The Duke Who Despised Christmas (Christmas Dukes #1)

Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

Q uint didn’t know how long he’d been sitting in Amelia’s bedchamber, surrounded by the disarray of her personal effects, which had been moved about by well-intentioned maids in their efforts to dust, uncover, and organize. She had used the room whenever they’d been in residence, which hadn’t been often. Amelia had far preferred London or Sedgewick Manor in Buckinghamshire to Blackwell Abbey, which was admittedly a crumbling relic from centuries past. The northern clime had been a source of displeasure for her, along with the cumbersome train journey.

It had been her dislike of the estate that had led him here, after the fire at Sedgewick Manor, which had ravaged the eastern wing and taken Amelia’s and their baby’s life in the process. A place of fewer memories. Four walls that would not smell like smoke or be a daily reminder of all he had lost that day. He had forgotten, in fact, how many of her belongings had remained when he had given the order to his then-housekeeper to seal the room and its contents away.

For two years, it had remained untouched. Undisturbed. And now, it had been reopened, its curtains tied back to allow sunlight to stream into the mullioned windows, the coverings removed from the furniture and wall hangings. Amelia’s picture stared back at him from a small gilt frame atop a table. Her watercolors, all ethereal landscapes she had painted during her time at Blackwell Abbey, dotted the walls. A case of her jewelry was laid out as if she were preparing her toilette, a bottle of her scent nearby. He had no doubt that if he inspected the wardrobe, he would find more bits and pieces of her remaining—warm winter gowns, underpinnings, God knew what else, and Quint didn’t have the heart to look.

He had been an idiot to think this day would never come. He realized that now as he stripped the leather gloves from his hands and laid them aside. The door was closed, and he had no fear of his hideous scars being viewed. No one had dared return, not even the intrepid Mrs. Yorke, who had invaded his home just as she had this room, upsetting his peace.

Ah, Mrs. Yorke.

She infuriated him. She irritated him. She intrigued him.

The woman was a problem. Earlier, when she had come to him in his library, he had been seized by the wild, incredibly stupid notion that he should invite her to sit with him. That they might discuss books or poetry or anything of interest. He hadn’t known just how hungry he was for female companionship, how very starved for it, until her arrival. He knew it now, thanks to her. Knew it as he sat in the midst of his dead wife’s room, surveying all that remained of her.

And he hated himself for that weakness, for the betrayal of Amelia’s memory. He hadn’t been able to save her from the fire that awful day. The least he could do was remain constant to her in death, yet he had been caught in the thrall of his housekeeper, of all people. He had been thinking about kissing, touching, and Lord help him, so much more than that.

Quint closed his eyes and heaved a heavy sigh, scrubbing a hand along his jaw. “Forgive me, Amelia. Forgive me for failing you in every way.”

He opened his eyes, and no one was there but the watercolors and the picture, Amelia dressed in a beautiful Worth gown, flowers in her hair, eyes sparkling with the vivacity he had forgotten how much he missed. Once, there had been lightness in his life. There had been laughter and picnics and discussions of Shakespeare. There had been walks through the countryside and rides on Rotten Row and dancing with her in his arms beneath glittering chandeliers. There had been the hope of a family, about to begin before her life had been taken far too soon, the new life in her womb going with her.

Now, there was an empty room filled with objects. There was the grief that threatened to consume him. The guilt that he had failed her and their child both. There were two long years, a yawning fissure between his old life and the man he was now.

There was the closed door clicking open and Mrs. Yorke standing at the threshold, her eyes wide with shock.

“Your Grace,” she said. “Forgive me. I thought you were no longer within the chamber. I will leave you to your peace.”

Quint didn’t know what prompted him to shoot to his feet, but he was suddenly standing. “Wait.”

She hesitated, lingering, eyes fringed with lush, dark lashes, heart-shaped face impossibly pretty. “Yes, Your Grace?”

“There is no peace in this room,” he told her. “You may as well come in, and I’ll give you some direction on what is to be done with the contents of the chamber.”

“Of course.” She crossed the threshold, the door naturally gliding closed at her back.

