Dashing All the Way : A Christmas Anthology

by Eva Devon

  His brows shot up. “I could not take your choice from you. It’s why no one knows I came from your room last night. I wanted you to have the freedom to choose what you wanted. At first, I longed to allow the circumstances to force our hands. But nothing will be forced between us. Ever.”

  “Then yes, I will marry you. Today. Forever.”

  He stood and folded her into his arms.

  “Say it,” she declared against his chest.

  Without instruction, he answered, “I love you, Lady Evangeline Pennyworth. I love you from your sharp mind, to your witty, wicked eyes. I love the way you gave yourself without fear whilst I hovered in the shadows. I love you for giving me all the light I ever needed.”

  Resting her head against his chest, she closed her eyes, a wave of perfect peace falling over her. “I love you, too. I love your teasing, your strength, your devilish grin, and I love that, despite all the hurt, you never allowed yourself to grow bitter. That you were willing to help me despite the risk.”

  “You will always be worth the risk, Evangeline. Always.”

  Down the hall, the piano rang out a sprightly carol, and the house was full of children’s voices singing.

  She tilted her head back. “Merry Christmas, Anthony.”

  “Merry Christmas, Evangeline. Now, let’s go find the bishop.”

  Epilogue

  The Duke of Hunt had written to inform her parents that Evangeline was to be married. Though she had reached her majority the year before, it had been agreed that such news from a duke would be inarguable.

  And given that the wedding had taken place the day after Christmas in the duke’s own chapel, they had not been able to attend, ensuring the happiness of the affair.

  They had received a brief note of felicitations. She could only imagine how stunned they were that she had made such a match.

  But none of that mattered now.

  The quiet days after Christmas had been spent almost entirely in the small house near the forest of the duke’s estate. A house he kept for his favorite guests needing time alone.

  They had gone up for several dinners, whereupon they had been teased mercilessly about the joys of married life. They had enjoyed every moment of it, for they truly had discovered joy in each other. And then they would return to the place where they could be alone, together, and in awe of what they had found.

  To call the love nest a house was almost laughable for it was equipped with every luxury and necessity including a pianoforte near the fire.

  When not in the bedroom, she and Anthony had spent a great deal of time at the instrument, making music at it. And making more music together before the fire; their bodies melding into one as did their hearts.

  Love with Anthony was a revelation. Every waking moment was a new discovery. Yet, it was also like she was coming back to something that had always been hers.

  Now, Anthony held her on his lap, sitting before the pianoforte, playing easily. His fingers touched the ivory keys as reverently as they had caressed her.

  She let her head rest upon his broad shoulder as she hummed. The soft fall and rise of his chest, the warmth of his body, the feel of his arms about her. How could she describe it except that she knew after years of feeling as if she had no place, that she was well and truly home.

  With Anthony, she knew they would not stay on England’s shores. It was something she anticipated with great happiness for not only was their love an adventure, so would their lives be. And wherever they went, they would make it their refuge.

  As the notes changed to a more poignant tone, she began to sing.

  “Should auld acquaintance be forgot

  And never brought to mind

  Should auld acquaintance be forgot

  And days of Auld Lang Syne

  And here’s a hand, my trusty friend

  And give’s a hand o’ thine

  We'll take a cup of kindness yet

  For Auld Lang Syne”

  And as the words rang out, she knew that she and Anthony would go hand in hand through life, their hearts full, always risking, always chancing, and never turning away from love.

  The End

  About Eva Devon

  USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR, Eva Devon, was raised on literary fiction, but quite accidentally and thankfully, she was introduced to romance one Christmas by Johanna Lindsey's Mallory novella, The Present. A romance addict was born. She devoured every single Lindsey novel within a few months and moved on to contemporary and paranormal with gusto. Now, she loves to write her own roguish dukes, alpha males and the heroines who tame them. She loves to hear from her readers. So please pen her a note!

