How the Dukes Stole Christmas

by MacLean, Sarah

  Everything fell away—the holiday, the house, the history—and he reveled in her, this stunning, magnificent woman whose hands and mouth and body claimed him with a mere kiss.

  She’d come back. And she was his once more. He could win her again. He had the funds now. He could give her anything she wished. Everything. Starting with the greatest pleasure she’d ever experienced.

  He was about to make good on that promise when she pulled away abruptly, taking breath and heat with her, pushing him from her, the only sound in the room their harsh breath. And then, “Wait.”

  The soft, whispered word sounded like gunshot, and he released her as though she was aflame. “Jack?”

  She shook her head, transfixed by the papers. “No.”

  Confusion flared along with frustration as she pushed past him and made for the closed door, the gentle brush of her skirts stinging against his calves. He willed himself silent. And still, he spoke. “You left me.”

  The words stopped her short, those weaponous skirts swirling about her legs as her shoulders shot straight. She spoke to the door, unwilling or unable to look at him. “You left me first.”

  The words settled unpleasantly between them. “I’ve been here the whole time. Every goddamned day for twelve years.”

  She whirled to face him then, a red wash vivid on her cheeks. Embarrassment?

  Anger. “You were gone nonetheless,” she said, the words vibrating around the room. “I tried so hard to keep you. To hold on to you. But you disappeared, a little bit at a time, every day. Lost to this”—she waved a hand at the room, at his desk, at the papers on the floor—“life.”

  She spoke the word the way he thought it, as though it were a pale approximation of itself and yet, there was no describing it any other way. He hated how well she knew it, and lashed out to show her so. “I am sorry I could not surrender to your childhood whims,” he said.

  “My…whims?” There was incredulity in the reply. Incredulity and something like rage. “My only whim was you.”

  Was that true?

  “You wanted the world. That’s why you left. Because you wanted more than I could give you.”

  She nodded. “That much is true.”

  I can give it to you now.

  “I was saddled with the responsibility of hundreds. The estate was crumbling, gambled away by my father, who never cared for responsibility as much as he cared for drink. I had to rebuild it. And you left me.”

  She looked to the ceiling as if for strength. “You wanted me to be invisible. Here, but not seen. For how long?”

  “Until I had made enough!”

  “Enough for what?”

  “For you!” The words thundered through the room, angry silence quick on their heels. Did she not see? Everything he’d done was to make himself better. To make himself enough.

  She shook her head. “No, Eben. I never wanted it.”

  It was a lie, of course. No woman wanted an impoverished duke. No wife wished to tie herself to debt and hardship.

  But when she added softly, “I only ever wanted you,” he almost believed it. “I only ever wanted to stand beside you and look into our future—whatever it might have been.”

  Or, rather, he believed it enough that he couldn’t stop himself from asking, “Then why did you leave?”

  She smiled, small and sad. “What was my love without your faith?”

  Silence fell and he ached with it, every one of his muscles on edge, straining to go to her, to touch her again. To prove to her that he’d never been lost. That he had been here, frozen in time, longing for her. “Then why did you return?” he asked, because he didn’t know what else to say.

  Except, of course, the thing he could not say.

  Why won’t you stay?

  “Perhaps I wished to see if…” She trailed off and he hated the silence—the absence of her that he had grown accustomed to and now, suddenly, could not bear.

  When he filled that silence, his voice was hoarse and broken, as though he hadn’t spoken since she left. “Why did you come, Jack?”

  Her gaze flew to his, those beautiful brown eyes in that face he had missed so much and for so long. He ached for her answer. “Perhaps I wished to see if you were still here.”

  I am here. I will always be here. But he didn’t say that. Instead, like a fool, he said, “I was always here.”

  She looked away, to the window, where snow swirled. “Do you remember…”

  “I remember all of it.” Every minute. Every second.

  She turned back to him instantly. “Do you remember that you once vowed you’d always come for me?”

  There could have been betrayal in the words. Hurt. Sadness. He would have accepted any one of them, because he could have hidden in defensiveness. But there were none of those things. There was only truth.

  And that was worse, because it left him bare, and filled with regret.

  It was one of a thousand vows he’d never made good on.

  “I came to tell you that we shall sup at two,” she said.

  He didn’t want to eat. He wanted to kiss her again, to pull them both from the past and ground them here, once more, in the present.

  But that was the problem with kissing her; it did not simply bring Eben to the present, it stole any hope of a future from him.

  I love you.

  The thought came, primitive and honest.

  And irrelevant.

  She was no longer for him. He had made sure of it.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Christmas Day, twelve years earlier

  “It is too hot to sleep.”

  He was still working when she found him in his office, having sought him out in the dead of an unseasonably warm night, the weather more suited to a sunny day in May than a wintry holiday. The city had been the recipient of a heat wave and, with no one able to predict when winter would return, homes suffered without the moderate comforts that usually came with warm weather—windows remained fastened shut, their coverings heavy and oppressive like the air itself.

