A Very Wicked Christmas Anthology
Have Yourself A Very Wicked Christmas!
Six of today’s most popular regency romance authors come together to deliver a holiday anthology full of passion, promise, and scandalous dalliance.
In stores October 18
1. THE CHRISTMAS AFFAIR
by
Heather Boyd
Harper Cabot, the proprietor of Cabot’s Haberdashery, was devastated by the death of his wife to the point he cannot pack away any of her belongings. Everyone expects his mourning to end soon, but he is devoted to his business and ignores how lonely his life has become in every other respect. A chance encounter brings Amy Mellish to Harper’s notice when he discovers the woman huddled behind his store one bitterly cold night before Christmas. Stirred by compassion and unexpected attraction, he offers Amy shelter in his home…only to have the woman seduce him before the night is over.
Amy has long admired the proper Harper Cabot from a distance, believing a prostitute very far below his notice and unneeded in his life. Although saddened by his loss, Amy very much needs Harper’s protection and boldly strikes a bargain to stay in exchange for satisfying his lust. In Harper’s arms, Amy discovers passion beyond her experience even though the signs of the late Mrs. Cabot linger in every corner of his home. Although begun as a diversion from shared sorrows, can their brief affair overcome the bitter memories of Christmases past and create the lasting connection they both secretly desire?
2. LOVE AT FIRST DANCE
or
Jane and the Vile Seducer
by
Barbara Monajem
Sir Colwyn North’s uncanny seductive powers made him an excellent spy—but they also gave him the worst sort of reputation. Given his dreadful past, his only hope of winning the hand of the very proper Lady Jane Dew is to trick her into marriage. By way of seduction. While in disguise.
Jane has had enough of tedious propriety; she wants excitement. Duty-bound, she attends a Christmas house party at the estate of a scheming marquis, who has plans of his own for her. She intends to choose her own husband, and the son of the marquis is not on her list. The enthralling but nameless seducer who visits her nightly in her dreams might be…but first she has to find out who he is.
Will Lady Jane reject Sir Colwyn when she discovers the truth? Or will he find another devious way to capture her heart?
3. JOY TO THE EARL
by
Nicola Davidson
Shunned for his mismatched eyes and awkward limp, Yorkshire carpenter Jack Reynolds lives a lonely and impoverished existence. Then comes a shocking discovery: he’s the discarded heir of a wealthy noble family, and if he travels to London by Christmas, he’ll not only gain an earldom, a home, and position like he’s never dreamed, but maybe – just maybe – he can finally lose his damned virginity.
Scandalous widow Rosalind Nelson’s life centers around four things – her young daughter, helping couples suffering sexual discord, avoiding all peers, and definitely not falling in love. That is, until the day she rescues a mysterious stranger from a carriage accident. Kind, brave, and achingly seductive, Jack is everything she’s ever wanted. Nothing can destroy their growing bond…except the demons of his past...
4. MISTLETOE AND THE MARQUESS
by
Wendy Vella
Marriage was something Miss Partridge had hoped to delay indefinitely, but due to her father's reckless behavior she is now expected to save the family from ruin. Determined to have one last night of freedom before marrying a man she detests; Jemma attends a Christmas Masquerade Ball. When a handsome highwayman awakens something inside her, with stolen kisses and whispered promises, she flees, vowing to forget about the man who touched her soul.
From the moment the Marquess of Harrington sees the Grecian Goddess enter the ball, he wants her. Harry is not usually one for irrational impulses - indeed his life does not allow for that - but this woman makes him lose all reason. Her touch ignites a fire inside him, and her kisses sear his soul. When she runs from him he is determined to find her and finally unmask the woman who has captured his heart.
5. LORD MISRULE
by
Donna Cummings
Juliana, Lady Courtenay, is no stranger to scandal. Not after her late husband died in the bed of another man. Now that the mourning period for her unwanted marriage is over, she is impatient to celebrate her freedom–and what better way than with a love affair during the most festive time of year? Finally she can experience the excitement of spending the entire night with a man completely devoted to her pleasure. Except when she asks Lord Misrule to be her very first lover, the rogue declines.
