How was it possible for her heart to sing and weep all at the same? Merry released a ragged sigh and made herself face him once more. “But that is my very point, Luke,” she said tiredly.
“You don’t like decorating for the holidays?” His cerulean-blue eyes were as befuddled as his tone.
“Yes. No.” She ran a hand down her face. Merry tried again to help him understand. She let her arm fall to the table. “I love preparing the household for the holidays. Every year since I was just a small girl”—and then before she’d gone off to be schooled in other noble households—“whenever my parents were off working on the eve before Christmas, I would rush about with my brother and sister, which, given their penchant for being at odds, was never an easy task.” She laughed softly at the memory. “But on those days, we’d hurry to decorate, transforming each room of our little cottage, so that when our parents returned at the end of the night, it was bright and cheerful for the holidays. Then, on Christmas, we would all take turns sharing our Yuletide wishes.” Merry caught hold of his hands. “I’ve loved every moment”—spent with you—“this week. I adore creating garland and hanging it and organizing festivities.” She shook her head. “But when they are complete, then I will leave so”—you and a household of ladies vying for the role of your bride—“the world can enjoy those pleasures.”
And she’d be left with a heart breaking for a future that would never be hers.
Chapter 9
Luke’s world view had been taught to him early on by his tutors and his parents.
Everyone had a place in it, be it a lord or a servant or a stable master, each person invariably had roles to fulfill. Or that was how he’d learned to look at the world.
But as Merry had said, as she’d helped him see, they weren’t at all the same experiences.
Luke had made his life about his responsibilities, but as Merry had said, when they finished decorating the household, she’d go on her way, her work complete, and he’d remain behind to take part in the festivities.
Festivities that would be nothing and only empty without her here and a part of them.
These past months, he’d come to appreciate that he’d not liked himself… or the life he lived. But neither had he given proper thought to how everyone else lived. Not even his own damned youngest brother, who’d been all but exiled to the country by their parents. And it was humbling to be confronted with the depth of one’s ego and self-interest.
God, and here he’d believed he could not be any more pompous than he was. Only to find, blind as he’d been to the great disparities in his and Merry’s experiences, he was still the same narrow bastard he’d always been.
And he didn’t want to be that man.
Just as he didn’t want that to be the man she took him for.
“Come with me,” he said, jumping up so quickly his stool toppled over.
He might as well have brandished a pistol for the shock that filled Merry’s eyes as she gazed at the overturned chair. “Luke?
His garland in one hand, Luke took Merry’s fingers with his other. He gave a determined tug that brought her to her feet. “Come with me.”
“Where are we going?” she asked as he pulled her along, deeper and deeper into the greenhouse, bypassing vibrant shrubs and fragrant blooms as they went. Merry stole a look over her shoulder. “There’s still more to be done.”
“Yes. Yes, there is.” Just not the work she referred to.
“We cannot simply leave.” Merry dug her heels in, forcing them to a grinding stop. “There’s the garland, and then we have just the afternoon to organize the games for your family’s guests.”
His family’s guests. That was precisely who the expected parties were, and yet, that also delineated a separation between him and Merry, and fury and outrage blazed a path through him.
But it’s true. It is the way of the servant. Always be working.
His mouth hardened.
Not on this damn day.
“To hell with the games.”
Her eyebrows crept together. “That is… quite contradictory.”
“Indeed,” he allowed and gave her hand another pull.
She reluctantly followed him to the pair of glass doors that led outside.
The moon still hung in the sky, and with the fresh, untouched snow that blanketed the earth, it cast a vivid brightness over the grounds.
Luke reached for the handle.
“What are you doing?” Merry blurted, freezing him in midmovement. “It is… freezing.”
Yes, she was right on that score. Just as she was correct on so many scores. And yet, he’d be damned if they didn’t quit that blasted workstation and make their way outside. “Come,” he scoffed. “It’s not that cold.”
As if Mother Nature relished in making a liar of him, a gust of wind battered against the glass panels. They shook and shuddered under the force of that blast.
Merry winged a well-formed eyebrow up.
“Yes. Yes. Well, perhaps it is a bit cold.” Luke proceeded to unbutton his jacket.
Merry made a peculiar choking noise.
“Are you all right, love?” he asked, struggling with one of the gold buttons.
“Are you all right?” she countered, glancing up at the glass ceiling.
His lips twitched. “Ah, and here I’d not expect that the same woman who’d ring a bell over my drunken self would turn shy on me.”
“I’m not shy, per se.” Rising to the challenge he’d put to her, she slowly brought her gaze back down to him.
He widened his smile. “That’s better.” With a wink, he shrugged out of his jacket.
Merry nearly dissolved into a paroxysm and found that spot overhead that held her so fascinated. “That is not better. If anyone enters, well, it would be scandalous. It would…” He draped the cloak about her shoulders. She was taller than most women, but still several inches shorter than he was, and the heavy wool garment hung past her knees. “What are you doing?”
Starting around her, he grabbed for the brown wool garment hanging nearby.