When she entered the room, it was as if the heavy weight upon his chest lifted and he could breathe again. He despised the effect this woman had upon him. He hated himself for acknowledging it.

And yet, it simply was.

“The pictures should all be taken down,” he said, struggling to keep his voice from cracking beneath the tremendous, twin weights of regret and grief. “See that they are stored in the attics where they will be well protected and covered.”

“I will see that they are packed away with great care, Your Grace.”

Her voice was calm, soothing. Pleasant. Edged with sympathy he didn’t deserve.

“Thank you, madam. The furniture may remain for my mother’s use. Bring in pictures for the walls from other bedrooms if you must. The rest of my wife’s belongings may be packed away as well.”

Difficult words to say. Necessary words. He could not live in the past. For so long, he had been unable to force himself to address these lingering parts of Amelia. To admit to himself that she would never return. To celebrate Christmas without her. To live again.

Perhaps the time had come to do both.

“I’ll see to that as well, Your Grace,” Mrs. Yorke said, her calm efficiency helping to soothe his jagged nerves.

“Thank you.” Belatedly, he recalled that he wasn’t wearing his gloves. They remained on the table behind him. He flexed his scarred fingers, feeling the familiar tightness of the fire-damaged skin.

Her vibrant, green gaze dipped to his hands, and his gut clenched as he awaited her reaction, her revulsion. But she exhibited neither disgust nor shock, her expression never changing as her eyes returned to his.

“You needn’t thank me, Your Grace. I’m sorry for my mishandling of the circumstances this morning. Am I to understand that you wish for the dowager to be given this room after all?”

“Yes,” he told her, his voice tight with suppressed emotions, the single-word response all he could manage.

“I will direct the maids to return, then, supposing Your Grace finds it acceptable to do so?”

“Of course, Mrs. Yorke. Do whatever you must. I only ask that you are discreet with the removal. I haven’t been in this room in over two years, and I’m feeling somewhat…overwrought.”

“I understand,” she told him softly.

And he knew that she did, in her own way. She had lost her father. Had been thrust from the bosom of her loving home and into service, denied the life she might have had, the husband and family that may have one day been hers. He swallowed hard against a fresh wave of unwanted emotion, snatched up his gloves, and left the room without another word before he did or said something truly reckless.

Joceline emerged from the servants’ stair that evening after dinner, feet sore, back aching, heart heavy. She had personally overseen the packing of the former duchess’s pictures, making certain that each one was well wrapped in cloths before assigning them to footmen who waited to carry them into the attics for safekeeping. With each watercolor, she had felt another piece of her heart breaking for the Duke of Sedgewick, understanding how painful it must have been for him to be surrounded by the remnants of his wife’s things after he had avoided them for so long.

But it wasn’t just the duke’s heartbreak that had affected her through the long hours of somber removal. It was the secret they shared as well. When she had ventured back to the duchess’s bedchamber, he hadn’t been wearing his gloves. Nor had he bothered to put them back on. Instead, he had stood before her, his scars there for her to see, his grief unfettered. He had been a broken man, one who had loved his wife very much. One who had been vulnerable instead of formidable, weary instead of icy. And he had allowed her to see a part of him he kept from others, as if he had shared a secret that was theirs alone.

Fanciful thinking on her part, she knew, but the bond she couldn’t help but to feel between herself and the Duke of Sedgewick seemed to grow exponentially with each passing day. Or perhaps it was merely her feeling that bond, imagining it existed. Either way, she would never know. Housekeepers and dukes didn’t cross boundaries. She was here to manage his household, not to develop tender feelings for the man. Besides, he had clearly been hopelessly in love with his wife. It was wrong of her, but she couldn’t quite quell a sudden stab of envy, not without its accompanying guilt. Who was she, who had no place in the Duke of Sedgewick’s life, to be jealous of his dead wife?

As she passed His Grace’s study, the low rumble of his voice took her by surprise.

“Mrs. Yorke,” he called.

She halted, turning to find his door partially ajar, the duke seated at his desk in the slant of the opened door. “Do you need me for something, Your Grace?”

