Page 49 of All I Want for Christmas… Is You
He regaled them all with more stories, eliciting giggles from the children and censure from his wife.
“This year,” he apprised his children. “We must leave better cookies by the crèche, and perhaps the spoils will be better.”
“Were you thinking something in particular?” his wife asked, her look knowing.
He shrugged and gave Lucien a bit of a wink. “Perhaps a fat slice of Christmas cake will do.”
“Of course,” Cecile said.
“And what about you, Your Grace? What sort of confection do you believe would suitle petitJésus?”
Lucien gave Peters a pointed look, and suggested, “Perhaps a good slice of humble pie.”
Peters had the good graces to choke a bit on his bite of pheasant. He nodded, taking Lucien’s meaning directly. They both knew what had befallen his wheels, and Peters ought to apologize and make it right, but he sat there eating his pheasant with a half smile.
For their part, the children sat watching their father, taking their cues from him, and Cecile could not look at him after that remark.
The meal proceeded in utter silence.
By morning, Lucien felt quite foolish for playing along with the farce. He awoke early, fully intending to find his own carriage wheels and be gone. And the first place he meant to search was the stables. It seemed to him the most logical place for three wayward children to hide four carriage wheels—then, again, he reminded himself, it wasn’t merely four wheels, for they’d managed to abscond with even those belonging to their father—the thieving little devils. No doubt to keep Lucien fromborrowingthe means of a escape.
Abandoning his warm bed and sprinting across the cold floor, he checked the drawer in which he’d placed his clothing. With a frown, he closed it, then checked the other drawers and frowning more deeply, he reopened the drawer in which he’d last spied his personal items.
Where the hell were his clothes?
The drawer remained empty, no matter how hard he stood gaping, freezing his bollocks. He scratched his head, confused. Maybe the maid moved his items? At once he went to the wardrobe, throwing it wide.
Empty, as well.
His brows knit as he puzzled. Damned cold was seeping into his bones now. Most sensible men slept in their night rails and nightcaps, while he had to be one of those unconventional few who slept like a bare-arsed infant. Dash it all, but he couldn’t sleep with anything more than sheets tangled about his buttocks—only now he was freezing. Cursing softly beneath his breath, he slammed the wardrobe shut and began a more thorough search of the room, this time with increased foreboding.
Something wasn’t right here.
Even after he’d investigated beneath the bed—a ludicrous place to have put them, he realized—there was no sign of his clothes. Not a single item could be found. Not his shoes, his trousers, nor his coat. Not a bloody stitch. He began to form a certain presentiment—those pesky brats!
Only then did he make out the whispers beyond his door, children’s whispers—the scoundrels were eavesdropping—and it occurred to him like a sudden bolt of lightning.
“Bloody whelps stole my clothes!” he roared, but even as he said it, he couldn’t believe it was true.
God’s teeth! They’d stolen his bloody clothes—first his wheels now his pants.
He made a run for the door, thinking of nothing in that instant but the restoration of his belongings, but even before he reached it, he heard their terrorized squeals as they fled the scene of the crime. In his haste to stop them, he slipped, and with a muffled curse, tripped. He slammed into the door, and the force of his impact knocked him onto the ice-cold floor, injuring his tailbone. The irreverent sound of his collision echoed throughout the old house, followed by his furious howl of pain.
Infernal heathens!
Never in his life had he met their like. Never had he known a family so peculiar in their ways, that they would allow mere children the run of their home—Christmas, or not! It’d serve every damned one of them right if he lifted his frozen arse from the wooden floor and burst into the corridor after them, bared to the buttocks and mad like a loon! God’s knees... if only he could lift himself from the floor. He tried... and howled in pain.
“Aunt Em. Aunt Em!”
Emma had only just completed breakfast when the children exploded into the dining room. She barely had time to rise from the table before they swarmed around her.
‘The duke is very ill!” Lettie wailed. Her face was sweaty from her mad dash to his rescue.
Jonathon panted at her side. “Very, very,veryill!” he re-emphasized.
Emma couldn’t quite quell the sudden panic that rose in her breast. Her expression was one of horror. “What do you mean he’s ill?”
“Well,” Lettie explained on a rush of breath. “You see... we were playing… in the corridor...” She peered at Emma, as though to gauge her reaction, and then at Samantha. “... and well, you see...”
