by Erica Ridley
“All right.” She drew in a deep, shaky breath. “I’ll take him.”
There.
Cynthia got what she wanted.
She should be over the moon.
Gertie’s mother had been Cynthia’s sponsor all those years ago. The countess had arranged invitation after invitation, year after year, her faith in Cynthia never flagging.
Although the effort hadn’t borne fruit, Cynthia would never forget what it had felt like to be believed in, fully and unconditionally. The countess was the reason Cynthia had started to believe in herself, despite all evidence that no one else did. The countess was the reason Cynthia wasn’t afraid anymore. The reason Cynthia was happy.
And the countess was no longer with them.
Gertie’s mother wasn’t here to work the same magic on her anxious daughter as she’d done for a shy and anxious Cynthia over a decade ago.
It was Cynthia’s turn now.
She’d steered Gertie’s older sisters into secure, happy marriages, and she would do the same for Gertie.
It was Cynthia’s only hope to pay back her aunt for not treating her orphan niece as an object to be pitied, but rather as though Cynthia had been her daughter, too.
Worthy of her time.
Worthy of being loved.
This was Cynthia’s chance to finally make the countess proud.
“Follow me, please!”
The Duchess of Nottingvale led the crowd past the gauntlet of footmen handing out hats and coats, and out into the snow-dazzled countryside like the Pied Piper of Yuletide Utopia.
Nottingvale adored his family. That was yet another mark in his favor.
Or another hurdle to cross.
“Why do I feel like she’ll be harder to impress than the duke?” Gertie whispered.
“Because you’re right,” Cynthia said dryly. “Go on. Make a good impression.”
Gertie bit her lip as she handed Max to Cynthia. “What do I do?”
“Be yourself. You’re wonderful just as you are.” Cynthia connected the leash to Max’s collar. “And perhaps a compliment or two wouldn’t go amiss.”
“You should’ve let me bring my breathing sack,” Gertie hissed, but she inched forward to blend with the debutantes.
By the fifth house, it was clear that every resident in Cressmouth had prepared vats of wassail to ladle out to carolers. Cynthia began to worry her cousin might make good on her threat to warble drunkenly into the night.
She tried to edge forward, but it was no use. Cynthia was stuck at the back of the crowd. Even her unusual height didn’t help her with all of the top hats and feathered bonnets blocking the view.
“You’re not singing,” came a low voice on her left side.
She rose on her toes. “I’m waiting for ‘A Spinster Goes A-Wenching.’”
A beat of silence.
“Isn’t it ‘A Soldier Goes A-Wenching?’”
“I changed the words. And the roles. What better buffet can there be for a self-respecting unwed wench than an entire squadron full of fit, handsomely uniformed—” Cynthia’s heels came back to earth as she swung her gaze to her side in dawning suspicion.
No. It couldn’t be.
Of course it was.
The Duke of Nottingvale smiled. “You were saying?”
“Dukes are fine, too?” she offered. “After one runs out of soldiers?”
“Flattering,” he murmured. “For the soldiers.”
The crowd began to move again.
Cynthia hung back and watched until she glimpsed Gertie up ahead with a remarkably sober gait and no signs of impending soprano solos.
Nottingvale hung back with her.
“Why aren’t you up front and in the center?” Cynthia demanded.
There was that quick, crooked smile again. “Have you heard my singing voice?”
Fair point.
His grin widened. “I rest my case.”
“It’s not the worst singing voice,” she hedged.
He hummed the first few bars of A Soldier Goes A-Wenching.
She clapped her mittens to the sides of her head. “My ears... Should they be bleeding like this?”
His dark eyes were curious. “You have a strange way of flirting.”
“I’m not flirting with you,” she said, aghast. “I’m an—” Ape leader. “—a chaperone. I want you to marry my cousin, the tremendously respectable Lady Gertrude.”
“Whilst you go wenching amongst the soldiers?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
He chuckled.
What was happening? None of this was right.
