The Duke Who Despised Christmas (Christmas Dukes #1)

Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

“ F lowers.”

Quint stared bemusedly at a vase in the great hall, which was placed upon a table he’d never seen before. He knew who was responsible for the vibrant blossoms without needing to ask. For the table as well. The only thing he didn’t know was how she had managed to find the flowers in the midst of winter or where she had discovered the damned table.

“Yes, Your Grace,” Dunreave said hastily. “Mrs. Yorke’s doing. Joseph Poole repaired the furnace in the orangery, and she has managed to coax some of the struggling old flowers within to bloom.”

Of course she had. He was beginning to think Mrs. Yorke possessed some manner of magic, and that she had cast a spell on all of Blackwell Abbey. His domestics were filled with cheer. They were efficient, prompt, and happy. There was not a speck of dust to be found anywhere, nor a mouse either. The floors were scrubbed and gleaming. Everything that had been broken was being fixed. His meals were the finest they had ever been. And each time he spied the latest improvement upon his home, a servant was always at hand to merrily inform him that Mrs. Yorke had been responsible for it.

Even Quint had changed during her time at Blackwell Abbey. His moods were no longer quite so black. He curiously found himself lingering in the rooms she had seen decorated, admiring her eye for aesthetics. He wasn’t even upset about the impending arrival of his mother, who had sent a telegraph warning him she would soon venture to the northern wilderness he chose to call home in honor of the Christmas season.

“Please tell Mrs. Yorke that she did well in selecting them,” he said to Dunreave, shaking himself from his thoughts before thinking better. “Never mind, Dunreave. I’ll tell her myself. Do you know where she is?”

“I believe she is in the gardens, Your Grace, fretting with the wreaths.”

“In the gardens? With such a chill in the air?” He frowned, not liking the idea of her toiling in the wintry outdoors. “What can she be thinking?”

“I believe she wished to finish them before Her Grace arrives,” Dunreave offered.

Quint was already striding to the door that led to the sadly overgrown Blackwell Abbey gardens. Strange that he hadn’t bothered to notice how derelict they were until Mrs. Yorke had arrived. But then, he had to admit that there were a great many things he hadn’t taken notice of until she had come.

He found her adding ribbon to a circular assortment of fir boughs, bent over her task at one of the wrought-iron tables that were likely older than he was. Small bits of snow were falling from the sky, and the ground was sufficiently cold that they landed in a silvery crust on the gravel. She melded well with the landscape, her black housekeeper’s weeds in contrast to the white of the snow, the gray sky beyond ornamented by barren tree branches clawing upward in supplication, punctuated here and there by the occasional snarl of overgrown rosebushes. She was talking to herself, a charming habit he had inadvertently discovered she possessed.

Over the last week, Quint had found himself lingering in halls and walking quietly into rooms and around corners, hoping he might eavesdrop on Mrs. Yorke having a spirited conversation with herself. Why, he couldn’t say.

Perhaps the spell she had cast upon his entire household extended to him as well these days.

“No, no,” she was murmuring to herself now. “That shall never do. The bow is terribly askew.”

The bow looked well enough to him, or at least what little he could see of it from his vantage point over her shoulder. He had halted a measure away from her, content to watch for a few, stolen moments. There was another quality he had noticed his housekeeper possessed. She moved with the natural grace of poetry. Something as simple as the way she smoothed her apron with a lone hand or her brilliant smile of sheer delight when something had gone according to plan—small moments, tiny fragments of her daily toils, and yet each one was laden with such innate beauty and meaning that it robbed him of breath.

To look at Mrs. Yorke was to feel as if one were privy to a grand secret. Quint was reasonably certain his entire household was halfway in love with her in some fashion or another. Watching her in action, he had understood all too clearly how a young beauty of five-and-twenty had ascended the ranks of domestics with such haste.

“Oh, drat,” she muttered to herself as the ribbon she had just untied slipped from her grasp and landed on the thin, powdery layer at her feet.

She sank to her knees to retrieve it, her serviceable skirts pooling around her like ink on ivory, and that sight at last jolted Quint into motion. Three more purposeful strides, and he reached her, bending down to retrieve the fallen ribbon, their fingers brushing over one another. His covered in leather, hers marked by the years she’d spent in servitude. Although she didn’t know it, his were far more ravaged than hers could ever be.

