Sweetest Regret Read online

  But as the countess’s face fell, Georgie bestirred herself to encourage the crowd. “No Christmas Eve is complete without going to see if the oxen kneel,” she said. “Not in England, at any rate. And you are all honorary Englishmen, this Christmas.”

  “What is this?” asked Mr. Sobieski, sitting forward with a frown. “You talk of the livestock?”

  “The oxen,” the countess said. “They are said to kneel at midnight, as they did the night that Christ was born, to warm the babe with their breath.”

  Mr. Sobieski snorted. “Shall we take a wager on it? I’ll stand against, for fifty pounds.”

  “I will take that wager,” Georgie said.

  “He’ll hold you to that,” Lucas murmured in her ear as Sobieski bounced to his feet.

  “I hope so,” she murmured back.

  He gave her a mystified look, then helped her to rise. Meanwhile, the countess was reasoning with her husband, who proclaimed himself content to wait inside for their return.

  “Oh, leave him be,” said Mr. Sobieski. “Spoilsports are not welcomed.”

  “Oh, no,” the count muttered. “I’ll not be held to that account.” He heaved himself up.

  Thus did the entire party find themselves bundled against the chill, picking their way through a clear, starry night to the stables. By prearrangement, the stable master, Mr. Handy, was waiting; at their appearance, he smiled and hauled open the double doors.

  As the group stepped inside, they loosed a chorus of delighted exclamations. The stable had been trimmed in evergreens and wreaths of rosemary, the scent of which mingled pleasantly with sweet dried hay. Moonlight streamed through the cracks in the wooden slats, illuminating motes of dust that shimmered like stars. A horse put his head out of his box stall, whickering curiously.

  “This way,” Mr. Handy said. He led them down the aisle, floorboards creaking underfoot, to the pen at the end of the stable.

  There waited a handsome Brown Swiss ox, with a wreath of silver tinsel twined about his neck, and two fat red bows tied to his horns.

  Lucas laughed. “When did you plan this?”

  “Me?” Georgie offered an innocent smile. “If it was not on the program of events, then I had nothing to do with it. It must be a Christmas miracle.”

  “We’re drawing close to midnight now,” Mr. Handy said. “Gather round, to see if this ox is a Christian!”

  The diplomats crushed in, the countess leaning over the rail to pet the creature’s nose before her husband grew nervous and pulled her back. Georgie and Lucas were pushed to the edge of the group; after a moment, she seized Lucas’s elbow and pulled him away. “We’ll have a better view from the hayloft,” she said, and rucked up her skirts before mounting the ladder.

  At the top, she turned back to find him still planted on the ground, gaping up at her. “Aren’t you coming?”

  “I was hoping you might come back down,” he said, “and climb for me again.”

  The giggle that escaped her felt girlish and silly and drunken, though she’d refrained from more than a sip of the elder wine. “Come,” she said, stretching out her hand to beckon him. “Hurry. Mr. Handy will only do this once—he’s his own family waiting for him in Swanhaven.”

  He made quick work of the ladder. The moonlight through the small window showed his delighted smile as he looked around the loft, wide enough for four men, which usually held winter hay. “You planned this, too,” he murmured, touching the blanket she’d spread across the scattered remnants of straw.

  “I come here to read sometimes.” As a girl, she had spent long hours dreaming in this hayloft. “Come, look!”

  He followed her outstretched finger. Gasps rose from the diplomats. At a hidden signal from Mr. Handy, the ox had begun to kneel.

  In the distance came the sound of the church bells in the village. The cascading silver-toned carol, a peal of jubilation, sent goose bumps chasing over her skin.

  “Merry Christmas,” Mr. Handy called, grinning.

  The countess and Mrs. Sobieska burst into applause. Mr. Sobieski put his hands on his hips and turned around, casting a scowling look down the aisle.

  Georgie yanked Lucas back, out of view.

  “Fifty pounds the poorer,” came Obolensky’s taunt.

  “This was a con,” Sobieski complained. “That ox was trained!”

