A Regency Christmas Pact Collection (41 page)

Northcotte dove for Lady Miriam and caught her before she hit the ground, but the movement almost carried him to land on top of her. He twisted as he went down to cushion her fall.

When he could breathe again, he sat up, Miriam cradled in his arms. Joe, the stable hand, jumped down from the wagon and ran to them. “Can I help, milord?”

“Take her while I stand.” Northcotte lifted her as well as he could, and the young man took her. Rolling to his feet, Northcotte dusted himself off and retrieved his quiet package. She didn’t stir when handed from one man to the other. He swore under his breath. “We must hurry.”

On the ride back, he remembered to tell the hand to watch for their horses. It was easier to think of the important things than to question the words running through his scrambled thoughts.

I was a fool to wait for you
.

Wait for him to what? Propose? That implied she had other options. If she meant to wait for his proposal rather than accept the man her grandfather had approved, she would have worded it differently, wouldn’t she? Perhaps Joanna and Jane had convinced her he could be…persuaded to offer for her.

His lips pursed at the bitter taste of that idea. Joanna knew better. This could be repayment for the difficulties he caused her when she sought a husband. For insisting she be friendly to that bastard, Sir Jasper Ardwen. But no, she couldn’t still blame him for that. Northcotte had resolved matters so Joanna had been free to marry David as she wished.

If it wasn’t revenge, why were they working so hard to make a match between him and Lady Miriam?

He tightened his arm around her when they went around a curve to keep her from falling again. She whimpered but did not move. Her face was so pale, making her rose-colored lips stand out. They pouted, so full and ripe. His thumb itched to brush across them.

He was mad. One minute accusing her of trying to trap him and putting him in the very position Arrington had been in, the next he wanted to kiss her. In front of the stable hand. Lady Miriam’s father would hold a fire poker to his back as he walked down the church aisle.

Pieces of their conversation bounced around in his head. He’d been too harsh on her. The more time he spent with her, the more difficult it was to be strong in his resolve to keep his distance. By now, he knew her well enough to know she’d never come after him with a poker if she found him with a mistress. No, she would hold all the blame herself, withdrawing from her happy life and wondering what she’d done to push him into the arms of another woman.

She deserved so much better.

The ride in the wagon seemed to take twice as long as Miriam’s plodding mare had travelled, but Joe steered the wagon to a halt at the front entrance. Stephen’s butler opened the door, and upon seeing the wagon rushed forward. “Shall I send for the doctor?”

“Please,” Northcotte barked. He carried her into the morning room, hurrying around the chaise to have her head on the elevated side when he lay her down. Her head rolled to one side, but she didn’t make a sound.

Jane rushed into the room and knelt beside Lady Miriam, taking a limp hand in her own. “What happened?”

“She fell from her horse. She seemed fine, at first, but when the wagon I sent for arrived, she stood up and dropped dead before taking more than three steps.” He hovered over her, leaning one hand on the carved wood trim of the chaise. Blame continued to eat at him. If he hadn’t argued with her, she would never have considered riding back alone and wouldn’t have fallen.

Jane placed a hand on his arm. “Will you carry her to her chamber upstairs? Or shall I call for a footman?”

Northcotte jumped to do it. “There’s no need for a footman.”

Following behind him while he carried Lady Miriam, Jane said, “I’m having some rags and cool water brought up. Henderson sent a boy to fetch Dr. Abraham from the village.”

He couldn’t help but voice his fears. “She shouldn’t be unconscious this long. Not when she sat talking with me right after the fall.”

“I’m certain she will be fine, my lord. Put your fears at ease.”

After laying her on her bed, Northcotte left so her maid could undress her and tend to any injuries.

Put his fears at ease,
Jane had said. What did he have to be afraid of? Guilty, yes, of haranguing the young lady until she could no longer be in his presence. All because of Arrington. His friend couldn’t keep his own wife happy, and now Northcotte would make everyone around him miserable.

He should leave for Hampshire right away. Go home and let these people enjoy their preparations for the holiday. Leave, and not cause Jane any further upsets during her confinement. Pacing the length of the hallway, he argued with himself over which was the best course of action.

Joanna would be disappointed. This was Annie’s first Christmas, and Joanna wanted someone of her own family to share it with them. At two, little William was old enough to enjoy the gifts he received.

Blast that man, Arrington! His stupid actions had reached so far afield in damaging too many lives.

Footsteps rang out on the staircase and Stephen, Joanna, and David rushed towards Northcotte in the hallway. Stephen reached him first. “Is she all right? When your horses arrived at the folly without you, we rode back. Joe told us what happened. How is Lady Miriam?”

“She hasn’t wakened. The doctor has been sent for.”

Joanna continued into Lady Miriam’s bedchamber, and Northcotte resumed his pacing. Stephen and David took up post on either side of the bedchamber door.

David crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall. “If I’d have known she didn’t ride, I would have requested a cart for her to ride in to the folly.”

“It wasn’t her fault. The mare spooked and Lady Miriam lost her balance.” He hesitated before saying more. In the three years since Joanna and David had married, David had become like a brother to him, and Stephen an extension of that, since the cousins were so close.

