A Christmas Bride for the Duke: Clean Regency Romance (The Nettlefold Chronicles Book 4)

by Arietta Richmond

  The glancing collision with his horse had shocked her, and left her a little stunned at first, but it had not truly hurt her. What had turned her legs to jelly was his kiss. He had kissed her! She closed her eyes for a moment, savouring the memory of it.

  Other men had stolen the occasional kiss from her, during the Season, but those, by comparison, had been pathetic and lacking expertise – not that she had known that at the time. Now she did. She was as shocked at her own reaction as at the fact that he had dared to take such a liberty with her. For she had, after the first moment of startlement, reciprocated that kiss. There had been something about it, something so beguiling in the sensation of his tongue tracing her lips, and probing her mouth, that she had not been able to stop herself.

  She had not, before today, thought herself a wanton. But perhaps she was.

  Footsteps approached, and she pushed herself up to stand firmly, then turned towards the door. The maid spied her in the shadowy stable, and started, then smiled.

  “Good morning my Lady. I hope that you did not get caught in that rain! I’ve just slipped out to see those kittens again, before I start the next lot of morning chores. They are so very tiny, and so soft!”

  “They are, aren’t they, Molly? But you won’t find them in the end stall anymore, I’m afraid. When I came in earlier, the mother cat was just taking the last of them up into the hayloft. I suspect that, with all of the guests here, it was too busy down here for her to be comfortable with it.”

  “Oh! Thank you for telling me. I’ll just climb up there then, and have a quick look before I go back inside.”

  Eleanor nodded, and watched as the girl went to the ladder and began to climb, her eyes fixed carefully on the slats as she climbed them. Above her, in the deep shadow of the hayloft, there was a movement – or at least Eleanor thought there was, for when she looked closely, there was nothing there. But she was sure she’d seen, out of the corner of her eye, a face peering down, just for a second. She shook her head – it was probably her imagination – she was still rather shaken after the events of the last half hour, after all.

  She turned, and went back out into the day, hurrying across the sodden gravel to the house. As she went, she wondered if His Grace had managed to slip out of the other end of the stable wings, or if he was still in there. It was none of her business either way, she sternly reminded herself, even if the man had kissed her.

  But the memory of that kiss brought a smile to her face – a smile which persisted well into the day, even in the face of Lady Elizabeth’s snide conversation.

  ~~~~~

  Adair had gone straight through into the other arm of the stables – which formed a U shape about a gravelled space – checked on Emperor quickly, and then continued on, to go out through the door on the far side of the block. Only once he was out, and half way to the house, did he breathe a sigh of relief. As far as he could tell, no one had seen him with Lady Eleanor – certainly no one had seen that kiss.

  Just the memory of it heated him – it had been complete madness, but he could not regret it for one moment. He reached the back of the house, and walked past the kitchen garden and the storage buildings towards the terrace. Two maids, who had been standing in the door of the closest storage building as he approached, dropped curtsies and simpered at him. He favoured them with a stern look, and went on – he needed to get to his rooms, and change out of his still half sodden attire.

  He hoped that Lady Eleanor was as unharmed as she had seemed, and that she would manage to leave the stables without anyone questioning her – but the best he could do for her was to be out of sight when she did.

  As he went upstairs, he found his mind replaying the kiss, over and over. Why had he done it? He was not normally such a fool… but she had looked so utterly tempting… and when she had responded with such sweet, innocent pleasure, he had been lost. Still was lost, he suspected. If he had the chance to kiss her again, he rather thought that he would, foolish or not. Which meant that he would have to work hard to ensure that they were not anything like alone together, for the rest of his stay here.

  He was not, no matter what the rumours said, one to despoil the innocent or ruin a woman’s reputation.

  ~~~~~

  In the stables, Molly was barely conscious of Lady Eleanor’s retreating footsteps, for the hayloft ladder was a bit more rickety than she liked – but she was determined to see the kittens. They made her feel less homesick, for her parents had always had cats about on the farm.

