His Mistletoe Marchioness

by Georgie Lee

  ‘So do I.’ He reached for her hand before remembering himself and pulling back. ‘Seeing you that first night here was like experiencing all the hope and optimism we’d shared six years ago. It’s a gift I will always treasure and call on to give me strength when things are dark.’

  Clara swallowed hard, forcing back the tears stinging her eyes. He’d given her the same gift and then taken it away. ‘I’m sure Lady Frances will offer you similar comfort and support.’

  The stricken look on his face told her he didn’t agree, but to his credit he did not disparage the woman who was to be his wife, the one who’d stolen him from Clara. For the first time since the debacle at Holyfield she pitied him. In doing his duty and being the honourable gentleman, he was entering into a union that might bring him more misery than joy. It was a fate she would not wish on any man or woman. If she was capable of freeing him from this bond she would, but his life was no longer her concern. He must make his own way now and so must she.

  ‘I wish you all the happiness you deserve and I hope you can find the same contentment with Lady Frances that you offered me during our time here.’ Unable to trust her voice or the tears she held back any longer, she turned and left the room, refusing to allow her back to bend or her shoulders to droop with any of the disappointment draping her like the greens did the banister in the entrance hall.

  * * *

  Hugh watched her leave. There was nothing he could do but let her go. In time she would find love again, he didn’t doubt it, and he would have to relive once more the agony of reading about her betrothal in the paper and learning about her marriage from friends. What the future held for him he could not say. He would marry a woman he neither loved nor trusted and face a lawsuit in which he might lose everything. The most he could hope for was that the child he would come to love was his and that he could make its future better and its life much easier than his had ever been. This is what would carry him through the dark nights and lonely days facing him, the ones he’d once dreamed that with Clara beside him he could finally end.

  Hugh left the library and made for his room, ready to instruct the man assigned to serve as his valet to pack Hugh’s things. The snow had abated overnight and the moment the roads were passable, he would leave. It’d been awkward enough this morning inside Stonedown when he’d passed the other guests, enduring their sideways glances of disapproval and whispering. He had no desire to subject himself to any more of it. He’d come here specifically to rebuild his reputation and that goal had failed miserably. There was also no point in staying and causing more discomfort and trouble for either Clara or himself. Word of his engagement to Elizabeth would soon make the rounds, most likely because of her desire to spread the news, and it meant no one could accuse him of shirking his duty to the child. He also had no intention of going downstairs tonight for dinner and putting himself and Clara through the torture of sitting beside each other and pretending that the entire house wasn’t whispering or watching them. It hadn’t mattered during the last two days when their whispers had been little more than amused speculation about what might happen between them. Since everyone was currently aware of their unfortunate situation, his presence would serve no purpose but to further inflict insult where he’d already caused injury. He also had more difficult matters to consider and attend to. With Sir Nathaniel’s help gone, Hugh needed to write letters to other men who had enough of their own skeletons in their closets to not look askance at Hugh’s. He hoped they could help him expose the Scotsman for the fraud he was and grant Hugh a reprieve from this last threat facing Everburgh.

  Hugh left the library and made his way down the hall towards the main staircase, running over in his mind who in London might help him when a voice interrupted his thoughts.

  ‘A moment of your time, if I may, Lord Delamare?’ Lord Westbook stepped out of one of the small sitting rooms, bringing Hugh to a halt.

  ‘What could we possibly have to discuss?’ He wanted to throttle the man for spreading the story of him and Lady Frances. If he hadn’t been so free with his tongue, the matter might have remained private, but instead he’d made sure that it was fodder to delight the entire countryside.

  ‘Your future and the future of the Delamare line. I couldn’t help but overhear that you and Lady Frances are to be married.’

  ‘Do you never tire of listening in doorways to matters that don’t concern you?’

  ‘I know you don’t think well of me, Lord Delamare, and I don’t blame you.’ Lord Westbook stepped back into the sitting room and motioned for Hugh to join him. ‘But I wish you to know that I sympathise with your situation more than you realise.’

