Christmas Delights Page 7

  Surely an earthier love had its merits. As he stared down at Lady Allen-Hill, a flushed, pretty widow, he willed himself to stay in the moment, to provide her the congress she so ardently desired.

  “Lewis?” she whispered, a hint of doubt creeping into those lovely eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. He couldn’t behave like this. Dust sheered the floor under the sofa, the floorboards were hard, and she was a lady. “You must think I’m a madman to assault you on the floor. I do apologize.”

  “Lewis,” she said again. “I was enjoying myself. Weren’t you?”

  He shook his head slightly, not knowing what to say. Her fingers shook as she rebuttoned those tiny buttons that had been such an object of desire to him only moments before. She sat up, then stood.

  “When did you decide I repulsed you?” she asked, exhaling sharply.

  “You don’t repulse me.” Surprised by her question, he took her hand and held it between his own much cooler digits. “Not at all.”

  “Then what?” She pulled her hand away and tucked it behind the other.

  “I realized I had never conducted myself in this manner. I realized it wasn’t like me.” He came to his feet.

  “I don’t think I understand. I mean, you have been with women, yes?”

  For a moment, he didn’t know how to respond. Men didn’t blush or simper. “I have never engaged with a titled lady at a house party,” he said.

  “I was plain Victoria Courtnay before I married,” she said. “No better than Lewis Noble.”

  “I misspoke. I have never trysted at a house party, any more than you. We are both novices.”

  “I see. Such antics are beneath you. I suppose that is better than you finding me repulsive.” She crossed her arms over those delectable breasts and shifted from side to side.

  “I am sorry. Your beauty went to my head.”

  “I apologize for disturbing you.”

  He heard the break in her voice and felt absolutely terrible. “I will escort you to your room.”

  “No need. We are on the same corridor, Mr. Noble.” With a stiffness in her gait very different from her usual flowing, hip-centered walk, she pulled the edges of her wrapper under her chin and stepped to the door. Without looking back, she opened it and departed.

  Lewis closed his eyes as the door clicked decidedly behind her, as if it chastised him. What would have been more gentlemanly under the circumstances? Refusing her or agreeing to romp?

  Victoria felt more restless than she ever had in her life as she sat with Penelope and the Gill women in the morning parlor the next day. Should she depart? Her father had moped at breakfast as well, making her wonder if he’d had a tryst go wrong, too. Some things could not be discussed between father and child, but somehow she knew they were feeling a similar level of disappointment.

  “Victoria, stop woolgathering,” Penelope ordered. “What is Princess Everilda going to do?”

  Victoria cast her thoughts in the appropriate direction. “She was meant to search her father’s castle for the masks.”

  “What did she find?” the girl whined.

  Victoria dug deep into herself for the next kernel of story, hiding behind her fretful thoughts of Lewis. “She was at the highest level, so she searched the attics first but found nothing. Then she went to the floor on which the family lived. She searched the bedchambers and the solarium, then the chapel, all to no avail. On the ground floor, she investigated the main hall, even peering up the massive fireplace until her face was covered with soot. This was particularly troubling because, of course, the prince was expected to arrive that day and she hadn’t quite given up hope that he would appear. But the day progressed and even when her face was clean Prince Hugh had not arrived.”

  “She knew the curse was real,” Penelope said. “By then.”

  “I am afraid so,” Victoria said dully. Everilda had lost her prince, and Victoria couldn’t lose her virginity to save her life. Idly, she wondered if Ernest would be up to the adventure. But Lewis had kind eyes, and she was worried about the pain and perhaps even some blood. And he made her insides feel like they were melting. She expected if she told Ernest she was still a virgin he would refuse her for fear of entrapment. Or maybe he would want to be trapped by a rich heiress. Then she’d be forced to remarry much sooner than she wished.

  “Where did Princess Everilda go after she cleaned her face?” Lady Florence asked.

