Louise Allen - Once Upon A Regency Christmas - On a Winter's Eve / Marriage Made at Christmas / Cinderella's Perfect Christmas

‘Well, what have you done?’ a voice behind her asked. Captain Markham.

‘Let my heart rule my head,’ she said wearily without moving. ‘I left India full of nostalgia for England, dragging Miri behind me. I hate it here.’

‘What will you do?’ He was so close she felt her skirts brush against the backs of her legs. For a moment she thought he would touch her, but he stayed still. It must be she who was shivering with reaction. Not with cold. Not with his heat at her back.

‘Go back to India. I know where I am there.’ Who I am.

‘Do you love it so much?’ Giles Markham asked softly, the deep voice intimate, as though he asked her about her feelings for a man.

Julia straightened, but she kept her gaze on the turkey cock. Was it her imagination or could she feel Markham’s breath, warm on her neck?

‘Most of the time I fought it as though it was a person, an enemy. But sometimes it was an exotic fairy tale. It can take your breath with beauty and magic so deep and rich it cannot be true. The people. The colours. Oh, and the mornings…just at sunrise, when it was cool and clear and the whole impossible place was coming to life and I would ride my mare and the world was mine.’

‘That sounds like love to me. An attraction that goes soul-deep, but which you fought against even as it seduced you.’

‘You are a romantic, Captain.’

She shivered and he moved closer, put his hands on the stable door either side of her, caging her against his heat, the muscled wall of his body. There were responses she should make to that. A sharp elbow in his ribs, the heel of her boot on his toes, a jerk backwards with her head into his face. She knew all the moves, had used them before now.

Julia turned within the tight space and stared at the top button of his waistcoat. Hitting this man was not what she wanted. ‘A romantic,’ she murmured.

He made no move to touch her, to crowd closer. ‘Only a man who has ridden at dawn over wide plains before the battle started, who has seen the mist rise and heard the birds begin to sing and who has tried to hold the moment, hoping against hope that the sun will not burn away the mist and the guns will not begin to fire and that the earth will not be reddened with blood.’

‘That seems strange for a soldier to say.’

‘Soldiers are not immune to beauty. Only a few of us want to fight and kill for the sake of it. But when the mist vanishes and the guns begin, then we forget those moments of peace and plunge into hell.’

‘Who do you fight for, Captain?’

She had surprised him. ‘It is my duty,’ Giles said after a moment.

‘Is that always what soldiers fight for? King and country? Or did you become a soldier to impress your lady-love?’ She had meant to tease and he smiled when he shook his head. ‘So you have been fancy-free while you break hearts across the Continent.’

Darkness swept through his gaze, his jaw hardened. Julia glanced away, shocked and guilty. In her own awkwardness she had stumbled into something private, something that hurt.

After a moment she felt the big body caging hers relax and she dared to look up and meet his eyes. Grey eyes with gold tracing out from the pupil like tiny flames in the lantern light. The moment was a fragile bubble—one wrong move and it would be gone again like that morning mist. She reached up her hands and pulled down his head, lifted her lips to his and the iridescent shimmer of the bubble enclosed them both.

There was a momentary pause, the faintest hitch in his breath, then the Captain’s lips moved over hers, firm, slightly cold. His tongue touched the seam of her lips, shockingly hot against her own chilled mouth as she opened to him.

Could he tell that she had hardly ever been kissed? Julia made herself hold back, forced down her need to simply drown in his embrace, drag him to the heaped straw, discover, finally, what it was like to know a virile man in his prime.

Over-eagerness would betray her inexperience. She let him lead, followed the strokes of his tongue with her own daring movements, allowing him to angle her head for his taking. Giles Markham knew what he was doing, she thought hazily, striving to focus, to learn and not to lose herself in this assault on her senses. On the few occasions Humphrey had actually kissed her she had been frightened by his forcefulness, repelled by the taste of him—cheroots, heavily spiced meat, strong spirits.

The taste of this man was enticing, which was puzzling as it seemed to be made up of faint traces of tooth powder, wine and…masculinity, she supposed. There was the heat of his mouth and the cold of his skin, the scent of plain soap and the dusty hay of the stables, the comforting smell of horses. And there was his body under her hands. Muscled shoulders, short hairs on his nape, the strength of his arms as he held her.

When he released her she swayed back against the stable door, dizzy and enchanted, her hands still on his shoulders. So this is what it is like. After all these years. At last.

‘Julia?’

Just her name. She found she liked it on his lips.

‘Giles.’ She liked that, too. A good, straightforward name. She let her fingertips stray to the bare skin of his neck above his collar and even in the dim light saw his gaze darken. You want me. Tell me you want me.

‘You are upset, cold, tired,’ Giles said as he stepped back a pace, leaving her cold and alone, her hands still raised. ‘This is not a good time to begin—’

‘Begin what?’ Cold, tired and upset was sweeping back to smother dizzy and enchanted.

‘A dalliance, I was going to say.’

So that was what she desired. Julia realised that she did not have the words for this. Giles probably knew all about dalliances and he was tactfully making it clear that he did not want one. And he was not exactly tearing himself from her arms with deep reluctance. How humiliating.

Julia found the cool smile, the mask she wore when bargaining, whether it was with Rajput gem dealers or desert camel breeders. ‘Goodness, how serious you are. Dalliances indeed! I had merely the impulse to kiss when I found us almost nose to nose.’ She laughed, aiming for sophisticated amusement, fearing pathetic bravery. Share the jest. Please.

He smiled crookedly, almost as though he did not find any humour, but his eyes were warm, the gold flames intense. ‘Of course. Forgive me. If you give me a moment to check on the livestock, I will walk you back to the house. It is treacherous underfoot.’

‘Certainly.’ How cool she sounded. Not at all like a woman who was quivering with desire, lapped by heat, almost speechless with embarrassment at her own recklessness. When Giles came back from checking water buckets and feed she was ready to slip her hand under his proffered arm, curl her fingers around his sleeve.

He was rock-steady as they negotiated the yard, lit by starlight reflecting off the snow. ‘My goodness, I am chilly.’ An exaggerated shudder would hide her shaking, surely?

Once inside she went directly to the stairs—walking, not breaking into a run, not fleeing to her room to bury her head under a pillow. ‘Would you check the doors and windows are secure and the fire safely banked? I do not yet know how much reliance to place on Smithers.’

‘Of course. Goodnight, Lady Julia.’

‘Goodnight, Captain. Sleep well.’ He would make sure all was safe, she was certain of that. Giles Markham made her feel protected, sheltered. Rejected.