One Wicked Christmas Read Online Free

was the chamber assignments for the guests, neatly lettered cards with each person’s name slotted into a specific doorway. He was in the Red Room, he noticed. And Cassandra was in the Gold Room, at the opposite end of the corridor.
    “There you are at last!” he heard Melisande cry. “I was beginning to think you had gotten lost, Ian, darling.”
    Ian looked up to grin at her. “And miss out on one of your famous parties, Mel? Never.”
    Melisande laughed as she came to slip her hand around his elbow. “I didn’t think you would, but then again you have been acting so oddly lately. One never knows.”
    “Oddly?”
    “Hmm. So distant and serious, as if you had something quite weighty on your mind. Most unlike you.” She tapped her free hand on the chart. “Are you happy with your room arrangement?”
    “All of your accommodations are most comfortable, Melisande.”
    “Yes, I do want people to be—comfortable,” she said with a trilling laugh. “And you are quite near to Mrs. Raye. She was asking me about you last week. It seems she met you at the theater and was quite impressed.”
    “Mrs. Raye?” Ian asked, confused. He couldn’t even remember the lady. That wasn’t like him either. Another sign he needed to quit thinking about Cassandra. “I’m not really interested in any—activities this Christmas, Mel.”
    Her brow arched. “No? Darling, are you quite sure you’re not ill?”
    “Not ill. Just not interested at the moment.”
    She still watched him doubtfully. “Well, if you do change your mind, Mrs. Raye is in the Chinese Room just opposite yours. I have several little matchmaking schemes this holiday.”
    Ian laughed. “When do you not?”
    “You do know me well. But this time it is rather special, for a good friend who needs a little romance in her life. She had been alone too long.” She tapped at Cassandra’s card and then at the one on the chamber next to it. Lord Phillips. “A rather good match, don’t you agree?”
    No, he certainly did not agree. Ian scowled down at the cards. His hands curled into tight fists to keep from tearing them out. “You’ve matched Cassandra with Lord Phillips? That milque-toast?”
    “Yes. He rather reminds me of Charles, and she seemed happy with him. You were such friends with them when Charles was alive. Don’t you think this will work out well, darling?”
    Before Ian could make some furious answer, there was a discreet cough from the doorway. “Yes, Smithers, what is it?” Melisande said, turning away from Ian.
    “I am sorry, Your Grace, but something requires your attention in the dining room,” the butler said.
    “Of course,” Melisande answered. “Ian, darling, I will see you in the drawing room. Do talk to Mrs. Raye while you’re there.”
    Then she was gone and Ian was alone with the infernal chart. He stared down at it, so many things roiling around in his heart. Anger, jealousy, a strange possessiveness, and—fear? Fear that Cassie would find someone else. If she wanted an affair, a new romance, he could give her that—no one else.
    For an instant, an image flashed through his mind of Cassandra with Lord Phillips, his auburn head bent towards hers as she went up on tiptoe to meet his kiss. And, damn it all, Ian knew just how her kiss would taste, knew the soft little sound she would make in her throat. How her arms would feel as they twined around his neck.
    And by Jove, but he couldn’t let Phillips or any other man have that from her. A primitive, raw surge of sheer possessiveness deep inside of him swept away all the very good reasons he knew he should not be with Cassandra.
    He reached down and switched out his card with Lord Phillips’s. Now all he had to do was to keep Melisande from checking it before the others got their chamber assignments, and then take the next step in his plan.

Chapter Three
    Cassandra took a deep swallow of her glass of brandy and stared at herself in the dressing table mirror. It was like