Unlaced At Christmas: The Christmas Duchess / Russian Winter Nights / A Shocking Proposition

Chapter Five

In Montford’s opinion, there was nothing quite like a social disaster to guarantee a pleasant evening. In an effort to please him, the hostess’s nerves were usually strung as tightly as the wires on a pianoforte. Just as Generva Marsh had been when they’d been at table.

The food had been excellent. The children had been clean and polite. The lady of the house had taken extra care with her own toilette and donned a gown of burgundy satin, cut low enough to show the freckles on her shoulders and bosom and to leave her shivering in the chill air of the dining room. Was any room but the kitchen ever truly warm in December?

She had dressed her hair as well, with worked gold pins that were probably the pride of a limited jewellery box. Captain Marsh had been a loving husband, but unsuccessful in taking prizes, if this was all he could manage for those dark brown curls.

It was a joy to look at her. But it seemed that would be the only pleasure of the evening. The conversation was stilted and dull. Master Ben was presented with a heaping plate so that he might be too busy to speak wrong. And it was clear, from her wary eyes and stubborn chin, that Miss Marsh was not the least bit interested in his solution to her disgrace. Out of courtesy, he had done his best to engage her in conversation and she had resisted at every turn.

It was just as well. If she changed her mind tomorrow, he’d have to keep his word and marry her. But when he looked at her, he felt nothing more than polite curiosity. It did not bode well for a possible marriage between them.

Especially since he could not seem to stop staring at her mother. Generva was not a memorable beauty, as his first wife had been, but she was quite lovely. Nor was she as witty as his second wife, though she was more than clever enough to suit him. More important, she had suffered both pain and hardship and was still very much alive. Wit and beauty had been transient things when compared with the rigours of childbirth. But Generva had faced them twice already and survived. In fact, she seemed to have thrived.

And now that all hell had broken loose in the parlour, he would have her all to himself.

She shooed the children away, then handed him a blanket for his shoulders and insisted that he remove his coat so that the housekeeper could brush the coal dust from it before it was ruined.

He kept it long enough to lay a fire for them, then did as he was bidden. By the whispering of the two women, it was only propriety that kept them from demanding he surrender his breeches for cleaning, as well. They would likely disappear in the night and be clean in the morning, just as the coat had when the housekeeper left.

‘I am sorry.’ The words were out of Generva’s mouth before the door could latch.

Generva. It was a fine name. He looked forward to using it often, rolling it around in his mouth like a fine wine. ‘You have nothing to apologise for.’

‘My family behaved disgracefully.’ She was not wringing her hands, as some women might, but stood tall, like a young officer on the deck of her husband’s ship, waiting to be dressed down.

‘All families do, at one time or other. It is my nephew’s terrible behaviour that brought me to you.’ He fumbled in his pocket for a handkerchief.

‘At least he did not kick anyone in the ar—the bottom,’ she amended. ‘Here. Allow me.’ She pushed him towards a seat by the fire and took the handkerchief from him, dabbing carefully at his face.

He watched intently as she perched on the arm of the sofa and dipped the corner of it into her mouth, then wiped at the soot on his face. Did she mean to clean him like a cat with a kitten?

Because he would not mind that.

‘Ben grows worse each year,’ she admitted quietly as she worked.

‘He will grow worse until he grows better,’ the duke agreed. ‘All boys his age are monsters. The trick he played on me was but a child’s game. I played it myself, when at school. One boy must put on a blindfold. One of the others hits him and shouts, “Hot cockles”. Then the victim must guess the assailant.’

‘There was only one possible assailant,’ she said with a dark look towards the upper floor.

‘It did take the mystery from it,’ he agreed. ‘But my posture was all but asking for a kick. At that age, my mother would have needed to physically restrain me from taking action.’

‘It is proof of what idiots men can be when there are no women around to stop them from it.’ She switched the dirty linen in her hand for her own handkerchief and dipped it in the water from a drinking glass set beside his port. ‘Or perhaps it is that he needs a father. I worry, when he is old enough, he will run away to join the navy.’

