The Earl's Christmas Pearl by Frampton Megan

Author:Frampton, Megan
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Avon Impulse
Published: 2019-10-28T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

On the eighth day of Christmas my true love gave to me

Eight ways to distract me (from kissing him)

Pearl was seriously considering running outside to plant her face in the snow so it would cool down. She felt as though she was a stoked fire herself, which perhaps, given what she’d just done—what she’d just done!—she might be.

“Pearl?” His voice came as though through a fog, distantly reaching her through her tumbling thoughts.

“Yes.”

“Are you all right?”

Other than worrying she might explode in a passionate conflagration?

“Yes, I am fine. I was just thinking.”

“Don’t think too hard,” he said, humor lacing his tone.

She snorted. She couldn’t help herself. “I’ve seen how you look, you can’t tell me you don’t think all the time.”

He made a dismissive gesture. “Yes, of course, but I can offer you advice I don’t take.”

She appreciated how he was deliberately trying to relieve the situation with humor. Even if his humor was acknowledging that he refused to do what would be best for him—doing for others instead.

She glanced at the clock in the corner. Which was no help, since it had obviously stopped some time before. No servants were there to wind it after all.

“It’s probably close to nine,” he said, noticing where she was looking. “Are you getting tired?”

Not really, but then again, right now I feel as though I could stay up for the rest of my life, as long as I have you to talk to.

“Yes,” she said, imbuing her words with a determination she did not feel.

“I can take this couch, and you can have the other one over there.”

She got up and walked to the couch he’d indicated, beginning to drag it closer to the fire.

“Wait, let me help,” he said.

She stopped her movement and gave him a forbidding look. “You are not to further injure yourself. I am strong, I can do this myself.”

“But—”

“No.”

She didn’t wait for him to continue arguing, she just made short work of what she’d been doing, bringing it within a few feet of the fire, which was also within a few feet of his couch. They both had a good view of the tree.

“The eye of the dragon catches the light,” she remarked as she sat down on her sofa.

“Mm.”

“I like that you told me about the ornament. Do you take it with you always?”

An exhale. “I do. It—it feels like home. As though as long as it is here with me, I am home. Even if home is an empty town house in London.”

“Not so empty now.”

“For which I’m quite pleased.”

She smiled at his firm tone.

“We’ll need blankets,” she said, getting up again. “I’ll go find them.”

“You won’t accept my help,” he said. It was not a question.

“No, I will not. You and Mr. Shorty stay there.”

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