His Christmas Pleasure (21 page)

“This is the master’s bedroom,” she said. “There are three other bedrooms up here.”

“You’ve done some exploring,” he murmured. The room had a bank of mullioned windows with what appeared to be the original glass overlooking the yard below. He could see the pony standing in his stall, looking as if he was afraid to move lest it all cave in on him. The cart stood where Abby had left it by the lean-to.

“I have,” she said. “Come here. I saw this silhouette when I was putting the pony away. I thought my eyes were playing tricks, so I climbed the stairs for a closer look and was absolutely astounded.”

“By what?” Andres said, scanning the room.

In the day’s waning light, he could see the plaster walls were in good shape and the wood floor was solid. There was no smell of mold.

“This glass in the window,” Abby said and pointed to a small square in the corner of the window. There, painted onto the glass, was a dove.

Andres moved forward to have a closer look. It was no larger than his palm.

“This is a sign,” she said. “That Fate you are always talking about is giving us a sign. But as I looked out the window, I noticed something else. Look down, Andres.”

He did as instructed and was surprised to see this same dove inlaid in the stone courtyard below.

“This is our home,” Abby said with a voice that brooked no disagreement. “I know it needs work, and the stables aren’t the magnificent ones you described to me … but that doesn’t mean those stables can’t be built. We have—how many stalls? Seven?”

Andres glanced at the stables. “Eight.”

“Eight,” she said, as if he’d said something clever. “We don’t even have eight horses yet. We can build on this. I know we can.”

Her enthusiasm was infectious.

And yet, for once in his life, he had to be sensible. “Abby, I want to believe in signs. But not when I’m playing with your life. Look at this place. It needs so much work. Even if you and I pounded nails and cleaned and oiled and repaired every broken window—well, we couldn’t. I’m done up, Abby. I have no money. I’ve nothing.”

She reached up to the brooch she’d worn since they’d first left London. She unfastened it and placed it in his hand. “Here. This was my grandmother’s.

The one who didn’t like Father. I don’t think she’d be happy with him now either. I know she would want you to sell this brooch so we can use the money for the house.”

Andres was surprised by how heavy the brooch was. There was a good amount of gold here.

“Those are garnets in the petals,” she explained. “Her father had ordered it made when he worked for the East India Company. Funny how her father being in trade made her look down on my father.”

For a moment, Andres was tempted to do as she asked. And then he shook his head, trying to give the brooch back to her. “I have taken so much from you, Abby. My conscience will not let me take more—”

She shoved him in the chest with both hands. “Stop this.” Her eyes burned bright in her face. “Don’t tell me to go home again. This is my home. And my place is not with my parents but with the man I married. You swore to cherish and protect me, Andres Ramigio. You made a vow in front of witnesses. I meant the words I said. The promises I made to you. Are you saying you didn’t mean any of the words you said?”

“I did. And I don’t suggest you leave because I don’t want you, Abby. I want you to leave because I am a failure. I am nothing as you think I am, Abby.

I’m a fraud.”

He took a step back, almost afraid of himself now … and knew he had to go on.

“I’m not a barón, Abby. I’m the barón de Vasconia’s bastard son. He took his own life, Abby. Shot himself.” He knew this news would not surprise her.

“He had nothing and couldn’t live with the idea. I didn’t have anything either. I left Spain and started using the title. Who would care? And it opened many doors.” He realized he was ahead of himself … and so he began at the beginning.

He told all. Once he’d taken a breath, once he’d admitted to being an impostor, the story poured out of him.

Abby listened. She didn’t ask questions or interrupt him. He found himself telling far more than he should have, and it felt good.

At one point, they adjourned to the room that had been the scullery. There was a huge fireplace. Andres used the flint box from the kit in his valise and started a fire, using the broken pieces of wood, presumably from what had once been furniture. Abby helped him build that fire, then said, “Please continue.”

