To Wed His Christmas Lady (The Heart of a Duke Book 7) (12 page)

“Goddamn you.”

That caustic loathing in Cara’s words froze him. He shot his gaze to the floor where she lay with the upper portion of her chest tucked under the carriage. With violent, angry movements, she shook the axle to the black lacquer conveyance.

He creased his brow as another stream of mumbled ramblings flooded the stables. All the angry fury that had sent him marching to the stables drained from his tautly held frame. He scratched at his head. “Are you trying to break your axle?”

His words brought Cara up quickly and she cracked her head under the base of the carriage. Scooting out from under the frame, she sat up. Her hair tumbled down about her, falling free of her loose chignon, and he went still. His breath stuck a moment at the erotic sight of her and that curtain of blonde hair draped about her, as it drew forth tantalizing images of her, naked upon his bed, with those tresses wrapped as a silken curtain about their entwined bodies.

Christ
. Disgusted with himself, William forced himself into movement. He flew across the stable and fell to a knee beside her. His chest tightened at the evidence of her physical pain. “Are you hurt?” he demanded.

Cara rubbed at her head and winced. “I am fine,” she said and then ruined the matter-of fact tone by cringing.

William dragged forth the panicked concern that had sent him running after her. “What are you doing?” he asked again, and then lowering her arms to her side, set to work inspecting the bump at the top of her head.

She winced as he touched the red flesh. “Ouch.” Cara favored him with a frown. “I was…” She flinched again as he continued his search. “Must you do that?”

“Yes,” he said without hesitation. William probed the flesh, already darkening to a purplish-black. “You’ve bruised your head.”

“And my pride,” she muttered.

Ah, Cara.
How carefully she guarded her dignity and emotions. “Why were you attempting to break your carriage?” A feat she, no doubt, knew impossible and yet attempted anyway. His gut clenched. What desperation drove those actions?

She shrugged off his touch and came quickly to her feet so that for a brief moment, with him kneeling at her feet, she had the advantage over his tall frame. “What would you have me say to you?” she demanded, her tone sharp. “That I tried to break the bloody carriage? That I would rather return to miserable Mrs. Belden’s than my own home because there is nothing for me there?”

Oh, God
. Her words ran ragged through him, twisting the knife of pain at the sight of her suffering. A muscle jumped at the corner of his eye and he stretched a hand out. “Oh,
Cara mia
.”

She ignored that offering and he let his arm fall to his side. “I do not want your pity,” she spat. “I neither want it n-nor need it.” Her attempt at aloof disdain was ruined by that faint tremor. And with her revelation, the mask she’d donned at last made sense. Cara sought to protect herself. She’d been so hurt and broken by those who should have loved and cared for her that she’d transformed herself into a person who sought to bury all emotion. That realization only gutted him all the more.

“I do not pity you,” he said quietly. He ached for her hurt and would make it his own if he could, but never pity.

With angry eyes she searched his face. Then wordlessly, she presented him her back. She wandered over to the carriage. Her shoulders shook in a silent expression of grief and he’d rather be run through than witness the sight of her suffering.

William strode over and settled his hands on her shoulders. She stiffened. If he gave her softly whispered platitudes, she’d reject them. “If I could take your pain and make it my own, I would own all this hurt and every other you’ve known leading up to it,” he whispered against her ear. Cara’s shoulders quaked all the more. He placed his lips against her temple and allowed her the freedom of her tears. They remained there, with their presence taunting the fates into an eventual discovery. William wrapped his arms about her and drew her back against his chest. He braced for her rejection, but then she folded her arms over his and leaned into him.

“My father forgot me.”

For a moment, William’s ears tricked him. “My father forgot me,” she repeated and those words were spoken more to herself.

“He forgot you?” he managed to squeeze out past tight lips.

