A Countess by Christmas (23 page)

He had to move away from this spot. She haunted it!

Muttering a curse, he pushed away from the wall and set out for his bedroom. His valet, like the other servants, would be kicking up his heels over at the barn, so he had no need to maintain any kind of pretence when he got there. He shut the door behind him and leaned against it, bowing his head as a wave of self-loathing swept over him. He was
worse
than Swaledale. At least the youth had the excuse of being so drunk he’d hardly known what he was doing. But he was without excuse. It was desire alone that had made him act like a ravening beast.

The two scenes swam into his mind, overlapping as
he saw himself as the predator and Miss Forrest as his victim. He saw Swaledale slobbering down her neck while she stood rigid, her face averted, sick with terror and not knowing what to do. And then himself, scooping her breast out of her gown to suckle at it while she…

He straightened up abruptly. She had been writhing against him. Clinging to him.

She had been with him every step of the way!

He recalled now her little gasps and moans of pleasure. The way her hands had tentatively begun to explore his body. It had been her eager yet innocent response that had ramped up his own arousal to almost overwhelming proportions.

He walked to the bed and sat down heavily, remembering suddenly that he had not just pounced on her but had asked permission to kiss her.

And she had said yes.

They had
both
imagined mistletoe to give themselves the liberty to do exactly what they wanted, even though they both knew it was wrong.

So…why had she fled from him? Could it possibly be that she did not blame him for the whole episode, but that she, too, had abruptly come back down to earth and been ashamed to have let things go so far? Ashamed, most of all, that it had been he who had called a halt to proceedings. If he had not stopped, he did not think she could have done so!

He gave a great sigh of relief, running the palm of his hand over his hair. That was more like it. That was Miss Forrest all over. She acted on impulse and thought about what she had done afterwards. She had not been able to resist his advances, and the moment they had
been interrupted she had been as full of remorse as he had been.

How her pride must have stung to know that any man had the power to make her sigh and moan with desire. Particularly one she had refused to marry.

His sense of relief ebbed away as bitter regret swamped him. Shakily he covered his hands with his face and hunched over.

How could she have let him put his hands all over her when she knew she would be walking away from him in the morning? He had thought she had a deep vein of integrity running through her. She was so proud she would not marry him, even though he was one of the wealthiest men in the country.

What was it about him that made her still want to leave when she had just acted as though she wanted him with every fibre of her being?

He leapt up from the bed and paced across the floor. God in heaven, but he wished he understood her! What was the key that would unlock her mystery? He thumped the windowframe, turned, and paced back towards his bed.

There was no logical reason why she should not marry him if she could respond to him as she had just done downstairs!

No logical reason, no. But when had logic ever played a part in anything Miss Forrest did? She was not a cold, calculating woman. From the first he had thought she was a force of nature. As well try to capture lightning in a bucket as to think Miss Forrest would tamely settle with him when she wanted—

What the hell
did
she want? He turned and stalked
back to the window. She had made it clear she had no ambition to net herself a wealthy, titled husband. What was it she had said about those tradesmen who might have offered for her had she given them any encouragement? He had thought it sounded proud at the time. Had thought she did not want to be demeaned by taking a step that would see her descend the social scale.

But then she had spurned him, too.

Just what did she want from a husband, then, if it was not money, or a title, or even physical gratification?

And then her voice came to him—proud and clear and defiant.
The only reason I would ever marry would be for love.

He sat down hard on the bed, winded.

He should not have given her a practical list of reasons for marrying him. He should have romanced her!

He thought back to that stilted little speech he had made. To the reluctance he had felt to enter the married state again, which must surely have transmitted itself to her. His cursed pride had made him disguise how much her answer mattered to him. He had let her think he did not care much either way. When the reality was that the thought of living without her was almost unbearable. He groaned out loud. What a fool he had been! He suddenly perceived he had not offered her the one thing that she might have valued.

His heart.

He laid his hand upon his chest, feeling it beating. Pounding. Because he was afraid there was nothing he could do to stop her leaving.

Two days ago he would have said it did not matter. He would have expected to feel some regret, but would
have thought it would fade in time, and that as he went back to his orderly existence the routine of carrying out his duty would soothe the passions she had roused.

