To Wed His Christmas Lady (The Heart of a Duke Book 7) (15 page)

T
hese were sorry days indeed when a lady willingly chose to spend Christmas at Mrs. Belden’s miserable halls.

Properly attired in her ivory satin gown, Cara lay on her side, her breath frozen. Once again, she stared at walls but altogether different ones than the thin, whitewashed panels of the Fox and Hare Inn. This room sterile, yet perfect. There was no water stained ceilings or cold winter breezes stealing through the window. She flipped onto her back and flung her arm across her brow. A sad smile pulled at her lips. She’d have traded all of her father’s properties gladly for the possession of that miserable, little inn. There had been more beauty and happiness in that aged establishment than in any place she’d had the misfortune of calling home in any of her eighteen years.

In one great twist of irony, she’d almost had every happiness she never believed herself deserving of, or even possible… Her throat worked. Will was
her
William. That man she’d despised all these years for being a future duke and emotionless nobleman her father would wed her to. She caught her lower lip hard. He’d never been any of those things she’d silently accused him of being, whereas she? She had been the very cruel, cold, and calculated person he’d taken her as. And for that, she’d freed him.

A shuddery sob spilled past her lips. She rolled onto her side again and hugged her arms tight about herself. Her skin still burned with the feel of another pair of arms folded about her. True to the selfish, needy lady she’d been for the course of her life, she wanted more of him. Wanted all of him. She swiped a hand over her face. “Enough,” she whispered. Cara shoved herself up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. The mattress groaned with the slight depression of her weight. The sunlight filtered through the open curtains and she squinted at the stream of light as it drew her back to another sunny day inside a copse of juniper trees. For all the agony of losing him, happiness danced within her heart at the fleeting joy she’d known.

A knock sounded at the door. “My lady?” Alison’s happy voice sounded from the other side of the door.

Cara cast a glance over her shoulder and her lips twisted in a wry smile. Ah, the summons. One week too late. Or mayhap, just in time. Had her father’s carriage arrived when it ought, she’d have traveled on to his miserable, cold, and lonely estate. She would still be the same shallow, selfish creature who shut out the thoughts and feelings of others and protected herself. She gripped the edge of her bed. Mayhap this was the one gift her father had given her.

Another rap. “My lady? You have been summoned below.”

Of course the summons was due. Her father would invariably remember he had a daughter somewhere when he had use of her. Did he even now realize that the long-standing arrangement between him and the Duke of Billingsley binding their children had been severed? There could never be triumph in thwarting her father’s wishes when it had also shattered her heart.

“My lady?” Some of Alison’s usual cheer faded to a cautious concern.

With a sigh, she came to her feet. “Just a moment, Alison.” She made her way across the room, pausing beside her vanity. A miserable creature with red eyes and wan cheeks stared back at her. Cara attempted to pinch some color into her pale skin. Her eyes remained rimmed with red, a testament to her tears. Abandoning all futile efforts to be the cool, unaffected lady she’d been before William, she made her way to the door and pulled it open.

Alison smiled. “You are…” Her happiness dimmed as she took in Cara’s face. Her gaze lingered on Cara’s cheeks. “You have been summoned to the Green Parlor, my lady.”

So her father had managed to remember her, at last.

“Thank you,” she replied. Except, by the flare of shock in Alison’s eyes, it only served to remind Cara once more of a nobleman who was kind to all, regardless of station or lot in life. A man so very different than her father—or her. Averting her eyes so her maid could not see the blasted sheen of tears misting her vision. “Alison, will you see that I’m all ready to depart?” Again.

The girl nodded and rushed into the room.

Cara continued down the corridor, her footsteps echoed off the corridor walls. How very sadly similar this day was to another not even a week prior. Only, no laughter chimed from the rooms of other students or excited prattling filled the corridors of young women excited to return home for the holiday season. She’d been so very condescending to her fellow students; mocking their happiness, jeering their love of the inanity. She winced. What a foul creature she’d been. Cara paused at the edge of the Green Parlor and layered her back against the ivory damask wallpaper.

