Dashing All the Way : A Christmas Anthology

by Eva Devon

  “Yes, damn me. But know that your days—or more accurately, your nights—impersonating the Scottish Wraith are at an end.”

  “Not yet.”

  The little wretch was quicker than Toby had reckoned, and more violently determined, too—Toby only just managed to gird his loins before the imp’s head rammed into his gut, knocking him back onto his arse, and leaving him grappling for purchase as the nimble shadow fought its way out of Toby’s grip, and went pelting down the hall for the grand staircase.

  Toby followed in a flash, thundering down the unlit gallery without care for the racket he made—the more witnesses he roused, the better.

  He caught up just as the little sneak was about to jump over the baluster to the platform half-way down the stairs below.

  Toby caught a wrist in mid-air and hung on tight as the two of them slammed into the baluster—Toby above and the thief dangling below.

  There was no hiding or sneaking now.

  Betty Botler’s shriek of rage and terror cut the night and echoed off the high ceiling and stone-faced walls of the grand staircase, rousing the entire house.

  Toby tightened his grip, levering his body against the railing for balance, catching the second hand the young girl swung up at his face in a steely grip.

  “Careful there, Betty,” he counseled as she hung helplessly over the side. “I’m out of practice, lass. My grip is not near as strong as it used to be. I’d hate for you to die so young and beautiful. But let you die I will.”

  Toby made good on his advantage by dragging her farther along the baluster, to where the drop to the marble floor below was good and lethal.

  For another second the urchin looked as if she would spit fire, or spit in his eye, until she scrabbled for purchase with her legs and feet and came up with only the empty clutch of air.

  “Yes, I’ve got you, Betty. For now.” He flexed his grip around her thin wrist, so she would feel the true tentative nature of their connection, so she would understand that she was saved from certain messy, bone-breaking death on the glossy stone below only by the strength of his grip and the grace of his mercy.

  Her shriek had roused the house—Arthur Balfour and his father, the viscount, rushed out to the foot of the stair below, followed by men Toby could only hope were magistrates.

  “Get a light there,” the viscount ordered. “Set the lamps!”

  Runners and servants—some from Balfour House and others in livery from Grindle’s—spilled up from the bowels of the house, filling the space with their gasps and shouts.

  “Help me,” Betty choked, rasping and hollow-eyed with fear.

  “Stay back, all.” Toby made his face ruthlessly blank, though he shifted his feet to gain some leverage. “I don’t like being made a fool of, Betty. And you tried to make a fool of me. You tried to get me hanged.”

  “No,” she pled from the end of this arm. “I swear.”

  “Then swear who taught you to imitate me, Betty,” he commanded in his best captain of the watch voice. “Who put you up to this? And don’t bother telling me it was your father,” he gritted before she could lie. “I knew him—and I know better that to believe that sort of Banbury tale.”

  “I— I did it alone. I—”

  He shook her, dangling her below him like a rag doll to the screams of the women below.

  “Don’t lie to me, Betty—I’m like to let you go if you lie.”

  “It was Grindle,” she cried. “Grindle put us up to it. Grindle who taught me, and arranged it all.”

  “How did you do it?”

  “Ye know how!” She was crying now, fat tears welling up and stinging her eyes. “Just let me up.”

  “Not yet—not until you tell them.” He nodded his chin toward the watchers below. “Tell them how, Betty.”

  “He made me work at the parties—said I was a handsome girl and should serve with the footmen.”

  “Then what did you do after?” He shook her again. “Tell them.”

  “I’d to change out of maid’s togs and put on the black, and go up into the house and get the jewels Grindle wanted while the people was asleep at rug.”

  “And then?”

  “Then I give ’em to Grindle, and I go home.”

  That was more than enough for Toby, and below he saw the Runners move swiftly off in pursuit of Grindle. But whether or not they caught the bastard was not his concern—Betty was. He hauled her up over the railing, whereupon she collapsed into the arms of Cally, who had, somehow unbeknownst to him, been behind him.

