Christmas Delights (24 page)

He put his hand on her face, tracing her left cheekbone. His fingers tingled and he wondered if she felt the same bond with him still. “I needed to show you that I understood. If you could sacrifice yourself to marriage to protect her, I could unbend enough to make her the bird you said would help her cope.”

Before Victoria could respond, Penelope lifted the bird, holding the ungainly creature just under the wings. “I want to show it to Nanny.” She didn’t look at them, so engrossed was she in the bird.

“Be very careful going up the stairs,” Victoria said, dropping her fingers from his face.

His jaw felt cold and she turned her head so that his fingers fell away from her, too. He wondered if she’d ever allow him to touch her again.

Penelope nodded happily and carried the bird out of the room.

“Thank you,” Victoria said, turning back to him. “She is pleased. I hope she remembers the feeling she had at the wishing well every time she looks at it.”

“I’m sorry it isn’t an automaton, but there wasn’t time.”

“It might have frightened her if it was.” Her hand went to the nape of her neck, as if she was testing her coiffure for a stray pin. “I’ll expect your invoice.”

What was she thinking? How was he going to turn this goddess back into a flesh-and-blood woman? He needed a strategy. Perhaps all he could do, now that it was all but too late, was be honest.

He went to the door that Penelope had just walked through and turned the lock. Her fingers bent at the sound, and when she pulled her hand away, pins clattered to the floor and a thick ringlet slithered along her neck and curled around the neckline of her dress.

He smiled. The goddess transformed.

“There is no charge. You know, it took losing you for me to realize I loved you.” He watched as a hint of color came into her cheeks. “I wish I had understood that as soon as you knew you loved me.”

She inhaled so sharply that he could hear the squeak of her breath when he knelt at her feet. He picked up a pin and she reached for it, but instead, he poked one end into her palm and slid it up her wrist until it touched the lacy sleeve of her dress.

“I can’t breathe,” she whispered.

Slowly, he ran the pin along her inner arm. So close he could feel her breath on his hair, he stood back up, her breath moving down his temple, to his cheek, to his throat. The pin rested at the tip of her arm socket. He moved it across her shoulder as she shuddered, then up her neck, and rested it finally on the slight indentation in the center of her plump lower lip. “You still want me, and I’m not going to let another man take what’s mine.”

“I’ve agreed to marry him.”

“I don’t care.” He took the loose ringlet in between his fingers and curled it around his hand until her chin was forced up and her face was only an inch from his. “You gave yourself to me. You can’t take yourself back.”

“I didn’t want to.” She swallowed, her gaze intent on his. “You threw my love away.”

“I didn’t know I wanted it.” He pressed his lips together and blinked hard. He couldn’t lose her again.

Her eyes glistened. “I don’t think John wants me either. He received a letter. I think there is someone else. A mistress? A fiancée? I don’t know.”

“You should be both to me. Forget him,” Lewis said, tightening his grip on her curl until her lips rested on the corner of his mouth. “He’s not relevant. Only me. We’re done with this mess, done with your father dictating your future or mine.”

“We’re done?” she whispered.

“Yes. You are of age and I can afford to support you. We’ll live on our own terms. Your father isn’t really going to send Penelope somewhere as dreadful as that school. I don’t believe it, but we’ll go to her father if necessary.”

“I can’t just walk away from my engagement. John has expectations. It’s been announced.”

She said the words, but her tone was hopeful. “It was a mistake. If he is having second thoughts as well, he’ll be grateful to you for backing out. No notice has gone to the papers, correct?”

“No, I insisted we wait until he arrived in London.” She smiled tentatively.

Lewis spotted a writing table against the wall and pointed to it. “Sit down, Victoria.”

She took the pin from his hand and opened it.

“No, leave the curl down. You’ll start a new fashion.”

She shook her head ruefully and went to the table, seating herself in the straight-backed chair. “Who am I writing to?”

“The baron, of course. Terminate the engagement, or at least tell him you need to see him right away.”

She looked at him, humor in her gaze. “Why don’t I use the telephone? They have one at the Fort. You of all people should think to use the latest inventions.”

“A letter is more permanent,” he said.

“But a telephone call would be faster.”

He could not help but be pleased by her eagerness. “Where is the instrument?”

“In the butler’s pantry. I will see if I can make the call.” She stood so quickly that the chair rocked. He grabbed the back to keep it from falling over.

