His Wicked Little Christmas

Chapter 1

Chapter One

A boisterous Derbyshire manor where neither hero nor heroine want to be…

It couldn’t be, but she knew it was.

Georgiana stood in a shadowed recess beneath the imperial staircase gracing Buxton Hall’s entrance, a beaded reticule dangling forgotten from her wrist, her breath trapped between her lungs and her lips.

The fragrances of the season—frankincense, cinnamon, roast goose—swirled, and she closed her eyes, hoping, praying …

But when she opened them, Dexter Reed Munro, the Marquess of Westfield, mere days from becoming the Duke of Markham if the rumor was correct, stood on the lowest step of the flight across from her, his expression amused, his head tilted as if someone had told a joke and he was considering whether to laugh.

When one yearned to hear that laugh.

A horde of fluttering, preening admirers surrounded him, and his smile, polite but winsome, looked so authentic they’d no idea he was soundly rejecting them. She could spot a fake right off. And, heavens , did she recognize the Munro brand of rejection.

He doesn’t care for society , she’d love to tell the flock.

He only cares for his bloody rocks.

Georgiana released the punishing grip on her reticule, then smoothed the velvet tuft into place.

With murmured appreciation, she took a glass from a passing footman and climbed the staircase opposite Dexter’s, knowing they were likely to meet on the landing.

Champagne bubbles erupted on her tongue, the fiery sensation giving her much-needed courage.

She’d never been able to shut off the part of her that whispered that one please every time she came within spitting range of him.

He hadn’t known about her obsession, and truly, she didn’t need to recall.

Those untamed children racing over moor and heath, roaming the limestone caves and caverns of Derbyshire, were long gone.

Their lone kiss, a glancing brush of his lips against hers before he departed on his adventures, meant nothing.

His love of fossils and stone had been the only thing he’d taken with him. The reckless, passionate sister of his closest friend, a girl who’d fallen hard during their split-second kiss, hadn’t been a concern.

Thankfully, things changed. People changed.

Georgiana Whitcomb, Countess Winterbourne, was no longer reckless or passionate about anything. And with her brother’s death, the circle of three friends had been forever broken.

“Markham has returned from his travels.” Lady Pembroke saddled up beside Georgiana, prepared to unleash an anthology of intrusive observations.

“You’re stepping ahead, my lady. For now, he’s simply Westfield,” she said though she didn’t move away as she wished to.

Lady Pembroke had a daughter, Lady Elizabeth, whom Georgiana quite liked.

A review of Elizabeth’s membership in the Duchess Society was going before the committee next month.

The committee consisted of Georgiana and her best friend, Hildegard Templeton.

Georgiana had put her heart, soul, and the experience gained from a wretched marriage—in addition to a substantial amount of her deceased husband’s monies—into her organization for young ladies.

Elizabeth was a prime example of a na?ve girl needing tutelage on ways to navigate an aristocratic arrangement.

Ways to survive would be closer to the truth .

If speaking to Elizabeth’s dragon of a mother was the price of admission, Georgiana was willing to pay.

Lady Pembroke tapped her fan on Georgiana’s wrist, three soft rebukes.

“The duke is gravely ill, or so I’ve heard.

Westfield wouldn’t have returned without a noose closing around his neck.

The horrendous row he and his father had, why, it’s close to six years ago as I recollect.

The scoundrel cares only for things long dead and set in granite.

His father, once he’s dust, will finally be a person of interest.”

“Closer to seven years, actually,” she murmured, choosing to ignore the vulgar statement about the Duke of Markham’s health.

The last time Georgiana had spoken to Dex was the night of the argument with his father, where he’d been furiously packing for an expedition that would take him far from his ancestral home, far from everything, exactly as he’d wanted. Exactly as he’d gotten.

Yet, as she invariably tended to, Georgiana defended the notorious marquess, a hard, hard habit to break. “I believe geology is his profession. He didn’t merely travel; the government funded his research. Surveys and such, hence the familial conflict.”

Lady Pembroke grasped the walnut railing, then snatched her hand back when an evergreen needle pricked her through her glove.

