Page 9 of A Little Christmas Magic
The strangled sound that escaped him might have been a laugh. “I will not need it.”
Then he was gone, fleeing through the kitchen and out the back door. She could see him cutting a swath through the snow, stomping away from the house as if he never meant to return.
The memory of the tea leaves—the promise of passion and true love—taunted her now. “They lie. They lie the same as men do.”
Disheartened, humiliated, and still aching for more of those hot, drugging kisses, Polly went into the kitchen and began the preparations for the evening meal.
SIX
December 17th
“Stupid. Bloody, stupid ass,” Oliver muttered.
He’d avoided her since the previous evening, skipping dinner entirely and only returning to the house after he was certain she was abed. That was no mean feat in such a small house. He was forever exiting a room on some pretext as she entered it. He’d spent more time trekking back and forth to the small barn which served as both stable and shed than he’d spent in the house. For the sake of her virtue and his honor, that would simply have to continue.
Halting in his efforts, for indeed the barn all but sparkled as it had been so meticulously cleaned, he wiped the sweat from his brow. The animals sheltering inside that small structure were surveying him as if he were a madman. And perhaps he was. He was haunted by that single kiss. Half the night had been spent tossing and turning in the bed he occupied, painfully aware of the fact that she slept in her own bed only a few feet away. For all of his life, Oliver had prided himself on his control. His ability to keep his temper and to resort to physical urges, be they for violence or more pleasurable pursuits, only on his own terms was something he prided himself on.
She was an innocent. However worldly she might appear, however strange her behavior and notions might be, she was still an innocent young woman of genteel birth.And he had pressed her up against a wall like some dockside wench.
Yes, she’d kissed him. But it had been an innocent thing, that kiss of hers. Sweet, light, lovely—and then he’d fallen on her like some ravening beast. Pressing her up against a wall and tearing at her clothes as if she’d invited that sort of behavior from him when he knew damned well she had not. His cherished self-control was nowhere in evidence.
A kiss was not license to take what he wanted from her. Miss Polly Winters had no notion of just how dangerously close he had been to relieving her of her virginity right there in the corridor. What sort of brute did a thing like that? A brute that he did not wish to be. He was not that man, and lest he allow himself to forget it again, she was most certainly not that sort of woman.
“I am alone with her,” he said to himself, ignoring the neighing and whinnying of the farm horses and the donkey that were stabled there. A sheep bleated at him in what could have been sympathy or mockery. He had no notion which.
The stable was his refuge for the moment, the place where he could be free of her, physically if not mentally. Since he was set to spend so much there, he decided to work off some of his lust—and possibly do penance for his sins—by taking care of the animals. He hated to think she might have had to come out there first thing in the mornings, braving the cold and the snow to tend them herself, but they were well tended regardless.
“More to the point,” he continued as he worked, “Sheis alone with me.Sheis the one who is vulnerable.Sheis the one whom I should be protecting… not pawing at!”
By the time he’d reached a state of such exhaustion that his libidinous urges were well in check, he’d mucked stalls, brushed several of the animals until their coats were gleaming, fed and watered the lot of them, and cleaned some of the tack. In his father’s stables, such chores would have taken the whole of the day. In the small stables there at Mansford Hall, it took only a few hours or so. Long enough that he had worked up a bit of a sweat. Long enough for him to have his passions well in check, even after being tormented by lustful dreams through the night.
Putting away the tools he had used, he opened the door to the stable and stepped out into the snow once more. The wind had died down and no more flakes were falling from the sky. But outside of the tracks he’d made coming to the stable, there was nothing. Even the tracks from the previous day had been covered. There were dangerous drifts, as well. There was nearly a foot of snow altogether, but in places, the depth could well double that thanks to the wind.No escape.
Trudging back to the house, the sweat had chilled on his skin and by the time he entered the warm kitchen, he was shivering. The heavy iron stove was lit, pots simmering atop it and something else roasting away inside it that smelled divine. There was a small fireplace, as well, and a blaze burned cheerily inside it. Moving toward it, he held his hands out before the flames and let them warm. He could hear Miss Winters—Polly—moving around behind him.
Neither of them spoke for the longest time. But the tension stretched between them like a taut rope—frayed and ready to snap. It would be up to him to break that tension.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “There is no excuse for how I behaved yesterday. You have been all that is kind and gracious and I have abused both your hospitality and your trust. Please forgive me, Miss Winters, and know that I will never treat you so improperly again.”
A bowl clattered against the tabletop. “Oh,” she said softly. “Umm… well, Mr. Hawthorne, you need not apologize. After all, I behaved in an incredibly forward manner. It is only natural that you would—-well, make certain assumptions about my virtue or lack thereof.”
He whirled then, stunned at her response. “It was not your fault. Yes, Miss Winters, you initiated that kiss. But I was well aware that it was your first kiss. I understood just how innocent you truly are… and to take the liberties I did… If your brother does return, he should call me out.”
She placed the bowl and spoons she had just cleaned back onto the table and rested her hands flat on the wooden top, her nails curling into the surface of it as she dropped her head forward. “My brother will return. And I do not want him to call you out because I do not ever want to be in a position where I must watch one or the other of you be harmed by typical, male stupidity. As for taking liberties… you did not take anything that I did not willingly and knowingly give!”
“Miss Winters, you are inexperienced—”
Her head lifted then, her chin jutting forward very proudly. “Yes, I am inexperienced. But I am not ignorant. I know precisely what might have occurred between us, and what’s more, Mr. Hawthorne, I would have welcomed it. I make no claims on you. I have no illusions that anything which passes between us here, in this strange snow-filled moment in time, should lead to anything lasting or permanent. Do not insult me further by thinking me an idiot.”
“I’ve never wanted a woman more in my life than I want you.” The admission hung in the air, weighted and heavy. He hadn’t meant to say it, but he could not and would not deny the truth of it.
“Then you should have me, Mr. Hawthorne… Oliver.”
He hadn’t heard her correctly. Surely, he had not. “Miss Winters—”
“Polly,” she corrected softly. “Yes, you heard me correctly. Some things, Oliver, are simply meant to be. The heavens themselves opened up and deposited more snow in one day than we normally see in a year… all just to keep us together under one roof. If that is not a sign, what is?”
Perhaps she was correct. Or perhaps he simply wanted to believe it because it gave him license to take what he wanted so very badly. Regardless, he was moving towards her with mindless determination—simply following instinct. And every instinct said she was his.
