A Wallflower Christmas (Wallflowers #5)(38)

Rafe shook his head, still staring at her. His mouth was a grim slash. “If you want Clark to do the things I just did to you,” he said, “then go ahead and marry him.”

And he left her there in the library, as if to stay there a moment longer would have resulted in disaster for them both.

CHAPTER 11

In Evie’s opinion, the sleighing party had been enjoyable but too long. She was tired, her ears still ringing from all the noise and caroling. Evie had laughed and frolicked with the group, staying close to Daisy, whose husband had remained at the manor to discuss business matters with Rafe Bowman.

“Oh, I don’t mind at all,” Daisy had said cheerfully, when Evie had asked if she was disappointed that Swift had not accompanied them. “It’s better to let Matthew clear away his business concerns first, and then he’ll be free to give me all his attention later.”

“Does he w-work very long hours?” Evie had asked with a touch of concern, knowing that the Bowman’s enterprise in Bristol was a massive project involving great responsibility.

“There are days when he must,” Daisy had replied prosaically. “But there are other times when he stays home and we spend the day together.” A grin had crossed her face. “I love being married to him, Evie. Although it’s still all so new…sometimes it surprises me to wake up and find Matthew beside me.” She had leaned closer and whispered, “I have to tell you a secret, Evie: I complained one day that I’d read all the books in the house, and there was nothing new at the bookshop, and Matthew challenged me to try writing one of my own. So I’ve started one. I have a hundred pages written already.”

Evie had laughed in delight. “Daisy,” she had whispered back, “are you going to be a f-famous novelist?”

Daisy shrugged. “It doesn’t matter to me whether it’s published or not. I’m enjoying writing it.”

“Is it a respectable story or a naughty one?”

Daisy’s brown eyes danced with mischief. “Evie, why would you even ask? Of course it’s a naughty one.”

Now back in the comfort of her room at Stony Cross Manor, Evie bathed in a small portable tub by the hearth, sighing in relief at the feel of the hot water against her stiff, aching limbs. Sleigh rides, she reflected, were one of those activities that always sounded better in theory than they turned out to be in reality. The seats on the sleigh had been hard and lumpy, and her feet had been cold.

She heard a tap at the door, and the sound of someone entering the room. Since she was shielded from view by a standing fabric screen, Evie leaned back and peeked around the screen’s wooden frame.

A housemaid was hefting a dripping metal can with rags tied at the handles. “More hot water, milady?” she asked.

“Y-yes, please.”

Carefully the maid poured the steaming water at the end near Evie’s feet, and Evie sank deeper into the bath. “Oh, thank you.”

“Shall I come back with a warming pan to take the chill from the bed, milady?” The long-handled covered pan was filled with live coals and run between the sheets just before bedtime.

Evie nodded.

The maid left, and Evie stayed in the bath until the heat began to dissipate. Reluctantly she stepped from the tub and dried herself. The thought of going to bed aloneagainfilled her with melancholy. She was trying not to pine for St. Vincent. But she woke up every morning searching for him, her arm stretched across the empty place beside her.

St. Vincent was the opposite of everything Evie was…elegant, dazzlingly articulate, cool and self-possessed…and so wicked that it had once been universally agreed he would be an absolutely terrible husband.

No one but Evie knew how tender and devoted he was in private. Of course, his friends such as Westcliff and Mr. Hunt were aware that St. Vincent had reformed his former villainous ways. And he was doing a remarkable job managing the gaming club she had inherited from her father, rebuilding a faltering empire while at the same time making light of the responsibilities he had assumed.

He was still a scoundrel, though, she thought with a private grin.

Standing from the bath, Evie dried herself and donned a velvet robe that buttoned along the front. She heard the door open again. “Back to w-warm the bed?” she asked.

But the voice that answered wasn’t the maid’s.

“As a matter of fact…yes.”

Evie stilled at the sound of a deep, silky murmur.

“I passed the maid on the stairs and told her she wouldn’t be needed tonight,” he continued. ” ‘If there’s one thing I do well,’ I told her, ‘it’s warming my wife’s bed.’ “

By this time Evie was fumbling to push the screen aside, nearly pushing it over.

St. Vincent reached her in a few graceful strides, folding her in his arms. “Easy, love. No need for haste. Believe me, I’m not going anywhere.”

They stood together for a long, wordless moment, breathing, holding tight.

Eventually St. Vincent tilted Evie’s head back and stared down at her. He was tawny and golden haired, his pale blue eyes glittering like gems in the face of a fallen angel. He was a long, lean-framed man, always exquisitely dressed and groomed. But he had not been sleeping well, she saw. There were faint shadows beneath his eyes, and signs of weariness on his face. The touches of human vulnerability, however, only served to make him more handsome, softening what might otherwise have been a gleaming, godlike remoteness.