Mary's Christmas Knight (3 page)

Lilith?
Temptation?
Mary blew out a breath, trying to dispel the urge to argue, which was probably his intention. She should make good on her threat to leave him unmended.

“Come now,
my lady
. Surely your good Christian upbringing prevents you from neglecting a soul in need?”

Mary gathered
the surgical tools and rolled them in the canvas. “When you find your soul, be sure to notify yourself. Not that you noticed it missing.”

He turned on the bed and gingerly pulled away the cut flap of fabric still hanging from his collar, revealing a gash l
aterally bisecting his deltoid. He twisted to look at it, and the cut oozed yet more blood. Mary closed her eyes, blew out a breath, and when she looked again, Sir Wesley was still there, bleeding on the bed. “Very well. But for the welfare of
my
soul, not yours, though I may forfeit the credit to my sainthood.”

“Forfeit? Why?”

She sat beside him and set to cleaning the wound with antiseptic, not being terribly gentle. “‘God loves a cheerful giver,’ and all. I’ve failed — on Christmas day, to boot — and the blame is all yours. Now sit still.”

He surprised her with a slow, beatific smile as he leaned back, tucking his other arm behind his head again. He must be most
secure when projecting a lounging demeanor.

Leaning close
and nudging his torso to angle toward the lamplight, first she cleaned the needle in the flame then began to suture, ignoring his flinching. The cut ran deep; she would’ve guessed a swordfight if she didn’t know better. “How did this happen to your arm?”

He sucked in a breath then tensed while she looped the thread to knot the stitch. “We were all too busy crashing head over ears. I have no idea. Because the
coach overturned, you know.”

Ignoring his sarcasm, she said,
“I had been watching cabs slide around the corners, driving too fast all night. It’s a wonder yours was the only casualty.” Too late she heard herself sounding crass. A man had lost his life, which made her platitude all the more insufferable. She blamed it on Sir Wesley, who plainly inspired insufferability in her. “Was that man a close friend of yours?”

“Not at all.
He was in the middle of a holdup when the coach overturned.”

“
Hold —
what?”

“Waylaying
stagecoaches and robbing the passengers is what highwaymen do, madam.”

“A highwayman? Not here in Cockington?”

“He asked to share the cab from the Torquay station, and I was being neighborly. You could blame it on the riff-raff who loiter at train stations.”

“Or perhaps it is
you
who attracts their sort. I would’ve thought you a better judge of character.”

“And so sweetly did you sing his soul into purgatory.”

“I’m a nurse, not a judge. Or else you would still be bleeding.”

He let her sew a few minutes in silence, then, “T
ell me, madam, why does a lady such as yourself spend her Christmas Eve in a hospital? Doesn’t she have parties to attend?”

Ten
sutures knotted, six or so more to go. “By the dozen. I already attended the country bazaar, visited the vicar and his wife, went out decorating with the Cockington Beautification Society, and I meant to attend midnight mass but was foiled.”

“I heard no mention of a husband.”

“Likely because I am
Miss
Cavendish, which denotes the lack thereof.”

“Nor did you mention a beau.”

The dramatic shapes of his biceps cast shadows she’d been trying to work around with limited success. She nudged his arm so he would raise it, illuminating her thread. “No, I didn’t.”

He cleared his throat, and she rather wished he’d keep still. “Never say you’re sweet on the good doctor?”

Mary kept her eyes on her work and hummed in disinterest. “Mister Warren? He’s quite religiously incompatible. And a bit dull for my tastes.”

“I must agree on that point. A bland character is unpardonable. I, for comparison, am certainly not dull.”

“You, Sir Wesley, are Beelzebub in comparison.” She clipped the knot atop the last suture, set down the tools, then opened a jar of salve. Swabbing it over the wound made him cough and gag.

“What’s in that? It smells like
a sewer.”

“
Tea tree oil, lavender, and lemon for antiseptic. Some beeswax, grapeseed oil, chickweed—”

“
Sorry I asked. Are you finished?” He blinked as though her salve made his eyes water.

“No.
Sit still.” Bandaging his arm required twice the gauze she’d estimated. She retrieved another roll, and once his wound was hidden beneath the wrappings, touching Sir Wesley ceased being a medical necessity. The tips of her fingers tingled with awareness. Sweat dripped down her back as she overheated. It didn’t help that his skin raised tiny bumps at her touch, and once she thought he shuddered as she brushed his ribs. Could he be ticklish?

