Page 3 of Mistletoe and Christmas Kisses

Camille jammed her fist over her mouth a second too late. Her laugher, delighted andreal, she recognized the difference, sweeping the room like a summer breeze as the tight knot her belly had been twisted in since she accepted Ridley’s proposal unfurled. After a quick instant, Tristan laughed, too, deep and wonderfully, his gaze dusting her before his smile slipped, and he glanced into his lap for no reason she could fathom.

Disconcerted, she looked to the man she’d pledged to marry and away from the one who’d always made her blood kick a touch harder than required. No more dreams squandered on the Duke of Mercer. Eight years his junior, too young to be bothered with until it was too late. Now, he presented a complicated mix of pensiveness, ferocity, and defensive humor, the intensity he tried to hide bubbling just beneath the surface.

The duke needed someone patient enough to figure him out. Someone who hadn’t given up on loving him long ago.

While her intended, the man she’dchosen, would take her as she was, an amateur botanist who uncouthly made money doing it, or not take her at all.

* * *

He’d laughed.

For the first time in years.

Out loud, surrounded by a roomful of people. And not one of those fake chuckles he could conjure up like a mystic a vision, but a genuine release of amusement and…pleasure.

Tristan Tierney, Duke of Mercer, Viscount Wimble, Baron Easley, took a thoughtful drag on his cheroot and blew smoke into the frigid Yorkshire night. Longleat Manor’s terrace was deserted except for the occasional jangle of Lady Fontaine’s off-tune pianoforte and the whistle of the wind through the trees. The men had retreated to the billiard room for port and ribald conversation while the ladies had absconded to the drawing room for more decorous entertainment.

While he, the evening’s guest of honor, had slipped away like a thief.

His hiding place? The side garden, resting against a low brick wall missing quite a few bricks, in a shadowy corner where no one would find him unless they were really looking. He’d decided to sneak away when the conversation turned to the rumor that the Prince Regent was going to bestow a medal of valor upon him. Better to face the cold than the war, which is what Lady Fontaine’s entire gathering, for theirleisure, wanted him to do. The mere notion of telling anyone about those days made him queasy.

At this moment, he wished only to be the Duke of Mercer, number five.

Simple that, in comparison.

Tristan tilted his head to gaze at the heavens. A crystal-clear night, an endless expanse of black velvet pinholed with a thousand stars. He’d lain beneath such a sky while surrounded by men he’d lead into battle the next day, many of whom would not return. When he’d fled Yorkshire with the desire to become a man under his own direction, he’d had no idea what death looked like, what fear that gripped you from the bonefeltlike.

How fragile life truly was.

However, he wasn’t going to think about the damned war right now. Enveloped by a frosty twilight and the wine he’d pilfered from the kitchens, he was going to allow alcohol to quietly cloud his mind while he fantasized about his best friend’s sister.

While he’d been away, Camille Bellington had become a woman.

A gorgeous, intelligent, defiant woman.

With a husky voice hinting at raging hearthfires and eyes an unusual blue-green, like a stormy sea one couldn’t help but dive into. Her slender body wrapped in a shimmering confection of ivory silk, a fillet of pearls slinking through her russet strands, he’d been tempted to remove her gown—and those pearls—with his teeth.

He released a tense breath and took a slug straight from the bottle. He needed a woman,anywoman but the one who’d sparked his interest this eve, and if he weren’t afraid of falling asleep after the act and waking in the middle of a blinding nightmare, he would’ve already found one.

As it was, he’d been alone for what seemed like forever.

“A botanist,” he whispered into the night. With a grin he guessed was getting wobbly at the edges, he chuckled against the bottle’s neck. How extraordinarily dreadful in the most charming way. No wonder she’d been left behind when less worthy women had been snapped up. Beautiful and spirited and housing actualintellectbehind a shy smile, she must have tossed the men of thetonon their arses the instant they asked a question and she provided a clever answer.

He’d not known this about her, the love of plants and such. Though he did recall finding pressed flowers hidden between the pages of his schoolbooks. He’d pop one open in the middle of a lecture, and a squashed daisy or crumpled rose would tumble out. Pushing the heel of his hand into his eye, he tried to recall. She’d been precocious. Annoying, like a burr under his skin. Talkative, too curious, a pest. He’d brushed her off—and away—a thousand times. She had to be eight, nine, ten years his junior, for God’s sake. A pretty child, an attractive girl.

And now…

His cock did a disturbing dance beneath his trouser close.

Oh, no, Tris. No.

Then the terrace door clicked, and there she was, the precocious, delectable Lady Bellington, standing in a spill of moonlight that dripped off the pearls in her hair and did a delicious slide down her body.

She was tall. Tall enough for him to do glorious things to her while standing up. In fact, the wall he rested alongside was a magical height for certain activities.

“Christ,” he whispered and knocked his head against brick.

She stepped to the edge of the terrace. “Who’s there?” Four marble steps and fifteen-odd feet, and she’d stumbled right across him.