Wicked Christmas (Blackhaven Brides Book 10)

by Mary Lancaster

  “I beg your pardon?” Lord Tamar said, startled. “I thought I was on my best behavior.”

  “Not you,” Lampton assured him. “That fool monopolizing our hostess. Who is he anyway?”

  “Somebody Cairney. London society makes a pet of him. I only met him once and he offered to introduce me to his tailor.”

  “What did you say?” Lampton asked, willing to be entertained.

  “Told him I had better plans for my money. I can’t see her highness being taken in by him.”

  Lampton didn’t want to think about that or why he cared. Or why Tamar should assume he did. “Walk with me a moment, if you please. I want to ask you something about her highness.”

  Good-naturedly, Lord Tamar fell into step with him. “Ask away, though I barely know the lady.”

  “She brought you a message from your sister,” Lampton pointed out.

  “Anna’s not one for writing.”

  “What, never?”

  “She left Blackhaven nearly a year ago. In that time, I’ve had two notes—you wouldn’t call them letters. Just to prove she’s alive, I suspect!”

  “When I introduced the princess to you at the castle,” Lampton said carefully, “you asked what her Christian name was.”

  “Yes, I did,” Tamar admitted. He cast a quick glance around them. “Anna can be cryptic. Her second note reached me a couple of weeks ago, via diplomatic channels. Mostly, it was sending good wishes to Serena and the girls, and congratulating us on the birth of the baby. But at the end, quite casually, she threw in I almost forgot. If you run into E. R. do look after her.”

  Lampton frowned. “What made you suspect the princess was E.R.?”

  “Well, ‘Rheinwald’. And I was pretty sure Anna was in Europe, for Alban took her across the channel with Lewis in February. And the princess’s name turned out to be Elizabeth.”

  “Is there any reason Lady Lewis would ask you to look after her? Is there some family connection?”

  “None. And I don’t know. I was never a very good brother, but I could generally be relied on in a pickle. I presumed this E.R. was in trouble of some kind.”

  “Which is why you made a point of offering your services,” Lampton murmured. He cast Tamar a quick glance. “Has she ever asked for them?”

  “Lord, no. Perhaps Anna just meant she knew no one in England.”

  “I don’t suppose she described this lady’s appearance?” Lampton said without much hope.

  “She didn’t even give her name,” Tamar said dryly.

  “No…is that normal for your sister? Is she a great socialite, a collector of waifs and strays?”

  “No,” Tamar said flatly. Then, “Well, sort of. She doesn’t like many people, but when she does, she will…look out for them.”

  “And what sort of people does she like?” Lampton pursued.

  Tamar cast him a baffled glance. “Lord, I don’t know! To be frank, she generally prefers dogs and horses! Amusing people, probably. Strong people who don’t throw their weight around.” He shrugged impatiently. “Vulnerable people. We have an odd history in my family.”

  “Vulnerable…Then it would not offend her sense of propriety to befriend a governess, for example?”

  “Or a serving girl or a farm laborer’s daughter,” Tamar said at once. “Where is this going, Lampton?”

  Lampton gave him a twisted smile. “I’m not sure. But I think our princess is in trouble. Keep your ear to the ground, will you? I think someone might try to harm the boy.”

  He and Winslow had agreed that her shock and distress on being confronted with the dead woman had been genuine. But it still didn’t prove which was the princess and which the governess. There had been no documents or anything else to prove who the dead woman was. But a possible scenario was forming in Lampton’s head and, melodramatic or not, he rather liked it.

  Leaving Tamar, he walked thoughtfully back to the punch bowl and helped himself to a glass. The fiddler was still sawing away, not so loudly as to impede conversation. He didn’t smile much, though he did spare a grin for the Countess of Braithwaite who spoke a few words to him on her way past. There was some rumor in Blackhaven about the countess and gypsies. Lampton had never inquired and never greatly cared. Gypsies rarely sought his services.

