An Affair Before Christmas

by Eloisa James

  “Now, let’s buy something you always wanted but didn’t buy.”

  But Poppy couldn’t think of anything.

  “A new gown?”

  “I always bought them when I felt I had a need.”

  “What we’re doing,” Jemma said, “is buying something for which you have no need. For the pure plea sure of it. Not because there’s a hole in your stockings, but because you love stockings.” Then she started laughing.

  “What is it?” Poppy said, smiling along with her.

  “Your expression,” Jemma said. “You look like a kitten with your first mouse.”

  “Well, there is something,” Poppy said shyly.

  “What?”

  “Promise you won’t laugh?”

  “I can’t promise that,” Jemma said. “But I promise not to hoot, will that do?”

  Poppy unfolded a small advertisement cut neatly from the newspaper.

  “What on earth?” Jemma said, taking the scrap of paper. It was an advertisement. “For Sale: The horn of a strange beast recovered in Sisfreyan Babylon. What?”

  “Did you hear about that beast?” Poppy asked. “It was written up in the Gazette last year. They said that it had two horns above its nose and two twisting horns above each ear. The article said that it was as large as a horse and might easily have carried two men. And its fur was blue.”

  Jemma had a look on her face that was something akin to that of Poppy’s mother whenever Poppy showed her interesting snippets from the papers. “Why on earth are you carrying that about in your pocket?”

  “I should like to buy it,” Poppy said.

  “Buy it?”

  Poppy leaned forward and rapped on the roof. “Yer Grace,” came back the booming voice of the coachman.

  “We’d like to go to Grudner’s Curiosity Shop.”

  “What?”

  “Grudner’s Curiosity Shop in Whitefriars,” she shrieked. “Now, please.”

  The carriage pulled ponderously to the right. “Grudner’s Curiosity Shop?” Jemma asked.

  “I’ve read his advertisements,” Poppy explained. “He’s got all kinds of wonderful things…once he had a cherry stone with one hundred heads carved on it. And an ostrich egg. Do you know what an ostrich is, Jemma?”

  “Absolutely not,” Jemma said, leaning back and grinning at her.

  “It’s a very large, fat bird,” Poppy said. “My father had a book of natural curiosities, and I kept it under my bed for years. All the maids knew, of course, but they never told my mother. Why are you smiling at me so?”

  “Because your eyes are shining,” Jemma said. “Your eyes are shining and your cheeks are pink, and you look—interested, Poppy. Really interested.”

  “Well, who wouldn’t be? Did you know that Lord Prestle has a stuffed alligator? I would love to see that!”

  “A stuffed alligator? What is an alligator?”

  “A monster,” Poppy said. “A veritable monster with huge huge teeth and tusks the size of a man’s leg. That’s how they described it in the Rambler’s Magazine. It roams the wilderness in America and snaps up a whole man in one mouthful.”

  “Goodness sakes,” Jemma said. “You seem to be reading different articles than I do.”

  “The first thing I’m going to do is buy a cabinet.”

  “For a stuffed alligator?”

  “I’m not interested in stuffed animals, particularly,” Poppy said. “Well, I am interested, but I think I’m more interested in curiosities. There was an advertisement a few months ago for a clear crystal pebble with water trapped inside it, for instance. I almost asked Mother if I could buy that.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “My mother doesn’t feel that curiosity is an appropriate emotion for a duchess.”

  “I must be a duchess in your mother’s mold,” Jemma said comfortably. “I’ve never had the faintest curiosity unless it was about discovering a new way to solve a chess problem. But I do have a question, Poppy. Why on earth were you asking your mother for permission about how to spend Fletch’s money?”

  Poppy frowned. “I’m not sure.”

  “I never ask anyone’s permission for anything,” Jemma said frankly. “It is a far more entertaining way to live.”

  “I see what you mean. I suppose I was just in the habit of asking Mama about things. Though I knew she would say no.”

  “Then you must stop asking her questions. I loathe people who say no.”

  Poppy started laughing. “Who says no to you, Jemma?”

  “Not very many people, which is just as it should be. Beaumont and I have a wrangle now and then.”