Lord Misrule is eager for a diversion that will banish the regrets that always resurface during the Christmas season. Yet he cannot accept the desirable widow's tempting offer. If he did, he knew it would be impossible to adhere to his strict rules for affairs—no debutantes, no innocents, and no attachments—all of which are necessary to prevent future misfortune.
But when it seems Lady Courtenay will choose a less-than-honorable man to be her lover, Lord Misrule's chivalrous nature insists he charge to her rescue. He offers her a twelve-day affair, intent on providing her with a fortnight of pleasure without causing her heart, or his, a lifetime of harm.
6. GLITTERING PRIZE
by
Beverley Oakley
Blue-stocking Jemima Percy is too clever and too driven to be drawn into the life of a courtesan. Or is she?
Engaged in a secret search for lost treasure, she falls into the shadowy world of antiquity collectors. With a murderer hot on her heels, becoming the greatest treasure in a bored aristocrat's exquisite collection may be her only hope of survival. Then one fateful Christmas, Jemima discovers a love that threatens her best-laid plans.
Read an excerpt from:
THE CHRISTMAS AFFAIR
by
Heather Boyd
Chapter One
Amy Mellish might never be warm. She would freeze and no one would ever know her name. She would be just another homeless, unknown body they found during the spring thaw if she did not keep putting one foot ahead of the other.
She blew on her hands, encased in her late mother’s best-but-worn gloves, and surveyed the bustling street ahead. Bond Street less than a week before Christmas was a busy time, though so cold this year. Few looked at her directly. No one moved out of her way.
It certainly was not the best time to lure a man to take their pleasure with her so she might afford a corner of a room in a drafty boardinghouse.
“A pox on the happily married,” she muttered bitterly as a laughing couple almost barreled over her.
Amy had been overlooked all her life. As a child she had not had friends or family aside from her mother, and as an adult of two and twenty years, that was not likely to change. She was utterly alone, and as a result of her lack of proper protection in the form of chaperones, she was not innocent.
She was one of the impure, a fallen woman who relied on the wickedness of her customers to survive the harsh world of London’s streets. It was not the life her mother had wanted for her, but it was the life she must live no matter how hard it seemed.
Unfortunately, she was not that successful in attracting interest in the middle of winter and had taken to the streets of London’s busiest district in desperation for coin and customers.
She pushed on through the happy crowd, fretting over her desperate situation. She could do what one of the light-skirts on the last street corner had just done—made a show of unbuttoning her threadbare coat and flashed her breasts to a passing gentleman. The portly fellow had ogled her but had not flicked out a coin. He had smiled and then moved on with his own business. The woman had taken the loss of custom with good spirits and hurried to cover herself again. Amy considered her very brave. Undressing, even partially, while the snow fell and the winds howled was not pleasant. While she silently applauded the woman’s tenacity and fortitude under trying circumstances, Amy was not willing to surrender any more of her body heat to the uncertainty of fickle male whim.
She had to be practical and thrifty with her favors.
“Watch where you’re going!”
Amy jerked up her chin and met the hard stare of a well-heeled heavy-set gent of middle years. On his arm was an expensively dressed woman who positively sneered at Amy’s presence on their path. Amy shuffled aside, feet sinking into a deep patch of snow that reached above the top of her ankle-high boots. The couple took their time passing, and Amy was shivering in earnest once more when she could proceed.
She stamped her feet after they were gone and shook the snow from the hem of her heavy garments.
“People are always in too much of a hurry,” a contemptuous male voice remarked nearby.
She turned around for the source of the voice and found a fellow standing just inside an alley in the shadows, smoking from a weathered pipe. He seemed of middle age or perhaps older, but it was hard to tell with his cap pulled low over his eyes.
