Mistletoe Wishes: A Regency Christmas Collection

“More than all right.”

This was the first chance she’d had to see him properly since her candle had flickered out, all those tumultuous hours ago. He looked younger. And happy. And free from the burden of what she now recognized as unsatisfied desire. She only noted the signs of his tension by their absence. A tightness around his eyes and jaw. A rigid straightness of the shoulders. A certain care with how he moved.

Now Joss looked like a man at ease in his world in a way he hadn’t since his arrival. How glad Maggie was to know that he’d found joy in her arms.

She pushed the blankets aside and slid over to make room for him. One thing she’d promised herself before she closed her eyes—she wasn’t going to spoil current happiness with fretting about future misery. “Come back to bed.”

“That’s a tempting invitation.”

“I hope so.”

He strode forward and set her shawl on the bed beside her and her slippers on the floor. Her heart had leaped so high at the sight of him that she hadn’t noticed what he carried.

“First, I’d like you to come downstairs. I’ve got something to say, and my bedroom isn’t the right venue.”

She frowned, although she sat up and swung her feet to the ground, grateful that she was respectably covered. Before falling asleep, she’d tugged her nightdress over her nakedness. Without Joss’s incendiary presence, she’d felt awkward, lying in his bed without a stitch to cover her.

“You’re being very mysterious.”

If she hadn’t seen his happiness, if he hadn’t told her she was a miracle, she might fear that he meant to say their liaison couldn’t continue. But when he’d opened his arms to her, he also opened the doors of his soul. Now he was being tantalizingly enigmatic, but she didn’t sense any withdrawal from their essential closeness.

“Aren’t I just?” He dropped to his knees in front of her. She smiled to see the tangled mess of thick black curls, as he bent his head to his task. Her Joss would never be a neat, conventional man. “Let me help you with your slippers. I’d hate your feet to get cold.”

All impulse to laughter evaporated. Maggie gulped back the emotion that surged to jam her throat. Nobody had looked after her in years. Yet Joss had cared for her from the first. Odd to think back to how angry she’d been when he’d carried her down to the kitchens that first night.

“I can manage.”

“Let me.” He slid her slippers onto her feet.

“You’re smiling.” She reached out to touch the groove of amusement creasing his cheek.

The fondness in his smile reassured her further. He’d asked her to trust him. It was too late to start building defensive walls.

“I was thinking if you only knew how frequently white flannel has featured in my fantasies since we met.”

A low laugh escaped her. “I’m sorry I didn’t come to you in silk and satin.”

“I’m not. I’m just glad you came to me at all. You make me so happy, Maggie.”

“And you make me happy, Joss,” she whispered. At that moment it was true. What ensued in the coming weeks, months, years had no power to destroy her pleasure in his presence.

With a gentleness that made tears prick her eyes—dear heaven, she threatened to become a watering pot—he lifted one foot and placed a kiss on her instep. The sensation of his lips on her skin made the deepest parts of her body heat and soften.

Joss raised his head and smiled again. She’d always loved his smile. She loved the way it added flashing charm to his rugged features.

When they’d first met, she’d thought him appealing, if not exactly handsome. Tonight, after nearly a week in his company, she thought him the most attractive man she’d ever met. She wouldn’t trade an inch of that rugged, quirky, interesting face for the greatest beau in the kingdom.

“Don’t look at me like that, or I’ll forget good intentions.”

She smiled back. “I like it when you forget good intentions.”

His grip on her foot tightened. “So do I.”

To her regret, he replaced her foot on the floor and rose. He lifted the candelabra and stretched out his hand. “Come with me.”

Wrapping her shawl around her shoulders, she stood. “Won’t you tell me what this is about?”

“Don’t you like surprises?”