  And had a front row view of just what a bastard he really was under his civilized veneer.

  “There, dear,” Cally comforted the girl. “You’re safe.”

  “But what’s Grindle goin’ to do to me for peachin’?” Betty sobbed.

  “Grindle is going to hang, you wretch,” Toby answered. He wasn’t about to be taken in by this sniveling—Betty had been giving lip and likely stealing baubles since she was a babe at Bolter’s wooden knee. And if she and Bolter and Grindle had had their way, he’d have been the one hanged, or had his throat slit.

  He would not feel any sympathy for her. He would not. “And you’re going to feel the cold hand of the law as well.”

  “Toby,” Caledonia admonished, looking at him as if she didn’t quite like what she was seeing. “She’s frightened enough.”

  “She’s a wretch,” he repeated though he could not shake the cold sickness that coiled in his gut at the thought of her likely fate. But not everything in this life was fair. Not everything was sweet or kind or could be done up in a pretty bow.

  He was not. He was, beneath his manners and suits and well-manicured farm, just as feral and vicious as any of them—he had just proved it by his behavior.

  Cally would want nothing to do with him now that she had seen who he really was.

  “There’s your wraith,” he said when Viscount Balfour and the Runners came forward to take Betty. “Happy bloody Christmas.”

  “Toby.” Cally’s soft tone admonished him. “What’s to be done with her?”

  “What the law requires.” He heard the cold condemnation in his voice, and suddenly he felt old and weary and jaded. “I don’t know. I’m tired and I want to sleep and I’m going home.” If he could just get back home, to his comfortable, orderly house, and comfortable orderly life, he would be fine. He would have a dram or two or twenty of good highland whisky and sort out how to make his life return to normal then. But not now.

  “And what about me?” Cally’s voice sounded small, and for the first time in their acquaintance—although she was clearly far more than a mere acquaintance—tentative.

  But he couldn’t think—the raw rush of hate and rage and fear and vindication left him drained—as frayed and tattered as an old rag. “Maybe you should go home, too.”

  “Oh. Yes.” Her tone was so quiet, he almost couldn’t hear her. “I suppose I shall.”

  And at that, Toby left her, and walked down the length of the grand staircase, and across the wide foyer, and through the door and out into the dark wee small hours of the night without another word, and without looking back.

  Chapter 21

  Toby awoke to the strong smell of coffee. Which was strange, because his housekeeper, Ella, was still in Norwich, and he himself had had nothing but strong whisky to drink since he had arrived home in the dawn, cold and exhausted and entirely spent from the long row upriver in his skiff.

  He sat up for a moment and listened, letting his carefully honed instincts and experience sort out the sounds—the steady lap of the river, the murmur of the winter wind through the brittle trees, the industrious bustle of someone below in the kitchens.

  He threw on a banyan to cover his nakedness, and to keep out the chill of the cold house, and made his way coffee-ward.

  Only to find Caledonia McAlden Bowmont alone in his warm, aroma-filled kitchen, setting a table for breakfast.

  “Good morning.” She worked away industriously, as if it were the
most natural thing in the world that a viscountess’s daughter should be wearing an apron over her embroidered woolen frock in his kitchen in Isleworth.

  “Good morning yourself,” he managed, though his voice was foggy with the clouds of last night’s whisky. “Your pardon, but what are you doing in my kitchen?”

  “Making you breakfast. And myself as well,” She explained, still not meeting his eye. “Making myself at home.”

  “For how long?”

  She looked at him fully then, standing tall even as she swallowed her nervousness. “I suppose that depends upon you. But as for me, I should like to stay forever.”

  He stood stock still with his bare feet against the floor. “Are you, per chance”—he spoke slowly, feeling his way along this particularly steep path—“proposing to me, Mrs. Bowmont?”

  He wanted to be very sure.

