O Night Divine A Holiday Collection of Spirited Christmas Tales - Kathryn Le Veque Page 0,28

no more.”

“It doesn’t quite work like that. Get your cloak, Elizabeth. You’re going to need it.”

Chapter Two

The gaming hell was not crowded. Many had left London for the countryside and the holiday festivities of families. For himself, well, Lord Oliver Weston, Marquess of Whittendon, there was no family and there were no festivities to be had. Born in America to the second son of a second son, there should have been no chance of him inheriting a title or an estate. And yet, there he was, playing cards in a gaming hell off St. James’s Place with a total stranger who had greater interest in brandy than winning. Or losing. Hell, he wasn’t even certain the man was awake.

It was the draft that had him looking up. The doors were standing wide open and in that space was the figure of a woman. Draped in a long, dark cloak, her face hidden beneath a velvet hood, he had no notion of what she looked like. Yet, he couldn’t tear his gaze from her. She was compelling to him in some way.

Tossing his cards on the table, he rose. His opponent had apparently been awake after all. The man hooted with glee at his apparent forfeiture. For himself, Oliver would have given the man every last guinea in his possession just to end the blasted game and get to her. Whoever she was, knowing her had suddenly become as imperative to him as breathing.

She stepped inside and the doors closed. A pair of small hands, delicate and graceful in their satin gloves, reached up to push back that hood. A wealth of dark hair piled high in an elaborate coiffure. But she was no girl. The candlelight glinted off just the barest hint of silver in those dark tresses. It only made her more interesting. As if anything needed to.

As he moved toward her, he noted that she looked to her right and gave a slight nod. It was an odd gesture given that no one was standing near her. She’d entered the establishment completely alone and there was hardly a soul in sight. The few stragglers were men like him—lifelong bachelors who had no families to celebrate with as the Christmas holiday approached.

Closing the distance between them, he halted just far enough from her that he could see her clearly from head to toe. Still draped in a velvet cloak, her figure was a mystery. But her face… heaven above, her face. Helen of Troy. Cleopatra. Aphrodite herself. None could have been more compelling. “Pardon me,” he said. “But—” He stopped. What could he say? He didn’t know her. Every bit of etiquette and protocol that he did know and that he’d ever bothered to adhere to demanded that he should not simply insert himself into the affairs of a woman he did not know.

“I’d love a glass of sherry,” she said, her voice a bit husky and low, but with a sweet, honeyed texture that was pure seduction. “It’s been a very long night.”

It was only ten o’clock. “It has, indeed. I am Oliver.”

“Elizabeth,” she said, accepting his proffered arm.

There was a small settee tucked into an alcove and Oliver led her toward it. He motioned to a footman who trotted dutifully forward. “Sherry for the lady and a brandy for me.”

“Yes, my lord,” the footman said and departed immediately to do his bidding.

“My lord?” she asked. “And here I thought you were simply Oliver.”

“And you? Are you simply Elizabeth.”

Her eyes sparkled. “I’m Elizabeth. But hardly simple.”

He laughed, the sound a surprise to them both. He was still chuckling about her witty response when the footman returned, placed their drinks on a small table and then vanished. “Well, Elizabeth,” he finally managed as he raised his glass, “here’s to never being simple.”

She sipped her sherry and then asked, “So what exactly are you lord of?”

“A large estate in Derbyshire that I know nothing about. Another smallish estate in Somerset that I’m equally ill-informed of… and a house here in Mayfair that I cannot abide because it’s pretentious and dull,” he answered honestly.

“So sell the house, hire someone to run your estates and then be lord of whatever you like,” she suggested.

“And you? What is it that you want to do, Elizabeth?”

Elizabeth stared at the remarkably handsome man before her. If she’d thought her hallucination/guardian spirit—really, what a contradiction in terms—was attractive, then surely Oliver, as he’d misintroduced himself, was the handsomest man she’d ever seen. With shining, dark hair