  Jack shouldn’t be surprised…There was little festive about this year’s holiday, anyway. Her siblings had all scattered from Town to their respective country seats and, though Jack had been more than welcome at any one of their holiday tables, she’d chosen to stay in London, in her childhood home, telling herself that she wished for one final holiday with her wild aunt before the older woman took to the wide world for what she referred to as her “Grandest Tour.”

  If she told herself that she remained in London out of a sense of niecely duty, she did not have to tell herself the truth—that she did not think she could suffer a round of familial idyll in the country, filled with happy marriages and laughing babes dandled on fathers’ knees. Not when she was more and more convinced that such a marriage was not in her future.

  And, if she told herself that she remained in London for Aunt Jane, she did not have to tell herself the other truth—that she remained in London for Eben.

  She did not have to tell herself it was one final Christmas with him.

  One final chance to win the man she loved, who she feared had already slipped away.

  She stood in the doorway, a small box in hand, and watched him, brilliant and serious, focused, as always, on the ledger before him, working his sums, watching them increase as though by sheer force of will. Her chest tightened as she drank him in, the haphazard fall of his dark hair over his brow, the muscle flexing in his jaw, the strong forearms below the shirtsleeves he’d rolled up—a concession to the heat, perhaps, or to the late hour, or to both.

  Gone was the boy she’d first loved. Two years and a lifetime of responsibility had turned him into a man, and she ached for him. For his warmth. For the smile that she had once been able to summon with ease.

  She tried now. “I believe my Christmases are cursed never to yield snow.”

  He glanced up at her, then to the calendar wheel inlaid in the blotter on his desk. He did not reveal his surprise at the date, but J
ack saw it, nonetheless. He’d forgotten that it was Christmas.

  He looked back to his numbers. “You’ve clearly made some deity incredibly angry.”

  She huffed a dramatic sigh. “I’ve never even met Saint Nicholas.”

  He ran a finger down a column of numbers and absently replied, “Well, perhaps it’s punishment for your obvious disinterest in him, then.”

  She came forward, tempted by the teasing. By the hint that he might be interested in playing. “I’m exceedingly interested in him! Perhaps it’s you who is being punished. After all, you’re the one working on Christmas. But you didn’t realize that, did you?”

  He scribbled a note on a paper nearby. “I suppose I haven’t seen a servant in a while.”

  “The lack of servants was your only clue?”

  Look at me.

  He did, seeking her out in the shadows and failing. The candle on his desk had burned nearly to the end, the light unable to reach her—barely able to encompass the piles of paper spread across the workspace.

  “The estate does not celebrate Christmas.”

  The words grated, and she could not stop the edge in her reply. “As a matter of fact, it does.”

  “The tenants, yes. The servants, yes,” he said, calmly. “But someone must keep watch while they drink their toddies and dance their reels.”

  Her skirts rustled against the carpet as she came closer. “And you are that someone?”

  “There isn’t another duke to do it.”

  “You are a marvel,” she said quietly to his bent head. “In barely two years, you’ve turned this ship around. There are full bellies this year, and more to come. They believe in you. Just as I do.”

  “It’s not enough,” he said.

  Why not?

  “Eben…You aren’t through. It isn’t finished. But there are things for which to be thankful. You are a better duke than your father could have dreamed.”

  He grunted a reply, but said nothing else.

  She took a deep breath. Launched herself into the fray. “But what of the rest of you? What of the man?”

  He looked up. “I assure you, Jacqueline. I remain a man.”

  She came around the edge of the desk, leaning against it, taking the spot she’d claimed a hundred times before. “Are not men allowed to take a holiday once a year?”

  He sat back, but remained silent, his gaze running over her. “Jack—”

  A clock chimed from the hallway beyond. Once. Twice. Thrice.

  “It’s Christmas,” she said, reaching for him, letting her fingers trail through his hair, loving its softness and the way he leaned into her touch. Hating the ache in her chest as she said, “Leave it. It will be here tomorrow.”

  Please. Please, this once, look at me. See me.

  He shook his head. “I can’t.”

  Disappointment flared, hot and angry and worse. Devastating. “I hate what this has made you,” she whispered.

  “You shall like it when you are a duchess and rich beyond your wildest dreams.”

  No, I shall always hate it. Because you will be gone.

  And I, with you.

  She withdrew her touch. Stood. Knowing what must be done, strength stealing through her. Strength and something more. “My wildest dreams have nothing to do with money.”

  “That’s because you’ve always had it.”

  “No,” she said after a long moment. “It’s because of what I once had, and have no longer.”

  The candlelight cast his face into stark angles and deep shadows. His eyes black in the darkness. The shadows painted the line of his jaw like the edge of a knife. And his lips—when had he kissed her last?

  “It’s late,” he said.

  And because she knew there was nothing more to say, she nodded, and replied, “Will you come to dinner? Aunt Jane and I have plans for your favorites—the fattest goose we could find, potatoes roasted until they shall break your teeth for the crunch of their skin…” She looked away, to the window. “And a parsnip crème that is very well done, if I may say so myself.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Today,” she corrected. Christmas Day.

  It took a moment for him to understand. “Yes, of course. Today. I shall be there.”

