Hold Me Close Read online

  And yet—she glanced again at the blazing fire, at her lamp glowing bright beside her bed, and a new suspicion prickled. Good Lord, Holsworth hadn’t done that, too, had he? He hadn’t meant to join her here, for some sort of secret assignation?

  She whirled to face the door.

  But it was still closed tight, and the hall outside was silent.

  Oh, for pity’s sake—of course he hadn’t intended anything of the sort. He’d never shown the least interest in her that way. And falling out or no falling out, he had always been Christopher’s best friend. Surely a man with the least shred of honor would not shame his friend’s widow so egregiously.

  In any case, he could scarcely have come up here undetected—when he arrived at Grantleigh Hall, a footman would have ushered him directly to the ballroom. And even if he evaded the servants, how could he guess which bedroom in this great old house was currently hers? Months ago, she’d moved from the rooms meant for the lord and lady of the house, in preparation for the day when young Alfred, Christopher’s cousin and heir, finished at Cambridge and came to claim his seat.

  Her suspicions were perfectly ridiculous.

  And yet, a potent image filled her mind, of Holsworth sweeping through the door, huge and hulking, stalking towards her, seizing her by the waist with his powerful arms, and opening his mouth over hers.

  Her head spun, and a strange pulse went through her belly.

  No, no—her emotions were overwrought tonight, that was all. Holsworth had come to Grantleigh Hall to offer condolences, not to seduce her. Any moment now, a perfectly rational explanation for the appearance of the box was going to present itself to her mind, and everything would feel normal again.

  She glanced back at the wooden object in her palm, at the inlaid gold glimmering and sparking in the glow of the fire.

  Of course—the box itself might contain the answer to her questions. She set her hand to the lid and pulled it loose.

  And gasped.

  Inside, nested in a swirl of red velvet, lay a gold bracelet.

  It was an unusually warm, bright shade of gold, gleaming in the firelight. It was as intricately carved as the box that held it, and presumably as old.

  Gingerly, she lifted the bracelet out, and held it up before the flames. Despite its apparent age, it was flawless, without a scratch or bit of tarnish.

  Unlike the thin, fragile Indian bangles Christopher had given her in the past, this was a broad, graceful oval, and rather heavy—its surface half an inch wide, engraved with a swirling pattern of leaves and flowers.

  It must have been made for an extremely small-boned woman, though. Julia was quite slim, as Holsworth had so rudely reminded her this evening, but the oval opening still looked too narrow to pass over her hand.

  She spun it round to see the other side, and found an elaborate, curving script carved into that surface. Sanskrit. Familiar from Christopher’s Indian library, though she herself had never learned to read the language.

  She frowned. The bracelet was as much a puzzle as the box.

  And yet, her hand fairly itched to slip the golden oval on.

  A silly impulse—she couldn’t possibly keep it without knowing exactly who had left it here. And, in any case, it was much too small. Even with her fingers bunched, she couldn’t slide it past her second row of knuckles.

  Her eye followed the curve of metal round and round, mesmerized by its beauty. And that was when she noticed little seams at either end of the oval, hidden within the swirls of the leaves. And—ah—a tiny gold pin beside one of the seams, protruding just above the smooth surface.

  A push on the pin with the edge of her fingernail, and, yes, the seams popped open—one of them concealing a tiny hinge, the other a heavy, curved gold wire along which the two hollow halves of the bracelet could slide apart. A clever mechanism. It let her widen the oval just enough to slide her whole hand through.

  She pressed the two halves together again, and they joined with a click, the seams vanishing neatly into the swirl of leaves again.

  Now the bracelet fit her wrist as though it were made for her. Not tight—it hung just slightly loose over her wrist bone, enough to slide an inch or two down towards her elbow—but not wide enough either to pass back over the heel of her hand.

  And, oh, it really was lovely.

