Chase Family Collection: Limited Christmas Edition

by Lauren Royal

  Kit paced.

  The contraption Ford was working on, and the large utilitarian table on which it sat, looked out of place in the otherwise elegant room. Kit ran a hand down the silk and linen brocatelle wall-coverings. “How is married life?” he asked Rand.

  “Splendid,” Rand said, looking nauseatingly relaxed.

  Feeling decidedly unrelaxed, Kit gazed up at the black and gold cornice around the plastered ceiling. A fine display of workmanship. Something like it would look magnificent in the apartments he was building for the Duchess of Cleveland at Hampton Court, not to mention in his own house in Windsor.

  “You should try it,” Rand added.

  “Marriage?” Kit looked down to his old friend. “If I have my way, I will.”

  “What?” Rand half bolted out of the chair.

  “Sit,” Kit said.

  Frowning, Ford removed a lid and disconnected a copper tube. “Whom are you hoping to wed?”

  “Your sister-in-law. Rose.”

  Ford looked up, astonished. “Rose?”

  “Rose?” Rand echoed. He gulped a swallow of brandy. “I knew you found her attractive, but—”

  “She saved my sister’s life,” Kit said flatly. “And she yearns to travel, as do I. Not only that, she can speak the language when we get there.”

  Ford looked at him through a large glass bulb that was part of the device. “When you get where?”

  Kit examined the marble fireplace. “Rome, Florence, France…wherever.”

  “If all you want is a translator, you can hire a linguist.” Rand set his goblet on a small inlaid table. “I’ve students who would jump at a chance to spend a summer—”

  “I love her,” Kit said simply. “She’s fun and beautiful and bright, and…something in her calls to me.”

  Ford straightened and exchanged a look with Rand. “He said the L word.”

  Rand nodded. “So I heard.”

  Kit rubbed the back of his neck. “I wanted success. Security. But now my sister’s married a pawnbroker—what kind of security is a life like that? Yet she’s happy. And just when success may be slipping away from me—when I need that Deputy Surveyor post, that knighthood—”

  “Whoa,” Ford said, looking lost. “Does any of that really matter?”

  “I don’t know anymore.” Kit ran his fingers across a rack of little glass vials, all neatly labeled. Lavender, Lilac, Musk. He plucked out the one that said Rose. “All I know is I cannot stand the thought of failing to win her.”

  Ford replaced the copper tube with a little snap. “Try seduction. It worked for me.”

  “I am trying that. With her mother’s blessing, no less.”

  Neither man looked surprised to hear that. “With Lily,” Rand said, “it only took getting to know each other. Once we knew each other, we knew.”

  “I do know. And she knows, too—I’m sure of it. Only she won’t admit it because she wants to marry a damned duke. My only ray of hope is that his grace is reportedly a lousy kisser.”

  The other men laughed. “That sounds promising,” Rand observed. “Has she refused your proposal?”

  “I haven’t asked. What’s the point?”

  “You might be surprised by her answer.”

  “It’s one thing to wish it.” Kit’s fingers tightened around the glass vial. “Another to go heart in hand and ask.”

  “True.” Ford nodded solemnly. “You could be asking to have that heart crushed.” His expression said he was a veteran of such a defeat.

  Kit unstoppered the vial and breathed deeply of the oil. Rose. “Violet didn’t say yes the first time you asked?”

  “Hell, no. Nor the second, either. Or the third. Or the nineteenth.”

  As they all laughed again, feminine laughter drifted from upstairs. Rand smiled. “Our ladies are enjoying themselves.”

  “Where is everyone else?” Kit wondered suddenly.

  “Jewel and Rowan are probably off somewhere planning a dastardly prank.” Ford straightened, dusting off his hands. “And the younger children were put to bed.”

  “But Lord and Lady Trentingham—”

  “Have gone to bed, too,” Rand informed him with a waggle of his brows.

  Kit glanced at the clock on the mantel. “Is it not a bit early?”

  “They haven’t seen each other in more than a week.” Rand looked to Ford. “If you hadn’t seen Violet in ten days, what would you be doing now?”

  “Taking her to bed,” Ford said with a decisive nod.

