The Scandal Before Christmas (15 page)

And the fierce feeling, the need that was so deep it was a rage, rose up in her. “Please, make me. Make me scream.”

His head swooped down and captured the ruched peak of her straining breast roughly, abrading it with his teeth and sucking fiercely, just as he positioned himself at the opening of her body.

She could hear his breath now, coming in audible pants, as if breathing had begun to pain him. She planted the soles of her boots flat against the front of the table and pushed herself toward him, her hips bucking gently into the pressure of his hand.

Now it was he who made an inarticulate, harsh sound as he grappled the close of his breeches, working to free himself. “Easy, love,” he gritted. “I need to—”

She needed, too. She needed him as bare and exposed as she. So she ripped away the confining screen of his waistcoat, and laid waste to the buttons of his linen shirt, in her haste to bare what she could of his chest. Her hands burned to touch him, to rove over the tight muscles of his chest and around to his back, and lower, to his sleek flanks, pushing down his breeches, using her feet and toes to shuck his buckskin breeches and small clothes from his tensed buttocks.

And still she needed more. She needed the blunt velvet probe of his body pushing its way into hers. She needed the strength of his hands, pulling her into him, holding her as he bore down into her body. And then he was inside her and around her, and filling the emptiness inside with his hungry, ravenous need.

She felt tight, and full, and unsatisfied, sure there was something more, more of the pleasure that built and built inside her like snow piling high upon a treetop—one small movement would send her crashing to the forest floor.

And then he touched her, there, where their bodies were joined, and it was too much effort to talk. It was far too much effort to think. She abandoned herself to his rhythm, driving her higher along with himself.

She could hear the gasps he wrenched from her with each nearly mindless stroke. “Please,” she heard herself beg him. “Please.”

He answered her by grasping her bottom and pulling her toward him, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, changing the angle of their bodies. The sound he made in response was nothing more than a growling howl. Above her, his face was shadowed, his hair falling forward over his brow, his lips parted even as his jaw was clamped closed. He looked so young and full of anguish, even as he gave her such pleasure.

She reached out to stroke his face, and he turned into her caress, and kissed and nipped her fingers, until she rubbed the sweet wetness of her finger over his tight, dark nipple. He cried out at the same moment, his head thrown back, his eyes closed, and she turned inward, letting the hot wave push through her. Her climax broke over her and she let go of the sound building in her throat, the high keening call of a falcon diving for its prey.

Chapter Fourteen

Christmas day dawned quietly. The slight chill in the quiet air, the hush of the slumbering house, and the harsh blue-bright edges of light seeping around the curtains told Ian it was full morning.

Beside him, Anne slept on, her hair spread across the pillows, messy and undone. She looked like some sort of angelic urchin. They had snuck back into the house late, in the early evening, when the slate twilight had already fallen on the cover of still-falling snow. And once they were above stairs, they had not wanted to part. They had slept still-clothed upon the counterpane, with Ian’s sea coat for a blanket.

Something sharp and pleasurable, and not altogether peaceful, filled him at the sight of her—the guilt and remembrance of what they had done in the quiet hours of the night, and what they had yet to do.

They had yet to marry.

They had yet to find a way around the inconvenient weather, or the even-more-inconvenient Viscount Rainesford.

Ian drew in a deep breath, and was contented when Anne snuggled closer. He would be happy if they could simply pass the day in peace, avoiding the old man and his directives, without doing anything more interesting than making a quiet toast around the burning yule log Pinky was sure to have hoisted inside. And giving Anne a lovely, long kiss underneath her sprig of mistletoe.

And then Ian’s ears picked up a new sound. Outside the window the chatter of winter birds—cardinals and sparrows—and the quiet drip of snow melting from eaves and the branches of trees, meant the storm has passed and the snow had stopped falling. The roads would be clearing.

No sooner had he formed the thought, than the bells of the village church began to toll in the distance.

“Anne. Wake up.” Ian surged out of bed, his feet bare and cold, not giving a damn. They had to be up.

