Holiday Duet: Two Previously Published Regency Novellas

by Grace Burrowes

  “You do know her, then. A long meg, has no use for fashion, deucedly independent, and approaching her last prayers with some dreadful novel in hand. If I’m lucky she’ll grant me a white marriage, though she’ll probably want babies of me.”

  Nagle made that fate sound like transportation to seven years of hard labor.

  “You’ll excuse me,” Max said, clamping down hard on the impulse to plough his fist into Nagle’s gut. “I must bid the company goodnight, though I do have a question for you, Mr. Nagle.”

  Nagle waved an elegant hand in a circular motion.

  “When did your understanding with her ladyship arise?”

  Nagle let out a slow belch. “This very morning after our usual cozy breakfast—kissing cousins and all that. I’m to do the pretty for a bit and then we’ll be married. She can call the tune now, but once the vows are spoken, our household will run as I see fit. Make no mistake about that.”

  Max left Nagle swilling his port, offered Hamblin the barest semblance of a goodnight, and all but stumbled out into the cold night air.

  “Where the ’ell ’ave you been?”

  When Dagger dropped his haitches, he was upset. That fact penetrated Max’s mental fog as the bitter night wind and half-frozen feet had not.

  “I have been out.” Max whipped off his scarf, tossed it at a hook, and missed. “Men of science, port and postulations, Lord Humbug’s dinner.”

  “That lot went home more than an hour ago, and you left early.”

  An eddy of rational thought joined the bewilderment, hurt, and shame swirling through Max’s brain.

  “Spying on me, Dagger?”

  “I waited for you. A bloke ought not to be out on his own, late at night. This time of year can get desperate for them as have not.”

  “Good word, desperate.” Max trailed his scarf along the floor. A single orange paw protruded from under the sofa, but Beelzebub was apparently not in the mood to play.

  Dagger picked up the scarf. “Are you foxed?”

  “Not in the sense you mean. I have not over-imbibed, though I did consider indulging.”

  “You’re talking careful, like all the words are trying to hide from you. Gin does that, makes the words shy.”

  Max hung his cloak on a peg. “Stupidity does it too, though anybody inebriated on gin qualifies as wanting sense.”

  “You have prodigious sense. Take your gloves off, sir.”

  Max took off his gloves and looked at his hands, hands that had worshiped a woman who apparently thought a lark on a library sofa was a fine way to celebrate her betrothal to Mr. Peter Nagle.

  “My data does not support your hypothesis, Dagger.”

  “Boots next, sir. What hypothesis would that be?”

  The hypothesis that I was special to Antonia—Lady Antonia. Max sat on the sofa and pulled off a boot. He’d worn his good pair, which Dagger took great pride in keeping shiny and spruce.

  “Sorry, Dagger. These will need some attention.”

  “I’ll have ’em cleaned up before cockcrow. Tell me about your hypothesis.”

  Talking over an affair of the heart with a boy made about as much sense as talking science to a lot of cats, but Max’s sense had deserted him the moment he’d become Lady Antonia Mainwaring’s lover.

  “I have been a fool,” Max said, pulling off the second boot. “There’s abundant data to support that conclusion. I had hoped I was through being ridiculed, humored, and condescended to.”

  Dagger set Max’s boots beneath the window. “Did the other fellows at supper laugh at you?”

  “They did not. Failed experiments befall us all. A true scientist feels no shame in proving a theorem faulty. Science advances on the strength of such proofs.” How lofty that sounded, how ridiculous.

  “Then what the ’ell is plaguing you?”

  “My pride, I suppose.” And the sense of having read a set of results all wrong, having missed clue after clue as to the true nature of the undertaking. Perfect speech and manners, a thorough knowledge of literature such as only a woman of leisure could acquire. Fine clothing, a solid command of French. . .

  And yet, for an heiress, Lady Antonia had seemed genuinely distressed at the thought of losing her post at the library. She was honestly concerned that each patron have the books that would please them and meet their needs. She’d been sorely vexed by Paxton’s idiocy but hadn’t known how to manage him. She had been genuinely moved by Lucifer’s situation.

