Page 291 of Ten Lords for the Holidays

“You didn’t let minor failures stop you in the least,” he countered. “Not this theatre? Very well, on to the next one. You’re stubborn and driven. If anyone can make the impossible happen, it’syou.”

Her heart beat faster.

“For the record,” he added softly, “I never thought any part of your dream was impossible. How could it be, withyougoing after it? And here you are. Not a temporary understudy in a seedy tumble-down theatre, but the head director of what is soon to be the most famous village in England. It isexactlythe sort of thing I expected of you. I always knew you would find a way to have anything you wanted. The only question was...”

She bit her lip.

He gave a crooked smile. “What chance did I have of this wonderful creature wantingme?”

She threw her arms about his neck and kissed him.

It had been inevitable from the moment she’d stepped down the stairs and saw him.

But after a speech like that...

He wrapped his arms tight around her and kissed her, as though making up for every moment both of them had been forced to suffer far from each other’s embrace.

He felt the same as she remembered, yet different. A little stronger, a little harder, a little hotter. The fit of his body against hers was even more perfect than before.

“I accepted this post for the same reason you did,” he said between kisses. “And once I’ve saved enough to cover both of our futures—”

She shoved him away.

He stared at her in confusion.

“After all of that,” she said bleakly, “youstillbelieve what I lack is a husband to manage my life for me?”

He frowned. “Estelle—”

“What is the point of kissing if everything else is meaningless?” She shook her head. “Just go.”

He opened his mouth.

She walked away.

What was the point of listening to him, if he still hadn’t learned to listen to her?

Everything she’d said, everything he’d seen, and still he saw her as a waif badly in need of saving.

She stalked through the greenhouse and entered the castle’s main corridor on the other side.

Or would have, if Mr. Marlowe hadn’t been standing in the way.

“You love him,” he said. “Why did you walk away?”

“Eavesdropping is rude,” she informed her employer. “And he’s not ready for us to be together.We’renot ready. I fear we will never be ready.”

“No one is ever ready,” Mr. Marlowe said. “One must make oneself ready, and failing that, just do the thing anyway.”

She stepped past him. “Stay out of my life, if you please.”

His sharp voice followed her down the hall. “Then take charge of it.”

CHAPTER5

This wasn’t justChristmas Day.

It was the Christmas of Estelle’s entire life. The culmination of childhood dreams, years of hard work, asking and begging and trying again and again only to be told no, and laughed at, and belittled, and patted on the head, and sent away...

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