Christine Merrill - One Snowy Regency Christmas - A Regency Christmas Carol / Snowbound with the Notorious Rake

‘You had best do something,’ Stratford said. ‘He appears to be getting worse and not better. If you had not come along today …’ He paused. ‘Your arrival prevented anyone from coming to harm, at least for now.’

From his tone, it did not seem that he feared for his own life. ‘Are you threatening my father, Mr Stratford?’

‘Not without cause, I assure you. He is a violent man. If necessary I will call in the law to stop him. That would be a shame if it is as you say—that the rage in him is a thing which he cannot control. But you must see that the results are likely to be all the same whether they proceed from malice, madness or politics.’

‘Just what do you propose we do? Lock him up?’

‘If necessary,’ Stratford said, with no real feeling. ‘At least that will prevent me from having him transported.’

‘You would do that, wouldn’t you?’ With his understanding behaviour, and his offers of tea and books, she had allowed herself to believe—just for a moment—that he was capable of understanding. And that if she confided in him he might use his ingenuity to come up with a solution to her family’s problems. But he was proving to be just as hard as she’d thought him when she’d seen him taunting the mob of weavers. ‘You have no heart at all to make such threats at Christmas.’

Joseph Stratford shrugged. ‘I fail to see what the date on the calendar has to do with it. The mill will open in January, whether your father likes it or not. But there is much work I must do, and plans that must be secured between then and now. I will not allow him to ruin the schemes already in progress with his wild accusations and threats of violence. Is that understood, Miss Lampett?’

‘You do not wish our coarseness and our poverty to offend the fancy guests you are inviting from London,’ she said with scorn. Everyone in the village had heard the rumours of strangers coming to the manor for the holiday, and would be speculating about their feasting and dancing while eating their meagre dinners in Fiddleton. ‘And you have the nerve to request that I chain my father in our cottage like a mad dog, so that he will not trouble you and your friends with the discomfort of your workers?’ She was sounding like her father at the beginning of some rabble-rousing rant. And she was foolish enough to be doing it while alone with a man who solved his problems with a loaded pistol.

‘There was a time when I was little better than they are now,’ he snapped.

‘Then you must have forgotten it, to let the people suffer so.’

‘Forgotten?’ He stepped closer, his eyes hard and angry. ‘There is nothing romantic about the life of a labourer. Only a woman who has known no real work would struggle so hard to preserve the rights of others to die young from overwork.’ He reached out suddenly and seized her hands, turning them over to rub his fingers over the palms. ‘As I thought. Soft and smooth. A lady’s hands.’

‘There is no shame in being a lady,’ she said, with as much dignity as she could manage. She did not try to pull away. He could easily manage to hold her if he wanted to. And if he did not respond to her struggle the slight fear she felt at the nearness of him would turn into panic.

His fingers closed on hers, and his eyes seemed to go dark. ‘But neither is there any pride in being poor. It is nice, is it not, to go to a soft bed with a full belly? To have hands as smooth as silk?’ His thumbs were stroking her, and the little roughness of them seemed to remind her just how soft she was. There was something both soothing and exciting about the feel of his fingers moving against hers, the way they twined, untwined and twined again.

‘That does not mean that we should not feel sympathy for those less fortunate than ourselves.’ He was standing a little too close to be proper, and her protest sounded breathless and excited.

‘Less fortunate, eh? Less in some ways, more in others. Without the machines they are fighting I would be no different than they are now—scrabbling to make a living instead of holding the hands of a beautiful lady in my own great house.’

It was not his house at all. He had taken it—just as he had taken her hands. ‘I did not give you leave to do so,’ she reminded him.

‘You gave me no leave to carry you before either,’ he said. ‘But I wanted to, and so I did. You felt very good in my arms.’ He pulled her even closer, until her skirts were brushing against the legs of his trousers. She did not move, even though he had freed her hands. ‘It is fortunate for me that you are prone to pity a poor working man. Perhaps you will share some of that sweet sympathy with me.’ He ran a finger down her cheek, as though to measure its softness.

She stood very still indeed, not wishing him to see how near she was to trembling. If she cried out it would draw the house down upon them and bring this meeting to a sudden end. But her words had failed her, and she could manage no clever quip that would make him think her sophisticated. Nor could she raise a maidenly insistence that he revolted her. He did not. His touch was gentle, and it made her forget all that had come before.

He seemed to forget as well, for his voice was softer, deeper and slower. ‘Your father broke one of my looms today. But it will be replaced, and I will say nothing of how the destruction happened.’

‘Thank you,’ she whispered, wetting her lips.

‘If you wish to make a proper apology, I would like something more.’ His head dipped forwards, slowly, and his lips were nearing hers.

Although she knew what was about to happen she stayed still and closed her eyes. His lips were touching hers, moving lightly over them. It was as it had been when he had touched her ankle and held her hands. She could feel everything in the world in that single light touch. Her whole body felt warm and alive. Hairs rose on her arms and neck—not from the chill but as though they were eager to be soothed back to smoothness by roving hands.

She kissed him back, moving her lips on his as he had on hers. His mouth was rough, and imperfect. One corner of his smile was slightly higher than the other, and she touched it with the tip of her tongue, felt the dimple beside it deepen in surprise.

In response, he gave a playful lick against her upper lip, daring her. Her body’s response was an immediate tightening, and she pressed herself against him, opening her mouth. And what had been wonderful became amazing.

He encircled her, and his arms made a warm, safe place for their exploration—just as they had when he’d carried her. The slow stroking of hands and tongue seemed to open her to more sensations, and the tingling of her body assured her of the rightness of it, the perfection and the bliss. Although she knew all the places on her body that he must not touch, she was eager to feel his fingers there, and perhaps his tongue.

Just the idea made her tremble with eagerness, with embarrassment, and the knowledge that had seemed quite innocent was near to blazing out of control. And it was not only his doing. Even now she had taken his tongue into her mouth, and it was she who held it captive there, closing her lips upon it.

She could tell by his sigh of pleasure that he enjoyed what she’d done. But his only other response was to go still against her. His passivity coaxed her to experiment, raking his tongue with her teeth and circling it with her own, urging him to react.

He had trapped her into being the aggressor. At the realisation, she pulled away suddenly. He let her go, staring down at her in mock surprise, touching his own lips gingerly, as though they might be hot enough to burn his fingers.

‘Stop that immediately,’ she said.

He smiled. ‘You have stopped it quickly enough for both of us. And now I suppose you wish me to apologise for the way you kissed me ?’