To Wed His Christmas Lady (The Heart of a Duke Book 7) (13 page)

“I am not angry,” she bit out, letting her arm fall. “I do not care that he forgot me.” Her earlier unspoken grief stood testament to that lie. He’d not, however, strip her of that dignity.

“Hurl it at the tree,” he continued as though she’d not spoken.

Her long, beleaguered sigh stirred the cold air. “Oh, very well.” Following his instructions, she tossed the snowball. It sailed to the left of the tree trunk. “There, are you happy?” she snapped. “Now are we d—”

William gently wrapped his hand about her forearm, halting her retreat. How many years had she spent retreating from the emotions roiling through her? “I am not happy. That was a pathetic attempt.” She pursed her lips. How hard to go through life concealing who you are and what you felt—even from yourself. He held her gaze. “You need to turn yourself over to feeling, Cara.”

His words wrapped about her like a lover’s seductive kiss. He waved that tantalizing glimmer of…
feeling
and challenged her to embrace that part of her, inside, that was very much alive. Emotion filled her breast. How long had she feared being mocked or judged? In her life, the girls she’d had the displeasure of knowing and even her father’s servants had delighted in her flaws. So much so that she’d sought to be the perfect ice princess William had taken her as.

The old anger and hurt of her father’s disdain rushed to the surface and, with it, the years of solitude and silence she’d endured in a household where she may as well have been invisible to her brother.
It is unbecoming for a lady to cry even after her mother’s death…

With a raspy growl climbing up her throat, she bent and made a flawless, rounded snowball then sent it sailing into the tree trunk. It collided with a loud, invigorating
splat
. Taken aback, Cara’s mouth fell open and she looked from the powdered residue left as proof of her victory and then to Will. He stood at her side, a gentle, encouraging smile on his lips. “I-I did it.”

“Of course you did,” he said and stooped forward. He constructed another missile and held it out.

She claimed it without hesitation. “This is for forgetting me,” she called at her inanimate object. She tossed another ball and it found its mark.

William proffered another ball.

“This is for not allowing me to paint.” She tossed another. Her chest heaved with the force of her exertion, but the winter air purified her lungs, spreading its cleansing, healing power through her once-cold being. He continued to supply perfectly molded snowballs.

“And for binding me to a man just like you.” This time, Cara bent and assembled her own. “And I am
nothing
like you,” she shouted into the quiet. Only, as she threw, she no longer knew if the furious energy lending her strength came from the sad, sorry little girl she’d been, alone in a loveless world, or the bitter, angry, friendless woman she’d become.

She threw until her arm ached from her efforts and her breath came fast and hard. And then she stared at the juniper with its branches drooping under the weight of its melting burden. With the tension drained from her, the humiliation of letting Will into her world burned her with the heat of shame. Never had she allowed anyone entry in this way and suddenly she hated him for exposing her. And more, she wanted to be so exposed with another person.

She ground her teeth. “I am not taking part in this any longer. This is silly,” she complained and snapped her skirts. Only, as she spun on her heel, she propelled with such force in the uneven snow that she flopped backward.

A startled shriek escaped her and she flung her arms out to prevent a fall. Her efforts futile, Cara landed in an ignoble heap on her back. She closed her eyes and braced for Will’s laughter and when he did, she would never forgive him for forcing her into opening herself and then finding mirth in her retreat. His boots ground the snow in a noisy manner as he strode over. He lay down alongside her, their shoulders pressed together. She opened her eyes and turned her head slightly to look at him.

He remained with his gaze fixed at the shelter of trees above. “It is beautiful, isn’t it?” he whispered. The blue of the morning sky filtered through the branches.

Cara managed a nod, but then recalled he could not see her with his stare trained as it was. “I-it is.” Coldness ran through her. It left her hollow and desolate and had nothing to do with the icy snow penetrating the fabric of her lined cloak and everything to do with the truth that she’d never again see him.

Wordlessly, he came to his feet, and then held a hand out.