Amy smothered her disappointment. She preferred a younger customer. They were a little more giving of their coin and often cleaner, but she would make do with whatever she got. “Some are indeed.”
He moved to the edge of the shadows but did not step out into the street to meet her. His eyes beneath the cap were fierce and his expression sour. “Most don’t see the beauty they cast aside. Not me though. I’ve got my eyes wide open. I see you.”
“How kind,” Amy said calmly enough, but her skin prickled with a warning.
From time to time, Amy had met men whose interest in her brought unpleasant sensations. She did not feel at all safe near this fellow. Despite his neat outward appearance, there was something about his demeanor that warned her to keep a distance. He could be dangerous.
His clothes were good quality, but it was what lay beneath that made a difference. Even the best-dressed men could hurt a whore. She had heard enough, witnessed enough firsthand, to heed her own instincts. She nodded to him, intending to move along.
He jerked his head toward the alley behind him. “Why don’t you come over here and we can warm each other for a bit?”
She pretended to be shocked. “Sir!”
His expression grew menacing in an instant. “Think you’re too good for the likes of me? I know what you are.”
Amy needed coin desperately, but not so desperately as to risk misadventure with someone as changeable as him. “I am a lady, sir, and what you suggest is indecent. Leave me be or I shall call the watch.”
She spun around, but not before she heard the sound of a soft moan come from the dark alley behind the fellow. Amy hurried on, crossing the street to the bakery side and slipping in behind a chattering group. She took a moment to catch her breath, stealing the warmth from the ovens deep into her lungs for as long as she dared. And then when an older woman swept past carrying a heaped basket, she followed her out onto the street again.
A quick glance around confirmed the dangerous fellow had not followed her to the bakery.
The woman with the basket turned to her. “Can I help you, dearie?” She had the face of kindness, but her eyes were shrewd as she took in Amy’s threadbare coat.
“No, but thank you.”
The older woman hesitated. “You’re very pale.”
“The cold,” Amy murmured, but then that moan she had overheard from the alley came to mind. “A conversation with a stranger a short time ago has overset my nerves. It’s nothing, I’m sure.”
“Oh, what did he say?” The woman adjusted her basket, waiting for a juicy bit of gossip.
“Nothing untoward, thankfully, but as I was walking away, I swear I heard a moan come from the alley behind him.”
The woman’s eyes widened. “Not again.”
The woman spun back for the bakery, shouting a man’s name, and disappeared with her basket of baked goods.
Amy sighed, lamenting the fact that the memory of the smell of freshly baked bread was going to torture her all day and likely all night.
Unfortunately, Amy had no choice but to push on in search of a customer. A shy smile, a flutter of lashes, were all she had to bring a gentleman into her arms in the right circumstances. In the biting cold of the afternoon, however, she was not having much luck, and she needed funds to escape the aching cold of winter that was sure to envelop the city tonight.
Another couple passed her, laughing as they went. “A pox on all happy couples,” she said aloud and then prayed she had not been overheard.
She had best keep her thoughts to herself, or she would never appeal to anyone. Aside from the dangerous fellow, she usually had good luck in the shopping district, though her usual haunts had attracted a rougher crowd of late. Amy had no wish to be passed around a group of men for the fee of a single client. As long as she was not overly brazen about what she was there for, she had found she was left largely to her own devices in the proper neighborhoods.
And it was usually so much cleaner, safer, nicer all round in this part of town. She lifted her thoughts to the path ahead and arranged her face into a pleasing expression.
There were certain shops, however, that she did not like to linger near for long, and they were just ahead. The pastry shop always made her empty stomach complain, and the fine merchandise displayed in the Cabot’s Haberdashery windows made her yearn for the past and the coin she did not possess.
The dream of one day having funds to buy whatever she liked gave her something to hope for though. If her circumstances changed and she had funds at the ready to spoil herself with, she might yet be a regular customer at either establishment.