  “But Lord and Lady Trentingham have grown children,” Kit protested.

  “So?” Ford shrugged as he replaced the distillery’s lid and stepped back. “They’re Ashcrofts.”

  “Warm blooded,” Rand added.

  “Hot blooded,” Ford corrected with a grin. “Which is an excellent incentive to marry one.”

  Forty-Four

  CHRYSTABEL stretched luxuriously beneath the rumpled counterpane in her bedchamber. “Ah, that was nice.”

  “Just nice?” Joseph asked, his voice filled with feigned hurt.

  “Very well. It was spectacular.”

  “That’s better.” He tweaked the sensitive crest of one breast, smiling when she gave a delighted squeal. “This was the longest you’ve ever been gone from me.”

  “You leave me for several weeks every year when you go to Tremayne.”

  “That seems different somehow.”

  “Because you’re the one leaving and busy.” She knew he had to go, that Tremayne, a castle near the Welsh border, was as much his responsibility as Trentingham or his duty to Parliament. But that didn’t mean she liked it. “Now that the girls are grown, perhaps I’ll come along. And bring Rowan,” she said, warming to the idea. “After all, he’s now Lord Tremayne. He should learn the ins and outs of running the estate.”

  “An excellent plan, Chrysanthemum.”

  Joseph’s eyes were closing, as was wont to happen after loving exertion. And, as usual, her own body felt alive, her brain wide awake. She’d never figured out what made them so different.

  “I’ll have to leave again, though,” she said mournfully. “Soon.”

  He snuggled against her. “Hmm?”

  “Rose is so close to making the right decision. Another few days at court ought to convince her there’s no one there meant to share her life.”

  “Mmm.” He threw a leg over hers, its weight warm and welcome.

  “I’m quite disappointed, though, that she hasn’t found a moment here to go off with Kit. It seems they both believe I invited him only to settle the details for your greenhouse. And the house is so quiet. Do you know, I think everyone’s gone to bed. And it’s not even midnight.” She gave an expressive sigh, rubbing Joseph’s smooth, warm back. “I believe I shall have to devise a way to get Rose and Kit out of their beds and into each other’s arms, at least for a while. I imagine he’ll be leaving in the morning for Hampton Court. Perhaps we’ll wait a few days before following…give Rose some time to miss him. What do you think, darling?”

  Her husband’s answer was a soft snore. He was fast asleep.

  Oh, well. She would lie here until she came up with a plan—she was quite used to plotting these things without him. Men were dear creatures, but the vast majority of them didn’t seem to have much of an imagination.

  A few minutes later she chuckled to herself. Ah, yes, that should work—and be quite amusing in the bargain. Carefully she wiggled free from her husband and slid out of bed. She slipped back into her discarded night rail and tied a wrapper over it against the chill.

  Joseph would hardly miss her. When her mission was accomplished, she’d return and wake him his favorite way. The night was still young, and dear Joseph never minded being awakened—not by her, anyway.

  A little ripple of anticipation warmed her body as she sneaked from the chamber into the dimly lit corridor.

  The house was amazingly quiet. Rose’s room was right beyond hers, so Chrystabel tiptoed to the door and tapped her
fingernails against it—rat-a-tat-tat. Then she moved to the door of the room she’d assigned to Kit and did the same thing.

  Nothing. Rose was a heavy sleeper, and Kit must be, too. She tapped on both their doors again, then a third time. Finally, the sound of a latch sent her scurrying back to her room. Suppressing a giddy giggle, she pulled the door shut behind her—but not quite all the way.

  Her ear pressed to the slit of an opening, she heard someone pad into the corridor and knock loudly on another door.

  “Rowan!” came a harsh whisper. Then louder, “Rowan, open up!”

  It was Jewel’s voice, not Rose’s. Chrystabel sighed as she listened. Another door opened.

  “What?” Rowan demanded rather ungraciously.

  “I heard a noise.”

  “What kind of noise?” he said through a yawn.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe a ghost.”

  That idea was greeted by a snort. “There are no ghosts at Trentingham.”

  “I heard something, Rowan! Listen, will you?”