Cara wanted to snap and hiss at that offering, and a couple of days ago she would have sneered words of disdain for that gesture. Now, she placed her fingertips in his gloved palm and allowed him to help her stand. “You will leave today?” She prayed he accounted that faint tremble to the cold of the day.

Will lowered his mouth to hers and brushed his lips over hers once. “I must.”

Of course he must. She nodded jerkily, but the swell of tears in her throat made words impossible. It was he who ended this last stolen moment of bliss she’d ever know.

Another lingering wind rustled the trees overhead and sent snow falling to the earth.

Their chests moved in like movements; swift and hard. “We need to return.” Reluctance underscored Will’s low baritone.

“Yes.” They should have never stolen off into this hidden place and yet she’d gladly trade her respectability and good name to be here with him now.

He dipped his head and brushed his chin atop her hair. “If we are discovered, you will be ruined,” he whispered into the tangled mass.

Yes, that was true and, at one time, such a thought mattered. No longer. Cara leaned up and pressed her lips to his. He went immobile as she kissed him and with a groan, he wrapped his arms about her, pulling her close to his chest. He made love to her mouth with his, as she’d longed for since that silent night in the empty hall of the Fox and Hare Inn. She angled her head, learning the taste of him—mint and mulled cider—committing all of him indelibly upon her memory so she might carry it with her always, into the long, cold, lonely future awaiting her.

Their embrace was one of panicked desperation. Her breath rasped wildly and she twined her hands about his neck. Will opened his mouth and swallowed those shamefully hungry sounds. This was not enough. It could never be enough. He moved his long, powerful hands down her frame and through the fabric of her cloak cupped the soft swell of her buttocks. On an agonized groan, he dragged her against the vee of his thighs.

Her head fell back and a long, keening moan whispered about them. “Will.”

C
ara’s hoarse entreaty was the manner of breathy desire that had driven better men than William to their knees.

He ran his lips over her neck, gently grazing her skin with his teeth until he had wrung a gasp from her lips. “What hold do you have upon me?”

“Th-the same one y-you have upon m-me.” Her breathless reply danced about him and he picked his head up. Her lips parted with desire, and her thick lashes hooding the passion teeming from her eyes hinted at a woman who’d welcome him between her thighs, and for one selfish instant, he ached with a physical hunger to be the first to lay claim to her innocence and not the bastard who would one day have the right to the delicate gift.

He slid his eyes closed, wanting to be one of those roguish sorts who’d put his own pleasure and hers before the honor of either of their names. Then, no truly honorable gentleman would be alone with an unwed lady, exploring her with his mouth, as he did now.

“Wh-why did you stop?” The tentative glimmer in her eyes wrenched at his heart.

William silently cursed and let his hands fall to his sides. “We can’t do this, Cara.” The muscles of his belly tightened. “You belong to another.” Did those gravelly-spoken words dragged from his lungs belong to him? And though he was not betrothed by anything more than a pledge he’d given his father, his fate too was sealed. Ah, God, where once that truth had filled him with a gripping rage, now he wanted to rail at the fates for the loss of this woman. He’d sold his soul for merely eight years and this fleeting Christmastide meeting.

For a moment, pain contorted Cara’s face and she may as well have thrust a dagger into his chest for the agony of causing her that hurt. “Well,” she said, her voice small, at odds with that icy, unfeeling, clipped tone she’d adopted before.

Did she believe it did not matter to him that she’d one day belong to another? Some bloody, rotted bounder who’d be the first to lay her down and know the bliss of sliding into her innocent body. A red haze of jealousy stole across his vision, momentarily blinding him. It was safer that she believed him unaffected by the magic of these few days and yet he could not ride out with her not knowing she’d left an indelible mark upon his soul in ways he still could not right.

