His Christmas Nymph by Marly Mathews Page B

completely off its axis. She felt so lightheaded. Every time she was around him, he made her feel this way and it was most annoying.
    “I think I should like to go inside now and visit with your Godmother as she invited me to do, unless of course that’s a pretense.”
    “You must know why you were invited now,” he remarked, his hands clasped tightly behind his back. She studied him closely her heart racing. He was just as nervous as she was, he just knew how to shield his emotions more than she could. “Why don’t we take a stroll around the beautiful gardens, before going inside for tea?”
    Would it help her any to have a row with him? Did she even want to get cross with him? All she wanted to do was concede to his every whim. In fact, if he asked her to steal away with him to Gretna Green, she just might be inclined to do so! Maybe she just had to throw caution to the wind and do what she deeply desired.
    “Ther e is no need for you to deny it. I can see how much you want to walk with me in your eyes.”
    “You, sir, assume far too much. I do not wish to take a leisurely strol l in the gardens. I wish to go inside and be with…”
    “Chaperones,” he surmised. “I’m awfully surprised that your auntie even allowed you to come here by yourself. I was half expecting a wretched looking companion with you wh en I opened the carriage door. You know the type. Someone old, severe looking and wearing a widow or spinster’s cap.”
    “Please stop it. I could wear a mobcap, and maybe I should,” she murmured, averting his gaze as she rushed up the steps to the door that led to her freedom. He kept pace behind her and thank goodness he had for she lost her balance on the top step and nearly went for a backward tumble had his strong arms not wrapped around her to steady her.
    “Promise me you will neve r do that before it’s your time,” he whispered against her ear, his breath making her shiver. “This feels like heaven. Having you so close is my true heart’s desire.”
    “I was only a means to an end for you,” she murmured breathlessly, trying not to look into his captivating eyes. She would drown in his gaze, she knew she would.
    He looked completely aghast at her latest proclamation. “You wound me deeply, Caroline. I never set out to use you, not the way you think.”
    “You were running from a fortune hunter, and I was your means of escape—and now that I think of it, mixing me up in your plot was a mischievous thing to do. You wounded me, sir!”
    “You were not my means of escape, not the way you believe. I wanted you from the very first moment I set eyes on you, Caroline. You were everything I had ever wanted in a woman. You had substance, something the woman that my mother picked out for me lacked in spades. You looked so beguiling sitting in my grandfather’s folly—you are and will always will remain, my Christmas Nymph.”
    Her stomach twisted and pain lanced her heart. How could she continue to rebuff him? He talked so sweetly and seemed so sincere—and yet—she couldn’t quite believe she was worthy of a man such as he.
    “You talk with such beguiling charm and yet—“
    “And yet what?” he asked softly, still holding her close. She wanted to lose herself in the moment and let him have what he wanted from her.
    “I can’t allow you to court me until you promise me one thing.”
    “Anything,” he said, hope dancing in his sparkling eyes.
    “While I’m very happy living with my aunt, her husband and her children. And yet, I can’t stop thinking of my father. He truly was a good father to me before becoming leg-shackled to that harridan of a woman, and I can’t resign myself to marrying a man whom he dislikes.”
    Edward’s eyes hardened. She believed she’d stepped over the imaginary line and finally pushed him out of her life for good. Instead, the hardened glint in his eyes faded to be replaced by his soft look of admiration for her.
    “In that case, my dear, there is