Nicola Cornick - The Heart Of Christmas - A Handful Of Gold / The Season for Suitors / This Wicked Gift

A quiet week. A friend and his lady. She understood, of course, exactly what he meant, exactly to what she was being invited. If she agreed now, Verity thought, the die would be cast. She would have stepped irrevocably into that world from which it would be impossible to return. Once a fallen woman, she would never be able to retrieve either her virtue or her honor.

If she agreed?

She would be away from home at Christmas of all times. Away from Mama and Chastity. For a whole week. Could anything be worth such a sacrifice, not to mention the sacrifice of her very self?

It was as if he read her mind. “Five hundred pounds, Miss Heyward,” he said softly. “For one week.”

Five hundred pounds? Her mouth went dry. It was a colossal sum. Did he know what five hundred pounds meant to someone like her? But of course he knew. It meant irresistible temptation.

In exchange for one week of service. Seven nights. Seven, when even the thought of one was insupportable. But once the first had been endured, the other six would hardly matter.

Chastity needed to see the physician again. She needed more medicine. If she were to die merely because they could not afford the proper treatment for her illness, how would she feel, Verity asked herself, when it had been within her power to see to it that they could afford the treatment? What had she just been telling herself about Christmas?

Selfless giving.

She smiled into the fire. “That would be very pleasant, my lord,” she said, and then listened in some astonishment to the other words that came unplanned from her mouth, “provided you pay me in advance.”

She turned her head to look at him when he did not immediately reply. His elbow was still on the mantel, his closed fist resting against his mouth. Above it his eyes showed amusement.

“We will, of course, agree to a compromise,” he told her. “Half before we leave and half after we return?”

She nodded. Two hundred and fifty pounds before she even left London. Once she had accepted the payment, she would have backed herself into a corner. She could not then refuse to carry out her part of the agreement. She tried to swallow, but the dryness of her mouth made it well nigh impossible to do.

“Splendid,” he said briskly. “Come, it is late. I will escort you home.”

She was to escape for tonight, then? Part of her felt a knee-weakening relief. Part of her was strangely disappointed. The worst of it might have been over within the hour if, as she had expected, he had reserved a room and had invited her there. She felt a deep dread of the first time. She imagined, perhaps naively, that after that, once it was an accomplished fact, once she was a fallen woman, once she knew how it felt, it would be easier to repeat. But now it seemed that she would have to wait until they left for Norfolkshire before the deed was done.

He had fetched her cloak and was setting it about her shoulders. She came to attention suddenly, realizing what he had just said.

“Thank you, no, my lord,” she said. “I shall see myself home. Perhaps you would be so kind as to call a hackney cab?”

He turned her and his hands brushed her own aside and did up her cloak buttons for her. He looked up into her eyes, the task completed. “Playing the elusive game until the end, Miss Heyward?” he asked. “Or is there someone at home you would rather did not see me?”

His implication was obvious. But he was, of course, right though not in quite the way he meant. She smiled back at him.

“I have promised you a week, my lord,” she said. “That week does not begin with tonight, as I understand it?”

“Quite right,” he said. “You shall have your hackney, then, and keep your secrets. I do believe Christmas is going to be more…interesting than usual.”

“I trust you may be right, my lord,” she said with all the coolness she could muster, preceding him to the door.

JULIAN WAS FEELING weary, cold and irritable by the time Bertrand Hollander’s hunting box hove into view at dusk on a particularly gray and cheerless afternoon, two days before Christmas. He would feel far more cheerful, he told himself, once he was indoors, basking before a blazing fire, imbibing some of Bertie’s brandy and contemplating the delights of the night ahead. But at the moment he could not quite convince himself that this Christmas was going to be one of unalloyed pleasure.

He had ridden all the way from London despite the fact that his comfortable, well-sprung traveling carriage held only one passenger. During the morning, he had thought it a clever idea—she would be intrigued to watch him ride just within sight beyond the carriage windows; he would comfort himself with the anticipation of joining her within during the afternoon. But during the noon stop for dinner and a change of horses, Miss Blanche Heyward had upset him quite considerably. No, that was refining too much on a trifle. She had annoyed him quite considerably.

And all over a mere bauble, a paltry handful of gold.

He had been planning to give it to her for Christmas. A gift was perhaps unnecessary since she was being paid handsomely enough for her services. But Christmas had always been a time of gift giving with him, and he knew he was going to miss Conway and all its usual warm celebrations. And so he had bought her a gift, spending far more time in the choosing of it than he usually did for his mistresses and instinctively avoiding the gaudy flash of precious stones.

On impulse he had decided to give it to her in the rather charming setting of the inn parlor in which they dined on their journey, rather than wait for Christmas Day. But she had merely looked at the box in his outstretched hand and had made no move to grab it.

“What is it?” she had asked with the quiet dignity he was beginning to recognize as characteristic of her.

“Why do you not look and see?” he had suggested. “It is an early Christmas gift.”

“There is no need of it.” She had looked into his eyes. “You are paying me well, my lord, for what I will give in return.”

Her words had sent an uncomfortable rush of tightness to his groin, though he was not at all sure she had intended them so. He had also felt the first stirring of annoyance. Was she going to keep him with his hand outstretched, feeling foolish, until his dinner grew cold? But she had reached out a hand slowly, taken the box and opened it. He had watched her almost anxiously. Had he made a mistake in not choosing diamonds or rubies, or emeralds, perhaps?

She had looked down for a long time, saying nothing, making no move to touch the contents of the box.

“It is the Star of Bethlehem,” she had said finally.

It was a star, yes, a gold star on a gold chain. He had not thought of it as the Christmas star. But the description seemed apt enough.

“Yes,” he had agreed. He had despised himself for his next words, but they had been out before he could stop them. “Do you like it?”

“It belongs in the heavens,” she had said after a lengthy pause during which she had gazed at the pendant and appeared as if she had forgotten about both him and her surroundings. “As a symbol of hope. As a sign to all who are in search of the meaning of their lives. As a goal in the pursuit of wisdom.”

Good Lord! He had been rendered speechless.

She had looked up then and regarded him very directly with those magnificent emerald eyes. “Money ought not to be able to buy it, my lord,” she had said. “It is not appropriate as a gift from such as you to such as I.”

He had gazed back, one eyebrow raised, containing his fury. Such as he? What the devil was she implying?

“Do I understand, Miss Heyward,” he had asked, injecting as much boredom into his voice as he could summon, “that you do not like the gift? Dear me, I ought to have had my man pick up a diamond bracelet instead. I shall inform him that you agree with my opinion that he has execrable taste.”