How the Dukes Stole Christmas Page 14

  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 have been 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 Jack 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 were 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.

&nbs
p; 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.

  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.”

  Eben hated the words and the silence that hung behind them, as though no one in the room would argue the truth of them.

  And why would they?

  There hadn’t been play. There hadn’t been entertainment. He’d been too focused on building an estate and a title and a life, telling himself that it had to come first in order to make him worthy of her. And he’d been so worried about making himself worthy of her that he’d forgotten about her altogether.

  What an ass he’d been. What an ass he continued to be. She would no doubt revel in the arrival of her Scottish fiancé, who was very likely not an ass.

  If he was an ass, Eben would happily murder him.

  The irony of that truth was not lost on him.

  And then Jack said, “Well, perhaps people change.”

  Before he could consider the words, Aunt Jane and Lawton laughed, as though Jack had told the most uproarious joke anyone had ever heard.

  Eben had had enough. He entered the room like a predator, prepared for a fight. Spoiling for one. Then he saw her.

  She was cloaked in red velvet, having changed from her working clothes earlier in the day. He’d thought she’d looked perfect in green the night prior, but now in red—a deep, beautiful red shot through with gold—she looked like a Christmas box. Like something to be unwrapped. Like something to deserve.

  He wanted to deserve her.

  Putting the thought to the side, his gaze fell to the table, to the goose,
already carved, to the wine, already poured, to the potatoes, already served, and he channeled his most ducal entitlement, lifting a brow and saying, “I see that we’ve chosen this Christmas holiday to do away with ceremony.”

  Lawton took a bite of goose and grinned around it. “We didn’t think it worth things getting cold.”

  “Waiting for the owner of the house, you mean?”

  “There was no evidence that you were coming at all,” Jack said.

  Did she honestly believe that he could have kissed her the way he had—the way she had—and not be drawn to her like a dog on a lead? Of course, he’d come to dinner. There was nowhere else he could be, no matter the fact that he didn’t deserve to sit at her table and eat her food. He had no place here, with her, on Christmas, basking in her merriment.

  She was not his, even if he was forever hers.

  She had chosen a different life. A different man.

  Because of him.

  And yet, in the back of his mind, there remained a thread of something immensely dangerous. She’d kissed him back. And hope had whispered like sin, a tempting, impossible lure.

  “I am here, after all,” he said, turning his attention to the end of the table, where he’d been seated as master of the house.

  He stilled, his gaze landing on the instrument to the side of his place setting. A well-worn violin with a frayed bow.

  His violin.

  He looked to her, taking in her clear eyes and the curious, barely there smile on her lips. “You went looking for it?”

  One side of her mouth twitched. “Not too hard. It was right where you left it.”

  In the conservatory, next to the music stand closest to the secret passageway. Where he’d left it the last time he’d been drawn to that dark room—that room that thrummed with the past. With her.

  He only ever went there when the nights were too late and too dark and too full of regret. He would sit on the floor near that silly painting of mythical creatures and he would play for them and wish for them to summon her so he might make amends and begin, once more.

  Then day would break, and he would return to his office, and he would remember that new beginnings were a fallacy. He would grow his fortune and try to forget her. And it would work, until it didn’t, and he would repeat the cycle, making the instrument wail with his melancholy.