But that was before he had kissed her.

If he let her slip through his fingers now, without making one last effort to persuade her…

He got to his feet and went to the door. Opened it. Then remembered that she was sharing a suite of rooms with her aunt by adoption. He could not go in there and try to make love to Helen with her aunt watching his every move. If a man invaded her rooms she would probably set up such a squawk that she would set the whole house in an uproar.

He shut the door and stood there, his mind whirling.

He could not let Helen go. Not without putting up a fight.

Then his face set. It was
his
coach she was relying on to take her away in the morning. Driven by
his
coachman. Without his say-so the man would not carry her off his lands.

He flung open his door and strode purposefully along the corridor. To judge by their reaction when he had kissed Miss Forrest in the barn, his tenants would be only too pleased to help him carry out the plan that was forming in his mind. They could all see the impact she’d had on him. And, to a man, they would welcome her as their new countess. She had impressed them all as much as she had impressed him.

He just hoped a sufficient number of them were still sober enough to be able to carry out the work needed to bring his plan to fruition.

H
elen and her aunt ate a very subdued breakfast in their room the next morning. They were both too upset by the prospect of parting to try and speak to each other, lest one of them break down. They just hugged each other fiercely when a couple of under-footmen came to collect her trunks. And both walked down to the coach with their lips firmly pressed together.

Although Helen felt further from tears than her aunt looked. It was as though there were some hurts that just went too deep. She had lain in bed the night before feeling strangely numb. It reminded her a bit of the way she had felt when her parents had died and her future had seemed so vast and terrifyingly empty. She had known then that she would have to be brave to survive. And somehow, last night, she had felt that shedding any more tears over Lord Bridgemere would only weaken her resolve to survive life without him.

She paused before getting into the coach that was to take her away from Alvanley Hall for ever, swiftly
glancing along the rows of windows and wondering if
he
stood behind one of them, watching her go. Naturally he could not come and bid her farewell in public. An earl did not condescend to notice the departure of a woman who was destined to become a governess.

A man who had been disappointed in love would not be able to bear the parting, either, she reflected wistfully.

But a man whose emotions were not engaged at all would probably have gone out riding, as was his habit, with his enormous hound loping at his side.

Suddenly Helen’s breath hitched in her throat, and she had to duck her head to hide the way her eyes were smarting as she took the footman’s extended arm and he helped her climb into the coach.

She understood the difference between passion and love. There were places men could go to in just about every town to slake the kind of need Lord Bridgemere had been exhibiting last night. Which she, to her shame, had not even attempted to deny. To think she had once joked with her aunt about a man’s
proclivities
!

Aunt Bella fumbled a handkerchief out of her pocket and, pressing it to her eyes, abruptly turned away and marched swiftly back to the house.

The door slammed shut, the coach lurched, and she was off. And, perhaps because she was finally alone, and nobody would be able to either hear or see her weep, she found she could no longer stem the flood of feelings that pride had kept so firmly held back. She delved into her reticule and held a handkerchief over her face while she released all the misery that had formed into a cold, hard lump in her chest. Lord Bridgemere desired her. Enough
to make marrying her and getting her with child no hardship for him. But he had never—not once—spoken of having any feelings for her that would make sacrificing her independence worth the risk. And so now she was leaving behind the only other person in this world that she loved, Aunt Bella, to start a new life alone.

All too soon, it seemed to her, the coach came to a halt. She looked up, stunned, when the driver came and opened the door himself.

‘Is there a p…problem?’ she asked, hastily wiping her nose. Beyond him she could see trees. They had not even left Alvanley land yet, so far as she could tell.

The driver’s face softened at the sight of her red swollen eyes, and the way she was blowing her nose.

‘I do not think so,’ he said, confusing her still further. ‘But it’s just that I can’t take you no further than this. Coach won’t get up the track.’

‘Track?’ Helen peered past him as he stood back, opening the door wider and gesturing that she should get out.

‘You will have to walk the last little bit,’ he said, holding out his hand in readiness to steady her. ‘That is if you want to speak to His Lordship. He is waiting for you up yonder.’ He jerked his head to the right, and quite suddenly Helen recognised where they had stopped. They were at the end of the lane that led to the woods that sheltered the children’s skating pond.