  She blushed, her cheeks warming a becoming shade of rosy pink. “I am, as you didn’t seem likely to get around to it in all the fuss. And frankly, I’ll do anything to avoid returning to Scotland.”

  It was so like her, to use humor to deflect from her unease. But he was not yet in the mood to reassure her—he rather liked keeping such a magnificent woman on her metaphorical toes. So he said nothing.

  The silence stretched just as long as it could before she snapped. “Well, if you’re not going to say anything, then at least close your robe—it’s fallen open, and you are displaying yourself like a Covent Garden petticoat pensioner displaying his wares.”

  Toby did feel a cooling draft on his nethers, but made no move to cover himself. On the contrary—he pulled the robe back over his hip. “Well, I suppose that is what a husband should look like in the morning when he comes down to find his wife all flushed with the heat of baking.”

  Her face pinkened with an absolutely gorgeous flush of pleasure. “Know a great deal about husbands, do you, McTavish?”

  He rewarded her cheek with a smile. “Not enough. Not yet.”

  She returned his smile. “You’ll do. But since I do have some greater experience in these matters, let me tell you that that is not how a husband should look when he comes down to make his wife all flushed with heat.”

  She advanced toward him slowly, and just as slowly ran her hands up the length of his arms and around across the breadth of his back and down around the globes of his arse. “Now that”—she smiled into his ear and she pressed herself flush against him, and felt the exceedingly attentive appreciative reaction of his body—“is much more the thing.”

  He backed her up to the table, and pushed the steaming porridge aside. Cutlery fell to the floor with a clatter. But he never took his eyes from hers. “And I should very much like to put this thing to better use. Inside you. Right now. For I don’t think I can wait another minute to have you, Caledonia McAlden Bowmont. So you’d better marry me right now.”

  She kissed him with an enthusiasm that heated his blood hotter before she leaned back against the table in happy invitation. “My darling man, I thought you’d never ask.”

  The End

  About Elizabeth Essex

  Elizabeth Essex is the award-winning author of lush, lyrical historical romance full of passion, daring and adventure. When not rereading Jane Austen, mucking about in her garden or simply messing about with boats, Elizabeth can be always be found with her laptop, making up stories about heroes and heroines who live far more exciting lives than she. Her books have been nominated for numerous awards, including the Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence, the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award, and RWA’s prestigious RITA Award, and have made Top-Ten lists from Romantic Times, The Romance Reviews and Affaire de Coeur Magazine. Elizabeth lives in Texas with her husband, the indispensable Mr. Essex, and her active and exuberant family in an old house filled to the brim with books.

  For more information about Elizabeth’s books, visit:

  elizabethessex.com/category/books/

  THE VERY DEBONAIR LADY CLAIRE

  Heather Snow

  When Claire Barton’s twin is murdered, she takes his place as a code breaker for the War Department to flush out his killer. Her ruse works perfectly—until the man who once broke her heart becomes her new spymaster. He sees right through her disguise but if he thinks he can stop her from doing what she must, he’s in for a bigger surprise than when he’d realized just who wore the trousers now.

  The last thing Lord Andrew Sedgewick expects to find when he’s asked to root out a traitor is the one woman he’s never been able to forget. The worst mistake of his life was walking away from Claire that Christmas six years ago. Now that he’s found her again, he doesn’t intend to let her go—if they both survive this holiday season.

  Chapter 1

  December, 1813 ~ The Black Chambers, Abchurch Lane, London

  Sweat snaked down Claire’s face and neck, a slow trickle that did its best to annoy and distract her until, finally, it met the starched linen of her cravat and was absorbed.

  While outside this room London was experiencing one of the coldest winters in recent memory, here at Abchurch boiling kettles spouted steam into the air and fires burned to heat wax and wire.

  It didn’t help that she kept her jacket on when most in the room had stripped down to their waistcoats. But the extra layer covering her chest helped maintain her disguise.

