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“Never have I enjoyed a Christmas more,” he told her honestly, near stunned at the realization. To think, he would have spent the day just like any other, alone and task-busy, before she arrived and topsy-turvied his plans. And his life.

“Nor I.” She severed the bread and placed the larger half back on his plate. “We shall indulge equally.”

“And I shall procure more of a selection tomorrow.” Tomorrow, when she would leave to procure a job, unless he could find a way to convince her otherwise. His appetite gone, he nudged his plate aside.

“They were not figments, were they?” she prompted with a smile at his continued silence.

Brier cast off his slow-to-depart uncertainty—or at least attempted to. “My sisters? I do indeed possess a fine pair. Along with a trio of brothers, that no one in their right mind would describe asfine.”

“Both a pair and a trio? My, you must have led your parents a merry dance.”

“I… Hesitate to regale you with tales of…our frolics when you— When…”

“Given my lack? You waver because of my lack of family, of siblings?”

He knew she had come from a small family, one destroyed when her older sister first went missing, and then, devastatingly, turned up dead two years later—or so they assumed, the female’s body having the same color of hair and being close to the anticipated size, but being weathered, leading the authorities to conclude it was her, but without absolute certainty. Hinting little at her own grief and sacrifices, Luce had shared about the years spent caring first for her father, and then her mother, as both mourned themselves to death, and Luce having no other close family.

Though he tried to keep it stifled, he suspected every bit of sadness he felt on her behalf showed in his expression. “After what you have endured,” he said now, “the brave way you have handled the staggering loss of your family, how can I expound upon my bounty? Troublesome though they can be at times.Mosttimes,” he added, hoping to see her smile.

And was rewarded with that and with the gentle touch of her fingers trailing over his hand—now clenched, he saw, white-knuckled around his fork. “You can,” she said as light as her touch, “because I would never begrudge another’s happiness. Especially not you. Come now. Expound away.”

Especially not him?

Dare he take that to mean some part of her was starting to see him in a fond light, perhaps something even akin to how he had so quickly begun viewing her?

Much more familiarly—fervently—than fondly, eh?

“All right. But I give you leave to bid me stop at any time. There are a host of us, spanning seventeen years. Two brothers, not much older, Thorne and Sharpe. One brother, younger than myself—Clayton. And the two sisters you will recall me mentioning, Rose and—”

“Stop!” Laughing, she sank her teeth into her bottom lip to curtail the sound he hadn’t expected. “Stop now, you knave. For I know you jest me most cruelly. You,Brier, and now you claimRoseandSharp”—more laughter—“a-andThorn? Oh, please! Next you will be alleging Dirt and D-Daisy.” She nearly choked. “How you expect me to believe anything…”

He was delighted at her mirth. Cared not it was at his family’s expense. For theywerequite nonsensical, the lot of them, their names the least of it. “Can I help it if Mama had Papa readingAll’s Well That Ends Wellas her lying-in approached? That she latched on to Helena’s scene-ending speech?”

“Not having every Shakespearean scene-ending speech commended to memory, commoner that I am, can you elucidate?”

“You are not common. Did we not already establish that?”

“You are not old.”

“Hurrumph.” She’d repeated that refrain a time or ten, chiding him if he dared refer to himself as anything but young and spry—and he had to admit, being with her, yearning for her as a man twenty years his junior, made him feel significantly younger than he had of late. Made him think as though it wasn’t too late to latch on to something himself.

So perhaps, he would show her…

“Let me rectify.”

Her body-shaking giggles finally subsiding, Lucinda nibbled at the bread she’d shared. How absurd of her to think it romantic that they each partook of a portion of the same slice.

Castle-spinning ninny.

“Elucidation shall be yours, my uncommon lovely.” With that, he pushed away from the counter and came around so she could see him fully. He bent his knees, bowed his back and propped one fist on a cocked hip as though mimicking every aged matron he’d ever seen.

She swallowed quickly, lest she choke, knowing he was about to entertain her with one of his humorous bits—as she suspected his entire “sibling” response had been. (Simply to entertain, to bring a laugh to her lips and a lightness to her heart. Ridiculous man—did he not know that simply being near him had begun to do that without any effort at all?)

Affecting a high, feminine pitch and speaking as though he was sorely aggrieved, he quoted (andtoddled)…

“The time will bring onsummer,

Whenbriersshall have leaves as well asthorns,