At her brusque nod, he swallowed down a black curse. What father forgot his child? Even in his years of traveling the Continent and the Americas, his father and mother’s missives had invariably found him. Letters with words of love and pride and questions of his travels. The manner of family Cara spoke of was a foreign one to him. Knowing Cara’s own life had been devoid of such familial love caused a dull, throbbing ache in his heart. William curled his hands tightly and she winced. He forced himself to relax his grip. “When?” Emotion gave the query a gruff undertone.

She shot a look over her shoulder at him. “N-now.” Cara wrinkled her nose, and he’d wager his future title of duke that her tremulous reply was not a product of the cold. “Well, n-not now.” With quaking fingers, she ran them over the gold crest emblazoned on the carriage. He took in the snarling lion. “This is not his seal. This is not his carriage.”

Confusion rang in his ears.
Not his seal?
“I do not understand,” he said slowly, attempting to follow her disjointed explanation. He opened his mouth to ask the identity of the bastard who’d so callously forgotten her;
needing
to know the name of that miserable sire. But the stark pain in her eyes quelled all words and the moment passed. For in this moment, knowing that man’s identity would not erase the pain Cara now knew; the pain she’d always known.

“This is a carriage loaned by another young lady’s father after
my
father forgot to send his ’round to Mrs. Belden’s.” A mirthless laugh spilled from her lips. “He, no doubt, wished me to spend my holiday at the empty school, where even the head dragon despises me.”

Vitriolic hatred spiraled through him for the man who’d sired her and then subsequently forgotten her. An unholy, powerful urge to find the man and take him apart with his hands momentarily blinded William. While he’d spent the past eight years of his life resenting his father for expecting him to wed the Duke of Ravenscourt’s daughter, he’d still been permitted freedoms and assured of his father’s love. Where had Cara’s happiness in life been? Where had been the person to love her and care for her? He ceased rubbing her shoulders and gently turned her around. Bold and unabashed as she was in every way, she squarely met his gaze. “You deserve more,” he said quietly. “You deserve to love and be loved. You deserve to laugh and know there is no shame in feeling.”

Her lower lip quivered and she lifted up her palms. “What does it say of me that my own father cannot love me?”

Had she taken a sword and splayed his heart open, it could not have hurt more than this piercing agony ripping through him. Emotion graveled his voice. “It says nothing of you and everything about him.” A man he’d gladly throttle if he ever had the misfortune of meeting him.
But I won’t. My words will never again collide with hers after this Christmastide interlude.
Pain stuck in his stomach, dragging the air from his lungs.

“Perhaps,” she said noncommittally giving him a sad smile. “But perhaps not.” She gave a toss of her curls. “Not that it matters. Christmas is really just any other day of the year. There is nothing so very special in it.”

Memories flitted through his mind. What the holiday season had been like for him as the Duke of Billingsley’s son—the laughter, the celebration, his one-time child’s excitement for Cook’s Shrewsbury cakes. He’d sell his soul on Sunday for the right to show Cara that it didn’t have to be the cold, lonely time of year.

As a taut silence fell between them, William accepted he could not ride out this day as planned. Not with all she’d revealed and not with the truths she’d shared. More than ever, he wished to spend the remainder of his days showing her that every day was one to be celebrated. He leaned close and touched his lips to the lobe of her ear. She tipped her head and opened herself to that subtle caress. He took her by the hand. “Come with me.”

“I thought you were leaving,” she said but allowed him to pull her from the stables and outside into the snow. Her teeth clattered noisily. A light gust of wind whipped the fabric of their cloaks together. Her words pealed with hope and relief and a joy ran through him that shouldn’t even matter.

“Not yet,” he said helping her through the drifts, ignoring the painful bite of the winter’s chill. William guided them away from the stables and off to the juniper trees in the distance. They stepped into the copse, where the snow-covered trees enveloped them in privacy. He released her hand and crouched.

Cara folded her arms and rubbed them, as though trying to bring warmth to her chilled limbs. “Wh-what are you doing?” Cara asked as he gathered snow into a ball.

He glanced up and his chest tightened at the tracks left by her tears. William managed a half-grin. “Don’t tell me you’ve never made a snowball.”

