A Birmingham Family Christmas (Brazen Brides Book 5) Read online

  Adam flashed an adoring look at his wife. "It's you, my love, who make all your gowns look beautiful."

  Emma turned to Annabelle. "Am I not the most fortunate woman in the kingdom?"

  "Indeed you are, and you deserve every happiness."

  "Is anyone going to play?" Spencer asked.

  There was no joviality during their play. Spencer's brooding mood had cast a pall over everything. Each time she tossed down a card and looked up, his lichen eyes were upon hers, an inscrutable expression on his handsome face.She felt as if something was distracting him. Was he thinking about the woman who had broken his heart?Even though being in his presence had been bittersweet, she had craved being with him. But not tonight. Tonight she felt nothing but his contempt.

  When their game was finished, she feigned sleepiness and fled to the sanctuary of her bedchamber.

  * * *

  Before Adam and his wife climbed the stairs, Spencer stopped in front of Adam. "I beg a word in private."

  Adam's brows hiked. He nodded to his wife to go on, and he stayed in the drawing room with Spencer."I appreciate that you and Mrs. Birmingham think highly enough of me to play matchmaker with Miss Lippincott and me," Spencer began, his voice low, "but I beg that you not do so. I don't wish to be partners with her at whist, nor do I wish to ride in the sleigh with her, or any of the schemes you and your wife have concocted to keep us together. It's nothing against Miss Lippincott. It's something personal with me."

  Adam's eyes widened, and he drew a deep breath. "Emma's disappointment will be nothing to Miss Lippincott's humiliation. Are you sure you wish to offend her like that?"

  "I'm sure." Cruelty was to be met with cruelty.

  Chapter 6

  When Annabelle returned to her room, a smug-looking Marie regarded her. "I believe mademoiselle is in love, no?"

  Annabelle blew out an impatient breath. "Can I not keep anything from you?"

  "It is just that after so long Marie knows you too well."

  A fire had been laid, and Marie had laid her mistress's warm night gown on the tall tester bed where heavy velvet curtains had been closed around one side.

  "And who is this man who has captivated you?" Marie began to unfasten the back of her mistress's dress.

  Annabelle stepped out of it and the pantaloons, and her maid unfastened her stays. She had not told a single person about Spencer, but she'd never succeeded at withholding anything from her perceptive maid. She sighed. "You remember the man I wished to marry eleven years ago?" She braced herself for Marie's angry tirade against her former suitor.Marie froze. Her eyes narrowed. "You do not mean that horrid pitchfork!"

  Annabelle could fully understand Marie wanting to stab the heartbreaker with a pitchfork, but to call him a pitchfork? Did she mean he was a devil? Then she realized what Marie had so clumsily tried to articulate. "You mean rake?"

  The maid shrugged. "One garden instrument is much the same as another to me, but that is not important. What is important is that this wicked man, he is trying to get his greedy hands on mademoiselle's fortune!" She began to slip the night gown over her mistress's shoulders.Shaking her head, Annabelle shimmied into the gown, moved to her dressing table, and collapsed onto her chair. "Nothing could be further from the truth. He thinks no more of me than a piece of furniture. He hasn't been at all civil to me."

  Marie began removing the diamond pins from Annabelle's hair. "Mademoiselle is just being modiste."

  "Modest."

  "See, you admit it! Marie, she knows, that in the dresses you wore last night and tonight, you look most lovely. Men, they admire women with grand breasts, and yours are very grand."

  Of course her boy-chested maid was using grand in the French sense. Large. There was nothing grand about those hideously large appendages to Annabelle's chest."He admires nothing about me."

  Marie stopped brushing her mistress's hair. "That I do not believe. Did he not at one time confess that he was in love with you?"

  Annabelle nodded.

  "Did he not ask you to marry him?"

  "He did, but he changed his mind."

  "If he loved you once he cannot be, how do you say? Manured to you now?"

  Immune. "I know what you're trying to say, but you're wrong. It's because another woman stole him away. He has admitted to my cousin's husband that the woman crushed his heart, and he can never love again."

