Christmas with the Duchess

by Tamara Lejeune

  “Would you?” he said quietly. “You do not love me, then?”

  “No,” said Emma. “Of course not.”

  “Then my uncle was telling the truth. You only used me—used me to get your children back. I understand, madam.”

  Emma blinked at him in total surprise. “He told you that, did he? I should have thought he’d be too ashamed!”

  “My uncle has no shame.”

  “Yes, Nicholas, I used you. I am not proud of it. But it has backfired against me royally, so you needn’t think my misdeeds will go unpunished.”

  “I would have helped you, if you had only confided in me,” he said sadly. “It was not necessary for you to—to prostitute yourself.”

  “Oh, but I like prostituting myself,” she said angrily. “Didn’t your precious uncle tell you?”

  “I did not want to believe the things he said about you.”

  Emma laughed recklessly. “I can imagine! I was no more faithful to my husband than he was to me. What was I supposed to do? Be a good little wife and turn a blind eye to his affairs? Cry myself to sleep at night in my lonely bed? I am not a martyr, Nicholas. Anyway, who are you to judge me?” she went on angrily. “You know nothing of my life. You know nothing of life, period! You have spent your whole life at sea. You may as well have been living on a ship in a bottle, for all you know of real temptation! But you will learn, Nicholas.”

  Her voice was low and ominous.

  “When you get to London, women will throw themselves at you. Let us see how well you resist their advances! Men, too, will pretend to befriend you because you have power and money and influence. Let us see how you get on. When you have been tested in fire, Sir Galahad, then you may pass judgment on me.”

  “I don’t judge you, Emma,” he said quietly. “I pity you. I pity you with all my heart.”

  “Oh! Just get out of my way,” she snarled.

  “Give me the bucket,” he said. “You should not be walking the corridors with a bucket of horse manure.”

  “Why ever not? ’Tis an old German tradition!”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t let you do it. I will stand guard at my uncle’s door all night, if I have to,” he snapped.

  Emma kicked over the bucket. “Take it! Damn you! I wish I’d never set eyes on you!”

  When she had gone, Nicholas carefully cleaned up the mess. It did not disgust him. In his career at sea, he’d cleaned up much worse.

  Lord Hugh could not sleep. Even snug in his bed, with the coverlet pulled up to his chin, he did not feel entirely safe from the wrath of the Greys. He sat up in bed, a loaded pistol in his hand, his eyes glued to the door. Beside him, Lady Anne snored gently.

  The knock on the door made him jump. Lady Anne continued to snore. Lord Hugh elbowed her until she woke up, sputtering.

  “Go and see who it is,” he commanded her.

  While she padded to the door in her bare feet, he carefully cocked the pistol.

  “Who is it?” Lady Anne called through the door.

  “It is I, Nicholas,” said her nephew from the other side of the door.

  Lord Hugh flung away his pistol. Running to the door, he pushed his wife aside. “Come in, dear boy,” he cried, throwing the door open. “Come in! Dare I hope you have changed your mind?”

  Nicholas would not come into the room.

  “I would make a bargain with you, Uncle,” he said grimly. “I will marry one of your daughters. In exchange, you will stop tormenting Emma! You will stop coming between her and her children. And you will return her letter to her.”

  “Of course,” said Lord Hugh, smiling. “Your happiness, Nicholas, is all I have ever cared about.”

  Nicholas recoiled from him in disgust. “On second thought,” he said. “You will give me her letter. I don’t trust you to keep your word.”

  “There’s no need to insult me,” said Lord Hugh, but he was too happy to even pretend to be indignant. “The letter is in London with my attorney. I will send for it tomorrow.”

  “See that you do. And you will send word to the duchess,” Nicholas went on. “It will not be necessary for her to leave. It ends tonight, Uncle. This vendetta you have against her. No more. If you so much as cast a wry look in her direction, you will answer to me.”

  “Now you are safe from her, I have no quarrel with the woman,” said Lord Hugh. “I have no reason to cast a wry look.”

  “Which of the girls has caught your fancy, Nicholas?” Lady Anne asked him, smiling as if she had not heard anything unpleasant passing between her husband and her nephew.

