Miss Charlotte Mundy had other ideas. She hadn’t seen any hairy spooks about, thank goodness, or her heart would have given notice to quit for sure, but she was not ready to return to the penury of their prior existence. “Secret passages?” She moaned, clutched her chest, and collapsed into the baron’s nearby arms. It was a good thing his left hand had regained a bit of strength, or he might have dropped her in his surprise.
Nick knew that all the hidden corridors had been closed off ages ago when the modern wings were added to the castle, but he didn’t say anything. He’d been trying all night to think of ways of getting Mrs. Merriot to stay, not that he had been wishing illness on either of the old ladies. He could not let her return to Rostend Hall until she was ready to hear his proposal, not until he was certain what her answer would be. He’d been thinking of less drastic measures, like chopping down the causeway bridge, or locking Amelia in the dungeons until she promised to marry him. Miss Mundy’s vivid imagination had worked a lot better. Amelia was not leaving. He almost kissed Miss Charlotte as he placed his slight burden back on the bed. “That convinces me. I am sending for a specialist from London. He’ll get here in a day or two.” Or three.
“But Aunt Viveca’s New Year’s party…?”
“You’ll have to go, of course, Mrs. Merriot.” Nick tried to look sincere. “Your aunt needs you. We’ll manage somehow.”
Miss Charlotte groaned and feebly reached for Amelia’s hand.
“No, I’ll stay,” Amelia quickly replied, relieved to have an excuse, any excuse. “If it’s her heart, I’d better be nearby.”
Nick’s own heart, that closed-up bud, unfurled another petal.
At breakfast the next morning, Nick offered to drive Mrs. Merriot to Rostend Hall to inform her aunt, and to fetch more clothes. The day was cold but clear, and the horses were eager for a run. Amelia covertly admired the way Nick tooled his pair, despite his weak left hand. While he watched the road, she watched him. She could not help but notice how broad-shouldered he was, nor how well-muscled his thighs, not when he was seated so close beside her on the curricle’s bench. He also looked more like the carefree boy she’d known than the desperate man who’d marched into church on Christmas Day. Was it less than a week ago? Heavens, it felt like a month, or a day.
She really had no option but to remain at Worth Keep, not when the spinster sisters were relying so heavily on her and Stoffard. The wiser course, naturally, would be to get down at her aunt’s house and never return to the castle, to temptation. Even now, in the moving carriage, she wanted to see if those dark curls at the back of Nick’s neck really were so soft. She wanted to see if he still tasted like wine, or the chocolate he’d had for breakfast. She wanted absolutely unsuitable things, even for a widow, and unattainable from Nick. What she was liable to get was more heartache and another indecent offer.
Oh, he’d apologized for the kiss last night, swearing he never meant to offer her insult or a slip on the shoulder. But why else would a man be creeping about the corridors, pushing open ladies’ bedroom doors? No gentleman came courting in the middle of the night, not unless he was courting trouble. Oliver Nicholson was trouble, all right, from his fairy-glen green eyes to his high leather boots. She sighed.
Nick almost put them in a ditch, trying to get a better look at Mrs. Merriot. The close brim of her gray satin bonnet hid too much of her face, and the gray cloak she wore hid everything else. Deuce take it, the first thing he would do when Amy was his baroness was buy her a new wardrobe. No, the first thing he’d do was take her to his bed, where she wouldn’t need a stitch of clothing. That thought was not conducive to careful driving. When he had the horses back under control, Nick tried to put a checkrein on his own galloping pulse by concentrating on Mrs. Merriot’s clothing, not what was beneath it.
Pink. He’d dress her in pink to highlight the roses in her cheeks. No, blue, to match her eyes. Springtime yellow, for her golden curls. Anything but gray. Thunderation, what did he know of women’s fashions? He knew that the less fabric the better. He’d insist on that, not that Lord Worth wanted every Tom and Town Tulip ogling his wife, but those ample charms he’d felt last night when Amy was pressed against his chest should never be hidden away. Keeping such bounty behind yards of shapeless gray cloth was a sin against nature. His wife was not going to be a dasher, but neither would Amy be a dowd. He sighed.
