’Twas the Night After Christmas

by Sabrina Jeffries

  “What can I help you with, sir?” he asked.

  Pierce found it easier than he expected to lay out what he wanted from Manton. With Sir Jackson he might have been less forthcoming, since the man was now related indirectly to Pierce’s cousins.

  But Manton, with his efficient manner and thorough questions, put him at ease.

  When Manton had finished asking everything he needed to know, he said, “So you want me to find out what I can about this Mr. Gilchrist and the rest of your mother’s family, especially her relationships with all of them. Is that correct?”

  “Yes. And I’ll pay you whatever it costs to have it done quickly. Preferably before Christmas.”

  The man started. “That is quick. Today is Thursday, and Christmas is next Monday.”

  “I realize that.” But he couldn’t bear the idea of returning to Montcliff without knowing the truth. Nor could he bear spending Christmas with the Waverlys without knowing the truth. It felt important to know it as soon as possible. “Do your best. It should help that all of Mother’s relations live in London.”

  “Yes. Little Britain, though a shabby community, isn’t that big. And I know a tavern owner on Aldersgate Street, near where your mother used to live.”

  It dawned on Pierce that the man hadn’t taken any notes during their entire interview. “You remembered all that without writing it down?”

  Manton nodded. “I never write anything down. I remember everything I hear, word for word.”

  “That’s quite a talent.”

  “It comes in handy. But it can be a damned nuisance sometimes, too—all that information buzzing around in my head when I want to sleep.”

  “I can imagine.”

  Manton stood. “Well, then, if that is all, you’ll be hearing from me soon.”

  Pierce stood, too, and held out his hand. “Thank you. I know it’s not the most interesting of cases, but—”

  “Actually,” Manton said as he shook Pierce’s hand, “this should be a nice change of pace. I spend most of my time looking into the backgrounds of prospective applicants for various posts, confirming their former places of employment, their birth records, and such. Much less interesting work.”

  Pierce stared at him. “Do you ever investigate a foundling’s parentage, something of that nature?”

  “No, but I could, if I had enough information to begin.”

  “Then I believe I have a second case for you. You see, my mother’s companion . . . ”

  As he filled Manton in on the details of Camilla’s background, he told himself he was only doing it for her sake. He wanted to help her, to give her some knowledge of the family she’d lost.

  It had nothing to do with his own curiosity about her past. Nothing to do with wanting to be prepared for whatever surprises might lie in wait for him if he happened to marry her.

  Marry her?

  Ridiculous notion. He had no intention of marrying anyone. Marriage was for men who intended to bear heirs.

  It’s the only way to strike back at her for what she did. If you don’t marry and don’t have children, then she has no grandchildren to look after her in her old age.

  He groaned. Camilla was right. And he no longer wanted to strike back at his mother. Not that way, in any case.

  But did he want to marry? Did he want to risk giving up the hard-won measure of control he’d gained over his life? That was the crucial question. And he just didn’t know the answer.

  One thing was certain—Camilla would never agree to anything less than marriage. And he began to think that life without her might be worse than life as a married man.

  • • •

  The morning after Pierce left, Camilla wandered about in a fog. Her ladyship slept very late after their long night, and Jasper did, too, but Camilla couldn’t. She kept replaying in her mind everything she’d said to Pierce. Should she have tried harder to keep him here? Said something different?

  But what could she have said? He was too damaged by the past to be reasoned with. How was she supposed to break through that?

  Now the three of them sat in the drawing room, along with Maisie. It was early afternoon. Jasper was gilding almonds under Camilla’s supervision as Maisie and her ladyship made paper cutouts of reindeer for the Christmas tree.

  Though neither Camilla nor her ladyship felt like preparing for Christmas, they had to. Jasper was looking forward to it, and they needed something to keep their hands and minds occupied. Otherwise, they would both fall into a gloom from which neither was liable to emerge anytime soon.