Still wearing their coats, they sat on the floor in front of the fire, where he finished his story, ending with what she already knew. “I was bought off. But what you don’t know is that I’m not to return to London. Ever. Or I forfeit this property.” He looked around the cavernous room. “Dobbins must be laughing. He’s rid himself of me and will receive the property back if I go to him to complain.”

She was silent a moment. She’d been so serious all the way through that he’d not dared to look at her. He studied the fire instead, ashamed of this story that was his life.

He felt her move and he turned, not knowing what to expect. If she was smart, she’d double her fists and beat him bloody. It would be what he deserved.

Instead, she’d reached for the bag and pulled out the jeweler’s pouch, which she now pressed into his hands. It was heavy with the weight of good, solid gold. “I know the brooch is not enough. Here. Take all of this to Newcastle.

There is a pearl necklace my father gave me in there. It’s in its own pouch.

Be careful with it. I’m certain it will bring more than a pittance.”

“Abby—”

“I wish to keep my ring, if that is fine with you.” She still hadn’t looked at him.

“Of course,” he said.

“Fetch the best price you can. We only need three years, and then my money will be turned over to us.”

“I don’t deserve your support,” he whispered. “Did you not hear anything I said, of the schemes I’ve attempted, the lies I’ve told, the people I’ve betrayed?”

Her gaze met his. “I thought you wished to change?”

“I have.”

“Do you wish me to leave?”

Here it was. If he said yes … she would go. A true nobleman would think of his lady first. Of what was best for her.

But Andres was done with lies and half-truths. “No.”

“Then I am not leaving,” she answered.

He looked down at the jewelry in the bag. Her trust didn’t make sense. Abby was not a woman whose head was turned by a man’s looks. She didn’t hesitate to let him know when she saw right through him. And here he was, confessing everything, and in return, she was giving all that she owned.

“Why?” he asked.

Abby heard the confusion in his voice.

He didn’t understand. Andres, a man who had women throwing themselves at him, couldn’t see her love.

It broke her heart. Made her fear that perhaps she was wrong.

Perhaps there would never be anything between them save—what?

Not friendship. They were already more than friends. More than just lovers.

He’d proven that by confiding in her.

Then again, a cynical voice inside her whispered, had he a choice? They were married, bound by the laws of man and God. Just how vulnerable did she want to be to him?

“You’ve stayed beside me,” she said, braving the simple truth. “My father disowned me, but you stayed. No one has ever done that before … not my friends, not Freddie—”

Freddie. He seemed nothing more than a distant memory.

Andres was her present, and her future. Even if he never loved her, she believed she had love enough for both of them.

“You will not regret this,” he vowed, taking her hand. “Stonemoor will be what we both want.”

She could have told him he was wrong. She didn’t care about this shabby, run-down property. She was doing this for him, and it twisted her heart that he couldn’t see that.

“I’m tired,” she answered. The moment she spoke the words, her muscles went lax. She felt beyond exhaustion.

He jumped to his feet. “Of course. Here, let me prepare a bed for us.” He surveyed the room, as if considering what he wanted to do.

Abby watched him, struck by how handsome he was, even in these circumstances. Funny, whereas most women immediately noticed his looks, it had taken her time to appreciate them. He’d become more attractive to her as he’d grown more dear to her.

The lines of his mouth flattened with determination. “This will be a hard night for us, palomita. However, tomorrow will make a new beginning. Wait here while I see what we have in the stables.”

He took off before she could comment. Abby sat pensive before the fire, too tired to move. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that it had been hours since she’d eaten, but she wasn’t really hungry.

Andres was gone for almost half an hour. Abby grew anxious and stationed herself at the window to watch for him.

She had to admit she liked that so many rooms looked out over the back courtyard, and she liked a view of the stables as well. For a moment, her imagination could conjure a vision of this house whole and well cared for.

Whether she wished it or not, a spark of what was possible took hold of her.

After all, if she had not come with him, what would she have been doing now? Mooning over Freddie? Lamenting an upcoming marriage and immediate motherhood?

Oh no, this was a thousand times better.

