How the Dukes Stole Christmas
Page 18
“Eventually.”
He lifted one shoulder in a carefree shrug, “No need to wait when I’ve found such a good friend.”
“Friend.”
He grinned. “Are ye having trouble hearing me, Lady Jacqueline?”
“No,” she replied. “Just understanding you.”
He straightened, coming to his full height, his too-long red hair falling low over his brow. “Let me make it more plain. I’ve need of a wife. And I think you’ve need of a husband. What say you we make a go of it?”
And there it was. Jack’s first marriage proposal, spoken as the wind curled around them from the Aegean Sea, the gleam of the golden sunset turning the moment into paradise. Except, it wasn’t paradise. Because it wasn’t the proposal she wanted.
It never would be.
“It’s a lovely offer.”
He inclined his head. “But not one you’re willing to accept.”
She shook her head. “I can’t marry you.”
“Why not?”
“Because you don’t love me.”
He nodded in agreement, and something like relief chased through Jack. “I like ye plenty, lass. And fine marriages have been based on less than that, I’ll tell you.”
It was a good offer. Fergus was a good friend. Handsome and kind, and with seemingly endless funds and an estate in Scotland to boot.
“Why not admit the truth?” he said, pulling her from her thoughts.
She watched him for a long moment. And then, “All right. I don’t love you.”
The words held no sting. Neither did they deliver one, if the flash of Fergus’s white teeth were any indication. “But you like me plenty.”
She smiled. “When you’re not behaving like a madman, certainly.”
“Tell me this. How many times have you thought of returning to him?”
The question came from nowhere. Fergus shouldn’t have known there was a him to ask about. There wasn’t a him to ask about, was there? It had been twelve years, and surely all the wide world had moved on.
It wasn’t like she’d asked to remain in love with Eben.
But she had. She had, and there was no man she would ever want like him—the boy who had held storms at bay, and given her snow, and made her believe in love. And like that, the tears came. The memory of Eben’s arms, of his wide smiles, of his beautiful eyes and his wide shoulders and his soft kisses. The longing for him.
And she told her friend the truth. “I’ve thought of returning to him every day since I left.”
There was no surprise in Fergus’s response—only kind understanding. “And why haven’t you done it?”
She looked to the sea, her words whispered to the wind. “Because…he never came to fetch me.”
Fergus heard them nonetheless. “Well, he’s a bawbag, clearly.”
She gave a surprised laugh at the foul Scottish word. “He is, rather.”
“But you’ve got a mind full of fluff,” Fergus added.
Jack turned on him. “I beg your pardon?”
“Do you love him?”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes. I love him.”
“Still.”
She took a deep breath, letting the sun and salt spread through her, her thoughts far away in London, where it was already turning cold with the crisp autumn air. She missed the cold, when the nights would grow longer, and she could creep about the house unnoticed. To the library.
To Eben.
“Always.”
“Then why leave him?”
She watched the waves break and roll into shore for an age. Then, finally, “Because I could not stay and let him leave me first.”
“Canna blame you for that. We all are running from something.” Fergus was silent for a long time. “But the heart wants what the heart wants, I’m told.”
Lord knew that was true. Softly, she said, “I don’t want to love him.”
“Seems to me that if you didn’t want to love him, you would nae love him.”
“He never came for me.” Her heart ached at the confession. How long had she waited for him to turn up? To track her down and go to his knees and beg her to be his? And he’d never come.
Just as she’d never returned.
“That’s because he’s an idiot.” She laughed again, wiping tears from her cheeks as Fergus added, “If he came, would you go with him?”
There was no reason not to tell the truth. “Yes. Without question.”
A pause, and then, dry as sand, “Then you might be an idiot, too.”
Only a sliver of the sun was left, turning the stone pink and orange, casting the whole town in a magical light, stealing Jack’s breath. Setting her heart to aching, just as the rest of the wide world had. Twelve years of exploration, witnessing the beauty of the world, exploring its secrets and meeting its people, and Jack hadn’t had a day of it that hadn’t ended with her wishing for Eben.
She turned on Fergus, no small amount of fear coursing through her. “And if I go back…What if I’m the only one who remembers?”
“What if you’re not?”
“What if he doesn’t love me?”
“What if he does?”
What if he was there, waiting? Just as she was?
“What if I make a hash of it?” she asked her friend.
He smiled and spread his hands wide. “If you make a hash of it, there’s always Scotland.”
Fear gave way to hope. Wicked, wonderful hope.
“Can we get to him by Christmas?”
CHAPTER TEN
Boxing Day
The Duke of Allryd shot awake in a cold room, blinding sun streaming through his window, certain that he had missed the most important morning of his life. He sat up, already reaching for the woman he’d held the night before, coming up with a handful of cool sheets and nothing else.
She was gone.
It was Boxing Day, and she was gone.
She was supposed to leave for her wedding today. For her life in Scotland. For her future.
Had he missed her future?
He was out of the bed, barely remembering to collect his dressing gown before he was out of the room, bare-legged, belting the robe as he tore down the quiet stairs and into the kitchens.
Empty.
