Her eyes flew to his. “What?”
“That’s what you are.”
Her brows furrowed. “Because I am cooking?”
“Because you are interrupting.”
She raised a brow. “Were you very busy? It seemed to me you were sleeping away the day…”
“As is my prerogative.”
“As it is my prerogative to cook a holiday meal.”
The woman was infuriating. “It is your prerogative to do that in your own bloody kitchen!”
She lifted a shoulder and let it fall, as though they were disagreeing on proper outerwear for the climate and not home intrusion. “Yours is better stocked.”
She was maddening.
No, she wasn’t. She was the same as ever—quick and smart-mouthed and charming as hell and completely unruffled by him.
Christ, he’d missed her.
No. No. There was no missing her. He couldn’t miss her. If he missed her, he might never not miss her, and that would certainly kill him.
It was bad enough he’d never stopped loving her.
He had to be rid of her. So, he did the only thing he could think to do. He ceded ground. “Either way, it is no matter.” He nodded to Lawton. “I’m expected at Christmas luncheon with Lawton.”
If he hadn’t been so drawn to her, so focused on her, he might not have seen it. He might not have caught the tiny, barely-there wrinkle in her brow. The nearly imperceptible tightening at the corner of her lips. The almost quiver at the point of her heart-shaped face.
Disappointment.
He must be wrong, of course. She was to be married to Fergus, the perfect Scot. She was for some place far to the north, where the land was unforgiving and the speech indecipherable. She was leaving tomorrow. It wasn’t disappointment.
Except, it was.
He’d seen it for the split second it had been there before she schooled her features and it was gone. And then he heard it in the quiet “Oh” that preceded, “Well, by all means, then. Don’t let us keep you.”
Another man wouldn’t notice it, the little, dismayed syllable. Perfect Fergus wouldn’t notice it. But Eben did. And he lingered on it, like a small child staring at teacakes.
His chest tightened.
Did she want him to stay?
“You’re not leaving.” All attention turned to Aunt Jane.
“I beg your pardon?” Jack said.
“They’re not leaving.”
“I damn well am,” Eben said.
Lawton spoke with slightly more aplomb. “I’m afraid we must, my lady. My sister-in-law awaits my return, duke in tow.”
“That may be the case,” Aunt Jane replied, “But I suggest you look outside.” She waved a hand at one thick windowpane. “The storm is quite serious now. You shan’t make it fifty yards, let alone—where is it you were going?”
“Marylebone,” Lawton said.
“Oh, no. You certainly shan’t make it all the way there.”
“We shall be fine,” Eben said, desperate to be gone from this madness.
“No.” Jack’s single word came harsh and unyielding, and everyone looked to her. She was staring out the window at the world beyond—hidden by a wall of swirling whiteness, lost for a moment in the past.
Dammit. He’d spoken without thinking.
“The roads will be too dangerous.” She looked to him, her eyes clouded, private.
Twelve years disappeared between them.
“We shan’t go,” he said to her and he was rewarded with a single, long exhale, the tension running from her shoulders. His fingers itched to reach for her, and he couldn’t stop himself from repeating the words, softly. “We shan’t.”
Unaware of what had transpired between them, Lawton said, “We shan’t?”
He shook his head, his gaze not leaving Jack. “No. The carriage shan’t be safe.”
A long moment passed before Lawton shrugged. “If only you were the kind of man to have a sleigh, Allryd.”
The dry statement distracted Jack, prompting a little chuckle, like sunshine in the snow. Eben looked to her. “What’s so amusing?”
“Only the idea of you in a sleigh.”
His brows rose. “Why?”
“I cannot imagine you in one.”
“Why not?”
She raised a brow. “Well…I would have thought that you would consider them rather frivolous. And you’ve never cared for frivolity.”
“That’s not true.” Silence fell, thick as the snow outside the window. He looked from one face to the next. “It’s not.”
“Name one frivolous thing you’ve done,” Lawton said, arms crossed over his chest.
Eben’s face grew hot. Christ, was he blushing? “I’ve done frivolous things.”
Why in hell did it matter?
“Excellent. Tell us about one of them.”
Eben stilled, a single memory flooding his thoughts. Consuming him. He looked at Jack, noting the color high on her cheeks and knew, instantly, that she was consumed by it, as well.
But he would be damned if he’d share it with the others. He stayed stubbornly silent.
After a long moment, Aunt Jane interjected, “Never fear, Charlie—may I call you Charlie?”
Lawton turned a ridiculous smile on her. “Nothing would give me more pleasure.”
The old woman continued, “To make up for your tragic lack of family for the holiday, I shall regale you with stories of the duke, and the man he might have been.” The words fell like lead in Eben’s gut as Aunt Jane went on, a touch of smirk in her tone. “Did you know, for example, that he and my niece were once affianced themselves?”
Eben heard the hitch in Jack’s breath from where he sat. Heard it and hated it. Hated that he, too, had trouble breathing at the question. Was that the word for what they’d been? Affianced? It had seemed like more than that. Like something that could not simply be dissolved. But dissolved it had been, like snow in sunshine, there one moment and gone the next.
Not so easily.