“You deserve more…You deserve to love and be loved. You deserve to laugh and know there is no shame in feeling…”

She caught her lip hard as desperate fear pounded at her breast; the sickening possibility that once the warm memory of William faded, and she returned home, with the inevitable prospect of making a match with some other lord her father approved of. Cara stared angrily at the opposite wall and balled her fists. She did not want hurt and resentment to transform her into the cold, hateful creature she’d been. “I will not be that woman,” she mouthed.

No. She would not be manipulated as a pawn on her father’s chessboard of power. She’d not wed any gentleman just because her loathsome sire ordained the match. Cara froze, as a giddy fluttering danced about her belly. Since her mother’s death she’d been groomed and coached by the most distinguished instructors in the kingdom; molded into a shell of a person Society approved of. That control she’d turned naively over, unwillingly as a child. A slow, triumphant smile that would have appalled her father, should he see it, turned her lips up in a wide grin. Too long she’d given her happiness over to others. William had shown her there was no shame in a lady feeling. As such, she’d never have him, but she would have some control of her life.

Squaring her shoulders, she took a step, and then stopped. A small kissing bough made of juniper cones hung at the center of the doorway. Cara blinked. Her heart thumped loudly in her ears as she recalled a different juniper and then her skin burned hot with awareness and she slowly lowered her gaze. Then the rapidly pounding organ in her chest ceased to beat altogether.

Arms clasped at his back, William stood in the center of the parlor. Except… Cara tipped her head. The elegantly clad gentleman in his midnight claw hammer coat and buckskin breeches bore no hint of the rough stranger in coarse Holland cotton breeches and a rough cap. “Clarisse.” His gruff baritone washed over her like the warmth of a summer sun’s rays.

She slid her eyes closed and allowed the husky sound to envelope her in a soft caress. Then his greeting registered. Her eyes shot open. Not Cara.
Clarisse
. She smoothed her palms over her skirts. “Y-you called me Clarisse,” she said taking a step away. Of course, he would eventually discover the identity of the lady he’d thrown snowballs with outside the Fox and Hare Inn. She’d just not expected it would be but two days later. She continued her retreat.

William dropped his arms to his sides. He sent one chestnut eyebrow winging up. “Is that not your name?”

“It is.” Her back knocked against the wall and she gave thanks for the support that kept her upright, even as her legs went weak at the confusion of William’s presence here. Now. She cast a glance about, wetting her lips. Surely the proper Mrs. Belden would never permit this unchaperoned meeting between a duke’s daughter and an unmarried gentleman.

“I explained we were betrothed,” he said quietly, correctly interpreting the path her thoughts had wandered. He folded his arms before him. “Did you think you’d leave that inn and I’d not ever find out the identity of the woman who threw my world off-kilter?”

Oh, God.
Agony wrenched her heart. What game did he play? “W-we are not betrothed.” She despised the breathlessly weak quality of her rebuttal.

Through narrowed eyes, he watched her retreat. “Ah, but we almost were,” he said tormenting her with that softly spoken statement. And this time, with his long, graceful strides he ate away the distance between them.

Cara remained fixed to her spot. She’d spent almost the whole of her life retreating—from pain, from strangers, and herself. Cara pressed her hands to the wall borrowing artificial support from the cold, hard plaster. “How did you find…” She allowed her words to trail off.

He gave her a droll smile. “How did I learn you’d given Lady Nora’s identity as your own?”

Guilt twisted at that lie. Even if it had been a deception to set him free, it spoke to her honor. Cara managed a nod.

William reached into his pocket and she studied his slow, precise movements as he withdrew a familiar necklace. Her throat closed as he held up the shimmering, crimson ruby she’d never separated from—until now. Until him. “Imagine my parents’ shock when I went to them asking to be freed of my obligations to Lady Clarisse Falcot, because I’d lost my heart quite desperately to another woman.” He looked from the necklace in his large palm to her. “Only for my mother to question just how I’d come by your mother’s necklace. I would have come yesterday so you did not wake up alone.” Again. “On this Christmas day.” He let the gold chain dangle between his fingers and the shimmering ruby twisted and danced. “But I had your chain repaired first. You lost it before, Cara.” He took a step toward her. “I will not have it lost again.”

