Regency Mistletoe & Marriages: A Countess by Christmas / The Earl's Mistletoe Bride

‘However, she declared she would be a better guardian to me than any of those more nearly related, since she would not resent my presence in her house. As I have already told you, she was already on poor terms with her brothers, on account of her lifestyle. Taking me in and legally adopting me was only the last straw. I admit they did break with her entirely after that…’

The Earl frowned. ‘I fail to understand why that should be. What business was it of anyone else’s if she chose to take in and raise a child nobody else wanted?’

‘Exactly!’

The Earl was still frowning. ‘What do you mean by “her lifestyle”? What was wrong with it?’

‘Nothing at all!’ Helen flashed. ‘Except for the fact that she refused to marry.’

Helen’s mouth twisted with wry amusement. When she had asked Aunt Bella, not long after first going to live with her, if she had really never wished to marry, she had given one of her contemptuous snorts and said, ‘I had a Season without getting one single proposal. If they did not want me without money, then I certainly was not about to hand it, and myself, over to any of them once I’d got it! Besides,’ she had pointed out astutely, ‘men always think they know best. If I’d had a husband he would never have permitted me to adopt you. And then where would we both be?’

Helen had gone quite cold inside. If Isabella Forrest had been more conventional, and had meekly married to please her family, Helen shuddered to think where she would be. From that moment on she had never questioned the older woman’s decision to remain single again. And as she had grown she had found that she too was rather strong-willed, and would likely find it just as difficult as Aunt Bella to have to defer to a man, whether he was right or wrong, simply because convention decreed it.

‘Aunt Bella said she saw no reason to hand her fortune over into the hands of some man who would fritter it away.’

Instead she had managed to lose it all on her own. Helen blinked and hung her head. Her poor aunt’s humiliation was complete. After a lifetime of striving for independence, she was reduced to begging a man—this man, the head of her extended family—for her daily bread.

‘Did she formally adopt you?’ Lord Bridgemere asked sharply.

Helen nodded.

‘Which is why you go by the name of Forrest now. Although you were born Helen de Bois de St Pierre?’

‘Helène, to be precise,’ she informed him. ‘But, since there is so much prejudice against the French on account of the war, my aunt thought it better to Anglicise me as much as possible.’

He nodded, as though accepting the wisdom of that, and then said casually, ‘Did she by any chance make you her sole heir as well?’

She nodded again.

Well, that explained the General’s antipathy to this young woman. He would still have had hope, whilst his sister remained unmarried, that some part of her fortune might revert to him upon her demise. Until she had adopted Helen and made her the sole beneficiary of her will.

It always came down to money in the end.

A cynical expression swept over his face as he clasped his hands together on the desktop, leaned forward and said, ‘Speaking of which, perhaps now you would be good enough to get to the real reason why you requested this private interview with me?’

Helen frowned. ‘I do not understand.’

He made a gesture of impatience. ‘Do not take me for a fool, Miss Forrest. You all come here each Christmas for one reason and one reason only.’ He got to his feet and strode to the window.

‘I came with my aunt because I felt she needed my support. That is all.’

‘You expect me to believe you want nothing from me?’ he sneered, whirling round.

‘Nothing at all. Except…’

‘Yes, now we come down to it,’ he said, his face a tight mask of fury. ‘Think very carefully before you make your petition known to me. Because once you leave this room you will not get another chance to speak to me in private! I grant each of you one interview and only one.’

It was imperative he put her back with the rest of them. He should never have singled her out for special treatment simply because she had not known who he was when she first came here, and had made the mistake of letting him see her true self.

‘My decision,’ he warned her, ‘whatever it may be, is irrevocable! Do not think you will be able to sway me from it!’

Helen got slowly to her feet. ‘I do not know what suspicions you harbour where I am concerned, but I repeat: the only reason I came to you today was to clear the air between us and beg you to put any animosity you may feel for me to one side when you consider Aunt Bella’s future. Neither of her brothers is likely to show her any mercy after the stand she took against them in her youth. She has nobody but you to depend on now. And if you will not take pity on her—’

‘Do you not want me to take pity on you, too? Is your need not as desperate as hers?’

