The Last Chance Christmas Ball

by Mary Jo Putney

  Her eyes widened in alarm. “What? Why?”

  “Because you’ve received an offer of marriage from Lord Fensham.”

  “No!”

  He smiled at her instant horror. “I hope that’s refusal rather than disbelief.”

  “Both. I’d never marry him, but why would he even offer?”

  “Because there aren’t many families in the land who’d let him have a daughter after the way he treated his first three wives. Your father can’t force you.”

  “No, thank heavens. I suppose I must go down and tell him so. Go away so I can dress.”

  He wanted, desperately, to go to her and kiss her. Good God, they’d not yet kissed. He wanted so much more. He wanted to climb into her bed and ravish her, but first things first.

  “Wait a moment,” he said. “According to your father your disgrace is only rumors. Can that be true?”

  “Rumors are bad enough.”

  “But not fatal. What exactly happened, Clio?”

  “Why are you angry with me?”

  I’m mad with lust for you, and yes, angry that you may have implied a greater ruin than is true.

  Gabriel made himself calm down and talk sense. “I’m not angry. Irritated, perhaps. Desperate for other reasons. Please tell me the story.”

  She frowned at him, but did so. “The man—I’ll call him Lovelace—wooed me. He was good company and I was lonely. I’d been engaged to marry Will, so I’d kept other men at bay, and then I’d mourned him. Not exactly mourned, because I couldn’t believe it. For a while I clung to hope that there was a mistake. That he’d be found alive. But then one of his friends came to see me and give me some mementoes. He’d been there when Will died. . . .”

  She used the sheet to dab her eyes. “Lovelace took me away from such thoughts and didn’t seem to mind that I was still dressing plainly out of mourning. I thought I was in love, but he had no money. When my father saw my interest, he forbade me to see him again. It seems mad now, because my father was right, but I rebelled and when Lovelace asked me to elope with him, I saw it as proof of love. Lovelace didn’t mind that I was penniless. Of course, he simply wanted me. After two nights on the road he slipped away, leaving me a few guineas to survive on and a note to say that the name I’d known him by was false.”

  “I do hope to meet him one day.”

  “And what? Fight a duel? That would compound the folly. It was as much my fault as his.”

  “Nonsense. I was told your family threw you out.”

  “They did, in effect. The innkeeper sent for the vicar, and the vicar and his wife proved to be truly good people. They took me in without a word of reproach and persuaded me to write to my parents, asking their forgiveness. They told me never to return. The vicar contacted a local lady. She wrote to the dowager, and so I came here.”

  “Still wearing mourning for your one true love.”

  “Yes.”

  “Was that green gown that color originally?”

  “What has that to do with anything?”

  “Idle curiosity.”

  “You’re mad. No, it wasn’t. It was bright green and I tried to dye it black. The dye didn’t take so it ended up like that. It served for half-mourning. I didn’t care about such things.”

  He had to go closer, even though he knew it was dangerous. “Your father claims the scandal was merely rumors, so your parents must have made some explanation. They’d not want to scream to the rooftops that you’d eloped, and especially that you’d been abandoned.”

  “I suppose not. Why does it matter?”

  “Because,” he said, hand tight on the bedpost, “you aren’t ruined in the face of the world.”

  She stared at his tone. “I’m still ruined. Two nights on the road, Gabriel. We didn’t behave chastely.”

  Suddenly, he relaxed. He could even smile. “You called me Gabriel.”

  “Probably because we’re engaged in an inappropriately intimate discussion in my bedroom!”

  “I look forward to many more. Clio, I think I love you.”

  She frowned. “You think?”

  “Let’s not push insanity too far.”

  “Insane, is it?”

  “Completely, because it’s too fast and furious, but I’ve been fighting the need to act on it and ruin your life.”

  “It’s already ruined, or have you forgotten that?”

  He waved a hand. “A trifle.”

  “I am not a virgin,” she said carefully.

