Mischief & Mistletoe (A Christmas Novella) (12 page)

She heard the front door open and close.

Laughter spilled into the hall—deep, rich laughter that could only belong to Lucien. The children tittered at something he said, and the voices all headed in their direction, chattering endlessly—mostly the children asking this question or that.

Andrew glanced up at her, smiling, and Emma felt like a fox in the middle of a hunt.

Perhaps they wouldn’t stop here in this room, she hoped, but that was not to be, because within scant moments, the duke came sauntering in, hauling in a massive fir tree over his shoulder. The children trailed behind him, laughing and picking up needles in his wake.

“We found a big one!” Jonathon said to his father.

“Aunt Em!” Lettie exclaimed, spying Emma by the hearth. “Guess what!”

“Queen Victoria celebrates with a Yule tree!” Samantha finished for her.

“I was going to tell her,” Lettie said plaintively.

“Prince Albert brought it all the way from Germany!” Jonathon added, ignoring his sister’s argument and peering up adoringly at the duke, who smiled down at him. “Right?”

“Something like that,” Lucien answered with a wink.

His dark hair and coat were still covered with a dusting of snowflakes, and he carried the tree alone, slung over one shoulder as though he’d been accustomed to labor all his life. The children wore smiles from ear to ear as they remained close to his coattails. Emma’s heart tripped at the sight of them together.

She didn’t want to share her family, but she had to confess that he looked far more at ease than she had ever known him to be. Despite that he must have been raised with far more sobriety, he seemed at home with her very unconventional family.

She blinked back tears and cast a glance at her brother who was peering up at her solicitously.

Emma felt completely at sixes and sevens.

What now? Was he simply going to come and usurp their traditions? Was he never going to leave?

As she watched, Lucien hauled the fir tree over to Andrew and the two of them together hoisted the trunk into Andrew’s strange contraption and adjusted the tree to their satisfaction. Apparently, it was a device to hold the tree upright, but Emma remained nonplussed. “Why on earth would anyone bring a tree into the house?” she asked. “I have never heard of such a thing!”

Without addressing her directly, Lucien replied, “As Prince Albert tells it, one day, long ago, a stranger came to the door of a family’s home.” He peered up at her meaningfully. “Uninvited.”

Not unlike the duke,
Emma thought peevishly.

He smiled as though he’d read her mind. “The family opened their door to find a young man, hungry and cold, who wanted to warm himself by the fire.”

Not like the duke,
she added mentally as there was nothing indigent about the Duke of Willyngham!

“It was
le petit
Jésus!” Samantha explained.

“So we’re going to decorate it,” revealed Jonathon excitedly.

“With tinsel and candles!” Samantha added.

“But that doesn’t explain the tree,” Emma argued, feeling left out and not very charitable, despite the holiday and despite Andrew’s lecture.

Of course, Andrew simply had to chime in, as though they had all sat about telling Christmas tales in her absence. “Apparently, before the boy left the family, he broke off a branch from a fir tree and gifted it to them as a present to say thank you for looking after him.”

Lucien looked directly at her and smiled. “This is my way of saying thank you,” he offered. “For sharing your home.”

With the tree now secure and upright, Emma was vaguely aware that Andrew gathered the children and ushered all three out of the room, leaving her completely alone with the duke. Again.

“Indeed, thank you for sharing your home and your family with me, Emma,” he said after a moment.

Emma felt completely flustered. She couldn’t seem to find words to respond. She appreciated the sentiment, she truly did, but it was hardly enough to make up for all that he’d put her through already. “You didn’t give me any choice, Your Grace, but you cannot simply come here and steal my family!”

“Is that what you think I’m doing?”

“I-I don’t know what you’re doing,” Emma confessed. But it left her discomfited nevertheless. “It certainly seems that way.”

Lucien took a moment to simply look at her. She was exquisite this eve, he decided.

She was dressed in a lovely shade of peach, with creamy lace spilling from her sleeves and peeking out from above her bodice. Her deep brown eyes reflected the flames from the chandelier, twinkling beautifully. And her hair, swept up and pinned with perfect precision, left him aching to yank the pins out and run his hands through the lustrous strands.