  A long spell passed where there was no sound. Of course, Chrystabel wasn’t tapping on doors.

  “It was nothing,” Rowan said at last. “Go back to bed.”

  “I’m afraid of ghosts. I cannot sleep. Will you stay with me?”

  “I cannot visit your chamber in the middle of the night. That wouldn’t be proper.” Even at the tender age of eleven, Rowan knew that.

  “What if I hear it again?”

  The boy’s sigh would have done a grown man justice. “Are you hungry?”

  Jewel seemed to consider that question a moment. “I guess I am.”

  “Maybe it was your stomach rumbling. Let’s go downstairs and find something to eat.”

  Chrystabel waited until their footfalls had proceeded down the staircase before easing open her door. It seemed neither Rose nor Kit had awakened even with Rowan and Jewel talking outside their rooms. Something louder than those benign little taps would be necessary.

  She scratched her fingernails down the front of Rose’s door, a nice, satisfying scrape as she raked down the carved linenfold design. After repeating the motion, she moved to Kit’s door and did it twice more.

  Hearing a latch again, she darted back into her room.

  “Just take a look, Rand! There must be something there. I cannot sleep with these noises!” It was Lily this time, Chrystabel realized with more than a little frustration. “Do you see anything?”

  “Nothing. Would you like to come and look for yourself?”

  “No,” Lily said. “But those sounds cannot come from nowhere.”

  “Houses settle. You told me there have been no ghosts at Trentingham in the past, and there’s no reason to believe one would suddenly arrive now. Damn, now that you’ve wakened me, I’m hungry. Shall we go downstairs and find something to eat?”

  For a brand-new son-in-law, Rand certainly felt at home here, Chrystabel thought wryly. While she waited for them to start downstairs, she looked around her chamber for something that would make more noise.

  Her silver comb ought to do it. She snatched it up and peeked out her door. All was clear.

  Drawn sideways across the wooden linenfold grooves, the comb made quite a racket. It wasn’t long at all before the click of another latch sent her to safety behind her own door.

  “There’s no such thing as ghosts,” she heard Ford say.

  She barely stifled a groan.

  A long minute or two passed while she listened to footsteps pacing up and down the corridor. Ford, the scientific one, was a much more thorough ghost-hunter than either of his brothers-in-law. “All’s clear,” she finally heard him tell Violet. “I swear it. You hungry? Let’s go downstairs and find something to eat.”

  Slumped against the door, Chrystabel pictured her oldest daughter slipping from her childhood bed and into a wrapper. Joseph snored peacefully behind her, and Rose apparently still slept in her room. Vexing girl must take after her father.

  By the time Violet and Ford clattered down the steps—being none too quiet about it—Chrystabel had decided drastic measures were in order. Leaving the comb behind, she ventured once more into the corridor.

  She paused by Rose’s door, then pushed down on the latch and opened it a smidgen. “Whooooooooo,” she called inside, a breathy, piercing whistle.

  The fourth child of five, Chrystabel had learned young how to impersonate an otherworldly creature. How better to get back at her older sisters? She could hardly have used her fists.

  “Whooooooooo,” she called twice more for good measure, then hurried to Kit’s room.

  “Whooooooooo. Whooooooooo.” She’d drawn breath for another exhalation when footsteps sounded in Rose’s room down the corridor.

  She barely made it back into the master chamber before her daughter’s door slammed open. “What was that? Who’s there?”

  Unlike her sisters, Rose didn’t sound scared. Her voice wasn’t tentative and frightened. Aggravated would better describe it.

  Rose’s footfalls paced the corridor up and halfway back before Chrystabel heard another door opening. Kit’s, thank the Lord. It had to be—his was the only occupied room left.

  “What the hell is going on out here? I thought I heard a ghost.”

  “There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Rose said peevishly.

  “Obviously,” Kit drawled, “you have never torn down an old building.”

  “Obviously,” Rose returned, “you have a lively imagination.”

  Kit only laughed. God strike her down, Chrystabel thought, if these two weren’t perfect for each other.

  No lightning bolts came down the chimney.

  “Are you hungry?” Rose asked.