‘No,’ she replied calmly. ‘My case is not at all desperate. I am young and strong and quite capable of looking after myself.’

‘You expect me to believe you want nothing from me?’

His implication that she was not only dishonest but also incapable of looking after herself was really beginning to grate. ‘Nor any man!’ she flashed. No wonder Aunt Bella had taken the almost unheard of decision never to marry. ‘I repeat: I am quite capable of looking after myself. And even if I were in need of help, why should I apply to you? I have no claim on you. We are not related.’

‘That would not stop most women…’

‘It would stop any woman with an ounce of pride!’ she retorted.

‘Of which I observe you have more than your fair share.’

Without her conscious decision, her hands curled into fists at her sides. At this very moment she wished she were a man, with the freedom to come to fisticuffs with him! Her only recourse as a female was to tell him exactly what she thought of his horrid opinions of women. But she could not do even that! She had come here to mend fences, to smooth the way for her aunt—not to start a completely new family feud.

He could see her battling with her temper. For one moment he had the impression she was about to fling herself at him bodily. He braced himself for the onslaught, imagining himself capturing her wrists as she tried to strike at him. Subduing her by twisting her arms behind her back. Showing her exactly who was in charge here by stopping that saucy mouth with a hard kiss.

He caught his breath. Took a step towards her.

‘Miss Forrest…’ His voice, he realised to his surprise, was hoarse.

She put up one hand, as though to ward him off.

‘Enough!’

‘But—’

‘No,’ she said through clenched teeth. ‘I think I had better leave before one of us says something they will regret.’

It was not what he had been about to say she was saving herself from, he reflected grimly as she strode away to the door. But what he had been so sorely tempted to do.

‘I think for once—’ He flinched as she slammed the door shut behind her, sank into his chair, and finished softly, ‘I completely agree with you.’

He felt stunned. Yet strangely energised. He wondered if this was what it felt like to be struck by lightning. There had definitely been something elemental about that encounter.

Miss Forrest, he acknowledged with a hollow laugh, could truly be described as a force of nature.

After breakfast Mrs Dent herself came to the drum room, gushing apologies, and a veritable army of staff moved all their possessions to a new suite of rooms, down on the main floor where the other guests were staying.

‘Since we have discovered you are a guest, and not a servant, your things will be moved down here, too,’ the housekeeper said to Helen.

Adjoining her aunt’s bedchamber was a small but beautifully decorated room, which would afford Helen privacy whilst keeping her close enough to her aunt for peace of mind.

It took most of the rest of the day to organise things to their satisfaction, but as dusk began to fall her aunt remarked, ‘I think we had better go down for dinner a little earlier this evening. I do not want anyone to think I am hiding away, as though you or I have anything to be ashamed of.’

An image of the Earl circulating amongst his guests flashed into her mind. The prospect of perhaps speaking to him filled her with mixed feelings. So far their exchanges had been pithy, and strangely stimulating. But tonight, with other people present, they would both be obliged to limit themselves to polite commonplaces. Which would be most unsatisfactory.

Though in all honesty it was unlikely he would deign to speak to her in public. Why should he? He was the head of a large and wealthy family, with immense responsibilities. Whereas she, in another week or so, was to become a governess. What was more, their encounter this morning had hardly ended on…friendly terms.

‘Do not look so downcast,’ her aunt remarked. ‘You will be more than a match for any of them. You are far more clever, as well as having more spirit than any other woman present.’

Helen was loth to admit that it was the prospect of having to interact with one person in particular that had resulted in her looking a little wistful, so she answered, ‘Thank you for saying that. But I think I shall have to make an attempt to quench that spirit tonight. I would not wish to say something I ought not, and perhaps give His Lordship cause to think you have not brought me up to know how to behave.’

He had already indicated that his decision regarding Aunt Bella’s future hung in the balance. He was half inclined to believe she was Aunt Bella’s illegitimate daughter, and that they had both come here to wheedle something from him to which they were not entitled. Unless she could convince him that the General had lied…She shook her head. It was out of her hands now. She had told him the truth, and thank goodness she had, but it was up to him to make up his own mind.

