The Christmas Stranger Read online

  The intimacy of the embrace was extraordinary. She felt each breath he took and the subtle shift of muscles across his back, as he moved his hands up and down her spine in wordless comfort.

  “You’re a wild and reckless fool,” she muttered into his chest.

  He twined his arms around her. “I’m sorry I frightened you,” he whispered, leaning his chin on her head. “I won’t do it again.”

  “You’d better not,” she said indistinctly, pressing her nose into his skin. As he warmed up, the glorious scent of Joss overpowered the scent of snow and wind.

  “I promise.”

  The tenderness in that bass voice banished the last of her anger. Anger that was purely a reaction to overwhelming dread. If he’d died out there…

  If ever she’d doubted how deeply her feelings for Joss Hale went, her quaking, unreasoning panic at the thought of losing him told her that she was in real trouble. When he’d left her, her world had turned cold and unwelcoming. But the idea of a world without him in it somewhere, even if far away, had been more than she could endure.

  Inexplicable, illogical, unlikely, but she’d fallen desperately in love, and she had a grim premonition it was a lifelong affliction.

  Still, she hadn’t completely lost all connection with the mundane world. She stirred in Joss’s arms and prepared to step away.

  Joss tightened his hold to keep her close. “Where in blazes do you think you’re going?”

  “To put Emilia in the stables.”

  He didn’t release her. “She’s safely in her stall. I fed and watered her, and put a poultice on her leg before I came inside.”

  Maggie couldn’t believe what she heard. “You looked after her when you were so close to collapsing?”

  “My father taught me—care for yourself only after you’ve cared for your horse.”

  Her heart took a dizzying swoop, and she closed her eyes against a hot rush of tears. Curse him. What chance did she have against him?

  She knew what state he was in, yet he’d seen his mount settled before he sought shelter and warmth for himself. “You’re a good man, Josiah Hale.”

  He gave a grunt of self-derisive laughter. “No, by God, I’m not.”

  She knew he meant the words as a warning, but in her ears, they were a promise of sensual expertise. Maggie met those deep-set eyes, and a quiver of need set up low in her stomach, until her whole body was shaking. Tonight, tomorrow, perhaps the day after, but soon, she’d give herself to this man. And words like sin and virtue, and right and wrong would have no power to stop her.

  Because her fate opened up before her, for good or ill, she was content to postpone the difficult decisions that lay ahead. “What about your breeches?”

  He was wise enough not to tease her this time. “The leather keeps the water out.”

  His arms tightened, before abruptly he staggered away. She wasn’t feeling too solid either. Standing on her own two feet had her struggling to lock rubbery knees. The rush of blood to her head left her giddy and disconcerted.

  Because touching his naked skin hadn’t been entirely about comfort and shared warmth. How could it be? Maggie wanted this man, and she knew he wanted her. As the effects of his ordeal wore off, she’d noticed how he responded to her nearness.

  She touched him because she wanted to. She touched him for desire. For pleasure.

  For…love.

  But her first priority now was to look after him. While it was a pity to cover up that superb torso, she passed him a blanket. “I should never have sent you away.”

  “You didn’t send me away. I went.” The straight look he shot her threatened to upset her wanton plans. When he wrapped the blanket around his shoulders, he looked like a dashing Roman. “We need to talk.”

  “Not now.” Avoiding that searching green gaze, she hooked up the wet shirt he’d discarded and bundled it near the fire. If she washed it after supper and hung it before the hearth, it would dry overnight. “Warm up. Eat. Rest. We’ll talk later.”

  And perhaps they wouldn’t.

  Another shiver rippled through her. This time alive with anticipation.

  “Maggie—”

  “Sit near the fire while I heat up some of yesterday’s soup.” She gestured to the stove. “You’ll be hungry.”

  She was hungry, too. Odd to think that not long ago, she’d felt like she never wanted to eat again. What a range of emotions the day had brought. Joy. Passion. Guilt. Sorrow. Despair. Fear.