  She breathed a sigh of relief when she climbed off the top rung into the hay. She stood for a moment, listening, and, as she had hoped, the sound of mewing came, giving her a guide to where the kittens might be. They were not far from the open hatch the ladder ended in, and she carefully pushed through the hay until she found them. Bending down, she caressed the mother cat a little, then lifted a kitten, gently stroking its soft fur.

  She spent a few minutes with them, taking care to give all of them attention, then rose to her feet. She should be getting back to the house, or the housekeeper would be taking her to task. She turned, and had taken barely two steps back towards the ladder when a voice cut through the silence.

  “What have we here then? Looks like my luck’s in today – here’s a pretty piece, and all alone up here with me, and all this nice soft hay.”

  She spun around, a shiver of fear going through her. The voice was full of the kind of greedy arrogance that she’d heard before, in men who seemed to believe that every maid had no care for her virtue.

  The surly faced groom she’d seen about stood there, an unsavoury leer on his face. He came towards her, reaching out, and she stepped back, her instinct all about not letting him get his hands on her. He lurched forward, his grin never fading.

  “Now then, no need to run away. Let’s us just have a bit of fun while we’ve got the privacy for it…”

  “No!”

  She shook her head, and jumped back to avoid his grasp, her heart pounding with fear. He reached again, his face beginning to reflect anger, more than lust, and she barely dodged his hands. As she did, she took another step back – but her foot encountered nothing but air. The hatch! But it was too late, the force with which she had thrown herself backwards away from him carried her onwards, and she had no hope of saving herself.

  Desperately, she clutched at the edge of the hatchway, and at the rungs of the ladder which flashed past her eyes with alarming speed, all to no avail. She tumbled through the air, bouncing against the ladder as she went, twisted and spun by each impact, until she reached the ground, head first, and landed with a sickening crack.

  ~~~~~

  Baggs stared at the empty space where, moments before, that lush little maid had been. A crack sounded, sharp and unpleasant. He edged forward, and looked down. She lay in a heap at the bottom of the ladder, her neck at an impossible angle.

  His mouth went dry, and his heart thundered with fear. Was she…?

  Carefully, he climbed down the ladder, which creaked alarmingly as he did, apparently damaged by her colliding with it as she fell. By the time he stepped off the bottom rung, he was shaking like a leaf in the wind.

  He bent, and touched careful fingers to her wrist. No pulse beat beneath his fingers. He held his hand before her nose and mouth – no soft breeze of breath touched them.

  She was undoubtedly dead. Terror filled him. If anyone found him here… he would be blamed, could be had up for murder…

  He rose to his feet and fled, grateful that there was no one else about in this wing of the stables. He ran through, past the tack room door, into the connecting part where the coach house was, and to his master’s carriage. If he set about cleaning and polishing it, he could claim to have been there all morning – who could prove otherwise?

  Time passed, and the simple ritual of polishing calmed him, the lack of any scream or sound from the other part of the stables, and the absence of any other person, contributed to making him believe that he was safe –
that no one could know that he had been anywhere near the hayloft when she fell. He’d have to stay here, polishing and cleaning, until someone found her, if he wanted to be truly safe. He set about it steadily, but, more than anything else, right then he wished for a bottle of gin, and the chance to drink himself blind.

  ~~~~~

  In the tack room, a stableboy sat oiling bridles. The winter was hard on the leather, and without regular oiling it would crack. Jimmy was not entirely happy about the seemingly endless task, but he supposed it was better than mucking out stalls. As he finished one bridle, and went to hang it back on its hook and take down the next one, the sound of hurrying steps made him glance out the door.

  A man almost ran past, his face white. Idly, Jimmy wondered what had the fellow in such a state – and, with the unthinking nastiness which children were so often capable of, decided that whatever it was, the man deserved it – the fellow was unremittingly surly, and prone to smacking the stableboys out of his way.

