Free A Regency Christmas Pact Collection by Ava Stone, Catherine Gayle, Jerrica Knight-Catania, Julie Johnstone, Jane Charles, Aileen Fish

music room, if you’d rather.”
    Ha! Only if library or music room were suddenly euphemisms for something more wicked. He just wanted to get her alone so he could make more derisive comments about her character or make another improper suggestion with no one else around to hear. “I can find my own way, my lord. Excuse me.” She slid from his grasp and brushed past him, back into the corridor, headed for the only place she would be safe from him—her own chambers. At least until the storm passed.
    “Miss Birkin!” he called after her.
    But Tessie didn’t halt her step. There was nothing he could possibly say to her that she wanted to hear.
    “Miss Birkin, please wait!” His voice was closer than it had been a moment before. Curse him for his height and longer stride. And curse him for not leaving her alone.
    Tessie quickened her pace towards a cantilevered staircase, and she would have made it if he hadn’t reached out and grabbed her elbow from behind. A surprised gasp escaped her.
    “Please,” he said softly. “I think you must have misunderstood me.”
    On that ridiculous note, she spun around on her heel to face the arrogant marquess. “ I misunderstood you ?” She lifted an indignant brow. “Do you mean you weren’t suggesting we carry on some sort of illicit affair this holiday? Did I have that all wrong?”
    His jaw clenched and his eyes narrowed slightly. “Do keep your voice down.”
    Keep her voice down? After all the things he’d said to her since they’d first met? She ought to be screaming at him from the rafters. Instead, she replied in a more hushed tone, “How Miranda thought I would find you appealing at all is a complete mystery.”

    Berks blinked at her. “I beg your pardon?” What exactly had Miranda said about him?
    Miss Birkin shook her head. “Do tell me how I have it all wrong, my lord. What did you mean out there? No one but the two of us ever has to know anything that occurs between us. Was that your attempt at courting me? Did I completely misunderstand your meaning?”
    Of course she hadn’t. Berks was certain all the blood had drained from his face. Damn it all, she made him sound like the worst sort of cad. “I wasn’t courting you,” he admitted softly. Then he muttered to himself, “I can’t court anyone.” But that didn’t mean he didn’t have certain needs, needs that seemed more prevalent whenever she was near.
    Her pretty brow furrowed. “You can’t court anyone? What is that supposed to mean? Are you already married? Have you kept the fact a secret from even your family?”
    What a ridiculous suggestion. “Of course not.” Berks shook his head. “I—” He might as well tell her the truth. Maybe she’d understand and forgive him for insulting her. “Well, I made a pact not to, not to marry that is. So what would be the point in courting if marriage wasn’t my ultimate goal?”
    She looked at him as though he was a simpleton. “You made a pact ?”
    The way she said the word made him sound like a dolt. Berks shrugged his response.
    “Why would anyone make a pact not to get married? Who did you make this pact with?”
    “What does it matter?” he grumbled, feeling much more vulnerable than he’d imagined possible when this conversation began. “I don’t intend to ever marry, Miss Birkin, but that doesn’t mean…” He couldn’t finish that last part for all the world, not with her blue-green eyes narrowed on him as though he was the worst sort of scoundrel.
    “…that you haven’t stopped being a man ?” she supplied waspishly. “And all that that entails.”
    Berks didn’t dare nod. “I don’t expect you to understand.”
    She shook her head as though he didn’t make one bit of sense. “Well, that is good because I don’t understand. Not in the least. You have the responsibilities of your title. You have an heir to beget and an estimable reputation to recommend you. Why you would make a pact not to do something that is expected