“No, to keep by my side, to cherish forever. Although the unwrapping part does sound lovely.” His fingers gently touched the edge of her gown’s neckline, skimming the creamy flesh that rose above.
Jenna’s hands were on his neck, his shoulders, his well-muscled chest. “And I wished to get to know you better the first time you smiled at me.”
“Do you believe in love at first sight, then?”
“I do now.”
“What about wishes? Do you believe that if you wish for something, perhaps on a lucky coin, it can come true?”
“Why not? There must be magic in the world, or I never would have found you.”
“I am beginning to believe that, too. So much that I wished for has happened. You love me, and your uncle will give us his blessings, Standings is saved, and we will have friends surrounding us, as well as my grateful tenants. And you love me,” he repeated. “Surely I am the luckiest man who ever lived.”
Hearing his name, the dog wagged his tail again, thumping it on the hearth.
“I even have a good dog, although your uncle hinted he might like to take Lucky back to town with him, so he does not miss you too much. The dog certainly seems content and well fed here, and Beasdale would be lonely.”
“That is one of the reasons I love you so, because you are always thinking of others, even my uncle.”
“How can I not be generous, when all my wishes have come true, except for one?”
“Which one is that? I’ll speak to my uncle. My dowry…”
He touched a finger to her lips that were rosy from his kisses. “No, there is nothing money can purchase. What I really wanted, what I kept wishing, was that I were worthy of your love.” He gave a rueful chuckle. “Nothing ever happened.”
“Of course not, my foolish love. For you always were worthy. You always will be, good luck or bad, for the rest of our lives. I only wish we live long enough to see our children’s children grow up.”
And they did, and gave each one a lucky coin at Christmas.
The Enchanted Earl
Chapter One
Once upon a time (all proper fairy tales begin that way, you know) there was a beautiful young maiden. Well, Laurel Mumphrey was not precisely beautiful. Her nose was too long, her mouth was too wide, and her hair was neither blond nor brunette. She was the type of female who one said had a pleasing personality, or a well-educated mind, or fine eyes. Her eyes were indeed her best feature, being a clear green, as deep as the laurel leaves she was named for.
To be perfectly honest, she was not quite young, either, not when a woman past her twenty-first year was considered past her prime. Laurel had seen twenty-five birthdays, and was looking forward to her twenty-sixth on Christmas Day.
She was definitely not a maiden.
Married since she was eighteen, Laurel Mumphrey, nee Lady Laurel Haddington, daughter of the Marquess of Haddington, had been wed for seven years. She would have been a widow for one year on Christmas Eve, and she was ready to celebrate both events. Coming out of mourning and into her majority, free to spend her deceased spouse’s money and her own settlements without censure or supervision, she was more than ready to revel at the grandest party Upper Shepherd’s Neck, Somerset, had ever seen. Lower Shepherd’s Neck, too, for Laurel intended to invite every family for miles in either direction, be they gentry, aristocrats, farmers, or servants.
She intended to throw open the gates of Mumphrey Hall, its ballroom and its barns and outbuildings, the orangery and the armament room. There would be dancing and caroling, wassail and wine, food fit for a king and ample enough for an army. She had hired an orchestra from London and fiddlers from the village. Besides dancing, she planned to have mimes and tumblers, games and contests, fireworks and fortune-tellers and a magic show, if she could find a magician willing to come entertain the children.
She recalled village fairs when she was a child, sitting enthralled when a caped man in a pointed hat pulled coins from her brother’s ear and silk ribbons out of her hair. She had laughed and laughed when his rabbit had scampered out from under his hem instead of appearing when he tapped his wand against a painted box. That was the magic she wanted for her party, that laughter, that fun, the innocent joys of childhood, the carefree holiday spirit.
Her neighbors, tenants, and staff deserved it after living under Felix Mumphrey’s thumb. Heaven knew Laurel deserved it.
Her late but not lamented spouse had been wealthy beyond measure and as tight as an oyster with its pearl. He squeezed his shillings so hard they cried for mercy, which he never gave. He neglected his tenants, mistreated his servants, and despised his wife.
