To Wed His Christmas Lady (The Heart of a Duke #7)(4)

No, she was not. Cara dropped her gaze to the broken clasp of this piece that had once graced her mother’s neck. Incapable of words, she shook the chain once and Alison rushed forward to claim it. The girl took in the damaged pendant and made a clucking noise like a chicken let loose. “How very sad,” she said as though to herself. “’Twas a fine necklace.”

The ten carat ruby and fine Italian gold had meant nothing to Cara. Rather, the memories connected to that piece as her mother had pressed it into her small hand were of far more value than any material worth attached to the necklace. “You’d still be your cheerful self with that,” she said tersely, jerking her chin at the heart.

Alison blinked wildly and then a broad smile split her lips. “Oh, indeed!” She skipped over to the bed and gently wrapped the beloved piece.

It was on the tip of Cara’s tongue to call for the return of that heart, but she compressed her lips into a tight line to keep from revealing that hint of weakness.

“One must always find things to be cheerful about.” Her maid chatted like a magpie which, unfortunately for Cara, was often. “There were cranberry scones for breakfast.”

As respected and revered as Mrs. Belden’s school was, one would never claim the headmistress’ cook was in any way accomplished. “They were drier than a sack of Cook’s flour.”

The room trilled with Alison’s laughter as she hurried from the armoire over to the open trunk at the foot of the bed. Cara winced as the young woman, between her sniffling, proceeded to carry on about the texture of the cranberries and the other parts of her breakfast meal. Cara had resolved to see her sacked the minute she’d entered into her responsibilities as maid and first smiled at her. People did not smile at her. And they decidedly did not speak to her. The maid had prattled on in a manner that had set Cara’s teeth on edge. But then, the more she’d listened, the more she’d perplexedly found there was something rather comforting in hearing another person’s voice. Oh, she’d sooner wed the miserable, pompous, future duke her father would bind her to with a smile and a “yes, please” than ever willingly admit as much. A startled laugh slipped from Cara’s lips, and Alison shot a wide-eyed look back at her. Cara schooled her features and disguised that shocked sound as a cough. Alison resumed her packing, all the while humming as she went.

Yes, though Cara made it a point to not engage the girl, there was an odd solace in being with a person who spoke to you—and not about you. Or even, at you.

“Then there were the biscuits,” the plump woman said crushing one of Cara’s satin dresses close to her chest and hopelessly wrinkling the fabric. “Oh, the biscuits. A—choo!”

Cara returned her attention to the grounds outside her chambers. “It is a sorry life indeed if you find joy in biscuits and scones,” she said, unable to keep the bitterness from her tone. Then really, what happiness was there? It assuredly was not found in the cold families a lord and lady were born into.

“Oh, but surely you see it is a lovely day?”

She squinted out into the dreary, gray-white, winter sky. A lovely day? Was the girl madder than a hatter? Her mistress had been summarily forgotten by her sole surviving parent at Christmas. Not that it mattered whether or not it was the holiday season. She abhorred all the false festive cheer of Christmas; a time when lords and ladies pretended they were happy and kind and all things different than the cold, unfeeling figures they truly were.

“I daresay it will be a wonderful holiday.” Her maid wiped her nose on a handkerchief and quickly stuffed it into the front pocket sewn into her apron.

On what did the girl base such a surely erroneous assumption? What joyfulness did she know as a maid in the Duke of Ravenscourt’s employ for Cara’s miserable self?

“The skies are gray, without a hint of sunshine,” she said, hating that she engaged the girl, but it provided a small distraction from her own miseries.

“Ah, but the smell of snow is in the air.” Then, as though she could smell anything more than the dark, lonely chambers through her stuffed up nose, the girl threw her arms wide and inhaled deep. She ruined that attempt at invigoration with another sneeze.

A knock sounded at the door and Alison rushed over to open it. Cara thrust back her pathetic musings, despising the weak creature who still mourned the loss of a father’s love, nearly as much as she despised the man himself. As Alison pulled the door open, one of Mrs. Belden’s instructors—aptly named dragons—remained in the corridor. She whispered something to the maid. Cara pointedly kept her attention at the window, away from that slight exchange. All the while, her neck pricked with humiliated hurt at the obvious reason for the interruption.

Down the length of the gravel drive, a black carriage rattled toward the front of the establishment. Her heart gave a funny leap. With blossoming hope, she pressed her face to the window and squinted. Young ladies did not squint and they certainly did not show enthusiasm or, well, any hint of emotion. But she didn’t give a jot about proper ladylike behavior just then. A cry, born of a hope she didn’t believe herself capable of, stuck in her throat. For there was a carriage rattling slowly down the drive and that black conveyance signified she’d not been forgotten. She brushed a hand over the frosted pane, the glass ice cold on her bare palm. Ignoring the slight sting, she attended that elegant, black barouche as it came to a sudden stop outside the front of the revered finishing school.