  The shining glow of it beside the fire was the very color of—of happiness, yes, embodied happiness. A giddy thought, but accurate, somehow. And the metal must have absorbed the heat from the hearth, because it was warm as sunlight against her skin.

  An ache filled her heart to think of Christopher and his gifts.

  But, oddly enough, it wasn’t the sad sort of ache she was used to.

  This was a different sort of pleasant ache. A kind of yearning hopefulness. A note of joy she hadn’t felt in a very, very long time.

  How strange.

  And how wonderful.

  It made no sense at all, but suddenly, she felt an urge to go back downstairs to the dancing, to the room full of voices and music and laughter. To be human and alive again.

  She didn’t let herself stop to think. She knew the impulse would vanish quick as a mist if she didn’t go right now. Aunt Margaret had spoken truly—Christopher would have hated to see her wither away. After a year and a half of deep mourning, he would have wanted her to feel joy again.

  She was like a seedling in a drought, and a sudden shower of rain was falling. She needed to let it in.

  Decency demanded that she take off the bracelet before appearing in public again, since she did not know the identity of the giver, but she didn’t stop to do that either. She felt just a little wicked, though she did at least tuck the sandalwood box into her private jewelry cabinet where the half-naked dancer couldn’t scandalize her maids. Gathering her skirts in her hand, she dashed back down the stairs to the foyer, and hurried towards the west wing staircase that led down into the ballroom.

  The route took her along the darkened windows of the conservatory, and as she passed, the arm on which she wore the bracelet happened to bump one of the panes of glass. The bracelet chimed brightly against the pane, and suddenly a new impulse seized her: she would go through the conservatory to the private stairs at the back, and enter the ballroom more secretly that way. It felt more adventurous somehow, and she needed a bit of adventure.

  She slipped through the door to the gallery where rows of palms and orange trees made exotic, scented shadows in the moonlight. The air, sultry thanks to the brass pipes along the walls circulating heated water, felt lovely and summer-like against her bare arms. She’d walked here so often in the sunlit hours of the day, she could find her way easily enough, and scarcely slowed her steps.

  Which was why, when she saw a huge, dark, terrifying form suddenly emerge in her path, she had no chance to stop herself from running straight into it.

  2

  Before Julia had time to scream, a great weight struck her, and she was knocked to the ground. Rough hands were at her throat, and a low, harsh voice demanded, “Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

  He might not have recognized her, but she knew instantly who her assailant was.

  “Holsworth!” she hissed with what little breath she was able to draw, even while instinct had her twisting to free her arms and legs from the warm bulk pinning her to the floor. Her backside and shoulders throbbed from where they’d hit the hard marble. “You will get off me this instant!”

  The huge dark form above her stiffened, and the hands that had been about to throttle her flew back. “Good God!” Holsworth’s deep voice swore. “Julia—Lady Grantleigh!” And she could feel the desperate tension in his body as he sought to scramble away.

  It was a relief to be released from the crush of his weight, but as he tried to rise, her left wrist was tugged awkwardly along with him.

  “Wait!” she cried. “My—my bracelet is caught. Don’t pull!”

  He froze in place, still hovering just inches over her, his palms no
w pressed to the floor on either side of her shoulders, his knees on either side of her thighs, covering her, but somehow managing to avoid actually touching her again. “What?”

  “My bracelet!” A hot blush burned from her very core. The thoughts she’d had about him entering her chamber upstairs made her want to shrink away in shame. “It’s—oh, I think my bracelet’s snagged somehow. On your—your uniform coat.”

  In fact, his coat was the least of her worries. Judging from the warm air against her calves, the hem of her gown was jumbled all the way up around her knees. And Holsworth was so close she could catch the scent of his cologne, a warm mix of bay leaf and leather, with a hint of some tropical spice. The intimacy of their position was…simply too much. Somehow worse in the darkness than it would have been in the light.

  Holsworth shifted his weight carefully onto one knee, and took her wrist in one of his big hands. She could feel his fingers working their way around the bracelet, seeking the spot where it had attached itself to his uniform.

