How the Rogue Stole Christmas (The Flower Sisters #5)

Chapter 1

“Hark, the herald angels si-ing!”

“Glory to the newborn king,” Lily chorused back, her voice rising alongside those of her family gathered around the piano.

“Unh! Unh!” Thud!

Her mother, Lady Redbourne, leaned harder onto the keys, the next line emerging as a bellow.

The fire crackled merrily behind them, casting a dancing light over the mahogany instrument and chasing away the winter cold.

Lily inhaled the sharp pine scent of the garlands she’d strung over every flat surface in the room and forced a smile to her lips, hoping her mother wouldn’t realize what was taking place upstairs.

Marigold, Lily’s younger sister, leaned in, whispering while the rest of the family continued caroling. “Should we t-tell them we can hear them?”

Archie, Marigold’s former divorce barrister, put a protective hand on Marigold’s lower back and chuckled. “I don’t want to be the one to interrupt them.” He cast a pointed look at Lily’s sister Rose, and she lifted her hands in a defensive gesture.

“Absolutely not.” She nudged her husband, Ben, and he shook his head.

“They’ll be finished soon,” Lily hissed. “God willing.”

“Girls!” The sisters’ attention snapped to their mother. “We’re still singing!”

Lily’s father’s face had gone pink, almost puce, from where he stood at their mother’s side. Marigold’s sons, thank heavens, seemed blissfully unaware of what was taking place in the bedroom above and sang as loud as they could, proper pitch be damned.

“Oh God! Callum!” Something heavy above them shifted, and a drawn-out moan pierced the chords Lily’s mother continued to play.

Great-Aunt Margaret chortled from the settee behind them, sipping her sherry as she lounged against the tufted velvet. “He could at least have the decency to thrust in time with the song.”

The puppy jumped to his oversized feet and began barking furiously, circling the piano as if it had been the source of the obscene sounds before pausing to chew on a length of garland hanging from the candelabra casting light on the sheet music.

“Yes! There, there!”

Lady Redbourne slammed her hands down on the keys, and everyone startled at the dissonant clash.

Pushing to her feet, she stormed across the room, lips pulled into a scowl.

“If I’d known they would behave like this, I would have put them up in the stable!

” she muttered, the puppy chasing her ankles.

The Viscount Redbourne rubbed his fingers on his temple. “I’m going to have a drink in the library,” he mumbled, and everyone understood this was not an invitation to join him.

Archie winked at Marigold and gathered her sons under his arm, guiding them towards the partially decorated tree on the opposite side of the room.

“C’mon, lads. Let’s make some more paper angels, and then we can take Cricket for a walk.

” Seizing the opportunity to cause a mess, the boys left without protest, and Lily’s sister watched them go with a fond expression.

“Considering how hard they tried and failed to be discovered en flagrante at that house party,” Aunt Margaret chimed in, “I’m impressed they’ve kept up the cause of being indiscreet in their interludes. Before we know it, Callum will have his head under Violet’s skirts beneath the Christmas tree.”

“Aunt Margaret!” Rose gave their eldest relative—and self-declared incompetent chaperone—a glare that lacked heat before moving to top off her glass of sherry.

Marigold glanced towards where Archie had lifted her youngest son, Matthew, onto his shoulders so he could hang an ornament on a high branch before swinging him to the ground. “I’m happy for them. They’re in love.”

“So are you.” Lily nudged her sister. “Do you think Archie will ask you tonight or tomorrow?”

Marigold’s pale cheeks flushed. She’d escaped her miserable first marriage the previous summer and fallen in love with her barrister, but they’d kept their relationship a secret until the buzz around the scandalous divorce quieted.

Archie was as devoted to her as he was to her two sons, and her siblings expected a proposal any day.

“I’m not ready yet,” she said. “I just left a marriage, and I’m in no rush to be attached again.”

Archie’s booming laugh caught their attention as the boys attempted to tackle, then tickle the sturdy rugby player.

“Neither was Ben.” Rose handed each sister a glass of champagne. “But he changed his mind.”

Marigold took a tiny sip, then hummed. “I know. He’s slowly convincing me.”

“And you’re not stopping him.” Lily’s smile ached at the corners, and she longed to let it drop. She’d forced herself to accept being the only uncoupled person at the estate in Boar’s Hill, and the family knew not to ask questions about her husband or acknowledge his absence.

