Winter Wonderland (26 page)

Authors: Elizabeth; Mansfield

BOOK: Winter Wonderland

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“Very well, I will if you wish it. But then, will you agree to give me another chance? Please, Miranda, let me begin again. From the very beginning. So that we may meet properly this time.”

She did not answer, but he got up and helped her to her feet. “Miss Miranda Pardew?” he asked, making a slight bow. “I was wondering if I might have this dance.”

Her lips turned up in the slightest of smiles. “But my dance card is filled, sir. Don't you know that it's only maiden aunts and wallflowers who don't have their cards filled by this time? Do I look like a wallflower to you?”

“Oh, I know your card is filled, ma'am. But I hoped that, when you understood that my heart is bursting with the desire for you to dance with me, you would ignore your other partners and, in pity if for no other reason, choose me.”

“That is a most touching invitation, sir, but I don't know even know your name.”

“Does it matter? We can dance together
incognito
.”

She slipped her hand in his. “Then lead the way, sir. I am yours, at least for the duration of one dance.”

He led her down the stairs and through the hallway to the library, not saying a word. When he'd closed the door, he turned to face her. “Listen, Miss Pardew. Do you hear the music? It's a waltz.” He slipped his arm about her waist. “Do you waltz, ma'am?”

“A waltz is rather daring for an inexperienced young man like yourself, isn't it?”

“When you know me better, you'll discover that underneath this rather cowardly, sheepish exterior, I
can
be rather daring,” he said, sweeping her round the room in time to the music in his head.

When they'd grown so dizzy that the room spun around, they stopped dancing, but they clung to each other to steady themselves. “Is the dance over?” she asked in a whisper.

“I want it to go on forever, but it's not for me to say.” He peered down into her face intently. “
Is
it over?”

She shook her head, threw her arms about his neck and drew his head down to hers. The kiss was long, and deep, and told him everything he needed to knowâthey'd come through the miasma of misunderstandings and confused emotions that had surrounded them for far too long, and had found each other at last.

The kiss might have gone on endlessly, but the library door flew open. “I say, Barnaby,” said the Earl from the threshold, “Honoria has been looking forâOh!”

Barnaby lifted his head. “Looking for me?”

“Well, er â¦ I don't suppose it was very urgent,” the Earl muttered in embarrassment.

Just then, Harry appeared in the doorway. “How about a game of billiards, old fellow? Isabel is busy with her hair, and IâOh, am I interrupting something?”

As if on cue, Terence put his head in the door. “Barnaby, are you in here? Delia said to tell you that Lady Ponsonby is taking her leave andâOh, I say! What's going on here?”

Barnaby, refusing to release the blushing Miranda from his hold, looked over at his three brothers crowded in the doorway and fixed them with one of his famous glowers. “I might have known the three of you would find a way to interfere. What is going on here is a private matter. I'm trying to make an
offer
to this young lady.”

“An offer?” the Earl asked, his face lighting up.

“I say!” exclaimed Terence, awestruck.

“Oh, capital!” Harry chuckled. “That's famous news!”

“Thank you for your approval,” Barnaby said dryly, “but I would be obliged if you'd all turn round and make yourselves scarce. Unless, of course, you think it necessary to do
this
for me, too!”

“No, no,” said Harry, whisking himself out.

“Wouldn't think of interfering,” Terence murmured, following his brother out the door.

“Seems to me,” said the Earl, backing to the door and cackling with delight, “that you're doing quite splendidly all on your own. Just as I always said you would.”

Epilogue

A year later, rosy-cheeked from the cold and brimming with good spirits, Mr. and Mrs. Barnaby Traherne came into their town house on Henrietta Street from a Christmas frolic given by Molly Davenham. Barnaby took his wife's cloak from her shoulders, shook the snow from it and handed it, with his greatcoat, to the butler. Taking the fellow aside, he asked in an undervoice, “Is the job done, Merwin?”

“Yes, sir. Everything's in place,” the butler whispered back. Then he threw Barnaby a half-smile and a wink and discreetly withdrew.

Miranda, crossing the foyer to the stairway, turned round. “Did you say something, dearest?”

Barnaby returned to her in three quick strides. “Just dismissing Merwin,” he said, pulling her into his arms. “I've been waiting for hours to be alone with my bride.”

