A Christmas Bride / A Christmas Beau

by Mary Balogh

  And since Mr. Downes had achieved almost every goal that any man could possibly set himself in the course of his lifetime—including a lamentably short but blissfully happy marriage, the birth and survival of the best son and daughter a man ever had, not to mention a challenging and successful career and the acquisition of the abbey—he had only one more thing to wish for, apart from the marriage of his son, of course, and that was the birth of a son to his son. He could wish that his son would marry well, that he would finally ally the Downes name to one of undoubted gentility.

  “You are a gentleman, my son,” he said, nodding his head in Edgar’s direction, his eyes beaming with pride and affection. “Your dear mother was a lady in every sense that mattered to me. But for my son I want a lady by birth. You have deserved such a wife.”

  Edgar felt embarrassed, especially since these words had been spoken in the presence of Lord Francis Kneller. He also felt suspiciously damp-eyed. His father meant more to him than almost anyone else in this world.

  “And it is high time you married, Edgar,” Cora said. “It is all very well for the children to have an uncle who spoils them dreadfully every time he crosses paths with them, but cousins would be of more practical value to them. And an aunt.”

  Lord Francis chuckled. “You must confess, Edgar,” he said, “you have had a good run of it. You are six-and-thirty and only now is your family laying siege to your single state.”

  “That is quite unfair, Francis,” Cora said. “You know that every time Edgar has come to Sidley since our marriage I have thrown the most eligible young ladies in his way. You know that I have tried my very best.”

  Lord Francis chuckled again. “You are as successful as a matchmaker, my love,” he said, “as you are at your swimming lessons.”

  “Well,” she said crossly, “whoever says that the human person—my human person anyway—is not heavier than water and will not sink like a stone when laid out on top of it must have windmills in his head and that is all I have to say.”

  “For which mercy may the Lord be praised,” Edgar said, provoking outright laughter from his brother-in-law and a glare followed by a rueful chuckle from his sister.

  But his father was not to be diverted from what he had clearly planned as the mission of his sixtieth birthday. Edgar was to marry and to marry a lady. A duke’s daughter could not be too good for his son, he remarked.

  “What a pity it is that Francis’s sisters are married,” Cora commented. “Is it not, Francis?”

  “Quite so, my love,” he agreed.

  But any lady of breeding would do nicely, Mr. Downes continued after the interruption. Provided Edgar could like and respect her—and feel an affection for her. That, it seemed, was of greater importance than almost anything else.

  “She does not have to be a lady of fortune, my boy,” Mr. Downes said. “She can come to you penniless, provided she has the birth and breeding and can love you.”

  A penniless lady of ton would probably love his money a great deal, Edgar thought cynically. But he could not argue with his father, who looked as if he would live until the age of one hundred with all his energies and faculties intact, but who was, when all was said and done, sixty and aging. It was understandable that his father should need the assurance that all he had worked for through his life would descend to more than just an unmarried son.

  And so Edgar found himself agreeing that it was indeed time he took it upon himself to find a bride and that if it would please his father he would choose one who had some distinction of birth. And there was nothing to be served by delaying, he suggested without waiting to be prompted by his father. He had some business in London, a city he hated and avoided whenever it was possible to do so. He had a few connections there who would effect some introductions. He would undertake to choose himself a bride, perhaps even to be affianced to her by Christmas. He would bring her down to Mobley Abbey for Christmas—or at least invite her parents to bring her. By his father’s sixty-first birthday he would be married and be in a fair way to getting his first child into the nursery.

  Cora shrieked and clasped her hands to her bosom.

  “You are conceiving an idea, my love?” Lord Francis asked, sounding amused. He was frequently amused, having decided long ago, it seemed, that it would be far more comfortable to laugh his way through life with Cora than to grimace his way through all her excesses and disasters. Wise man.

  “Francis was not able to have his month in London during the Season this year,” she said. “First we were in the north with Jennifer and Gabriel and then we went with them to Stephanie and Alistair’s, and we were all having such a marvelous time and so were the children—were they not, Francis?—and Stephanie has the most adorable baby, Papa. He even had me dreaming of number five, but Francis insists in that most odious voice he uses when he wants to pretend to be lord and master that four is quite enough, thank you very much. What was it I set out to say?”

  “That since I was not obliged to spend a month of the Season in town,” Lord Francis said, “I should be encouraged to take you and the children there for the autumn. I do believe that was where your verbal destination lay, my love.”

  She favored him with a dazzling smile. “What a splendid idea, Francis,” she said. “Jennifer and Gabriel and Samantha and Hartley were talking about going there for a month or so after the heat of the summer was over. We could have a wonderful time. And we could take Edgar about with us and see to it that he meets the right people.”

  “With all due respect, my love,” Lord Francis said, “I do not believe Edgar is a puppy who needs our patronage. But certainly we will give him the comfort of having some familiar faces to greet at whatever entertainments are to be found during the autumn. And you will stay with us if you please, Edgar. The Pulteney Hotel may close its doors and go into a permanent decline when they discover that they are not to have your business, but we can offer some rowdy nephews and a niece for your entertainment. Who could possibly resist?”

