“Who is coming?” Sebastian asked as Fitzhugh shoved past him and reached for some bread. “The only person my wife wishes to murder is me, but that could change at any moment. Yes, that is roast beef and no, there is no mustard for you. Creighton did you not feed him between here and Kent?”
“You m’know he m’id not,” Fitzhugh mumbled around a mouthful of roast beef sandwich, which he finally managed to swallow. “Lady Aphrodite received a letter from your wife, and nothing would do but we make all haste to see what sort of a mess you’ve made of your marriage. I thought it a grand idea until I saw your wife. Did we know she was with child? Very much with child?”
“I suspect Brightworth has known for a while,” Creighton drawled. He took the cup of tea Figgs prepared for him with a nod and a murmured thanks.
Sebastian’s head began to spin. A frequent occurrence in the presence of these two troublemakers. After the past week, however, he needed his wits about him. He had made a mess of his marriage, no sense in denying it. Apparently, those who’d helped him win Minerva intended to watch him try and win her all over again. Worse, they might feel the need to help him.
“Will you two, stop talking, stop eating my food, and tell me exactly why you are here?”
“That is an excellent question, Colonel Brightworth. I certainly had no need of their escort.” Lady Aphrodite Forsythe, Creighton’s younger sister, strolled into the library and stopped, arms akimbo, to glare at her brother and Lord Fitzhugh.
Sebastian barely noticed her. He only had eyes for the lady at her side. He’d loved Minerva since she was a girl of sixteen. Ten years apart—him at war and her married to another, and seven months of marriage had done nothing to dim the love and passion that coursed through his veins at the mere sound of her name. And now, her body rounded with his child, she was more beautiful than he’d ever thought possible.
“Minerva,” Sebastian murmured.
She only met his eyes for a moment, long enough for him to see the hurt and anger there. Creighton rose and offered her a brief, but elegant bow. Fitzhugh stumbled to his feet and attempted to do the same. Difficult to do with a sandwich in one hand and a lemon tart in the other.
“You’re looking in rude good health, Mrs. Brightworth,” Fitzhugh said.
“Good God,” Creighton said and rolled his eyes.
“What?” Fitzhugh gawked at them whilst Minerva favored him with an indulgent smile.
“Don’t try to turn her up sweet, Fitzhugh,” Aphrodite warned. “You and my interfering brother were not included in my invitation to spend Christmas here. I am arrived safely, you may toddle off back to Creighton Hall and spend Christmas with Mama.”
“You are a cruel woman, Lady Aphrodite,” Fitzhugh said. “I’d rather spend Christmas on a Thames prison hulk.”
“That could be arranged.”
Minerva laughed. “Now, Aphrodite,” she chided. “I would not wish Christmas with your mother on my worst enemy.”
Sebastian’s heart did a little flip. He’d not heard his wife’s laugh in quite some time. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard her laugh.
“If we are imposing on your hospitality, Minerva, I will throw Fitzhugh back into my carriage and make for Kent within the hour,” Creighton said quietly.
“Of course, you must stay, Harry, you and Lord Fitzhugh both,” she assured him.
Minerva.
Harry.
Sebastian’s jaw locked. Creighton, the fiend, had proposed to Minerva first, and the two of them had remained friends. He trusted the man. Most of the time. After all, she’d chosen Sebastian. If slamming doors and cold porridge counted for anything, a choice she was coming to regret.
“In fact, it is fortuitous you are here,” Minerva continued as she gave Sebastian a wide berth and walked to the fireside table. She picked up the plate of lemon tarts and then rejoined Lady Aphrodite, who now stood with her arms folded across her chest and a disparaging look on her face. “Another guest will be arriving tomorrow, and as my husband has forbidden me to welcome him to Chesnick Wharton, perhaps you gentlemen will do so in my stead.”
She walked to the library doors, still graceful in spite of her condition, Creighton’s sister close on her heels. “Figgs, please arrange rooms for Lord Fitzhugh and Lord Creghton.”
“Of course, Mrs. Brightworth,” the butler replied. He eyed the plate of tarts and swallowed hard.
