Christmas Delights Read online

  “Marriage is business. You’ve lost a couple of years of childbearing, I don’t deny it. But we shall see what we can manage.” Her father looked away as they reached the staircase.

  Victoria stepped down carefully, in front of her father, as they both could not fit. It was for the best, really, because she might have slapped him if he’d been alongside her. How dare the man who loved her best insinuate she was second-class material on the marriage market? She blinked rapidly, trying to hold back tears that might stain the velvet. Tears wouldn’t do. He couldn’t possibly be correct.

  CHAPTER 4

  Tears were never acceptable in public, and this descent was most assuredly not private. The stairs had a slight curve to them, and as she stepped down, she first saw the tops of heads, decorated boldly in holly sprigs and wigs, feathers and hoods. Not to be missed were the hats, both fashionable and military. Next into view were the faces up-tilted in laughter. Then, as she reached the bottom, the costumes became more obvious. The obligatory Tudors, the fantastic military display of lobsterback coats. The eighteenth-century gentlemen, with their falls of lace, and rotund women in the evening dress of early in this century that so admirably cloaked size. She knew, for she had worn those costumes herself during her engagement, while Sir Humphrey had gone about dressed in his admiral grandfather’s black tricorn atop a regular modern evening suit, since he refused to wear a costume. He had been a stolid, unimaginative man, very proper and most kind. She could not imagine how her father’s businesses would have thrived under him, except that he might have been able to bind excellent employees to him by his sheer goodness, if he had the presence of mind to hire correctly.

  While she had been visiting graying memories, her slipper-clad feet had reached the marble floor. All came into sharp relief again: the laughter, the music, the bright colors. Should she be ashamed to be here in her pretty white and green costume? Sir Humphrey had been proper, true, but he had known he was robbing her as he died. He would not grudge her a little masked fun so long after his death. Blast Queen Victoria anyway, for making mourning such a state of desirability.

  Her father stepped down behind her. She turned to ask him whether he wanted to go into the ballroom, the dining room, or the game room, when a girl with long, flowing blond hair, clad in a mid-sixteenth-century gown embroidered with seed pearls at the bodice stopped in front of her. With a red wig, she might have been a young Queen Elizabeth. Instead, Victoria recognized Rose Redcake, waving a dance card, her mask tied around her neck instead of covering her eyes.

  “I saved one for you,” she said, a little out of breath. “Where have you been? I thought you would be one of the first to arrive, since you are staying here.”

  Victoria took the card with a smile and tied it around her wrist. “Father, this is Rose Redcake.”

  Her father bowed slightly, causing his wig to slip down over his eyebrows.

  Victoria laughed and helped him right it. Rose laughed, too, then put her hand to her mouth and coughed.

  “Suffering from the aftereffects of a cold, Miss Redcake?” her father inquired.

  “No, sir, I am well.”

  Her father nodded, but Rose colored and looked at her slippered feet. A path through the crowd opened, and Victoria saw a trio of broad-shouldered, dark-haired young giants, full of masculine energy. Rose followed her gaze and turned, her own expression darkening.

  “Who are they?” Victoria asked.

  “The Dickondell brothers. That is Clement, Ernest, and Sam; he’s the youngest, younger than we are.”

  “Clement is unwed?” Victoria asked, eyeing the man who was clearly the eldest brother, in his late twenties, with just the faint touch of creases around his eyes.

  “He is not adverse to flirtation, but I am not convinced that he does not have his heart set on his cousin Maud. She is nineteen now, so I do not understand why he hasn’t spoken for her.”

  “Does she have any money?”

  “Not that I’m aware of, but that can’t be it. I have an excellent dowry and he hasn’t shown me any special attention,” Rose said.

  “His parents may disagree with his desired match, and his heart has not reconciled him to that,” said Victoria’s father.

  “You speak with authority on the matter,” Rose said.

  “I saw it work so with my brother,” he said.

  “Did he ever marry?” Rose asked.

  “Yes, to the woman our parents wanted for him.”

  “It ended well?”

  “He is speaking of Penelope’s parents,” Victoria said.