  No pattern emerged to explain those contradictions. “Have we any brandy?”

  Dagger sneezed and sniffed. “Your head won’t thank you in the morning for adding brandy to whatever’s ailing you. You never did check my calculations.”

  “Use your handkerchief, for pity’s sake.”

  An odd sound came from under the sofa.

  “Dagger, what was that?”

  Dagger abruptly busied himself banking the fire, making a particular racket with the poker and tongs. “Probably old Hannibal having a dream. Maybe he fancies some lady cat who’s not having any of his—”

  “Hannibal is too cerebral for such mundane pursuits.” Lady Antonia was not mundane. She was fine, intelligent, lovely, and apparently free with her favors despite having plighted her troth to Peter Numbskull.

  Except, Antonia was no flirt. Max knew that the same way he knew Lucifer was happy in his new home, the way he knew his sister Della was not happy and hadn’t been for some time.

  The odd noise came again, not a growl or a meow, much smaller than that. “Dagger, what have you done?”

  A very small white paw darted from beneath the sofa and then disappeared.

  “You said Beelzebub was leaving, so that meant we needed a replacement.”

  “We do not need replacements. We make room for them.” An inaccurate statement. Max needed the replacements. He needed to know that even as his science went nowhere, and his family regarded him as a harmless eccentric, he could effect some positive change in the world even if only for stray felines.

  The white paw appeared again, then a second paw, then a tiny pink nose followed by the head of a small white kitten. Very small.

  “He were all alone,” Dagger said, “curled up in the hedge, no mama, no mates. Little bloke was probably waiting to die on such a night.”

  Was there anything more wretched than a skinny kitten? “You gave him a very small portion of milk?”

  “Lapped it up like a seaman at his grog, then I offered him a bit of haddock. He knew exactly what to do with that too.”

  Max gently extracted the kitten from its lair and held it up. The little beast’s coat was clean—when a cat’s hygiene went to pot, the animal was truly doomed—and its eyes were a beautiful, clear blue.

  “He’s likely deaf,” Max said. “That might be why his mother turned her back on him. He’ll need an indoor home or someplace with a very high walled garden.” A dwelling with that luxury was a rarity in London. Lady Antonia might enjoy such an amenity, having a claim to a pile of lovely money.

  But if the lady was wealthy, and she could afford to send an earl packing, why settle for the likes of Nagle, who neither respected her nor had much of anything to recommend him?

  “You can take Beelzebub to bide with Lucifer,” Dagger said, petting the kitten’s tiny head. “And we’ll keep Lancelot here until he’s feeling more the thing, aye?”

  “Aye.” The kitten, against all sense, was purring. “Nay. The little wretch can stay, but Beelzebub won’t be joining Lucifer.” Max passed Dagger the ruddy kitten. “And Lancelot is no sort of name for a kitten.”

  Dagger cradled the cat against his skinny chest. “It fits him, and he likes it. He’s a white knight, all on his own against the cruel world, and if he has a fancy name he’s more likely to find a fancy home.”

  “The Lancelot of old was a naughty fellow.” Caught between conflicting loyalties and demands of the heart.

  “Sir Lancelot was brave, sir, and that matters more than a few mistakes.”
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  The argument had abruptly become philosophical, and Max had no philosophy left in him. “Call him whatever you please. If he’s not used to cow’s milk, he’ll make a right mess by morning. Make sure he sees Hannibal and Edward using the dirt box on the balcony.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Max undressed, washed, and climbed into bed, but sleep eluded him. Antonia’s behavior made no sense, unless she was a cruel and shallow woman, which every instinct told him she was not. Perhaps she’d wanted a lark before accepting the bonds of matrimony, perhaps she knew exactly the sort of man she’d be marrying and had reasons of her own for choosing him.

  It all made no sense. Max eventually drifted off, determined that he’d stick to his experiments henceforth, and leave luscious librarians to their own gothic adventures.

