“Oh, yes.” Colin patted his jacket. “Father wants me to come to Lancaster Hall, and if I do so by Christmas morning, he’ll give me a race horse as well as the property in Surrey.” The more he thought about the bribe, the more undecided his thoughts became. The second he arrived at the Hall, the family would suck him back within their folds with excessive demands upon his time. No chance of escaping. Did he want that for his life?
“Sounds like he’s desperate if he’s offering bribes.” She patted Colin’s hand. “Do you plan to make the journey?”
“It is quite tempting, I must say.” Colin allowed a small smile. “I’ve always hankered after that property, not to mention a race horse.”
“If that is what finally brings you home, then it’s all to the good, though I’m disappointed my son has stooped so low.” His grandmother smiled. “Your father wants to see you. That is all. He’s growing older and he misses you, takes it as a personal affront that you’ve stayed away for so long.”
“We are all older, Grandmother. He could see me whenever he liked during his stints in London, but he does not.”
“He’s afraid of his reception, and he’s proud. Same as you.” Silence brewed between them for long moments marked by the relentless ticking of the long case clock in one corner of the room. “It wasn’t his fault your mother died.”
His gut tightened, the same as it always did when he thought of his mother. He’d suspected he’d been her favorite, for she’d doted on him differently than she’d done with his siblings. Mother had loved all things Christmastide so much—as had he—that she’d started talking about decorations and festivities in the autumn. She’d even instructed the servants at Lancaster Hall not to take the evergreen boughs, ribbons, and the tin and glass baubles down until mid-January when the family departed for London so his father could attend to his parliament duties and the children returned to school.
Without her in his life, Christmas fell flat, seemed empty. It was one of the many reasons he actively avoided the holiday.
“No, it wasn’t, but it is his fault he didn’t care enough to keep up her traditions. As if her views never mattered.” The year following his mother’s death, when he’d discovered the duke wouldn’t indulge in half of what she’d always done, he’d decided right then visits to the Hall were over. How could a person celebrate the season correctly without all the accompaniments? It was almost as if his mother’s death had happened again.
His grandmother’s smile held a sad edge. “Your father was grieving back then, the same as you, but you are both so stubborn, you didn’t realize you needed each other during that time. You need each other now.” She grabbed his hand and held it, and the frailness of her grip surprised him. Soon she would leave him as well. “He has changed from those early years, Colin. Now, he keeps up with traditions in a way your mother would have loved and celebrated.”
Colin snorted. “Somehow, I don’t believe that. Father didn’t enjoy the holiday as much as Mother.”
“True, but then, he is much different than her.” His grandmother’s eyes filled with annoyance. “Perhaps you need to change perspective, for it’s true, but you wouldn’t know because you’re too obstinate to visit.”
“Like Father.” He always suspected he took after his sire too much.
“Yes.” Then she softened her tone and approach. “Your sister Julia misses you the most.”
Julia, his younger sister, all of two and thirty now. She’d been fifteen when he’d left. His chest tightened. “I’ve been away so long, I don’t even know her anymore. She’s not a schoolgirl.”
“No, she’s not.” His grandmother wagged a finger. “Lady Julia is a bit like untamed countryside. Was a hoyden then. Still is, and she’s broken hearts along the way, never caring to settle down.” A flash of admonition filled the older lady’s eyes. “Perhaps she saw your bid for freedom as something she wanted for herself.” She shrugged. “I wish she would calm enough for a man to tame her.”
Colin rolled his eyes. “At times men don’t wish for the challenge.” He waved a free hand in the air. “I refuse to discuss my little sister’s love life. Why are you really here?”
“Direct. I like it.” Her smile held a mysterious edge and sent shivers of foreboding up his spine. “Come home, boy. Where your father will use bribery, I shall appeal to your emotions. Find a lady and settle down. Marry. Be happy, but come home this year.”
