A Bride Unveiled (32 page)

He bounded up the stairs and grasped her hand. “This is the first genuine Christmas I’ve ever had. A family Christmas.”

“Think of next year,” she whispered as they walked into the happy mayhem of dogs, children, and old friends gathered to make another decade of memories.

Kit took it all in as he seated Violet and her aunt beside the log fire popping in the grate, and a manservant brought him a cup of buttered wassail. He drank in the warm glow of the candles and good cheer.

“Eldbert is serving on the board of guardians for the poorhouse,” Ambrose said, raising his cup to Kit’s. “To your health, Sir Christopher.”

“And to yours, my lord.”

“The thing is,” Dr. Tomkinson was saying to Eldbert and another guest as they drifted toward the hearth, “nobody likes the notion of building a school next to a churchyard or, God forbid, upon it.”

“When are we going to have dinner?” one of Lord Charnwood’s sons demanded from the doorway.

His mother, Lady Charnwood, rose from her chair in vexation. “Do not let those slobbering hounds in here, Parker. Where is your governess?”

“We locked her in the coach house. Can we go outside?”

“Indeed not,” Lady Charnwood said. “You are to stay in the kitchen, where it is warm.”

Winifred appeared in the doorway behind the child. “I’ll watch them in the garden for a few minutes.”

Eldbert turned from the fire. “Shall I come with you? Parker, have you ever gone on a treasure hunt?”

“Dinner will be served in two hours,” Lady Charnwood said, looking relieved at the offer. “I want everyone at the table in time. Do you hear me, Eldbert?”

“Let me see if your father has a compass in his study,” Eldbert said, obviously not hearing her.

“Somebody let the governess back in,” Dr. Tomkinson said.

“Are you sure you won’t have any wassail, Violet?” Ambrose asked. “We’ve got rum punch or lemonade, if you like.”

“I’ll have lemonade, thank you.”

“Is that mince pie I smell?” Kit asked. “What a divine aroma.”

“There’s roast turkey and venison and plum pudding,” Lady Charnwood said.

“What is that banging coming from the outbuildings?” asked Dr. Tomkinson.

It washed over Kit in a rush, the warmth. He went to the window and spotted Eldbert cutting through the garden with Miss Higgins, Elsie, Landon, and Parker running ahead. He gave a laugh, turning to see Violet rising from her chair. She was radiant, bathed in the glow of the innumerable candles that cast shadows on the deep-red walls. Together they watched until the five figures vanished into the white landscape and snow gently fell like a veil to shield them from view.

“Will they ever find treasure, do you suppose?” she asked.

“Why not?” He lowered his head to hers. “I did,” he said. “I found you.”

“Look up,” she whispered.

“Is there a bough of mistletoe above us? I hope so, because I am desperate to kiss you, and I know that it is an improper act.”

She smiled, her eyes glinting. “Don’t you dare. Just look above the fireplace. Do you remember—”

“No. I can’t remember anything when you smile at me like that.”

He glanced up, recognizing the two smallswords that held a place of honor on the wall. “Very nice,” he said, meeting her gaze. “But I still want to kiss my wife.”

Another family came to visit, and soon the house overflowed. Someone started a game of charades that ended abruptly with the announcement that dinner, at last, was served.

“But Eldbert isn’t even here,” Ambrose said, glancing at his guests. “Neither are the—”

The hallway door flew open; a blast of winter’s breath gusted over the assembly. The footman hastened forth to attend the shivering arrivals.

“Mama!” Landon exclaimed, bursting into the cluster of guests like a cannonball. “Look what we found! Buried treasure. It wasn’t the filthy stupid lie that Papa keeps saying it was. It’s real. Here. Look for yourself if you don’t believe me.”

He held up a silver chalice encrusted with soil and rubies. Kit blinked. Those stones looked real to his eye.

Ambrose strode up to his son. “What the devil? That is the chalice that belonged to the collection of—”

“—the dead earl,” Eldbert said, his voice challenging Ambrose to disagree. “It is quite remarkable that the children have found what we searched for when we were their age.”

“Fancy that,” Violet said with one of those smiles that provoked Kit to no end.

After a decadent dinner at a table set with polished silverware and an enormous Christmas cake in the middle decorated with sprigs of holly, Kit caught Violet again as the company drifted off to play more games and open gifts by the fire.

“I’ve got a present for you, Kit.”

“Is it a kiss?”

“Not in the parlor.”

“Look up, Lady Fenton. That is mistletoe above our heads.”

He kissed her then in front of the baroness, Eldbert, Ambrose, and the others. He wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed with such concentration that he didn’t even notice when everyone paraded back into the dining room to take a piece of Christmas cake.

“Sir Christopher,” Ambrose said from the doorway, “would you leave off kissing your wife long enough to do the honor of cutting the cake?”

“With his sword!” one of his sons suggested from the staircase, peering through the balustrade like a prisoner behind bars.

Violet took Kit’s hand. “It seems only fitting that you should be the one.”

His gaze traveled to the dining room, where the guests had gathered. It was the reunion that five young friends had promised one another long ago. It was a pledge fulfilled. With a loving glance at his wife, Kit shook off the bonds of the past and stepped forward to embrace the future.