  Nicholas looked at her incredulously. “None,” he said curtly.

  Lady Anne stared back blankly. “But which of them do you mean to marry?”

  Nicholas shrugged impatiently. “I don’t really care. The eldest, I suppose. She seems eager enough,” he added contemptuously.

  “Octavia will be delighted!” cried Lady Anne, clapping her hands together. “We will make the announcement tomorrow.”

  “No!” Nicholas said sharply. “Are you insane? Just this evening I announced that I was going to marry the duchess! In any case, no announcement will be made until I have the letter.”

  “Of course,” said Lord Hugh. “When you have her letter, she will be entirely in your power. You may take whatever revenge you like for her having humiliated you.”

  “I seek no revenge,” Nicholas said coldly.

  “But, surely, Nicholas, you will be staying at Warwick, after all?” Lady Anne said eagerly. “You would not leave us now?”

  Nicholas looked at his uncle with revulsion. “I must stay to be in receipt of the duchess’s letter. Do we have a bargain, sir?”

  “We do, my lord,” Lord Hugh answered, rubbing his hands together.

  “You will write to the duchess immediately, informing her of your change of heart,” Nicholas commanded. He waited until the note was completed, then he tucked it into his pocket. “I will see that she gets it.”

  Lady Anne ran to her nephew and kissed him. “You will not be sorry, Nicholas! Octavia will make you the best of wives. I have always thought she was born to be a countess.”

  Nicholas looked down into her watery blue eyes. “Right,” he said grimly.

  “May I tell her now?” Lady Anne begged. “She will not mind my waking her. She will be overjoyed! Of course, I will explain that it’s to be kept a secret for now.”

  “I will walk you out,” said Nicholas, as she whipped a heavy shawl around her shoulders. “You will want to stay with your daughter tonight, Aunt Anne,” he told her when they were out in the hall.

  Lady Anne wrinkled her nose. “Heavens! What is that smell?”

  “It’s a bucket of excrement, I’m afraid,” he explained. “I am going to put it over the door, and, if all goes to plan, it will fall on your husband when he gets up in the morning. You don’t have a problem with that, do you?”

  Lady Anne thought of all the times Lord Hugh had mistreated her. “Not really, no,” she answered.

  Nicholas kissed her papery cheek. “Good night, Aunt.”

  Early the next morning, Colin found his sister in her sitting room. He was dressed for travel, but Emma was still in her dressing gown, sipping chocolate. “Why aren’t you dressed?” he demanded crossly. “If we’re going, we might as well get an early start.”

  “We’re not going,” Emma told him, with a brief smile. “I’ve had a note from dear Uncle Hugh. Apparently, he’s had a change of heart.”

  “Vipers don’t have hearts,” Colin retorted.

  “No, but they do have pockets,” said Emma. “He’s decided to take the money after all. I daresay, he meant to take the money all along. He just wanted to torture me a bit.”

  “Bastard.”

  “Quite. Anyway, I’ve sent him a banknote. Harry and Grey will arrive this afternoon, as planned, and we will be here to greet them. I suppose I should be glad that Nicholas stopped me from carrying out my revenge.”

  Colin scowled. “What do you
mean?”

  With a shrug, Emma explained how Nicholas had thwarted her.

  “Well, someone rigged a bucket above his door,” said Colin. “The servants are all atwitter this morning.”

  “Why, it must have been Otto,” Emma said, baffled. “He never said a word.”

  “You’ve seen him this morning?”

  She nodded. “I sent him back to bed; he’s quite worn out, poor lamb. Cecily fears he may be coming down with a cold. You know how susceptible he is to infections of the lung.”

  Emma’s eyes danced with malicious glee. “As for Bellamy, they found him early this morning, cowering in one corner of the pigsty. The pigs had just finished eating his nightshirt. He was calling for his mama!”

  “That’s because she’d just eaten his nightshirt,” said Colin.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Later that morning, the news that a vehicle had passed through the front gates brought the family out onto the steps. Manservants in livery scrambled to line the drive.

  An unassuming black gig came into view. It stopped at the foot of the stairs.

  The door opened and a clergyman stepped out.

