Lady Louisa's Christmas Knight

by Grace Burrowes

  “That is enough to keep a man diligently at his paperwork for the entire Yule season.” Westhaven’s smile was a slow, naughty grin.

  Not a sprig, not a branch, but a sheaf of mistletoe rife with white berries dangled from the lamp.

  Valentine regarded his brother, who was looking pleased and serene at the vast desk. “There’s just as much hanging over your entry hall, a good deal gracing your library, and I’ve no doubt the kitchen rafters are hard to spot for the bundles and bales of mistletoe hanging all about.”

  “Anna likes a cheerful staff.”

  “I like a cheerful sister,” Val said, returning to the purpose for their gathering. “Could Victor have destroyed some copies before we got involved?”

  St. Just’s smile disappeared. “He would have told us, or he would have told Louisa, at least. If Westhaven says there are twenty-seven copies still to locate, then twenty-seven copies we shall find.”

  “Valentine has a point.” Westhaven rose from his desk to answer a tap on the door then admitted his wife bearing a tray.

  “Sing ye wassail, gentlemen. You look like you’re dealing with matters far weightier than the season permits.”

  Val and St. Just watched while Westhaven, in an exercise of the patience for which he was legendary, waited for Anna to put her tray down on the desk before he pounced.

  “Happy Christmas, Countess.”

  The kiss was long, thorough, and so lacking in decorum, Val met St. Just’s gaze rather than gawk for its duration. There was humor in St. Just’s eyes, and also something else—approval or relief. Whatever the sentiment, Valentine shared it: Westhaven deserved his happiness, even if it meant his brothers had to endure unseemly displays as a result.

  Though Anna’s smile suggested she hadn’t regarded Westhaven’s behavior as unseemly at all.

  “Christmas is still a few days off,” Val noted to no one in particular. “I think you’re going to have to cut more mistletoe.” He reached up and plucked a berry from the bouquet then pitched it in the fire.

  “We’ve plenty,” Anna said, eyes dancing. “Drink your toddies, you lot. Whatever you’re dealing with, the fortification can’t hurt. Westhaven, will you be visiting the nursery as usual?”

  Westhaven accepted a mug from his wife’s tray. “Gentlemen, is anybody up for a game of skittles?”

  “I can still beat you both,” Val said. “Somebody has got to show the lad how it’s done.”

  Anna brought a drink to St. Just and another one to Val, murmuring a quiet “thank you” and kissing Val’s cheek as she did.

  When she’d taken her leave, her husband’s gaze fixed shamelessly to her retreating form, St. Just spoke. “Your countess always smells like a spring garden, Westhaven. There’s warmth in the scent of her.”

  “Honeysuckle,” Westhaven said, looking besotted.

  “Which is lovely,” Val allowed, “but what do we do about twenty-seven missing books, and given that Louisa has a husband now, and a rather capable fellow at that, isn’t this more properly his quest?”

  The besotted look vanished from Westhaven’s face to be replaced by a more familiar stern expression. “She’s our sister, Victor charged us with this task, and something tells me Carrington and Louisa will have their hands full without adding this problem to their adjustment as newlyweds.”

  Val and St. Just exchanged another glance, one that confirmed they’d both heard the undercurrent in Westhaven’s tone.

  “Enough coyness, Westhaven.” St. Just settled into a chair before the desk. Val took an arm of the couch. “What do you know that you’ve been keeping under your hat, and how can we help?”

  Westhaven slid into the seat behind the desk and looked from Val to St. Just, then up at the mistletoe hanging over his desk. He studied the kissing bough while he spoke. “Carrington owns a property not far from here. A pretty place in excellent repair with some nice acres. I’ve had occasion to make a discreet call when Sir Joseph was not in residence. You would not believe what I found.”

  ***

  A husband who was not shocked at a lady’s grasp of certain French philosophers, a husband whose lips turned up in the sweetest smile when he ought to be shocked, was a worthy husband indeed.

  As a father to his small daughters, however, Joseph Carrington seemed slightly at a loss.