“I am happy.” Gently, he withdrew his hand from hers. “Why the devil does everyone assume a fellow has to marry in order to be happy?” He glanced at his grandmother. “Remember, I did marry once. I am a much merrier chap now.” If a man didn’t set his heart on a woman, that organ couldn’t get broken. And that union had been ill-advised at best, brokered because the lady in question had been with child. It had been a matter of honor, prompted by threats from his father to avoid scandal, and he’d thought he could truly find the gladness he’d spent a lifetime chasing.
Since Lucy.
“Don’t lie to me again.” She rapped his hand with her fingers. Her gravelly voice rang with the authority to which she’d become accustomed over the course of her lifetime. “You’re not happy. Hell, you’re not content. I can see it in your eyes. In fact, I think you’re searching for something, even if you don’t know that yet.”
“Grandmother...” Why couldn’t his family see that his life as an eight and thirty gentleman worked perfectly for him and that he needed nothing else in life? But the longer he held her gaze, the more his protest began to disintegrate. If he acknowledged she was correct and that sometimes in the dark of night when he awoke alone, he wished things had been different, then his carefully crafted façade would break.
Where would that leave him? Facing the facts that he led an empty existence with no way out? Or that he was a horrible father who was teaching his only daughter bad habits?
Finally, he sighed. “I’m afraid I don’t know what true happiness is anymore.” Women, cards, coin, drinking, they didn’t hold the appeal they once had and hadn’t for some time. Without them, what was left of him?
“Oh, my dear boy.” His grandmother patted his cheek. “I’ll give you the best advice I can. Find Christmas again and you’ll find the happiness that eludes you.”
“If only it were that simple.”
“It is. Do it for your daughter. You’ve neglected her enough leading this lifestyle. It’s time to grasp change.” The old lady pierced him with her gaze. “Bring her with you and show her the place that built your childhood. Let her see the holiday through your memories, for you loved it so. It will bring you closer. Not all of those memories are bad.” She raised an eyebrow. “Show her, before you lose her too.”
His chest tightened. Another truth, and this one hit all too close. His fifteen-year-old daughter, Ellen, was growing into a hoyden with no sense of manners or morals, two steps away from being expelled from her finishing school, and it was very much his fault. “Is it that obvious?”
“To me? Yes. To others?” His grandmother shrugged. “There is still time for her to behave in a manner acceptable for a young lady of breeding, but you need to be a father instead of a contemporary.” The older lady stood. She shook out her skirts. “I’m telling you to think about things that don’t directly affect you. Come home for Christmas. Sometimes the balm of family is all you need to heal.”
Colin hopped to his feet. “Do you go to Lancaster Hall as well? Perhaps we can travel together.”
“I have made other arrangements, for I assumed you would not agree to the trip. In fact, I leave in two days.”
“So soon? If I go, it will most certainly not happen until the 20th. That assumes four days for travel with one to spare.” No reason to depart sooner and spend even more time with his kin.
“I have my reasons.” Her smile was decidedly mysterious. “I will be waiting for you in Derbyshire and we will enjoy the Christmastide together, as we used to, and I will tell tales by the fire with a cup of mulled wine wit
h my whole family gathered around.”
“Fair enough.” Feeling nostalgic, he collected his grandmother into an impulsive hug. “I shall see you for Christmas breakfast.”
“I know you will, sonny. Oh, I cannot wait!” With a last pat of her hand, she sailed from the room.
Dear God, what have I done?
December 20, 1821
Colin tried to relax against the squabs of his traveling coach, but the vehicular traffic that clogged the streets of Mayfair worked against that coveted state. Carriages creeped and crawled until finally the coach came to a rocking halt just past Hanover Square.
“Devil take it! I knew I should never have consented to this trip.” With jerky movements, he rolled down the window and then stuck his head out to gauge the trouble himself. “It’s a sign, I tell you.”
“What is happening?” his daughter asked as she glanced out her window. Boredom lined her face in profile while she twirled a golden curl about her forefinger. She looked much like her mother, right down to the pout.