  “Ha! Who’s the spoilsport now?”

  “Shall you go collect?” Lucas asked, amused. She shook her head and put a finger to her lips. Smiling, he sat back; they waited in silence as the diplomats and Mr. Handy walked out of the stable.

  The doors groaned as Mr. Handy shut them. Below, the streamers of dust sank back into darkness, and a horse released a snorting sigh.

  Lucas’s hand cupped her cheek, the lightest touch. “Merry Christmas to you,” he whispered.

  She waited, breathless, for him to kiss her. But as her eyes adjusted, she saw from his expression that he had no intention of doing so. He was studying her with odd gravity—focused, it seemed, on his thumb stroking over her cheekbone. His thumb dipped lower; he watched himself trace the outline of her lips.

  Her mouth went dry. “May I ask for a gift from you?”

  His gaze lifted to hers. “Name it.”

  “Lie with me here.”

  His smile faded. She swallowed, knowing how brazen she must seem. But here, now, was the only chance they might have. And she would not let her father take this from her, too.

  Perhaps he divined her thoughts, for his hand slipped away. “I will leave with the others tomorrow,” he said quietly, “only because I must. It would look odd for me to stay. But I am not leaving you, Georgie. I hope you haven’t told yourself so.”

  He was going to argue. He was going to be honorable. She loved his honor. But had he possessed a shade less of it, he might have voiced his feelings to her in Munich, instead of asking her father’s permission first.

  Heaven knew she would have welcomed his words. That autumn in Munich—parties filled with candlelit nooks, lovers always embracing just out of sight—had made her grow so impatient. Fevered, desperate, longing for him to touch her. Had he declared himself to her, she would not have waited longer. She would have touched him.

  They would have been inseparable then. Her father’s trick would never have worked. They would not have doubted each other.

  She was a quick learner. She never repeated a mistake twice.

  “I imagined bringing you here on our honeymoon,” she said. “I spent. . . a thousand afternoons hiding here, as a girl, reading romances and dreaming of the man I would marry. And I thought . . . how fitting it would be, to bring him here. To . . . have him here.”

  Her face was flaming now. She had never imagined she could be so bold.

  “Georgie,” he said, his voice strained. “That is . . .” He exhaled. “The most marvelous, extraordinary . . . damnable invitation. If we could but table it for a week—long enough to—”

  “No.” She leaned into the starlight to show him her face more clearly. “Lucas. Two years, I’ve waited. Will you keep me waiting longer? Or will you give me my gift?”

  His inward battle played over his face—nostrils flaring, jaw tensing as he glanced toward the stable doors.

  She reached for him. He caught her hand; pressed a hot kiss to her palm. “You will marry me,” he said hoarsely.

  “This is our honeymoon,” she whispered. “You are mine.”

  Some sound came from him. Too sharp and low to be a sigh. And then his mouth was on hers; he was kissing her desperately as his arms came around her, as he laid her gently down on the blanket.

  It might have been one of her dreams—his mouth, so hot and demanding; his hands bold, freed of irrelevant daylight ideals, no decency or hesitance in them as they wandered her body, shaped her waist through her clothes, felt roughly down the curve of her hip, pausing to knead the fullness there.

  But her dreams never satisfied her. She knew how to avoid their mistakes.

  She r
eached for his coat, shoving it off; then his jacket, and the waistcoat that kept him from her. He was broader than she had realized, and leaner, too; as she palmed his waist, the soft cloth of his shirt could not disguise the muscled flex of his abdomen. He groaned, his mouth breaking from hers to track down her throat; but that, too, was a daylight business.

  “Undress me,” she whispered.

  Odd and so thrilling, to command him; to feel the roughness of his hands on bare skin that had never known a man’s touch. But he was not so practiced as to manage her corset without assistance; she found herself laughing as she sat up and knocked his hands aside, and when he buried his face in her nape, she felt the smile on his own lips—and then felt it fade, as the corset loosened.

  She lifted her arms, and he drew the corset over her head, took her beneath her arms, and pulled her bodily out of the sagging collapse of her gown.

