Mistletoe and Mayhem: A Regency Holiday Romance Anthology, page 17
Only Hector and his valet, Parker, were to be trusted with her son’s protection from this moment on.
An odd creak sounded behind her, and she turned slightly.
“So you are leaving without a word of farewell, just like all the rest,” Lord Vyne accused.
Ruby considered ignoring her uncle, but she had been brought up to show respect for elders, even if they were evil. “It seemed appropriate.”
She turned fully, finding her uncle being rolled into the room by a servant in a wheeled chair. He looked to have aged a decade in just one night.
“If you’re going, I suppose you’ll be needing this.” He deposited a silver bell onto one of Hector’s traveling trunks nearest him.
Ruby frowned as she recognized it.
Her uncle had stolen her silver bell!
Vyne nodded. “You don’t belong here, and neither does that anymore.”
He had his man roll him away.
Ruby rushed forward and snatched up her precious heirloom. The bell was just as she remembered, engraved with her initials upon the inside. She held it tight to her chest, her eyes misting with tears just as Hector returned. “I’ve said goodbye to Blackwood for us all. He’s finally been repaid and is eager to leave today, too.”
Ruby looked around them at the emptiness of The Vynes and sighed. “This will be a lonely place to spend Christmas.”
“He brought it all entirely upon himself.” He squinted at her hand. “What have you there?”
Ruby lifted her bell and gave it a little shake.
“Ah, I see Vyne saw the wisdom of returning your possession.”
“When did you realize he had taken it?”
“The same time I realized he was behind the attempt to abduct Pip. If he could stoop so low, there was nothing he wouldn’t have tried to get away with before.”
“He gave it back because of you. Thank you.”
Hector’s eyes softened. “We should be going. I suspect if I don’t marry you quickly enough, I fear I might miss my chance to be Pip’s new papa.”
“Never fear. You are just the man for the job,” she swore.
He was a good man, wonderful with Pip, and she couldn’t have chosen better if she’d tried. She raised her little bell high and shook it again. The much-missed twinkle of sound made her so happy. “Come along, Lord Stockwick, we have a Christmas adventure to embark on, and I mean to start it today.”
She took Pip’s hand and led him out of The Vynes to the carriage. Hector followed, directing servants to load the trunks securely. When he joined them inside the comfortable interior, Pip jumped quickly onto his lap and started peppering the poor man with questions.
Never once on that first day together did Ruby feel Hector regretted the impending loss of his bachelorhood. And after he’d spoiled Ruby with a pretty new gown and cloak, and Pip with toys and even more warm clothing, they took lodgings at a cozy inn, where they spent the night reading the scandalous entries in his journal, highly censored to protect the innocent ears of her young son.
For the first time in a good long while, Ruby was at last happy and safe and felt loved again. Liam, she felt sure, was looking down on them from above, holding mistletoe over their heads.
The End
About Heather Boyd
USA Today Bestselling Author Heather Boyd believes every character she creates deserves their own happily-ever-after—no matter how much trouble she puts them through. With that goal in mind, she writes steamy romances that skirt the boundaries of propriety to keep readers enthralled until the wee hours of the morning. Heather has published over 40 regency romance novels and shorter works full of daring seductions and distinguished rogues. She lives north of Sydney, Australia, with her trio of rogues and pair of four-legged overlords.
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CONVINCING THE COUNTESS
by
ALINA K. FIELD
A penniless widowed countess with trade in her blood descends upon the country manor of her sons’ negligent guardian, intent on confronting him about her boys’ futures. Instead, she finds his younger brother, a business-minded aristocrat with a penchant for widows and a distaste for emotional entanglements. A man who once witnessed her greatest humiliation. A man offering enticing distractions that threaten to derail all her plans.
Called home at Christmas to bring his older brother to heel and sort out the family finances, a baron’s younger brother wishes nothing more than to finish the task and return to his railway project. But when he finds his mother entertaining a fetching widow he met many years earlier as the unfortunate bride of a ne’er-do-well earl, temptation steers him along a different track, one that may derail all his plans.