  When the weather was fine, Antonia drove out with Peter, who fawned, flirted, and tried to bring up setting a date at least once an hour. Two weeks of that courtship and she was ready to box his ears, but nobody—not Aunt Emily, not the many domestic advice authors, not her own good sense—had explained how to refuse a man’s suit when the lady had herself invited his overtures.

  The library, which had been a refuge, had become a place where memories haunted Antonia. When she’d not only correctly shelved every novel in Mr. Kessler’s boxes, but reprimanded him sharply for failing to explain her duties to her, he’d turned up nauseatingly obsequious. Yesterday, he’d offered her the paying post. She’d taken that offer under advisement, because having become attached to an increasingly rotund gray cat was no excuse to remain associated with the library.

  An earl’s daughter could donate her time to a charitable institution, but accepting employment even from the same organization would cause endless talk. Antonia hardly cared about the talk; though if an heiress was vulnerable to the machinations of the unscrupulous, an eccentric heiress was a staked goat in the wilderness.

  “And where are we off to today?” Miller asked, holding Antonia’s cloak for her.

  “I am paying a call.” A call she’d put off for days.

  “Shall I have the horses put to, your ladyship?”

  “Thank you, no. I have acquired the habit of walking, Miller. Bundle up, though we aren’t going far.”

  Antonia had one friend in all of London, one person whom she felt she could rely upon for honesty and discretion. She’d never called on him in the capacity of friend before, but then, she’d never shared intimacies with one man while accepting the addresses of another before either.

  A more foolish muddle, she could not imagine.

  “Lady Antonia Mainwaring,” she said, as Miller passed her card over to the butler, “to see the Earl of Casriel.”

  “Very good, my lady. I will see if his lordship is at home.”

  The fellow bowed deferentially, and Antonia was left trying to formulate the reason for her call in words that didn’t make her look like an imbecile. Max Haddonfield hadn’t dropped by the library, hadn’t sent a note, hadn’t brought another cat around. Lucifer looked up from his basket every time the bell in the library door jingled, and Antonia looked up as well.

  Two weeks after the most passionate interlude of her life, and all she had from her lover was a loud silence. I think you very delectable.

  “He also found me very forgettable.”

  “I beg your pardon?” a blond woman asked. She’d come up the corridor so quietly, Antonia hadn’t noticed her approach.

  “Lady Casriel.” Antonia curtsied, for what else was there to do? The earl was rumored to be besotted with his countess, and of course she would be at home at such an early hour. Antonia knew the lady socially, which meant, not very well at all.

  “Lady Antonia.” The curtsy was returned. “Lovely to see you again. I believe we last met at a Venetian breakfast? I was just about to order a fresh pot, and now you are here to provide me good company too.”

  Such friendliness, such graciousness. “My lady, you need not, that is—I came to see your husband.”

  Such an admission raised awkwardness to dizzying heights, but Lady Casriel merely linked arms with Antonia.

  “His lordship thinks the world of you, as do I. But for your common sense, he and I would never have had an opportunity to marry. We are very much in your debt.”

  Antonia let herself be gently towed down a corridor tastefully appointed with still lifes, a pair of sunny seascapes, and a portrait of a mastiff.

  “The purpose of my call is somewhat personal, my lady.”

  “Good. If we’re to sit about swilling tea and munching cakes, we might as well get to know each other. Casriel is off at his brother’s club, discussing investments or politics or something equally dreary. I recall that you are quite well read.”

  Well read. Nobody called Antonia well read. She was a bluestocking, bookish, an antidote. For a few hours, shelving novels with Max Haddonfield, she’d felt well read, and for a few hours after that, she’d felt well cherished.

  But as Max’s silence stretched from hours to days to a fortnight, the lovely glow of his regard had faded to consternation and then something else altogether.

  “I love books,” Antonia said, as Lady Casriel led her to a cozy parlor done up in cream and green. The wallpaper was a pattern of leafy boughs adorned with songbirds and the occasional gilded blossom. The effect was like walking into a summery bower in deepest winter, a conservatory without the dampness or scent of dirt.

  “Books have been my refuge,” Antonia went on, choosing an armchair upholstered in cabbage roses, “and my parents never discouraged me from reading whatever I pleased. This room is exquisite.”