  To her surprise, he obeyed her without an argument. Sign enough that he was still in a bad way. She beat back her fear and concentrated on her cooking. When she glanced across at him slouched on the settle, she was glad to see his eyes closed. Sleep was what he needed after what he’d been through.

  When the meal was ready, she crossed to shake his shoulder. “Joss, wake up.”

  The smile he gave her was so sweet, she almost took him in her arms. But right now, he needed food more than he needed her embrace. “Sorry. I dozed off.”

  “Have something to eat, then go to bed.” When she took his hand, it was no longer icy cold. She blinked away hot tears of relief.

  Maggie helped him across to the table she’d set, watching his halting progress with a frown. He was still moving with arthritic stiffness. With a groan, he collapsed into the chair.

  Knowing he wasn’t yet up to much conversation, she didn’t try to talk to him as they started eating. Only once he’d made short work of his soup and she saw some color return to his face, did she speak. “Tell me what happened,” she said, putting down her spoon.

  “You were right. I left my departure too late.” He hitched up his blanket and leaned back in his chair, half-full wineglass in one hand. “It started snowing as soon as I got to the end of the drive.”

  “You should have turned back at that point.”

  He still sounded mortally tired. “You know why I didn’t.”

  Maggie did. She cut him a huge wedge of the beef pie she’d warmed in the oven and slid it onto his plate. She’d looked after his meals since he’d arrived. Tonight why did this basic act of hospitality seem particularly…wifely? “Had Emilia started limping by then?”

  “No. And I only had a few miles to go.”

  “It must have been so frightening. I’ve been caught in a snowstorm a couple of times. I completely lost my sense of direction.”

  “I could still make out the shape of the hills. And the prevailing wind has been from the north since I arrived. I wasn’t likely to get lost.”

  She was overjoyed to hear him sounding much more like himself. “You noticed that?”

  He shrugged and began to eat once more. “An architect notes a house’s cold and warm spots. Whoever built Thorncroft knew what they were doing. A small difference in the windows and the doors, and the place would be freezing.”

  “It’s usually a warm house,” she said, serving herself a smaller piece of pie. “Especially with all the fires lit.”

  Yet how cold and forbidding it had felt after Joss left. Now, it was the Garden of Eden. Such a difference love could make.

  “We got to the pass, but it was blocked. I tried to go over the hills and around, but that proved impossible, too.”

  Maggie could imagine how he’d struggled on. When he left her, she’d seen his determination. And regret. She began to eat her pie. “I’m glad you had the good sense to come back.”

  He sent her a hard look. “Are you?”

  Joss had demolished his pie, too, so she served him the rest. “I don’t want you lying dead and frozen on a hillside.”

  “That’s nice to know,” he said, with a hint of his familiar dryness. He looked much better already. Remarkable, really, how quickly he recovered. It gave her hope that he mightn’t suffer any long-term effects from his trials.

  She matched his tone. “Once the spring thaws start, the shepherds get upset if they find travelers who didn’t make it over winter.”

  Her heart cramped with love when humor lighte
ned Joss’s features. “By all means, let’s keep the shepherds happy.”

  * * *

  Joss took Maggie’s advice and retired to his room early. He’d done his best to hide quite how battered he felt after fighting the elements, but his body ached like the devil after that long tramp hauling a lame horse. He’d been in a damned bad way when he’d staggered back to Thorncroft Hall. He’d thought winters in Sussex could be grim. He’d had no idea how bitter cold weather could be until he struck these wild northern uplands.

  Now he lay in his big, warm bed, and he couldn’t entirely blame his restlessness on the aftereffects of his ordeal. Unsatisfied desire proved more agonizing by far than mere aches and pains.

  Since he’d arrived, he’d spent hours lying awake in his room, hungering for Maggie. But tonight the yearning was sharper, more focused. Now he knew how her kisses tasted, and how perfectly she fitted in his arms, and the sounds she made when she enjoyed a man’s attentions.

  Tonight he knew she wanted him, too.