  Against his better judgement he followed the man, closing the door behind him so no one else might overhear their conversation. ‘You had a solid hand in making the situation worse.’

  Lord Westbook fingered his watch chain. ‘I do not enjoy a generous income, Lord Delamare, a situation I am sure you can relate to.’

  Hugh said nothing.

  ‘I must make myself amiable to people, for if I do not live off the generosity of hosts at many houses during the year then I very often find myself with nowhere to live.’

  Hugh unclenched his hands at his sides. For all his dislike of Lord Westbook, he understood the strangling constraints of poverty and the depths one had to sink to in order to survive. For Lord Westbook it was spreading tales that made him a much sought-after guest. For Hugh, it was marrying first for money and waiting for the love to come later.

  ‘I see you do comprehend my predicament. I wish you to know that what I do is never personal, simply a necessary requirement for my welfare.’

  ‘And what does this have to do with me?’ Hugh could sympathise with Lord Westbook, but it didn’t mean he had to condone his vicious tongue or his hurtful gossip.

  ‘Lady Frances is not the wronged woman she seems.’

  This made Hugh a great deal more interested in the man. ‘What do you know about Lady Frances?’

  ‘The one thing you need to free you from your present difficulty.’

  Hugh stared at him. Was it possible that there was a way out of this? ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I will, but first we must come to an understanding.’

  Hugh curled up his lip in disgust. ‘I won’t pay you if that’s what you’re after.’

  ‘I’m not after money, but a tale. I will provide you with the proof you seek to extricate yourself from your present difficulty if you ensure that I’m privy to everything that happens. A story like this will ensure me a great many invitations and I am in need of them.’

  ‘You want me to sell out a woman to save my own hide?’ He should punch the man in his smug face for thinking Hugh so low a man.

  ‘I want to stop Lady Frances from deceiving you and you from breaking Lady Kingston’s heart.’

  ‘I don’t believe you’re this noble.’

  ‘I’m not, but I knew Lady Kingston’s parents. They were good people and I was sorry to see them pass. The many times that I’ve been a guest here have allowed me to watch Lady Kingston overcome a great many sorrows to become a woman worthy of carrying the title Marchioness. Lady Frances is not. I should hate to see her usurp the title from a much more deserving woman.’

  Hugh studied Lord Westbook, the sincerity in his small eyes one he’d never seen there before. For whatever else the man was, at present he was honest and his care for Clara real. Hugh must make a decision, but it wasn’t a palatable one. Despite having inadvertently done it to Clara more than once, he didn’t have it in him to knowingly make a woman the centre of gossip, but if Lord Westbook was right and could confirm Hugh’s suspicions about Elizabeth’s child, he could reveal her scheming to everyone and regain his reputation and the freedom to marry where his heart dictated. Everyone would see that he was the innocent party and he could do for the first time the one thing Clara wished he’d do—uphold duty and
honour to win her instead of having it force him to cast her aside. ‘Tell me what you know about Lady Frances and her child and then I’ll decide if we have a deal.’

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘I thought dinner would never end,’ Clara complained, sitting at the foot of Anne’s bed. On the table beside Anne, who laid against the headboard, the small clock announced the eleven o’clock hour, the little notes of the chimes singing out in the room.

  ‘I have to say that it was the strangest dinner I have ever endured here. The two most interesting people in the house party were missing and at the very moment when everyone wanted a good look at them.’

  ‘At least they had me there to amuse them.’ The last three hours had been as torturous as they’d been the first night when she’d sat beside Hugh. His chair had been empty along with two others at the table tonight. Hugh had sent his excuses to Lady Tillman for why he did not appear with her at the front of the line. Neither Lady Frances nor Lord Stanhope had been there either, both of them pleading headaches to remain above stairs.