  He let his gaze linger on the princess, still ensconced on her sofa, now with a different admirer beside her, while Cairney leaned over the back of the sofa between them. The man beside her stood to give his place to Lady Torridon and stayed to join in the conversation. Cairney glanced up and met Lampton’s gaze. His lip curled. Like a lion snarling to protect its prey from other predators.

  The analogy amused Lampton, especially when he imagined the lioness batting him over the head. He walked away, past a bedchamber which had been thrown open for the guests to spill into if necessary. And then he saw Andreas’s door jerk open. Andreas appeared for a moment, and then behind him, the nurse, trying to wrestle him back inside and close the door.

  Lampton foresaw a tantrum. He walked toward them. Andreas saw him coming and paused to grin, which gave Gretchen the chance to haul him back inside. As Lampton reached the door, the boy filled his lungs, ready to explode.

  “’Evening,” Lampton said mildly. “Might I visit for a few minutes? Or is it bed time?”

  Andreas broke free of Gretchen to run to him. Seizing him by the hand, he commanded, “Come and see my soldiers. Gretchen doesn’t like them, but I’m making them fight.”

  “They are very fine.” Lampton admired the chaotic and somewhat bizarre battle scene laid out on the carpet. He cocked an eye at Gretchen. “Is it bed time?”

  “Not yet if he is good,” Gretchen said in careful English. She waved one hand toward the door, clearly implying that the activity beyond would not allow him rest.

  Lampton crouched down. “In that case… Ah, these are Bonaparte’s soldiers, are they not? Which country do the other fellows belong to.”

  “Rheinwald,” Andreas said proudly.

  “Then let battle commence. I’m coming for your country.”

  “Oh no you’re not!”

  There followed a spirited game involving many insults and canon noises and toy soldiers flung at each other. Despite his curiosity, Lampton refused to question either the child or his nurse. The answers had to come from the princess. Some time.

  With a sigh of relief, Gretchen sat down and took up her sewing. Lampton let the boy chatter away about the game and anything else that came to mind. His English was astonishingly good, although peppered with a few German words. An accent crept in occasionally, but for the most part, he sounded like a native speaker, which was interesting.

  Time must have passed without Lampton noticing. Only when the bedchamber door opened did he realize that the music had stopped and the voices had vanished. He glanced up and beheld the princess in the doorway, with a mince pie in one hand and a glass of milk in the other.

  “Mama, I’ve beaten Napoleon!” Andreas cried with glee.

  “Excellently well done,” the princess approved, sweeping inside. “I would hate you to go to bed with that man still on the loose.”

  Andreas giggled and reached up to receive the last of his treats for the day. Elizabeth sat on the bed. “What are you doing here?” she asked Lampton quietly.

  Gretchen rattled something off in German, too quickly for Lampton to grasp, although he heard Herr Doktor several times.

  The princess sniffed. “Are you determined to make me beholden to you?”

  Lampton raised his eyebrows. “I assure you, it is the other way around. No one else will play soldiers with me.”

  “Would you like half of my pie?” Andreas offered generously.

  “No, I could not eat after such a defeat. I must go home and lick my wounds.”

  Andreas laughed. “Don’t go. You can hear Mama’s story first.”

  Lampton, surprised by how little he wished to leave, glanced uncertainly at Elizabeth.

  She shrugged. “Stay
if you wish. It’s immaterial.”

  She ignored him while she and Gretchen coaxed the excited boy through a calming routine of ablutions before urging him into bed. At that point, Gretchen kissed him goodnight and went out. Since no one told Lampton to go, he didn’t.

  Still sitting on the floor, with his back resting on the wall under the window, he listened to the sound of her voice as she read a German story to him. His gaze fixed to her face, watching every change of expression as she read the words of the characters and laughed at the jokes with Andreas. He was used to the ache in his heart for what he had lost, his wife and child, a family to come home to and work for, a sweet and faithful lover, the bright future he had once believed in despite all his cynicism.

  And yet, as he listened to the sound of her voice, heard the carols drifting up from singers in the street below, his heart seemed to swell, surrounding the ache, at once absorbing it and soothing it. The world could still be an interesting place. It held this fascinating woman, whoever and whatever she was, and this child whom she loved and cared for so deeply. Even the vital, willful boy could get under one’s skin. One could care. One could care too much.