  “I am beginning to realize that my mother says no about a great many things.”

  “Few of which are her prerogative,” Jemma said. “The more I hear about your mother, the more grateful I am for my paucity of relatives. I wouldn’t trade my mad uncle for your mad mother any day of the week!”

  “Do you know, we haven’t even written each other a letter in the last month? I expect she’s furious at me.”

  “She’s duchessing it in your place,” Jemma said, with a distinct edge in her voice. “She held a soirée last week, according to the gossip columns.”

  “She always wanted to be a duchess,” Poppy said, feeling a stab of loyalty. “And she would have made a much better one than I.”

  “Now she is one,” Jemma pointed out. “We dissolute duchesses live in Beaumont House, and all the proper ones can pay visits to your mother, and we’re all comfortable.”

  Chapter 21

  Still September 1

  The Duke of Villiers opened the elegant piece of embossed stationery, scanned it and let it fall from his hand. He was so terribly tired that he couldn’t bring himself to care that one of his friends had sent him a long page of gossip. Apparently the Duke of Beaumont was indulging in a flirtation with Miss Charlotte Tatlock. They were seen speaking together at all events.

  Elijah must be insane, to flirt with an old maid like Charlotte Tatlock, when he could be talking to Jemma. Though now he thought about it, he had the idea that Elijah had talked to Miss Tatlock through most of Jemma’s last dinner party.

  Villiers didn’t even have the strength to read the rest of the letter, which was galling.

  He had his chess board by the bed, but he couldn’t seem to keep his mind on a good chess problem, even though Finchley set it up from Chess Analyzed, by Philidor, just as he had asked him to do.

  His eyes kept slipping around his room, his empty, tedious room. He had redone it two years ago in a pale gray, the color of an early sky over the ocean, of a day when autumn is just turning into winter. He still liked the color. But it was empty…empty…terribly empty.

  He could even find it in himself to regret the fact that his fiancée had left him for Jemma’s brother, though he didn’t give a damn about that when it happened.

  “May I bring you some barley soup, Your Grace?” Finchley said, hovering in the doorway like some sort of specter of death.

  “No,” Villiers said. And then: “No, thank you, Finchley.”

  “A number of visitors called this morning,” Finchley announced with some pride. He took a tray from a waiting footman and displayed it as if it were a baby. Sure enough there was a little heap of cardboard bits, embossed with the names of nobility, acquaintances, friends and the purely curious.

  “No, thank you,” Villiers said. There was no one he cared to see among the heaps of cardboard. The truth was that he was depressed. He would have liked to see Benjamin. Benjamin would have rushed into the room like a breath of chill water, and Villiers would have had to say something sharp to him, and would have thought about clumsy-footed puppies and the like.

  It was something, to come so close to death. And then to remember that his friend Benjamin had already died.

  “I don’t suppose,” he said, just as Finchley was about to leave, “that the Duchess of Beaumont paid a call? Or the Duchess of Berrow?” That would be Benjamin’s widow. />
  Finchley bowed. “No ladies were among your visitors, Your Grace.” He said it patiently, as though Villiers had forgotten all the social etiquette. Of course no ladies came. Why on earth would Benjamin’s widow pay him a call? Doubtless she blamed him for Benjamin’s suicide.

  He would have thought that Jemma might have come. She had said they were friends, after all. One had to suppose that they weren’t as good friends as that. It was hard to remember…his brain was all foggy.

  “The Duchess of Beaumont didn’t call, did she?” he asked again, just to make sure.

  Finchley got an odd expression on his face, but he shook his head. “No, Your Grace.”

  “Raved about her, did I?” Villiers guessed. “I suspect I said all sorts of things, Finchley. I have the oddest memories. Did the solicitor ever come?”

  “Yes, Your Grace,” Finchley said. “Do you not remember creating your will?”

  “Of course,” Villiers said, lying through his teeth. Then he took pity on the uncomfortable manservant. “You may go.”

  Finchley disappeared and Villiers stared at his fingers in the light. They had grown thinner, almost transparent, really. Of course Jemma hadn’t visited. She couldn’t visit him. That would be tantamount to telling all London that they were having an affaire—and the worst of it was that they weren’t. In fact, Villiers had been stupid enough, as he recalled it, to turn down what might have been an invitation.