Can he convince the reluctant countess to set a course for her future that includes him?
Chapter One
Richmond, 1811
“Gad, I’ve never seen the likes of it.” Chester Halverton, Earl of Glanford, raised a shaky flask to his lips. “The gacking and puking go on forever. S’pose that’s how it is when you breed on a woman who’s not born a lady.”
Good God, what an ass.
The Honorable George Lovelace shuffled a booted toe through the gravel and glanced at his chuckling brother, Fitz—Fitzhenry Lovelace, eldest son and heir to Baron Loughton.
Fitz leaned against the next column of the circular folly in the Townsends’ garden, and stretched his legs along the stone bench he’d claimed for himself. “As the eldest of ten,” he said, “I can assure you, genteel blood makes no difference.”
The others—fashionable men of good birth, all Fitz’s friends, all well into their cups—laughed and chided Glanford. They’d slipped away from the terrace and wide lawn through the arbor to this secluded folly to smoke their cheroots and drink something stouter than their hostess was serving.
“Surely your bride isn’t ill all the time,” someone said. “Did she not accompany you today?”
Glanford had arrived with an attractive young lady with wheaten-colored hair and wide gray eyes. Tall and shapely, she’d matched her escort in height and had greeted her hostess with a solemn air of either haughtiness or deep unhappiness.
George had suspected the latter. Now he was sure.
“She did.” Glanford took another long drink. “Mooning about like death.”
“Still, she’s lined your pockets,” someone said.
The ass brayed. “And easy it was picking hers. Lured her onto a balcony and one stumble later she was in my arms—with the right nosy gossip observing.”
“Cleverly done,” someone said, and there was more drunken laughter.
George pushed himself off the column. The party had been a dead bore, and this? There wasn’t anything more tiresome than a bumptious fool’s marriage woes.
“Let it be a lesson for the young ones like young Lovelace here,” Glanford said.
Fitz glanced his way and shrugged.
Glanford belched. “Don’t ever give up your ladybirds though, George.”
He scoffed. “I do love tedious advice from my elders.” At eighteen he had no plans to keep a mistress. He had better ways to invest the small income he’d received from his late godfather. “Yet out of my unfailingly deep respect for you ancient ones, I shall keep it in mind.”
“Don’t you want to know why?” someone exclaimed, ignoring his sarcasm. “Do tell us, Glanford.”
He tried to catch his brother’s eye, but Fitz’s attention was fixed on the earl. Like George, Fitz was unmarried. However, Fitz did have a mistress tucked away in a lodging on Brook Street.
“No life there at all,” Glanford said. “Like poking through a hole in the ticking. Heard wives are like that. Never knew it would be true.”
In the general laughter that followed, Glanford turned a bleary eye George’s way. “Find a bumbling girl with a purse, George, but keep your side piece, unless you like bedding the dead.”
Everyone laughed, including Fitz.
He thought of the pain he’d seen in the lady’s gray eyes.
“I’ve heard,” George drawled, flicking at an invisible piece of lint, “a man has to make some effort. I’ve heard it takes a woman longer than two minutes to liven up. Unless, of course, one has engaged an actress.”
Loud snickers followed, petering out as Glanford’s face hardened. George forced a smile and held the ass’s glare.
“Now, now,” Fitz soothed. “What does my pup of a brother know about bed sport, eh?” He stood and slapped Glanford on the back. “George and I must be off.”
Fitz nudged him along the path through the arbor, the men’s voices and laughter following, Glanford booming out details of his mistress’s skills.
“I’ve saved you from pistols at dawn,” Fitz said.
Relieved to be leaving, George stopped, threw back his head, and laughed. “Only listen to him.”
“He is an ass.” Fitz was chuckling with him as they reached a turn in the path.
