Page 96 of How the Belle Stole Christmas

“Idon’t want to wear a dress!”

“You’re such a baby!”

“Don’t shout at her!”

“Don’t shout at my sister!”

Cornelius Harcourt, the tenth Earl of Latchwood, strolled toward the nursery, pinching the bridge of his nose. His footsteps were heavy, his head already throbbing from his nieces’ constant bickering. He had never imagined that four little girls could produce so much noise—every single day.

Tripping over a tear in the carpet, he stumbled but caught himself before entering the nursery. Inside, his nieces stood in a tight circle, all flushed faces and flying words. Off to the side, the housekeeper, Mrs. Martin, stood frozen in defeat, watching the standoff unfold.

Mrs. Martin was a prominent member of the household staff. She’d been employed with the family for nearly forty years. Always in possession of a sweet disposition, it was no wonder that, in her older years, she had become completely docile when it came to the girls.

Like most people in his nieces’ lives, especially Cornelius, Mrs. Martin doted on the girls’ every whim. However, she was not suited to discipline them.

Folding his arms over his chest, Cornelius took a deep breath, readying himself for the battle of a lifetime. It was easy to admit that correcting his nieces’ behaviors was difficult. They were all beautiful angelic little beings in his eyes.

“I don’t have to listen to you!” Clara shouted, hitting Rosalind on the arm.

“Don’t hit me!” Rosalind, the eldest at twelve years, shouted back. She greatly favored her mother, with her silky dark hair and hazel eyes. Her light brown skin glowed as she glared at her younger cousin.

Clara, eight years going on twenty, was the wild child of his nieces. She often tried to control the lot of them, especially four-year-old Emmy. Clara and her sister, Penny, favored Cornelius’s older brother, with their smooth mahogany skin and dark eyes.

“You’re always on her side!” Clara shouted back at Rosalind, who was taking a menacing step toward her younger cousin.

He decided to intervene before the girls came to fisticuffs, Cornelius walked to where they stood in the center of the room. Nothing surprised him anymore when it came to his nieces.

Noticing their uncle for the first time, the girls went completely silent, watching him curiously.

“What seems to be the problem today?” he asked, peering down at them.

There was always some sort of problem with four girls under the same roof. The funny thing was that he wouldn’t change it for anything in the world. His nieces were the only good thing in his life. It was unfortunate that they all depended on him.

Emmy came to his side, pulling on the leg of his trousers, a habit of hers whenever she wanted to be picked up or paid attention to.

“I don’t want to wear a dress!”

“She’s being a baby! Everyone knows girls wear dresses,” Clara said, throwing her arms up in the air like he’d seen his own mother do.

Rosalind stepped in front of Clara. “And everyone knows that you’re a mean brat!”

“Don’t call my sister a brat! Emmy is being a baby,” Penny said softly, the quietest one of them all.

The sisters often teamed up with one another, switching allegiance with dizzying speed, depending on the day, the argument, or the offense. Right or wrong rarely mattered. Loyalty was fluid in a house filled with girls desperate for security and love.

When he was not seeing to the family’s dwindling fortune, Cornelius spent most of his days settling their petty disputes. They had gone through five governesses in just two years. Each had left with the same parting words: “The girls need a mother.”

Three of the girls still had mothers, at least in name.

Rosalind, however, had been completely forsaken.

Her mother, Marrianne, had remarried shorty after completing the barest semblance of mourning for Howard, Cornelius’s eldest brother.

Her new husband, the Marquess of Pinemore, had no need for girls in his household, especially not a reminder of a previous marriage.

So Marrianne had abandoned Rosalind, trading her daughter for a new title and the promise of an heir.

Cornelius had tried not to judge her harshly. But every time he looked into Rosalind’s guarded hazel eyes, so like her mother’s, he felt the sting of that abandonment anew.

“That is quite enough from all of you,” he said, voice sharper now. “Rosalind, there will be no name calling in this house. Apologize to your cousin.”

Rosalind stood still, her jaw clenched tight, hands balled into fists at her sides. “I apologize for calling you a brat,” she muttered through gritted teeth, refusing to make eye contact with Clara.

Clara, emboldened by the forced apology, stuck out her tongue at her older cousin.

Cornelius turned to Clara with a stern glare. “And you, young lady, there is no hitting in this house. No pudding for you this evening.”