  If only there were enough light for her to see his face. If he were the one who’d put the mysterious bracelet in her chambers, he’d surely recognize it by touch, and she wanted to see his expression when he realized what it was.

  Using her free hand to push up slightly off the floor, she managed to wriggle her way to something more approaching a seated posture, and to her relief, Holsworth squatted back on his haunches to give her room. Her forearm was still pinned to his chest, of course. And her legs were still trapped between his, with no easy way to extricate them without knocking the man over, at least until the bracelet was released and she had the use of both her arms again.

  Good heavens, he was a big man, especially at such close quarters as this. Christopher had been only a little taller than she was, and lean of frame. The size and power of Holsworth’s body was a different thing entirely—he seemed to loom, to threaten, whether he wished to or not, the sheer mass and heat of him dominating all the available space.

  Blast it. Much as she wanted to know whether he’d given her the mysterious gift, her nerves longed for him to get the bracelet loose so she’d be free of him as well.

  His fingers made another circuit of the gold oval, his touch hot whenever it brushed her wrist. “I don’t understand how it’s managed to catch on me at all,” he said at last. “The surface feels smooth all the way around.”

  “It—it has hidden closures,” she said. Surely that information would identify the bracelet for him, if he was in fact the source of it. Her heart beat a little harder than before. “There’s a concealed hinge at one end, and a pin at the other that lets the two halves slide apart. Some part of that mechanism must be stuck in the fabric of your coat.”

  “One side seems stuck in the cloth of my shirt as well,” he growled, giving the bracelet an experimental tug. “It won’t give way on either end. Good Lord, you women find the most infernally complicated ways of ornamenting yourselves.”

  Well, that answered her question: the tone of simple masculine irritation made it quite clear the bracelet hadn’t come from him.

  “I can’t get it loose,” he said, tugging again. “And we certainly cannot stay here on this floor.” Without waiting for a reply, he let go of the bracelet and seized her waist with both hands. Then he simply stood, his powerful arms sweeping her to her feet as easily as if she were a china doll.

  Her stomach lurched and her lungs seemed to bump her ribs, and worst of all, standing didn’t render their posture appreciably more appropriate. With her bracelet still snagged, they stood close as lovers, his arms about her, her forearm pressed to his chest with her fingers all but brushing the underside of his jaw.

  And, Lord, much as she really, truly did want to get away from him, some deeper, less civilized part of her was having other impulses entirely. Holsworth was so warm and strong and solid, so utterly male, she felt the strangest urge to bury her face against his chest and breathe in more of his cologne.

  Which she most certainly would not allow herself to do.

  At least gravity had dropped her skirts more or less into the correct position again.

  Still, she really did need to dispel the enforced intimacy of the moment. “Generally speaking,” she said, in the arch tone she might use at a formal dinner, “it’s men who make the ornaments ladies wear. Ladies are in fact obliged to wear them, to shore up masculine pride.”

  “Is that so?” he answered, this time giving the bracelet and his lapel a simultaneous, and still quite ineffectual, pull. “And who obliged you to wear this particular one? And why now, precisely? You weren’t wearing a bracelet earlier tonight.”

  She raised her brows, though she doubted he could see them in the darkness. “You made an inventory of the jewelry I was wearing?”

  A pause. “Not of your jewelry specifically,” he said. “But soldiers learn to observe everything closely. Attentiveness to detail saves lives.”

  “Ah. Like you observed my failure to keep myself adequately fed.”

  Holsworth made a sort of scraping noise in his throat, and the vibration of it ran through the bracelet into her wrist. “That observation wasn’t meant as an insult, Lady Grantleigh,” he said. “It was—merely an expression of concern for your well-being.”

  “Was it? I don’t know a single lady who wouldn’t take umbrage at being called too thin.”

  It was absurd, of course, to banter with him like this. But she had no other bulwark against the discomfort of their situation. “In fact,” she continued, “some ladies would go into a decline at hearing such a thing, and never show their faces, or their figures, in society again.”

