Mischief & Mistletoe (A Christmas Novella) (5 page)

“But o
nly
if you have been very, very, good,” she cautioned the children at once.

Lucien cleared his throat and found himself interjecting before he could prevent himself, “And what precisely constitutes
very, very good,
Miss Peters?”

For some peculiar reason, he seemed to
need
her to acknowledge him as part of their cozy gathering.

The fact that she would not, grated upon his nerves—almost as much as the way she addressed him—
Your Grace
—as though it were an epithet. Never mind that he did not appreciate the title anymore than she did. It was not granted to him by birth, and neither did he appreciate the constraints it placed upon him. Unfortunately, it seemed
de rigueur
to flout convention, and somehow, it only managed to get him more unwanted attention—from everyone, except Emma, it seemed.

The entire room fell silent while he waited for Emma to acknowledge his presence. Yet everyone but Emma did. Where she had not done so before, she quickly buried her nose into her little green book in a defiant gesture.

He’d be damned if he’d simply let her ignore him. He cleared his throat again, reminding her that he waited.

Aversely, he could tell, she lifted her gaze to his. She was loath to speak to him at all, and her declaration confirmed his suspicions. “I suppose someone like you might need some clarification,
Your Grace
,” she offered a little too sweetly, for her words were meant to cut, he knew. And despite all of his carefully laid armor, she succeeded, for the subtle accusation was too close to his own self-opinion to be disregarded. She lifted a brow. “Thus I shall endeavor to do so. By good deed, I shall presume they are referring to acts of devotion or virtue. Do understand the meaning of these concepts,
Your Grace
?” Her eyes impugned him. “Or shall I further enlighten you,
Your Grace
?”

“Aunt Em... I don’t know what those words mean either,” Jonathon said, responding to the accusation in her voice. His brows slanted unhappily. “Is that why I never get as many straws as Lettie or Sam?”

Emma’s expression transformed to one of dismay as she turned to address her disheartened nephew. “Oh, no!” she exclaimed. “You,” she assured him, casting a withering glance toward Lucien’s before returning a concerned gaze to the little boy, “are all that is virtuous!” She smiled sweetly at the child, and in that smile, Lucien glimpsed the expression she’d once lavished upon him, the one with such sweet purity and innocence that it had made him feel unworthy. But it was no longer directed at him, he conceded, and that realization left him feeling strangely bereft.

Nor, in fact, was she any longer the innocent young miss he recalled. Clearly. She was a woman grown, and could hold her own. Even against him, it would seem.

With a gentleness he envied, she tousled the boy’s shining blonde mane, and for a moment he was certain he could feel her hands in his own hair; warm fingers at his nape, the sensation so real that he inhaled sharply and closed his eyes to savor it privately. But it was a mistake, for it opened a window he’d long ago slammed shut, revived a memory he’d long tucked away.

Another Christmas, long ago, far away…

He was in his mother’s arms. She kissed him sweetly upon the nose as she ruffled his hair. “You are my light,” she had said to him then. But she’d been blind in her love for him, because he’d been born with his father’s darkness. Even then his armor had been tarnished an ugly black. Even then. And then instead of remaining to help her through her melancholy, he had fled… like a coward… until his brother’s death had called him home.

“Do you remember the time you and Lettie rescued the robin from Penelope’s perilous jaws,” Emma was saying, bringing Lucien back to the present.

“Crotchety old feline!” Peters proclaimed.

Lucien had entirely forgotten Andrew and his wife were in the room. His attention had been so focused upon Emma.

Emma glanced up at her brother and added with an impish smile, “And do you remember that your Papa fostered it within the nursery....”

“Lord-a-mercy!” Cecile said aghast, once again casting aside her sewing. “Not in the nursery! Really, Andrew!” She gave him a chastening look and peered up at Lucien. “Sometimes I wonder who are the real children in this house.”

