One Wicked Christmas by Amanda Mccabe Page A

was right. She needed to find someone else. But, curse it all, she didn’t want anyone else!
    Luckily her friend wasn’t looking at her to see her pink cheeks. Melisande studied the gathering, her eyes narrowed in consideration, as if she was examining horses at Tattersalls. “What about Lord Meredith? He’s a bit talkative for my taste, but he does have those lovely blue eyes. Or Lord Jermaine? Lady Jermaine says he is very well-endowed.”
    Cassandra had to laugh. “I don’t think so. Not a married man. And not one who is talkative.”
    “Mr. Hatchard? Oh, I know—Lord Phillips! He is so handsome and he seemed to admire you at my dinner party last week.” Melisande sighed when Cassandra shook her head. “My dear, if you are that finicky you will certainly never find a lover. What are you looking for?”
    Ian, Cassandra thought sadly. He was what she wanted, ever since that crazy kiss in the garden—no, even before that. But he didn’t want her. To him, she was just his friend Charles’s widow.
    “Someone kind, I suppose,” she said. “Someone who will understand that it’s, er, been some time since I had a lover. Someone who is handsome, who can make me laugh. Someone like…”
    “Like your husband?”
    Cassandra swallowed hard. She hadn’t even been thinking of Charles, her quiet, gentle husband, at all when she considered what she wanted in a new lover. What a terrible wife she was.
    But then again, Melisande was right. She had been alone for a long time now, and the memories of Charles that had kept her heart warm for many months were fading. The world was becoming a cold place indeed.
    “Yes,” she said. “Someone a bit like Charles, I suppose.”
    “Well, my dear, you must forgive me saying so, but what you need in a lover is someone most unlike your husband.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean you and your Charles were a comfortable old couple from the moment you married, sitting by the fire reading together all the time. I don’t think I ever saw you flirt and laugh together.”
    “There was no need. We were married. We knew each other too well to need to—flirt.”
    “That was your mistake, then, Cassie. You were too comfortable. And you were only seventeen when you wed! Too young for such dullness.”
    Cassandra shook her head stubbornly, but deep down inside she had traitorous doubts. Was Melisande right? Had she really been so dull all those years? She was only twenty-five now. “I was happy with Charles.”
    Melisande gave her a gentle smile. “I know you were. And no one can replace what you had with him. Yet another reason for you to look for someone different now.”
    “What do you suggest, then?”
    “Someone dashing, of course! Someone who is naughty, and just a bit wicked. No one really cruel or dangerous, certainly, but a man who is a bit of a rogue. Someone who knows what he is about in the bedchamber. There’s no sense in taking on someone staid and dull for your first lover.”
    A bit wicked. Cassandra bit her lip as she thought again of Ian and that kiss. Ian and Charles had been friends ever since their days at Eton, even though there were no two men more different. Charles had been quiet and scholarly; many of their evenings really were spent reading by the fire at their home in the country. He was even quietly attentive and efficient in bed, never removing more clothes than was strictly necessary.
    Sir Ian Chandler, though, was witty and daring, always laughing, always moving and doing. She’d heard tales of his life of horse racing and gaming, of all the women who fell desperately in love with him, though he never spoke of such things when he came to their house. He would always take her out riding and walking, making her laugh with his tales of Town life while Charles read in his library. Ian was lean and dark, thanks to his Italian mother, and Charles golden-blond as an English spring.
    Even after Charles was gone, Ian would visit her, talk to her, read to