Merry sank back on her heels. “You have no idea what I’m talking about.”
Damn, she’d always been more clever than half. “I do know whatever it is has you displeased.” He flashed a sheepish smile.
Her heart-shaped features remained set in an unimpressed mask. “I’m here to decorate for the holidays,” she began slowly, as if schooling a lackwit.
“Which, given your love of the Christmastide season, I should expect would be something you enjoy.” He’d said too much. It was a rare and uncomfortable slip.
Her eyes formed perfect circles in her face as—for the first time since she’d rung that bell, knocked him on his arse, and then seen to dressing him—she was the one knocked off-kilter. “You… knew that?” she asked softly.
Knowing was a vast shade different than remembering. The former implied he’d been oblivious to Merry Read, the other that he’d been a solitary, lonely boy more aware of the joys his steward’s daughter had found around a house that had been only a sterile kingdom he’d one day inherit.
He gave an uncomfortable clearing of his throat. “How could I forget you and my brother trolling the halls, singing Christmas carols outside my rooms as I studied?”
A wistful smile hovered on her lips. “You remember that?”
“It had been intentional, then,” he said as that mystery from his youth was at long last answered, and here at the unlikeliest of times by the unlikeliest of participants in that revelry.
Her eyes sparkled. Around the chambers of his mind, the blend of her and Ewan’s exuberant laughter pealed in an echo of that long-ago day, and he was struck by the memory of his own wistfulness in that moment before he’d had his knuckles rapped and his Latin lesson resumed. “I remember it quite well,” he murmured.
“It was never about teasing or tormenting you, Luke,” she said in a low voice. “It was only to get you to join us in the fun.”
Which he never had. His facial muscles strained under the effort it took to keep the mask in place. “I had my studies and—”
“Your responsibilities as the heir to one of England’s oldest, most-respected titles,” she intoned in a scarily perfect rendering of the words he’d uttered and the tones he’d uttered them in long ago.
He started. She should remember that long-ago day when he’d uttered those very words?
“Yes.” Merry took a step closer. “I remember that,” she said, following with an unnerving accuracy the path his thoughts had traversed. “As such, I’m well aware that you have far more pressing obligations to command your attention than assisting me in my endeavors this holiday season.”
The young woman had hit the nail on the head with that assumption. There were any number of commitments expected of him. There was just one difference—he didn’t give ten damns about any one of them. Not any longer. “If I’ve understood you this morn, Merry, you do not wish for my help. Am I correct in this?”
The minx had the good grace to blush. And here he’d believed the headstrong free spirit incapable of that expression. “You are.”
There it was. At last, she’d bluntly spoken what she truly wished and felt—she didn’t want him near her or her assignment this holiday season. Given that, he’d expect she’d at least dip a curtsy and be on her way, off to the task that his mother had ordered her here to fulfill. When she made no move to go, Luke winged a brow up. “Is there anything else, Merry?” he asked dryly.
The color deepened in her cheeks. Merry further straightened her narrow and already erect shoulders. “No. No,” she said. “That is all, my lord.”
It did not escape his notice that she’d my-lorded him. How could he explain the regret that sluiced inside at that formality she’d thrown back up into place? Because he was first, foremost, and only ever the future earl.
Except, as she turned to go, there was no deferential curtsy. Instead, Merry gave a snap of her skirts and marched off.
He stared after her retreating frame until she disappeared down the length of the hall. His mother had sought to saddle him with a nursemaid to keep him out of trouble. That alone should be reason enough to thwart her plans.
I’m well aware that you have far more pressing obligations to command your attention than assisting me in my endeavors this holiday season.
She wanted nothing to do with him or his help. And gentleman that he had been raised to be, the situation merited he honor the young woman’s wishes.
Alas, he was no longer the gentleman she or anyone—himself included—recognized.
Luke grinned, and whistling Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, he sought out his offices and set to work plotting.
Chapter Four
Four o’clock in the morning was Merry’s work time of choice.
It was early enough that most lords and ladies hadn’t yet arisen, so there wasn’t the worry of being underfoot or, more important, having an employer underfoot, overseeing all, and dictating what they felt a room called for.
That morn, she arose and set out to inventory the greenery available to her in the countess’ limitless gardens.
Her head down, Merry evaluated the list she’d assembled last evening.
Ivy.
Mistletoe.
Sprigs of garland.
The list was incomplete. Since she’d begun going through her morning ablutions, she’d visited and revisited her notes. Alas, since she’d arrived yesterday morn, she’d been distracted. Hopelessly distracted.
And for the unlikeliest reason. Or, to be more precise, the unlikeliest person.
Lord Luke.
But the gentleman in the foyer had been Luke as she’d never seen him or known him. In fact, she’d never believed he could be… well, the person he’d been yesterday.
With scruff on his cheeks and his jacket discarded, he’d had the look of a rogue or scoundrel.
He’d also possessed a biting dryness she didn’t remember. No, he’d only ever been polite and respectful and proper.
When she’d casually set to work buttoning his jacket, he’d simply been the stodgy Lord Grimslee whom she’d pitied as a boy for his seriousness. But this Lord Grimslee had a flat belly carved of muscle. His was the physique not of the padded peers, but of the artists she’d worked alongside in France.
From the corner of her eye, she peeked at the row of familial likenesses on the wall, and there staring down at her was Lord Ewan. In the portrait, he wore the familiar smile of his youth.
She’d so admired Lord Ewan and had been looking forward to her reunion with him… and yet, she’d not given him a single thought since she’d stumbled upon his stodgier, stuffier brother.
Or rather, the stodgier and stuffier brother he’d been. The gentleman in the foyer had borne no hint of the always scowling boy of her reminiscences.
“Stop it,” she muttered. She’d far more pressing matters to attend than the physique of Luke, the future Earl of Maldavers.
The pencil in her fingertips quivered.
Or the devilish half grin on his firm lips.
As if to mock those musings, she looked up once more at Lord Luke’s visage. It was a more recent rendering. Attired in dark sapphire with a snowy cravat, the austere figure bore no likeness to the man she’d come upon yesterday. This was Lord Luke as he’d been. This was Lord Luke as he’d always be, even with the aberration of yesterday.