However, she would not be able to frequent either if one of the proprietors—both very proper gents and handsome—discovered how she earned her living.
Chapter Two
Mr. Harper Cabot of Cabot’s Haberdashery, London, surveyed the new stock and his domain with approval. Trade that day had been brisk and satisfyingly lucrative, the delayed shipment he had received at midday had eased his cares. Profits should be up this month despite the biting cold, and the new man he had employed last month had borne the brunt of the heavy lifting without complaint.
Mr. Robin Pelaw was working out perfectly and handling his demanding clientele with the utmost respect. His youth and handsomeness proved a gentle lure for women who frequented the busy Bond Street shopping district. Harper had a knack of knowing what people most wanted. Pelaw’s glib tongue and easy manner was genuine enough to ensure he sold to most of his customers on the same day.
The new man did a much better job of being pleasing than he or his other longtime employee, Godfrey Hunter, had done of late.
“Is there anything else you need done tonight, Mr. Cabot?” Mr. Pelaw asked as he placed the final bolts of new fabric on display for the regular customers. The more costly fabrics were already locked away in a private room at the rear of the shop, only available for inspection by those with the funds to pay for any damage their eager pawing might inflict.
“You can remove the crates we stacked out back first thing tomorrow, but the buttons have become jumbled again. They’ll need to be sorted before you go home,” he said, casting a rueful glance toward the always-popular table display. He was very glad to pass on a task that had become a daily bother since his wife had passed away. Diana Cabot, his late wife, had enjoyed sorting the many colors, sizes, and shapes at the end of each long workday while he tallied the books.
He missed her still.
Pelaw groaned and moved to the table covered in tiny jars. “Yes, sir.”
“Stop thinking of her,” Hunter said from a safe distance, his voice subdued.
“I cannot help the way I feel.” He folded the lace bolt carefully and set it aside. “Everything here reminds me of her.”
Hunter set his scissors safely away into the workbench drawer. “You need a new woman to turn your mind.”
Harper clenched his jaw. “A temporary solution to a permanent affliction at best.”
Hunter drew close, folding his apron. “She was only one woman in a hundred pretty faces that have passed through your front door.”
“She was my world, Hunter.”
“No, your shop was your world and you feel guilty she died alone. That’s the real reason you’re so bloody unhappy and doing your best to make us feel the same.”
He pressed his lips together. He couldn’t deny the charge.
Hunter bid him good night then and went on his way, a bachelor in search of amusement, and thankfully, this time he did not try to drag Harper along.
Harper preferred to wallow in his memories of happier times. He’d had a vastly satisfying married life. He had met Diana, the eldest daughter of the nearby baker one summer afternoon. She had been just nineteen, late coming out due to a death in the family, and they had struck the right note immediately. A month later he’d asked for her hand in marriage, and they’d had ten years of happiness in this shop together before influenza had robbed her of her health and then her life.
He missed her presence at his side—her wise words of advice and quiet strength supporting him in his endeavors. He was indeed guilty of neglect too. The day she had died, she had died alone, upstairs in their apartment on Christmas morning. He had left her side, thinking it was for but a moment, to attend an important client who had arrived unexpectedly. When he had returned upstairs, flush with the success of a lucrative transaction, she had already slipped away.
Since burying Diana, every day had become an effort to rise from his empty bed and get on with his lonely life. A routine had been his salvation. Once he was among the bolts of fabrics and customer demands, he could forget that his life was so very empty in every other respect save professional achievement.
As the clock struck four o’clock, Harper moved to the front door and pulled down the shade on the white world outside. Snow had been falling steadily since daybreak, muting the sounds of the world beyond his shop. It was too cold to venture out to his club or to visit a married friend’s happy home for the pleasure of their conversation and excellent food. He would stay in yet again and ignore the empty space beside him for another endless night.
“Good night, Mr. Cabot.”
“Good evening, Pelaw,” he said before throwing the bolts on the door to protect his property.
