Oblivious as the rest of the room to his presence, his youngest cousin, Andromena, jumped up and down on slippered feet. “Has anyone heard a word I’m saying?”
“How could we not?” Dallin, Viscount Crichton, Arran’s brother and the future earl, gave Andromena’s plait a gentle tug.
Swatting at his hand, Andromena pulled a face. “You mustn’t go about pulling my hair.” She tossed her head. “I’m a grown woman now, you know.”
A contrite Dallin touched a hand to his chest. “My apologies.” His show of proper solemnity, he ruined by giving another one of Andromena’s curls a tug. “I didnotknow you were all grown up.”
Andromena stuck her tongue out. “Yes, well, we can’t all be old as Father Time like you, Dallin.”
Fleur leant her voice in support of their cousin and in rebuke of their brother. “That ridiculous beard you’re sporting is not helping you, Dallin.”
“Hey now.” The affronted viscount rubbed a hand over his neatly groomed beard.
At Dallin’s side sat his devoted wife, former Diamond and still as radiant Lady Alexandra. She swept in to her husband’s rescue. “You are perfection, dear husband.”
Husband and wife leaned close and shared a kiss.
Whatever snide comment Fleur made to Andromena brought them both to laughing.
The countess properly anticipated a rebuttal from her eldest son. Without looking back from the current bow she tied to a branch, she stopped him in his tracks. “Dallin, do not give your sister and cousin a difficult time.”
“Of course, Mother,” he demurred.
Dallin waited so long as it took for their mother to look away before snatching Andromena’s plait for another yank.
“Andromena is correct!” Cousin Fleur might be Andromena’s twin for the enthusiasm and support she threw the other girl’s way. “The decorating of the tree is simply not complete unless we do!”
Both girls with their unaffected grins and ebullient laughter personified ignorance.
Or innocence.
Either way, both were one and the same—at least in the matter of maturity and the young ladies.
Determined to rouse the room, Andromena and Fleur burst out in song.
Arran took it in. All of it. As he did, he felt like a voyeur staring through a frosted pane of a faintly familiar scene.
“…Sit ye merry Gentlemen
Let nothing you dismay…”
The agreeable McQuoid-Smith lot instantly fell into line.
Because I was once part of this…the ribbing. The laughter. All of it.
Those days were long over. Arran’s jaw worked. A man couldn’t break the family and then slip right back into the fold like nothing happened.
He took another deep swallow.
“…for Jesus Christ is born to save or’ souls…”
Everyone did their best to keep up a façade of “customary McQuoid Christmastide festive spirits.”
“…from Satan’s power…”
All with the exception of he, theHonorableCaptain Arran McQuoid.
“…Whenas we runne astray…”