Mumphrey had expected his well-born bride—and his fortune—would gain him and his sister entry into the Polite World. In the ton, a woman took her standing from her husband, however. It did not work the other way round, and the Mumphreys remained what they were: rich, rude, and rejected by the beau monde. Lady Laurel, which title she kept at her ambitious husband’s insistence, was no longer invited to her own aunt’s at-homes, much less Almack’s.
To compound her failure in her husband’s eyes, Laurel had not been able to produce a son to inherit Mumphrey’s fortune, losing two infants to miscarriages. His dreams now bitter ashes, Mumphrey turned on his wife.
Her dreams of a loving husband and a family of her own died, too. Sold into matrimony the year of her come-out, Lady Laurel had not known how to refuse the rough-mannered East India Company nabob, or her father, or her conscience. If she did not wed Mr. Mumphrey, they all told her, her frail mother would not get the medical care she needed. Her brother might be sent to the workhouse, her feckless father to debtor’s prison.
Now they were all gone. Her mother had died of the consumption, her father of consuming too much brandy. Her brother had tried his luck with the Trading Company and had fallen to malaria. Mumphrey had tried every fallen woman in London, until his heart gave out. Even Laurel’s aunt was dead, having choked on a fish bone.
Laurel had no friends left, either, for Mumphrey had not let her mingle with the lower classes, and the uppers wanted nothing to do with the taint of Trade. Laurel was all alone…except for Mumphrey’s money.
Her father might have been a gambler and a wastrel, but his solicitor was a clever chap. He’d made sure that the marquess’s debts were paid, but he’d also insured that the young lady would never be in want. With no entailment and no heirs, everything—Mumphrey Hall, Mumphrey’s millions—went to Laurel. Her fortune would be made final on her Christmas birthday, three weeks away. Independence and inheritance, in one fell swoop.
If that was not cause enough for celebrating, nothing was.
She might not be the princess of fairy tales, but Lady Laurel was a genuine heroine to her dependents. She had already lowered the rents and raised new roofs. She’d started schools and erected a hospital, hired honest estate managers, and underwrote repairs to the church.
Everyone was delighted to help plan her party—except, of course, the least desired guest, the ill-wishing witch, the cruel stepsister. The sanctimonious, self-serving, shrewish sister-in-law, in this instance.
Bettina Mumphrey White lived in the estate’s dower house, at Laurel’s sufferance, and suffering it was. Widow of a merchant sea captain who had lost his ship along with his fortune and his life, she was beholden to her late brother’s wife for her very bread. Bitter, she blamed Laurel for her woes. If Lady Laurel had not been such a failure, Bettina could have made a grand marriage into the ton. If Laurel’s solicitors had not been such fierce bargainers, Bettina might have been left her brother’s fortune. Now she hated to see a farthing of it spent, especially on frivolous, flighty fetes for her sister-in-law’s birthday.
“It is not seemly, I say. You are in mourning for my brother.”
“The year of wearing blacks will be over soon.” Laurel had switched from black to gray and lavender and dark blue, with black bands, at the sixth-month mark. She had ordered a green velvet gown for the party, wi
th joy. “No one will count the days, not when they are drinking our wine.”
Bettina sniffed, wrinkling her hooked nose and fingering the black bombazine she wore like a shroud around her tall, bony figure. “You should have shown mourning for two years. I intend to, for dear Captain White. If not longer.”
This was the first Laurel had heard of the captain being anything other than that demmed witless White, sailing off without insurance. “One year is sufficient to express my respect for Mr. Mumphrey.” One day of marriage was sufficient to erase any affection or admiration that might have developed between the innocent young girl and the middle-aged merchant. The man was a boor and a brute, and smelled of the bottle and the brothel—at their wedding. The wedding night was a memory Laurel chose to forget, along with the ensuing years of abuse and anxiety. “I am done with mourning, for my family and for Mr. Mumphrey. It is time to move on.”
