by Edith Layton
Table of Contents
Copyright
Also by Edith Layton and Untreed Reads Publishing
The Duke’s Progress
It’s a Wonderful Christmas
The Gingerbread Man
The Last Gift
The Amiable Miser
The Dogstar
It’s a Wonderful Regency Christmas: Six Merry & Bright Holiday Novellas
By Edith Layton
Copyright 2019 by Estate of Edith Felber
Cover Copyright 2019 by Untreed Reads Publishing
Cover Design by Ginny Glass
The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.
Previously published in print:
“The Duke’s Progress,” in A Regency Christmas, 1989
“It’s a Wonderful Christmas,” in A Dreamspun Christmas, 1994
“The Gingerbread Man,” in A Regency Christmas Feast, 1996
“The Last Gift,” in A Regency Christmas Present, 1999
“The Amiable Miser,” in A Regency Christmas IX, 2002
“Dogstar,” in A Regency Christmas Courtship, 2005
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher or author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. The characters, dialogue and events in this book are wholly fictional, and any resemblance to companies and actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Also by Edith Layton and Untreed Reads Publishing
The Duke’s Wager
The Disdainful Marquis
The Mysterious Heir
Red Jack’s Daughter
Lord of Dishonor
Peaches and the Queen
False Angel
The Indian Maiden
Lady of Spirit
The Wedding
A True Lady
Bound by Love
The Fire Flower
A Love for All Seasons
Love in Disguise
The Game of Love
Surrender to Love
Frost Fair
www.untreedreads.com
The Duke’s Progress
Thin sleet dashed down sporadically, like course salt being sprinkled by an overzealous chef, covering over the pavements with an icy dust. Lowering clouds promised more compliments of the season. But this was London, it was December, and so even though pedestrians slipped and carriages crawled along the slick causeways, no one cursed the weather, and not a few of the sufferers on foot or in coaches hoped for the sleet to turn to snow, not rain. Because Christmas was coming and there was nothing like an old-fashioned holiday. And so sentiment killed complaints at birth, as Londoners tiptoed and bounced and slithered about their ice-encrusted city. ’Twas the season, after all.
The sweepers weren’t making much headway against the successive waves of falling ice pellets, and neither were those who were trying to negotiate the treacherous streets. And so the idling fops, dandies, and sportive gentlemen at ease at their stations in the bay window of their select club were enjoying themselves mightily as they watched their fellow Londoners making cakes of themselves on the icy pavement outside. They were betting on when the falls would occur, roaring with laughter at the more comical of them, and quite beside themselves at the way some of their own distinguished colleagues were unwittingly capering.
Their jeering comments took neither rank nor sex of the victims into account, and they were as overcome with mirth at the sight of a housemaid falling on her rump as they were at how some of their own set obeyed gravity this winter’s day. In fact, they deemed the plight of their own acquaintances even funnier, watching some step daintily as opera dancers before they fell, seeing others, who’d spied their snickering friends in the window, trying to ignore the situation by taking their usual long strides and so eventually taking even longer slides down to their inevitable pratfalls.
They weren’t respectful of age, either, and when they caught sight of a tall, erect gentleman in a many-tiered greatcoat, his hair beneath his top hat grayer than the ice he trod, they immediately began to lay bets on how long it would take him to be toppled, and some of the less charitable among them on how many bones the old fellow would break as he hit the ground. They watched him with growing anticipation as the wagers went astronomically high, because incredibly enough, he was approaching rapidly and without mishap. The slender gray-haired gentleman was taking one Hessian-booted step after another down windy St. James Street as sure-footededly as a mountain goat, as gracefully as if it were a May morning. The wagers flew higher, surely such luck as the old codger was having couldn’t last. But he walked on, unhampered. Then, as he approached their lookout post, he shot them a glance from eyes grayer than the sleet which then again veiled his austere features. Some of them groaned at that, some sighed, some looked abashed, but recognizing him, they all canceled their wagers and looked about for more profitable game.
And yet the glance they’d got hadn’t been malicious or threatening. It had been brimming with mirthful awareness of the situation. Which was worse to his would-be tormenters. Because after the gentleman entered the club and gave his hat and coat to a footman, it could clearly be seen that it was a serene and youthful face beneath that thick crop of deceptively silver hair. And the tight-fitting, fashionable clothes revealed the form and figure of an extremely fit gentleman who was not above thirty winters. No, it hadn’t been his age, rank, or dignity that had immediately canceled all bets, and accounted for his fellow club members’ slightly apprehensive expressions now. It was that quietly amused and chilling smile he wore that dismayed them. That, and the fact that Cyril Hampton, Duke of Austell, was known for a wit that was keener than the ice that dripped from his greatcoat and a tongue sharper than the north wind that drove the storm.
He didn’t join the others at the window, which relieved most of them, although they’d invited him to share in their sport. After a desultory wave of one long, thin hand, he instead took a comfortable leather chair near to the fireplace just as an old fellow might, which being a supremely ironic and satirical gesture in itself, caused many faces at the bow window to flush with embarrassment.