  Annabelle buried her face in her hands, weeping. Knowing that he had loved another woman that much hurt even worse than his jilting of her.Marie tenderly patted her then left the chamber as quietly as a kitten.

  * * *

  The following morning, Annabelle awakened when the parlor maid came to lay a new fire. She lay in her bed beneath the covers until the room warmed, then she donned a woolen wrapper and padded to her window.

  Snow had fallen during the night, blanketing the parkland in front of Camden Hall and dusting the distant trees. Snow no longer fell from the gray skies. She stood there for several moments. Today was Christmas Eve. She recalled Nick's toast the first night when he'd hoped for the happiest Christmas ever. She prayed Verity was in good health and would make it to Camden for Christmas. For herself, there would be no more happy Christmases. Ever.

  * * *

  Spencer was strangely absent from the breakfast room that morning. Annabelle told herself she was far better off not having to endure his icy presence, but no amount of rational reasoning could lift her sagging spirits. The fact was she greatly looked forward to being with him even if he did treat her almost as if she were non-existent.Lady Fiona and Emmie entered the chamber, and Emmie could not control her excitement. "The lads loved their swords!"

  Her mother nodded. "Emmie and I delivered them along with the baskets this morning."

  Emmie nodded happily. "The lads all launched into sword fights with one another. It looked like ever so much fun." She spun to her mother. "Can I have one?"

  Lady Fiona gave the girl a stern look. "May you?"

  Emmie nodded contritely. "May I have a toy sword?"

  "I don't think it's a lady-like pursuit. What do you think, Papa?" Lady Fiona eyed Nick.

  His dark eyes flashing with mirth, he shook his head. "I'll not permit my little girl to have any kind of sword. And that's that."

  "I'm sure your father will have something else you'll enjoy," Lady Fiona said. "He always does."

  By the time they finished with breakfast, the sleighs had been brought around. They were to go to the wood to gather holly to decorate the house for the Yule.When Spencer came down the stairs Annabelle's pulse quickened. He offered a curt greeting to the group as a whole, avoiding eye contact with her.Once again, Nick and Lady Fiona, with their daughter, and William and Lady Sophia climbed into their sleigh.As Annabelle approached the other sleigh, Adam abruptly stepped forward to assist her. "My wife wishes to sit beside her cousin today."

  The quizzing look Emma gave Adam did not escape Annabelle. The two ladies sat on the forward-looking side, and the gentlemen faced them.Something was wildly amiss. Had Spencer refused to sit by her? The man had the power to pile one humiliation after another upon her already overloaded shoulders. He hadn't even the decency to offer her a greeting.

  No rug was offered today, either. Unlike the previous day, she managed to keep herself in an upright position. No plunging into the icy snow today. Was her clumsiness responsible for repulsing him? She had never been clumsy in her life, and now whenever she was with him, she embarrassed herself.

  As she sat in the sleigh beside Emma, she tried to suppress the memory of sharing the rug with him just the previous day. Though nothing intimate had occurred, every moment beneath that fur had spoken to the potential for an intimacy unlike anything she had ever experienced.

  Nausea rising, she willed herself not to cry. She somehow managed to level her voice. "We missed you at breakfast, Mr. Woodruff."

  "I wasn't hungry."

  "You might be pleased to know that Lady Fiona and Emmie delivered the swords
this morning, and the lads loved them," Annabelle said.

  Adam nodded. "They immediately began sword fighting with one another."

  Spencer rolled his eyes. "Their parents won't thank us."

  "We're fortunate, Mr. Woodruff, that you've joined us for gathering the holly," Emma said in her usual cheerful manner.

  Annabelle turned to her cousin. "Emmie's the attraction for him."Adam looked at her. "Oh, yes! Woodruff did say being around her would help console for the absence of his niece and nephew."

  "He does love children," Emma offered.

  It was obvious they were all pressing too hard to carry on a conversation with this man whose manner was just short of being abrasive.

