Mischief & Mistletoe (A Christmas Novella) (8 page)

By the evening, there was still no sign of his wheels and supper with the Peterses was awkward at best, particularly with Emma’s absence from the table. Lucien was unused to spying little faces across the table. They were well behaved, speaking only when spoken to, though he was certain they had developed some secret language that was comprehensible only to them—one that precluded the opening of their mouths, for their eyes spoke volumes.

Unlike the dinner hour at Willyngham Hall, the mood was light and jovial, and the fare simple but tasty. Peters actually jested with the servants, advising them of which dishes to hoard away for themselves in the kitchens, “if they didn’t want to miss out.”

In contrast, his dinner last week at Buckingham Palace was quite extraordinary but solemn. He found himself wanting to tell them about the
pfefferkuchenhaus
—a gingerbread house decorated with candies, sweets and sugar icing—that had adorned the Queen’s table, and the
Christstollen
, a fruitcake with marzipan filling. Both were German dishes the Queen’s new husband had introduced to the royal holiday table. But he said nothing, feeling ill at ease at the prospect of insinuating himself into their holiday traditions—particularly with Emma so conspicuously absent.

As he understood it, she had taken her meal in her room—something she had apparently never done in all her life. He felt like an ogre full of humbuggery, despite that Peters and his wife were as gracious as they came. It didn’t appear to bother Peters in the least that his sister was protesting Lucien’s presence.

He regaled them all with more stories, eliciting giggles from the children and censure from his wife.

“This year,” he apprised his children. “We must leave better cookies by the crèche, and perhaps the spoils will be better.”

“Were you thinking something in particular?” his wife asked, her look knowing.

He shrugged and gave Lucien a bit of a wink. “Perhaps a fat slice of Christmas cake will do.”

“Of course,” Cecile said.

“And what about you, Your Grace? What sort of confection do you believe would suit
le petit
Jésus?”

Lucien gave Peters a pointed look, and suggested, “Perhaps a good slice of humble pie.”

Peters had the good graces to choke a bit on his bite of pheasant. He nodded, taking Lucien’s meaning directly. They both knew what had befallen his wheels, and Peters ought to apologize and make it right, but he sat there eating his pheasant with a half smile.

For their part, the children sat watching their father, taking their cues from him, and Cecile could not look at him after that remark.

The meal proceeded in utter silence.

By morning, Lucien felt quite foolish for playing along with the farce. He awoke early, fully intending to find his own carriage wheels and be gone. And the first place he meant to search was the stables. It seemed to him the most logical place for three wayward children to hide four carriage wheels—then, again, he reminded himself, it wasn’t merely four wheels, for they’d managed to abscond with even those belonging to their father—the thieving little devils. No doubt to keep Lucien from
borrowing
the means of a escape.

Abandoning his warm bed and sprinting across the cold floor, he checked the drawer in which he’d placed his clothing. With a frown, he closed it, then checked the other drawers and frowning more deeply, he reopened the drawer in which he’d last spied his personal items.

Where the hell were his clothes?

The drawer remained empty, no matter how hard he stood gaping, freezing his bollocks. He scratched his head, confused. Maybe the maid moved his items? At once he went to the wardrobe, throwing it wide.

Empty, as well.

His brows knit as he puzzled. Damned cold was seeping into his bones now. Most sensible men slept in their night rails and nightcaps, while he had to be one of those unconventional few who slept like a bare-arsed infant. Dash it all, but he couldn’t sleep with anything more than sheets tangled about his buttocks—only now he was freezing. Cursing softly beneath his breath, he slammed the wardrobe shut and began a more thorough search of the room, this time with increased foreboding.

Something wasn’t right here.

Even after he’d investigated beneath the bed—a ludicrous place to have put them, he realized—there was no sign of his clothes. Not a single item could be found. Not his shoes, his trousers, nor his coat. Not a bloody stitch. He began to form a certain presentiment—those pesky brats!

Only then did he make out the whispers beyond his door, children’s whispers—the scoundrels were eavesdropping—and it occurred to him like a sudden bolt of lightning.

