His Housekeeper's Christmas Wish

‘And you.’ Alex freed one hand and clasped his friend’s. ‘Give Charlie a hug from me.’

‘Who is Charlie?’ Tess asked as he carried her into the inn. It was seductively pleasurable, being carried by a man. For a moment she indulged the fantasy that this was her lover, sweeping her away...

‘His son.’ Alex’s terse answer jerked her out of the dream.

‘Mr Rivers is married?’ Somehow he had not looked married, whatever that looked like.

‘Widowed.’ Alex’s tone gave no encouragement for further questions.

Perhaps that was why Grant Rivers’s eyes were so sad. She closed her lips on questions that were sure to be intrusive as the landlord came out to greet them.

‘LeGrice, I need an extra room.’ Alex was obviously known and expected. ‘A comfortable, quiet chamber for the lady, a maid to attend her, hot baths for both of us and then the best supper you can lay on in my private parlour.’

‘Milord.’ Known, expected and not to be denied, obviously. The innkeeper was bustling about as though the Prince Regent had descended on his establishment. Perhaps she would see the Prince Regent when she was in London. Tess was distracted enough by this interesting thought not to protest when she was carried upstairs and into a bedchamber.

The sight of the big bed was enough to jerk her out of fantasies of state coaches and bewigged royalty, let alone thoughts of romance. ‘Please put me down.’

It must have come out more sharply than she intended. Alex stopped dead. ‘That was my intention.’

‘Here. Just inside the door. This is a bedchamber.’

‘I know. The clue lies in the fact that there’s a bed in it.’ He was amused by her vapours, she could hear it in his voice, a deep rumble that held a laugh hidden inside it.

Her ear was pressed against his chest. Tess jerked her head upright. ‘Then, please put me down. You should not be in my bedchamber.’

‘I was last night when I put you to bed.’

‘Two wrongs do not make a right,’ she said and winced at how smug she sounded.

‘Nanny used to say that, did she?’ Alex walked across to the hearthside and deposited her on a chair.

‘Sister Benedicta,’ Tess confessed. ‘I sounded just like her, how mortifying.’

‘Why mortifying?’ He leaned one shoulder against the high mantelshelf and lounged, as pleasing to the eye as a carefully placed piece of statuary, the lamplight teasing gilt highlights out of what she had thought was simply dark blond hair. She wondered how much of that lazy perfection was deliberately cultivated.

‘Because it was a commonplace thing to say and I have no intention of being commonplace.’

That faint smile curled Alex’s mouth again and Tess found herself staring at his lower lip and puzzling over why, when he smiled, which stretched his lips, the centre of the lower one seemed somehow fuller.

‘That is an uncharitable insult to Sister Benedicta,’ she said hastily. ‘Only sometimes, when she managed to string an entire conversation together consisting of nothing but clichés, I had to bite my lip to stop myself screaming in sheer boredom.’ Biting lips...why on earth should that image...? Stop it!

‘I will remove my dangerous male presence from your bedchamber and leave you to bathe in comfort.’ He straightened up and strolled to the door. ‘Supper in an hour, do you think?’

‘Yes. Perfect. This is lovely, thank you. A fire and a hot bath and a maid,’ Tess gabbled, as a pretty girl, all apple cheeks and blond braids, ducked under Alex’s arm as he held the door open. He simply grinned at her and went out.

This was indeed the Primrose Path to Perdition. Luxury, warmth, leisure, being waited on. And all because she hadn’t had the willpower to stay awake last night and insist she be taken down to Sister Clare to do her duty. It was not fair, she had thought she had conquered all those silly yearnings and what-ifs and if-onlys. Now she was having a taste of things she had dreamed about, all served up by an attractive man, and it would make her new life that much harder to adjust to. My dangerous male presence. Oh, yes, indeed.

It’s a hair shirt, that’s what it is, she thought wildly as a serving man lugged in a tin bath, set it in front of the fire and another brought buckets of steaming water to fill it. She was being given a hint of the life she might have had if Mama and Papa had not died, if she’d had a few pounds to her name. If she’d had a family.

If...if. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. And there’s another cliché. The maid said something and Tess grabbed her handkerchief, blew her nose inelegantly and made herself concentrate. ‘Dank u,’ she said and submitted to having her cloak unfastened and her gown unlaced. ‘Wat is uw naam?’