They were yards behind the rest of the group, who appeared to be singing merrily about Wenceslas, rather than wenching.
The duke’s eyes were on her, not his guests. “I didn’t send you that first invitation until my sister forced my hand.”
“Yes,” Cynthia said. “How thoughtful of you to point out my lack of welcome.”
“The oversight was foolish of me.” His lips twisted in self-deprecation. “You should write a ditty about that.”
“I’ve written plenty of inappropriate ditties about you,” she assured him, and immediately wished she hadn’t.
He was too close.
A few tendrils of wavy brown hair curled out from under his top hat. The faint stubble along his chiseled jaw was right there, the sharp folds of his cravat pointing straight at it, as if daring her to brush her thumb against his rough skin and feel his warmth for herself.
She kept her thumbs tucked safely inside her mittens.
A gust of cold air whipped through the evergreens. She turned her face toward it, allowing the wind to flutter her bonnet as a distraction.
“Here,” he said. “Let me help.”
“No,” she whispered, or would have whispered, if she had any power to make words at all.
The sound that escaped her throat sounded more like the whimper of a kitten.
He loosened the ribbon about her chin and set about retying it, his face an adorable mask of concentration as his knuckles grazed her cheek and neck.
He wasn’t really touching her. He was wearing gloves. Touching did not count unless it was skin-to-skin, like, say, kissing, which she was not fantasizing breathlessly about at all.
“There,” he said. “How is your dog doing?”
Dog? Cynthia didn’t have a…
“Max,” she gasped.
The puppy yipped and darted forward, pulling on the leash.
“I have to go,” she said. “I’m busy—”
“—caroling,” he supplied. “With the rest of us.”
“Yes. Very busy. You should marry my cousin. Come along, Max. Gertie needs us.”
Gertie was on a front step, accepting a fresh mug of steaming wassail from another happy Cressmouth resident.
Cynthia bowled through the crowd like a skittle-ball knocking down all ten pins at once.
“Wassail,” she said to the cobbler’s wife. “Please.”
Cynthia handed Gertie Max’s leash in order to wrap both mittens around the warm ceramic mug.
Gertie tilted her head. “Perhaps you’d make a better match with him than I would.”
“What? No! Why would you—” Cynthia took a long gulp of wassail, which was much hotter than she expected it to be, leading to noises not unlike a cat coughing up a hair ball.
Cynthia’s family were the only people who took her seriously.
They trusted her with Gertie, and Gertie’s future.
Cynthia could not let them down.
“Nottingvale and I do not suit,” she said firmly. “He’s looking for someone like you. You happen to be exactly like you. It’s a match made in heaven.”
“All of the other young ladies are just like me, too.”
“But they’re not you,” Cynthia pointed out. “That’s their fatal flaw.”
Gertie wrinkled her pert nose. “That’s something someone who loves me would say.”
Cynthia couldn’t think of an ap
propriate rebuttal to that logic.
“Make certain no one else is his match first,” Gertie said.
“What?”
“If you can promise me that the duke and I are objectively the best suited of everyone else here, then I...” Gertie picked up Max and cuddled him to her chest. “Then I’ll promise to do whatever you say to win him.”
Cynthia stared at her cousin. “What scale are we using? Imperial? Metric? How am I supposed to objectively ascertain the duke’s compatibility with two dozen other women?”
Gertie lifted a shoulder. “Help him try.”
Of all the…
“You want me to purposely attempt to matchmake the duke to everyone else at the party, in the hopes that I fail, leaving him no choice but to choose you?”
Gertie nodded. “You’re the best matchmaker in England. My sisters are very happy. You’ll only be able to matchmake him to the person who’s meant to be his bride.”
“It better be you,” Cynthia warned. “If he hasn’t made his selection by Twelfth Night, I’m tossing you straight into his lap. If we return home without your betrothal to Nottingvale, your father will force you to marry that dreadful crusty viscount.”