She gasped, eyes going wide, her polite mask falling into place. “Your Grace. What are you doing in the snow? And look at you, wearing nothing more than your tweed coat. You’ll catch a lung infection out here if you don’t take care.”

“I could say the same of you, Mrs. Yorke,” he said pointedly. “Here you are with nary a wrap to keep yourself warm, and you so recently arrived from London to our northern clime.”

She tilted her head at him, rather in the fashion of an inquisitive bird. “I was in the kitchens earlier with Cook, and I was quite overheated. I scarcely feel the cold.”

But as she said the words, a shiver passed over her.

He frowned, not liking to see her discomfort and not knowing when in the bloody hell the condition of his housekeeper had come to mean so much to him. It merely did.

“You are chilled,” he said.

And found himself absurdly mesmerized by a snowflake that had landed on the delicate bridge of her nose. By God, she wasn’t even wearing a hat. He had been so starved for the sight of her that he had failed to take note.

The realization was as sobering as it was alarming.

“I’ve almost finished this wreath,” she said with the smile he had come to look forward to each day, the one that made her green eyes sparkle and rendered her loveliness sharper and more acute, almost like a painting coming to life.

She tugged the ribbon from his grasp and stood, continuing with her task quite as if he weren’t there at all, on bended knee, one of which was now growing thoroughly soaked from the thin blanket of snow on the gravel. He stood, feeling foolish and awkward and somehow as if their roles had reversed in this enchanted, snow-bedecked world.

He coughed lightly into his gloved hand to cover his discomfit. “Nonetheless, you’ll take a chill, madam. I insist you take my coat to warm you.”

He shrugged out of the thick country tweed before she could protest.

Her eyes were wide on him, flurries gilding her dark, extravagant eyelashes. “I couldn’t, Your Grace.”

He placed the garment around her small shoulders despite her words to the contrary. “You mustn’t refuse. I insist.”

His coat was terribly large, her frame fairly swimming in it and making him realize just how tremendous the size difference between them was. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

He was dashed cold without it, but the sight of her wearing his coat pleased him beyond words. It was intimate, his garment on her. Shockingly so. And it had him wondering what she might look like draped in nothing more than his shirt, her legs bare beneath its hem.

Like a goddess, he thought. That was what she would look like. And then he instantly castigated himself for such sinful fancies. What was he doing, lusting after his housekeeper yet again?

With a sunny smile, she turned back to her wreath, thankfully oblivious to his reaction to her, which he was incapable of controlling. Clenching his jaw against a stinging rush of shame, he watched as her nimble fingers made short work of tying the ribbon into a bow. He never should have been so familiar in her room, inquiring after whether there was a Mr. Yorke. The moment she had revealed there wasn’t one, he had experienced a searing sense of possession he had no right to feel.

Gentlemen did not dally with servants.

Dukes did not lust after their housekeepers.

Quint knew better. And even if he didn’t, there was the matter of his hideously scarred hide, which he didn’t doubt would frighten away any lover. He had grieved twice when he had lost Amelia. For the lives of her and their child, cut so devastatingly short, and for the man he’d once been, his skin untouched by flame, his heart unblemished by loss.

When he had been healing, he hadn’t understood the extent of his injuries. A fiery beam had fallen upon his chest, pinning him in place. He had heaved it away using his hands and all the strength he had, but the damage had been done. His chest, stomach, arms, and hands were ruined.

A gust of wind blew over the park, making the flurries dance around them. Quint shivered, glad he had given Mrs. Yorke his coat. She must have been frozen.

“There we are.” Taking up her wreath, Mrs. York spun toward him, her dark skirts swirling around her ankles as she held up her handiwork for his inspection. “What do you think of this, Your Grace?”

He spared a moment for the wreath, taking in the clever way she had mixed fir boughs with holly and sprigs of ivy, pinecones tucked into the lush greenery, her neatly tied ribbon the pièce de résistance . But then his gaze settled over her lovely face, noting the way her eyes were even more vibrant than the greens on the wreath and how fine tendrils of black hair had slipped from her coiffure to cling to her cheeks.

“Beautiful,” he praised softly.

And he wasn’t talking about the wreath. He was talking about her.