  But that was the gift of life.

  As her voice faded and she closed the book, Lampton swallowed the lump in his throat. He rose to his feet, attracting the sleepy child’s attention.

  “Good night, General,” he murmured, and walked quietly to the door.

  In the sitting room beyond, some of the candles had been doused and the outer door closed. But you would never have known it had been stuffed with guests until half an hour ago. All the plates and glasses had gone, along with the bottles and the punch bowl, leaving only a decanter and four glasses on the side table. The crumbs had been swept from the floor and the furniture rearranged the way he remembered. There was no sign now of the hotel servants or the princess’s maids. Presumably Lise and Gretchen were enjoying a moment of calm in their own chambers.

  He hadn’t been a very reliable escort for Kate, but no doubt Braithwaite or some other friend had taken her home. Now his was the only hat left on the stand by the door. He walked over and picked it up. While he hesitated, the princess came out of her son’s chamber and closed the door softly. As if he couldn’t help it, he walked back to meet her.

  “How are you?” he asked abruptly.

  She touched her side. “I have done nothing all day. It feels fine, although it still aches.”

  “I’m afraid it will for a little. Did you use the laudanum?”

  She shook her head. “I shall sleep without it.” She sat on the sofa, her shawl drooping for a moment, and he glimpsed the fact that she was unlaced. Self-consciously, she drew the shawl back up, meeting his gaze defiantly.

  “Very sensible,” he approved.

  “Being half-dressed or covering it up?” she retorted.

  “Both.” He scanned her face. “Are you tired? Or may I expound a theory to you?”

  She waved one hand to the nearby chair. “By all means, expound.”

  He sat instead at the other end of the sofa, half turning to face her. “Thank you. My theory is that there was once a princess and a governess. They both cared deeply for the princess’s child and would do anything to protect him from danger. And so, they all fled together across Europe and sailed to England, where they hatched a plan to make sure the child was safe.”

  Elizabeth looked fascinated. “Do go on,” she drawled.

  “They decided,” Lampton said, “that there should be two princesses, to confuse their enemies. The real princess travelled alone from London to York and beyond, to see if any would follow, while the governess came quietly with the child to a small spa town where she could recover and no one would notice them and she might rely on the help of an English lord, the brother of a friend made in Vienna. I don’t know whether she is the governess’s friend or the princess’s, though I suspect the former.

  “In any case, the plan went wrong. An assassin found the princess and now neither the governess nor the child is safe.” He paused and raised his eyebrow. “How am I doing?”

  “Quite marvelously,” Elizabeth said. “I am in awe. There is only one thing wrong with your theory.”

  “That I cannot prove it?”

  “That it’s a farrago of nonsense.”

  He didn’t believe it. He didn’t want to believe it. “Is it?”

  “Doctor. Do I look like a governess to you? Do I behave like a governess?”

  “Thee things can be learned,” he maintained.

  “And Andreas? Can he be taught at three years old to call another woman Mama?”

  “Perhaps. To be frank, I do not know whose child he is. I do not know if the princess has a child or even if she exists.”

  “No,” she agreed, amusement competing with anger in her brilliant eyes. “All you have is a theory.”

  “It is a flexible theory.”

  “It’s a wrong theory.”

  “Prove it,” he challenged.

  But she had clearly had enough and stood faster than he would have liked. “I don’t need to prove it,” she exclaimed. “If you think I have committed some crime, then the burden is on you to prove that.”

  He stood with her, bringing them too close together. She did not back down but continued to glare at him.

  “Have you committed some crime?” he asked deliberately.

  “You are being ridiculous. And insulting. Why do you hold so fast to such an idiotic theory?”

  He stared back. They were both breathing too quickly from sheer annoyance. His gaze dipped to her parted lips trembling with agitation. Heat swept through him.

  “Good night, Doctor,” she said with finality.

  He dragged his gaze away, half turning away. He opened his mouth, meaning to say his own good night and go. Yet instead, quite other words broke from him.