  “I could eat.”

  There wasn’t a male alive who couldn’t find space for food, no matter how long since his belly was last filled. Chrystabel credited her daughter for knowing the way to a man’s heart.

  But as they made their way downstairs, her own heart sank. A jovial family midnight snack was not what she’d had in mind for Rose and Kit. And she had few, if any, chances left to arrange another meeting before her daughter wised up and figured out what was going on.

  A lot of terms could be used to describe Rose, but slow-witted wasn’t one of them. And Chrystabel knew well what would happen should her daughter discover that she and Kit were in league. The marriage would never occur.

  She shut her door and made her way back to bed to wake her husband. If he knew what was good for him, he’d better not say he was hungry.

  What she had in mind to ease her disappointment did not involve food.

  Forty-Five

  AS KIT AND ROSE approached the kitchen, they heard laughter. Boisterous, rollicking laughter.

  Kit peeked in the door to find nearly the entire Ashcroft family around a big, scarred wooden table. Pies, bread, and leftover dishes from supper littered the surface. Ale and conversation flowed.

  Deciding he wasn’t hungry, he shut the door quietly, muffling the laughter to a dull roar. “I’ve changed my mind. Let’s go for a walk instead.”

  Rose’s dark eyes looked huge in the light of the single candle she was carrying. “Outside? In my night rail in the dead of the night?”

  “It’s been unseasonably warm. I’ll wait while you get your cloak.”

  “We’ve no shoes!” she protested, making Kit look down in surprise. Suddenly he could hardly fathom that he was here in Rose Ashcroft’s home in bare feet.

  Though her night rail and dressing gown concealed her body more effectively than the current fashions—court fashions most especially—there was something undeniably intimate about the ensemble. Something that made him belt his own robe more tightly.

  “We can go upstairs and don shoes,” he suggested.

  “I think not.”

  For a moment, he thought she would open the kitchen door and join the impromptu party. It had been her idea to come down here, after all. Looking forward to some quiet time with her in this no
isy house, he’d agreed—but perhaps her interest in food surpassed her interest in him.

  Happily, in the end she didn’t disappoint him. “I have another idea,” she whispered, taking his arm to lead him away. “We can walk in my father’s orangery.”

  “Your father grows oranges?”

  “Not very successfully. That’s why he’s so keen to get that greenhouse.”

  The orangery was a long, narrow chamber that occupied the entire ground floor of the west wing. “It used to be called the Stone Gallery,” Rose told him as they entered. There were candlesticks mounted on the walls at intervals, and she lit them as she walked. “I suppose that after you build the greenhouse we’ll call it the Stone Gallery again.”

  Tall windows, dark now, lined the gallery along the west side and half of the east as well. The ceiling was intricately carved oak. Kit recognized it and the chamber as dating from Tudor times—a room the occupants would have used to take exercise in inclement weather. But now it was filled with a variety of trees and plants, all interspersed with statuary that looked like it had been brought from Italy.

  “Would you like an orange?” Rose asked laughingly, pulling a small, rather shriveled example from a scraggly branch. “Don’t worry—they don’t taste as bad as they look.”

  He peeled it as they walked, the black and white marble floor cold beneath his bare feet. “It’s quiet here,” he said.

  “Yes.” She sounded amused at the observation. “It’s not easy to find a quiet place at Trentingham, is it?”

  “You’ve a large family. But I like it,” he added, realizing suddenly that he did. “Even the noise. There’s a lot of life here. Vitality.”

  He’d felt that lack of vitality since his parents’ deaths. He’d been busy, yes—but there was a difference.

  “It’s real,” he added, tossing the peel into an empty clay pot.

  “Real?”

  He divided the little orange and handed her half. “Charles’s court, for example, is lively. But it’s forced gaiety, don’t you think? The liveliness here is real.”

  “Ah. Yes. I see,” she said thoughtfully.

  Popping the juicy, sweet fruit into his mouth, he hoped she also saw that court was a life she’d just as soon live without—because she’d have to if she married him. Even supposing he got his knighthood, he hadn’t the time to flit from one place to another at the whim of his monarch. He had his lifework to pursue.