A Little Winter Scandal: A Regency Christmas Collection

by Christi Caldwell

  Henry quickly collected his folio from a diligent servant and fell into step. They entered Nolan’s office. His brother, and de facto man-of-affairs, spoke no sooner than the door closed behind them. “I’ve spoken to a buyer for your mount.”

  This, again. His gut clenched. It was the height of selfishness that Nolan should wish to and seek to keep Chance, when he’d cost his family so much. But blast it. He loved that damned horse. Henry set himself up in his usual position across from his desk.

  Nolan, however, chose to remain standing. “I’ve the funds to cover his expenses for the year,” he said tightly, while his brother proceeded to withdraw official-looking documents from his folio.

  “It isn’t about his expenses, Nolan,” Henry said impatiently with a newly found spirit in his usually affable person. “If it isn’t your mount, it is the upkeep of your properties and this townhouse and Josephine’s upcoming Season.” He glanced up from his task and, over the wire rims of his spectacles, arched an eyebrow. “Should I continue?”

  Had his blasted brother always been this annoying? “I’m to receive a thousand pounds,” he said.

  This earned another look. A longer one. “Cards.” That single syllable captured all the derision in his brother’s person for that dissolute pleasure Nolan had enjoyed through the years.

  “You know me,” he said, flashing a sardonic grin. Not bothering to explain. For he’d not reveal Sybil’s request to Henry or anyone. And more, there now felt something wholly wrong in accepting those funds from her.

  Sybil, who even now would be waiting at Gipsy Hill. Alone. Wondering where he was. His stomach muscles contracted and he cursed himself for both forgetting the damned meeting with his brother and for failing her. Mayhap he’d not be late. If they concluded business quickly, then he might still meet her there. Nolan again checked his timepiece. Mayhap—

  “Are you listening to me?” Henry snapped, bringing him to focus on the task at hand.

  The chain slipped from his fingers and he quickly tucked away the gold fob. “Sell the horse. Cover Josephine’s Season. Dire straits. Nothing’s changed. Is that an accurate accounting?”

  Henry set his folio down with a loud thwack. “Everything is a joke with you.” In an uncharacteristic show, his brother levered himself up and spun to face him. “I appreciate that you have always lived for your own amusements, Nolan, but some of us,” he gave Nolan a pointed look, “take our responsibilities as brothers and Pratts very seriously.” Yes, Henry had always been a somber, obedient fellow. Whereas Nolan had been the mischievous, athletic one who’d earned their parents’ exasperation and adulation in equal measure. Henry blushed, that color hinting at a man embarrassed with his explosion. When he spoke, he did so in more even, modulated tones. “Nolan,” he tried again. “The finances are a mess. They were not destroyed overnight.”

  Yes, it had been a seven-year-long process slowly carried out under his unsuspecting nose. Disgust and bitterness filled his mouth.

  “Now,” Henry went on calmly, reclaiming his seat. “Let us sit and go through the numbers, once more.”

  And now, as Nolan reluctantly joined his brother, he hated himself for his feeble mind that had him missing a meeting with Sybil.

  He’d not come.

  The realization that Nolan would not join her in Gipsy Hill had come somewhere between the first minute he’d proven late and the one hour and fifteen minutes later that she found herself wandering the bustling thoroughfare.

  As she climbed the steps of her family’s townhouse and swept inside, a keen, bitter disappointment weighted her shoulders. Mustering a smile for Hannah’s benefit, she removed her cloak and handed it over. “Has anything arrived for me?” she asked, unable to keep the hope from creeping in.

  “No, Miss Cunning.”

  The flurry of footsteps brought her attention swinging sideways and she tamped down a groan. “Sybil, there you are.”

  Blast and double-blast. The viscountess hadn’t been contented with one daughter married off to a powerful nobleman. As such, she had but two uses for Sybil: one, making a match and two, helping with the running of the household. In the absence of any eligible bachelors there could be nothing else her mother wanted with her.

  And for it, nothing Sybil wanted with her.

