A Very Matchmaker Christmas
Christi Caldwell
Danelle Harmon
Renee Bernard
Valerie Bowman
Copyright © 2015 by Christi Caldwell, Danelle Harmon, Renee Bernard, Valerie Bowman
Kindle Edition
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without written permission.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
License Notes
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Table of Contents
Prologue
Her Christmas Rogue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
To Make a Perfect Scandal
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
To Win a Quiet Heart
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
To Tempt a Saint
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Other Books by the Authors
Prologue
Winter 1813
London
Agatha Pemberly, the Countess of Weston, sighed.
Had it been any other debutante, dowager, or respected matron, well then, that soft exhalation of air might have been perceived as rather insignificant.
Except Agatha gathered after a more than twenty-year friendship with Lady Clare Carlisle, Lady Pamela Portland, and Lady Lenore Penmore, her dear friends should by now know the following:
One sigh signified news of importance.
Two sighs indicated a matter of concern.
And three sighs, well, three sighs bordered on call-the-constable-there-is-trouble-indeed. Agatha, the leader of their little group since they’d met at Mrs. Thistelwait’s Finishing School twenty-four years ago, now passed her gaze over the trio she’d assembled. She studied them as they chatted. With their unfettered laughs and wildly gesticulating hands, they may as well have been just ladies meeting for tea. She furrowed her brow. Except they were something far more than that.
They were four mamas meeting for tea.
She gave her head a deploring shake. These were sad days indeed if her friends, all parents to a collection of unwed daughters, could be so…so…immune to the great peril their offspring faced.
With a frown, Agatha sighed.
Again.
She tipped the porcelain teapot over and filled three empty cups to the brim with the steaming brew. And waited.
Clare picked up her cup of tea and blew on the contents. The stiffly proper mama made to take a small sip, then froze. “Oh, dear.” She blinked several times. “Was that three sighs?”
“Four,” Agatha corrected. Humph. They’d not been attending as they should. “There were four.” She winged a brow up. “Four sighs.”
With her cup halfway to her lips, Lenore stilled. “Oh, my.” The delicate porcelain cup in her fingers trembled slightly and she quickly set it down.
Having at last secured the other matrons’ attention, Agatha took one more sip of her tea and put the half-empty contents down beside Lenore’s now forgotten refreshment. Each woman edged forward in their seats and then looked expectantly at her. Well, at last.
Appreciating that her friends now attended her, Agatha smoothed her palms over her silvery satin skirts and took a deep breath. “It is—” She paused and glanced around the room. She peered across the room at the floor-length windows. With her gaze, she searched for slippered feet. After all, a mother could never be too careful with a precocious, and often troublesome, young daughter underfoot. Content that her search had revealed no hidden minxes, she spoke in a loud whisper, “It is Jane.”
The trio of ladies tipped their heads in a like manner.
Surely they followed the reason for this visit now? Except Pamela wrinkled her brow. She looked back and forth between the other two ladies. The lady’s perplexed expression matched the one she’d worn as a girl of fifteen struggling through her French lessons.
Agatha turned a pointed stare on Clare. They shared a look. Then, the ever proper marchioness patted Pamela’s knee. “The Season. She is speaking of Jane’s dism—er”—the other woman had the good grace to flush—“Season.”
Pamela widened her eyes. “Ahh.” She smiled widely, also with the same pleased grin as when she’d mastered parts of those long ago French lessons. But then her smile dipped. “Oh.”
At last. Agatha moved closer to the edge of her seat. “My Jane had a dismal first Season.” The other women were too polite to agree, but too honest to not issue false protest. “Her second Season.” She shook her head and winced. “Well, her second Season was a good deal worse.”
Her supportive friends nodded commiseratively.
“Nowhere near as dire as my Winnie’s,” Pamela muttered from under her breath. She wrinkled her nose. “I have it on good authority from her brother, Thomas—” She tapped her fingertip against her lip. “Or perhaps it was James, which makes a good deal more sense because Thomas is away at univ—”
A sound of impatience escaped Clare. “Pamela,” she scolded. Through their years of friendship, Lady Carlisle had proven the most coolly logical of the friends. “I believe we are attending Agatha’s concerns.”
My concerns?
Agatha eyed the other woman disapprovingly. How for all her logic and reason could Clare not have the sense the Lord gave a horse to demonstrate a suitable degree of alarm for her own unwed daughter as well? She sighed. Then, Clare had always demonstrated a remarkable faith in her children. Tsk, tsk. Silly woman.
“She has gone all quiet,” Lenore whispered loudly.
Three pairs of eyes snapped to Agatha once more.
