Page 21 of How the Duke Saved Christmas

“So we have to be patient with her.” He placed a kiss to the top of her head. “She doesn’t yet know what she’s capable of doing.”

Aaron frowned skeptically. “Paper garlands?”

“Everything.” That short answer summed up exactly how much work he had ahead of him to keep his promise to Anthony. Yet he knew now more than ever how important it was to make her embrace life again, to once again make her happy. The tears he’d seen in her eyes nearly undid him. “But she needs friends right now, so you have to keep asking her for help. Make certain she feels included in everything you do. Don’t give up on her.”

The children all nodded, yet he was certain they didn’t understand her situation. He barely understood it himself.

“But Christmas is only a few days away,” Benjamin complained.

That was also when Anthony should have been returning to take Clara north.

“We’ll never be able to do everything if she doesn’t help,” Aaron added.

Margaret summed it up succinctly. “We’re running out of time.”

Michael grimly agreed, “Yes, we are.”

In more ways than they realized.

CHAPTER SIX

Five Days Until Christmas

Clara sat on her bed, attempting to read, but she couldn’t concentrate on her book. Her mind kept wandering, most likely because she couldn’t relax. This was the first afternoon in three days that the children hadn’t found a way to maneuver her into helping them with their holiday festivities, and she kept expecting them to show up with a new excuse to coerce her further into their plans.

She frowned, admitting the truth to herself—she missed helping them.

It was too soon for Anthony to have reached Raleigh Hall and sent back word of when he would be returning to take her home and back into her normal existence, away from Michael and the ghosts of what her life could have been. Moreover, the snowstorm had been worse than she’d originally thought. Snow drifts reached as high as a man’s chest in some places, and the cold snap had turned downright freezing. Even now, the window beside her chair still had a thin layer of frost clinging to the inside of the glass.

But Michael was right, drat him, that she couldn’t spend the next fortnight hiding in her room, especially as Mrs. Bailey had become conspicuously absent.

It seemed that every time Clara looked up her nurse had been tasked with some household activity from Mrs. Hansen or Eads—even once from the grooms in the stables—that needed to be done immediately for Clara’s stay. Mrs. Bailey seemed constantly in motion from Northbourne Park to its village to pick up items from one of the shops or deliver and fetch the mail or from the main house to the outbuildings scattered across the park to collect the special cheeses that Cook was certain Clara would like from the creamery, a specific smoked meat from the smokehouse, ice from the icehouse—

Ice! During the coldest winter in memory. That was when Clara knew Michael was behind it.

Andthatwas when her clothing started to…well,rotwould be the best word for it, she supposed.

Seams mysteriously ripped out, which was especially odd since Clara hadn’t been wearing them when the tears occurred. Hems frayed, ribbons unraveled, spots and stains suddenly appeared in the strangest places—how could she have possibly gotten sauce on herback, for heaven’s sake?

But Mrs. Bailey had to take care of them immediately, which meant she spent most of her waking hours in the laundry mending and cleaning, only for new tears and stains to appear. She’d only been able to assist Clara when she needed to be dressed and undressed.

Clara knew Michael was somehow responsible for that, too. As surely as rain fell down.

She just didn’t know why.

“Oh, bother!” Giving up completely, she tossed her book to the foot of the bed.

Since Anthony’s departure, Michael had been the perfect host. Polite, entertaining, attentive to all her needs…yet the pressure for her to spend more time outside her room was palpable.

When Mrs. Bailey was too busy fetching cheese and mending hems to bring up an armful of books from the library for her to choose from, Clara had been forced to ask Thomas, the footman, to take her down to the library.

When the fire in her room died, she’d been carried down to the garden room, assured that a new fire had just been started there that would keep her warm until hers could be relit. She’d been there long enough to watch the setting sun turn the blanket of white snow into glorious yellows, oranges, reds, and purples that reflected from the sky. The view had been glorious, and she was glad she’d been there to see it. But the reason…suspicious.

Most of all, though, there had been the dinners. She wanted to take all her meals on trays in her room. But of course, that, too, had been thwarted by circumstances beyond her control…but not, apparently, beyond Michael’s. First, Cook’s aunt had taken ill, and the woman was sent to the village to tend to her, which meant the assistant cooks and kitchen helpers were left to pick up the work. Knowing it would be too much extra trouble to provide separate meals for Clara, the children, and Michael in separate rooms, Mrs. Hansen had apologetically asked if they could all eat one meal together in the dining room. Seeing the excitement on the children’s faces, Clara couldn’t say no.

And all of that occurred in just the first two days. She could only imagine how—

“LADY CLARRRRAAAAAA!!”