Mistletoe, Marriage, and Mayhem: A Bluestocking Belles Collection

by Mariana Gabrielle

  She stuck her chin out. "How do you plan to stop me?"

  He reached out and took the horse's bridle. No matter how Aurie tossed her head or whinnied, he kept hold, and the more Charlotte fought Lord Herrendon, the more Aurie spooked, until she nearly bolted, held back only by his hold on the reins. "Stop that! Someone will hear!"

  "Indeed."

  With his other hand, he risked his fingers to reach up and pet the horse's nose, humming Orange in Bloom until she quieted.

  "Have you brought food?" The corner of his lip turned up just slightly when Aurie nickered in his ear.

  "For what?"

  He stared, all trace of amusement wiped clean. "To eat."

  "I have ten guineas," she said, nose in the air. "I will buy food."

  "Along the road?" The smug look reappeared. "The icy, cold, abandoned road?"

  Her voice wavered just slightly. "That's right."

  "And for Aurie? Were you planning to bring oats for her? There will be no forage in the middle of winter, you understand." His lips twitched.

  Charlotte looked around, as though a bag of oats might present itself.

  Lord Herrendon kept stroking the horse's head, scratching behind her ears. "And what if you and Aurie are stranded in the snow between villages?"

  "That will not happen."

  "No?" He reached out to rub the sleeve of her pelisse between his fingers. "Have you brought a thicker coat? You'll catch your death."

  "I will be perfectly fine!" she growled, dragging her coat away. "I am a viscount's daughter. Give me my horse."

  "I will strike you a bargain, Miss Amberly."

  She turned a cold shoulder, though she wasn't sure it could be any colder than it already was under the autumn pelisse. "Striking bargains is vulgar."

  "So is leaving your house without telling your parents in the middle of the night."

  She grabbed for the bridle, but he shifted to keep her out of arm's reach. Arching one brow, he said, "Will you strike an agreement, then?"

  "I suppose you want my virtue?"

  He laughed aloud. "No. No, I don't want your virtue." He looked her up and down. "Such as it is. You are set on this course, presumably, as you would prefer not to marry my grandfather, who must be at least four times your age, and as it happens, I sympathize."

  "And you don't like your grandfather," she guessed.

  "Quite. So I will offer you this. I cannot allow you to travel to Bristol alone." He held up his hand to stop her objections. "You will, therefore, travel in my carriage, as civilized people ought, and in return, you will agree not to act like a spoilt child all the way there."

  "My reputation will be—"

  "Ruined? My dear, you are already utterly compromised. Were it not for the fact I have no desire to marry, I would have your dowry in hand this minute. Another reason I will not allow you to travel alone. I, at least, do not have improper designs on you, but I cannot say that will be the case for every man you might meet along the road. In fact," he said, his eyes once again roaming from the tip of her bonnet to the toes of her half-boots, "I can rather warrant the opposite."

  Reaching for her horse again, she instead came up against his hard chest, and his free hand grasped hers. "Ah, ah, Miss Amberly. If you go around touching men, your reputation will be in tatters without my help."

  The fire in her cheeks could almost warm her, and she wrenched her hand out of his. "Are you not concerned you'll have to marry me if we're caught?"

  "No, that is not a concern at all." When she preened, he added, "I would simply refuse. I care not a whit for Society's good opinion, nor your father's, and I would lay good odds I am better with a pistol."

  Her mouth opened and closed, indignation naught but a squeak in her throat. While she wasn't expressing her ire, he efficiently stripped Aurelia of her tack and put her back in her stall. Taking Charlotte by her arm, his other hand at the small of her back, he guided her, not entirely ungently, toward the coach and said, "You may as well stay warm while I hook up the cattle." He handed her his greatcoat. "And put this on. You are an idiot, running about in a pelisse and silk gloves in weather like this."

  "You'll—"

  "Believe me, I will take it back before I climb up to drive. Get. In. The. Coach. Or I call for your father right now."

  She scrambled inside.

  Chapter Five

  December 26, 1803

  Somerset, England

  "She has done what?!"