‘His Lordship wants to speak to me?’

The driver grinned at her. ‘Says I wasn’t to take no for an answer.’

‘There really is nothing more to say to him,’ she said aloud. But her heart was pounding. Could she really
leave without finding out what he wanted to say to her? It could not, of course, be what she most wanted to hear. ‘I should just go on my way,’ she said. But if she left, and did not hear him out, she would always wonder what he had wanted to tell her. It would drive her mad with curiosity!

And so, against her better judgement, she found herself taking the driver’s hand and getting out of the coach. And standing looking at the narrow path that wound through the thick belt of trees with her heart in her mouth.

And wonder in her eyes.

For strung amidst the dark, oppressive branches were dozens of coloured lanterns, lighting the way. She followed the route they lit for her stumbling feet, emerging in a matter of moments into the clearing where the children had skated. There had been another heavy frost overnight, adding a coating of what looked like swans-down to the pond where the children would no doubt be skating later on. And beyond it the old tumbledown ruins of the watchtower. The door was closed today, but through the arrow slits she could see a golden glow, and she knew Lord Bridgemere was inside, waiting for her, a fire already prepared so that they should not grow cold while they discussed…whatever it was he had summoned her to discuss.

Her heart pounding, she began to pick her way round the edges of the shallow dish of ice. She had still not reached the door before it flew open, and Lord Bridgemere was standing there, a dark silhouette against the golden glow of the fire.

‘Miss Forrest, you came!’

She paused, astonished by the eagerness of his greeting and the slight tinge of surprise she could hear in his voice—as though he had not been certain she would come. Had he really thought she could have insisted the driver turn the coach round and take her away?

He was standing to one side now, holding out his hand to her, ‘Come into the warm, please,’ he said. And she realised she was standing stock still, just gazing at him in surprise. ‘I promise you have nothing to fear from me.’

She knew that! It was just surprising to hear uncertainty in the voice of a man who had always seemed to her so very certain about everything.

She stepped over the threshold, and paused again in utter amazement. When he had opened it up for the children’s use she had thought it pretty rustic. It had a flagged stone floor and whitewashed walls, against which the fire-blackened beams stood out in stark contrast. There had been a table positioned a safe distance from the generously proportioned hearth from which the maids had dispensed hot drinks, and several mismatched dining chairs had been ranged about the walls, so that the smaller children or the nurserymaids would have somewhere to sit while they warmed themselves.

But today the place looked completely different. There was a sumptuous deep red carpet spread over the flags. The table had gone. And a pair of sofas had been draped with yards of heavy red velvet, heaped with cushions, and situated on either side of the fireplace. From every exposed beam hung garlands of fir and ivy, so that the air within was redolent of the greenwood.

But what struck her most of all was the mistletoe.
There were bunches of it everywhere. There were two over the doorframe, and another hanging from the central rustic candleholder. There were bunches hanging in the arrow slit windows, and dangling from the mantel-piece, and even a small sprig of it, she noted, her cheeks flaming, tucked into Lord Bridgemere’s buttonhole.

He saw her looking at it.

‘There will be no need for either of us to hope there might be mistletoe around today, Miss Forrest,’ he said, shutting the door. ‘I have made sure that wherever in this room you stand I will have the right to ask you for a kiss.’

‘B…but I am leaving…’ she said faintly.

He shook his head. ‘I do not think I can permit that.’ He turned his back on her to lock the door, then dropped the enormous iron key into the capacious pocket of a coat that was hanging on a peg nearby. He turned back to her, and with his hands on his hips shook his head. ‘No, I cannot permit it. If I have to keep you locked up in here for days until you see sense, then so be it!’

He stalked up to her, grim purpose writ all over his face.

Helen did not know what to make of what sounded like a declaration of intent to imprison her. She supposed, fleetingly, that she ought to be afraid. But, perversely, her heart was beating wildly with excitement. All that mistletoe, coupled with the look on his face, made her think he fully intended to kiss her senseless, as he had done last night. And she wanted him to! Wanted him to kiss her until
he
was wild and out of control, too.

But she could not let him do any such thing. It would be madness. She had a job to go to. Her own way to
make in the world. Yielding to him just because he felt like kissing her was absolutely out of the question!

