The Winter Bride (A Chance Sisters Romance) (22 page)

Fool that he was.

She hadn’t moved yet. Then her long, long lashes lifted and she looked at him with an expression he couldn’t read—dark and a little dazed.

She took a deep breath. “So that’s what it’s like.” She sounded perfectly collected, quite unruffled. She turned to the headstone. “Thank you, George. Our first kiss. I don’t believe I’ll ever forget it.”

Illogically, Freddy felt a surge of jealousy. He wanted to swing her around to face him, snarl that he—not George—had kissed her. Which was perfectly ridiculous. It was just a kiss, for God’s sake. Nothing to get so . . . unsettled over. And besides, he never snarled. He was famous for his light touch with women.

And where the hell had that gone?

“Well, it won’t be your last kiss, I can guarantee that.”

She turned to him with a little half smile and a raised brow. “Oh?” she said. It was almost flirtatious.

“You were born for it,” he told her.

She reacted as if he’d slapped her, a perceptible, instantly controlled recoil. She turned away, but not before Freddy saw that the color had drained from her face, leaving her chalk white.

“What is it? What did I say?” He held out his hands to her.

She stepped back quickly. “Nothing,” she said. Did her voice sound strained? He wasn’t sure.

“Nothing,” she repeated and shivered, wrapping her arms around herself. “It’s cold. I think I’d like to go now.” She half turned but didn’t meet his gaze. Her lips were compressed, her nose pinched.

“But what is it? What did I say?”

“Nothing at all. Thank you for the kiss and for telling me about your brother.” Her tone was light, inconsequential. Her face was a mask showing all the right, polite expressions, but her eyes were flat, shuttered.

He stepped forward, reaching toward her, but she stepped quickly back, her palms raised as if to fend him off. “No. I’ll walk back by myself, if you don’t mind. I’ll see you at dinner.”

She turned and walked quickly away. And then started running.

Freddy stood stock-still, watching her flee—
flee
from him, dammit. He wanted to go after her, but he knew it would probably only make things worse. What the hell had just happened?

It wasn’t the kiss, he was sure of that. She could have stopped it anytime, could have stopped it before he’d even started. And when he’d stepped back and released her she’d looked like a woman ought to look when she’d been thoroughly kissed—dazed, aroused and adorable.

Adorable?
Where did that come from? He turned the unfamiliar word around in his mind and dismissed it.
Kissable
, that was what he’d meant.

She’d surprised him, he had to admit. He’d never kissed a woman and felt such connection, such an upwelling of . . . joy? No, passion. His body still ached with it. He could still taste her in his mouth, the sweet, wild, dark-rose-honey taste of her.

She’d looked at him with the sweetest, shyest, most wondering expression, and his pulse had leaped because he saw then—dammit, he’d bet his life on it—that she’d enjoyed kissing him as much as he’d enjoyed kissing her.

And then suddenly the joy, the delight, the wonder had drained from her, leaving her white and wounded. Wounded? He examined the thought.

Why wounded? All he’d said was that she was born to be kissed, and dammit, that was a compliment. Any woman would think so. So what the hell was she so upset about?

She was a missionary’s daughter. Had he shocked her, putting his tongue in her mouth? It had been a very carnal kiss. Best kiss of his life, come to think of it—and he prided himself on his kissing skills.

He would have sworn she wasn’t shocked when he’d done it. She’d welcomed him so naturally, so warmly . . . Delayed reaction, maybe?

He sighed. “Did you understand what happened there, George? Because I sure as hell didn’t.” The wind soughed through the pines. A crow cawed a mocking counterpoint.

No, of course George didn’t understand women. He’d died a boy of fourteen.

Cruelly snatched from life in the flower of his youth.
The eternal reprimand.

Freddy tugged the collar of his greatcoat higher and headed toward the house. He needed a drink.

“Elinor was then at liberty to think and be wretched.”

—
JANE AUSTEN,
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY

D
amaris ran until a painful stitch formed under her ribs and she was forced to stop. She stood by the lake, gasping for breath, silently castigating herself for the unnecessary dramatics of running away.

