A Wallflower Christmas Read online

  He kissed her again, a burning velvet caress that caused her knees to give out entirely. But the slow collapse didn’t seem to matter, he was holding her securely and lowering her to the carpeted floor. She found herself sprawled half across him while he knelt amid the abundant rumples of her dress. Her garments had fallen in perplexing disarray, buttons undone and skirts riding up. She made a dazed attempt to restore something, cover something, but the way he kissed her made it impossible to think. He gently arranged her beneath him, his arm a hard support beneath her neck. She relaxed helplessly as his wicked mouth took hers over and over, feasting on the taste of her.

  “The sweetest skin…” he whispered, kissing her throat, easing her bodice open. “Let me see you, Hannah love…” He pulled at the top of her chemise, exposing a pale breast that had been pushed full and high by her underbust corset. It was then that Hannah comprehended that she was on the floor with him, and he was uncovering parts of her that no man had ever seen.

  “Wait—I shouldn’t—you shouldn’t—” But her protest was silenced as he bent over the plush curve, his lips closing over a cold stiffening nipple. Her throat hummed with a low whimper as his tongue swept over her in raw-velvet strokes.

  “Rafe,” she moaned, the first time she had ever said his name, and he let out a shaking breath and cupped both her breasts.

  His voice was deep and rough. “I wanted this the first time I met you. I watched you sitting there with that little teacup in your hand, and I couldn’t stop wondering what you tasted like here…and here…” He suckled each breast in turn, his hands coasting over her writhing body.

  “Rafe,” she gasped. “Please, I can’t—”

  “No one’s here,” he whispered against her prickling flesh. “No one will know. Hannah, sweet love…let me touch you. Let me show you how it feels to want someone as much as I want you…”

  And he waited for her answer, breathing against her quivering skin, a warm hand covering her breast. She couldn’t seem to keep entirely still, her knees flexing, her hips rising in answer to a deep, demanding pulse. She was saturated with sweetness and shame and need. She would never have him, she knew that. His life was set on a far different path from hers. He was forbidden. Perhaps that was the reason for this reckless attraction.

  Before she quite knew it, she had reached up and guided his head to hers. He responded immediately, taking her mouth in a ravishing, hard-plundering kiss. His hands slipped beneath her clothes, finding tender pale skin, caressing in ways that made her shiver. A muffled cry escaped her as she felt him pulling at the tapes of her drawers. He touched her taut stomach, a fingertip circling her navel. His hand slid over soft curls, cupped her sex, and gently parted her thighs. She felt herself being stroked, petted, lightly spread, his touch careful and clever as if he were drawing a pattern on a frosted window. Except that the surface beneath his fingertips was not icy glass but soft living skin, flushed and burning with desperate sensation.

  She had one blurry glimpse of his dark face above hers, his expression intent with lust. He toyed with her, seeming to savor her writhing agitation, his own color high and fevered. She clutched at him, hips arching, lips parted in a wordless plea. One of his fingers pushed inside her, just past the entrance of her body, and she jerked in shock.

  His touch withdrew, the wet fingertip making sly, lingering circles around the aching peak of her sex. He pushed her legs apart wider, and kissed the tips of her breasts. His whisper burned against her skin. “If I wanted to take you now, Hannah, you would let me, wouldn’t you? You’d let me enter you, fill you…If I asked you to let me come inside you, and ease you…what would you say, sweet darling?” He began a light, torturous massage. “Say it,” he murmured. “Say it—”

  “Yes.” She clutched at him blindly, her breath coming in sobs. “Yes.”

  Rafe smiled, his gaze smoldering. “Then here’s your forfeit, sweetheart.”

  He stroked her in a quick, skillful rhythm, covering her mouth with his to absorb her cries. He knew exactly what he was doing, his fingers wicked and sure. It seemed she might die of the annihilating release. She held and stiffened against it even as the pleasure began to rush, and rush, gaining power and force until she was helpless and consumed and shattered.

