Chapter 8

8

I s something the matter, sir?” Daniel , one of Nate’s two loyal footmen, ceased adjusting the fir branch he’d placed in one of the great hall’s alcoves and was looking at him strangely.

“ Not a thing.” Nate gritted his teeth, giving the kissing bough a final tug to straighten it and jumping down from the chair he’d been using to reach the top of the high doorframe. Meanwhile , he fought the overwhelming urge to claw at the skin on his hands until it turned raw.

With his feet planted back on the floor, he took a moment to breathe, clenching his fingers into fists. It was the most damnable thing. The cut on his finger no longer smarted. His broken hand was no stiffer or more painful than usual.

Instead , something worse was happening: both hands felt as if he’d thrusted them into a nest of fire ants— after spending the night with them wrapped amongst linens infested with bedbugs.

Which was impossible. Rosemead had neither ants nor bedbugs, and he hadn’t even slept in a bed last night. Regardless , the itching had started around the time he’d climbed onto the chair to hang the kissing bough and had grown fierier with each passing second. He’d tried not to react as if he were a mongrel covered in fleas. However , Daniel’s reaction led him to think he hadn’t been entirely successful in that regard.

“ Mr . Pembrook ?” A voice floated up from behind him. Her voice, accompanied by the tap of her slippers as she crossed the great hall.

He turned stiffly, his fingers still clamped at his sides—because he would not , under any circumstances, scratch his palms in Emily’s presence.

The sight of her—the unraveling braid, the plump lips, the pale green muslin that clung to her in all the right places—offered him a moment of reprieve. Now , if he could just focus on that and not the hellfire shooting over his skin.

“ Mrs . White and I made considerable progress in the kitchen,” she said, brushing a loose ebony lock away from her face as she walked. “ Franny , your chambermaid, was good enough to join, and …”

She trailed off, her gaze traveling up and down his body, her lips twisting into a frown akin to Daniel’s . He didn’t mean for his hand to jerk, but the damnable itch made it impossible for him to keep still. The movement was quick, a momentary loosening of his fingers. Nonetheless , it was enough to make her eyes widen and her mouth fly open. “ Your hand!”

Sadly , it wasn’t the first—or even the second—time she’d had cause to utter such an exclamation. But while the misfortunes with his hands were becoming an almost laughably common occurrence, that didn’t stop her from running over to him. Didn’t stop her brow from creasing in concern as she took in the red splotches that had spread as far as his knuckles. “ What’s happened?”

“ Nothing’s happened.” He folded his hands back into fists—thinking of icehouses, snowstorms, anything but the prickling burn that demanded scratching—before approaching the dwindling pile of stray greenery upon the floor. “ I hung the kissing bough you made, and now, I’m going to hang these last few branches of ivy, after which I believe we can consider the great hall sufficiently decorated.”

He retrieved the ivy, vaguely aware that instead of responding to him, she was murmuring something to Daniel . But the task of holding the branch within his ravaged palms—and not flinching—proved so consuming that the exact nature of her words escaped him.

He surveyed the room until his eyes fell upon an alcove devoid of decorations, and he set it as his target, marching forward with unnaturally rigid steps.

Until suddenly, Emily’s voice called out to him again, this time an urgent cry. “ Put that down!”

A splendid idea. One that could be made better only if she suggested he proceed by running outdoors and plunging his hands into the nearest snowbank. Yet his wants were beside the point.

He tightened his grip on the ivy branches, even though every nerve ending screamed in protest. “ I don’t have time to?—”

“ You’re likely having an adverse reaction to the greenery.” Once again, she rushed to his side, her chin set in a stubborn little tilt. “ You seemed to do well enough with the holly and fir, so unless you’ve been handling something else entirely, it must be the ivy.”

“ That’s imposs …” The rebuttal died on his tongue. He’d collected branch after branch in the woods, had stayed up half the night trying to finagle them into the pleasing arrangements his parents had always created. But not ivy . He shot a glance at the innocuous-looking leaves within his grasp. The footmen must have gathered these at some point along the way. In fact, Daniel had been hanging them throughout the afternoon without incident. Just as Emily had twisted ivy into the kissing bough—devoid of her gloves, he might add—and appeared no worse for wear.

But for Nate , it was a different story. Of course it was. Poor luck seemed intent on following him like a storm cloud above his head.

Well , he couldn’t let that deter him. He was so close to completing another task, and he’d be damned if he?—

“ For heaven’s sake!” Emily’s hands shot out, wrenching the ivy from his grip and tossing it to the floor. “ Do you want to do yourself further harm?”

It was a simple question with an obvious answer, but his brain had grown incapable of forming a response. As it turned out, he was spared the trouble, for Daniel scurried back into the room with his arms full, splashing water onto the floor from the basin he carried.

