Unwrapping a Rogue: A Christmas Regency Boxset

by Samantha Holt

“Yes,” Thomas agreed with some relief. “Yes, of course. I’m sure he will. I’ll get right to it, then.” He exchanged a glance with Ellen which somehow conveyed a great deal, before leaving the room and closing the door behind him with a soft click.

  “Drink the rest of this,” Ellen said quietly, urging the glass back to Marianne’s lips, “and then I’m going to ring for my maid. You remember Susan? She’s terribly efficient. We’ll get you up to your room and then you can rest. You’ve had a terrible shock.”

  Yes, Marianne thought, letting Ellen coax her into drinking the rest of the brandy. It is indeed shocking when your husband suffers an apoplectic fit while reproaching you for smiling at the man your friend married just yesterday, dropping dead at your feet.

  She must keep herself together, lest Ellen think she had run mad. So she called upon years of training, years of controlling even her slightest expression, to rein her emotions in. It was not until hours later, when she had finally convinced Ellen and her terrifyingly efficient maid that she was perfectly fine and only wished to be alone, that she could finally allow her feelings to show.

  Standing at the window of her bedroom, in the magnificent suite she had been allotted as one of the guests of honour at Ellen’s wedding, she watched as the carriage bearing a hastily-procured casket containing her late husband’s earthly remains rolled away from the house and down the long avenue of larch trees, bare now of leaves. She would have to follow, of course, and remain at Creighton Hall for the foreseeable future, at least until her period of mourning had ended.

  But now, for the first time in more years than she cared to remember, Marianne was free.

  She had thought she would laugh, in this moment.

  The tears surprised her; she had thought there were no more tears left to weep. Years of pain and suffering, loneliness and fear, had dried them all up. Yet the view of the receding carriage blurred, fat drops raced down her cheeks, and Marianne Creighton fell to her knees and wept in sheer, unadulterated relief.

  Chapter Three

  Brooks’ Gentlemen’s Club, London

  November, 1819

  “You look bored to tears, Glenkellie.”

  “Give it a few years, Havers.” Alexander Rotherhithe, Marquis of Glenkellie, looked up from the news sheet he had been perusing without really taking in any of the information. “Everything in London will bore you to tears, too.”

  The young Earl of Havers laughed, taking the free seat at Alex’s table without waiting to be invited. Which was probably why Alex liked the American; it wasn’t so much that he had no idea of the niceties of behaviour, but more that he thought they were utter nonsense and refused to abide by them. The seat was free, and Thomas wanted to sit down. Why wait for Alex to ask, just because he happened to possess a loftier title?

  Setting the news sheet down, Alex smiled at Thomas. They had only met a few months ago, when Thomas brought his new wife down to London for the Little Season, but hit it off right away. Alex was tired of sycophants and toadies, of those too intimidated by his wealth and title to want to get to know the real him. Thomas’ cheerful disregard for protocol was a breath of fresh air.

  “Drink?” Alex suggested, gesturing to an attentive waiter.

  “I’ll have what you’re having.” Thomas nodded to his cup on the table.

  “Coffee? Sure you wouldn’t like anything stronger?”

  “I’ve promised to take Ellen to a ball tonight. If I start in on anything stronger now, I’ll not see it through until four, or whatever ridiculous hour these things finish.” Thomas grimaced. “I’m looking forward to heading back to Herefordshire and going to bed before midnight, for once!”

  Alex had to laugh. “You’re such a provincial, Havers.”

  “Says the man whose estate comprises much of the remotest parts of Scotland,” Thomas shot back dryly.

  “Why do you think I’m in London? Nothing up there but cranky crofters and sheep. Castle Glenkellie is only tolerable for a month or two in the summer, and barely that. Were it not entailed, I’d sell the lot and live here year-round.”

  The words were empty, and Thomas’ sharp-eyed stare let Alex know he wasn’t fooled. The truth was: Alex loved his home no matter the time of year. He simply couldn’t bear it when his mother was in residence, as she was at the moment. God willing, she’d take it into their heads to tour Greece or Italy or some such place soon, and he’d be able to go home without fear of her producing a bride for him out of thin air.