  ‘I wonder why Lord Stanhope didn’t come down to dinner.’ As insincere as she guessed his flattery of her was, she wouldn’t have minded a little of it to lift her spirits. Instead, she’d gone without it, slurping her soup in silence like Lady Pariston.

  ‘He probably had something or someone else to keep him in his bedroom,’ Anne mused, arching one knowing eyebrow at Clara and making her suspicious.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Don’t you think it’s rather odd that Lady Frances and Lord Stanhope arrived on the same day and that they both had some obliging cousin who could recommend them to Lady Tillman?’

  ‘Are you suggesting that Lady Frances really came here to see Lord Stanhope and not Hugh?’ Clara didn’t put much credence in this speculation, not wanting it to offer her a sliver of hope that Hugh somehow might be freed from his obligation. She didn’t care if he was or not, he no longer mattered to her or so she tried to tell herself. After leaving him in the library, she’d done nothing but think about him, lamenting the peace of his presence. He’d been so quick to ease her heartache yesterday and the day before, and now he was the cause of it.

  ‘Perhaps they are conspiring together, especially given that they’re both suddenly suffering from same malady preventing them from enjoying the hospitality their cousin went to so much trouble to arrange for them?’

  ‘I doubt that’s what it is for I can well imagine why Lady Frances stayed in her room.’ There were very few who approved of her way of going about declaring Hugh the father and they hadn’t been shy in telling Clara so. It hadn’t mitigated Clara’s embarrassment, but it had helped to know that people were on her side, except this wasn’t a battle because she and Hugh had already surrendered to being apart.

  ‘What if Lady Frances isn’t alone in her room? It would be easy enough to find out.’ Anne looked up at the ceiling in a gesture Clara knew well. It was the same one she employed whenever she plotted a surprise party for Adam or some secret amusement for James and Lillie.

  ‘You can’t possibly be suggesting that we barge in on Lady Frances to see if she and Lord Stanhope are together.’ There was no doubting that Anne had gone mad and Clara, too, for even sitting here and listening to this insane idea.

  ‘It would be easy. We simply throw open the door and say we made a mistake in looking for Lady Pariston’s room. If she is alone with a wet towel on her head, then we’ll know I’m wrong, but if she is alone with more than a towel, think what this could mean.’

  That Hugh was right when he said the child wasn’t his. No, this was preposterous.

  ‘We’ll look like fools if we’re wrong.’ The whole situation had already left her humiliated enough. Hugh had never been willing to fight for her or risk public embarrassment on her behalf. There was no reason for her to do the same to try to clear his name, except that Anne’s suggestion was tempting. No, it wasn’t. ‘It isn’t our affair to meddle in.’

  ‘It involves you as much as anyone else.’ Anne rose and slipped on her shoes, indicating she was indeed very serious about this.

  ‘Then it isn’t right.’

  ‘Neither is trapping a man into marriage. It’s one thing for a widow to dally here and there discreetly and quite another for her to have a child out of wedlock. If Lady Frances is indeed with child, then she is in a very bad situation and will do anything she can to get out of it.’

  ‘Then why doesn’t she marry Lord Stanhope if they are involved, as you say.’

  ‘Because he has even less money than Lord Delamare. I heard so from Lord Westbook after dinner when he came in with the men and he’s as reliable a source as any. Besides, if I’ve learned anything from all his stories, it’s that most unmarried ladies who find themselves in difficulties by one man who won’t marry them won’t hesitate to trap another into doing it, especially one whose estate, with a little more effort and time, is likely to recover and become prosperous again. The prospect of being a marchioness, even a poor one, is a great deal more attractive than a scorned woman.’

  It all made sense and yet it still sounded so unbelievable, as did Anne’s continued faith in Hugh which continued to defy expectation. ‘So once again you’re taking Hugh’s side, believing him despite all evidence to the contrary.’

  ‘Yes, and you should, too.’

  ‘Not after what he’s done to me.’

