Lady Louisa's Christmas Knight (27 page)

“Of course not, Your Royal Highness.”

“Not the preferred answer, though We will allow you're honest. You've been too conscientious, however, and so must be punished for your virtue.”

Only in the royal household would a good man be punished for his virtue.

“I live to serve Your Royal Highness.”

The Regent's smile was sardonic. “You live to complain about serving, so We will indulge your propensities. You're to scare up Sir Joseph Carrington and inform him of his honors on Christmas Day. We would like to make it clear that We feel an especial affection for Our loyal servant on the day of the holy birth, particularly if the dear fellow is going to keep a regiment of urchins off the charity of the parishes.”

Hamburg watched despite himself as the royal fundament was heaved up out of a well-padded chair. “The letters patent are…” The Regent scanned the room. “Ah, on that mantel.” He snapped his fingers. “If you please.”

The footman who'd fetched the menu handed the sovereign the relevant beribboned documents.

“I'm to understand Your Royal Highness wants this delivered on
Christmas
Day
?”

“Boxing Day wouldn't make quite the same impression, now would it? One rewards the trades and the lower orders on Boxing Day.”

“Of course. Christmas it is.”

“There. You see? You are perfectly miserable, and you have your high and trusted office to thank. Sir Joseph has likely taken his bride out to the family seat in Kent. If you leave now, you stand a chance of making a splash at Moreland's annual open house. Mind the punch, though. Her Grace never lets a guest go thirsty, and while the libation is delightful, it also kicks like a mule.”

As if the Duke of Moreland would be swilling punch with a Carlton House lackey. The footman gave a slight, commiserating shake of his head while the Regent settled in to annihilate more plum pudding. “You can take one of the coaches. A four-in-hand ought to do. A six-in-hand can be tedious when the roads are sloppy. Two postillions, full livery, you know the drill.”

“Of course. A four-in-hand, two postillions.” Which made the journey an altogether different proposition. The royal coaches were nothing if not commodious, and Kent was not so very far away. Then too, when the Prince of Wales's coach came galloping up the lane,
everybody
stopped to stare.

“Be off with you.” The royal hand flapped languidly. “Happy Christmas, Humbug, and Crenshaw has a little something for you to keep the chill off while you travel.”

A strapping young specimen in periwig and footman's livery stood by the door, holding a wooden case that looked to be full of… bottles.

“Your Royal Highness, I'm going only to Kent.”

“Shoo. We need peace and quiet to consider Our menu.”

“Happy Christmas, and thank you.”

“Happy Christmas, Humbug, and mind you don't get the coachman drunk. We value Our cattle.”

***

The only thing saving Joseph was the messenger's timing. He arrived while Louisa was above stairs, putting the finishing touches on her toilette. Twenty minutes either way, and she would have known at the same moment Joseph himself learned of old Hargrave's passing.

“He did not suffer at the end, sir—I mean, my lord.”

“Sir will do. Nothing's official yet.” Pray God the legalities would take months to untangle. A title did not often come out of abeyance, and Joseph certainly wasn't going to hurry the process.

The old fellow looked like he'd argue with Joseph for declining more formal address, but one glance at Joseph's visage, and no more was offered on the subject.

“You are, of course, welcome here for the holidays,” Joseph said. The man had the look of an aging jockey—not much over four feet tall, wizened and somehow boyish at the same time. “Cook will feed you within an inch of your life, and I'm sure the punch bowl was set out in the servants' hall several days ago.”

“A tot of grog wouldn't go amiss, your—sir. The old, er, Mr. Sixtus Hargrave Carrington give me a letter for ye and a message.”

Joseph accepted a single folded sheet of foolscap, sanded and sealed, his name scrawled across the outside.

“My thanks. What was the message?”

The little fellow tugged on one red ear. “He said to be sure to tell you, ‘Happy Christmas,' because his is likely the best one he's had for fifty years.”

“And his widow?” To lose a spouse in the Yule season could not be an easy thing.