He spun on his heel and went for the other places she might be. The library. Empty. A knot formed in the pit of his stomach as he took to the dining room—perhaps she’d made breakfast already? Of course, he knew the answer. Empty.
Christ. Had she left him?
She couldn’t have. She couldn’t leave him.
Had he dreamed it? Her?
His mad thoughts were growing wilder by the moment, and he returned to the foyer, making for his study—perhaps she was there.
She wasn’t, but Lawton was, seated at his desk, working. He looked up when Eben entered, his wild-eyed gaze taking in all the dark corners of the room. “I was not aware we were dressing so casually today,” his partner said dryly.
“What time is it?”
Lawton’s brows rose, but he looked to the clock on his desk. “Half past nine.”
“Have you seen—” He paused, ridiculously, wondering if he had, in fact, dreamed her. He ran a hand through his hair. “Jack? Lady Jack? Lady Jacqueline Mosby?”
Lawton tilted his head, something like humor in his gaze. “I have not. Did you misplace her?”
Eben scowled. “Last I saw her she was right where she belonged.”
“In her own home, preparing her wedding trousseau?”
“In my bed.” Christ. What if he’d missed her? Panic flared. “Charles,” Eben said, softly, “I can’t lose her. Not when I just got her back.”
A beat. Lawton rose, removed his spectacles, and set them on his desk, his mouth set in a determined line. “Well, then. It seems we ought to find her before she leaves.”
Eben shook his head. “She’s gone.”
“She can’t be. There’s a foot and a half of snow outside and she won’t have ventured out in it.”
Lawton approached and clapped a hand to Eben’s shoulder, adding, “We are snowed in. She’s in the house, friend. She has to be.”
Realization struck.
No. She wasn’t in the house. But it did not mean she’d gone outside. Eben made for the conservatory, Lawton following, all curiosity. When Eben threw open the door and strode into the dark room with pure, unwavering purpose, the other man offered, “Do you intend to summon her with music?”
Eben ignored him and reached for the edge of the painting of satyrs.
“Allryd,” Lawton added, too gently, as though he were speaking to a madman. “I’m not certain this is the best use of—” He stopped when the painting swung on its hinges to reveal the door in the wall. “Well. That was unexpected.”
Please. Please be unlocked.
If she’d locked it, it would be a sign. It would be proof she’d left. Eben set a hand to the latch. Pressed.
The door swung open, and he exhaled on a barely-there huff of relief before stepping through the door and into the library beyond, where Aunt Jane sat at a low window, staring out at the gray landscape.
She turned, unmoved by the fact that two men—one of whom was wearing nothing but a belted robe—were climbing through an unknown doorway into her morning silence, her knowing gaze finding Eben’s without hesitation. “It’s about time you used that door.”
There was no time to be surprised that Aunt Jane knew about the secret door between the houses, as Eben was too busy using it. Just as he should have used it twelve years ago, the moment Jack left his office in the dead of night. Just as he should have used it every day since, until he found her. Until he fetched her.
“I’m marrying her.”
One gray brow arched. “Not if he marries her first.”
His heart began to pound. “Bollocks that.”
She nodded to the door of the room. “Best be on your way, then.”
And that was that. Eben left at a dead run, desperate to claim his love, and his future.
He found her descending the steps of the grand foyer of the town house, in an ordinary day dress, a beautiful navy blue that played at the neck with the rich bronze of her sun-kissed skin and caressed her lush curves through the bodice, until it fell in thick waves to the floor.
She looked like perfection. Like a queen.
“Christ, you’re beautiful.” It was pure, unadulterated truth, and she blushed, a wash of pink chasing across her cheeks and mottling the skin above the bodice of the dress.
Her gaze flickered over his attire, widening at his belted robe, her full, lovely lips opening on a surprised gasp at his bare legs and feet. She looked over his shoulder, to where Aunt Jane and Lawton lingered, an unwelcome audience to what was to come.
But Eben had had twelve years to do this correctly—to chase her around the globe and convince her that he deserved a second chance—and he was out of time. He moved toward her, desperation coursing through him. She couldn’t leave to marry another. Not after last night. Not after letting him touch her. Not after letting him love her.
She couldn’t leave him broken and empty, not when all he wanted was to fill his life with her and to fill her life with happiness.
“Jack.” He had nearly reached her. She stood on the second-to-last step, rising up like royalty, and his gaze fixed to her chest, where the gold locket lay against her warm skin. The locket that held his snowflake. Their past.
Disbelief chased thorough him; she wouldn’t carry him against her heart while she pledged it to another, would she?
“Eben…” she said, softly, and he was struck with twin emotions—a desperate desire to hear what she had to say and abject terror that she was about to tell him that he was too late and she had chosen another.
“Wait,” he said, to stay her words. “When you turned up in my kitchens two nights ago, I told you I hadn’t thought about the door in years. It was a lie. I thought about it every day. It was unlocked for you every day. Every night. Since the night you left. I never locked it. I never wanted to. I always wanted you to use it.”
Tears sparkled in her eyes. “I wanted to come back and use it. But…I was afraid.”
Fear coursed through him. “Of me?”
“Of the idea that you might not wish me to use it.”
“I wish it,” he vowed. “More than anything.”
