Page 64 of How the Belle Stole Christmas

Jane wandered across her spartan bedchamber to the window that looked out over the back gardens and placed a hand on the glass. It fogged immediately. Small white flakes drifted lazily through the night sky. It would be a white Christmas.

Usually a joyful occasion.

Too many sorrows beat at her fortifications this year, though.

Two days until Christmas Eve. No. One. She’d heard the clock strike midnight some time ago. Christmas Eve was tomorrow, and the guards remained, Nico was missing, and soon the children would be without a home. So would she.

And she was entirely powerless to change a damn thing about any of it. She’d been holding back tears an entire lifetime, but tonight they seemed close as old friends. They waited on the edge of her eyelids to drop. She held them back. But for how long?

And why should she? Why not cry? Why not let herself absolutely dissolve into a puddle of misery? No matter what she did, it was always the same—passed around and passed over, ignored and forgotten, unwanted and… unable.

Oh God.

There it went—a single terrible tear, coasting its way down her cheek. She wiped it away with a curse. Too late. Its comrades came so quickly—a highly trained and covert force that had overwhelmed her before she could act.

Here, too, she was powerless.

She crumpled onto the bed and allowed herself to cry.

The clock began to chime in the hallway. Again and again, and she barely noticed it, barely heard it over her weeping, her sobbing, the pounding of her fist on the bed and her soul-deep growls, the screams muffled by her pillow.

Alone. Always alone. A single warrior on a battlefield facing down an entire army.

A lone wilting wildflower in a summer field of unrelieved green.

One star in a cloudy night sky. Once. Just once she wanted to crack with worry and fear and have someone pick her up, put her back together.

Even after her father had given her the stability of a home, she’d been too terrified to show weakness.

He might kick her out. He’d know she wasn’t worth the trouble.

Not worth the trouble to Sir Nicholas, either.

Nico.

She wept harder.

The chimes stopped, and she wept in silence.

Until the edge of her mattress dipped and a large warm hand settled against her nape.

She flew upright with a gasp. “Nico.” The name more like a sob.

It broke his face in two.

But somehow it began to heal the spider-webbing of cracks running through her.

When she’d most needed someone… here he was.

It didn’t matter that he’d refused to marry her twice.

It didn’t matter that he was intent on throwing himself into danger.

The only thing that mattered were his strong arms reaching out to her.

She melted into them. She allowed herself to shake there and wet the shoulder of his wool coat. She clutched her hands in the open edges of it and wailed into the cavern of that coat against his solid chest.

“Shh,” he mumbled against her ear, curving his big body around her. “Good God, remind me never to make wishes, yes? They come true, and I don’t like it. Not one bit.”

She felt the gentlest kisses against the top of her head, and she wailed harder, shaping one undecipherable word.

“Riiidiicu”—she hiccupped—“luuuus.” What did he mean by wishes coming true?

Hers never did. What rot, what nonsense.

He was always teasing and grinning, and suddenly her despair sharpened into anger.

She lurched away from him, wiping the tears off her cheek and out of her eyes with harsh swipes.

“You!” She swung at his chest with a fist. “You come here with your jokes and your grins and your nonsense but with nothing that can help!” She took another swing at him, hurting her knuckles more than him, though he did wince.

Probably to help save her pride. An act, nothing more.

“Get it all out,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

She shoved at his shoulders, and he barely moved.

“Marry me, I say, and you say no, though I’d like to.

Don’t risk your life on Christmas Eve, I beg, and you shrug off my concerns.

” She hit his shoulder. “What I want matters. It matters! Though no one thinks it does. Not a damn living soul thinks it does because I am no one, and I am nothing. Metal doesn’t leap at my touch, and potions have never passed from my fingers.

I can conjure no glamour. I cannot even conjure someone to love me! ”

She jumped from the bed and paced across the room, anger burning through her limbs.

“I may be small and useless, but I have desires.” She beat her own chest this time.

God, it felt good to scream her rage, to show the world what it didn’t want from her, what it wanted from no woman—her disappointment, her disillusionment, her anger.

Nico sat on the edge of the bed. He’d not moved since crossing his arms over his chest. Except for his eyes. Those followed her. Something in their blue depths calmed her. Not entirely, but… curiosity bloomed where thoughtless anger had swelled unchecked before.

