Holiday Duet: Two Previously Published Regency Novellas

by Grace Burrowes

  Seeing the skinny boy and the deaf kitten touch noses did something unscientific to Max’s insides. “What is your sister’s name?”

  “Nan. She’s too little to ’prentice yet, but the hospital won’t let the sweeps have her. I made ’em promise.”

  Dagger had been working for Max for months, and this was the first Max had heard of any siblings. “Have you any other family?”

  Dagger shook his head and got a kitten paw across the chin. “Just me and Nan.” He extricated Lancelot’s claws from his shirt and cradled the kitten against his shoulder. The rumbling grew louder, a deaf cat having no sense of his own ability to make noise. Dagger wiped his cheek on the kitten’s shoulder.

  Long ago, another small boy had felt friendless and misunderstood. He’d wiped his tears on the Principia, which was incapable of purring and in no wise endearing.

  “There is more to life than science.” Max hadn’t meant to say that aloud.

  “Is that a hypothesis, sir?”

  “It’s an eternal verity. Be here when I come home, please. See that our cats are here too.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Smiling, affable Peter stormed through the library door in such a taking that both cats dodged under Antonia’s desk.

  “Antonia, what is the meaning of this?” He brandished a folded sheet of paper, and the Barclay sisters put down their books.

  “My letter means what it says, Peter. This is a public venue. We can discuss the matter at another time.”

  Peter’s hair was untidy, his cravat off center, and his sleeve bore an odd streak of something brown. “We will discuss it now, madam.”

  Antonia rose from her desk. “Your ladyship.”

  “When we are married,” Peter began, yanking off his gloves. “You will not take that tone with me. Proper deference to the man of the—”

  “Out.” Antonia snarled the word with more menace than she’d known herself capable of. “Now. You have no lending privileges here, and you have no business here.”

  “I have been patient long enough,” Peter retorted, twisting the buttons of his coat open. “More than patient, and now you turn your back on me, renege on an understanding that wanted but a few formalities—”

  “I said leave.”

  Both Barclay sisters had risen, each one holding a heavy tome.

  Peter was attempting to loom, but Antonia was wearing heeled half boots and she’d remained behind her desk. He lacked the height to intimidate her, and more to the point, she wasn’t in the mood to be intimidated.

  “If I leave,” Peter said, “you are coming with me.”

  He seized Antonia by the forearm in a painful grip, which was the outside of too much. She delivered him a stout slap with her free hand.

  “Unhand me, or I will allow you to starve in the gutter.”

  “Let her go, Nagle, or a peaceful end in the gutter will be your dearest aspiration, one I will deny you.”

  If Antonia hadn’t recognized that voice-of-doom tone, the whiff of fresh bread would have informed her of the speaker’s identity. Max Haddonfield, hair wind-blown, cheeks ruddy with cold, loomed at Peter like an angel of divine wrath.

  “Mr. Haddonfield,” Antonia said. “Good day.” He wore the same rumpled coat and the same disreputable scarf, and his expression promised death to Peter in the next three seconds.

  “My lady.”

  Peter stepped back and jerked on his waistcoat. “You interrupt a lovers’ quarrel, Haddonfield. Not the done thing.”

  “He’s not my lover.”

  “One gathered as much,” Max said. “Though a certain young lady of my acquaintance cannot say the same. He used her very ill indeed, because he thought he could toss her over and get his hands on a much larger fortune.”

  Antonia had suspected something drove Peter’s scheme to “keep the fortune in the family,” but hearing the details was still unsettling.

  “Jessica Huntly,” Miss Dottie muttered, still gripping her book. “Lost her aunt at exactly the wrong time, went a bit wild.”

  “We do keep up,” Miss Betty added. “Poor thing is headed for ruin. We tried to tell old Humbug he needed to take the girl in hand, but he would not listen.”

  “Nagle,” Max said, “you have behaved abominably toward not one but two women. The first will be the mother of your child, the second is your kinswoman. You will increase your chances of surviving this disgrace by apologizing to her ladyship.”