She heard Andres then. He was in the house. He came into the scullery carrying an old chair with three legs, a small stool, and other pieces of broken furniture, along with a bucket of water.

“I found a pump,” he said happily. “It’s off the kitchen door. I gave the pony water.”

“Good,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do.”

“You did very well,” he said encouragingly. He was smiling and full of energy as if the work—and the confession—had renewed him.

“The water is cold,” he continued, “but tastes very good. Sweet.”

Abby had never thought of water having taste.

“I can’t find a pan to heat it up,” Andres continued, “but I shall find one on the morrow. There are all sorts of things tossed aside behind the stable.”

“Tossed aside?” Abby crossed her arms against her stomach. She’d been a rich man’s daughter. She had never used anything that had been “tossed aside” or, at least, not as far as she knew.

He seemed to catch wind of her concerns. “It will seem hard at first, Abby.

But I will succeed. You do believe in me, don’t you?”

“Yes, Andres, I do.” Certainly she had many doubts, but more about herself and less about him.

Andres would succeed because he’d spent a lifetime fighting for everything he had. In fact, his background and his experience made him very well suited for this sort of endeavor.

The question was, how would she fare? And she realized that perhaps Stonemoor and building its reputation for horses was not a dream she could grasp … but supporting him, loving him, was.

He smiled at her, a smile that reached those amazing eyes of his, a smile that told her she’d made him happy. “Thank you, Abby.” He took her hand and kissed it. “You will not have any regrets.”

“I will if I don’t sleep shortly,” she said.

“I know, I know,” he answered, already out the door. “I’ll return in a moment. Stay right there. One moment.”

She watched him sprint across the courtyard with the energy of a man on a mission. He went to the hayrack and returned with his arms full of old hay.

He made a bed on the floor for them, using the broken chairs as a makeshift frame and her coat and his jacket as a cover for the hay mattress.

“Tomorrow I will find you a better bed,” he promised, pulling off his boots.

Abby ran a distracted hand through her hair. “You’ve made many promises for tomorrow.”

“And I will keep them,” he said.

Believe in me. That was all he asked.

“You are tired, Abby. We both are. Let’s go to sleep.”

She nodded and all but dropped on the hay bed, not bothering to undress.

The “mattress” was not that uncomfortable. She lay on her side, making a place for herself, her face toward the fire. She slipped off her shoes, kicking off one, then the other—

Her husband started undressing. She was so aware of his every move that she could hear him pull his shirt over his head, then fold it and set it aside. He sat beside her and pulled off his boots. One hit the ground, then the other.

He picked them up and placed them by the shirt.

Abby closed her eyes, feigning sleep. Conjugal rights aside, it was one thing to promise to trust him, and another to open herself completely to him.

She didn’t know what she felt or what she wanted.

And yet she was attuned to his unfastening each button of his breeches. He slid them down his legs. Long legs.

He must have shucked off his socks at the same time because she did not hear a separate movement.

Andres stretched out beside her, pulling his heavy greatcoat over them.

Their bodies did not touch; they didn’t need to. His body heat and the spicy hint of his shaving soap proclaimed his presence.

Her heart pounded in her ears so hard that she almost didn’t hear him whisper her name.

She didn’t respond. She was tired. She was “asleep.”

And making love to her husband might ask her to risk more than she could afford—

He curled his body around hers.

Even through all the layers of her clothes, his arousal was very real and present. She braced herself, even as a part of her longed for what he offered.

However, Andres didn’t move. He sighed as if content … and all went quiet.

Had he gone to sleep ? Had he drifted off as content as a baby while she lay here almost overwrought with a hundred different emotions? Here she was, armored against him with all her layers of clothing and he hadn’t even tried to kiss her, let alone make love to her?

Abby was tempted to pull her arm forward and shove her elbow into his chest. How dare he ignore her? And the worst was that he’d gone to sleep when she needed him to hold her in his arms to reassure her. She wanted to feel him inside her, needed the heat of him—

“Do you really believe I would go to sleep on you, my palomita?” his voice whispered in her ear.