Once Upon A Regency Christmas. Louise Allen

Giles almost told her to go and rest, then decided that telling any female that she looked weary was not tactful. ‘Until dinner time, ladies.’

      * * *

      Captain Markham had shaved, donned a clean, if rumpled, shirt and neckcloth, and made some improvement to the state of his breeches and boots. He also looked as though he had managed to snatch some sleep, which was more than Julia had, she thought resentfully as she regarded him across a dinner table much in need of polishing.

      She had lain on the bed in her dusty, draughty chamber and willed herself to sleep, but oblivion would not come. What had kept her awake was the sickening realisation that she had allowed a sentimental memory of childhood Christmases to blind her to reality. She had set out on this journey in a temper, clinging to the belief that at the end of it would be a charming country house, complete with its charming staff. It would all be modest but comfortable, warm and safe.

      Instead she and Miri were stranded in a cold, neglected house, miles from anywhere, with three nervous servants. Plus a turkey they couldn’t even eat. Plus one down-at-heel army captain who looked at her in a way she could not decipher, but which made her both irritated and… aroused, damn him. She had rescued him from a snowstorm. He should be as exhausted as she was and yet he just looked tough and competent and ready to lead a cavalry charge if necessary. Just as soon as he had finished reducing her to idiocy with one glance.

      He didn’t look at Miri that way. He treated her with perfect respect, as though she were no more than the average unmarried girl and, after the first shock, appeared utterly unmoved by her beauty.

      ‘More potatoes, Lady Julia?’ Not that he didn’t treat her with respect also. His manner was perfectly correct, so correct that she kept telling herself that she was imagining the warmth in his regard, the occasional double meaning in what he said. It must be her imagination. She had felt an immediate attraction to him in the carriage so perhaps now she was reading an answering interest where there was none at all. How lowering.

      ‘Thank you.’ The food was adequate. Plain but hot, dull but filling. Miri ate with a delicacy that concealed any distaste for what was unfamiliar for both of them.

      ‘After shipboard fare for months this has to be an improvement.’ She reached for the pepper. ‘But if we stay I must order some spices. I cannot endure such bland seasoning much longer.’

      ‘You are in two minds about remaining?’ Captain Markham twirled the stem of his wine glass slowly between fingers and thumb. The cellar had revealed a number of dusty bottles of dubious vintage and they were cautiously sampling one.

      ‘This house is a disappointment,’ Julia admitted. More than the house, if she was honest. After six years of brutal realism and clear thinking she had allowed freedom to go to her head. She had let herself dream and had followed that dream. She looked at Miri and acknowledged that she had been selfish as well. All for the very best of motives. ‘I will sell it.’

      ‘You will achieve a better price if you wait until the spring,’ Markham suggested. ‘Once it has been cleaned and had a lick of paint and the sun shines on it, it might be transformed.’

      ‘And a maharaja on a white elephant might come down the driveway and offer me chests of gold for it,’ she retorted and was rewarded with a laugh from Miri.

      They ate the apple pie, the desire for cream politely unspoken. ‘There was no port in the cellar, I gather,’ Julia said as she and Miri stood up. ‘We will leave you to your wine. If you will excuse us, we will retire now.’

      ‘Of course.’ The Captain got to his feet. ‘Goodnight, ladies. And my thanks for rescuing me from the snow.’

      Julia saw Miri to her door, then turned, restless, and walked back to the head of the stairs, back to her own door. Dithered. What was the matter with her? She never dithered. Perhaps fresh air would steady her. If nothing else it might drive her to her bed and then, surely, she would sleep.

      She jammed her feet into her half-boots and swung her cloak around her shoulders. The front door opened with its sepulchral groan and then she was picking her way cautiously towards the stables, the only destination for a stroll in the freezing darkness.

      It had stopped snowing and she could see the glow from candles in the room above the stables and the drift of smoke from the stove chimney. Below, the light of one lantern shone out across the trodden snow and she followed it to the door and went in.

      The air was warmer here and smelt of dusty hay and horse. Four heads appeared over the half-doors of the boxes, but Julia did not approach them. She missed her mare, Moonstone, and these handsome beasts were no substitute for a brave little horse who was afraid of nothing, not even elephants. Another mistake, to have sold her, but Julia had thought she was being strong and decisive.

      An irritable sound drew her to the door without a horse behind it. Scratching about in the straw was the turkey, his pompous dignity returned now he was free of the rug. He thrust out his chest and spread his tail at the sight of her.

      ‘Ridiculous creature. You’ve no doubts, have you? You make an idiotic dash into a snowstorm and certain death, but of course you are rescued and looked after and now you will escape your proper fate.’

      Whereas she had made an idiotic escape and ended up here. And if she wasn’t careful and didn’t make the right decisions she would find herself trapped, or lured, or simply cornered into marriage—the proper fate for a rich widow. ‘Oh, what have I done?’ She bent to rest her forehead on her arms, crossed on the top of the loose-box door.

      ‘Well, what have you done?’ a voice behind her asked. Captain Markham.

      ‘Let my heart rule my head,’ she said wearily without moving. ‘I left India full of nostalgia for England, dragging Miri behind me. I hate it here.’

      ‘What will you do?’ He was so close she felt her skirts brush against the backs of her legs. For a moment she thought he would touch her, but he stayed still. It must be she who was shivering with reaction. Not with cold. Not with his heat at her back.

      ‘Go back to India. I know where I am there.’ Who I am.

      ‘Do you love it so much?’ Giles Markham asked softly, the deep voice intimate, as though he asked her about her feelings for a man.

      Julia straightened, but she kept her gaze on the turkey cock. Was it her imagination or could she feel Markham’s breath, warm on her neck?

      ‘Most of the time I fought it as though it was a person, an enemy. But sometimes it was an exotic fairy tale. It can take your breath with beauty and magic so deep and rich it cannot be true. The people. The colours. Oh, and the mornings…just at sunrise, when it was cool and clear and the whole impossible place was coming to life and I would ride my mare and the world was mine.’

      ‘That sounds like love to me. An attraction that goes soul-deep, but which you fought against even as it seduced you.’

      ‘You are a romantic, Captain.’

      She shivered and he moved closer, put his hands on the stable door either side of her, caging her against his heat, the muscled wall of his body. There were responses she should make to that. A sharp elbow in his ribs, the heel of her boot on his toes, a jerk backwards with her head into his face. She knew all the moves, had used them before now.

      Julia turned within the tight space and stared at the top button of his waistcoat. Hitting this man was not what she wanted. ‘A romantic,’ she murmured.

      He made no move to touch her, to crowd closer. ‘Only a man who has ridden at dawn over wide plains before the battle started, who has seen the mist rise and heard the birds begin to sing and who has tried to hold the moment, hoping against hope that the sun will not burn away the mist and the guns will not begin to fire and that the earth will not be reddened with blood.’

      ‘That seems strange for a soldier to say.’

      ‘Soldiers are not immune to beauty. Only a few of us want to fight and kill for the sake of