“A realist.”

She gave him a curious glance. “Do you think you might ever fall in love with Natalie?”

“I could probably come to care for her,” he said casually.

“I mean real love, the kind that makes you feel wildness, joy, and despair all at once. Love that would inspire you to make any kind of sacrifice for someone else’s sake.”

A sardonic smile curved his lips. “Why would I want to feel that way about my wife? It would ruin a perfectly good marriage.”

They walked through the winter garden in silence, while Hannah struggled with the certainty that he was even more dangerous, more wrong for Natalie, than she had originally believed. Natalie would eventually be hurt and disillusioned by a husband she could never trust.

“You are not suitable for Natalie,” she heard herself say wretchedly. “The more I learn about you, the more certain I am of that fact. I wish you would leave her alone. I wish you would find some other nobleman’s daughter to prey upon.”

Bowman stopped with her beside the hedge. “You arrogant little baggage,” he said quietly. “The prey was not of my choosing. I’m merely trying to make the best of my circumstances. And if Lady Natalie will have me, it’s not your place to object.”

“My affection for her gives me the right to say something”

“Maybe it’s not affection. Are you certain you’re not speaking out of jealousy?”

“Jealousy? Of Natalie? You’re mad to suggest such a thing”

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said with ruthless softness. “It’s possible you’re tired of standing in her shadow. Watching your cousin in all her finery, being admired and sought after while you stay at the side of the room with the dowagers and wallflowers.”

Hannah sputtered in outrage, one of her fists clenching and rising as if to strike him.

Bowman caught her wrist easily, running a finger lightly over her whitened knuckles. His soft, mocking laugh scalded her ears. “Here,” he said, forcibly crooking her thumb and tucking it across her fingers. “Don’t ever try to hit someone with your thumb extendedyou’ll break it that way.”

“Let go,” she cried, yanking hard at her imprisoned wrist.

“You wouldn’t be so angry if I hadn’t struck a nerve,” he taunted. “Poor Hannah, always standing in the corner, waiting for your turn. I’ll tell you somethingyou’re more than Natalie’s equal, blue blood or no. You were meant for something far better than this”

“Stop it!”

“A wife for convenience and a mistress for pleasure. Isn’t that how the peerage does it?”

Hannah stiffened all over, gasping, as Bowman brought her against his large, powerful form. She stopped struggling, recognizing that such efforts were useless against his strength. Her face turned from him, and she jerked as she felt his warm mouth brush the curve of her ear.

“I should make you my mistress,” Bowman whispered. “Beautiful Hannah. If you were mine, I’d lay you on silk sheets and wrap you up in ropes of pearls, and feed you honey from a silver spoon. Of course, you wouldn’t be able to make all your high-minded judgments if you were a fallen woman…but you wouldn’t care. Because I would pleasure you, Hannah, every night, all night, until you forgot your own name. Until you were willing to do things that would shock you in the light of day. I would debauch you from your head down to your innocent little toes”

“Oh, I despise you,” she cried, twisting helplessly against him. She had begun to feel real fear, not only from his hard grip and taunting words, but also from the shocks of heat running through her.

After this, she would never be able to face him again. Which was probably what he intended. A pleading sound came from her throat as she felt a delicately inquiring kiss in the hollow beneath her ear.

“You want me,” he murmured. In a bewildering shift of mood he turned tender, letting his lips wander slowly along the side of her throat. “Admit it, HannahI appeal to your criminal tendencies. And you definitely bring out the worst in me.” He drew his mouth over her neck, seeming to savor the swift, unsteady surges of her breathing. “Kiss me,” he whispered. “Just once, and I’ll let you go.”

“You are a despicable lecher, and”

“I know. I’m ashamed of myself.” But he didn’t sound at all ashamed. And his hold didn’t loosen. “One kiss, Hannah.”

She could feel her pulse reverberating everywhere, the blood rhythm settling hard and low in her throat and in all the deepest places of her body. And even in her lips, the delicate surface so sensitive that the touch of her own breath was excruciating.

It was cold everywhere they pressed, and in the space between their mouths where the smoke of their exhalations mingled. Hannah looked up into his shadowed face and thought dizzily, Don’t do it, Hannah, don’t, and then she ended up doing it anyway, rising on her toes to bring her trembling lips to his.

