Deck The Halls With Love: Lost Lords Of Pembrook Novella by Lorraine Heath Read Free Book Online

against her wrist. She wanted to rub the sensation away, while at the same time she wanted to place it in a gilded box so she could keep it. “I trusted you with my heart once. I won’t do it again.”
    “I know I bruised your feelings.”
    “You did nothing of the sort.” Reaching down, she snatched up her skates.
    “I won’t give up,” he said. “Not until Christmas.”
    “Why that particular day?”
    “Because your love is the only gift I wish to receive.”
    Oh, how she truly wanted to believe the words, to bask in them, glory in them. But he had toyed with her affections once. She would not be so quick to fall for him again. “And with my love comes my dowry. How do I know it’s not what you’re truly after?”
    “I don’t give a damn about your dowry. I’ll find a way to prove that to you as well.”
    “Even if you earn my love, you won’t win my hand. Father promised it to Litton.”
    He narrowed his eyes. “Was it not your choice to marry him? Are the rumors true? Did he take advantage?”
    “It was only a kiss, but we were caught. I wanted the kiss, and I want to marry him.” Or at least she had convinced herself that she wanted to marry him, because in truth she had no choice. Her father would have it no other way. She wondered if a time would ever come when women didn’t have to obey their fathers, when they would have the full freedom of adulthood. Although even her brothers, older than she, still obeyed their father. “The pond is just over the rise,” she said, to steer them away from the conversation and a promise she didn’t want to make.
    She and Chetwyn carried on in companionable silence as the sky darkened and snow began to blow around them.
    “Perhaps we should turn back,” he said.
    “Giving up so easily, Chetwyn?”
    “Where you’re concerned, never again.”
    She didn’t want to admit that, with his words, something within her sang as clearly as the birds of spring.
    T he snow was falling more thickly by the time they reached the pond.
    “I wouldn’t recommend we stay overly long,” Chetwyn said. “Our tracks will soon disappear, and we’ll have a difficult time finding our way back.”
    Something told her that they shouldn’t stay at all. They’d walked quite a distance. The wind had picked up and was whining through the trees. Soon it would be howling. But the water was frozen and the ice inviting. “One trip around the outer edge, and we’ll head back,” she said.
    She glanced around, striving to determine where she could sit without gaining a damp bottom.
    “Lean against that tree there,” he said. “I’ll slip your blades onto your shoes.”
    After handing him her blades, she did as he suggested. With her back against the bark, she watched as he knelt in the snow. He lifted his gaze to hers, and a sharp pang ripped through her. She had dreamed of him in that position, only he was going to ask her to become his wife. She swallowed hard at the memory of how badly she had wanted it.
    Chetwyn patted his knee. “Give me your foot.”
    With her hands to the side, gripping the trunk of the tree, she lifted her foot. Bending his head, he went to work securing the wooden blade to her shoe. Give him until Christmas to prove he was worthy of her affections? She didn’t think he’d need more than a day. What of poor Litton? She knew what it was to be cast aside. He certainly didn’t deserve such unkind treatment, but was it kinder to let him go when she longed for another?
    When Chetwyn finished with one foot, she placed the other on his knee.
    “A pity you didn’t bring blades,” she told him.
    “I shall walk along beside you.”
    “On the ice?”
    “On the bank.”
    “I shan’t be able to skate very far.”
    He set her other foot aside and unfolded that long, lean body of his. “As you don’t know how thick the ice is, you’re better off staying close to shore, where the water is shallow. If you break through the ice, you’ll only get your feet