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  Oh, dreaded time apart, that let her mind form horrid futures as often as happy ones! She had doubts and fears and hopes, and no one with whom to discuss them except Penelope, who listened avidly but was too inexperienced herself to have worthwhile advice to offer. The girl’s unexpected sympathy was welcome, but did little to soothe.

  What could she do? Would she dare to try to catch Mr. Brent in a compromising position to force him to marry her? She supposed that it wouldn’t force anything. He had reneged on a promise of marriage before… Still, if they just had time together, Vivian was certain the union would work. She was sure that she could love Mr. Brent’s children. That would be easy, as easy as loving Richard himself.

  The mirror was revealing the effects of her anxiety: one week in the Twitchen household, and already the hollows and bony protuberances of her face and figure were beginning to soften. She was eating herself to calmness.

  “What are you doing, hiding away over here?” Penelope asked, pulling back the curtain that half hid her where she sat in the window seat, looking out at the night and eating a dish of cheese and spiced nuts she had put together as a post-dessert dessert.

  “Just thinking.”

  “Come out of there. People are arriving, and Mama will be playing the piano for dancing.”

  “Has Mr. Brent… ?” she asked, perking up.

  “Not yet. I assume he will be here soon, though, and you don’t want him to find you with your teeth full of cheese.”

  Vivian self-consciously put a fingernail to the groove between her front teeth.

  “Emily is here, too. You remember, the vicar’s daughter. She wants to do fortune-telling for our future husbands.”

  “I thought you did that with her on Christmas Eve.”

  “It didn’t work. Come with us; maybe it will work with you there.”

  “All right.” Vivian gave in, emerging from her hideaway. Penelope and her silly friend were not the company she desired, but they were better than sitting and stewing in her own thoughts. After all, she wouldn’t want Richard to arrive and think she had been waiting for him like a girl with nothing else to occupy her mind. It was New Year’s Eve!

  —

  The church bells rang out midnight, and the countryside echoed with clanging pans, bells, shouts, and the blasts of guns. It was the first day of the new year, the Eighth Day of Christmas, and the Feast of the Circumcision, and the celebration was all around. Richard waited in the darkness down the drive from Copley Grange, watching as the guests went back inside as the sounds faded away.

  The door was closed, and then a minute later it opened again and was left ajar, warm yellow candlelight spilling out into the blue-black winter night. He knew that in back a door had been opened and shut, letting the old year out, and now the front door was letting in the new.

  And he would be the man who did First Footing at Copley Grange. The first visitor through the door in the new year, if a dark-haired male, would bring good luck to the house, according to the superstition. He double-checked his satchel with its required gifts, and headed up the drive.

  A smiling maid closed the door behind him when he entered, and he made his way to the drawing room.

  “Hurrah!” the cheer went up when he stepped inside. The enthusiastic greeting surprised him, and he felt a flush of surprised embarrassment. It had been so long since he had felt truly welcome in any home but his sister’s, he had forgotten what it felt like.

  He grinned and gave a courtly bow. In stately manner he walked up to Captain Twitchen, standing by the fire, and drew out of his satchel the first of the gifts, a hunk of coal.

  “To keep your home warm,” he said, handing the captain the black lump.

  “Hear, hear!” the gathering cheered.

  Richard turned to Mrs. Twitchen and took out the next gift, a round loaf of bread. “To keep you fed.”

  Mrs. Twitchen curtsied and accepted, amid another cheer.

  “And lastly…” Richard said, putting his hand into the satchel and holding it there for a moment, building the suspense, although they all knew what was coming. He pulled out the bottle of whiskey and held it high, then bowed again and presented it to Captain Twitchen. “For your happiness and your health throughout the new year!”

  The final presentation was met with a final cheer and a round of applause. Captain Twitchen slapped him on the back, then went to work opening the bottle and sharing the blessings with the male guests.

