Page 41 of An Earl's Christmas Seduction
Soon, Nicholas was embroiled in a game of cards with his cousins and the twins. Amelia was watching, and he chanced the occasional glance at her, wishing the two of them could be alone again. He could hardly take his eyes off her.
She was beautiful, and the more he looked at her, the more in love with her he fell. He had never felt these feelings before the intensity of a requited passion. There had been other women, other affairs, and other dalliances, but none he had felt this way about.
“After luncheon, I propose a game of sardines,” he said, as the card game came to an end.
Clara and Isobel clapped their hands together in delight.
“Oh, how exciting. Can we hide anywhere we want? Anywhere in the house?” they asked, and Nicholas nodded.
“Yes, certainly. But the two of you know Ashworth House better than anyone. Perhaps we should forbid you from the attics,” he said, even as his cousins protested vehemently.
“If we can go anywhere we like, it doesn’t matter if we know the house or not. Everyone can find a place to hide,” Clara said, and Nicholas smiled.
“Very well, but I know all the places you’ll hide,” he said, appointing himself as the searcher.
Several of the older guests declined to partake, but there was an enthusiasm among the younger ones, all of whom were excited to begin.
“I’m going to find the best place to hide,” Edmund said, smiling at Isobel, who blushed.
“We could hide together,” she said, and Nicholas raised his eyebrows.
“I think not. What would your mothers say?” he asked, glancing over to where Lady Turner and Lady Thornton were sitting in conversation with Amelia’s mother.
He wondered what they were talking about, his thoughts returning to the secret child; the baby Amelia had overheard them speaking of.
“You can’t stop us from hiding together,” Isobel said, blushing, as Nicholas rolled his eyes.
“Well… I know just where you’re going to hide, so it hardly matters, does it? I’ll find you first,” he said, grinning at his cousin, who stuck her tongue out at him.
“You don’t know. I’ve found a new one since we last played. And what’s the prize?” she asked, fixing Nicholas with a hard stare.
Nicholas laughed.
“The glory,” he replied, glancing at Amelia, and hoping he might find her hiding place first.
***
After luncheon, the younger guests gathered in the drawing room for the game of sardines. The rules were simple. The whole house was in bounds, apart from the bedrooms occupied by the guests, but there was to be no hiding outside, or in any of the outbuildings, including the hot house. Amelia was looking forward to the game, though she did not know where she would hide, even as Clara and Isobel had made suggestions.
“You could hide in the old nursery, though it’ll be full of cobwebs. We used to hate sleeping in there as children. It’s at the top of a creaking staircase, and I’m sure I saw a ghost there once,” Clara said.
“Or there’s the laundry. We once hid in there for so long we missed luncheon and tea. They sent the servants looking for us eventually,” Isobel said, with a look of pride on her face.
It seemed sardines was something of a family ritual, governed by strict rules. Nicholas was to be the searcher, and the others were to have ten minutes to find their hiding places. Once a hiding place was chosen, there was to be no changing it, and when a person was found, they would return to the drawing room and be counted in.
“I’ll take that job,” Mrs. Bennett had said, and now she sat at a small table by the hearth, on which she had placed a carriage clock to time the precise moment when Nicholas would be allowed to begin his search.
Clara, Isobel, the twins, Edmund, and Amelia were to take part. Following a countdown from Mrs. Bennett, Nicholas would be blindfolded so he couldn’t see which direction the players took when they hurried off to find their hiding places.
“Come on Edmund, hide with me. I know just the place. He’ll never find us,” Isobel said, seizing Edmund by the hand and pulling him away from the others.
Clara shook her head, and the twins grinned at one another.
“Let’s hide in the attic,” Hugh said, and he and Edgar hurried off up the stairs.
“I’m going to the laundry,” Clara said, and Amelia was left standing in the hallway, uncertain of which way to go.
She had just a few moments before Nicholas would emerge from the drawing room, and now she hurried upstairs, looking left and right along the landing, wondering which was to go. She knew most of the bedrooms were occupied by the guests, but there were some empty rooms in the upper wing of the house. Elsie had told her so.
