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His Mistletoe Wager
Virginia Heath
‘Five berries equal the five separate kisses I challenge you to steal.’Notorious rake Henry Stuart, Earl of Redbridge is certain he’ll win his Christmas bet – until he learns he’ll be stealing Lady Elizabeth Wilding’s kisses. A woman who refuses to be charmed!Once jilted, Lizzie must guard her heart because the ton is unaware of her scandalous secret – her son! Despite their increasing attraction, she can’t risk the persistent Hal bringing down her defences. But, when her former fiancé returns Lizzie realises that perhaps Hal’s the one man she can trust – with her heart and her son…
“Five berries equal the five separate kisses I challenge you to steal.”
Notorious rake Henry “Hal” Stuart, Earl of Redbridge, is certain he’ll win his Christmas bet—until he learns he’ll be stealing Lady Elizabeth Wilding’s kisses. A woman who refuses to be charmed!
Once jilted, Lizzie must guard her heart, because the ton is unaware of her scandalous secret—her son! Despite their increasing attraction, she can’t risk the persistent Hal bringing down her defenses. But when her former fiancé returns, Lizzie realizes that perhaps Hal’s the one man she can trust—with her heart and her son...
Hal quickly closed the distance and whispered again, far too close to her ear.
‘Think, Lizzie. Here we are. The stars are twinkling up above.’ Those strong arms slowly snaked around her waist and pulled her closer. ‘If you gaze up at me with convincing longing, the old fool will assume we are having a tryst.’
Arguing against his logic was prevented by the ominously close sound of another call from her unwelcome beau. ‘Lady Elizabeth! Is that you?’
With the most limpid expression she could manage, in a blind panic Lizzie stared longingly up at Hal. He winked encouragingly then, to her complete shock, dipped his head and pressed his lips to hers.
The sky tilted. Or perhaps it was the floor. Either way, the experience knocked her off-kilter.
Unconsciously her own lips began to respond, her eyelids fluttered closed and she found herself rising on tiptoe to press her body against his. More worryingly, she was reluctant to prise herself away. Later, she knew, she would claim this was all part of her act, but for now she was prepared to acknowledge it for what it was.
A revelation.
Author Note (#ud75cd284-43ad-58f8-bfbe-2be6b387b94b)
After I wrote Her Enemy at the Altar, a few people suggested there should be a sequel. Like me, those people had fallen in love with Aaron and Connie, and wanted the opportunity to see them again. They were such adorable characters—the feisty yet self-conscious heroine and the dashing yet tortured hero—and so perfect for each other. When I was offered the chance to write a Christmas story I decided to treat myself to that sequel and see how they were getting along.
But, as so often happens, I also fell in love with my new characters, and my sequel rapidly became their story first. Connie’s brother Hal is a notorious rake, with no desire to settle down. Lizzie has been badly let down by a man and never wants another one. However, both feel that life is missing something—which is obviously each other, but they were both very troublesome as I got them to realise it.
At times, although they instantly became the very best of friends, the pair of them were so stubbornly resistant to romance that I found myself shouting at my keyboard. Fortunately the story takes place over Christmas. Which means there is always mistletoe…
His Mistletoe Wager
Virginia Heath
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
When VIRGINIA HEATH was a little girl it took her ages to fall asleep, so she made up stories in her head to help pass the time while she was staring at the ceiling. As she got older the stories became more complicated—sometimes taking weeks to get to their happy ending. One day she decided to embrace her insomnia and start writing them down. Virginia lives in Essex with her wonderful husband and two teenagers. It still takes her for ever to fall asleep...
Books by Virginia Heath
Mills & Boon Historical Romance
The Wild Warriners
A Warriner to Protect Her
A Warriner to Rescue Her
Linked by Character
Her Enemy at the Altar
His Mistletoe Wager
Stand-Alone Novels
That Despicable Rogue
The Discerning Gentleman’s Guide
Miss Bradshaw’s Bought Betrothal
Visit the Author Profile page at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
For Nicole Locke.
My first-ever writing buddy.
Thanks for adopting me and showing me the ropes.