  “Edgar will spoil them and make them quite unmanageable,” Cora said.

  “Their maternal grandfather has spoiled them for the past two weeks as well as their uncle. We spoil them, my love,” her husband said. “Yet we manage them perfectly well when it is necessary that they be managed. Their rowdiness and exuberance do not denote lack of all manners and discipline.”

  Between them they sealed Edgar’s fate. He was to go to town by the end of September, it seemed, and stay at his brother-in-law’s town house. He was to involve himself in the social life of the capital as it was lived in the autumn. There would not be all the balls and huge squeezes for which the spring Season was so renowned, but there would be enough people in residence in the grand houses of Mayfair to allow for a fair sprinkling of social entertainments. Lord Francis would see to it that Edgar was invited to a goodly number of them, and Cora would undertake to introduce him to some likely matrimonial prospects.

  He needed their help. Despite the courteous tact of his brother-in-law’s words, Edgar felt no doubt about that. He might have managed it himself, but with far more effort than would be needed if he simply relied upon the fact that Francis was a member of the upper echelons of the ton. Edgar was resigned to forcing his way into ranks from which his birth would normally exclude him. He was prepared for some coolness, even some rejection. But he knew enough about the world to believe that his wealth and his prospects would open a number of doors to him, especially those of people who felt themselves in need of sharing in his wealth.

  He did not doubt that it was within his power to win himself a bride by Christmas. Someone of birth and breeding. Someone who would not look upon his own origins with contempt or condescension. Someone pretty and personable. Someone of whom he could be fond, it was to be hoped. He came from a family that set much store by that elusive something called love. He loved his father and his sister and was loved by them in return. His parents had enjoyed a love match. So did Cora and Francis, though the marriage had not app
eared too promising at the start. Edgar rather thought that he would like to make a love match, too, or at least a match of affection.

  He had until Christmas. Three months.

  He was going to choose himself a bride. He traveled up to London at the end of the month, a little chilled by the thought, a little exhilarated by it.

  After all, he was enough his father’s son to find a challenge stimulating.

  LORD FRANCIS KNELLER’S friends were indeed in London. The Earl and Countess of Thornhill and the Marquess and Marchioness of Carew had come down together from Yorkshire with their six children for the purpose of shopping and seeing the sights and socializing at a somewhat less frantic pace than the Season would have allowed. Even the Duke and Duchess of Bridgwater had come up with their new son, mainly because their other friends were to be there. The duke’s sister and Cora’s special friend, the Countess of Greenwald, was also in residence with her husband and family. And they all decided to be kind to Cora’s brother and to take him under their collective wing.

  It was all somewhat daunting. And rather embarrassing. And not a little humbling to a man who was accustomed to commanding other men and to thinking himself very much master of his own life and affairs. His first social invitation, to what was termed an intimate soirée, came from the Countess of Greenwald. The affair was termed “intimate,” Edgar guessed, to excuse its lack of numbers in comparison with what might have been expected during the Season.

  But when his sister informed him that quite one hundred people had been invited and that surely all but a very few would make an appearance, Edgar felt absurdly nervous. He had never forgotten how the other boys at school had made him suffer for his birth. He had never complained to his father, or to any of the masters, who had undoubtedly shared the sentiments of the bulk of their pupils anyway. He had learned how to use his fists and his tongue, too, with blistering effect. He had learned endurance and pride and self-respect. He had learned that there was an invisible barrier between those men—and boys—who were gentlemen and those who were not. He had vowed to himself that he would never try to cross that barrier.

  As a very young man he had scorned even to want to cross it. He had been proud of who he was and of what he had made of himself and what his father had made of himself. But Cora had married Francis. And the bridge had been set in place. And then his father had expressed his dying wish—surely thirty years before he was likely to die.

  Edgar dressed carefully for the soirée. He wore a plain blue evening coat with gray knee breeches and white linen. He directed his valet to tie his neckcloth in a simple knot rather than fashion one of the more elaborate and artistic creations his man favored. His only jewelry was a diamond pin in the folds of the neckcloth. His clothes were expensive and expertly tailored. He would allow the tailoring to speak for itself. He would not try to put on any show of wealth. He certainly would not wear anything that might suggest dandyism. The very thought made him shudder.

  Cora and her friends would doubtless introduce him to some young ladies. Indeed, he had been quite aware of them going into a huddle after dinner at the Carews’ the evening before. He had been painfully aware from the enthusiastic tone of their murmurings and the occasional furtive and interested glance thrown his way by one and another of them that he had been the subject of their conversation.

  He hoped they would not introduce him to very young ladies. He was thirty-six. It would be most unfair to expect a young girl straight from the schoolroom to take him on. And he did not believe he would find appealing a girl almost young enough to be his daughter. He should have told Cora that he wanted someone significantly past the age of one-and-twenty. Such ladies were deemed to be on the shelf, of course. There had to be something wrong with them if they had not snared a husband by the age of twenty. And perhaps it really was so. How would he know?

