Page 16 of A Duke's Christmas Carol
“Pardon?” Jarvis replied, frowning.
“Tell me of her,” Adrian repeated.
The butler opened and closed his mouth as if his voice had been snatched away, his eyes scrunching up in obvious confusion. “She has had breakfast, I believe. She spends most of her time in the… um… other drawing room or the kitchens or her bedchamber.”
“That is not what I meant,” Adrian remarked with an irritated growl.
The butler’s eyes widened with understanding. “Oh, you mean her injury?”
“Of course,” Adrian muttered.
“Well, the healer has been again, and she seems most pleased by the progress,” Jarvis said in a not-altogether pleased tone. “The swelling has reduced, apparently, and Miss Wightman herselfhas said that she is almost able to write again, though I have seen no evidence.”
Adrian snapped the book in his hands shut—a journal from his great-great-great-grandfather—and gave a nod of approval. “Good.”
He waited for the butler to offer to make arrangements for the woman’s departure, but Jarvis had dropped his chin to his chest, standing with all the awkwardness of a schoolboy outside the headmaster’s study.
“You are… not thinking of making her leave now, are you?” the butler asked hesitantly, keeping his gaze lowered. “The snow has not yet begun to melt. More is likely to fall overnight, if the clouds are any indication. And we have not yet heard any word from her driver, so he must still be stuck in town.”
Getting up from his chair and coming around to the front of the desk, Adrian leaned against it with his arms folded, eyeing his butler with suspicion. The man’s words were too hurried, too earnest, as if he had been rehearsing them. Indeed, being aware of Adrian’s preferences and all, Jarvis should have been offering up solutions to the snow problem, not reasons to keep Valerie around.
“Then, tomorrow, have someone ride to town to seek out the driver,” Adrian instructed. “Bring him back here, and we shall have some of our staff tend to the carriage. Their progress may be slow, but they cannot be the first people to journey through thick snow.”
Jarvis’ head snapped up, a look of dismay etched upon his face. “That would be terribly dangerous, Your Grace!”
Adrian stared at the butler, saying nothing. He wanted Jarvis to speak of his own accord, to admit to whatever it was that was going on here. It was not like Jarvis to protest or criticize Adrian’s instructions, so clearly it was not just Adrian who had been disturbed and distracted by the beautiful intruder in the castle.
“I would not want to see her hurt,” Jarvis said haltingly. “She has… made quite an impression upon the staff, Your Grace. She is well liked, she is friendly, she is… What I mean to say is, perhaps it would be to the household’s benefit if she were to stay a while longer? She might even be able to help your relationship with your tenants, put all these rumors and stories to rest, once and for all.”
Annoyance simmered in Adrian’s veins. It was one thing for Valerie to creep intohishead unbidden, but it was quite another for her to be winning over his staff. Before she arrived, Jarvis wouldneverhave questioned anything that Adrian said; now, the butler was more or less in open defiance.
It is a mutiny… or will be, if I do not get rid of her soon.
“My terms were clear,” Adrian said darkly. “The moment her wrist his healed, she will be gone from this castle. If you say anything to defy me again, or mention her staying again, there will be severe consequences. Now, get out of my sight.”
To Adrian’s disbelief, it actually looked like Jarvis might protest, the man’s mouth opening a little. But then the butler clearly thought better of it, bowed his head with a faint “Yes, Your Grace,” and walked quickly out of the library.
Left alone again, Adrian wandered back around to his chair and sat down. He picked up the journal he had been reading and opened it again, but as he read, his eyes skimmed over the words. He must have read the same sentence at least ten times before he threw the book down in frustration; his mind was too full of Valerie to read about dead ancestors.
Indeed, his mind was too full of Valerie to even enjoy his solitude anymore, as if, by kissing her, he had pulled the veil back on his isolation and realized that it was not the sanctuary he believed it to be. It was just a cage. If he was to ever stand a chance of finding peace in that cage again, he needed to remove the person who had rattled the bars.
I must do it now.
Scraping back his chair, body brimming with a flood of frustration, he abandoned the quiet warmth of his library and set out to pluck the thorn from his side.
Aside from the night when he had carried Valerie up to her guest chambers, Adrian had not voluntarily sought out this part of the castle in a very long time. After all, it was a place for guests, and he did not have any. Richard usually slept in the family wing, or wherever he had drunkenly dozed off, so there was never any need to visit these floors.
Even in the torchlit gloom, however, he knew which chamber belonged to Valerie.
How she stared at me when I threw her onto the bed…
He cleared his tight throat and pressed on, ready to scoop her into his arms for a second time, but, on this occasion, to deliver herfromthe castle instead of into it.
At the door, he raised his hand to knock, when a sound stalled the rap of his knuckles: a soft, mournful snuffling; the secret whimper of someone in great pain.
A trick, no doubt. She probably heard me approach.
Steeling his resolve, he thumped his fist against the door.
