“What, mine?” Donovan shrugged. “That we might all put aside our differences.” He glanced at the floor, lost for a tiny moment, then lifted a smile to the rest of them. “Your turn, Ruth.”
“Oh, my Christmas wish is very simple. I should like to learn how to make Margaret’s plum pudding.”
“How lovely!” Margaret said. “Then my Christmas wish is to teach you. Come round this week. Ben?”
“My Christmas wish is a hunting dog. I mean to do some game hunting in Sussex, and not with the likes of them,” he said, pointing at Jack and John. He glanced around the room. “Mr. Brimble.”
“Mr. Brimble, do you have a Christmas wish?” Hollis asked.
Mr. Brimble’s old eyes watered. He looked down at Jack, who had managed to put himself on the man’s lap. “My Christmas wish is to see Molly,” he said, and tears began to slide down his cheeks.
“Mr. Brimble!” Ruth said, and moved to sit beside him, patting his arm and drawing his attention to the dog. Poor dear—they would probably never know who Molly was.
“And you, Hollis?” Eliza asked. “Let me guess—your Christmas wish is for the gazette to become the premier purveyor of news by the end of the year.”
Hollis smiled. “Last year, I might have said so. But my Christmas wish is that everything stop changing so fast. But if everything must change, that I be allowed to change with it.”
“I don’t know what that means,” her father said. “What does that mean?”
“Just that everyone is leaving, Pappa, and lives are changing, and I am...not changing. I am standing right where I’ve been for a very long time.”
“Oh, Hollis,” Caroline said sadly. “It won’t be as bad as you think.”
“Well,” she said with a lighthearted shrug. “It seems that way to me. Mr. Brendan, it is to you.”
All eyes turned to Marek. He’d been thinking since this game started. Of how little time he had left. Of the things he’d learned about himself since he’d arrived in London. Of regrets and lost opportunities. “Someone asked me recently who I am,” he said. “And I realized that for many years, I’ve been between two worlds, neither firmly in one nor the other. It is difficult to explain, but I’ve been in a land of no one.” He’d kept himself apart from the living. It was a wonder he hadn’t turned into a ghost.
Everyone was looking around, clearly confused. “It’s impossible to explain, but my Christmas wish is to plant myself fully in one world.”
“What world?” the duchess asked.
“A world where there is laughter and love and companionship.” He looked at Hollis. “A world,anyworld, where Hollis is, frankly.”
Someone gasped. Lady Chartier grabbed the duchess by the wrist, her eyes wide. “Did he...? Did I hear...?”
“Sssh,”the duchess said, and leaned forward, her gaze on Marek.
But Hollis didn’t move. Her gaze was on the floor. She was entirely immobile, and he wondered if he’d said the wrong thing.
“This is not how I meant to say it, Hollis,” he said apologetically. “But as they say, ‘Make use of time, let not advantage slip.’”
“Ah,” Donovan said, nodding appreciatively. “A little Shakespeare for you, Mrs. Honeycutt.”
She slowly lifted her head and met Marek’s gaze with two pools of blue. He couldn’t guess what she was thinking. He felt a little as if he was swinging at the end of his rope. In an effort to make it right, he stepped closer. “This is not how or when or really even what I meant to say it...but I am painfully conscious of the time and will not let the advantage slip. I am asking you to come with me, Hollis. Come to St. Edys, to Wesloria. I am twice the man I am when you are near.”
“Oh,” the duchess murmured. “Ohmy.”
“What is happening?” the judge asked.
“I don’t know, exactly, Pappa,” the duchess whispered loudly.
“ToWesloria?” Hollis asked, her voice a whisper. She searched the faces around her, as if she thought it might be a joke.
Marek took her hand and forced her to look at him. “Do you love me?” he asked. “God knows that I love you.”
Her mouth dropped open. He had stunned her. Hell, he’d stunned them all. Now everyone was gaping.Hewas stunned. He was nothing like the man he’d always been in this moment. All these years, quiet as a mouse, kept to himself, and this was the way he would step into the world he’d chosen?
“Hollis,”Donovan said beneath his breath.