  A month ago, Antonia might have told Peter an apology was unnecessary, and one need not belabor a bad moment. That was then. Now, Peter’s behavior put swine to shame and he did very much need to apologize.

  Lucifer hopped onto the desk and sat on the blotter with his tail curled about him. Beelzebub joined him, both cats regarding Peter as if he were a particularly loutish mouse.

  “Antonia, I am sorry if you misconstrued—”

  Max cuffed him on the back of the head. “Try again, Nagle. If that’s your idea of an apology, married life will be very uphill work for you.”

  Peter rubbed his arm. “Antonia, I am—”

  Another cuff. “Proper address when groveling, Nagle. You have much to learn.”

  Miss Betty harrumphed. Miss Dottie sniffed. Lucifer hissed, showing formidable fangs.

  “Your ladyship,” Peter said, “I am sorry if I have given offense, or if I in any way misunderstood the nature of your sentiments. I understand that we would not suit and I will take my leave of you.”

  “My lady?” Max asked.

  “Adequate,” Antonia said, “but something must be done for Miss Huntly. She has been grievously wronged.”

  Peter smoothed a hand over his sleeve. “She comported herself most indecorous—”

  Miss Betty drew back her arm, clearly ready to let fly with Reverend Fordyce’s wisdom.

  Antonia was beginning to enjoy herself. “Peter?”

  “Miss Huntly will have him,” Max said, “though she’s an heiress, and Lord Hamblin didn’t trust Nagle to handle her fortune responsibly. I found a solution for that conundrum.”

  Peter stopped fussing with his cuffs. “A solution?”

  “For Miss Huntly,” Max said. “She will marry you, but my brother has agreed to stand as trustee of her fortune. He’s an earl, and not a man who tolerates ill-bred behavior toward the ladies. Stands about”—Max held a hand four inches above the top of his own head—“that tall, and is something of an amateur pugilist. My oldest brother, equally competent with his fists and sporting a minor title, will happily serve as a co-trustee should that be necessary. If you misappropriate a single farthing of Miss Huntly’s money, your fate will be too unfortunate to mention in the presence of ladies.”

  “Mention it,” Antonia said. “Please.”

  Max offered Antonia the sweetest smile. “Nagle will be unable to sire more children.”

  “Believe him,” Miss Betty said. “The Earl of Bellefonte is the grandest specimen of English manhood ever to make a grown woman sigh.”

  “Sister does not exaggerate,” Miss Dottie added.

  “You went to your brother?” Antonia asked.

  “I’ll tell you everything,” Max replied. “Soon.”

  Antonia waved a hand toward the door. “Peter, away with you. You have another apology to plan and it had better be more impressive than the paltry effort you put forth here. I will look after your sisters, but your fate is in your own hands. Do not call on me, do not write, do not so much as inquire after my health if we meet by chance. Take very good care of your wife, or I will offer her the services of my solicitors and permanent refuge in a suitably comfortable dwelling.”

  “And I will offer Miss Huntly the use of my fists applied to your person,” Max added.Peter scuttled for the door, trying for a dignified exit and failing.

  “Sister,” Miss Betty said, “we must be going. Too much excitement gives me the wind.” They were off to gossip, doubtless, or to pay a call on Lord Hamblin. They paused long enough to pet both cats, then bust
led out the door.

  Leaving Antonia alone with the man who’d haunted her dreams for the past three weeks.

  “Peter and I weren’t engaged,” she said. “We had no understanding, but I should never have—”

  Max put a finger to her lips. “If you express the slightest regret about the time you and I spent together, my heart will break. In the scientific sense, a heart does not break, but mine surely will. Perhaps we could have this conversation on the sofa?”

  “It’s the middle of the day, Mr. Haddonfield.”

  “So take a break for your nooning, my lady. We have much to resolve, and it’s better discussed behind a locked door.”