  Nothing had changed since he’d headed out on his futile quest to reach Little Flitwick. It was still wrong to seduce Maggie. Of course it was. Otherwise he wouldn’t have embarked on a journey that brought him to the brink of disaster.

  But wrong or not, dear God, how he longed to have her here beside him. How he burned to see her all warm and rosy and responsive, the way she’d been after his kisses beside the pond.

  The girl he’d first met had had sad eyes. But she hadn’t been sad when they’d skated, and when they’d kissed, and tonight when she’d welcomed him back. She’d been incandescent with joy.

  And he’d recognized then that their coming together was inevitable. From the first moment, she’d caught him in her spell. Was that only four days ago?

  He felt like he’d lived through a lifetime since.

  Joss closed his eyes and surrendered to exhaustion, dreaming of Maggie becoming his at last.

  * * *

  The sound of the door opening pierced Joss’s dreams of fighting through snow as sticky as melted wax to reach Maggie. Instantly alert, he opened his eyes. He felt no disorientation. He knew where he was. He knew who had come in, even before he rolled over to face the doorway.

  Elation surged so powerfully, it was painful. His heart began to race, and his mouth went dry with anticipation. He must have been asleep a couple of hours. The fire burned low and painted the chamber dull gold.

  “Maggie?”

  The woman who was his delight and his torment hovered on the threshold. Her hand shook so badly that her candle sent shadows jumping against the walls. She wore the white flannel nightdress, familiar from his first night.

  Joss knew better than to take her presence for granted. Her arrival mightn’t mean what he so desperately hoped it did. “Are you in trouble?”

  “Yes…” Her voice was a frail thread.

  He was out of bed before he recalled he was naked and that if she’d come to ask for help, a huge lummox wearing nothing but his skin was likely to scare her silly. “What’s wrong?”

  Her eyes, dark and mysterious, widened as she stared at his body. The candlelight performed a slow waltz. Joss saw her delicate throat move as she swallowed.

  “I’m sorry,” he said gruffly, fumbling to find his dressing gown. Until he remembered it was in his pack. He’d been so bloody tired and sore when he came upstairs, he’d toppled straight into bed.

  Her attention fell to where his cock rose hard and insistent against his belly. Through the uncertain light, he saw a delicious wash of pink color her cheeks. The dangers of sharing this house with her had never been so stark as they were right now.

  When she lifted her eyes, he couldn’t mistake the desire he saw in her face. She licked her lips as if she wanted to taste him, the way a hungry man wanted to dive into eating an extravagant meal. Even through his astonishment, his body reacted predictably.

  “Don’t be sorry.” That whisper played havoc with his control. With difficulty, he resisted the urge to cover himself like a bashful schoolboy. Instead he turned away and walked across to where his saddlebags rested against the wall.

  She’d get an eyeful of his bare arse, but damn it, what choice did he have? His hands weren’t much steadier than hers when he opened his bag and rooted out his dressing gown. He shrugged it on, worried that Maggie remained so deathly quiet.

  Even though he could no longer see her, her image burned in his brain. Slender. Graceful body wreathed in white, as incendiary a sight as a blatantly naked courtesan. Her auburn plait curled across her breast, following the path that his hands itched to trace.

  Battling for control, he turned as he tied the sash. She was staring at him as if she beheld the wonder of the ages. That did nothing to cool his arousal. The beat of blood in his head was so loud, he had trouble hearing her.

  “I forget how…big you are. And then…”

  Then he started prancing around with his tackle waving in the breeze. Maggie Carr was the one woman in creation who could make him blush. How his louche chums in London would cackle to see libertine Joss Hale turn as awkward as a boy with his first lass.

  And all because that lass was so breathtakingly beautiful.

  And fragile.

  And strong.

  All his tried and true strategies with a pretty girl seemed tired and outmoded. Because never before had his heart been involved in a seduction.

  He wasn’t a fool. Nor was he in the habit of deceiving himself. From the first, Maggie had stirred something more profound than a young man’s natural yen to bed a comely wench.