“Wake up.” He came back to the bed, and began to kiss and shake her awake. “Do you hear that? Church bells. The church bells in the village calling us to worship. So that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to get married. Right now. Before anyone else arises. Even if it takes us all day to wade through the snow.”

That brought her bolt upright on the bed. And then she smiled. A slow, spreading smile that lit her face like a rosy dawn. He was all but slain by her sweetness. “I’ll get my boots.”

They snuck down the creaking service stair at the back of the house like thieves, only to find Pinky up and bustling about the kitchen.

“Mornin’, cap’n.” The old cherub bobbed his head. “Mistress.”

“You haven’t seen us, Pinky,” Ian instructed. “If my father is so rude as to inquire after my whereabouts, you may tell him I’ve gone to the devil.”

“Ha ha! Not to the devil today, though, sir? Somewheres else entirely today?”

“No, Pinky, not today. Wish us luck.”

“I wish you more than luck, sir—I wish you happy. But mistress, wait.” Pinky shambled away, but less than a minute later he was back with a tiny bundle of cloth that he handed to Anne. “That’s for you now, mistress, so everything’s proper for the luck.”

“Thank you, Pinky.”

Ian pulled Anne through the door. “No time to tarry, Pinky. Mum’s the word.”

“Aye, aye, cap’n. But mind you see here—I’ve got you out a sledge just big enough for the two of you. Right here outside the door. If you take the right turning at the end of the hedge, the path’ll put you up at the top of Farmer Boscowan’s hayfield. You ought to be able to slide down the hill, and come out on the other side of the churchyard.”

“You’re a wonder, Pinky. A bloody wonder.”

They did exactly as the old tar instructed and in less than ten minutes, breathless and nearly giddy with delight, they were inside the church and knocking at the vestry door.

“Are you ready?” he asked as they stamped the cold from their feet.

She hesitated. “Will your father be very upset with you?”

“Yes. Serves him right. This is for us to choose, Anne. We can do whatever we want. We will do whatever you want. But I want you to stay with me always. Will you?”

“I will.”

The poor, round-eyed young curate had probably never before seen anything so reeking of aristocracy as the special license Ian pulled out of the pocket of his blue uniform coat. But they must have looked presentable enough for the august document, for the curate did not, as Ian half expected, look back and forth between the two of them in a manner that might suggest disbelief or censure, but opened his prayer book, and set them to it.

In no time at all it was done, and Anne was Mrs. Lieutenant Worth. Or probably just Mrs. Worth. Not that it mattered. Nothing mattered, as long as she was with him. As long as she was his.

She looked like a bride—glowing and radiant. And happy, despite the lack of flowers or adornments. So happy she looked like she might come apart at her seams and melt into a warm wine-colored puddle in the snow.

“I am sorry it was not a grander affaire, with flowers and toasts—”

“But it was. Did you not see? Pinky made me a little nosegay of flowers. Ivy for endurance, rosemary for remembrance, and snowdrops for eternal hope. And all tied with a blue calico ribbon. So thoughtful. He must have known.”

“I rather think he must have
hoped
. And he was not the only one with hopes.” He kissed her then, right there on her lips, in front of God and all men.

Because she was
his
bride.

And it was a new day—Christmas day.

Last Christmas he had been pounding his way across the freezing North Sea with dispatches for the Admiralty. And maybe next year, or even tomorrow, he’d be doing the same thing. But this Christmas, he was happy, and happily married. All within three days.

It had been only three days since he had met his peregrine, his swift little falcon. It already seemed a lifetime. And with a sharp jolt of awareness that lanced through him, and shook him to his boots, Ian realized that he did not want to leave her.

There was still too much for them to learn, too much for them to talk about and share and decide. Too many hours he wanted to spend learning the hidden secrets of her body.

But the Admiralty could not wait. The business of duty could no longer be put off.

He laced her fingers with hers. “Anne, I’ve been thinking— About you. About leaving you here alone when I go back to sea.”

