Page 55 of How the Belle Stole Christmas

Jane was halfway out the door and into the darkness when a thin, shaky voice beckoned her back inside.

“Where are you going, Miss Dean?” Mr. Jameson asked. He was a tall man, standing over six feet, and his lanky hair was pulled back into a queue with a tattered bit of black ribbon. He might have been handsome once. He had the square jaw and high cheekbones of a man beautiful in youth.

“For an evening walk.”

“The children—”

“Are in bed. They have washed behind their ears and said their prayers.”

“And vowed their praise for his Grace?” His voice quavering again, eyes shifting from side to side as if her brother might pop out at any moment.

“Of course.”

He considered her from head to toe. “You’re well put together for a nature walk.”

“I am always well put together, Mr. Jameson.” But she had taken special care with her appearance this evening, donning a wide-necked green velvet pelisse-robe beneath her mantle.

He patted her shoulder. “Naturally, naturally.”

She held her breath. If he discovered her purpose, he might tell her brother.

Then Morington would send her away. Who knew where next.

The children would be alone, deprived of her protection.

And she’d be deprived of a home. She licked her lips, tamed her frantic heart, praised God for thick gloves to hide her sweating palms.

“May I go now? Please, Mr. Jameson?”

He scratched his gray-stubbled cheek then flicked his hand toward the door.

“Be careful upon your return. The guards arrive any moment, five of them. They are mercenaries, I’m told, and brothers.

Mr. Kringle, Mr. Kringle, Mr. Kringle, Mr. Kringle, and”—he looked a bit dizzy, and he smacked his lips together a few times as if his mouth was dry—“Mr. Kringle. Do not be out long.” Jameson turned toward the stairs. “The woods are dangerous at night.”

She watched him disappear into the darkness abovestairs before slipping out the door and, finally, into the biting evening breeze.

The sun had set below the buildings of Bristol, but enough of a yellow glow poured dull across the sky that it probably had not yet sank into the sea.

The walk to Bowen Hall where Sir Nicholas lived was not a long one, and if things went well, he might accompany her back to the hospital after night had stolen the sky.

She pulled her mantle more tightly about her as she set off down the road.

Guilt bit harder than the wind. The velvet of her mantle thicker than the outer garments of her charges.

The outdated luxuries of a duke’s illegitimate daughter still warmer than the thin stuff they wore.

At least most of her wardrobe could be remade into smaller clothes. At least she had skill enough for that.

When she reached Bowen Hall, she stood for a moment to collect her courage.

The building was a low, rambling thing. Two stories of gray stone with a slate roof and arched windows.

A stone wall surrounded it. Through an iron gate set into the wall, she could see the large wooden door at the end of a gravel path lined with poorly maintained topiaries.

She pushed through the unlocked gate and heard a donkey bray.

Curiosity moving her feet, she rounded the building and found Sir Nicholas surrounded by a small garden.

Hands on his hips and jacket forgotten somewhere, he scowled, those bright-red brows drawing together.

He’d rolled his shirtsleeves up past his elbows, revealing muscled, veiny forearms. The cold did not seem to bother him.

He glowed with a sheen of sweat across his forehead, and his hair was slicked back against his skull.

“Where in hell have you got to, Felix?” he mumbled, craning his neck to look all about.

A gray donkey observed him from one side, its head cocked, its eyes glassy, its tail twitching.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Sir Nicholas said, sweeping his fingers through his hair so that a lock fell over one eye. “Felix is a rogue, and you know it. And this will never work if he doesn’t play his part right. He stole the stick, but who knows where he’s taken it!”

The donkey brayed, as if objecting.

Jane jumped.

And Nicholas finally saw her. “Jane?” His arms dopped to his sides, and he strode toward her, stopped just before her.

Not too close, but still within arm’s reach, his tall frame curving slightly, bringing him closer.

He smelled like winter and felt like a furnace, waves of heat rolling off him.

His fingers twitched as he cocked his head at the same rakish angle as the animals. “What are you doing here?”

“Who is Felix?”

His lips quirked up at one corner. “My fox.”

“Your fox?”

“Had him since he was a babe.” He straightened, threw his face toward the deepening blue sky. “Felix!” he bellowed.

No response.

“Ah, well, he never does as he should.” The other corner of his mouth tipped upward. “Much like me.”

“The donkey?”

“Rembrandt. He was here when I moved in two years ago. I’m grateful he let me stay. Why are you here, Miss Dean?”