  Still feeling self-conscious in a way his usual bluntness never made him feel, Richard cast his eyes over the room, his gaze lighting upon Vivian. She was smiling, her eyes sparkling, her face aglow. He would like to think it was aglow for him. She was the reason he had persuaded himself to this display of good fellowship, in hopes of impressing her with his long-dormant social graces.

  Sara had not been able to stop talking about “Miss A’brose,” who had impressed her greatly with her sweet tooth. He himself had been content to let Sara prattle, his own thoughts on how close he had felt to Vivian as they sat and talked on Innocents’ Day.

  He had known Vivian for only a week, and yet his hopes were quickly growing that this Christmas he had been gifted with the wife he wanted. What did the shortness of the time matter, when you had found the one with whom you were meant to be?

  He made conversation with those near him, listening with half an ear as Captain Twitchen, the whiskey bottle turned over to another for distribution, jingled a purse of coins that he then gave to his wife. “Money for pins, my dear,” the captain said.

  Would that next year he himself had a wife to whom to give pin money, a wife who would laugh and thank him as Mrs. Twitchen thanked her husband now. Vivian.

  He moved through the guests, shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries until at last he found his way to her. She ducked her head, a blush on her cheeks, then looked quickly up at him, smiling.

  “When will you stop being shy with me upon greeting?” he asked, feeling his own heart pick up its pace, his growing attachment to her leaving his heart vulnerable to the slightest sign of rejection. To want was to risk being denied.

  “I could not say. You have surprised me tonight. I would never have expected you to be first through the door.”

  “You cannot have thought I would let the new year begin without seeing you,” he said, then waited an eternity in the space of a heartbeat for her response.

  “I had hoped you would not,” she answered quietly.

  He laughed with relief. He put her hand in the crook of his elbow and led her to a quieter end of the room, where they stood near a bust of a long-dead Twitchen ancestor, pretending to examine it.

  “There’s a cobweb in your hair,” he said, spotting the wisp of gray, and brushing it away with his fingertips. “What have you been doing?”

  “Fortune-telling in the cellar. Penelope and the vicar’s daughter insisted I come with them.”

  “Why the cellar?”

  “My guess is because it is dark and cold and suitably unnerving. They had a silver dish full of water, in which they dropped a ring, and we sat around it in the light of single candle, waiting for…”

  “Waiting for?” he prompted.

  “For the faces of our future husbands to appear,” she said, as if embarrassed to admit it. “Someday Sara will do the same thing with her friends, I imagine.”

  “And did his face appear?” he asked, moving slightly closer.

  “I don’t know. It was so dark and cold, and we sat for so long, my mind began to wander.”

  “Where did it wander?”

  “Everywhere,” she said.

  “Did it wander to me?”

  She met his eyes: they were as wide and wary as he knew his own to be. “Would you want it to?”

  He reached down and took her hand, and after a glance around the drawing room to check that none were watching, led her through a nearby door that went to the library. She came willingly. The chamber was dimly lit by candles in wall sconces, and it w
as cool after the body-heated warmth of the drawing room. The voices from the party were but a murmur through the heavy door.

  He slowly backed Vivian up against a wall of books, standing with his feet to either side of hers, close enough to touch but not doing so.

  “I want your mind wandering to me in every free moment of your day. I want you to think of me upon rising in the morning, and to find me in your dreams at night.”

  “You’re already there,” she whispered, and the words sent a joyous thrill through his heart, frightening in its intensity.

  He knew it was foolish to rush things, that he risked scaring her away, but he had to know for certain. To know the depth of her feelings. To know if she was the one. He bent down his head and kissed her. No lady concerned with appearances would stand for such in the middle of a party.

  At first her lips were motionless under his—she was likely shocked—but as he continued the kiss she responded, tentatively mirroring his own movements. He pressed up close against her, gently pinning her to the bookcase, until he could feel each soft curve of her body against his own. He deepened the kiss, and she made a small noise in the back of her throat.

