Mischief & Mistletoe (A Christmas Novella) Read Online Free PDF Page B

past.
    He watched the holiday scene unfold before him, feeling like an intruder in their midst... unwelcome, and wholly out of place.
    Emma spoke softly, drawing the children into her story. “… if everyone has been very, very good,” he heard her say, “then on Christmas Eve, Heaven’s gate opens wide—yes, it does,” she assured a skeptical looking young lad.
    Lucien glanced at her face in time to catch a dimpled smile that made his heart trip a bit. She tapped the boy upon the bridge of his nose and continued, “The skies burst wide with a beauteous light and le petit Jésus comes down from heaven to sleep in a warm bed full with tender straw… straw you put there, I might add.”
    He couldn’t help but wonder if her father had indulged them exactly so. The admiral had been such a somber man—at least outside his home. Until this moment, Andrew Peters had seemed so very much like him. Tonight, he saw a glimpse of someone else.
    “But does he truly, Aunt Em?” the eldest girl asked skeptically, her big brown eyes full of question.
    “I never saw it happen,” the boy muttered in complaint. He picked at his shoe.
    Lucien grinned as Emma ignored the child’s surly protest. “Just imagine how sweet it would be not to sleep on the hardness of the manger’s boards,” she entreated. “Only imagine how grateful le petit Jésus would be—”
    “Maybe he would bring lots of gifts for the boys and girls!” the youngest daughter said excitedly and clapped her hands with glee.
    Emma laughed, apparently having successfully dismissed him, and the sound reverberated through Lucien like a promise. But he felt something quite foreign in that instant—a sense of having been set aside—and he didn’t like it one bit—never mind the fact that he had been the one to actually set her aside. Whatever this was that was warring in his head, he didn’t like it a whit and he frowned.
    “But o nly if you have been very, very, good,” she cautioned the children at once.
    Lucien cleared his throat and found himself interjecting before he could prevent himself, “And what precisely constitutes very, very good, Miss Peters?”
    For some peculiar reason, he seemed to need her to acknowledge him as part of their cozy gathering.
    The fact that she would not, grated upon his nerves—almost as much as the way she addressed him— Your Grace —as though it were an epithet. Never mind that he did not appreciate the title anymore than she did. It was not granted to him by birth, and neither did he appreciate the constraints it placed upon him. Unfortunately, it seemed de rigueur to flout convention, and somehow, it only managed to get him more unwanted attention—from everyone, except Emma, it seemed.
    The entire room fell silent while he waited for Emma to acknowledge his presence. Yet everyone but Emma did. Where she had not done so before, she quickly buried her nose into her little green book in a defiant gesture.
    He’d be damned if he’d simply let her ignore him. He cleared his throat again, reminding her that he waited.
    Aversely, he could tell, she lifted her gaze to his. She was loath to speak to him at all, and her declaration confirmed his suspicions. “I suppose someone like you might need some clarification, Your Grace ,” she offered a little too sweetly, for her words were meant to cut, he knew. And despite all of his carefully laid armor, she succeeded, for the subtle accusation was too close to his own self-opinion to be disregarded. She lifted a brow. “Thus I shall endeavor to do so. By good deed, I shall presume they are referring to acts of devotion or virtue. Do understand the meaning of these concepts, Your Grace ?” Her eyes impugned him. “Or shall I further enlighten you, Your Grace ?”
    “Aunt Em... I don’t know what those words mean either,” Jonathon said, responding to the accusation in her voice. His brows slanted unhappily. “Is that why I never get as many straws as Lettie or