  “My husband is homesick for Dorset,” Lady Casriel replied, settling into a second armchair. “He calls this the pastoral parlor. He gave me leave to redecorate one parlor for my personal use, and this is the result.”

  A footman brought a tea tray bearing a porcelain service, also adorned with flowers, leaves, and twittering birds.

  “You suit his lordship,” Antonia said. “Casriel is fortunate in his marriage.” And she was glad about that. The earl was decent to his bones and he deserved a happy match.

  Lady Casriel lifted the pot, but set it down without pouring. “I haven’t any money to speak of. We will live quite modestly.”

  A shocking admission, which Antonia’s hostess made with a bashful smile, as if living modestly should be the secret ambition of all couples.

  And perhaps it ought to be. “But you and his lordship are happy.”

  “Disgracefully so.” The smile became an outright grin. “Do I take it nuptial vows now loom in your future, my lady? You’ve been seen driving out with Mr. Nagle, and he looks most pleased to escort you.”

  “He is a family connection, a second cousin.” Antonia could allow that to suffice—she and Lady Casriel were only casually acquainted—but this woman had won Grey Birch Dorning’s unending esteem, a comfortably settled widow who had had no need to remarry anybody. “Might I be frank?”

  “Be nothing but,” Lady Casriel said. “Casriel admires your forthright nature.”

  That the earl had spoken with his wife about Antonia, and admiringly, was encouraging. “Peter Nagle has asked leave to court me, and I have allowed it, but I cannot see that he and I will suit. He will be very unhappy that I’ve permitted the courtship but not the wedding.”

  “Unhappy,” Lady Casriel said, pouring two cups of tea. “He’ll have a tantrum?”

  “He will be hurt. I have no other prospects in mind, I can’t tell him I’m rejecting him for another. Peter is charming, but I don’t esteem him. He has no use for books, he’s not liked by my staff, and I don’t care for the way he’s treating my household as his own already.”

  “Gracious, and he is family, so the matter won’t die quietly.”

  Antonia rose, because putting her dilemma into words made her feel more foolish—and more trapped—than ever.

  “We have no interests in common, which would be a tolerable failing if we got
on well, but I fear Peter and I have no values in common.” She paced the width of the pretty carpet, feeling like songbird trapped in a lovely cage.

  “He maunders on and on about using wind power to keep foul miasmas from the better neighborhoods,” she continued, “but why should London’s stink become Southwark’s problem? Should foul miasmas and the sickness they bring become the lot of only those too poor to blow them away? He has no greater vision, he’s like a small boy who has only one poem to recite or one joke to tell. Thirty years of living in close proximity to such as he—I cannot bring myself to do it.”

  “Why should you?” Lady Casriel asked, adding a small silver spoon to each saucer. “You turned down a handsome, mannerly earl because you preferred the company of your books. Why settle for an impecunious poor relation now?”

  Antonia returned to the sofa. She could not voice all of her fears to Lady Casriel, but she could consider the question. “You’re saying Peter is just another fortune hunter. I thought his papa left him fairly comfortably well off.”

  “How do you take your tea?”

  “Plain will do.”

  “If Mr. Nagle is so comfortably well off,” Lady Casriel said, “why hasn’t he married elsewhere? Why haven’t his sisters married? They are pretty, agreeable young ladies and they are connected to a title through your side of the family. One concludes they have either particular tastes or insufficient portions.”

  “Oh, dear.” This scenario—Max would call it a theory—fit the available facts. “Or they had adequate portions and Peter has managed their funds poorly.”

  The countess peered at Antonia over her teacup. “Very bad of him, if that’s so.”

  “And he could marry me, put all to rights, and I’d be none the wiser, but much the poorer. This explains why my great appeal as a wife has only recently occurred to Peter.”

  “If you must marry him, the settlements can be written to give you continued control of your fortune.”

  “That can be done?”

  The countess took a sip of her tea. “The agreements and trusts must be carefully worded, but yes. Casriel was insistent that my money remain mine to do with as I please. The solicitors might have thought it odd, but they wrote the contract as his lordship required.”