  “That’s a natural result of two nights on the road spent un-chastely.”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “I’m not a virgin either. Rather more absolutely than you, if that makes sense. I’m not worthy of you, Clio. Remember what Lady Holly said.”

  “That you’re not suitable for marriage or some such. Is that true?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m willing to try if you are. I think it would be a very good idea if we kissed.”

  “I don’t. Not here at least.”

  “Then get dressed and—”

  There was a knock on the door and Aunt Elizabeth put her head in. “Decent, thank heavens. I don’t know what’s going on, but I can’t fob off Mr. Finch much longer. He’s becoming concerned that we’ve done you some harm, dear.”

  “Oh. Right. Go away,” Clio said to Gabriel. “Whatever nonsense is in your head, we’ll discuss it after I’ve dealt with my father.”

  He had no choice but to leave.

  Out in the corridor, Aunt Elizabeth demanded, “What nonsense is in your head, Gabriel?”

  “I want to marry her. I think.”

  “Only think?”

  “I’m trying to be sensible! But I don’t think I can live without her. I thought we couldn’t marry, because if she’s ruined . . . You do know about that?”

  “Of course. Lady Holly told me before inviting her here.”

  He paced the carpeted corridor. “It seemed it was public knowledge in her home area, and you know what would happen if I married her.”

  “Everyone would dig for information. I see.”

  He stilled to look at her. “But if it’s not. . . .”

  “It doesn’t seem to be, but I don’t have the full details. What are you going to do?”

  Gabriel stared at the wall and suddenly all was clear. “Marry her. I’ll go mad otherwise. If the situation’s bad, we’ll go abroad. We’ll find some place on the globe where no one will care.” He smiled at her. “At least I’ll be spared encounters with my family.”

  She put a hand on his arm. “But for this family’s sake, I hope it will not come to that, my dear.”

  Aunt Elizabeth went away. Gabriel waited. Clio emerged wearing the gray and the cap, but this was no ghost. Her chin was up and she was ready for battle.

  She blushed, however, when she saw him. “I won’t hold you to anything you said.”

  He took her hand. “Let’s settle it with a kiss.” She resisted a little, but not very much, and then she was in his arms, so perfectly. He sank his fingers into her thick hair beneath the dratted cap, and finally, at last, kissed her. He felt her relax and blend into the kiss so he could deepen it and taste her and sink entirely into her, home at last.

  “Gabriel!” It was hissed rather than shouted, but it made him emerge from bliss.

  Aunt Elizabeth was glaring down the corridor at them. “Now!” she said, but she was smiling at the same time.

  “Come on,” he said, and linked arms with his beloved as they went downstairs and into the breakfast room.

  Clio’s father rose. “There you are at last! Have you been told? Pack your bags and we’ll be off home.”

  Gabriel closed the door. “I do beg your pardon, sir, but before this goes any further, I wish to ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage.”

  The ruby color rose in Finch’s face again. “What? You?”

  “Me.”

  “But . . . Who exactly are you, sir?”

  “Lord Gabriel Quinfroy, son of the Duke
of Straith.”

  “Duke . . . .” The man’s jaw dropped.

  “And Clio does me the honor of preferring me to Lord Felsham.”

  “Be damned to that!” Mr. Finch had recovered. Clearly, he was the sort of man who didn’t like his plans overturned, not even for the better. “You don’t know the truth about her.”

  “I believe I already intimated that I did. However, despite your being my lady’s father, I regret to have to say that I shall take great objection to any further mention of the matter.”

  “What? What?“

  “Sit down, sir, before you have an apoplexy.” Gabriel steered Clio into a chair opposite her father and sat beside her. She was tense now, and perhaps even trembling, so he kept hold of her hand. “Mr. Finch, what story did you tell at home to account for Clio’s absence?”

  Finch set his jaw as if he’d refuse to answer, but then said, “That she’d been called away to attend to a sick aunt.”

  “Which aunt?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “It will if anyone checks the story.”

  “My sister, Marjorie. She’s always ailing with something or other.”