  “Where have you been?” her mother snapped. With her petite frame and golden curls, she was an ageless depiction of English beauty. And towering over her, plump as always, Sybil couldn’t have stood in greater contrast to the leading Societal hostess. Revered and reviled by the ton, all at the same time, it was a life she had never wanted for herself.

  “Mother, I was at the bookshop.” The lie slid out easily. No questions would ever be asked about that venture.

  “Again?” Suspicion darkened the viscountess’ eyes. She pursed her mouth. “There is the matter of the travel preparations you are to see to.”

  The last thing she’d wished to do this day was to oversee the travel arrangements. She was to be with Nolan and visiting Gipsy Hill for whatever excursion he’d planned for them. Instead, I am here. Where I always am. “I’m busy at the moment, Mother.”

  “Sybil?” her mother squawked.

  Yes, of course, because she was so very obedient that she’d never dare refute her mother’s wishes…or sneak off and meet a gentleman. Three days. And it would have been a fourth, if he’d shown up. “If you’ll excuse me, Mother.” Brushing past her mother, Sybil left the viscountess gaping like a trout plucked from a pond and made her way to the library. With every step she took, her mind whirred faster and faster.

  There was, of course, any number of reasons Nolan had not shown at Gipsy Hill. He might have been thrown from his horse. As soon as that thought slid forward, she promptly pushed it back. A man of his strength and power would never be thrown from any mount. Nor did she wish to think of him hurt in any way.

  He may have had an urgent family matter demanding his attention.

  Or he may have forgotten because these past days that have mattered so much to me, mean nothing to him.

  For in the end, she was an assignment. A chore. And when the terms of their agreement came and went, they would go on just as they’d been before. Why did that thought leave her so bereft?

  Reaching the library, Sybil grabbed the copy of Sense and Sensibility. It didn’t matter. Her request put to him was no different than the research she conducted in literature and science and any other scholarly pursuit. She’d simply wanted to learn and experience an altogether different way of life than her uneventful one. Liar.

  She plopped down at the windowseat and found her place inside Austen’s acclaimed work. “Enough,” she said, giving her head a firm shake. Do not think of him or what he did even now that was so much more important than everything he’d shown her in two days. Determined to set him from her mind, Sybil read.

  …A woman of seven-and-twenty can never hope to feel or inspire affection again…

  “What of a woman of nine and twenty?” she murmured to herself. What of those women, such as her? One who’d never inspired affections or feelings in anyone. Ever. That was the sole reason she was unable to vanquish the memory of his kiss. Nor could she stop the joy in her heart when they’d sat and simply conversed about the merits of fictional works versus the non-fictional ones she’d preferred—before him.

  She briefly squeezed her eyes shut. How could so much have changed in such a short time? Then, the Lord himself had built an entire universe in six days. Surely a woman could lose her heart to a clever, affable man in a mere handful of that time.

  What? Filled with a terrifying consternation, Sybil sat motionless. Her heart slowed to a stop and then resumed a rapid rhythm. Where had that thought come from? She didn’t love Nolan Pratt. Why, why…she didn’t even know him. “Silly chit,” she muttered, giving her head a hard, quick shake. Determined to forget the same man who’d so easily forgotten her, she resumed reading. And did a splendid job of setting him from her mind—

&nb
sp; …I come here with no expectations, only to profess, now that I am at liberty to do so, that my heart is and always will be…yours…

  She groaned. Until Mrs. Austen with her infernal work. Sybil knocked the back of her head against the wall and then hurled her leather copy onto the floor. It landed with a hard thump. “You need more sense.”

  “That is the last thing you need, Sybil Holly.”

  She shrieked, pressing her palm to her racing heart and quickly sat up. “You startled me.”

  Aria sailed forward with a grace Sybil hadn’t managed. She’d never learned that kind of grace from any of the governesses and nursemaids assigned her as a girl. Her sister stopped. She toed the leather book before joining Sybil on the bench. “You don’t, you know? Require more sense. Really, you are the most sensible person I know.”

  The reproachful thread there gave little hint of a compliment. “Thank you,” Sybil said anyway.

  “Oh, it wasn’t a compliment,” Aria piped in, swinging her legs back and forth on the bench.