They both froze, their laughter dying. A lady stood rooted to the flagstones, a pale statue with wheaten hair, a far-away gaze, and hands twisted over a swelling waist. Glanford’s bride.
“Said she learned the trick from a sword swallower.” Glanford’s words rumbled through the garden.
He heard Fitz’s sharp breath over his own pounding heart.
The lady’s gaze swiveled their way. Color flooded her cheeks and her lower lip trembled. He managed an awkward bow.
“Sophie.” Fitz said, “are you well?”
She blinked, and a single tear rolled over her cheek, taking the color with it until she was as pale as the white gloves clasped at her waist.
Shame slithered through George. She looked ready to faint.
He took one step forward and she blinked, shuttering the hurt and freezing him in place with a stony gaze.
“Are you looking for Glanford?” Fitz asked, his tone gentle. “Shall I fetch him for you? The gentlemen are just down this path in the garden.”
Her chin eased up in another long scrutiny, the steady throb in her porcelain neck pounding hard on his conscience.
“You are mistaken, Mr. Lovelace.”
The words curled around him, the voice rich, deep, melodic.
“There are—and have been—no gentlemen in the garden today.”
She turned, wobbled, straightened, and walked away.
Fitz moved to join her, but George instinctively pulled him back. “Give her a moment,” he whispered. Their solicitousness might be seen as pity. Let her recover her dignity while she made her way back to the other guests.
They trailed at a distance. Instead of taking the path to the house, she continued on toward the drive. Assisted by their host’s grooms, she entered a waiting carriage that immediately pulled away.
George beckoned the grooms, ordered his horse, and wished his brother farewell.
“Don’t mind Glanford,” Fitz said. “He means no harm.”
“No harm? Your friend was abominable. Father would never be so disloyal to Mother.” The lady’s hurt and anger had been palpable.
Yet… he recalled her wealth came from manufacturing. It was said that she’d entered society with the goal of acquiring a title. “Do you suppose Glanford’s lady knew the price of her rise?”
Fitz shrugged. “For the sake of the title, I hope this child is a boy. I doubt there will be any others.”
He thought of her steely-eyed glare. “She’s rather formidable.”
“As is her father, and he won’t be happy when he learns of this. That was Clark’s carriage she climbed into. She’ll be going home to Papa.”
“Older brother or not, Fitz, if you ever treat a lady that way, you’ll have my boot up your arse. Give my thanks to our hostess.”
Fitz returned to the party, and George wandered toward the stable.
“I knew Clark,” a groom said. “A fair man, he was.”
“Aye. An’ what sort of puttock would send his wife off on her own after such news?”
“What’s happened?” George asked.
They exchanged grim glances. “Mr. Clark’s died.”
Hell. He raked a hand through his hair. “Does Lady Glanford know?”
“Aye. Her maid brought her the news.”
Hell and damnation. They should have escorted her. He shouldn’t have held Fitz back. She shouldn’t be alone through this.
And yet…what could he have done for her?
“Hold my horse. I’ll be back directly.”
He found his brother on the terrace and pulled him aside. Fitz could deliver Lady Glanford’s news to his fool of a friend.
Chapter Two
Leicestershire, December 1822
Sophie Halverton, neé Clark, widowed Countess of Glanford, had sworn she was finished playing the dutiful waiting lady.
And yet, here she was, waiting for Lord Loughton’s arrival, watching his mother, Lady Loughton, make the rounds of her drawing room where the family had gathered before the evening’s planned dinner.
The waiting would end tonight, Lady Loughton had promised. Fitz—Lord Loughton—wasn’t a bad sort, nor was his family. She’d bully him into a resolution, with his mother’s help, if needed.
