Quint peered down at the offering. “A half-eaten gingerbread. Thank you, son.”
“You’re welcome, Papa.” Edward grinned up at him, a black-haired green-eyed version of himself as a youth. “I know it’s your favorite.”
“How magnanimous of you, Eddy,” Joceline added, biting her lip to keep from laughing.
“Iammagmanamoose,” Edward said proudly, puffing up his chest.
“You’re a moose?” Nell teased her younger brother.
“No, I’m maganany-mis,” Edward announced.
“Magnanimous,” Joceline corrected gently.
“Namganamiss,” Edward repeated.
Quint couldn’t stifle his own chuckle as he ruffled his son’s dark hair affectionately. “It’s time for everyone else to receive their presents now. I do hope you haven’t eaten your gifts for Grandmama and your cousins.”
“I only eated part of yours because I knew you wouldn’t mind,” his son confided.
Quint shared an amused glance with Joceline. “You may as well eat the rest of it, lad.”
Edward’s eyes went wide. “May I?”
He nodded. “You may.”
His son snatched up the gingerbread and raced across the drawing room to where his grandmother and cousins had begun exchanging presents. Nell and Clara joined them, leaving Quint standing with Joceline, pine sap on his cheek, gingerbread crumbs in his hand, and love in his heart.
“Perhaps next year he won’t eat your present,” Joceline suggested wryly, resting her hand on her belly’s gentle swell.
Quint grinned. “It’s rather become our tradition. Last year, it was Christmas cake crumbs.”
She laughed. “So it was. I had forgotten. The girls took great pride in making your gifts, but I fear Eddy hasn’t the patience for it just yet.”
“I already have the greatest gifts anyone could ask for,” he told her, staring into her sparkling emerald eyes.
Joceline gave him a look of unabashed tenderness. “As do I, my love.”
He reached into his coat, extracted the small box he’d been keeping in an inner pocket, and presented it to her. “Here is one more anyway, sweet girl.”
“Quint.” She took the box from him. “You needn’t have.”
He drank in the sight of her, so lovely, so beloved, and thought it impossible to be any happier than he was here and now, in this moment, on Christmas Eve.
“I had every need,” he said gently. “Open it.”
She lifted the lid, revealing the emerald pendant he’d had commissioned in London for her. “Oh Quint, it’s gorgeous.”
“Not nearly as gorgeous as you, and the color cannot begin to compare to your eyes, but I suppose it shall do.”
“I have a present for you as well,” she told him softly, a sultry smile curving her lips, “but I’ll give it to you later.”
His cock twitched to life at the promise of his gift as he took her into his arms. “I cannot wait for it.” He paused and glanced meaningfully up at the decoration hanging above them. “Would you look at that? A kissing bough.”
“So it is.” Her hands settled on his shoulders, her belly between them as she raised her brows with mock astonishment. “Whatever shall we do?”
“I suppose we’ll just have to?—”
“Kiss,” she interrupted, and then she rose on her toes and pressed her mouth to his there in the drawing room, surrounded by Christmas greenery and everyone they loved.