Her lips parted, and he feared she had understood the hidden meaning in what he’d just said.

“You’ll not object to one of the footmen hanging it on the front door, then?” she asked, dispelling the notion. “For Her Grace’s arrival, of course.”

Belatedly, it occurred to him that the wreath must be heavy, and he ought to play the gentleman even if his wayward thoughts suggested he was far from one. He stepped forward.

“Allow me to carry it for you, madam.”

“It isn’t terribly heavy,” she denied. “I can manage, though I do thank you, Your Grace. It wouldn’t be well done of me to expect the master to carry his own wreath about, now, would it? You’ll get sap on your fine clothing and gloves.”

It was the first time she had referenced his gloves since the clash they’d had. A flush stole over her cheeks when he didn’t immediately respond, telling him she was thinking of that conversation too.

He had been dangerously close to taking her in his arms that day, to testing whether her mouth would fit as perfectly against his as he supposed. To kissing her until they were both breathless and nothing mattered but the two of them, not the past, not the present, and certainly not the future.

“I can manage,” she repeated firmly.

“You are always doing everything for the household, Mrs. Yorke,” he protested, her determination spurring him into action. “Allow me to do something for you.”

Her finely arched brows rose. “It would be wrong of me to allow Your Grace to wait upon me. If you insist, I’ll fetch Joseph, and he can take the wreath to the great hall for me.”

Quint very adamantly did not want Joseph Poole to intrude upon his time with Mrs. Yorke. “Nonsense. I am perfectly capable of carrying my own wreath to my own front door. Fetching a footman won’t be necessary.”

Having her to himself was rare. He savored each occasion the way some men did an excellent wine.

Without bothering to await her response, he relieved her of the wreath, the holly garland poking him even through the barrier of his leather gloves, landing its barb in a particularly sensitive spot.

“Yow!”

The exclamation fled him before he could stop it, and he nearly lost the wreath but saved it at the last moment.

“What is the matter, Your Grace?”

“The holly,” he admitted ruefully. “I do believe it was getting even with me for having been made to sacrifice itself for the embellishment of my door.”

“It is deceptively prickly, is it not? Shall I take it from you?”

He stared at her hands. “You were holding the wreath. Did the holly not stab you?”

“Oh no, Your Grace.” She smiled, showing him her palms, which were mottled and scarred. “My hands are toughened from my years in service. When I was a maid of all work, I had to do the scullery. More than one incident with boiling water has rendered much of my hands numb. A bit of holly is no match for me.”

A sudden, almost violent desire to drop the wreath and take her hands in his assailed him, so strong and vehement he had to swallow hard against a rush of longing. He loathed the thought of her enduring the pain of such scalding burns, the difficult life in service she’d endured already for one so young. But he also admired her for her steadfast perseverance.

He knew without asking that she would have worked with those raw, burned hands. That it was a miracle they hadn’t festered, given all the duties she must have had.

“I insist on carrying it,” Quint managed, struck by the fervent wish that their circumstances were different.

That he wasn’t a duke and she was not his housekeeper. That he wasn’t hideously scarred and embittered, that she was not working herself to the bone in service. That they were man and woman, unencumbered, and he would be free to speak with her, to court her.

But that was yet another foolish notion, and he ought to have known better.

Turning away from her, he strode back toward the manor house, his footfalls crunching on the gravel and snow, wind whipping cold air against his cheeks as he bore the wreath like an albatross. A footman was waiting, opening the door. Quint held back, allowing for Mrs. Yorke to precede him. Had the entire household seen him chase after her out to the gardens? He needed to take greater care, it would seem, for the last thing he wanted to do was cause gossip belowstairs by exhibiting favoritism where she was concerned.

He trailed after her through the maze of corridors to the great hall and then out the front door, where he could finally relieve himself of his burden by hanging the wreath on a brass hook mounted to the panel for just such a purpose. The wind whipped up just as Mrs. Yorke stepped past him, straightening the bow to her liking. They stood in such proximity that a silken tendril of her hair brushed over his cheek.

The startling intimacy sent desire crashing over him.

She cast a bright smile at him. “There. It is perfect, is it not?”

“Perfect,” he agreed tightly.

But once again, it wasn’t the blasted wreath he was speaking of.

