Duncan scuffed his boots along the snow blanketing the Montcliffe woodland path and sneaked a sideways look at Grace. They’d spent long hours that morning at the Abbey’s chapel sitting through a special Christmastide service, and now they’d escaped to get some fresh air and exercise.
Hugh and Lucy had run ahead of them and from the sound of the shrieks, he’d wager they’d stopped to throw clumps of snow at each other. A lot of the painful shouts were coming from Hugh, so he surmised Lucy was giving as good as she got.
Grace, walking slowly alongside him, suddenly stopped to face him and reached up to move his chin around so that he could see her lips. She mouthed something new he hadn’t practiced yet.
‘Bring me a garland of holly,
Rosemary, ivy, and bays;
Gravity’s nothing but folly.
Till after the Christmas Day.’
He’d been practicing watching Grace’s lips a lot over the last few days, even when she wasn’t demonstrating lip-readingto him, and he was fairly certain he could get the sense of the popular holiday poem. However, Grace’s lips were a particularly fetching dark pink from the cold, and he pretended ignorance so that she moved closer and carefully mouthed the poem again. When she pronounced “rosemary” with exaggerated pouty lips, he struck like a selfish snake and claimed a kiss.
Grace’s eyes opened wide with surprise, and she pushed him back so hard, he slipped in the slush and fell to the ground. She stood over him with a serious expression as if she were going to chastise him, and then she tried to hide a giggle bubbling up. He began to laugh as well and when he pushed himself back up, she grasped his arm to steady him. That was all the encouragement he needed. He pulled her close for a proper kiss that went on and on until she pushed him away again.
“We have to stop. This is not what I…” She trailed off with a look of guilt and acute embarrassment.
He gave her a stern look. “Tell me what it is we have to stop.”
“Well…this.” She spread her hands wide. “You need a younger woman to make your advanced years more comfortable, not an older woman like me.”
He laughed again and pointed to himself. “Do I look like I’m in the midst of my advanced years and require a young woman to bring my slippers and lap robe? Fix me my tea and push me around in an invalid’s chair?” His voice grew louder with each question.
“No, of course not,” Grace replied in quiet tones. “I am so sorry to have suggested such a thing. I just thought…”
“You thought you’d save your niece from her impulsive, wrong-headed, but well-intentioned promise to marry your landlord by offering her up to an old soldier like me.”
Grace hung her head and didn’t answer.
Duncan tipped up her chin, gazed down into her eyes, and promised, “I’ll do everything in my power to make sure Lucydoesn’t fall into a dangerous situation. And Hugh has been her friend for years. I’m sure he wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her. You can count on us. But you have to remember your niece is her own person. Perhaps she has feelings for this man and is happy to be his wife.”
“You’re right,” she admitted. “Lucy certainly has known her own mind for quite a while now. I should trust her judgment.”
With that, they quickened their steps to catch up to Hugh and Lucy ahead of them on the walking path.
Grace suckedin a sharp breath and tried to tamp down the feelings Major MacKenzie had awakened in her. She’d been a widow on her own with huge responsibilities for so long, she hadn’t allowed herself to open her heart to romantic impulses.
And he’d brought her up short with the reminder that she had no idea of Lucy’s true feelings about Silas Miller. She was certain, however, that her niece’s decision had come entirely too quickly to have been thought through carefully. She’d have to have a serious talk with the young woman after they returned to London at the end of the holiday.
At a sudden shout, she looked up only to be hit with a ball of snow thrown by Lucy. “Come look, Aunt Grace. We’ve built a soldier to watch over the Abbey.”
Hugh was tamping down two huge balls of snow, one on top of the other. There was an old groom’s hat on the ground, as well as a carrot and a tattered scarf. Lucy was bent over, busily gathering and rolling snow for a ball to serve as the head.
“Lucy, have you lost your senses?” Grace threw her a stern look. “There are lots of ladies and gentlemen of the ton who willbe spending the holidays here. Do you want them to think you’re some sort of hoyden or rattle pate?”
“I don’t care,” she shouted into the cold winter air and then immediately clapped her hand over her mouth. “I didn’t mean that, Aunt Grace. You know I didn’t. I’m sorry.”
Grace walked slowly toward her niece and pulled her into her arms. Lucy laid her head on Grace’s shoulder and began to sob.
Lucy brokedown into her aunt’s arms, just as she’d done as a child. She suddenly realized she’d been lying to herself. She’d been indeed acting like a high-spirited, thoughtless young woman. She knew at heart her behavior reflected on their academy, and gossip about what happened at the Abbey during the house party would travel to the London gossip sheets like wildfire.
A lowly schoolteacher cavorting with a peer of the realm like Hugh was just the sort of fodder the gorgons of the ton loved to spread. By the time the gossip reached London, everything about what she’d said and done would be magnified a hundred times. She and her aunt could not afford a misstep like that. And then there was their landlord. She’d promised him she’d marry him on an addle-pated whim. It had seemed the only way out of their predicament at the time. But now she wasn’t so sure. She knew nothing about the man other than his penchant for boundless greed.
Hugh wasout of his element. He despised the feeling of helplessness, and he especially hated the sound of a womancrying when he was totally in the dark as to the source of her torment. He always wanted to fix things. He was used to fixing things. He wanted to help Grace and Lucy with their academy, but Grace wouldn’t let him. He knew Julian and Mina had invested in the school before they’d left for the continent, but he couldn’t see why he couldn’t help as well.
What the hell good was money if you couldn’t leverage it to help your friends? He and Julian had made enough money off the unwary gamblers of Mayfair to take care of all of them until damned near the end of time.