“I, at least, didn’t place a wager on how soon you’d take a spill,” a medium-sized gentleman with a crop of light curls announced as he dropped into an adjoining chair.
“Recognized me from afar, did you?” the duke asked lightly.
“No, pockets to let,” the other gentleman reported blithely. “Just paid Harrison and McTeague. The mill last week, picked the loser there—and then lost out on the Honorable Miss Martin. She jilted Palmer on the fifth, you remember,” he supplied helpfully. “I said she’d keep him on the string until the twelfth. Said it fifty pounds’ worth,” he grieved.
“Females have always been your downfall,” the duke commiserated with much insincerity as the curly-haired gentleman sighed his agreement.
“Just so, and if you’re being ironical,” the sufferer reminded him, “it don’t matter. I ain’t in the petticoat line, as you know, and so I don’t understand them in
the least.”
“Precisely why he’s friends with him,” another gentleman standing nearby commented overloudly to his friend, as they dried their dampened coattails by the fire. “Austell can be ironic as he pleases, and Beverly never feels the sting. I doubt he understands three out of four words Austell speaks.”
Before the other man could caution his friend to lower his voice, the duke cut in sweetly, his melodic tenor tones carrying as well as any professional singer’s. “Rather say, sir, that like he who grasps the nettle firmly and doesn’t get stung, Bev here is never hurt because he’s brave enough to confront danger directly. It’s those who shy away who graze against the thorns and are pierced.”
A stillness fell over the entire room. The gentleman by the fireplace flushed more than the heat of the fire could account for, as his companion laid a cautionary hand on his sleeve. He hesitated, and the tension in the room abated. Gentlemen who took up such challenges as the Duke of Austell had just instantly, if obliquely, issued, took them up at once. The hesitation meant that the gentleman had remembered other sharp and killing things the duke was renowned for, aside from his tongue. He was an excellent swordsman, a crack shot, and famous for how well he displayed at Gentleman Jackson’s boxing salon. Unless a new way was found to duel, a man would be well-advised to take anything but umbrage from the duke’s comments. This gentleman took his time, which meant he’d wisely decided not to take the insult.
“Just so,” he eventually murmured grudgingly, in agreement, before he added, because a man had to have some spine, “Lord Beverly is to be congratulated, then, for his bravery if not his taste…in posies, that is,” he explained as another silence fell,…nettles, after all,” he said, and then grew still, belatedly worried about the result of his meager, reflective spurt of daring.
“Indeed,” the duke said equitably enough, “there’s no accounting for some tastes.”
The subject was allowed to drop, and the room returned to normal. Lord Beverly looked at his friend approvingly, but the duke only sighed. He’d taken the fellow’s retraction in the spirit it was offered, just as he took his last feeble display of spirit. No man should be made to crawl, after all. Nor was he eager to fight, however well he did it, but a challenge would have at least alleviated the boredom. That was precisely why he was friends with Lord Beverly. It was true that Bev didn’t understand half the things he said, but then, neither did most of the people he was acquainted with. At least Bev had the best of human attributes, “a good heart,” and most of the time he was, at least, amusing.
“And so,” Lord Beverly asked, as though he’d been speaking all the while, “where are you going for Christmas?”
The duke looked up at that, genuine surprise on his face. Bev often spoke in non sequiturs, but this sudden introduction of a topic he’d not thought of challenged him more than the foolish fellow by the fire had. And filled him with more cold dread too, he realized. So of course, he spoke up instantly, saying idly, “I haven’t thought about it. Is it really that time of year again? It seemed just yesterday that I bumped into Father Christmas on the stair.”
“As if you didn’t know,” Lord Beverly replied. “Probably got an invitation to every house party in the country. Like me. And I’m just a fribble, and I know it. But hostesses can always use an extra male, so I’ve been asked everywhere too. Much good it will do,” he said gloomily, “because m’sister wants me at home, family duty and all, and fun be damned. Family duty, ha! Wants to trot out a dozen marriageable chits for me, as if I didn’t know it. And here I’ve got an invitation to Lyonshall, my old friend Morgan’s place. Earl of Auden, you know him,” he added helpfully.
“Yes,” the duke answered, smiling, “and know he’s fairly newly wedded too. Do you enjoy being fifth wheel on the chariot, Bev dear?”
The curly-haired gentleman looked blank.
“Oh,” he said at last, his color slightly heightened. “But makes no matter. I know the bride too. Wouldn’t have asked me if they didn’t want me,” he argued before he subsided, conceding, “I suppose you’ve the right of it. Still, I’d have preferred visiting them even if I had to pass half the time staring at the ceiling pretending I didn’t hear the cooing. They’re best friends of mine, and—Christmas, after all. Instead, I have to go home,” he said moodily as a schoolboy. “And you? Are you going home too?” he asked suddenly, his thoughts veering, as always.
The duke’s normally impassive face grew colder. “Hardly,” he said.