“I’ll be fine. And a two-month isn’t that much time, is it? Not compared to other captains who have voyages of years.”

“No. A two-month isn’t too much time, but as it isn’t that long, I wondered if you would consider coming with me?”

“To Portsmouth?”

“To Portsmouth, and beyond, aboard my ship. Come with me. Come live with me on my ship and sail with me.”

She smiled her astonishment. “Do you really mean it?”

“Yes. I’ve decided I shan’t go, unless you decide to come with me.”

“You would give it up—your ship and your career? You would let your father have his way?”

“It would seem so. But as you seem so very good at opposing him, I wondered if you might take pity on me, and thwart him, if only for my sake.”

“I should like only one thing better.”

“And what is that?”

“To always be with you. To follow you to the ends of the earth if you will let me.”

“I shall do more than let you—I shall insist. Come with me, Mrs. Worth. Let us go home. To our home, and wherever else we might choose to go. Where we shall have each other, always.”

He pulled her close to walk slowly down the bright-shining, snow-covered lane. Anne tipped her head toward him, and laid her head against his chest, and began to sing.

The sweet clarity of her voice rang out across the fields like a bell, shining and bright.

Good people all this Christmastide,

Consider well, and bear in mind

What our good God for us has done,

In sending His beloved Son.

With Mary holy we should pray

To God with love this Christmas day

In Bethlehem upon this morn

There was a blessed Messiah born.

He did indeed take the moment to consider the blessings of the day. And in that moment Ian Worth found something he never could have anticipated. True friendship. True understanding. True compatibility.

And something else a ramshackle fellow like himself had never thought to find. True love.

Epilogue

The letter came by express—galloped across the snowy fields and roads to reach them late that afternoon. The muffled clatter of horses’ hooves on the hard-packed drive, and the pounding on the door pulled all of them—even his father, who had until then chosen to remain in chilly high dudgeon in his assigned chamber—away from the warmth of the yule log burning steadily in the drawing room grate.

Ian’s hands began to shake the moment he recognized his mother’s swirling hand. It could be nothing but bad news. There was no other explanation for the speed and expense of the express on Christmas day.

Pinky, God rest him, was there with a steadier hand, to pay out the coins into the cold gripped hands of the rider, and to steer him toward the stable with the promise of a warm meal and a hot fire in the kitchen once he had seen to his animal.

“What is it? What does it say?” His father would have snatched the letter from Ian’s paralyzed hands had not Anne taken charge.

“It is addressed to Ian, sir. To Lieutenant Ian Worth.”

The direction steadied him. Surely there would have been some other indication in the address if what he feared were true. If Ross had passed away.

The thought—the very real possibility—was a pain so large Ian could not fathom how to breathe, or think, or open the letter as he knew he must.

“Let us go inside, out of the cold.” Anne’s voice, calm and sensible, directing their parents away from him. Giving him privacy.

Giving him time to do what he must.

Ian broke the seal and opened the missive.

The words, the looping hasty scrawl of his mother’s news was nearly unintelligible. And then he saw it.

He has moved his toes.

Ian frantically went back to the beginning, and found them, the words he had longed for. The words he had almost despaired of ever seeing.

Inflammation of his spine has receded. Brought to consciousness. Reducing the reliance upon the laudanum. Believe he will recover.

“Ian?” Anne was at his elbow, her heart, her concern wide in her eyes.

“He lives.” Cool air poured into his lungs. “He lives and recovers. My mother writes that he gets better, little by little every day.”

“Thank God.”

Ian would thank his mother before God, but he had no quarrel with the Almighty if his brother’s recovery was the result. His lungs filled with blessed, clear air, and he felt almost lightheaded, as if he would float away—the result, he reckoned, of the enormous weight of dread being lifted from his shoulders. And he had Anne to help him carry the burden. Loyal, steadfast Anne. “I should not be too happy just yet, my love.”

She frowned at him, even as she smiled with her own relief. “Whyever not?”

“Because she bids us keep my father here, so he may not impede Ross’s recovery with his malicious, managing ways.”