I
t was the best of balls; it was the worst of balls. It was the annual graduation ball honoring the Scarfield Academy for Young Ladies in London. It was an evening of hope, which Miss Charlotte Boscastle had resolved would not end in disgrace. It was an evening of beginnings and farewells.

As the academy’s headmistress, Charlotte would receive accolades for her efforts in training another class of young ladies to enter society. She would be praised for any marriage proposals offered to her students as a result of their elite schooling.

She would also be blamed for any scandals that she allowed to besmirch the academy’s name. Her archenemy, Lady Clipstone, the headmistress of a lesser school, had predicted to the newspapers that some social misfortune was bound to occur during the event. Charlotte took little comfort in the knowledge that she was surrounded by members of her own family— everyone in the
ton
knew how controversy tended to follow the Boscastles. It was said that whenever more than two of them were gathered in one place, the devil came into active play.

Still, she was grateful that the Marquess of Sedgecroft, her cousin, had agreed to host the affair at his Park Lane mansion. She appreciated the fact that he had invited his battalion of friends to fill the ballroom and impress the girls.

Perhaps, after tonight, she might be able to draw a breath. For good or for evil, the graduates would venture forth into the world. Until dawn broke over the occasion, however, she was obligated to stand guard against any rogues who thought to take advantage of an inexperienced girl. She had her eye on one rogue in particular. He had looked at her only once. The Duke of Wynfield was without question the most intimidating guest at the ball, and Charlotte wasn’t about to let him steal her glory.

She wondered if he even remembered the last time they had seen each other, at the emporium in the Strand. They hadn’t exchanged a single word. Charlotte had been shopping for the academy that day. He had been shopping for the pair of strumpets draped over either of his elbows.

He had kissed one of the tarts on the neck—and merely smiled when Charlotte, at the opposite end of the counter, had gasped in shock.

She had returned to the academy hours later to record the incident in her diary, changing a detail here and there until,
en fin
, the actual event bore little resemblance to her fabricated but far more satisfying version.

Fancy. Yes, she knew. Her diaries simmered with illicit truths and vicarious pleasures. She had been keeping a journal ever since she could hold a pen, but it was only recently that she’d decided to record her family’s history. Not that those chronicles needed any enhancement.

Unfortunately her private life did. In the pages of her secret musings, the duke not only adored her; he had been pursuing her for months. In actual life, he was domineering, indecent, and inexcusably taken with disgraceful women. In his fictional encounters with Charlotte, he was domineering, indecent, and inexplicably taken with her alone.

In Charlotte’s revision of the incident in the emporium, the duke had noticed her across the counter and had immediately dismissed the other women. He had walked straight up to Charlotte and, without a word, grasped her hand.

“My carriage is outside,” he said, his sinful smile mesmerizing her. “May I take you away?”

His face receded. Another voice, breathy and excited, was whispering in her ear. “That’s the Duke of Wynfield you’re staring at, Miss Boscastle. Do be careful. Everyone is saying that he’s in the market for a mistress.”

Charlotte gripped her fan and turned to regard her favorite student in dismay. “Lydia Butterfield, reassure me that he has not found one in you.”

Lydia gave her a wistful grin. “Dear Miss Boscastle, I shall miss you with all my heart.”

“You shall miss my guidance—that is clear.”

“I won’t need it any longer,” Lydia said in regret. “But I will miss your history lessons.”

“All the battles and beheadings?” Charlotte asked, stepping to the side to stop Lydia from staring at the duke. Or him from noticing her. “But don’t be so melodramatic, or I shall start to cry. Your family still lives in London. You may visit the academy whenever you wish.”

“My family—Well, my
betrothed’s
family lives in Dorset, and he is eager to start a family—”

“Your betrothed?” Charlotte said faintly.

Lydia bit her lip, nodding toward the short gentleman standing a few feet behind her. “Sir Adam Richardson, the architect.”

“Lydia, I am so—” Envious? Overcome? Relieved? “—proud,” she said firmly. “He appears to be a fine gentleman.”

Lydia laughed, her gaze drifting to the duke, who was
not
known to be a gentleman at all. “I was told that he is a wildly jealous lover.”

“Your fiancé?”

“The duke,” Lydia said, laughing again. “He has a reputation for being a possessive suitor.”

“Lydia.”
Charlotte attempted to look shocked, although the same rumors had not escaped her attention. Such gossip should have stamped the duke as an unacceptable person instead of engendering wicked daydreams about him in Charlotte’s imagination. Why did it feel so pleasant to picture him tearing off his long-tailed evening coat to defend her from . . . ? Oh, since it was
her
flight of fancy, the other man might as well be Marcus Moreland, the cad who had broken her heart years ago.

She could picture it so vividly. The ballroom would be cleared for a duel; the duke had studied swordfight-ing at Fenton’s School of Arms. Charlotte had watched him perform at a benefit ball in this very mansion. She’d had nothing to do with him on that past night, and it was doubtful that she would capture his interest in the future.

“I don’t think that either of us need worry about the duke’s amorous proclivities,” she assured Lydia, thus uttering the fateful words that would come back to mock her before morning came....