  They knelt pressed together in starlit darkness, only the thin film of her underlinens separating them. The sensation briefly shocked her, riveted her in place. His body radiated such warmth.

  But then he kissed her again, and her hands closed on his back, and the delightful discovery of the smooth texture of his bare skin, the elegance of his spine as it curved, the tightly muscled hillocks of his bottom . . .

  Desire knew no shame.

  They lay down together, still kissing; kissing for long minutes in which time lost its hold on them. But at last he pulled away, going up on one elbow to look at her. The dim light revealed only a faint impression of his body, but the growl he made suggested that his eyes were better than hers. He touched her breast very lightly, with the back of his hand, and she shivered.

  “You like that,” he said, very low. He bent down and kissed her nipple, causing her to gasp; but before he could mistake that noise for one of protest, she threaded her hands through his hair to hold him where he was.

  His lips curved against her breast. He opened his mouth and touched his tongue to her nipple, and she groaned.

  “Oh, yes,” he murmured, and closed his lips around her again, suckling now, with strong pulling movements that made her feel faint—and ferocious—and deliciously weak. His hand slid into her hair, cradled her skull as though he sensed that she required the support, as he laved her breast more intently yet.

  Her dreams could not compare. Here was what she’d craved, those many nights of frustration—or so she thought, until his hand smoothed down her belly, brushed lightly over the tops of her thighs, then delved between, finding a spot so sensitive that she gasped.

  “Wait,” she said. It was too much—perhaps there was something wrong with her—but the insistent stroke of his hand, paired with the tugging assault of his mouth, caused something to twist tightly, low in her belly; to coil and build, an unbearable aching weight. “I don’t think—”

  “You do,” he said, and stroked her more quickly, until suddenly—the coil burst. Pleasure jerked through her, took control of her hips; she bucked against him as he murmured to her, low soothing words that she barely understood; but the heat of his breath against her skin as he spoke seemed to heighten the pleasure further yet, until she turned her face into his shoulder to muffle her own moan.

  His hand found her face. Smoothed back her hair. “Is that what you’d imagined?” he asked roughly. “For God knows . . . if so, we shared the same dream.”

  She felt too shy to reply, at first. How odd, that one could feel shy when lying naked, pressed against a man, her face buried in the aphrodisiac scent of his damp throat.

  But after a moment, the question nudged her, and she frowned a little. “There was more to it.”

  He levered himself off her, his face a blur in the darkness, but she had the sense that he was smiling at her, smiling in that dark, provocative way he sometimes had.

  “Is that so? What else was there?”

  His voice was a purr, stoking her most secret, brazen inclinations. On a deep breath for courage, she slid her hand down his body, until she found the firm length of his erection. “This,” she whispered.

  His forehead came against hers. “Georgie,” he murmured. “You . . .” He took a breath. “You realize there is no going back.”

  She gripped him, amazed by this marvel of nature: that such soft, hot skin could sheath a protrusion so unyieldingly hard. Something animal, primitive, caused her to tighten her grip, to stroke him; and his hiss was her reward. “There is no going back,” she agreed unsteadily. “And I am glad of it.”

  He pulled her into an openmouthed kiss, and she pushed her lower body against him, instinct taking over, seeking to fit herself against him. She felt the last measure of his restraint in the way his back tensed, muscles hardening beneath her grip, but she angled her hips again, and the head of his member pressed just where it ought, and he gasped as he pushed into her.

  Pressure—increasing, burning now as she stretched to accommodate him; she had a brief fear that this wouldn’t work—and then he was inside her, penetrating deeply, filling her completely.

  She held still, adjusting to the foreign sensation—until he began to move. Oh, she thought, a stupid wondering amazement seizing her, causing her to laugh as she reached up to grip his face, to encourage him with kisses. Oh, as he moved deeper yet, slow and steady strokes that seemed to strike like flint against some spot deep inside her that was not done with him by far. Oh, oh—he twisted his hips in some way, and her entire body flamed, hunger like a hot wind. She wrapped herself around him, arms and legs, kissing him deeply, then whispering, to her dim amazement, only half understanding herself: “Please. Now.”