The question was, was Mrs. Merriot going to become Mrs. Nicholson? Or Baroness Worth, to be exact. There she was, sitting prim and proper as a schoolmistress, as far away from him on the bench as she could manage. What he could see of her, those soft, sweet lips—he had to regather the reins—were pursed in a disapproving scowl. This did not seem the time to tender his proposal.
The more Nick thought of offering for Mrs. Merriot—and he’d thought of little else since the notion crept into his mind like a gentle breeze that turned into a tornado—the better he liked the idea. He’d be rescuing Gregory’s cousin, offering Amy a better life than any she was likely to find living with Lady Rostend. He’d guarantee her future with settlements and marriage contracts so she would never want for anything. She’d also have his respect and his loyalty, since Nick did not believe in breaking one’s marriage vows. That’s how he’d first seen his proposed arrangement, as a debt canceled, a lovely young woman rescued and protected. Now he saw it as a ray of sunshine on a very dark day. He might even be getting the better of the deal if she agreed. Zeus, she’d be getting money and security. He’d be getting a helpmate, a housekeeper, a lifelong friend—one who kissed like an angel and turned his blood to liquid heat.
The horses came to a dead stop in the center of the village high street, thoroughly confused by his ham-fisted driving.
“You, ah, mentioned stopping at the apothecary’s for more supplies, didn’t you?” he asked to cover his cow-handedness. “I thought we’d stop on the way, instead of later, in case the, ah, shop closes or runs out of something you need.”
Amelia was relieved to get down and away from Lord Worth’s disturbing presence, albeit for the few minutes it would take to complete her shopping. Sitting beside his lordship’s buckskin-clad thigh much longer, she very much feared, would see her reaching out to touch it. Lud, she might as well reach for the stars.
Nick handed the reins and a coin to an eager lad, then stepped into the village emporium and went directly toward the jewelry counter. The shop had a limited supply of merchandise, naturally, but Nick wanted to have a ring in hand when he eventually offered for Mrs. Merriot. He’d send to the London vault for the family engagement ring, a monstrous diamond set in a band of alternating emeralds and rubies, if she accepted, but he did not want to frighten the lady off with that hideously ornate and old-fashioned piece. He wanted something delicate like Amelia, yet strong like Amelia, and beautiful, like Amelia. He settled on a slim gold filigree band with a lustrous pearl at the center, and put it in his inside pocket.
* * *
While Lord Worth and Mrs. Merriot were hunting for the items on their lists, Sir Digby was hunting, too. The little dog had finally found an open door, with no one watching, no one to call him back. He raced on his short stubby legs toward a remembered scent in the walled garden, and began to dig. Dirt was flying, the rosebush’s roots were being shredded, and the terrier was having a wonderful time. He occasionally stopped to sniff in the hole, and once he watered a nearby chrysanthemum, but mostly he dug. Soon the hole was nearly deeper than he was tall. He almost had what he was after. One more pawful and—
“Here, now, what are you about, you fool mutt, messin’ with my roses?” Henry the gardener shouted. “I don’t care if you do be Mrs. Merriot’s pet. No blasted dog belongs in my garden. Now, get away from there, you, afore I have Mrs. Salter set you to turnin’ her spit.”
Sir Digby needed one more nose length, one more good dig. He did not heed the yells, for this loud man was not his owner. He was not even the owner of the house. The dog burrowed on.
And found himse
lf dangling by his collar. “I told you to— Here, what’s that you’ve got in your mouth? Drop it. Dang fool little mongrel like you is like to choke on something you’d oughtn’t eat, then we’ll all be in the suds.”
Sir Digby did not release his prize till Henry gave him another shake.
“What the devil? You dug up my best rose for this bit of a bone?” Henry dropped the dog to pick up the fallen white scrap that looked like it could have been a mouse’s spine…or a man’s little finger. “Bloody hell!” Henry would have tossed the vile thing away except for the metal band around one of the knuckles. He scraped it off and rubbed the ring on his dirt-encrusted smock. The ring didn’t come much shinier, so the gardener wasn’t impressed. Still, he brought it in to Mrs. Salter in the kitchen, to give to the master.