“Come inside, if you please,” he invited with an odd half smile on his beautifully sculpted lips.

She did as he asked, hesitating near the open door, all too aware of how dangerously handsome he was and how inappropriate her feelings were where he was concerned. She felt something for him. A tenderness she’d never felt for another. A deep pull of attraction.

“How may I be of service?” she asked brightly, banishing those wicked thoughts.

“Close the door, if you please.”

Joceline did as he asked, wondering at the reason even as an illicit surge of anticipation went through her at the prospect of being alone with him. But there was also an edge of concern. Would he decide to give her the sack for her overstepping after all?

She turned to face him, dipping a curtsy, belatedly remembering herself. “Your Grace.”

“You needn’t linger at the door as if I’m a lion about to pounce,” he said, waving a gloved hand to indicate she should take one of the chairs opposite his desk. “Come and have a seat, if you please.”

He was being polite, she noted warily, but his gloves were firmly back in place. She wished that they were gone, for they seemed like yet another barrier he had erected to keep the world at a safe distance. And although she had no right to want to tear down those walls, she still did.

Joceline seated herself primly and folded her hands in her lap. “What does Your Grace require?”

“Some company,” he said wryly. “Just for a few moments.”

That was when she noticed a half-empty glass of brandy on his desk. He had been imbibing, which was most unlike him.

“Of course,” she said simply, trying not to frown at the evidence that he had been so deeply affected by the bedchamber’s reopening.

Her fault.

“Would you like a brandy, Mrs. Yorke?” he inquired, obviously having caught her eyeing the liquor.

“It would be most improper, Your Grace.”

“That isn’t what I asked you.” His mien was calm, assessing, his gaze as intense as ever.

“I fear such an elixir would be far too strong,” she hedged.

“A brandy and soda water, then,” he suggested. “Spare me the misery of drinking alone.”

“Surely there is a more suitable companion for the task,” she suggested kindly, fearing what would happen if she lingered, partook in spirits with him, and allowed her own defenses to fall. “Dunreave, perhaps?”

“A teetotaler, if you would believe it.” The duke raised an imperious brow. “So, you see, it is either you or one of the footmen, and without paying insult to Joseph or Peter, I would far prefer you as my accompaniment to either of them.”

“Very well, then,” she relented with the greatest of reluctance. “A brandy and soda water, and if Mr. Dunreave takes me to task, I shall endure his disapproval.”

“He won’t take you to task,” the duke was quick to insist, rising and going to a sideboard where glasses and bottles were housed. In her time here, the levels of the liquids contained within had failed to move.

With a deft hand, he prepared her drink whilst Joceline sat uncomfortably in her chair, aware of how awkward and unusual her present circumstances were. Never in all her years of service had the gentleman of the house ever invited her to sit with him in his study. And certainly not to imbibe together.

But the Duke of Sedgewick had asked, and the Duke of Sedgewick would get what he wanted.

He returned to her, offering the glass. She accepted it, her fingers brushing over soft leather, wishing it were his bare skin instead. She wondered why he insisted upon hiding his hands. Was it because he was embarrassed by his scars, or was it too painful for him to see them, a reminder of how he had received them?

“Here you are.”

“Thank you, Your Grace.”

Sedgewick settled in his seat, lifting his drink to her in toast. “No, my dear Mrs. Yorke. I am the grateful one. I ought to be thanking you, rather than the other way around.”

She had raised her glass in turn, but now she clenched the stem in a tight grip, frozen by the frank admiration in his eyes. He was looking at her in a way a man should never look at his housekeeper. And she liked it. Liked it far too much.

“I am here at Blackwell Abbey to perform a duty,” she reminded him. “Nothing more.”

“And at my mother’s behest, no less.” He raised his glass to his lips, taking a healthy swallow. “Ah, the irony.”

She wasn’t sure what she ought to say to such a statement, so she took up her brandy and soda water, sipping delicately at it. She’d had spirits before, but not often. There was no place in her life for excess. Still, the drink was surprisingly pleasant.

