Page 33 of His Wicked Little Christmas

Franny felt a surge of affection, fierce in its power. “I can.”

Katherine giggled and reached for the other boot, finally looking like a little girl set to go on an adventure. “Miss Shaw, since we’re becoming friends, you may call me Kat.”

Chance couldn’t tear his gaze from the enchanting scene outside the library window.

Katherine and his new governess, Miss Shaw, were building a lopsided snowman on the sloping lawn across the way. It was going to tumble if they put too much weight on the top portion. He’d been waiting for it to tumble. Ten minutes earlier, he’d watched them gather pine branches and holly from an overgrown thicket near the side garden, frolicking about as if it wasn’t cold as a witch’s teat this morn.

They had to be soaked to the skin. Clothing sodden, fingers and toes numb.

Nevertheless, they looked rapturous. The first time he’d seen this emotion from either of them.

He wanted to ignore the enchantment of the scene but couldn’t.

As was often the way with life, he was toasty from a blazing hearth fire, his belly full of tea and toast—yet he was melancholy for some reason.

“You shouldn’t have come without alerting me,” he murmured to Lady Chapman-Holmes as she wiggled into the nook between his body and the wall. “I have the girl to think of now.”

Eleanor snaked her arm through his, leaning into him. “How was I to know you’d been burdened with a child to care for? As if anyone would consider you father material. I’m staying down the way at Lady Dane’s as we discussed last month. A ten-minute carriage ride. I’ll see you at Grimley’s ball in any case. Remington, I didn’t want to unduly surprise you. I simply wanted toseeyou. One of the benefits of being a widow, I can travelalone on occasion.”

Chance withdrew his arm as politely as he could. Eleanor wanted to stake her claim is what she wanted. As she’d wanted in London, to his discontent.

It was his fault, the direction his life had taken. He’d once desired her. Or women like her. Desired a different piece every night if he could manage it, in fact. And in his youth, he had. Champagne sipped from slippers. Or navels. Tangled sheets one moment and awkward silence the next. Interactions lasting only as long as his release.

Truly, he’d only been passionate about designing furniture.

He glanced back to the girls romping in the snow.

Something was happening, a mysterious yearning. He rubbed his chest, his breath catching. His existence was changing in the seconds being counted off on the mantel clock behind him. He felt powerless andpowerful. On the precipice.

Lady Chapman-Holmes was situated in his old life.

When he suspected he was preparing for his new.

“What are they doing?” she asked, her tone scathing. “I assume the little one is the urchin you’re now guardian of.”

Enjoying life,he thought dully, suddenly determined to follow Miss Shaw’s improper lead. At breakfast, she’d chatted with every servant who had stumbled into the morning parlor. Which due to his meager finances, amounted to four. Chance was charmed by her nonchalant playfulness. The joy she took in the blueberry jam she claimed was the best she’d had since leaving Philadelphia. The delicate teacup she claimed must have been in his family for years. Mrs. Walker’s grandson, the scullery maid’s brother. She asked about them all.

She was unlike any woman he’d ever met in that she didn’t seem bothered by what people thought of her. When he’d been raised by an indifferent man who believed in basing his entirebeingon what people thought of him. Chance recalled being hugged exactly once by Viscount Remington. At his mother’s funeral.

His father had never made any dwelling feel likehome.

In the two days his temporary governess had been in residence at Rose Hill, there were changes he could only attribute to her. Feminine touches. The dank hallways smelled faintly of lemon and linseed oil. The paneling in the foyer glistened. The scent of biscuits—nutmeg andcinnamon—wafted down the gallery and into the space he’d set up as his workshop. More sconces were lit on the corridors he traveled. The drapes were open in rooms once deserted, letting in sunlight and life.

When he noticed Miss Shaw and her charge gathering up their pine branches and sad bits of holly to return to the house, he shoved off the window ledge. “You must go,” he said and propelled Lady Chapman-Holmes across the parlor with a hand at her lower back.

Suddenly, he didn’t want his old life to meet his new.

But the collision was inevitable.

Miss Shaw was opening the door as his majordomo was nowhere in sight, her bonnet a soggy mess hanging half off her head, her hair curling wildly about her face. She had insanely beautiful hair, so thick pins could scarcely contain it. A mass of mahogany and auburn, he’d been tempted since the moment they met to tunnel his fingers through. And her eyes… they were a remarkable shade so light they looked almost gold. He’d glanced at them twice across his breakfast table to confirm the assessment.

Lastly, and he hated to contemplate the notion with a former lover standing by his side, but his governess had the most delectable body of any chit in England. In Europe. In America. A voluptuous, petite package he longed to unwrap. Almost perfect from the little he’d seen of it.

Curve upon curve upon curve.

While he stood there lost in lusty reflection, Katherine barreled in behind Miss Shaw, her arms full of branches. “Franny,” she called before she saw him. Because if the child had seen him first, her joy would have shriveled like the branches in her arms were soon going to. “We’ll place these greens on every hearth in the house. It’ll look like Christmastide then!”

Franny.He rolled the name across his tongue like a fine Bordeaux.