  One of the footmen appeared in the doorway. “Mrs. Stuart, there’s a Mr. Whitley here to see you. He asked for his lordship, but when I said that my lord had gone to London, he said he would speak with you.”

  “Who is Mr. Whitley?” her ladyship asked.

  “I don’t know. The name does sound familiar, though.” Camilla frowned in thought. “Wait, that was the name of the horse trader from the fair. What would he be wanting with me?”

  “I don’t know,” Lady Devonmont said, “but we should definitely find out. Do send him in.”

  The footman looked uncomfortable. “He asked that I have Mrs. Stuart come into the garden, my lady.”

  “This grows more curious by the moment,” the countess said. “Come, Camilla, let’s go find out what this is all about.”

  “I want to go!” Jasper cried, always eager to be outside.

  So all four of them followed the footman out into the garden, where Mr. Whitley stood waiting for them in a fine suit.

  And he had the Shetland pony with him.

  “Chocolate!” Jasper cried as he raced over to the pony.

  “Good day, madam,” Mr. Whitley said, smiling. “I brought the pony over just as his lordship asked.”

  Camilla paled. “I believe there’s been some mistake.”

  “No mistake. The earl said it was a Christmas present for the lad. Told me to see Mr. Fowler about payment today, and I did. It’s already paid for.”

  “Oh, but—”

  “Just take it,” Lady Devonmont said in a low voice. “If it worries you, I’ll pay for it.” She squeezed Camilla’s arm. “It’s worth it to see the boy so happy.”

  Jasper was petting Chocolate and talking to him nonstop, and the pony was enduring it all with what Camilla thought was a great deal of patience.

  “I’ll fetch a groom for him,” the footman said, and hurried off.

  “Well, then, I wish you joy of him,” Mr. Whitley said with a tug of his forelock to her ladyship. Then he left.

  “I had no idea,” Camilla said. “It seems wrong to accept such an extravagant gift, especially now, given what has happened between me and Pierce.”

  Her ladyship told Maisie to go keep an eye on Jasper, then said to Camilla in a low voice, “I think perhaps my son feels more deeply for you than he can admit.”

  “Because he bought Jasper a pony?” Camilla said skeptically. “It’s just part of his campaign to make me his mistress.”

  “I don’t think so. In all the time he’s been taking mistresses, he’s never been involved with anyone who had a child. The women have all been cold, glittering females flitting from protector to protector, not your sort at all.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything. I just happened to be handy.”

  The countess shook her head. “I saw how he looked at you last night. It’s not the way a man looks at a conquest.” She drew in a deep breath. “I think you should go talk to him in London.”

  Camilla gazed into the woman’s face. “There’s no point. Not unless you come with me and tell him what he needs to know. Until he can put the past behind him, he can’t go on, and he’s never going to do that as long as you don’t set things right.”

  Her ladyship was quiet a long moment. “What if it didn’t set things right?” she finally said. “What if it made them worse?”

  “How can they possibly be worse than they are now?”

  “He could still come back here,�
� the countess said, worrying her lower lip with her teeth. “He might relent in his anger, especially for you.”

  Camilla shook her head. “I don’t think so. I think he’s had enough.” She tucked her arm in the countess’s. “At least tell me. Then I can judge how he would take it.”

  Lady Devonmont stiffened. “You’ll despise me.”

  “He told me what you said to him that day in the study, and I’m still here, aren’t I?” Camilla’s tone was gentle. “I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Because unlike him, I can see beyond the past to how much you love him.”

  Tears started in the countess’s eyes. “All right. I’ll tell you what happened.”

  24

  Pierce kept as busy as he could during the next couple of days, while he waited to hear from Manton. The night after he’d met with the man, Pierce went to his club, but he kept running into men who unwittingly reminded him exactly how much of an arse he’d been for the past several years.

  Everyone had heard of his break with Eugenia, so they were eager to find out who his next mistress would be. Was he considering the French opera singer Minette, with the fine tits? Or Nelly Banks, whose low beginnings were matched only by her astounding ability in bed?