As he had been advancing on her she had been steadily retreating, until the backs of her knees hit the sofa, and she dropped far from gracefully onto the soft, velvety surface, her eyes never leaving his intent face.

But, to her surprise, the moment he caught up with her, instead of joining her on the sofa and perhaps flinging her down and behaving like a proper kidnapper, he dropped to his knees before her. Seized her hands and looked up into her face, his eyes pleading.

‘Miss Forrest, you were right to refuse me when I asked you to marry me.’

Now Helen was really confused. If he thought she was right not to have accepted his proposal, then why had he bothered abducting her?

Her heart sank. Was he going to ask her to become his mistress? Because she had responded to him with such passion last night, did he think she was more fitted to that kind of position in his life?

She stiffened with anger.

‘I know, I know,’ he was saying, sensitive to her reaction. ‘That proposal was…an insult to a woman like you! It was just that hearing you were going to leave took me by surprise. I could not bear to think of you leaving. But I did not think about
why
I was so upset by the notion of never seeing you again. All I could think of was that I had to prevent you going. Had to do whatever it would take to make you stay and give me the right to care for you. I proposed to you out of panic. And then reeled with shock at having said the words I swore I would
never say to any woman again after what happened with Lucinda.’

He paused, an expression of anguish flickering across his face. And Helen’s anger cooled in the face of his misery. It appeared Lady Thrapston had been in the right. He
had
loved his first wife. So much that it was causing him agony to so much as mention her name!

‘And then last night I behaved like a brute beast. I knew you were leaving, that I had no right to kiss you like that, never mind the other liberties I took with you!’

At the mere mention of those liberties Helen could feel his tongue sweeping over the breast that his hands had freed from its confinement. She remembered the delicious shivers that had racked her whole body when he had bunched up her skirts and slid his hands between her thighs.

‘I do not want your apology—’ she began.

But he let go of her hands, got to his feet, and said fiercely, ‘I have no intention of apologising! I am merely trying to explain things!’

He paced away from her, as though grappling with some internal demons before being able to speak again.

‘I suppose I could blame the moonlit walk home with you in my arms. Or claim I drank rather more than I should have at the tenants’ ball. But the truth was,’ he said, his eyes bleak, ‘that you were utterly irresistible. At one point I was almost completely overwhelmed by my desire for you. I think I was on the point of ravishing you up against that wall,’ he said bitterly. ‘Which is not at all like me. You see, I have not looked at any woman
in that way since Lucinda died. I had thought I would never feel desire again. And then you came into my life, and I began to feel again. It has been like coming back to life. Or…or like spring bringing everything into flower after a long, cold winter.’

‘Did…did you love her that much?’ she blurted. It hurt so much to think he seemed angry with her for making him feel again. As if she had done it to him on purpose!

‘Love her? I did not love her! What the devil made you think I loved her?’

‘Y…you said it was like winter. That you had not been happy for years or thought of another woman… What am I supposed to think?’

He came back to the sofa, sat down heavily, and reached for her hand. ‘I did think I loved Lucinda at first,’ he grated. ‘When my guardians told me they had chosen her to be my wife I was thrilled. She was so beautiful. So captivating. She dazzled me. But whatever it was I felt for her it was turned completely on its head within a month of marrying her. When I discovered what she was really like. And when it ended I swore I would never let another woman take me for a fool again. Because my first marriage, you see, was an unmitigated disaster.

‘Lucinda was a consummate actress,’ he continued. ‘She pretended to be all sweetness and light, fooling my guardians, fooling me, into thinking she would make the ideal Countess of Bridgemere.’

Helen’s mind flew back to what Aunt Bella had said about Lucinda acting like a spoiled child instead of a wife with a position in society to live up to. And how
she would not have been surprised if His Lordship
had
lost his temper with her. And wondered whatever she could have done to make him speak of her with such bitterness even after all these years. ‘She
was
a virgin when we wed. I’ll grant her that,’ he said, giving Helen a pretty good idea of what the answer to her unspoken question was going to be. ‘I can only suppose she must have thought she ought to bow to the conventions until her position became unassailable. But once I had relieved her of that impediment she saw no more need for discretion. She took her first lover within a month of marrying me…’