  He went back to his seat, laid the bridle over the crate in front of him, and dipped the rag into the tub of oil beside him. There were only another twenty to go – it shouldn’t take all that long, really…

  Chapter Five

  Mr Carter, the Stablemaster, stuck his head around the door just as Jimmy hung the last of the bridles back on its hook.

  “Good, you’re done – perfect timing. You can go up into the hayloft and toss down a few bundles of hay for me – the giant of a horse that belongs to His Grace of Braeness eats twice as much as most! You climb up and start tossing it down, whilst I fetch the barrow.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Jimmy went out the door of the tack room, and along the aisle between the stalls, whistling as he went. But when he got to the point where he could see past the stall walls to the base of the ladder, the whistle cut off short. He stared for a moment, barely believing what he was seeing. Then his mind caught up with the truth of it, and he screamed. Moments later, Mr Carter, having abandoned the barrow halfway along the aisle, stood at his side.

  “Oh my! This is not good, not good at all! Jimmy, go and fetch Mr Warton, tell him I said its very important.”

  Jimmy ran off, his face white as the snow outside. Within minutes, he was back, with the Butler puffing in his wake. It was a testament to the quality of the staff of Kilmerstan Castle that the butler had taken the boy at his word.

  “Mr Carter, what is it that is so impor…. Oh!”

  “Yes. We found her like this, only a few minutes ago. I wanted you here before anyone touched her. Or should we call His Grace as well?”

  “We should. The Duke will want to see this, before anything is disturbed. I will go to him now.”