  “Oh, has she been orphaned?” Rose asked, missing the nuances of the situation.

  Mr. Courtnay shook his head. “No, but she is with us for a time.”

  Victoria hadn’t known the match had been forced upon her uncle. “Were you forced to marry Mother?” she asked.

  Her father smiled. “No, dear, I was lucky to love someone who was acceptable to your grandparents. I only regret we lost her so young.”

  “You should remarry,” Victoria said. “You have been alone for eleven years, Father. What better place to fall in love than a holiday party? Your parents are no longer alive to have an opinion on the matter.”

  He chuckled. “I was always stronger-willed than my brother. My parents would not have been an obstacle.”

  “Even so. Rose, will you not help me choose a suitable bride for my father?” If he were occupied, he would not watch her actions so carefully.

  She thought Rose would immediately suggest Lady Florence, who at forty was just a few years younger than her father, but Rose did not respond. “The countess thought Lady Florence.”

  Rose tilted her face up to Victoria’s father. “No, she will not do.”

  He smiled. “Will you give me a dance, Miss Redcake? We can discuss my options further.”

  Rose pulled her mask from her neck and held out her card. While her father signed it, Rose tied the mask over her eyes. Though she had freckles and a pale countenance, she was rather lovely. Victoria felt a shiver of precognition excite her marrow. But her father had never fallen for a pretty face as long as she could remember. Why would Rose find a middle-aged man interesting when she didn’t need his money to be comfortable?

  Without her quite realizing it, her father and Rose had relocated a good ten feet away, clearing a path through the crowd hovering in the hall. Victoria looked up, wondering if she should follow, or even try to cadge an introduction to Ernest Dickondell from someone they both knew. Before she could move, she saw a mop of white-gold curls lit by the gasolier.

  The man had been standing along the wall, speaking to someone dressed like one of the King Charleses. He wore a pleasingly snug, high-necked blue coat faced with white satin over an open shirt edged with lace. Tight, very tight white breeches showed every morsel of the delectable male body to perfection, and she could see his stockings needed no padding to fill out the calf. Dress slippers looked almost absurd on such large, manly feet, but really, Lewis Noble was perfection in his nearly century-and-a-half-old naval uniform and totally identifiable despite the black domino.

  “Oh, my,” she whispered.

  He approached her as if no one else was in the room. She saw a woman lift her fan in his direction. No response. A man held out his hand, but Lewis Noble didn’t seem to see him.

  Then he was in front of her, bowing in the flowing style of vanished days.

  “Mr. Noble,” she murmured.

  He lifted his gaze. “Lady Allen-Hill. Such a pleasure to see you out of mourning.”

  She gave him a tight nod, not sure if he was truly praising or subtly indicating his disapproval. But he was not supposed to be a man of subtlety. He said what he thought, so she said, “Thank you. I could not have a drab Christmas. Though the mask is intended to protect my identity, of course.”

  “I do not blame you for wanting to wear a pretty gown. You are too young to dress like a crow. I’m sure your mask will have the intended effect, for most people.�
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  But not for him, who had known her somewhat intimately. She felt her bodice constrict as she tried to draw a deep breath.

  “Your costume is exquisite,” he observed, his gaze lingering on her exposed bosom.

  “I didn’t see you all day.” His gaze heated her, reminding her of what they might have shared the night before, if only they hadn’t been interrupted.

  “I was busy with the earl.” His gaze drifted down her skirts and back up again.

  “I was sorry we were disturbed last night.”

  His gaze fastened on her face, his eyes widening.

  She should not have been so bold, but then again, her words were far less bold than her actions had been. He smiled, giving him a hint of boyish naughtiness.

  “I am sorry, too,” he said. “But Eddy sleeps in my dressing room.”

  “I don’t suppose there is a lock on that door.”

  He chuckled. “I can’t lock the boy in. What if there was a fire?”

  “I share my bed with Penelope. I didn’t expect house parties to be so complicated.” She made a face. How did people manage? And had she really just spoken so frankly? She had exposed her naïveté, true, but also her lust.

