Citit - 'Twas the Night After Christmas by Sabrina Jeffries

Author:Sabrina Jeffries [Jeffries, Sabrina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-10-29T22:00:00+00:00

15

Pierce just stood there, shocked. A small, brown-haired, blue-eyed boy was standing in his drawing room, wearing a nightshirt and clutching something in both fists. And he was looking at Pierce as if he’d just seen the devil himself.

Then he began to cry. “M-Mama!” he blubbered. “I–I don’t want to be s-sent away!”

Camilla hurried to his side and caught him up in her arms. “It’s all right,” she said soothingly as she pressed his head to her shoulder. “I’m sure it will be fine, muffin, just fine.”

She wouldn’t meet Pierce’s eyes. She just kept cradling the boy, whose little frame shook from the force of his fear.

“Your son, I take it,” Pierce managed to croak.

Oh, God, she had a child whom she’d hidden from him. And here he’d been thinking that he meant something to her, that they meant something to each other, when all the while . . .

“Don’t let the g-great earl send me away!” the boy wailed, and Pierce got ahold of himself. At the moment this concerned a child, and only a child.

A child who was Camilla’s son, for God’s sake.

“No one will send you away, lad,” Pierce said hoarsely.

The boy stopped crying to peer at him through red-rimmed eyes. “But . . . but her l-ladyship said I h-had to keep out of s-sight or—”

“Mother knew?” Pierce asked Camilla, his chest tightening painfully. “You’ve both been keeping this from me?”

Camilla’s gaze shot to him at last, a look of pure panic in her eyes. “Please, you have to understand.” Hitching the boy higher on one hip, she clutched him close as if he might be snatched from her at any moment. “I needed to work to support Jasper, and my employers expected me to be unencumbered, so I always told them I was. Then I sent Jasper to live with Kenneth’s brother and his wife.”

“They don’t like me,” the boy muttered.

“That’s not true, Jasper,” Camilla chided gently. She met Pierce’s gaze. “They’re very Scottish, you see, and very religious. And they already had three young children of their own.” She stroked the lad’s curls. “But even so, I wouldn’t have brought him here if your mother hadn’t found out about him and asked me to.”

“Mother asked you to bring a child here?” he echoed, incredulous. She wouldn’t keep her own son, but she’d had some stranger’s boy brought to Montcliff?

“Yes,” Camilla said warily, no doubt guessing the source of his incredulity. “Why do you think it was so hard for me to believe that she could ever have been cruel to you? She’s been very kind to me and Jasper.”

He took a step toward them, and the lad squealed and grabbed his mother. “It’s all right, lad. I won’t hurt you.” He glared at Camilla. “What the devil have you been telling him about me?”

“You’re the g-great earl,” Jasper whispered, his eyes wide with fright. “I’m not s-supposed to let the great earl see me, or I’ll be s-sent away.”

“You won’t be sent away,” Pierce bit out.

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