As had become their custom since letting their maid go, they helped each other to get changed. On their way downstairs Helen decided that she would have to make some alterations to her gowns so that she would be able to dress and undress herself unaided in future. Fortunately she was clever with a needle.

The liveried footman was once again on duty at the foot of the stairs, to remind them of the way to the blue saloon. There were already several of the other house guests present, ranged in groups of twos and threes.

Her aunt took a seat on one of the sofas dotted about the room, and Helen sat beside her.

‘You have already met Lord Cleobury,’ she said in a low voice, cocking her head towards the gentleman who had sat next to Helen at dinner the night before. ‘And if I am not mistaken that clerical gentleman, the one who gave thanks for our meal last night, is none other than Barnaby Mullen. Another very distant connection of His Lordship’s. I should not be a bit surprised…’ she lowered her voice still further ‘…if he is not angling for a living. His Lordship has several in his gift.’

Helen took ruthless advantage of the fact that Lord Bridgemere happened to be engaged in an earnest-looking conversation with the young cleric to turn her head and look at him. It almost surprised her to see that he looked the way he always did. What had she expected? That their confrontation this morning, which had left her so shaken, would have made some kind of physical impression on him? He did not even turn his head and look back at her. It was as though he was completely unaware she had entered the room.

He probably was.

At that moment Lady Thrapston walked across her field of vision, severing her tenuous connection to Lord Bridgemere.

There was no need for her aunt to inform her who this woman was. She and her aunt watched in silence as Lord Bridgemere’s oldest sister sashayed across the room. Tonight she was wearing emeralds to complement the sumptuous outfit of green satin she was wearing.

Helen frowned. Lord Bridgemere had said they all came to Alvanley Hall at Christmas because they wanted something from him. What could a woman as obviously wealthy as this possibly need?

Then Aunt Bella gripped her hand, and said in a voice quivering with suppressed excitement, ‘And this boy just coming in now is the one I was telling you about. Bridgemere’s heir. The Honourable Nicholas Swaledale.’

Unlike His Lordship, the heir—who was not really a boy at all, although he was certainly not very much past twenty—was dressed in an extravagantly fashionable style. There were fobs and seals hanging from his cherry-striped satin waistcoat, jewels peeping from his cravat, and he wore his hair teased into a fantastic style with liberal use of pomade. Helen tried very hard not to dislike him just because of the way he looked. For he, she recollected, was the youth who had steered the dinner conversation away from her the night before, after General Forrest had been so rude.

‘And, oh,’ Aunt Bella continued wickedly, ‘how annoyed Lady Thrapston is that her younger sister produced him, when all she managed to have were girls!’

‘He does not look to me,’ Helen observed, ‘like a very happy young man.’

‘Money troubles,’ Aunt Bella explained darkly. ‘His father is not a wealthy man. But because of the title he expects to inherit once Bridgemere dies, he tends to live well beyond his means.’

An idiot, then, as well as a fop, thought Helen as she watched the youth saunter across the room and take a seat in between two damsels who blushed and simpered at him. One of them Helen recognised as the young lady who had been flirting with Aunt Bella’s dinner partner the night before.

‘I wonder if he is sitting with them on purpose, to annoy his aunt?’ mused Aunt Bella aloud. ‘Oh—I should perhaps explain that those are the two of Lady Thrapston’s daughters not still in the nursery. Octavia and Augustine.’

Even as he acknowledged the adulation of his female cousins, she could still detect a faint sneer hovering about the heir’s mouth, which unhappily put her very much in mind of his Aunt Thrapston.

‘Which are his parents?’ Helen whispered. ‘Are they here?’

Aunt Bella made a motion with her fan, to indicate a very ordinary-looking middle-aged couple perched on the edge of a pair of spindly-legged chairs. The lady had been sitting beside Lord Bridgemere at dinner the night before. Talking non-stop and irritating him, she saw on a flash of insight. As much as his other sister had managed to irritate him from the foot of the table, with her condescending remarks about the quality of the food.