Another basin. Another towel. Another bottle of ointment. Because , once again, the incompetent poor-substitute for a master of the house had blundered.

Nate crossed his arms, his eyes following Daniel as the footman pushed aside a holly branch to make room for the supplies atop one of the long tables. It was but a small reversal of progress, something he could easily fix. Nonetheless , Nate’s jaw tightened.

“ This will help.” Emily rushed over to the table, pulling out the chair closest to the basin and motioning for him to sit.

His hands itched, stung, and burned, desperate for any sort of balm they could come by. Even so, he didn’t rush to join her but forced his feet to maintain the same stiff, measured steps as before. Daniel , seeming to sense that Nate didn’t require or want an audience, was quick to take his leave into the servant’s corridor and shut the door behind him. And still, Nate kept his fingers clamped together and his footfalls slow, until he reached the side of the table and could peer into the flecked, murky mixture in the basin.

His brow rose. “ Oatmeal ?”

“ Yes ,” she said a little breathlessly, giving her foot an impatient tap against the floor. “ Anna had a similar experience to yours one time while cutting hydrangeas, and she claimed that soaking in oatmeal helped immensely.”

He didn’t doubt her. But he also didn’t sit. He didn’t know if he could without jumping out of his skin. Since his return to England two days prior, his pride had been bruised, kicked, and trampled. Why was it, then, that his burning hand and this bowl of soggy oatmeal hurtled him over the edge, pushing him beyond the point of what he could abide?

“ Thank you,” he choked out, summoning the final shred of good manners he had left, “but I don’t need it. As I said, I have to finish?—”

“ Why can you not readily accept my help?” She gave the back of the chair an exasperated shove before planting her hands upon her hips. Gone was the careful mask, the temperate voice that concealed her true emotions. Instead , the woman he’d encountered in the woods had returned with all her blazing indignation. She marched up to him, jabbing a finger in the center of his chest. “ Is it because I’m a woman? Because you think I’m a sickly, silly child ?”

“ Because it reminds me of what a bloody failure I am!” He didn’t mean to raise his voice, but the words shot out unbidden, replete with every shred of his frustration, his regret, his shame.

Something inside him seemed to break like a wave crashing against the shore, leaving him both inundated and drained. He gave in, sinking to the chair, letting his fingernails trail along his palms as he slowly unclenched his fists.

“ Mr . Pembrook . Nate .” She spoke his name gently, placatingly, as if he were the child—and based on his outburst, he very well deserved the title. “ I know how much the St . Stephen’s Day party means to you, and I can appreciate your frustration with the continued setbacks. However , you cannot keep torturing yourself over every detail and pushing yourself until you’re worn to the bone. If things don’t work out exactly as they should, the world won’t end. There will be other Christmastides , other parties. For it is, after all, just a party.”

“ But it’s not.” He blew out a long exhale. And then, because he didn’t have the will to fight anymore, didn’t know how to claw himself back up from the weariness, he let his hands drop into the basin of watery oats. Lowered his voice so that it wasn’t accusatory but simply gave a bland statement of the truth. “ You don’t know what it means to me.”

He waited for her lips to thin, for her eyes to flash with anger. But instead, she dropped onto the chair next to him, her face back to that impassive mask, save for the lingering flush in her cheeks. “ Tell me, then.”

Tell me . As if it were that easy to expose every one of his mistakes, every one of his regrets.

Yet what had the past few days been if not an exercise in keeping him humble? In making him confront his shame and inadequacy head-on. Didn’t she deserve to know why he’d been toiling like a madman, and in turn, she toiled along with him?

He’d known her for all her life as his neighbor. The daughter of his father’s longtime friend. Now , he also knew her as the woman who’d sat in his orangery in the middle of the night and allowed herself to be vulnerable. What if he could trust her, as she’d trusted him?

He stretched his fingers to the bottom of the basin, the combination of tepid water and oats creating a sensation upon his inflamed skin that nearly approached relief. He basked in it for a moment, his eyelids drifting shut as he gathered his thoughts. And when he opened them again, he was ready.

“ Many would consider being the only son of a viscount an enviable position,” he began, peering into the cloudy water as if it contained images of the past. “ I grew up wanting for nothing. I went to Eton and then Cambridge knowing that when I finished my studies, I would be required to do nothing but learn a thing or two about estate management, receive an allowance, and wait for the day when Rosemead would become mine.”

He looked up, finding her liquid amber gaze fixed intently upon him. Silently encouraging him to continue. “ What more could I have asked for?” he said. “ My father always kept Rosemead well-managed and prosperous. He himself is the picture of respectability, esteemed by all who know him. As was my mother, while she lived. I once heard them referred to as the most affable couple in all of England .”