  “To the kitchens,” Victoria said. “She looked in the fireplace there, though far more carefully, because a boar was being roasted on a spit just in front. She opened and sifted through every basket and cask. Finally, there was only one more place to look.”

  “The dungeon?” Penelope asked.

  “No, no dungeon, but there were twelve storerooms down a dank staircase. This castle was close enough to the sea that there were floods at times, so all the rooms had benches erected higher than the waterline, and that’s where the foodstuffs were stored. She despaired, as you can imagine, when she saw the barrels in the deep recesses of her father’s castle. Unfortunately, though there were many barrels to go through, there was little fresh produce, hanging meat, and the like. She wondered how they would ever get through the winter without men to hunt for game and fish.”

  “You would think the first task wouldn’t be so difficult,” Penelope complained.

  “That’s just it,” Victoria said, thinking quickly. “As Princess Everilda held her torch high, she saw a door in the far wall of the long corridor leading between the storerooms. She’d never noticed it before.”

  Lady Florence bent forward over her embroidery. “How exciting.”

  “The door was locked,” Victoria continued. “Of course the princess was the castle’s chatelaine, so she went through every key in her possession until she found one that fit.”

  “Was it a strange key?” Lady Florence asked.

  She was surprised by the older woman’s enthusiasm. “Definitely. The metal was a kind the princess had never seen before: vaguely marbled, with a sickly green cast to it, like moldy fingernails.”

  “How vile,” the countess murmured, proving she had been listening all along.

  Victoria hid her smile. “She inserted the key and voilà! The door creaked open. She held her torch in front of her and tiptoed inside. The torch cast eerie shadows on the walls and the air smelled strangely clean and salty, as if the room were exposed to the sea. Eventually, she noticed slits in the walls, narrow slits like archers had used in times of war. She put her torch into an iron circle in the wall and looked around curiously.

  “She saw the room held twelve statues of knights in two long rows along the center of the room, cut from the same greenish marble of which the key was made.”

  “Were they wearing masks?” Penelope asked.

  “No, the masks were carved out of the same marble.” Victoria smirked. “And they weren’t over the knight’s eyes either, but took the place of fig leaves.”

  Lady Florence giggled naughtily. The countess frowned.

  “I suppose that made it unlikely that a lady of gentle birth would try to remove them,” Lady Barbara said.

  Victoria shot a glance at her friend, but Barbara’s expression was placid. “Our princess was made of sterner stuff than that. She took her torch from the wall and thrust it toward the first mask. To her surprise, the knight moved back with a clang. The mask burst into flames.

  “She moved down the line of knights, thrusting her torch at each one in turn. In the end, the masks were gone, but the knights held their line. As she stood, staring at the strange figures, each one lifted his sword. She felt a moment of fear, afraid they meant to skewer her, but they touched their swords to their helmets in a salute.

  “Were they naked?” Lady Florence asked.

  “No, they had armor on.”

  “Tragic,” Lady Barbara muttered as her mother sighed.

  “Then they all turned toward the door and marched out. Victoria tried to follow, but win
d rushed through the arrow slits, preventing her for a time. When she was able to get through the door, it slammed behind her. She turned around, and the stone wall held no hint of the door she had just exited through. But all of the twelve storeroom doors were open. Not only that, the damp smell was gone, as were the watermarks. And every room was bursting with food. Baskets of fresh berries, hanging herbs, barrels of root vegetables, plucked fowl, salted fish. Every foodstuff she could imagine, fresh and perfect.”

  “What about mince pie?” Lady Florence asked.

  “One room was stacked with them,” Victoria said. How had Florence Gill heard about the start of her story? “Of course.”

  Penelope giggled.

  “All this sudden largesse made the princess wonder how long her father’s castle had been cursed. They had not been prosperous in a long time and she had blamed the war. But now, she had enough food for a fine wedding feast, if only she had a bridegroom. She went up to her solarium, tucked her feet under her gown, and began to think.”

