He had spoiled her for anyone else.
She did not want to go.
“We will leave here and continue on our way first thing in the morning,” her mother said with cheerful finality, returning her attention to her embroidery. She pushed the needle through the linen, pulled up a silken thread of bright yellow-gold, made an elegant and effortless knot and pushed the needle back down through the fabric once more. “There will be eligible bachelors at Lady Weston’s party, and with several full days there to get to know each other I am hopeful that you will make a decent and respectable match.”
Letitia went to the window and looked out into the cold, misty darkness, her fingertips digging into the recessed embrasure and her mind growing more and more desperate.
If Mama will not turn back and take us both home to Lincolnshire, then I have to think of a way to put Homer off once we get to this party.
“Letitia? Please go and dress for dinner.”
“Yes, Mama.” Sighing, she turned from the window, bent to give her mother a kiss on the cheek, and moved quietly from the room. Oh, Lord, help me.
A house party.
A Christmastide house party.
Oh, why did I accept the invitation to go to this foolish, inane, sure-to-be-tedious thing? I have no time for this….
Tristan stood looking out over the flat Norfolk landscape as the day lightened through the copious cloud cover that was as integral to a British winter as fleas were to a dog. He was depressed. Maybe if he were not, the crystalline beauty of everything covered in a hard, white frost might have stirred him to some sort of appreciation. Maybe if he actually enjoyed this season, he would be looking forward to seeing old friends and perhaps making some new ones down in Kent. God knew he had indeed been working hard.
But the girl in the stable….
He could not get her out of his mind.
It had been two days since she had come into his life, charmed the living devil out of Amir, shared a stolen kiss, and bolted, taking a piece of his heart with him. That, of course, was ridiculous in itself; he did not believe in love at first sight, and he knew nothing about her. Nothing.
And he still knew nothing except that she had made him feel things that he hadn’t felt for years.
She had made him feel alive.
He had spent these past day combing the village and going door to door, describing her and receiving nothing but empty looks and helpless shrugs and offers of a glass of this or a glass of that to celebrate the season. One could get good and foxed on a glass of this or a glass of that, and Tristan, who felt more and more desperate, more and more in a race against time the longer his search went on and the more fruitless it became, was not inclined to get foxed.
And now here it was, time to leave for that blasted house party if he was going to go at all.
She had flitted into his life and flitted back out just like that, a sparrow on wings, and the confident determination that he would find her had given way to a morose acceptance that, in all likelihood, he would not … and maybe never would. He could not get the memory of what she’d felt like in his arms, out of his head. The scent of her hair, the sweet pliancy of her mouth, the way she just seemed to fit him so perfectly….
“My lord?”
He looked up, bleary-eyed from lack of sleep. It was his valet, Ames. He responded with a raised eyebrow.
“Your coach has been readied, my lord. I have packed and loaded your trunks, and Cook has prepared a hot breakfast for you to eat on the way. Will you be wishing to leave soon?”
“Yes, best to get an early start.”
Ames bowed and went out but Tristan remained standing there, gazing morosely out over the back garden, at the pastures enclosed by hedgerows and fencing, all frozen beneath the night’s deposit of white crystals. It would be a long, muddy, cold trip down to Kent and he wasn’t looking forward to it. Or pretending to be happy and full of “cheer” in a house stuffed with dull strangers and twittering young women looking for husbands, when he could think of nothing but the girl who had run away from him.
He wished he could cry off.
He’d far rather just stay home.
Chapter Six
“Oh, Lenore—I am so glad you were able to make it. I know the roads down from Norfolk must have been positively awful!”
No sooner had Letitia and her mother, accompanied by their maids, arrived at Rivercrest Hall than the great doors to the mansion had swung open and Lady Weston herself was rushing across the foyer to greet them. If she had a sly and knowing smile for Lady Penmore, Letitia did not see it; if speaking glances were exchanged over her shoulder while she and her godmother embraced, she wasn’t aware of it. Servants had already whisked away their coats and hats, ferried their trunks upstairs, and Lady Weston was calling for tea before either Letitia or her mother could shake the cold from their bodies and gaze around the great hall in relief that they had finally arrived.