Either way, her bizarre encounte
r with a London celebrity must come to an end. Her breath shallowed and sped, and he probably noticed. She didn’t trust her own hands, which had already lost their brisk, clinical touch. Mary would never be accused of
caressing
Sir Wesley Samuel Darcy, so she tucked the corner on the bandage under and secured it with a fastener then stepped far away, holding the canvas tool bag as a defense between them.

“
Do not lift anything heavier than twenty pounds for seven days to avoid ripping out the sutures. Keep the wound out of water for two weeks, or else you risk infection.” She cleaned the tools and locked them in the cabinet. “The orderly downstairs will assist you with any arrangements you require. I’m off to Rougemont before I’m noticed missing. Happy Christmas to you.”

She called softly over the chorus of snoring patients,
“Happy Christmas, Lieutenant Baxter, and to you, Mr. Hart.” She knew they were still awake; she’d seen them sneaking peeks while she doctored Sir Wesley.

“
G’night, miss,” they answered almost simultaneously.

Sir
Wesley cocked his head. “Beg pardon?”

“If you don’t know a polite dismissal when it
waves a flag—”

He shook his head and held up a hand to halt her, as if she would obey. “No, where are you going?”

“Home. Of course.”

“Did you say Rougemont?”

“Yes, of course. Rougemont is my home. Lord Devon is my uncle.”

Sir
Wesley went completely still. “You did say Cavendish.”

Perhaps he had hit his head. “Right. And—”
She tried to bid him good night again, eager to be done with him.

“Not Sir Eldrich Cavendish?”

“My late father. Philip, my brother, inherited. And he is expecting me at Rougemont, so if you will excuse me…”

He ran a hand through his hair and laughed, but it didn’t sound jolly.
Then he shook his head and looked skyward.

“What? What is it?”

The smile he shot her put her in mind of a crocodile. “You might as well share my cab.”

“No, thank you. I’ve seen how that turns out for the other party.”

“Miss Cavendish, I was invited by Lord and Lady Devon. I’m staying at Rougemont for Christmas.”

Holly and Ivy made a great party,

Who should have the mastery i
n lands where they go.

Then spake Holly, “I am fierce and jolly.

I will have the mastery in lands where we go.”

Then s
pake Ivy, “I am loud and proud.

I will have the mastery in lands where we go.”

Then spake Holly, and set him down on his knee,

“I pray thee, gentle Ivy, Say me no villainy

In lands where we go.”

~
Thomas Wright, 1847

“Be reasonable, Miss
Cavendish.” Wes ducked past the orderly and ignored his indignant scoff.

“No, thank you,” Miss Cavendish answered again, turning
away as she pulled on purple doeskin gloves. The bottom of her skirts were the last to move with her; a frothy purple petticoat brushed his shins.

A mix of fascination and irritation
walloped him on the head. “You decline being reasonable?”

“Reg
ularly. But in this instance, I’m declining your company.”

Without her nurse apron, the
well-tailored cut of her velvet gown revealed what he’d been too distracted to perceive: a lady, not a village domestic in need of a good flirt. She’d seen him at his worst, and he couldn’t have been more unfortunate in his audience. “Very well. Then I shall ride atop with the driver while you ride in the coach. I cannot tell your brother I left you out on the road in the dead of night.”

“Then say nothing to my brother.” She faced
the mirror hanging by the door as she fastened her hat with weapon-looking pins. She dumped her cloak into his arms then showed him her back, and it took his brain a moment to jog into gear. Of course he should help her on with it.

Then she stood
with her back ramrod straight, waiting at the door, but he refused to open it for her. Her hand twitched then reached for the knob, and he flattened his palm on the seam dividing the door and the wall. Miss Cavendish looked over her shoulder, warning him with an arched brow.

The disdain in her dark eyes struck him almost as fiercely as
their witchy beauty. Poor Miss Cavendish, her luscious self laced so tightly she could hardly breathe — and in a figurative sense as well, he surmised. Practically vibrating with both passion and frustration.

He leaned closer, framing her
with his shoulders, gratified that her eyes widened. In outrage or fear? Granted, his charm had to be muted by his person still being smeared with the contents of the gutter despite his best efforts with a wash basin. But surely her lips parted and her cheeks colored, because she felt the same anvil dropped on the gut as he did? Or were ladies swatted over the head with a pillow when attraction struck?

Their faces close enough to trade breath
, she raised her chin as though inviting a kiss while her eyes shot daggers. Again, fascinating.