Her hand stilled in her lap. Either he was clean to her satisfaction, or the thought of losing another man to the sea distressed her.

‘Do you mean to find him one?’

Her distant look turned to one of confusion.

‘A father,’ he said carefully. ‘Do you mean to find a husband? You are still young enough to remarry.’

But too old to blush over it, apparently. There was no pink in her cheek, other than what had been there from the first. He would not have compared her face to porcelain, unless it was to note the contrast of pale-pink rose petals painted on china. ‘A lady does not get herself a husband,’ she informed him. ‘A lady waits until a gentleman makes up his mind.’ She smiled. ‘And this lady has reconciled herself to the fact that none is coming.’

He took a sip of the port, which was excellent. It appeared that Captain Marsh had had excellent taste, all around. ‘Courting is not as I remember it. I thought I was the quarry, not the hunter.’

‘Because you are titled, Your Grace,’ she said with a smile that was much less sad. ‘I am a widow. Should I be the pursuer, society will think I am searching for something far different than a father for my children.’

Might she be longing for companionship? Did she miss a man in her bed? Or was that just what men wished to think, so that they need not worry about the reputation of the widows they claimed to be protecting? ‘I hope my presence here does not lead to more gossip,’ he said. ‘When I arrived, I assumed there was a man of the house. Now it is evening and we are unchaperoned.’

She laughed, and it was a sweet sound, as youthful as her daughter’s face. ‘If anyone talks, I will inform them that you are a duke and ask them if they thought you rode all the way from London because you had heard of my beauty. Then I will remind them of the fleas at the inn. If I could think of a house that was not already too full to hold you, I might have sent you there. But I could not.’

‘As long as I am no trouble,’ he said.

‘It is only for a few nights.’ Then she remembered their original plan. ‘And I wished for you to meet my daughter.’

Should he tell her now of the hopelessness of that particular plan? Better to wait until he could offer another. Though one was already forming in his mind, he had no evidence that she would approve of it. ‘Your daughter. Ah. Yes. Gwendolyn is a lovely girl. I suspect I will have a chance to talk to her again tomorrow. But tonight, I will retire early. If you will excuse me, Mrs Marsh?’

‘Of course, Your Grace.’ She hopped from her perch on the arm of the sofa and offered him a candle to light the way to his room.

Once there, he found the boy sound asleep on the far edge of the mattress. Boney, the spaniel, was monopolising the hot bricks that had been tucked under the sheets to warm their feet. He had a good mind to wake the boy and demand his penny back. He had bought the rights to the bed that afternoon.

But on feeling the cold of the floor through his stockinged feet as he undressed for bed, he could not find it in his heart to displace the child. Instead, he pulled back the covers, climbed into the space remaining and tried to sleep.

Chapter Six

It came as some relief that the duke was an early riser on Christmas Eve morning and willing to partake of the breakfast Generva had ordered for the rest of the family. Only Gwen was absent. No amount of prodding could convince the ungrateful girl to leave her bed and take another meal with the duke.

For some reason, Generva could not manage to be as disappointed as she ought to be at the utter failure of his suit. A match with a duke should have been an answer to a mother’s prayers. But she had not been looking forward to calling this particular man son-in-law. It would spoil some part of the friendship that had sprung up between them once she had set down the broom.

She smiled at the memory of their meeting.

The duke paused midbite to stare at her. ‘At last the sun has come up, for Mrs Marsh is smiling. What are you plotting? Some surprise for Christmas, perhaps?’

Christmas. In the fuss over the wedding, she had forgotten to treat it as a holiday in its own right. She would have to find some nuts and an orange for Ben, and perhaps a few pennies. He must think he had been forgotten in the rush to marry off his sister. ‘No surprise,’ she admitted. ‘It will not be as merry as some holidays we have shared. But we will manage.’

‘I noticed the lack in your decorating thus far, madam.’ He glanced at the bare mantel over the fireplace.

