Page 83 of A Christmas Temptation for the Duke
Alison thought to ignore it.
It was Christmas Eve, after all, and the last thing she wanted to do was cause a scene. Get through this evening. Spend Christmas unwrapping presents and enjoying the cheer such a day might bring. Perhaps even hope that this treatment would last and eventually become the norm…
She wanted it so much. She wished for nothing more than to accept their apologies and lean into being seen. But she knew well enough that it was not real, and that they were so darn over the top about it all, made things worse.
“Lady Alison – Alison,” Lord Pemberton corrected himself, going so far as to call her by her first name only, something he never used to do. “What shall we do tomorrow?”
“What?” she asked.
“Tomorrow,” he asked again. “It is Christmas Day, and I thought you might decide for us how we are to spend it. In what order we might partake in the festivities?”
“Oh yes,” Nerissa said eagerly. “Tell us, what would you like. Anything you wish for.”
“Good idea,” Felix added. “Tell us, Alison. Do.”
“Please…” She spoke into her chest, unable to take it any longer. “Just… just stop.”
“What?” Lord Pemberton asked. “Stop what?”
“This,” she said in a whisper. “Everything. Just… you do not have to do this. I do not want it.”
“Want what?”
“To be treated this way…” She kept her eyes on her plate of food; her leg shook, her lips twitched. “There is no need for it. I forgive you all, now please, can we move on from this?”
“I don’t understand.” Lord Pemberton laughed nervously. “What are we doing exactly? Is it so wrong for a father to ask his daughter how she wants to spend Christmas Day?”
“Really, Alison,” her mother sighed. “Your father –”
“He is not my father!” Alison exploded suddenly, unable to stop herself. She snapped her head up and glared at her family, just in time to see them all gasp in surprise. “I wish that he was,” she seethed. “Oh, how I have tried to make it so. But as I have been reminded for my entire life – as I have been treated! He is not my father, and each of you are only too happy to remind me of this day after day after day.”
Wide eyes looked back at her. Mouths hung agape. A silence swept the room so that each individual droplet of snow falling outside could be heard as they kissed the snow.
Alison looked at her family, the anger gone, but the sadness took her. “You forgot me. Not just one of you, but each of you. You…” Her chin started to wobble. “You left me behind. Worse, you did not even realize it. Tell me, how long did it take until you noticed? How long until one of you thought to ask where I was?”
“Alison…” Her mother spoke carefully. “That is not… we were rushed. Winnie was –”
“Do not blame Winnie,” Alison snapped. “And do not act as if that was the only time. Mother…” She looked desperately at her mother, chin wobbling furiously, eyes welling with tears. “For my entire life, I have lived in this family like a shadow. Forgotten. Treated as an outsider – and why? All I ever wanted was to be one of you, to be daughter and sister… to be loved. But never did any of you allow it.” She looked accusingly at her family. “And not one time did one of you care to notice. Youmight act now as if we are happy, as if you see me. But you do not see me. You never did. So please, stop pretending. It is beneath you all.”
Her voice was not raised. Nor was it sharp. Rather, it was defeated, broken in places, the weight of all her woes and all the suffering she had felt finally unleashed upon her unsuspected family in ways they likely never saw coming.
And why would they? That would have required them to know what they were doing.
“Alison…” It was her mother who spoke first. “I… I know what you think –”
“I do not think it,” she cut her off. “I lived it, Mother. Do not tell me it is my imagination.”
“It is not,” her mother agreed, which itself caught her by surprise. “And you are right. For that, I am sorry, because I am to blame. You likely do not want excuses, and I do not wish to make them. But the way I have treated you… I… I…” She made to reach out, as if to stroke Alison’s face, but brought her hand back. “I only ever did it to protect you.”
“Protect me?”
“After your father died, I did not know what to do or what to say. To bring attention to it, I feared would make things worse, so I chose to ignore it. To pretend as if that part of our lives had neverhappened. And when I met Wilson…” She allowed a smile for her husband. “I believed it was best to continue to pretend. But in so doing, I cut you off and ignored your feelings. I thought that…” She sniffed. “I thought that to say nothing was the only way to allow you to heal.”
“It is not her fault,” Lord Pemberton spoke up for his wife. “I am as to blame as anyone. The truth is, Alison, I worried that you would never see me as your father – that you would not want to. So, rather than trying to heal that divide, I let it grow. I worried you would resent me, not realizing that by doing and saying nothing, you would resent me even more.”
“I am sorry also,” Nerissa said and took Alison’s hand. “I have not been the best sister.”
“Nor I the best brother,” Felix added.