Lenore was excited and chattering, exchanging small talk with their hostess about the weather, their absent husbands, the roads down from Norfolk, and what was planned for this house party. Letitia, still thinking of Lord Weybourne and dreading the prospect of seeing Homer Trout, heard little of it. “You won’t have a moment to get bored,” Lady Weston was saying as they all walked down a corridor toward a drawing room. “The other guests are already beginning to arrive, and tonight I have a wonderful dinner planned where we’ll all have the chance to get to know each other. Why—”
“Will Homer Trout be there?” asked Letitia, no longer caring that Mama might put two and two together and realize she’d been eavesdropping back at Lady Ariadne’s home in Norfolk.
“Who?”
“Homer Trout.”
Her mother grabbed Lady Weston’s arm. “Homer Trout. You know him, Agatha! He was most interested in my Lettie last year, nice fellow, very well connected and in line to inherit—”
“Oh, yes, that Homer Trout!” said Lady Weston a little too brightly, and Letitia frowned in confusion and glanced from one to the other as they continued down the huge hall. “Why, I do believe he’ll be arriving sometime tomorrow, most charming young man if I do say so myself!”
Lady Weston and her mother exchanged another glance, and something niggled at the base of Letitia’s spine. Panic. These two were planning something.
Or hiding something.
Jane. She was Lady Weston’s daughter, also a Season Failure after failing to catch a husband. Jane would know what was going on here.
“Where is Jane?”
“In her rooms with Pru,” Lady Weston said happily, referring to Lady Prudence Carmichael. “Winnie is not here yet, but should arrive shortly.” The knowledge that the four of them—friends since forever—would all be here together for this house party cheered Letitia considerably; if anyone could help her escape the attentions and mole hair of Homer Trout, it was her friends. “Why, I do believe they’ve been awaiting your arrival for the past hour!”
Letitia looked to her mama for approval to go seek her friends, was given a brief, austere nod that would have done a queen proud, and hurried off, leaving Lenore gazing after her until she was safely out of sight.
The viscountess waited until she heard a distant door shut. Then she looked at her friend Agatha, the Countess of Weston, and began to giggle like a schoolgirl.
“Homer Trout?” said Agatha, brows raised. “Honestly, Lenore, what were you thinking?!”
“I was thinking that Lettie would be so horrified by the idea of him being here that she’d take an interest in one of our eligible bachelors in the hopes of finding herself affianced before Homer arrives,” she replied, trying to keep her laughter under control.
“She does not know that the esteemed Mr. Trout married an Essex girl and is settled happily at his modest estate in Dover?”
“No, and if she finds out, my schemes will be for naught.”
A happy commotion was suddenly heard in the hall behind them. “Oh, I do believe Pamela
and Winnie are here,” Agatha said brightly, and the two mamas were just turning to go greet the newcomers when Lady Portland and her daughter, accompanied by Lady Carmichael who must have seen their arrival from her window, came around the corner. Embraces were exchanged, appearances remarked upon (favorably, of course), the weather discussed and Winnie dispatched to join her friends. With the girls safely upstairs and the mamas feeling as devilish and naughty as they once had when they’d pulled a prank on the autocratic instructor Mrs. Brickhouse back in finishing school, they headed for the drawing room.
“So here we are,” Agatha said, as they all filed inside. “Together again and ready to make some matches for our recalcitrant daughters. Oh, this will be a most splendid party!”
“Most splendid indeed,” added Clare, the Marchioness of Carlisle as she removed her shawl.
“And I have news,” Lady Portland said, her eyes bright with excitement. She seated herself, took a biscuit from a china plate, and pulled her chair nearer the fire. “The handsome Lord Trent Ballantine has shown an interest in my Winnie. Unless I miss my guess, he’ll be officially courting her before I can sprout yet another gray hair.”
“One down, three to go,” said Agatha with a satisfied smile.