She slipped her arms about his neck. “Scarcely a bride, my love. By this time next month, we shall be wed a whole year.”

“A whole year!” He shook his head in disbelief. “I continue to feel as if we're still on our honeymoon.” He kissed her mouth, his hand caressing her throat, the throat whose sensuous curves never failed to clench his innards. “Did you see how the Prime Minister devoured you with his eyes?” he murmured, his lips against hers. “I wanted to call the damned fellow out!”

Miranda giggled. “He was no worse than Celia Carew. The little minx flirted with you shamelessly.”

“Did she indeed? I never noticed.”

He let her go and, with arms about each other's waist, they started for the stairs. “Molly Davenham remarked to me that marriage has changed you drastically,” Miranda said, throwing her husband a laughing glance.

“Drastically?” Barnaby's brows rose in surprise. “In what way?”

“She said you were no longerâ” But she stopped in mid-sentence, for they were passing the sitting room doorway, and she had a fleeting impression that something within had been moved. For a moment, she thought she glimpsed a familiar piece of furniture: her old Sheraton desk. But of course, it couldn't be â¦

“No longer what?” Barnaby was asking.

She shook off her momentary lapse and grinned up at him. “Forbidding. She says you used to be forbidding.”

“Nonsense,” he retorted complacently, urging her up the stairs. “I was never forbidding. How can a fellow who suffered from a near-fatal case of shyness be called forbidding?”

They'd reached the top of the stairs. He dropped his hold on her, crossed the hallway and threw open their bedroom door. His eyes swiftly took in the scene before him. Merwin had done very well; the floral arrangement on the night table was perfect, and all the candles were lit.

Miranda came up behind him and blinked. For a moment she didn't breathe. Then she gasped, “My
bed
!” She crossed the threshold like one dazed and gaped at the huge four-poster ensconced against the far wall. “It's Mama's Queen Anne bed! How did youâ?” She turned to her husband and threw herself into his arms. “
Barnaby
! How could you have known?”

Barnaby beamed down at her glowing face. “Your Aunt Letty told me about it, and about your desk, too. It's downstairs in the sitting room.”

Miranda put a trembling hand to her forehead. “No, no, all this is quite impossible. How could you have talked to Aunt Letty? And how could you have persuaded Belle Velacott to give the pieces up? I'm dreaming.”

“You're wide awake, my love, I promise you. Once your aunt told me the story, I had very little difficulty in persuading the Velacotts to return your property. In fact, they were so delighted to be invited to our anniversary ball, they were almost eager to part with the furniture.”

“Anniversary
ball
? Wait a moment, please. You're going much too fast for me. First, when and where did you speak to Aunt Letty?”

“I went to see her last week.”

“You went to see her?”

He nodded. “To invite her to our anniversary ball. You do want her here for that occasion, don't you?”

She gazed up at him with eyes that were beginning to brim with tears. “Are we going to have a
ball
? But I thought you disliked them.”

“With you at my side, my dearest, I've discovered that they are quite enjoyable affairs. Don't you
want
to have a ball to celebrate our first year?”

“Oh, Barnaby!” She drew him down beside her on her newly-restored bed and, clutching him tightly round the waist, nuzzled his neck. “An anniversary ball is exactly what I want.”

“Good, then. It's done. We shall have the grandest of balls and invite absolutely everyone. All my brothers. All their wives. Your aunt Letty. The Velacotts. Everyone in the world we've ever known. It shall be the most talked-about crush of the Season. There are only two requests I have to make of you in regard to it.”

“Oh? And what are they?” she murmured contentedly.

“First, that you wear your green gown.”

“Done. What else?”

He put his cheek against her hair and breathed in the fragrance of her. “That
this
time, my dearest, you give me the opportunity to sign your blasted dance card before it's filled.”

About the Author

Elizabeth Mansfield is a pseudonym of Paula Schwartz, which she used for more than two dozen Regency romances. Schwartz also wrote an American immigrant family saga,
A Morning Moon
, as Paula Reibel, and two American history romancesâ
To Spite the Devil
, as Paula Jonas, and
Rachel's Passage
, as Paula Reid.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Andy Ross

ISBN: 978-1-5040-4005-1

This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

180 Maiden Lane

New York, NY 10038

www.openroadmedia.com