11. A Miserably Magnificent Mistletoe Kiss

11

A Miserably Magnificent Mistletoe Kiss

“The next time a good opportunity arises.” Warrick’s quipped reply brought a round of good-natured jostles and ribald words of encouragement.

Lord knew he still wasn’t. Rising, that was, on his legs or otherwise, despite wishes to the contrary.

Numbers only slightly smaller, given those who had left for home earlier, the fellows had decided to indulge in one last evening of cards and stakes during the remaining few hours. Lord Ballenger promising his wife a new dress—or something of the sort, mayhap curtains for the drawing room?—if she would make the ladies absent so the men could drink, wager and whinge about politics without having to mind their manners, or their mouths.

Liquor had flowed as freely as deft hands dealing cards, as had their not-always-fit-for-company conversation.

Everyone, it seemed, reluctant to let the night, and the holiday, come to a close. As the hours elapsed, eyelids grew heavy and more than one person yawned behind their hand (or bemoaned reaching the bottom of their pockets due to good—their opponent’s—or bad—theirs—play), tumblers had been drained, cards and vowels collected, and the group as a whole (save Lord Ballenger and a crony of his, who remained behind to deepen their play), escaped the card room to congregate in the area that led both up to the bedchambers and down to the kitchens.

The old Warrick would have reveled in the evening. Rejoiced at spending such lighthearted, carefree hours before the journey homeward that began early tomorrow. A journey he was not looking forward to, because the respite of the season was all but over.

Upon reaching London, he would face not only his dearth of finances, but also the dread of more doctors. More disappointment. And more familial responsibility he felt ill-equipped to handle.

He should be commended, though. For his stage skills had grown: he’d not made public his personal angst toward his future, simply played where the cards took him and moderated both his beverages and his betting. Frost should be so proud.

As to Ed? If his friend had any inkling of the voluminous time Warrick had spent thinking of the Larchmonts’ not-to-be-found governess since that stern talking-to Ed had delivered, his friend might not have been so swift to return home with his mother and bride-to-be.

Pity Warrick could not simply ask where the little Latin-speaking governess took herself off to each day. He hadn’t seen her, not beyond spying her once with the young Lady Harri out the window—which counted for naught.

Miss Prim, in whom his interest continued to brim, had not been close enough in days for him to see her smile. Had not been close enough to hear her laugh or make her blush. Nor close enough to contemplate a kiss.

Ahh, a kiss.

Something he continued to think about with monstrous consistency. So much so that he had tried, yet again, to bring himself off last eve.

To no avail.

His prick was having none of it, and the bitter reality had turned Warrick’s mood sour enough he’d begged off all forms of entertainment this afternoon. Another turn about the portrait gallery? He thought not, heartily declining with a false grin, unwilling to be jostled again between burly footmen first up and then down the grand stairwell… The very notion was unpalatable in the extreme.

He wasn’t a small man—six four, now reduced to about four six—and solid. At least he had been. Before. Before?—

“Mayhap he’s too particular,” one of the nearby gents put in, recalling him to the moment, the last few pleasurable hours, where nearly everyone was seated. The monies he’d managed to maintain in his pocket, neither gaining nor losing a significant amount throughout the evening.

Ah, yes. Lucky him.

His useless legs might not be under discussion, but his under-used lips were (to his dismay) the talk of the moment.

“Or…not interested?” another suggested, motivating him to perform as expected.

“Not interested in gratifying myself with a delightful kiss beneath the mistletoe? Perish that thought. Of course I am,” he said with all the bravado he could muster. “Only the best for these lips. Alas, where’s our commanding, managing sprite?” Everybody laughed, as Lady Harriet had earned the nickery Lady Commander, after running around for days, capturing a fellow with one hand and a lady with another, dragging them both until they met beneath the mistletoe.

He palmed the bristle lining his cheeks at the late hour. “Ought to tell her ’tis time to find my mistletoe lady before my stubble turns grey.”

More smiles, as they left off haranguing him and started in on Sam Gregory who had stolen one of the most talked-about kisses of the season.

There now. Joviality returned to all.

Except himself, it seemed.

What was it about those primly pursed lips and coppery hair that kept waltzing through his thoughts just before he drifted off at night? Why did he have to go and attach his interest on?—

Forget her. Find your heiress.

If he could just have one more chance?—

To what? Apologize? Kiss her? Slide your hand beneath ? —

He choked off wishes that direction, coughing into his shoulder.

And that’s when he saw her . Well, not her, exactly. But definitely her well-worn slippers (practically threadbare over one toe) peeping out from a heavy brown hem, the remainder of the skirt just out of sight thanks to the most inopportune doorpost to ever grace a manor.