He was a handsome enough fellow when he smiled, Lord Beverly thought, with those straight, even features and those slanting gray eyes. But when he pokered up like this, his thin silver brows the darkest thing on white skin grown blanched as marble, his finely chiseled face about as expressive as that stone itself, he looked positively threatening, even to an old friend. And so he told him, forgetting, as he did—as he’d wanted to—that it had been a bad question with only one possible answer. Because everyone knew Austell detested his stepfather, pitied his mother for her poor judgment in marrying him, and realizing how that misguided lady insisted on championing the boor she’d wed, stayed as far from his family home as possible. The dower house where the duchess and her gigolo husband dwelt was a mile from the manor. But since being in the same county with the pair was too much for any of the duchess’s children, it was no surprise that it would take more than Christmas—it would take the duke’s stepfather’s funeral to bring him home again.
“But as you say,” the duke said equitably enough now, “since I’ve enough invitations to read until the New Year ends, I haven’t decided where I’ll be as yet.”
“Best make up your mind,” Lord Beverly warned. “Fast away the old year passes, and all that. The street’s swarming with beggars, fell over three—’pon my word, don’t laugh, I did, literally—on the way here. Cost me every cent of spare change I had. Hard to ignore a chap you’ve just landed on,” he grumbled. “And the price of mistletoe’s rising; all the ladybirds are cooing at Rundel’s windows—the devil’s got all his finest bracelets out on display—Christmas is almost upon us.”
The duke laughed. “You make it sound like a ravening wolf,” he said, and then sobered. “But then, in a way it is, I suppose,” he said thoughtfully. “It’s the one time of year one’s supposed to be with the ones one loves…” He paused. It was only when he noticed the suddenly sober look in his friend’s eye that he went on, on a laugh, “Which presents a problem to most of the gentlemen we know. After all, with all the holly and mistletoe, caroling and gourmandizing, kiddies and nursery pantomimes, between the mince pie and having the neighbors in for wassail, it must be difficult for a family man to find time to slip away from home and hearth to visit his mistress. Especially if he goes to his country estates.”
“Which is why there’s all these house parties, enough room in those drafty old piles for a fellow’s wife, mistress, and her mother, I should think,” Lord Beverly said at once, speaking more warmly than he was wont to do, discussing matters he’d little interest in, all to get his friend’s mind off those things which seemed to be tripping him and hurting him as his stroll through the dangerous streets never had or could.
“Welcome to come along with me to m’sister’s,” Lord Beverly added, without much hope of agreement, and so wasn’t surprised when his friend answered, “Find someone else to hold your hand, Bev. Your nephew’s worse than all five of mine combined. I’ll be visiting some of mine in town—the rest are safely snugged away at their home in the north…which reminds me,” he mused, “I’d best remember to send Louis—my sister Emily’s oldest—a chess set. All the letters I have from him hint so strongly for one that I wouldn’t be surprised to find the little rogue’s already sent me the bill.”
Lord Beverly heard his friend chuckle. “Gad!” he said with some wonder, “Listen to you! You sound just like a doting old bachelor uncle! Ninety if you’re a day. Time to have your own, I’d think.”
The duke seemed discomposed for a moment, an
d then, in the voice his enemies so detested and even his friends were wary of, he said, “Why, so I would, my dear, if you could show me how to have them legitimately without tying myself for life. Exactly as you’ve done, I presume?”
“I’m not in the petticoat line, myself,” Lord Beverly reiterated uneasily. “Which isn’t to say I won’t be someday. I’ll wed if only to cut my nephew out of the succession. But since we’re speaking of it, I suppose you’ll be going to the Edgecombes’ house party then? In Buckinghamshire? Well, I thought you were considering the Incomparable. Everybody else is.”
The duke didn’t bother to mention that they hadn’t been speaking of it, or ask which Incomparable his friend meant. Bev’s thought progressions had a logic only unto their own selves, and there was only one new Incomparable beauty each Season.
“Everyone else is considering her? Or considering me considering her?” he asked instead, before he said, “Yes, Miss Edgecombe is everything desirable, true. But I don’t know if I’m ready for everything desirable yet. Still,” he sighed resignedly, “it’s likely I’ll go. After Christmas Day. I’ve Randall’s boy coming to town before the holiday, and I thought I ought to do the pretty with him first.”
There was nothing in his voice as he said the last to make Lord Beverly look up, but precisely because there was so much of nothing in it, he did. He’d known Randall Thomas, the brave officer who’d fallen at Waterloo the previous year, too, if not as well as his friend had done. But the only way he could cope with sorrow was to flee it. Before he could think of how to do that, the duke went on, “But after that, I’ve been asked to the Incomparable’s house party, a house party in Sussex with last year’s Incomparable, and another in Hampshire with a young person I’ve been promised is to be next year’s Incomparable. Not to mention being invited to a score of Christmas dinners here in town with all the runners-up. Odd, I hadn’t noticed how decorative the female youth of England has become. Still, so everyone says—something in the water supply that year, possibly?”