“Why have you come here?” she demanded.

After a moment of consideration, he stood and made for the door. He must have closed it behind him when he came in, but he opened it now.

One of the guards stood in the frame, his back to her room. She gasped and covered her mouth with both hands.

The guard must have heard. He looked over his shoulder at her, scowling. “Sir Nicholas told me you was fine with him visiting. If yer not, I’ll toss him right out.”

He must have heard her every word. Her cheeks were so hot. There wasn’t even a fire in the grate. She resisted the urge to hide her face in her hands and licked her lips. “No, he was right. He and I have things to discuss.”

“I wouldn’t have let him in, but… you were—” He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing and his cheeks flushing.

Crying. She’d been crying, and she’d embarrassed him as well as herself.

“Anyways, I’m right here if you need me, Miss Dean.

” He patted the handle of the gun holstered at his hip. A warning to Nico, no doubt.

Nico placed a hand on his heart. “Mr. Kringle, I give you my solemn word I will not harm this virtuous lady. I pledge my life to her as her knight.”

“Yes, well, I have to return to my position,” the guard—Mr. Kringle, apparently—said. “I’ll be back in an hour when we shift positions again.”

“Good man.” Nico closed the door without a sound. He rested his back against it, and when his gaze hit her, a fire roared to life in her chest, burning away most of the night’s other emotions—despair, shame, rage. They all bowed before something greater—desire.

Not that she would let him see. Enough of the other feelings still clung to her bones to make her wary. “Why are you here?”

“A myriad of reasons.” He stepped away from the door. He was bigger than he’d been this afternoon in the garden, broader, his eyes shining silver.

“Have you been working?”

“Yes, and that’s one of the reasons I’m here.”

“You should not be here.”

“I know.”

“Especially like”—she waved at his massive frame—“this.” His coat was open, and he wore no jacket beneath that, only an unbuttoned waistcoat and a linen shirt open at the throat. “Where have you been? You disappeared then did not return.”

“Miss me?” A sliver of a grin.

She snorted. “I had hoped you would remain missing until after Christmas.” He could remain alive that way. But… “Have you charmed the guards?”

His grin widened. “Begun to. All part of my plan.”

“Your plans.” She sniffed, turned toward the window, and held her arms around her waist. Dark sky, bright snow. Why was it so hot in here when it should not be?

She knew he was right behind her not because she heard his footsteps—she didn’t—but because she felt his heat.

“You’re not useless,” he said.

Her shoulders stiffened. She did not need teasing or platitudes. She did not need coddling.

“I’ll prove it to you.” He sounded so very certain.

She whipped around to face him. “Prove it, then.”

He nodded. Then he shrugged one arm out of his coat.

“What are you doing?” Her pulse spiked.

“Proving it. Now keep in mind, sweetheart, that women with power don’t panic when a man strips down before her.”

And strip he did. The coat fell to a puddle around his feet, then the waistcoat and shirt joined it.

Each article of clothing sparked her pulse higher than before, and when she pulled her dressing gown closed more tightly at her neck it was mostly to keep him from seeing how each of his movements beat her heart fast, faster, fastest.

When he stood before her in nothing but bare feet and trousers, he reached into his pocket.

His messy red hair hung before his eyes as he stretched out a fist toward her, opened it palm up.

A lump of a rock and two rings lay in his palms—delicate silver strands twined like vines. One bigger than the other.

“Take them,” he told her.

She did, showing more confidence than confusion. She hoped.

“The rock is my token. Raw silver. I’ve had it since I was a child.

I draw strength from it. Power. It never leaves my pocket.

Until now. You have it now. You decide when you give it back.

The rings, well…” He bent his face toward the floor between them for a moment before lifting it slowly.

When his gaze met hers once more, that grin of his had reached his eyes.

“Tell me what you want of me, sweetheart. And just as I put those items into your hand, I’ll give you everything you ask for. Everything in my power to give.”

She licked her lips. The token felt like fire in her palm. It felt, oddly, like Nico—a whirlwind of energy and strength, of elegance and naughtiness. She knew exactly what she wanted from him. “I need you not to die on Christmas Eve.”