Page 35 of The Mistletoe Duke

“And we’re to wear our tiaras!” Vicca crowed.

Lizzie bounced up and down, chanting, “Tiaras, tiaras, tiaras!”

“How lovely.” Meg sat up and settled against the pillows. “I would love to sing with you.” They did so many times in Devon, though usually not for an audience. “What would you like to sing?”

“Ave Maria,” Lizzie suggested, but Vicca made a face.

“That’s not Christmassy enough.”

“Does it need to be Christmassy?” Susana asked.

The girls stared at her as though she’d sprouted a second nose. Or a third.

“Of course it does,” Vicca said. “But Ave Maria isn’t in English, and the guests might not understand the words.” Meg nodded, though she knew the truth. Vicca simply didn’t care for all the high notes. The minx scrunched up her adorable face and said, “I think we should sing Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” Yes. Both of them could hit all those notes.

“I like that idea,” Meg said. “Because you two are angels.”

“Mama is an angel,” Vicca corrected her. “We are girls.”

“But we could sing it for Mama,” Lizzie suggested.

Meg nodded, trying to ignore the tears prickling her eyes. “I think that is a wonderful sentiment.” Tessa would love it.

“There we go. It’s decided.” Susana was nothing if not all business. “Now, let’s go practice.”

“Aren’t the boys going to sing too?” Vicca asked, as Susana bundled them out so Meg could dress.

“No one thinks that’s a good idea,” Susan said starchily, and both Vicca and Lizzie chortled. Because everyone knew boys couldn’t sing.

* * *

Jonathan searched for Meg all morning to no avail. He wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to say to her—surely it wasn’t to ask where her room was—but he knew he needed to see her. His desperation was stoked by the fact that Mattingly, St. Clare, and Hisdick were apparently searching for her as well.

They found him in the salon at breakfast and hounded him about how beautiful and charming she was, and how she would make a perfect society wife, until his hair wanted to stand on end.

She was beautiful and charming and would make a perfect society wife. All that was true. What irked him was that he hadn’t been able to stake his claim and his soul howled to think one of them might get to her first and convince her he was the man for her.

He wasn’t. He never would be.

She was his.

If only he could claim her.

To his utter and complete consternation, he didn’t see her again until he wandered into the salon after lunch for the musicale. She stood at the piano, going over music with Susana, but the room was so crowded by then, it would be impossible to have a private conversation.

To make matters worse, Cicely Peck found him and grasped his arm and insisted on sitting with him. Louisa Mountbatten took the seat at his other side.

He felt somewhat like a reluctant kitten being petted by two overzealous girls.

When Meg met his gaze and smiled, he sent her a help me look, but it only made her smile more. Clearly there was no help from that quarter.

Nor was his mother willing to help, when he sent her the same look. Nor his sister.

He was a duke, for Christ’s sake. How was he not in control of the situation?

But he was not. He was forced to sit there in a wholly uncomfortable chair and listen to the musicale. And there was no whisky to be found.

Whose idea had it been to serve nothing but lemonade? They should be shot.