“You shoulda seen the bachelors circling her at the wake, my—sir. She'll bear up, and Mr. Carrington wouldn't begrudge her her fun, neither. She stood by him while he lived. He wouldn't expect more.”

Joseph nodded and frowned at the letter. “Off to the kitchen with you, and my thanks for bringing the news in person.”

The little fellow bobbed in parting, leaving Joseph alone with Sixtus Hargrave Carrington's final missive. Joseph slit the seal reluctantly, because having something of his relation yet to read meant Hargrave's business in the mortal sphere was not quite concluded.

My Dear Joseph,

As you read this, I am cavorting about the celestial realm with the naiads and muses, my form once again restored to the youthful vigor you yet enjoy. The Deity has granted me my fondest Christmas wish and put an end to my suffering—you will not presume to castigate Him for His timing until you yourself are wracked with illness and relieved of every dignity for years on end.

I regret my passing without issue means you are now burdened with the deuced title, as you referred to it, but I think you'll find the barony comes with more blessings than you might have anticipated.

Be kind to Penelope, please. For all her youth, she was a good wife to me. She's been left well set up, consistent with my wishes and her desserts. I trust you will not allow the fortune hunters to exploit her generous nature while she grieves my passing.

The seat of the barony is a lovely place I had occasion to visit just a few years past. Don't wait until grouse season to see it for yourself. My dying wish, Joseph, is that you collect your newly acquired lady wife and make a journey North to what is now your family seat. Yorkshire in spring is glorious, a perfect complement to a new marriage.

Trust me on this, dear boy. Wear the title with pride and honor, and I shall ever be,

Your loving relation,

Sixtus Hargrave Carrington

Damned if it didn't hurt like blazes.

It hurt to think Joseph would never again hear the old fellow's raucous, irreverent laughter, it hurt to think there would be no more holiday epistles exchanged between two relics of an old and not very illustrious family. It hurt to think Amanda and Fleur, in some way, had lost what little family remained to them, as well, regardless of the lack of any blood tie.

And it hurt to know that after centuries of carefully mapping generation after generation of Carringtons, with the elders from age to age charting which branch of the family might yet revive the title and when that happy day might arrive, only one Carrington remained standing—a lame pig farmer with more money than was decent.

“Joseph?” Louisa had come into the library without making a sound. Joseph held out a hand to her, drinking in the sight of her in red velvet with gold trim, white lace at her wrists and across her bosom.

“My dear.” When she took his hand, he pulled her in closer, wrapping her in his embrace and resting his cheek against her hair. “You are a vision.”

She wound her arms about his waist. “You are quite handsomely turned out yourself, which is fortunate. Mama and Papa will inspect us, so we must be properly put together and graciously cheerful.”

“Cheerful.”
What
a
notion.
“Sixtus Hargrave Carrington is gone.” And when had marriage meant a man had no control over his moronic mouth? “I hadn't meant to tell you until after the holidays.”

She hugged him closer. “I am sorry for your loss, and I know you dread assuming the title, Joseph, but it need not be a burden.”

“Dread.” He considered the term. “That is not putting it too strongly. I must vote my seat, I must wade through all the courtesy invitations. I must leave cards all over creation when I arrive to Town. My daughters must now have a come out—”

She kissed him into silence. Put her mouth right over his and didn't desist until he was kissing her back.

Joseph felt her sigh against his throat.

“You will be in a position to steer the course of events in the Lords, Joseph. You are a caretaker by nature, and better you should have the responsibility than some gouty old marquis concerned only with protecting his own privileges and oppressing the Catholics.”

“But Town, Louisa?”

“We'll have family there. Maggie's husband bides there frequently. Sophie's husband will soon be invested. His Grace's influence will put you on any committee you choose, and you and I will host the most scintillating political dinners seen in ages.”

A shaft of light pierced the gloom of Joseph's mood. “You aren't in the least daunted by this, are you?”