  The family was confused. “What on earth—?” Emma murmured to her twin brother. “Isn’t that the vicar?”

  Scorning to take the hand that was offered to her, Lady Harriet Fitzroy stepped out of the vehicle under her own power. Wearing only a burlap sack, she walked up the steps with her head high. Her cropped white hair was wet, plastered to her skull. Pausing on the threshold, she gave Colin a look that could have melted iron.

  “You’re dead to me,” she said in a low voice.

  Colin pretended not to hear.

  Lady Susan, meanwhile, had ripped the tale from the vicar’s throat. Arriving at the church that morning, his curate had discovered a burlap sack at the lych-gate. When he unlocked the church doors, he had found Lady Harriet, innocent of all clothing and shivering from the cold. To cover her shame, she had jumped into the baptismal font. The vicar could only suppose it had been an episode of madness. Lady Harriet had refused the clothes offered to her by the vicar’s wife, preferring to wear her burlap. To preserve what remained of the lady’s modesty, the vicar had left his spectacles at home.

  Having taken all the fruit, Lady Susan was eager to be rid of the rind. “I’d invite you in, Vicar,” she said in a syrupy voice, “but we are expecting his grace the duke this afternoon.”

  She made no mention of Lord Grey Fitzroy, the duke’s younger brother.

  “Oh?” said the vicar. “I thought his grace must be home already. Isn’t that the ducal standard flying from the ramparts?”

  In order to see what he was talking about, it was necessary for Lady Susan to climb down the steps and stand in the courtyard. “That? That is not the ducal standard,” she trilled. “Unless I miss my guess, those are poor Harriet’s drawers!”

  The vicar was sent away with scarcely a word of thanks. Lady Harriet’s drawers were restored to her in short order, and the company returned to the house.

  That afternoon, the family gathered again on the front steps, and, as the duke’s carriage approached the house, manservants in livery lined the drive as far as the eye could see.

  Nicholas stood with Lady Anne and her daughters, eager to see the two boys reunited with their mother. Emma need never know that he was responsible for her happiness. Indeed, it was better for everyone concerned if Nicholas’s interference remained a secret.

  The carriage came to a stop. Amid cheers and applause from the servants, the two boys jumped out. Lord Grey Fitzroy, the younger of the two, ran at once up the steps of polished stone and threw his arms around his mother’s waist. Tall for his age, he was sturdily built with a wing of dark red hair falling over one eye. Emma’s eyes filled with tears as she embraced him. All fear and anxiety seemed to leave her. She looked radiant.

  Though he was only thirteen, the duke had more self-awareness. He climbed the steps at a more dignified pace than his younger brother, stopping frequently to return the servants’ salutes with a solemn wave.

  At the top of the steps, he kissed his mother formally. Emma knew he considered himself too old for hugs and kisses from his mama, and she controlled the impulse to throw her arms around him. He was nearly as tall as his mother, and, with his steel-blue eyes and curly, ash-brown hair, he looked thoroughly a Grey. “How tall you have become, Harry,” she said. “And Grey, too! You’re practically grown men now! I would hardly have known you. But, then I have not seen you since—since—”

  “Steady on, Mama,” said Harry, embarrassed by his mother’s tears. “And I’m to be called Warwick, now, not Harry.”

  Emma frowned at him. “Not by me, young man,” she said. “Warwick is what I called your father! I’m still your mother.”

  Though this challenge to his authority rankled the young man, Harry was not sufficiently confident to argue with his parent. “All right,” he said reluctantly. “You may call me Harry. But everyone else must call me Warwick.”

  “Of course, my love,” Emma said. “Shall we go into the house?”

  “I certainly don’t intend to stand outside all day,” he answered her sullenly, “for it looks like rain.”

  “So it does,” Emma said pleasantly. “Why don’t you go up to your room for a bit? It will give the servants a chance to get themselves back in order. They did so want to come out to greet you. Then we will have tea in the main drawing room, if that is agreeable.”

  “I should be glad of a proper tea,” Harry said eagerly. “The teas at Westminster School were not very generous, were they, Grey?”

  “No,” Grey answered shortly.

