A Regency Christmas Pact Collection

by Ava Stone

  Jane is lucky enough to be married to her own personal hero. Not only does he offer words of encouragement but has taken over much of the housework so Jane can have more hours writing. She has also been blessed with two fantastic daughters and an awesome son, all of which have brought various animals into the house. Currently the count is one dog and three cats.

  Jane can be found at www.janecharlesauthor.com as well as Facebook and Twitter.

  For Mom ~ Because of you, I know how important it is to follow the rules, but I also know that sometimes it is even more important to break them.

  ~ Catherine

  December, 1814

  Hampshire

  The wind whipped past him, brisk and bracing, sending fallen leaves and twigs whirling like a dervish along the road as he traveled towards the town of Greywell. Travel in December could always prove problematic, but the chill in the air today was the sort that grabbed hold of one’s bones and launched an assault on the body from the inside out.

  If David Hounslow, Marquess of Preston could have made the journey to visit his sister and brother-in-law at Padmore Glen immediately after the close of the Little Season as he’d initially intended, the traveling conditions would have been far more agreeable…and he wouldn’t be shivering to within an inch of his life. For that matter, if he’d been able to leave as planned, he could have traveled with them in Upton Grey’s carriage.

  Granted, he could have hired a carriage. Or, if he wanted to travel in something more expertly equipped, he could have sent word to Preston Hill and had one of his own carriages brought to Cambridgeshire for the journey. But he had done neither of those things, and now he was reaping what he’d sown. Or not reaping what he’d neglected to sow. Something like that.

  Damn Arrington and his philandering hide. And damn Lady Arrington and her affinity for fire pokers.

  A new series of shivers raced along Preston’s spine which had nothing whatsoever to do with the bite of the air. How could anyone possess the wherewithal to savagely beat someone with such an implement until they died? But then, Preston had seen similar cold-blooded attacks before. He’d never understood them, nor the mindset required to perpetrate them, but he had certainly seen them.

  Thank the heavens those attacks had not resulted in death.

  The anger he felt from those memories had never fully faded, though he’d funneled it into something more positive at least. Arrington’s recent death and the violent manner in which it had come about only added to Preston’s fervor to protect as many as he possibly could from such a fate.

  He didn’t want to think on such unpleasantness now, though. It was nearly Christmas. He would be spending the holiday with his sisters and their husbands and children and, despite the horrifying events that had recently taken place, Preston had every intention of enjoying every moment he had with them. This ought to be a time of celebration; he would make it so.

  He couldn’t stop the sigh of relief that fled from his lips when he turned the final corner from the main road through town and the Palladian columns of Padmore Glen came into view. His mount had hardly gone ten paces down the lane, however, before another sight passed before his eyes: a series of hired carriages had come to a stop at the end of the drive just in front of the doors, while dozens of footmen rushed about, unloading trunks and parcels and other paraphernalia such as one would require for an extended visit away from one’s home.

  Were Rachel and Upton Grey expecting other guests?

  Preston was aware, of course, that Mary and Lord Ellingham were to be present, as would their children. The second of his sisters and her husband ought to have arrived a fortnight or more ago, so these carriages couldn’t possibly have anything to do with their arrival.

  The Dowager Countess of Upton Grey lived on the Padmore Glen estate in the dower house. There was no need to send more than a single carriage to bring her to the main house, and she would not require any trunks at all as she preferred to return to her solitude each evening.

  Rachel had informed him it was to be a family affair, just as their holidays so often were. That was what he’d prepared himself for. Apparently now, he must put on a brave face for whoever Upton Grey’s other guests might be.

  Preston said a brief prayer that, if he must be subjected to others who were not his kin, there might at least be no unmarried young misses in search of a husband among the guests. Let it be men gathered together for some cards. Or perhaps married couples. He would be fine as long as any guests of the female sex were well and truly married to someone other than him. The very thought of fending off marriage-minded debutantes all through the Christmas season when he’d rather be bouncing a niece or nephew upon his knee sent a fresh course of goose flesh racing down his arms.

