To Wed His Christmas Lady (The Heart of a Duke #7)(8)

“Thomasly,” she returned with a cheerful grin Cara had not believed the other woman capable of. Then, perhaps it was merely her for whom she reserved her vitriol.

From within the confines of the carriage, she studied the exchange between servant and lady. The two chatted more than Cara’s maid about her morning meals. Surely the earl did not allow such familiarities between his daughter and his staff, particularly the male members of his household?

A memory slipped in of the days following her mother’s passing, of Cara’s visits to the stables. The scent of horseflesh and hay still as sharp in her mind now as it had been those eleven years ago. For the agony of losing her mother, she found solace in the stables alongside the grooms. Those coarse and gruff servants who showed her the proper way to brush a horse… Until her father had stormed in and, with his hand clamped about her arm, forcefully led her back to the house. It was the last time she’d ever visited that dark, comforting place.

Cara blinked. She’d not remembered that moment—until now.

She dimly registered the stares of Lady Nora and the groom fixed on her and gave a quick shake of her head.

“Well, come along,” Lady Nora snapped.

Schooling her features into the hardened, practiced mask she donned for anyone and everyone, Cara held her hand out and allowed the once smiling, now stoic, groom to help her down. The other young woman moved at an almost sprint up the steps, while Cara followed at a more sedate pace that came from years of ladylike decorum being drilled into her—as well as a desire to have as much distance between herself and this lady who so disliked her.

As though the entire household had been in waiting for this very moment, the front doors were thrown open and a butler greeted Lady Nora with a beaming smile. All the while, Cara picked her way up the steps, trying to escape notice, a rather impossible feat considering she’d imposed upon the charity of the earl’s daughter, and still the favor was not complete.

A cry went up and Cara jumped, slapping a hand to her erratically beating heart. And then, she froze at the threshold. A towering, broad, bear of a man swallowed Lady Nora in a hug while a delicate, thin slip of a woman stood with her fingertips to her lips. By the deep brown hue of the older woman’s eyes and the slight cleft in the man’s chin, the couple before her was none other than Lady Nora’s parents.

A swell of envy so potent and powerful filled Cara’s chest. She gripped the edge of the doorway a moment to keep the world from swaying. For the misery she’d known as the forgotten daughter of the Duke of Ravenscourt, there had been solace in knowing that all those self-important noblemen treated their female offspring thusly. This intimate moment between mother, father, and daughter, however, proved an altogether different tale. She cast a look over her shoulder into the increasing storm. For their tale made her long for the biting cold of the snow outside to this wholly special moment exchanged between father and daughter.

“Papa, this is Lady Clarisse Falcot.”

Cara stiffened as the butler hurried to close the door behind her and the earl and countess shifted their attention to their unexpected and unwanted guest.

Broad, where her own father was lean and wiry, the earl sketched a deep bow. “My lady,” he said with the cool reserve bestowed a duke’s daughter.

She preferred the unrestrained loving father he’d been mere moments ago. Cara inclined her head at a lofty angle and dropped a deep curtsy. “My lord. Thank you for the use of your carriage.” How did her words not shake with the hurt and embarrassment still running through her?

“The duke forgot her,” Lady Nora said by way of explanation.

Mother and Father turned matching glowers on their cherished daughter.

She wrinkled her nose. “He did.” The spirited miss looked to Cara with a bold insolence that only deepened her mother’s frown. “And with good reason. She is horrid.”

“Nora,” the countess scolded. A gracious and flawless hostess, the older woman came forward with her hands extended. “We are honored you will be spending the holiday season with us.”

From beyond her mother’s shoulder, Nora choked. “The hol—”

Cara snapped her damp, emerald green, muslin cloak, smattering the marble foyer with bits of melted snow. “I thank you for the gracious offer. However, I truly must leave now. My fath—” The lie died a quick death.

“Now?” The earl furrowed his high, noble brow. “The storm is worsening.”

“Which is why it is imperative I leave posthaste. If you’d be so gracious as to allow me the use of your carriage.” So that she could slink off, the shamed, laughed about, unloved duke’s daughter, while retaining some level of pride.

“But—”

“My family is expecting me,” she said in clipped tones when the earl made to protest once more. This time she fed him the lie they all knew to be a lie. Life had taught her that people did not challenge a duke’s kin. She wrinkled her nose. Well, Lady Nora did. And a handful of the other distinguished students at Mrs. Belden’s. But never before their parents.

This moment proved that truth.

“Of course,” the earl said. “I will see the team of horses switched.”

Standing in the foyer of this bucolic family, Cara huddled deep into the fabric of her damp cloak. What an odd place to be; not wanting to stay with this happy, loving lot, but not wanting to board the earl’s carriage and return to her own life, either…