  “I was honored by the attempt.” He glanced down at her wrist. “May I?”

  She held it up, the card dangling. He laid it on his own palm and wrote his name down for two dances.

  “No one else has spoken for you yet?”

  “I have just arrived. I don’t know anyone except the ladies of the house, your cousins, and you.”

  “I see.” He offered her his arm and was soon placing her in front of the Marquess of Hatbrook and insisting he take a dance. Then they moved to Sir Bartley Redcake, who was also persuaded into a dance. Lastly, he brought her to the Earl of Bullen, who looked shocked at the notion of dancing at his own ball but agreed to a reel. Victoria followed in a daze as Lewis made the introductions.

  “There,” Lewis said with obvious satisfaction. “No need for you to interact with any other gentlemen.”

  “It might be said that you introduced me to the most eligible bachelor in the room,” she said, flattered by the way he had taken charge of her evening. When he gave himself a goal, it prompted a whirlwind of activity. She followed him to the foot of the staircase.

  “Oh, Nicholas?” Lewis said with careless satisfaction. “He has yet to discover the pleasures of the fairer sex. His brain is too full of maritime vessels.”

  “Then you were not displeased by my boldness?” Her voice caught on the last word. She still felt a little shy around this intensely masculine creature, though she was increasingly sure that she would, in the end, become his bedmate. Her body positively quivered with sensual awareness.

  They were interrupted by a hand on Lewis’s shoulder. “Noble. I hope you aren’t trying to hide a pretty lady from the rest of us.”

  “Trying,” Lewis said to Ernest Dickondell, who had a cheery grin on an unshaven face.

  “I have thwarted you. Introduce us. We’re at a private ball. The rules can be relaxed.”

  “They have to be relaxed very far to introduce such a reprobate.” Lewis sighed dramatically. “But if I must. Lady Allen-Hill, may I present Ernest Dickondell, feared pirate of the seven seas?”

  Victoria stared doubtfully at the child’s cutlass tucked into a sash around the man’s broad waist. He wore clothing not so different from Lewis’s, but in purest black. A tricorn hat of ancient lineage was pushed back on his head. “No eye patch?”

  “Couldn’t find one,” Ernest admitted. “Rather spoils the effect, I admit.”

  “You could wink a lot,” Victoria suggested.

  Ernest smiled, displaying large white teeth that looked entirely too well cared for to belong to a pirate. “May I have a dance?”

  “Card’s full.” Lewis’s grin bared his teeth. “Sorry, Captain.”

  “What are you then, Lewis? Seaman Noble?”

  “Major General Lewis Noble of Her Majesty’s Marine Forces,” Lewis said, deadpan. “I shall pursue you to the ends of the earth, you scurvy dog. And win the girl besides.”

  “She has to want to be won. One look at you after a hard day in your machine shop and she’ll run straight into my arms.” Ernest winked at her.

  “Lady Allen-Hill?” Lewis countered. “I don’t think so. She grew up among her father’s machines, right, my lady?”

  “Something like that, Major General,” she said, then blushed at the lie. “Actually, I never went near the factories.”

  “You probably have her confused with your cousins, Lewis,” Ernest said. “It was the Marchioness of Hatbrook who grew up in the factories. It only takes one look at this lady to see she is more gently bred.”

  Lewis’s brows narrowed as his expression grew hard. “I will not have you insulting Lady Hatbrook.”

  Ernest held up his hand and favored Victoria with another slow wink. “I just thought the lady should know where your loyalties lie. Madam, my heart is pure and untasted, whereas you see before you a most compromised seadog.”

  Victoria glanced at her dance card, suddenly wishing she had a dance to spare for this naughty Dickondell. She’d like to hear more about Lewis’s compromised heart, even if all she’d really been looking for were his embraces. Why was it so hard for a respectable widow to get some amorous congress with a decent man?

  “The Fates are conspiring,” she muttered, then looked up at the men’s startled expressions as she realized she’d said it aloud.

  “Not against you, I hope, my lady,” Ernest said with an exaggerated frown. “Never against you. If I cannot have a dance, may I partner you to dinner?”