  He made his way to the front of the lane and dismounted, tossing the reins to a groom who rushed up to meet him and then indicating the saddle bag. “My man should have already arrived with my trunks. See to it that this last piece gets to him.”

  “Yes, milord.”

  Brushing through the frenzy of servants unloading trunk after trunk, Preston climbed the steps and handed his hat to Goddard, the new butler Upton Grey had hired less than a year before. It was the first time Preston had really gotten a good look at the man. He was younger than one would normally expect for a butler, but age could never tell the whole story about a man. Goddard had an air of passive intimidation about him, as well. One look would be all that was required to convince most to think a second time before going against him in any endeavor.

  “It is a pleasure to have you at Padmore Glen as always, Lord Preston.” Goddard took Preston’s gloves and greatcoat, passing them off to a footman and closing the doors to block out the cold with a deft and singular effortlessness. “Her ladyship requested we put you in the Wolfe bedroom. Will that be to your satisfaction, my lord?”

  Preston moved closer to the hearth and its roaring fire, putting more distance between himself and the chill that seemed to follow him at every turn. “Yes, of course.”

  All around him, servants rushed through the halls, speaking quietly amongst themselves and accomplishing their tasks in as efficient and expedient a manner as Preston had ever seen. When compared to the cacophony and discord so readily apparent in the workings of Padmore Glen in the not so distant past, the difference was nothing short of remarkable.

  He’d never been one to envy another man (in particular, not either of his brothers-in-law), and he certainly was not one to poach someone else’s servants—but if Goddard was responsible for the efficiency with which this house was being run, then Goddard was likely the very man Preston needed to preside over matters at Darlingshire House.

  Goddard gave a brief inclination of his head. “Very good, my lord. I’ll inform Lord and Lady Upton Grey of your safe arrival. Shall I order a bath sent up before you join the family for supper?”

  A chorus of feminine titters and giggles echoed from overhead. Preston looked up to the top of the stairs, where two very lovely, very unmarried-looking (if there could be such a thing) young ladies were making their way down. Damnation. He didn’t recognize them, not either one of them, but they were exactly what he did not want to encounter on his holiday.

  It wasn’t their fault that he’d suddenly developed an all-encompassing and innate fear of the female sex, or at least of those with which he wasn’t already intimately familiar; nevertheless that fear was very much a reality.

  The fear grew quite keen when his attention fell momentarily to the ornate iron poker nestled in a wrought-iron stand near the fire.

  Devil take it, he couldn’t think like this all the time. His life would be nothing more than a shambles in less than the span of a heartbeat.

  Preston gritted his teeth and returned his attention to the butler. A bath would be just the thing. “Piping hot, if you would, please.” He rubbed his hands together, trying to allow a bit more warmth from the fire to seep into his bones before he must leave it.

  The butler nod
ded and backed away to do his bidding.

  A feminine titter came from one of the ladies on the stairs, causing a renewed bolt of terror to shoot straight to Preston’s gut.

  “Goddard?” he said just before the butler left the entryway. “Do you think Lord Upton Grey would mind if I helped myself to his whiskey?”

  With a look in the young ladies’ direction, Goddard gave a knowing smile. “I rather imagine he would understand entirely. The credenza in his lordship’s library should be more than adequately equipped for your needs.”

  Moments later, Preston had poured himself a double before making his way up the stairs to the Wolfe bedroom and his bath. Gibbs, his valet, was waiting for him with a large fire roaring in the hearth. The cast iron tub had already been brought up, great billows of steam rising up over the rim.

  As soon as the door closed, Gibbs moved to the closet and started fiddling with Preston’s trunks. “I’ve set out your green coat for this afternoon, milord. Will that be acceptable?”

  Preston set to work undressing, his jaw tensed tight against the chill that would not release its grip upon him. “Yes, of course,” he grumbled. “But Gibbs? If I see a fire poker anywhere near me, I’ll use it to gouge out your eyes. Understood?”

