Winter Wonderland (16 page)

Sixteen

Everyone but Jamie heartily enjoyed Christmas Eve dinner. The boy, being petted, smiled at, teased and fondled by so many people all at once, became tongue-tied and uncomfortable. He kept his eyes fixed on his plate except when his parents or his governess or his uncle Barney spoke to him, and even they were rewarded with only brief, timid little answers. Poor Barnaby, seated between his bashful nephew and the bashful Livy, found himself having to work hard to draw out his dinner partners. Fortunately, Livy was by this time feeling more at home; she giggled frequently at Barnaby's quips and appeared to be enjoying herself.

After dinner, Terence, Delia and their guests gathered in the drawing room, where Lady Isabel played carols and everyone sang. Then Delia lit the Yule log with a bit of the charred remains of last year's log. Since the new log was covered with decorative greenery, it flared up in a great blaze that made everyone cheer. They settled themselves before the fire, the children stretched out on the floor, and listened to the Earl tell Christmas stories. Before they knew it, it was time to ready themselves to venture out for the midnight church service.

The older boys had been given permission to attend, but Jamie was ordered to go upstairs with his governess and get ready for bed. Unhappy at this decision, Jamie clung stubbornly to his mother's cloak and would not let go. Neither Miranda's coaxing nor Delia's firm orders would convince the child to release his hold. Finally, in disgust, Terence forcibly pulled him off. “Behave yourself, you imp,” he snapped, and thrust him into Miranda's arms. “Wish us all Happy Christmas and say good night!”

But the boy, his trembling lips pressed firmly together and his eyes teary, would not say a word. He threw his father a look of heartfelt reproach and buried his face in his governess's shoulder. Miranda carried him up the stairs. The others either smiled in amusement or sighed in sympathy with the child as they wound their mufflers round their necks, drew on their gloves and started out to the sleigh. A young child exhibiting pique made a minor incident, requiring no further attention, they all believed. All except Barnaby.

Terence, ushering his guests out the door, noticed that his brother remained fixed in his place, peering up the stairway with knit brows. “Barnaby, old fellow, don't worry about Jamie. He'll cry himself to sleep and forget the whole thing by morning. Come along now. We're all waiting.”

“Go without me, will you, Terence? I think I'd rather stay home tonight and … and read.”

“Read?” Terence regarded his brother in puzzled disapproval. Reading was not a pastime the older man often engaged in, and he didn't understand its appeal. “Well, suit yourself,” he said, shrugging, “though why anyone would wish to remain alone in the house on Christmas Eve with only a book for company is beyond my ken.”

Barnaby waited until the sound of the sleigh bells died away. Then he went up the stairs two at a time. He found his nephew in his bedroom, sitting on Miranda's lap in a rocking chair near the window. Miranda was soothing the boy with soft, cooing words. “In a year or two,” she was murmuring, “you'll be such a very big boy, quite old enough to—” She glanced up and saw Barnaby standing in the doorway. Her eyes at first gleamed with delight, but immediately afterward they became wary. “Look, Jamie, it's your uncle,” she said, cocking her head curiously.

“Unca Barney!” the child clarioned, his tearful face brightening. “You didn't go!”

“No.” Barnaby stepped over the threshold. “I stayed behind to be with you.”

The boy jumped from Miranda's lap, ran across the room and clasped Barnaby's legs deliriously. “Did you thtay to tell me a thtory?”

Barnaby lifted him up in his arms. “Yes, if Mrs. Velacott will permit you to stay up just a wee bit longer.”

“You'll thay yeth, won't you, Mithuth Velacott? Unca Barney tellth the betht thtorieth—Jack the Giant Killer … Thaint George an' the Dragon … King Arthur an' hith Knighth …”

“Of course I'll say yes,” Miranda smiled, rising from the rocker, “if he doesn't tell all of them tonight.”

Barnaby laughed. “I promise to tell only one,” he said.

Miranda felt a little tremor in her chest. This usually sullen man so rarely smiled at her that the effect of his laugh was surprising—it warmed her through. “But Jamie,” she said, trying not to be distracted from her responsibilities, “I think, first, you should get into your nightshirt.”