  “She’s a widow,” Clio said quietly. “Lives in Nottinghamshire. I was never near her.”

  Gabriel asked, “Does she know about this story?”

  “Of course, she does,” Finch said. “What’s the use of a story if it won’t be backed up?”

  “But it won’t stand if anyone looks closely,” Clio said. “Gabriel . . .”

  “Hush, my dear. Do I have your blessing, sir?”

  Finch was still frowning, out of pure bloody-mindedness. “What sort of life can you offer her, sir? I know about you younger sons.”

  “My dear sir, duke’s sons are rarely penny-pinched, but I happen to be a very wealthy one. She will want for nothing.” He turned to Clio. “I never asked if you have brothers and sisters.”

  “Two brothers. One sister, married.”

  He turned back to Finch. “Clio’s family will doubtless benefit from her marriage, if that counts with you.”

  It did. Mr. Finch was unpleasant, but not stupid. “The Duke of Straith, eh? Influence?” He was probably envisioning visits to Straith. Gabriel thought it unlikely, but wished him well of it.

  “I have your consent, sir?”

  “I . . .” Still it seemed likely to choke him, but he managed, “You do, my lord.”

  Gabriel rose, taking Clio with him. “We thank you, sir.”

  He took her across the hall into the reception room and closed the door.

  “You haven’t exactly asked me,” she said, “and I haven’t accepted!”

  He went on one knee. “Clio, my dear, please marry me.”

  She bit her lip. “How can I know if I should? I won’t like other women.”

  “I’ll keep my vows.”

  “Are you sure you can? Oh! That’s a horrid thing to say, but I’m . . .”

  “You’re afraid. Fate cheated you once, and delivered a cur another time. I won’t betray you, my dear. That is my solemn promise. Take flight. Say yes.”

  She stared at him, but then whispered, “Yes.”

  He rose and captured her for their second kiss, which was every bit as splendid as their first. And more so. He felt her move, and remembered thinking she’d been driven to folly by lust. It had bothered him then. It didn’t now. He wished they were married now, but as they weren’t, he broke the kiss and held her tight.

  “I’d set off now for Scotland and a hasty marriage, my love, but I’d prefer to wed you in good form and splendor.”

  She drew back to look at him. “From my home?”

  “Not if you don’t want. We could marry from here. Lady Holly will want to be present, and it’s no season for traveling.”

  “Will it do?”

  “It will do. If you don’t need time to be sure. I want to seize you now, chain you to me forever, but if you need more time . . .”

  “I want to seize you now as well. I’m afraid. Afraid this, too, will slip away.”

  “It won’t. I won’t.” He took her by the hand and led her upstairs, to the painting of Holbourne Manor. “I thought to buy a place a little like this, but close to London. I wanted a home. It took me longer to realize that I wanted you by the door.”

  “And our children running to greet you?”

  “And our children running to greet me. We can hunt for it together. Soon.”

  She turned from the picture to smile at him. “How perfect that will be. Perhaps you are an angel, after all, my love.”

  MISTLETOE KISSES

  Anne Gracie

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Teach? Good gad, gel, you can’t possibly go off and teach in some dreary girls seminary,” the Dowager Countess of Holbourne, known to her friends as Lady Holly, declared. “It’ll be the end of life as you know it!”

  “There’s no other alternative,” Alice Fenton told her. “Papa’s cousin has inherited the estate, he and his family are returning from Jamaica in the New Year, and I have nowhere else to live. Besides, his commitments in Jamaica gave me a whole extra year here at The Oakes, for which I’m very grateful.” It had given her time to mourn in peace, and time to make a plan for her future. “Now it’s time to move on.”

  “He’s pushing you out in the cold?” Lady Holly said, outraged. “From the home of your birth? And that of your father and his father before him and goodness knows how many Fentons before that?”

  “On the contrary, he told me I was welcome to make my home with him and his wife and children—”

  “Hmph! The fellow has some family feelings then.”

  “He has been everything that is honorable and sympathetic,” Allie assured her kindly neighbor.

