One Wicked Christmas

“I mean you and your Charles were a comfortable old couple from the moment you married, sitting by the fire reading together all the time. I don’t think I ever saw you flirt and laugh together.”

“There was no need. We were married. We knew each other too well to need to—flirt.”

“That was your mistake, then, Cassie. You were too comfortable. And you were only seventeen when you wed! Too young for such dullness.”

Cassandra shook her head stubbornly, but deep down inside she had traitorous doubts. Was Melisande right? Had she really been so dull all those years? She was only twenty-five now. “I was happy with Charles.”

Melisande gave her a gentle smile. “I know you were. And no one can replace what you had with him. Yet another reason for you to look for someone different now.”

“What do you suggest, then?”

“Someone dashing, of course! Someone who is naughty, and just a bit wicked. No one really cruel or dangerous, certainly, but a man who is a bit of a rogue. Someone who knows what he is about in the bedchamber. There’s no sense in taking on someone staid and dull for your first lover.”

A bit wicked. Cassandra bit her lip as she thought again of Ian and that kiss. Ian and Charles had been friends ever since their days at Eton, even though there were no two men more different. Charles had been quiet and scholarly; many of their evenings really were spent reading by the fire at their home in the country. He was even quietly attentive and efficient in bed, never removing more clothes than was strictly necessary.

Sir Ian Chandler, though, was witty and daring, always laughing, always moving and doing. She’d heard tales of his life of horse racing and gaming, of all the women who fell desperately in love with him, though he never spoke of such things when he came to their house. He would always take her out riding and walking, making her laugh with his tales of Town life while Charles read in his library. Ian was lean and dark, thanks to his Italian mother, and Charles golden-blond as an English spring.

Even after Charles was gone, Ian would visit her, talk to her, read to her, make her laugh even in the midst of her sadness. Sometimes he had been the only bright spot she could look forward to in the day.

Until that kiss. She nodded as she listened to Melisande list the attributes of the men around them, but her mind wandered back to that day when everything changed….

The rain poured down from the sky, sudden and cold, catching them by surprise as they walked in the garden. Cassandra laughed and grabbed Ian’s hand to run back toward the house, but her thin slippers slid on the gravel pathway and she cried out as she felt herself falling. Ian caught her up in his arms and she wrapped her arms around his neck. She could feel the deep echo of his laughter against her, and he ran for the little Grecian temple at the edge of the garden.

Cassandra’s hand slid over his shoulder. How had she never noticed how very hard and strong he was before, his shoulders broad, his chest all lean muscles and shifting power against her body. She had always known he was handsome, of course. She was a woman, after all, and no woman could look at the perfect angles of his chiseled face, his velvet-dark eyes and glossy black hair, and be unmoved. But his body…

She traced her palm over his collarbone and threaded her fingers through the damp, rough-silk strands of his hair as he eased her to her feet on the marble floor. Ian Chandler was a beautiful, beautiful man. And as she looked up into his eyes something caught alight deep inside of her. Something warm and tingling that felt suspiciously like—life.

“Are you all right, Cassie?” he asked.

He started to step back from her, but Cassandra tightened her hand on his neck to hold him with her. She wasn’t sure what had suddenly come over her, she only knew she couldn’t let him go yet.

His eyes narrowed as he stared down at her, and she felt the muscles of his neck grow stiff. She twined her other arm around his shoulders, those shoulders that had born her up for so long in her sadness and that drew her to him now.

“Ian,” she whispered. It was all she could say, his name, but the sound of it seemed to awaken something in him, too. She felt a deep shudder pass through his body.

His hands closed hard around her waist and drew her against him, so close she went up on tiptoe, her soft breasts pressed to his chest.

“Oh, God, Cassie,” he groaned hoarsely. And then his mouth was on hers, hot and hungry.

It was nothing like Charles’s gentle, brief kisses. Ian kissed her like a man starving, his tongue sliding past her lips to tangle with hers, tasting her deeply. She met him eagerly, that flicker of new life inside of her roaring into a consuming flame.

He tasted like tea and mint and rain, of some undefinable, dark something that was only him. She felt dizzy, almost intoxicated as she kissed him back. His hands slid into her hair and he angled her head so his mouth could take hers deeper, and they fit together, their lips and their bodies, as if they were meant to be that way.

Cassandra had never imagined anyone could kiss like that, or that a mere kiss could make her want so much. Need so much. Ian was so very good at that.