“Bloody whelps stole my clothes!” he roared, but even as he said it, he couldn’t believe it was true.

God’s teeth! They’d stolen his bloody clothes—first his wheels now his pants.

He made a run for the door, thinking of nothing in that instant but the restoration of his belongings, but even before he reached it, he heard their terrorized squeals as they fled the scene of the crime. In his haste to stop them, he slipped, and with a muffled curse, tripped. He slammed into the door, and the force of his impact knocked him onto the ice-cold floor, injuring his tailbone. The irreverent sound of his collision echoed throughout the old house, followed by his furious howl of pain.

Infernal heathens!

Never in his life had he met their like. Never had he known a family so peculiar in their ways, that they would allow mere children the run of their home—Christmas, or not! It’d serve every damned one of them right if he lifted his frozen arse from the wooden floor and burst into the corridor after them, bared to the buttocks and mad like a loon! God’s knees... if only he could lift himself from the floor. He tried... and howled in pain.

“Aunt Em. Aunt Em!”

Emma had only just completed breakfast when the children exploded into the dining room. She barely had time to rise from the table before they swarmed around her.

‘The duke is very ill!” Lettie wailed. Her face was sweaty from her mad dash to his rescue.

Jonathon panted at her side. “Very, very,
very
ill!” he re-emphasized.

Emma couldn’t quite quell the sudden panic that rose in her breast. Her expression was one of horror. “What do you mean he’s ill?”

“Well,” Lettie explained on a rush of breath. “You see... we were playing… in the corridor...” She peered at Emma, as though to gauge her reaction, and then at Samantha. “... and well, you see...”

“He began to scream,” Samantha declared, taking over for her sister, who seemed clearly at a loss for words. “Terrible, terrible screams of agony!”

“We think he could be dying.” Jonathon conveyed with a jerky nod and wide eyes. Clearly, he was quite shaken by the possibility.

“Emma, dear,” Cecile broke in calmly, accustomed to the children’s theatrics as she was. Emma glanced up, worry lines etching her forehead. “Perhaps you should go and see what is the matter with the duke?”

Even before she agreed, Emma had already risen from the table. “Yes,” she relented at once, her thoughts reeling. She didn’t stop to consider the rush of relief she felt at Cecile’s suggestion. “Perhaps I should,” she said a little hysterically.

“Yes, dear,” Cecile said, her tone full of concern, and Emma nearly bolted from the dining room in her haste to reach Lucien.

Lord, but she couldn’t bear the thought of something happening to him right here in her home! She wished him gone but certainly not dead!

“Children,” she heard Cecile reprove, “you must stay here with me. Aunt Em will do much better without you in her way.”

“Yes, mum,” they agreed sweetly, and Emma was quite certain they were the most thoughtful children she had ever known. Lifting her skirts, she ran up the stairwell to the first floor and then down the corridor to the duke’s room.

Groaning, in pain, Lucien made his way to his feet, clutching his tailbone.

Christmas—bah, humbug!

He hoped those brats ended with nothing but coal in their stockings and even that was too much!

With every step, he grew more cantankerous and then hearing the advancing footsteps, he propelled himself into the bed with a bellow of pain and another curse. He barely had time to cover himself before the door burst open, and Emma bolted within.

None too chivalrously, he spat another oath at the sight of her and jerked the sheets clear to his chin. “Doesn’t anybody in this infernal house knock?” he asked, incensed.

Emma stiffened at his accusation, though it didn’t keep her from entering and nearing his bedside. “Even sick you are debauched,” she said, frowning. “Lord, can you never cease with the profanity?”

Debauched, was he?

She didn’t know the half of it, Lucien thought wryly. The sight of her warmed his blood like mere blankets never could have. He groaned, lifting his knee to conceal tell tale evidence. “I seem to recall that you’ve developed quite an aptitude for language yourself, Miss Peters.”

“Yes, well...” She eyed him none too benevolently. “You seem to bring out the worst in me,” she conceded. “Do I see that you are perspiring?”