  “I would lead you in the direction of a congenial game of cards, old chap,” Lord Francis said to him as they arrived at the Greenwalds’ town house. He clapped a hand on his brother-in-law’s shoulder and grinned. “But Cora would have my head and your purpose in coming to town would not be served. I shall allow her to go to work as soon as she emerges from the ladies’ room. But no, you will not have to wait that long. Here comes our hostess herself, and from the look in her eye, Edgar, I would guess she means business.”

  And sure enough, after greeting them both with a gracious smile, Lady Greenwald linked one arm through Edgar’s and bore him off to introduce him to a few people he might find interesting.

  “Everyone is starved for the sight of a new face and the sound of new conversation, Mr. Downes,” she said, “especially at this time of year when there are so few people in town.”

  It seemed to Edgar that there was a vast number of people in Lady Greenwald’s drawing room, but the fact that almost all of them were strangers might have contributed to the impression.

  He was introduced to a number of people and conversed briefly with them about the weather and other such general topics until Lady Greenwald finally led him to where he guessed she had been leading him from the start. Sir Webster Grainger shook him heartily by the hand instead of merely bowing, and laughed just as heartily for no apparent reason. Lady Grainger swept him a curtsy that looked deferential enough to have been made in the queen’s drawing room. And Miss Fanny Grainger, small, slight of figure, fair of hair, rather pretty, blushed rosily and directed her gaze at the floor somewhere in the vicinity of Edgar’s shoes.

  It had been planned, he thought. As both an experienced lawyer and a businessman he was canny at interpreting tone and atmosphere and the language of the body. Words were not always necessary for the assessment of a situation. It was very clear to him from the first moment that Sir Webster Grainger and his lady were in search of a husband for their daughter, that they had heard of his availability, and that they had determined to fix his interest. He did not doubt that Lady Greenwald would have done her job well. The Graingers would be well aware of his social status.

  “You are familiar with Bristol, I understand, Mr. Downes,” Sir Webster said as Lady Greenwald excused herself to greet some new arrival at the drawing room door.

  “I live there and conduct my business there, sir,” Edgar said very deliberately. Let there be no possible mistake.

  “We invariably spend a day in Bristol whenever we go to Bath for Lady Grainger to take the waters,” Sir Webster said. “She has an aunt living there. At Bristol, that is.”

  “It is an agreeable place in which to have one’s residence,” Edgar said. Good Lord, the girl could be no more than eighteen. He must have been her present age when she was born. Her mother must be of an age with him.

  “Fanny always particularly enjoys the days we spend in Bristol,” Lady Grainger said. “You must tell Mr. Downes what you like best about Bristol, Fanny, to see if he agrees with you.”

  There could have been no suggestion better calculated to tie the girl’s tongue in knots, Edgar could see. She lifted her eyes to his chest, tried to raise them higher, failed, and blushed again. Poor child.

  “Whenever I have been to London and return home,” he said, “I am invariably asked what I liked best about town. I am never able to answer. I could, I suppose, describe the Tower of London or Hyde Park or a dozen other places, but I can never think of a single one when confronted. In my experience, one either likes a place or not. Do you like Bristol, Miss Grainger?”

  She shot him a brief and grateful glance. She had fine gray eyes in a rather thin face. “I like it very well, sir,” she said. “Because my great-aunt lives there, I believe, and I like her.”

  It was not a profound answer, but it was an endearingly honest one.

  “It is the best reason of all for liking a place,” he said. “I grew up in Bristol with a father and a sister whom I loved and still love, and so for me Bristol will always be a more pleasant place than London.”

  The child had almost relaxed. She even smiled briefly. “Is your mother d— Is
she not living, sir?”

  “She died giving birth to my sister,” he said. “But I remember her as a loving presence in my life.”

  “And your sister is Lady Francis Kneller, Mr. Downes,” Sir Webster announced, just as if Edgar did not know it for himself. He rubbed his hands together. “A fine lady. I remember the time—it was before her marriage, I do believe—when she saved Lady Kellington’s poodles from being trampled in Hyde Park.”

  “Ah, yes.” Edgar smiled. “My sister has a habit of rushing to the rescue.”

  “She saved some dogs from being trampled?” Miss Grainger’s eyes were directed full at him now.

  It needed Francis to tell the story in all its mock-heroic glory. But Edgar did his best. It appeared, though, as if he failed to convey the humor of Cora’s heroism in endangering her life to save some dogs who had been in no danger except from her rescue. Miss Grainger looked earnestly at him, her mouth forming a little O of concern. A very kissable little mouth—in rather the way that Cora’s children’s mouths were kissable when they lifted them to him on his visits to the nursery.

  He must be getting old, he thought. Too old to be in search of a bride.

  And then he glanced across to the doorway, where another new arrival stood. A woman alone, dressed fashionably and elegantly in a high-waisted, low-bosomed dress of pure scarlet silk. A woman whose magnificent bosom more than did justice to the gown. Her whole figure, in fact, was generous. It might even be described as voluptuous more than slender. But then it was a mature woman’s figure. She was not a young woman, but well past her thirtieth year if Edgar’s guess was correct. Her dark hair was piled high and dressed in smooth curls rather than in more youthful ringlets. She looked about her with bold eyes in a handsome face, a half smile on her lips, which might denote confidence or contempt or mere mocking irony. It was difficult to tell which.