Lenore, all too aware of her daughter’s keen ears and tendency to eavesdrop, shut the door securely behind them. “Are the young gentleman beginning to arrive?” she asked, accepting a cup of tea from Agatha as she took a seat by the fire.
“In droves,” Clare said. “Your son Simon sent word ahead that he’ll be here later this afternoon and may bring one of his lieutenants with him … one can always count on the Royal Navy to deliver. Who else is already here, Agatha?”
“Lord Athmore, brooding and quiet as usual, but ever so handsome. Christopher Chance, who is still insisting that he’s not a pirate.”
Lenore’s eyebrow went up. “Is he not?”
“No, he has a letter of marque, of course.”
“Oh, dear,” said Lenore, thinking of her upstanding son, a Royal Navy captain who would not take kindly to a supposed pirate being in their midst. “That won’t hold much water with my dear Simon. We must endeavor to keep them away from each other so that we don’t have a naval battle out in your pond, Agatha.”
“It’s frozen at the moment.”
“The lord be praised,” added the pious Clare.
“Anyone else coming?”
Agatha settled back with her own tea, blowing gently across its surface to cool it somewhat. “My Stephen tells me that he’s invited a friend of his who breeds horses. A young, wealthy friend whose opinion he’s seeking on that new mare he bought at Tattersall’s. Stop grinning like a fool, Lenore, you know perfectly well who it is as it was by your insistence that he was invited!”
“Mine and his sister’s,” Lenore said, stirring her tea. “One must not forget she is a part of this, too.”
“A bachelor?” asked Pamela, perking up.
Agatha reached for a biscuit. “Indeed.”
“Titled?” asked Clare.
“An earl.”
Lenore lifted her teacup, her eyes bright and laughing above its rim. Her decision to spend the night at Lady Ariadne’s home instead of a local inn on the way down to Kent had not been purely a social call but a way to firm up some plans they had both been making. Letitia wasn’t the only one under subtle manipulation by a well-meaning family member….
“Do tell Clare and Pamela who this young gentleman is, Agatha.”
“Tristan St. Aubyn,” their hostess replied. “The very handsome, very unattached, and very eligible Earl of Weybourne, who took over after his father’s death as breeder of the Norfolk Thoroughbred … the fastest horses in the world.”
Clare turned to Lenore. “Oh, he sounds perfect for your Lettie!”
“Yes, his sister and I were of the same mind,” Lenore allowed, sipping her tea. “I only hope that he has accepted the invitation to this little party of ours, as he seems little interested in anything other than horses, business ventures, and running his estate.”
“A driven man, by all accounts,” said Pamela.
Clare crumbled a biscuit on her plate. “Has to be, given what a cock-up he made of his life in his younger days.”
“But a most eligible bachelor now.”
“Yes, most eligible, indeed.”
Lenore was persistent. “And did he accept?”
Agatha grinned. “He did.”
Lenore set down her teacup, consumed by a fit of giggles. “Oh, Agatha,” she murmured, dabbing at her lips with her napkin. “This is going to be the best Christmas party ever.” Her eyes sparkled with warmth and delight. “And just when is he supposed to arrive?”
At that moment, there was movement beyond the great windows that overlooked the front garden, a flash of color and the thunder of a well-matched team, and Lady Weston put down her own teacup.
“Why, Lenore, I believe he just did.”
Tristan personally oversaw the stabling of his team, watching in quiet approval as the Weston grooms unhitched the two matched blacks, rubbed them down, and set them up with bran mash and hay in adjoining stalls. He shivered and rubbed his hands together, trying to generate some warmth. Outside, the weather had turned colder, grayer, and as raw as the uncooked turkey he hoped would be roasted and gracing the table on Christmas Day. While there was warmth awaiting him in the big house itself, he would have been quite happy to linger here in the stable for another hour … or two … or more, despite the cold. The long trip down from Norfolk over muddy, rutted roads had taxed his energy and his spirits, reminding him of all the work he could have been doing had he stayed home, reminding him of his loneliness … and reminding him of the distance that was now between himself and the girl back in Norfolk, her identity still a mystery that he intended to solve.