“I am not certain, but this is ridiculous.” In desperate need of action, Colin opened the door and then swung himself down from the conveyance.
A mail coach had apparently broken down. The vehicle tilted alarmingly to the left while the driver helped passengers out. Another man freed luggage from the top only to drop it in an ignoble pile in the middle of the street. His journey would take four days; he didn’t need further delay.
To his driver he said, “Wait here. I’ll see what the trouble is and if I can fix it so we might be on our way.”
The closer he came to the cluster of displaced travelers, the more he couldn’t believe the evidence of his own eyes. It couldn’t be. Why the devil is she here? Surely it couldn’t be true. Trick of the light, ghosts of the past? He stared harder and even narrowing his gaze didn’t give him any different information. It is! His chest tightened, and his heart thudded into painful life as if it had previously been dormant.
Standing within that knot of people was Lucy Ashbrook nee Hudson, a little older and wiser but still quite fetching with her experience.
A slow, calculating smile curved his lips. How fortuitous, frightening even. Perhaps he could alleviate his ennui, plus acquire a traveling companion for Ellen, for he’d completely forgotten she would need such on the journey. Hell, he’d offer to drop Lucy wherever she wanted along the way, but in the meanwhile, he would make her regret ever rejecting him.
Especially after she’d married his best friend.
Happy Christmas to me.
Chapter Two
December 13, 1821
London, England
Widow Lucy Ashbrook cast a fond glance about the parlor in her Hanover Square townhouse, a property bestowed upon her husband in thanks for his valiant deeds performed on the battlefields against Napoleon. Then her heart trembled.
Too bad the use of this place would soon be over.
Quickly blinking back tears, for now was not the time to dwell on memories, she focused on her sister, Lydia, who prepared to take Lucy’s two children to Lancaster Hall with her for the Christmastide holidays. In fact, they were due to leave on the morrow. Lucy would join them once she’d concluded business here in Town.
Not that she particularly wished to return to a place that had featured so prominently in her past, a time that had been so idyllic and lovely and full of potential. But there was no help for it. Every year since she and Lydia and Fegley, their brother, were children, they’d spent the Yuletide with the duke’s family at Lancaster Hall, which was a good thing, for their parents still lived in the small manor house on the neighboring property, and it was the only time of year they’d all come back to the family fold.
Life was busy and full of rapid changes. Now more than ever. Unfortunately, those recent changes forced new directions that weren’t pleasant. This year especially.
“It will be nice to see Mama and Papa again,” she mused while her children bantered back and forth as they took tea.
“Of course it will. They’re getting on in years and will adore having you home,” Lydia agreed. “Too bad Fegley won’t join us this year.” She patted a tendril of blonde hair back into place and smiled. “No doubt he’s busy running after Lord Archewyne.”
“Yes, that family does keep him quite busy.” Lucy shrugged. She didn’t know much about the mysterious Hawkins family other than they were often out-of-pocket on some adventure or another all over the world, and Fegley considered it his sworn duty—why she had no idea—to follow and protect them. “I’ve put a letter into the post today informing him of our plans for the holiday.” Their brother, who was mysterious enough, had the habit of checking up on both her and Lydia at inopportune moments, doing his brotherly duty as he always said.
“Ah, perhaps that will keep him from poking into our business.” Lydia smiled, and mischief twinkled in her light blue eyes, so very much like hers and their brother’s. “I love him dearly, but he is quite intrusive.”
“He merely wishes to see us safe and happy and settled. You know how he worries.” Their brother was loyal to a fault, and just now his attentions were taken up with the Earl of Archewyne as a valet and a man-of-all-work. It was a nice enough position for a man of Fegley’s intelligence. Since she became a widow, his notice had landed once more on her and her life. “Put him out of your mind, sister dear, and tell me how you plan to snag a man’s notice during this house party of the duke’s.” It was a well-known fact that Lydia wanted nothing more than to be married and start a family.
