Page 67 of How the Belle Stole Christmas

Jane had never once been caught doing something she shouldn’t. Because she’d never once done something she shouldn’t. Not until circumstances had forced her to. Not until Nico.

“You’re a horrible influence on me,” she said, lacing her corset over her shift.

He was jumping up and down on one foot as he tried to pull on a leg of his trousers that was twisted in on itself.

“Not now, Jane. Blame me all you want later. I’ll let you punish me how you see fit.

But for now”—he finally shoved his leg through, and his fingers flew to his fall, fastening it quickly—“get dressed.”

No use arguing that. The coach had stopped in the circle drive just before the stables to the side of the hospital.

She pulled on her skirts from yesterday. No time for petticoats. Then she shoved her arms through her bodice, watching her brother step out of the coach like a big grumbling bear from a cave after a winter hibernation.

“Hell. Hell, hell, hell.” She shook the impossible tiny hooks at her bodice with each word. They wouldn’t catch. They simply would not catch!

“Shh.” Nico’s hands swatted hers away. “Let me.” He fastened her bodice swiftly, then kissed her cheek.

He looked a rogue with his loose shirt and waistcoat tossed on, his hair a mattress-muddled mess.

He looked dear and virile and handsome, and—the ring on her finger glowed, warmed—hers. He was hers.

If they could survive her brother.

Her bodice fastened, he leaned down for a kiss, but before he reached her lips, she spun him around, shoved him toward the door. “Oh, do go.”

Thankfully, he opened the door and slid through a slim crack into the hallway, grinning ear to ear as he looked at her over his shoulder.

Oh, that wicked man. He was enjoying this.

Before she could slam the door closed, he whipped back around and kicked the door open, braced his hands on either side of the frame and leaned into the empty space.

“A kiss goodbye?”

Of course not. They had so little time to begin with.

And wasn’t he just irresponsible with those precious minutes.

She settled her hands at her hips. “Absolutely…” But surely one wouldn’t hurt.

She shook her head. Of course it would hurt.

“Not.” His lips were lovely. Soft and warm, firm and wide, and…

His grin widened.

“Oh, why not.” She sighed and melted into his arms.

The kiss was much too short. It was all tongue and teeth but martially executed. A planned plunder that left her knees soft as pudding as she clung to his shirt.

“What the hell is going on?”

Nico froze, his muscles hardening from lazy satiation to fight ready in a half second. He turned around, hiding Jane behind his back, hiding as well, whatever was happening in the hallway. He didn’t have to hide who was there. She knew that voice.

Her brother.

“That is what I’d like to know,” Nico said. “Who are you?” As if he didn’t bloody well know.

“I own this place. And you are not Mr. Jameson. And you are not one of the foundlings. And you are not”—he snapped that single syllable in two between his teeth—“my sister.”

Nico meant well, but there was no hiding now.

Jane ducked under his arm. “Good morning, Victor. I see you’ve met Sir Nicholas Bowen.”

Oh dear. Her brother seemed ready to explode.

His face careened from red to ghost white and back again, settling in a splotchy place between the two.

He looked so much like their father—honey-blond hair, liquid brown eyes, a thin slash of a mouth—but she’d never seen that expression on her father’s face.

Nico bowed. “It’s… interesting to meet you, your grace.

I’ve heard a little about you but know you best from your”—his gaze swept over the hallway floor and ceiling and staircase behind her brother—“charitable contributions to the house.” Meaning, his failure to contribute charitably to this house past the superficial improvements made by his glamours.

Her brother stood on the stairs with one foot on the landing, and he finished that half step now. “What were you doing in my sister’s room?” His voice cold as ice. It didn’t even seem to fog the cold air hanging over everything.

“I was just leaving,” Nico said. “Your sister needed help with her… window. It wasn’t locking.

And since I’m an alchemist, I am the best man for the job.

Interesting, though…” He studied his fingernails.

“The locks look perfectly new. But the mechanism is eaten right through. Wonder how that could have happened…” He lifted his gaze slowly up to her brother, eyelids heavy, one brow lifted.

They would fight. Didn’t know how she knew it, but she did. Her brother had never, as far as she knew, thrown a fist at another soul, but Nico, oh yes, he would brawl with the best of them. And if anyone could irritate her brother into a bare-knuckle argument, it would be Sir Nicholas Bowen.