  Warton’s face was pale, but he carried himself with his usual dignity as he hurried back to the house.

  ~~~~~

  Eleanor was sitting in the parlour, taking tea and cakes with her sister and a number of the other guests. Her parents were still abed, taking advantage of this time away from home to be more indolent than usual. The Duke of Kilmerstan sat beside Juliana, and Eleanor watched as they smiled at each other, the strength of their love obvious in both faces. Would she ever have a man look at her like that?

  That question prompted her mind to throw up an image of the Duke of Braeness, looking as he had looked, just before he’d kissed her. She felt her cheeks heat, and looked down at the cake on her plate. She would be a fool to believe that one kiss meant anything serious. She had, after all, been kissed before, and nothing had come of it.

  But those previous kisses had been nothing like…

  Her eyes went to where Braeness sat, on the other side of the room, talking quietly with the Duke of Dangerfield, whose wife was Garrett’s sister, Isabelle. He looked so large, and so rough edged, despite his perfect attire. There was just something about him… one moment she found him near frightening, the next, something far more confusing…

  Her musing was interrupted when Warton appeared beside them, his face very pale, and his manner, for Warton, actually agitated.

  “Your Grace… I must apologise for interrupting your day, but… something terrible has occurred. If you could come to the stables…”

  Garrett looked at his butler and raised an eyebrow. Warton was not prone to exaggeration.

  “Something terrible?”

  “Yes, Your Grace… I… it would be better not to discuss it in a room full of people, Your Grace.”

  Garrett rose, a frown marring his features.

  “As you wish.”

  He followed the butler out of the room. Around them, everyone suddenly turned back to their tea, cakes, and conversation, all obviously attempting to look like they had not been eavesdropping on the rather dramatic exchange. But it was equally obvious that what they were all talking about now was the strange event, regardless of what they had been discussing before. Juliana looked worried, but ignored the whispers around her. Eleanor found that harder to do.

  “What do you think…?”

  “I don’t know. But Warton is normally unshakeable, so it must be something most unusual. Its best that we just wait, and see what happens. For whatever we do, all of the people around us will watch every move we make.”

  “You’re right. Which does not make waiting, without knowing, any easier.”

  “No, it doesn’t. I am going to send for fresh tea. I have the feeling that we’ll need it.”

  Juliana set down her cup, and went to the footman who waited near the door, giving instructions for more tea, and more food, to be brought. Eleanor forced herself to simply sit still, and eat the food she already had, but all the while her mind was filled with speculation – what things could happen in a stable, which could be described as terrible?

  The fresh tea arrived, and Eleanor managed to talk to Juliana about the decorations for the ballroom, for the Christmas Eve Ball to be held whilst all of the guests were still present. Garrett and Juliana had decided to make the Ball a new tradition, and were determined to make it wonderful. Just as Eleanor was beginning to worry deeply, for Garrett had still not returned, there was a scream from the hallway, not far from the parlour door, by the sound of it.

  Everyone in the parlour froze in place.

  The scream was repeated, and then replaced by incoherent weeping noises.

  Juliana rose, and with a calm that Eleanor envied, went out into the hall.

  It was as if her moving had freed everyone else from a spell – they all stood, and rushed to the door. Eleanor found herself buffeted and carried along like a leaf on a torrent. As people poured out into the hall, she felt a strong hand take her elbow, protecting her a little from the surge of people around her, and steadying her. She knew that hand, knew its size and warmth, even before she looked up into deep forest green eyes.

  “Thank you.”

  He gave her the tiniest bow in place, and released her, making sure that his physical size protected her, and they stepped through the crowd just in time to see Warton opening the door of the far smaller parlour opposite, so that two grooms could carry through a… a bier – a bier on which rested what was obviously a body, for its face was covered by a cloth.

  The wailing was coming from two of the housemaids, who had collapsed against the wall. And Eleanor understood why. For she recognised the dress on that, oh so still, form. The girl on the bier was Molly, the cheerful maid who loved kittens, who Eleanor had seen, alive and well, only a few hours earlier, in the stables.

  She did not realise that she had wavered in place, until that warm hand came to support her again. Everything seemed grey for a moment, as if she might faint. She never fainted! But to see death come to someone she had so recently spoken to… Eleanor turned her face away from the dreadful scene, even as the voices around her began, full of questions and uncertainty. Those voices were full of the relish for scandal which characterised the gossips of the ton, and it made her feel physically ill. She kept her eyes fixed on the burgundy on black embroidery of the perfectly tail
ored waistcoat in front of her.

  “Lady Eleanor…” his voice came to her as if through a tunnel from some distance, “are you well? You look especially pale and you are shaking…”

  She continued to focus on his waistcoat, unable to find the words she needed. He waited, his hand still on her elbow, and she clung to that sensation of warmth as an anchor in the storm of feelings which rushed through her. Eventually, she managed to lift her eyes to his again.

  “Your Grace, the girl they just carried in… her name is… was… Molly. I saw her, in the stables this morning, just after you…”

  Her voice was barely above a whisper, but she could tell that he’d heard every word, for his face showed a moment of shock, and then tightened to impassivity. He gave a nod. Neither of them said anything more.

  The door of the small parlour closed behind the sad procession, and Garrett turned to the watching crowd of his guests.

  “Please, go back into the parlour, be seated, and I will tell you what I know.”

  He herded them all back in, even as they whispered amongst themselves. Juliana had gone to the two wailing housemaids, who must, Eleanor assumed, have been friends of Molly’s, and was encouraging them to their feet. Once she had sent a footman for the housekeeper, to take them in hand, she followed everyone back into the parlour.

  Once everyone had settled, Garrett shut the door, and stayed standing in front of it. As he waited for people to quiet, Eleanor watched them all.

  The room felt full of suspicion, as people glanced at others, unsure who might have done what, or why. Once silence had fallen, Garrett spoke.

  “I will be blunt, and to the point. Our house party has been touched by tragedy, and at this point, we know very little about how, or why, this has happened. An hour ago, in the stables, the body of one of our housemaids was discovered.”

  The room erupted into whispers and muttering. After a moment, a gentleman spoke up.

  “How did she die?”