Page 37 of The Virtues of Christmas
“Listen to me,” she said. “I don’t like that you stole my book, Michael Brenner. You should have asked me for it.”
He stuck his hands in his pockets, though the parlor was cozy. “Would you have given it to me? I was a stranger to you, a man you had no reason to trust.”
“Then you should have taken the time to earn my trust.”
“I should have, and I am profoundly sorry I didn’t. I behaved badly, but Henrietta…”
From the library came the happy shrieks of children loose for the first time in their uncle’s home. The sound nearly broke Henrietta’s heart, though at least Michael’s family had come, however dubious their timing.
“But what, Michael?”
He put his hands behind his back and approached her. “I do not regret the intimacies I shared with you. I can’t, and I never will. If I’d approached you as Beltram’s negotiator, bargaining that book away from you with coin, charm, or threats, would you ever have allowed me close enough to become your lover?”
She’d wondered the same thing. “I don’t know.”
He stepped away, and the silence grew to encompass Christmases past, future, and all the years in between. Without Michael, those Christmases would be terribly lonely, even if Henrietta became the doting aunt and spinster daughter her family now invited her to be.
A revelation, that.
“I do know,” Henrietta said, “that I treasure those moments shared with you too. I should have thrown that book in the fire years ago, but hadn’t the courage. I wouldn’t be here, calling on you, if my father hadn’t kidnapped me and demanded I accompany him on a holiday call, as a proper daughter ought. He’s gone daft.”
“He’s apologizing, in his way. He and I had a frank talk the day after you left his household. Will you accept his apology, Henrietta?”
“You and Papa had a frank talk? What did you and he have to talk about?”
One corner of Michael’s mouth lifted. “I wanted to ask him if I could pay you my addresses, but the topic didn’t come up. I was too busy lecturing him.”
Henrietta sat on the nearest reliable surface—a tufted sofa. “There’s too much pink in this room.”
“Then redecorate it,” Michael said. “May I sit with you?”
“You wanted to ask Papa if you couldcourtme? You’re a baron, and I’m a…” A woman in love, among other things. Henrietta patted the place beside her. “This is all very sudden.”
“This is all ten years too late.” Michael came down beside her and took her hand. “Can you forgive me, Henrietta? I have wronged you, but I also hope I’ve nudged things with your family in a better direction. I couldn’t think what else to do.”
Michael hadhad a talkwith Papa. Henrietta shuddered to think what that conversation had entailed, but Papa had introduced her not an hour past as a proper young miss, which she most assuredly would never be again.
“Whatever you said,” Henrietta replied, “it opened a door that all of my wrenching and wrestling couldn’t budge. Papa and I will never get back the last ten years, but you’ve given us the years to come, and that’s miracle enough.”
Michael’s grip on her hand was loose and warm. “You’ll allow me to court you?”
Henrietta didn’t fly into giddy raptures, though she was tempted to. Ten years ago, she might have. Michael apparently didn’t expect giddy raptures, and that made up her mind.
“Papa has the right of it,” she said. “You will court me, right down to asking his permission before he leaves here today. You’ll walk out with me, when the weather moderates.”
“And join your family for Sunday dinner,” Michael said. “Sunday dinners are very important.”
“I’ll get to know your sisters—I wrote to them, by the way.”
He kissed her knuckles. “You put them up to this invasion?”
“You looked so lonely and they hadn’t had a formal invitation, only hints and suggestions. They were waiting for the great baron to do the pretty, never having had a great baron in the family before.”
“Thank goodness you came along to translate the brother into the baron, then. Will we cry the banns?”
This discussion was so odd, and so right. This was two people discussing a shared future, not an arrangement. This was solving problems, forgiving, loving, and moving forward, not choosing jewelry or signing a lease on a love nest.
This was what a happily ever after in the making looked like.
