Mary's Christmas Knight (5 page)

What is this fragrance softly stealing?

Shepherds! It sets my heart a-stir!

Never was sweetness so appealing

Never were flow'rs of spring so fair!

What is this fragrance softly stealing?

Shepherds! It sets my heart a-stir!

~
Traditional French Noel

Nothing for it;
she’d been caught. He must have seen her reflection in the windows. Drawing her robe tighter at the collar, Mary approached the table separating the chairs. “What are you doing here, Sir Wesley?”

“Brushing up on
horticulture in the Galapagos.” He lifted a leather-bound book with his finger marking a page near the middle. Ah, he’d kept the fire burning high in the grate. Waves of warmth teased her stiff fingers and the cold tip of her nose. Just a little closer…

“Fascinating.”
Mary rounded the table, careful not to bump the lantern, and her blasted stomach growled. She must have blushed brighter than the fire, but he didn’t seem to notice. She sat in the wingback chair opposite his, tucking the baby into her lap. The relief of warmth made her want to sigh in satisfaction. Hopefully she would appear casual. Alarming that her lips tingled, either in memory of what he’d done to them, or in a perverse wish for him to repeat it.

“I was rather trying to bore myself to death. Or at least to sleep.”
Oh, his voice!
Like purring and thunder, both at once.

“I couldn’t sleep either.”
Her gaze locked onto the crystal dish filled with peeled orange slices; her mouth stung and she swallowed over the sudden rush of desire. She drew shallow breaths, praying her stomach wouldn’t rumble again.

“And so you procreated instead. Inventive.”

It took her a moment to register he’d make a joke about her holding the baby. “I do work fast.” She tried not to look at him, not at his open collar revealing crisp hair she already knew the texture of. Especially unwise to dwell on his searing sea-blue eyes, reflecting the soft orange glow of the lantern, which gave the illusion of a fire and ice paradox. He’d been arresting enough covered in gutter slime; bathed and shaven, he looked fit to top the Christmas tree as some sort of ironic fallen angel figurine. Mary watched out the dark window, uncomfortable with letting the silence hang.

He lifted the dish of oranges and set it on the arm of her chair. “Do have some. They’re delicious, if a little tart.”

Mary preferred tart citrus to sweet. Her mouth watered, her throat tightened, and it was no use trying to resist. “Thank you.” She tried not to inhale the first piece. Before she knew, four slices had disappeared, and she knew her fortitude had crumbled in a heap. She was going to eat them all. At least it was fruit and not sugarplums.

After awhile, Sir Wesley opened his book again.
If he observed her eating his last orange, he didn’t let on. The clock struck three. She wished she didn’t notice him rolling his shoulders and rubbing his arm. It woke Mary the Nurse, whose altruism overshadowed her discretion.

“I suppose it’s time to chang
e the bandages on your shoulder, and perhaps a topical analgetic for the pain.”

Sir Wesley
’s hand rubbing his shoulder dropped into his lap. “It’s starting to burn.”

“Either the injured nerves are regenerating, or you’re working up a nasty fever. You might drop dead.”

He nodded with his head cocked, a gesture of acquiescence. “Well, I wish it would make up its mind either way.”

Mary sighed, then realized how rude and resigned she sounded. Oh, well. “Here. You hold
the baby while I fetch the supplies.”

She expected him to refuse, or at least protest. Instead a lovely smile spread on his lips and he held
out his uninjured arm. Carefully she transferred the baby, which he expertly cradled against his chest. Rebecca looked impossibly tiny in comparison.

“She’s called Rebecca.”

“Beautiful,” he answered. Just when Mary thought Sir Wesley couldn’t surprise her, he made a gentle cooing sound and starting muttering nonsense in a foolish voice, smiling like a fool. Rebecca’s eyes went wide, her mouth made an O shape, and she cooed back. Sir Wesley’s charm knew no bounds, apparently.

He paused to look up at Mary. “Go ahead, I shall manage.”

Taken aback, she had no choice but to go back to her apartments for her nurse’s bag. She returned to find Rebecca Montegue
laughing,
in magical baby peals that probably summoned pixies and springtime. Granted, she didn’t know any better. Then Mary saw
why:
Sir Wesley puffed out his cheeks and crossed his eyes, then blew air in a rude noise Rebecca found hilarious.

The earth
spun all its seasons at once then returned to the present, and there stood Mary, changed in that long, long second. She couldn’t hate him. Truth be told, she had no choice but to like him.

Resigned, she knelt at his side. Tucking the baby close with his good arm, he held out the other and shrugged out of the sleeve. What a difference a bath made, with his skin toasty warm from the fire, with gold and shadow highlighting an impressive musculature she must run her fingers all over. “Oh, bugger,” she muttered despite herself as she unwrapped the bandage, damp from his bath.

“I’m not going to apologize for kissing you, Mary.”

Her throat squeaked at his unpredicted frankness. “None of the sutures have burst, but you did make it bleed.”

“Well worth it.” Worth lifting her over his shoulder, for the sake of trumping an argument?

“You must be more careful if you want it to heal properly.”

“I like you, Mary. A great deal. I won’t apologize for that either.”

“Oh, shut up.” She almost co
vered her mouth, horrified, then remembered the glob of salve on her finger she didn’t want to smear on her face. And if he could throw manners to the birds, so could she.

Curse him, he laughed at her. Well, chuckled, more like, but the delightful rumbling sound annoyed her. He had a beautiful laugh. Of course. Forest animals probably gathered at his feet, and the wind
always blew at his back, surely. He hefted a breath, which made the first wrapping of the new bandage slip. She gave him a swift pinch to mean,
Hold still.

“Oh, yes. I do like you, Mary Cavendish.”
He patted a knee. “Why don’t you sit here and let me touch your hair? And I’ll listen while you talk.”