What a family!

‘You know my brother the General, of course, and his charming wife,’ her aunt said sarcastically as the couple strolled into the room arm in arm.

When the General saw them, his brows lowered into a scowl.

‘I wonder why they have come this year?’ her aunt mused. ‘He usually goes to spend Christmas with Ambrose.’

It was a great pity he had not gone to spend this Christmas with Ambrose, Aunt Bella’s oldest brother, sighed Helen. His estate was just outside Chester. Which would have put him at the very other end of the country.

‘I can only assume his pockets are to let.’

‘Whatever do you mean?’

‘Oh, come! You know full well that none of us comes here without a very compelling reason. Had I no need, even I would have given my cousin’s nephew a wide berth. Indeed, I do not think I have seen him for over fifteen years.’

Helen shifted in her seat. ‘It sounds a very odd way of conducting family relations…’

But it helped to explain Lord Bridgemere’s conviction that she had come cap in hand, like everyone else. And when she had been so insistent upon speaking to him in private, to put her case, it could only have reinforced that impression.

She wished she had not been so quick to take offence. For suddenly she could see exactly why it had been so hard to convince him that she, personally, wanted nothing from him for herself.

‘Perhaps I am being a little harsh in regards to his sisters,’ Aunt Bella murmured. ‘Not that it is fondness for their brother that brings them here, either. It is just that neither of them can bear the thought that the other might somehow steal a march if they are not here to keep an eye on their dealings with Bridgemere.’

How awful! Did nobody ever come to see him merely because they liked him?

Although her aunt had said he actively discouraged visitors by being purposefully elusive. She could not help allowing her eyes to stray in his direction, her heart going out to a man she now saw as an island in the midst of a sea of greedy, grasping relatives. She wondered which had come first. His reclusive habits, or his family’s attitude towards him as nothing more than an ever-open purse?

She was startled out of her reverie by the General who, after standing stock still, glaring at them for a few seconds, marched right up to them and demanded, ‘I want to know why you have come here, Bella.’

‘I do not think that is any of your business,’ Aunt Bella retorted.

‘Still as argumentative as ever,’ he growled. ‘And just as prone to stirring up a hornets’ nest with your effrontery!’

‘I have no idea what you mean,’ she replied coldly.

‘Don’t you? Don’t you indeed?’ he said. ‘You have shunned your entire family for years, and then you march in here, bold as brass, with some devious scheme in your head involving this baggage, I don’t doubt…’

‘The reason I came here has absolutely nothing to do with Helen—’ Aunt Bella began.

‘Then why is she here? You have no business bringing that charity case to a family gathering.’

‘She is not a charity case. She is family,’ Aunt Bella protested. ‘My family.’

Oh, no! Saying such a thing was playing right into the General’s hands. Anyone who overheard Aunt Bella’s remark would be only too ready to believe she was her natural daughter!

‘Well, at least we have that out in the open. You think more of that chit than you do your own family, and that’s the truth! Years and years you’ve frittered your money away on her, and now, when I—’

His wife was tugging urgently on his sleeve.

‘Please…not here, not now…’ she begged him.

He shook her off as though she were a bothersome fly. ‘Well, let me tell you something, madam. I know my duty to family. And I have made it my business to keep in His Lordship’s good graces over the years. I have let him know what kind of person you are, and if you think you can persuade him otherwise you are very much mistaken.’ A nasty smile spread across his face before he turned and stalked across the room, his little wife trailing behind him.

Helen could hardly believe that he bore so much animosity towards both her and his own sister that he would stoop to such tactics. He was a blustering bully! No wonder Aunt Bella had been so determined to make a bid for independence as soon as she’d had the means to do so.

She could not help herself. She just had to see what impression this little scene had made upon Lord Bridgemere. Her eyes flew to his face. To her relief, he was watching the General stalk across the room, his anxious little wife in tow, with barely concealed distaste. As yet she had no way of knowing whether it was dislike for the creation of a scene or a complete rejection of his version of Aunt Bella’s past that was bringing that look of cold contempt to Lord Bridgemere’s eyes.