“Mrs. Yorke?”

At Mary’s voice, Joceline jumped, startled from her reverie. She had been overseeing the airing out of the bedchamber the dowager duchess would be using, a room that had been sealed up for what was obviously a considerable amount of time. It wasn’t the task that had given her pause, sending her mind wandering, however. Rather, it had been the realization that the room had quite plainly belonged to another woman. A woman whose belongings had been sealed away, and yet whose watercolors and pictures and other belongings had been left quite as if their original owner had left the room for a moment, intending to return.

“Yes, Mary?” Joceline asked, unable to dispel the heaviness in her heart.

This room had belonged to the duke’s wife.

“What am I to do with the jewelry case?” Mary asked as, around them, maids removed coverings from furniture and dusted and mopped.

“I’ll need to speak with His Grace,” she said, wondering how she was to handle such a delicate matter.

She had never needed to inquire about the belongings of a dead spouse at any of her previous situations. Navigating such a treacherous subject would be difficult enough with anyone, let alone the Duke of Sedgewick.

“Leave it where it is for now,” she added. “The duchess’s belongings are to remain where they are until I tell you otherwise.”

“Of course, Mrs. Yorke,” Mary said agreeably.

Joceline sighed. The dowager was to arrive soon, and they couldn’t afford to lose any time in their preparations. She was going to have to seek out the duke now so that the maids she had delegated to the room opening could complete their duties.

“See that the maids carry on while I’m gone,” she instructed Mary.

The walk through the servants’ stair and halls felt as if it took an eternity, dread weighing heavily upon her. Over her short tenure at Blackwell Abbey, she had made astonishing leaps where the duke was concerned. She feared undoing all the progress with the uncomfortable interview that was bound to ensue.

Finding Sedgewick was yet another adventure as she emerged to the great hall. He was not in his study where she had expected him to be at this hour. Nor was he out riding, she discovered after inquiring with Dunreave. The duke was, astonishingly enough, in his library.

Joceline sought him there, knocking lightly at the door before he bade her to enter. She crossed the threshold, offering him a curtsy.

“Your Grace.”

“Mrs. Yorke,” he greeted, his voice lacking the ice she had come to expect.

In fact, unless she was mistaken, there was just the tiniest hint of warmth in his baritone. She clutched her skirts tightly, nervousness creeping over her. A cold, frosty Duke of Sedgewick felt somehow easier to face, given the very personal nature of the news she was about to impart.

Standing by the wall of books, he was dressed informally in shirtsleeves and a waistcoat paired with tweed trousers that hugged his long, lean legs, his dark-gold hair brushing his shoulders. The leather gloves that were perpetually in place obscured her view of his large hands as he plucked the spine of a book from its shelf and opened it to examine the frontispiece, quite as if they had all the time in the world for a leisurely conversation.

The action reminded her that she was standing at the threshold staring at him like a dolt. She hadn’t come to the library to swoon over the duke’s undeniably handsome form. Nor had she come to ogle him as if she were some innocent debutante meeting her first suitor. The Duke of Sedgewick was her employer, and she was his housekeeper. Their worlds were as disparate as summer and winter. She must not forget it.

“If Your Grace has the time to speak with me, I require some direction concerning the bedchamber we are preparing for Her Grace,” she said, gratified that her voice sounded calm and smooth when, inwardly, she felt anything but.

He lowered the book, his unusual gaze intent upon hers. “Whatever the matter is, I trust your judgment, Mrs. Yorke. You have my leave to do whatever you must.”

His mild trust in her only served to heighten her worry.

She clenched her skirts even more tightly, her knuckles aching. “Forgive me, Your Grace. It wasn’t my intention to trouble you this morning. However, I chose the largest of the closed bedrooms for Her Grace’s comfort, and it would appear that the chamber belonged to…another.”

His expression instantly changed, his bearing stiffening as he snapped the book closed. “The household has distinct orders that the duchess’s bedchamber is not to be disturbed.”

“Perhaps the household once did, but in the absence of a former housekeeper to consult, the order was never conveyed to me,” she countered gently. “I was simply seeing to the opening of the room that seemed best suited to Her Grace.”

He tossed the book to a nearby table without regard for its binding. “You have opened it?” he demanded sharply.