  For the first time, their coarse remarks annoyed him, especially in light of the fact that he’d meant to bring Camilla to London as his mistress. No wonder she’d refused. Even without moving in his circles, she’d known what it would mean for her and, by extension, for Jasper. And she had too much integrity to want the boy sullied by such slurs.

  It began to shame him that he’d even considered it.

  After spending the next day with his secretary, going over the previous week’s correspondence, Pierce attended an afternoon performance of the opera, but his heart wasn’t in it. He kept comparing the voices of the female singers to Camilla’s, and all of them came up wanting.

  Worse yet, in the theater lobby he ran into Eugenia. She’d already found a protector, whom she paraded in front of Pierce in what appeared to be an attempt to make him jealous.

  He felt nothing, even when she and her new gentleman friend paused to talk to him for several minutes. Hard to believe that he’d ever been enamored of her. Now she seemed brittle as ice, her sophistication like a table that had been lacquered so many times, one could no longer see the luster of the wood.

  But watching her try to rouse a response in him did remind Pierce that with him gone, Camilla was now free to take up with any damned chap near Montcliff who fancied her, especially since there was no longer any need for secrecy about Jasper. She could find a respectable husband, a farmer or a shopkeeper—or even the handsome new doctor in Stocking Pelham.

  That thought succeeded in rousing his jealousy. Indeed, the idea of a horde of country doctors beating down Camilla’s door so annoyed him that when the opera was over, he chose to walk home rather than ride in his carriage, hoping that the biting cold and brisk walk would clear his head.

  But it merely lowered his spirits further. Since it was the night before Christmas Eve, the city had taken on a festive air. Mince pies were displayed in all the bakery windows, mistletoe was hung wherever young people congregated, and carts had begun to enter the city laden with evergreens and the occasional tree. Apparently the custom Mother had followed for so many years was beginning to catch on.

  Were Mother and Camilla preparing their tree? Were they even now hanging evergreens on the mantel and winding them up the banisters? Jasper must be beside himself with excitement over the impending holiday.

  Pierce missed the boy. No, he missed them all, every damned one of them—Mother and Maisie and Fowler. He even missed Cook, with her no-nonsense meals of beef and onions.

  Most of all, he missed Camilla. And the ache of missing her, which he’d thought would diminish over time, only got stronger with each day.

  He was so lost in thought that he didn’t hear the voice hailing him from the street until a phaeton practically ran him down. It was his cousin Virginia’s husband, Lord Gabriel Sharpe. Only Sharpe would drive an open phaeton in the middle of damned winter.

  “What the devil are you doing here?” Pierce asked as Sharpe offered him a hand up into the phaeton.

  “Looking for you.” Sharpe turned the phaeton and started back for Pierce’s town house. “I’d been waiting at your not-so-humble abode, but when your carriage came back without you, I gave up and headed for home. Then, as luck would have it, I spotted you on the street.” Sharpe slanted a glance at him. “Good thing I did. You were so distracted, I daresay you would have gotten yourself run over.”

  “The only person I was in danger from was you,” he grumbled. “Why were you waiting for me, anyway?”

  “My wife sent me, what else? You know Virginia. When she didn’t hear from you about whether you were coming to Waverly Farm for Christmas, she got worried. She thought perhaps with our moving into our own property outside town and your uncle Isaac marrying my grandmother . . . well, you might think you weren’t welcome.”

  Camilla’s words flitted through his mind again: And when she gave you up, she made sure you were put in a safe place, a comfortable place, with good people who cared about you. . . .

  A lump stuck in his throat. “Your wife worries too much,” Pierce said.

  “As I tell her practically every week. But she ignores me, especially where you’re concerned.”

  At his arch tone, Pierce bit back a smile. “Don’t tell me you’re still angry over the time I pretended to court her.”