  And for the first time since Nolan had gone and forgotten her, Sybil managed a real smile. There were nearly thirteen years between them but she’d been closer with Aria than her own twin, Rosaleen. At points, Sybil had been more of a devoted mother than sister. She’d always loved the girl in that way.

  “I must confess,” Aria said, casting her a sideways look. “I believed when you snuck out not one day, not two, but three, that there was, in fact, a reason you were sneaking out.”

  Sybil froze; the smile stuck painfully in place.

  Aria dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Surely you don’t expect I shouldn’t notice how dreadfully empty this house is. Yes, I noticed you were gone.”

  Oh, God. Sybil wrung her hands together. If Aria, in her tender years, had noted as much, had their mother, as well? She’d taken care to leave well before her mother rose for the day and returned by the time she’d taken her late morning meal.

  “She doesn’t know,” Aria assured, patting Sybil’s hand, in this peculiar reversal of roles where youngest sibling became the protector. “Well, was there?”

  “Was there what?” she forced herself to ask, not wanting to field any questions.

  “Something interesting that called you away.”

  Nay. Not something. Someone.

  Aria levered herself up and scooted closer. She leaned over and whispered in Sybil’s ear. “It was not a someone, per chance?”

  Sybil choked. “A-Aria.” She frantically glanced over at the door.

  Her sister released a regretful sigh. “Alas, I feared as much. All the good gentlemen have taken themselves off for the holiday.”

  She had believed as much, too. It was what had driven her to seek out Nolan and put her proposition to him. What she’d not expected was a gentleman with a love for theatre who hummed an off-beat tune, in a god-awful discordant baritone. And who’d not once looked at her as though she were an oddity for sprouting off obscure details found only in the equally obscure corners of a book.

  Aria bent and retrieved Sybil’s book. “I will leave you to your reading,” she said, handing over the copy.

  Sybil automatically took the offering.

  “Oh, and Sybil?”

  She glanced up.

  “Always resignation and acceptance. Always prudence and honour and duty. Where is your heart?”

  Having those clever words of Mrs. Austen turned on her, words that struck too very close, left her momentarily speechless. For the whole of her life, she’d found joy in her books and told herself so many times she didn’t need love or a family that she’d begun to believe it. Only to have Nolan open her eyes to the truth: a woman needn’t forsake the dream of love for the love of literature and learning. “You’re too clever by half,” she at last managed.

  Aria’s brown eyes twinkled. “I learned it from my favorite unwed sibling.”

  At that familiar reply Aria had long handed out to her over the years, she smiled. “I’m now your only unwed sibling, poppet,” she said softly, with the like reply.

  “Indeed.” Aria paused. “But Sybil? Even if I had a hundred unwed siblings, you’d still be my favorite.”

  Warmth filled her chest. How she loved this girl and how she wished for her to know every last joy she had experienced these three days…only now. Not waiting until her dotage to experience life. She took her sister’s hands and gave them a light squeeze. “And you are and would always be mine.”

  “Of course that would mean Mother would have to want more children, which given the fact she barely likes her three daughters, it was always highly unlikely there would have been any more siblings,” Aria pointed out, startling a laugh from Sybil.

  Footsteps sounded in the hall. They both looked over just as their father stepped in the room.

  “Papa!” Aria squealed happily, more like the cheerful girl of six she’d been than this sixteen-year-old girl on the cusp of womanhood.

  “My girls.” The tall, gaunt, and always-smiling viscount held his arms open.

  Aria sprinted across the room and hurled herself into his arms. Seated on the bench, Sybil took in the exchange between father and daughter. Where most Societal papas were distant, aloof, and oftentimes cold, that had never been their father. He’d never been a nobleman who’d railed at being cursed with three daughters and no heir. His wife had, yes. But never Papa. While Aria and Papa spoke, a wave of longing filled her. To have known a domestic life with a loving spouse and precocious daughters.

  Unbidden, Nolan slipped inside her mind, once more. Only, it was an imagined musing of him. A jovial father, singing that discordant tune while he bounced a babe upon his knee. Silly. Silly thoughts. He’d never be that man. Except, curling her fingers hard around her book, she rather knew that when Nolan Pratt did, in fact, find the woman who claimed his heart that was precisely the man he’d be.

