Undeniable Rogue (The Rogues Club Book One) (26 page)

Rafe and Damon were set to cutting and painting gold and silver stars and bells with which to decorate the garlands, while Juliana’s cradle, in the center of the holiday bustle, sat empty.

With Juliana on his shoulder, Gideon happily supervised. But he could not help consider past Christmases, and a question that had often nagged him as a child, plagued him again now.

Gideon set Juliana in her cradle and went to his grandmother. He kissed her cheek and placed an arm about her shoulders. “Why did you not take me when I was the twins’ age?”

Her eyes filled on the instant. “I tried, but they would not let me have you,” she whispered. “I am so sorry.”

Gideon brought her close. “Shh. I did not mean to make you cry. I have always wondered. You were my ray of sunshine during those years, my one source of hope, did you know that? You will never know how much you meant to me, then, and how much more you mean to me now.”

Damon snorted. “I think you are supposed to be kissing Mama under that kissing bow, not Grandmama.”

Gideon gave his grandmother a smacking kiss. “No, young man. You are wrong. I am supposed to kiss
all the girls
under the kissing bow.” He left his grandmother, went for his wife and waltzed her, laughing, toward the spot beneath it.

The kiss he gave Sabrina lasted longer and ended with applause from their audience.

Then he went for Juliana and danced with her on his shoulder until he held her up beneath the mistletoe and kissed her on her bubbly little heart-shaped mouth.

That entertained the devil out of the boys, until Gideon made each of them kiss their baby sister under the mistletoe, their Great-Grandmama, then their mother.

The Yule log was brought into the great hall a short while, later, and the servants gathered round.

Veering slightly from tradition, Gideon chose
two
sturdy brands, out of several saved from last year’s log, and handed one each to Rafe and Damon.

One on each side of the giant log, the boys set tinder to flame with the burning brands, and everyone cheered.

Gideon placed his arm around Sabrina’s shoulders. “Best of luck, in the year to come, and Happy Christmas to all.”

After long afternoon naps, even the boys were allowed to stay up late, to take the holly-festooned carriage to St. George’s, Hanover Square, for the midnight service.

Rafe fell asleep at about the same moment the Vicar began his sermon, and so Gideon took him on his lap, smoothing the hair from his eyes as he cradled this stubborn, contemplative twin against his chest.

In Gideon’s heart, aloneness and unworthiness vanished. In their place stood life, celebration, family. Instinct told him to run, that this heady sentiment could not last, that he would end the worse for having grasped and lost it.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

For once in his life, Gideon did not care how long the sermon lasted. Instead, he opened himself up to the Christmas message, drawing strength from Rafe, asleep on his lap, and Damon and Sabrina beside him.

These were moments to savor, family moments that might keep the wonder of Christmas alive throughout the year.

He had already received so many new and amazing gifts, Gideon could not keep his joy inside and found it emerging as a smile.

He caught Sabrina watching him, then, her expression reflecting the emotion inside him, while something warm, uplifting, even spiritual, passed between them. There and then, Gideon experienced the holiness of Christmas, and understood its true meaning for the first time.

Rather than awaiting the completion of the final Christmas carol in impatient silence, he sang
Joy to the World
, and he meant every word.

Back at Basingstoke, after everyone was tucked into bed, neither he nor Sabrina spoke of Christmas morning, which made Gideon think he must have a treat in store. They merely climbed into bed and reached for each other, embracing, as if they had become each other’s personal anchor.

“This was the best Christmas ever,” Sabrina said as she drifted off.
Wait until tomorrow
, Gideon thought, smiling.

In the morning, however, everything seemed different. The boys were cranky and furtive, holding their pets close, as if someone might jump out and take them away. And when Gideon spoke to them, they acted as if he should not notice them skulking about the house, looking miserable.

He remembered feeling just so as a child on Christmas, always a particularly lonely day for him, with his parents either away partying, or partying at home, without him.

Occasionally, he saw them exchange gifts with the servants, with friends, with each other, but never with him. He always received the oranges and sugar plums cook sent up with eagerness, and he was grateful, but he had also known that there must be something more.

To his mother and her new husband, wrapped up in each other as they were, he did not seem to exist, a situation he came to accept, eventually, though he always did resent it.

This year, he could barely wait to give everyone the gifts he had purchased for them. Except that Sabrina needed to finish feeding Juliana first. He had only come downstairs at all, to help Grandmama pass out gifts to her staff.

When that was done, however, he searched out the boys and marched their mulish-faced selves up the stairs to the master suite.

Sabrina was just putting Juliana into her cradle when he knocked and they entered her bedchamber.

“I thought we could have a quiet Christmas celebration of our own up here,” he said. “Before we give Grandmama her gifts.”

But no reaction did Gideon receive from Sabrina or the boys.

“You do exchange gifts, do you not?” Suspicion niggled at him.

