The Winter Wish (10 page)

“But…
But why?” Sarah asked, her forehead creasing.

“Because
when you are cold you cannot feel alive, and when you are not alive you cannot
feel love.” With a soft murmur Devlin eased the gray down to a walk, and then a
halt. Securing the reins he turned to Sarah and gently drew her hands into his,
his fingers tracing across the delicate bumps of her knuckles as he gazed
earnestly into her eyes. “But I do not feel cold around you, Sarah. I feel
alive, as I have not in years. I loved another once, and when she broke my
heart I swore never to open myself to such pain again.”

It
was beginning to dawn on Sarah that Devlin was trying to tell her he loved her,
albeit in a rather roundabout way. She drew in a deep, trembling breath and
tried to still the hope that quivered wildly within her breast. Hope had not
served her well in the past, and she dared not set it free now, not when there
was still a chance her heart could shatter as surely as Devlin’s had all those
years ago. “What are you trying to say?” she pressed, searching his eyes for the
answer to the most important question of all.

“What
am I trying to say?” Devlin repeated wryly. Before she could brace herself he
had his arms around her waist and she was whisked into his lap. Stifling her
gasp of surprise with a quick brush of his mouth against hers, he cradled her
against his chest as if she were made of the finest glass and whispered in her
ear, so soft as to barely be heard: “I love you.”

“You…
You love me?”

“And
I want to marry you.”

“You
want to
marry
me?”  

“Yes,
you silly girl.” Stroking his fingers through her hair, he loosened the knot
that held her braid in place and began to unwind the sections until it laid
like a waterfall of tousled gold over her shoulders. “I loved you from the
first moment I saw you, even though I was too proud to admit it. I loved you on
that first sleigh ride when you were so delightfully nervous you could barely
speak a word, and I shall love you to the last one when we know each other so
well no words will need to be spoken. You are my light, Sarah Mine. My heart.
My love.” He punctuated each declaration with a kiss to her cheek, his lips
chasing away the tears that fell from her lashes. “Do not cry,” he murmured,
pulling her even closer. “You should be happy, not sad.”

Tipping
her head back Sarah gazed up at him through her tears and managed a choked
laugh. “I
am
happy,” she assured him. “Happier than I ever dared to be.”

“Good.”
He nodded. “Now tell me you love me as well.”

“I
love you as well,” she said obediently.

Devlin’s
brow furrowed. “That did not sound very convincing.”

Clasping
her arms around his neck, Sarah squeezed him to her as tight as she could. “I
love you.” She kissed his chin. “I love you.” She kissed the tip of his nose.
“I love you.”

Devlin
frowned. “You missed a spot,” he said, pointing to his mouth.

“Did
I?” Sarah blinked innocently. “Well, I shall have to fix that.”

“At
once,” he said.

“At
once,” she agreed.

Laughing,
the two lovers clung to each other in an embrace so passionate that for a
moment, a moment so quick if you blinked it would be missed, the sun shone a
bit more brightly and the snow, for the first time all winter, began to thaw.

READ ON FOR AN EXCERPT FROM
A BROODING BEAUTY
, THE
FIRST NOVELLA IN THE WEDDED WOMAN QUARTET BY JILLIAN EATON!

CHAPTER ONE

“Marcus,
I want a divorce.”

Marcus
William Thomas Windfair, the seventh Duke of Kensington, looked up from his
ledgers to stare dispassionately at his wife. She gazed back at him unflinchingly,
her rosebud mouth set in an uncompromising line and her sapphire blue eyes
alight with a stubborn glow he knew only too well. 

When
Marcus first met Catherine Nettle at her debut ball four years ago she had been
the most fetching girl in the room. He had been drawn to her almost
immediately, entranced by the bewitching curve of her lips and the musical
sound of her laughter. Unfortunately, womanhood had only served to take his
wife from enchanting to breathtakingly beautiful.

She
was petite, almost ethereally so, with a willow like build, soft ivory skin,
and a tousled waterfall of gleaming blond hair. This morning she was dressed in
a blue gown that accentuated her nipped in waist and delicate features. Her
hair was swept back in a loose chignon and pearl earrings hung daintily from
her ears. The earrings had been his wedding gift to her, and she had taken to
wearing them only when she wanted something.

“No,”
he said flatly before turning his attention back to the row of figures he had
been calculating. A slim hand descended on his desk, grasped the ledger, and
plucked it away. “Catherine,” he sighed. “You are being childish. I do not have
time for one of your tantrums this morning.”

“Tantrums?”
A golden eyebrow shot up. “I do not have tantrums, darling, I have moods. Now I
have all the paperwork in order. All I need is your signature.”

“For
the third time,” Marcus grinded out, “we are not getting divorced. It is simply
not done. Now give me the ledger and get the bloody hell out of my study.”

“Not
done
often
,” Catherine corrected him, holding the ledger just out of
reach. “But it is done. We do not love each other, Marcus. We never have.” She
gazed at him beseechingly; her blue eyes swirling with emotion.

