Miranda shovedher hair back away from her face, smiling beatifically as she finished arranging the greenery in an old blunderbuss.“There,” she said with immense satisfaction.“I think we’re done!Though I do wonder if I should have put a small tree in James’s bedroom.I want him to feel wanted.”
“If I know your eldest, I would assume that for him, less is more.Brat has never been filled with the holiday spirit,” Emma Rohan said sagely, holding her infant son to her breast.The ladies’ morning parlor was awash in sunlight and she was nursing, a fact that society abhorred and her sister-in-law applauded.
Miranda made a face.“I firmly believe the sweet, sensitive boy I raised is still somewhere inside him.”
“Brat must have eaten him.”
“Emma!”Miranda protested.
“Miranda!”she replied in the same reproachful tone of voice.“Maybe he’s turned over a new leaf but I doubt it.You know I love him—I’ve always had a soft spot for a rake—but he makes it difficult.”
“I have no difficulty at all,” Miranda said stiffly.“I think…” her voice trailed off as a great fuss erupted from the front hall, complete with dogs barking, servants chattering, and the master of the house demanding silence from everyone.“I think they’re here.Be nice to him, Emma.”
“I’m always nice to him,” she protested.“As nice as he deserves.”
The chaos in the front hall was going on at full volume, and, without thinking, Miranda ran into her husband’s arms.He’d been gone a week, an endless one, and she kissed him soundly before looking around for her errant son.There was no sign of him, and she felt her heart sink.
“You couldn’t talk him into coming?”she said in a small voice.
“Of course he did,” said her son as he strode in the door.“I just didn’t feel the need to run like my ancient and esteemed father.”
“I could outrun you any day of the week,” Lucien growled.“Particularly if it’s to reach your mother.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Brat said.“Mama.”He swept his mother into his arms, and for a moment she clung to him, too tightly, before finally releasing him, and she brushed back the tears in her eyes.
“I’ve missed you so much,” she said, and there was only the faintest wobble in her voice.
Some of Brat’s cynical hauteur faded, and he dropped an affectionate kiss on his mother’s cheek.“I’ve missed you too,” he said softly.And then, as if that much sincerity was anathema to him, he looked up and spied Emma.“Why, Aunt Emma!Is that your offspring you’re holding?You look positively maternal.”
“Thank you, Brat,” she said gravely.“It’s good to see you.”
“I wish you wouldn’t call him that,” Miranda complained.“His name is James.”
“Brat suits me better,” he drawled.“I don’t mind.Where is your stalwart husband, auntie?Plotting my demise?”
“You overestimate your importance to him,” Emma said calmly.“He’s off shooting with Benedick.”
“Oh, dear, practicing, no doubt.”
“You’re a little bigger than a bird, Brat.And they’ll be happy to see you as well.”Emma tugged at the front of her gown in a vain attempt at covering up her decollete.
“You lie so gracefully, auntie.Have you saved any lives recently?”
“Don’t be so flippant, James,” his mother chided him.“You know your Aunt Emma has taken time from her doctoring duties to have her baby.”
“How could I forget?”He eyed her lowcut gown with a meaningful glance.“And where is my dear Aunt Charity?Or is she conveniently off shooting birds as well?”
“Charity is a terrible shot.And we had no idea when you were coming, or even if you were coming,” Miranda said.“Trust me, no one is avoiding you.”
“Not yet,” he murmured.
“‘This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased,’” Miranda quoted, and Brat closed his eyes in physical pain.
“Not the Bible, Mama,” he said in a long-suffering voice.“Even you can’t equate me with Jesus.”
“And why not?”she demanded with a martial gleam to her eye.“I’m sure I love James as much as Mary loved her son.”
“Oh, God,” Brat muttered.
