Page 41 of All I Want for Christmas… Is You
Lucien glanced at her face in time to catch a dimpled smile that made his heart trip a bit. She tapped the boy upon the bridge of his nose and continued, “The skies burst wide with a beauteous light and lepetitJésus comes down from heaven to sleep in a warm bed full with tender straw… straw you put there, I might add.”
He couldn’t help but wonder if her father had indulged them exactly so. The admiral had been such a somber man—at least outside his home. Until this moment, Andrew Peters had seemed so very much like him. Tonight, he saw a glimpse of someone else.
“But does he truly, Aunt Em?” the eldest girl asked skeptically, her big brown eyes full of question.
“I never saw it happen,” the boy muttered in complaint. He picked at his shoe.
Lucien grinned as Emma ignored the child’s surly protest. “Just imagine how sweet it would be not to sleep on the hardness of the manger’s boards,” she entreated. “Only imagine how gratefulle petitJésus would be—”
“Maybe he would bring lots of gifts for the boys and girls!” the youngest daughter said excitedly and clapped her hands with glee.
Emma laughed, apparently having successfully dismissed him, and the sound reverberated through Lucien like a promise. But he felt something quite foreign in that instant—a sense of having been set aside—and he didn’t like it one bit—never mind the fact that he had been the one to actually set her aside. Whatever this was that was warring in his head, he didn’t like it a whit and he frowned.
“But onlyif you have been very, very, good,” she cautioned the children at once.
Lucien cleared his throat and found himself interjecting before he could prevent himself, “And what precisely constitutesvery, very good,Miss Peters?”
For some peculiar reason, he seemed toneedher to acknowledge him as part of their cozy gathering.
The fact that she would not, grated upon his nerves—almost as much as the way she addressed him—Your Grace—as though it were an epithet. Never mind that he did not appreciate the title anymore than she did. It was not granted to him by birth, and neither did he appreciate the constraints it placed upon him. Unfortunately, it seemedde rigueurto flout convention, and somehow, it only managed to get him more unwanted attention—from everyone, except Emma, it seemed.
The entire room fell silent while he waited for Emma to acknowledge his presence. Yet everyone but Emma did. Where she had not done so before, she quickly buried her nose into her little green book in a defiant gesture.
He’d be damned if he’d simply let her ignore him. He cleared his throat again, reminding her that he waited.
Aversely, he could tell, she lifted her gaze to his. She was loath to speak to him at all, and her declaration confirmed his suspicions. “I suppose someone like you might need some clarification,Your Grace,” she offered a little too sweetly, for her words were meant to cut, he knew. And despite all of his carefully laid armor, she succeeded, for the subtle accusation was too close to his own self-opinion to be disregarded. She lifted a brow. “Thus I shall endeavor to do so. By good deed, I shall presume they are referring to acts of devotion or virtue. Do understand the meaning of these concepts,Your Grace?” Her eyes impugned him. “Or shall I further enlighten you,Your Grace?”
“Aunt Em... I don’t know what those words mean either,” Jonathon said, responding to the accusation in her voice. His brows slanted unhappily. “Is that why I never get as many straws as Lettie or Sam?”
Emma’s expression transformed to one of dismay as she turned to address her disheartened nephew. “Oh, no!” she exclaimed. “You,” she assured him, casting a withering glance toward Lucien’s before returning a concerned gaze to the little boy, “are all that is virtuous!” She smiled sweetly at the child, and in that smile, Lucien glimpsed the expression she’d once lavished upon him, the one with such sweet purity and innocence that it had made him feel unworthy. But it was no longer directed at him, he conceded, and that realization left him feeling strangely bereft.
Nor, in fact, was she any longer the innocent young miss he recalled. Clearly. She was a woman grown, and could hold her own. Even against him, it would seem.
With a gentleness he envied, she tousled the boy’s shining blonde mane, and for a moment he was certain he could feel her hands in his own hair; warm fingers at his nape, the sensation so real that he inhaled sharply and closed his eyes to savor it privately. But it was a mistake, for it opened a window he’d long ago slammed shut, revived a memory he’d long tucked away.
Another Christmas, long ago, far away…
He was in his mother’s arms. She kissed him sweetly upon the nose as she ruffled his hair. “You are my light,” she had said to him then. But she’d been blind in her love for him, because he’d been born with his father’s darkness. Even then his armor had been tarnished an ugly black. Even then. And then instead of remaining to help her through her melancholy, he had fled… like a coward… until his brother’s death had called him home.
“Do you remember the time you and Lettie rescued the robin from Penelope’s perilous jaws,” Emma was saying, bringing Lucien back to the present.
“Crotchety old feline!” Peters proclaimed.
Lucien had entirely forgotten Andrew and his wife were in the room. His attention had been so focused upon Emma.
Emma glanced up at her brother and added with an impish smile, “And do you remember that your Papa fostered it within the nursery....”
“Lord-a-mercy!” Cecile said aghast, once again casting aside her sewing. “Not in the nursery! Really, Andrew!” She gave him a chastening look and peered up at Lucien. “Sometimes I wonder who are the real children in this house.”
Despite himself, Lucien chuckled at their banter. He envied their easy alliance. And Emma... she reminded him too much of his mother... and Jonathon of himself.
Poor child.
More acutely than before, he felt like a trespasser here in their home.
“Well,thatwould be a perfect example of a very good deed,” she informed them all. “But I’ve no doubt you will all come up with dozens more this year.”
“Aunt Em… does keeping your socks clean count?” Jonathon asked soberly. The child peered up at his aunt with all the hope and adoration Lucien had once felt for his own mother, and he couldn’t help but think that Emma would have been a very good mother, indeed. She might have been the perfect mother... for his own children… but he refused to reconsider now. She looked so dashed innocent sitting there amongst the kids.