But at least he was wise to the kind of man the General was now.

‘Do not worry, Aunt Bella,’ she murmured, patting her aunt’s hand. ‘Lord Bridgemere is no fool. I do not think he will accept anything the General says or implies without checking the facts for himself.’

‘You seem to have formed a very high opinion of His Lordship, Helen. How on earth did you come by it?’

‘I can see it in his face,’ she hedged, unwilling to admit she had been to see him in private. Because then she might have to admit to her other encounters with him. ‘He did not like the way the General attempted to browbeat you like that in public.’

‘You may be right,’ Aunt Bella said, though she did not sound all that convinced.

Fortunately for Helen, at that moment another guest caught her aunt’s eye.

‘My goodness, can that be Sally Stellman? Lady Norton, I should say. I have not seen her since my own come-out. After she married we lost touch, but…’

The lady in question, who was just entering the room, clearly recognised Aunt Bella, too. She tugged upon her husband’s arm, steering him straight towards their sofa.

‘Bella!’ she cried, detaching herself from her husband and plumping herself down beside them. ‘It is you! I thought it was last night, but you retired so early I never had the chance to renew our acquaintance. How lovely to see you again after all these years!’

The chance for the two ladies to say any more than that was abruptly curtailed when the butler announced in sonorous tones that dinner was served.

Sir Mortimer came to escort Helen in to dine, as he had the night before. This time he did not look bored. No, he looked downright reluctant to associate with her. She had no idea whether it was because he might have heard the rumour the General had started about her being somebody’s love-child, or if it was because of the way she had made a fool of herself the night before, or…

Oh, she had never known a Christmas like it. Peace on earth? There was precious little peace here. Let alone goodwill towards men. Why, the whole place was a seething maelstrom of repressed resentments.

She was sorely tempted to remove herself from the field of combat by taking her meals up in her room from now on, if the atmosphere was always going to be as fraught as this in the public rooms. Since she had spent part of the afternoon apologising to the kitchen maid and the cook for her outburst on that first night, she was no longer in their black books. In fact, after they had all matched her apology with an explanation of their own errors, which had echoed what Lord Bridgemere had already told her, they had said she was a rare lady to come and make peace with them, when most of the gentry did not give two hoots for the feelings of those below stairs.

Only it did seem a little cowardly to hide away upstairs. And to desert her aunt in her hour of need. She lifted her chin as her reluctant dinner partner escorted her to table. She was as well born as any of them! Better than some. And if Lord Bridgemere did not object to her presence, then nobody else had a right to make her feel like an interloper.

She darted a glance in his direction.

His gaze swept round the assembled guests, his face closed entirely. Until it came to her. She thought for just an instant that he hesitated. That his features softened very slightly.

Her spirits rose. He believed her! Just that slight thaw in her direction, coupled with the utter contempt with which he had regarded the General, was enough to remove the burden of worry that had so weighed her down.

She smiled at him.

His face closed up. He bowed his head.

For the young clergyman was clearing his throat before saying grace.

A stillness gradually descended over them all as they followed the Earl’s lead in giving thanks for the food they were about to receive.

Helen clasped her hands at her waist and bowed her own head, truly thankful that it looked as though Lord Bridgemere was not going to believe the General’s lies.

She did not notice Lady Thrapston’s beady eyes going from her radiant face to her brother’s bowed head.

And, since she swiftly bowed her own head, in respect to the convention, absolutely nobody saw the speculative expression that came over Lady Thrapston’s face.

Chapter Five

The meal turned out to be every bit as delicious, and the atmosphere quite as poisonous, as it had been the previous night. Only this time when Lady Thrapston got to her feet and the ladies withdrew, Aunt Bella whispered, ‘I’m blowed if I’m going to let my brother make me feel as though we have no right to be here. Especially since I have not seen Lady Norton for such a long time. I am looking forward to catching up with her news. Will you come with me?’