The burning acid of guilt in his gut made him unable to remain silent. Since he couldn’t apologize to Miriam yet, his brother-in-law would have to do. “We argued, again. I blamed her for the blatant matchmaking the ladies are practicing. She took insult, rightly so, and wished to be free of my company. Her sudden commands are what spooked her horse.”

David looked at Stephen before responding, a frown creasing his brow. “I understood the ladies had ended any hopes they had of you and Lady Miriam forming an attachment.”

Stephen nodded. “That is what Jane told me. There might have been some early ideas of you two finding each other suitable, but can you blame two happily married ladies for wanting the same for their friend? Joanna might also have felt it was a way to connect you even more to our family, or connect Lady Miriam. Who knows what schemes go through the minds of our wives?”

“The point is,” David said, “They stopped doing so when Lady Miriam requested it. Any appearance of matchmaking has been happenstance.”

Northcotte turned and paced to the end of the hall and back. So he was doubly to blame. Not only was Lady Miriam innocent of the accusations he made, none of the ladies had been scheming to get them together. He truly was the conceited bastard Lady Miriam said he was, even though she avoided using that term directly.

What if she never awakened? The idea filled him with bitter bile. His foolish pride would be responsible for her death. Lady Arrington, by extension, would also be guilty, or at least, Arrington’s insatiable appetite for relations outside his marriage. How many people would be hurt by one man’s promiscuity?

When Northcotte reached the bedchamber door again he stopped, pressing at the cords in the back of his neck with his thumb and forefinger. This headache of his was probably a fleabite in comparison to what Lady Miriam felt before she fainted.

David straightened off the wall and took a few steps closer to Northcotte. “Is it Lady Miriam who concerns you, or the idea of marriage itself? She seems like a pleasant companion, but then my judgment might be off as I am married.”

“She’s a very pleasant girl. Rather entertaining. Astute in human nature. Delightful sense of humor.” Northcotte stared hard at the closed door.

“Ah, I see. A very poor prospect for a wife.”

Northcotte glared at him, his lips stretched tightly. “You know she’s an excellent prospect for any other man.
I’m
the one who cannot consider marriage.”

Stephen came closer. “I’m obviously not in the market for a husband, but I fail to see what you believe makes you so undesirable. If I had a sister, I’d happily allow her to accept your proposal.”

“You would put her through the misery of knowing her husband has liaisons with other women?” Northcotte rubbed the back of his neck again.

“Many men take on mistresses,” David replied.

“Do you?” Northcotte looked first to him, then Stephen.

“Of course not,” David spat out.

“Ridiculous to even ask,” Stephen barked.

David folded his arms and planted his feet in a firm stance. “You haven’t been with one in several months. Why do you imagine you’d want one once you marry? Can’t you even consider the idea that Lady Miriam will be more than happy to see to your needs?”

“There is more to it than that,” Northcotte argued. “There is the companionship. Sometimes after a trying day in the House of Lords, I would go to Mrs. Besom’s rooms to hear her talk of little things, or make those silly noises of sympathy she always did. I’m ashamed of how soothing I found that.”

Stephen chuckled. “Ah, yes. A wife would never wish to coddle her husband of an evening.”

His laughter made Northcotte’s muscles tighten even more. He felt like a bowstring about to snap. His parents barely spoke to one another for as long as he could remember. The Lumleys might all have happy marriages, but his own experience was completely contrary. “I cannot guarantee I will be a faithful husband, so I cannot take the chance of facing her wrath if I stray.”

Stephen adjusted the string holding his eye patch in place as if suddenly aware of it. “I refused to propose to Jane before I went into battle because I couldn’t guarantee I’d return. When I returned less than whole, I still hesitated to ask her. I had nightmares of the explosions around me, and would wake screaming. I’d seen my reflection. How could I ask her to look upon this face every day for the rest of her life?”

Northcotte opened his mouth to argue but Stephen raised a hand.

“None of that had any effect on her love for me. She was still angry at me for not asking for her hand before I left—”

“Not to mention how angry she was when you proposed while quite deep in your cups,” David inserted.

Stephen frowned at his cousin. “Nevertheless, in not considering her feelings in the matter, I almost lost the chance at the best life I could live.”

Looking at Stephen, then at David, Northcotte could see they were very much in love with their wives, and very happy with their lives. But Stephen’s supposition took one thing for granted. “You presume Lady Miriam has an affection for me that has not been in evidence that I can see. She has asked that you not push an attachment between us, which is plain enough for me. She is not interested, so all of our postulating is for naught.”

He sounded a bit more petulant that he wished. Why did it bother him that she wasn’t attracted to him? He should be overjoyed with relief that her heart was not injured by his own disinterest. He should be overjoyed that he could spend the rest of his holiday enjoying the company of those around him.

Yet he was strangely bereft of these happy emotions, and one sentence resounded in his thoughts.

I was a fool to wait for you
.

How urgently he wanted to ask her what she meant. His ego was already suggesting she wanted him, or she did until his mad outburst. But how could she know of him, except perhaps through Jane? If they’d met in the past, he surely would have remembered her. He didn’t think he’d been so deep in his financial woes as to be blind to a beauty such as she was.

She was old enough to have been in attendance at assemblies before his father died, so they might have met then. He’d been oblivious to the debutantes in Town, having interest only in the widows willing to slake his lust. Still, she could not have become so much more beautiful in four or five years that he wouldn’t have noticed her before now.