“In fact… I was hoping you would allow me to join you and your family
every
Christmas,” he suggested. “We could make it a tradition.”

Emma rocked back on her heels a bit. “Why ever would we do
that
?”

Lucien moved toward her, peering down at the crèche over her shoulder, determined to make it up to her, to make her see his change of heart.

Emma took a step backward and he grinned, because she was moving precisely toward the spot he most wanted her to be… beneath the massive ball of mistletoe that he’d had the children construct for him.

“For one, because I tell a very good story,” he suggested, taking another step toward her.

She retreated once more and he saw the wariness in her eyes as he approached.

“For example, there’s a tale of a very wicked man who spied a shy and lovely girl one night and thought he would make her his bride.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “I believe I have heard this one before.”

“Oh? Was she wearing lemon yellow?”

“The color of sunshine,” she added, nodding cheekily.

He smiled. “At any rate, he was quite certain her innate goodness would rub off on him and that it would make him…”

“Less wicked?”

He arched a brow. “I was going to say… a better man.”

“I could have saved you the trouble,” she told him. “You see, it hardly works that way. Once wicked, always wicked,” she assured.

“Is that so?” He grinned. “At any rate, once the man realized the young woman was enamored with him, and how easy it would to break her heart, he was quite certain the best thing to do was to walk away and spare her any grief.”

Her shoulders straightened, unmoved by his charity. “How very kind of him.” Clearly, she had gleaned the thread of his story and wasn’t prepared to give mercy. “I can assure you that she recovered regardless.”

Evidently.

There was nothing broken about the woman standing before him. She was hardly the young girl he had left behind three years past.

Emma surprised him by taking a step toward him, her body language now offensive. Lucien’s heart tripped a beat over the game of chess. She was a woman through and through and her gaze offered him no quarter.

Lucien refused to take a backward step as it wouldn’t serve his purpose. He refrained from glancing up at the mistletoe. She was standing so close now that he could feel the warmth radiating from her body, and he longed to pull her into his arms. “Yes, she did,” he agreed. “But that man realized he was wrong.”

“Wrong?” Curious now, she tilted her head, and Lucien thought about kissing her right then and there. “How so?”

He leaned forward, staring at her lips. “Because he realized that
he
was the one he had been protecting all along,” he confessed, surprising himself with his own revelation. And yet as soon as he said it he knew it was true. His brows drew together as he thought about the new direction of this thoughts. “The truth is that he felt vulnerable, Emma.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I precisely, but it’s true.”

Her eyes began to glimmer a bit and Lucien wanted to embrace her. Her shoulders set stubbornly, and she stood her ground. “Well, he can’t simply change his mind just like that!”

“Why not?”

She frowned beautifully. “Because she will never believe him again. She doesn’t care.”

“Of course she does,” he insisted.

Emma shook her head. “No, she doesn’t.”

“I can prove it,” he said softly, and pointed up at the mistletoe. “I propose a kiss—as proof.”

She peered up at the mistletoe, stepping backward so she stood directly beneath the crude ball. “What is
that
?”

“A kissing ball.”

“I have never heard of such a thing! Where did it come from?”

Lucien shrugged. “Three very lovely children fashioned it for me. Just one kiss, Emma,” he entreated, “and if you should win, I will leave Newgale at first light. And furthermore, I shall have it posted in the
Times
that it was you who cried off, not I.” He seized her hand and held it possessively. “I swear on my mother’s life I will confess to one and all that it was you who did not wish to marry me.”

“But your mother is dead,” she pointed out reasonably.

Lucien shrugged. “Then I shall swear upon my honor.”

A tiny smile began to turn her lips. “According to the
Times
, you have none,” she reminded him uncompromisingly.

“But I
never
lie,” Lucien told her. And it was the truth, for no matter what else he might be, he could not seem to wring a single untruth from his lips—not even to save someone’s feelings, which was unfortunately what had brought them to this mess in the first place.

She looked at him warily. “And what if I should refuse?”

