Page 82 of His Wicked Little Christmas
“Lord Remington will come after me if I take Kat.”
Ada lifted her head, her gaze narrowing in contemplation. Franny knew that look well, too well. The cleverness behind it had helped her avoid more than one scrape in her lifetime. “Not if we make it seem like it’s a holiday invite you’d already accepted. A confused set of missives. Won’t be the first time he’s read about a woman’s departure on a sheet of foolscap shoved beneath his door.”
Franny pushed off the vanity, almost losing hold of her gaping gown. “I’m not setting up a race for the viscount to run like my prize mount. This isn’t Epsom.”
Ada beamed, smug and decided. Dusted her hands together as if she’d made a decision. “All’s fair in love, isn’t it? This lonely pile made even lonelier without women and children. A man thinks he wants his peace until he has it. The scorching glances the lord of the manor has been giving you could be close to love if you’d kick him across the ravine and into it. That you figured it out sooner can’t be held against him. Men are senseless creatures.”
Franny took a turn about the chamber, swiping her fingers across layers of dust on shelves, cracks in aged wallpaper, rips in an Aubusson rug that had once cost a fortune. Rose Hill made her want to weep. She would’ve happily sunk every penny of her dowry into the care andmanagement of this estate, fallen in love with it right along with its owner. Become a mother to Kat.
The fact that she could so easily picture a life with them in this very house was unnerving.
Like most men, Chance Allerton was a ninnyhammer when it came to affairs of the heart. Franny dragged her bare toe across a ripple in the carpet, glancing to the window and the shades of blue and pink coloring a dawning horizon. A little push wasn’t deceitful if the man in question was racing in that direction anyway, was it?
Hecouldlove her back. He’d stared into her eyes while he trembled, his broad body curving protectively around hers. His release frenzied… but his gaze calm. Sure.Adoring.
“I’ll do it,” Franny said, never considering that those were the exact words she’d spoken to Hildy Streeter to get her into this mess.
Chapter Ten
Where a Dejected Viscount Comes Calling
Franny had taken Kat’s Christmas presents when she fled.
Which was fair as she’d purchased them.
He’d been determined the little girl would have her bloody gifts. But his absconding governess was one step ahead of him, never realizing she had gifts,too. Those damn art supplies Xander Macauley, true to his word, had delivered the night before. Chance had wrapped them in a length of tartan, one in his family for generations. Remnants of the lone, black Scottish mark on his mother’s side and even included a crimson length of twine around the bundle that now looked ridiculous.
Or hopeful, depending upon one’s perspective.
After Franny had bolted from his bedchamber the night before, in frustration, he’d finished sanding a desktop, then ridden his horse, Talbot, through the snow-capped fields until they were both panting from the effort. When he returned to Rose Hill at daybreak, his decision had been firmly in place. His mind calm. His body sated, thanks to a certain tenacious termagant’s loving attention.
He’d only needed a few moments to search his heart, breathe deeply of the crisp winter air. And think.
Then he’d known.
Love. This was love he was feeling, blind and unrelenting.
For the womanandthe girl.
He was giving in. Gladly givingupa life he didn’t want for a new one he did.
He’d never felt the like, a sudden rush of emotion weakening his knees when a woman crossed within viewing distance. Her unique scent enough to have his heart skipping a beat. And… anAmerican. This fact delighted him for many reasons it shouldn’t. Her unsuitability made her perfect forhim. He couldn’t dictate the future, but he wanted Franny Shaw in his life. Wanted her laughter, her wit, her kindness raining down upon him.
Finally, he could picture someone when the wordviscountesswhispered through his mind.Minetraveling greedily behind it.
Perhaps the biggest surprise of all, he wanted to be a father to Kat. He wanted to fill Rose Hill with laughter and joy. Hers, to start. Then, the others to come.
With this certainty pillowing him like mist, he’d gone in search of his girls to find he had none in residence. Back to a lonely, creaking, dusty manor in the middle of Derbyshire. The dying pine branches attached to every available surface a reminder of his idiocy.
The answer was obvious. Franny deserved a sincere proposal.
Without questions in his eyes this time.
In a bit of a funk, he’d traipsed to his bedchamber, ignoring his disaster of a bed and the sensual aroma clinging to the air like a chill, and dug around in the side table, extracting his signet ring. It was temporary, of course. Until he had funds—hers,ironically—to purchase something more personal. However, he did quite like the scripted R circled by roses, modeled after the estate that had been in the Remington family for centuries. The small ruby he predicted would look stunning against her creamy skin.
She was extraordinary enough to appreciate it.
So here he stood on Tobias Streeter’s country portico on Christmas morning, a gift for the woman who had led him on a merry chase to the very spot tucked awkwardly under his arm. Snow swirled inside the collar of his woolen coat, dusting his cheeks and brow. Chance rappedon the door of Hampton Hall once more, feeling the reverberation through the thick oaken slab. It was bloody freezing, and he was nervous.