“Ahem! Ladies and gentlemen!”
Arran turned to see the innkeeper Mr. Vine clapping his hands together at the front of the dining room.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have a treat in store. Mrs. Vine has organized a great many activities for your amusement on this holiest of days, where we celebrate the birth of our Lord. Gentlemen, if you will assist me in moving the trestle tables to one side, we shall be able to set up each parlor game.”
“Parlor games?” called one giant bear of a laborer. “May as well give up now, you lot, I am the undisputed village champion these three years past.”
“The game isn’t drinking, you reprobate,” said the slender redheaded woman next to him, and the dining room erupted in laughter.
Mr. Vine shushed the crowd once more. “Now, for those of you passing through, we believe Christmas to be a time of goodwill and charity, so each parlor game will have a small entry fee of sixpence. This money helps to buy books for our village school. There will be music and cards and dancing, and on the west wall, in true Queen’s Standard tradition, mummers will perform, and also teach you how to juggle.”
“Oh! I love to dance,” said Rachel, her face lighting up beside him. “And what a clever idea to raise funds for the school.”
Arran shifted in his chair. While his family had always acknowledged Christmas with a sumptuous supper, attending church had been the limit of activities. This was far out of his realm of expertise. He would donate a sizeable fee to the school, as long as he didn’t have to sing, hurl objects in the air, or try and coordinate his oversized feet in time to music. “I’ll be relying on you, madam, to uphold the Elliott name,” he said.
“You’re not going to join in?” asked Rachel, actually looking crestfallen.
“I shall applaud your efforts,” he said. “And donate to the cause.”
Except for the next few hours, as they made their way around the room, he found himself playing bloody damned parlor games. It started well, Rachel had a delightful singing voice and enchanted the other guests with her version of ‘Joy to the World’. But after a few more glasses of mulled wine, she cheerfully lost several hands of whist and nearly rendered one of the mummers unconscious with a particularly enthusiastic toss of a small wooden club. He was almost afraid of what might happen with a country dance, especially when she led him under a bough of mistletoe and brazenly kissed him on the lips in front of a crowd of cheering onlookers.
It seemed Mrs. Elliott was determined to be crowned Lady of Misrule.
“Rachel,” he said, a note of warning in his voice.
“Yes, Arran?” she replied, fluttering her lashes at him.
“I’m sure you remember our conversation about correction,” he murmured.
Her cheeks pinkened. “I do.”
Then, her gaze not leaving his, she went right up on her tiptoes and whispered into his ear: “When I think about it, my cunt aches. I want to touch myself.”
Arran choked on a cough as a fierce wave of lust coursed through him, making his cock jerk. Yet before he could reply, she winked at him, and skipped away to join in a country dance. He watched her like a hawk the entire time, and she knew it, the little witch, as she sent him teasing smiles while her unknown partner, a burly, blond-haired man, twirled her around the space they had cleared.
Soon Rachel returned, slightly out of breath, and took a long gulp of the lemonade Mrs. Vine had provided alongside the mulled wine and ale.
“Did you enjoy your dance?” he said, unable to keep the edge from his tone.
“Well, I would have enjoyed it much more if you were dancing with me. But you prefer to be a stern and glowering wallflower.”
“I am not glowering,” he bit out.
“Yes you are, Mr. Elliott,” she replied with an impudent grin, and this time when she went up on her toes, she rubbed herself against him for one sinfully seductive moment. “Hmmm. Poor dear, so stiff and uncomfortable. The situation needs to be taken in hand, I think.”
His jaw dropped at her provocation even as his cock throbbed, and yet he got the distinct impression her outrageous actions were strictly to get a reaction from him. No one else had noticed her hip shimmy, and in the din of music and singing and loud chatter, her whispered words had no chance of being heard by another. He was the one that would suffer, thanks to his damned form-fitting trousers. “Careful now. Actions have consequences.”
“Oh?” she said, her eyes glittering. “Like what? Are you going to march me upstairs and spank my naughty bottom until it is as red as a holly berry? That seems appropriate for Christmas.”
Arran froze. Here again was confirmation: Rachel wanted to be disciplined by him. She’d even specified how! “I—”
“Do you want to dance, ma’am?”
If glares could maim, the grinning, cocky Irish lad would have collapsed in a screaming heap, but like she had previously, Rachel winked and walked away on another man’s arm to begin a rousing quadrille. She peeped up at him over her partner’s shoulder, but the final straw came when her tongue darted out to wet her pouty lips.
That did it. The wicked minx needed a firm lesson. At once.
When she returned in a flurry of skirts, it was plain the lad had already fallen half in love with her, and Arran firmly suppressed the urge to rearrange his nose. “Another exuberant display, my dear.”
“It was, wasn’t it,” she replied blithely. “He danced so beautifully, I do believe I could partner him for the rest of the evening.”
“No.”
The word dropped like a boulder into a pond.
Rachel shivered. “N-no?”
“We’ll
