a wall between him and the rest of the family.”

“Do you not like the uncles?” Fiona asked.

Gillian shrugged. “They are who they are. I don’t see them often. That whole side of the family is rather puritanical. While we always enjoyed our
Yule log, they’d frown at us as if we were druids.” She scrunched her nose. “Come to think of it, I’m glad they aren’t here. Now let’s dress you.”

The hours until half past ten when they had to leave for the church flew by in a haste of primping and laughter.

The marriage ceremony would take place after the Christmas service. Nick would travel separately to the church and sit several pews ahead. He was not to look at his bride until after the service.

Of course, that didn’t happen. Fiona could feel his gaze on her the moment she walked proudly into the church. The women of the Lynsted family had gone to great lengths to see that she was a true Christmas bride. Gillian had gone holly mad and had even made a huge bouquet of holly for Fiona to carry.

The church was small and intimate. A host of servants and parish members who wished to witness the wedding filled the pews along with the family, so the church was very crowded.

Reverend Mosley knew what people wanted. His service was not unduly fast, but it did move at a good clip. At last, he called Nick and Fiona to the altar rail along with their witnesses Andres and Gillian.

Fiona could not believe this was happening to her. Nick looked amazingly handsome in a
midnight-blue velvet jacket, white breeches, and white figured waist coat. Her gloved hand trembled as she placed it in his.

There had been a time when she’d listened to the vows spoken at her friends’ marriages and dreamed of the day it would be her turn to be the bride. At no time had those words taken on the meaning as they did this Christmas day when she was asked to promise herself to Dominic Lynsted, Duke of Holburn.

At one point when she was speaking, she sensed a movement at the window. A shadow seemed to move there, and she thought of her parents.

Tears filled her eyes…and from deep within, she experienced a feeling of peace.

They were happy for her.