You were born for it.
She tried to thrust the hateful words from her mind.

She ran shaking hands over her face. She couldn’t return to the house yet; she was a positive stew of conflicting emotions. She sat down on a nearby rock. She needed to calm herself. And to gain some reasonable perspective on what had just happened. And some control.

The kiss had moved her. Moved—such a plain, blunt word for the complex threads of feelings tangled inside her. Physical feelings of sharp arousal and desire but underlying it all, a piercing sweetness. She’d never felt such tenderness, such
connectedness
with another person. It had left her aching, yearning.

She was confused, because it threatened to undermine all her resolve. And she was annoyed with herself for overreacting to a simple kiss.

Her first kiss. There was grief in her too, for the innocent girl she’d once been, the girl for whom that kiss would be the summit of all her dreams. A kiss to treasure.

She was so far from being an innocent now that it made a mockery of her reaction, a mockery of the innocence implied by a first kiss.

And yet it
was
her first.

It had shaken her to the core with its unexpected tenderness and promise.

False promise, she reminded herself; as false as their betrothal. A playful kiss from a rake, for a dead boy to a girl who in some ways had died also; certainly the girl she had been no longer existed. Damaris could never be that girl again, no matter how hard she might wish it.

How had he known she’d never been kissed? It shouldn’t be possible. But somehow, he’d known that—and more—because afterward he’d told her,
You were born for it.

The very words the captain had said as he’d handed her, bound and tied, to the brothel owner.

Pain sliced into her.
You couldn’t undo what life had done to you. You could only live with the consequences. And live she would—on her own terms, no one else’s.

She’d earned her cottage and she would make a good life for herself. Her parents’ marriage had been a lesson she’d learned well and she would not put herself in the same position as Mama, living under constant reproach, endless condemnation, having been judged and found wanting. The life, the joy had been sapped from her mother, her life corroded by Papa’s bitterness.

It didn’t matter now. The past was done, immutable. Only the future was hers to shape, if she could. As long as the past didn’t return to bite her.

She knew what she had done, and though she was shamed by it, she would not apologize or beg forgiveness.

Others—if they knew—would judge her harshly, but they did not know,
could
not know from their cozy, safe lives, how it had been.

Given the same situation, she would make the same choice again.

Knowing that, she would have to live with it.

But she would not be condemned for it as Mama had been. Mama was good and kind and loving. Whatever she’d done, she hadn’t deserved a lifelong penance.

Better a life of solitude and self-acceptance than to live crushed under a yoke of guilt and regret.

Calmer now, she rose and began the walk back to the house. This charade would be over soon and she need not justify herself to anyone. As for the kiss, it would be a thing to treasure, a memory to bring out on cold, lonely nights. A kiss to dream on.

Her first kiss—forget the rest of it—it was a blessing.

But it could not go any further. It was hard enough to resist Freddy Monkton-Coombes when he was simply flirting, but that kiss had taken things to a new level. Being a rake, he no doubt took kisses lightly; he’d probably think nothing of stealing a few more. And he was so deliciously persuasive she’d probably weaken and let him. Again.

But she couldn’t risk it. It was playing with fire, and she’d be the one left burned.

Gravel crunched under her shoes as she trod the pathway that led back toward the house. She had to end this farce of a betrothal soon.

 • • • 

A
s Damaris approached the house, an elderly gardener greeted her by name, bobbing his head and giving her a gap-toothed smile. Damaris smiled back.

She entered the house by a side door. The motherly-looking housekeeper, Mrs. Brown, was supervising a young maid. They both stopped what they were doing to smile at her, and as Damaris passed, Mrs. Brown touched her on the arm and said, “Thank you, miss.”

Puzzled, Damaris gave them a smile and continued on her way. If the servants were starting to greet her as if she belonged here, it was definitely time to draw this thing to an end.

But first there was Freddy Monkton-Coombes to confront and her retrieval of the thing that the Chinese called “face.” She peeped into the sitting room he usually favored, the one without all the mounted heads, and found him perusing a newspaper in a bored sort of fashion.

