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Merry Lover
Crime and Passion, Novella
Mary Lancaster
© Copyright 2022 by Mary Lancaster
Text by Mary Lancaster
Cover by Dar Albert
Dragonblade Publishing, Inc. is an imprint of Kathryn Le Veque Novels, Inc.
P.O. Box 23
Moreno Valley, CA 92556
ceo@dragonbladepublishing.com
Produced in the United States of America
First Edition July 2022
Kindle Edition
Reproduction of any kind except where it pertains to short quotes in relation to advertising or promotion is strictly prohibited.
All Rights Reserved.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
License Notes:
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Additional Dragonblade books by Author Mary Lancaster
Gentlemen of Pleasure
The Devil and the Viscount (Book 1)
Temptation and the Artist (Book 2)
Sin and the Soldier (Book 3)
Debauchery and the Earl (Book 4)
Pleasure Garden Series
Unmasking the Hero (Book 1)
Unmasking Deception (Book 2)
Unmasking Sin (Book 3)
Unmasking the Duke (Book 4)
Unmasking the Thief (Book 5)
Crime & Passion Series
Mysterious Lover (Book 1)
Letters to a Lover (Book 2)
Dangerous Lover (Book 3)
Merry Lover (Novella)
The Husband Dilemma Series
How to Fool a Duke
Season of Scandal Series
Pursued by the Rake
Abandoned to the Prodigal
Married to the Rogue
Unmasked by her Lover
Her Star from the East (Novella)
Imperial Season Series
Vienna Waltz
Vienna Woods
Vienna Dawn
Blackhaven Brides Series
The Wicked Baron
The Wicked Lady
The Wicked Rebel
The Wicked Husband
The Wicked Marquis
The Wicked Governess
The Wicked Spy
The Wicked Gypsy
The Wicked Wife
Wicked Christmas (A Novella)
The Wicked Waif
The Wicked Heir
The Wicked Captain
The Wicked Sister
Unmarriageable Series
The Deserted Heart
The Sinister Heart
The Vulgar Heart
The Broken Heart
The Weary Heart
The Secret Heart
Christmas Heart
The Lyon’s Den Connected World
Fed to the Lyon
De Wolfe Pack: The Series
The Wicked Wolfe
Vienna Wolfe
Also from Mary Lancaster
Madeleine
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Publisher’s Note
Additional Dragonblade books by Author Mary Lancaster
About the Book
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
About Mary Lancaster
GOD REST YE MERRY, GENTLEMEN has always been one of my favourite Christmas carols. When I was a child, it seemed to personify the fun of Christmas, not least because of the idea of all these merry gentlemen (though a few ladies would have been good, too), resting from their jollity. But of course, the song is not really about merry gentlemen resting. It’s all about where we put the comma!
Being one of the oldest carols in English, dating from at latest the sixteenth century, the language is a little arcane. “God rest you” here means not “sit down and have a kip” but “God keep you.” In other words: God keep you happy, because the birth of Jesus saves us from straying toward the devil.
So, not God rest you, merry gentlemen! But God rest you merry, gentlemen! Although, as you will see, my heroine has some fun with that, too.
Incidentally, you can read more about Griz and Dragan in my Crime & Passion series, particularly in Book 1, Mysterious Lover.
ML
Chapter One
Lady Grizelda Tizsa awoke in the warmth of delightful dreams. Still half-asleep, she rolled over in search of her husband—and found only a cold pillow and empty space.
Christmas Eve, and still, he was not home.
Missing Dragan was like an ache. She had never expected to spend their first Christmas as a married couple apart. Or with child, if she was honest, but both appeared to be her fate.
However, she refused to dwell on her difficulties. Since it was almost daylight, she reached for her spectacles and rose from her cozy bed into the freezing air of a winter’s morning. Driven by cold and the slightly sick hunger of pregnancy, she sped through the motions of washing and dressing in her warmest old gown and several shawls before she bolted for the warmth of the kitchen to forage for breakfast.
Here, she was greeted with delight by Vicky, her affectionate yet haughty little greyhound whom she had named after the queen. Thanks to the stove, the kitchen was the warmest room in the house, so she fed the fire, set water to boil, and cut herself two thick slices of bread, which she slathered with butter and jam.
