“I adore it,” he said, his voice huskier than he intended.
Oswald gave a delicate little cough.
Perhaps the man deserved a fit of the vapors.
“Come along.” Angelica looped her arm through Jonathan’s. “Our chariot awaits.”
“Chariot?” he repeated.
“Well, the Cressmouth version.” She grinned up at him. “You’ll see.”
When they stepped out of the door into the chill winter air, a large, bright red sleigh sat at the edge of the street, with a glossy black horse and bright-eyed driver at the ready and a low bench for riders at the rear.
Jonathan had watched the sleighs go by any number of times since his arrival. Tourists used them instead of hackneys. Sleighs were far more reliable in inclement winter weather than anything with axles and wheels. Better yet, they were diverting to ride in, and lent the simple act of traveling down the road an air of adventure and whimsy.
He climbed in after Angelica. “Where are we going?”
“To the park,” she replied, brown eyes shining. “The Yuletide festival is underway.”
Och. For a brief moment, he forgot about Christmas. But there was no time for his muscles to stiffen with trepidation—the horse was off at a sharp clip, and Angelica’s warm curves pressed deliciously into his side.
Because the duke’s cottage was only a few hundred yards from the castle, the minutes flew by in a trice. Their sleigh pulled up behind a dozen others, all painted bright red and pulled by exquisite black horses with improbably gleaming coats.
“Courtesy of the Harper stud farm you passed on your way in,” Angelica explained. Her glove brushed his. “Ready to meet the rest of my relatives?”
Not in the slightest. The idea terrified him. Which was patently ridiculous.
Jonathan had spent every day for well over a decade meeting strangers and turning them into temporary friends. A task made easier by the knowledge that his success or lack thereof didn’t really matter. No matter what sort of impression he made, he’d be gone within a week.
But Angelica’s familydidmatter. They mattered becauseshedid. Even though he was unlikely to run into them again once he left Cressmouth, he didn’t want them to remember him as someone unworthy of Angelica’s time.
He desperately wanted them to like him. A situation that all but ensured he would be at his most awkward.
“Where will we meet—” His question was answered before he finished asking.
They were barely out of the sleigh before a dozen children of various heights surrounded them from all angles, followed by an equal number of adults carrying forgotten mittens or cones of paper piled high with roasted chestnuts.
All of them were speaking at once.
“Jump in,” Angelica whispered. “It’s the only way.”
No wonder her quiet little jeweler’s shop had seemed eerily silent to her. There were at least four enthusiastic stories being told at once, along with a heated argument over a missing doll, two warring Christmas carols, and some sort of rhyming game involving the complex clapping of hands.
“Family, this is Jonathan.” Angelica introduced him to each new face in turn. “My cousin Letitia. If she challenges you to hopscotch, it’s a trick. Uncle Maurice, who normally preaches in London but holds a special service in the castle every Christmas. Aunt Octavia, who cooks the most delicious... well, everything, really.”
“How can you eat that castle food all year long?” Aunt Octavia fussed at Angelica’s pelisse. “No wonder you’re so skinny. When I get you back to London—”
“I weigh five pounds more than I did when I left home,” Angelica whispered to Jonathan. “But I’d be three stone heavier just from breathing in the aroma from her kitchen. It might be the thing I miss the most about home.”
“I thought you missed us the most!” clamored the nieces Jonathan had met previously, a claim that was at once challenged by three other nieces and a small army of nephews.
He repeated everyone’s names over and over again in his mind, determined to commit them all to memory. Not just names, but faces. The sensation of having so many people inspecting him all at once was dizzying.
Some of her relatives were smiling.
Some were not.
He didn’t blame them. He could only imagine their experiences with those that would judge them based on the color of their skin. The sight of him with their beloved relative must have come as a shock.