A piece of him broke then. He hated punishing them. Every time he disciplined one of the girls, he felt like a villain. But he also knew what could happen to children who were allowed to grow wild and without boundaries. He’d seen it often among the ton.

“Apologize to Rosalind,” he added, softer this time. “And if I find out that any one of you are hitting again, I will take the dolls away.”

“No!” they all cried out in unison.

Dolls were higher than currency in the Harcourt household. Each girl had three uniquely handmade and fiercely loved dolls. All of which they clung to like lifelines. Threatening to take their dolls away was like attacking their very hearts.

“Good,” he replied gently. “Now you three finish preparing yourselves and apologize to Mrs. Martin for your unruly behaviors.”

“Yes, Uncle,” they mumbled, heads hung low as they shuffled toward the kind housekeeper.

Happy for the moment, he bent down to scoop up Emmy, the smallest and most delicate of his nieces. Her small body curled into his, tiny hands clinging to his waistcoat.

“Emmy.” He walked over to the crumpled dress on the floor. “We’ve talked about this, haven’t we?” He raised a brow.

She peeked up at him with large green eyes, lips trembling. Of all his nieces, it was Emmy he worried for the most.

Rosalind had her armor. Penny had Clara. Clara had her fire. But sweet little Emmy only had him.

Emmy was the youngest of his nieces, his favorite brother, Marcus’s, only child. Her mother, sweet, kind, Sophia, had died shortly after childbirth. There would be no one left to claim Emmy once the curse claimed Cornelius.

And it would.

It was inevitable. The Latchwood curse did not have favorites, nor did it heed prayers.

Every Latchwood earl for an entire generation had died in their thirty-fifth year of life.

His father and his eldest brother had died at thirty-five.

Bernard was next. And then Marcus, so overwhelmed with his own grief, had died suddenly, shortly after his thirty-fifth birthday.

Cornelius was the last of his father’s four sons, and his thirty-fifth birthday was on the morrow.

Either way, the curse would end with him.

Smoothing Emmy’s wild curls back away from her forehead, he swallowed down the rising panic.

They would be fine without him.

“But Uncle, I don’t like dresses. They itch,” Emmy said, slipping her thumb in her mouth.

The familiar gesture tugged at his heart. She’d developed the habit after Marcus’s death. His mother thought it best to let it run its course, while their last governess insisted it was a habit that needed breaking.

“I’ll make you a bargain,” he said, crouching so that they were eye to eye. “Wear the dress for your grandmother’s arrival, and then you can change into one of your father’s old trousers.”

Her eyes lit up like the morning sun bursting through dark clouds. “You mean it, Uncle?” she shouted excitedly.

“I do.” He smiled past the weight in his abdomen.

She flung her arms around his neck, squeezing tightly. Cornelius wrapped his arms around her tiny body, thankful for the small miracles of his nieces. The sound of her glee almost made him forget the familiar ache in his chest at the thought of his approaching birthday.

After Marcus’s sudden death, a month after he turned thirty-five, Emmy had been unconsolable and confused.

She was too young to fully understand, yet too old to forget.

Marcus had been a distant father, too wrapped up in the fog of his own grief since he’d lost his wife.

But even his haunted presence was something that Emmy had clung to with both hands.

It was Cornelius who held her when she cried. Who fed her, clothed her, tucked her in at night. Braiding hair and having daily tea parties with Dolly and the others were an everyday occurrence for him.

Loving his brothers’ children, and being loved by them in return, was the only thing anchoring him to the world. It was a cruel twist of fate that soon he’d be ripped away from them all.

He pulled away, memorizing Emmy’s cherubic face, the way her nose crinkled when she smiled, her missing front tooth, and the adorable dimple in her cheeks that matched his own.

In preparation for his imminent death, Cornelius had sold everything that wasn’t entailed, scraping together what little he could for their futures.

Investing his last thousand pounds into government bonds would provide an annuity of over two hundred pounds a year each.

A small sum, but it was all he could manage.

His only comfort was that his mother had married a kind and wealthy man in Viscount Woodbury. Together they promised to keep the girls together, protect them, and love them.

“Now let’s have Mrs. Martin put on your dress.” He tapped her nose, earning a joyous giggle from her.

She ran over to the housekeeper, who was clutching the pale green dress in her hands. Once the dress was on, Emmy ran back to her uncle. “Lace it, Uncle, please.” She commanded and he could not help but to obey.

Her smile was wide, eyes sparkling as he tugged the fabric into place.