She patted her meticulous coif. After all, they’d all learned well by now that silence oft preceded one of her telling and very deliberate sighs. “We were speaking of our daughters.” Agatha took a moment to level them each with a look. �
�Our unwed daughters.”
“I daresay we do not require the whole unwed business attached to it, Agatha,” Lenore said with a dry note underscoring her words. “We all know precisely the marital state of our daughters.”
Agatha pounced. “Do we, though?” She sent another eyebrow shooting up. “Do we, when we should speak so casually of the cherry tarts made by Cook—”
Their plump friend shifted on her seat. “They were delicious tarts,” Pamela mumbled underneath her breath.
As one, the group gave her yet another look.
“Er, right,” Pamela said with a shake of her head. “Well then, as I was saying, my Winnie,” she dropped her voice to a scandalized whisper, “has set her sights upon a particular gentleman,” A frown turned her lips. “A gentleman whose identity I still haven’t gleaned.” She took a sip of her tea and then set it down hard enough to send liquid droplets spraying over the table. “But I will. I assure you I will find out.”
“I consider myself fortunate to have just my Jane to wed off.” With but one daughter, Agatha would inspire envy in any mama trying to make a match with a daughter who’d never be considered a diamond of the first waters.
“Do you know my Winnie insists she’ll not wed because her heart is otherwise engaged?” As though pained by the very idea of it, a groan escaped the plump Pamela. She plucked a pastry from the tray of treats upon the rose-inlaid table and took a large bite.
The group fell silent. Who could have ever anticipated when they’d been young girls of fifteen in finishing school that such woes awaited them as beleaguered mamas? Only with a mother’s insight did they now know that those distinguished institutions should add the very important course of marrying-ones-daughter-off to the lessons on deportment and embroidery.
Pamela made to reach for another confectionary creation when Agatha drummed her fingertips upon the arms of her chair. “Were we ever so…so…hopelessly romantic?”
An inelegant snort escaped Lenore. “Indeed, we were not. We were practical…”
“Logical,” Clare supplied. She gave a wry smile.
“And determined to make a good match,” Agatha added that last, very important point. Which brought her neatly back to the very reason she’d summoned her dear friends over on this ungodly chilly, snowy, winter day. Pamela leaned over and picked up another tart from the quickly dwindling tray.
Agatha drew in a deep breath finding the strength to utter words that had no place being spoken aloud. But then, theirs was a very special friendship, only strengthened over time. There were no secrets among them. “I fear if I…er, that is we, do not intervene then my Jane will be in a very dire situation. Very dire,” she said with just enough dramatic flourish to call Pamela’s attention away from the pastries. “Your Winifred is in equal amounts of trouble.”
The woman’s plump fingers fluttered back to her side.
Agatha glanced around the small pairing of friends she’d assembled. “As is your Prudence.” Clare’s eyes formed moons. She continued on to Lenore. “And as is your Leticia.”
“But what can we do?” The diminutive, older woman with graying hair cried. Lenore tossed her hands up. “I cannot get my girl to think of anything other than …her h-horses,” Lenore’s despairing words ended on a shrill wail that made the others wince.
The other three mamas fell immediately silent, as though fearing one of their lamentable children might be very well lurking outside the closed parlor door.
Agatha cleared her throat and took care to speak in low, hushed tones. “Why, there is only one thing we can do. As concerned mothers, that is.”
Her three friends looked back at her and then Agatha gave a slow, conspiratorial smile.
Lenore’s brow went up in a dawning realization. She scrambled forward to the edge of the pale pink upholstered sofa. “Dare we?” she asked breathless. “They’ll never forgive us if they discover what we’ve done.”
Agatha scoffed. “I imagine it far more likely they’ll never forgive us if they grow into lonely, unwed spinsters.”
“What are we doing?” Pamela stomped her slippered foot, a rather awkward feat considering her position perched at the edge of her seat.
Clare took heart. “Do pay attention. They are interfering, my dear.” She pointed her eyes to the ceiling.
Agatha pursed her lips. Did Clare believe herself above matchmaking? Oh, poor, poor Clare. Ever the voice of reason, and in this case, deplorable reason, she turned her lips up in one of those I-know-so-much-more-than-you smiles. “I do believe some of us,” she gave Agatha a look, “are given to histrionics.”
Not rising to the other woman’s bait, Agatha picked up her teacup and took a sip.
“I’ve little worries where my Prudence is concerned,” Clare said with a flounce of her hair. “She is practical and reasonable and logical.” Like me. The marchioness leaned forward and poured herself another cup of tea.
Lenore and Agatha exchanged another look from over her head. Poor, hopelessly blind Clare. Well, it was their duty to help her and her daughter, whether the other ladies themselves failed to see as much.