He paused, an ache shooting between his ribs as he considered what the pretense must have cost them. “ And yet, it wasn’t real. They were so polite in the way they interacted with one another, so flawless in how they presented themselves to society. But neither of them was happy, not truly. I could see that even as a child.”

He swallowed, trying to push away the memory of the muffled sobs he’d chanced to hear, at different points in time, behind the closed door of both the viscountess’s and viscount’s chamber. “ There was something missing, something not right. Something I couldn’t understand, only … I knew I didn’t want that to become my life. Visions flashed in my head of the impeccable household I would run, of the reputable wife I’d have beside me, of the admiration we’d receive for how damn perfect we were. Except it would all be a facade to conceal the emptiness beneath. I refused to stay in England and allow that to happen.”

He unthinkingly made a gesture with his hand, causing water to splatter over the edge of the basin. Which consequently reminded him that he was perched at a dining table, baring his soul while soaking in oatmeal.

He snapped his hands out of the soupy mixture, sitting a little straighter in his chair. He was saying too much, becoming too open, and looking ridiculous while doing it. Yet here was Emily , not scornful or mocking but leaning forward to pass him a towel, her expression still placid.

He accepted the offering and wiped off his fingers one by one, gratified to find that the urge to scratch his skin raw had abated. As again, an idea prodded at the edge of his thoughts: you can trust her .

He set his hands on the table. Peered into the warmth of her eyes. Until suddenly, his words poured out once more. “ When my mother died of fever, not long before your own, she left me an inheritance, to be given when I turned one-and-twenty. A tidy sum, and my father offered plenty of suggestions for practical investments I could make once the funds came into my possession. I didn’t heed his advice, though. Instead , I took the money and boarded a ship to the Mediterranean .”

“ Your grand tour,” she murmured, reaching for the bottle of ointment.

“ Yes . If Lord Byron could do it, why couldn’t I ?” He had to laugh at himself and his youthful logic. At the young man—the boy, really—who thought little of the dangers of traveling during wartime and even less of his responsibilities at home. “ Off I sailed to Greece without companions or tutor. Without a word to anyone, my father especially, for he never would have condoned it. He told me as much when his letters began reaching me, and he begged me to rethink what I was doing and come home. But I didn’t, of course.”

His chest tightened with a throb of guilt, and his fingers pressed against the tabletop, his nails digging into the oak.

Except then, her hand was upon his, coaxing it to relax, transferring something cool and soothing. The ointment.

His breath stuttered, the gentle circular motions of her fingertips radiating through him, providing a reprieve from the knots that twisted in his gut. Enough that he could keep speaking, as much as he didn’t want to.

“ I didn’t listen,” he said dully, feeling the familiar burn of shame creep up his neck, “and while I know I disappointed him, my father didn’t try forcing me to do otherwise. Once I made it clear I had no intentions to return anytime soon, he stopped with the imploring and wrote periodic letters only to ensure I was well. And damn me for a fool, I ignored everything I left behind. I suppose I just assumed that the impeccable Lord Pembrook would keep managing the estate as he always did. Whatever misery he concealed, he fit so seamlessly into the role of viscount that he seemed almost eternal. In any case, I didn’t make the future my concern. I cared only that I’d escaped Rosemead’s curse of false happiness and that I was free to explore the world.”

He paused to study Emily’s face, waiting for her brow to grow severe or her lips to purse in condemnation. However , she remained focused on the task of rubbing ointment into each patch of his reddened skin, her fingers working in calming circles. Not that he doubted for a minute she was listening.

Very well, then. He may as well finish the story. Reveal the worst of his selfishness.

“ Perhaps I could consider my actions more forgivable had I stayed away for a year or two, gotten my fill of painting, and then returned to Rosemead to take on my responsibilities as heir. But after vowing for all my youth that I wouldn’t succumb to that fate, I let obstinacy keep me away long after the thrill of the voyage wore off.” He sighed, a low sound of regret for the things to which he’d been oblivious back then. Which were so obvious now. “ Even the news I received from my father at the beginning of summer—that he was departing Rosemead for an extended stay in France —didn’t make me rethink my decision. It took a slab of marble crushing my hand to do that.”