“Luke, are you… wearing the gardener’s jacket?”
He drew on the slightly snug jacket better fitted to the smaller, reed-thin Mr. Whitely. “I am.”
“Why?” she asked slowly, like one trying to puzzle through a complicated riddle.
“Well, I cannot very well have you wearing it,” he said as he made his way back over to her. Reaching past her, he pushed the door open and motioned her outside. “Merry.”
She hesitated, glancing from him to that gaping exit to the grounds. “You’ve gone mad,” she said and took a tentative step outside.
He grinned. Indeed, he had. Decorum and straitlaced living were highly overrated. How much he’d missed. How much emptier and lonelier and… miserable his existence had been until she’d opened his eyes to accepting happiness in his life. Closing the door behind them, Luke joined her.
The snow crunched under his boots, loud in the early morn quiet.
Hugging herself tightly, Merry rubbed at her arms. Small puffs of white escaped her full lips as she breathed. “Wh-what are w-we doing out h-here?” she asked, her voice trembling from the cold.
“I thought it should be obvious.” He spread his arms wide. “We’re simply having fun.”
“Fun?”
He nodded once.
“You have gone mad. Come, Luke, there’s work to do. Your family will awake soon in anticipation of the arrival of their guests.” As she went on with her very lengthy argument, he bent down and gathered up a ball of snow. “G-guests whom, I sh-should r-remind you, will a-arrive at all manner of ti—what are you—?”
Splat.
Her words ended on a sharp gasp as his snowball found its perfect mark at the center of her jacket. His jacket. And how very right it looked on her. There was an intimacy to her wearing his article. Even if he’d been the one responsible for—
“D-did you hit me with a snowball?” she demanded, her arms akimbo.
/>
He swiftly made up another and hurled it.
This time, she darted out of the way, and the missile grazed her hip. She glanced at the smattering of white upon his sapphire jacket like he’d fired a pistol ball at her. “What w-was that for?”
“Well, as I figure it, if you couldn’t tell the first one was, in fact, a snowball, then you required another.”
She sputtered and, bending down, stuffed her hands into the snow. A sharp hiss exploded from her quivering lips as she yanked them back. “Th-this is f-freezing.”
He grinned widely. “It is snow.” Had he ever enjoyed himself so? In the aftermath of losing Josephine Pratt, he’d taken a to-hell-with-it approach to the world, but that response had been born of resentment and anger… with himself and decisions he’d made. Never had he felt this freeness.
“F-furthermore, I-I’ll have you kn-know,” Merry continued as she scooped up a pathetically small ball of snow and tossed it at him, “it’s not the size of the object, but how one wields it.”
He choked.
Gasping, Merry made another snowball and hurled the projectile at his face.
He dusted off the moisture from his face.
“That was for having improper thoughts, Lord Grimslee.”
“I didn’t even say anything.”
“You didn’t need to. From your reaction, it was quite clear your thoughts had taken a wicked path.”
He flashed a crooked smile and sidled closer. “Tell me, love. How is it that you recognized my improper thoughts?”
Her cheeks, already red from the cold, blazed three shades brighter from her blush. Then she gave a toss of her head. “I-I m-may h-have h-heard things a-among the other s-servants, my lord.” She glided closer and dropped her voice to an exaggerated whisper. “Th-things that would sh-shock you.”
He leaned in so the white puffs of their breath mingled in the night air. “And what would you say if I were to tell you I’m endlessly intrigued, Merry Read?”
Her bow-shaped lips formed a perfect moue.
Yes, not so very long ago, he would have been horrified at being part of such wicked repartee… and with a young woman, no less. Why, even the idea of being outside frolicking in the snow—in a borrowed servant’s jacket—would have been a level of scandalous behavior beyond him. Luke touched a finger lightly against her mouth. “Now, I-I’ve shocked you.”
“Y-yes,” she said softly, hugging her arms around her waist. “You’ve sh-shocked me m-many times these past ten days.”
Nine. They’d been together nine, and he felt he knew her better now than he’d ever known anyone. He felt he knew himself… because of her. And he knew one certainty: Nine days would never be enough.
A tender smile curved her beautiful lips up in the corners. “In the most wonderful ways,” she added. Somberness chased away her smile as she worked her gaze over his face. “Do not ever change, Luke Holman. How you are now… who you’ve been these past days? Hold on to that.”
I want to hold on to you. He wanted a life with her. Not with her solely as a friend, but as a friend… and more…
“We should r-return,” she murmured.
Yes, they should. “To your work.”
It wasn’t a question, but an understanding that had come from all she’d revealed about her responsibilities as a servant.
It was also why they weren’t returning inside. For, once they did, they would return to their roles, and this moment would end.
“N-not yet.” Dropping to a knee, he lay down in the snow and stretched out his arms and legs. The cold pierced his garments, stinging his skin with the bite of it. From his threadbare jacket to his boots was soaked and left him nearly numb. He stared overhead at the star-studded sky, the moon hanging overhead, and just laughed.
Crunch-crunch-crunch.