‘Perhaps it is because in the country we cannot afford the extravagances of a ducal manor, Your Grace.’ It was wrong to snap at him. It cost nothing to pull down some ivy from a nearby wood. She had been remiss.

‘No worries,’ he said with a smile. ‘Ben and I will handle it all. The weather is fine and I fancy a walk after breakfast. We will return to green the house. And if it is not too early to do so, we might hunt a wren for St Stephen’s Day.’

At this suggestion, her son’s eyes brightened and he began shovelling kippers into his mouth as though fearing the duke might leave without him, should he linger too long at table.

Generva gave him a worried look. ‘I shall only permit it if you promise me that no harm shall come to the bird. It is one thing to carry it alive from house to house. But to call it the king of all birds only to beg pennies for the burial of its poor little corpse, when it has done no harm to anyone...’

The duke laid a hand on her arm to calm her. ‘I promise we shall build him a little cage and let him go when we are done.’

‘Very well, then.’ She gave him an approving nod. ‘My son is quite bloodthirsty enough without encouragement.’ The duke was saying we as though he meant to be here for the twenty-sixth to take the boy house to house himself. She could not exactly send the man away. But if there was no hope for a match with Gwen, how long did he mean to stay?

‘Very well, then.’ The duke was staring at the little boy across the table from him. ‘Finish your breakfast. Then we will cut down some greens and harass the wildlife.’

It was only a moment more and Ben was pushing away from the table to search for a muffler and gloves. The duke took another sip of his coffee, then smiled at her and rose, bowing in her direction. ‘Madam, if you will excuse me? Duty calls.’

She managed to contain her amazement until he had cleared the doorway. Was it fair that the man should be gallant, good-looking and willing to escort her fractious son into the woods? Ben liked him, as well. Not enough to cease playing pranks on him, of course. But Montford’s amused response to them made him seem all the more attractive.

Thomas, she reminded herself. He had given her permission to use the name.

Then she remembered why she should not. A duke arriving at Christmas to marry her daughter was something straight out of a fairy tale. But in those stories, peers never appeared on the doorstep ready to set their titles aside so that they might be a father to young boys and rescue matrons from their lonely widowhood. Generva had never been fair, could hardly be called young and had not been a maiden for quite some time.

She must not forget, even for an instant, that her story had ended, unhappily, when John had died. In whatever plot continued, she was a minor character at best. Even the Duke of Montford was but a player in a single, short scene. She would force Gwen to meet with him this very day. If the girl did not want him, she must say so to his face. Then they might get him out of this house and on the road back to London. If not, she would be as foolish as her own daughter by Twelfth Night, weeping and mooning over a man she could not have.

* * *

‘Holly and his merry men, they dance and they sing.’ It was mid-afternoon before Montford’s voice rang out in the front hall. Generva could feel the blast of air that had entered with him all the way to the back of the house.

‘Ivy and her maidens, they weep and they wring.’ She answered with the next line of the song almost before she could help herself. How annoyingly appropriate for the state of the house lately. She straightened her skirts and went to meet him. ‘Close the door,’ she called. ‘You are letting in a draught.’ Then she bit her tongue. Had she forgotten so quickly her plan to treat him as an honoured guest and not a member of the family who could be scolded and ordered about?

Her words did not seem to bother him. As she entered the hall, he was dragging the door shut with his foot, since his hands were too busy to do the task. He was carrying the plants he sang about, and pine boughs and mistletoe, as well. Ben was a step ahead of him, carrying a wooden cage with a small, unhappy bird hopping about inside.

‘Have you cut down the whole forest and brought it into my house?’ She had decorated in the past. But she had never needed such a profusion of greenery.

The duke responded to her frown with an innocent, almost boyish look. ‘They will grow back, you know. Your mantel has no garland. Nor does your banister. If I mean to remedy the fact, I decided it was better to have too much than too little. I would not want to make a second trip.

‘True,’ she said, and took a deep breath. He had brought the scent of pine and fresh air into the house when he’d returned to it. Surely that explained the sudden buoyancy of her spirit.