  Slowly he brought her down, kissing and caressing her twitching body. His finger slid inside her once more, this time slipping easily into the wetness. The feel of the intimate muscles grasping him so firmly seemed to cause him pain. She lifted instinctively to take him, and he groaned and withdrew his finger, leaving her swollen flesh to clench on the emptiness.

  Rafe’s face was hard and sweat-misted as he took his hands from her. He stared down at her with unconcealed hunger, his eyes narrowed, his chest heaving. His hands trembled as he reached for the top hooks of her corset busk, the buttons of her dress, the disheveled undergarments. But as one of his knuckles brushed against her warm skin, he snatched his hands back abruptly and rose to his feet. “Can’t,” he said hoarsely.

  “Can’t what?” she whispered.

  “Can’t help with your clothes.” An unsteady breath. “If I touch you again…I won’t stop until you’re naked.”

  Staring up at him dizzily, Hannah comprehended that the release, and relief, had been rather one-sided. He was dangerously aroused, to the limit of his self-control. She pulled the chemise higher over her naked breasts.

  Rafe shook his head, still staring at her. His mouth was a grim slash. “If you want Clark to do the things I just did to you,” he said, “then go ahead and marry him.”

  And he left her there in the library, as if to stay there a moment longer would have resulted in disaster for them both.

  Eleven

  In Evie’s opinion, the sleighing party had been enjoyable but too long. She was tired, her ears still ringing from all the noise and caroling. Evie had laughed and frolicked with the group, staying close to Daisy, whose husband had remained at the manor to discuss business matters with Rafe Bowman.

  “Oh, I don’t mind at all,” Daisy had said cheerfully, when Evie had asked if she was disappointed that Swift had not accompanied them. “It’s better to let Matthew clear away his business concerns first, and then he’ll be free to give me all his attention later.”

  “Does he w-work very long hours?” Evie had asked with a touch of concern, knowing that the Bowman’s enterprise in Bristol was a massive project involving great responsibility.

  “There are days when he must,” Daisy had replied prosaically. “But there are other times when he stays home and we spend the day together.” A grin had crossed her face. “I love being married to him, Evie. Although it’s still all so new…sometimes it surprises me to wake up and find Matthew beside me.” She had leaned closer and whispered, “I have to tell you a secret, Evie: I complained one day that I’d read all the books in the house, and there was nothing new at the bookshop, and Matthew challenged me to try writing one of my own. So I’ve started one. I have a hundred pages written already.”

  Evie had laughed in delight. “Daisy,” she had whispered back, “are you going to be a f-famous novelist?”

  Daisy shrugged. “It doesn’t matter to me whether it’s published or not. I’m enjoying writing it.”

  “Is it a respectable story or a naughty one?”

  Daisy’s brown eyes danced with mischief. “Evie, why would you even ask? Of course it’s a naughty one.”

  Now back in the comfort of her room at Stony Cross Manor, Evie bathed in a small portable tub by the hearth, sighing in relief at the feel of the hot water against her stiff, aching limbs. Sleigh rides, she reflected, were one of those activities that always sounded better in theory than they turned out to be in reality. The seats on the sleigh had been hard and lumpy, and her feet had been cold.

  She heard a tap at the door, and the sound of someone entering the room. Since she was shielded from view by a standing fabric screen, Evie leaned back and peeked around the screen’s wooden frame.

  A ho
usemaid was hefting a dripping metal can with rags tied at the handles. “More hot water, milady?” she asked.

  “Y-yes, please.”

  Carefully the maid poured the steaming water at the end near Evie’s feet, and Evie sank deeper into the bath. “Oh, thank you.”

  “Shall I come back with a warming pan to take the chill from the bed, milady?” The long-handled covered pan was filled with live coals and run between the sheets just before bedtime.

  Evie nodded.

  The maid left, and Evie stayed in the bath until the heat began to dissipate. Reluctantly she stepped from the tub and dried herself. The thought of going to bed alone—again—filled her with melancholy. She was trying not to pine for St. Vincent. But she woke up every morning searching for him, her arm stretched across the empty place beside her.

