His eyes had lost their luster. “I remember Christmas. It was not enjoyable.”
“Let me try,” she said softly. “That was then. You don’t have to promise me the whole day. Can you do two hours? If you’re miserable, say the word, and I’ll never mention the word Christmas to you again.”
At first, she thought he was going to refuse. Say that he was preemptively miserable, just thinking about a jolly afternoon with her family. Perhaps she shouldn’t have asked. Perhaps with his past, nothing at all could make the Yuletide season festive.
“All right.” He visibly swallowed his objections. “One Christmas to remember.”
Chapter 10
Jonathan fidgeted in the middle of a blue velvet sofa in the Duke of Nottingvale’s empty parlor. He could not believe he’d agreed to spend even a single moment doing festive things. He hated being festive.
But he would agree to almost anything if it meant more time with Angelica.
He leafed absently through his notebook, pausing now and again at one of the many sketches he had made of her working, or lost in thought, or smiling to greet a customer.
His drawings had never held particular meaning before. Idle doodles to pass the time, sketches of someone or something he had no desire to hurry back to. Jonathan was always rushing off to the next thing.
These portraits, however, he suspected would have worn edges in the near future from paging through them whenever he longed for another moment with Angelica.
Even if it meant pretending to enjoy Christmas.
The butler appeared in the parlor doorway. “Caller for you, sir.”
He shoved the notebook back into his waistcoat pocket and leapt to his feet. No matter how much Jonathan had begged, Oswald had refused to allow him to stand next to the front door to wait.
“It’s Miss Parker?” Of course it was. Hadn’t she said she’d come at ten?
“Indeed.” Oswald disappeared back to his station.
Jonathan bared his teeth at a looking-glass and ran a hand through his hair. His clothes were the height of fashion—or would be, as soon the Fit for a Duke catalogue launched—but his nerves fluttered oddly whenever he knew he was about to see Angelica.
He rushed down the corridor and into the entryway to greet her.
She looked beautiful. It was her same pale pink day dress and wheat-colored pelisse, which only made her shine all the brighter.
“Is that my bonnet?” he asked.
“It’smybonnet,” she replied pertly.
He grinned. Definitely his. She looked stunning in it.
What he wanted to do most was whirl her into his arms and kiss her, but if Oswald was scandalized over the idea of sharing his station, witnessing a peck of the lips would no doubt give the poor man a fit of the vapors.
“I have something for you.” She held up her closed hand.
Reverently, he unwrapped her fingers.
In the center of her palm was an oval of bright gold, decorated with brilliant red and turquoise stones and engraved with gorgeous looping whorls that reminded him not of the sea, but of the brisk, snow-flecked wind that rustled the hills of evergreens surrounding the castle.
“A lover’s locket,” he breathed. It was even better than he’d hoped.
“It’s not the prototype,” she said quickly. She tilted her hand so that the sparkling gold oval fell from her palm to his. “It’s for you.”
He pinned it to his waistcoat at once, right next to his heart.
“You don’t have to wear it.” Her lashes lowered. “There isn’t even a portrait inside the frame.”
A situation easily remedied, though he would wait until later to decide which of his sketches to add to the locket.