  “Then why this dreary seminary?”

  Allie wondered how to explain it to Lady Holly. She didn’t want to make her cousin seem ungenerous, and in fact he hadn’t been—not at all. He just happened to mention—in the same paragraph as he offered her a home at The Oakes for as long as she needed it—that his wife would welcome her help with the children. All five of them.

  And while Allie was fond of children, if she had to spend her life tending to other people’s children, she’d rather be paid for it. The never-ending role of “poor relation” was not one she wanted to step into.

  “I’ve always had a fancy to be a teacher,” she said lightly. “And the idea of earning my own living appeals. Besides, it wouldn’t be fair to my cousin or his wife. If I were to stay on at The Oakes it would cause—with the best will in the world on my part—divided loyalties.”

  The old lady sniffed. “Pride, that’s what it is. You’ve ruled the roost here all your life.”

  Allie laughed. “Precisely, and you know as well as I do that if I stayed on, the servants and tenants would be forever referring to me, instead of Papa’s cousin, who is the rightful heir.”

  “Selfish! That’s what he was.”

  “Oh, I hardly think it’s Cousin Howard’s fault—”

  “Not him, your father. Now I don’t wish to speak ill of the dead, but there’s no denying it. He buried himself in his books and left everything to you all these years, never once considering your future. You never even had a chance of meeting eligible young men, stuck at home as you were, first looking after your poor dear mother, and then your papa—not to mention keeping the estate running.”

  Allie said nothing. It was true, more or less—Papa had been devoted to his studies and had no interest in the estate, or how Allie spent her time, but what Lady Holly failed to understand was that Allie had enjoyed it, far more than was ladylike.

  She liked meeting with the tenants, deciding on what improvements to make, what crops to try, liked balancing the books and working out ways of increasing their income. She enjoyed it and was good at it.

  But Lady Holly didn’t approve, let alone understand. To ladies of her generation—and to men like Papa’s cousin—a young woman should be spared all that na
sty masculine responsibility. A young woman’s only task was to obey her parents. And to dance and look pretty and to make a suitable match.

  And had she ever had a chance to dance and look pretty and make a suitable match, no doubt Allie would have been perfectly content, too, but poor Mama had become ill just before Allie was due to make her come out, and the dreadful wasting disease had taken five years to do its ghastly work. Papa had not been able to bear watching Mama suffer; he’d buried himself in his studies, and hadn’t ever emerged. So Allie had done what needed to be done, nursing Mama and seeing to the running of the estate. And then Papa had sickened . . .

  Now, at seven-and-twenty, Allie was not only too old to make a come out, she was well and truly on the shelf. Still, she was looking forward to her new career. She’d spent so long dealing with illness and death, the idea of living and working with lively young girls held a strong appeal.

  “You’ll come to my Christmas ball, then,” Lady Holly told her. “Don’t bother trying to think up any excuses—you’re coming and that’s that. Your year of mourning will be up, and you have no reason to stay here moldering away when I’ve gathered an excellent range of eligible gentlemen for your perusal.”

  Allie laughed. “For my perusal? As if I’m going shopping?”

  “That’s exactly what you’ll be doing.”

  “Don’t the gentlemen have any say in it?”

  The old lady sniffed. “Women have been making men believe they have a choice for generations. Now don’t be frivolous, Allie—I am determined to give you one last chance to find a husband before you go off and bury yourself in this, this school of yours.” She pronounced “school” as if she really meant “zoo.”

  Allie smiled. For all her caustic tone, Lady Holly had a very kind heart. “I would love to attend your ball, Lady Holly . . .”

  The old lady frowned. “I hear a ‘but’ coming.”

  “Not really—I would truly love to dance and flirt and be madly frivolous, and your Christmas balls are legendary, and you know I’ve never been able to attend. But the only ball dresses I have were made for the eighteen-year-old me, and not the seven-and-twenty version. Alas”—Allie indicated her hips and bosom and grimaced—”I’m no longer the slender young thing I was.”