Regency Christmas Box Set: Risking it all

by Regina Darcy

  ***

  Henrietta had been incorrect. She had not been the only one still awake when she left her bedroom. Lord Anson was at fault for thinking that he was able to stealthily go into the stable, saddle a horse, and ride off with the Duke’s fiancée without being detected.

  The Duke, was unable to sleep because his spirits were so exuberant at the knowledge that he had met the woman he had longed to make his wife.. Although it was early morning and the sun was hours from rising, he had decided to go out for a walk, guessing that expending his energy in exercise would be the antidote to his inability to sleep.

  He had been about to emerge from the grove of trees by the manor when he saw Henrietta with his cousin. Puzzled, he had stolen closer to the stable, the habits he had learned in the service as one of Wellington’s Hounds of Wicket coming to his aid. He had overheard his cousin’s words and witnessed Henrietta’s strange inertia. Knowing their destination, he had saddled his own horse and taken off after them, but far enough behind so that he could not be detected.

  The innkeeper was annoyed at being awakened a second time at such an hour, but when he saw that the man at the door was none other than the Duke, his visage relaxed.

  “Your Grace,” he said, “what are you doing out so late?”

  “I have come to speak to my cousin.”

  “Lord Anson?” Lodings said as if he could not believe what he was hearing.

  “Yes,” the Duke said. “Take me to him immediately.”

  Persuaded by the urgency of the Duke’s errand, Lodings led the way to the room at the opposite end of the inn. The Duke did not bother to knock.

  TWELVE

  “There is no one to attempt to defend you, cherie, and I shall bestow upon the daughter all that I gave to your mother…” Lord Anson began to unbutton his coat, watching Henrietta with anticipation as she shrank from him, “and more.”

  “I should not be so certain of that.”

  Lord Anson whirled around.

  “What the deuce are you doing here?” he demanded.

  “It would seem that I am rescuing my fiancée,” the Duke said. “Name your weapon, pistols or swords.”

  Lord Anson flung Henrietta away from him. “Don’t be absurd,” he said. “You’re not going to shoot your own cousin. Nor are you going to use your sword against me. We are family.”

  “Henrietta, are you harmed?”

  She shook her head.

  “You are fortunate, cousin,” the Duke said coolly. “Had she been harmed, I would have been forced to kill you.”

  “You could not kill me,” Lord Anson sneered, retrieving some of his habitual cockiness. “Think of the scandal.”

  “You are the one who should consider the scandal,” the Duke returned. “To abduct the woman who will be the next Duchess of Farringdon does you no credit.”

  “I did not abduct her,” Lord Anson said. “She came willingly.”

  “Not to this room. Not for your intentions. You, cousin, have seen the last of England. You will take yourself and the horse you took from the stable, and you will remove yourself to another country.

  “I should advise you not to head for France, as it is the future Duchess of Farringdon’s country of origin and we shall be visiting there on our honeymoon to meet with her uncle and apologise for not obtaining his permission to marry her before the ceremony. I am confident that when he realises how much I love her, he will forgive me. I also look forward to meeting the intriguing Madame,” he said with a smile at Henrietta, who stared uncertainly back at him. “But before you leave, cousin, I advise you to come clean about your past acquaintance with my betrothed’s family.”

  “He dishonoured my mother’s virtue and beat my father,” Henrietta burst out. “He told my father that he was the Duke of Farringdon. All these years past, I have been convinced that you were the one responsible for the tragedy that my family endured, when all the while, it was him.”

  “It would seem, cousin, that you have much to answer for. I shall send your regrets to Grandmamma and explain that urgent business has called you out of the country. I shall endeavour to give it a dignity that the truth lacks.

  “Take your sword and your horse and find a country where you are not known. You will be obliged to live by your sword, but perhaps the life of a soldier will forge a better man than you have been so far.”

  “You cannot be serious,” Lord Anson said incredulously.

  “Never more so, cousin. I have much to say to the woman I intend to marry, and I cannot forgive you for the harm you have caused her. That a member of my family, a man who shares my very blood, should be capable of such a foul deed is reprehensible to me and to the ancestors who now lie in the family vault. You are an offense to the Farringdon family, and as a family, we expel you. Go.”

  “But I have nothing—I cannot live without means.”

  The Duke took a purse out of his coat pocket and threw it at his cousin.

  “These are all the means you will be receiving. Beg your way through Europe for all I care.” He paused, the moment heavy with tension. I am banishing you,” the Duke said, suddenly looking stern and judicial as if he were in his role as a magistrate ruling on a judgment, “from the company of honest, upstanding Englishmen who would be offended to breathe the same air that a man of your nature inhales.

  “The humblest blacksmith, the most menial of servants, the lowliest farmer is more of a gentleman than you because they would not stoop to such base actions as you have committed. You are a pestilence upon the country where you were born and you must leave.

  “Another country must claim you and, perhaps, reform you. But mind what I say: abstain from England or France, for those countries are dear to me and to my future wife, and you will not pollute them with your presence.”