They, all three, looked at him as if he had grown horns and turned blue.

“Do you object philosophically to gift-giving, then, Sabrina?”

“Do
I
?”

“That is my question. You all seem so, I do not know, rigid or frightened.” And then he thought that, perhaps, no gifts had been allowed them previous to this, or they could not afford any.

“Sit,” he said. “Everybody up on Mama’s bed.” He lifted Damon onto the bed and Rafe scrambled up on his own. “There you go. I have surprises. Wait here.”

Before he entered his own bedchamber, Gideon caught Sabrina shrugging at the boys, as if perhaps he had grown horns, after all, or gone daft.

When he took his stash of gifts from the bottom of his cupboard, Gideon feared that perhaps he had not purchased enough. He had assumed that Sabrina would also have gifts for the boys. But if that were not the case, then his would have to suffice as a little something with which to celebrate the day.

Both boys had moved up close to Sabrina by the time he looked in on them from his room. She held them, in a protective embrace, one on each side of her, as if she would defend them to the death.

“I am not going to ask what is wrong,” Gideon said, standing in the doorway. “But I must say, I am puzzled. Nevertheless, Happy Christmas, Damon and Rafferty.” He carried from his bedchamber, with great flourish, two large, gaily-painted wooden rocking horses, one for each boy.

No one on Sabrina’s bed moved. No one seemed capable.

Gideon stood alone between the two rocking horses, feeling foolishly deflated.

“One of you will please say something,” he begged. “I feel rather stupid and...conspicuous at the moment,” which speech seemed to open some invisible flood gate.

They were suddenly all three crying. Sabrina wept quietly, but the boys cried in great wracking sobs.

Gideon abandoned the horses and went to sit beside them on the bed. He took them, all three, inasmuch as he could, into his arms. Runny noses abounded. He tried to pass them his handkerchief, but they were so overcome, he had to wipe their noses himself, even Sabrina’s.

She laughed when he did, then she cried the more.

All he could do was soothe his wife, squeeze the boys shoulders and ruffle their small, dark heads. He hugged and tried to calm each one, in turn, but to no avail. And none seemed able to explain.

“I wanted to make our first Christmas special,” he said when tears finally slowed. “I did not intend to ruin the day. To tell you the truth, I do not even know where I went wrong, but I am sorry. So very sorry.”

“Mama?” Damon asked, a new and brighter glint to his eye.

Sabrina regarded Gideon and she cupped his cheek in her hand, which he loved, so he turned his face to kiss her palm.

“Boys,” she said, without taking her gaze from him. “I believe it is safe for you to go and play with your rocking horses.”

“Safe?” Gideon watched Rafe and Damon approach the horses for all the world as if the steeds might rear up and crush them beneath their hooves.

To Gideon’s silent inquiry, Sabrina shrugged. “I attempted for several Christmases to sneak gifts to the boys,” she said. “But, last year, I did not even try. It was too painful a day to repeat, so we did not celebrate at all.”

“You will not hurt Mama for giving us gifts,” Damon said, and Gideon was surprised to find the boy back beside them, leaning on the bed. He was also speechless at Damon’s comment.

“And you will not smack us for playing with them.” Damon spoke with surety.

Gideon turned to Sabrina. “I knew he struck all of you at one time or another, but at Christmas for the giving of gifts?”

Sabrina raised her chin. “One of many reasons I ran to Hawksworth.”

“So you left while your husband was still living?”

“He died shortly thereafter.”

For a moment, Gideon wondered if the man had died at her hand. If so, he could not blame her, but even the possibility made him regard his wife in a whole new way.

“I see,” he said. “You never celebrated Christmas with Hawksworth, then, I take it?” Surely his friend would have celebrated as Gideon had always believed most people did.

“Wellington got Hawksworth first,” Sabrina said.

“So we got you,” Damon said.

Hawksworth was their first choice, Damon did not quite say. Gideon was the man they ended up with, because Hawksworth died.

Feeling very much unwanted, a mistake, in the way, too familiar an experience to be borne, Gideon rose from the bed. “Enjoy your horses, boys. Sabrina, I will not burden y—”

Damon threw his arms around Gideon’s legs, stopping him beside the door. “Papa?”

Heart thumping, limbs prickling—in triumph, if he heard correctly, in dismay, if he did not—Gideon regarded Damon, standing there, attached to his legs, looking up at him with a range of expressions too heady to name. “Thank you, Papa,” he said.

Gideon hauled the boy into his arms and held him tight.

After a minute, Damon leaned back and toyed with the knot in Gideon’s neckcloth. “I do not have a present for
you
,” he said.

Kissing Damon’s small cheek, Gideon closed his eyes. “I have my Christmas gift,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Having you call me Papa is everything I ever wanted.”

Sabrina began sniffling and searching again for his handkerchief.

Gideon pulled it from his pocket and tossed it her way.