“What about you?” he asked. “Would you go back to London?”
“In a heartbeat. But I don’t know if I’d stay. Ironically, I have more opportunities here.” She adjusted her swage. “When I met Mr. Marlowe, his Christmas castle was already a brilliant success, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted an entire Yuletide village. To do that, Cressmouth needed to offer everything any tourist might desire.”
“Not just practical needs, like a blacksmith, a bakery, a dairy,” Mr. MacLean said slowly. “He wasn’t competing with other villages. He was competing with London. He needed to offer the best of the best, so that people needn’t decide between seasonal destinations. There’d be no choice to make, if Cressmouth was the obvious answer.”
“Which was why it was flattering for Mr. Marlowe to choose me,” Angelica said. The expressions on her family’s faces had been unforgettable. “Of course, no dreams come true for free.”
He raised his brows. “Mr. Marlowe charged you money to move from London to this tiny village?”
“He didn’t, actually. He gave me a private suite in the castle, and free use of this shop. If I left Cressmouth before seven years were through—left for any reason, for even a single night—the arrangement was off, and I would owe rent on both places for every day that I’d been here. But if I stayed the seven years, both the shop and the castle living quarters would be mine outright.”
“That son-of-a...” Mr. MacLean coughed into his fist. “You couldn’t have so much as a holiday. Leaving would beggar you.”
She nodded. “But the cost wasn’t just monetary. I missed the birth of my niece, the death of a childhood friend. My relatives don’t understand. Oh, they comprehend the mechanics of the agreement, and how well it ties my hands. What they don’t understand is why I signed it.”
“Would you have had a shop of your own if you’d stayed in London?”
“Not even a workbench,” she said quietly.
“Then I understand why you signed. You wanted to be yourself. To be self-sufficient. To do something you were passionate about, and proud of.” His eyes were bright. “In your shoes, I would have signed it, too.”
She shook her head. “Family is supposed to come first.”
He frowned. “Then why wouldn’t you have come first, to them? Aren’t you family, too?”
She stared back at him, speechless. It was not an argument that had ever been made on her behalf before.
“I’m part of the family,” she stammered. “Because I can’t spend Christmastide with them, they come up and stay in the castle. You’d be surprised how many aunts and cousins can fit in one suite. The exorbitant prices that castle charges tourists for a single night’s stay... Instead, they have free lodgings, free food, and free entertainment because of me. It’s a holiday they could never have dreamed of, if I hadn’t signed that agreement. They wouldn’t have this opportunity without me.”
“That’s not what you want, is it?” His gaze held hers. “You don’t want to be the person they visit because of a free room at the inn. You want to be the cousin they’re proud to be related to because she’s a talented jeweler worthy of admiration and respect.”
“It’ll be seven years this Christmas,” she said with a sigh. “I thought I’d be a success by now.”
“Aren’t you?” His voice was softer. Closer. He was no longer tucked safely at the other end of the long counter, but leaning on his elbow at a distance close enough to touch. “You look like a successful woman to me.”
She didn’t answer. Her throat was too dry.
“Your friend didn’t ask you to design ten important adornments at the last minute because you’re the only jeweler in Cressmouth,” he continued. “She asked because she knew you would succeed. That whatever you created would be worth writing about in the newspaper. She came to you because you’re splendid at what you do.”
Her fingers shook. She set down the hammer and swage.
He reached for her hand.
She placed hers in his without question.
He brought her fingers to his lips and pressed a soft, slow kiss to her knuckles without taking his eyes from hers. Then he cradled her trembling palm in his and began to massage the muscles. It should have been presumptuous. Instead, it was perfect.
Had she claimed there wasn’t enough wine in England for them to kiss? She was beginning to think there was no force in England powerful enough to stop it from happening.
Not that Mr. MacLean would be stealing anything. If Angelica found herself in his arms...
It would be because she’d launched herself there willingly.
Chapter 7
By the fifth day of being snowed in, in a tiny village, with no hope of escape, Jonathan would have expected to be going none-too-quietly mad.
Instead, he was perched on a wooden stool at the long oak counter in Miss Parker’s jeweler’s shop. He read aloud from a leather-bound collection of Ignatius Sancho’s letters whenever Miss Parker was between customers and trying to concentrate on the adornments she was making for the upcoming Yuletide ball at Marlowe Castle.
According to her, Jonathan’s rugged, manly Scottish burr was the perfect tone and volume to disregard completely whilst molding gold or setting jewels. Of course, this was said with a smile. Far from ignoring his endless chatter, she seemed to truly enjoy it. Not with casual amusement, as a hackney driver or haberdasher might. Miss Parker listened carefully. She wanted to hear Jonathan’s stories. She liked his chatter. It was dizzying.
The frequent conversations that punctuated today’s readings were just as interesting and elucidating as the text itself. Jonathan found himself engaging with the material—with Miss Parker—on a level far more profound than his usual superficial interactions. He wasn’t talking at her. These discussions were something they did together.
Jonathan tried to pretend that entertainment was the only