  St. Vincent was the opposite of everything Evie was…elegant, dazzlingly articulate, cool and self-possessed…and so wicked that it had once been universally agreed he would be an absolutely terrible husband.

  No one but Evie knew how tender and devoted he was in private. Of course, his friends such as Westcliff and Mr. Hunt were aware that St. Vincent had reformed his former villainous ways. And he was doing a remarkable job managing the gaming club she had inherited from her father, rebuilding a faltering empire while at the same time making light of the responsibilities he had assumed.

  He was still a scoundrel, though, she thought with a private grin.

  Standing from the bath, Evie dried herself and donned a velvet robe that buttoned along the front. She heard the door open again. “Back to w-warm the bed?” she asked.

  But the voice that answered wasn’t the maid’s.

  “As a matter of fact…yes.”

  Evie stilled at the sound of a deep, silky murmur.

  “I passed the maid on the stairs and told her she wouldn’t be needed tonight,” he continued. “‘If there’s one thing I do well,’ I told her, ‘it’s warming my wife’s bed.’”

  By this time Evie was fumbling to push the screen aside, nearly pushing it over.

  St. Vincent reached her in a few graceful strides, folding her in his arms. “Easy, love. No need for haste. Believe me, I’m not going anywhere.”

  They stood together for a long, wordless moment, breathing, holding tight.

  Eventually St. Vincent tilted Evie’s head back and stared down at her. He was tawny and golden-haired, his pale blue eyes glittering like gems in the face of a fallen angel. He was a long, lean-framed man, always exquisitely dressed and groomed. But he had not been sleeping well, she saw. There were faint shadows beneath his eyes, and signs of weariness on his face. The touches of human vulnerability, however, only served to make him more handsome, softening what might otherwise have been a gleaming, godlike remoteness.

  “Your f-father,” she began, staring at him in concern. “Is he…”

  St. Vincent cast an exasperated glance heavenward. “He’ll be fine. The doctors can’t find a thing wrong with him, other than indigestion brought on by rich food and wine. When I left, he was leering and pinching the housemaids, and welcoming a score of obsequious relations who want to sponge off him for Christmas.” His hands moved lightly over her velvet-covered back. His voice was very soft. “Have you been a good girl in my absence?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said breathlessly.

  St. Vincent gave her a disapproving glance and kissed her with a seductive gentleness that sent her pulse racing. “We’ll have to remedy that immediately. I refuse to tolerate proper behavior from my wife.”

  She touched his face, smiling as he nipped at her exploring fingertips. “I’ve missed you, Sebastian.”

  “Have you, love?” He unfastened the buttons of her robe, the light eyes glittering with heat as her skin was revealed. “What part did you miss the most?”

  “Your mind,” she said, and smiled at his expression.

  “I was hoping for a far more depraved answer than that.”

  “Your mind is depraved,” she told him solemnly.

  He gave a husky laugh. “True.”

  She gasped as his experienced hand slipped inside her robe. “What part of m-me did you miss the most?”

  “I missed you from head to toe. I missed every freckle. I missed the taste of you…the feel of your hair in my hands…Evie, my love, you are shamefully overdressed.”

  And he picked her up and carried her to bed. The velvet robe was stripped away, replaced by firelight and his caressing hands. He kissed the new rich curve of her stomach, fascinated by the changes in her fertile body. And then he kissed her everywhere else, and entered her with teasing skill. Evie jolted a little at the feel of him, so hard and heavy inside her.

  Pausing, St. Vincent smiled down at her, his face flushed with desire. “Sweet little wife,” he whispered. “What am I to do with you? Such a short time apart…and already you’ve forgotten how to accommodate me.” Evie shook her head, straining to take him in, and her husband laughed softly. “Let me help you, love…” And he courted her body with careful, wicked thoroughness, until he had entered her fully and brought her, sighing and trembling, into helpless rapture.