She stepped between the men. Some of her confidence from last night remained humming along her skin. She was not entirely powerless. She could control this situation.

“You should not be in an unmarried woman’s room without a chaperone!” her brother bellowed.

He’d wake up the children. She placed a palm to his chest and said the only thing she could think of saying to soothe his sense of propriety. “We are engaged to be married, Victor.”

Her brother blinked, his head slowly tilting to the side. Then his eyes narrowed as they focused entirely on her. “I do not remember giving you my permission to marry this man.”

She stood as tall as she could, which was much too short sandwiched between two tall men. “I gave myself permission.”

Victor’s gaze shot to Nico. “You’re an alchemist.”

Nico nodded.

“From Bristol? Do you run a large forge?”

“From Bristol with a shop in London. No forge at all. At the moment.”

“What kind of shop?”

“A modest one. It’s been closed for two years.”

The duke sneered. “You think you can support a duke’s daughter?”

“I know I can. I love her.”

Oh. Jane wrapped her hands together at her heart. Nico’s words made something shivering there feel as if it would never be cold again.

“I’ve five other men with deeper pockets than you,” her brother drawled, “ready to marry my sister. Your love of her means nothing.”

“I beg to differ!” Jane lifted her chin.

He scowled, and that made him look very much not like their father. “Jane, get back into your room.”

“No.”

He pretended not to hear her. “And Sir Nicholas, leave. Now.”

“I’d rather not.” Nico crossed his arms over his chest and stepped closer to Jane. “Not unless she comes with me.”

A horrible scandal if she did that. But she would do it. Nico was her future, and she trusted him. She’d walk right into the unknown at his side.

Victor regarded them together, his jaw working hard, then his mouth flung open, and he yelled, “Kringle!”

It only took one note of summons, and three men appeared, pistols at their hips and hands big, ready fists.

Their eyes, though… they seemed to be a bit soft, a bit apologetic.

Likely her imagination because they came at Nico all at once, three storms of muscle converging at one point.

One Kringle brother spun Jane off to the side and out of the way while the other two gathered up Nico.

Nico reared back and swung at one, missed.

He kicked at the other’s instep and met his mark.

Not that it mattered. The Kringle merely winced and grasped Nico by one flailing arm as his brother grasped the other.

The third Kringle, guarding Jane, whipped out his pistol, cocked it, pointed it at Nico’s chest.

“No!” Jane leaped in front of it.

“Jane!” Her name in two different voices, one familiar from her childhood, and the other so very beloved though she was only just learning its twists and turns, its cadences and rhythms.

“Call them off,” Jane pleaded.

“No.” Not even a moment’s hesitation in Victor’s voice.

Nico, though, Nico seemed full of hesitation for the first time since she’d known him. His body sagged, and his face contorted. And, in the end, he let the Kringles drag him away.

Jane couldn’t look at her brother, and somehow her feet took her into her bedroom. Victor must have followed because the door slammed shut just as his voice exploded around her.

“What in hell do you think you’re doing, Jane?”

“Building my own future.” She’d thought she’d been anyway. She should have known it would never work.

“I told you I had suitors lined up!”

“I want to choose my own husband.”

“And you can from five ready and filthy rich alchemists!”

“I love—”

“Love doesn’t feed a multitude of mouths!” He stomped across the room and leaned his palms into the mantel, hung his head over the empty grate.

She hugged her arms around her middle. There was nothing she could say to convince him.

“What is this?” He straightened and held something in one hand up to the light streaming through the window.

It was one of Nico’s silver toys. He must have left it there for her. Fear pumped like blood through her veins and rooted her to the floor.

Her brother snagged her wrist and slammed the toy into her palm. A star with lovely lines etched into, radiating out from its center. She clutched it to her chest.

He loomed over her, casting a shadow, his closeness offering no warmth, only waves of winter cold. “Where did you get this?”

She couldn’t tell him that.

She didn’t have to. She could see realization dawning across his face. “Sir Nicholas. He’s the intruder.” His voice rose now, louder and louder with each word. “Into the damned hospital and into your bed!”

She flinched. Victor had not always despised her. The daisy chain, her faded crown. One of a handful of lovely memories.