  Aunt Minerva's voice might have punctured Bella's eardrum if she had been standing much closer. As it was, she was too close for comfort, an arm's reach away from Bella's weak shoulder. Neither her aunt nor uncle had ever laid a hand on her, but just the thought of being touched in anger had her sinking into the wallpaper.

  When Hugh had woken his parents with the news before dawn, Aunt Minerva had come looking for Bella, pulling her from the bed, subjecting her to a tirade before Bella could even find a dressing gown.

  "S-She's…" Bella stuttered, "Perhaps she's… I mean… maybe she left a note…" Of course Charlotte had left a message, but she had made Bella swear she wouldn't point out the folded parchment on her dressing table until morning.

  Pushing through the door that connected the two girls' bedchambers, Bella slunk to the vanity and pretended to be searching through the crystalline jars for what she already knew was there. She slipped the letter out from underneath the stacked jewel boxes Charlotte had been given by the marquess. In her cousin's typically dramatic fashion, the ruby ring sat atop the pile.

  "It appears she's left this."

  Grabbing at the note and ruby ring in a way that betrayed her ignoble origins, Lady Effingale shrieked when she read the few lines.

  Forgive me, but I have met a soldier, and I know you would never deny our love. By now, I am on my way to Portsmouth to board a ship to Scotland. Wish me happy. I will write as soon as I can.

  "A soldier?! A soldier?! Good God, what is she thinking? She's ruined! Utterly ruined!"

  "Perhaps not a soldier," Uncle Howard intoned in a dark voice from the doorway. "Herrendon's carriage is gone. The stable master heard noises in the night, but when the earl left for the village, he told the grooms not to bother waking when he returned, that he would take care of his own mount."

  Aunt Minerva pulled her husband into the room and shut the door. "The marquess might cry off if he thinks she's been compromised. If his own flesh and blood has done it, so much the worse." She prodded at her husband's arm, moaning, "Whatever will we do, Effingale?"

  He turned his shoulder against his wife and approached Bella tentatively, as though she were a cat who might bolt or bite. Bella sank farther into the corner, trying to make herself smaller than a kitten, smaller than a mouse. Small enough no one in her family would ever lay eyes in her again.

  "What can you tell me, my dear? Did Charlotte tell you nothing?"

  Bella shook her head, words stuck in her throat.

  "Of course our hoyden of a daughter told her something! They are thick as thieves. If you don't tell me everything you know, you wretched girl, I will send you back to my brother before the day is out and tell him to beat you bloody! Do you understand me?"

  At Bella's squeak, Uncle Howard pointed to the door. "Out, Lady Effingale. Out!" When she showed no sign of leaving, he took her by the upper arm and physically removed her to the hall, then locked the door behind her. They were safe enough from any banging on the door, as she would do anything to keep the marquess from learning about his fiancée's treachery.

  He gently led Bella to the bench in front of the vanity and sat her down. Crouching in front of her, he pushed the hair away from her face that had fallen from her braid. "Did Charlotte say anything, sweetling? Anything that might help us find her?"

  Bella swallowed and shook her head, but her hesitation must have shown, because her uncle leaned forward and searched her face.

  "You understand she could be in awful danger, and not just from her soldier?"


  Bella looked away.

  "Anything she might have said could help me. Please trust I won't let you or Charlotte come to harm."

  Bella nodded, and at this reminder of the gentle nature of the one man in her family who would never maltreat her, she whispered, "She said to say Portsmouth, which likely means Bristol."

  "Is it Scotland she intends?"

  "I… I don't know, Uncle Howard. She said so, but she's never mentioned a soldier until last night… and she gave me no name. I don't know what she has planned. She was so…"

  "So…?"

  "So different. She was… determined. I mean, she is always stubborn, but never so… resolute… She looked just like Aunt Minerva. And she demanded I say nothing until morning. I couldn't just… You know how she… I mean…" She sniffled. "I'm so sorry, Uncle Howard."

  He patted her knee, his eyes ten years older. "I know, Bella, dearest. We Amberlys do put you in the worst predicaments, do we not?"

  When the tears welled up, he wiped one away with his thumb, then stood. "You will stay in your room with the door locked until I return. As I am the only one with a key, you should be safe from your aunt's temper."

