Page 32 of A Daring Desire

Cat tsked and hurried towards him. “Come and sit down before you fall down.”

“Stop fussing. I’m perfectly fine,” he grumbled, but allowed her to take his arm as he made his way to the chair by the fire and sank into it with a sigh of relief. Cat stared down at him, torn between anxiety and curiosity. He met her gaze and quirked one dark eyebrow. “You blackmailed me into celebrating Christmas with you, did you not? Well, here I am.”

She could not help the smile that curved her mouth at this rather cross pronouncement.

“So I did. Well, in that case, you may help me decorate.”

“It isn’t done?” he asked, eyeing the tree and the thick greenery on the mantelpiece.

“Done?” she exclaimed in shock. “Heavens, no! This is just the beginning. The poor tree is naked, like a lady in her undergarments awaiting her dresser.”

Amusement glittered in his eyes. “My, my. I had no notion decorating a tree was so fraught with erotic symbolism.”

“Well, you’ve never done it with me before,” she said tartly, and then snapped her mouth shut as she realised the double meaning.

Heat crawled up her neck and her cheeks burned, and she turned away from him, hoping he hadn’t seen. She hurried to one of the boxes on the table and returned to him, handing it over. “These are the glass ornaments, there are ribbons too, and oranges studded with cloves. Oh, and the candleholders, of course. So… So you may choose which ornament and I’ll put it on the tree,” she said in a rush.

He took the box from her, and she dared a glance at him, expecting to see the familiar mocking glance he often wore, only to find it absent. In its place was something that looked horribly like compassion, and she decided at once that was far worse.

“Well, choose, then,” she commanded him tartly.

Cat watched as he investigated the box on his lap and took a moment, finally selecting a little red bird with real feathers for a tail, dyed to match. He handed it to her, and Cat took it with a nod of thanks. She walked back to the tree, too aware of his gaze upon her back. Frank had left a little stepladder by the tree, and she held her skirts up as she carefully climbed it. No simple task when she could not see her feet beneath the excess of petticoats. Clipping the bird into place, she climbed down again to see Kilbane getting to his feet.

“Where are you going?” she asked, suddenly bereft that he had grown bored already.

“This will take hours if you must walk back and forth across the room for each ornament,” he protested. “I’ll sit there.” He gestured to a chair that sat closest to the tree and moved towards it.

“But you should stay close to the fire,” she protested, relieved he wasn’t leaving her.

“I wish you would stop confusing me with your maiden aunt,” he said irritably.

She laughed at the idea anyone could compare Kilbane to anything of the sort. He looked thoroughly disreputable, wearing a heavy silk and brocade dressing gown of burgundy red, the shirt beneath open with no cravat, showing the strong line of his throat and a little v of his chest. His recent illness had left his unusual eyes shadowed, the lines of his face even harder than usual, speaking of a life spent in dissipation.

“You are as far from my ideas of what a maiden aunt looks like as I could possibly get, though as I don’t possess one, I could be mistaken. Are they very like you as a rule?”

“Brat,” he remarked, though with no heat.

Cat felt a little glow of pleasure at the less than flattering remark and knew herself to be beyond hope.

Kilbane watched with lazy amusement as his wife fluttered about the Christmas tree like a fairy bestowing gifts, placing a bauble here, a ribbon there. It seemed an odd pastime, but she was clearly enjoying herself and he had given her little enough cause for pleasure since their marriage, so he told himself not to begrudge her. It was a dead bore, of course, except that when he examined the clock on the mantel, it told him it was far later in the afternoon than he’d thought. Several hours had passed since they’d begun and… no, surely not. He frowned, a little alarmed to discover that he’d not been the least bit bored, but in fact rather entertained. Though he would have denied it, he had garnered a good deal of amusement from instructing her to put a bauble in one location, only to change his mind the moment it was in place and demand she put it somewhere else. She’d narrowed her eyes at him a time or two, for she must be aware he was doing it to provoke her, but she’d said nothing. He wasn’t certain if he was disappointed or not, for he rather enjoyed her shows of temper. No one had ever dared to scold him—well, not since he was a child—and a scolding did not describe the punishment he’d received at the hands of his father. Memories of birch rods and thrashings that made him scream had his mind going temporarily black.

“My lord?”

His wife’s voice was soft and uncertain, and he shook himself back to the moment, cursing himself for putting that anxious look in her eyes. He’d promised her Christmas, had he not? It was the least he could give her.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, turning his attention back to the tree. “It looks very well, I think.”

She followed his gaze and nodded. “It’s beautiful. Is that all the decorations, then?” she asked, looking a little crestfallen.

Kilbane looked back into the box and shook his head. “No. One more,” he said, holding up a delicate white glass ball with a snowflake design on it. “Though I don’t know where you could possibly fit it.”

“I see the perfect spot,” she said triumphantly.

She took the ornament from him and hitched up her skirts, affording him a tantalising glimpse of slender ankles. Desire had been a forgotten emotion during and since his illness, but it slammed back into him as he watched her climb the steps, derriere swaying provocatively. He watched her, watched as she reached the top rung and steadied herself, before reaching up to the top of the tree.

“Catherine,” he said, warningly. “For heaven’s sake be—”

The step ladder shifted, and his wife tilted, and before he knew what he was about, he was up out of the chair and with his hands about her waist. Just in time, too, as she overbalanced and toppled back. Kilbane staggered, still hopelessly weak after his illness, but somehow he kept them both upright. They stood together, her back to his chest, his arms tight around her. She was breathing hard, the soft curls of her hair tickling his jaw.