Page 24 of A Duke's Christmas Carol
David pulled a face. “And we don’t got gloves for it anyway.”
“I think that sounds like a wonderful plan,” Valerie replied, looking to the housekeeper and her daughter. “Mrs. Mullens, Miss Mullens, do you suppose we can find two pairs of gloves small enough? And I think we shall need warmer clothes all around, if such things can be found.”
Kate clasped her hands, her eyes shining with a teary contentment. “I’ll fetch some winter things at once, Miss Wightman. It would be my pleasure.” She patted her daughter gently on the shoulder. “You help with the rest of breakfast, Esther.”
“Afterward, you should certainly help us build snowmen too,” Valerie insisted with a wink, her heart soaring as she watched the young woman’s face light up.
At a certain age, ladies were not supposed to indulge in childish pursuits anymore, but Valerie had long believed in the importance of keeping one’s inner child happy. Indeed, she pitied the haughty young ladies of society who thought they had to be prim and proper at all times, denying themselves the great pleasure of playing games, climbing trees, running half-wild, and building a snowman when a child asked.
“I would like that,” Esther said quietly, her cheeks rosy with joy.
Smiling back, Valerie sipped her coffee. She might not have been at Gramfield to entertain her siblings, but making a merry place out of this castle would be a welcome consolation.
“Whatis that infernal racket?” Adrian barked from the uncomfortable, high-backed chair of his study’s bureau.
A sleepless night had already put him in a foul mood, and the fact that he had been sitting there for two hours and had written nothing more than ‘Dear Lord Buckingham’ had pushed his frustration to the edge of detonation. Now, there were people—children—shrieking and rabblerousing somewhere outside, so loud it penetrated the thick stone walls of the castle.
“My castle has been overrun,” he muttered, teeth clenched. “I have let in the enemy, and they have eviscerated my peace and put its head on a pike, and now they are parading it before me.”
All because of you, Miss Wightman.He threw down his quill and ran a stressed hand through his hair. When she had arrived, he had thought there was a thief at his door. Now, he wished shehadscarpered with his valuables instead of slowly pinching his sanity, bit by tiny bit.
“Jarvis!” he shouted, for his butler was never far away.
No one responded. No footsteps in the hallway outside. No polite knock on the door and Jarvis’ familiar face peeking into ask what Adrian needed.
“Jarvis!” he called again, his irritation transforming into a tangible disturbance in his body, like the background ache of a strained muscle.
To his fleeting alarm, the opposite door creaked open. Not the interior door that led deeper into the castle but the exterior door that led out into the gardens; the same door that Valerie had used when she had intruded on this very study’s sanctity.
“Did you call, Your Grace?” Jarvis stood there, red-faced and bright-eyed, with clumps of snow clinging to his shoes and melting flakes in his hair.
It was the very last straw.
“Are you part of this cacophony that is making it impossible for me to get anything done?” Adrian snapped, rising sharply from his chair. “Have you forgotten your duties?”
The butler lowered his gaze. “I apologize, Your Grace. I should have known better. I should have?—”
“Do not blame Mr. Jarvis,” Valerie’s sweet, infuriating voice interjected, her beautiful face appearing in the doorway. “I asked for his assistance with a rather large ball of snow, to make the body. If you want to be cross with someone, be cross with me.”
Adrian stalked toward the door, his eyes narrowed. “To make the body? What on earth are you talking about?”
“A snowman without a body is just a snowball with eyes,” Valerie replied, her smile so radiant that Adrian almost forgot how annoyed he was supposed to be.
The winter air had done something… remarkable to her. Her already luminous skin was positively glowing, her cheeks and nose were rosy with the nip of the cold, her eyes alight with a merriment that he could not fathom. Who could be happy about being out in the freezing cold?
Maintaining his glare, Adrian looked out to see what all the fuss was. The storm had eased, but it was still snowing lightly, falling down upon the blanketed gardens. However, the pristine mantle of white had been annihilated in places, great scars cutting diagonally across a large patch.
And in the center of that garden square was a growing army of monstrosities: huge balls of compacted snow stacked on top of each other, with crooked twigs sticking out, glinting fragments of coal and gleaming stones forming unnatural eyes, mouths, and noses.
“We’re making one for each of us!” Isaac said cheerily, oblivious to Adrian’s wrath.
David nodded. “Mine’s the best!”
“Is not,” Isaac remarked, the two boys descending into a lively argument.
As they quarreled, Valerie sidled up to Adrian; the closeness of her made him stand up straighter, his limbs tense. Being near to her was a risk, even with others around.
“We have yet to immortalizeyouin snowman form,” she said with that accursed, lovely smile. “You could help us, if you want?”