Closing up had once been his late wife’s job, and he was reminded how different his life had become just by completing the simple task. Cabot’s Haberdashery had once boasted & Son behind his surname. Since his wife had not conceived by the time his father had died, he had put those hopes aside. Despite Hunter’s claim that women were replaceable, he found it hard to consider remarriage or even to contemplate courting another woman. Diana would be impossible to replace anyway. She had devoted more of her life to the business as each year passed and her arms remained empty of a child for her to love. She had rarely shown her disappointment to others, but he was aware of her private pain.
They had talked it over, had each hoped for a miracle, but it had not helped. They had remained childless, and Harper had set his ambitions for the future and the longevity of his business aside.
He drew the blinds down over the south window and then straightened the ladies’ hat display. His wife had loved hats of all styles and features. Thanks to her fine taste, and her subtle improvement of his, his customers now never lacked pretty things to wear upon their heads.
It had been a year since her passing, and he missed having someone to go home to, someone to lavish his attention on and spoil.
Not that home was far. He had lived above his place of business for a dozen years now and found the arrangement imminently convenient to the long hours he kept.
As he reached for the north window blind, he spotted a woman staring at a fur muffler displayed on a bed of pink silk wraps. Thinking she might be one last customer for the day, he paused before she noticed him to give her time to make her mind up about coming inside.
The woman’s bright green eyes gleamed as she beheld his wares. He was used to that look in female customers when it came to his many items, and he tried to anticipate what she might fancy. Her slender fingers rose to caress the glass between her and the object of her interest. It was then he noticed the hole in her glove. Was she interested in replacing her damaged pair tonight or just looking for what she might come back for another day?
He studied her more closely, noting the thin scarf wrapped high about her neck, the soft but dated felt cap perched over dark, inky locks. He could not discern her age, and for him that was a rare occurrence. He could usually decide a woman’s maturity, and likely interest in accessories, within a few moments of seeing her.
He eased deeper into the shadows and continued his observations unobserved, trying to figure her out.
Her shapely red lips expelled warm air into the chill of London in a short puff. A strange feeling swelled inside him when her pink tongue darted out to lick those lips.
He felt the stirrings of desire, which in itself was unusual for him with any prospective customer.
She shivered noticeably as a gust of wind stirred up the snow around her until she was almost lost from view. Her pert nose was red from the cold and wrinkled in dissatisfaction as her attention moved to another item on display.
He could reopen the shop for a few moments should she merely be waiting for her friends to join her. He glanced behind her to see where her companions might be, or a waiting carriage, and saw only the empty pavement and street behind. She should return to her carriage before she froze to death.
But there was no stopped carriage on the street.
She was alone, which was odd for this hour of the evening.
A single woman could be subjected to the worst sort of behavior by any number of scoundrels on Bond Street after dark.
A pair of well-dressed fellows strolled past, and he held his breath as she glanced their way. Although a woman alone would do well to avoid the attention of strangers, she lifted her chin and smiled warmly at them. Were they friends of hers?
One of the fellows nudged his companion, a knowing smile brightening his features, and the pair came closer to the woman. Harper reached for the door handle, prepared to intervene. After a moment or two of conversation, the pair moved on. The woman’s face fell.
Harper cursed. She was not a prospective customer, just a poor woman attracted by the pretty things in his windows on her way to somewhere else. More than likely she was one of London’s light-skirts in search of a gentleman to offer up his warm bed on this coldest of nights. And there he was staring at her as if she were a proper lady in need of his protection.
Harper reached for the blind and drew it down over the display, utterly disappointed that the first time he had experienced stirrings of arousal had been for a completely unsuitable woman.
Chapter Three
Amy stood back to admire her handiwork in the dim light, rather proud of her only stroke of good fortune that day. The tiny collection of empty crates she’d found tossed behind Cabot’s Haberdashery would provide a better night’s sleep than anything she could think of given her lack of funds and location. Because of the cold, or perhaps the approaching holiday, she had failed to tempt any gentleman that day or night and was entirely without funds. Even the whores were scarce on the street corners, which meant they’d had all the luck while Amy had none.
