Christmas with the Duchess Read online

  Nicholas stared at him in astonishment. Until this moment, there had been no sign that Monty was recovering from a war wound.

  “I am better,” Monty said, after a moment. “Do please continue, Miss Cornelia. Nothing soothes me as music does, and you do play so well.”

  Blushing with pride, Cornelia ran back to the instrument and began a new song. As she played, Monty winced and grimaced in pain. Finally, unable to bear any more, Lady Anne begged him to retire, and, though he loved music, Monty allowed himself to be persuaded that he must go to bed at once and rest.

  Lady Susan observed his exit and came bustling over to Lady Anne as soon as her card game permitted. “Well, Anne, I see you have driven Lord Ian away,” she observed, wedging her broad backside onto the sofa beside Nicholas.

  “Shouldn’t you be at the card table, Sister?” Lady Anne said, exasperated. “Your partner must be wondering where you are.”

  “Mrs. Camperdine has taken my place,” Lady Susan said complacently. “I thought I’d better come over here before you manage to drive away poor Lord Camford, too. Eligible bachelors must be handled with some delicacy, you know. I know this, for I am something of a matchmaker.”

  Lady Anne could make no answer but a whimper.

  “I managed to find husbands for my four daughters,” Lady Susan said proudly. “Of course, my girls are so pretty and accomplished they needed but little help. Your girls are a very different matter, Anne. Well, Camford,” she went on, jogging him in the ribs with a surprisingly sharp elbow, “do you see anything you like? Shall I help you make up your mind?”

  “In what regard, ma’am?” he asked, after a short, unhappy pause.

  Her eyes widened. “But which of your cousins are you going to marry? That is what I mean, of course. You’re not thinking of marrying the duchess, are you?” she cried. “Dear boy! She would laugh in your face if you asked! No, you will marry one of your cousins. Of course you will. They are none of them as pretty as my girls—too bad for you they are all married! Octavia, of course, is engaged already, so you can’t have her—more’s the pity, too, for she’s the most sensible of the lot.”

  Octavia, who was sitting quietly in the corner working a piece of embroidery while her sisters exhibited, turned pale with mortification.

  Lady Susan swept on like the Juggernaut. “Your cousin Augusta plays the harp, but without much feeling for the music, as, no doubt, you’ve already noticed. Cornelia is actually quite competent at the pianoforte, but her conceit spoils the effect, I think. Flavia—poor little snaggle-toothed child! Flavia can do nothing more than turn the pages for her sister. She would not be so homely, Anne, if you would take her to a good dentist and have her teeth pulled.”

  Lady Anne was so humiliated she could scarcely breathe, let alone make any reply. Breathing hard, she fanned herself while her daughters stared in shock at the aunt who had exposed them so cruelly. The music abruptly came to a halt.

  “Now, the youngest,” said Lady Susan, poking Nicholas in the arm with her fan, “is not yet Out, but, I daresay, if you want to marry Julia, she can be brought Out quick enough!” She laughed coarsely. “To be sure, she is a pretty child, though not very accomplished. Unless one counts jiggling bosoms as an accomplishment.”

  Nicholas sat rigid with a dismay verging on horror.

  “My dear boy,” said Lady Susan, concerned. “You look quite shocked! Hasn’t your Aunt Anne told you what’s expected of you?”

  Lady Anne found her voice. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Sister,” she croaked.

  Lady Susan gave a little gasp. “Oh, you haven’t told him?” she cried. “Oh, Anne! Silly little Anne! That is no way to go about it. There’s no need for deception. Your nephew seems to be an honest and dutiful young man. I’m sure that once he understands that it’s his duty to marry one of your girls, he will gladly embrace his fate.”

  “I have no idea what you mean, Sister!” Anne repeated desperately.

  “So you keep saying, my dear,” Lady Susan said dryly. “Well, Camford? Are you ready to embrace your fate? Is it to be humble Augusta? Conceited Cornelia? Friday-faced Flavia? Or pretty, jiggling, little Julia?”

  Unable to bear any more, Nicholas sprang to his feet.

  “I beg your pardon,” he stammered. “I hope my cousins will excuse me. I—I am very tired from the journey. Good night, Aunt Anne,” he added.

