A Christmas Letter: Snowbound in the Earl's Castle. Shirley Jump

realised how much she’d been waiting for it, or how badly she’d wanted it.

      His lips touched hers, so gently, so softly, it made her want to cry all over again. She’d expected fierceness, but if anything this tenderness was more devastating. She met him, moved her lips against his, but she didn’t want to rush, didn’t want to hurry. This was too sweet, too perfect. She wanted to suspend this moment in time and make it last for ever.

      His breath was warm against her mouth, and she couldn’t resist touching her tongue softly to his bottom lip, tasting him, drawing in that warmth. He shuddered in response, and something swelled within her even as she sensed him resist the urge to use his superior strength to pull her to him and lose himself in her.

      Faith had never wanted to be thought of as fragile. She was tough. She could cope. She could batten down the hatches and make it through. But the way he held her, touched her, as if she was made of delicate glass, unravelled something inside her—something she hadn’t even been aware had been wound up tight.

      He paused for a moment, pulled his lips gently from hers with exquisite softness. Just as he was about to kiss her again, just as sensitive skin was about to meet sensitive skin, there was an almighty crash on the other side of the room.

      He jumped up, and Faith was left there sitting on the table, eyes closed, mouth more than ready. At first she thought one of the haphazard piles of stuff had finally given in to gravity, but when she opened her eyes and followed Marcus’s trail through the dust she realised what was going on.

      It was the door. Someone was trying to ram it open from the other side. They were saved.

      Faith slid off the table, hugged her arms around herself and watched. Marcus yelled instructions from their side, and more crashes against the sturdy old wooden door followed. She could see it moving, millimetre by millimetre.

      Using the table to gain extra height, she retrieved Marcus’s phone from the window frame. The text had sent itself more than fifteen minutes ago.

      Marcus stood back from the door as one final shove from the other side unjammed the slab of oak and a burly man stumbled into the room under the force of his own momentum. Marcus moved forward to check he was all right.

      Faith didn’t move.

      She couldn’t. A whole squadron of butterflies were doing aerial acrobatics in her stomach. She couldn’t do anything but watch Marcus, wait for his gaze to connect with hers again, to see if the look in his eyes confirmed that what had just happened between them had really happened, that it hadn’t all just been a dream.

      Marcus thanked the man, shook his hand then picked the doorstop up with a flourish and wedged it under the open door. Only when that was done did he lift his head and look at her. The butterflies started dive-bombing.

      It was real. It had been real.

      Oh, jeepers. What was she going to do now?

      Suddenly her feet were free and she found herself jogging towards the door. She grinned at the burly man, thanking him profusely, knowing she was overdoing it and sounding like a clown in a sideshow. She moved to pass him, to cross the threshold and escape.

      ‘Faith …’ A hand shot out and caught her wrist, but so lightly that she could pull away if she wanted to.

      She wanted to.

      Marcus’s words were left hanging in the air. She licked her lips and looked away, trying not to think about the feel of his mouth there, the soft promises he’d silently delivered. Promises that shouldn’t exist. Promises he couldn’t keep. She looked away.

      ‘I’ll see you at dinner,’ she muttered, sliding her wrist from his grasp. Then she placed his phone into his empty hand and ran up the spiral stone staircase to the ground floor.

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      DINNER was quiet. Faith had spent a lot of it looking in his direction without actually looking at him. She didn’t avoid his gaze entirely, but when she did meet his eyes her expression was blank, empty. Disconnected.

      Marcus felt a tug of guilt deep down in his gut, even though in the moments before their lips had touched she’d tipped her head back and all but invited him to kiss her. He hadn’t meant to make her feel like this.

      When instead of joining him and his grandfather in the drawing room after dinner she excused herself and headed upstairs, Marcus followed. His grandfather’s eyes glittered as he left the room. Sly old fox.

      Marcus caught up with her on the wide stone staircase. ‘Faith!’ he called softly.

      She stopped, but didn’t turn.

      He closed the gap.

      She started to move again, but he reached for her, hooking the ends of his curled fingers into hers, and that was all it took to stop her. She stared into the distance, even though the thick wall was only ten feet in front of her.

      He gently moved the tips of his fingers, feeling the smaller, sensitive pads of hers beneath his own. Her head snapped round and she looked at him.

      He saw it all, then—the tug of war happening behind her eyes. Something in her expression melted, met him.

      ‘We need to talk,’ he said.

      She didn’t nod, didn’t say anything, but he saw the agreement in her eyes. However, now he had her where he wanted her he wasn’t sure what to say. Sorry? He realised he didn’t want to—because he wasn’t. Those few stolen moments in the cellar had tasted like freedom.

      He took a leap, giving her more honesty than he’d planned to. ‘I’ve wanted to do that since almost the first moment I met you,’ he said.

      Faith let out a heavy breath, her eyes still locked on his. Once again he felt that sense of accord, harmony—and a hint of wry acknowledgement.

      She shook her head and looked at their linked fingers before returning her gaze to his face. ‘You? Me? I don’t know what this is …’ She pressed her free hand to her breastbone. ‘But it can’t go anywhere, even if we want it to.’

      God, he wanted it to. The force of that realisation hit him like a thunderclap. It didn’t help that he knew she was right. Neither of them wanted this, were ready for this.

      He let go of her hand. Her eyes shimmered with regret, and a little sadness. He breathed out hard.

      ‘It’s only a couple of weeks,’ she said, ‘and then I’ll be gone. Can we try to keep it professional until then—or at the very least platonic?’

      He heard the hidden plea, knew she was balancing on a knife-edge, just as he was, torn between doing what was right and what felt right. Suddenly he had the overwhelming urge to protect her, save her. It washed over him in a warm wave, starting at his toes and ending at his ears, and then settled into a small hard rock inside his chest.

      He nodded. ‘Goodnight, Faith,’ he said, his voice low.

      Her eyes filled with silent gratitude. ‘Goodnight, Marcus.’

      It was only as he watched her walk up the stairs that he realised he was protecting her from himself.

      Faith did her best to keep busy the next day. She got to the studio early, determined to remove the last of the glass from the old lead. Each fragment she removed was placed on the carefully drawn template she’d made. It was slow work, but absorbing, and it kept her mind off things she didn’t want to think about. However, as the hand on the clock moved closer to four her heart-rate refused to settle into its normal rhythm.

      Would he come?

      At four-fifteen she had her answer. There was a rap on the door, but this time, instead of opening it a split-second later, he waited for her reply. Marcus was good with boundaries, she realised. He wouldn’t overstep their agreement, and she knew she wouldn’t have to remind him of it even once in the coming fortnight. So why didn’t that make her feel any happier?

      ‘Come