Mistletoe Wishes: A Regency Christmas Collection

The wench didn’t even try to lie about the assignation, blast her impudence. “If he manages to stay on that horse, Horace should make it.”

Fenton showed no great skill as a bareback rider. Even as Kinvarra recognized the wish as unworthy, he hoped the blackguard ended up on his rump in a muddy hedgerow.

“Harold,” she said absently, drawing her cloak tight around her slender throat. “You could take me there.”

This time his laughter was unconstrained. She’d always had nerve, his wife, even when she’d been little more than an untried girl. “Be damned if you think I’m carting you off to cuckold me in comfort, madam.”

She sent him a cool look. “I’m thinking purely in terms of shelter, my lord.”

“I’m sure,” he said cynically.

Still, in spite of his jaded view of the world and its inhabitants, he couldn’t completely stifle his rankling surprise that Alicia had at last chosen a lover. In spite of their lack of communication, he’d always known what she was up to. Since leaving him, she’d been remarkably chaste, which was one of the reasons he’d allowed the ridiculous separation to continue. Clearly living with him for a year had left her with no taste for bed sport. A bitter acknowledgement for a man to make, by God.

Recent gossip had mentioned Lord Harold Fenton as a persistent suitor, but Kinvarra thought he knew enough of his wife to consider the second son of the Marquess of Granville poor competition. Bugger it, he should have listened to the gossip.

By all that was holy, her taste had deteriorated since she’d abandoned her marriage. The man was a complete nonentity.

Perhaps one day she’d thank her husband for saving her from a disastrous mistake.

And the bleak and stony moor around them might suddenly sprout coconut palms.

“No, my love, your fate is sealed.” He slapped his riding crop against his boot and tilted his hat more securely on his head with an arrogant gesture designed to irritate her. “Horatio travels north. I travel south. Unless you intend to ride the other carriage horse or pursue the clodpoll on foot, your direction is mine.”

“Does that mean you will help me?” This time, she didn’t bother correcting his deliberate misremembering of her suitor’s name.

She was lucky he didn’t call the toad Habakkuk and skewer his kidneys with a rapier. Alicia was his. Kinvarra had known that from the first moment he saw her, slender, unsure, but full of a wild vitality that still beckoned him, whatever else divided them. No other damned rapscallion was going to steal her away. Especially a rapscallion who lacked the spine to fight for her.

Kinvarra strode across to his bay mare and snatched up the reins. “If you ask nicely.”

To his surprise, Alicia laughed. “Devil take you, Kinvarra.”

He swung into the saddle and urged the horse nearer to his wife. “Indubitably, my dear.”

Her suddenly cavalier attitude made it easier to deal with her, but it puzzled him. Her lover’s desertion hadn’t cast her down. If she didn’t care for the fellow, why in Hades accept his advances? Yet again, Kinvarra realized how far he remained from understanding the complicated creature he’d wed with such high hopes eleven years ago.

He extended one leather-gloved hand and noted her hesitation before she accepted his assistance. It was the first time he’d touched her since she’d left him, and even through two layers of leather, he felt the burning shock of contact. She stiffened, as though she too felt that unwelcome surge of response.

He’d always wanted her. That was part of the problem, God help them. He’d often asked himself if time would erode the attraction.

Just one touch of her hand on this snowy night, and he received his unequivocal answer.

She swung onto the horse behind him and paused again before looping her arms around his waist. He’d always been hellish aware of her reactions, and he couldn’t help but note her reluctance to touch him.

Good God, what was wrong with the woman? She’d been ready enough to do more than touch rabbit-hearted Fenton. Surely her long-suffering husband deserved a little friendliness after coming to her rescue. With damned little encouragement, too, he might add.

Compared to the cold night, she felt warm and soft against his back. His lunatic heart dipped at her nearness, even as he told himself that the warmth and softness were lies. Alicia Sinclair was made of stone. Or at least she was when it came to her husband. If he forgot that, she’d drag his soul through the razor-sharp thorns of hell again.

But the warning fell on deaf ears. When she touched him, he could think of little else but how long it was since he’d held her in his arms and shown her how strongly she inflamed his unruly passions.

The mare curveted under the double weight, but Kinvarra settled her with a curt word. He never had trouble with horses. It was his wife he couldn’t control.

“What about my belongings?” she asked, calm as you please. The lady should demonstrate proper shame at being caught with a lover. But of course, that wasn’t Alicia. She held her head high, whatever destiny threw at her.

It was one of the things he loved about her.

He quashed the unwelcome insight. “There’s an inn a few miles ahead. I’ll get them to send someone for your baggage.”

He clicked his tongue to the horse and cantered in the opposite direction to the one Fenton had taken. Which was lucky for the weasel. If Kinvarra caught up with Fenton now, he’d be inclined to reach for his horsewhip. What right had that bastard to interfere with other men’s wives, then scuttle away leaving the lady stranded?