“And if you have secreted another half a crown in your pocket for my son, you will return it to Colonel Brightworth, if you please. Dinner is at seven, gentlemen.” With that, the ladies swept out the doors. The slamming shook the windows.
“You forbade her?” Creighton raised an eyebrow at him.
“Why did she take the tarts?” Fitzhugh groused as he collapsed into a highbacked leather fireside chair.
“You forbade her,” Creighton said once more.
Figgs handed Sebastian the half a crown and hurried out of the library. Sebastian subsided onto the large leather-button ottoman across from the fireplace, his head in his hands.
“Tsk. Even I know you don’t forbid a woman,” Fitzhugh said as he put together yet another sandwich, this one with mustard, which Figgs apparently carried about in his pocket. “No wonder she isn’t speaking to you.”
“How do you know she isn’t speaking to me?”
“Aphrodite,” Fitzhugh and Creighton said together.
Sebastian groaned. Creighton’s sister wasn’t a Christmas guest. She was reinforcements.
“Who did your wife, your wife very much in the family way—a different species of woman entirely—invite for Christmas to make you so foolish as to forbid her, Brightworth? Prinny? My mother? An old mistress?” Creighton asked.
“My brother,” Sebastian mumbled without looking up.
“Your…”
“Anthony Chesnick Brightworth, Earl of Haddenfield. My half-brother. Minerva has been corresponding with him for months and invited him here as my Christmas gift from her. I told her he was the very last person on earth I wanted to see, I had no intention of welcoming him into my home, and I forbade her to do so.”
“You’re right,” Fitzhugh said.
“I am?”
“The only person your wife wants to murder is you. Why did she take the lemon tarts?”
Minerva lowered herself into her favorite chintz chair and toed off her slippers with a sigh of relief. It had been an incredibly long day and tomorrow loomed before her like the sound of drummers calling a soldier to arms. She took the cushion Aphrodite handed her and stuffed it behind her in an effort to soothe the bowstring tautness of her back. In the eight years since Edward’s birth she’d nearly forgotten how uncomfortable this entire childbirth endeavor could be.
“Dinner was… delicious,” Aphrodite said as she settled onto the wide arm of the chair opposite Minerva.
“Dinner was a pleasant disaster and you know it.” Minerva heard footsteps in the dressing room she shared with her husband. He’d left the door into his chambers open. His voice and the voice of the young footman who served as his valet drifted against the door into her bedchamber, muffled but noticeable.
“It was certainly a disaster for Colonel Brightworth. What on earth did Cook serve him?”
Minerva laughed. “I am not certain, but I believe last week’s leek soup and a cut of meat Cook declared ‘Not fit for t’young master’s dog.’ were involved. As to the rest…” She shuddered.
“Is it badly done of me to have enjoyed watching him try to eat it whilst you ignored him utterly, and Lord Fitzhugh described in exquisite detail how delicious each remove was as we ate it?”
“Not at all. I rather enjoyed it myself,” Minerva replied. She hadn’t, not truly. She loved Sebastian with all her heart and had spent the last seven months turning Chesnick Wharton into a comfortable home for him. After the sorrow and depravation of his childhood and his long years at war, her husband deserved a home—a place to lay his head and know he was loved and hon
ored, a place where he belonged. Had she ruined it all by inviting his brother for Christmas?
“How long do you intend Cook to torture the poor colonel like this?” Aphrodite asked.
“Until he comes to his senses?”
“Good Lord, the man will starve to death long before that happens.”
Minerva sighed.
Aphrodite stared at her intently, a sad little smile on her face. “He loves you, Minerva. I have never seen a man so much in love.”
“I know he does. And I love him. Lord Haddonfield is his only blood relation. I don’t count the horrid grandmother. Sebastian has fought so many demons for so long. I thought Christmas was the perfect opportunity to put some of those demons to rest.”
“No one counts Lady Haddonfield. She makes Mama look the very model of motherhood.”
“Lord Haddonfield gave us Chesnick Wharton because Sebastian asked him for it. For me and for Edward. But I don’t think he is truly happy here. Something in this house haunts him, Ditey. Sebastian spent the first eight years of his life here. I don’t know what happened between him and his brother, but it is time to lay it to rest.”