After tucking the end of the bandage in, she lost her excuse
for not looking him in the eye. And she could only repack her bag for so long. “What for? And what about?”

“Take it out of the braid and let it all down, here in my lap. And I don’t know
. I thought women liked to talk. Half the time I have no idea what they’re saying.”

Mary kept her mouth shut while a gauntlet of responses flashed in her head, from
How dare you,
to
How stupid do you think I am,
to
That sounds divine.
Instead she said nothing. Rebecca’s eyelids drooped, her breath slowed and she burrowed her face against Sir Wesley’s chest.

Simply because she wanted to, Mary pulled her braid over her shoulder, untied it, then combed out the plait with her fingers. It was so long he would probably make a horrid tangle of it, but it was
Christmas, she was starving, exhausted, and restless, and selfish enough to indulge in his offer of comfort.

Sir Wesley hummed in interest, his eyes looking up and down
, then back up. She should have been ashamed, or at the very least embarrassed, but illogically it made her feel beautiful. He patted his knee again and held out his elbow in a gesture for her to take the baby. Carefully he placed Rebecca in Mary’s arms, which meant he quite conspicuously brushed her hands, then her ribs. Rebecca woke, blinking, then her eyelids dropped again.

He gripped Mary
by the waist and pulled her down to sit across his lap then guided her head to rest on his shoulder. She couldn’t say he made a very good pillow, all hard angles, but his large size was rather pleasing. Finding the perfect nook for her face in the hollow between his chest and shoulder, she let out a breath, waiting for her heart to quit dancing the quadrille. With her arm resting atop his, she didn’t have to carry the baby’s weight. Sir Wesley leaned, cramping her for a moment while he lifted her feet to rest on the opposite arm of the chair. Utterly at ease, Mary closed her eyes.

Her skin shivered with a nervous energy the same time a warmth radiated from the inside out, growing hotter by the minute. The contradicting sensations seemed to pull time in both directions.

She thought he’d forgotten about her hair when his fingers grazed her back, gathering the sections trapped between their bodies and under his arm. With all the strands in his fist, he tugged a bit, wrapped a loop around his fist, and gave it a gentle pull again. Something about the gesture felt lascivious, but she couldn’t say why. Her instincts alerted her of the primitive masculine and female nature of it.

Aware of possibly falling headlong into a trap, her pulse kicked in a jolt of
panic that somehow felt remote, as though she watched the scene from the other side of the windows. She tensed to spring out of his lap and run away just as he let go of her hair. A feather-light touch at the nape of her neck made every nerve in her spine riot. His fingers spread in her hair then slowly dragged down her back, all the way past her waist and over her hip to the ends of her hair, on which he gave a little pull. That made her head tingle, and she had no idea the scalp was so sensitive.

S
he sat listening to her own deep, slow breaths while her senses rode a carousel. His hands gentle in her hair, brushing her back, teasing her neck and arms — mesmerizing, hypnotizing. His chest rising and falling, his noisy heart beating a steady rhythm against her ribs, and his steely-velvet warmth heating her everywhere they touched. Inexplicable, how his touching the side of her neck made her belly clench, and his hand cupped in the curve of her waist lit the nerves under her collarbones. Relaxing, electrifying — she didn’t know what he was doing to her, but it was catastrophically wonderful.

“What do you wish for Christmas, Mary?” His voice, low and so near her ear, chased another shiver down
her spine. It made her shudder, and he chuckled, rubbing a deep circle at the small of her back with his thumb. Wicked, glorious man.

“Peace on earth and good will toward men,” she said, muffled in his shoulder.

He blew a snort, which prickled the fine hairs on the nape of her neck with his breath. “Don’t you want a new hat, or a puppy, or chocolate doves?”

The sides of her tongue pinched, watering her mouth again, and s
he groaned. “Please — don’t mention chocolate.” To distract him in case he meant to ask why, she said, “And what does Sir Wesley hope to find in his stocking?”

His chest lurched, startling Mary and making Rebecca stir enough to stretch and squeak before settling again. He was laughing, silently.

“What? What is it?”

“You are an innocent, I know, but still you should mind your words, Mary.”

She scowled, replaying her dialog, finding nothing amiss.

“But since you asked, I do have a Christmas wish.” His fingers hooked in the locks
hanging at the small of her back, then he traced his fingertips the rest of the way down.

“Well, what is it?”

“Predictably indecent in nature — I cannot tell it.”

She scoffed. “You say that so I will insist.”

“Very well, since you insist. We already agreed women love to talk. But men? We love to
look
.” He let her puzzle over it while he twirled a lock until it pulled on her scalp, then he let it spring free. “Do you know what would please me on our wedding night? If you stood before me, in a room like this, with dark windows reflecting like mirrors, and a fire lit behind you so I can see through your nightdress. Look me in the eye while you unlace it and let it drop to the floor, and let me simply watch as long as I want.”

Her breath
quit — it seemed her chest squeezed in a motion opposite from breathing, but her heart scrambled in a wild rhythm, like a trumpet call. Small fires lit in places she didn’t want to think about. Overheated and stricken, she squeezed her arms tight against her side and pressed her knees together, trying to quell the onslaught of sensation she couldn’t identify. Like a bee sting made of honey…

Sir Wesley had probably drawled his naughty words in her
ear like that to get a rise out of her, so she made a point of not indulging him. Once she thought she could speak without croaking, she hummed and said, “The obstacle in achieving your wish…”

His lips pressed to her temple, which startled a gasp
out of her, then — oh, for shame — Mary leaned against his mouth and let him kiss the side of her face. “What obstacle?” he said, his lips grazing her cheek.

“The unlikelihood of you and the word
marriage
together
in the same sentence. It was so jarring, I scarce heard the rest of it.”