She eyed it and then looked questioningly to him. “Never.”

He made to rise, but her words brought him up short. “Never?”

Cara shook her head and dislodged several golden curls. She stopped rubbing her arms and gave her gloves a tug. “My father wouldn’t dare permit such inanity.” Her mouth tightened.

He gave thanks for the restoration of her spirit that blotted out her earlier misery. Oh, he’d no doubt her pain went far beyond those handful of tears she’d silently cried, but she deserved to turn herself over to all those emotions—the anger, the hurt, the resentment, the pain. “When I was a boy, I’d throw rocks in the summer and balls of snow in the winter when I was upset.”

A sound of annoyance escaped her. “I am not upset. I am m-merely c-cold.”

His lips twitched at her indignant response. “Of course,” he replied solemnly. “Regardless…” He held out the rounded missile.

Cara wrinkled her nose, reddened from the cold. “I am not throwing a snowball, Will.”

He quirked an eyebrow. “Because ladies do not hurl snowballs?”

“Prec—oomph,” She widened her eyes as though she’d received a pistol ball to the chest and glanced at the smattering of snow left on her cloak. “Why…why…you
hit
me.”

“With a snowball,” he amended. “You need to release the tight reins you have on your control.” From where he squatted, he hastily assembled another and hurled it at her skirts.

Cara stepped out of the way, but the snow slowed her movements and his missile found its mark. If looks could burn, she’d have melted the snow with the outrage in her eyes. “S-stop. Hitting. Me. With—” He tossed another and it connected with her abdomen. “That is quite enough,” she muttered and stooped. With quick, angry movements she made a—

A laugh burst from him. “What in blazes is that?” He jabbed his finger in her direction.

She pursed her lips and stole a glance about. “What is what?” Then she followed his gaze to her misshapen snowball. “Th-this is a snowball,” she said with the same indignation she might if he’d questioned her parentage.

William snorted. “That is most assuredly
not
—” Cara drew her hand back and hurled her poorly constructed missile. He easily leaned out of the way and it sailed past. “A snowball,” he finished.

A flurry of inventive curses split the quiet as she set to work building another snowball. She wet her lips and then eyed the object in her hand. With a beleaguered sigh, she held the snowball up for his inspection. Pride warred with uncertainty in her eyes.

He eyed the rounded ball and gave a slight nod of approval. “That is much imp—” She tossed her weapon made of snow, but it sailed into a sad, quiet heap several feet in front of him. William waggled his eyebrows. “Tsk, tsk, you are not very good at this, my lady.”

Her teeth chattered. “I-it is b-because this is silly. It is f-freezing and wet out.”

“And those are excuses.” he said folding his arms at his chest.

“Th-they are not excuses.” She stomped her foot and then cursed, shooting her arms out to keep from tipping over. “F-furthermore, throwing a rock or a snowball will
n-not
make me feel better.”

William strode over to her, taking in the flecks of silver hurt dancing in her eyes. He stopped just a handbreadth a way. “It is not about making you feel better, Cara.” The wind whistled and a loose golden curl danced over her eyes. He brushed it behind her ear.

“Th-then what is it a-about?” she gritted out between her clattering teeth.

Leaning close, he whispered against her lips. “It is about feeling something and feeding that emotion. You are angry.” She opened her mouth as though to protest and he gave her a look, which silenced her. “And you should be. No father should forget his daughter.” Rage slithered around inside him so that he wanted to hunt her father down and bloody the man senseless for having hurt her; with his abandonment and in his unfeeling treatment of her through the years. “There is no shame in feeling.” He bent once more and made another snowball. Standing slowly, William held it out for her.

They stood locked in a silent battle of wills and then tipping her chin up, she took it from his hand. He positioned himself at her back. “You require a target.” He looked about and then gestured to the trunk of a wide juniper. “Draw your arm back. Further,” he urged when she hesitated. “Do not break the movement as you follow through with your throw and then with all the anger you have for your father—”