The Girl is Not For Christmas - Emma V Leech Page 0,66

being with her nieces and nephews whom she quite obviously doted on. But there was no hope for love or romance or her own happiness, so… why not? Why should she not have this and… and yes, damn it, use the experience to make a man of her choosing, choose her.

She knew it could not be King. She knew that. Her heart wanted to shrivel and die whenever she made herself face the truth, but she did know that. He had no money, and even if by some miracle he chose her, his father would never forgive him. She could never ask that of him. No, King could not help her and the children, even if he wanted to, and… and she did not think he wanted to. Oh, he was far kinder and gentler than he wished anyone to know and she knew their situation pained him, but wishing he could help and wanting to take on another man’s family, children that weren’t even hers…. No. No man in their right mind would want that. A fact which made the whole business of her aunt’s party utterly pointless, but….

Livvy sighed and put her head in her hands. A smile tugged at her lips as she remembered the panic in King’s expression when she’d asked him to take her to bed. His beautiful eyes had widened with alarm and grown as dark as a night sky, and she knew he would say yes. Which was, of course, why he’d run away. He’d hope she’d not have the nerve to go through with it and simply avoid her until she came to her senses. Except that Livvy felt like she had only come to her senses in these past few days. She had never really known what it was she wanted, let alone who, and… and now she did. Even if it was beyond her grasp, even if he was beyond her grasp and she wanted to sob for the impossibility of it, there was happiness too. It was a wistful, hopeless kind of happiness perhaps, but the dream was hers at least. It was more than she’d ever had before. So, if King was waiting for her to behave like a young lady ought to and act with good sense and decorum, well… he was going to be sorely disappointed.

“So, this is where you’re hiding, is it?”

King looked up with a scowl to see Walsh standing with legs akimbo, arms crossed and a look of unrepressed merriment in his eyes which was, frankly, irritating.

“I am not hiding,” King retorted, now both lying and hiding. Oh, bloody hell.

Walsh gave George, who was sitting on the floor beside King, a pointed look.

“Do you believe him, lad?”

“Ing?” George said, giving King a reassuring pat. “Pego.”

Walsh snorted. “Aye, reckon so.”

King glowered at his upstart valet and tried to remember why he kept him on and then remembered the poor bastard had been on half wages for months and kept his mouth shut. Perhaps George had a point. He gathered up the scattered bricks and began setting one on top of the other for perhaps the twentieth time that day, but George never seemed to tire of knocking them over again. He would shriek with laughter and clap his hands together with delight, and King wondered if he’d ever been that easy to please. Had he ever been so perfectly happy without being off his head drunk or wreathed in clouds of opium smoke? If he had, he certainly couldn’t remember it.

He looked up at a decisive tap, tap at the window, to see Mr Moon’s beady eye regarding him through the glass. King repressed a shudder.

“Don’t you dare,” he said to Walsh as the fellow moved towards the window. “The bloody thing is evil. It nearly took my finger off.”

“Ing,” George said soothingly, stroking his hand. “Gog, bite… oof, oof.”

He pointed at the crow.

“Yes, he did bite,” King said indignantly. “But he isn’t a dog, George. It’s a bird… er… a crow. Remember. Ke Re Ow.”

“Gog?” George asked.

“No. Not a dog.”

George gave a disconsolate sigh. So King turned the child’s attention to the tower of bricks he’d just finished. “Look what I built, George, isn’t it―”

George knocked the tower over, and the blocks crashed to the floor, scattering across the rug and clattering over the parquet beyond.

“--grand?,” King finished, shaking his head and pretending to look sorrowful, which only delighted George all the more, naturally.

The little boy cackled with laughter, rocking back and forth