“Whatever shall we do?” Pamela moaned, bringing them back to the crucial matter that brought them here this day. Even the flighty one of their group saw the peril.
Agatha waited a moment until each pair of eyes was fixed solely on her. Then, with a very precise movement, she turned her lips up in a slow, mischievous smile. “We will be playing matchmakers this Christmas.”
Silence met her pronouncement.
Pamela wrung her hands together. “Oh, but will they ever agree to any match we dare suggest?” And much the way she’d done as a nervous debutante, she reached for yet another pastry and began to nibble away at Cook’s latest creation.
Agatha moved her finger in a deliberate circle. “Ahh, but we wouldn’t dare do anything as direct as to suggest the gentlemen best suited for our wayward girls.”
A smile to rival the cat who’d found Cooks’ cream split Lenore’s cheeks. “Why, I daresay if we even discourage their attention, we might be best served.”
At that, Pamela paused mid-bite. She reached for a napkin and dabbed at her lips. “Whyever would we discourage them from…” Then her eyes lit. “I see.”
At last. As had been Pamela’s way through the years, inevitably she caught on.
Their dear, if obstinate, daughters would never do something as agreeable as making the match their mothers knew to be for the best. If, however, they gave them necessary guidance through some very deliberate misguidance, well then, Agatha rather suspected every single one of their incorrigible, four eldest, unwed daughters would find themselves wed—by the Christmas holiday if Agatha, Pamela, Lenore, and Clare had their way.
And invariably, the four resolute mamas always had their way.
Always.
Her Christmas Rogue
By
Christi Caldwell
Chapter One
December 1813
London, England
With everything that changed—the days, the seasons, the fashion—Lady Winifred Grisham had come to appreciate that one thing remained constant. Nay, not a thing. Concealed within the nook of her father’s billiards room, shielded by the thick red velvet curtains, Winifred angled her body and peered through the slight crack in the fabric at that one constant.
Lord Trent Ballantine.
A dangerous fluttering danced in her belly. His abandoned double-breasted black tailcoat hung haphazardly over the edge of a leather chair in the corner, and Trent now walked down the length of the billiards table while contemplating his next shot. Even with his tall, heavily-muscled form, he moved with the sleek grace of a panther stalking its prey.
From the day her brother had arrived from Eton with his grinning, teasing friend in tow, Lord Trent had remained a fixed presence in her family’s home. In fact, all her earliest thoughts included him.
From her position, tucked behind the curtains in the billiards room, she peek
ed once more through the thick red velvet. Her heart tripped several beats. And now, almost eleven years later, all her thoughts still included him. Winnie sighed, and then stilled, praying he and her eldest brother, James, the Viscount Munthorpe, and the next Earl of Portland, did not hear that audible exhalation of air.
James picked up his snifter from the edge of the table and took a long sip. Some of the tension went out of her shoulders. No, no, had he heard, James would have dragged her off like she was a girl of nine, and not a woman of twenty sneaking on him, and literally tossed her out on her ear. Blasted older brothers.
Her gaze unbidden went back to Trent.
“You’re certain you don’t care to join us?” James offered, breaking the silence.
Her heart jumped several beats. Was he speaking to her? She peaked through the crack in the curtains once again. James’ bored expression gave no hint of his knowing and relief ran through her.
Trent leaned over the table and positioned his cue. A lock of blond hair tumbled over his eye, softening an otherwise harshly angular face; the chiseled perfection that would have made stone masterpieces weep with envy. “For the Christmastide season with a houseful of simpering ladies in the market for a husband?” He propelled his cue forward and the cue ball found its mark, sending his target spinning. “I think not,” he drawled.
She frowned. Why, he’d not put her into that category of simpering ladies in the market for a husband. Her frown deepened. Granted, she was in the market for a husband. But she’d not ever simpered around him. Winnie wrinkled her brow. At least, not with him knowing. Pressed against the wall as she was, she silently drummed her fingertips together contemplatively. Surely he’d not gleaned the shocking truth where his best friend’s sister was concerned.
James walked about the table and then with far less consideration of his target, took his shot. His cue ball sailed past the intended target where it landed with a sharp thunk against the edge of the table. “Ah, but the stress of being a second son is a good deal less than the horror faced by an heir.”
She wrinkled her nose at such obsequiousness. It mattered not to her whether Trent had a kingdom or a canary, she didn’t need a lord with a title. Even if her mother, and all of Society, considered that to be of such import. She only needed—Trent. Or rather, the Trent he’d once been. Since she’d returned from finishing school, he alternated between jocular elder brother and mockingly indifferent stranger.
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