He closed around her, holding her with his arms and mouth, taking a long hungering taste. He pulled her even closer, until one of his feet came between hers, under her skirts, and her br**sts urged tight and full against his chest. It was more than one kiss…it was a sentence of unbroken kisses, the hot sweet syllables of lips and tongue making her drunk on sensation. One of his hands moved up to her face, caressing with a softness that sent a fine-spun shiver across her shoulders and back. His fingertips explored the line of her jaw, the lobe of her ear, the color-scalded crest of her cheek.

The other hand came up, and her face was caught in the gentle bracket of his fingers, while his lips drifted over her face…a soft skim over her eyelids, a stroke over her nose, a last lingering bite of her mouth. She breathed in a gulp of sharp winter air, welcoming the snap of it in her lungs.

When she finally brought herself to look up at him, she expected him to look smug or arrogant. But to her surprise, his face was taut, and there was a brooding disquiet in his eyes.

“Do you want me to apologize?” he asked.

Hannah pulled back from him, rubbing her prickling arms through her sleeves. She was mortified by the intensity of her own urge to huddle against the warm, inviting hardness of him.

“I don’t see the purpose in that,” she said in a low voice. “It’s not as if you would mean it.” Turning from him, she walked back to the manor in hurried strides, praying silently that he wouldn’t follow her.

And knowing that any woman foolish enough to become involved with him would fare no better than the shattered teacup on the terrace.

CHAPTER 7

As Hannah went into the entrance hall, the warm air caused her cold cheeks to prickle. She kept to the back of the entrance hall, trying to avoid the crowd of newly arrived guests and servants. It was a prosperous, richly dressed group, the ladies glittering with finery and dressed in fur-trimmed cloaks and capes.

Natalie would be awake soon, and she usually began each day with a cup of tea in bed. With so much activity, Hannah was skeptical that they would be able to summon a housemaid. She considered going to the breakfast room to fetch a cup of tea for Natalie and bring it upstairs herself. And perhaps one for Lady Blandford

“Miss Appleton.” A vaguely familiar voice came from the crowd, and a gentleman came forward to greet her.

It was Edward, Lord Travers. Hannah had not expected him to come to Stony Cross Park for the holidays. She smiled warmly at him, the agitated pressure in her chest easing. Travers was a comfortably buttoned-up man, secure in himself and his place in the world, polite in every atom. He was so conservative in manner and appearance that it was almost surprising to see up close that his face was yet unlined and there was no gray in his close-trimmed brown hair. Travers was a strong man, an honorable one, and Hannah had always liked him tremendously.

“My lord, how pleasant it is to see you here.”

He smiled. “And to find you all in a glow, as usual. I hope you are in good health? And the Blandfords and Lady Natalie?”

“Yes, we’re all quite well. I don’t believe Lady Natalie knew of your imminent arrival, or she would have mentioned it to me.”

“No,” Travers admitted, “I had not planned to come here. My relations in Shropshire were expecting me. But I’m afraid I prevailed on Lord Westcliff for an invitation to Hampshire.” He paused, turning sober. “You see, I learned of Lord Blandford’s plans concerning his daughter and…the American.”

“Yes. Mr. Bowman.”

“My desire is to see Lady Natalie happy and well situated,” Travers said quietly. “I cannot conceive how Blandford could think this arrangement would be best for her.”

Since she could not agree without criticizing her uncle, Hannah murmured carefully, “I also have concerns, my lord.”

“Surely Lady Natalie has confided in you. What has she said on the matter? Does she like this American?”

“She is disposed to consider the match, to please Lord Bland-ford,” Hannah admitted. “And also…Mr. Bowman is not without appeal.” She paused and blinked as she saw Rafe Bowman at the far side of the entrance hall, talking with his father. “In fact, Mr. Bowman is standing over there.”

“Is he the short, stout one?” Travers asked hopefully.

“No, my lord. That is Mr. Bowman the elder. His son, the tall one, is the gentleman to whom Lord Blandford wishes to betroth Lady Natalie.”

In one glance, Travers saw everything he needed to know. Rafe Bowman was unreasonably good-looking, the power of his lean, striking form no less evident for his relaxed posture. His sable hair was thick and wind ruffled, his complexion infused with healthy color from the outside air. Those coal-dark eyes glanced around the room in cool appraisal, while a faint, ruthless smile curved his lips. He looked so predatory that it made the memory of his elusive gentleness all the more startling to Hannah.