Aphrodite stood and brushed out her skirts. “You make him happy, Minerva. More happy than the stubborn, addlepated arse deserves.” She patted Minerva’s shoulder as she walked past on the way to the chamber door. “Silence never works. I find men prefer it when we leave them alone. Talking to him is a much fitter punishment. It is almost as bad as a week-old leek soup.”
Once the door had snicked closed behind her friend, Minerva hoisted herself to her feet and crept to the dressing room door. She pressed her ear to the door in time to hear a horrendous crash and a string of all too familiar swear words.
“Thomas did you move my travel desk?”
“No, Colonel, I never touched it,” the beleaguered footman replied.
“Fell off that shelf and damn near killed me. Would have saved my wife the trouble.”
“Yes, Colonel. I mean, no Colonel. I mean—”
Minerva opened the door and stepped into the dressing room. “He knows what you mean, Thomas. Might I have a moment with my husband?”
The footman bowed and scurried out of the dressing room, into the master’s bedchamber, and out the chamber door, which he slammed on his way out. Sebastian started and Minerva tried not to laugh. He was such a handsome devil, drat him. In his quilted black velvet dressing gown, his black hair still wet from his bath, he was far more enticing than anything Cook had prepared for dinner.
“Ten years in Old Beaky’s cavalry and now I’m in my dotage a slamming door frightens me,” Sebastian groused. He stared at her, his dark brown eyes alight with the heat and intensity which never failed to make her shiver.
“You are far from your dotage, husband. My proof of it wakes me daily at three in the morning to make use of the chamber pot.” Minerva rested her hand on her belly. “Might I speak with you?”
“I never asked you to stop.”
Minerva rolled her eyes and brushed past him into his bedchamber. Sebastian followed. He tossed the travel desk onto the bed. She spotted several pieces of crumpled parchment next to a chair by the fire. Before he tried to stop her, she scooped one up and eased into the chair by the hearth to open and read it.
Dearest, Minerva
I
She held the parchment out to him.
“I have not been able to finish it,” he said somewhat sheepishly.
“Finish it now, Sebastian. Make me understand.”
“There is nothing to understand. I don’t want Haddonfield here for Christmas. I don’t want him here at all.” He leaned against the thick oak bedpost and crossed his arms.
“Why? Can you make me understand why you want nothing to do with your last connection to your father? You loved your father, Sebastian. I know you did.”
“Love is not a title. It is not passed on with a piece of paper and a royal decree. I wish you would leave this be, Minerva. You, and Edward, and the child your carry are enough for me. Why can you not believe that?”
“Because I see you when you think I am not watching.” She struggled to her feet and padded across the carpets to him. “I know every line in your face, every expression, every sorrow in your eyes. Your brother gave you Chesnick Wharton because he believed you would be happy here.”
“He gave me the estate out of guilt because I asked him.”
“He was ten years old when your father died. What guilt could a ten-year-old boy possibly bear?”
“Leave it, Minerva. No good will come of this. He can live without my forgiveness. He has done so quite handily for the last fourteen years.” Sebastian cupped her cheek. “We can have a good Christmas—you, Edward, and I—even if we must include our interfering friends.” He pressed his lips to her hair and rested his cheek against the top of her head. “I am happy here. I am happy anywhere you are.”
She wanted to give in. It would be so easy to do so. They were happy. Her past was behind her. She’d married the wrong man for the wrong reasons and both she and her first husband had suffered a miserable marriage for it. She’d forgiven herself for it. More important, she’d forgiven Edward’s father.
Sebastian had given her that gift, had shown her and told her in a million little ways her mistakes were simply that, choices she had made of necessity and had survived with tenacity and grace. And Sebastian? He still blamed himself for so much. She saw it in the lightning flash moments of breath caught when he walked into the entrance hall. She heard it in his voice when he guided Edward and his pony around the paddock.
As beautiful as the house and estate were and as much as he loved working to be a good landlord and master, this place held some secret pain for him. And it was all tangled up with his hatred of his brother. She drew a steeling breath and stepped out of his arms.