“I expect you must think me a monster,” he said. “My temper hasn’t always been this mercurial, I assure you. Only since the fire.”

“It wouldn’t be my place to think poorly of you, Your Grace,” she said with loyal resolve. “A housekeeper’s lot is to serve, never to judge.”

“Yes, but you are a woman as well, aren’t you, Mrs. Yorke?” His gaze was shrewd and knowing.

For a moment, she feared she had allowed too much of her feelings to show in her expression. She had always been so carefully guarded. It came with the territory of being in service. One could never afford to allow one’s true opinions or feelings to be known. One merely served.

“I am a housekeeper first,” she asserted, gripping her glass tightly again.

“Perhaps we can call a truce for a small time,” he suggested. “Here in this study, you may place the housekeeper aside. No Mrs. Yorke for a few minutes. Instead, you will merely be…”

His words trailed away, and he watched her with silent expectation.

It occurred to her that he wanted her given name, which was thoroughly improper. Becoming too familiar with one’s employer was a grave mistake.

“I’m sure I shouldn’t say, Your Grace.”

“Shouldn’t or won’t?” he asked, his voice silken. “Come now. Earlier, I allowed you to see a part of me that few others have seen. In return, I think it only fair that you tell me your given name.”

He had her there, and the expression on his face—calmly patient—told her he knew it.

“Joceline,” she allowed. “My name is Joceline, Your Grace.”

He repeated her name slowly, as if testing its feeling on his tongue, and she had never thought it a lovely or particularly interesting name, but when the Duke of Sedgewick said it in his deep, velvety baritone, she thought it sounded like the loveliest name in the world.

“The name suits you, I think.” He nodded, lifting his glass again. “A toast to you, Joceline. In a scant few weeks, you have managed to do what none of your predecessors have done.”

Heat blossomed on her cheeks. “Perhaps it was not the right time, Your Grace.”

“Or perhaps it was not the right woman for the job,” he suggested. “Hear, hear.”

She raised her glass because he wanted her to, a complex web of emotion tangling around her. His praise was heady. So, too, the way he was looking at her. His use of her given name. The privacy of the study, the door closed behind them. The intimacy of a shared drink and secrets.

They had ventured into territory most treacherous, and she knew it.

Joceline took a longer drink from her brandy and soda water, sparing herself the need to answer him. He drank his brandy as well, his gaze never straying from her. It was most disconcerting. Impossibly intimate, and yet they were not even touching, simply sitting on opposite sides of his desk in a room that smelled like the pleasing warmth of the fireplace and his musky ambergris scent.

“I suppose you must be wondering about my scars,” he said suddenly, breaking the companionable silence that had fallen between them.

“I would never presume to do so, Your Grace,” she hastened to say.

“A politic response.” He gave her a thin smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “But curiosity is natural. You’ve already commented on my gloves. Now you’ve seen the reason.”

“I’m afraid I still don’t understand,” Joceline blurted, the brandy and soda water loosening her tongue.

She wasn’t accustomed to spirits. What had she been thinking? Best not to drink another drop.

“You don’t?”

She shook her head, holding his regard, in for a penny, in for a pound. “No.”

Setting his glass down on the polished surface of his desk, he then reached for his left glove, plucking it away to reveal the scarred hand beneath. The right glove came next, leaving both hands revealed to her. At this proximity, she could see the extent of the damage that had been done by flame.

“Do you know how she died, Joceline?” he asked, his use of her name sending a jolt through her.

She swallowed, realizing he was speaking of his wife. “Of course not, and you needn’t speak of such a distressing subject.”

“I want to, however.” He lightly stroked the desk with his damaged fingertips, as if he were touching it for the first time, such reverence. “This morning taught me that perhaps I need to, that I’ve been hiding from the past for far too long and it’s time I faced it.”

“If unburdening yourself to me would be of assistance to you, I’d be honored to listen,” she said, meaning those words far more than she should.

What she felt for the Duke of Sedgewick went beyond the caring a housekeeper would have for her employer. She had seen past the curt, icy mask to the real man suffering beneath. His grief and anger had led him to become a recluse, but there was so much more to him than that.