  Harry looked around, setting off a round of curtseying, first from Lady Susan and her daughters and then from Lady Anne and her daughters. “Where is my great-uncle?” Harry demanded, descending on poor Lady Anne. “I would thank him for sending my brother and me to Westminster School. It has been a remarkable experience.”

  Lady Anne cowered before him. Not even Octavia had the courage to answer.

  Nicholas spoke up. “My uncle is indisposed, I’m afraid. Your grace,” he added, sketching a bow.

  Cold blue eyes flicked over him. “And who are you, sir?” Harry asked, sounding rather like his uncle, Lord Scarlingford.

  Emma hurried over. “This is Lord Camford, Harry,” she said quickly. “He is Lady Anne’s nephew.”

  “Oh, I see,” Harry said coldly. “And this means he can talk to me, I suppose! Is Uncle Hugh now inviting his wife’s relations to my home? How presumptuous of him.”

  Emma felt her face growing hot with embarrassment. “But Lord Camford is very welcome, Harry,” she protested. “He has promised to help me with my decorations this year.” Quickly, she told her son about her plans to erect an enormous tannenbaum in the great hall. “I do not think we will be able to manage it without Lord Camford’s expertise.”

  “It is superstitious German nonsense,” Lady Susan remarked to her eldest daughter, her loud voice carrying like a bugle. “If the duchess wants to celebrate Walpurgis Night or whatever, perhaps she should go back to her mother’s land. I see no reason for our Christian holiday to be defiled by these pagan rites.”

  Forgetting Nicholas, Harry turned on her, demanding angrily, “What did you say, Aunt Susan?”

  Lady Susan had never realized just how loud she was. She blinked at Harry in surprise. “It’s—it’s nothing the bishop hasn’t said,” she stammered out.

  “Well, this is my house, not the bishop’s,” he told her. “And I think it sounds charming! A tannenbaum will be a very nice treat for the children,” he went on, clearly separating himself from that category. “Lord Camford, you may carry on,” he added as an afterthought, giving Nicholas a vague wave.

  “Thank you, your grace,” Nicholas answered correctly, without emotion.

  Emma looked at him sharply, but she could detect no mockery.

  Harry moved on toward the house, stopping as Julia Fitzroy caught his eye
. “Why, Cousin Julia!” he exclaimed, staring at her. “How—how grown-up you look!”

  Julia bobbed a saucy little curtsey, delighted but not at all surprised that she had been singled out from amongst her four elder sisters; men were doing that more and more these days. She was wearing a low-cut gown of sea-green muslin. It was far too cold an afternoon for such a flimsy confection, and her rosy nipples stood out stiffly, clearly visible through the thin fabric. “Hello, Cousin Harry! You look very grown-up, too,” she added, looking at him through her lashes.

  As alarmed by Julia as Harry was intrigued, Emma hurried both her sons into the house. While the rest of the family waited for the boys in the drawing room, Harry and Grey went upstairs to wash. Hardly aware of anyone else, Emma made sure that all their favorite cakes and confections were among the arrangements. When Colin tried to snatch a petit four from the table, he received a sharp blow across the knuckles from his sister.

  “You’re turning into a household angel,” Colin accused her, nursing his injured hand.

  “I just want everything to be perfect,” said Emma, pointing out a subpar cake to a servant, who whisked it away.

  “Speaking of perfect,” Colin went on as his sister fussed needlessly. “Did you see that little exchange between Harry and Julia?”

  “No,” Emma said sharply. “I didn’t. Harry is only thirteen,” she added, almost in the same breath. “He’s far too young for that sort of thing.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Colin. “By the time I was thirteen—”

  “Pray, spare me the details!” she pleaded.

  “Don’t I always spare you the details?” Colin drawled. “I’m just saying that Harry’s growing up.”

  “You’re wrong,” she answered. “Harry is just tall. It doesn’t make him a man.”

  “Well, here comes the infantry now,” Colin remarked, as Harry and Grey came into the room. Accustomed to being a part of the background, eleven-year-old Grey sat down near his mother, but Harry remained standing.

  “There used to be a painting of my mother in this room,” he said, looking around the room. He did not look pleased. “You remember it, Mama. It was your wedding portrait. Where is that painting?”