  Heart aching, she set the box she’d been holding—the one she’d carefully wrapped in paper and string, tied with a piece of holly—on the desk. With one finger, she pushed it toward him. He looked to it. “What is that?”

  “It is customary for people to exchange gifts on Christmas.” She forced a smile. “Which you might recall, as you did set the bar rather high last year—what with all that snow.”

  It was hard to believe it had only been a year earlier. It felt like a lifetime ago. She still remembered him pulling her close and promising to make her happy. Just as soon as the estate was sorted. Just as soon as he could crawl out from beneath the weight of his father’s neglect.

  He’d proved he wasn’t his father in the last two years. His tenants had come to believe in him. The employees in his factories, as well. Twenty-two and with the strength and intelligence of any one of the other men who sat with him in the House of Lords, but he did not see it. Instead, he’d become consumed with the estate, with restoring the reputation of the dukedom, with securing the funds required to rectify the past—as though that was possible. As though there was not simply the present and the future to impact.

  And whenever she asked him why—there was a single answer. “For you.”

  But it wasn’t for her. It never would be.

  The knowledge was punctuated when he shook his head. “I—I did not—”

  There was no gift for her. She nodded. “I did not expect you would.” But she’d hoped. “Perhaps you will play for me later.” His brows rose in surprise, as though he’d forgotten he had ever played the violin for her. “I miss your music,” she said, softly—the only confession she could bring herself to risk.

  He looked back to the box. “I don’t think—”

  She interrupted him, not wanting the full force of his refusal, instead pointing to the box. “Open it.”

  When he did, the action lacked the excitement that receiving a gift should bring. And when he lifted the top from the beautifully wrought leather cube within to reveal her gift, she held her breath.

  In silence, he lifted the gold pocket watch from its seat, turning it over in his hand to run his thumb over the fine filigree engraved there. “It’s the finest gift I’ve ever received.”

  “It’s inscribed,” she said. She couldn’t resist telling him so. “Inside.”

  He popped the latch and the back of the watch swung open, revealing the clockwork swaying and spinning within. He reached for the candle and held the light up, and she willed him to see more than the words: For the time we yet have.

  More than the tiny, perfectly engraved snowflake below.

  She willed him to see how she ached for him. How she loved him. How she wished for their future more than anything in the world.

  He did not see it.

  At least, he did not show it when he looked up at her and said, “Thank you.”

  Her face fell in the shadows, but he did not see. He was already looking away, back to the ledger. He was already forgetting the gift. Already forgetting her.

  “Happy Christmas,” she said softly. The words were lost the moment she spoke them. Disappeared in the darkness.

  I love you. But she didn’t say it. She couldn’t say it.

  “I shall be at dinner,” Eben replied.

  And he was there. Promptly at two.

  Jack, however, was not.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Christmas Day

  They’d already begun to eat when Eben arrived to luncheon.

  He was deliberately late, telling himself he wanted to keep them waiting…wanted them to care whether he arrived or not. No. Wanted her to care whether he arrived or not.

  But, in truth, he was afraid she might not be there.

&nbs
p; He paused outside the doorway, knowing he shouldn’t. Knowing that skulking about in the hallway and eavesdropping on the conversation in the room beyond would not end well. But he did it anyway, and so he supposed it was only fair that when he came upon the dining room, it was to discover the trio in raucous laughter, as though they had been friends for an age, and their past was filled with vibrant hilarity to which he was not privy.

  “I don’t believe you!” Lawton was insisting.

  “I swear it is true,” Jack replied, her laughter setting Eben on edge.

  “I’m to believe that he plays—”

  “Not just plays,” she interrupted. “Has a superior talent for.”

  Eben held his breath. “Fair enough,” Lawton joked. “I’m supposed to believe he has a superior talent for the violin.”

  “Correct.”

  “Eben, Duke of Allryd.”

  The trio laughed again, loud enough to grate. “That’s the one,” Jack replied.

  “And not simply Mozart or whatnot…lighthearted, raucous, jovial violin.”

  “I’ve never heard him miss a note,” she said, her voice filled with memory. “I’ve never heard anyone play with the speed he plays, and I’ve never heard him miss.”

  Memory flashed. She’d danced to the raucous rhythm on more than one occasion, as he’d played faster and faster and she’d twirled and twirled until he’d nearly set the bowstrings aflame. And then she’d nearly set him aflame and they’d collapsed together in a sea of tangled skirts and heavy breath and happiness, and he’d had plans for her to dance for him every day for the rest of their lives.

  Until he’d ruined it all.

  “I’m sorry,” Lawton’s words interrupted his thoughts. “I’m having trouble imagining him at leisure at all, let alone at merry, entertaining leisure.”

  Eben scowled. He could be leisurely.

  Silence fell in the room beyond. And then, her quiet reply. “I have trouble remembering him outside of merriment.”

  His heart threatened to beat from his chest.

  “That’s because you don’t wish to, silly girl.” The last came from Aunt Jane, short and with an edge of frustration. “But you’ll recall that there was nothing merry at the end. Not for an age.”