  Thomas’ coffee arrived, and he sat back in his chair, relaxing as he took a sip of the hot, fragrant brew. “Rather you than me,” he said, and it took Alex a moment to realise Thomas was talking about living in London. “In fact, we’re heading home earlier than we planned. As much as Ellen has enjoyed our visit this time around, she wants to be home in plenty of time for Christmas. In fact, she plans to host a house party, and she has charged me with extending an invitation to you.”

  Surprised, Alex paused with his own coffee cup an inch or so from his lips. While he had met the lovely young Countess of Havers on several occasions and even stood up with her at a few dances, they’d had little chance to get to know each other. “Why?” he asked bluntly, lowering the cup.

  Thomas looked amused. “Because she knows you and I have struck up a friendship, Glenkellie. Ellen has made plenty of friends among the ladies—both married and single—and has invited a number of them, but none of their attached husbands, brothers, or fathers are people I would call a close friend. You, on the other hand, are. She asked if I should like to invite you, I said I would, and she wrote out an invitation.” Slipping a cream-coloured envelope from his pocket, he placed it on the table between them. “Should you fancy an escape from the delights of London for a few days without journeying to the frozen wastes of the north, we would be delighted to have you.”

  Touched, nonetheless Alexander affected disinterest as he picked up the envelope, broke the seal, and perused the brief invitation written in the Countess of Havers’ own hand. Ellen had been raised a country parson’s daughter, and her handwriting bore none of the flourishes and curlicues the daughters of the aristocracy were wont to affect; it was plain, neat, and very readable.

  “How kind,” Alexander murmured distantly. “Perhaps I will join you for a few days. It might be diverting.”

  Thomas smirked into his coffee, and Alex knew he hadn’t fooled the American in the slightest. The truth was, he’d already received and rejected more than a dozen invitations to Christmas house parties, many of them at homes both more magnificent and more conveniently situated to London than Havers Hall, a good three days’ journey away in Herefordshire, near the Welsh border.

  All those invitations, however, had been extended by families with marriageable daughters looking to snag a marquis to hang on their family tree. Thomas and Ellen had no such ulterior motive. No, they had invited him quite simply for the pleasure of his company, and therefore he made up his mind then and there to accept the offer.

  “Has Lady Havers invited many single ladies?” he asked in a last-ditch effort to talk himself out of it.

  “Only a couple, I believe, and they’re rather of the bluestocking variety who definitely wouldn’t be likely to set their caps for you, never fear. There’s also a widowed friend of hers who we hope to persuade to come.”

  “Ah, merry widows. Those I appreciate.” Alex grinned wickedly.

  Thomas shook his head, laughing in his good-natured way. “Don’t play the rake with me, Glenkellie, I’ve seen you roll your eyes when ladies of the demi-rep make eyes at you. You’ve no more interest in them than I do, and have not even the good reason of a wife you adore!”

  “You haven’t known me all that long, Havers. For the right bird of paradise, I can be very accommodating indeed.”

  “I don’t think Lady Creighton will be falling into your arms, charming as I’m sure you can be if you make the effort,” Thomas said dryly.

  Alex froze in the act of setting down his coffe
e cup. “Lady Creighton? The... former countess?”

  Thomas’ brow wrinkled. “Correct, though I think she’s technically still a countess. Ellen says ‘Marianne, Lady Creighton’ is the correct address now, however. Since she’s not the mother of the current earl, she’s not a dowager.” He looked exasperated. “Have I the right of that, or do I need to consult Debrett’s again? I swear, the whole English system of titles and honorifics has the most abstruse rules; it’s worse than conjugating Latin verb tenses! Sometimes I think Lady Jersey just makes them up as she goes along.”

  Alex burst out laughing, entertained as always by Thomas’ irreverent wit. “It’s quite possible you’re correct,” he said between guffaws, “but it’s almost certainly not the done thing to talk about it!”

  Thomas grinned unrepentantly. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m sure Lady Jersey would be highly entertained if she found out I’d said it!”