“Of you never using it yourself.”
What a fool he’d been. “I used it this morning. Only tell me it’s not too late, and—”
A pounding came, loud and insistent, behind him. Her gaze flew over his shoulder and he turned to follow it—to the enormous oak door, inlaid with carved vines. For a moment, silence hung in the foyer, as though no one present was quite certain what the protocol was for this particular moment.
“There’s no staff today,” Aunt Jane said.
Lawton replied. “Should we—”
“No,” Eben said. “I’ll do it.”
He went to the door, dread pooling deep as he pulled it open, revealing the sky beyond—a perfect blue, accompanied by a gust of frigid air and powdery snow nearly knocking him back with the cold and billowing the fabric of his inappropriate attire.
There, on the step, was a tall, lean figure, cloaked in a black cape, the hood of which covered all but an angular, clean-shaven jaw. And propped over the figure’s shoulder, a long-handled tool. A shovel.
And then the hood was pushed back to reveal a handsome, open face and a broad smile. “Mornin’!” came the thick Scots brogue. “I’ve come to rescue ye!” He looked down at Eben’s bare legs and added, “Best let me in, man, before your lower half freezes!”
Somewhere behind him, Eben heard Lawton’s shocked laughter.
Eben stepped backward, watching as the man came into the entryway, removing his cloak and shaking his head like a great dog, sending snow everywhere before he looked to those assembled and introduced himself. “Fergus MacBride,” he said, before his gaze alit on Jack and his eyes warmed with something horrifically like joy. “My lady, yer lookin’ beautiful as a breeze.”
Maybe Eben could’ve tolerated the jovial Scot at a different time and in a different place. Maybe he could have found him entertaining and friendly.
Likely not, but maybe.
Except Jack seemed to relax in the glow of Fergus’s attention, and that was the end of any possible affinity Eben might have for the Scot because, dammit, she was his.
She’d been his since they were children. Since the first time he’d held her in his arms and she’d whispered her dreams—dreams he’d vowed to make real. Dreams he still had time to make real.
If he could just convince her he was worth it.
I only ever wanted you to choose me, she’d whispered the night before. I only ever wanted you to love me.
Surely that meant she loved him, as well, didn’t it?
It couldn’t mean she loved Fergus—Fergus, who was crossing the room to her, reaching for her.
No. She loved Eben. He was sure of it. Mostly. “Wait.”
Four sets of eyes flew to him, but he only cared for one of them—his love. His heart, ripped from him twelve years earlier, made flesh in her.
“I love you,” he said, the words ragged and desperate. He moved toward her, ignoring their audience. Wanting only her. “I’ve loved you forever. I’ve carried you with me, the only light in my dull, dark life.
“I said it was for you. All that time. It wasn’t. It was for me. To prove I could be the kind of man I wished to be when I was with you. And here is the truth. I will never be good enough for you. But I shall love you, Jack.”
“Eben,” she whispered.
He reached for her, brushing his thumb across her cheek. He shook his head. “If you choose him, I won’t take that from you,” he said, at once surprised and unsurprised by the words. “God knows I’ve nev
er proved my worth. But know this—” He leaned in and put his forehead to hers. She let him. “I have never stopped loving you. Everything I am. Everything I have. It has always been yours. And it always will be.”
Her hands came to his shoulders, holding him tight, and he closed his eyes, loving the touch even as it made him ache. “Jack,” he whispered, “I’ve made such a hash of the past. Let me make it up to you. Let me give you the future. Stay.”
Her tears were coming in earnest then, and his chest ached with every one of them. He pulled back to wipe them from her cheeks. He met her gaze. “Stay with me.”
She took a deep breath.
“Stay with me, please,” he whispered again. “Let us have the future we should have had from the start. Please, let me love you.” He gathered her hands in his and went to his knees before her, like a knight pledging fealty to his queen. Her breath caught and her fingers tightened around his as he looked up at her. “I’m a selfish bastard, Jack. And a greedy one. And I want you. Forever.”
Why was she shaking her head? She couldn’t say no. His fingers tightened around hers, as though if he could just keep hold of her, she wouldn’t slip away. If she said no…he’d have to let her go.
“Eben,” she whispered, her hands coming to his unshaven cheeks. “You don’t have to convince me to love you. I’ve always loved you. I love you still. I shall love you forever.”
She leaned forward and softly pressed her lips to his. Triumph coursed through him, making him weak, then powerfully strong—strong enough for his hands to itch for her, for his arms to ache to hold her.
Except, there were others assembled.
Most notably, the jovial Scotsman, who was to have married her, but who seemed not at all unhappy with the scene unfolding before him. “Did ye ask him yet?”
“No,” she said, and he heard the hesitation in her voice. “I had to be certain that he wished it.”
“I wish it,” Eben said. “Whatever it is. I wish it. I should have come for you. I’m here now. I will be forever.”
“That seems promising,” the Scot said, fairly bouncing in his boots. “No time like the present, Jacqueline.”
Eben looked to Fergus, his brow furrowing. “Ask me what?” He looked back to Jack, still watching him, eyes shining, a smile on her face. “Ask me what?”