‘If you give me some twine, or perhaps a bit of wire, I shall set it all to rights.’

Would that you could. For a moment, the solid maleness of his voice washed her worries away. She did so miss having a helpmate. Not that John had been that much help, if she was honest. He was away far too often. She shook her head, as though trying to clear it, and said, ‘It is my duty. You are a guest.’

‘And I owe you much,’ he said softly. ‘It is better, staying here, than at the inn I would have chosen. But I have placed an unexpected burden of hospitality upon you.’ He smiled in a way that was far too open and friendly for so important a man. ‘It would be my pleasure to help you in this.’

She gave a little flutter of her hands, trying not to look as foolish as his words made her feel. ‘Very well, then. I shall get the twine.’ She was back in a moment with a work basket that held wire, hammer and nails, as well. At the last minute, she’d added a handful of bright red ribbons that she’d meant to save for trimming her wedding bonnet.

He nodded in approval and set to work. For a gentleman, he was surprisingly adept at it, twining the branches together and threading sprigs of holly through the wires. Ben had disappeared into the kitchen to find crumbs for his feathered prisoner, which left Generva to steady the branches and snip the wires that he tied. In no time at all, he’d fashioned a creditable swag and draped the banister with it.

He stood back satisfied. She had to admit, the results were impressive and the time expended had been minimal. They moved on to the parlour, piling the mantel with holly and ivy.

He glanced down at her. ‘You are smiling again, Mrs Marsh. Twice in one day. It must truly be Christmas.’

Was it really so rare a thing to see her smile? She hoped not. But now that he had commented on it, she could not manage to raise the corners of her lips to prove him wrong.

The duke sighed. ‘And now it is gone again. Do you think, if we put up a kissing bough, it will come back?’

‘Certainly not.’ At least he had given her a reason to frown. All the kindness in the world did not give him the right to tease her.

‘You have several fine arches and a hook in the centre of the parlour where you might hang it.’ He glanced up in mock sadness at the empty door frames. ‘And yet, I see none there.’

‘That is because there is no point in hanging something of that kind in this house,’ she said firmly, as though the matter was settled. ‘There is no one here that wants or needs kissing.’

‘Really,’ he said, surprised.

‘My son is too young to care. If I allow my daughter to run riot at the holidays I will have even more trouble than I do already. The servants have no right to be distracted with it for half the month of December.’

‘And you?’ he prompted.

‘I?’ She did her best to pretend that the thought had not occurred to her. She turned away. ‘It is foolishness, and I have no time for that, either.’

‘Perhaps it is time to make the time,’ he said, stepping forward, holding the branch above her head and kissing her on the lips before she could object.

It was as if the world had been spinning at a mad rate and suddenly stopped, leaving her vision unnaturally clear. She was not a minor character waiting in the wings of her own life. She was standing in the centre of the stage, alone except for the duke.

And then it was over. A strange, adolescent awkwardness fell over them. He cleared his throat. She straightened her skirt. They both glanced at the door and then back to each other. ‘I trust I have demonstrated the need for further decoration?’ he said.

She touched her lips. And against her better judgement, she nodded.

‘Shall I get a bit of ribbon? I am nearly tall enough to reach that hook without a ladder. Or I could steady you while you place it on the hook,’ he offered.

She imagined how easy it would be for him to lift her, and her slow slide down his body once the job was done, leaving them standing close again, under the white berries. ‘I will get you a ladder.’

Chapter Seven

She had tasted of iced cakes and ginger and smelled of woodsmoke and brandy. Montford turned the branch in his hands, staring at it. How long had it been since he had kissed a pretty girl under the mistletoe, just for the fun of it?

He had done it last Christmas, of course. His own house had mistletoe boughs in several doorways. It was pleasant for both parties to catch a young lady under the berries, to swing her briefly off her feet and buss her on the cheek.

If the girl was not willing and wandered beneath the bough in mistake, he would make a playful start for her and send her scampering in fright before she realised that it was naught but a game. Then they would both laugh. And sometimes he would get his kiss after all, if she came back to award him for his good humour.