  Louisa came to this conclusion the moment she was introduced to her daughters, or rather, the moment when she should not have been introduced to her daughters. As Joseph’s offspring, Amanda and Fleur ought not to have been made to stand outside, their little faces pinched with cold while they waited among the servants to welcome the new lady of the house to her abode.

  “And whom might we have here, Sir Joseph?” Louisa went down on her haunches in the snow. “A pair of your prettiest maids, perhaps?”

  “Fleur and Amanda, make your curtsies.” He rapped it out like an order. “You do not want to keep your stepmama out here in this chill when dirty weather threatens.”

  They bobbed identical curtsies, and even those gestures looked cold to Louisa.

  “Greet your father.” That command was issued by a stern-faced nanny, one whose chest preceded her like the bow of a black-clad ship.

  “Good day, Papa.” Two more curtsies, two pairs of eyes trained on Joseph with something like trepidation.

  “What lovely manners,” Louisa said, extending a hand to each child. “I’m Louisa, and I will be relying on you entirely as the ladies of this house to show me where everything is. Come along, and I’m sure your father will arrange some hot chocolate to help us warm up.”

  The nanny drew in a breath through her nose, her eyes darting to Sir Joseph. Joseph, fortunately, was regarding his daughters and could not see the appeal. “Chocolate, is it? I suppose that wouldn’t go amiss.”

  He offered his arm, but Louisa didn’t drop the hand of either child. “Chocolate and some cakes,” she said, beaming a smile at him. “I do adore cakes.”

  “So do I,” said the younger child, just as her sister hissed her name in warning.

  “You do not address adults unless spoken to,” the nanny interjected, great cargoes of disapproval in her reminder.

  Louisa turned, offering a smile intended as a different kind of warning. “I’m sure your admonition is well intended, miss, but our daughters are meeting their stepmother for the first time. This is not an occasion for strict discipline.” For good measure, Louisa hoisted Fleur to her hip then grabbed Amanda’s hand again. Louisa moved off, hoping Joseph would fall in step rather than placate the damned nanny.

  Without looking back, Louisa sailed on toward the house. The uneven crunch of footsteps in the snow told her Joseph was indeed joining the progress of his womenfolk.

  “What’s a stepmama?” Fleur asked in the too-loud undertones of a curious child. In the next moment, she was plucked from Louisa’s grasp and tucked onto her father’s back.

  “A stepmother,” Joseph said, “is your father’s new wife. Lady Louisa will be living with us now unless you two drive her off with your wild behavior.”

  He sounded convincingly serious about the possibility. Fleur’s downy little brows knit, while Amanda remained silently clutching Louisa’s hand.

  “I like the occasional bit of wild behavior,” Louisa informed the company. “And nothing and no one will drive me off. Depend upon that.”

  Joseph said nothing, though his lips quirked in the hint of a smile. He remained quiet when they gained the library, and other than barking at his daughters not to spill their chocolate, he tolerated twenty minutes of their company over tea, sandwiches, and slices of apple.

  “Having seen that you’ve both grown more than is decent, and having introduced you to your stepmama, you will now take yourselves off to the upper reaches, please.”

  Joseph was polite with his daughters, true enough, but it wasn’t the same kind of mannerliness he showed Louisa.

  “I’ll take them.” Louisa rose and had two little hands grasping her fingers
before the words were out. “And then, Husband, perhaps you’d be willing to show me some of the house?”

  He nodded and said nothing while Louisa took the children from his company.

  “I’m glad Papa’s back,” Amanda said. “Did you make him come back, Stepmama?”

  “Nobody makes your father do anything he doesn’t like. It’s one of the privileges of being a grown-up.” In theory.

  “We make him punish us,” Fleur said. “It’s wicked of us.”

  “But not very often,” Amanda added. She dragged on Louisa’s hand as they approached the stairs. “Not very often at all.”

  “That’s not so,” Fleur retorted. “The whole time Papa was gone, we had to be punished. Bread and water is punishment, Manda. It is. And we had to do all that kneeling, and no fire, and why should I hush?”

  Amanda stopped gesturing frantically with her finger to her lips and turned miserable eyes up to Louisa. “We’re not bad. We’re not.”