“My wife died in a fire at Sedgewick Hall three weeks before Christmas Day,” he said, the raw pain in his voice wrapping itself around her heart like a vise. “I had gone out for a ride that morning. I returned home to smoke billowing from the eastern wing. I rushed inside and was told by the servants that she had gone to that wing in search of the old nursery. She was expecting, you see. She’d taken an oil lamp with her because that part of the house wasn’t plumbed for gaslights. Somehow, it must have upended.”

“My God,” she said, pressing a hand over her mouth as horror unfurled. So much made sense, all the pieces of him coming together.

“I tried to reach her,” he continued, his gaze taking on a faraway look. “The footmen were gathering water buckets from the pond, but it wasn’t enough. By the time I raced to the east wing, the whole structure had begun to fail. The floor collapsed, and a burning beam fell across my chest, pinning me. It required all the strength I had to push it away. I was still intent upon finding her, but some of the footmen came and dragged me from the rubble. It was too late to save her. I hide my scars not just because they are hideous, but because they’re a reminder of my failure. They died that day because of me.”

Sweet heavens, the poor man. Little wonder he had been tormented. He believed he was responsible for the deaths of his wife and unborn child. Before Joceline could think twice over the familiarity of her gesture, she leaned forward in her chair and laid her hands over his on the desk. Beneath her work-roughened fingertips, the evidence of his valiant fight to save the woman he loved was smooth yet rippled.

“You tried to save them and were nearly killed,” she said softly. “You did everything you could.”

“I should have been there,” he insisted stubbornly. “If I hadn’t been riding…”

“If you hadn’t been riding, would it have happened any differently?” she asked, keeping her voice gentle.

For such a large, impassive, arrogant man, he seemed so very vulnerable in this moment of dark confession, as if he needed all the strength she could give him.

“I don’t know,” he admitted hoarsely. “The questions, what might have been, the guilt of being pulled from the flames alive when she and the baby she carried were left to burn…they haunt me as much as the scars do.”

“You’ve been punishing yourself, but you don’t deserve to do penance. I am certain that your wife must have loved you, and that she wouldn’t have wished for you to suffer in her absence.”

He stared at her, saying nothing, and for a wild moment, Joceline feared she had gone too far. That the price for her sympathy would be her situation, and she would finally find herself on the next train to London before the dowager arrived. That all her work here would have been for naught, and she would have scarcely anything to send home to Mama and her siblings.

But then he spoke at last, his voice as raw as she’d ever heard it. “You are too kind to me. I don’t deserve it.”

“Yes,” she countered, her heart breaking anew for him, “you do.”

“I’ve been a beast to you, and meanwhile, you have been nothing short of an angel, heaven-sent.” He moved suddenly, taking her hands in his and bowing over them, pressing a fervent kiss to the top of first one, then another.

“I-I haven’t,” she protested, breathless. “I can assure you I’m no angel.”

Sparks seemed to shoot past her wrists, skipping up her elbow, making her giddy. The touch of his mouth on her bare skin felt hot and forbidden. The sight of his proud lips on her work-chapped hand, the connection of his gaze searing into hers like a touch of its own, pulled her nearer, into his web. The air between them had shifted from grief to heated awareness.

“Joceline,” he murmured, turning one hand over and kissing the center of her palm, then higher still, to her wrist.

His mouth was a brand, burning, tempting. She wanted to revel in these stolen moments, in his touch, his lips. Wanted to throw herself across his desk and into his arms. But then she saw the slumberous cast of his eyes, his pupils dilated, and she understood that he was in his cups. That he had sought to drown his sorrows in brandy, and to allow a moment more of anything illicit to continue between them would be wrong.

She pulled her hands from his grasp and stood with haste, fleeing from the study without a thought for formality or the damage she might be doing to herself in running away. She didn’t stop until she had reached her small, cold housekeeper’s room.

And it was only then that she allowed herself to weep, shedding tears for the Duke of Sedgewick, for his lost wife and child, and for what could never be.