For someone like Lord Travers, a rival such as Bowman was his worst nightmare.

“Oh, dear,” Hannah heard him murmur softly.

“Yes.”

EVIE CAME INTO THE BALLROOM CARRYING A HEAVY TWO-handled basket. “Here are the l-last of them,” she said, having just come from the kitchen, where she and two scullery maids had been filling small paper cones with nuts and dried fruit, and tying them closed with red ribbons. “I hope this will be enough, considering it’s such a l-large t” She stopped and gave Anna-belle a perplexed glance. “Where is Lillian?”

“Here,” came Lillian’s muffled voice from beneath the tree. “I’m arranging the tree skirt. Not that it matters, since one can hardly see it.”

Annabelle smiled, standing on her toes to tie a little cloth doll on the highest branch she could reach. Dressed in winter white, with her honey-colored hair drawn up in curls and her cheeks pink from exertion, she looked like a Christmas angel. “Do you think we should have chosen such a tall tree, dear? I’m afraid it will take from now until Twelfth Night for us to finish decorating it.”

“It had to be tall,” Lillian replied, crawling out from beneath the tree. With a few pine needles stuck in her sable hair and shreds of cotton batting clinging to her dress, she didn’t look at all like a countess. And from the wide grin on her face, one could tell that she didn’t give a fig. “The room is so cavernous, it would look silly to have a short one.”

Over the next fortnight several events would take place in the ballroom, including a dance, some games and amateur entertainments, and a grand Christmas Eve ball. Lillian was determined that the tree would be as splendid as possible, to add to the festive atmosphere. However, decorating it was turning out to be more difficult than Lillian had anticipated. The servants were so busy with the household work that none of them could be spared for extra duties. And since Westcliff had forbidden Lillian and her friends from climbing on ladders or high stools, the top half of the tree was, so far, completely bare.

To make matters worse, the new fashion in gowns featured a slim-fitting, dropped-shoulder sleeve that prevented a lady from reaching for anything higher than shoulder level. As Lillian emerged from beneath the tree, they all heard the sound of splitting fabric.

“Oh, bloody hell,” Lillian exclaimed, twisting to view the gaping hole beneath her right sleeve. “That’s the third dress I’ve torn this week.”

“I don’t like this new style of sleeve,” Annabelle commented ruefully, flexing her own graceful arms in their limited range of motion. “It’s quite vexing not to be able to reach upward. And it’s uncomfortable to hold Isabella when the cloth pulls over my shoulder so.”

“I’ll find a n-needle and thread,” Evie said, going to hunt in a box of supplies on the floor.

“No, bring the scissors,” Lillian said decisively.

Smiling quizzically, Evie complied. “What shall I do with them?”

Lillian raised her arm as much as she was able. “Cut this side to match the other.”

Without batting an eye, Evie carefully snipped a gap beneath the sleeve and a few inches along the seam, exposing a white flash of skin.

“Freedom at last!” Lillian raised both arms to the ceiling like some primitive sun worshipper, the fabric gaping at her armpits.

“I wonder if I could start a new fashion?”

“Dresses with holes in them?” Annabelle asked. “I doubt it, dear.”

“It’s so lovely to be able to reach for things.” Lillian took the scissors. “Do you want me to fix your dress too, Annabelle?”

“Don’t come near me with those,” Annabelle said firmly. She shook her head with a grin, watching as Evie solemnly held up her own arms for Lillian to cut holes beneath her sleeves. This was one of the things she most adored about Evie, who was shy and proper, but often willing to join in some wildly impractical plan or adventure. “Have you both lost your minds?” Annabelle asked, laughing. “Oh, what a bad influence she is on you, Evie.”

“She’s married to St. Vincent, who is the worst possible influence,” Lillian protested. “How much damage could I do after that?” After flexing and swinging her arms, she rubbed her hands together. “Now, back to work. Where’s the box of candles?…I’ll wire more of them on this side.”

“Shall we sing to pass the time?” Annabelle suggested, tying a little angel made of cotton batting and a lace handkerchief onto the tip of a branch.

The three of them moved around the tree like industrious bees, singing the “Twelve Days of Christmas.” The song and the work progressed quite well until they came to the ninth day.