Page 271 of Ten Lords for the Holidays

“Brier Edgar! Coming up there and tossing you out the window in ten…nine…”

“Only a moment more!” He leaned over the bed and brushed her hair back. Covering the greenish-yellow cheek with one hand, he bent to sup from her lips. Two seconds only. A lifetime would be too short.

“Seven…six…”

He started to rush down the stairs, but at the doorway, he paused, turned back.

She still looked befuddled, as though too much had been heaped upon her at once. “I know. We Chapmans are a lot to take in at once.” He nodded his head in a semblance of a bow, a show of respect. Something he would have done had he been courting her in truth, a lifetime ago, before he chose his great-great-grandfather’s way of life instead of the more idle one he’d been raised with.

“Four…”

“’Tis your decision.” He’d already laid himself bare. “Just know that, for myself, I would escort you down there on my arm, if I could.”

“Two…”

“Mind your impatience!” he growled toward the stairway.

He blew her a kiss that he hoped danced through the motes in the air and landed smack on her still swollen cheek before he braced himself to greet his siblings and the inquisition he knew was coming.

CHRISTMAS SNACKS >^..^<

“Impatient knobs!”Brier’s retreating voice carried easily to her in the relative quiet of his lodgings. “Ye may see my arsehole between—”

“The middle of your buttocks!” One of his brothers finished the crude greeting, all three—nay,four—of them laughing at what must be familial humor.

Family. Something that had been missing from Lucinda’s life for a very long while.

“Why do you not look delighted to see us?” Eve asked, confusion evident in her tone. “We bring our Christmas presence, if not Christmas presents.”

“And a wonderful gift that is,” Brier answered. “Sleeping hard, I was.”

“No wonder.” One of the brothers. “You adorned even the back rooms this year.You, who has hated Christmas for an age?”

“Not…hated.” Brier’s voice grew fainter. “Simply not celebrated. Not…this…”

Legs crossed beneath the bed covers, kitty nestled in the crook, she strained to hear more over the frantic thumping of her heart.

To no avail.

“Merr?”

Never have I enjoyed a Christmas more, he’d told her yesterday, during their simple meal made extravagant by the company and conversation.

Every word I have spoken to you is truth.

“Rrroow!”

Still in a dazing, ’twas a moment—or mayhap minutes—before Luce noticed the slight prick of claws resting upon her forearm, the piercing pressure deepening until she shook herself out of the idle-headedness and scratched nails over furry jaws and beneath one very stubborn feline chin. “Give me back my arm, you rapscallion.”

Still, she stared in the direction of the stairway, where Brier had disappeared around a tight corner before descending.

“Mercy me. Stay here and make memories?” As what?

If it were as his assistant, he wouldn’t have invited you upstairs.

If it were as his mistress, he wouldn’t have invited you downstairs.

Hugging those thoughts to herself, Luce debated.

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