  “Perfectly well, milord,” the valet said in his well-practiced and heavily guarded tone.

  A brief glance in the cheval mirror, however, revealed Gibbs’s astute smirk.

  “It’s worth five thousand pounds at the very least. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if it were to fetch a great deal more than that at auction.”

  Lady Frederica Bexley-Smythe felt her heart do a little flip within her chest upon hearing Lord Upton Grey’s words, coming from inside a room in the otherwise abandoned blue corridor she’d been exploring. The flipping irked her to no end because, as her thoughts focused upon so often of late, the reaction was caused by nothing less than the oh-so-vulgar subject of money of all things.

  All right, so it was more than just a little flip that her heart had done. It was a great, large, enormous flip that nearly caused her to trip over her own feet as she stumbled to a stop in the corridor.

  Five thousand pounds? The very thought of what five thousand pounds could do for Mama and her youngest sister Edie, the only other Bexley-Smythe sister who remained unmarried, was almost more than her mind could add up at the moment.

  That was saying something.

  If there was one thing which Freddie, as she was known to all her siblings, never had difficulty with it was sums—or anything with numbers really. But then, this didn’t actually involve real numbers,—only the exceedingly remote possibility of highly unlikely numbers and nothing more.

  But five thousand pounds. If only she could somehow secure such a sum for her mother and sister—and at the same time keep any knowledge of it from her troublesome-of-late brother Percy—the constant fear she’d been living with for quite some time now would be appeased.

  But if she did obtain that sort of money and he were to ever get his hands on it…

  Still, if they had five thousand pounds it wouldn’t matter what her elder brother Percy had done with the Stalbridge fortune, or how many creditors sought him out, or how many gambling debts he had accumulated. All that would matter was that Mama and Edie wouldn’t have to worry.

  At least not for a while. Their futures could be secure at least until they could somehow secure a match for her sister, and maybe Mama too. Even if Mama didn’t someday remarry, she could live with Georgie and Monty if she wanted. Georgie had already promised as much. Or if not them, then perhaps she could live with their other sister Mattie and Thomas Goddard.

  Any way Freddie looked at it, though, five thousand pounds would be more than enough to support the three of them until such a time, as long as they could keep it from Percy.

  Yet therein lay the problem. How could she, as an unmarried female, obtain such a sum and keep all knowledge of it from her brother? It sounded even more absurd a thought with each passing moment.

  This wasn’t the sort of thing she really could talk to anyone about, though. She’d debated writing to her sister Georgie to see if perhaps her husband Lord Montague would be willing to help. But Monty had already cleaned up far too many of Percy’s messes. No, it wouldn’t be fair to ask him for assistance.

  Mattie’s husband, while he was doing rather well for himself, was not exactly a gentleman of means. He had what his grandfather, the Duke of Danby, had granted him…and what he’d made of himself in the time which had passed since then. But that was all. Freddie really couldn’t ask anything of Thomas Goddard. Besides, she still hadn’t even met the man!

  Blast, but she didn’t know who she could turn to.

  For months, now, Freddie had been noticing how various valuables were disappearing from Bexley Court. First it had been random paintings from the drawing room. Then a tapestry, which had been in the family for over a century, had gone missing from the dining room. When she noticed the lack of a particular marble bust in the entryway a week ago, she’d gone straight to the housekeeper Mrs. Kelly to enquire about what she knew.

  “I’m so terribly sorry, my lady,” Mrs. Kelly had said solemnly. “His lordship took them. I thought you and the other ladies of the house were aware, or I would have been certain to inform you.”

  They hadn’t been aware, however.

  For all Freddie knew, Mama and Edie were still blissfully ignorant of it all.

  Well, not quite all of it. Percy had already sold two of his estates. Mama and Edie knew about those. There could potentially be more that they just hadn’t learned of yet, but Freddie didn’t want to let herself think of such things.

