My First Noel by Danelle Harmon

Author:Danelle Harmon [Harmon, Danelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Danelle Harmon, Inc.
Published: 2016-11-24T18:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

Oh, ohhh, the nerve of that horrible man, that pretender, that—that imposter!

Katharine had never been so humiliated in her entire adult life, and probably not in her childhood, either. What kind of fool had she been to let a dream—as close and real as it had been, as vibrant as it still was in her memory—to make her think that an ordinary man was someone extra-ordinary? Divine?

The only thing extraordinary and divine about Mr. Nollaig O’ Flaherty was the fact that Lucien de Montforte hadn’t yet found him, because when he did—

There was a sudden pounding at the door.

Katharine froze. One o’ clock in the morning, snow swirling against the windows, and for the second time this wretched night someone was outside and she, having given the footmen the evening off (she was a shrew, after all), was going to have to answer it yet again. Who would it be this time? Mother Mary? The three Magi? The angel Gabriel?

She yanked open the door, throwing caution to the wind. It could have been anyone or anything on the other side of that door, and the anyone or anything that it turned out to be was none other than Lucien de Montforte.

The duke stood out there on the steps, the reins of his savage stallion in one gloved hand, his eyes black and inscrutable beneath a tricorn that was crusted in wet snow. Behind him, a black-and-white mare stood tied to a nearby tree, ears flat and head drooping beneath the worsening weather.

“Your Grace,” Katharine said with cold deference. “Rather an odd hour for you to be out paying a visit, don’t you think?” She did not step back to allow her neighbor into the house. “If you want Perry, he’s long abed and I’m certain he has no wish to see you tonight, tomorrow, or any other night, even if it is Christmas.”

The duke looked pointedly down at the steps on which he stood, then back up to her. “This is not a social call. I’m looking for an injured man. Tall, dark-haired, scruffy. Irish accent. Have you seen him?” He focused that omniscient, all-seeing black gaze on her, and Katharine thought fleetingly that if Nollaig O’ Flaherty was the baby Jesus all grown up, then Lucien de Montforte was surely his Satanic counterpart.

“An injured man?” She gave a derisive snort. “No, Your Grace, I have been safely in my bed and dreaming of sugar plums and roast beef and kisses under the mistletoe that I shall likely never get. Now please leave. It’s one o’ clock in the morning and I would like—”

“Because there are tracks in the mud leading up to this house and blood on your steps.”

To her credit, Katharine didn’t flinch before that penetrating black stare. “Well that’s news to me. Perhaps Perry will know something. Come back tomorrow and ask him.”

“I would ask him now.”

“No, you will not. He’s in bed sleeping off a bottle of spirits that your cunning machinations drove him to, and whatever insanity you’re pursuing, Blackheath, can wait until daylight.

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