The undressing was done with astounding dispatch. Then Barnaby sat down on the rocker with the child in his lap. Miranda started for the door. “Don't you want to thtay?” Jamie asked.

Miranda met Barnaby's eyes. “Oh, I don't think your uncle would like—”

“Do stay, Mrs. Velacott,” Barnaby said, “unless you've something better to do.”

“There'th nothing better than one of your thtorieth,” the boy insisted.

“Then of course I
must
stay,” Miranda agreed, and she perched on the edge of the boy's bed.

Jamie looked from one to the other happily. “Thith will be better than goin' to church. Go on, Unca Barney. Thtart.”

Barnaby launched into an account of
The Marvelous Adventures of Sir Thomas Thumb
, but before he'd concluded the second adventure, the child was fast asleep. Barnaby carried the boy to his bed and Miranda tucked the comforter around him. Then she blew out the candle, and they tiptoed from the room.

They walked together down the corridor. It was dimly lit by the candles in the wall sconces and quite chilly. Miranda pulled her shawl tightly round her shoulders. “It was good of you to stay,” she said. “You made the boy's Christmas Eve a happy one.”

“I enjoyed it myself. I remember too well what it was like being the youngest in a lively family. I like helping Jamie get through some of the torment.” He threw Miranda an inscrutable look. “The boy seems to be growing quite attached to you.”

“Yes, I think he is.” They'd arrived at her door, but before going in, she peered at him curiously. “One would think you'd be pleased, sir, but something in your tone suggests otherwise.”

He paused and faced her. “Why should I be pleased? I know quite well that you're only playing at being a governess. When the position bores you or becomes too onerous, you'll undoubtedly depart for something more entertaining, and the child will be left bereft.”

A wave of irritation washed over her. “Dash it, Mr. Traherne, I'm tired of the groundless assumptions you make about me. You met me less than a week ago. What can you know of me to support the accusation that I am not serious about my post?”

“I know enough.”

“Do you, indeed? And just what do you know?”

“I know, for one thing, that your identity is a lie. You are not Mrs. Velacott but
Lady
Velacott.”

Her eyes fell guiltily. “Delia—Mrs. Traherne—told you, I suppose. If she did, then she also told you
why
—”

“She did
not
tell me. I knew it from the first.”

She looked up at him again, her eyes flashing fire. “Now
you
are lying,” she accused. “The first name you called me was Miss Pardew, not Lady Velacott.”

“Nevertheless I knew. As I also know that you are reputed to have spent your youth in flirtations, to have devastated a number of men, and that you are more at home in ballrooms than in schoolrooms. In short, ma'am, hardly the sort suited to the care of children.”

She felt choked with anger, not knowing how to argue against so closed a mind. “But this is all based on unsubstantiated rumors you must have heard more than a decade ago! How can you believe—?”

“I can believe them because they are
not
unsubstantiated. I myself can substantiate them.”

“Are you saying you
knew
me in my youth?” She stared at him aghast, wondering which of her youthful excesses he'd observed that had evidently left such a dreadful impression on him. “But even if you did, what does it matter? It was all so long ago. Can you not grant the possibility that I'm changed?”

“Not so very changed,” he said, his eyes measuring her from her face to the hands clutching her shawl over her revealing décolletage to the green shine of her gown which clung so enticingly to her breasts and hips and legs. Perhaps it was the gown, and the memories and feelings it invoked, that drove him to commit the final cruelty. His mouth curled upward in the disparaging sneer that had frightened away so many young women. “No, not so very changed. In fact, I heard you described quite recently as a baggage.”

The blood drained from her face. “
Baggage
?” she croaked. White-lipped and trembling with rage, she wanted only to strike his cruel face. She swung up her hand to slap him, her shawl slipping unheeded from her shoulder. “You … you—!”

He caught her arm in midair. His blood began to bubble with an excitement he had no wish to control. With no real plan or intention in mind, he twisted her arm behind her and pulled her to him, feeling only a wicked pleasure in having her in his power, in being able to wreak a revenge for wounds that, he now realized, had never healed. Almost coldly, he took her chin in his free hand, tilted up her face and kissed her, the pressure of his lips hard and angry as a blow.

