Read Online A Yuletide Treasure by Cynthia Bailey Pratt - Free Book Online

washed into her cheeks. “I... ?”
    Without a word or any sign of effort, he bent and swept her up to settle high against his chest. A yip of surprise escaped her. “Sir...”
    “I carried you in from the snow,” he said. “What’s the difference now except it’s easier if you’re awake. Arms around my neck, please. It helps redistribute the weight.”
    She obeyed, her eyes still wide. His coat collar and cravat were still slightly damp as were the sides and back of his hair. She’d never been so close to a man before. She could see that his eyes were not all dark gray as she’d supposed. A rich brown ringed each pupil in an unusual and attractive combination. His eyebrows came rather far down his face, so that they ran from the bridge of his nose quite to the outside corner of his eye. She felt, now that she looked closely, that this partially accounted for his expression of good humor.
    He noticed that she was looking at him curiously. “No doubt you are wondering about our circumstances,” he asked.
    “I hope I’m not so impertinent.” She tried to forget about the strength of the arms under her body and the support of his hand on her back. Though she felt every instant that she should fall, she could not recall being so comfortable before.
    “Nothing impertinent about it. You find yourself, willy-nilly, involved with us.” With her silence, he continued, seeming to have no trouble with his breathing. “I inherited the property from my elder brother, Myron. He was captain aboard His Majesty’s three-decker, Gauntlet. Six months ago, sailing in Philippine waters during a hurricane, he was washed overboard.”
    “How dreadful,” she said. The usual formula, she feared, but she hoped he realized her sincerity. “One expects to hear of the loss of gallant men during wartime, but now with peace....”
    “I believe that the men who sail in our ships are always at war, if not with other nations, then with the sea herself. All too often, the victories go to the waters.”
    “It must have been a great shock to his wife, I’m sure.”
    “All the more so since he’d been home on leave for more than a year. They had hardly ever been together so long in all their married life, so of course she came to rely on his strength very greatly. To have that prop taken away was bitter, but to know now that it can never be renewed is almost too much for her strength of mind, Beulah is rather delicate at the best of times, and now, in her present state ... That is ...”
    The door behind him swung open, and instantly Camilla saw what Sir Philip had hinted. The woman in the doorway had a figure that noticeably swelled in the center. Not tall, she had impeccable posture that dared one to notice her pregnancy.
    “And who is this?”
    It was impossible for Camilla not to feel yet again the implacable hostility that she’d met everywhere in this house, save from Sir Philip and Tinarose. She felt the puppyish Mavis hardly counted.
    She couldn’t really see the woman’s eyes with the light coming from within the room, but the note of severe dislike sounded even more clearly than in the voices of the servants.
    Camilla couldn’t understand it. She’d done nothing; she didn’t even know these people. Could they be mistaking her for someone else? But why, then, wouldn’t they call her by some other name so she might correct their misapprehension?
    “How do you do, Lady LaCorte?” she said, acutely aware that her position in Sir Philip’s arms demanded explanation, yet determined not to be the one to offer it. “I’m Camilla Twainsbury.”
    “Camilla,” Sir Philip said softly in her ear. Perforce, she glanced at him and found him smiling. “I’d wondered,” he said. “All you said to me was ‘Miss Twainsbury.’ “
    “I hope I didn’t say it like that,” Camilla said, objecting to his rather sniffy imitation.
    A tapping reminded them that they were not alone. Camilla looked down and saw that Lady LaCorte’s