  Not only that, but Percy had cut back on the staff at Bexley Court to the point that those servants who remained were working from dawn to dusk and beyond. Those sorts of changes weren’t easily missed. But now he was selling off everything he could from within the house, it would seem.

  There was also the matter of one of the men Percy owed attempting to entrap Mattie into marriage last summer in order to obtain her dowry. Freddie knew, without a doubt, that Mama and Edie weren’t privy to that bit. Mattie had written about that to Freddie only, and solely or the purpose of warning her to be wary of others who might try such a tactic.

  If Percy’s debts were already that extreme, there might not be much longer before she, Mama, and Edie were tossed out of their home!

  Good heavens. Her thoughts had run away with her again.

  Right up until the moment she’d nearly fallen over in shock from what she’d overheard, she had been intent upon exploring Padmore Glen and taking a few blessed moments away from her mother and sister. She’d been hoping to find somewhere comfortable and quiet where she could escape during those moments over the course of this holiday when she simply needed to be alone to think. It wasn’t as though money would appear in the walls or beneath the rugs at Bexley Court when they returned. For that matter, the rugs might be missing upon their return. They needed a plan, and it looked to be falling upon Freddie’s shoulders to devise it, as so much had since Papa died.

  How could she have possibly kept walking past this remote room when her insatiable curiosity about this magnificently valuable item, whatever it may be, threatened to overwhelm her?

  Freddie took a moment to make certain her breathing was slow and even before mincing closer to the open door from which Lord Upton Grey’s voice had come. She cast her eyes around her, hopeful no one would come upon her unawares and reveal her attempt at stealthy eavesdropping to her host.

  For once in her life, she wished she’d spent more time when she was younger in learning proper eavesdropping techniques from Georgie.

  “And I can have it to auction for Darlingshire House?” This was a different man—a voice Freddie didn’t recognize.

  Was it Lady Upton Grey’s brother? They’d said he was due to arrive sometime in the next few days, but he hadn’t been present when her family was welcomed. His deep voice was
rich and gravelly, the roughness of it causing her to tingle from head to toe.

  “Of course,” Lord Upton Grey said. “The servants found it in a room upstairs which it seems has been used primarily for storage for a century, or perhaps more. Lord only knows what else they might find, now that Goddard is taking the task to hand. I have no need for it, and I certainly have no sentimental attachment to it, but if it could help you…”

  Goddard? Freddie’s ears perked up upon hearing that, since her sister had only this past summer married a man with that very surname. Could Mattie’s husband Thomas Goddard be in some way related to Lord Upton Grey’s butler?

  Though Mr. Goddard was a grandson of the Duke of Danby, the family did somehow hail from the servant class. Blast, but she wished she could have traveled to Scarborough to meet him and get to know him, but there’d been no money for that. And now, Mattie and Thomas Goddard were spending the Christmas holiday at the duke’s castle in Yorkshire instead of traveling south to be with the Bexley-Smythe sisters.

  Freddie was starting to realize just how terribly little she knew of her new brother-in-law and his family.

  “It could. It will. Thank you, Mark.”

  But what was it? Freddie’s curiosity had always been one of her greatest weaknesses, so she saw no reason for today to prove the exception. She inched closer still, craning her neck to peek around the corner. Thank goodness she hadn’t already dressed for supper. Feathers and bobs adorning her hair would be easy to spot if they appeared suddenly in an otherwise empty doorway.

  The open door creaked, and she pulled back quickly as though she’d been burned. Freddie’s heart was racing like it rarely did without putting forth a supreme physical effort.

  “Of course,” Upton Grey said. He didn’t sound suspicious or like anything had been out of the ordinary. Perhaps he hadn’t noticed her. “I’m sure there’s more, as well. God only knows what Father and Grandfather have stowed away upstairs. It’s been quite the chore I’ve settled upon Goddard, but he’s proven himself up to the task.”