  Holsworth went very still, and she could make out just enough in the dim glow of moonlight to tell that he was staring hard at her. “You never struck me as that kind of woman,” he said.

  “As what kind of woman?”

  “Trivial. Vain.” His voice darkened, seemed to drop half an octave. “Unaware of your true value.”

  Oh. He was still staring at her, and suddenly bantering didn’t seem like a safe thing to be doing, at all.

  Thank goodness he looked away, back at the recalcitrant bracelet. “I seem to be well and truly caught,” he said a moment later, as irritably as before. “I thought the clasp was lodged in the braid of my coat, but it seems actually to have got onto the underside of the lapel somehow, and heaven knows how badly the other side of it is tangled in my shirt. Can you slide your hand out? The weight of your arm is only making things worse.”

  She clucked her tongue at him. “Making things worse? You know, Major Holsworth, gentlemen are meant to compliment ladies. First you call me too thin, and now you make me sound like an awkward lump of flesh. I fear your manners have taken a turn for the worse in your time away from England.”

  “Have they?” he said dryly. “I thought you were of the opinion that I was never in possession of manners at all.”

  Oh. Was he joking with her? Or was he genuinely offended?

  Good Lord, was he aware she’d always disliked him?

  He breathed out an impatient sigh. “You never did approve of me, did you?”

  Well, that took care of that question as well.

  It was he who’d first disapproved of her, of course. But even so, if she’d been so indiscreet as to let her feelings about him show, it was time to make amends.

  “You were my husband’s dearest friend,” she assured him, schooling her voice to graciousness again. “Christopher respected you as he respected no one else in the world. And I would never gainsay his judgment.”

  Holsworth gave a dark laugh. “A suitably equivocal thing to say. Your husband always respected me. And of course a proper lady would never refute the word of her lord, no matter how sharply her private opinion might diverge. Your manners are, as always, exquisite, Lady Grantleigh.”

  Well, then. Holsworth was rather more nimble at this bantering business than she’d given him credit for. He’d managed to shut her mouth entirely, for the moment a
t least.

  “Come now,” he said abruptly. “We must get into the light, or I’ll never get this blasted bauble of yours unhooked.”

  Blasted bauble? That helped her find her tongue again. “It’s your blasted clothing that’s hooked my bauble.” It was a silly retort, and by no means a proper one, but she found it was strangely refreshing to speak so tartly. How long had it been since she’d teased or joked with anyone?

  Oh, she knew—she knew exactly. Eighteen months.

  Since Christopher had been taken from her.

  That Major Holsworth, of all people, should spark the habit in her again was rather painfully ironic. But she couldn’t seem to stop herself.

  “Besides,” she heard herself saying, “why should I follow you anywhere? You haven’t yet explained why you were skulking about in the darkness in the first place.”

  His shadowed outline stiffened. “I never skulk, Lady Grantleigh,” he said. “I am merely unaccustomed to the frenzy of society ballrooms, and withdrew a moment to admire the moonlight.”

  “We’re in the wilds of Devon, sir. Ballrooms here are hardly frenzied.”

  “Compared to the wilds of India, ma’am, your ballroom is frenzied indeed. And I might point out that you yourself were doing some skulking.”

  Her chin jutted forward. “I wasn’t skulking. I live here.”

  “Fair enough. In that case, you might know of a reasonably private space where I could actually see to disentangle us. If you could lead us there, I’d be most grateful.”

  Ah, yes. Disentanglement was, of course, the goal.

  If they stood here much longer, all but entwined, someone was sure to come upon them and think they were in the midst of a scandalous romantic rendezvous.

  “There’s—there’s a sitting room just a little way behind us,” she said. “Hidden behind that stand of date palms. It’s built just over the boiler, to take advantage of the heat.”

  “Good,” Holsworth said, his deep voice rough. “Since this might require removal of my coat.”