Page 99 of A Very Bellamy Christmas

“Why are you smiling like that?”

“I get to decide what we do next, and I choose to read Emma. Out loud.”

“Just one minute! That is not a game.”

“I already asked you what you wanted to do, and you said it was my choice.”

He bared his teeth.

“Don’t worry; I have an excellent reading voice, honed by years of reading aloud to my employers.”

Lord Shelton groaned and flung himself back in his chair, resting his forearm over his eyes like a damsel in distress. “Go on, then. Commence the torture.”

“At least you are approaching this with an open mind,” she said dryly.

He dropped his arm and crossed both over his chest, his expression that of a martyr being lashed to a bundle of kindling.

Struggling not to laugh, she picked up the handsome red leather tooled edition, turned to Volume I, Chapter I, and began reading.

Stacia had been reading for less than a minute and had just uttered the line, “How was she to bear the change?—It was true that her friend was going only half a mile from them—”

“Good lord!” Lord Shelton shouted. “Is this entire book about this annoying chit?”

Stacia held up the book so he could read the gold embossed title.

He muttered something that did not sound complimentary. “If Weston knows what is good for him, he will pack up his new wife and move to the Outer Hebrides.”

Stacia laughed.

He dropped his head against the chair back. “Go ahead. I won’t interrupt again.”

But over the next forty-five minutes Shelton interrupted no fewer than eleven times.

“Mr. Elton was the very person fixed on by Emma for driving the young farmer out of Harriet’s head. She thought it would be an excellent match—”

Shelton suddenly leapt up from his chair and darted toward her. “God save me from matchmaking women.” He plucked the book from Stacia’s hands before she knew what he was doing and shoved it under a pile of extra blankets. “No, more. Please, I beg of you, Miss Martin, I cannot endure another word, or I will run amok. No. More.”

Stacia laughed. “Are you perhaps not exaggerating a little?”

“Absolutely not. I am underaggerating.”

“That’s not a word.”

“It should be.”

“As you capitulated, I suppose that means that I won again?”

“Yes, yes. You won again. Anything to end the agony.” His gaze flickered over the now scattered books, games, and cards. “How about Piquet?” he suggested with a hopeful look.

“I am dreadful at it.”

“Excellent!” he rubbed his hands together and reached for the cards.

“It is still my choice,” she said in a sing-song tone that she knew was annoying.

He growled but dropped the cards. “Well?”

“Let’s play Dictionary.”