Page 29 of The Virtues of Christmas
Papa had aged significantly in ten years. His shoulders were stooped, his hair had thinned, and his clothing hung loosely on his frame. Henrietta steeled her heart against the changes in his appearance, because the jut of his chin and the cold in his eyes promised her no welcome. The housekeeper had tried to show her to the formal parlor, but Henrietta had scoffed at that bit of presumption and let herself into Papa’s library.
He stood in the doorway, still apparently unwilling to be in the same room with her. “Madam, you are not welcome in this house.” Even his voice had grown weaker.
“Too bad,” Henrietta retorted, “because I was born here, and I’ve nowhere else to go. The least you could do is ring for tea, Papa. Traveling up from London has taken days, all of them cold, and the dratted coaches nearly rattled my teeth from my head.”
“Your mother never liked—” He caught himself. “Be gone from this house. Immoral women must fend for themselves.”
Stubborn, but then, Henrietta had learned to be stubborn too. “I’ve given up being immoral. I content myself now with garden-variety wickedness. When I burn my finger, I use bad language. I forgot to say grace before breakfast today, but I was anticipating this joyous reunion. I haven’t had a duke in my bed for months, Papa.”
“Henrietta!”
Had his lips twitched?
“Well, I haven’t.” One handsome baron, for a few hours. That hardly mattered. “Unless you intend to scorn me for the rest of my life—or what remains of yours—then you will endure my company over the holidays.”
Please, Papa. Please…She’d tried pleading once before, and he’d not bothered to reply to her letter.
His gaze strayed to the portrait over the mantel. Mama’s likeness needed a good cleaning, something Henrietta’s brothers would never dare to suggest.
“There isn’t a single bed available at the inn?”
The inn had never once been full, in Henrietta’s experience. “Not that I know of. You’re letting out all the heat from the fire.”
He took two steps into the room and closed the door behind him. “You have grown bold, Henrietta Eloisa. I do not approve of bold women.”
“I do not approve of hard-hearted, cantankerous men.” Or thieves or liars.
Papa had always had a leonine quality, and his eyebrows had grown positively fierce. “I’ll not tolerate disrespect, Henrietta.”
“Then we understand each other, becauseneither will I.”
That earned her a definite twitch of the paternal lips, though she’d never been more serious.
Then Papa drew himself up, into a semblance of the imposing man he’d been in Henrietta’s childhood. “Tomorrow, you will find other accommodations. You may stay the night, but no longer.”
One night?He’d toss his own daughter out into the snow come morning? Henrietta was tempted to remonstrate with him, to air old grievances and trade recriminations until he admitted his share of responsibility for ten years of rejection.
She wassorryshe’d disobeyed him and had apologized for her transgressions in writing. She was about to remind her father of those salient facts when she recalled Michael, apologizing with desperate sincerity in the cold morning sunshine.
“Thank you, Papa. I’ll have one of my trunks brought in and introduce my maid to your housekeeper.”
“You travel with a maid?”
“Of course, and I usually take my own coach and team, though on way up from Town I had a mishap.”I fell in love, but I’ll get over it.
He settled into the chair behind his desk, his movements slow and gingerly. “You have a coach and team. My daughter. Racketing about England in the dead of winter with her own…”
“And a maid too.”
“Whom you will see to now,” Papa said. “Be off with you, Henrietta. I have much to do, and your brothers will want to know of your arrival. Send them each a note, lest they hear of your visit from some hostler or tavern maid.”
Be off with you, not five minutes after he’d stepped into the room. When Henrietta had taken herself away to London, he’d not spoken to her for ten years, now she was tobe off with herself.
“You can write those notes to my brothers,” she said. “My travels have exhausted me, and I’m in need of a hot cup of tea. Shall I have a tray sent to you as well?”
Papa scowled at her as if she’d tripped over a chamber pot. “I prefer coffee.”
“Coffee, then. I’ll let the maid know.” If Henrietta brought him that tray, she might dump it over his head. “It’s good to be home, Papa.”