  “Better she had gone to her chapel and prayed,” said the devout Lady Rowena, the youngest of the countess’s children.

  “She isn’t scared enough yet,” Victoria said impishly.

  “Were there any knights at the masquerade ball last night?” Penelope asked.

  “No, dear,” Lady Florence said. “Armor is too cumbersome for dancing.”

  “Lord Cuthbert came in armor one year,” the countess said. “The odor was unspeakable after a couple of hours.”

  “I remember that,” Lady Florence said. “My, that was twenty years ago or more.”

  “Everyone wore masks last night?” Penelope asked.

  “Of course,” Victoria agreed, “but there were more than twelve of us.”

  “What comes next?” asked the girl.

  “Tigers,” Victoria said as the door opened and her father came in, trailed by a collection of Dickondells. She balled up her knitting and dropped it into her basket, giving up the pretense. Her belly tightened as she looked Ernest over, trying to decide if she dared to approach him. Would Lewis relent if she gave him time?

  “Why don’t you join me for a game of chess, Victoria?” her father said, interrupting her perusal of Ernest.

  “Penelope is learning,” she told him, hoping he would take the hint and entertain his niece.

  Instead, he crooked his elbow and pointed it in her direction. With as much grace as she could muster, she stood and took his arm. When they moved past the Dickondells, she made sure to let the satin ruffle at the base of her gown trail over Ernest’s shoes, but she didn’t dare look back to see if he noticed or reacted.

  Penelope trotted in their wake without being invited to join them, standing to the side as they seated themselves in heavy dark chairs around a small table inlaid with black and white squares. A carved chess set of blocky figures was already in place.

  “Back to your sewing, please, miss,” Victoria’s father said.

  “I want to watch.” The whine was back in the girl’s voice

  “Never disobey your elders. You need discipline, girl. Please ask the countess to ring for the nursemaid so that you may be returned to the nursery.”

  “Father, she’s sharing my room,” Victoria said.

  He lifted his head, his gaze piercing hers. “Remedy that at once. You will not have time to play mother to the child for the rest of the gathering.”

  Penelope stomped her foot. “She’s not my mother!”

  “I wasn’t playing mother. There simply aren’t any other children around.” Victoria spoke quietly, hoping to avoid a scene.

  “I’m sure the countess can bring in some tenant children or the like. Now run along, Penelope.”

  Victoria saw the bright sheen of tears in her cousin’s eyes as she turned away, and the drag of her steps. “You have been indulgent to her before now, Father. What is wrong?”

  “She needs discipline.” He pointed his index finger at the table. “Now, play. Show me that intellect you frequently claim to have.”

  Victoria shot her father a murderous glare but held her tongue. The temper he unleashed so famously at his factories was never in true evidence at home, and that was for the best. “Never poke a sleeping bear” was a phrase she’d read in a dime novel once, and it applied to her relations with her father. She watched as the countess gestured to a hovering maid to escort Penelope from the room. Once the girl was gone, she considered her options.

  Since she had white, she moved a pawn forward in a classic Queen’s Gambit. “I find it hard to believe you really want to test my chess ability.”

  “On the contrary, daughter. I find chess is an excellent measure of a man.”

  “I’m a woman.”

  “Exactly,” he said absently, moving his pawn in the Queen’s Gambit Accepted response.

  “Then what is your point? Surely you aren’t going to consider allowing me to learn your business.”

  “You aren’t educated for that. What is your next move?”

  She ignored his dismissive comment for the sake of peace. After all, she’d had nothing to do but educate herself for the past eighteen months. They continued their game, moving knights into play. Victoria recalled her fairy tale, and the naughty knights with masks covering their privates. She held back a smile.

  Her father caught her expression with a frown. “You are not going to win.”

  She shook her head slightly. “I am sorry, I was thinking of something else.”

  Her father’s chin lifted and she thought he would reprimand her, but then his head swiveled toward the door. She kept her expression impassive as she realized she’d been outmaneuvered by her father yet again. He’d brought her here to the chess table to make sure she was in a pretty pose, suitably demure, so that he could display her.

