Page 2 of A Cinderella Christmas

“Don’t say that,” James muttered, looking genuinely hurt.

She snapped her fingers. “Give it to me now, young man!” she demanded, then punctuated the command with another round of coughing.

Noel tensed, the repeated coughing so familiar that it dragged him back in time to the worst period of his life. Consumption. God, he hoped this radiant woman did not have Natalie’s disease.

Unlike his sister, however, she didn’t have the look of a consumptive. She appeared slender, to be sure, but her skin lacked the translucent paleness of Natalie’s in her final days, and her shape was as womanly as any man with blood in his veins could want.

Good God, he was lusting after some strange woman, and a confederate of a pickpocket besides. Had he lost his mind?

Meanwhile, her persistent cough apparently affected young James, because all the fight went out of him. “All right,” he muttered and dug into an inner coat pocket Noel hadn’t yet searched. Pulling out the wallet, James handed it to her sullenly.

After using her embroidered handkerchief to dust off the leather, she held it out to Noel. “I know you have no cause to trust us, sir, but I sincerely beg your pardon for my brother’s behavior, and I promise this will never happen again.”

Somehow, he doubted she could promise anything concerning her brother’s behavior, given the merry chase James had led him on.

“Please don’t call the constable,” she asked, her holly-green eyes darkening with concern. “It will break our mother’s heart if James is arrested.”

Releasing the boy, Noel took the wallet and shoved it inside his coat. “He’s a child,” he grumbled. “I wouldn’t have called the constable regardless. I just wanted my property back.”

“You … um … should probably check to see that everything’s there,” she said with a hint of embarrassment, coughing more delicately this time.

“I had only a few notes in it, anyway,” he said with a shrug.

“Heavy notes,” James mumbled.

He eyed young James balefully. “And a miniature of my sister that I did not wish to lose.” As the lad hung his head, Noel returned his attention to the lady. “But he didn’t have time to remove anything, trust me. No need to fret over it.”

She blinked, then gazed at him more closely. “Mr. Davenant? Noel Davenant?”

Thrown off guard, he didn’t tell her he was Lord Cokesbury now. “Do we know each other, madam?” Because he would certainly remember this incandescent female if they’d ever met.

“You probably don’t recall,” she said almost defensively, her cheeks pinkening again. “I only recognized you because your sister was also always saying, ‘No need to fret over it.’ Although this makes matters rather more mortifying. I almost don’t want to tell you who I am.”

“It’s a little late to deny the acquaintance, don’t you think?” he said, casting her a cold look.

It didn’t keep her from laughing. “If you say so. I’m Natalie’s friend, Eve.”

The two names, James William Archer and Eve, suddenly snapped together in his head, and he groaned. “Little Eve Archer? Who used to chide me for being ‘the worst brother in Christendom?’ ”

“Well,” she said matter-of-factly, “you were.”

“That’s not how I remember it,” he said, keeping his expression as impassive as he could when his heart hurt.

“Oh?” Her eyes twinkled at him. “How do you remember it?”

He hardly knew. She was confusing him with her beauty and her laughing gaze and the cough she couldn’t seem to squelch. But one thing he had to determine. “Did Natalie see me as ‘the worst brother in Christendom’?”

She smiled softly. “Of course not. She adored you. That’s precisely why I called you that awful name back then. Because she wanted you to take her along everywhere and have fun with her, but you had far more important things to do than tolerate your sister and her friend.”

That much was certainly true. He’d been so busy trying to mitigate the worst of his wastrel father’s excesses that he’d ignored his baby sister entirely. Not making time for Natalie was something he regretted more deeply than he could express.

“But I’m sure you’ve improved with age,” she said, as if sensing his somber mood. “You were only nineteen, after all.”

“And you were only thirteen, a tart-tongued, skinny little thing. Now you’re …” He couldn’t prevent his gaze from drifting down her from the top of her pretty head to the soles of her well-worn half boots.

“Older,” she said, laughing.

He’d been going to say breathtaking, before he’d caught himself. She’d obviously fallen on hard times. Besides, he was on the verge of offering marriage to Lady Margaret Tipton—an attractive, serious-minded female who did not make his blood race and his heart tumble over in his chest.