“You won’t let that happen,” Gertie said confidently. “You’ll eliminate all of the others before Twelfth Night, thereby proving to me, Nottingvale, and our respective parents that ours is a perfect match.”
Cynthia narrowed her eyes. “Is this an elaborate trick to stall for time, whilst you spend the next eleven days hiding in your bed with pots of hot chocolate and a burlap sack?”
“Yes.” Gertie nuzzled between Max’s ears. “No reneges.”
“‘No reneges’ was for card games!” Cynthia grasped her cousin’s arms. “You cannot renege, either. There’s no hiding in bed whilst I do this. You have to take part in the planned activities so that Nottingvale has an opportunity to fall in love with you. If you don’t...”
“I know.” The color drained from Gertie’s face and her breath grew uneven. “Father will trade me for a plot of land.”
Chapter 4
The first grand ball to launch Alexander’s annual Christmastide festivities was not off to a roaring start. Or even a lightly melodious start.
He had hired two talented brothers from London to provide musical accompaniment at the pianoforte for the duration of the party, but the gentlemen had been delayed first by snow, and now by a bout of influenza.
The bench at the pianoforte sat empty.
Guests milled about the perimeter of the room, chatting and sipping wine, and casting occasional glances at the freshly buffed and conspicuously unoccupied dance floor.
Alexander turned to ensure the refreshment table was freshly stocked.
Miss Finch stepped into his path with her cousin Lady Gertrude held captive by one arm.
“Is the dancing about to begin?” asked Miss Finch.
“No.” Alexander sighed. “We haven’t a pianist.”
Miss Finch sent a dubious glance about the crowded ballroom. “All of these highly accomplished ladies, and not one of them can play the pianoforte?”
“I’m certain they are all competent musicians,” Alexander said quickly. He had no idea if this was true, but she seemed certain enough for the both of them. “But they are also guests who came here to dance. I cannot ask them to—”
“I’ll do it.” Lady Gertrude jerked her interlocked arm free from her cousin’s.
Miss Finch looked alarmed. “Gertie, no. You’re to have the first—”
But Lady Gertrude was half sprinting, half sliding across the freshly waxed floor. Her fingers were on the ivory keys even before her derrière touched the wooden bench.
The first notes of a popular country dance burst jauntily from the pianoforte.
In seconds, delighted guests clogged the dance floor, their lively patterns obstructing Lady Gertrude from view altogether.
“Thank you,” Alexander said, and meant it. “You two have saved the party.”
“Nothing so noble.” Miss Finch sent a dark glance across the dance floor. “Lady Gertrude was saving herself.”
“She’s very talented.”
The blithe compliment had been automatic, but when he paused to really listen, Alexander realized it was more than true. Lady Gertrude was every bit as skilled as the famous musicians he had intended to feature. It was astonishing.
“She’s not showing off,” Miss Finch said. “She’s hiding, the inconsiderate scamp.”
“Hiding?” Alexander repeated. “On stage in a ballroom?”
“Gertie disappears into her music every chance she gets. She could have been a celebrated pianist if she hadn’t been born a lady, or if her father were less of a—” Miss Finch cleared her throat. “That is to say, Lady Gertrude is accomplished in all things. She could manage a dukedom just as well as she makes music.”
“Subtle,” he murmured.
“Is there any reason to be?” Miss Finch lifted a shoulder unapologetically. “Everyone under this roof knows this year’s party is less Christmastide and more a Duchess Derby. My money is on Lady Gertrude.”
He arched his brows. “I thought proper ladies didn’t gamble.”
“I’m not in the running,” Miss Finch reminded him. “I’m as likely to dance atop a piano as play one. I would make a dreadful duchess. But I can help you find the right one.”
He frowned. “I thought Lady Gertrude was the right one?”
“If you do think that, then my work here is over. But if you’re still deciding, it is Gertie’s wish that I help you make a sound choice. Just as she wouldn’t wish to be trapped in an unhappy marriage, nor does she wish a poor match on you. I know the foibles and the families of every young lady in this room. I’ve watched them all for years. If you would like a lieutenant, I’m yours until Twelfth Night.”