Merry leaned over him, blocking his view of the unfettered landscape. The moon cast an aura of light around her dark tresses, burnishing them with shades of brown. “What are you doing n-now?”
Luke swiped his arms up and down. “I believe you used to call them a-angels?”
“Snow angels,” she whispered.
He paused and stared up at her frozen over him, her expression both wistful and far-off. “I believe that is what I heard you call them. You and Ewan were outside my window.”
“And he wouldn’t join in,” she said, finishing part of that telling for him. “Because he didn’t wish to have his garments wet and miserable…”
“And I wanted to be down there with you, Merry. Because I’d never done anything so light or foolhardy or free,” he said softly. The wind howled once more, lending a greater sound to his words and dusting flakes of snow around them. “And I wanted you to do this now because it isn’t work or required. It’s not even something that, when we finish, will remain long past the next gust of wind or snowfall.” His eyes held hers. “It is something to do simply for the joy of it.”
Her throat moved, and she clutched her hands reflexively in the fabric of his jacket.
He held a palm out, and she stared at his outstretched fingers before placing hers trustingly in his, and then she joined him on the ground.
Shivering, she lay so that only several paces were between them, and he reclaimed his position on the cold, unforgiving ground.
Merry stretched her arms and legs up first slowly, as if trying to remember those motions, and then there was an increasing zeal.
He stared on, unable to look away from her and the bright-eyed glimmer in her eyes. Or her wide, dimpled smile. Nay, he didn’t want this to end.
Laughing, Merry found the rhythm, and her limbs glided in a perfect sweep, and that joy was so very infectious, he matched the pace she set until his laughter blended with hers.
They stopped and lay there, looking up at the night sky, their breath forming little clouds of white around them in the cold night air.
The snow crunched as she angled her head toward him. “Luke?”
He looked over. Emotion blazed from within the depths of eyes so vividly bright.
“Th-thank you,” she whispered, twining her fingers through his like ivy. An electric current passed between them, heat when there was only cold around them.
Not breaking that contact, not ever wanting to separate from her, Luke held tight to her hand, and standing, he carefully drew her to her feet, guiding them away from the masterpieces they’d made in the snow.
They remained there, Merry’s gaze locked with his, as time melted away.
Looping an arm about her waist, he drew her close and touched his lips to hers.
Merry melted against him as they devoured each other’s mouth. Parting her lips, she let him inside. Heat. So much heat. How, as frozen through as they were, was it possible that there was this scorching hotness? He stroked his tongue against hers, and she met every bold, unapologetic lash. Gripping the lapels of his jacket, Merry pressed her trembling body against his.
Another gust of wind whipped across the grounds, battering the greenhouse doors.
Reluctantly, Luke drew back, breaking their embrace. He palmed her cold cheek. Her eyes remained closed as she leaned into his touch like a contented little kitten, absorbing the warmth he proffered.
I love you…
Incapable of feeling cold right now, he folded Merry close in his arms and just held her.
Chapter 10
Since she and Luke had returned an hour and thirty minutes ago, the world had come alive. All around her, the music room bustled with servants rushing to and fro. With great care, young men and women carried about the garland made by her and Luke—and many of the other maids—and hung those brightly adorned evergreens throughout the gilded music room.
The staff was in the final frantic stages of preparing for the impending arrival of the household’s guests.
Standing from the side of the room, overseeing the final arrangements, Merry was unable to keep from smiling.
Luke had pulled her away from her work and once more remi
nded Merry that she was as deserving of those moments of levity, compelled not by work, but rather by her own right to happiness.
And he makes me happy… Luke Holman.
Her heart quickened. Where there would be a time for horror and fear of the implications of that discovery, now there was only a giddying lightness that filled every corner of her person. It left her buoyant and—
“Her ladyship has requested your presence, ma’am.”
Just like that, the announcement brought Merry crashing down hard to earth and, along with it, reality. “Her ladyship?”
“She awaits in the White Parlor.” Did she imagine the faintly pitying look the butler, Blake, favored her with as he patiently waited for her?
Merry stole a last glance at the servants hanging decorations, and with a sickening dread turning in her belly, she forced herself to follow after Blake.
Each step sent her panic spiraling.
Stop it.
You are being ridiculous. Just because you’ve been summoned does not mean… what? That the countess didn’t know Merry had gone and fallen head over heels in love with her ladyship’s son?
Merry stumbled.
“Are you all right, ma’am?” the butler asked, and she struggled to so much as nod through the terror wreaking havoc on her senses.
When the butler looked a moment away from ringing for help, she forced her features into a calm mask. “I’m fine,” she assured him.
Only, she wasn’t.
Love Luke?
She couldn’t.
Yes, she’d enjoyed their time together more than she’d enjoyed any other time in her life.
But love? It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be, for so many reasons. The least of which was the time in which they’d known each other and the greatest being the fact that he was a viscount and she his steward’s daughter. A servant. She was a servant.
You deserve to go to those faraway places and see the world as you wish without any encumbrances.
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