  Bowing to the ladies, he hurried from the room.

  Lady Anne began to cry helplessly.

  Lady Susan patted her on the back. “Poor Anne! Despite your best intentions, I’m afraid you’ve made a mess of it.” With a grunt, she heaved herself up from the settee and went back to her card games, serene in the knowledge that her girls were well married, and that none of Anne’s inferior brood would ever be a countess.

  Nicholas strode away from the drawing room with giant steps. Lord Scarlingford had been dead right! he realized now. The abominable Lady Susan had plucked the scales from his eyes. Lady Anne’s guilty expression had told him all he needed to know.

  As he rounded the corner, he nearly collided with Monty, who had just stepped out into the hall in front of him.

  “Your leg seems better,” Nicholas observed grimly.

  “Oh, it’s you,” Monty said, grinning. “I thought it was one of them. Sneaking off to spend the night with the duchess?”

  “Certainly not!” Nicholas said coldly.

  Monty’s grin widened. “Would you like to?” he asked simply.

  Emma sat on the Aubusson rug in her private sitting room, surrounded by sketches and plans, a tiny set of spectacles perched on her nose as she studied her drawings. Her brother Otto reclined on the sofa behind her, looking over her shoulder, and, from time to time, giving her the benefit of his advice. Not entirely sober, Colin sat at his sister’s pianoforte, idly manipulating the keys. Cecily had gone to the nursery to check on the children. They were all drinking wine, the servants having been dismissed for the night.

  “You’re such a coward, Emma,” Colin complained. “You should have told that bitch to her head, ‘Yes, Byron was my lover. He used to eat grapes from between my toes and drink wine from my navel.’”

  “Thank you, but unlike yourself, I don’t care to boast of my mistakes,” Emma replied tartly, pouring herself another glass of Beaujolais. “And, for your information, it was the Tsar who wanted to eat things off of me. Byron was a bit boring actually.”

  “Oh, how sad,” said Colin. “It’s true what they say, then? Poets make bad lovers? The better the poetry, the worse the lovemaking?”

  Emma giggled. “If that is so, then Byron must be the greatest poet who ever lived!”

  “There!” Colin complained. “Why couldn’t you say something like that to those hags?”

  “You weren’t there to make me think of it,” said Emma, looking at him fondly. “You are the fountainhead of my wit. You are muse, my inspiration. My wine steward,” she added hopefully, holding out her glass to be refilled.

  After a moment, he obliged her.

  “Then I am forgiven for Monty’s interference in your romance with the sea lord?”

  Emma laughed. “Thank goodness that is all over. Though I must tell you, no one in his right mind would ever think that I would take Monteith to bed! He’s funny looking.”

  “He’s ruggedly handsome,” Colin protested.

  “Ruggedly funny looking,” Emma muttered.

  “Well, they can’t all be pretty, pretty boys like Camford.”

  “Why do you tax me with Camford?” she complained. “My interest in him was…completely disinterested. I made good use of him, but now it is over. I have won.”

  “What do you mean, it’s over? With Camford, do you mean?”

  Otto’s voice startled the twins.

  “Lord, Blotto, we thought you was asleep!” said Colin, his hand on his heart. “You shouldn’t sneak up on a body like that!” He retreated back to the pianoforte.

  Emma turned around to look
at her elder brother. “Of course I am finished with Camford. You heard Hugh make the announcement,” she said. “Harry and Grey will be home on Saturday. As for my letter, he will give it to me if he wants his money, which he does. I have turned the table. There’s no reason to continue this farce with Camford. And you said yourself, it was a shame to drag him into this mess.”

  “You assume that Hugh will not break his word,” said Otto.

  “But how can he?” Emma wanted to know. “He has told everyone that Harry and Grey are coming home. He can’t go back on his word now. I have won the battle, Otto. This is, in fact, my victory party. Can’t you just congratulate me on a job well done?”

  Otto did not look convinced.

  “You should seduce him anyway, Emma,” said Colin. “It’s the only way to save him.”

  “Save him!” Emma scoffed. “Save him from what?”

  “From the Fitzroys, of course.”

  “Emma, you are a heartless jade,” said Otto, prodding his sister in the back with his foot. “You used Camford shamelessly, and now you cast him to the wolves, without so much as an apology.”

