Chapter 9
On the night before Christmas the weather turned foul, dumping more snow in a single day than Newgale had seen most of the winter.
Those lavender clouds, lovely as they had been earlier in the day had been harbingers of a coming storm.
While fat snow flakes, bigger than a sovereign fell from swollen clouds outside, inside the candles were all lit and twinkling merrily, the fire in the hearth was ablaze, and the house was toasty and gay.
But Emma’s Christmas spirit had fled entirely.
How could she celebrate anything until he was gone?
This morning had been the greatest of disappointments.
She had spied only confusion in Lucien’s eyes, and then she had been so very certain he would speak those awful words again that she had flown from his presence like a frightened child.
She was embarrassed now, and worse, it was precisely as she feared, for although he remained in residence, he had yet to even speak to her.
Come to think of it, she hadn’t spied a hair on his too-handsome head all day, despite that they were trapped indoors.
After all the fuss about returning his carriage wheels, the vehicle had been rendered completely useless by the weather.
It was a conspiracy, she was quite certain—one in which God seemed to be complicit now.
In fact, now that she thought about it, she hadn’t seen or heard her brother or the children either.
Frowning, she wondered where they could all be… together somewhere no doubt.
She wandered into the kitchen where Cecile was busy preparing for Christmas supper.
The house smelled of the most delightful treats and the servants all were busy under Cecile’s watchful eye.
On this day of all days, Cecile took a greater part in the preparations—not that she needed to, but she had to.
“Have you seen the children?” Emma asked.
“No dear. Not since this morning in the garden.”
Cecile smiled, though if Emma didn’t know better, it seemed more of a smirk than a smile. A bit of mischief danced in her sister-in-law’s eyes. Her brother’s influence, she feared.
“Do you need help perchance?”
“Not a bit,” Cecile replied gaily. “The table has been set and Cook is finishing the last of it, and with that, she sent Emma on her way.
The scent of mincemeat pie followed her down the hall as she continued searching for the children, wandering from room to room.
They had made it a relatively new tradition to exchange gifts on Christmas morning instead of New Year’s. Emma had hers wrapped already, but she enjoyed building the children’s anticipation, and loved Boxing Day as well. In many ways, she and Andrew had never outgrown their childhood.
“Where are the children?” she asked Andrew when she found him seated upon his knees in the drawing room laboring over some strange device. With help from Giles, their manservant, he was fashioning some sort of contraption near the hearth. Emma inspected it, wondering what it could be.
“Bedeviling the duke, no doubt,” he replied offhand.
Emma frowned. “Yes, well… as to that… I do wish the duke had gone already. He’s spoiling Christmas.”
“For you?” Andrew asked without turning.
“For all of us!” she declared.
Andrew cast her the strangest expression. “It seems the holiday has become all the rage. Apparently, Queen Victoria celebrates with great vigor at Buckingham Palace.”
“I suppose he told you that?”
Andrew busied himself adjusting his contraption. “I remember when scarce anyone else celebrated,” he said. “Though I have always thought of Christmas time as a time for kindheartedness, forgiveness and charity and it seems that others must as well. Don’t you agree?”
Of course she did, but she knew precisely where he was going with this line of reasoning and she wasn’t in the mood to be quite so forgiving. “What are you doing?” she asked.
He turned to grin at her, that same boyish grin she remembered from their youth. “It’s a secret!”
Emma’s brows collided. She had always been privy to Andrew’s schemes, no matter how outlandish they might be. He had never kept secrets from her… though apparently, he did now.
Eyeing his contraption with a bit of irritation, Emma wandered to the hearth to inspect this year’s crèche, which was filled to tipping with new straw.
On a small blanket near the crib, she spied milk and cookies—a fine meal for le petit Jésus.
Andrew would no doubt enjoy them immensely later this eve.
It was a tradition they had begun only recently, but one Andrew seemed to enjoy with relish.
She stood, staring down at the little crèche and felt a little sorrowful over the thought that she may never see her own child lying in a crib.
She had for so long now envisioned sons with hair the color of their father’s and daughters who waited with bated breath for Papa to regale them with tales—as she had with her father.