  “Fool, fool,” he whispered under his breath.

  And then, thinking of Benjamin, “Fool.” The fever was coming back, making his head reel. It lapsed in the mornings, but he felt it coming back now that luncheon was over, approaching like a dark velvet tide that would pull him under.

  And for the first time, he thought: I might die. I really might die. And what a fool way to die, dueling over a fiancée for whom he didn’t give a fig. A life thrown away for a careless word, for a twist of steel.

  Not that there was much to give up but a tangle of regrets and some lost friends. Benjamin…dead. Elijah. Elijah, married to Jemma. His life made his head ache.

  There was one thing, though…

  One thing that had to be done.

  Already his eyesight was wavering. “Finchley,” he called, hearing his voice crack.

  His manservant appeared instantly. “I’ve got the fever again,” he said, to forestall the patient hand on his forehead. “I’ll have some water please, and I need to write a note. Quickly, before it comes on.”

  But by the time Finchley came back with a sheet of foolscap, the fever had come, and Villiers couldn’t remember what he meant to say.

  “That woman,” he managed. “Address it to her.”

  Finchley sat beside the bed and said, “What woman?”

  To Villiers, his valet’s lean figure grew longer, grew horns, swayed against the wall. He closed his eyes. “We were all friends, of course. What is her name? Charlotte, I think. Perhaps Charlotte. From His Grace, the Duke of Villiers. Greetings.”

  He forgot what he wanted to say and that he wanted to say anything, and fell into a pool of warm water that was inexplicably waiting behind his closed lids. He was floating in it, flying really, when Finchley’s per sis tent voice came through the water, dimly, watery. “Your Grace. Can you tell me this woman’s last name?”

  “Whose?”

  “Charlotte,” Finchley said. “A woman named Charlotte. You are writing her a missive, Your Grace.”

  “I am? Charlotte? Do you mean Charlotte Tatlock?” he said, knowing he sounded irritable. “A rather odd young woman, long in the tooth.”

  Saying all that exhausted him and he fell back. A missive? What the hell is that? “No, no, I mean to say, tell her—tell her—” The pool yawned at his feet again, welcoming, warm. Perhaps there were mermaids there with bright eyes who would make him feel warm and loved. Nourished. Perhaps…Surely Benjamin’s widow’s name wasn’t Tatlock. Because Benjamin’s last name…what was Benjamin’s last name? “Tell her to visit me,” he said. “Tell her that—tell her that I miss Benjamin.”

  He could hear Finchley’s quill scratching and it made his head throb. “Now go away, do,” he said. “Deliver it by messenger.”

  When the door closed, he closed his eyes and fell into the pool but there were no bright-eyed mermaids with sleek green tails, merely shifting shadows and heat. It was so hot that the pool must be heated by volcanos.

  And so it went, until another dawn.

  Chapter 22

  Grudner’s Curiosity Shop was set well back from the street, its gabled windows crowded with a variety of what looked like rubbish.

  Poppy sprang out of the carriage. She’d wanted to visit Grudner’s for years, ever since she learned of its existence, but her mother had said no. Grudner’s was located in one of the liberties of London, Whitefriars, which was an area without rule or law, according to her mother. To Poppy, the street looked as dingy and crowded as any street and showed no obvious sign that it was located in a hub for criminal activity.

  Jemma followed in a more leisurely fashion, making sure that her side bustles didn’t touch the carriage door. “I suspect that Mr. Grudner doesn’t believe in cleaning,” she said, looking in the window.

  “Look at that,” Poppy said, pointing.

  Jemma peered closer. “An old riding glove? What does it do, fly by itself?”

  “It belonged to King Henry VIII. See? It says so on the card.”

  “And what’s the proof of that,” Jemma said, snorting. “You could take any old glove and put a card next to it saying it belonged to King Solomon himself. Besides, Poppy, did you know that Henry VIII never bathed? He didn’t like water next to his skin, apparently. My uncle told me that the king’s skin was as smooth as a baby’s behind. But imagine…” She shuddered. “Imagine the inside of that glove!”