It made her wonder what else he was good at. Lost in the blurry haze of passion, her hand slid down his shoulders to tug at his cravat. She wanted to touch him, see him.

But his fingers suddenly closed over hers, hard and unyielding as he stilled her frantic movements. Cassandra heard herself make a frustrated sound, and Ian’s head fell back, his lips torn from hers.

“Cassie, no,” he said hoarsely. “What am I doing?”

It was as if the cold rain poured over her head, drowning out the heat of lust. Cassandra went very still, staring at her hand caught in his, her fingers still tangled in his cravat. She had been trying to undress Ian, her husband’s friend. Her friend. She had never been more shocked at herself.

And yet she couldn’t be sorry. She had wanted Ian so very much. When he touched her, she felt alive again at long last. Alive and happy and free. If acting like a wanton gave her that, she couldn’t be sorry. And it was Ian—gorgeous, sexy, kind-hearted Ian—who gave that to her. No, she couldn’t be sorry, even though she knew she really should.

But Ian looked very sorry indeed. His eyes were so black in his suddenly pale, strained face, his usually laughing, sensual mouth drawn into a taut line. His hair was tousled over his brow from the touch of her fingers. Instinctively, she reached up to smooth it, but he stepped back from her.

Her hands fell to her sides, and she felt achingly hollow inside. The cold dampness of the rain she hadn’t sensed before at all crept over her, and she wrapped her arms around her waist.

“I’m so sorry, Cassie,” he said, and she hardly recognized his voice it was so rough. “I don’t know what came over me. I promise, it won’t happen again.”

But she wanted it to happen again! She almost cried the words aloud, but her voice strangled in her throat when she saw his face. It had gone as hard and still as one of the marble statues in the garden, his eyes a cold blank as if he had retreated behind them somewhere she couldn’t follow.

And in that moment she was finally sorry for what had happened, because it seemed to have cost her Ian.

Cassandra took a deep sip of her punch as she shook away the heavy memory of that rainy day and studied the noisy ballroom around her. She hadn’t seen Ian since that day. He had sent her a letter from Bath, where he said he had gone to visit his sister, and she had come to London to try to distract herself. It hadn’t really worked, though. She still thought of Ian far too often. Especially now that Christmas was near, the family warmth of the holiday preparations reminding her that she was alone.

“Won’t you, Cassie?” Melisande said, the words breaking through Cassandra’s memories.

“I beg your pardon, Mel?” Cassandra said. She left her empty glass on a footman’s tray and claimed a full one.

“I was merely saying you will be at my house party for Christmas, won’t you? It should be quite a merry time.”

A loud, wild party? Cassandra wasn’t entirely sure she could face one of Melisande’s famously raucous gatherings just yet. “I’m not sure…”

“My dear, I won’t let you say no! London will be an utter wasteland after this week, and I refuse to let you stay here alone for Christmas. You need some fun.” Melisande gave her a sly smile over the edge of her fan. “Besides, Lord Phillips will be there. He’s been asking me about you, and you did say you liked him.”

“Lord Phillips?” Cassandra felt a tiny spark of interest. She had danced with him once or twice since she came to Town, played cards with him at an assembly, sat next to him at Melisande’s last dinner party. He was an amusing conversationalist, and a handsome man with dark auburn hair and a horseman’s lean body. He had made her laugh, and was a good dancer besides.

But, a tiny voice whispered inside of her, he isn’t Ian.

Cassandra pushed away that voice. Lord Phillips was an attractive man who seemed interested in her, while it was all too clear that Ian was not interested at all. She needed to move forward with her life.

“Yes,” Melisande said. “He was most eager to accept my invitation when I promised you would be there. You can’t let me down now, Cassie.”

“Then I will be there,” Cassandra answered. “I always did love a country Christmas.”

“Wonderful! Now, my dear, you will leave off the widow’s weeds for the party, won’t you? Bring some pretty clothes?”

Cassandra opened her mouth to answer that widow’s weeds were the only clothes she had, when the ballroom doors opened and a latecomer appeared.

The gilded double doors were at the top of a short set of marble steps, giving Cassandra a good view of any arrivals over everyone’s heads. She almost choked when she saw who stood there now.

Ian. Looking even more handsome than the last time she saw him, with his black hair brushed back from his face and his body draped in perfectly cut evening clothes. His stark white cravat made his smooth olive skin appear even darker, with the amber lamplight gilding him to a burnished gold like some ancient, pagan god.