  “Forever,” he growled into her mouth, and the pleasure overwhelmed her again.

  They lay together afterward in a restful, sated silence. Outside, from the distance, came the muffled sound of laughter. Perhaps the ox had been trained to kneel, but it seemed the magic of the season was spreading, regardless.

  His thought had followed hers. “The season of miracles,” he said huskily. “I will never doubt it again.”

  She felt her way along his face, tracing the outline of his brows, the slope of his cheekbones. “How will we rejoin the others? One look at my face, and they’ll know everything.”

  “Let them look,” he said huskily. “Let them come to the wedding, if they like.”

  Her hand paused—only for a fraction of a moment. But he felt it, and sat up.

  “We are marrying,” he said evenly.

  She reached for the blanket, covering herself against the chill. “Lucas. Let’s discuss this later.”

  “Once you know whether I’m to be an earl?”

  The sharpness in his voice alarmed her. “Not for my sake, but for yours.”

  “No. We will not have this argument again. Especially not now.”

  Miserable, she made quick work of dressing. She should have said nothing. Should have let his mention of marriage pass unremarked—for tonight, at least.

  But she would not go along with his plan. She would not allow her father to leave him in shreds again.

  They walked in silence back toward the house. It made a lovely sight, the windows glowing with stands of Christmas candles. Their flames blurred and jumped before Georgie’s eyes. She dashed a discreet hand over her eyes as Lucas rapped on the door.

  Barton greeted them. “Sir,” he said, “a message came by courier.” He thrust out a sealed envelope.

  Georgie held her breath as Lucas read the letter. He looked up at her, his face unreadable. “The baby is born.”

  “And . . . is it a boy?”

  “This note doesn’t say.” His jaw flexed. “Can you lend me a horse? I’ll find out tonight. I’ll ride direct to Harlboro Grange.”

  Chapter Ten

  What was keeping Lucas from writing to her? The telegraph office was closed on Christmas Day, but surely he could have hired a courier? Against her better judgment, Georgie took the guests to church, where they managed to sit soberly for an hour and change. Inspired by their restraint, sh
e even managed a satisfactory degree of conversation over the Christmas feast that followed. But her thoughts were with Lucas, her future seeming to hang in the balance as the seconds dragged by.

  The houseguests, too, seemed distracted. They made polite exclamations over the gifts she had stuffed into their Christmas stockings—Italian writing paper; tortoiseshell fountain pens—but her suggestion of an afternoon walk to the Roman ruins was met with sluggish nods. So much for Christmas cheer! It seemed everyone was waiting for the holiday to expire, so they might take their leave without unseemly haste on Boxing Day.

  Why did Lucas not write?

  Determined to take her mind off this agonizing wait, she decided to visit the ruins herself. The lonely beauty would suit her mood. But as she approached the entry hall, she heard the front door close, and her heart flew into her throat.

  Her steps slowed as she gained a view of the foyer. A gentleman stood in the entry hall, making a leisurely survey of the surroundings. As he tipped his head to inspect the rafters, his top hat tipped; he snapped it off his head, baring hair as white as snow, his movements birdlike in their quickness—deeply familiar to her.

  Not Lucas. Alas, it was her father.

  Perhaps she made a noise, for he turned suddenly, a smile wreathing his handsome, rosy face. “Georgiana! My surprise to you—at last, I’ve come home for Christmas.”

  She stopped in the archway. She did not know what to feel. The sight of him made her curiously numb.

  “And I’m here through the New Year,” he went on. “Isn’t that splendid?”

  He had a rich, booming voice, and a dapper neatness to his diminutive, trim frame. His waist, he’d once told her, was the same size as on his wedding day.

  He had always looked distinguished. But never before had she seen him look jolly.

  She let him embrace her, accepted his kiss on her cheek. But she made no move to return his affections. When he drew back, he was frowning.