He stared at her. “This was Lady Gertrude’s idea?”
“She insisted most vexingly.”
Miss Finch did not look gratified.
“It’s very... kind,” he admitted. “Thoughtful and logical, indicative of a clever mind and the ability to think further than oneself and the present moment.”
“Mm,” said Miss Finch. “Almost as if she’s perfect duchess material.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You’d match me to someone other than your cousin?”
She pressed her lips together with obvious indecision and then sighed. “Like Gertie, I have no wish for either of you to be miserable for the rest of your lives. If what’s best is for you to choose one of the other young ladies, then yes. I would help you make the most fitting match.”
“Hm,” said Alexander.
Almost as if Miss Finch was every bit as compassionate, logical, and forward-thinking.
He would not be surprised to discover Lady Gertrude had learned the traits by looking up to her cousin.
“Very well,” he said. “I accept your assistance in this matter.”
Miss Finch looked as though he had crushed her last dream.
“I figured you would,” she said glumly. “It would’ve been so much easier if you’d simply fallen in love with Gertie at first sight.”
“She’s very pretty,” he said automatically.
To be honest, all of the debutantes were pretty.
He supposed Miss Finch would say that was one of their necessary accomplishments. Their pastel gowns were flattering, their extravagant hair arrangements stunning, their movements in time to the country-dance rhythmic and graceful.
“I see what you mean.” Miss Finch’s gaze swung to the dance floor. “It must take mental fortitude not to fall in love with all of them at once.”
Alexander’s heart clenched.
It had not happened to her.
She’d looked just like this once, or whatever the equivalent had been twelve years ago. He couldn’t recall the fabric colors and hair dressings of the day, but Alexander had no doubt Miss Finch would have copied them perfectly.
She was outrag
eous now, but back then, she’d been...
Unremarkable.
He couldn’t recall a single thing about her from those days, despite the probability that they’d been at the same crushes dozens if not hundreds of times.
Then again, he hadn’t been looking. Twelve years ago, he’d been an adolescent still adjusting to the role of duke, and the last thing he’d needed was to complicate his life with a bride.
And now here he was, presiding over a Duchess Derby in a ballroom awash with exceptional choices... spending his limited time at the side of a woman who would not do at all.
She wasn’t in the running.
Miss Finch was his lieutenant.
Of course it was fine for a general to discuss strategy with his lieutenant.
Her gown was a bold purple, her blond tresses twisted into a careless bun rather than bedecked with curls.
He supposed saving time with one’s toilette was one of the advantages of being a spinster.
The bold colors and unfussy hair suited her. The tiny laugh lines at the corners of her sparkling blue eyes did not remind him of her age, but rather evoked her infectious laugh and boisterous spirit.
Miss Finch probably would dance on a piano.
She probably had danced on a piano.
Alexander could not help but think he’d perhaps attended all of the wrong parties.
“Tell me,” she said. “Which woman has caught your interest?”
“Er...” he replied eloquently.
Miss Finch raised her eyebrows as if she’d wait patiently all night for Alexander to help her help him.
“You said Lady Gertrude is hiding?” There. Her cousin was a perfectly safe topic. “What is she hiding from?”
“You,” she answered without hesitation. “Gertie’s shy. She’s terrified of you.”
“Me?” he sputtered. “I’m not frightening.”
“Go and prove it to her.” Miss Finch smiled innocently. “I promise any given debutante in this room will be delighted to show off her skill at the pianoforte, if you’d like to take this opportunity to invite Gertie to be your first dance partner of the Yuletide.”
Diabolical logic.
“Very well played,” he said with admiration. “I thought you were supposed to be my lieutenant, not Lady Gertrude’s.”
“How can you determine which young woman is the right one, if you don’t come to know them all?” Miss Finch pointed out. “You might as well begin with Gertie as anyone. I’ll even spread a rumor that you’d like to see how the others stack up at the pianoforte.”