Contents
Cover (#u32b15096-7b46-5b79-9a7d-9f16de872ef0)
Back Cover Text (#u0e5035bc-b05f-58bc-9509-d02aa07e6503)
Introduction (#u602ec3e7-7864-58af-80bd-3a5f50bc0e5b)
Author Note (#u9770f535-8bd3-54f0-b390-081b8d6a7ba5)
Title Page (#u38616cca-b486-5169-a867-49fa12584373)
About the Author (#u2dcf161a-e62f-5748-9d3b-9646b87ef044)
Dedication (#ub213b4d3-2f8a-570e-9686-9a749391751e)
Prologue (#u54c12f0a-477b-5977-ad4b-4041b5246874)
Chapter One (#uc5826e11-f644-5550-b3bf-b0f4b3033b4c)
Chapter Two (#u262b142d-340c-55aa-b6ed-9ec48cb71ed0)
Chapter Three (#u701f3807-4d61-56ce-9d1e-8118ab8540c8)
Chapter Four (#ubc56fde7-4efb-555d-858b-c270b04b3918)
Chapter Five (#uf4dca285-7116-5d2c-bec0-3b5316fb408b)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue (#ud75cd284-43ad-58f8-bfbe-2be6b387b94b)
St George’s Church, Hanover Square—June 1815
Every pew was taken. No mean feat in a church as large and grand as this one, yet hardly a surprise when this was the wedding of the Season: the day when the darling of society, the beautiful only daughter of the Earl of Upminster, married her handsome peer.
Even the sun had come out to celebrate and was cheerfully streaming through the imposing stained-glass windows in an exceedingly pleasing fashion and causing a kaleidoscope of colours to decorate the floor. The air hung heavy with the fragrance of lilacs, Lizzie’s favourite flower, and tall vases and boughs festooned the aisle she would soon walk down.
Her wedding dress was embroidered subtly to match and her dainty bonnet decorated with beautiful silk replicas, scaled down to sit in a pleasing fashion. Just as she had always imagined.
In fact, to her complete delight, everything about her wedding to the Marquess of Rainham was exactly as she had imagined it. After all, she had been planning it all since she was ten, right down to the minutest of details because it was the most important day of her life. The beginning of her perfect, happily ever after, exactly six months on from her first meeting with the man she loved with all her heart.
Many in society were surprised by the match, her own dear parents included. Charles did have a reputation as a bit of a rake and had broken more than one heart before he had found his one true love. But as she was prone to point out whenever he was criticised—something which happened with annoying regularity—everybody knew rakes made the very best husbands once they found the right woman, and Lizzie was very definitely the right woman for him.
Dear Charles told her so every single day. From their very first dance he had been the most ardent and attentive suitor, and although Lizzie came with a substantial dowry, he made it quite plain that he did not give two figs for the money. The money meant nothing because he would happily take her with nothing. In rags if need be. Dowries were of no consequence when his heart beat only for her. They were destined to be together for ever. All he cared about was her. Something he proved time and time again with his effusive compliments and daringly longing gazes. It was all so wonderfully romantic. A courtship which had made her the envy of her peers and now she was having the perfect wedding, too. The first bride of June.
‘I shall give him a stern piece of my mind later! Be assured of that!’ For the second time in as many minutes her father snapped his pocket watch open and stared impatiently at the dial. ‘It is the bride’s prerogative to be late, not the groom’s. To leave us here, hiding in the vestry like common criminals, is beyond the pale, Lizzie. I have no idea what the bounder can be thinking to insult us so grievously.’
She smiled reassuringly at him. At the Foreign Office he was used to being in charge and far too much of a stickler for timekeeping than was necessary, and he had been very vocal with his misgivings about her choice of husband. She had spent much of the last two months reassuring him that everything was destined to be wonderful and her Marquess was not at all what everyone believed. ‘Calm down, Papa. Nobody in the congregation is aware that we have arrived, so it hardly matters. There is probably a perfectly good reason Charles has been delayed. He will be here.’ Last night, just before he had crept out of her bedchamber window and scrambled down the wisteria, he had blown her a kiss and told her how he was counting the seconds until they took their vows. What difference did a few minutes of tardiness make in the grand scheme of things? Especially when they were about to embark on a lifetime together.
Instinctively, her hand fluttered towards her belly and she suppressed the grin which threatened to bloom. Her father would hit the roof if he knew what she had kept secret from everyone for the last week.