She struggled to free herself, striking his arm and shoulder with her free hand and twisting her head to wrench her mouth from his, but his grip was like a vise that only grew tighter with her resistance. After a while, she surrendered and lay limp in his hold.

From that moment, the nature of the embrace changed for him. As soon as she'd ceased her struggle, and he felt her softness against him, something melted in his chest. He lifted his head and eased the grip on her arm, his anger and lust for revenge somehow dissipated. He expected her to push him away, slap him, or scream, but she didn't move. She only peered at him with eyes wide and mouth slightly open, her lips trembling and her breath coming in gasps.
Let her go
, his mind told him.
Use your good sense and let her go
.

But he could not let her go. Acting purely on instinct, he let his hands move slowly up her arms, linger on her bare shoulders and then move to her throat, the throat that had so attracted him when he'd first laid eyes on her. He could feel the swelling curves of it under his fingers and the rapid, thrilling throb of her pulse underneath. He moved his hands to her chin and then, cupping her face with both hands, kissed her again, so tenderly that it elicited a soft moan from the depths of her.

The sound made him wild. His hands moved down again, quickly this time, and he took her in his arms, kissing her hungrily, with the starved passion of eleven years of waiting. But what surprised him more than his own impetuosity was her response. Her arms crept up around his neck, clutching him tightly, her lips clinging to his, as if she, too, had lost her head. He felt dizzy, shaken, more deeply stirred than he'd ever been by a woman's embrace. That realization horrified him. This was
Miranda Pardew
, the woman he despised!

Abruptly he pushed her away. She tottered back against the wall, blinking at him, the picture of agonized confusion. Her eyes searched his face for some sort of explanation for what he knew was utterly crazed behavior.

But, furious with himself and as confused as she, he had no intention of attempting an explanation. He merely bent down, picked up her fallen shawl and thrust it at her. “I'm sorry,” he muttered.

She used the shawl to wipe away a tear that had escaped from one of her startled, angry eyes. “You neither look nor sound sorry.”

“Very well, then, I'm not sorry. Make of it what you will.” And he turned on his heel and strode off down the corridor without a backward look.

Seventeen

Barnaby went through the motions of Christmas Day, laughing and cavorting with his brothers and his nephews, playing Forfeits and Hunt the Slipper, drinking his share from the wassail bowl, and even making the dignified Lady Isabel giggle by kissing her ear under the mistletoe. But he did it all in a sort of fog. All day long, his mind played and replayed memories of the night before, like a simple tune one can't get out of one's head. Half distracted, he could still feel Miranda's lips on his mouth, the silken feel of her skin under his fingers, the softness of her body pressed against his. But the memories were not nostalgic; rather, they filled him with disgust. Disgust at his own weakness. Disgust at the realization that she still had the power to turn him into a blithering fool.

After an enormous Christmas dinner of goose and roast beef and smoking plum pudding and any number of other delicacies, the party divided into small groups and went off in separate directions: the children were taken wearily to bed; Lady Isabel and Harry strolled off with elaborate nonchalance to the small sitting room for a bit of lovers' privacy; Terence, Honoria, Lawrence and Livy sat down to a game of silver loo in the drawing room; and Delia set about helping the staff to clear the remains of the celebration and prepare for Boxing Day. That left Barnaby free to wander off by himself and try to clear his head. He went to the library, pulled a wing chair close to the fire and sat down to brood.

If this were a crisis in the Foreign Office, he told himself, he would know how to handle it. He would, first, clarify the nature of the problem. Then he'd list a number of alternate possibilities for a solution and evaluate them. Finally, after choosing the likeliest alternative, he'd proceed to get it done. This method was a useful, rational one, and, as far as he could tell, should work for personal problems as well as for professional ones.

Well then
, he told himself,
let's get at it. What, exactly, is my problem?
But clarifying the problem was not easy. He mulled it over for several minutes, but the contradictory feelings that were tearing him apart—wild attraction and utter revulsion toward the same woman at the same time—were not easy to verbalize. The only honest statement he could contrive that clearly and accurately pinpointed the problem was:
I am falling in love with a woman I despise
. With this sentence, the illogic of his situation was immediately apparent. How could he find a logical solution for so ridiculous a problem?