  “A fine notion,” Antonia said, scooting around the desk and going to the door. “A very fine notion indeed.”

  “This is yours.” Max passed over Antonia’s handkerchief, slightly the worse for time spent in his pocket. “I am yours, if you want me. I warn you though, I come with various attachments.”

  Antonia sat beside him on the couch, not touching him, alas. “You make yourself sound like a scientific instrument.”

  “Science is one of my attachments. I am passionate about my research and I will continue to pursue it no matter how pointless my objective might seem to others. I will not part with Dagger either, and I am about to acquire another assistant in the form of a small person named Nan. I have two cats of my own and Dagger has a personal feline as well. My means are humble so you should probably send me packing with a flea in my ear.”

  He had to tell her that part—he was poor, compared to her. Not destitute, but he couldn’t drape her in diamonds either. “I lack ambition,” he said, lest she mistake him, “in the sense most people use the word.”

  Antonia smoothed a hand over her skirts. “I have ambitions. I would like a life that has more to it than dancing at Almack’s, driving out in Hyde Park when the weather’s fine, and shopping. I hate shopping. Loathe it beyond all telling.”

  “Clerks,” Max said, “buzzing about like flies. You wave them away and two minutes later, they’re back, practically offering to count out your money for you.”

  “Precisely. How humble are your means?”

  Max told her his annual income and named the principal sum from which it derived. “If I had more, I’d spend it on more experiments, or on helping out a fellow whose good ideas will never see the light of day unless somebody provides some funds. Expeditions are all very glamorous, but they carry with them the taint of—”

  “Privateering,” Antonia said, “of disguising the hope of personal gain in the glamour of exploration and adventure.”

  “Exactly.” She understood Max’s perspective, while many of his colleagues found his quibbling laughable.

  “I have attachments too, Max. I like books.”

  And books cost money. An unfortunate truth for a poor fourth son lacking commercial ambition. “I like them too, particularly the well written ones.”

  “You like science, I like books.” Antonia spoke slowly, as if she were inching up to a difficult point or a new theorem. “You haven’t much money, I have more than I need or want. What if we used that money to make a scientific library?”

  We? That had to be reason to hope. “A scientific library?”

  “A library of practical science, of the treatises nobody will pay to publish, of the major works few can afford to buy. Some of the volumes would never leave the premises, some of the more important references. Others could circulate.” She rose to pace between the sofa and the hearth. “I would want this library to be cozy, to be well heated and well lit, not some draughty old church made over from the last century.”

  “A scientific library?”

  “Not only science, Max. Books that explain science to children, books that recount the adventures of the explorers. Books that tell of the stars and the people who charted them.”

  Max rose, for Antonia—who had a few cat hairs on her bodice—had never looked more beautiful to him. “I have a confession, my lady.”

  She came to a halt immediately before him and took his hands. “Tell me.”

  “The mouse droppings.”

  Antonia’s brows twitched down. “Go on.”

  “They were cardamom seeds. You have no mouse problem here, but Lucifer needed a home, and Dagger once remarked that cardamom seeds bore a resemblance to evidence of mice. I perpetrated a subterfuge, not for the first time. I am sorry for it, and I am not sorry for it at all.”

  “Cardamom seeds.”

  “They are quite dear, but the alternative—”

  “Money spent for a good cause,” Antonia said. “Have you any other confessions, Max? Theorems you’d like to air? Postulations? Corollaries? Hypotheses?”

  As Max had walked the distance from his brother’s house to Antonia’s library, he’d tried to fashion a lofty, ringing declaration, something about two hearts of a sympathetic nature, minds in synchrony, and values that presaged enduring compatibility through all vicissitudes. A treasure trove of big words suitable for Dagger’s collection, and far too much trouble for such an important moment.

  “I love you,” Max said. “I cannot see the love, touch it, measure it, weigh it, or tell you what scent it bears, though my love for you is the most important reality in my life. I have only humble means, but my love is limitless, and I promise you it always will be. When I thought you were engaged to Nagle, I didn’t measure my day-olds for three straight days. Dagger despaired of me.”