  What on earth? The first step to solving any puzzle was to gather as much information as possible about the problem. Louisa stopped on the top step, turned, and sat. “Come here, the both of you. Tell me how it is when your papa’s not here.”

  She wrapped an arm around each child and listened. She listened for a long time then took them to the nursery. There, she ordered that the fire be built up and kept roaring, that the children’s menus be sent to her in the next hour, and that their lesson plans be made available to her by nine of the clock the following morning. She also warned the nursery maid that she’d be tucking her daughters in each night and likely stopping by frequently during the day, as well.

  She’d be inspecting their wardrobes, taking them out for regular doses of fresh air, and inviting the children to the occasional tea below stairs. Breakfast or luncheon at the family table was not out of the question, and—Louisa glanced around the nursery, which bore a faint coal-smoke odor—Sir Joseph would be consulted about regular audiences for their daughters in the family parlor after tea.

  While the maid’s eyes bugged rounder and rounder, Louisa felt a pang of homesickness for her parents and siblings. They’d each have an appropriate curse to rain down on the blasted nanny. The old besom should have been protecting Sir Joseph’s esteem in his daughters’ eyes, not eroding it.

  Her Grace’s set down would be the most telling. Something dignified, understated, and knife-edged with gracious disdain.

  Louisa kept that example in mind and went in search of her husband.

  ***

  A woman’s reticule was a mysterious thing, alike unto Aladdin’s Cave of Wonders. Joseph’s first awareness of this phenomenon had come to him as a small boy who could count on his mother to produce anything from a handkerchief to a spinning top to a shiny red apple from the depths of her various purses and pockets.

  The aunts-by-marriage who’d taken over his upbringing had continued the tradition, though their treasures were more likely to be books, chocolates, or flowery sachets that imparted curious flavors to the chocolates.

  And Louisa’s reticule proved no less fascinating.

  He’d drawn the thing open in search of a lowly pencil. Following that impulse hadn’t struck him as a violation of her privacy. Rather, it had been a means to make a correction in the ledger open before him on the estate desk.

  And he had not read his wife amiss, for she had two pencils lurking in the bottom of her purse, but a man had to dig past a hairbrush and comb—why carry both?—three books of very good erotic verse—why carry three copies of the same volume?—two handkerchiefs, one wildly embroidered, the other simply monogrammed—one for show, one for utility?—a packet of letters bound with red ribbon—did the red ribbon signify old love letters?—an unpeeled orange, and his former best flask.

  Joseph opened the flask and, by olfactory divination, concluded it contained his private blend of hazelnut liqueur and rum, which might make an interesting complement to the orange, should a lady become peckish.

  Or perhaps, given the brew she carried, these last provisions were stowed not for herself but for her husband.

  Joseph restored the contents to the reticule, including both pencils. The idea of Louisa carrying supplies for him put his rummaging in a different and less attractive light, so when Louisa rejoined him in the library, he was ensconced at his estate desk, whittling a point onto a pencil taken from his desk.

  “They tried to take you prisoner, didn’t they?” He rose, dumped the pencil shavings behind the fire screen, and peered at his wife. “They are like barnacles, wanting stories and tales and conversation. When they’re a little older, there are boarding schools that will take them.”

  The idea made him ill, but the words could not be unsaid, and Louisa was regarding him very intently.

  “Boarding school might not be a bad idea.”

  His heart sank. In his chest, it felt like the organ physically lurched south several inches, constricting his lungs and upsetting his digestive processes as well as his breathing.

  “When the time comes, we’ll discuss it with Miss Hodges.”

  “No, we shall not.”

  Louisa’s spine had become militarily straight. The unease in Joseph’s chest spread to the sort of physical sensation a soldier recognized as battle readiness—mostly dread and a little hope that a man could acquit himself honorably in the coming affray.

  “You do not regard the governess’s opinion as worth consulting? Louisa, Miss Hodges was Cynthia’s choice for the nursery, and both Fleur and Amanda are receiving an excellent education as a result.”

