Merry Misrule - St. Clair, Ellie Page 0,22

made their way downstairs for breakfast, she couldn’t help but wonder, however, what Elijah would think of the plan, and why it mattered to her what he might think or do. His opinion shouldn’t mean anything — it was Caroline’s father and Baxter who could cause the most discord.

But she couldn’t help how troubled she was that it was Elijah’s reaction that would matter the most to her.

Elijah was excited.

It was a state of being that he had not experienced in quite some time.

But it was Christmas morning, Joanna was here, and he was going to win her affections. He was sure of it. She was currently somewhere down the long table, although he wasn’t entirely sure where. He had been relegated to sit near the children, which he supposed was somewhat appropriate, although he wasn’t entirely pleased to admit it.

“Christopher,” he said to one of Baxter’s children, who was sitting on his left. Admiral Cuthbert’s wife was on the other side, continuously leaning in toward him. “Are you going to eat your eggs?”

“No,” Christopher said with a sigh as he stirred them around his plate. “They are disgusting.”

He enunciated each syllable so completely that Elijah nearly laughed, but he knew that it would only embarrass the boy.

“Here,” Elijah said, reaching over, beginning to move things around the boy’s plate. “The egg is like the lake. Then,” he moved the tomatoes, “the pieces of toast are the islands. The tomatoes you can break apart and they are volcanoes. The middle part — the part with the seeds — that’s the lava that is coming out.”

Christopher was looking at him with rapt admiration, and Elijah began warming to the game.

“Now this — this green stuff, this food for rabbits that has no business being on any of our plates — that is quite obviously the vegetation. The trees nearby. And this—”

Suddenly he realized that Christopher was no longer looking at him. Instead, he was peering down the table. Elijah lifted his gaze and followed where he was looking. Almost the entire table was watching them now, listening to his imaginings.

“Err—” he cleared his throat.

“Elijah,” Baxter said, lifting one of his eyebrows, his expression so completely identical to their father’s that Elijah would have laughed at any other time, “just what do you think you are teaching my son?”

“Just having a little fun, Baxter,” Elijah said with a shrug and a smile. “It’s Christmas.”

“So when it is not Christmas, do you belong in the nursery with the children, then?”

Elijah knew that Baxter was still smarting from the prank they had pulled on him earlier. But even so, his words still tugged deep in his stomach, reminding him of how he had always lacked the approval of both his father and his eldest brother.

Elijah, always the child. The prankster. The one who couldn’t take anything seriously, nor focus on any one responsibility.

Alex hadn’t been any different. And yet, somehow, he had always managed to come away from each situation without a blemish on his name.

He looked out of the corner of his eye.

Christopher was eating his island oasis.

Elijah smiled triumphantly. So what if his methods were slightly juvenile? They worked.

He winked at Christopher, who smiled back.

He could only hope that Joanna wouldn’t think any less of him.

Elijah had the entire breakfast to wait until he was able to find out.

“Joanna,” he called lightly to her as the rest of the party filtered out of the dining room, where they were eating for the occasion instead of in the much smaller breakfast room.

She paused as though unsure of whether or not she should turn around, but finally she looked over her shoulder. She was too good of a person to even pretend to ignore him.

“Yes?”

When she turned to face him, he was nearly speechless. She wore a dress that would have been stunning on its own. Much different from her usual wear, which only served to show the stark difference between her beauty and her garments’ drabness, the dress today would have been eye catching standing on a mannequin. The crimson silk was intricately embroidered with tiny diamonds of a crystal blue around the hem and the bodice, drawing his eye down.

For that was the true beauty of the dress — how it looked upon its wearer. It hugged Joanna’s every curve until her waist, causing his fingers to twitch with their desire to reach out and follow the silk, to touch where the dress did. From the waist, it flowed out to the