Andrew couldn’t possibly understand because he had a family of his own and Emma was destined simply to be a family relation with nowhere else to go for the holidays.
This had once been her house, but now it was her brother’s—something that had never bothered her more acutely than it did at the moment.
In fact, with Lucien in residence, she didn’t feel at home at all right now.
Though why that should be true she didn’t know.
It left her feeling empty somehow—as though someone had set her in the most delightful fairy tale and then had plucked her up and cast her into hell.
A bit melodramatic she supposed, but there it was.
That was how she felt. And the worst of it all was that she couldn’t even truly blame Lucien.
As determined as he had been to rid himself of this engagement, she saw something in his eyes that still called to some part of her, making her long to place her arms about him and enfold him to her breast. There was something sad in his eyes…
something quite confused. And it had never seemed more apparent than it had this morning.
She heard the front door open and close.
Laughter spilled into the hall—deep, rich laughter that could only belong to Lucien. The children tittered at something he said, and the voices all headed in their direction, chattering endlessly—mostly the children asking this question or that.
Andrew glanced up at her, smiling, and Emma felt like a fox in the middle of a hunt.
Perhaps they wouldn’t stop here in this room, she hoped, but that was not to be, because within scant moments, the duke came sauntering in, hauling in a massive fir tree over his shoulder. The children trailed behind him, laughing and picking up needles in his wake.
“We found a big one!” Jonathon said to his father.
“Aunt Em!” Lettie exclaimed, spying Emma by the hearth. “Guess what!”
“Queen Victoria celebrates with a Yule tree!” Samantha finished for her.
“I was going to tell her,” Lettie said plaintively.
“Prince Albert brought it all the way from Germany!” Jonathon added, ignoring his sister’s argument and peering up adoringly at the duke, who smiled down at him. “Right?”
“Something like that,” Lucien answered with a wink.
His dark hair and coat were still covered with a dusting of snowflakes, and he carried the tree alone, slung over one shoulder as though he’d been accustomed to labor all his life.
The children wore smiles from ear to ear as they remained close to his coattails.
Emma’s heart tripped at the sight of them together.
She didn’t want to share her family, but she had to confess that he looked far more at ease than she had ever known him to be. Despite that he must have been raised with far more sobriety, he seemed at home with her very unconventional family.
She blinked back tears and cast a glance at her brother who was peering up at her solicitously.
Emma felt completely at sixes and sevens.
What now? Was he simply going to come and usurp their traditions? Was he never going to leave?
As she watched, Lucien hauled the fir tree over to Andrew and the two of them together hoisted the trunk into Andrew’s strange contraption and adjusted the tree to their satisfaction.
Apparently, it was a device to hold the tree upright, but Emma remained nonplussed.
“Why on earth would anyone bring a tree into the house?” she asked. “I have never heard of such a thing!”
Without addressing her directly, Lucien replied, “As Prince Albert tells it, one day, long ago, a stranger came to the door of a family’s home.” He peered up at her meaningfully. “Uninvited.”
Not unlike the duke, Emma thought peevishly.
He smiled as though he’d read her mind. “The family opened their door to find a young man, hungry and cold, who wanted to warm himself by the fire.”
Not like the duke, she added mentally as there was nothing indigent about the Duke of Willyngham!
“It was le petit Jésus!” Samantha explained.
“So we’re going to decorate it,” revealed Jonathon excitedly.
“With tinsel and candles!” Samantha added.
“But that doesn’t explain the tree,” Emma argued, feeling left out and not very charitable, despite the holiday and despite Andrew’s lecture.
Of course, Andrew simply had to chime in, as though they had all sat about telling Christmas tales in her absence. “Apparently, before the boy left the family, he broke off a branch from a fir tree and gifted it to them as a present to say thank you for looking after him.”
Lucien looked directly at her and smiled. “This is my way of saying thank you,” he offered. “For sharing your home.”
With the tree now secure and upright, Emma was vaguely aware that Andrew gathered the children and ushered all three out of the room, leaving her completely alone with the duke. Again.
“Indeed, thank you for sharing your home and your family with me, Emma,” he said after a moment.