One Snowy Regency Christmas. Sarah Mallory

gave me no leave to carry you before either,’ he said. ‘But I wanted to, and so I did. You felt very good in my arms.’ He pulled her even closer, until her skirts were brushing against the legs of his trousers. She did not move, even though he had freed her hands. ‘It is fortunate for me that you are prone to pity a poor working man. Perhaps you will share some of that sweet sympathy with me.’ He ran a finger down her cheek, as though to measure its softness.

      She stood very still indeed, not wishing him to see how near she was to trembling. If she cried out it would draw the house down upon them and bring this meeting to a sudden end. But her words had failed her, and she could manage no clever quip that would make him think her sophisticated. Nor could she raise a maidenly insistence that he revolted her. He did not. His touch was gentle, and it made her forget all that had come before.

      He seemed to forget as well, for his voice was softer, deeper and slower. ‘Your father broke one of my looms today. But it will be replaced, and I will say nothing of how the destruction happened.’

      ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, wetting her lips.

      ‘If you wish to make a proper apology, I would like something more.’ His head dipped forwards, slowly, and his lips were nearing hers.

      Although she knew what was about to happen she stayed still and closed her eyes. His lips were touching hers, moving lightly over them. It was as it had been when he had touched her ankle and held her hands. She could feel everything in the world in that single light touch. Her whole body felt warm and alive. Hairs rose on her arms and neck—not from the chill but as though they were eager to be soothed back to smoothness by roving hands.

      She kissed him back, moving her lips on his as he had on hers. His mouth was rough, and imperfect. One corner of his smile was slightly higher than the other, and she touched it with the tip of her tongue, felt the dimple beside it deepen in surprise.

      In response, he gave a playful lick against her upper lip, daring her. Her body’s response was an immediate tightening, and she pressed herself against him, opening her mouth. And what had been wonderful became amazing.

      He encircled her, and his arms made a warm, safe place for their exploration—just as they had when he’d carried her. The slow stroking of hands and tongue seemed to open her to more sensations, and the tingling of her body assured her of the rightness of it, the perfection and the bliss. Although she knew all the places on her body that he must not touch, she was eager to feel his fingers there, and perhaps his tongue.

      Just the idea made her tremble with eagerness, with embarrassment, and the knowledge that had seemed quite innocent was near to blazing out of control. And it was not only his doing. Even now she had taken his tongue into her mouth, and it was she who held it captive there, closing her lips upon it.

      She could tell by his sigh of pleasure that he enjoyed what she’d done. But his only other response was to go still against her. His passivity coaxed her to experiment, raking his tongue with her teeth and circling it with her own, urging him to react.

      He had trapped her into being the aggressor. At the realisation, she pulled away suddenly. He let her go, staring down at her in mock surprise, touching his own lips gingerly, as though they might be hot enough to burn his fingers.

      ‘Stop that immediately,’ she said.

      He smiled. ‘You have stopped it quickly enough for both of us. And now I suppose you wish me to apologise for the way you kissed me?’

      ‘Only if you wish me to think you any sort of gentleman,’ she said, feeling ridiculous.

      ‘But I am not a gentleman,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Isn’t that half the problem between us? I sit here, a trumped-up worker, in a house that should belong to my betters, had they not lost it through monetary foolishness. My presence in this house upsets the natural order of things. My touching you …’

      ‘That is not the problem at all,’ she snapped. ‘I do not care who you are.’

      ‘If you do not care who I am, it was highly indiscriminate of you to allow me the kiss. And even worse that you returned it.’

      ‘You are twisting my words,’ she said. ‘I meant that it should not have happened at all. Not with any man. But especially not with you.’

      ‘I don’t know,’ he said with an ironic laugh. ‘I might be the best choice for such dalliance. If you complain to your father, I would be obligated to do right by you. Then my house and my fortune would be yours. You might trap me with your considerable charms and force me to marry you.’

      ‘But to do that I would have to admit to Father that you had touched me, Mr Stratford. I think we can safely say that such a circumstance will never happen. Not for all the money in the world, and Clairemont Manor thrown into the mix. Now, please return me to the library.’

      He smiled in triumph, as though that had been his end all along. ‘Very well, then. Let us go back to your father, and both of you can be gone. I trust that now we have spoken on the subject I will see no more of you, or be forced to endure any more of your father’s tirades? For, while I can see that there is more than a little madness to them, they cannot be allowed to continue. If arms are raised against me and the opening of the mill disrupted, or my equipment damaged further, I will be forced to take action. While I am sure that neither of us wants it, you must see that I do not intend to be displaced now that I am so near to success.’

      He turned and led her back towards the library. As he opened the door he made idle comments about the furnishings and art, as though they had just returned from a tour of his home. It was all the more galling to know that some of the things he said were inaccurate, proving that he knew little more about the things he owned than how to pay for them. He really was no better than he had said: a man ignorant in all but one thing. He had made a fine profit by it. But what did that matter if it had left him coarse and cruel?

      As they entered, her father looked up as though he had forgotten how he had come to be there. ‘I think it is time that we were going, Father,’ she said firmly. ‘We have abused Mr Stratford’s hospitality for quite long enough.’

      Her father looked with longing at the book in his hands.

      Joseph Stratford responded without missing a beat. ‘I hate to take you from your reading, sir. Please accept the volume as my gift to you. You are welcome to come here whenever you like and avail yourself of these works. It pleases me greatly to see them in the hands of one who enjoys them.’

      Because you have no use for them, you illiterate lout, she thought. She responded with a smile that was almost too bright, ‘How thoughtful of you, Mr Stratford.’

      Her father agreed. ‘Books are a precious commodity in the area, and it is rare that we get anything new from London that is not a newspaper or a fashion plate.’ He wrinkled his nose at the inadequacy of such fare to a man of letters.

      Stratford nodded in sympathy. ‘Then we will see what can be done to correct the deficiency. If there is anything you desire from my library, send word. I will have it delivered to you. And now it appears that your daughter is properly recovered. If I may offer you a ride back to the village?’

      Her father stood, and the men chatted as they walked to the door as though they were old friends. In a scant hour Bernard Lampett had quite recovered from his fit of rage, and Mr Stratford was behaving as though the incidents in the mill and in the hall had not occurred. If he remembered them at all, he appeared untouched by them.

      But in the space of that same hour Barbara felt irrevocably changed, and less sure of herself than she had ever been.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      LATER that evening the guests began to arrive, and Joseph was relieved to have no time to think of Barbara Lampett. Even when he should have focused his energy elsewhere, he could feel the memory of her and her sweet lips always in the background. It had been madness to take her out into the hall. He had known that he could not fully trust himself around her. When they were