Page 47 of The Duke Who Saved Christmas
Emily raised her eyebrows.
“No,” Thomas said, shaking his head. “Walk the lights with us, and I’ll take you home after.”
“Oh, no, it’s okay, I—”
“Just come with us.” He grabbed my shoulders and steered me in the direction Beth and Danny had just disappeared into. “You know you want to see the lights.”
“All right, all right.” I shrugged off his annoyingly large hands with a perfectly firm grip and closed my waffle box. “Let go, I’m walking, I’m walking.”
Emily laughed and touched us both on the shoulder as she passed us. “I’m going to find that grandson of mine and make sure Beth is safe on this snow. Catch us up in a second.”
I nodded, but before I knew it, she was gone, too.
Thomas fell into step beside me, and we walked for a few minutes until we caught sight of his family again. I hadn’t expected him to insist on taking me home, especially since that meant spending time with me.
Huh.
Maybe it was time to move on from our teenage issues.
“That was nice,” I said quietly.
“What was?” Thomas glanced at me.
“Giving your mum your waffles. I know they were yours.”
“Ah.” He chuckled, then shrugged his shoulders. “I… didn’t think to get her some,” he admitted after a moment. “I didn’t know she was going to join us, or I would have. I’ll get more another time. It’s not like it’s a one-day stall.”
I peered up at him for a second, then held out my leftover waffles.
He looked at the box. “What?”
“Here.” I nudged him with it. “My eyes are bigger than my belly. No use wasting what’s left.”
He took the box with a sceptical glance at me, opened it, and handed it back to me. “You’ve only eaten one.”
“It’s a… peace offering,” I replied, pushing it away. “Just eat it. I can’t.”
“Are you sure?”
“Stop arguing with me. You’re ruining my peace offering.”
“It was my peace offering first.”
“Carry on and I’ll dump it on your head,” I warned, glaring at him.
He paused, almost as if he was considering chancing it. I added an extra threat to my glare, and he backed away, holding one hand up in defeat.
“Thank you,” I said after a moment, tucking my cold hands inside my sleeves. I was going to need to buy new gloves because clearly, the ones I had were not cut out for a Yorkshire winter.
Ahead of us, Emily wrapped an arm around Beth and drew her in closer.
“Does your mum know about the baby?” I asked.
Thomas glanced at them and nodded. “We spoke the day I found out,” he said, using the fork to break up the waffles. “I told her that she needed to tell Mum if she was comfortable with it because I didn’t want her having to handle everything else by herself. There’s only so much I can do with the estate, especially with spring coming, but Mum’s largely retired from the mayor’s office now. She’s going to help her out at the shop while Zara isn’t here.”
“When is she coming home?”
“Sunday. Allegedly.”
