One Night with a Duke (12 Dukes of Christmas #10) - Erica Ridley Page 0,14
beginning. It hadn’t occurred to me that someone with roots might feel the same way.”
“No.” She looked at him sharply. He hadn’t understood at all. “I’m not like you. I have a home. I don’t have to begin anything again. My family is inside that castle. I can see it from here. Even if they weren’t close by, I have other friends. There’s no reason to be lonely. I’m not lonely.”
Her family had predicted she would be. London was home to a million people, ten or twenty thousand of whom were Black like the Parkers. And Angelica intended to move to a village of one or two thousand total inhabitants? Was she daft? How would she find a husband up there?
But she wasn’t daft. She was ambitious. And she wasn’t the least bit interested in finding a husband. If her time was limited now as an independent woman, how much harder would it be to achieve her aspirations if being some man’s obedient wife came first?
Besides, Cressmouth was small, but it wasn’t the surface of the moon. More tourists flocked in this street every winter than had ever passed by her father’s shop in Spitalfields.
When it wasn’t Christmastide, the villagers formed their own big family. The Black community here was smaller, but no less loving. Her neighbors were friendly, all the shopkeepers looked after one another, and she never missed a church service. Angelica belonged here. If she weren’t overwhelmed with work, she’d be overwhelmed with dinner parties and seasonal invitations.
She wasn’t lonely. She was industrious.
It was not at all the same thing.
“I’m just busy,” she said. “That’s all.” She made a big show of resuming her work on an emerald tiara for one of her customers. “If I had time for people, I’d be with my relatives. But I cannot leave my shop until all the work is complete. People rely on me. I rely on me.”
“Just to make certain I understand,” Mr. MacLean said politely. “You miss your family. Their noise makes you happy. You can’t leave your shop. Your relatives are in the castle.”
She glanced up from the tiara to glare at him.
He gave her a brilliant smile. “Why not invite them here?”
“My goodness, that thought has never occurred to me,” she said in a tone dripping with so much sarcasm it could wipe the shine off his boots.
Yes, their chaos rejuvenated her... in carefully regulated circumstances.
If she allowed any of them in, her brother would insist on taking control. He had his own, bigger shop in London. He’d be judging her the entire time. She wasn’t ready for that yet.
The family noise and chaos revitalized her when it was somewhere else. When it was around her, but not about her. When the topic was Christmastide.
“What if,” said Mr. MacLean, “the trick is not to run yourself ragged but rather to take a small respite now and then?”
“I took a respite,” she reminded him. “I ate three biscuits.”
“A large respite,” he amended. “Gargantuan, by your standards. A period of rest that involves stepping outside of your shop, for an hour or two. It might invigorate you more than you think.”
She shook her head. “I don’t deserve a rest yet. There will be time for that once the adornments are hung and my name is in the Gazette. Until then, I have work to do and a shop to make presentable—”
“Make... presentable?” He gazed about the interior, then fixed wide eyes back on her. “What’s left to do? Alphabetize the three dust motes that followed me in?”
She crossed her arms. “There is nothing wrong with keeping things generally neat.”
“If this is ‘generally neat,’ I’d hate to see what your idea of ‘obsessively ordered’ might be.” He grinned at her. “I’d better not invite you to see the utter destruction in my guest chamber.”
“Who says I’d want to be anywhere near your—Wait, aren’t you staying at the Duke of Nottingvale’s cottage?”
“Previously known as a ducal cottage, aye. Now known as Utter Destruction.”
She laughed despite herself. “He would never allow that to happen.”
“He’s not here,” Mr. MacLean said cheerfully. “I’ve given all his servants permission to run amok.”
“Let me guess,” she said. “That’s why you’re here buying biscuits for me. None of Nottingvale’s staff would leave their posts for a minute.”
“Not even for a second,” he agreed sorrowfully. “Not even to play marbles.”
“Might I ask how an ‘itinerant ne’er-do-well’ managed one of the most sought-after invitations of the season?”
“That is an appallingly impertinent question,” Mr. MacLean informed her, “which means