  He lifted his mouth from hers, his hips still pressed against her lower belly. “Are you all right?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said, and her slender arms wrapped around his neck.

  She wanted him. Against all possibility, all doubt, she wanted him.

  He had found the place he belonged, and was finally free. The joy of it sent him wild. He let loose the reins on his desire, exploring her mouth, her neck, the exposed swell of her breasts, each touch making him hungrier for the next. He breathed in the warm, faintly musky scent of her, and then trailed his tongue up to the hollow at the base of her throat where he pressed gently until he could feel the beat of her heart with his lips.

  She was his heart, his desire.

  He worked his way up and let his tongue play at the sensitive place behind her earlobe, while his hand went down to cup her buttock and pull her against him, where he could press the firmness of his arousal against the softness of her body.

  Her breathing was a soft panting against his ear, and he could feel her trembling even as she pressed herself to him.

  He fastened his mouth over hers once more and thrust with his tongue in frantic substitute for how he longed to thrust inside her.

  She made a soft sound of pleasure, and he felt her fingers working their way into his hair, gripping tight. He pulled her away from the bookcase and backed her slowly to the library table until she bumped up against it. He boosted her up the few inches until she was sitting on its surface.

  “What are you doing?” she asked in a whisper.

  “Exactly what I wish.”

  “Good.”

  Had she said that or sighed? He wasn’t sure. He chuckled and parted her knees so he could stand between them, then brought her tight against him. Her eyes widened, and then she wrapped her arms back around his neck and pulled him down on top of her.

  He had one hand lost in her hair, the other on her bare thigh, his mouth sucking at her breast and her legs wrapped around his still-clothed hips when the library door opened. The sounds of the party flooded in upon them, accompanied by an outraged gasp.

  Vivian heard it as well and reacted with the reflexes of a startled cat, thrusting Richard off her and scrambling to disentangle her legs from his person as he helped her to pull down her skirts. A quick glance told him it was Captain Twitchen who had discovered them.

  There could have been no worse—or better—person to walk through that door. Richard felt a perverse, happy satisfaction stirring within him.

  “Mr. Brent!” Captain Twitchen sputtered, then shut the door behind him, blocking off the sounds of the party and the possibility of witnessing eyes. “How dare you, sir! How dare you!”

  “My deepest apologies, sir.”

  “A guest in my home, and this is how you repay my hospitality!”

  Vivian gave a soft whimper. Richard put his arm around her, pulling her to his side, concerned for her embarrassment. He would not let her be shamed. “It was a transgression against the kindness you have always shown me, and unforgivably ill-mannered,” he said. “I hope that you will allow me to make the proper amends.”

  Captain Twitchen seemed not to have heard. “I never listened to the rumors about you, never let them cloud what I thought I saw before me. But damned if I shouldn’t have paid attention. Mrs. Twitchen was right, and even if you are my nephew’s brother-in-law, you are unfit for decent company. Vivian! Go to your room, girl, and stay there.”

  Richard felt her start under his arm, but he held her more firmly. “What we have to say concerns her, as well.”

  He saw he’d made a mistake when the captain’s face, already red, took on a deeper, almost purple shade of rage. His feeling of satisfaction and confidence assumed the barest quiver of uncertainty.

  “Contradict my orders, will you? In my own house! My own house!”

  “I should go,” Vivian whispered.

  He did not want her to have to stand here and suffer as a target of Captain Twitchen’s fury. The man might say something hurtful. “Perhaps for the moment,” he whispered back.

  —

  She started to slip away from him, and he bent down and pressed a quick kiss to the top of her head. “Not to worry. You’ll be called back down within the hour, I promise.”

  She cast him a quick glance—was it one of hope and uncertainty?—and he smiled in reassurance.

  Once she was safely from the room, Captain Twitchen lent full force to his ire. “Now, sir, are we going to settle this like gentlemen?”

