Free The Christmas Secret by Julia London

regarding her with a mixture of curiosity and wonder, and so attentively that it made her feel oddly tingly inside. She didn’t know what to do with a look like that. One glance at his mouth and the blood rushed in her veins. She thought how lovely it would be to kiss those lips, to feel them against her own, yet the thought caused her to blush like an unsophisticated girl.
    Mr. Bristol shifted closer to her. Eireanne, in a moment of indecisive panic, looked to the sea. “Would you like to see how high we are?” she asked, and took a few steps toward the edge.
    “Miss O’Conner!” Mr. Bristol said and caught her arm, pulling her back. Eireanne meant to laugh at his nervousness, but when she looked up into his eyes, she forgot the sea altogether. There was a different sort of light in them now, one that made her heart race. Mr. Bristol’s gaze dipped to her lips. He tilted his head, leaning closer, and Eireanne’s heart began to thrash about in her chest with the knowledge that this handsome, rugged, American man was going to kiss her.
    But when he was but a moment from her lips, he said softly, “Have a care,” and let go her arm. “One good gust of wind, and you’d be lost.” He shifted away from her, taking several steps and clasping his hands tightly at his back.
    It seemed to Eireanne that he was restraining himself. She felt strangely bemused by his restraint and looked to the sea again. “My grandmother will wonder what has become of me.”
    “Yes,” he said and turned back to her, holding out his arm to her. When Eireanne put her hand on his arm, he slipped it into the crook of his elbow and covered her hand with his as they walked.
    Eireanne couldn’t think, so close to him as she was, feeling his body brush against her. She racked her brain for something to say, something to take her mind from the feel of him beside her. “What is your custom at Christmas?” she asked in near desperation to wrap some words around them.
    “Our Christmases are quiet,” he said. “We do not celebrate in the manner your family has planned. A turkey for supper and a celebration of the holy event is really all.”
    She noticed that a hint of beard had begun to show itself on his chin, and she desperately wanted to touch it. “Seems rather sedate.”
    He smiled. “I wasn’t aware that it was desirable to be anything other than sedate.”
    “You jest,” she accused him. “There are few celebrations I look forward to more than Christmas.”
    “I agree that it is an important occasion in the Christian faith—”
    “Mr. Bristol, it is not the religious significance that I enjoy as much as it is the celebrations.”
    “Aha,” he said, nodding. “I understand you quite clearly now. You must believe we are prim Puritans in America, is that it?”
    “Well,” she said, with a shrug. “It sounds a wee bit . . . staid.”
    “And here, it is quite a to-do, is it?”
    She laughed. “You must know by now that at Ballynaheath, everything is a to-do.” She told him about Christmases past, and how, one Christmas, Mr. Hannigan had been nowhere to be found when it had been time for the Hannigans and their other guests to take their leave. They’d finally located him behind the settee in the green salon. He’d been asleep, having suffered a wee bit too much Christmas cheer.
    The talk eased her of the tension she’d felt on the cliffs, and they were laughing at Mr. Hannigan’s unfortunate demise as they walked into the forest. “You will see for yourself, Mr. Bristol,” she said as he paused to catch up her cloak, which had begun to drag on the ground behind her. “We can be quite a festive lot here.”
    “I had already noted it,” he said with a grin as he straightened her cloak onto her shoulder. Then, as if he’d done it many times before, he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
    Mary Chambers had said American men were bold. She’d told the tale more than once of the gentleman who’d been so besotted