Later tonight, when they were all alone, she would tell Charles about the baby. Her wedding present to him. Made in love almost two months ago, when she had gladly given him her innocence as there seemed little point in prolonging the agony of withholding it unnecessarily. ‘We are engaged,’ he had said teasingly the first time he had clambered up the wisteria and surprised her in her bedchamber. ‘What difference do a few more weeks make? Besides, when a love is as deep and abiding as ours is, a wedding ceremony is merely a formality. I am already married to you in my heart.’ As was she. Lizzie knew he would be overjoyed by the news. The perfect end to the most perfect year of her life.
* * *
It was the ashen face of her brother Rafe, over half an hour later, which caused the first real doubts to creep in. He came in through a side door, quietly closed it behind him and simply stood, slightly slumped before her.
‘He’s gone, Lizzie.’
The finality in his voice made her fear the worst. Her darling fiancé was dead? Surely not. She could not bear it. ‘What do you mean he’s gone? What has happened?’ He had been in fine fettle a few scant hours ago. Ardent. No sign of illness or fever. Tears were already streaming down her cheeks as the panic made her heart hammer wildly in her chest. ‘Did he have an accident?’ Please God, make him not have suffered.
Her brother shook his head and it was then she saw the fierce anger in his eyes.
Anger and pity. For her.
‘No, poppet. Nothing so noble, I’m afraid. I don’t quite know how to tell you this, so I shall just say it straight out. The scoundrel is marrying someone else.’
Lizzie’s knees gave way and her father supported her as she stumbled backwards on to a chair. ‘You are mistaken.’ The walls started to spin as nausea threatened. ‘Charles would not do that to me. He loves me.’
‘He left a letter...’ A letter that her brother had obviously already read because the seal was broken and the open missive hung limply in his hand.
Callously, it was addressed to no one in particular and had been left on the mantelpiece in his bachelor lodgings at the Albany. Conversationally, it informed the reader that he was bound, with all haste, for Gretna Green with the Duke of Aylesbury’s daughter. A drastic step taken because her father had forbidden their courtship a full year before. Of course, they had tried to fight the fierce attraction which had consumed them. However, his love for the obscenely wealthy Duke’s plain and awkward youngest daughter was ‘deep and abiding’ and for the longest time he had already been ‘married to her in his heart.’ Their vows were just a formality because, and this was the most crushing blow, ‘his heart beat for her alone.’
The familiar words cut deeply, slicing through her initial disbelief and shock more effectively than anything else could have. What a dreadful way to discover words which had meant so very much to her had ultimately been meaningless to him all along.
‘If we act in all haste, Rafe, we might be able to mitigate the scandal.’
Ever the pragmatist, her father’s conversation wafted over her. A message was dispatched to the Duke of Aylesbury. Fevered plans were set in place. Her papa’s government connections and high place in society would all be utilised to make everything all right, they would close ranks around her to protect her flawless reputation—yet how could things ever be all right again? She had been jilted.
Jilted!
With every meticulous and carefully laid plan for her perfect future made so thoroughly for so long, she had failed to foresee this terrible scenario. Lizzie had been the silly fool who had fallen for the charming Marquess until a much richer prospect had come along. The pregnant, silly fool who had stood waiting patiently for him at the church, who had believed all his calculated seductions, all his blatant flattery, so blinkered by her love for him that she had not heeded all the well-meant words of caution from nearly everyone in her acquaintance including her own family. The trusting, needy, idiot who did not even warrant the courtesy of a letter of her own from the treacherous scoundrel who had deflowered her, nor a mention in the one her brother had found. Written by the same duplicitous hands which had been all over her body only hours before. Charles must have known he was eloping when he had climbed into her bedroom window, but had used her regardless. Like the true libertine and shameless rake he was. Their fairy-tale courtship and all of his apparently heartfelt declarations whispered intimately in her virgin’s bed stood for naught. It had all been a pack of lies and she had fallen for every single one.
Her hand automatically went to her belly again. All at once, the sickly smell of lilacs threatened to overpower her, or maybe it was the catastrophic ramifications of her now-dire situation. Or perhaps that was merely the bitter taste of humiliation and utter, complete betrayal. Total devastation. Willingly, she had given a man her tender, young heart and he had blithely returned it to her bludgeoned.
Shredded into irreparable pieces.
Chapter One (#ud75cd284-43ad-58f8-bfbe-2be6b387b94b)
A London ballroom—St Nicholas’s Day,