Despite the glare she gave him, she came closer still, standing beside the bed now. She reached out to place the back of her hand, almost timidly, to his cheek.

Bloody hell, it was all Lucien could do not to seize it and press it more firmly against his heated flesh. He craved her touch like a Scot craved whiskey.

“My, but you
are
warm!” she told him with great concern.

No small wonder, Lucien thought, when she bent over him, once again baring her décolletage. He tried not to look at the bounty set before him. No Christmas feast had ever tempted him more. Dressed in deep rose, the color only enhanced the flush of her skin, and he couldn’t help but think she’d never looked so ravishing. Her hair had been lifted artfully and fell in gentle ringlets about her face, framing it perfectly. Her lush lips appeared the same color as that of her too provocative gown and he wondered what they would look like after being thoroughly kissed.

The monster beneath the covers stirred feverishly.

Damn.

She took in his disheveled appearance, the flush of his skin, and shook her head with obvious concern. “In fact, you look quite dreadful!” she announced. “You should be thankful the children were playing outside your door and heard you,” she added. “Were it not for them, I would never would have known to come.”

He cocked a brow. “Really?”

“Truly,” she said, lifting her chin. “You should thank them profusely.”

“At the first opportunity,” he agreed.

Thank them, indeed.

At the instant, he was torn between spanking their rotten hides and giving them the finest, grandest gifts they had ever beheld in all their lives—whatever that may be.

Were it not for the children, he would have been long gone by now, and he wouldn’t have the slightest clue how his fiancé had blossomed.

In fact, she was exquisite, and any doubt that he might not be attracted to her was gone. If the beast between his legs had any say in the matter, he would be begging her forgiveness and rushing her away to the altar.

But he wasn’t simply the sum of his parts, he told himself. He was a rationale man with good reason to wish to protect her… except that his resolve had gone missing along with his clothes.

Lucien simply stared at her, knowing she couldn’t possibly discern the imminent danger her virtue was in at the moment.

“I think you should go,” he said without much conviction.

Her brows knit. “Tell me where it hurts?”

Lucien was quite certain she didn’t wish to know.

Neither of his pains were quite suitable for tender ears to hear. He was on the verge of telling her that he was perfectly fine, that he could only be better if they would simply give him back his infernal clothes and his blasted carriage wheels, and then she knelt beside the bed and took his breath away.

The scent of lavender drifted over the sheets, heady and sweet.

She blinked and her deep brown eyes peered at him with such distress that it made him feel strangely warm.

He held his breath so long that his lungs began to ache and his eyes locked upon her luscious cleavage, now taunting him at eye level. “I… well,” he stammered. It was all Lucien could do not to roll toward her and bury his lips into the delectable mounds.

Dear God, but he wanted to draw her into his bed and suckle each nipple, first through the cloth of her dress... and then when she didn’t protest, he would bare them fully to his hungry eyes and feast upon them. He wanted to make her moan with ecstasy, wanted to show her the pleasures of womanhood. He wanted to cherish her with his hands and his body.

He glanced up, into her face, with a sudden, dangerous revelation...

He wanted to be the one.

Never had he been so affected by a woman in all his days—and it helped not at all that he was butt-naked beneath the sheets.

If she only knew—if only her brother knew.

Christ, he couldn’t believe they had actually sent the girl into his bedchamber unattended. It was likely they thought him dressed to the teeth in night rail and cap like any other respectful chap might be. But they had completely misjudged him.

Certainly,
he
would never have given her leave to enter the room of a wicked man, and he couldn’t believe how lax her brother seemed to be—with his own children, for that matter—never mind that Emma was obviously no longer a child herself.

He frowned, not liking it one bit that she seemed so at ease in his presence, considering that most women would have died of fright at the mere sight of a man clad merely in his nightclothes.

“What, for the love of God, is wrong?” she asked, her face white as she waited for him to speak.

“I-I fell,” he yielded, his voice faltering, betraying him.

“You fell?” she repeated a little dubiously. But he couldn’t precisely tell if that was what he heard in her voice, for he’d yet to be able to rent his gaze from her bodice in order to gauge her expression.