Page 34 of A Duke's Christmas Carol
Suddenly shy, which seemed absurd considering what had just happened, she took his hand and allowed him to help her up.
“What if you have another nightmare?” she asked.
He gazed at her then, the ghost of a sad smile upon his lips. “Ignore the screams. They will pass, as most things do.”
Uncertain of what he meant by that, and too flustered to ask, she did not exchange another word with Adrian as he escorted her back to her chambers. Indeed, she did not even respond to his “goodnight, Miss Wightman” as he left her there.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Your Grace?”
A light, almost reluctant knock on the study door brought Adrian’s head up from the mountain of correspondence he had just peaked.
“What is it, Jarvis?” he replied, flexing his aching hand.
The butler entered with a look of mischief about him, though he tried to hide his smile. “As the boys will be returning as early as tomorrow, Miss Wightman and Mrs. Mullens have prepared a little something in the drawing room this evening. They thought—hoped, rather—that you might want to join?”
It took every speck of Adrian’s discipline to smother his surprise. He had not expected Valerie to request his presence and had spent the day in his study for that exact reason—to give her some distance from him.
Would it be wise?He glanced down at his last letter, a dull bit of writing to one of his business associates. That morning, when he had come downstairs to begin his day, it had taken him hours to write anything, too distracted by thoughts of last night.
So, it was something of a miracle that he had made it through everything that needed to be done. Surely, that diligence called for a reward? And what could be the harm in joining a group entertainment? It was not as if he could lay her down and indulge in arousing her pleasures with other people in the room.
Indeed, it might actually be the safest place for him to be.
“Why not,” he said, folding up the letter and adding his seal.
The butler’s face broke into a cheery smile. “Excellent, Your Grace! Oh, they will be so pleased!”
“Jarvis,” Adrian said sternly.
The butler paused. “Yes, Your Grace?”
“Do not make a fuss.”
Jarvis bowed his head, though the quirk of a smile remained. “Of course, Your Grace. Apologies.”
Valerie could not sit still, her gaze darting around the drawing room to survey the scene. The little party to celebrate the boys’ imminent departure had been a last-minute idea, a sort of rehearsal for the Christmas party at the orphanage, and she had not realized how stressful it was to be a host.
“Oh, I have seenplentyof ghosts here,” the cook, Mrs. Leggat, said, presumably in response to something David and Isaac had asked. “And, let me tell you, they can’t be chased away with mere stones.”
Isaac, who sat cross-legged on the floor by the fire, munching contentedly on a blackberry tart, stared in awe at the cook. “Where did you see one?”
“Have you spoken to one? Were you scared?” David interjected, removing the head of a small marzipan snowman and popping it into his mouth.
The cook seemed delighted that the boys were enjoying her food, which she had spent all day making for the occasion. She seemed equally delighted to be the source of their rapt curiosity.
“Well, let me tell you about the winter ghost,” Mrs. Leggat said in a dramatic voice, as she shifted in her seat.
The boys gasped, sitting up straighter, nodding eagerly.
They were not the only ones. A reasonable crowd had gathered to honor their unexpected, young guests: Kate, Esther, the stablemaster and one of the stable boys, a handful of maids, two footmen, and the gardener were all there. Mostly for the food, Valerie suspected, but their presence created a pleasant, warming hubbub that was precisely what Christmas was all about: the gathering together of people in shared merriment.
Although, the boys’ choice of entertainment was more reminiscent of All Hallows’ Eve.
“She wanders the rose gardens, where you made those snowmen,” the cook continued. “A beautiful woman all dressed in white, with the sweetest voice you’d ever hope to hear. Now, you have to look closely in the snow, or you won’t see her at all. But you can still hear her when all’s quiet, singing a Christmas hymn.”
The gardener chuckled. “Aye, I’ve seen her. Like an angel, she is.”