Before they had known Dragan would be trapped in Edinburgh by snowstorms, they had granted their maid and cook leave to spend Christmas with their own families, and both servants had left as planned yesterday. The idea of being completely alone together and looking after themselves had seemed fun at the time. But Dragan was a lot more practical than she, who had been brought up in a ducal household with maids and footmen so thick on the ground that she had purposely avoided them.
For the first time, she began to wish she had gone to the country with her family. She had to admit, it was lonely here, with just Vicky and the tiny creature growing within her.
But it was only Christmas Eve, and there was still time for Dragan to come home today. In the meantime, she sang to herself to keep her spirits up while she made tea and let Vicky into the pleasant, enclosed garden at the back of the house.
Theirs was an odd house for Mayfair. Neither as large nor as tall as its neighbors, it sprawled across a piece of land that had once belonged to the house behind them on Half Moon Street. There was something about freezing air at Christmas that set off a hundred pleasant memories. She inhaled deeply and kept singing.
God rest ye merry, gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay.
For Jesus Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day,
To save us all from Satan’s power when we had gone astray.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.
Vicky bolted back inside, and Griz closed the door and poured herself another cup of tea. She had a busy day ahead of her, but it was still early, and a bracing walk to the park with Vicky would be a good start.
And when I come home, Dragan might be here waiting for me. On that happy, if unlikely, hope, she donned her hat and warm wool cape, put Vicky on the leash, and unlocked the front door.
For once, the dog hung back as she opened it. Rather than darting enthusiastically through the smallest crack, she pulled back into the house. And Griz soon saw why.
A man sat on the ground against the wall, his silk hat beside him. But it was not Dragan. This man was older, his hair white with frost.
After her first start, she wondered why Vicky wasn’t barking.
“Sir?” she asked in alarm. “Sir, can I help y ou?”
The man did not reply. Letting Vicky cower back into the house, she stepped outside and was relieved to see the man was smiling, a full, happy curve of the lips.
But the smile did not reach his eyes, which were open and staring.
Her belly stung, and she flung one comforting arm over it. “Oh, dear God,” she whispered. She did not recognize the man. She had never seen him before in her life, but she was very afraid…
Crouching down, she forced herself to feel, as Dragan would, for the pulse in his neck. She could feel nothing but cold. There was frost on his hair, on his clothing. The man was dead, but from his smile had died very happy.
“God rest you, merry gentleman,” she murmured irreverently, even while pity caught in her throat. “But what in the world are you doing at my front door? And what the devil am I supposed to do about you?”
The man was well to do. Beneath the frost, his clothes and his hat were of the finest quality, his overcoat, a fine, thick grey wool, with a fur collar. Something caught her eye, clinging to his coat, just behind the hand curled in his lap. It was small and white, and when she lifted it, it came easily. A single, white flower petal.
Without thought, she dropped it into her pocket and rose. Taking a deep breath, she pulled the front door closed and sped down the path, through the gate, and down the lane. She saw no one until she came on to Half Moon Street, where, toward Piccadilly, she saw Jake, the boy who swept the crossing and often ran messages for her and Dragan.
“Run and fetch a constable to my house,” she begged him, thrusting a coin into his willing hand. “Tell him it’s important that there is a dead man outside my house.”
“Blimey.” Awed, Jake propped his broom against the lamp post and bolted.
Griz hastened back to the house. She gave the dead man a wide berth, but even so, he drew her gaze. His smile was ridiculously happy, quite incongruous beneath the dead, lifeless eyes. She wondered if he had really died so merrily or if some odd, physical response to illness or pain had caused him to grimace. That seemed more likely.
She could see no blood, no obvious injury or tear to his clothing. But it seemed disrespectful to leave him on display. She opened the door with her key and closed it again behind her. Vicky was still cowering in the hallway. In need of comfort herself, Griz scooped her up and cuddled her.
“I know,” she told her ruefully. “Not such a merry Christmas so far. Shall we find something to cover the face of the poor gentleman?”
Before she did that, she hastily cleaned out and set the fire in the drawing room, for she expected to be invaded by policemen and saw no reason for anyone else to freeze to death.
Was that really what had happened to her smiling gentleman? Had he sat there all night, freezing to death while she slept? She did not like that idea. It made her feel guilty as well as sad. But neither did it make much sense. He was not a friend or family member who had knocked on her door unheard. Nor was he some poor, homeless man without the means of shelter.
Or was he? Had he been robbed, attacked in the street, and bolted to this house for safety, only to die before he could raise an alarm?