  “But that was always the plan,” she protested.

  “It’s too cruel, Emma,” Colin accused her. “You showed him a glimpse of heaven.”

  “I showed him a glimpse of the secession houses,” Emma retorted. “I flirted with him a little. You think I should apologize?”

  “That was Otto’s idea. I can think of something a young man likes better than an apology. Take him to bed. You owe him that much at least.”

  “And what is your interest in the matter?” she demanded.

  “I think you like him,” Colin accused her. “You never could fool me. I saw the way your eyes lit up when you saw him in his uniform.”

  Emma smiled faintly. “He did look rather nice,” she said, “in his blue coat.”

  “Nice as a Christmas present,” Colin teased. “If you like him, Emma, why give him up? Why let the Fitzroys take him from you? This is not the code of the Greys, or have you turned coward? We Greys take what we want, and the world be damned.”

  “But I don’t want him,” Emma said firmly. “I never wanted him. And now I don’t even need him. It certainly isn’t necessary for me to take him to bed. The Miss Fitzroys are welcome to him. He is a good-looking young man, but that is all. We have nothing in common. We are not compatible. It’s none of my business what happens to him now!”

  “You’re finished with him? Just like that.” Colin snapped his fingers.

  Emma looked at him over the rims of her spectacles. “Naturally, I wish him the very best in life, and all that sort of thing, but that’s the sum of it. Now can we please talk about something else?”

  Colin gaped at her. “You don’t care if he marries one of the Fitzroys?”

  “Not a jot. I wish them joy.”

  “Hmmm. I hope he’s not going to get stuck with Augusta,” Colin said presently, “though I will say she’s not as bad as Octavia.” He shuddered. “Is she a girl, or is she a block of ice? No one knows for sure. Flavia, of course, is quite out of the question. Poor thing! She looks like a potato with teeth stuck in. No, I hope it’s Julia. She’s pretty. She’s…dramatic. She has flare. She has what the French call c’est la vie.”

  “I presume you mean joidevivre,” Otto said.

  “I don’t think so,” said Colin, sniggering. “A joi de vivre is a streetwalker.”

  “No. That would be a fille de joi,” Otto told him.

  At that moment, Cecily, Lady Scarlingford, breezed into the room, her curly brown hair down around her shoulders, and her yellow satin gown a rumpled ruin. “I wish Nanny would not rub gin on the baby’s gums!” she complained. “I have heard that gin is bad.”

  Otto yawned. “My love! What is this strange obsession you have with your children? You talk of nothing else. Come here. Look to your husband.”

  Without regarding his words in the least, Cecily took her place on the sofa beside her husband, who sat up to make room for her. “What did I miss?” she asked eagerly.

  “Your husband was just telling us all about French street-walkers,” Colin told her. “Apparently, he’s quite the expert.”

  “Otto!” cried the gullible Cecily.

  “Actually,” Emma said primly, “we were just going over my plans for the ballroom decorations.”

  “Actually, my love, we were just deciding which of the Fitzroy girls will get Camford for Christmas,” Otto said at the same time.

  Cecily seemed to find her husband’s topic more interesting than Emma’s. “Oh, I do hope it’s not that Cornelia! She’s such a nasty, spiteful, little thing. I must say, I think he is lovely. I don’t suppose it will be possible for him to marry for love,” she added, sighing.

  “He will have to marry one of his cousins,” said Otto. “There’s nothing else for it.”

  Colin fluttered a hand. “But Cornelia would be better than Octavia, I say. As long as it’s not Octavia, I am well satisfied.”

  “Why? What do you have against Octavia?” cried Cecily. “She’s the stateliest of the girls. She looks like a countess. I wish sometimes that I had her poise and assurance.”

  Otto shuddered. “Never say such things, my love.”

  “No, indeed! She’s a cold fish!” Colin protested. “We all hate her. Anyway, she’s engaged already, supposedly. Julia is the obvious choice. Julia has joi de ville.”

  “Julia’s too young,” Cecily objected.

  “He’s obviously going to marry Miss Augusta,” Otto declared. “After Octavia, she comes next in the order of precedence. Therefore, he is hers by right of seniority. We must have Order, after all. We cannot give in to Chaos.”