Richard! As though Ed, Lady Redford and Warrick’s own mother chastised him all at once, he heard gasps of imagined outrage. You knave! ’Tis your duty to save the estate! To ensure the title lives on. You must avoid courting scandal if you are to have any hope of a financially advantageous marriage.

A profitable, proper marriage could go hang.

Did he want to deny himself his last wish as his hours here grew shorter? His opportunities scarcer?

Could he help it, then, as laughter and noise and conversations swirled around him, above him, if his chair just happened to move? To rotate a few inches? To…roll…to a…stop just under the big bough of mistletoe?

Never would he be granted such an opportunity again.

Might as well avail himself of it—and her mouth.

“Frostwood? Nay,” Lord Warrick responded to someone’s question as she dared peek beyond the corner of wall and plaster shielding her from discovery. “No mistletoe kisses for that frigot, not this year.” Had the entire group come a foot or two closer? Or was that simply dangerous hope? “He’s out in the stables or carriage house, checking with his groom and coachman, readying all for our departure come morn.”

What to do? Go back upstairs—sans tea and warm belly (not to mention additional glimpses of that Dangerous Hope)—or ease along the opposite side, staying in the shadows?—

“What, ho!” one of the men on the far side of their loose circle called loudly—and pointed at her! “Warrick, you need not go unkissed this week, for there awaits an available lass.”

Every Jack one of them turned toward her.

A swooping sensation rolled up through her middle and crashed into the back of her throat. Rendered speechless, she tried to give a tight smile and move.

But nay, her useless feet had decided to grow roots.

“What good fortune!” another gentleman exclaimed, lifting his glass first toward her and then at the seated man in their midst. “Each of us have had a turn or three beneath the mistletoe. Past time we let you have yours.”

Feet shuffled. And there he was—in the middle of the standing others, Lord Warrick’s piercing midnight blues fixed upon her. Stealing sense. Capturing the air from her lungs.

Her body blazed as though sun instead of dwindling candles shone down. Her face flamed. Heart practically sang in her ears, its chaotic, drumming beats drowning out everything but him .

His gleaming gaze held hers and he spoke a veritable volume with naught but a blink:

Please, his eyes said, I seek your forgiveness.

Then they heated, as though the flame burning through her caught at him too. Narrowed. One of those eyebrows quirked. Though, I confess, a kiss wouldn’t be amiss either.

How did his glance sever those roots, freeing her feet—if not her breath—and propel her toward him? One slow, excruciating step at a time…

You did promise me one. His smoldering look tried to hurry her along.

Not until next year!

Ah, but now, Miss Primrose—I shall kiss you even wearing clothes—do not cause an injured man undue humiliation in front of his peers. Even you cannot be that cruel.

Blast your peers. I am a servant!

But then she was at his side, her breath now coming in pants. She was lightheaded with the wonder of it—her first kiss freely given! (The forced, messy ones counted not.) Her entire body thrummed, fingers and toes started tingling. Quickly now, get this over with.

The order came from her saner (slightly scared) side. The side that claimed the tingling was from the lack of air. But the part of her that was all woman—yearning, curious woman—just wanted to linger now that she was this close.

Wanted to caress the back of his neck, where a small section of hair remained tucked beneath his neckcloth. Wanted to breathe in his heady, musky scent, the one that she remembered before those last disastrous moments in the garden. Outdoors. A hint of something spicy. And all man.

But years of cultivated propriety proved impossible to banish. That and self-preservation.

She was surrounded by a horde of titled men. Who knew what sort of invitation others might assume her willing participation meant?

So she bent her knees and leaned over a few inches to chastely press her lips against his cheek. To have the matter over and done with posthaste.

With every intention to escape to her room. The tea she would do without.

What about the damage to your reputation?

When she hesitated, he tilted his chin up in challenge. “Oh come now, Miss Prim, you cannot let me be the only hapless fellow who is neglected beneath the mistletoe.”

Was he in his cups? She couldn’t tell.

The group was loud enough, one would suspect so, but his eyes didn’t convey that shiny, somewhat dazed look so often associated with an over-tippler, and his words, both the ones overheard and those now, were crisp, not at all sluggish.

As to the others? She did not know any of them; they were all of an age, each possessing twenty or thirty years, and a handful beyond. Where were all the ladies? Already abed? Perhaps having their own late-night, last-night coze?

Where would the harm be in a simple—and quick—Christmas kiss?

What she never expected, when she gave in to his coaxing, to her own desires, and bent the last couple of inches to reach his cheek was the scrape of short whiskers across her lips as he swiftly turned his head.

What she couldn’t have anticipated was the glide of his tongue across the seam of her mouth that startled her to gasp and it to open.

What she never—well, what she really should have —expected, was how one strong arm wrapped around the back of her thighs and tugged, until she toppled over sideways into his lap.