Best to broach it at once. “I’m sorry about before. I overreacted a little.” She gave a shaky little laugh. “A girl’s prerogative, I believe, after her first kiss.” Lord, she was more unsettled than she’d thought.

 • • • 

F
reddy lowered his paper and eyed her thoughtfully over it. He’d been turning the moment over and over in his mind, unable to forget the draining of color from her face and her subsequent flight.

“It wasn’t the kiss that overset you,” he said slowly. “It was something I said afterward.” Though what it was, he had no idea.

“Nonsense.” She tossed her head. “As I recall, you were quite complimentary.”

He wasn’t convinced. “Whatever I said to upset you, I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t upset me at all.” She still hadn’t met his gaze. “Now, do you want to keep reading that paper? Because if you have the time, I’d quite like you to continue my education in the art of playing billiards.”

He folded the paper and set it aside. “It would be my pleasure to further your education.”

If she wanted to play games, he’d play along. He’d get to the bottom of the mystery eventually.

 • • • 

“M
iss Damaris, Mr. Horwood, the butler, is waiting outside to speak to you,” Polly, her maid, said in some awe when Damaris was dressing the following morning. “He’s got something for you, but he says he wants to give it to you himself.”

The painting couldn’t be framed already. It had been less than a day since she’d finished it. Curious, Damaris quickly finished dressing, then opened the door.

It wasn’t just Horwood waiting for her, it was the housekeeper, Mrs. Brown, as well. Horwood carried a large, square object, wrapped in brown paper and tied up with string. “Jem Biggins went to work on it right away, miss.”

“Oh, then I must give you some money to pay him. How much is it?” She turned to find her purse.

“No, no, no, miss, you don’t owe him a thing,” Horwood said, shocked. He set the parcel on the dressing table and pulled from his pocket a small knife, with which he cut the string. “The estate would pay, but even so, Jem wouldn’t take a penny for a job like this. As soon as he saw what it was, he put everything aside to frame it. Very fond of Master Freddy is Jem.”

“As are we all, miss,” Mrs. Brown said. “And such a portrait of the young master it is, it fair made me weep.” She pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed it to her welling eyes.

“I took the liberty of showing it to the staff yesterday,” Horwood admitted.

“It’s Master Freddy to the life, miss,” the housekeeper said. “And anyone can see you care for him. I’m that happy he’s found a young lady like you. Perhaps now he’ll come home to Breckenridge more often.”

“Oh, but . . .” Damaris was dismayed at their interpretation of the facts. It was just a simple painting. But at that moment Horwood finished unwrapping the painting and she gasped.

She’d expected a plain wooden frame, much like the ones made for Nanny McBride, but this was more like the ones in the portrait gallery—carved quite ornately and then covered in gold leaf. It made her ordinary watercolor into something quite special.

She knew immediately what she wanted to do with it.

“Horwood,” she said, “are Lord and Lady Breckenridge downstairs yet? In the breakfast parlor, I mean.”

Horwood and Mrs. Brown exchanged a conspiratorial glance. “No, miss, they’re still in their bedchambers.”

“Good.” She bundled the paper back around the painting.

Horwood cleared his throat. “Do I apprehend, miss, that you intend to place this painting in the breakfast parlor?”

She nodded. “Over the mantel, yes. Beside the painting of George.” She added defiantly, “There are numerous paintings of George in this house, but none at all of Freddy.”

Horwood smiled. “We know, miss. And if you would allow me, I’d be honored to take the painting downstairs for you and put it in place.”

Mrs. Brown nodded eagerly. “So we can all—all of the servants—see it up there before his lordship sees it.”

Before his lordship had it removed, she meant. There was a lump in Damaris’s throat. Such loyalty, such love. Did Freddy have any idea? she wondered. She nodded. “I’d be honored if you would, Mr. Horwood.”

 • • • 

“W
hat the devil—?”

Damaris let out her breath. She’d been on edge all through breakfast, waiting for someone to notice the painting. Amazingly nobody had, even though to her it was as obvious as a slap in the face. Guilty conscience.