  Her father glanced up and something in his eyes indicated he saw too much. Sybil hastily lowered her gaze to Austen’s work. “Run along, Aria.” He dropped his voice to an overly loud whisper. “I’m here on the queen’s business.”

  Aria giggled and then closed the door behind her.

  The queen’s business. Papa’s famous phrase over the years indicating Mother had sent him. Sybil made to rise, but he waved her to a sit. “Bah, none of that, none of that,” he insisted, occupying the seat vacated by Aria.

  “Papa,” she greeted, guardedly watching him.

  He wasted no time. “Your mother sent me.” She’d always appreciated that about him. His absolute lack of regard for prevarication.

  “I gathered as much,” she drawled.

  The viscount winked. “Believes you’ve been distracted.”

  Odd, that Mother, so focused on Societal approval and rank and status, would ever dare notice her. “Worried that I’m not being a dutiful, obedient daughter?”

  “You know your mother,” he murmured, patting her hand.

  Yes, she well knew. For as loving and warm as Papa had always been, the viscountess had been cold, sparing hardly a glance for her daughters. Except at Societal functions. Then Sybil served a purpose. And now, with Rosaleen married, Aria would neatly fill that role as Sybil slipped out of the Societal picture and retreated to the country.

  And Nolan would remain here as rakes invariably did. A vise squeezed about her chest and she forced herself to draw in a breath past it. Feeling her father’s probing gaze, she looked up. “What?” For with him, she could always be honest…just not in sharing all these confounded feelings for the charming baron who’d blindfolded her at Green Park.

  “She wants you to return for another Season.”

  A protest sprung to her lips but then stuck there, unspoken. Just a few days ago, she would have immediately countered her mother’s request and reminded both her parents of the bargain struck between them. If she was unwed by the time she reached her thirtieth year, she’d be allowed to leave for the country with no further pressure and no questio
ns asked.

  But that had been before Nolan. The baron, who’d forgotten her at Gipsy Hill today, but who’d also given her her first kiss and made her feel beautiful when she’d never, ever fit with Society’s expectations of beauty. It was, however, so much more than that. It was the need to learn more of the secrets he kept and revel in the truth that she and no other had discovered. Nolan was no rake. He was a gentleman who cared for his siblings and didn’t pass judgment on a learned woman. “I will think on it,” she promised.

  He beamed, his gaunt cheeks going red. “Splendid.” Papa stood. “But let me at least tell your mother that you put up a good deal more resistance than you did.”

  A little laugh spilled past her lips and she stood. Going up on tiptoe, she kissed him on his wrinkled cheek. “I love you.”

  “And I love you.”

  As he took his leave, Sybil abandoned all efforts with Mrs. Austen’s book and stared out at the empty London streets. Wondering where Nolan had gone.

  Chapter 10

  I’ve no right to ask your pardon and yet I beg it anyway. I also ask you trust me again. Meet me at the edge of the Thames, where the Frost Fair was once held.

  Consulting his timepiece for the sixth time since he’d arrived at the edge of the frozen Thames, an unwanted fear gripped him. She wasn’t late. He was, in fact, early. And yet, he was riddled with anxiety that Sybil would ignore the note his footman had delivered that morn to her maid.

  Sybil would be well within her right to be furious. Every woman of his miserable acquaintance would have pouted and given him the cut direct for such a slight. Before he’d come to know her, Nolan wouldn’t have given a jot about her feelings, either way, and would have only cared for the loss of the funds she’d dangled before him.

  But he did know her. He had come to appreciate her as a proud, clever woman who was bold in her every thought, word, and action. And for some reason, that equally scared the everlasting hell out of him—he cared what she thought. Because one of the only ways he’d managed to smile and survive had been in donning a devil-may-care attitude. About how the world saw him. How his family saw him. And how he viewed himself. Her opinion, however, had come to matter. It had since she’d challenged his reputation as wicked rake, during their carriage ride to Green Park.