Home for the Holidays Read Online Free PDF Page B

that road.
    “It’s too soon to think of the tree, this early in the month. But we’ll have one, Tommy, even if we have to share the Baron’s—”
    “I don’t want to share, I want to put on the decorations we’ve made. You did bring them with us, didn’t you?”
    No, she hadn’t. They’d been stored in the attic and had gone with the other furnishings to wherever Lord Everett had had them taken.
    “They’ll be here when it’s time,” was the best she could offer him at the moment. “So please don’t worry about it. Just get better, so you’ll be able to do some of the decorating yourself.”
    She had to get out of there. Tears were already streaming down her cheeks, which she didn’t want him to see. It wasn’t going to be a normal Christmas for them this year. She was afraid, so very afraid that they would be spending it without their father.



Chapter Five
    L ARISSA WASN’T SURE HOW SHE FOUND THE BEDROOM THAT she had been given, when she could barely see through her tears, and no one had answered any of the knocking she had done on all the doors between hers and Thomas’s, so she’d had to peek into each room. But she finally did spot her trunks piled at the foot of the bed in one of the last two rooms at the very end of the hall, a much longer distance from her brother than she cared for.
    Had she thought Thomas’s room was immense compared to his old one? The one she had been given was even grander. There was even a separate dressing room attachedto it, with a large bathroom off of that, and another connecting door led to still another bedroom, which, to her shock, she realized was the baron’s bedroom. She’d been put in the lady’s half of the master bedroom suites. Good heavens, why? Surely a house this size had other rooms for guests, and hadn’t she just passed at least a half dozen in the hall?
    This wouldn’t do, must be a mistake, and she would have to tell the housekeeper—just as soon as she could manage to stop crying. To accomplish that, she sat down on the edge of the bed and gave in to all the emotions that were crowding in on her. Oddly enough, a few of those emotions were new to her and took over, drying up the well.
    She had let Thomas distract her, purposely, since she knew he could. It was why she had raced to his room. But she was alone now, her thoughts once again disturbed by that strange luncheon she had shared with the baron.
    She didn’t know what to make of him, but he had flustered her beyond anything she had ever experienced. It wasn’t that he was so very handsome that he had taken her breath away for a moment, when she’d had her first good look at him there in the bright hall. At least it wasn’t
just
that.
    Tall and broad of shoulder, Vincent Everett had one of those athletic-type bodies that could, if the man didn’thave a meticulous tailor, make him look stuffed into the current fashions. The baron’s tailor was obviously of the meticulous sort, though, since he cut a fine, dashing figure instead, despite his excess in muscular limbs.
    So much, the snow and his greatcoat had concealed from her last night. Black hair, not just black, but darkest pitch, angular cheeks, a strong, decisive chin, a narrow nose, features that fit together so perfectly, it was amazing just how handsome he was.
    Still, that was only a small part of what had so rattled her. What had been most disturbing was those golden eyes of his that seemed to talk to her. Unfortunately, everything they said was naughty—Good God, how fanciful. He really had disturbed her beyond rational sense—yet his eyes did seem to be expressing things that weren’t proper. A mere trick of the light, no doubt. Certainly not intentional. He probably didn’t even know the impression his stare gave others. And it was probably her own heightened emotions that caused her to imagine more than what was really there.
    What had been merely a simple business deal for him, just another boring financial