  Lewis opened his mouth to protest, but Victoria spoke first. “By all means, my gallant pirate. I cannot wait.”

  Ernest winked yet again, bowed, then disappeared into the throng.

  “Why would you want to dine with him?” Lewis growled. “He’s a known rake, on the prowl for a rich heiress.”

  “I am a rich heiress,” Victoria said softly.

  “I thought you were interested in me. Was that all a mistake?” His expression stayed closed, remote.

  “Will you be dreaming of some other woman when I’m in your bed?” Her retort shocked her. She was acting like a jealous lover, not a flirt.

  He stared at her for a long moment. “If I allow a woman into my bed, she is going to be the only thing I think about. The only thought I will have will be her pleasure; my only concern will be her satisfaction.”

  She felt her intimate flesh contract in a hard burst of pleasurable shock. “Are you ready to allow it, sir?”

  “Are you?” His gaze narrowed. “You seem to be having second thoughts.”

  “I never have second thoughts at midnight. Only at other times of the day,” she said lightly, wishing she could run her hands over his elaborate jacket and feel the outline of the hard muscles underneath.

  “Then we will make an assignation for some midnight,” he said. “But not tonight. I need time to make arrangements for Eddy.”

  Sir Bartley Redcake lumbered up to them, ready for his turn on the dance floor. Lewis nodded to her and turned away, vanishing into the crowd.

  The next day, after hours of church services, Victoria found herself faced with a roomful of women. The men had all moved onto masculine pursuits, leaving their feminine counterparts to huddle by the fireplaces in the warmest parlor. The four ladies who comprised the female household of the earl all held embroidery hoops. Victoria and Penelope both had knitting needles and Rose Redcake, who’d stayed behind after the ball because she’d nearly fainted after three dances in a row and had been sent to rest in the countess’s bedchamber, was exclaiming over the talented stitchery of Lady Florence.

  “Will you tell me more of the story before I expire of boredom?” Penelope whispered.

  “It may just keep me awake,” Victoria said. “Let us see. The princess and our evil queen were facing off. The princess pulled off her veil and stared directl
y into the evil shade’s wavering, ghostlike face. ‘You make it too easy for me,’ she sneered.”

  “Are you telling more of the story?” Rose asked, coming to perch on a sofa arm. “Have I missed anything?”

  “Yes, I revealed the rest of the clues,” Victoria told her. “The last was twelve masks unmasking. But now Princess Everilda must decide how to save her betrothed.”

  “She needs a friend,” Rose said. “Someone to talk to, someone to advise her.”

  “Good idea,” Victoria said. “Princess Everilda sneers some more. ‘Begone, dead hag!’ she cried. ‘For you waste my precious time.’

  “Strangely enough, Queen Avice’s shade bestowed a look of pity upon the princess. ‘Save my stepson if you can,’ she intoned. ‘Find the character I know you have lacked.’ Then, with a puff of sickly, yellow-tinged smoke, the queen vanished. Everyone in the room gasped, then started coughing from the pestilent odor of the grave left behind.”

  Penelope wrinkled her nose. “Did it smell as bad as London did when we left?”

  “Exactly the same,” Victoria said. “Like the train station.”

  Rose chuckled, then covered her mouth with a lace-edged handkerchief and coughed delicately. “And everyone ran outside to breathe the fresh-smelling air until the stench dissipated.”

  Victoria nodded. “That would be most sensible. Everyone stood in front of the castle, staring out across the water to the tree line, wondering if they’d all had a stench-induced hallucination, and if they would soon see Prince Hugh on his destrier, galloping toward them. But of course, it was not to be, for in that distant time shades were very real, and Princess Everilda had brought disaster upon herself by refusing the mince pie.

  “Eventually, the princess sighed and gestured to her liege men to go back inside, but she climbed the battlements, taking only a fur her handmaiden had provided. She stood vigil for many an hour, puzzling over the Herculean tasks the queen had imposed upon her. Did she start at the first or the last? The masks or the merman?”

  “Are mermen real in this story?” Penelope asked.