  For more information about Eva’s books, visit:

  evadevonromance.com/books/

  UP ON THE ROOFTOPS

  Elizabeth Essex

  Caledonia Bowmont longs for London’s Christmas cheer, but a string of jewel thefts has brought the festive season to a standstill. Society accuses the Scottish Wraith, Tobias McTavish, yet Cally knows he has given up his thieving ways and paid his debt to society.

  Toby is determined to clear his name and reclaim the life he’s built, so with Cally’s help, he heads up on the rooftops to trap the thief.

  Will they stop the high-carat crime, or find the hidden gem of lasting love instead?

  Chapter 1

  December, 1813 — London

  Old Christmas came but once a year, the country carolers sang. Caledonia McAlden Bowmont was sorry the holiday did not come much more often than that. Because the festive season filled London with the most delicious sort of excitement—parties, musicales and balls that made the world merry and bright.

  But come Christmas Eve, those amusements would come to an abrupt end, and like the princess in the French fairy tales, Caledonia would turn back into a country pumpkin. Or perhaps a Scottish turnip—rather more bland and entirely unexciting on the palate.

  Such was the life of a widow. People—even well-meaning people like her own family—expected her to retire to the quiet gloom of her late husband’s house at the foot of the Cheviot Hills, where nothing ever happened—nothing was allowed to happen.

  Nothing was supposed to happen to a widow.

  Other people lived exciting lives—her brother Hugh, a Senior Post Captain in the Royal Navy, and his wife Meggs wrote Cally the most exciting letters from all over the world. Cally’s older sister Catriona accompanied her diplomat husband to exotic and interesting foreign lands. And even Cally’s widowed mother had somehow managed to fall in love—in her fiftieth year, no less—and re-marry a viscount.

  But at four and twenty, nothing so exciting ever happened to Caledonia. Her widowhood stretched the calendar round with little respite. For nine and forty weeks a year she was a dutiful, competent daughter-in-law, managing her late husband’s farming estate to her mama-in-law’s exacting satisfaction. But without her much-loved—and much-missed—late husband, who had loved to tease and make merry, there was neither comfort nor joy to lighten the relentless load.

  Which was why, when Cally’s own mother invited her to London for a little Christmas cheer, she spent those three weeks ever on the lookout for amusement, or some small adventure. She longed for some unplanned excitement—she pined for a diverting mis-chance. As a girl she was never so happy as when she was neck deep in some ridiculous scheme—like the time she sneaked into the New Club in Edinburgh disguised as a gentleman, complete with fake whiskers, or when she had impersonated Princess Charlotte of Wales at a garden party at Holyrood Palace.

  “Punching over her weight class,” her father had chuckled.

  Her mother had been aghast, and taken on a stricter governess.

  Caledonia had of course grown up since those days. She had married and been widowed—which was, she reckoned, singularly aging—but she still had a soft spot for the excitement of the hurly-burly, and took pleasure in the topsy-turvy.

  And so she would enjoy all that London had on offer whilst she could—she would d
ance and laugh and enjoy every last bit of excitement until she was packed back off to Scotland. She would marvel at each new sight, relish each new experience, and listen to each tidbit of juicy gossip—like the lurid tale of thievery one of her acquaintances was telling now.

  “Did you hear, Cally?” Claire Jellicoe asked. “They took everything—very last pin and pearl.”

  “I had not heard.” Caledonia had not yet caught up on all the London newspapers—in Scotland, her mama-in-law depreciated the newspapers as being fast and loose with the truth, and un-fit for a lady’s eyes. “Tell me all.”

  “All the Peverston diamonds,” her young friend related with relish. “At least two full parures.”

  “They?” Caledonia tried to moderate her unladylike curiosity at such larcenous daring. “Who are they?”

  “I’ve heard it’s a criminal ring—a gang of Romany,” another young lady whispered in scandalized tones.

  “Who break in at night,” Claire went on, “while the victims sleep soundly in their beds. Imagine that—sleeping while thieves prowled your home. My papa would sack all our servants if a sneak thief got by even one of the footmen.”

  “Surely not,” Cally demurred. But she felt an intoxicating rush of excitement—as if she’d bolted a glass of sherry on the sly.