“I have no gift for small talk, Joseph, but the political types haven't either. You and I both have a complement of brains, and your common sense is the equal of anybody's. We shall contrive.” She was confident in her complement of brains and well she should be. While Joseph was by no means as confident of his own intellectual gifts, in this, he was confident of his wife.

He purely hugged her, drawing in her clove-and-citrus scent and silently thanking heaven that this woman had consented to be his spouse.

And then he recalled his dependents in Surrey.

Could a baron weather the scandal of multiple bastards any more easily than a lowly pig farmer could?

“Shall we stay home, Joseph?” Louisa was cuddled close, close enough that while Joseph was lamenting a fate most men would have celebrated riotously, Joseph's body had begun celebrating something else entirely. “We can plead mourning, and it will be the truth.”

“I would as soon not cast a pall on anybody else's holiday.” Still, he did not turn her loose. “My cousin was old, he welcomed his own passing, and he had a long, jolly life. We've acquired another fortune, by the way. Best be about picking out that charity, Louisa.”

She went still against him, her hand pausing in a slide over his backside then resuming its journey. “Shall we be a bit late, Joseph?”

At first he didn't comprehend her question, but she followed it up with a soft, friendly kiss on the mouth and a little squeeze to his fundament. An image popped into his mind, of Louisa's back pressed to the wall, her skirts hiked up all around, and Joseph's cock buried in her sweet heat.

She was tall enough to make it workable, provided he could—

His leg would never withstand the languid joining he wanted to offer her.

“Drawers off.” He let his hand slip over her breast as he eased from her embrace and locked the door. Her smile was an entire Christmas of female good cheer in a single expression, and it brightened more as Joseph settled into a chair and started undoing his falls.

“We will be more than a little late if you leave me by my lonesome over here, Wife, waving my parts in the breeze for your amusement.”

His parts weren't entirely ready to receive callers, but as Louisa slid off her drawers and tossed them onto the desk, the knocker was definitely going up.

“I had wondered about this.” She eyed him where he sat. “How does one…?”

“You put a knee on either side of my hips for starters, as if you're straddling my lap. I expect some kissing will follow, and very likely some marital intimacies.”

Louisa hiked her skirts and climbed into the chair, positioning herself exactly as Joseph had suggested. “Or perhaps,” she whispered in his ear, “we could recite poetry to each other.”

She beamed at him, not at all at a loss to contemplate an impromptu coupling by the fire in a reading chair. Her gaze held mischief and tenderness and a hint of determination, as well.

“My dearest wife, you
are
poetry.”

Which should have sounded like fatuous rot, but as a cloud of velvet and Louisa eased over Joseph's lap, it was the truth as he knew it. She moved on him like poetry, breathed through him like poetry, and brought him comfort more intimate than any words ever had.

Their joining was unhurried and a profound consolation. Joseph held off his own completion until Louisa had found hers at least twice and possibly a third time—he wasn't sure about those last few happy shudders—and then he let pleasure flood his awareness as he spilled his seed deep in his wife's body.

When the tide ebbed, his face was pressed to Louisa's fragrant bosom, her fingers were stroking gently through his hair, and Joseph's body felt better than it had in… better than it had
ever
.

“I haven't dissuaded you from attending Their Graces' open house, have I?” She spoke with her lips against his temple, their position making Joseph feel a protectiveness from her embrace she probably didn't intend.

“Your parents haven't seen us since the wedding, Louisa. They'll fret if I don't show you off to them soon.”

He
wanted
to show her off. Wanted the entire realm to marvel at his wife, and yet, he did not hustle her away to retrieve her drawers. When Louisa did gain her feet, Joseph passed her his handkerchief and took his time putting himself to rights.

Louisa turned to face him as he rose awkwardly from the chair. “Is my hair a fright?”

Such a tedious, wifely question—though in his previous marriage, Joseph could not recall being asked such a thing even once. Joseph liked the inquiry nonetheless. They'd been married a week, and already Louisa assumed she could rely on Joseph to be honest with her about something so personal.