The bawdy laughter surrounding her plight was expected. Even the scurrilous comments that flew back and forth, a few quite escaping her comprehension.

But the heat of his thighs beneath her bottom? The breadth of his chest against one arm…the lingering press of his mouth against hers? His lips warm and mobile and devastatingly welcome?

Those, she never, ever, not in a myriad lifetimes could have prepared for.

When his tongue brushed across her mouth again, accompanied by her needy groan, the chuckles around them turned to awkward snickers, a couple of muffled coughs and knowing Mmmm-hmmmms .

But she paid them no heed. How could she? For his taste, the sinfully sublime taste?—

Just as his tongue slid fully against hers, and the hollow space deep in her woman’s core contracted, a familiar sound—screech, really—met her eardrums.

“Miss Primrose! How could you?”

Lady Ballenger!

Aphrodite scrambled. She pushed at the strong arm holding her in place until it loosened. Nearly fell to her arse, so quickly did she twist free, needing to escape.

“Oh, my lands and Lord!” Her employer. Shrieking wrath and disbelief the likes of which were usually only reserved for her wayward daughter, but now directed at Aphrodite. Another screak or four, while the matron forcefully herded and shuffled the others, amongst feminine squeaks and squeals, back into the room from whence they’d come.

“No harm done,” one of the men drawled in a tone that indicated he would revel in watching all night. “Holiday spirits and all that.”

Her stomach sank so deep it practically reached the pits of hell. Would Lady Ballenger wait until the morning to dismiss her? Or cast her out tonight?

When she regained her footing, Lord Warrick snared her wrist and kept her from fleeing.

The squeak of shock she made quickly muffled by laughter— his (to the devil with him) and that of those surrounding them—when he brought the back of her resisting hand to his lips, pressed a kiss to the air above it and said, “I daresay, if my sisters’ governess had kissed so sweetly, I might have kept the snake out of her bed—instead of putting it there.”

More laughter. Raucous, this time. Accompanied by a couple slaps to his back, one of them hard enough it jarred his hold and she wrenched her arm back to her side. Took to the shadows as quickly as she could, praying they could make her invisible.

How could he have kissed her like that? With such… Thoroughness? With such passion ?

The fiend! She’d wager he had a snake—in his falls. And the way his eyes glinted at her now? Followed every frantic step of her feeble retreat? She’d wager that snake (the one in his trousers) might have found its way to the governess’s bedchamber after all.

The inconsiderate degenerate. To kiss her like that in front of others! To speak such within her hearing! To prolong this unending, mortifying moment?

“Even in the dead of winter, I vow…” His brash words halted her already stuttering feet. “Miss Primrose—of the blushing red nose—grants delightful kisses quite inviting of peccadilloes.”

He nodded toward her, to make sure everyone saw, and winked , the lecherous, fiendish oaf! The brute whose snake she was now thinking of severing.

But he wasn’t done, not yet. “Come now, Miss Prim. Prim rose . Dare I wonder—flushing pink beneath your clothes? Allow me the chance to lure you back upon my lap…”

What the devil was wrong with his mouth?

Why couldn’t he stop? Stop making it worse? Stop tasting her, by damn. Stop wishing…

’Twas his lower half that was broken—so why was his upper story determined to wreck, ruin and destroy everything ?

Wreck the moment—which he feared he’d never raze from his mind?

Ruin her reputation? By continuing to draw attention to her retreating form.

But more than anything, why was he compelled to destroy her memory of him?

Ah. There it was. Self-destruction.

If she hated him with every cell in her being, would he stop this wretched craving for what could never be? Would his boundless curiosity about her wither to naught?

If that is truly your goal, take care ere you gain your wish.

For the winsome, primly fierce lass now glared his direction as though his was the boot that kicked her kitten and stomped her heart.

Ludicrous. Insane. Preposterous!

His damned foot kicked naught. And he shouldn’t care what she thought.

Shouldn’t have treated her that way.

Shouldn’t wish, even for a trice, that Frost had left his cracked carcass back in Spain, on the battlefield.

Sure as shat shouldn’t wish he could race after her and apologize with every truth in him, share everything in his trampled soul.

Not when his wounded, petulant side chafed at being thwarted by the interruptions. Infuriated by his lot in life.

Not when his mouth was opening again…

Vexed at not kissing her long enough, tasting her deep enough…

Provoked beyond reason and restraint at the loss of her. At the loss of her respect (not that he ever held it to begin with). Devastated by losing any chance of what might have existed between them…

He winked at her broadly, blatantly. Crushed the thin fabric of her handkerchief into his palm—the second one collected off her this sennight. And spoke the damn truth after all. “I declare, if I could only get my twanger to work, I might just stay beneath Ed’s mistletoe till someone finds us a parson.”