Horwood, misunderstanding her intentions, had slightly exceeded his brief, and instead of placing the painting on the mantelpiece as she’d planned, he’d hung it where George’s painting usually hung, and moved George’s painting to another wall.

Finally, just as he was getting up to leave the table, Lord Breckenridge had noticed it. He stared at the painting over the mantel. His eyes bulged. “What is the meaning of this?” he roared.

Damaris took a deep breath. “It’s a painting of your son and heir.” She was surprised to hear she sounded quite composed. Inside she was shaking like a leaf.

“It damned well is not! Horwood!” He bellowed for the absent butler. “Where’s the proper painting? The one of George?”

“It’s over there.” She pointed. She couldn’t allow Horwood to take the blame.

Lord Breckenridge looked at George’s painting hanging in the center of the opposite wall. He swung around to stare at her. “
You’re
responsible for this?”

Damaris lifted her chin. “I did the painting, yes. It’s a gift to you. I thought it would be nice if you had a portrait of your son—your living son—for a change.”

“How dare you!” Lady Breckenridge was white with anger.

“You have paintings of George everywhere, but none of Freddy. Yet Freddy is your only son and heir.” She turned to Lady Breckenridge. “I put those paints of yours to good use, don’t you think? It’s not a bad likeness.” She glanced at Freddy, who was staring at the painting with a strange look on his face.

“You are not in charge of this house yet, missy.”

“And you won’t ever be if I have my way,” his wife hissed.

Damaris braced herself. “I’m sorry if I’ve upset you, but don’t you think it’s time you all faced the truth?”

“What truth?” Lord Breckenridge scoffed.

He really had no idea. She took a deep breath and said gently, “That George is dead.”

Lady Breckenridge clapped her hands over her ears. “Stop her, Godfrey. She isn’t to say such things.”

Damaris shook her head. It was going to take more than gentle words. “You are clinging to the past in the most morbid fashion. It’s unhealthy. It’s also childish.” Oh, God, she’d never been as rude to anyone in her life.

“Childish?”
Lord Breckenridge sputtered, outraged.

“Yes, childish,” Damaris said coolly. Because it had to be said, and if nobody else would say it . . . “All three of you—Freddy included—are acting as if . . . as if, if you held your breath long enough and wished hard enough, you could open your eyes and George would be alive again and you could all go on as before.”

There was a short, shocked silence. She darted a glance at Freddy, who’d made no attempt to interfere. He was watching her with a strange look in his eye. Had she offended him too? Well, what did it matter? She’d break off the betrothal soon, and he wouldn’t have to see her again. But in the meantime, there were things she wanted to say.

“You can’t live like that,” she hurried on, frightened she’d lose the courage to speak her piece. “People die. People you love and depend on and need, die.” Her voice cracked. “And those left behind must grieve—and then move on. From all I’ve heard, George was a wonderful, much beloved son, clever and talented and noble and affectionate.”

“He was perfect,” said George’s mother.

“Yes. But, tragically, he died. And in your grief, your
sixteen years
of grief, you’ve forgotten—both of you—that you have another son who did not die. And he’s also wonderful, just as wonderful as George—”

“Pfft!” Lord Breckenridge made a puff of disbelief.

“—but in a different way. He’s clever and talented and loyal and responsible and kind, but you’re blind to it—
willfully
blind. He’s even blind to it himself. He doesn’t believe he deserves to be loved.”

“He caused his brother’s death,” said his mother.

“No, he
didn’t
! That’s a
terrible
thing to say.”

“How would you know?”

“All he did was hit a cricket ball. George ran to catch it and fell into the water and drowned. It was a tragic accident, that’s all. Nobody is at fault.”

His father shrugged. “If Freddy had been the one running to catch, it wouldn’t have mattered so much. George would be alive.”

The casual cruelty of it stunned her. “How
dare
you say such a
wicked
thing!” She smacked the table with her palm, making them all jump. “You don’t deserve such a wonderful son.”