'Twas the Night After Christmas (36 page)

Thank God she hadn’t admitted it—he might have been the cruel sort of fellow Lady Devonmont’s husband had apparently been.

“In any case, he . . . he wasn’t the sort of man who would have wanted to take in my . . . ” She sighed. “He was a very upright sort. Don’t mistake me, he was a good man, and I loved him, but I just couldn’t tell him
that.
I couldn’t risk my marriage.”

Camilla understood all too well after Lady Devonmont’s tale. Was it any wonder that Pierce couldn’t find any path to happiness when he had such a skewed blueprint to follow?

Pierce. She sighed.
He
was what was missing.

As if she’d imagined him, the door to the nursery opened, and his painfully familiar voice said, “There you are, lad. I was wondering where you’d gone off to.”

“Lord Devonmont!” Jasper cried, and ran over to him. “Look, Mama, who’s come for Christmas!”

“I see,” she managed, trying to keep her heart from shining in her eyes as they all rose to greet him.

There was a shadow over his features and a hint of uncertainty in the way he stared at her. She didn’t know what to make of that, but she took some reassurance from the fact that Lady Devonmont stood beside him beaming. Had he talked to her already? Had she told him all?

Pierce lifted Jasper into his arms, but his eyes never left Camilla. “Merry Christmas, Mrs. Stuart.”

“Merry Christmas, my lord.” She dared not say more. She was afraid her every word would trumpet her feelings.

“I understand that we have guests,” Pierce said.

With a groan, Camilla realized she’d been so flustered that she hadn’t made the necessary introductions.

As she did so, she could feel her mother’s eyes on her. No doubt she was curious about why the atmosphere between Camilla and his lordship was so charged.

“I’d like to thank you, sir,” Lady Hedon said, looping her hand through Camilla’s arm. “If not for you sending Mr. Manton to St. Joseph’s, I would never have found my daughter.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, his voice now decidedly strained.

“I got a lot of Christmas presents, my lord!” Jasper said, always wanting to be the center of attention.

“Did you, indeed?”

“Oh, yes! Her ladyship gave me a box of brand-new tin soldiers, and they even have a fort! And Mama gave me a stocking to hang by the fire, that she made all by herself, and it’s full of nuts and oranges and sugarplums. Oh, and she gave me a wooden
boat, too. And Maisie gave me a cap for Christmas and it’s like the one in the poem and I’m supposed to wear it when I sleep and—”

“I brought you a Christmas present, too, my boy,” Pierce said, staving off what was promising to be a long recitation.

“Oh no, my lord, please,” Camilla protested. “You already gave him a pony. And you really shouldn’t even have done that.”

“Nonsense. Besides, this is just a small gift.” Setting the lad down, he motioned a footman forward who was carrying several wrapped boxes. Pierce pulled one out and offered it to Jasper with a flourish. “Here you go.”

Jasper looked to her. “Can I open it, Mama?”

“Of course,” she said.

Tearing off the paper, Jasper pulled out what looked like a framed picture. He stared hard at it, then broke into a smile. “It’s the poem, Mama!” he cried, running over to her. “Look, it’s the poem about St. Nicholas!”

It was indeed. Pierce had gotten someone to write it out on vellum and then frame it.

“Now, it will be preserved for whenever you want to read it,” he told the boy.

Camilla’s heart caught in her throat. “It’s a very lovely gift,” she choked out. “What do you say, Jasper?”

“Thank you, my lord!” Jasper said. “Thank you very much!” Then his face fell. “I don’t have a present for you.” He glanced over at his eight tin soldiers, lined up in front of the tin cup that was serving as a sleigh. “Unless you want my old soldiers.”

Pierce walked up to ruffle his hair. “You keep those. But there
is
a gift you could give me.” He lifted his gaze to Camilla. “I’d like
to steal your mother for a short while, if you don’t mind. I won’t keep her long. Is that all right?”

Jasper bobbed his head. “I’ll stay here with Maisie and her ladyship and my grandmama. I have a grandmama now, you know.”