Without coin to pay for a rented room, she had no other option but to make do with a night outside in the elements and be grateful for the meager shelter. Unfortunately, she could not shake her fear that the dangerous fellow she had met earlier would find her. Amy tested the weight of the two sticks of wood she had found at the entrance to the lane and wondered what harm they might do if she had to use them against an attacker. Poor protection indeed, but it was all she had at hand.
As usual, her best defense would be to run for safety, but no close safe haven sprang readily to mind.
After a quick glance left and right, Amy wormed her way into the pile and huddled in as comfortable a position as she was able, blowing on her cold fingertips, which she couldn’t see in the utter dark of her secluded hideaway. She kept her weapons at her side, within easy reach. It would not be the worst night she’d ever spent alone since her mother’s death a year ago, but this makeshift home was better than freezing to death in the frigid wind that had sprung up in the past hour.
Hopefully it would not all fall down on her head in the middle of the night and break her skull. And maybe the dangerous man had forgotten his interest in her too.
She pulled her mother’s scarf up over her tender, chilled nose and cheeks and let her breath warm her skin, lamenting her pale complexion. She had caught her reflection in the Cabot’s window display and had almost cried over the red hue of her nose and cheeks. No doubt the ruddiness of her features had not added to her appeal that night, and there was not much she could do about it so late in the evening. Crying over her ill luck would only make her redden further.
She was much more appealing in summer when her skin caught a touch of color from the sunshine, but warmth and fair days were half a year away. Tomorrow she would take greater pains to protect herself from the wind and the uncomfortable flush a winter season had brought to her skin, and hope to turn a nice gentleman’s head instead of the nasty talking pair she’d just met.
Gentleman was a term that was hardly applicable to those crude scoundrels, and she’d learned to apply it sparingly to the male gender.
She hummed a little Christmas tune that her mother had sung often while she’d baked Christmas treats in the home she’d grown up in on the outskirts of London and then clamped her lips shut as her eyes stung with fresh tears. She blinked, shaking the moisture away before her lashes grew too damp. The festive season brought so many memories that, for a little while, she could almost forget that her life was unbearable. Of course, reality always returned to cut to the bone and remind her how desperate her situation had become.
How many more months, weeks, days could she live like this? Her belly ached in a constant reminder that starvation was never far away.
Amy hugged her knees, trying to fixate on something pleasant to warm her thoughts away from bitterness.
Her mother would have loved the Cabot’s window display this year. The man, Cabot, had a gift for arranging his goods with such an eye to a woman’s desires that it became so very hard to look away. If only she had the coin for a fur muffler, her hands might never be cold again.
It was also very hard to look away from the very handsome Mr. Cabot when he occasionally stepped out of his shop. He had never noticed her passing him, few did, but there was something so very arresting about the shopkeeper’s face that made her insides tumble over.
It was not fear of him or even shame that she passed unnoticed. She thought perhaps she felt lust for him, which in her line of work was an utterly ridiculous emotion to feel for any man.
Yet she made sure to pass by Mr. Cabot’s bright shop every week just to see if the feelings he stirred had passed. They still had not as of today. Longing for the unattainable man to notice her was a foolish occupation since he was already happily married, but her consideration of his appeal and form kept her mind occupied when her body was entertaining other men.
She shifted a little, disgruntled with her train of thought, and bumped the crate to her left but not enough to move it far. How foolish to think of a married man. Amy had caught a glimpse of Mrs. Cabot a few times. She was lovely and very attractive in her elegant clothes. So very, very good.
A boot scraped over cobblestone nearby. “Who’s there?”
Amy turned her face toward the voice, trembling at the gruff male barking out orders beyond her meager shelter. Had the dangerous man found her or was it the watch?