“You can’t, you see. It’s Christmas law,” he declared. “When two people are standing beneath a kissing ball, one cannot refuse to kiss the other, else both may never marry ever again.”

Her eyes sparkled with challenge. “I could simply step aside,” she suggested smartly.

“Then you would break my heart,” he declared.

It was poppycock, Emma knew, and yet hope flared to life within her breast.

Peering up at the ball of mistletoe, her heart beat frantically. Wrapped crudely with string, the berry laden boughs hung conspicuously from the ceiling above. As enormous as it was, how she could possibly have missed it coming into the room she didn’t know, but it was clearly the handiwork of her brother’s children. Although at that height only Andrew or Lucien could have hung it—perhaps both. She eyed the door, cursing her brother to Perdition. It would be the cruelest trick in the world if Lucien were simply toying with her heart.

Surely Andrew would not approve.

“And what are the terms of this wager, Your Grace?”

“Only one,” Lucien revealed when she peered up at him dubiously. “Simply put, if you are unmoved by my kiss, you will tell me to cease and desist.”

For the longest instant, he simply gazed at her, drinking in the sight of her standing before him. She was so lovely it made his heart ache. And then he grinned, for if everything went the way he intended tonight, tomorrow morning she would be his forevermore… not every part of his scheme had been sanctioned by her brother.

“What if you should win?”

“Then you must cease to call me, Your Grace, and you will share this holiday with me until we are old and gray.”

“As long as that?” she asked, considering with a smile.

He reached up and plucked a berry. “One berry for one kiss,” he proposed. “That’s the rule.”

“Very well,” she said, and puckered her mouth, demanding, “Go ahead and kiss me now.”

Chuckling, Lucien did as she bade him before she could change her mind.

Slowly, savoring the moment, he placed an arm about her waist, drawing her near. And then he bent forward, touching his lips to hers and heard her shocked intake of breath at the intimate contact. But she didn’t protest and he groaned in triumph.

“Emma,” he whispered, and cheated a little, placing a hand at her nape to keep her precisely where he wished her to remain. She didn’t seem to notice, and he moved closer yet, testing a deeper kiss. Tentatively, he offered his tongue, wetting her lips gently, teasing, until she opened to his coaxing.

It was the most heartfelt kiss he had ever shared—one that wrenched at his heart. Surely she was as moved by it as he was.

Sucking in a victorious breath when she offered him her tongue, he leaned more fully upon her, deepening the kiss, until his heart hammered like an anvil.

Lucien kissed her as though his life depended upon it—because it damned well did.

God help him, he wanted her.

He knew that now.

He wanted her desperately.

Forever and ever.

Emma couldn’t seem to recall exactly what it was she was supposed to do; only that it felt too sweet to be kissed this way… as though he truly cherished her. Not thinking, merely reacting, she locked her arms about his neck, afraid the kiss would end too soon.

He took a deep breath and withdrew, and Emma’s body followed him of its own accord.

His eyes glittered playfully. “I’m not quite sure who won,” he whispered, and Emma peered at him dreamily as he reached up to pick another berry. “Let’s try again.”

Emma nodded, her hands going about his nape, lifting herself on tippy toes, overeager to rejoin their lips. “Yes,” she consented.

Lucien chuckled deep in his throat, kissing her gently, and reached up to pluck another berry even before the kiss ended.

“Again?” she asked breathlessly. “What happens if we run out before we decide who wins?”

“We’ll go pick more berries,” he revealed, chuckling, and then embraced her one last time, kissing her from the bottom of his heart.

“Shhhh… they’re kissing,” a child’s voice whispered, and tittered softly.

Emma gave a little shriek of alarm and shrugged out of Lucien’s arms, dazed. The kids squealed and ran away.

Somewhere in the distance, perhaps at the end of the corridor, someone said as though in a dream, “Dinner is served!”

Composing herself, Emma peered anxiously at the door. For a moment, she said nothing at all, her cheeks burning hot. And then, after a long moment, she said, “That was indeed a very nice story, Your Grace.”

“Lucien.”

Her lips curved softly. “Lucien.”

He smiled as she said his name. “It’s a true Christmas story,” he insisted.