At thirty years of age, Bettina had nowhere to move to, not without looks or pleasant manners or a groat to her name aside from the allowance Laurel made to her. Laurel also provided servants and supplies for the dower house; never enough, however, in Mrs. White’s estimation. She wanted it all. If she could not enjoy Felix’s money, she saw no reason for Laurel to enjoy it. “My brother would be outraged that you are wasting his hard-earned blunt on such a vain, useless entertainment.”
Laurel smiled. “Yes, he would, wouldn’t he?”
Bettina ignored the satisfaction in Laurel’s voice. “I heard you have invited the entire populace for miles. Farmers and shepherds, peasants and paupers alike, the very parasites my brother despised. I would not be surprised if you took to dancing with the blacksmith, you ungrateful chit.”
“Mr. Botts has promised to teach me the reel.”
Bettina sniffed again. “I doubt any of the important people in the neighborhood will come, then. Lord and Lady Thaxter would never rub shoulders with such scum.”
The viscount and his wife had never invited the Mumphreys to their home, either, but Laurel did not mention that. “Lady Thaxter penned a lovely acceptance, asking if she might bring her houseguests as well.” Laurel consulted her ever-present list. “Squire Hildreth replied, on behalf of his family and visiting company, as did Sir Percival.”
“Humph. They are all coming for the free food, just like those idle aristocrats. No matter, it is disrespectful, holding a common revelry on the eve of Christmas. I insist you cancel your plans and hold a quiet dinner instead, or a dignified gathering where a few choice guests might sing carols. I should be willing to play the pianoforte for the company.”
Laurel showed great restraint, she felt, in not reminding Bettina that she had no right to insist on anything. “Nonsense,” she said. “There is no disrespect in celebrating the birth of the Holy Child with laughter and good cheer. Quite the opposite, I believe. In any case, the fete will be over in time for everyone to attend midnight service at St. Jerome’s, so not even the vicar can object.”
Bettina meant to call on the vicar herself, as soon as she was done with Laurel. “He will have a word or two, I swear, about having a magician practice his ungodly arts at Christmas Eve. I heard you were asking about the gypsy band that robs and lies its way through here in the spring, asking if they knew of an illusionist. How could you think to bring a pagan charlatan into my brother’s house?”
Since Mr. Mumphrey had been both unchristian and unscrupulous, and was now unavailable to protest, Laurel thought the idea was an excellent one, all the better for rankling her overbearing sister-in-law. “You need not worry, for I have been unable to locate a magician,” she said now, more than ever determined to have one to entertain her guests. Perhaps she would advertise in the London newspapers.
While Laurel was thinking of the note she would pen, Bettina was thinking of what she could do to ruin the party, or at least her sister-in-law’s enjoyment of it, without jeopardizing her allowance. She could harass the servants and spread rumors of tainted foodstuffs through the village. Mostly, she could destroy Lady Laurel’s new and unwelcome confidence. While Felix lived, his wife was as timid as a mouse, acquiescent and nervously accommodating. Bettina did not like the mouse showing its teeth.
“They are only coming to gawk, you know,” she told Laurel now. “To laugh at the widow trying to buy her way into their favor. The swells will eat your food and dance to your music, snickering behind their hands at your ambitions. The villagers will take what you give, and still despise you for being better off than they are. And if you are thinking to attract a new husband, be warned. You might trick yourself out like a tart—I heard in the emporium about that green velvet you intend to wear—but any man who looks at you will only see the color of your gold. No man wants a barren widow with no looks to speak of and no connections. They’ll toss compliments and flowers at your toes, but it’s not you they are after. Never you. Only the money.”
Ah, the poisoned apple of truth.
Chapter Two
No man was going to want her. Laurel knew that and accepted it, gladly. She did not want a husband any more than Bettina wanted her to find one. Bettina could lose her allowance and her home if Laurel wed, but Laurel could lose a great deal more. What, give her new fortune into the hands of some wastrel who could gamble it away? Be a slave to some other man’s whims and wishes? Act as the docile puppet of yet another despot? No. She was free, with no father or husband to order her life, and she was going to stay free. Those girlhood dreams of love and happiness, of sharing her life with the perfect soul mate, were tucked so far away in her heart that she could not find them if she tried. She did not try. She tried to find a magician instead.