  She wished she could spare a hand to swipe the perspiration from her brow, but she needed both for this most delicate part of her task. Should she break the seal while opening the missive meant for the Russian ambassador, the man would know that the War Department was pilfering his post…rather than just suspecting it.

  Another droplet started its trek down her cheek, but Claire did her best to ignore it. Pulling her lower lip between her teeth, she slid the heated wire beneath the seal—a precarious operation that required her to move the hot metal slowly enough to melt the wax without breaking it, yet quickly enough not to scorch the vellum beneath.

  The seal pulled free of the parchment, and Claire examined the wax rendering of a double-headed eagle closely. Not bad. She saw no cracks or marring of any kind. She should be able to reseal the missive after copying its contents, and send it on to the Foreign Ministry with the ambassador and his aides none the wiser.

  Leaning back in her chair, Claire scanned the Cyrillic script, so very different from English writing. She’d need to transcribe it word for word in Russian, of course—any hidden messages would be in the mother tongue, not in a translation. But that was a laborious undertaking, and she was anxious to know what the letter said now.

  She was running out of time to figure out who had killed her brother…and why.

  “Who do you reckon they’ve tapped to replace Marston?” a voice boomed from behind her.

  Claire started, only just stopping herself from crumpling the letter in her surprise. She’d been so focused on interpreting it that she hadn’t heard Pike’s approach. She blew out a harsh breath, smoothing the vellum flat on the table. All that work preserving the seal would have been for naught if she’d crushed the blasted letter in reflex.

  She threw a disgruntled glare over her shoulder at Pike, who only grinned at her as if he’d pulled some great jest. He lifted the cup of tea he’d brought over for her like a salute and then set it on the corner of her table.

  Men. She’d never understand them, even after spending the past several weeks living as one of them.

  A sharp ache pierced her chest as his words registered, followed quickly by a twinge of dread. Who did she think would replace Marston?

  “I’ve no idea,” she mumbled, turning back to the work at hand, her throat tight.

  She still couldn’t believe the man was gone.

  Lord Marston—Uncle Jarvis to her and her brother, though they’d not been related by blood—had been a great friend to her late parents and a constant in Claire’s life since before she could remember.

  He’d also been the head of the Abchurch offices, where England’s brightest minds
secretly spent their hours deciphering codes and messages discovered in diplomatic posts, uncovered through espionage efforts on the continent, or relayed from battlefields and naval ships via shutter telegraphs.

  More important, Uncle Jarvis had been her co-conspirator these many weeks. Without his help, she’d never have been able to infiltrate Abchurch by pretending to be her twin, nor would she have the chance to uncover the truth behind Clarence’s death.

  “I suppose there’s no point in speculating,” Pike mused. “Whoever the man is, he should be here any moment to assess the operation. Take our measure, as it were.”

  The unease that had started in her chest flared as it settled low in her stomach, jostling for position with the grief from Uncle Jarvis’s sudden death. How could she possibly continue this ruse without his protection and aid?

  When she’d arrived at Abchurch last month, no one had questioned that she was Sir Clarence Barton. Not when she resembled her brother so closely. Not when she could mimic his mannerisms so perfectly. Not when she was so impeccably tailored, any hints of her femininity ruthless strapped down under her fine gentleman’s togs.

  Not when Lord Marston, respected spymaster, had declared her to be so.

  But Uncle Jarvis was gone, felled by a heart ailment in his sleep two nights past.

  And she was all alone.

  “I hope they don’t send some high-in-the-instep dandiprat,” Pike went on, oblivious to Claire’s distress. “Some earl’s spare who wants to do his part in the war effort, but who’s never been outside Mayfair, you know?”

  Claire nodded, wishing Pike would be quiet. Or at least go bother someone else. She picked up a quill and pointedly went back to her transcription—and her worries that the new head of Abchurch would find her out and make her leave before she could learn what had happened to Clarence.