  ‘He did nothing to you, Clara, at least not purposely. His relationship with her was well before you and he truly believed it was over and done until she arrived with her outrageous claim.’

  ‘Why do you and Adam always believe the best of him? Why can you not stand with me for once instead of him?’

  ‘I am standing with you, that’s why I’m suggesting this. I saw you at the Holyfield ball with him and at dinner the second night and even during the scavenger hunt and a hundred other times when you were laughing at his jokes and smiling in a way I haven’t seen in a very long time. He makes you happy, Clara, and brings back the joy in your eyes. I don’t want you to lose that or throw it away because of some London whore making an outrageous claim.’

  Clara started. If Anne was using such salty language, then she must really believe what she was telling Clara, but still Clara didn’t step off the bed and put on her shoes. She’d already placed so much faith in Hugh and look what it had got her, nothing but grief. If she raised her hopes again and followed Anne in this ridiculous notion, it might bring her more trouble. No, it was better to sit here and let Hugh go, to imagine that out there somewhere was another man worthy of her heart and life, one who wouldn’t keep disappointing her and who might be to her everything Hugh had been during the few happy hours they’d enjoyed before reality had stolen him. She only had to go to London and endure a hundred balls, dinners and outings, to weed through fortune hunters and other questionable men to find him. Clara sighed. Perhaps being an unmarried dowager wasn’t so bad.

  Anne came to the bed and rested her hands on the coverlet, leaning in close to Clara as if they were about to sneak into the Tower and steal the Crown Jewels. ‘All we have to do is open Lady Frances’s bedroom door and then we’ll know, one way or another, if I’m right and Lord Delamare is being trapped or you’re right and he’s a rotten scoundrel.’

  ‘I don’t need to sneak into a room to know he’s a scoundrel.’ Clara couldn’t believe Anne’s tenacity or the way it piqued her curiosity. What did Anne know this time that Clara didn’t? ‘Besides, what makes you so certain that this is the time to check?’

  ‘Let’s call it a woman’s intuition.’

  Clara’s intuition said nothing of the sort, but the sense that another name was being palmed and that there was more to this than Anne simply wanting to get up to mischief made her slide off the bed and put on her shoes. Oh, but she would look like an idiot if Anne was wrong and the increase to her current humiliation almost mad
e her scoff at Anne and make for her own room. But if Anne was right?

  She didn’t know, but the urge to take the risk of further embarrassment to learn if everything Hugh had told her about loving her and longing to be with her was true was too powerful. It would ease her broken heart to know that he had wanted her and that she hadn’t been duped. That it was she and Anne instead of Hugh contriving to find this out saddened her. He should be the one fighting to prove himself to her, not her working to clear his name. It wouldn’t change things between them but, if nothing else, perhaps by the time they were done the house would have something else to talk about besides her being jilted. ‘All right, I’ll go with you.’

  Anne and Clara crept down the dimly lit hallway, the sound of snoring coming from behind more than one of the bedroom doors. The rest of the guests were still awake, the light of their candles slipping out from beneath their doors to illuminate the hallway enough for Clara and Anne to find their way. Clara walked along the carpet on the balls of her feet, Anne clinging to her arm as if at any moment they would be discovered and sent like children back to their rooms. Clara’s heart raced and a small bead of perspiration dotted her temples when the door to Lady Frances’s room came into view. It was near the end of the hall, across from Lady Pariston’s. There was no light beneath the old Dowager’s door, but one flickered from beneath Lady Frances’s.

  The closer they came to the door, the slower Clara walked until she finally came to a halt.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Anne whispered.

  ‘We shouldn’t do this.’ It was as bad an idea as coming to Stonedown in the first place.

  ‘Of course we should.’ Anne started to pull her towards the door, but Clara dug in her heels.

  ‘What if you’re wrong?’

  Anne took her by the upper arms, the seriousness in her eyes, even in the low light, unmistakable. ‘Trust me, I’m not.’