  When they reached the wood, Annabelle was happy to remove herself from his presence. She was grievously unhappy that Spencer had the same idea. He moved away from her the moment they left the sleigh. All the married couples paired up, and she was forced to walk through the wood alone. Another humiliation. Was Spencer counting each of her humiliations as scores in some bizarre game?

  Lady Fiona provided baskets and small scissors for each adult. Annabelle took hers and, because Spencer was staying near the child, went off by herself in the opposite direction. She lifted her skirts to keep them from sweeping the snow. Even though she'd worn her half boots over woolen stockings, her feet stung from iciness.Not a single holly bush was in her sight. Were they all on the north side where Nick and Fiona had led? The tall evergreens overhead blotted out the sky, and an eerie darkness and an even more eerie silence swallowed her. She was so far in she could neither see nor hear the others. What a fool she'd been to choose this direction.Just as she went to turn around, her feet plunged into uneven terrain, her ankle twisted, and she toppled face-first into the snow. Even though she was wearing her warmest dress--the green velvet with matching velvet cape--iciness seeped into every layer of her body. Pain stabbed into her ankle. She dug her hands into the snow to hoist herself up, but when she went to put weight on her right ankle, she gasped in pain. Once more she tried to stand but could not. She collapsed back to the frozen earth in defeat.

  She sat there, legs spread in front of her, for several moments, listening intently for sounds from the others. Soon, one of them would come to look for her. Perhaps if she screamed, someone would hear her. The last thing she wanted was for the others to gawk at her latest mishap. It was bad enough that one of their party was bound to find her sprawled in the snow like an unfortunate creature afflicted with spasms. She'd rather it a single person than have the whole group stare at the pitiable, ungainly spinster she was turning into.What if they forgot her? What if she had to sit on the icy ground all night? She would perish. And it would all be Spencer Woodruff's fault. How long did it take before a person lying in the snow would die? It felt as if her limbs had already turned to icicles. Would she die before the sun went down? If the others forgot about her. . .

  Eventually--it seemed like hours--Emma called her name.

  "I'm here!" she answered.

  "Where?" Emma's voice was closer.

  "I need help getting up."

  "Oh, dear! Allow me to fetch Adam!"

  A moment later Emma and Adam were approaching her with mournful faces.As were Nick, William, and Spencer. She was mortified. What an oaf they must think her.Adam rushed toward her, but Spencer crossed in front of him. Without a word, he scooped her into his arms as if she weighed no more than a loaf of bread. She prayed she didn't break his back.

  Emma's face crumpled with concern. "What happened?"

  "I seem to have fallen into a hole and must have turned my ankle."

  "She's freezing," Spencer snapped. "Anyone have a rug to wrap her in?"

  Fiona started for her sleigh. "I'll get it."

  Why couldn't it have been Adam who reached her first? She fiercely objected to this man knowing how heavy she was--though her heaviness was nothing compared to her total mortification. Never in her life had she been a clumsy person.Until now.

  His raw strength, the firm set to his square jaw, the musky scent of him all rattled her. Try as she might, she could not be unaffected by him. No matter how wickedly he had treated her, he was the most appealing man she'd ever known.He set her in the sleigh and ordered her to turn away from the bench across and stretch her legs over the entire seat. Then he snatched the fur rug from Lady Fiona and spread it over Annabelle. "I'll walk back," he said gruffly. "You need to keep that ankle elevated to keep down the swelling."Without another word, he set off on foot toward the big house.

  * * *

  It was dark by the time Nick, Spencer and Emmie, returned with the Yule log. Spencer admired Nick for the way he allowed Emmie to think she had been helpful."Now can I help Mama decorate the house with holly?" the child asked excitedly.

  "Yes you can, love. Your mother couldn't possibly do it without your assistance."

  Spencer had foisted himself upon the father and daughter. He'd needed to remove himself as far as possible from Anna's presence. When he'd seen her lying in the snow, his heart had stopped. He'd been powerless to keep from lifting her into his arms. A warm mellowness washed over him as he strode with her burying her face in his chest. She felt so blasted good, so alluring in her glorious womanhood.He worried about her and hated himself for it.