And now he would be expected to make conversation, participate in what was likely a full schedule of dull and boring activities, and flirt with or even offer for one of the young ladies that Stephen said would be in attendance.
Stephen, who had a broodmare he wanted Tristan’s opinion on.
And it couldn’t have waited until spring?
“Mama needs to make some numbers on her house party,” Stephen had written, when a reply to his first note hadn’t been immediately forthcoming. “You’re up there rattling around in that old pile of yours, Tristan. Come on down to Leeds in Kent, make some merry, meet some ladies, and see this mare of mine. You know you want to….”
What he knew was that he had a ton of things left undone back home, and being here at this ridiculous house party was the last thing he ought to be doing.
I don’t have time for this. I really don’t.
But he was here now, and he could not spend the next few days hiding out here in the stable, no matter how appealing he found the idea compared to the activities and expectations that surely awaited him inside Rivercrest Hall over the next few days.
Satisfied that the horses were being well cared for and suddenly overcome by a deep and resigned weariness, Tristan turned, and wanting nothing more than rest and a hot bath before the party kicked off with tonight’s planned dinner and entertainment, headed for the house.
He had several hours before he’d be expected to be witty, charming, engaging and presentable.
He intended to make good use of them.
Chapter Seven
“You will wear the rose silk for the dinner this evening, Letitia,” said her mother in a tone that brooked no argument. “It goes better with your complexion than the lavender.”
“But I like the lavender.”
“Be that as it may, the lavender does not like you.”
Letitia’s mouth grew mulish.
“If you are to make a worthy match, you should set your coloring off to its best advantage, not sabotage yourself with a color that makes you look sallow.”
“Mama, you don’t understand current fashions. You … are of a different time and place.”
“Are you saying, my dear, that I am—” she smiled, lips quivering with suppressed laughter—“old?”
“Of course not! But fashion has changed since you were my age, and lavender is a popular color amongst my set. I wish to wear it.”
Her mother stood there for a long moment, not saying a word. Then she gave a dramatic sigh and tilted her jaw as she studied her daughter. “Very well, then. Wear the lavender. If you like it so much then it’s sure to give you confidence, and if you’re to net Mr. Homer Trout, then confidence is the name of the game. Yes. Yes, do wear the lavender after all … what was I thinking?”
She swept out of the small attached dressing room to Letitia’s bedroom, leaving her daughter frowning.
Mama is behaving very strangely. Something is going on here and I wish I could put my finger on it.
She had discussed the matter at length with her friends, but so far nobody had found a clever way out of the Homer Trout Situation. But the others also sensed that something was up, and they had all pledged to be on their guards during the upcoming meal that was to be the great opener to this Christmastide house party.
Rose versus lavender.
One that flattered her complexion or one that was guaranteed to repel?
In the end, she decided against them both, and went with a soft apple-green tied under the bosom with a simple band of French lace.
“A perfect choice, m’lady,” said her maid, Beryl. “It sets off the gold in your hair.”
“I’m not sure I wouldn’t have been better off setting off the brown,” she said ruefully, because the last thing she wanted to do was make Homer Trout sit up and take notice of her.
The green was a good compromise. A quiet but unmistakable defiance of her mother’s wishes, and yet not downright suicidal like the lavender.
She smiled, dabbed a bit of lavender water on her wrists and behind her ears, and went to find her mother.
She’d gotten lavender in after all.
A beautiful room of paneled walls and damask hangings, ancient portraits in gilt frames, glimpses as he stood in the small crush waiting to be announced into the dining room, of a long table that glittered with silver, china and crystal. Boughs of evergreen on a mantel, laughter, and people in beautiful clothes already taking their seats. The day had been gray, the night chilly and damp but here inside, the candles burning in a great chandelier overhead, in sconces on the walls, and in sticks on the table, lent a warmth and ambience to the setting that was festive and welcoming. As he peered over the glittering gold epaulets of a Royal Navy captain who was coldly assessing the dark-haired man whom his friend Stephen was engaging in conversation nearby, Tristan resisted the urge to pull out his watch.
A Very Matchmaker Christmas Page 13