  “Only because she likes your wife so much.” His chuckles subsiding, Alex picked up his coffee cup and drained the last of it. “Very well, Havers. Please tell Lady Havers I shall be delighted to accept your invitation to spend the Christmas season with you at Havers Hall.”

  “You can tell her yourself,” Thomas said, finishing off his own coffee. “She also told me to invite you to dinner tonight, if you’re not otherwise engaged.”

  “Well, I’d planned to dine here, but the chance to spend an evening being amused by you and charmed by your lovely lady is far too tempting to pass up.”

  “Excellent, we’ll see you around seven, then? I must take my leave, I’m sorry. Tomorrow is our first wedding anniversary and I have to stop by Garrard’s to collect Ellen’s gift.”

  “Until this evening, then.” Alex nodded in farewell and watched as Thomas collected his hat and coat and left the club, speaking cheerfully to several gentlemen as he passed.

  Havers was possibly the most likable man he’d ever met, Alex mused, and he wondered whatever he had done to attract as a friend a man who could befriend literally anyone.

  Lifting one hand, he fingered the long, livid scar down his cheek, where a Frenchman’s bayonet had nearly skewered him at Waterloo. The tip of the blade had missed his eye by less than a quarter inch, scraping downwards and flaying his cheek to the bone, ripping a long gash all the way to his chin. The infection afterwards had nearly cost Alex his life.

  The jagged scar, still red almost four years later, was ugly enough that several young women of less than robust constitutions had been sickened by it. One had even swooned from the horror. He hadn’t yet met one who could look him in the eyes and not stare at his scar with a horrified fascination, riveted by its ugliness.

  Alexander Rotherhithe was no longer the perfectly handsome young man a diamond of the Ton had sworn her heart to. The scar pulled as he smiled tightly, hitching one corner of his mouth up into a grimace.

  Marianne Abingdon hadn’t waited for him as she had promised. She hadn’t even done him the courtesy of sending him a letter, telling him she’d chosen another. The first he’d known of her betrayal was when a brother officer had wordlessly handed him a copy of a month-old newspaper, folded open to the announcements of marriages, and the bottom had fallen out of his world.

  Alex remembered little of the next few months. He’d drowned his sorrows in liquor, whenever he could find any, and in leading suicidal charges in every damned battle across the Iberian Peninsula. Or so it seemed later, when he’d finally come out of his haze to realise he’d been promoted (twice!) and decorated with more medals and mentions in dispatches than any one soldier should earn in a lifetime of war, never mind only two years of it.

  How he’d escaped death; he had no idea. But somehow he had. Because of it he’d drawn around him a cadre of devoted soldiers who had convinced themselves he was some sort of god of war—unbeatable on the battlefield.

  An officer who could inspire that sort of loyalty was far too valuable to the War Office to have anywhere else but on the battlefield. Even during Bonaparte’s exile on Elba, Alex hadn’t been permitted to return to England. Only when he was finally—shockingly—wounded at Waterloo, proving himself mortal after all, was he allowed to leave the field. He recuperated in Brussels, and as soon as he was fit to sit a horse, he was set to be sent straight back out again to mop up stray pockets of French resistance.

  Perhaps he’d have carried on fighting England’s wars until he grew old and grey or a bullet proved he was only mortal in the most final way possible, but for a freak accident of succession. Once fourth in line to the marquisate, he’d suddenly become the heir apparent when his uncle, cousin and father were all killed in a flood which swept away their hunting party as they descended a narrow gully.

  His grandfather had summoned Alex home peremptorily, and not even the lords at the War Office were inclined to deny the old man his only living heir—no matter how useful a soldier.

  Packed onto a ship bound for Inverness with no ceremony at all, Alex had arrived home barely in time to bid farewell to his grandfather. Broken-hearted by the death of both his sons and the grandson he’d raised from birth to be his successor, Duncan Rotherhithe had cast one disparaging look over Alex and declared, “You’ll have to do, I suppose,” before drawing his final breath.

  He’d been living down to his grandfather’s expectations ever since.