He tipped her chin up. “If circumstances were different,” his lips pulled in a grimace and she slid her gaze down. “If I was a different man and you were a different lady and had we met…” before he’d taken that bloody barter. But then she would have been just a child. With that, an image danced forward of her as she would have been then. A young, lonely girl, alone with only her father’s icy reserve for her guidance. Pain knifed at him. How he wished there had been someone for her all these years.

And how he wished to be that person now.

“It doesn’t matter,” she began, her gaze fixed on his neck.

William braced.

“It doesn’t matter that you are illegitimate.” Her words penetrated his earlier yearnings. He furrowed his brow. She believed he was a nobleman’s by-blow? Even as he attempted to wrap his mind around the erroneous conclusion she’d drawn, Cara wet her lips. Emotion spilled from her eyes and threatened to suck him into the unspoken words hovering on her lips. Words he knew were coming. “I…”
Oh, God.
His gut clenched. For when she uttered them into existence, everything would change…and yet, nothing, all at the same rotted time. “I love you.”
Oh, God
. Her words washed over him, scalding and freeing and enticing in ways he’d never known they could be.

“Oh, Cara mia.” He brushed his lips over her temple.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said quickly and then her words ran over one another. “I know you likely believe it does to me because you think I am an ice princess without feelings.” Shame sprang in his chest and spread through him. How unfairly he’d passed judgment. He’d not bothered to think that life had surely shaped her, just as he, too, had been shaped by his dream for freedom from the stifling life thrust upon him as a duke’s son. Cara took his face between her palms. Even through the fabric of her damp gloves, her skin burned his. “I have spent years feeling nothing and believing myself incapable of feeling—anything—and not even wanting to.” A half-laugh, half-sob bubbled past her bow-shaped lips. “But you saw that as a lie. You looked at me when no one before you has, not even my own family, and I want you.” Her words echoed about the copse.

He closed his eyes once again with the promise she dangled before him—that dream his parents would withhold, for nothing more than a familial connection they’d forge with another. He opened and closed his mouth several times. Could he abandon the pledge he’d made his father? “We cannot.”
But why can’t I?
There was no formal contract. There was a promise made to his father and surely he’d free his son when William told him that he loved this woman.

The air froze in his chest.

I love her.

Cara’s bell-like laughter rang in the clearing. “Of course we can. Don’t you see?” She applied a gentle pressure to his cheeks. “I do not care what plans my father has for me or the man he’d have me wed. I want you.”

And God help him… He pressed his eyes closed. He didn’t care, either. That surely marked him dishonorable in so many ways, ways that mattered. But she mattered more. William looked at her again.

Her smile slipped. “D-do you not believe me?” Color suffused her cheeks. “Or do you think I cannot know these things after but a few days. I do, Will.” She brushed her lips to his.

Years of ladylike decorum ingrained into Cara’s every thought and actions screamed in protest, but she claimed control of her mind, and more, her feelings, thrilling at the power of it. The moment she had breathed her words of love for Will into truth, for the both of them, a giddy lightness had filled her chest. After Mother’s passing, her father had sneered at her tears and loud grief for the loss of the woman who’d held her every night and every morning. How wrong he had been. There was nothing shameful in this. There was joy and beauty and a buoyant happiness that threatened to lift her up. How did she not see that before?

Because I did not know Will.

Cara ran her gaze over his cherished face and celebrated her ruin, not of revenge that her father would likely see any match between her and Will, but for the first time having control of her emotions.

She broke the kiss. “I love you,” she whispered against his mouth. Her heart hung suspended to hear those precious words uttered back.

“I have not been fully truthful with you,” he said at last, his tone gruff and hesitant in a way she’d not heard in any of their exchanges.

“Oh, God.” Her heart dipped and then fell somewhere in her belly. A wave of coldness ran through her as an ugly, niggling possibility crept in. She sank back on her heels. Unwittingly, she scrabbled at her throat. “You
are
married.” Her heart ripped open at the ugly possibility.

“No.” The denial came from him harsh and guttural. He dragged a hand through his hair. “Do you think I would be here with you now if I was married?”

