“Another Christmas Alone,” She Thought — Until a Duke’s Carriage Broke Down at Her Gate
Chapter 8
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Rosamond studied him. "That seems a strange confession from a man whose carriage was traveling through a snowstorm on Christmas Eve.""Perhaps it explains the journey.""Were you running away?"He considered the question. Then he smiled without amusement. "Perhaps I was."Rosamond did not press him. Instead, she moved the kettle from the stove. "Well," she said gently, "you have run into a rather inconvenient place.""Have I?""Certainly. The road is impassable, your carriage is broken, and I intend to serve an unnecessarily large Christmas breakfast."Julian looked at her. "An alarming situation.""Quite.""And if I object?""You may lodge a formal complaint with Pickles."Julian laughed; Rosamond smiled. But beneath the humor, something quiet had begun to grow between them—something neither was ready to name.That night, after showing Julian to the guest room, Rosamond returned to the sitting room. The fire had burned low. Pickles was asleep beneath the chair. She began collecting the cups.Then she stopped. Two cups stood on the table: one was hers; the other had been used by a stranger who had arrived with the snow.Rosamond looked at them for a long moment. For three Christmases, the second cup had represented someone who would never return; tonight, unexpectedly, it had belonged to someone new. She touched its handle. Then she smiled—not because she had forgotten Aunt Beatrice, not because the ache of missing her had vanished, but because for the first time in a long while, the ache had made room for something else: hope.Upstairs, Julian stood beside the window of his guest room, looking out at the snow-covered garden. He should have been thinking about his ruined carriage, his delayed journey, the family gathering he had failed to attend. Instead, he was thinking about a woman with intelligent eyes, an irreverent sense of humor, and a remarkable ability to make a stranger feel welcome. He remembered her laughter. He remembered the way she had spoken of her aunt, and he remembered the quiet sadness in her voice when she admitted that she had missed having someone to laugh with.Julian rested one hand against the window frame. He had intended to spend Christmas avoiding memories; instead, he had found himself in a house filled with them, and strangely, he did not wish to leave.Outside, the snow continued to fall. By morning, the road would be buried, the carriage would remain useless, and the Duke of Winterbourne would discover that his unexpected stay at Willowmere Cottage was only beginning.Christmas morning arrived without a sunrise. At least, that was how Rosamond Fairchild described it when she opened her bedroom curtains and discovered that the entire world had disappeared beneath a thick white silence.The garden was unrecognizable: snow covered the hedges, the stone pathway, and the little wooden bench beneath the apple tree. The iron gate stood half-open, its damaged latch buried beneath a drift. Beyond it, the country road had vanished completely.