  But only now did he realize how close he came to loving her. Whatever happened tonight—whatever happened after tonight—this affair would change him forever.

  “Then I see how huge you are.”

  He knew she described his size as a whole, but all this talk about dimensions made his dick swell with excitement. Yet the possibility remained that he was getting all worked up about nothing. “You said you need my help.”

  She squared her shoulders as if facing some great task. “I do.”

  His stomach dropped. Disappointment made his voice crack. Disappointment he had no right to feel, damn it. “Are you ill?”

  To his surprise, Maggie took a faltering step into the room. Even as he counseled caution, his heart turned a somersault. She must realize that entering his territory was dangerous.

  “No, I’m not ill.” Maggie shifted from one bare foot to the other. She had to be freezing. But unlike their first night, he didn’t trust himself to lay his hands on her.

  “Then what is it?” He cursed the impatience in his voice, but having her so near in this silent house asked too much of a mere mortal. The stillness somehow worsened his torture. When he’d gone to bed, the wind had been howling like the hounds of hell, but it had since dropped. He felt like the world held its breath to see what happened next, and every word carried the weight of destiny.

  Maggie bit her lip, and he closed his eyes against the sight of small white teeth sinking into cushiony pink flesh. He rapidly reached a point where if she didn’t leave, he wouldn’t be responsible for the consequences. He wanted her so badly, each breath hurt.

  “I…I could have lost you today.” Her voice was low and husky. “You tried to make light of it, but you forget I live here, and I know the risks you took by going.”

  “I know the risks if I stay here.” His voice rasped. “You’re a chaste woman.”

  “Yes, I am.” She grimaced. “But what use is that chastity to me?”

  This time, the silence crashed down as hard as an avalanche. Before he could stop himself, Joss stepped closer. He spoke through a tight throat. “You’re not thinking clearly. You’re upset because I got caught in the snow. In the morning, you’ll regret a rash decision.”

  Why in Hades did he try to talk her out of yielding, when it was so bloody obvious that was what they both wanted? But for the first time in what he recognized as a selfish life, his pleasure wasn’t of par
amount importance.

  “I am thinking clearly.” A stubborn expression settled on her face, banished her nervousness. “Until you came, my life was flat and meaningless. Each day was exactly the same as the last. Once you leave, that’s what my life will go back to.”

  The bleak picture she painted made his gut knot with pity. A pity he knew she’d despise. “Sweetheart—”

  Her voice hardened as she ventured closer, until only a few feet separated them. “In the years to come, when the nights are cold and the bed is too big for one person, I want something glorious to remember. Don’t make me beg, Joss.”

  For pity’s sake, what could he do, when she said that? He knew what was right, but he needed her so desperately. “Come here, Maggie.”

  The tension drained from her expression, and she launched forward. The sudden movement did for the candle, and it flickered out as Joss’s arms closed hard around soft flannel and softer woman.

  Chapter Ten

  * * *

  Firelit night descended like a benediction. With a luxuriant sigh, Maggie melted against Joss as he bent his ruffled head to kiss her. The snuffed candle fell to the ground with a soft thud, as she kissed him back with all the longing in her heart.

  The flickering, concealing darkness was welcome. It saved her blushes. Because while she came to Joss with no regrets, enough of the vicar’s daughter remained for shyness to set its claws into her.

  She knew now how to tease and lure and play, so their kisses quickly turned into a passionate game. After a brief, fumbling moment, he whipped the nightdress over her head and cast it away. Fleeting self-consciousness cramped her stomach. She’d never been naked with a man before. But the heat of Joss’s lips against hers soon blasted any bashfulness to ashes.

  His hands explored bare skin, tracing searing trails wherever he touched. He kissed an incendiary line down her neck, making her shiver and gasp. His hands found her breasts, and he played with her nipples until they were hard and aching. A powerful pulse set up between her legs. On an incoherent plea, she pressed closer, shoving the edges of his dressing gown aside.