  “Certainly not. I know you did it to be sure of my intentions.” He grinned at him. “Besides, she has convinced me that she knows you for the arse you are, so I have nothing to worry about.”

  Though Sharpe was just trying to get his goat, the remark sobered him. He really had been an arse, and for quite some years. He’d spent nights in a drunken stupor, gambling to excess merely because he’d known it would land him in the newspapers. He’d seduced actresses and toyed with young ladies’ affections so the gossips would excoriate him, and in the process had left a trail of wreckage behind him.

  And for what? To strike back at his parents? It hadn’t done that. It had merely obscured the past even more. He could have spent his time more usefully, but he’d been too angry to see the forest for the trees.

  He was damned well seeing the forest now.

  “You are coming for Christmas, aren’t you?” Sharpe asked as he pulled up in front of Pierce’s town house.

  Down the street, carolers were regaling a household with a warbling version of “Here We Come A-Wassailing.” His neighbors had clearly been busy this evening decking the outside of their houses with greenery, and the pungent scent of fir wafted to him on the night breeze.

  “No,” he heard himself say. “I’m going home.”

  Home?

  Yes, home. He’d been banished from it for so long that he’d grown used to thinking of it as something denied to him. But it wasn’t anymore.

  Sharpe turned to gape at him. “You don’t mean Montcliff?”

  “I do. I mean to spend Christmas with my mother and her companion.” The woman I intend to marry.

  She deserved better than a life as his mistress. He could never drag her down into such a situation; he saw it now. And marriage didn’t have to mean becoming some besotted fool like Sharpe and giving up control over his life. He could still protect his heart.

  She won’t settle for that.

  She would have to. It was all he had to give.

  Sharpe was looking at him oddly. “But I thought you and your mother didn’t . . . er . . . get along.”

  “We didn’t. But now . . . well . . . it’s a bit hard to explain.”

  “Trust me, I understand ‘hard to explain.’ I have a family full of ‘hard to explain,’ as you well know.” Staring ahead to where his horses were champing to be off, he frowned. “When will you leave?”

  “Tomorrow morning, at first light.”

  Sharpe brig
htened. “Then you’ll have plenty of time to stop at our place in the country. It’s right on your way, and we’re not leaving for Waverly Farm until late in the afternoon.” When Pierce drew breath to protest, Sharpe said, “Virginia will never forgive me if you don’t at least come by. You haven’t even seen our new home yet. For that matter, you haven’t even seen the baby.”

  Pierce winced. He’d forgotten that Virginia had recently given birth to their first child, a baby girl named Isabel. “All right. I’ll stop in on my way to Hertfordshire.”

  The next morning, Christmas Eve, Pierce arose early and ordered the servants to pack up his bags. The very prospect of heading to Montcliff lifted his spirits, which told him he was doing the right thing.

  But just as he was shrugging into his greatcoat, Manton arrived. He had information for Pierce, he said, and some of it couldn’t wait until after Christmas.

  Blood pounding in his ears, Pierce brought the man into his study and prepared himself for anything.

  “First of all,” Manton said after they’d exchanged the usual pleasantries, “I tracked down a few of your mother’s relations, including your mother’s second cousin Edgar Gilchrist.”

  Pierce blinked. “You spoke to him.”

  “I’m afraid not. He died a few years ago, but I was able to talk to his widow.”

  “He was married?”

  “Yes.” Manton shifted nervously in his chair. “But she said he only married her after he’d given up all hope of being with your mother.”

  Pierce sucked in a breath. Camilla was right—Mother had been involved with Gilchrist. “His wife knew about him and Mother?”

  “Oh, yes. She gave me quite an earful. All about how your mother was the siren who’d broken his heart and ruined him for any other woman. According to her, he courted your mother behind your grandfather’s back. It started when she was sixteen and he was twenty.”

  “Sixteen!” That stymied him. She’d married Father at eighteen. “How long did Gilchrist court her?”

  “Up until the time they attempted to elope, shortly after she turned eighteen.”