Oh dear. Here he was, the Duke of Sedgewick returned. A snarling beast who would as soon bite as accept a hint of kindness.

“I-I am sorry, Your Grace,” she stammered. “I will see to it that the maids close it at once. Is there another room that is appropriate for Her Grace? We will ready the chamber of your choice instead.”

But he was already stalking past her, his countenance hewn in granite.

“Your Grace?”

“Attend to your other duties, Mrs. Yorke,” he bit out over his shoulder, his booted strides taking him to the threshold. “I’ll see to the room myself.”

Instinctively, Joceline hastened after him, not wanting him to bellow and frighten her maids when she was at fault for this dreadful mistake. She couldn’t chase after him, however, so she flitted back into the servants’ stair and took the steps two at a time, her skirts hiked in an undignified display she had no time to worry over. She was breathless by the time she reached the duchess’s bedroom, the duke stalking down the opposite end of the hall like a thunderstorm about to unleash a torrent.

“Stop,” she cried breathlessly when she reached the threshold.

All eyes turned to her, the chatter and flurry of movements abruptly ceasing.

“Out, all of you,” she directed. “At once.”

“But, Mrs. Yorke,” Mary protested, “we were just beginning to?—”

“Resume your routine duties for the day,” she interrupted sharply, aware that they had a scant few moments before the duke arrived. “Be gone.”

“Yes, Mrs. Yorke.”

The maids filed from the bedchamber past her, moving toward the servants’ stair she had recently exited. And none too soon. The last maid had just disappeared behind the safety of the closed door when Sedgewick reached her.

“Chasing away your precious little chicks before the evil wolf arrives?” he asked snidely.

She had clearly violated their temporary pax. The man who had carried the holly wreath for her despite the thorny pricks of its glossy leaves was nowhere to be seen now. In his place was the same man who had sacked her for decorating his drawing room with greenery and Christmas trees.

“I was merely trying to ameliorate the damage I’ve inadvertently done,” she defended.

“Such a pretty vocabulary you have, Mrs. Yorke,” he mocked.

She would not be intimidated by him, however. “Thank you, Your Grace. I’m honored you noticed.”

His eyes narrowed. “Why did you dismiss the maids?”

“Because I didn’t want them to suffer for my mistake,” she answered honestly. “I am to blame for what happened, not them. I alone will bear the burden. Please know, Your Grace, that it was never my intention to cause you so much upset.”

“Upset,” he spat. “That is a tepid word for what I’m feeling right now, madam.”

Beneath his fury and ice, Joceline sensed the depth of his sadness. It was there in the shadows of his blue-green eyes. He wasn’t a wolf or a beast at all in that moment. He was a man devastated by grief, haunted by the wraiths of his past, determined to seal his emotions away the same as he had his dead wife’s room.

“I’ll restore the chamber, Your Grace,” she reassured him quietly. “You may return to the library.”

His lip curled. “Do you truly have the temerity to order me about in my own home, Mrs. Yorke?”

Had she been ordering him? No, she rather thought she had been encouraging him. But he was in a desperately dark mood, and there would be no appeasing him in this condition.

“Of course not, Your Grace. I beg your pardon. I merely wished for you to know that there isn’t a need for you to worry a moment more about this unfortunate incident. I’ll rectify matters on my own.”

With a curtsy, she attempted to move past him, intending to apply furniture coverings and put everything back in its proper place. But he blocked her with his big, impassive frame.

“I’ll do it,” he said.

“Your Grace should not be tasked with such a duty,” she countered. “I am at fault. Allow me to?—”

“I said, I will do it,” he interrupted, his voice harsh and cold. “Leave me, Mrs. Yorke.”

She had no choice but to obey him. The stony, bleak expression on his face told her that she didn’t dare to defy him in this.

Joceline nodded. “Of course, Your Grace.”

She dipped into a curtsy before gathering up her skirts and fleeing just as the maids had done some minutes before.

Leaving him to the memories he had sealed inside his dead wife’s room and the pain of the past. And though she knew she had no right to feel it, Joceline couldn’t shake the sensation that she was abandoning him as she descended the servants’ stair. Her foolish heart gave a pang, but she tamped it down, along with old hopes she’d believed long gone.