There was no better place to start, for the Duke of Lancaster’s parties were always filled with people of marriageable age. She flirted with every available male she found in her close proximity, but to date, none had come up to scratch.
Lydia rolled her eyes. “I’ve decided to employ whatever means necessary. Let’s hope there will be a nice crop this year.” She took a sip of tea. “Not that it matters, for I’m looking forward to the Christmastide festivities most of all. I wonder if there will be wassailing this year. I do so enjoy singing.”
“Well, don’t talk to Mother about the fun to be had,” Lucy’s thirteen-year-old daughter, Beatrice, said with a toss of her glossy brown curls. “She’s lost the Christmas spirit.”
“I have not,” Lucy protested with a frown. “I still love the holiday.” Yet, she had to admit the festivities had paled in recent years, for the death of her husband had brought grief to dim some of the joy. Above everything, she adored having a romance to indulge in during Christmastide, but hadn’t had the heart to encourage suitors. And in light of what she’d yet to tell her children, for the first time in her five and thirty years, she wasn’t looking forward to the holiday season.
“Perhaps you did, sister, but these days you’ve become something of a wet blanket,” Lydia was quick to point out. “You might consider your usefulness past, but some of us have much life left to live.” She winked at Beatrice, who nodded vigorously. “And to celebrate.”
Simon, Lucy’s fifteen-year-old son, and the spitting image of his father with softly curling blond hair and serious brown eyes, brushed crumbs from his clothing. “The girls are quite correct, Mother. Since Father died, you’ve ceased to live.” He eyed her askance. “He wouldn’t be best pleased, for he was always one for laughter and doing things. You are dull now. You haven’t once tried to tie a festive bow about the cat’s neck.”
Beatrice nodded. “You know Herbert loves to be made handsome at this time of the year.”
“He’ll get quite enough attention at the Hall.” For her children adamantly requested the feline’s removal with their own. Quick tears stung the backs of her eyelids. Lucy nodded while she blinked away the telling moisture. “I know your father wouldn’t be happy, but I cannot help missing him.”
“It’s been five years, Mother,” Beatrice gently reminded her. “He would understand if you wished to circulate again, to enjoy yourself at parties and such.” She smiled. “Father loved it ever so m
uch when you dressed up.”
“He did.” Jacob took great pleasure in buying her pretty gowns, even if the occasion to wear them was only dinner with the neighbors or joining one of his military friends for a walk in Hyde Park. Even from the first, Jacob had professed that her dresses were merely fripperies that accentuated her beauty, and she’d always laughed, batting him away for telling such gammon. “Dear Jacob.” All these years after she married him, she no longer retained the blush of youth or the vitality. Faint wrinkles and time had touched her, but she had saved all the pretty gowns he’d bought. Never wore them, but she kept them. Even now they were packed away in a trunk, ready to go into the coach with her sister. “It’s not the same without him.” That ache in her heart would never truly fade, and perhaps she didn’t wish it to. It meant she remembered...
Everything.
Lydia eyed her with concern. “Will you be all right, going home? After all, Lancaster Hall is where you met Jacob when we were young girls.”
“I think so.” Lucy busied herself with refilling her teacup. Please don’t say it. Please don’t say it.
But her sister launched on, oblivious to her wishes, or the sudden uptick of her pulse. “He was Colin’s best friend, wasn’t he? At one time, I thought you’d fancied Colin; we all expected an engagement announcement that last Christmas together. You seemed in each other’s pockets.”
A different sort of ache slipped through Lucy’s chest, tied to another remembrance. Colin, the Duke of Lancaster’s second son, and the first man she’d given her heart to. But he had been much too reckless and selfish in his youth to marry, and he’d not wished to change at all, if the gossip rags were to be believed. The plans he’d told her about in the chilly garden, and the absurdity of a future he’d envisioned for them both had broken her agreement, for it would have been a risk.
I had no choice but to turn him down. Even though she’d loved him fiercely with all the power of an innocent heart and first love.
Wagering on Christmas Page 2