  “That is indeed my intention.”

  “Pistols or swords?”

  Richard felt a sinking in his gut. Soothing Captain Twitchen was going to be more difficult than he’d thought.

  An hour passed, and there was no call for Vivian to come down. She paced her bedchamber, she listened at her door for footsteps or the distant sound of voices, she watched from her window as guests left in pairs and in groups. She built up the fire in the grate, and wished that there was something to eat.

  Horrible, to have been seen by Captain Twitchen with her bare legs wrapped around Richard, flat on her back, his mouth at her breast. She knew that she had briefly entertained causing such a scandal, but… The sickening embarrassment of it made her stomach churn. Far worse, was not knowing what was presently happening down in the library.

  Another quarter of an hour passed. Was Richard still here? He must be. He and Captain Twitchen must still be arguing. She rubbed her forehead; the muscles there were sore from her frown of worry. Richard had given every indication that he would ask permission to wed her. Captain Twitchen couldn’t possibly refuse, could he? Surely his pride could not be so severely offended.

  And if it were?

  She would marry Richard despite the captain’s objections. She would abandon all family ties, if that was what it took. It would be cruel repayment for the generosity the Twitchens had shown her, but there was no other choice. She had to have Richard. She would have him.

  Only, if she could, she would do so without breaking her ties to her cousins. She found herself surprised. In the short time she had been with them, she had grown fond of them all—Mrs. Twitchen with her social ambitions and motherly heart; Captain Twitchen and his blunt good cheer; even Penelope had become something of a friend, despite her selfishness.

  But the one thing Vivian knew about this life was that caring ties to others were more precious than gold, more precious than titles or gowns or beauty. She would not easily give up even the meager ones she had with the Twitchens.

  And she would never give up the one she had now with Richard. Never.

  Another half hour passed. She was torn between the need to find out what was happening and the fear of interrupting and somehow spoiling whatever advantage Richard may have gained.

  She went to the window and gazed down at anoth
er pair of partygoers as they departed. She could feel the cold of the night seeping through the glass.

  A knock on her door turned her around, and Mrs. Twitchen entered. She rushed towards her cousin, then stopped as she read the distress upon the woman’s face.

  “Is Mr. Brent still here?” she asked.

  “He is, but not for much longer if Captain Twitchen has anything to say about it.”

  “Tell me, what is happening?”

  “This is a fine mess you’ve managed to get yourself into,” Mrs. Twitchen said in a stern voice that quavered on the last word. “A fine mess. I can only be thankful that we are yet in the country, and that it was the captain who came in upon you, and not one of our neighbors—else I don’t know how we would have been able to save you from a future with that man.”

  “The captain hasn’t refused Mr. Brent, has he? Surely he could not have!”

  “Mr. Brent has nearly caused my husband to fight a duel, that’s what he has done! The foolish man!” Mrs. Twitchen wrung her hands and then burst into tears, sinking into the chair by the fire.

  Vivian didn’t know which man Mrs. Twitchen meant was the foolish one, but she felt a wave a guilt wash over her at the sight of the woman’s distress. She went and knelt by her side, and laid her hand on the woman’s knee.

  “Hush, now. Hush,” she said. “Mr. Brent would never engage in the nonsense of a duel.”

  “Nonsense? This from you, sitting there with your honor in shreds!” Mrs. Twitchen dropped her hands from her wet and reddened face. “Captain Twitchen has more honor in him than Mr. Brent could ever dream of, and knows a coward and a sneak when he sees one. We won’t be letting you throw your life away on such a man, that we won’t!”

  Vivian sat back on her heels, taking her hand from Mrs. Twitchen’s knee. She steadied herself to disagree. “Mr. Brent is the most honorable man I have ever known. It may be a peculiar sort of honor, but it is true and deep, and I love him for it. I will marry him, with or without the blessing of you and Mr. Twitchen.” She bit her lip. “But I would rather have it.”