  It was a small store, painted a pleasing cherry red. Everywhere Poppy looked were boxes topped with glass, glass shelves, even glass pedestals with precious objects on top.

  “Ladies,” a man said, coming forward. “You do me too much honor.” He was tall and thin with a wild shock of white hair that made his head appear too large for his body, like a puppet at Barthlomew Fair. “I am Ludwig Grudner. May I show you something? Perhaps the glove of Henry VIII that you admired in the window?”

  “No,” Poppy said, smiling at him. “I’m interested in scientific curiosities, if you please.”

  “I have a lanhado from Africa,” Mr. Grudner said. “Ten foot wing span, of course, and beautifully stuffed. I have to keep it in another location, but I could have it delivered to you tomorrow morning.”

  “Not stuffed animals, but curiosities,” Poppy explained. “I intend to develop my own curiosity cabinet. I saw your advertisement for the horn of a Sisfreyan beast.”

  “A notable piece,” Mr. Grudner said. “A true miracle, that. I sold it for three hundred pounds.”

  “Three hundred pounds!” Jemma interjected. “That’s an outrage!”

  “The only one of its kind,” Mr. Grudner retorted. “It was worth far more than that, and I did it only because Lord Strange is one of my best customers.”

  “He is?” Jemma asked.

  “Lord Strange is a great naturalist,” Mr. Grudner reported. “And, of course, he is able to indulge his curiosity. He has one of the best collections in En gland, and most of it purchased from this very shop.”

  “Oh,” Poppy said, obviously entranced. “I’m so sorry that I didn’t get to see the horn of the beast before it was purchased.”

  “The store is full of wonderful objects…Every lady should have her own curiosity cabinet. Can I show you the hand of a mermaid, perhaps?”

  Jemma wandered away once Poppy was happily occupied in poring over Mr. Grudner’s unsavory collection. She found a small picture made entirely of feathers and was trying to decide whether it depicted a monkey climbing up the back of a man—or possibly a person climbing a flight of stairs or perhaps a cow next to a tree, when she saw a chess pie
ce, sitting by itself on a small pedestal.

  It was the white queen, carved from ivory. She stood with a regal frown, her body shadowed by the enormous crown that bloomed on her head. The crown was a hollow sphere, exquisitely carved with open work, and when Jemma peered inside she saw inside another sphere, also open, and inside that, yet another.

  “Exquisite, is it not?” Mr. Grudner said, popping up at her shoulder. “I’m afraid that I have only the one piece. The entire set belongs to Lord Strange and I have not been able to convince him to part with it.”

  “Then why on earth did he part with the queen?”

  “I’m sure I couldn’t say for certain,” Mr. Grudner said.

  “A chess set,” Jemma said, “is nothing without its queen. Useless. Why on earth would Strange give you the queen?”

  “He sold it to me, ha ha,” Mr. Grudner said. “Didn’t get to be the richest man in En gland by giving away pieces of artwork like this.”

  “Why would he sell it to you?”

  “I suppose he must have given up chess,” Mr. Grudner said. “However it may be, Your Grace, I assure you that this piece is quite lovely on its own. There are five nested spheres inside the crown, ending with the smallest ivory marble I’ve ever seen.”

  Poppy called from the other side of the store. “Jemma, do look at this!”

  Jemma walked over, bringing the queen with her. For some reason she was reluctant to put down her fiendishly frowning little face, so obstinate even in the face of losing her king and the rest of her court.

  “I found a marvelous statue of a boy and a butterfly,” Poppy said, holding it out.

  “A copy of an ancient Greek statue,” Mr. Grudner said, “and a very fine one, if I say so myself.”

  “Just look at the detail on the butterfly!” Poppy exclaimed.

  Jemma looked, but it wasn’t the butterfly but the naked youth kneeling before it that struck her as interesting. “Who does the piece represent?” she asked Grudner.

  “Eros, or Cupid, in love with Psyche,” he said. “Psyche means butterfly in Greek, of course.”

  “And what is that?” Jemma asked, peering at the odd rock in Poppy’s other hand.