  His wife wheeled away from him, which only increased his unease. They were apparently to have a difference of opinion, and he wanted to be able to see her eyes when they did. Louisa wouldn’t lie to him, but her eyes would give him truths her lips might not.

  “Your daughters are slight, Joseph.”

  “They are little girls.” Though he had wondered if they were littler than other girls their age. He handled them carefully because of it. For the same reason, he stopped by the nursery to watch them sleep.

  “They are subsisting on bread and water, did you know that?”

  “Bread and water?”

  “Bread, water, and the kindness of the kitchen staff, who likely know very well your children are forced to raid the larder after hours to keep body and soul together.”

  “My children are not starving, Louisa Carrington.” He spoke more sharply than he’d intended, but Louisa’s accusations were preposterous. “You saw them. They are hale and lively. I have no doubt their high spirits lead to the occasional exercise in discipline, and bread and water is a time-honored means of enforcing same.”

  “For days? For two straight weeks? What infraction could those two little girls commit that merits such severe retaliation?”

  Weeks? “They have not been subjected to weeks of bread and water. You have allowed them to tell you a tale designed to gain your sympathy, nothing more. One can excuse their scheming, because they are young, but one certainly isn’t going to encourage it.”

  She whirled around to face him, and for an instant, Joseph thought she might be getting ready to raise her voice to him. Were the subject under discussion not so disquieting, he’d almost enjoy seeing his wife in high dudgeon.

  Louisa crossed her arms. “Summon the undercook.”

  He sauntered close enough to see the gold flecks in her green eyes. “Isn’t the cook typically queen of the entire kitchen? If you’re going to ask for an inventory of the larders, her word might be the most reliable.”

  His wife took a step closer, glaring up at him. “The cook, the butler, and the housekeeper run your household, Sir Joseph, particularly in the absence of a house steward. The governess ranks comparably but has no staff, so her power is limited to the nursery, though the nursery maids technically answer to the housekeeper. Some governesses dine with the family, go on holiday with the family, and are otherwise informally elevated over other staff.”

  “What
has this to do with a pair of little girls who are occasionally badly behaved?”

  Louisa closed her eyes, as if summoning her last reserves of civility. “The cook will not cross the governess, not unless she wants to start a war. If the governess takes the cook into dislike, dishes will be sent back from the nursery repeatedly as unsuitable or poorly prepared. When the children sicken, as they inevitably do, the poor food will be blamed. Nothing will arrive from the kitchen quickly enough above stairs, and at meals, the governess will make a great show of being unable to stomach what’s on her plate.”

  He could not entirely dismiss these odd predictions, because an army camp operated with the same sense of an invisible hierarchy enforced with unlikely and subtle weapons. Wellington had had no patience for it but had respected the reality of camp politics nonetheless.

  “Go on.”

  “If we interrogate a scullery maid, the cook might well turn the girl off or make her life hell for starting trouble with the governess, but the undercook is a different matter. She’s the cook’s replacement, for one thing, and it’s understood she cannot lie to us and keep her position.”

  Louisa whipped away again. “If you don’t send for the undercook, Joseph, I will make an inspection of the kitchen myself and ask some very difficult questions of the entire staff. You cannot stop me unless you tie me to a chair, or—”

  “Louisa Carrington, come here.” Her head came up at the imperious note in his voice. “Allow me to rephrase that: Dearest Wife, would you let me hold you?”

  He held out his arms, willing her to accept his embrace. Her first steps were tentative, but he held her gaze and waited until she was bundled against his chest.

  “I want to shout at you, Joseph. I am very like my father in this.”

  “Go ahead and shout. I think better when I’m holding you. Perhaps you think better when you shout.”

  She heaved a mighty sigh, a sigh of relief, he hoped. He was certainly relieved to have her in his arms.

  “Please don’t be angry with me, Joseph. When I am like this, when I can see problems and solutions others can’t, it makes other people angry. I realize that it’s not enough to identify the difficulties and know what must be done. One must convey the proper course to those who have the problem, so they might see the way as if they had discovered it themselves. Jenny explained this to me, but I lack the ability to accomplish her ends, try though I might.”