The house was so quiet. She pulled herself up the stairs, practically hand over hand, and went into the girls’ room. The bed looked far more inviting than her own little cot. Since they were in the stable, she shucked off her clothing down to her shimmy and crawled in.
She was nearly asleep when Lord Trevor opened the door, came to the bed, and stood there. “I threw the file on the fire,” he said, his voice sounding as uncertain as a small child’s.
“Good,” she told him, and after only the slightest hesitation, pulled back the blankets.
“Are you certain?” he asked.
“Never more so.”
“I don’t want to be alone tonight,” he told her as he took off his shoes, then started on his waistcoat. “I’m so tired.”
“I know you are, but I have to know one more thing. I think you know what it is.”
He sat down on the bed, and rested his head in his hands. “I do. I was going to go back to my chambers this year, lock the door, and keep drinking until . . .” He stopped, unable to speak.
Cecilia sat up and leaned her head against his back. “My God, Trevor, my God,” she whispered. “What . . . what changed your mind?”
“Well, I had to stay here with the children when Hugo and Maria bolted, but even then . . .” He turned around and put his arm around her. “Then you came, and I had second thoughts. I didn’t plan on falling in love.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that. Are you as skeptical as I am?”
“Probably. But, the bottles in the book room tonight?”
“I don’t know if I would have drunk any of them, considering how matters had changed. I suppose I’ll never know,” he told her as she put her arms around him. “I think I was counting on you to stop me. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Cecilia.”
He lay down beside her and gathered her close. With a sigh, she threw her arm over his chest and rested her head in that nice spot below his collarbone. His hand was warm against her back. Her feet were cold and he flinched a little when she put them on his legs, but then he kissed her neck, and fell asleep.
He was gone in the morning. Cecilia reached out a tentative hand; his side of the bed was still a little warm. She got up and dressed quickly, then hurried downstairs. She heard laughter from the breakfast room, his laughter. She opened the door.
“Lucy, you are telling me that your graceless scamp of a little brother actually stood over by the horses and began to talk?” asked Lord Trevor. The picture of relaxation, he slouched negligently in his chair, with his arm along the back of Lucinda’s chair.
Janet giggled. “He scared Lucy so bad that she jumped up and stepped in the water bucket the footman had left by the lantern!”
“Did not!”
“Oh, we both saw it!”
Lord Trevor held up both hands. “I’ve never met more disgraceful children,” he scolded, but anyone with even the slightest hearing could have picked out the amusement in his voice. “It’s never too late for my prosy lecture. Good morning, Miss Ambrose, how do you do?”
I know my face is red, she thought. “I do well,” she replied. “Happy Christmas to you all.”
Lord Trevor pushed out a chair with his foot. “Have a seat, my dear Miss Ambrose. I’ve told my long-suffering relatives all about my silliness next door at the manor. They have agreed that a week in the dower house was not too unpleasant.” He smiled at them all. “And now they will move their belongings back, with some help from Mrs. Grey and the footman.”
“Mama is coming home today,” Davy said.
“I received a letter from Lysander only a few minutes ago,” Janet said, holding out a piece of paper. She smiled at Cecilia. “He promises to come as soon as all contagion is gone.”
Cecilia poured a cup of tea and sat down, just as the children rose and left the room. Davy even looked back and winked. “Scamp,” she murmured under her breath, trying to concentrate on the tea before her, and not on Lord Trevor, who had decided to put his arm on her chair now. In another moment his hand rested on her shoulder, and then his fingers outlined her ear.
“You’re making this tea hard to drink,” she commented.
“It isn’t very good tea, anyway,” he told her as he took the cup from her hand and pushed it away. He cleared his throat. “Cecilia—Miss Ambrose—it has certainly come to my attention that I . . . er . . . uh . . . may have compromised you last night.”
I love him, she thought, looking at him in his rumpled clothes, with his hair in need of cutting. I wonder why he does not stand closer to his razor, she thought. His eyes were tired, to be sure, but the hopeless look that had been increasing hour by hour on Christmas Eve was gone. She turned in her chair to face him.