All I Want for Christmas Is a Duke Read Online Free Page A

rewarded into seeing something one ordinarily wouldn’t see. Don’t you think?”
    He’d never looked at her or that painting the same after that and had it removed from the wall with his father’s permission so he could get a painter to work on getting some faeries into it. His father and his brother thought he had turned into a Molly. And for the first time in his life, he didn’t care that he was being insulted. All he cared about was touching a finger to Jane’s soul.
    That painting now hung not in the parlor, where it used to be, but in his own study, where he spent most of his time fussing over ledgers and the estate. There were times he would pause from his work and it would startle him into thinking of her, even when he didn’t want to. Though he had tried getting rid of that painting, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. It would have been like getting rid of her.
    Martin eyed his aunt. “So how do you know her? How do you know Jane?”
    “She and I are neighbors.”
    He almost choked. “She lives here?” he echoed. “In the same building as you?” He refused to believe it.
    “Yes. A mutual friend introduced us years ago, when I was still walking about town, and Mr. Fink and I arranged a respectable price she could afford. She didn’t want to live near the same social circle she was in, due to her popularity, and moved here. She sold her old life, all of her fine gowns and jewelry, and took to Foley Street as if she were one of us.”
    “I don’t understand. Why would she do that? Why would she—”
    “Moving into a neighborhood such as this gave her the peace she was looking for, both financially and socially. After Mr. Robinson died, it was discovered he hadn’t taken the time to change his will. After all, they had only been married two weeks. Everything went to his brother and she was left with nothing. Whilst his brother tried to contest it and even extended assistance, she refused both. Tragically, she couldn’t even return to singing for she couldn’t compose herself long enough to do it. I suspect it had to do with her being incapable of trusting anyone after what this husband of hers did. Everyone only ever tried to use that poor child after her endorsement from the queen and prince. A sad story, that. I worry about her. She needs us, Martin.”
    He wavered, trying to comprehend that Jane was but a door away. All those countless days and nights and years spent thinking about her had accumulated toward this moment. “Is she involved with anyone?” he prodded. He had to know.
    She smiled. “No. The men here try. Believe me, they do, but she is a chestnut unwilling to crack.” Picking up her wood cane from beside her chair, she pointed toward the wall not once but twice. “She lives a flight down. It’s the door with the holly branch. Go. Talk to her. I have no doubt she would be very pleased to see you. She spoke so warmly of you.”
    “Did she?” His palms grew moist. God save him. He felt like he was seventeen again and about to see the woman who had featured in his first inappropriate sexual fantasy.
    When her father had disowned her and he’d been unable to share his feelings for her without displeasing his own father, he commenced writing her letters and signed them all with a mere X. He had hoped to change everything between them through those letters and defy not only his age but his father and all of society. Her response to his written passion had more than astounded him. Her letters gave him hope that they were meant to be together. Forever. He had promised himself that when he turned eighteen, regardless of what his father or society thought, he would reveal himself to her and, if God willed it, they would marry.
    That was when he discovered she had accepted the attentions from another who claimed to be Mister X. As writhingly furious as he was with her, for he thought she would have surely known the real Mister X from a fraud, when he had called on her, intent on