When he moved to follow her, she put up her hand. “I need to have this conversation privately. I owe him that much.”

“Very well.” He watched her walk out the door, then said, “Stop.”

“What?”

He pushed her gently against the back of the door, then knelt at her feet.

“What?” she whispered again.

“Marry me.”

She set both hands on his head. “I would love to.”

They stared at each other, and he knew they shared the same sense of unreality, the same feeling that Christmas had returned to their hearts.

When she was gone, he stood against the fireplace, his arms crossed over his chest, head bowed, praying that the baron would not have some weapon of argument that won her back.

A few minutes later, the door opened. He looked up, assuming her attempt to make the call had failed, but it was Penelope.

She grinned at him. “Nanny likes the bird.”

He forced himself to focus on the girl. “His name is Welly. Did I tell you that?”

“Wishy,” she corrected. “I named him Wishy.”

“Very well.” He pushed his hands into his pockets. “Listen, Penelope, I’ve asked your Cousin Victoria to marry me.”

“But she is marrying the baron.”

“I’ve asked her to reconsider,” he stated. “Are you willing to live with me in Battersea instead of in Edinburgh?”

Penelope considered. “Doesn’t Eddy live with you?”

“Not in my house. He has a room on the property, however, above the machine shop, and takes his meals with me. Very independent-minded, that lad.” Now he was collecting another stray child.

“Will you marry soon, so I don’t have to go away to school?”

“As soon as I can manage,” he said. “I promise.”

She nodded slowly. “You are nice enough, but you do silly things. Will you promise to be more careful in the future and not attempt to drown yourself ?”

He chuckled at the prim cast of her mouth. “I promise. Your cousin would have my head if I did something so stupid again. After all, she’s already lost one husband. It wouldn’t do to repeat the experience.”

“No, it certainly would not,” Penelope said, sounding much older than nine. “We are agreed, then.”

He held out his hand and she gave it a small, businesslike shake. Then, she tossed her head and flew into his arms, her head pushing into his chest as she flung her arms around his midsection. He dug his heels into the carpet to keep from falling back a few steps as her weight collided with his.

The door opened again and Victoria stood in the doorway, wiping at the corner of her eye with a finger. He lifted an inquiring eye at her, and she nodded.

“It’s over. I told him I’d made a mistake, and he said he had, too.” She blinked.

The room seemed to warm again as he gestured at her. She lifted her skirts and ran to him, a smile breaking out across her lovely face. Colliding into his side, she wrapped one arm around him and the other around Penelope, then tucked her face against his collarbone.

“I’ve been alone a long time,” he said, squeezing her tighter with his free arm. “But no more. We’ll be married as soon as we can, so soon that we’ll be a scandal, but no one will mind when they see how in love we are.”

“Exactly.” She tilted her face up to meet his. “We’ll make them all understand that this is the way it is meant to be.”

“I love you, Victoria, my Christmas angel.” He took her chin in his hand just as she had done to him, but his fingers were warm, and her mouth under his was as fiery as pepper when he kissed her. His goddess resolved into a human woman again. “My wife.”

By the time he lifted his head, Penelope had long since vanished. Victoria took his hand in both of hers, her flesh blood-warm now, and tugged slightly.

“Come upstairs,” she whispered. “I have an engagement gift for you.”

He knew what she meant by the hot look in her eyes alone. They had both made the right decision in the end, and as he followed her out of the room, her ringlet bouncing against her shoulder, he crunched hairpins under his boot heel without even noticing.

About the Author

Heather Hiestand was born in Illinois, but her family migrated west before she started school. Since then she has claimed Washington State as home, except for a few years in California. She wrote her first story at age seven and went on to major in creative writing at the University of Washington. Her first published fiction was a mystery short story, but since then it has been all about the many flavors of romance. Heather’s first published romance short story was set in the Victorian period and she continues to return, fascinated by the rapid changes of the nineteenth century. The author of many novels, novellas, and short stories, she is a bestseller at both Amazon and Barnes & Noble. With her husband and son, she makes her home in a small town and supposedly works out of her tiny office, though she mostly writes in her easy chair in the living room.

For more information, visit Heather’s website at
www.heatherhiestand.com
.Heather loves to hear from readers! Her email is [email protected].

Don’t miss the rest of the Redcakes series, already available where
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The Marquess of Cake
One Taste of Scandal
His Wicked Smile
The Kidnapped Bride
(novella)