  To Edmund Parker-Bale and Percy Dandy-Willow, no less, who had just come through the parlor doors, accompanied by the butler. She hadn’t realized the pair ever left Liverpool. Distant cousins, they were both descended from an earl whose direct male line had ended fifty years before. Mr. Parker-Bale’s distinguishing characteristics were a receding, mouse-brown hairline, a twiglike body, and piercing blue eyes. Mr. Dandy-Willow looked like he belonged on a long-ago battlefield. Though he had a somewhat protruding belly, his arms were thick, which made his tailoring suspect. His hair was bushy black with eyebrows to match, and Victoria suspected he had to shave at least twice a day. At times, he sported a luxuriant mustache, but it was gone for now.

  What on earth were they doing at the Fort? She could see the light firing in Lady Rowena and Lady Barbara’s twin hazel gazes as they saw the two young men. Though not in their first youth, they were a couple of years north of Lady Barbara’s twenty-five years.

  Her father stood to shake their hands and draw them into the room. Victoria sat at the chess table as he introduced the men to the countess. She could tell the countess was not surprised by their arrival. Had it been planned all along, or had her father finagled the invitations for the rest of the Twelve Days? And how would she be able to be naughty with men around who could carry tales back to Liverpool? Assuming she decided to approach Ernest, she would have to be very discreet. The thought gave her a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach. A novice at the game of love needed fewer roadblocks.

  She remembered the sight of Lewis in his naval finery at the masquerade ball. Something about that white-blond mop of tightly controlled curls made her want to tug his head against hers. Ernest and the two latest arrivals were dark. Perhaps she did not find dark men attractive. Sir Humphrey had been ash blond. She clasped her hands in her lap and sighed. If the two new arrivals were kept busy by the daughters of the house, perhaps she could stroll to the stables and see what Lewis and the earl were doing. Her father might protest, but she could claim she’d set her cap for the earl. He might want her to find another husband to run the factories for him, but if he thought she could land an earl, she couldn’t imagine he would protest. Even he didn’t associa
te with noblemen of that caliber very often.

  She stood, thinking to sidle out of the room while the men were occupied, but Mr. Parker-Bale saw her. He went on point like a hunting dog, his nostrils flaring. Cornered by those piercing eyes, she didn’t move as he stalked her, and, upon reaching her side of the room, bowed deeply.

  She had almost forgotten his flair for the Continental; he took her hand in his cold, greasy paw and bent over it, then kissed the backs of her fingers. At least she was spared his cousin’s perpetual stubble marring her skin with hot pinprinks.

  “Many felicitations of the season, Lady Allen-Hill,” he exclaimed. “Joyeux Noël.”

  Oh, yes. The French. “Merci,” she said, mocking him, though he didn’t realize it.

  He released her hand as a meaty paw descended on his shoulder. Mr. Dandy-Willow bowed, then laughed heartily.

  “I hope you had a most happy Christmas, Lady Allen-Hill,” he boomed.

  “It could have been,” Victoria muttered, thinking of her aborted tryst. “What brings you gentlemen to Sussex?”

  “Change of scenery. Too much snow up north.”

  “We had snow here, too,” she said sweetly.

  “There isn’t any on the ground à cette heure, madam,” Mr. Parker-Bale demurred.

  “I haven’t looked outside all day,” Victoria told them. “In fact, I was just thinking of taking a walk.”

  “You mustn’t, you might take a chill,” protested Mr. Dandy-Willow.

  “You must allow moi to accompany you,” said Mr. Parker-Bale.

  “I saw you met Lady Barbara and Lady Rowena,” she said. “A charming pair, yes? Lady Barbara is a particular friend of mine.”

  “Neither of them holds a candle to vous,” said Mr. Parker-Bale.

  “I was not fishing for compliments, sir, merely stating what I consider a fact.”