“I…” His words gave her pause. For that was precisely what she believed all men were capable of. Her father had proven himself a lecherous lord who took his pleasures where he willed it. The memories she had of her earlier years, when her mother lived, included a lonely woman weeping in her chambers when she’d not known her daughter listened in. It was from her mother she’d learned the cathartic healing that came from those wicked curse words. Will was different and even loving him as she did, she still didn’t know what to make of it.

He cupped her neck. Running his fingers in a soothing back and forth rhythm, he caressed her nape. “You do not have much faith in the honor of a gentleman, do you?” Regret underscored his observation.

She mustered a wry smile. “I’ve not been given much reason to.” Between her father, with his countless bastards littering the countryside, and her brother, who’d devoted his life to his own pleasures, she’d long ago accepted they were all self-serving fiends who’d place their own wants and desires above anyone and everyone.

And that was the world she’d be riding off into with the melting snow, no doubt, tomorrow. Unbidden, her gaze searched through the copse of trees to the stable where she’d left the earl’s carriage. Panic churned in her belly. For when she made the journey from the Fox and Hare Inn, she’d forget to smile and laugh, and slowly become the cold, lonely ice princess hated by all.

She looked questioningly up at him. “What?”

“Come,” William said harshly, and shifted course, leading her deeper into the copse. He brought them to a halt beside a towering juniper. “Have you ever before made a Christmas bough, Cara?” he asked as he released her and walked beside the evergreen with its needle-like cones and blue berries.

From the corner of his eye, he detected the slight shake of her head. He bent and retrieved a dagger from his boot, then carefully set to work slicing off greenery the size of his hand. “Mistletoe was sacred to the Druids,” he explained. “And once called
All Heal
. It was thought to bring good fortune and happiness.” He held it up for her inspection and she tipped her head, studying it in silence. Then their eyes caught and held. “It was believed that no lady could refuse a kiss under the bough.”

She touched the spindly needles with the tips of her fingers. “Oh, Will. You do not require a bough to secure my kiss.” Despite the chill of the day, her cheeks burned at that boldness.

He dipped his head and captured her lips underneath his in a gentle meeting. Her hands fluttered between them and then she rested her delicate palms on his chest. His heart pounded. William lowered his brow to hers and drew in a deep breath. He’d thought this handful of days would be enough to sustain him through the cold future awaiting him. William could not honor the word he’d pledged his father years earlier. He could not walk away from Cara and the happiness she represented. William sucked in a breath, drawing in the mint and lemon scent so that it filled his senses. “I love you.” She stilled. “And God help me, Cara, I cannot leave you.” There was something beautifully freeing in uttering those words. The time for shame at breaking an oath he’d made to his parents would come later. But Cara represented forever.

She ran her gaze over him. Fear warred with hope. William ran his thumb along her lower lip. “I want you.” But he wanted her in the way she deserved—to be properly courted, betrothed, and then ultimately married. Her lips parted and then a small sob escaped her. William folded his arms about her, drawing her against his chest. “I want to court you as you deserve. I don’t care about the man who believes he has a claim to you,” he said, rubbing his cheek over the silken softness of her curls.

Her body went still in his arms. “Oh, Will,” she said brokenly. Cara drew back with pain burning in her eyes. “My father will never allow it.”

He captured her hands in his and silenced her. She deserved the truth of his identity. “You asked for my story, Cara,” he spoke in hushed tones. “I am not illegitimate.”

She cocked her head.

“I am the heir to a dukedom.”

Through the years, that revelation had been met with fawning and preening. Once more, Cara proved herself wholly unlike any other he’d known.

Her cheeks turned white to rival the unsullied snow upon the ground. Her hands went to her throat. “Wh-what?” He frowned as she took a faltering step away.

For the first time in the course of his twenty-six years, his birthright was met with whispered horror. Did she think he’d not wed her because of his title? He turned his palms up. “You asked if I was married…”