Only then did she realize he’d called her Jane earlier.

Only now did the unexpected… pleasure… of his familiarity rush through her.

She would like to hear Jane from his lips again.

The Jane gave her hope. It had come so easily in a moment of surprise, as if he thought of it often, as if it were his natural, unfettered reaction. Excellent.

But still she trembled. What she’d come to do simply was not done. Even if it was necessary. “Sir Nicholas, I… I have come to tell you something.”

“Oh? Well”—he looked about the overgrown garden—“here. Sit.” He led her to a stone bench.

Hard as the one she’d shared with Mrs. Tottle yesterday beneath the barren tree, but no glamour to hide its hairline fractures.

It did not seem broken as her skirts settled over its cracks, as Sir Nicholas’s firm thighs settled next to her.

It seemed worn yet well cared for despite its years.

Sir Nicholas twisted until his knee brushed her skirts, and he crossed his arms over his chest. “Now, then. Go on, Miss Dean.”

She took a steadying breath, forcing her hands to fold and be still on her lap. Now or never. “We are good friends, are we not, Sir Nicholas?”

She could not look at him, but his very voice smiled. “Indeed, Miss Dean.”

“I have relied on your judgment and good will over the last year.”

“And I have tried to give you the best of me.”

“It is only… I wonder. When walking with me or helping me with the children, or… during any of the numerous ways we have interacted, have you ever considered… I mean, your intentions… have they ever been…” Bother.

This more difficult than she’d anticipated.

She closed her eyes. It helped. “Courting me. I know our friendship has not been a courtship, but I… would not be opposed to it. Should you be so inclined.” There.

She’d done it. And the world had not collapsed.

Her revelation had, however, ushered in an unnerving silence.

He had no answer for her, or he had one he knew she would not like, and his silence showed an unwillingness to bring her either pain or humiliation.

So silent not even the donkey brayed. Though he did look at her from the corner of his eye as if looking at her full-on would transfer her humiliation to him. Cowardly ass.

But something swished at her skirts. She opened her eyes and looked down.

A little orange fox, its black paws braced against her legs, looked up.

“Shh.” Sir Nicholas stopped her hand from flying to her mouth. “Miss Dean, meet Felix. Felix, meet Miss Dean.” His voice was low and calm. Meant to calm her or the fox, she could not tell. Whichever, though, it worked. Her pulse slowed, and the hard curiosity in the fox’s intelligent eyes softened.

“G-good evening, Mr. Felix,” Jane whispered.

“Hold out your hand.”

“He will not bite?”

Sir Nicholas’s bare hand slipped over hers, large and warm and strong. He guided her hand gently toward the animal, who stretched up, lengthening its white neck as its tiny nose sniffed her fingers. Felix wiggled his nose, reared back as if he’d found something questionable.

“Here. Let me…” A few flicks of the man’s capable fingers freed the buttons of her glove, and he tugged it off.

Skin to skin. Electric. The pads of his fingers rough of her wrist. Her pulse flew against her skin as if trying to get to him.

And when he intertwined their fingers, his hand atop hers, and guided her toward the fox once more, she had to close a sigh tightly behind pressed lips.

Thank heavens he did not seem to notice. “Try again.”

She held her breath as Felix sniffed once more. His ears twitched, and when the fox butted his head against her hand, Jane gasped.

But Sir Nicholas chuckled, releasing her hand to pat the fox’s head. “Finally back, are you, boy? Deuced horrid timing, though.” The fox darted away, and Sir Nicholas dropped his head, scratched the back of his neck just above his red cravat.

If there had been nothing but silence before the fox, now the world seemed to be composed entirely of noise. The flick of the donkey’s tail. The clop of the goat’s hooves. The wind through the trees. The beating of her heart.

“Miss Dean,” he finally said, “I cannot deny… I have considered it. Many times over the last year. I have even… desired it. We would rub along well together, I think. In a variety of ways.”

“But?” She heard the objecting in his voice, the eventual and unavoidable slip from I desire to reasons he should not.

“We are quite different creatures, are we not?”

“You mean because I’m a bastard?”

“No!” His hands were on her then, one palm on her cheek, encouraging her to turn toward him, the other on her shoulder, a solid weight, a reassurance. “God, no. I do not care about that. Besides, you’re a duke’s sister—”

“Half sister.”

“And I doubt he would approve of a man like me courting you. A mere baronet.”