Page 57 of How the Belle Stole Christmas

If one thing could tame Nico’s nearly constant cockstand since Jane kissed him in the garden, it was this—five huge guards surrounding the hospital, well armed with guns and knives.

They seemed to already have perfected a system of surveillance as precise as a clock.

No way Felix could steal all their ammunition, even if he cooperated with Nico’s attempts to train him.

Morington must feel truly humiliated by Nico to hire so many guards.

Good. The man deserved a little humiliation.

Only, he should have reacted differently, learned the error of his ways instead of entrenching himself in cruelty and hiring brute force to protect his oh-so-wrong position. Men like that rarely learned, though.

How in hell was he related to Jane Dean?

Jane, Jane, Jane. Of the soft lips and brave soul, a woman who could ask for what she wanted.

And take it. Even if success was not guaranteed.

An arousing trait. Too arousing. Damn, there went the cockstand again.

He’d been hiding from her for seven days.

Too scared to be in the same room with her but not scared to admit it.

Didn’t need to be in the same room with her to relive the soft pressure of her hands in his cravat, pulling him toward her, the gentle pout of her lips against his.

So very different from their first kiss.

A continuation when it shouldn’t have been.

For her at least. For her, it was her first kiss with Sir Nicholas.

At least he’d had the time and motivation needed the last seven days to finish most of the toys he would gift the children on Christmas Eve. And to covertly observe the behemoths guarding the hospital.

Nico pulled his hat low and scooted farther behind the tree. At a distance, the guards still seemed too big, Cyclops ready to ground his bones between their teeth. He looked through the opera glass again. If they were Polyphemus, he was Odysseus—clever, would run circles round them.

Behind him, Felix whined.

“Shh.”

More whining. The fox was cold. Preferred a cushion by the fireplace in the dead of winter to the hard ground and chilly air.

“You’re a predator, Felix, act like it.”

Had the fox huffed? The crinkle of leaves behind Nico suggested Felix had given up, laid down.

“They rotate, guarding a variety of points throughout the day, all levels of the house.” There was even one stationed on the roof.

Nico whistled softly. Even if Felix deigned to cooperate and learn a little thievery, he couldn’t disarm all five guards on different floors of the building at once.

Or in enough time for Nico to sneak inside and hide the gifts.

“You’re in luck, Felix. I won’t be making you a thief this week.

” Any more than the fox already was. “Where are my black stockings, you rogue?”

The fox lifted his head and grinned. As if he knew. Wouldn’t be surprised if he did.

“Come along.” Nico made for Bowen Hall and the warm fire in his workshop. “Still much work to be done. What do you think? Can Polyphemus be tempted with tales of free ale?”

Trotting at his side, Felix barked.

“You’re right. The myopic brutes don’t seem the type to fall prey to mortal weaknesses.”

When they arrived at Bowen, his housekeeper, Mrs. Grady, was leaving for the evening.

He stamped snow off his boots and thanked her, then slipped inside.

Everything was gray in the fading light.

But it was gray in the daytime, too. The same furniture from his childhood occupied the same places they always had.

Nothing from the past rearranged for the present.

Even when everything had been new and well kept, it had been a modest country house.

Jane likely was used to much more grand circumstances.

Why in hell would she want to marry him?

Even his title was on the line. He’d inherited his position as baronet from his father, but unoccupied as he was, the king seemed likely to take it away.

Alchemists couldn’t have titles unless they proved their worth to the crown, and he was busy disproving it.

He headed to his workshop on the far side of the house.

The large room and giant fireplace had been added by his great-grandfather when the man had bought it from a cash-strapped transcendent.

He’d taken pleasure, so Nico’s father had told him, adding an alchemist forge to a hoity-toity transcendent home.

His father had felt the same way about the title he’d wrangled from the mad King George—as if he’d somehow stolen something of value from those who didn’t value him.

Nico didn’t care one damn bit about the title or the house. Let the king take both away. He had too much for a man who did too little. But keeping them allowed him some measure of power, the ability to give to others in whatever small way he could.

The workshop and forge was hot, as it always was, and as he stepped inside, the flames in the fireplace taller than him roared to life.