She’d learned to ignore the pain her loneliness dealt in pulled punches, swift, striking blows that wounded only enough to slow her down, but never quite break her.

But Christmas was different, and every year, her solitude weighed more heavily on her shoulders.

The trainers and workers at her stables passed the holiday with their families and, though Lily had transformed the absent Earl of Whitby’s stables into her own, she wasn’t eager to spend Christmas shoveling manure alone.

Though making excuses for Whit’s absence at Boar’s Hill was only marginally more pleasant than a wheelbarrow full of shite.

“Are you going to drink that or stare at it?”

Lily jumped at Aunt Margaret’s barked question as her cheeks heated. Being surrounded by the people who knew her best gave her few places to hide, including in her own thoughts. “You can have it,” she said, handing the glass to the elderly woman.

During her woolgathering, her two sisters had joined Archie and the boys at the Christmas tree, though her youngest sister, Fern, was upstairs with her fellow mathematician husband, Alex, while she nursed their baby.

Lily was grateful for an excuse to escape her aunt’s pointed attention and made her way to the tree.

Marigold lifted her head from a box of decorations as her sister approached. “Mama left these out for us to hang.”

Rose held a delicate glass orb up to the candlelight. “This one is yours, isn’t it, Lills?”

Lily took the ornament and turned it over in her palm, the blues and pinks on the blown glass blending into the orange and yellow, gathered together under a gold hook.

Her voice was tight when the words emerged. “It is.”

Lilies come in all colors and types, but there is only one Lily I love.

Her chest seized, and she nearly crushed the ornament in her fist. Every year she wished for the resolve to hurl the glass, the last gift Whit gave her before he disappeared, against the nearest stone wall.

And every year, she relented and handed it to someone else to hang as she vowed not to search for it. Of course, her eyes would immediately place it amongst the branches, pulling her attention to that spot and reminding her of what she lacked.

Lily opened her mouth to ask Rose to take the ornament back, but was interrupted by the disheveled and pink-cheeked couple being marched down the stairs by their red-faced mother, Cricket barking to announce their entry.

Amid the distraction, she returned the ornament to the box and buried it beneath the packing paper.

Callum had the decency to look abashed as he entered the room, but Violet’s upturned lips showed her lack of remorse.

“After everything our family has been through,” her mother scolded, “I would think you’d be thrilled to spend Christmas at home and not out on the streets!”

“We wouldn’t be on the streets, Mama.” Violet shoved a loose lock of hair—one of many—back into her markedly lopsided chignon. “We have the house in London, and—”

“You know what I mean.” Lady Redbourne pointed a slim finger, starting with Violet before pausing with each of her other daughters. “It is Christmas. I expect a wholesome, magical experience for my grandsons, and none of your shenanigans will ruin this for me. Is that understood?”

“Understood,” they chorused in response, and their mother huffed before making her way to the kitchen.

“My apologies,” Callum said, his Scottish burr more pronounced than usual. “I didnae realize we were so…”

“Enthusiastic?” Rose suggested.

Violet raised her pert chin. “What did she expect when she gave us the creaky bed?”

Rose cackled. “You can always try the floor. Who has the room next to these lovers?”

Marigold lifted her hand. “Though I will probably sleep in the adjoining room.”

“You mean Archie’s room?” Lily teased, and Marigold blushed.

Callum lowered his voice. “Timothy and James have adjoining rooms as well. Is your mother aware…”

“That they’re lovers?” Lily snorted. “Yes, she is, but she won’t say it.”

“She’s not a fool.” Violet linked her arm around her husband’s. “And besides, it’s the least she can do for Timothy.”

Though not a religious person, Lily sent up a silent prayer of thanks for their neighbor, the Marquess of Trembly, the man somewhat of a brother to the five Waverly sisters.

Just a few months ago, when the Waverly family had been on the verge of insolvency, the young marquess used his savvy investment skills to pull them back from the brink of ruin.

While the hallways were full of family again, the scars of the perilous time remained in the dark squares on the silk wallcoverings where oil paintings once hung, the bare floors where Aubusson carpets once lay, the table set with far less silver than they’d seen in Christmases past.

But they’d weathered the storm, and Lily’s sisters had found love. Fern and Rose were living their dreams in America. Marigold’s stutter was nearly gone, and her boys were thriving, and Violet finally found peace in the arms of her husband after the tragedy she experienced.