  Chapter Four

  Creighton Hall, Cumbria

  Early December, 1819

  “Another letter for you, Aunt Marianne.” Her nephew Arthur, the new Earl of Creighton, passed the letter to her from the stack a footman had just delivered to the breakfast table on a silver salver.

  “Thank you,” Marianne said sedately, taking the letter and putting it into her pocket.

  “You will not read it now?” Her successor as Countess, Lavinia, peered at her from watery blue eyes. Curiosity sharpens her already thin face, making her look rather like a ferret, Marianne thought whimsically.

  “It is only from my friend Ellen,” she disclaimed quietly, lifting her cup to take a sip of tea. “No doubt full of inane gossip from Herefordshire.”

  “You do exchange a lot of letters with her,” Arthur said peevishly. “The postage costs a pretty penny.”

  Marianne took a deep, unseen breath to suppress her immediate urge to make a sharp retort. “She is a faithful correspondent,” she answered after a moment, “but an excellent contact to maintain, nonetheless. With Lady Diana to make her debut next Season, I feel it is imperative to keep my Society friendships alive.”

  “Yes,” Lavinia said quickly with a sharp glance at her husband, “yes, of course, you must maintain the friendship, Marianne. The Countess of Havers will be an invaluable friend to have when Diana makes her bows, Arthur.”

  Marianne hid her smile behind her cup as Arthur sighed and acquiesced to Lavinia’s demand. The new Earl had been raised on a very limited allowance and still liked to pinch a penny until it squeaked. Without expectation of inheriting the title since his uncle had been most determined to sire an heir, neither Arthur nor Lavinia had ever even been to London. They knew nobody and would be dependent on Marianne to make their introductions when their eldest daughter was presented.

  Marianne had no intention of informing them Ellen had far fewer friends among the London set than Marianne herself. With Ellen as her only regular correspondent, she would lie without compunction to keep her friendship alive.

  After all, so very much had already been taken from her.

  MUCH LATER THAT DAY, as she walked back to the small cottage grandiosely named the Creighton Estate Dower House, Marianne slipped the letter from her pocket and broke the seal. She had hoped to escape earlier, but Lavinia required her to be available at all times to assist with her five children—four of whom were daughters who Lavinia desperately wanted to marry well.

  Her father died penniless shortly after her marriage, which left her dependent on Arthur and Lavinia. Since she had never had a dowry and her widow’s jointure was almost non-existent, Maria
nne had no choice but to essentially act as an unpaid finishing school teacher to the four girls, teaching them the social graces they had not learned so far. By the time she led them through a reading in French, given each a half-hour piano lesson and a group singing class, helped them with their needlework, and supervised Diana’s efforts at pouring tea, it was late afternoon and Marianne was desperate for some time to herself, even if it was only an hour before she must return to take dinner with the family.

  Still in the habit of penny-pinching, Arthur saw no reason to employ a cook for Marianne’s use when she could perfectly well take meals with them. It was only grudgingly that he permitted a chambermaid to come over from the main house to clean the cottage and lay the fires and a man to spend an hour or so every other day carrying firewood and water.

  “You might as well live in the house with us,” Arthur had said when he and Lavinia had first moved in with their children. “Take a room with the girls. No sense opening up the Dower House just for you, is there?”

  Lavinia had proved a surprising ally when Marianne insisted she needed her own space. Marianne suspected it was because Lavinia liked to escape over to visit her now and then, taking a break from her noisy, demanding family. Lavinia always brought some biscuits and they would share a quiet cup of tea before returning to the chaos of the main house.

  Marianne doubted she and Lavinia would ever be friends - it had to be hard on the new Countess, to have a predecessor ten years her junior still hanging around - and Lavinia was certainly not above using Marianne’s dependence on them for her own ends. Still, Marianne would not say she was unhappy.

  Not as unhappy as she had been, anyway, even if she no longer wore bright, expensive silk gowns and drank champagne at the most exclusive events in London. Now she wore heavy gowns in the black or grey of mourning, despite her official period ending a month past. Since her husband had preferred to reside in London for most of the year, she had nothing else to wear which was suitable for Creighton’s cold winters, and with six dozen gowns in her wardrobe already Arthur would not spend another penny on clothing for her.