But had any of those previous kisses been as this one? It was sweet and sad at the same time, tasting of lost youth and aged like wine on his tongue. But there was hope in it as well, reminding him that while he might never be a boy again, there was much to enjoy in the present. The clock had not precisely stopped when he’d kissed Generva Marsh. But the passage of time had not felt quite so loud and insistent.

When he had pulled away from her he’d seen the same thing mirrored in her eyes. Her needs might have changed over the years. But the desire to be loved, and to love in return, had not diminished.

He had kissed her. For a moment, the title had fallen away and he’d felt like nothing more than a man. But he was a man without a wife. And for the first time in a long time, he felt incomplete. Both of his courtships, while not devoid of romance, had been foregone conclusions. He had shown interest and they had been flattered. He had proposed and they had accepted. It had all been very simple.

But that was the past. He had consoled himself that he was too old to start again. It had been a lie. But to open his heart when the answer was not guaranteed...

There was a shifting from behind him and a whispered, ‘Your Grace?’

He turned, surprised that he was not alone in the room.

It was Gwendolyn, holding a step stool in front of her. ‘Mama said you needed a ladder.’

So Mrs Marsh had lost her nerve and sent the girl to deal with him. Perhaps she still hoped that there would be a match between them and that a moment alone in the presence of mistletoe would be the answer. She was wrong.

But that was no fault of Generva’s. ‘Of course,’ he said, smiling. He took the stool from her and climbed it to hang the branch on a nail above the door. Then he stepped down again, standing well clear of the thing so that he might talk to the girl in peace. ‘And while I have you alone, I wish to speak with you for a moment.’ He gestured to the chairs by the window and they sat.

He resisted the urge to clear his throat, fearing that it would make him seem even more old and pompous than he already felt. ‘I wanted to apologise personally for the actions of my nephew.’

He could see, in the bright afternoon light, that her eyes were still red from crying. But for the moment, at least, they remained dry.

‘That is not necessary. They were not your fault after all.’

‘He is my heir and it reflects poorly upon my family that he used you, in such a way. I wish to make it right, if that is possible.’

‘I fail to see how you can,’ she said with a sad smile. ‘The man is already married. Even if he were not, I doubt I would take him back after how he has treated me.’

‘I understand that,’ he said as gently as possible. ‘Nor would I wish you to. It disappoints me to say so, but had I known of his courtship from the beginning, I would have warned you away from him.’

‘Because you did not think me worthy?’ She seemed ready to take offence.

He hurried to put her at her ease. ‘On the contrary. It is he who is not worthy. I had hoped on hearing that he meant to marry that it would be otherwise. But he has proved my worst fears and toyed with your affections. I must do what I can to make reparation.’

She gave him another sad smile that made her seem older than her years. ‘That is very kind of you, Your Grace. Mama said something on the subject to me already. If you mean to propose, I beg that you do not. It will save us both the embarrassment when I refuse.’

He hoped the relief he felt was not as obvious as it seemed. ‘You would not accept such an offer? You would be a duchess, you know. It is what Tom would have made you on my death.’

She shuddered. ‘Let us not talk of that, either. You are in good health at the moment, are you not?’

‘And I hope to be so, for some time,’ he said. ‘All the same, you would have been the duchess eventually.’

‘I hope you do not think that was an enticement when I accepted your nephew. I saw nothing further than the man in front of me.’ She smiled again. ‘I proved myself a very poor judge of character.’

‘If gentlemen behaved as they ought, it would not be necessary for ladies to be on guard,’ he reminded her. ‘And it is unfair that your reputation should suffer from his cavalier treatment of you.’

She gave a slight nod to say that he was too kind.

‘There will be a settlement,’ he said, stopping her before she could speak. ‘I will not accept a refusal of that, after the mortal blow you have dealt me by refusing my hand. You wound me to the quick, miss, for though I am old enough to be your father, I do not like to be reminded of the fact.’