She sipped her sherry and pondered her achievements. She’d convinced Burford, the Glanford steward, he must visit his ailing aunt if he wished to be mentioned in the good woman’s will. The moment he’d cleared Glanford land, she’d helped herself to the estate’s ready cash and organized a paltry bit of Yuletide cheer for the tenants, to be carried out by the vicar and his wife. Then she’d bundled the boys and her maid, traveled to Loughton by stagecoach, and walked the short distance from the Royal Swan to Loughton Manor to meet with Lord Loughton in person.
It had all been rather calculated and mercenary—either that or pitiful—and she hated the vulgarity of obsessing about filthy lucre. But she must confront her boys’ guardian.
Unfortunately, Fitz was dodging her.
Fortunately, his mother had insisted she and her party move from their room at the Royal Swan to Loughton Manor, thus easing the considerable strain on her pocketbook.
For the millionth time, her gaze slid to the drawing room door and then to the knot of children grouped in the corner. Washed, combed, and carefully dressed, the three boys were twitchy with hunger and incipient mischief.
As one of the older children, her Artie, her little Earl of Glanford, was in attendance. Ben had remained in the nursery tonight.
Since their arrival here, Artie hadn’t stopped smiling. Ben was just as delighted, though he’d prefer that the playmate his age—five—was a boy, not Fitz’s young daughter Mary. They would both have a Christmas like the merry ones of her childhood. If she could but continue to swallow her pride and be grateful, she would have a happy Christmas as well, and perhaps, the means of visiting London at no expense but her time.
“You are here.” Lady Loughton joined her on the ivory sofa and sent the children a fond smile. Petite and graceful in her lavender half-mourning, the lady’s blue eyes glowed and strands of white sparkled in the fair locks peeking from under her turban. Her loving nature hadn’t been cowed by the recent loss of her husband. Even Sophie felt wrapped up in the nurturing.
She set aside her glass. She must keep her purpose in mind. “When do you expect your son to arrive, ma’am?”
Lady Loughton beamed a smile and patted Sophie’s hand. “Soon. We will wait a bit longer. Be patient with us, dear Sophie.”
“Oh, ma’am, no, it’s you who must be patient with me. I’ve imposed a full week on your warm hospitality.”
“Imposed? Don’t be silly. You’re no trouble. Neither you nor your dear boys. There are always beds in the Loughton nursery, and with so many of my older children not joining us for Christmas, well, you see we have plenty of room. And of course, there’s the matter of you taking charge of Miss Cartwright’s launch. Such a godsend.”
Charlotte Cartwright was another Loughton Manor guest, a wealthy tradesman’s daughter, and schoolfriend to two of the Lovelace girls.
“Has Mr. Cartwright agreed to the scheme?”
“He will write any day now. And I’ve told him there must be a generous consideration for your troubles. New gowns at the very least. As for lodging, my second son and his wife will open their home to you and Charlotte.”
“And my boys.”
“Yes, of course. Unless—well, Arthur is of an age to begin his schooling. Or if you wish to delay, he and his brother might remain here. Fitz is their guardian, after all.”
“Their father’s death was a blow to them. I should like them to accompany me.” Sophie straightened her spine and secretly crossed her fingers. “And I shall need more, er, consideration from Mr. Cartwright than just new gowns. Even with your son offering shelter, I shall have expenses.”
The dowager patted her hand. “You leave it to me, my dear.”
She managed a smile. The urge to trust Lady Loughton—daughter of an earl, widow of a baron, and warm-hearted mother of ten—warred with Sophie’s well-earned distrust. The journey from wealthy mushroom to destitute countess had begun with one naive stumble into the arms of an earl. She had little faith left in any member of the aristocracy, not least herself. After all, she was more or less one of them now.
Earlier that afternoon…
As George Lovelace’s traveling chaise pulled into the yard of the Royal Swan, a groom in Loughton livery popped out of the stables.
“Afternoon, Mr. Lovelace.” Marty’s gap-toothed smile never failed. “Cold enough for you?”
He shook his stiff legs and pulled the capes of his greatcoat tighter. “Damnable weather, Marty.”
