Page 63 of A Duke's Christmas Carol
“Get out!” he barked.
As if I mean to do anything else,she thought angrily, as she stepped down from the carriage.
She did not see the stinging slap coming, but she felt it surely enough: a prickling wave of heat and pain that surged across hercheek. Her neck jolted at the hard impact, her eyes watering, as a startled gasp left her mouth.
“How dare you defy me!” her father roared, raising his hand as if he meant to strike her again. “When I tell you that you are to wed, you do not run like a coward into the night! You do not bring potential disgrace to my household, you wretched girl!”
Clenching her teeth, her eyes burning with fury, she spat back, “I went to find my sister.” She took a shaky breath. “But at least I have returned, have I not?”
“Do you think that grants you leniency?” her father seethed. “If you had not come back, I would have sent men todragyou back. So, at least you have spared me that expense.”
She laughed bitterly. “Oh, but you are usually so frugal about spending money. Even money you do not have.”
“If I hear another word from that smart mouth of yours, I will punish your brother and sister until you learn to be silent,” he snarled, knowing that any punishment he gave to her would not matter at all. But a threat to Cecil and Nora? That was a different matter entirely.
She touched her hand to the hot, undoubtedly red skin of her sore cheek. “Do not touch them.”
“If you do as you are told, they will not have to suffer,” he replied. “From this day until your wedding day, you are to stay inyour bedchamber. You will not leave it without my permission. And youwillmarry the duke, whether you like it or not.”
Valerie glared at him, for there was nothing else she could do. “As I said, I have returned.” She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Do you think I did so for my own amusement? IknowI must marry the man you have chosen for me. If I did not, I would not be here.”
I would be in the north, surrounded by snow and good cheer, and I would not have breathed a word about my betrothal. Instead, I would be happy with a very different duke.
“Good. Now, get out of my sight,” her father barked.
With her heart breaking like a heavy foot on thin ice, Valerie walked straight past her father and into the house that, briefly and perhaps selfishly, she had hoped she would never have to see again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“Valerie! Valerie!”
Two figures charged across the bedchamber, nearly knocking her over with the force of their enthusiastic embrace. In an instant, Valerie’s arms were around them, sinking down to her knees so she could hold them better, and trying very hard not to burst into tears as she clutched them to her.
“Oh, my precious beauties,” she crooned, squeezing them even tighter. “My little rascals. My sweet, sweet rascals.”
Her brother and sister hugged her back with equal fervor, as though she had been away for years instead of weeks. And, for that one moment, everything felt all right with the world again. She could drop the weight of her misery, just as long as she kept holding onto her siblings.
It was Cecil who pulled away first. He stepped back and folded his arms behind his back like a little gentleman. “Why did you come back?”
“Pardon?” Valerie had to laugh, otherwise she would weep at the abrupt question. “Did I not promise that I would return by Christmas? Did you think I would miss spending this day with my beloved rascals?”
The young boy eyed her with suspicion, all his former excitement gone from his frowning face. He could not have known how much that expression would sting her, when all she wanted to do was forget she had ever been away.
Nora draped an arm around her older sister’s neck, content to perch on Valerie’s lap. “Cecil said you wouldn’t be home until January,” she explained. “But I saw the carriage from the window! Didn’t I, Cecil?”
“You did,” the boy replied. “I thought you were going to stay away until after the wedding date?”
Valerie had forgotten about that. Before her departure, she had intimated to Cecil that she mightnotreturn by Christmas after all, in order to avoid matrimony. He had encouraged it, urging her to stay away, but she had not had the heart to tell Nora that.
She cleared her dry throat and sank back on her haunches, holding onto Nora. “There was a… change of circumstances. I had no choice but to return.”
“Did you find our sister?” Nora asked in a whisper, putting a finger to her lips for extra secrecy… although their father already knew what Valerie had learned about the missing twin.
“I did not,” Valerie replied with a sigh. “There was a terrible storm and… I was injured and had to recuperate for a while. I never made it past that storm, so I could not even begin my search. But, fear not, I have not given up; I must simply think of another way to find her. It was foolish of me to think I could just go to Scotland and find her; Scotland is a rather large place.”
Nora gasped. “Injured? Are you better?”
“Mostly,” Valerie replied.