Despite himself, Lucien chuckled at their banter. He envied their easy alliance. And Emma... she reminded him too much of his mother... and Jonathon of himself.

Poor child.

More acutely than before, he felt like a trespasser here in their home.

“Well,
that
would be a perfect example of a very good deed,” she informed them all. “But I’ve no doubt you will all come up with dozens more this year.”

“Aunt Em… does keeping your socks clean count?” Jonathon asked soberly. The child peered up at his aunt with all the hope and adoration Lucien had once felt for his own mother, and he couldn’t help but think that Emma would have been a very good mother, indeed. She might have been the perfect mother... for his own children… but he refused to reconsider now. She looked so dashed innocent sitting there amongst the kids.

He saw her shudder. Against the chill of the room, he thought—a chill he didn’t feel because it was too much a part of him. He’d be damned if he was capable of feeling anything as redeeming as love, and he didn’t intend to do to Emma Peters what his father had done to his gentle mother. No, crying off was the right thing to do.

“Yes, of course. Everything counts,” Emma advised the children charitably, raising a finger in counsel, “so long as ’tis done for good.”

“Yes, but Aunt Em, is it really,
really
true?” the youngest daughter asked again.

Emma hugged the book against her breast, and Lucien suddenly wished it were his cheek lying there so close to her heartbeat. He blinked away the image. “I would very much like to think so,” she replied.

The oldest daughter turned pleading eyes toward her father. “Can we build a crèche again this year, Papa? Can we please?”

“I promise not to put anymore mice in it,” the boy swore. “They were cold,” he explained. “I only brought them in to keep them warm.”

“Dear me, we thought we would never be rid of those horrid beasts,” Cecile said as an aside to Lucien.

Compelled by his eldest child’s plea and his son’s fervent promise, Peters withdrew the billowing pipe from his mouth and said, “Well, now... I cannot conceive why not.”

“Yeahhhh!” the children screeched in unison.

“Thank you, Papa!” the youngest daughter proclaimed, leaping up and flinging herself into her father’s lap. “Thank you very much!”

The boy, too, bounded upward, wrapping his little arms about Emma’s neck. “We love you, Aunt Em!”

Emma laughed, and the earthy sound gave Lucien an immediate physical response.

Twice now in one day.

“I—” She glanced up suddenly, meeting Lucien’s gaze, and her face turned a lovely shade of pink. She quickly averted her gaze. “I-I love you, too,” she assured the child, but her voice was quivery, and Lucien couldn’t help but wonder whether she was recalling saying just the same words to him.

He couldn’t seem to forget.

Dressed brightly in a pale yellow morning dress, she’d tilted her lovely face to his and said with all the sincerity of an adoring child, “I think I love you!”

No words had ever touched him more. None had ever sobered him more. None had ever terrified him more.

“Aunt Em?” the youngest daughter asked, turning slightly in her father’s lap where she had settled herself. She looked at her aunt and then turned to glance shyly at Lucien, but with something slightly calculating in her somber blue eyes. “What if you try to help people instead of baby robins?” she asked, hugging her father’s neck. Once again, she turned to peer at Lucien and this time did not turn away. Lucien fidgeted uncomfortably under her guileless scrutiny. “Does that count as a good deed?” she wanted to know.

Lucien noted that Emma, too, had noticed the direction of Lettie’s gaze, as did her father.

Pinned by their combined scrutiny, and targeted by the child’s question, Lucien had never felt more discomfited in all his life. He straightened abruptly as Emma replied soberly, her voice a little trembly, “Yes, of course, Lettie, though we can merely try.” She cast Lucien an awkward glance. “Some people will not be helped,” she disclosed. And then she lifted her chin. “Those you must simply set free.”

Lucien had the immediate impression that she was speaking of him. Could that be what she was attempting to do with her frosty demeanor? Set him free? The thought touched him in a way he could not quite perceive.