  From now until he left on Boxing Day, he vowed to avoid Miss Annabelle Lippincott. Yet when they entered the drawing room and he saw her on the sofa, her leg elevated, an unexpected tenderness stole over him. Their eyes met."I really am bet-t-t-er," she said to him. "Lord Stephen had the very same injury at Eton, and he assures me that if I wr-wr-wrap it I shall be able to move about."Why the devil was Anna stuttering? She'd never, to his knowledge--and he'd once known her very well--stuttered when she spoke. Quite the contrary. She always spoke with the confidence of one who'd never been spared anything, whether it be the best tutors or the finest gowns.

  "Wrapped it myself," the Stephen boasted.He touched Anna's leg? The thought of another man feeling beneath her skirts infuriated Spencer. Is that why he hadn't allowed Adam to lift her from the snow? Why did it matter to him who touched her? She was no longer anything to him. He loathed the woman.

  "I do hope it didn't hurt your back to lift me," she continued.

  "It did not hurt my back to lift you." He turned to Nick. "Need any more help with the Yule log?"

  For years now Spencer had plotted how to get even with her for the hurt she'd caused him. He was reasonably certain his recent actions had wounded her. So why did he not feel victorious? Perhaps it was because rudeness and cruelty were in opposition to his inherent character.

  That natural character had burst forth earlier that day when he'd seen her lying so helpless in the icy now. Even now he wanted to ask if she had thawed, if she needed anything, if her ankle hurt terribly. Being solicitous of others was his basic nature.

  He didn't know whom to be maddest at--her or himself--for his recent deviant acts. He didn't like what he'd become. Because of her.

  He helped Nick put the log in the hearth, and candles were lighted from it. All the females took a candle and a basket of holly and began to move about the chamber to adorn every window sill, mantle or table top with the slender green branches. Woman's stuff. Lord Stephen, who'd refused to accompany them gathering holly, had the right of it. These things were better left to the women.

  Adam hung a kissing bough at each doorway off the main corridor.The drawing room was much darker than normal because the family custom was to use only the Yule log and the few candles lit from it for light.

  When everyone was finished, they moved into the dinner room. Because it was Christmas Eve, Emmie was permitted to sit at the big table. Nick had her beside him, directly across from Miss Lippincott.Spencer was only vaguely aware of the host's small daughter. Most of his attention was riveted on the woman who would sit beside him. She refused to use a cane but was limping heavily. It was all he could do not to scoop her into his arms again and carry her to the table. Barring
that, he fancied the notion of her leaning on him as she hobbled forth.He sighed inwardly. He was devilishly unsuccessful in his efforts to blot her from his thoughts. Nevertheless, he was determined to make himself immune to her. The first time he went to use his knife and fork, he winced.Annabelle's gaze swung to him, dropping to take in the newly wrapped white bandage around his index finger. "Your cut still hurts?"

  "It does, but I'll manage."

  She shook her head. "No. You must allow me to cut your beef." She reached for his cutlery.

  His eyes narrowed. "You may be accustomed to always getting your way, Miss Lippincott, but I'm not some mindless child you can order around."

  Her eyes instantly filled with tears, and to his mortification, she leapt from the table and hurried from the chamber.

  As well as one could on a badly injured ankle.

  He felt like a cur. Adam was apt to terminate his employment for his unpardonable rudeness. Worst of all, he felt as if he were bleeding inside. When she hurt, he hurt. And he'd hurt her most wickedly.

  He bolted from his chair and raced after her. It was the decent thing to do.

  She was almost under the library's kissing bough when he caught up with her. She turned and saw him. Tears moistened her face, and something in her eyes reminded him of a wounded animal. But she was no animal, she was a desirable woman.

  She spun back and attempted to move more quickly. He caught up with her. Though she wasn't a small woman, she seemed small next to him. And fragile--like a wounded kitten. Her eyes smoldered. No one had ever looked more desirable.A primitive lust surged through him. He gripped each of her shoulders and gazed from her to the kissing bough. Then he pressed his body to hers, crushed her against him, and kissed her with a passion fueled by years of need.