A man in tattered clothing arrived the following morning, declaring himself an illusionist. He did not even give the illusion of sobriety, much less sorcery. He was so inebriated, the best trick he could perform was staying on his feet. Laurel sent him to the kitchens for coffee and a decent meal, then sent him on his way.
The next would-be mage arrived in a painted wagon, wearing a pointed hat and a flowing robe. At least this one looked the part, Laurel thought as she accepted the bouquet of flowers he pulled out of thin air—or out of the voluminous sleeves of his robe. He proceeded to pull coins from her butler’s wig. The gawking footmen had their mouths open in amazement, while the watching maids were giggling as yet another coin appeared. Unfortunately, Frederick the Phenomenal was equally as deft at making silver candlesticks disappear from the hall table.
Laurel had her servants turn him upside down to see what fell out, then threw him out, with three grooms to escort him to the local magistrate. Heavens, her neighbors could have been robbed of their jewels and their purses while watching her paid performer. Laurel would have been robbed of their respect. A fine divertissement that would have been, watching her guests flee, bereft and blaming her. She vowed to be even more careful with future interviews. She thought of asking for references, as one did when hiring a maid, but a shady sleight-of-hand artist could easily forge a note of commendation. Time was growing too short to check the references, anyway. She would have to trust her intuition and her intelligence.
Or she could hire a troupe of circus performers. Acrobats, fire-eaters, and rope-walkers appeared at her doorstep later that week, having heard of her search for entertainers. Their caravan was followed by all the village children and half of their parents, hoping for a free show while Lady Laurel considered hiring the band. Their magician had doubled as the dancing bear’s trainer and was no longer available, the troupe’s manager confided while the tumblers tumbled and the jugglers juggled. Marvello should have stuck with his pet pigeons and counting pig. He should have put a muzzle on the bear.
The children were entranced, so Laurel took on the troupe, minus the magician who was now minus a limb or two. They could stay at the inn in the next village until the party, earning their fare by entertaining travelers passing through on their way home for the holidays.
Lady Laurel was glad to have the little circus. Bes
ides, they needed the work, with winter shutting down the country fairs and bad weather halting outdoor performances. She still wanted a magician, though.
What she did not want was another lecture.
“I have been informed of your coming gala,” Vicar Chalfont said after sipping delicately at his sweetened tea.
Laurel was sure he had been, knowing her sister-in-law. Bettina had been busy leaving the greenhouse doors open, trying to change Cook’s menus, accidentally knocking over a bucket of ashes on the Axminster rug. “I was certain your invitation would have been delivered by now,” Laurel said. “I was hoping you called to accept in person.”
The vicar’s thin lips pursed, as if the tea were still too bitter. His lips were the only thin thing about the man, except for his dark hair, combed in strands across his forehead. The vicar did like his desserts. He’d downed two raspberry tarts already. Now he scowled, at both Laurel and the remaining refreshments. “You must know I find the event unseemly. I am hoping to persuade you to cancel the fete.”
Laurel set her own cup down. “What, after all of the invitations have gone out, the refreshments are half prepared, the performers hired? I could not cancel the party if I wished. And I do not wish.”
“But you must listen to older, wiser heads, my dear young lady. You will be made a pariah in the neighborhood if you go through with this ill-conceived gathering.”
“Fustian. Nearly everyone I invited was delighted. If they disapproved, they would not have accepted.”
The vicar’s mouth twitched up in what might have been a smile, or indigestion. “But they have not heard my sermon about keeping the solemnity of the Christmas season. I shall remind the congregation that this is a time of prayer, not partying.”
“I thought Yuletide was a time for rejoicing. ‘Comfort and joy,’ ‘Joyful and triumphant,’ ‘God rest ye merry.’ To say nothing of the Hallelujah Chorus.”
“A time for gladness, certainly, joy for one’s soul, not for base entertainments. Circus performers, bah! You show no respect for the sanctity of the season.”
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