Page 29 of Husband for the Holidays

“Are you feeling as well as you look, Lilja?” Konstantin asked.

“I am,” Lilja assured him with a fluttering smile of pleasure. “Oh, thank you, Marcel.”

The atmosphere grew charged again as the butler set out the fresh drinks. Edoardo’s confusion was a blinking neon light while Konstantin could feel Antoine staring holes into the side of his head.

As the butler left them alone, Lilja asked, “Am I to understand... Are you two seeing each other? Has this been going on long?”

“No.” Konstantin sensed Eloise stiffening beside him and reached for her hand, signaling that she should let him do the talking.

She rose and moved across the room. “Your tree looks pretty, Mom.”

Trying to shift the conversation?

“I wasn’t sure about the silver and blue,” Lilja said reflectively, twisting slightly to continue speaking to her. “I may ask the decorator to change it to something more traditional before our party tomorrow night. You’ll come, won’t you?” She directed that to Konstantin. “It’s nothing fancy, just a festive little soiree for whoever is in town.”

“We’d love to.” Konstantin took far too much pleasure in goading the other men by claiming Eloise as his date.

How Eloise felt about it was a mystery. She was trailing her hands along the polished maple of the grand piano before she lightly touched a few keys.

“Are you going to play for us, darling?” Lilja asked with coaxing warmth. “That would be nice. It’s been too long.”

“Marcel is looking for us to go into the dining room,” Antoine said.

Konstantin turned his head to stare the man down. He had already decided he hated him before he met him, but as Eloise sat and picked out a few notes, it occurred to him that this viper had deliberately kept her from something else she loved: music.

Eloise ignored Antoine and set her hands into unhurried chords that gradually arranged themselves into what Konstantin recognized as “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”

He looked back to where she gracefully swayed to reach the keys, manifesting the gentle climb and fall of emotions in the song. Her eyes were closed, her profile glowing in the light off the tree.

Konstantin didn’t know all the words, but he knew it was about homesickness and nostalgia. As yearning flowed from her hands to fill the room and vibrate in his chest, his throat ached.

The sadness might have swamped him completely, but she somehow layered in tentative hope as she reached the end.

She sang the final words very softly as she slowed the tempo even more, searching out the last chords with supreme care. A lifetime of wishes hovered in the silence before the final note ended the song.

Konstantin was utterly captivated. His body felt rusted into place, his consciousness having been stolen and transported elsewhere.

“Brava, darling. That was beautiful,” Lilja said as she wiped tears from her cheeks, but she was smiling widely. They were happy tears and they tugged differently in his chest, making him fiercely glad he’d given her this reunion with her daughter. “That was truly the best Christmas present I could ever have,” she said to Konstantin. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure,” he said, meaning it.

Antoine stood and bent over Lilja so he broke their eye contact. He offered his wife a handkerchief and rubbed her shoulder.

“My sensitive little love. We were at the opera a few weeks ago and she cried her way through that, too. Didn’t you? Shall we go to the table?”

They all stood and Eloise left the piano to join them.

“That was very good,” Edoardo said.

“Parlor tricks,” she claimed with a self-deprecating smile.

Hardly. Konstantin had never been moved by sleight of hand or the flair of a bartender. The fact he was feeling so unsettled by a dated Christmas carol was disturbing in the extreme. He much preferred numbness over this agonizing prickle that resembled a return of sensation to a limb that had fallen asleep. Typically, when something affected him, he removed himself the way he would back away from a bonfire that threatened to light his clothes on fire, but that option wasn’t open to him right now, was it?

“You’re the guest of honor. You can escort Lilja,” Antoine said to Konstantin as though this were a royal procession. “I’ll take Eloise.” He crooked his arm imperiously.

Lilja gathered her composure and set her hand on Konstantin’s arm.

“Actually, you go in with Edoardo. I need a word with Marcel,” Antoine said, stepping back at the last second to wave the younger man toward Eloise.

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