  It all sounded so wonderfully daring and intrepid. And decidedly familiar. “There was something very similar—a string of dazzling jewel thefts—some years ago. Do you not remember?”

  But it seemed the young ladies were all too young to remember a scandal that had waxed and waned before they were entirely conversant with the world. Caledonia herself had been a young girl when the so-called Scottish Wraith had ghosted his way through the Beau Monde’s baubles, but she had a long memory. “It was all London, and even Edinburgh, could talk about!”

  “Well, my father thinks it’s the Society thief the broadsheets call the Vauxhall Vixen.” Claire’s whispered tone was full of respect for father, the Earl Sanderson’s, information.

  “Oh, no!” Caledonia couldn’t keep her disappointment from her voice, but the fact was, she didn’t want the thief to be this Vixen. She wanted the thief to be a different person altogether—for no other reason than it was too quiet in the Cheviot Hills. Too bloody quiet by half. “I rather think it smacks of the McTavish touch.”

  “The what?” The young people stared at her, mouths agape.

  Caledonia warmed to her subject—she hadn’t thought about McTavish in years, but those girlish fantasies had etched themselves indelibly in her imagination. “It has all the hallmarks of the Scottish Wraith—the Cutty Purse—don’t you think?”

  At their blank looks, she continued. “I suppose it was years ago, but the broadsheets and newspapers called him the Scottish Wraith—gone like a wraith at midnight, into the Prince Street Gardens, or down the Whitehall Stairs, or over the Mayfair rooftops, the papers used to report. But his real name was proved to be Tobias McTavish, a Scotsman of some great skill in the gentry lay—that is, stealing from well-to-do houses.”

  “Gentry lay! Was he ever caught?” Claire Jellicoe asked.

  “Indeed. The case was infamous—the popular support for his derring-do was so enormous, the beak at the Old Bailey feared the mob would rise up if McTavish were sentenced to be hanged. The broadsheets made him into a folk hero, the same as they are doing to the Vixen now. So the judge gave McTavish the choice of transportation or the navy, instead of being hanged. And of course McTavish chose the navy—but be-damned if he didn’t go on to become a great naval hero in his own right.”

  Caledonia was so caught up in her tale, she only just realized she had cursed in a ballroom. But she was weary of censuring her true self—she was the product of a large, rambunctious and linguistically colorful family, and not even three years under the rule of her censorious, straight-laced mama-in-law had entirely rid Cally of her colorfully-spoken ways. She couldn’t always be watching every word like a hen harrier, never letting herself have any real fun.

  So now was her chance. “He served at Trafalgar, where he was mentioned in dispatches—singled out for praise. I know because my brother, Captain Sir Hugh McAlden, was his commanding officer at one point. McTavish became even more famous as a hero after the navy than he had ever been before.”

  “Now I remember.” Claire clapped her hands. “He redeemed himself with his bravery. But was he not killed whilst in the navy, in one battle or another, and buried as a proper hero?”

  “Oh, no!” Caledonia could not let such disinformation pass. “Not killed—invalided out, as they say. He lived to retire from his rating—for he had risen to the rank of warrant officer, which was quite a feat—after he was wounded during the bombardment of Copenhagen. He came home with his reputation reformed, if not entirely redeemed, and settled to farm a tract of land up river, swearing to never thieve again.”

  “Until now?” asked Claire.

  “It could be.” Caledonia forced herself to hedge, because she really didn’t want the Scottish Wraith to be behind such thefts. She wanted him to remain the gritty, reformed hero of her imaginative memories. But she had to admit, the jewels that had been stolen sounded exactly to his taste.

  Yet the tricky question was, why? Why would he come back now? McTavish was said to have been out of the game for years. And, to be fair, no one mentioned that any of these sensational burglaries involved his particular signature. “The Scottish Wraith used to leave a sprig of white heather in the empty jewel boxes. The unsuspecting victims would unlock their cases in the morning, and there would be nothing inside but a sprig of sweet and innocent white heather proclaiming they’d been cleaned out.”