“The forgiveness isn’t only for your brother, my love. It is for you. I will not share you with ghosts, Sebastian. And your brother loves you. I wish you would find a way to love him too.” She walked towards the dressing room door. Sebastian followed.
“Love him? I don’t even like him, Minerva. He is a pompous, arrogant thief. He is stealing a perfectly peaceful and happy Christmas from us by coming here. And I am certain he knows it. I will not allow you to bring him into this house.”
She put up a staying hand. “I may be speaking to you, sir, but I will not share a bed with a man so narrow-minded and unforgiving as to forbid me welcoming a guest into my own home.”
He threw up his hands. “Be reasonable, Minerva.”
She patted his chest. “For your information, I don’t like you very much at the moment either, Sebastian Brightworth.” She kissed his chin. “But I do love you.”
He braced his arms in the doorway and leaned in to kiss her.
“Good night, husband. I wish you pleasant—”
“He-e-e-lp! For God’s sake get it off me!”
Minerva ducked under Sebastian’s arm and waddled across his bedchamber into the corridor.
“It’s only Fitzhugh, Minerva. Come back here.” Sebastian marched into the corridor after her.
“Precious, you let Lord Fitzhugh go this instant.” Minerva grabbed the brown sausage-shaped dog attached to her husband’s friend’s arm and tugged. “Sebastian, make her release him.”
“Me? She hates me even more than she hates Fitzhugh,” he replied even as he pried Edward’s pet off his friend.
“What in God’s name is going on out here?” Creighton, dressed in a wine-colored banyan, entered the corridor from a door across the way.
“Brightworth’s lunatic dog attacked me,” Fitzhugh declared as he checked his shirt for damage.
“Precious?” Creighton took one look at the dog in Sebastian’s arms and retreated into his room, slamming the door behind him.
Sebastian started and closed his eyes.
Fitzhugh grinned. “Good night, Brightworth. Mrs. Brightworth.” He sauntered back in the direction of his room.
<
br /> “You must call me Minerva, Lord Fitzhugh. Anyone who is attacked by Precious and lives is allowed to call me Minerva.”
“Good night, Minerva.”
A weariness suddenly hung on her limbs and began to cloud her thoughts. She wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed with Sebastian, but she simply must remain strong. She started towards her bedchamber door. And immediately turned when she sensed her husband’s footsteps behind her.
“I meant what I said, Sebastian. I suggest you go to your bed and sleep on what we discussed.”
“Minerva,” he murmured as he stepped close and used his free hand to trace the contours of her lips. “That bed is cold and lonely. Surely you would not begrudge me a warm bed and some company.”
“Of course not, my love.” She opened her door. “Precious usually sleeps with Edward, but I am certain he can spare her for a few nights.” She patted the dog’s head and offered Sebastian her sweetest smile as she waved him down the corridor towards his chamber door.
“If she bites me I am tossing her out the window,” Sebastian muttered as he walked away.
Sebastian finally succumbed to curiosity and checked his appearance in the peer glass in the corner of his chamber. He’d slept little last night and when he did sleep he was plagued with confusing dreams. He’d breakfasted with Creighton and they’d ridden out to view the estate before Fitzhugh or the ladies had stirred from their beds. Minerva, normally an early riser, had an excuse to lie in and take a tray in her rooms. He had no idea what Fitzhugh or Lady Aphrodite’s excuses might be. Actually, Creighton’s sister had likely joined Minerva for breakfast so they might plan their next move together. His painful demise, perhaps?
A knock on his chamber door interrupted his musings. He glanced at the bed and shook his head at the red dog happily ensconced under the counterpane with her head resting on his pillow.
“I am glad one of us is enjoying the bed.” He strode into the corridor where Creighton and a sleepy-eyed Fitzhugh awaited him.
“You aren’t wearing that, are you?” Fitzhugh looked him up and down and sniffed.
“I’m sorry, Fitzhugh, when did I hire you as my valet?” Sebastian strode down the corridor’s green and primrose patterned Aubusson carpets towards the stairs.
'Tis the Season: Regency Yuletide Short Stories Page 18