Mrs. Salter’s faulty hearing didn’t quite catch all the gardener’s words, but she took the trumpery bit of jewelry and rinsed it off. Then she decided it would make a perfect token for her to bake inside her Twelfth Night cake. Some traditions had a pea and a bean cooked in the cake, to pick the Lord and Lady of Misrule for the night. Lud knew this old pile had enough mischief for any ten houses. What it needed was a mistress, and if the bacon-brained baron was too blind to see what was under his very nose, well, Mrs. Salter would give him a nudge in the right direction. She’d find a key for opportunity and a coin for wealth to stir into her batter, but she’d make certain Lord Worth got the ring for matrimony.
Meanwhile, so she didn’t lose the trinket, Mrs. Salter strung it on a bit of string, around her neck.
Her hearing was so bad she didn’t hear the three pots that fell off their hooks along the kitchen wall.
Chapter Seven
“That deaf old biddy is going to cook my ring inside a pie?”
“A cake, dear heart, a cake.” Sir Olnic was back in his armor, in a taking.
So was his wife. “A cake, a pie, that makes no never mind. You need to get it away from her before she starts her baking.”
“The ring is hanging off her neck, by St. Martin’s manhood. I cannot reach between some aged cow’s udders, not even to retrieve your blessed ring.” The old knight shuddered at the thought, making the metal suit rattle like a bucket of nails. “Asides, she is too deaf to hear me, and sleeps too soundly after her dram of ‘medicine’ to be affrighted. Should I manage to scare the old girl, she’ll only run off to her daughter’s in the village, with the ring dangling between her dugs. You go get it.”
“You know I cannot move material objects. If I could, we would have had the ring in our possession anytime this past century or more. Prithee, Ollie, what are we going to do? They will not eat the cake until Twelfth Night, the last chance this year to get the ring on the finger of the heir’s beloved and end our wandering. Who knows when we’ll get another opportunity?”
“Do you think I haven’t been worrying myself to a shade over that very thing?”
She did not reply to that bit of irony. “Once they’re wed, she’ll wear that gaudy atrocity the king bestowed on us. Or they might never spend another Christmas here. What if Mrs. Merriot rejects his suit, when the dunderhead gets around to making her an offer in form? They might never wed at all, but go their separate ways, and our Nick will never find another woman to love.” She began to weep.
Never had Sir Olnic wished harder that he still had the ability to take his beloved into his arms. He felt like weeping himself, and could have used her comfort. Knights do not cry, however, so he stiffened his spine, straightened the lance by his side, and said, “I will think of something, my heart’s own. By my last hope of Heaven, I swear I will.”
*
At first, Lady Rostend declined to meet with Lord Worth. She was not receiving, and he was not invited past the marble-laid entry hall. Since she’d just subjected Mrs. Merriot to a thundering scold, before that lady fled up the stairs to pack more clothes and stillroom supplies, Nick decided she could deuced well receive him. He walked past the startled butler to the parlor from whence he’d heard her strident voice.
He bowed.
She sniffed. “Barracks manners. I am not surprised.”
He ignored the barb. “Lady Rostend, I could not help overhearing your conversation with Mrs. Merriot.” Mrs. Salter could have overheard that conversation. “I would have you know that your niece is not compromised, as you declared.”
Lady Rostend snorted. “Humph. If you hadn’t seduced the gel, she’d be back in her rightful place.”
“At your beck and call?”
Now it was the lady’s turn to ignore a remark. “I can recognize a mooncalf when I see one. And kiss-swollen lips, sirrah.”
Nick could feel his cheeks growing warm. The woman had always made him feel like a grubby schoolboy with fishing worms in his pockets. He’d been wrong to come into her parlor in such a ragtag state then, and he was wrong now. He’d apologized to Amy again, though, after they’d left the village. He should never have kissed her last night, he’d told her, and vowed that it would never happen again. She’d forgiven him again, with one of her radiant smiles. So he’d kissed her again. Thunderation, his wits went begging when she looked at him that way, all sunbeams and shining approval.