  “Ever the moralist,” jeered his cousin. “Ever standing in judgment against those you deem lesser men who do not share your prudish beliefs.”

  “God stands in judgment, not I. I merely stand here as your nemesis. It is my duty to my beloved to protect her from harm. I could not protect her from the effects of your crime against her family. I was not there and for years, I have not known what you did, although of course word has long come to my ears that you live a life of which you believe others to be ignorant. But to learn what you have done and to discover that you committed those acts in my name, is more than I can tolerate.

  “Be reminded that I have informants and colleagues from my past service to the Duke of Wellington and I will know if you have obeyed orders or disregarded them. If you do not obey, you shall never know a moment’s peace, for at any time, your nemesis will be haunting you. Now, be gone.”

  “You can do this to your own kinsman?” Lord Anson asked in a strained voice, his lips bloodless in his pale face.

  “Be grateful I do not run you through where you stand.”

  Without a word, Lord Anson took his hat and his sword and made his way to the door and was gone.

  As silence settled, the Duke went to Henrietta who was sitting on the edge of the bed, still shaking from the ordeal she had endured. “Can you forgive me?”

  “There is nothing to forgive you for,” she answered. “You were not the one who did those terrible things. They were done in your name, but not by you.”

  “Is the name of Farringdon abhorrent to you?” he probed.

  Was it? She had been chasing a name for the last eight years, but the name had turned out to belong to a man of great kindness and compassion. The deeds done in his name had been committed by a man who was nothing like the Duke. She had fallen in love, against her will, with the person she thought was her nemesis. Now that she knew the truth, she was mindful of Madame’s warning that vengeance did not always turn out as one expected.

  “How did you know?” she asked, as she looked up at him. “You spoke of my uncle. But he is my mother’s brother and we do not share a surname.”

  He smiled ruefully. “I am no longer in the service of the Duke of Wellingto
n, but I find it expedient, at times, to avail myself of those contacts with whom I once did business. I do it as a matter of course, I admit. People are often not what they seem. I would not have risked my niece’s safety in any sense of the word, so as soon as I received your positive response to my advertisement, I began to investigate you.

  “I hope you will not take offense. But it is a habit I have developed. I saw that there was something not quite in place. And the address of the letter that you sent from the inn was not the address of the academy where you received your education. Instead, it was the address of the most celebrated courtesan in Paris. Naturally, I had to investigate.

  “But I give you my word that I did not know of my cousin’s actions years ago. I knew he had left the battle in a state of distress, but that was not uncommon in war. He made no mention of what he had done. We returned to England and resumed our lives. I knew that he was in the habit of procuring women and bringing them to the inn, but it was a transaction and the women were paid. I disapproved, but it was not something that I felt I could forbid him to do. Until tonight, that is.”

  He stood up. “Now, my beloved, we must get back to Farringdon Manor before daybreak, or we will have to elope to Gretna Green due to our lost reputations. The banns will be announced this Sunday in church, and when the new year begins, Farringdon Manor shall have a beautiful new duchess. This is the merriest Christmas that I have ever spent and I look forward to many more.” His eyes showed amusement. “But I shall have an ample supply of mistletoe on hand, to be certain of receiving my Christmas kisses.”

  As he pulled her into his embrace, they were surrounded by the soft sound of Christmas carols being sung by the handful of patrons in the inn. Henrietta thought of her vengeance and how she was grateful for the good Lord, for having provided redemption instead. Christmas would never be the same again.

  The End

  3. The Christmas Gamble

  Copyright © Regina Darcy 2020

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  This is a contemporary work of fiction. All characters, names, places and events are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.

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  ONE

  “But, sir,” pleaded Digby Stiers, “it’s nearly Christmas and I have a family to feed.”

  James Dalton leaned back against the cushioned contours of his chair and surveyed Stiers with a somewhat bored gaze.

  “You have only just acquired this family?”

  “No, indeed,” the man protested. “I have a wife and three young ones.”

  “I see. And where was this family when you were losing at vingt-et-un, on, let me see,” he consulted the promissory notes strewn upon his desk, “November the 15th? Did they belong to someone else on November the 24th, when you ran into a prodigious run of bad luck at baccarat? And on November 29th, where was this family of yours when your ill-fortune at the roulette wheel cost you? You speak of this family as if I ought to pay heed to your pleas, but if you did not keep them in mind when you were on a ruinous streak at the Imperial, why am I to suddenly take note of them now? Your debts are not my responsibility, and your family’s mouths are not my duty to feed. You press for charity, Stiers, when a gentleman’s club is no place to suddenly remember that you have obligations outside of the gaming tables.”

  “Sir,” Stiers said again, “it’s nearly Christmas.”

  “You speak as if one day of the calendar ought to tug at my heartstrings more than another. There are three hundred sixty-five days in the year, Stiers; pray, tell me why December 25th ought to summon me to sympathy when November 15th, November 24th, and November 29th failed to remind you of your responsibilities? I am quite at a loss to comprehend your reasoning.”

  “But, sir, everyone understands Christmas.”