He met Jack’s gaze across the kitchen, reading the past in her eyes and regretting the truth in them. Regretting, too, a different truth—that he’d never stopped loving her. That he never would. Not even when she was happily married to another.
He stood, desperate to be gone from this room with its cloying heat and memory. “If the snow keeps you here,” he said to his partner, “so be it. And if these madwomen haven’t anything better to do than to cook for you, so be that, as well. But I haven’t any need to linger and hear silly stories of an ancient time. I have work to do.”
With that, he left the room.
CHAPTER FOUR
Christmas Eve, thirteen years earlier
Thunder rattled the walls of Darby House, a wicked storm threatening to shake the place to its rafters, and Jack was shaking with it, teeth chattering as she raced through the darkened hallways to the library, not needing light to find the door tucked away in the back corner. She could find it in the dark, with her eyes closed, forever.
It opened before she could reach for it, and there he was, trousers on and shirt untucked, hastily dressed because he was coming for her. He always came for her.
She flew into his open arms and he caught her, pulling her close, tucking her head beneath his chin. “I have you,” he whispered. And again. “I have you, love.” He pressed his lips to the top of her head and tightened his arms around her.
“You—you c-came,” she chattered.
“As soon as I heard the storm,” he said, the words a deep rumble in his chest. “I shall always come for you.”
The vow began to settle her. “It’s so silly. It’s just weather.”
“It’s not weather. It’s the past.” The night her parents had been traveling in a terrible storm, thunder had spooked the horses and sent the carriage sliding over slick cobblestones and into the icy Thames.
Jack had been barely fourteen, and had never been able to stomach thunder after that, seeking out Eben’s company
when he was home and pretending to be brave. But he’d always known the truth.
She took a deep breath. Released it. Allowed herself to feel his arms around her. The warmth of him. The truth of him. “You’re here,” she whispered.
“Thank God,” he replied, his hands stroking over her, holding her tight. “Do you know how many nights I have spent lying awake and watching lightning flash? Listening to thunder roll through the countryside, and willing it to stay far from here? Far from you?”
She turned her face into his chest, his confession warming her. “You can’t stop the weather,” she whispered.
“That doesn’t mean I can’t try, love,” he spoke to the top of her head. “And when I’m here—in London—I will always keep the storm at bay.”
It was a silly vow. An impossible promise. And still, she believed him.
The rumble of the storm lessened as he held her, as though his will really could chase it away. When it was finally over, she lifted her face to his, clutching the loose fabric of his shirt. “You’re here. I wasn’t sure if you would be.”
He brushed a lock of hair from her face, his green eyes dark and full of promise. “Of course I’m here. It’s Christmas.”
She blushed. “It’s been seventy-three days since you were here.”
He nodded, as though he’d been counting them, too. “I wish I could have been here sooner. I was going to surprise you tomorrow.”
She smiled. “That would have made for a very merry Christmas, but I am happy you came tonight.” She reached up, placing a hand to his cheek, where a hint of a beard threatened. Promised. “I want every minute I can steal with you.”
He pulled away, taking her hand and leading her through the door and into the conservatory on his side. “If you’re to thieve,” he whispered, “do it in my house, where your Aunt Jane won’t have me strung up for tempting you to darkness.”
Jack grinned and pulled the door shut behind her as he lit a small lamp on the pianoforte. “Everyone would know that it was I tempting you, you know.”
He sat on a low bench and summoned her close, pulling her to stand between his long thighs. She turned his face up to her, taking in the dark circles beneath his eyes, the new lines around his mouth that aged him far beyond one-and-twenty. Running her thumbs over the dark slashes of his brows, she said, softly, “You look tired.”
He pulled her closer, setting his forehead to her torso and inhaling, as though a breath of her might bring him strength. Then he leaned back and said, “The estates are in shambles. The tenants suffer. The herds are thin. Winter comes and with it the cold, and there’s no money. They’re angry and frustrated and full of sorrow—and he never did anything.”
His father.
Jack hugged him close, curling herself around him, wishing she could make it go away. “You will, though.”
Another deep breath. “I don’t know how,” he whispered. “The estate hangs by a thread. I’ve a list of necessities longer and more expensive than time and funds will allow. Each hour, some new repair comes due—each more urgent than the last. The mill in Wales is virtually falling down. The cattle on the estate in Surrey ail. Food for tenants in Newcastle is scarce.”
And all of it at Eben’s feet. Too much of it for him to solve at once.
He pulled her into his lap. “I can’t fix it all. I’m as bad as he was.”
She shook her head. “You’re ten times the man he was. A hundred.”
He put his forehead to hers, closing his eyes. “No one tells you how difficult it is to bear the mantle of responsibility.” He opened his eyes, his gaze fixed to a point beyond her shoulder, and added, “No one tells you all that you must give up.”
The words sent a thread of fear through her. She shook her head, reaching for him, as though she could stop whatever it was that was coming. “Eben,” she said. “Let me help.”
His gaze flew to hers, sharp. Understanding. “No.”
She sighed. “There’s plenty of money. Not enough to save a dukedom, but surely enough to help.” She set her palm to his face again. Repeated herself. “Let me help.”