  “Oh, yes,” Claire breathed. “That’s exactly what the broadsheets say is happening now!”

  The rush of emotion through Caledonia’s veins was a dizzying combination of vindication and disappointment—to leave a sprig of heather now was nothing short of grossly inept. The McTavish she had admired had been far cannier than to proclaim himself in such a fashion.

  “If you suspect him, surely the Bow Street Magistrates will have done,” Claire sagely opined. “They’ll have Runners after him now.”

  Caledonia let out a ridiculously wistful sigh. “They’d be fools if they don’t.”

  Chapter 2

  Tobias McTavish could hear them coming—the Bow Street Runners. They announced themselves in a clatter of carriages drawn by steaming, tossing horses, heading at speed for the gate of his farming estate in Isleworth, an old Anglo-Saxon village upriver, to the west of London.

  He been expecting them, of course—he read the broadsheets, same as anyone in London. He had seen his name connected to a string of Mayfair robberies, and he had reckoned that it was only a matter of time before the Runners would come to roust him out, even as he hoped that perhaps, just perhaps, this time they wouldn’t jump to unfounded conclusions.

  But hope was a spurious thing for a man in his position. And protesting his innocence would do him no good. Once a man had a certain reputation, nothing in the world—not heroism, nor duty, nor honor—could wipe the slate clean. Devil knew he had almost died trying.

  “Show the gentlemen of Bow Street in when they arrive, Ella,” he instructed his housekeeper. “You know what to do.”

  The stout-hearted woman—the widow of a former shipmate—tipped him the wink. “I’ll see to ’em right ’enuff, sar.” They had long ago made contingency plans against such a day—when the law would come barging its way through his gates.

  Toby left his loyal ally to her work, and quickly retreated to his personal chambers, where he primed the pistol he habitually kept loaded in his clothes press—a man never knew when the past was going to try to creep up on him. Except, of course, when the past was loudly hammering its mittened fists upon his front door.

  Toby set the stage as best he could before Ella’s knock sounded upon the chamber door. “If ye please, sar, they’s fellas as want to see ye. From the Bow Street Magistrates office, they
say.”

  “Thank you, Ella.” Toby dismissed his housekeeper with a nod, and took his time descending the stair. “Gentlemen,” he addressed the three men ranged to stand between him and the doors. “I’ve been expecting you. Would you care for some refreshment after your mad dash out from the city? I hope the roads were not too filthy or rutted this unseasonable time of year?”

  The Runners looked nonplussed to be so greeted.

  “No?” Toby took a comfortable seat in the drawing room. “Then let us get to the business at hand.”

  The chief amongst the men puffed himself up to stand before Toby, as gruff as a bulldog before a bear. “Someone has laid an information against ye, Tobias McTavish.”

  “How devilishly irresponsible of them.” Toby continued to smile as if he was as innocent and blameless as all the angels and saints—some of those saints had led similarly colorful careers before their apotheosis. “May I know what crime is alleged against me?”

  “As if ye didn’t know,” the Bulldog scoffed. “Robbery, wouldn’t it be—thievery of jewels! Ye’re to be taken to Bow Street, to answer the magistrate’s questions, whilst we search this house for the valuables what’s been stolen.”

  Toby spread his hands wide in invitation—there wasn’t much he could do to stop them—and since he had hidden no such gems, they could search all they liked.

  Still, he couldn’t let them have their way entirely. “How do I know you won’t steal something of mine, whilst you’re wandering about my house?”

  “By jove!” The Bulldog’s face turned a meaty shade of red. “That’s enough of that palaver. Ye’re to come with us.”

  “Of course,” Toby demurred with all politesse. “I won’t but be a moment to finish dressing.” He gestured to his shirtsleeves. “I’ll just get my coat and hat.” He took his time ascending the staircase, as if he had nothing better to do than while away his afternoon getting dressed and going to gaol, though he was very conscious of the lead Runner crowding closer to the foot of the stair so he might keep his eye on Toby.