  Afterward, as Evie reclined on her side and tried to catch her breath, St. Vincent left the bed and returned with a large, rattling leather case. He set it on the nearby table. “I brought the family jewels,” he told her.

  “I know,” she said languidly, and he laughed as he saw what she was staring at.

  “No, love. The other family jewels. They’re entailed to the future Duchess of Kingston. But I told my father I’m giving them to you now, since he’ll obviously live for a damned eternity.”

  Her eyes widened. “Thank you, Sebastian. But I…I don’t need jewelry…”

  “You do. Let me see them on you.” He pulled out ropes of priceless pearls, sparkling necklaces and bracelets and earrings wrought of gold and every imaginable jewel. To Evie’s squirmy, giggling embarrassment, he sat beside her and began to adorn her, clasping a sapphire bracelet around her ankle, tucking a diamond into her navel.

  “Sebastian—” she protested, while he weighted her naked body with enough gold and rare gemstones to purchase a small country.

  “Be still.” His mouth searched between strands of pearls, pausing here and there to lick and bite gently at her skin. “I’m decorating for Christmas.”

  Evie smiled and shivered. “You’re not supposed to decorate me.”

  “Don’t discourage my holiday spirit, darling. Now let me show you something interesting about these pearls…” And before long, her protests had faded into pleasured moans.

  Twelve

  “Hannah!” Natalie was in bed, drinking her morning tea. A housemaid was stirring the coals and lighting the grate, giggling as if she and Natalie had just shared an irresistibly funny joke.

  Having come in from a long walk outside, Hannah entered the room and smiled at her cousin fondly. “Good morning, dear. Finally awake?”

  “Yes, I stayed up much too late last night.” A group of the younger guests, including Natalie, had spent the evening playing parlor games. Hannah had neither asked nor wanted to know if Rafe…for that was how she now thought of Mr. Bowman…had been among them.

  In the past few days since their astonishing interaction in the parlor, Hannah had avoided Rafe as much as possible, and she had tried not to speak to him directly. She had gone on many solitary walks and had done much soul-searching, unable to comprehend why Rafe had engaged in such an intimate act with her, why she had allowed it, and what her feelings were toward him.

  Although Hannah knew little about physical desire, she understood that it resonated more strongly between some people than others. She couldn’t perceive whether Rafe felt the same desire toward Natalie. It made her miserable to contemplate it. But she felt certain he had not made that kind of advance to Natalie, at least not yet, or Natalie would have told her.

  Above all, she understood that ultimately none of this mattered. For a man in Rafe’s p
osition, feelings of desire and attachment would make no difference regarding the course he would take. When he married Natalie, he would no longer be the black sheep of the family. In one fell swoop he would please his father, secure his rightful position, and garner a large fortune.

  If he chose someone else, he would lose everything.

  A woman who cared about him would never ask him to make such a choice.

  That afternoon when Hannah had picked herself up from the library floor and painstakingly restored her clothing, she had acknowledged that she was falling in love with him, and the more she knew of him, the deeper the feelings cut. She had retrieved the little toy soldier, and she carried it in her pocket, a small and private weight. It was her token now—she would not offer it to Rafe again. In the future she would be able to close the piece in her hand and remember the dashing American scoundrel and the attraction that had exploded in a passion she would never forget.

  I’m a woman with a past now, she thought, amused and wistful.

  Regarding Samuel Clark and his proposal…Rafe had been right. She did not love him. It would be unfair to Clark if she married him and forever compared him to someone else. Therefore Hannah resolved to write to Clark soon and turn down his offer of marriage, much as she was tempted by the safety of it.

  Natalie’s merry voice recalled her from her thoughts. “Hannah! Hannah, are you listening? I have something delicious to tell you…a few minutes ago, Polly brought the most astonishing little note—” Natalie waved a scorched and half-crumpled bit of parchment in front of her. “You’ll blush when you read it. You’ll faint.”