He shook his head. “No. I won’t take your money. Every mistake that has been made is mine to rectify. Every sin. This responsibility is mine. I have a plan. And I will not have you thinking I married you for anything but you. And I will not have you marrying me thinking I am anything less than you deserve.”
They’d had the argument a dozen times. A hundred. In person and by post. And Jack knew better than to push. So, instead, she took his face in her hands and told him the truth. “You are the best man I know.”
When she pulled him down for a kiss, he groaned, unable to keep himself from deepening the caress, his hands coming to capture her face, holding her still, taking control. “Christ, I missed you,” he said, plucking the words directly from her mind.
“Seventy-three days are too many,” she replied before he licked at the seam of her lips—a question barely needing an answer.
She opened for him and they kissed, long and slow and lingering; when they finally parted, both gasping for breath, he whispered, “I have a gift for you.”
A thrill of excitement coursed through her. “What is it?”
Eben’s beautiful lips curved in a devastating smile. “I can’t remember.”
She feigned a scowl. “Give it.”
Another kiss, quick and delicious. “Come with me.”
She followed him without hesitation, even as she teased, “I don’t know if I should. It’s two o’clock in the morning. Nothing good comes of two o’clock in the morning in the company of an unmarried gentleman.”
He laughed. “I assure you, love, everything good comes of two o’clock in the morning in the company of an unmarried gentleman.”
She cut him a look. “For the gentleman.”
He lowered his voice. “I shall make it good for you, as well, Lady Jacqueline.”
“Said the lion to the mouse,” she replied, following without hesitation. She’d always follow him.
He led her through his quiet house, now empty of so much that had once mattered to him—things he’d sold for money to save the people who relied upon him.
He was a magnificent man. And someday, this house wouldn’t be empty, Jack thought. They would fill it together—right to the brim with love and a future. And a family. Riches beyond imagining.
“I am sorry the house is so cold,” he whispered. “No servants.”
It was rare for an aristocrat to gift his servants a holiday. Too often, staff was required to work, putting another’s celebration ahead of their own. But Eben had cut their wages that year instead of providing them with Christmas boxes.
His guilt over what he had to do to keep the staff employed had been the source of half a dozen letters between he and Jack. He’d offered them each the choice to stay or go, with his best references, and all but three had chosen to stay, trusting that the young man would better serve them than his father had done.
To show his gratitude, Eben had given those who remained the only thing he could—time away for the holiday. And with that decision, he’d tumbled Jack even further into love with him. She squeezed his hand. “I am happy for the time alone.”
They stopped in the center of the home’s great foyer, and he left her to light a dozen candles around the edge of the space. When she was bathed in golden light, he came to her, taking her hands in his and lifting them both to his lips, kissing one, then the other before saying, “In all the years we’ve known each other, it’s never snowed on Christmas.”
She raised a disapproving brow at that. “You needn’t remind me, Eben.”
He smiled. “I have no doubt you would have reminded me of just that tomorrow. Just as you’ve done every year for an eternity.”
“It’s supposed to snow on Christmas,” she pointed out. “That’s the whole point of Christmas.”
“Well, I’m not certain that’s the point of Christmas at all, but that’s an argument for ano
ther time.”
Thunder rumbled outside, and she moved closer to him. He wrapped one arm tightly around her, and she shook off her discomfort with a protest. “And to add insult to injury, it’s raining this year.”
He smiled. “Stay here.”
Her eyes widened in curiosity, but she did as she was told, watching as he moved to the stairs, collecting a small box and climbing to the second floor. He stopped halfway up the stairs. “It’s a silly gift.”
Jack did not know what was in the box, but she knew, without question, that there was nothing silly about it. She looked up at him and said, “I want it.”
But what she really meant was, “I want you.”
He understood, if the fire in his eyes was any indication. Jack watched as the man she loved ascended to the top of the stairs in long, graceful movements before he took his place on the landing above, peering over the bannister at her, twenty feet below in nothing more than a pink night rail and a matching velvet robe.
“You’re not wearing slippers, Jack,” he said. “I can see your toes.”
She grinned. “Yes, your cold floor is reminding me of that. Now where’s my present?”
“You’re very demanding.”
She nodded. “It’s one of my worst qualities.”
He laughed at that, a low, delicious sound that tumbled down to warm the very toes they’d been speaking of. “I rather like it.”
Before she could answer, he lifted the box in his hands and called down, “Happy Christmas, love.”
And then, he made it snow.
She squealed at the sight of hundreds of little ecru snowflakes, each one painstakingly crafted, fluttering down to her, turning the air between them white. She reached up toward them and called out his name in pure, unfettered joy, and he laughed, rich and full and honest, and Jack thought she might never hear another thing in her entire life that she loved as much as that sound.
He was already on his way down the stairs, rushing to beat the snow. He reached her just as the last of the flakes did, capturing her mid-twirl and pulling her to him even as she threw herself into his arms, kissing him once, twice, before he pulled back and picked a little paper disk from her hair, brandishing it toward her like a hero’s prize.
How the Dukes Stole Christmas Page 12