  This was not the first time her uncle had locked her away for her own safety. "Yes, Sir."

  "I will tell Latham your father and brothers may not enter the house, and I'll send someone up with a tray."

  "Thank you, Uncle Howard."

  He pointed to the connecting door, and she scurried through it.

  ***

  "Yes, I will bring Charlotte back posthaste, Lady Effingale," Bella heard from her position at the connecting door to Charlotte's bedroom. Her aunt and uncle had retired there to discuss their plan, if one could call it a plan—incoherent as it was. However, they remained unaware the two girls had picked a hole near the bottom of the door by the time they were ten, so they could talk back and forth while punished in their separate rooms.

  "No, I will not let her talk me around," he continued wearily, "nor allow her some boon for her disobedience." Uncle Howard's putting-his-foot-down voice finally slammed against the door. "No, you will not be coming with me! It is too cold, and I will travel rough."

  Finally, Aunt Minerva stopped mumbling and became strident. "You make certain she understands exactly what I will do to her if ever she should attempt such a thing again. And shoot that soldier—if there is a soldier—on sight. But make sure you put your hands on the marriage lines—if she's been married. Oh, dear Heavens, what will we do if she's run away with a soldier and not even been married? She is a viscount's daughter!" Aunt Minerva's voice gained pitch and speed. "There should be a law against viscount's daughters marrying beneath them! I insist you draft legislation!"

  "Lady Effingale, you will please remove yourself from my path so I may be on my way to find our daugh…" His voice trailed off at the sound of a knock.

  "Lord and Lady Effingale? I heard raised voices on my way to break my fast. Is there some problem with which I might offer assistance?"

  Bella gasped along with both her aunt and uncle. No one would be well served by the marquess finding out his fiancée had decamped, with the possible exception of Charlotte. Even she would be worse off if the marquess put it out in the ton she had run away in the middle of the night. She would be better off considered a flirt or a jilt.

  "Everything is just fine, Lord Firthley," Aunt Minerva's singsong tone was a warning flag only to someone who had known her for years. "Charlotte is just… poorly this morning, I'm afraid. There will be a meal waiting downstairs."

  "Just so," Lord Firthley replied, volume rising slightly to be heard through the door. "Miss Amberly, I do hope you feel better so we may walk in the portrait gallery this afternoon."

  "I'm sure she will be feeling fine by then, Lord Firthley. Do have one of the footmen show you to the dining room."

  Bella didn't know how Aunt Minerva would manage to produce a no-longer-sick daughter for a walk in the gallery in a few hours' time, but it was not outside the realm of possibility she would dress Bella up in Charlotte's clothes and a veil. Nothing would keep her from marrying her daughter to a marquess, short of death. Or a soldier in Gretna Green.

  Once her aunt and uncle had abandoned the room next to hers—he to take a carriage to Gretna Green via Bristol and she to entertain Lord Firthley so thoroughly he would not ask about Charlotte's manufactured illness—Bella took up The Romance of the Forest, which Charlotte had finished last week. They were supposed to discuss it together when she finished reading it, but now, if Charlotte were found, she might not be discussing anything with anyone for a very long time. Her mother might lock her in a dungeon, if there were one below the house. And who knew what Lord Firthley might do if she somehow ended up as his wife? No one knew his temperament well enough to say.

  Four pages along in the book, a scream pierced her door.

  As she rushed down the front stairs toward the dining room, the screaming did not cease. She could hear Latham trying to calm her aunt.

  "Your Ladyship, please. If I might escort you to the drawing room, I can have the—"

  He looked up when Bella skated into the room, not even trying to hide the fact she had been running.

  One glance took in the scene: Lord Firthley, motionless, face down in his eggs; her aunt waving both hands in the air, chair fallen to the floor, opening and closing her eyes as though blinking might wake the marquess; Latham attempting to gather Lady Effingale's hands without restraining her outright, while trying not to be struck by a flying fist.

  "Is he…?" Bella asked. Latham nodded, which increased the volume of Aunt Minerva's shrieking.