Lettie whispered something into her father’s ear, and then Peters stared down at his daughter in what appeared to be surprise, and then sudden enlightenment. He turned to regard Lucien as though he’d had some sort of
coup de foudre
and then he stood abruptly, chuckling as he lifted his daughter up with him and then set her down before him.

“You are brilliant!” he said, removing the pipe from his mouth and bending to plant a quick peck upon her forehead. “Very well!” he declared to one and all with a sudden burst of excitement. He straightened to his full height, grinning waggishly. “I believe I shall have the crèche constructed at once!” And he stared at Lucien an uncomfortable instant, shaking his head, chortling, and then cast a wide grin at Emma. And then, still chuckling, he abruptly seized his wife by the hand and dragged her out from her chair, declaring, “Come now, my dear, we have work to do.”

“Oh, but, Andrew!” his wife exclaimed, abandoning her sewing to the floor as he tugged her unexpectedly to her feet. “What are you doing?” she laughed. “Where are we going? We have a guest!”

“To build a crèche,” he announced.

“Willyngham,” Peters said with a nod, as he and his wife slipped past him.

Lettie exclaimed to her siblings as their parents fled the room, “Yes! And I know a very special good deed we can do!” And then as her father had done with her mother, she urged her elder sister to rise, seizing her by the hand and tugging excitedly. “Come, come!” she urged. “Let me tell you about it.” She glanced at Lucien. “
Privately
,” she said to her sister and pulled her up and out of the room.

“I can come, too!” Jonathon announced rather than asked. He bounded to his feet and hurried after them. “Can I? Please!”

In a rush of flailing limbs, all three children stampeded past Lucien as though he’d not been standing there at all, and within the space of seconds the drawing room had been abandoned... save for himself… and Emma.

He watched over his shoulder as the children bounded down the hall after their parents, noting that Lettie glanced back at him and then quickly turned away and giggled impishly as she spoke to her brother and sister in hushed tones. He listened to the echoes of their whispers only an instant longer, and then he couldn’t help himself.

He stepped into the room.

Emma didn’t dare look at the duke—couldn’t bear being in the same room with him—alone, at that. She couldn’t imagine what could have possessed everyone to simply abandon her so rudely. She hoped the duke would leave too, but instead he ventured within the drawing room, his footfalls echoing woodenly upon the floor as he made his way across to the hearth. On the Aubusson carpet, he halted beside her, and she swallowed convulsively, not daring to look higher than his boots.

She daren’t respond to his presence. Instead, she examined her book thoroughly despite that she knew every inch of every page already.

“That was quite a touching tale,” he remarked after an uncomfortable moment of silence.

Slowly, Emma peered up to find him skimming his long, lean fingers along the ribbons and tinsel that stretched the length of the mantel, examining it, the male strength in his hand a direct contrast to the delicate strips of satin cloth and brittle foil. The candles burning upon the mantel cast alternating light and shadow upon his profile. He lifted up a cherub and then replaced it at once.

“Yes, well”—she swallowed convulsively—“I would have thought you would have long since gone,
Your Grace.
”

He sighed, turning to face her, his hands locked behind his back. “No doubt you will be pleased to hear I will be leaving first thing in the morning.” His lips curled in that sardonic manner he had, except that this time she wasn’t tempted to brush her fingers across to coax a smile in its place.

And yet, she tried, but couldn’t tear her gaze away. His eyes were so hypnotic... like before, somehow pleading with her, making her believe he needed her somehow.

Well, she refused to acknowledge it.

She lifted her chin slightly. “I should have been significantly more pleased to have learned you’d already gone,” she said honestly, and stood to face him., dropping the book into Andrew’s chair.

She wanted to say more, wanted to ask what she had done to cause him to set her aside so resolutely, but she couldn’t bring herself to utter a word in that vein. “Now if you will pardon me,” she said, flustered. “We’re in the midst of a holiday celebration, and I have matters to attend.” Turning, she hurried for the door.