She made herself very small and hoped that whoever it was might go away. If she was quiet, they might think they had merely heard a rat scampering about the refuse. The boots came closer until she could see a shape through the gaps in her construction. She did not believe she could be seen, but she covered her mouth to quiet her breathing. If she was overlooked and the man went on his way, she might stay undetected until morning when she crept out. She hoped so.
“Show yourself, or I’ll call the watch,” the man demanded.
Amy breathed a sigh of relief. The dangerous man was not the sort to have threatened her with the watch. He would avoid authority as much as she would, perhaps more.
It must be someone else entirely who had discovered her. Still, she could not have that sort of trouble. A night in a cell was bound to end up with her taken advantage of by any number of unsavory characters. Best come forward now so she would be left alone.
“Please don’t call the watch,” she begged.
Amy grasped her weapons and crawled out of her makeshift home on hands and knees then stood swiftly, holding her hands clenched at her sides. She faced the stranger, heart leaping out of her chest in relief the next moment. It was the nice man from the haberdashery—Mr. Cabot himself.
Amy quickly dropped her unnecessary weapons before he noticed and made an effort to shake out her coat. She had to brazen this out so Mr. Cabot would not send her on her way.
“Good evening, Mr. Cabot.” She dipped a curtsy, deciding that even a fallen woman should mind her manners this close to Christmas. “Happy Christmas.”
He blinked at her greeting, then scowled at her makeshift home. “What are you doing there?”
“Nothing.” She ran a quick hand over her frayed coat and smiled warmly. Surely Mr. Cabot would not mind her encampment behind his shop too much if she were very quiet and unobtrusive. “It’s a lovely night for a stroll, but shouldn’t you get back inside to the warmth? Your wife will be wondering where you are.”
He stared at her a long moment and then blinked. “My wife passed away.”
A hard lump formed in her throat, and she took a step toward him. So that explained why she’d not seen his wife recently. But then, to her shame, she had only ever really cared about the ever-changing window display and Mr. Cabot’s fine and unavailable presence. “I am so sorry.”
He nodded sharply, his lips pressing together, and glanced aside. He crossed his arms over his chest. “It was sudden.”
Amy took another step closer as he shivered. He was not dressed to be out of doors. His hair was wet and slicked back from his face, and he wore a banyan of thick and luxurious brocade, the type a wealthy lord might wear in the privacy of his own bedchamber.
He looked as if he had been getting ready for bed.
A warm bed.
An empty bed.
It took a second to formulate a new plan for her night, but then she felt shame and disgust in herself. She could not attempt to seduce a man who was grieving. It was not fair to him and would only lead to her own humiliation. She had had enough of that for one day. “You should go in, sir.”
He refocused his attention on her as the wind spun snow around them in a white mist. “Were you going to sleep under those boxes tonight?”
She hesitated to answer but then nodded. What was the point of lying about it? Since her mother’s death, she had learned to accept that she did not deserve anything more than to be where she was. Being fatherless, and now a whore, ensured she was scorned wherever she went. “I will be quiet. I promise. You won’t even know I’m outside your door.”
“Have you no home, no one to wonder where you are?”
He frowned when she shook her head again and then glanced around at the deserted, dirty lane.
He really needed to return indoors before his hair froze. Amy backed away. If she pretended to leave, he would not have an excuse to linger. Once he had gone inside, she could sneak back and quietly creep into her shelter again.
“Please go back inside before you catch a chill. I will go. I don’t want to be any trouble.”
He stared at her so long she started to tremble for an entirely different reason. Mr. Cabot saw her at last, but this was not how she had imagined the moment. She had nothing to recommend herself. No money to spend in his shop, no beauty with which to capture his attention.
He followed her a few steps and then bent down to pick up the sticks she’d dropped when he’d first made himself known to her.
He turned them over in his bare hands a moment, eyes widening, but then shook his head repeatedly. He flung them aside and gestured to his open rear door. “You should come in. There’s a safer and warmer place for you with me.”
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