Her Christmas Earl

Impatience tightened Philippa’s lips and she met Blair’s steady regard across her sister’s blond head. Despite everything, she smiled at him and he nodded in open approval. The warmth in her heart surged anew. She couldn’t remember anyone ever approving of her before either.

Then she returned her attention to Amelia. “You have my word I won’t.”

Amelia started to cry again and slumped in Philippa’s arms, playing the tragic heroine for all she was worth. “If he finds out about this, he’ll hate me.”

Blair still watched Philippa and she felt a pang of longing for a private moment with him, to examine the miracle that had taken place between them. He’d asked her to trust him and she had. It sounded simple, yet it was the most complicated, magnificent event in the world.

“Come upstairs, Amelia,” she said again, wishing she wasn’t parting, however temporarily, from the man she’d marry in the morning. “I’ll put you to bed with a headache powder and a cup of tea and nobody need be any wiser about what’s happened.”

Blair’s mobile mouth quirked into a conspiratorial smile, as if he guessed how reluctantly she accompanied Amelia. Not long ago, Philippa had wondered if she’d ever smile again. Now she found herself smiling back. Silently his lips formed the word “tomorrow.”

He caught her free hand in his. The strengthening heat of his touch flowed into her.

“I honor you,” he whispered, bowing over her trembling fingers with a reverence that made her unruly heart cramp with yearning. His lips brushed her skin, sweet promise of caresses to come. She couldn’t wait.

With a regret she noted and appreciated, he stepped back. She reached out to touch his cheek in a feather-light acknowledgment of the link between them before she turned back to Amelia.

Gently she coaxed her sniffling sister past Caroline and toward the door. Tomorrow would come quickly. Until then, it was enough to know that she and Blair had made an excellent start on their life together.

Chapter Seven

CANDLES LIT THE cavernous bedroom to gold, setting shadows dancing in the corners. Christmas greenery decked the walls, adding a festive touch.

Wearing a crimson dressing gown over his nakedness, Erskine quietly closed the door from the adjoining chamber. He stepped toward the huge four-poster in the center of the room. Carved oak columns stretched toward the high ceiling. Lords and ladies in faded gilt costumes pranced across the headboard. He guessed that some previous landlord of Salisbury’s best inn, the Boar’s Head, had bought the furnishings from a once-grand family. This particular bed wouldn’t be out of place in Hampton Court.

Sitting against piled pillows in the midst of all this grandeur was one small woman wearing a plain white flannel nightgown. She clutched the blankets to her chest and her expression brought Christians and lions to mind, with the Earl of Erskine playing the lion. He didn’t need to see her slender throat move as she swallowed to know that the girl was petrified.

“My lord,” Philippa whispered.

“My lady,” he responded, smiling in what he hoped was a reassuring fashion. The impulse rose to take her in his arms and tell her everything would be fine, but he beat it back. He had a horrible feeling that if he touched her right now, she’d shriek louder than her mother had on Christmas Eve.

His bride had been quiet all day. She’d hardly eaten at the wedding breakfast and appreciating how difficult the last days had been, he’d given her a few hours alone on the journey from Hartley Manor. He’d ridden through the cold afternoon while she’d traveled inside his luxurious carriage. Now that he noted how scared she looked—much more frightened than earlier—he wondered if he’d have done better to keep her company. On her own, she’d clearly tormented herself with imaginary terrors. They’d stopped for dinner at an inn along the way, but the place had been busy and private conversation had been impossible.

Aware that tonight he set the tone of his future, he diverted from his path. He veered toward the sideboard, set out with delicacies and, more importantly, a decanter of claret.

“Would you like something to eat?” Her pale face and glittering eyes told him that he needed to work up to discussing anything important.

She shook her head. Her hair lay loose around her shoulders. He’d never seen her hair undone, although it had been beguilingly untidy by the time they left his dressing

room. The flowing curtain of mahogany transformed her into a mysterious and sensual creature. A dryad or a fairy. There was a masculine satisfaction in knowing that only he had seen this secret, enchanting version of his wife. Watching him with her characteristic gravity, she was beautiful beyond fantasy. And he’d fantasized a lot.

What a lucky devil he was.

Which made what he did now even more important. He’d always approached bed sport with a light heart, if heart was involved at all. How strange to recognize that despite his experience, tonight he was a novice like his bride. Never had getting everything right mattered so much. He respected Philippa’s strength, but despite her strength, she was delicate. And she’d been shockingly undervalued by the people who should love her the most. At this moment, he made the silent vow that he’d never let her down.

He poured claret for both of them and approached the bed, sitting to face her. Her mysterious dark eyes widened at his nearness but at least she didn’t shrink away. He passed his wife a glass of wine.

His wife…

He liked the sound of that. It made him feel disgracefully proprietorial.

With his marriage, he took his place in the world in a way that he never had before. He remembered his overbearing father dismissing him as a wastrel with his dying breath. But now Blair Hume was a married man who looked forward to creating a family.

Perhaps he’d start that family this very night.

Another male thrill coursed through him.

“Shall we toast our wedding?”