Read 'Twas the Night After Christmas for Free Online

between plain and pretty. “Handsome” was merely acceptable. Not that she minded being thought of that way. If every woman was a beauty, the word would mean nothing. But “handsome” would never be good enough for the sophisticated earl. Even if he wasn’t on the verge of dismissing her from her post, he would never set his lecherous sights on a short, slightly plump widow with spectacles, reddish hair, and freckles. Not when he could have any blond goddess in London.
    She had nothing to fear on that score.

3

    P ierce paced the bedchamber, badly shaken by the sight of his mother. Great God, but she’d aged. When had she gone gray? She hadn’t been that way at the funeral two years ago.
    Actually, back then she’d worn a hat and veil that covered her hair and her face, and he’d barely spared her a glance anyway. If he’d stayed to see her without them, would he have noticed the gray? Or the crow’s-feet around her eyes and the thin lines around her lips? Because he’d noticed them today, and they’d unsettled him. She was getting older. He should have expected it, but he hadn’t.
    And he certainly hadn’t expected her face to light up when she saw him. It brought the past sharply into his mind. All those years of nothing, no word, no hint that she cared . . . Why, he couldn’teven remember the last time she’d looked on him so kindly.
    How dared she do it now ? Where had she been all those damned years at Harrow, when Manton was knocking him around? When the boys had taunted him for his asthma, before he’d grown out of it and begun standing up for himself?
    How many Christmases had he lain in bed praying that this would be the one when she came sweeping in to kiss him on the forehead and make it all better? As mothers ought to do. As the other boys’ mothers routinely did.
    He loosened his cravat, trying to catch his breath. It wasn’t a return of his asthma that plagued him but the weight of the past on his chest. The literal smell of the past.
    The dower house had actually been his first home. Father began building the grand mansion that was now Montcliff Manor when Pierce was fourteen, so Pierce hadn’t even been inside it until after his father’s death. This was his childhood home—that’s why he had put Mother here, so he would never have to stay in it himself and suffer reminders of all that he’d lost at age eight.
    One of those reminders was the smell of Mother’s favorite plum pudding being steamed. She’d always specified that certain spices be used, and that’s why the house now reeked of cloves and lemon peel. It would choke him for certain. He should never have come.
    He wouldn’t have come if not for the impudent Mrs. Stuart. The audacity of the woman to lie to him! And to Mother, too, apparently, since Mother had looked perplexed by his assumption that she was dying. Meanwhile, her companion, the conniving baggage, had looked guilty.
    But even if Mother hadn’t known of Mrs. Stuart’s letter to him, she somehow had to be complicit. Probably she’d spun enough tales about her son’s poor treatment of her to make Mrs. Stuart take it upon herself to right the wrong. Clearly Mother had done an excellent job of hiding her true nature around Mrs. Stuart, who seemed willing to risk losing her livelihood just to make her scheming charge happy. And she ought to lose her livelihood—he should have her dismissed at once for her impertinence.
    Yet in his mind he kept seeing the shock on her face when he’d entered. Apparently, he hadn’t done a very good job of hiding his panic over the idea of Mother dying. What had the damned woman thought—that he was some monster with no soul?
    Probably. After he’d announced he was leaving, she’d certainly glared at him as if he were. Insolent chit! No telling what his mother had said to secure the young widow’s sympathies.
    Whatever it was, it wouldn’t be the truth—that once he’d turned old enough to be passed off to some