Page 64 of A Very Bellamy Christmas

“Oh. I wonder why I haven’t been given mine?”

“When you go down for breakfast, you should ask Mr. Davis or Mrs. Nutter,” Miss Ackers said.

“I will go right now,” Stacia said, eager to see who she’d drawn.

Although she was even more curious to know who had drawn her name.

***

Andrew was still regretting his angry attack on Kathryn the following day. Not because he worried that he had hurt her feelings—the girl had the hide of a bull—but because he’d exposed his own insecurities, which would only be more ammunition in her hands.

He had considered returning to the drawing room after his snit, if for no other reason than to turn pages for Miss Martin while she slaved over the piano, but it had all seemed like too much bloody bother.

Instead, he had gone to bed. It had been such an appallingly early hour that he’d expected to wake up after a few hours and be up half the night. He had slept all the way through until dawn, but it had been a restless sort of sleep and he did not feel particularly restored. Something niggled at him in the back of his mind—something just out of reach.

It had still niggled when he’d gone on his morning ride, his usual serenity nowhere to be found.

As for Kathryn? Well, she could say whatever she bloody well pleased. If she took digs at him again—which she would, given the rise she’d got out of him last night—he would just ignore her.

There. Problem settled.

Andrew had also given some thought to Miss Martin during his frosty ride. It bothered him more than he liked to admit that he had wanted to go back to the drawing room to keep her company. He never did such things. He never even thought such things.

More alarming than his desire to be around her was the fact that he would have returned if only he could have been sure that he would have been allowed to turn her music. But that is not what would have happened. Instead, it would have been just like any other ball or assembly he’d ever attended, and he would have been coerced to dance. Unlike a London ball, he could not have escaped and would have found himself dancing every damned set.

It was best that he had stayed away from her. It was true that he would probably have to marry, and the last sort of wife he needed was a woman even poorer than he was.

And why the hell was he entertaining thoughts of Miss Martin and marriage in the same sentence?

Miss Martin was a complication he did not need in his life. He would avoid her for the duration of the holiday. If Kathryn had noticed his interest in her, that meant others had, too. Given his reputation—and her employer’s hatred of him—his attention would not help her in any way.

Having at least addressed both matters, he was far less disgruntled—although nowhere near gruntled, if that was even a word—when he returned from his ride.

He had just finished washing, shaving, and was getting dressed when there was a knock on the door and Sylvester poked his head into Andrew’s room.

“Ah, my valet has arrived. Did I ring for you?” Andrew mocked.

“I was hoping I’d catch you before you went down for breakfast.”

“Why is it that those words have begun to strike fear into me?” Andrew asked as he finished tying his cravat.

“I wanted to talk to you last night, but you disappeared right before the impromptu dance.” His brow furrowed. “Are you unwell?”

“I am fine.” Christ. Could he do nothing that went unnoticed? “You wanted to talk to me?” he asked, changing the subject.

“Will you go to the village with me this afternoon?”

Andrew narrowed his gaze. “Why?”

“There is a Christmas fete and, after that, a dance and—”

“No.”

Sylvester laughed. “At least you gave it some serious thought.”

“I don’t want to go to a village dance, Sylvester.”

“Are you going to make me beg, cousin?”