Page 30 of How the Duke Saved Christmas

His shoulders slumped as the guilt fled his chest and relief flooded through in its place. It was his turn to close his eyes as he placed his forehead against hers and struggled to breathe evenly as he shook to his core.

“It was an accident,” she confessed. “No one was at fault. Not Morley, not you… No one could have known it would happen or been able to stop it.”

A soft sob fell from her lips, and he leaned in again, this time taking the kiss he’d craved since he saw Anthony lift her from the carriage five days ago. Her lips remained unmoving beneath his, as frozen as the winter world around them.

“Clara,” he entreated achingly.

She pulled in a deep breath, and the moment seemed to last an eternity until she melted with a silent sigh, until her lips moved gently against his. He could taste the trepidation in her kiss and in the trembling of her fingertips as she raised her hand to touch his face, but his heart soared—

“Uncle Michael! Lady Clara!”

Startled, she jerked away and slid back to put the distance of the bench seat between them. Her hand flew up to her mouth and pressed against her kiss-warmed lips, her eyes wide.

“Don’t dally!”

Blinking to clear the fog that swirled inside his head, he looked down the hill and across the white field toward the house in the valley below.

Margaret had stopped in the middle of the field and turned back to wave them onward. “Dinner will be waiting,” she shouted. “Cook’s making toffee pudding!”

The boys raced on ahead, with Susannah and her doll following behind more slowly as her short legs had to reach higher to step through the drifts. Margaret hurried on toward the house.

All four children were too far away to see what he and Clara had been up to on the sled, but Margaret’s impatience wouldn’t hold for long before she turned back to fetch them.

The magical moment that had surrounded them in the sunset’s red light and the soft shadows of the trees was over. He couldn’t kiss Clara again, no matter how much he wanted to, not with Margaret waiting for them.

But he wanted exactly that. More than he’d wanted anything in his life.

Suppressing a frustrated groan, he gave back her glove, turned forward in the seat, and snapped the ribbons to start the team onward toward the house.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“Lady Clara, where should we put the extras?” Margaret held up a large red and gold bow which hadn’t yet found a home amid the dozens of others the children and servants had scattered throughout the large house, much to Michael’s chagrin. He was rapidly losing the battle to keep the holidays a small, quiet affair.

Clara sat on a teak bench with bright yellow and orange cushions in the front of the large conservatory. Beyond the glass walls, the world was black and icy cold, but inside, the room was awash with the warmth of blazing lamps and humid air—a magical place existing against the night outside. Rows of potted lemon and orange trees filled the space, along with an assortment of cherry, plum, pomegranate and fig trees, all bearing delicious fruits to provide for the dark months of winter. Flowers and vegetables, too, grew in defiance of the calendar—oleander, hibiscus, camellias, lily of the valley… And somewhere behind them all grew the exotic pineapples that Cook had promised her would be the special surprise for Christmas dinner.

As the children rushed around in excitement, Clara gave instructions for how to decorate the room with all the greenery they’d brought home from their trip into the woods yesterday afternoon. She also watched over the tray of hot chocolate, gingerbread, and sugared orange peels on the tea table in front of her to make certain the children—and Michael—didn’t help themselves to so much of the goodies that they made themselves sick.

He had been wrong. The children had forgotten about her promise of treats amid all the excitement of making the decorations and deciding where they should all go.

But Clara hadn’t, so she’d asked Cook to make a special after-dinner treat for the evening, and when Mrs. Hansen brought in the tray, the children cheered. As she’d watched them dive into their cups of chocolate and pop biscuits and orange slices into their mouths, her heart had soared with a true happiness she hadn’t felt in so long that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d experienced it.

“We should save them for decorating the tree,” Clara answered.

She gestured at the pine tree Michael had chopped down yesterday. It now stood in front of one of the conservatory’s brick pillars between the tall glass windows that jutted out into the rear lawn. The base of its trunk sat in a large ceramic vase filled with water and gravel to hold it in place where it would remain like a sentinel until Christmas Eve. Then, they would celebrate the evening by decorating it before heading off to midnight church services.

“We only have a handful of bows left,” she explained, “and we already have enough on the windows, I think.”

“Morethan enough,” Michael grumbled and reached out to flick the tail of one of the bows which had been fastened to the garland hanging over the south wall of windows. He stood in the middle of the children’s flurry of activity and attempted to maintain a sense of reality to offset their exuberant holiday plans.

It wasn’t working.

Clara smiled at him. Despite the way he grumbled, she knew he loved the holidays and was giving the children free rein to do as they pleased. He was a very good uncle, and someday, he would be a wonderful father, too.

Her belly tightened. Michael as a father… That part of his life would have to start soon. He needed an heir and had always wanted lots of children to fill Northbourne Park. But having children also required having a wife, and the thought of Michael planning a life with another woman cut her heart to shreds.

So did yesterday’s intimacies in the sled at the edge of the woods. His kisses had been torture…the most wonderful, decadent, delicious torture imaginable.

Kissing him had been so unexpected that she barely let herself believe it had happened. But every look she cast in Michael’s direction now and every knowing half smile he sent her in return proved that they were not only real but that he would also kiss her again at the slightest provocation. And she would let him.