Page 1 of Mine This Winter
CHAPTER 1
Westmore Hall
Whitehaven
Christmas was a time of miracles, when one should be prepared for an event that defied logic and the laws of nature. Yet the handsome gentleman entering the drawing room had been summoned by the devil, not the Divine.
Gwen clasped her trembling hands in her lap and willed herself to wake from her nightmare.
She’d heard Simon Garrick was dead. Shot by marauders in the Americas or forced off the plank of a pirate ship in the Indies. Someone said his wife found him cavorting with his mistress and drove a blade through his black heart. Mrs Berridge seemed convinced he’d gambled away his fortune and downed enough port to pickle his liver.
The tales were untrue.
Because, much to the horror of the other guests, Simon Garrick had just marched to the drinks table and poured his own brandy.
Flanders tried to intervene, but Mr Garrick shooed the butler away like one would an annoying fly. He tossed back the amber liquid, hissed to cool the burn, and quickly poured himself another drink.
All the men watched and muttered between themselves, their voices tight with disapproval, yet no one dared approach him.
Why would they?
They were staring at a ghost. A mesmerising and somewhat angry ghost who looked ready to drag their poor souls to Hades.
“So, Mr Garrick isn’t dead,” Mrs Astley said, relaxing beside Gwen on the sofa. She patted her vibrant red hair as a pleasurable hum left her lips. “That man is like fine wine. He gets better with age. How old is he now? Thirty?”
Gwen feigned disinterest. “I’m not sure.”
He would be thirty in February.
Despite every effort to ignore him, Gwen let her gaze slide southward over Mr Garrick’s impressive physique. The sight had her heart thumping hard against her ribcage. Broad shoulders filled his dark blue coat. Muscular thighs filled his buckskin breeches. His skin had a golden hue, and she imagined him stripping off his clothes against the heat of a tropical sun.
Five years had passed, yet she remembered everything.
The arousing smell of his cedarwood cologne.
The honey highlights in his sandy-brown hair.
Eyes as blue as a Mediterranean sea.
Lips that had devoured hers in a kiss that left her body aching. A kiss that ruined her for any other man.
“Did his father not own the neighbouring estate?” came Mrs Astley’s curious question. Everyone knew the widow wanted a new gentleman to warm her bed, and had come to Westmore under the guise of playing chaperone to her sister Miss Netherwell.
“Whitney Grange is a short walk from here.” Memories flashed into Gwen’s mind. The secret picnic with Mr Garrick in the woods bordering his property. His hand moving gently between her thighs. “The house has been empty since his father died last year.”
Mr Garrick had not returned for the funeral.
Confirming the claim he was dead.
Gwen looked up from her lap to meet Mr Garrick’s intense stare. The power of it stole past her defences, sending her pulse skittering.
He studied her over the rim of his glass, disdain marring his fine features, yet he was the one who had kissed her passionately and left England hours later without uttering a word.
Struggling beneath the weight of his observations, Gwen stood. Her legs wobbled as if the boards beneath her feet were made of quicksand. Mr Garrick’s arrival had shaken her very foundations.
She needed air.
She needed space.