“I heard,” Pierce said tightly.

“I never had a grandmama before.” Kenneth’s parents had been long dead when Jasper was born. The lad smiled over at Lady Hedon. “She’s nice.”

Lady Hedon chuckled. “And you, my boy, are quite the little charmer. In fifteen years, you’ll be breaking every heart in London. Now come here and sit with your grandmama and show me your new poem, while your mother goes to speak to his lordship.”

Pierce held the door open, and Camilla went out with him, her heart hammering so hard she was sure the world could hear it.

He led her down the hall a short way to where a big box sat. “I brought you a present, too,” he said.

She wanted to cry. “Pierce, you can give me and Jasper as many gifts as you like, but it’s not going to change my mind about—”

“I know. That’s not what I’m trying to do.” He gestured to the box. “Just open it.”

With a lump in her throat, she opened the box, then stared in bewilderment at what was inside. It was a miniature sleigh with handles on the back, for a doll or a—

Her gaze shot to his.

“It’s for the children I hope we’ll have. At Montcliff. If you’ll consent to be my wife.”

When she just stood there, gaping at him, hardly able to believe her ears, he added, “You told me once that I make you feel
like you could fly. Well, I’m hoping perhaps we can fly together as one big family. You, Jasper, our children—”

“Your mother?”

“Yes, her, too,” he said, his eyes misty. “She told me everything. I’d already figured out most of it, yet when I heard it from her, I realized that you were right—about a great many things, but one in particular. I
was
trying to punish her by not marrying. All I ended up doing, however, was punishing myself, denying myself the family I’d never had, because I was sure that if I tried to gain it, I would fail. And I knew I couldn’t endure that pain a second time.”

She was crying now, silently.

“Hearing how much she risked for me made me see that love has risks at every turn. She risked so much for love—love of Gilchrist, love of me, love of the children I haven’t even had yet. So I told myself that the least I could do to honor that sacrifice was risk my own heart.”

He smiled and reached up to rub her tears away. “There was only one problem with that,” he said, his voice hoarse with emotion. “I’d already lost my heart. I think I lost it the moment you showed up in my bedchamber, demanding that I give my mother her due, telling me that absurd tale about how you would readily jump into my bed because I was ‘rumored to be quite good at that sort of thing.’ ”

“And justifiably so,” she managed to tease through her tears.

“You see?” he rasped. “That’s why I love you, Camilla. You are the only woman who simply laughs at me when I try to be an arse. And somehow, in doing so, you make me not want to be an arse at all.”

“You’re not an arse,” she said, lifting her hand to cup his cheek.

He covered her hand with his. “Oh, I am sometimes. And I know that you have other choices now that you have a mother who wants to make you an heiress, and you are free as a bird for the first time in your life. I realize what an incredible gift she is offering you. But if you marry me, I promise to spend the rest of my life giving you every possible chance to fly.”

“I don’t want to fly, my love,” she whispered, sure that her heart would explode at any moment. “Not unless we fly together.”

The smile that broke over his face was so unguarded that it made her want to drag him downstairs and right into bed. But she settled for letting him pull her into his arms and kiss her as if she were the only woman in the world. The woman who’d miraculously captured his heart.

When he had her pulse racing and her toes curling, he tucked her hand in his elbow and said, “Now let’s go tell Jasper that he’s just gained himself a papa and another grandmama.”

She gazed up at him with a happy smile. “That might actually render him speechless.”

He eyed her askance. “I would sooner believe that reindeer fly.” Then his gaze warmed until she could see his heart, his true feelings, shining in his eyes. “But after today, I might actually believe that, too. Because if I can fall in love, dearling, then anything can happen.”

A
year and a day later, Pierce sat in the big chair in the nursery at Montcliff Manor with Jasper, dressed in his nightshirt, in his lap. His wife sat opposite them, nursing their two-month-old daughter, Gillian, while Maisie, who’d proved to be an excellent nursery maid, was tidying up.

