Page 63 of How the Duke Saved Christmas

“But there isn’t an armoire in the morning room,” Clara pointed out.

“There’s not? My mistake,” he replied deadpan. “Mrs. Hansen, would you help Lady Clara into the jacket and have the skirt taken up to her room?”

“Yes, Your Grace.” With a conspiratorial gleam in her eyes, Mrs. Hansen helped Clara slip on the riding jacket and button up the front, her fingers pulling at the waist where it was just a little too loose. “Hmm. The fit is off.” The housekeeper pursed her lips as she studied its brown and cream hounds tooth pattern. “Perhaps it would be better, my lady, if you wore your cape instead?”

Clara rolled her eyes. No,thatwas the most disingenuous reaction she’d seen. She’d just been subjected to the world’s first clandestine dress fitting.

Mrs. Hansen gestured toward the hall, and a maid scurried forward from where she’d been waiting with Clara’s cape and fur muff ready in her hands.

“Excellent.” Michael rubbed his hands together, pleased, although Clara couldn’t tell if he was happy because they were all being bundled quickly or because his scheme was moving along swimmingly. “We’re all ready, then.”

He shooed the children from the room and toward the front door.

Before Clara could call for the footman, though, Michael scooped her into his arms and strode after the children.

For once, she didn’t fight him, more than happy to be in his arms. Once they were out of the house and following the drive around to the stables, she let her cheek rest against his shoulder and breathed deeply, reveling in the wonderful scent and strength of him. A faint ache stirred low in her belly, and her body ached for his, to be with him exactly as they’d been last night, even though she knew she should stay away.

But there weren’t enough miles in England to put them between them so that she wouldn’t long for him.

The children raced on ahead with Gordon hurrying to beat them to the stables and keep the main doors closed until Michael and Clara could be there. The groom knew his role, just as he knew this moment was as much for Michael and Clara as it was for the children.

Above the crunch of his boots on the snow, Clara said, “You shouldn’t have done that with the riding habit.”

“It’s a Christmas gift. Besides, you needed one.”

True, she did, now that she was riding again. And yet…“You’re a bachelor duke. The last thing you should be doing is giving clothing to unmarried ladies. It’s scandalous.”

Michael said in a low voice, “Then marry me, and it won’t be.” He kept his gaze straight ahead on the stables, but Clara knew he was aware of the way she stared at him, of every breath she took, of every beat of her racing heart. “Marry me, and we’ll have a lifetime of wonderful mornings just like this.”

“It can’t be Christmas every day,” she countered.

“If you married me, it would be exactly that.”

Her heart sank. “What you’re asking of me—of us—”

“Uncle Michael! Lady Clara!” Susannah shouted at them from in front of the closed stable doors and waved her arms to get them to hurry up. “Mr. Gordon said he thinks there’s a dragon inside the stables!”

“There is no dragon, silly,” Margaret chastised.

“’Cause the stables would have burned down by now if there was,” Benjamin explained.

The other three children turned their heads to stare at him.

“What?” He blinked, his face blank. Then he explained, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, “Dragons breathefire.”

“Dunderhead,” Margaret grumbled and crossed her arms.

“I don’t think it’s a dragon that sent Gordon to interrupt breakfast,” Michael declared as he and Clara finally reached the stables. “Most likely, we’re just out of oats for the horses. At least we can all help muck out some of the stalls while we’re here. Won’t that be a good way to spend Christmas morning?”

The children gaped at him as if he’d gone mad, and Clara could see him fighting to suppress a smile at their expense. Yet they now waited with less enthusiasm and curiosity than before as Gordon took his time in fiddling with the latch and getting ready to push open the tall doors.

“What’s the surprise?” Clara whispered as Michael stepped back with her to let the children press forward.

Michael winked. “Don’t you remember last night?”

Her cheeks heated, and she had to look away before her expression revealed to the world exactly how they’d spent the hours before dawn. “Of course,” she said, far more huskily than she intended. Everything from last night was imprinted upon her mind.I’ll never forget a moment of it, as long as I live…“But what does—”

Gordon pushed open the door, and the children let out a collective gasp of surprise. Their eyes grew wide as plates as they stared into the stables. For a moment, none of them moved. They remained as frozen in place as the icicles hanging from the stable’s eaves. Then…