Holly, ivy, English fir, and mistletoe adorned every surface, framed every window until Buxton Hall looked like the forest had been invited inside the manor.

“Imagine thinking to turn a hobby into a profession . Our set doesn’t have professions, my dear.

Westfield must be half-mad, as they say.

Making it worse, he taught a class at Oxford last year.

What future duke needs to be an academic?

” She lifted a perfectly-shaped brow and brought her wounded hand before her face as if the injury puzzled her. “Childhood friends, weren’t you?”

“My brother, Anthony,” Georgiana said, stepping onto the landing. Even whispering his name sent her heart to shatter on the marble beneath her feet. “The marquess was my brother’s closest friend.”

The grief in her voice was enough to cast Lady Pembroke off like a ship that had scraped a glacier.

Georgiana smiled sadly and sipped her champagne.

The Ice Countess. It’s what the ton called her, and the moniker fit.

At least, it fit now that Georgiana no longer had to play a part.

Play a game. She was free to do as she deemed fit .

Freedom she’d never relinquish. Not for anyone. Not for anything.

The hair on the nape of her neck lifted, cogent awareness sending goosebumps along her arms.

Georgiana glanced across the crowded landing, and there he stood.

Someone bumped into her, but the view was better from the spot she stumbled into.

Between an aging viscount and an inebriated baron, both short of stature and style.

Dex hadn’t seen her—a temporary respite in the small space—so she seized the silent moment to record the changes.

Prepare for a conversation should she have to endure one.

Let the tumble her heart had taken settle in, settle down.

She palmed her quivering stomach. Oh, my, is this feeling familiar.

The woman at Dex’s side bounced up on her toes to whisper in his ear.

His smile was rueful, his lone-shouldered shrug contrite.

Disarming as he brushed off the suggestion, one Georgiana didn’t want to fathom.

She drew an aggrieved breath through her teeth, suppressing the ridiculous, possessive burn in her chest.

However vexed she was, she couldn’t deny the beauty of the moment.

Candlelight sparked off jeweled facets and polished cuff links, off the gold and silver paper looped around the banisters.

Off Dex’s eyes, a unique mix much like his composite rocks.

Green one day, hazel the next, a surprise every time she’d gazed into them, a gift one hadn’t expected to receive.

He tilted his head, highlighting the auburn streaks in his hair.

Not ginger, not brown but an appealing combination of both.

His skin was tanned when it hadn’t been before, accentuating a pale crescent scar on his temple.

Slightly taller. Leaner. A hard edge shaping his face, rawness filtering into his jaw, his stubborn chin.

As it tended to, life had sculpted them both.

Surely, there were more classically handsome men, although none she’d met had the distinctive blend of intelligence and a desire for experience beyond what was easily obtained.

A hunger she had as well, but she was a woman, which made all the horrendous difference in the world.

A modern-day pirate minus the sword, Dex had gone through life almost incensed.

And she had, from the first, understood .

He’d known who he was from day one, which was rare in their often counterfeit world .

Dex flicked his coat aside and braced his hand on his lean hip in exasperation, and Georgiana realized with a sinking heart that she was still attracted to him.

She’d always liked the temperamental ones when the temperamental ones caused all the trouble.

She’d often told the ladies of the Duchess Society: if you have the luxury of choice, obtuse men are easier to control.

Candlelight simply loved this clever one, she decided and polished off her champagne.

Once, so had she.

As if an ember had struck his skin, Dex glanced up and over the crowd, easily able to do so when her meager height was a hereditary disadvantage.

Of course, he recognized her, his gaze sweeping low, then back.

He was shocked; this was evident. His bottom lip slowly parted from the top, his eyes widening enough for her to make out the color: a dark, luscious green matching the mistletoe at his elbow.

Even a hint of crimson, like the holly berries sprinkled across every table, flowed into his cheeks.

She was glad for his astonishment. Sophomorically, patently glad .

Because, when she turned her back and climbed the flight of stairs to the double salon, she was the one leaving this time.

It couldn’t be, but he knew it was.