“I have not seduced your niece,” he was able to utter in complete truth. “Her reputation is untarnished. Other than this morning, when we drove through the village in an open carriage, we have been well chaperoned.”
Lady Rostend toyed with the fringe on her shawl.
“You expect me to believe that you never found a secluded niche in that great barn of a place? That you were never alone, when everyone knows almost all of the servants have deserted you? I think not. Amelia’s name is already being bandied about. If this were London, the betting books at the gentlemen’s clubs would be filled with odds of whether you were going to buy her a diamond necklace or a phaeton in payment for her favors.”
His hostess had not invited Nick to sit, so he was leaning against the mantel. Now he pounded his fist there. “No gentleman would dare use my wife’s name so basely.”
“Your wife’s? No, but your paramour’s name is already on local lips. You and she will bring disgrace to my doorstep as I predicted. What else could one expect from a Nicholson? Well, I told her and now I shall tell you: do not expect me to take your strumpet in when she finds herself carrying your bastard. I wash my hands of her and her besmirched reputation.” Nick’s brows lowered and his hands clenched into fists. The china shepherdesses lining the mantel were in imminent danger. So was Lady Rostend. He growled, “Mrs. Merriot’s name will be as spotless as new snow when she becomes my wife.”
“Your wife? Hah. Tell me another tarradiddle, Worth, this one won’t fadge. You are not about to wed a penniless chit with no title, no connections beside me, and not much countenance. You might be a dastard, but you are not a fool.”
He jerked his head to acknowledge the compliment, then simply said, “I think Amy is beautiful.”
“Humph. Men. Since when did a gel’s looks matter on the marriage mart? My niece is past her first blush of youth, and is not even a good breeder, if those years with Merriot hadn’t produced an infant. No, men of your class do not wed widows of inferior standing.”
“Mrs. Merriot is inferior to no female.”
Lady Rostend continued as if he had not spoken: “They sure as Hades do not marry their mistresses.”
“No, they do not. Which proves my lady’s honor, when I ask for your blessings on our match. I shall marry your niece, if she’ll have me, with or without your nod. That is why I came with her today, to ask your formal permission for her hand. I suppose I could have asked Sir Nathan, but I understand your son is in London.”
Lady Rostend reached for her vinaigrette and waved it under her nose, screwing her face into a grimace that looked more like a gargoyle’s than ever. “I never saw the like!”
“And you never shall again, madam, if you refuse my request.”
“What, you come to my house, bold as brass,
after stealing away my niece then ruining her beyond redemption, and ask my blessing? Your arrogance exceeds your idiocy.”
“I take it, then, that you do not approve of the match?”
“No, I do not approve, you fiend. You robbed me of my eldest son, and now my companion? No, you shall not have my blessing.”
Nick stepped away from the fireplace, taking a seat next to Lady Rostend’s chair. He reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and pulled out a ring, not the new pearl ring, but another one, a gold signet. This one was Lieutenant Sir Gregory Rostend’s ring, which Nick had taken from his mortally wounded friend’s hand on a battlefield in Spain; the ring Gregory’s son should have had eventually, and his son’s son.
He turned the ring in his fingers, staring at that dirty, dusty, blood-soaked ground in his mind’s eye. Finally he held the ring out to his best friend’s mother, who still wore darkest mourning nearly two years later. “Here. It was Gregory’s, of course. I am late bringing it, I know, but I could not bear to face you with my own guilt and shame. I should have been the one to step in front of that French marksman’s bullet. He was aiming at me, you see, the superior officer. I should have been watching Gregory’s back, not the other way around, Lady Rostend, and I have wished I had done so a score of times. A hundred times, my lady, but a million wishes cannot change what happened. Gregory is dead and I survived. I am sorry. So sorry.”
Lady Rostend clutched the ring in her hands, silently weeping. “You might be a fool, after all. I never blamed you for that Frenchman’s bullet. I know you would have done the same for him, and did. Gregory wrote that you’d saved his life, not once, but many times. No, my lord, what I cannot forgive you for is leading my son off to the army. His place was here, with his family.”
An Enchanted Christmas Page 5
