Page 118 of Her Beast

Kemp’s lips twitched into a brief smile before she banished it. “Come,” said briskly. “Let’s get you ready, shall we?”

∞∞∞

“Happy Christmas!” Norris and John called out when Kemp and Julia joined them in the dining room a short time later.

Julia wanted to fling her arms around both men but wisely refrained. Instead, she said, “Happy Christmas! Thank yousomuch for joining me for breakfast.”

The two men blushed and stammered.

“If I’d suspected you’d dine with me I wouldn’t have been so very late—it’s more of a nuncheon than a breakfast. I can’t imagine which of you convinced the others to step outside convention,” she teased.

John coughed, glanced at the other two, and then said, “Actually, it was Mr. Barton who suggested you might like company today.”

Julia’s smile faltered slightly. “Oh. It was kind of him to think of me before he left.”

The three servants exchanged quick, meaningful, looks.

Before Julia could commence prying Norris said, “Ah, here is our Christmas feast.”

Three footmen entered bearing loaded trays.

“You are right here, Miss Julia,” John said, gesturing toward the head of the table, where several wrapped gifts sat next to the place setting.

“Oh, dear!” Julia said. “I forgot your gifts in my room. I’ll just run and get them.”

“Let James fetch them,” Kemp said.

“We can open them later,” Norris suggested.

“Do sit and eat first,” John begged.

For once, Julia wouldn’t be budged. “It won’t take but a minute.”

Julia hurried from the dining room and through the corridor, a silly smile on her face as she thought about their reactions. The paintings were small so it was no problem to pile them up in her arms.

As she hurried back, she studied the wrapping paper. She’d not wanted to ask for any from the store, so she’d painted her own, using newspapers, and was quite pleased with her result. They weren’t pretty foil and—

“Jule!” a familiar voice shrieked when she entered the greenhouse.

Julia’s head whipped up just in time to move the three slim packages to her side, barely preventing them from being crushed by the careening form of her brother Richard.

∞∞∞

Malcolm watched the Harlow twins enjoy their joyous reunion from a place of concealment, smiling at the sound of Richard’s laughter and Julia’s girlish squealing.

He’d not known what to expect when he’d shown up at Brookfield bright and early that morning. It had been years and years since he’d gone out in public, but the errand was one he hadn’t want to entrust to Joe. Not because he wasn’t capable, but because this washisgift for Julia.

A young housemaid—rather than an upper domestic—had answered the door to the pretty little manor house. She had been startled to see a masked stranger, but it had seemed to Malcolm that she’d been less shocked by his face than the fact that there was a visitor on Christmas morning.

The servant’s surprise had been nothing to Nanny Potter’s.

“You want to take Richard to London?” the old woman had repeated, visibly befuddled.

“Er, yes, ma’am. And you, too, of course,” he’d added hastily.

“And Miss Julia is staying withyou?”

“Notwithme alone. She has a chaperone for the duration of her stay.”

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