A single moment of carelessness that had caused everything in his life to change. “ With my lackluster attempts at sculpting no longer an option, I joined my father in Paris . Miraculously , he welcomed me instead of disowning me. And finally, after so many years apart, we had a conversation. One that helped me understand …”

His throat constricted, making the last of his words sound pinched. “ He told me that he and my mother had cared for and valued each other as friends, but that theirs was a marriage of convenience. She’d been betrothed to another who was killed in a carriage accident, and when rumors began circulating about her virtue, she needed to marry elsewhere or risk facing ruin. My father was there to step in, and it seems they came to a mutually beneficial arrangement. Nonetheless , her heart forever belonged to the man she lost. And as for my father …”

He stopped again, an ache building in his gut. After all the years where his father had shown him only a pleasant mask, it had been difficult to sit in those rented rooms in Paris and listen while the cordial viscount talked of secrets and sorrow. It was difficult to think of it even now. Nate had been so consumed by his own wants and fears that he’d never taken time to consider why his parents were unhappy. He’d never truly known his father. He should have done so much better as a son. And those were the most difficult truths of all.

“ My father wasn’t looking to form a love connection through marriage, either,” he said at last, the gentle pressure of Emily’s fingertips prodding him to keep going. Lulling him, once again, into the sense he could trust her. “ He already had one. He and his secretary, a Mr . Collard , have been in love from the time he inherited Rosemead at the age of two-and-twenty.”

Emily’s hand stilled, and her lips parted. While her shock likely didn’t match what his own had been, she must feel some surprise at the revelation. Yet instead of exclaiming over it, she kept her palm atop his hand like a soft weight as she anticipated the rest of the story. The part of it that made his insides raw.

“ Maybe I would have seen it had I been more perceptive.” He gave his head a small shake, silently chiding himself for how bloody thoughtless he’d been. “ For over three decades, my father devoted himself to the role of viscount—to undertaking his duties so flawlessly—as all the while, he lived with the burden that he could never have the one thing he truly desired. At least, not beyond the occasional clandestine meeting that left him in fear of what would happen if he and his secretary were discovered. Why I assumed his misery came from some curse surrounding Rosemead or the viscountcy, I haven’t the faintest idea. The problem was never with the estate or the title itself. It was with his circumstances, which were made so much worse by having an ingrate heir who abandoned him. Who left all the responsibility to fall on his shoulders, so he felt like he could never escape.”

“ Oh , Nate …” Finally , she spoke, her voice a soft murmur in the stillness, her fingers gently squeezing his. “ I’m so sorry for everything Lord Pembrook went through, more than I can say, and I understand your regret. Yet I’m certain he wouldn’t want you to keep condemning yourself. You cannot change your past decisions, but you’re working to choose differently in the present. That’s all you can ask of yourself.”

He exhaled, the motion tugging at the knots in his chest. Perhaps her mollifying words had merit. However , all he knew for certain was that he felt damn sorry, too. “ At least his circumstances have finally changed for the better.” The one thing in the whole miserable situation for which Nate could feel thankful. “ The ending of the war gave him the opportunity to travel to France , where he cannot be persecuted for whom he loves. And so, in the summer, he put himself first for a change and took it. He and Collard have been in Paris together ever since, where they’re happy. My father isn’t merely pretending anymore.”

“ I’m so glad.” She’d long since finished the task of spreading ointment, but her hand remained clasped with his, her lips curving just the slightest bit. Enough that he could envision what she’d look like if she smiled.

“ So , you see why I had to return,” he said, the space between his ribs aching with a mixture of bittersweet emotions that had no name. “ My father didn’t cast off his responsibilities to Rosemead lightly. If nothing else, I could assuage his guilt by coming back in his stead and seeing that the St . Stephen’s Day party goes ahead as usual.” He sighed, his gaze traveling a moment to the snow-streaked windows. “ Although I’m questioning whether I have the ability to manage it successfully, or if everything I touch is destined to become tainted by failure.”

“ It isn’t.” She was leaning closer to him now. Near enough that he could detect the flutter of her dark lashes and the whisper of her breath before she spoke. “ You’re doing your best, and that’s admirable. Not a failure at all.”

He wanted to believe her. Wanted to think he could atone for his years of disregard and become the future viscount that Rosemead needed. Yet his efforts since returning had been marked by setbacks, one after another, as if the universe insisted on punishing him. On refusing to let him forget the past.

Indeed , how could he forget the way he’d neglected his father?

Furthermore … he now held the knowledge that in the midst of his youthful carelessness, he’d also neglected and hurt her .

“ Emily , I …” He wished he had the right words to express his remorse, his admiration, his fears, his desires. To let her know he trusted and valued her, and that if by some miracle he executed a successful party, he would have her to thank. He wished he could tell her how beautiful she looked in the dimming light with her tumbling braid and lips that brought to mind a blossoming rose. How his blood seemed to ignite whenever she was near.

But he didn’t have those words, only had her beside him holding his hand, breathing the same air he did, peering at him with eyes of pure, bright amber.

And so, he acted instead.

He kissed her.