On the wall perpendicular to the fireplace ran the thick, beaten word of his worktable, and scattered about it were the tools of his trade.

Not that he needed them most of the time.

For an alchemist, fingers worked better than anything else.

On the table, lined up against the wall, sat a dozen small silver statues. Most were complete, tuned to human warmth, ready for Christmas Eve.

Nico flexed his hands and stripped off his coat, jacket, and cravat, unbuttoned his waistcoat, and rolled his shirtsleeves up past his elbow.

He cracked his neck from side to side then picked up an unfinished toy.

More statue now; nothing gave it life but the imagination.

He rolled his shoulders backward in a circle a few times. This work was tedious but important.

He’d need to run or ride tonight to work off the power his connection provoked.

This toy a rose bud. He enclosed it in his palm and pictured its possibilities, its other shapes, and when he opened his hand—a smooth lump of silver instead of the meticulously carved sculpture of a rose not yet in bloom.

Hidden inside it a full bloom. He cracked his neck again, picked up his tools, and began carving the toy’s second shape—petals unfurled, a profusion of life, the fluffiest rose he’d ever seen.

Behind him, Felix curled up on a cushion near the fireplace.

Nico carved the silver using the heat of his own body. Metals responded well to heat, and alchemists were on fire, their natural body temperatures higher than any others, even when not working metal.

When he finished the rose, a bead of sweat dripped from his brow, and he wiped it away, hid the blooming rose between his palms and rubbed until—ah, there. He opened his hands like a book to find the rose bud once more, small and full of potential. This one for little Susan.

Now on to another. He could, perhaps, shape five or so more before he’d need to move to burn off the magic building inside him.

Otherwise, he’d split his shirt seams, and Mrs. Grady would give him that look when she found another shirt in her mending basket.

Perhaps he’d walk to the sea and swim until the sun came up.

There were other activities he’d prefer. Ones with a soft woman between his thighs. Ones with Jane’s warm breath on his cheek, her sweetly curving hips gripped by his knees.

Damn. He was hard. One swift thought led to one swift erection. He knew better than to let his mind drift Jane-ward while carving. When his body was on fire, swelling with power, other parts of him swelled much more easily.

Think of the guards instead, the cold dormitory where the children slept.

That fired him up. Anger made it more difficult to control his movements.

It demanded all his attention now, and he flew through the next three figures.

His shirt was slick against his skin with sweat, and he wiped it from his brow, then stretched an arm over his head.

He felt alive, his skin sensitive to the heat of the nearby fireplace, his senses more intense. The crackle of the fire like thunder and the hiss of Felix’s breathing rushing like the wind. He could even hear Rembrandt shift about in the back garden. Hooves and swiping tails.

Something else, too. Something unexpected.

A soft whisper across the floor. Another body breathing.

The swish of… skirts. The scent of winter air, sharp and fresh, uninvited, had stolen inside, bringing with it another scent entirely, a familiar one that flushed throughout the room with each new exhale.

He and Felix were not alone. Nico braced his palms against the worktable, closing his eyes.

It could not be. What would possess Jane to come here again?

What would possess her to come inside this time?

To explore his house until she found his workroom.

It had to be her. Mrs. Grady would not return until tomorrow.

And she did not smell like winter and woman.

“Jane,” he grumbled, “if that is you, and I am positive it is, leave.”

This time her inhale and exhale contained a little sound, part gasp. But no rustle of skirts. The scent of winter and Jane did not recede.

“I’m not fit for company, Jane.”

“I-I,” she stammered, “I see that. I do not mean to intrude, but it’s been so long since I’ve seen you, and—”

“Seven days.” He’d felt every second of those days in excruciating detail.

All of them depravation. No Jane meant no joy.

He’d been so careful not to think past friendship in the past year, not to think beyond that hem of her skirt she never let rise up.

Oh, he imagined the stockings, red and caressing her legs, but nothing more than that.

Her kiss had cracked his walls. Her kiss had ravaged his control.

And now, with the magic thrumming through him, he wouldn’t be able to deny his desires. “You should have made it eight, Jane.”