She did not like that idea either.
She went upstairs and rummaged in the linen cupboard. For some reason, she chose a blanket, as if that would somehow make him warm.
He still sat upright, his head resting against the wall. She wondered if he would keel over with the weight of the blanket on his head. She began at his fine, polished shoes, and drew the blanket up over his legs to where one gloved hand lay in his lap, and paused, for a whole flower showed there now, its stem tucked between his fingers. A single Christmas rose.
That was not there before!
Abandoning the blanket, she ran down the garden path once more and glanced both ways up and down the lane. Was that a skirt disappearing into Half Moon Street?
She hesitated, curiosity, as always, her besetting sin, urging her to run after the vanishing skirt. But common sense told her the passer-by was as likely to have merely crossed the narrow lane as come from her front door.
Returning to the body, she hesitated again. It felt disrespectful to take the flower someone had clearly put there. Instead, she drew from her pocket the single petal she had found earlier and compared it to the flower in the dead man’s hand.
The petal was the same shape, clearly from another Christmas rose. But her petal was pure white. The one in the corpse’s fingers was tinged with pink. Frowning, she sat back on her heels. Then, with a quick glance over her shoulder to see if the awaited policeman approached, she felt inside the man’s pockets.
She found a fat purse and a notecase, so it seemed he had not been robbed. She also found a card case, and although voices and footsteps now sounded in the lane, she whipped out one of the cards and shoved the case back in his pocket. Hastily, she covered him with the blanket—flower and all—draping the folds lightly over his head, which, to her relief, still did not move. Then she whisked herself inside the house again, took off her cloak and bonnet, and waited to be summoned.
Chapter Two
According to his card, Mr. Sebastian Cartaret was the name of her dead gentleman, and the direction beneath was a city office, not a home address.
She barely had time to register that before a loud knock on the front door caused her to shove the card under the nearest book on her desk and march out to deal with whichever police constable Jake had dragged to the scene.
Two constables and a familiar man in a grey coat and bowler hat stood on her doorstep.
“Lady Grizelda,” Inspector Harris said briskly. “Why am I not surprised?”
“Probably because Jake told you it was my house.” She held the door wide. “Come in.”
The inspector made a sign to his men to wait outside and walked into the house, taking off his hat.
“I did not expect someone of your rank quite so soon,” she said, leading him into the drawing room.
“I happened to be with the constable when your lad came flying into us.” The inspector’s gaze flickered around the room, which probably looked eccentric to him, filled as it was with bookcases, and a large, business-like desk, as well as comfortable chairs and a sofa. Pencil drawings, including many of her, were scattered among the wall decorations. “Where is Mr. Tizsa?”
“Edinburgh,” Griz replied, and was immediately deluged with fresh longing for his presence.
Inspector Harris blinked, finally surprised. “What is he doing there?”
“Attending lectures. He means to sit his medical examinations in the spring.”
Harris held her gaze. “So, he went up there over Christmas?” Not by tone or even a flicker of a brow did he betray disbelief, and yet she knew it was there.
“He was meant to be home yesterday. They have snowstorms up in Scotland. You seem surprised, Inspector.”
“I am. I had not imagined you the type of lady to be entertaining gentlemen in her husband’s absence.”
Griz flushed with more indignation than embarrassment. “I am not in the habit of entertaining dead gentlemen at any time! I found him there when I went out this morning.”
“And who is he?”
Mr. Sebastian Cartaret. But to say so betrayed either that she knew him, which she didn’t, or that she had taken evidence from the scene, which she undoubtedly had. But if he didn’t know the man’s name now, he soon would. There were plenty of cards. “I have no idea. I believe your resources are greater than mine.”
“Then what was he doing at your house?”
“Sadly, I could not ask him.”
One eyebrow rose. “You are very defensive, my lady.”
She held his gaze. “Do you blame me? You seem to be implying some improper connection between the dead man and me.”
“Is there one?”
“Of course, there is not! He clearly spent all last night outside the house, would you not agree?”
“Then you do not know him, have never seen him before?”
“Never.”
“And you have no idea what he was doing here?”
“None. I suppose he could be a friend of Dragan’s, but if so, I have never met him. He seems well to do, so if he had no home nearby, he would have had no difficulty staying at a hotel. Or his club, if he had one. Do you know how he died? I saw no sign of injury.”