  James Dalton’s green eyes took on an ominous hardness as his gaze fixed itself upon the indebted and unlucky gambler. “Oh, yes,” he said, “but not everyone has the same understanding, Stiers. Do not demand of me an understanding which eludes me. The Imperial will be closed on Christmas Day; that is as much of an observation of the occasion as I am prepared to offer. No one will lose money to the Imperial on that day,” he declared with a tight smile. “There, am I not sufficiently charitable?”

  His tone was mocking, his pose insultingly casual, but James Dalton had acquired his posture of deliberate indolence through a metamorphosis of fate which had not cosseted him and made him less inclined to extend tenderness to others.

  “Sir!” Stiers continued his supplication as if he were convinced that by repetition, if nothing else, he would soften the resolve of the young man before him.

  What he failed to realise was that James Dalton, after numerous false starts in his twenty-six years, had suddenly found his footing in the weakness of others. Gamblers who could not resist the turn of a card were rife in London and profligately represented in the members of the ton, who reckoned that fortune was within reach. So what if they bankrupted their estates or beggared their families? The next turn of the wheel would change their luck and all would be well.

  Except that it would not.

  James Dalton knew that Lady Luck was a trollop, a fickle harlot who gave her favours without affection. But he was not a green boy to be cozened by the courtesan known as Fortune. She worked for him.

  “Stiers, you are tedious. You owe me a great deal of money. How am I to run a business if I operate a charity? Is the Imperial not one of the most exclusive gentlemen’s clubs in all of London? Are you not assured, when you enter these doors, that you will imbibe the very best wines and dine on the most delectable of dishes? Do you not take confidence from the fact that others, both of your class and above it—for, to be sure, Stiers, you know that you are not of the highest set—share your passion for the tables? Where else in London, not at White’s, not at Brook’s, can you find such enticing vices as you have enjoyed at the Imperial? And now you would have them as a gift? I am a businessman, Stiers, not a philanthropist.”

  “Sir,” Stiers continued on in dogged fashion.

  James eyed the man before him with unconcealed distaste. “Stiers,” he said in vexation, “you prattle to me of these hungry mouths, these unfilled bellies as if I am somehow to blame.”

  “Sir, it’s Christmas,” Stiers said.

  James sighed. Clearly, it was a waste of breath and words to talk to Stiers. The man was of the delusional opinion that because Christmas was less than a month away, the world was somehow obligated to reverse its mercenary course, don angels’ wings and haloes, and declare the Year of the Jubilee when all debts were forgiven.

  As far as James was concerned, Christmas Day was a perfidious holiday and he would willingly consign December 25th to the depths of hell. He wanted Stiers out of his presence.

  “Very well, then, Stiers, here is my proposition. Bring me half of what you owe me by the end of the week. You shall sign a promissory note to pay me, monthly, until your entire debt has been discharged. I will not be dissuaded should the fecund Mrs Stiers provide you with additional offspring, do you hear me?”

  “Oh, sir, you’re a generous man, and I won’t forget this, sir, indeed I won’t.”

  “Of course, you will, Stiers, but you will pay me, nonetheless. Do you understand?”

  Stiers signed the promissory note and swore that he would be at the Imperial before the end of the week with half of the payment owed. James knew that the man, for all his inability to resist the lure of the tables, was as good as his word. Stiers was not a villain—he was merely a man who believed that he was destined to win.

  J
ames, whose accounting skills were commensurate with his cynical view of human nature, knew that if victory was to be had, it would not be by the clients who flocked to the Imperial. Victory was the province of the man who owned the club, and that was James Dalton.

  James was resolved that his days of losing were over, but there were losses which could not be reconciled. He clenched his fists. One of those was Christmas.

  He had been six years old when his mother, his merry, feckless, flirtatious mother, had run off with her lover, leaving him in the care of a bitter father and an older brother who would inherit the Dennington estate. For James, there was nothing but gall. He had nothing to gain but failure, and he had turned those failures into, if not triumph, at least wealth.

  He was no longer the shady younger brother of the Marquess of Dennington nor the abandoned son of a scandalous mother. He was the owner and proprietor of the Imperial and no one in London knew more secrets. That he kept them without profiting from them was as much pragmatism as it was character, for James had been brought up to be a gentleman. A gentleman without means, however, needed to find his livelihood where he could, recognising that it would not come from his brother.

  It was, perhaps, enough that Michael had welcomed James, despite the younger Dalton’s folly in past years. Unwise alliances with married women whose husbands were not as complaisant as they might have been had James been the possessor of the title, had given him a reputation which, as it turned out, had cemented his success when he’d established the Imperial.

  James knew that Michael was less than happy with his choice, but there was little that the Marquess could say about it.

  Of course, as Michael was newly married and passionately in love with his beautiful wife, it could not be said that the activities of his younger brother were dominant in his thoughts.

  No, thought James as he recorded the transactions with Stiers, carefully and meticulously, noting the designated amount and date for each scheduled payment to come, ‘twas more than likely that Michael was enjoying his wife in the customary fashion of newlyweds, with the goal of begetting a second child to match the son with which Lady Honora had just provided.