  “I do prefer Augusta to that horrid Cornelia,” said Cecily. “What do you think, Emma?”

  “I’m sure I don’t care who he marries!” cried Emma, getting to her feet. “Why the devil should I? I never set eyes on him before today. In the future, I hope to see him as little as possible. When he leaves here, it is very likely I will never see him again. In a month, he will be forgotten entirely. What is there to remember about him, really? He’s just an ordinary boy who happened to fall backward into an earldom! I am sick of hearing his name.”

  In the middle of her speech, Colin suddenly ducked his head and coughed. Belatedly, Emma felt eyes on the back of her neck. Spinning around, she saw Nicholas and Monty standing in the doorway.

  “Surprise,” Monty said weakly, holding up two bottles of Champagne.

  Chapter Seven

  Nicholas stared at Emma, a stricken look in his blue eyes.

  Cecily and Otto discreetly averted their eyes from the unpleasant scene.

  Emma’s cheeks flamed. Ashamed of herself, she reacted irrationally by going on the attack. “You should not have brought him here,” she told Monty angrily. “He should be in the drawing room with his family. What were you thinking?”

  Belatedly, she snatched off her spectacles and stuffed them into her bosom.

  “I’m sorry,” Monty spluttered. “I thought—I thought he was your friend, Emma. I didn’t see any harm in inviting him along. What’s the matter?”

  “What’s the matter?” Emma echoed irritably. “Now you are inviting people to my private rooms? And is that Champagne from my cellar?”

  “I should not have come,” Nicholas said, his face stiff with embarrassment. “Lord Ian persuaded me that I would be welcome. I see that I am not. I can only beg your pardon, madam. Good night!”

  “You must forgive Emma,” Colin said, coming out from behind the pianoforte to prevent Nicholas from leaving. “She’s horrid. She’s always been horrid. Despite our father’s best efforts, daily beatings did not improve her.”

  Nicholas could not be drawn into the room. “If the duchess does not want me here, of course I will go,” he said stiffly, avoiding looking at Emma. “Only…Only could someone please show me the way back to my room? I don’t think I can find it on my own.”

  Monty
set the Champagne on Emma’s pianoforte. “I brought you here,” he said, looking gravely at Emma. She glared back at him, unrepentant. “I’ll take you back.”

  “No,” said Nicholas. “Stay with your friends. May I ring for a servant, ma’am?”

  “My servants have all retired for the night,” Emma said ungraciously. “I see no reason to wake them up.”

  “Emma!” Cecily cried in astonishment. “That is uncivil!”

  Emma rounded on her. “He bursts into my room, uninvited and unannounced, and you say that I am uncivil?”

  “He hardly burst in, old girl,” Monty objected. “Look, it’s all my fault. By all means, be furious with me. Throw me out. Punish me. I deserve it. But don’t take it out on poor Nick.”

  Walking over to the young man, he placed a sponsoring hand on his shoulder. Colin assumed a similar pose on the other side. “It’s not your fault, Monty. It’s my fault,” said Colin. “I was just teasing Emma about a certain forthcoming marriage. Apparently, she’s quite prickly on the subject. I think she may be jealous. As we all know, hell hath no fury like the green-eyed monster.”

  “Colin!” Emma said, furious and humiliated.

  “But I am not getting married,” Nicholas said vehemently. “Did someone tell you I was to be married?” he asked, directing the question at Emma.

  “But aren’t you going to marry one of your cousins?” Colin insisted.

  “That’s a lie!” Nicholas said hotly. “I—I beg your pardon, Lord Scarlingford. I should have taken you more seriously when you tried to warn me in the billiard room. But it all seemed so utterly fantastic!”

  “But no longer?” Otto guessed, quirking a brow.

  “It was that dragon, Lady Susan,” said Nicholas. “Though, perhaps, I should not speak ill of her; she has done me a good turn. She made it clear that everyone thinks it is my duty to marry as soon as possible, and that my aunt and uncle expect my bride to be one of my cousins. Lady Susan as good as said I could have my pick of the litter! They will even bring Out Julia for me—a mere child of fifteen. My aunt’s guilty expression confirmed all.”