  “Because I want it to be true,” he blurted, and swung back to her, devouring her beauty with his eyes. “I want you to be a governess.”

  Her eyes widened. “Why?” she asked, baffled.

  “Don’t you know?” he whispered, and abruptly swayed into her, capturing her lips.

  Soft and sweet under his, they widened with shock. She tasted divine. He wanted nothing more than to crush her in his arms and deepen the kiss to one of blatant, powerful lust.

  But she was his patient, and he should not have touched her.

  He broke the kiss after a mere, blissful moment. He tried to apologize, but his throat was dry and the words stuck. He swallowed, and by then, he realized she was staring at him, her shining green eyes warm, welcoming and utterly seductive.

  “Again,” she whispered.

  He was only human. He bent and kissed her mouth again as he wanted to, with fierce and tender sensuality, parting her lips for his tongue. His arm crept around her waist. His other hand slid up to her nape to hold her head steady and caress her silken skin.

  Her eyes closed. Her fingertips stroked his cheek, and she not only allowed the embrace but returned it, sliding her tongue along his, kissing him back.

  This was insanity. Wild, sweet insanity, and he loved every moment of it. It was an instant of gladness and triumph. Every fiber of his wicked body urged him to take full advantage, to slake his loneliness and his abstinence in her, to bring her joy and find his own. Just for one night. One hour.

  He groaned and dragged his mouth free, all but panting.

  “Forgive me,” he got out. “Forgive me, you are my patient, in my care and I—forgive me. Good night.”

  Somehow, he got himself out of the room. He was halfway downstairs before he realized he had picked up his hat in passing and couldn’t even remember doing so.

  Chapter Six

  Shaken to the core, Elizabeth watched him go. She felt incapable of calling him back, even had she wanted to.

  One kiss and she was intrigued beyond propriety. Two and she was utterly seduced. For the doctor was not cool at all. He burned with passion. For her…


  Only for some reason he wanted her to be a governess. A gentleman should not seduce a governess without marriage. It was not kind to ruin a lady whose means of support rested on her reputation. Did he hope to resist her on that basis?

  Nervous laughter trembled on her lips as she walked to the sofa and sank down on it. She had spent years acquiring this air of casual sophistication. But in truth, her experience of romance was limited to a childish and unrequited love that quickly died from lack of sustenance and a greater acquaintance with its object. The doctor was…real.

  She touched her lips. Why did he kiss her? Why did he kiss her and then bolt?

  Would he do it again? Her stomach dived.

  Oh, no. I will not feel this again. I won’t.

  She grabbed the little bell that had been placed on the table beside the sofa and rang it forcefully. Lise’s door opened almost at once.

  “Bring me the book from my chamber, will you?” Elizabeth said with a shade of desperation. “I believe I shall read for an hour and then retire early.”

  *

  Despite her determination to ignore what the doctor had made her feel, she woke in the morning with a pleasurable little flutter. It was Christmas Eve and the world was suddenly full of unspecific but powerful hope. It was possible the authorities would find those responsible for Miss Hale’s murder, and then Andreas would be safe for now.

  She enjoyed breakfast in bed with Andreas sitting beside her, chattering away. When Gretchen took him away, Lise helped her wash and don the comfortable peignoir. The last pins were just being added to her hair when she heard a knock at the outer door. With an impatient tut, Lise went to answer it.

  Elizabeth hoped it was Mr. Winslow with the news that Miss Hale’s murderer was arrested. A fresh upsurge of grief and rage washed over her. Miss Hale would have loved to take Andreas to the beach with the other children, mix with other governesses and ladies of refinement…

  “It’s the doctor, madame,” Lise said from the door, causing Elizabeth to spin around too fast and hold onto the dressing table for support. “Shall I show him in?”

  Panic soared, but she refused to give in to this kind of cowardice. “Of course,” she said languidly, turning back to the mirror. She placed the last pin while the doctor’s brisk footsteps sounded. He appeared behind her in the mirror, keeping his distance although he met her gaze in the glass.