  "Aunt Minerva, please!" Bella clapped her hands together before her aunt's face, which stopped the voluminous noise long enough for Bella to take her elbow. "Please, come with me into the drawing room, and Latham will bring tea."

  Perhaps a sign of her bewilderment, Lady Effingale followed along without argument or incident, dazed as a little girl fallen from a horse. Once in the drawing room, Bella poured her aunt a glass of brandy and forced her to sip it.

  Aunt Minerva thumped the half-drunk glass of liquor onto the side table and groaned. "She's ruined us, Bella. Charlotte has ruined the entire family."

  "I know she has been… hasty… but we will find her, and Lord Firthley's death can hardly be lain at her feet when she is not even in the house."

  "I knew she would engulf us in scandal. She has been a headstrong, willful child since she was in leading strings. I should have beaten it out of her long since."

  Bella shivered.

  "She should be a marchioness right now, not the runaway bride of some soldier. He probably isn't even an officer. She would have been presented to the king, Bella, the king!"

  "Yes, Aunt Minerva. I know." She patted her aunt's hand and placed the brandy glass back between her fingers. "Drink this. I will go consult with Latham about the bo… Lord Fir… about the situation."

  "He cannot be found here, Bella. You cannot allow him to be found in our house, not even our county, if it can be helped. Tell Latham to make arrangements with the coroner. And we must cancel the supper… send footmen with our excuses. We will just have to say…" Her shoulders slumped. "We will have to say something. Charlotte will never make a match if her affianced has fallen dead in her parents' dining room."

  Bella shook her head at her aunt's supreme inconsistency, but decided not to point out Charlotte might already be married. Even if she weren't, no doubt she would gleefully celebrate news of the marquess' demise in as inappropriate a manner as she could manage.

  Chapter Six

  December 26, 1803

  The road to Bristol

  This was the most miserable plan he had ever made. Well, to be fair, he hadn't made it, but neither had the flibbertigibbet riding warm and comfortable in his coach while he was frozen solid holding the ribbons. If he hadn't drunk so much, or if he had taken the serving wench up on her offer, or if he had walked away when he saw the very pretty, very
young daughter of the house sneaking into the stables at midnight, this would not be such a muddle.

  She was a beautiful girl, who would turn heads in any court in Europe with that rich, black hair and pale skin soft as eiderdown. The dress she had worn to greet his grandfather had been inspired, making her look like a dowd, and a fat, pasty one besides, but the tantalizing contour of her elegant ankle had belied that impression. Her tiny hands were so delicate, he had been afraid he might break one just touching her when he made his bow. And the tiniest soft giggle had rushed his blood. That small noise was the reason he had made his way to the village to find a barmaid, and why he hadn't taken the wench up on her offer. She wouldn't have satisfied.

  However, that was not to say he relished the likely consequence of his rash action: being married to her or dead at the wrong end of her father's pistol. No matter his skill with a gun, righteous indignation made for good aim, and there was nothing righteous about Alexander's part in this escapade. If he were caught, he might be better off just falling on his sword. His literal sword, to his literal gut.

  On the other hand, a lifetime of the girl in the town coach falling onto his figurative sword might not be the worst use of a bedchamber.

  Alexander blanched at the idea of this girl—what was her name?—trapped under his grandfather's noble thumb at her age. Firthley would die eventually, and she would be a rich widow, perhaps what her father intended for her security, but until then, her life would be unbearable. There was nothing his grandfather could do with such a young bride that wouldn't be traumatic for the poor girl. He had trouble comprehending the man's motivation.

  Unless his plan was to disinherit Alexander, which would be fine with the reluctant earl. If he hadn't lost everything when Napoleon marched into Greece, and his mother's mother hadn't insisted before she died that he honor his patrimony, he would yet be in bed with his mistress in Crete, and the House of Lords could go hang.

  Ah, Helena. There was a subject worth contemplating on this interminable road. Far better than the turn of this girl's ankle or the shape of her body beneath the form-fitting pelisse. Or replaying the sound of her voice and her laughter. Or questioning why he was driving her across country without benefit of a chaperone. Or trying to remember what the Devil her name was.