Page 88 of The Dangerous Lord

He looked down at William’s red nose and heaving chest. Slighting her siblings wouldn’t endear him to his new wife. Yet the only solution didn’t appeal to him.

So it took him completely by surprise when he heard himself say, “How about if Lissy and I stay at Taylor Hall tonight, William? We’ll celebrate Christmas with you in the morning and leave tomorrow after Christmas dinner. Will that please you?”

William’s eyes lit up. “Oh, yes! Do you hear, Lissy? We’ll have Christmas all together!” He ran off to tell his brothers.

“But it’s just for tonight!” Ian called out after the boy. Then he sighed. Another night sharing Felicity with her brothers. Bloody hell.

Felicity slipped her hand in the crook of his elbow, then kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you.” She beamed at him. “But you may regret your generous gesture later when my brothers are plaguing you unmercifully.”

“I regret it now,” he grumbled, laying his hand over hers. “Perhaps I can persuade them that Father Christmas will be more likely to come early if they retire early.”

“Good luck.” Her smile turned mischievous. “They’re always so excited about Christmas. We’ll be fortunate if they sleep at all tonight.”

“Why should they? We certainly won’t.”

She looked blank, then colored and tried to remove her hand from his. “I beg your pardon. I shall sleep well. I always do when I’m in my own bed. Alone.”

“Alone?” He tightened his grip on her hand. “Absolutely not. You’re my wife now, and I won’t have your servants gossiping around London about why the Viscount St. Clair didn’t share a bed with his wife on their wedding night.”

Her dagger of a glance showed she understood his position and knew she couldn’t hope to alter it. “Very well. We’ll sleep together. But sleep is all we’ll do, Ian.”

“If you say so,” he mocked. Always his little hypocrite. Well, he’d let her keep her hypocrisy for the moment. He had all evening to strip it from her, one piece at a time.

Chapter Twenty

The deplorable tendency of some to overimbibe during the Christmas season will wreak havoc on our society if we don’t check it.

Lord X, The Evening Gazette, December 25, 1820

Felicity came awake slowly, morning light glowing through her closed eyelids. Opening her eyes, she saw the familiar moldings on the ceiling. It was her own bed, and she was dressed in her chemise. But how did she get here? The last thing she remembered was telling Georgie a story in the nursery. And the strange dream afterward ... arms lifting her ... a low voice muttering ... a sensation of floating⁠—

Ian! She shot up in bed, then spotted him slumped in a chair not far away. Shirtless and barefoot, he wore only his small clothes. His hairy legs were splayed in front of him, and his arms were crossed over his bare chest. And his eyes were open, fixed on her with a dark intensity that made her shiver.

He’d never looked more threatening. Or tempting.

“At last Sleeping Beauty awakes,” he growled, faintly slurring the words. He straightened in the chair and pain spasmed over his unusually pale face.

“Are you unwell?” she asked in instant concern.

Bending down, he picked up something and brandished it before her. A brandy bottle. And nearly empty by the look of it.

“For pity’s sake, you’re foxed!”

He lifted the bottle, inspecting its meager contents sullenly. “Not foxed enough. It was half empty when I found it.”

How strange for Ian to drink excessively. Being drunk meant losing control of a situation, and Ian never lost control. What could have made him drink? “Did something happen last night that I don’t remember?”

“Nothing happened.” He settled back against the chair to glower at her, the bottle bumping against his leg. “That’s the problem. Between your celebration of Christmas, all that time spent hanging stockings and singing carols with your brothers, and your insistence on taking the boys up to bed, not a damned thing happened. You wouldn’t let me go up with you—gave me some nonsense about its being your last night alone with them for a while. So like a fool I came down here to wait for you.”

Tilting up the bottle, he swigged the rest of the brandy, the muscles in his throat working convulsively as he swallowed it. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “When you didn’t come, I went looking for you and found you asleep on Georgie’s bed.”

He sounded so put out she smiled. “Oh. It must have been the champagne. It always puts me right to sleep. And I did rise very early yesterday morn⁠—”

“I tried to wake you. That was pointless. I finally gave up and carried you to bed.” His gaze drifted down her body, then halted at her breasts.

The sudden alteration in his expression from anger to desire made her look down at her chemise. Good Lord. It gaped open where the ties were undone. Swiftly, she retied them, careful not to meet his hungry gaze. “Did you ... undress me?”

“Certainly did. I couldn’t very well let you sleep in your gown, could I?”