When was the last time a woman
had appealed to him intellectually? Made it seem both a leisurely and urgent task to learn her secrets? Not since he’d first made the mistake of aspiring to marriage.

With an abrupt scowl, Miss Cavendish inhaled and posed her lips in preparation to say
, “
You,”
he guessed. As in, “
You have until the count of one to remove your hand—”

On impulse
Wes ducked and brushed her mouth with a kiss. So lightly she seemed unsure of whether or not it had actually happened.

“Miss Cavendish,” he said low, del
iberately provoking her with his suggestive tone, “You may either go of your own ambulation, or I shall toss you over my one good shoulder and put you there myself.”

She gasped, looking like she might slap him again
, since the last time he’d seen her eyes spark like that, she’d acted on the impulse.

“
I have been traveling since noon today, harassed by a mob at King’s Cross, waylaid by a highwayman, and wrecked in a ditch. Not to mention the ruthless nurse who made a pin cushion of my arm. If you think I’m bluffing, you are mistaken.”

Glancing at his arm barring the way, then back at him, she said, “I’ve had quite enough—”

He caught her mouth in a kiss, rolling his lips over hers once so she would know he was capable of being playful, pressed deeper for a moment to show he took her seriously, then a painstaking brush across to promise more later. Her hands curled into fists resting on his chest, where the lapels of his coat parted, and her skin heated through the fabric of his hospital-borrowed shirt. Her breath stalled on a sigh, then sped. When she opened her eyes, her smoky look of satisfaction speared him right through the heart. She had to feel it too. Or else he was out of his mind.

Wes made good on his word; he swept one arm behind her knees and caug
ht her back with the other. His shoulder screamed, first with a sensation like a hundred needles in his flesh, then it roared with throbbing, burning pain, warning he might have been too ambitious.

Outside fresh snow had fallen, covering all evidence of civilization with
a white blanket. He carried Miss Cavendish halfway to the waiting coach before she got her voice working.

“How dare you?” Her outrage was lost in her breathless tone.
She blew a puff of condensation on his jaw.

“
Oh, I dare. But never fear, Miss Cavendish; you are truly frightening. You haven’t lost your touch.” A few curls of her hair hung over his arm, tickling the inside of his exposed wrist. His gloves were long gone, along with his hat. All the more to feel for himself that Miss Cavendish was a very well-put-together woman beneath all her starchy layers. All soft angles — dramatic curves, and right where they should be.

The coachman sprang into action at the sound their voices, rubbing his hands together as he hopped down to open to door.

“What about your arm?” She twisted in his grip, which made not a difference; she was well and truly trapped. But she struggled anyway, managing to lodge an elbow in his gut. “The sutures? I told you not to lift!”

“Twenty-pound limit, I recall. No infraction here, as far as I can tell.” Just to prove his point, he set her so gently o
n the seat there was no bounce, but her corset creaked again. Since he’d already assaulted her person, he thought it no worse a transgression to climb inside and sit on the aft-facing bench. If he rode outside wearing his wet coat and trousers, he’d surely arrive at Rougemont a frozen statue of himself. He knocked on the panel to signal the driver onward.

“You
, Sir Wesley Samuel Darcy, you are the most impossible, intolerable man I have ever met!”

“And I say a woman who goes to the trouble of using four-syllable words to describe such a man has more to say on the subject than just that.”

She shook her head, tossing a riot of curls from shoulder to shoulder. Without her nurse’s cap, it was plain to see she had quite glorious hair. Luscious to excess, like the rest of her.

“Indeed I do! You think your fame and beauty
justifies boorish behavior, and I should thank you for it? Find you endearing, or be too smitten to find my dignity? It’s hardly a surprise to learn your ego has no bounds—”

“Then by all means
, call me Wesley. Or Wes, since you know me so intimately. Down to my secret thoughts.” He wished he could see the wild blush that must accompany her gasp. “And what does a man write on the card when he gives you a Christmas present, Miss Cavendish?”

“I would
never—”

“
‘To my beloved Hortence?’ Agnes? Parthena? Sophronia?” That was her aunt’s name, he knew. Not a flicker of reaction. He summoned the most bizarre names he could think of, “Zylphia? Rufina? Philomena?”

She exhaled on a huff.