She sought to decipher some of what he was feeling in his smooth, modulated tone. Was he angry? Embarrassed? His face may as well have been set into an unyielding mask. “Why are you here?” she pleaded.

She stiffened as he shot out his other hand and then slowly, in a hypnotic, gentle motion ran his knuckles over her jaw. “How could I not come for you, Clarisse?”

Emotion clogged her throat. Why was he doing this? “Do not call me that.” Her words came out as a ragged entreaty. “I despise that name.” Chosen by her father, she hated it for that alone.

William flicked his gaze over her face, his eyes lingering on hers. Pain sparked in their blue depths, but then was quickly gone. Did he see the evidence of the tears she’d cried for him? Once, that weakness would have shamed her. No longer. Because of him. He’d taught her there was no shame in one’s tears or hurts.

“Very well,” he said quietly. “Cara.” His use of her name, the only soul other than her mother who’d uttered it and with such tenderness, gutted her. He’d been clear in his hopes for his future and that hope had not been a cruel, unkind lady who’d sneered at servants and shamed her own half-sister. “Why did you not tell me?” he demanded, his tone harsher than she’d ever remembered, even from that day of their first meeting.

Filled with a restiveness, she ducked around his arm and rushed away. “What would you have me say?” she rasped. “That I was the very same woman you spent years avoiding?” He flinched. “And with good reason.” She’d not allow him that silent guilt. Jaw quivering, she angled it up. “You were correct in all your suppositions about me, William.” There’d been very little redeeming about her as a person.

“I was wrong.” Emotion roughened his tone. “I love you.”

Her heart soared, as his words lifted her, in ways she’d not been since their stolen moments at the Fox and Hare Inn, but then it swiftly fell back into place. “You do not truly know me,” she said softly. He’d been more accurate in his first impressions, when he’d correctly gauged the ugly inside her. Cara gave her head a little shake. “Not after three days. The girl you remember, the one who ordered her servants about and was incapable of warmth and kindness, that is who I’ve been longer and you deserve more than that.”

Anger emanated from his frame as he stalked over and took her by the shoulders. The ruby heart pendant he held in his hand burned through the fabric of her gown. “Do not presume to tell me what I deserve or desire. I want you, Cara.” He gentled his grip and drew her close. “I love
you
.” His words emerged with the strength and resolve better suited to conquerors of old.

Cara wrenched away from him. “Do you know the type of person I am?” she cried.

He swept his lashes down, silently urging her to continue.

She backed up several steps, putting distance between them. “I-I am the kind of woman who had her half-sister sacked because the sight of her reminded me of my despicable father and his inability to love me.”

He stilled and, coward that she was, Cara slid her gaze over to the bright-burning hearth in the corner, unable to confront the evidence of his disgust. “I have no friends because I’m unkind and cold.” Just as he’d said. Tears blurred her eyes and she blinked them back.

Large hands settled on her shoulders, startling her. She’d not heard his quiet approach. Then, the familiar weight of a gold chain settled about her neck and a spark of warmth singed her skin at the reunion. With shaking fingers, she touched her mother’s pendant that Will had fastened about her. He turned her about to face him. “You are no longer that woman.”

Her soul clung to the sliver of hope that he was indeed correct; a tantalizing possibility that would free her of the chains of this horrid creature she’d been for eleven years. “But what if I am?” she whispered. What if that vileness was in her blood and could not be forever buried because it was an inextricable part of her soul?

“Oh, Cara, the very fact that you worry as much means you are not that woman.” William raised her knuckles to his mouth, kissing first one hand, then the other. “You crafted such a perfect façade for the world of a remote ice princess that even you believed it. I saw past that to the woman who smiled and cursed.” His lips twitched. “And who wished to be kind and know kindness.” He brushed his lips over hers in a faint meeting. “Marry me.”