Beyond them, the tree in the nursery sparkled and gleamed in the firelight. It was one of three at Montcliff this year, with a larger one in the grand drawing room downstairs and one at the dower house.

It was amazing how Montcliff Manor had become so dear to him. But it didn’t take long for him to realize that it hadn’t been the house that was cold and sterile. It had been the people in it.

The nursery was an excellent example. His father had built it
with an eye toward having an heir one day to supplant Pierce. The fool had fitted the room with austere paintings and a tall table and unforgiving chairs that would make any child squirm.

Camilla had thrown all of that out. Now cheerful scenes of boys riding ponies and children gamboling through a wood hung on the wall. The chairs were smaller and adorned with brightly colored cushions, and the table was lower to make it easier for little ones to write.

Pierce chuckled. Father was probably turning over in his grave to see it being inhabited by the likes of Jasper—the son of a vicar and a foundling—and little Gillian, the daughter of his despised son and a foundling. Every time Pierce thought of his and Camilla’s children profaning Father’s holy empire, running joyously about the estate, he felt a certain smug satisfaction.

Perhaps Mother was right. All the years of pain had been worth it just so they could both beat the old bastard in the end.

“I suppose you want me to read the Poem again,” Pierce said to Jasper. That was what they all now called “A Visit from St. Nicholas.”

“Oh no, not tonight, Papa,” Jasper shocked him by saying. “This is the night
after
Christmas, so I wrote a new poem for it.”

Pierce blinked. “You did? When did you do that?”

“This afternoon, while Grandmama Devonmont was here. She helped me.” As he unfolded a sheet of paper, he said, “Are we going to Grandmama’s house for Twelfth Night?”

“I imagine that your grandmother would march over here and box our ears if we didn’t.”

Camilla snorted. “As if she would ever ‘box’ anyone’s ears.”

“She used to make me sit in the corner when I was a boy,” Pierce pointed out. Strange, how the memories of his childhood had become less painful and more treasured in the past year.

“You probably deserved it,” Camilla said with a twinkle in her eye.

“Me? I was a model child.”

“Like
me,
” Jasper said.

“Exactly,” Pierce agreed as his wife rolled her eyes.

She claimed that he spoiled Jasper, and perhaps he did. But he certainly didn’t spoil the lad one whit more than Grandmama Devonmont did. Or, for that matter, Grandmama Hedon, whom they were going up to London to visit next month.

“All right,” Jasper said as he smoothed out the paper. “Here’s my poem. ‘ ’Twas the night after Christmas and all through the manor / Not a creature was stirring, not even a grandmama.’ ”

“Your grandmama didn’t mind that you called her a ‘creature’ ” Pierce interjected.

“She wanted to be in the poem. And I didn’t want to put a mouse in there; they scare Mama.”

“Ah, right. Go on.”

“ ‘The baby was nestled all snug in her crib, / While visions of sugarplums danced on her bib.’ ”

Camilla’s lips were quivering, and Pierce had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing.

“ ‘And Mama in her ’kerchief, and Papa in his cap—’ ”

“I don’t wear a cap to bed,” Pierce pointed out.

“You do in the poem,” Jasper said, as if that explained everything. “ ‘Had just settled down for a long winter’s nap / When
out on the lawn there arose such a noise / That it woke up the boys.’ ”

Pierce raised his brows. “You have a baby sister.”

Jasper cut a sly glance up at him. “And now I want a baby brother.”

Camilla began to cough.

Pierce grinned over at her. “I think that can be arranged.”

“You do, do you?” she said coyly as she got up to put the now slumbering baby in the crib.

Jasper paid no notice and went on. “ ‘When what to my wondering eyes should appear—’ ”

“Wait a minute,” Pierce said, lowering his voice to keep from waking the baby. “You skipped ahead.”

“I know. I couldn’t think of anything for that stuff about the ‘breast of the snow.’ It’s silly.” Jasper took a deep breath. “ ‘When what to my wondering eyes should appear / But a really big sleigh and eight giant reindeer.’ ”