Wes scratched his chin, pretending to be thoughtful. “Hopefully your parents weren’t in with the bohemians. I know people your age with names like Sixty Lemon, or Cobalt. Imagine that card: ‘Dearest Paisley Zest, I’m yours in body and soul forever. I hope you like the parrot. Beware, he tends to curse. Love, Wes.’” At her silence, he hummed as though pontificating. “I know a girl at the theatre named Minty Cracker, but I’m fairly certain her mother was an opium addict—”

She erupted with a kitten-like growl. “Mary! I am plain old Mary, dash it all!”

“Nothing plain at all about you, Mary. But next I would’ve guessed you are Diana.”

“That’s my middle name.” Did her quiet tone mean awe or dismissal?

“Mary Diana. Perhaps once you’ve forgiven me, you shall call me Wesley.”

An awkward silence compelled him to add, “Diana the Huntress
… You know Titian painted a Diana, but I’m not certain he got her right.” Titian’s Diana was quite nude and wore an unapologetically saucy look for her Actaeon.

More silence; Miss Mary Diana Cavendish was proving difficult to scandalize.

“Would you say you sympathize with the moon? Or can you talk to animals?”

A quiet scoff.

“Diana, one of the three virgin goddesses. Perhaps you’ve taken a vow never to marry. What a shame that would be.”

That finally goaded her. “
Yes. I shall weep bitter tears into my piles of money.”

He feigned a look of surprise and leaned back. “You’re rich, Mary?”

“I don’t know if I should say. Word has it the women who attach themselves to you soon become unattached to their money, and then tragically unattached to mortality.”

W
es nodded with an affected look that meant
touché
, pretending her words hadn’t cut. How could she condemn when she knew nothing about it? Cavalier, gamely, unaffected; all in his arsenal of playacting. “Then rest assured, you’re safe from the threat of me, seeing how art and drama and adventure hold no appeal for you.” He said each item as though he’d unrolled a long list and read them off. “I must agree: idling away in the country and sleeping alone in a cold bed is far less unpredictable and taxing than the life lived in passion.”

Mary turned her head, watching
out the window, and Wes regretted his words. She’d injured him, and so he’d returned the barb. Already she was robbing him of his senses. Yet if he capitulated, she’d only despise him more — he knew her already.

“Do you know what puzzles me, Mary?”

She flashed him a sideways glance from under her eyelashes, and it hit him full on the chest. Either she practiced those witchy looks in the mirror, or she transformed into a vixen with every full moon.

“What baffles me is the way you kiss—” Her
startled expression was priceless. “For an ingénue, you certainly have
fire
in your lips. Witchery, even. I’d say it’s not quite proper for a virgin goddess to provoke a man so, as though she meant to ravish him on the spot.”

Mary
pounded the seat with her fist and regarded him as though he’d grown a third eye. “You are too cruel, Sir Wesley. I will not tolerate your mockery any longer!”

“Cruel? Mockery? Dearest Mary—”

“Don’t call me that!”

“Darling Mary, I have never been more serious in all my life. You kiss like the angel and the devil, all at once. I thought someone ought to tell you so, before you slay more unsuspecting men.”

Seeing unshed tears brimming in her eyes killed the sport for him; he’d pushed her too far, or struck a nerve. “I will open the door and boot you out into the snow.” She said it without the slightest waver in her voice, but with plenty of the hate he’d glimpsed earlier. Stories to be told, there. Who in the past had injured Mary Cavendish?

He leaned forward, grasping each of her knees to hold her still
, and kissed her again. A little deeper, sneaking in a slide here and a pull there, implying a rhythm that should appeal to her instincts even if she was an innocent. Once he found the perfect compromise, he repeated it over and over, until her mouth softened. Her breath eased on a sigh, a little feminine sound that made him burn even hotter.

She lingered of her own volition, so he paused to let her decide what to do next. A few panting breaths
curled vapor in the air, and her hand rested on her abdomen in a sign of bewilderment. The swinging lantern outside the coach window reflected the snowfall, casting spots around the walls and ceiling. A glowing crest marked the great house sprawled on a hill; Rougemont, only minutes away.

Eyes narrowed, she seared him with another look of love-hate, then it was
she
who kissed
him.
Combative, spirited, tender; all at once. She seemed to say,
“Here’s your passion, and so there!”
It set the blaze in his chest roaring, supplanting even the sharp throbbing in his injured shoulder.

A groan escaped his t
hroat, otherwise he let her dictate. He kept his hands to himself, but she’d wrapped her arms around his neck, and he didn’t mind at all when her hands wandered lower onto his chest. Likely she was incognizant of kneading and rubbing, moving her fingers over him as though she wanted his shirt off.