  “Peter told you we were engaged?”

  Someday when Peter bided a safe distance from Antonia, Max might tell her all Peter had said. “He lied. I didn’t know that when I came here today, but I did know he’d served Miss Huntly a bad turn. You were entitled to the truth if you planned on marrying him.”

  Antonia slid her arms around Max’s neck. “You came here thinking only to warn me?”

  “I would have had a word with Nagle, but he obliged me by spouting off for all to hear. Truly, you were never engaged to him?” Max shouldn’t need to ask, but then, he shouldn’t be thinking so fondly of the sofa sitting three feet away either.

  “Not ever. Peter pushed, he wheedled, he assumed.” Antonia gave Max her weight. “I have a confession too.”

  “Confess quickly. I predict that in less than two minutes, I will be kissing you madly, and thanking the Almighty for the foresight that had you locking the doors.”

  “I love you too. I’ve loved you from the day you walked in here, looking half-dangerous and half-dear. I love you for your brilliant mind, your great heart, and your occasional deception in the name of homeless cats. I love how you kiss, how you—Max!”

  “How I scoop you into my arms and lay you gently down on the sofa?”

  “Well, that is a fine quality.”

  He arranged himself over her on the cushions. “We should deal with our clothing, but I must kiss you first.”

  She laughed and ruffled his hair. “How fortunate, for I must kiss you too.”

  The library was closed for a good two hours that day, and it closed again on the occasion of Max and Antonia’s nuptials. The reading tables were pushed back, and the ceremony was held before the hearth, with Dagger, Nan, the Barclay sisters, a sizable crowd of Haddonfields, and five cats in attendance.

  The science library came to be a surprisingly short time after the nuptials, complete with the excellent lighting and comfortable chairs Antonia had insisted on, three library cats in deference to the size of the establishment, and in the director’s office, one very well upholstered sofa.

  To my dear readers

  So there I was, authoring along, and referring occasionally to my Regency characters having a fresh, warm scone with breakfast or at tea… Is there ever a bad time to have a fresh, warm scone? My readers, who are quite savvy, pointed out to me that yes, Grace, there are scone recipes dating from the 1500s, but until the 1830s, the primary means of leavening any baked good was yeast. Those early unleavened scones were more like oat cakes.

&n
bsp; Or hardtack. Even when slathered with butter.

  Oops. Wouldja believe my dad was a tenured professor of food science? The things I learn from my readers…

  I started digging into the history of baking soda and came across several stories. One claims that baking soda as a leavening agent was developed in the 1830s by a man of scientific bent who was married to a woman with a yeast allergy. Other sources make the whole business much more a matter of systematic experimentation, with baking soda one of many additives tested for its leavening qualities.

  All quite interesting. By the time Max is on his quest, soda bicarbonate (baking soda) had been around for at least a decade in England, and I am very confident that he and Antonia will come across it just as soon as they get back from their first annual honeymoon balloon ride, and finish the first round of acquisitions for their science library, and, and, and. . .

  You can stay up to date with all my various release dates, deals, and discounts by following me on Bookbub or signing up for my newsletter. I also have a Deals page on my website that I update every month or so.

  Happy reading!

  Grace Burrowes

  * * *

  Lady Mistletoe’s Holiday Helper

  BY GRACE BURROWES

  Chapter One

  “The decorations must be exquisite, Lady Margaret. Beyond perfection, though within the bounds of good taste, of course.” Lord Marcus Bannerfield paused on the landing, and Meg had no choice but to pause with him. “Do I make myself clear, my lady?”

  Lord Marcus was Meg’s most prestigious customer thus far, meaning his budget for holiday decorating would also be the most prestigious, if Meg had anything to say to it.

  “I do understand, my lord. Lady Mistletoe’s Holiday Helpers take great pride in delivering not simply satisfaction, but magic. Your Yuletide decorations will outshine anything ever to grace this house.”