Marcus
wondered absently if she would begin to cry. Catherine was a magnificent
actress, a talent he unfortunately had not discovered until after they were
wed. Following their first tumultuous year of marriage they had more or less
gone their separate ways. He lived at Kensington estate during the winter
months while she flitted from ball to ball in London, and she came to the
country with the rest of the
Ton
during the summer while he conducted
his business from the city. It was a convenient arrangement. Or at least it had
been until she got the ridiculous notion of divorce stuck in her head.

For
the past two weeks she had hounded him like a dog worrying a bone, even going
so far as to follow him from London to Kensington, something she had vowed
never to do barring some kind of life threatening accident, where upon she had
informed him she would most gladly come to the country to attend his
funeral. 

With
distance between them Marcus could begin to forget what his wife smelled like.
What she tasted like. He could focus on her bad traits, of which there were
certainly plenty to choose from. He could even begin to ignore the pitiable,
embarrassing fact that he was still irrevocably in love with a woman who, by
all accounts, despised the very ground he walked on.

Now,
however, she was there every time he turned around. In his study, in the dining
room at dinner, in the stables with his favorite mare. She had become a second
shadow, one he neither needed nor wanted. His wife was driving him mad.

“I
will be leaving to visit Woodsgate on the morrow,” he said as sudden
inspiration struck. Wondering why he had not thought of it sooner, his mouth
curved in a faint smile. Catherine may have left the luxury of her London townhouse to follow him out to the country, but she would never traipse halfway
across Scotland to go to Woodsgate, a small, downtrodden fifty acre hunting
lodge that had been left to him by a distant uncle. “I do not know how long I
will be gone. It would probably be best if you returned to London in my
absence.”

“Woodsgate?”
Catherine echoed. Her lips parted in dismay. “What in heaven’s name for? You
have not been there for nearly two years.” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You
would not be going there to avoid me, would you Marcus? That would be very ill
mannered of you.”

“And
what if I am?” he snapped, standing in one smooth motion to lean into his desk
with long arms well muscled from years of riding. “What are you doing here,
Catherine? What is all of this? I have told you, there will be no divorce and
that is the end of it! Now do as I say and get out.”

“No!”
she shouted back, taking him by surprise. Even when she was in the throes of
one of her infamous tempers, his wife rarely raised her voice.

“No,
Marcus,” she said in a calmer tone. “You will not ignore me this time.” The sun
streamed through the gossamer curtains at her back and illuminated her entire
body in a soft, otherworldly glow. She looked like a furious fairy queen bent
on ravaging war against her enemy: namely, him.

Sweeping
his dark hair from his forehead in an agitated gesture, Marcus turned and
crossed to his liquor cabinet in the corner of the room. He poured two shots of
his finest scotch and downed them both in rapid succession.

“Drinking
before noon?” Catherine sneered. “How like you, Marcus.”

“Acting
like a bitch before noon? How like
you
, Catherine,” he countered
swiftly, keeping his back to her. He heard her gasp of indignation and then his
left shoulder exploded in pain. Whirling, he realized she had hurled the bronze
stature of a nude woman he kept on the corner of his desk at him. Catherine had
always despised the statue; she never imagined it was modeled after her.

“That
bloody well hurt,” he growled, rubbing his throbbing shoulder.

Her
small chest heaving, Catherine crossed her arms and glared at him. “Good! I
hope it did! I have said it before and I shall say it again, Marcus. I am not
leaving until you give me what I want.”

In
two powerful strides he was across the study and standing in front of her.
Before she had time to react he curled one hand around the small of her back
and yanked her against him until they were chest to chest, belly to belly,
groin to groin. He felt her sharp intake of breath and held her tightly as she
tried to twist away. When she raised her small fists to strike at him he
captured her delicate wrists in one easy swipe and smiled grimly. Enough was
enough. He was done indulging Catherine’s fantasies of divorce. It was time to
put her firmly in her place.

“Marcus!
Let me go,” she protested, continuing to turn this way and that in a futile
attempt to escape.

A
sharp elbow caught him on the side of his head and he grunted, but did not
lessen his grip. “No,” he said, his voice hoarse as her writhing attempts to
free herself spurred an immediate reaction in the heart of his loins. “You are
my wife Catherine, and while I know that notion no longer holds any appeal for
you we took oaths before God. I will not break them!”

“But
why
?” she cried desperately. “I am not one of your things to be put on a
shelf and left to collect dust. We hardly see each other as it is. We… we have
not shared the same bedroom in over three years.”

A
fact Marcus was painfully aware of at the moment. Catherine kept her face
turned stubbornly away from him, but he could see the slender column of her throat
and the pulse that fluttered there, slight as a butterfly’s wing. The urge to
lean in and nip at the exposed flesh, to nuzzle and lick and kiss the ivory
skin, was so tempting he released her abruptly before he did something he would
soundly regret later.

“As
I said, I will be leaving for Woodsgate tomorrow,” he gritted out, stepping
back behind the desk to hide his bulging arousal. “Return to the city and never
speak of divorce again. I am done indulging your whims. I am your husband and you
will do as I command!”

Catherine’s
eyes rounded as twin blotches of color appeared high on her cheeks. Her mouth
curled derisively. “I am not a dog, Marcus. You cannot simply order me to go
here or go there and
command
me to forget things. Go to your rotting
shack in the highlands. I shall still be here when you return. I will not stop
following you, dearest husband of mine, until I get what I want. I will make
your life a living hell!”