A Winter Wish

by Christi Caldwell

  “Our company was due to arrive here. However, we’ve decided to move the gathering to London.”

  That cut through her musings. “To London?” She’d been summoned back to England not to take on the role of housekeeper at the Mayfair residence, but for the role her mother was soon to retire from.

  “It is essential our very important guests see that our affairs in London are as well taken care of as they are in Leeds.”

  In other words, the scandal that followed her eldest son merited a display of the Holmans acting in their perfectly proper way.

  Lord Luke’s antics also merited her leaving at the heart of the holiday season and saying her goodbyes to family she’d not seen for three years. And yet, neither could she decline, particularly given the countess was in no way presenting it as anything other than the demand it was. Merry compressed her lips and silently cursed Lord Luke for choosing this time of all times to act anything other than a gentleman.

  Tucking her cane under her arm, the countess pulled her gloves on. “Given the significance of the role I’ve assigned, in a household that you’ll not otherwise be required to oversee, you’ll be generously compensated. Shall we say two hundred pounds, Miss Read?”

  Merry’s lips parted, but she could not get a proper word out. Two hundred pounds? That was an amount that would have taken her father six years in his role as steward to earn.

  “His lordship and I are set to depart within the hour. Given your only recent arrival, I’ve ordered your carriage to depart on the morrow afternoon.” With that decree, the countess sailed over to the door.

  She tapped the bottom of her cane against the panel that was nicked and marked with initials and images that Merry and her siblings had left over the years.

  Merry rushed over to open the door and then sank into a deep curtsy. “My ladyship,” she murmured.

  Without so much as a parting greeting, the countess started down the walkway.

  The nearly three-quarters-full moon hung like an orb upon the night sky, bathing the snow-covered path in white so bright it was nearly blinding.

  The countess paused in the middle of the snow-covered path. A servant rushed forward to meet her, but she waved the strapping footman off. “Lord and Lady St. Albans,” she said as she turned back to face Merry.

  Merry brought her eyebrows together. “My lady?”

  “Your siblings had the wrong of it. My son did not stumble into the Duke and Duchess of Bainbridge’s, but rather, the Marquess and Marchioness of St. Albans’.”

  Oh, bloody hell. Even with the frigid sting of the winter air, Merry felt her entire body go hot. The countess gave her a knowing look.

  With that, the regal woman marched off like the queen striding down a red carpet at court. Merry stood there with the door agape, letting all the precious heat slip out, all in the name of deference—until the countess boarded the carriage at the end of the drive. The pink conveyance lurched into motion, and the austere woman was gone.

  When Merry closed the door, she turned and found her siblings and mother staring back.

  “You’re leaving,” Matilda bemoaned.

  “It will only be for a short while,” she promised. “I’ll be home before the holiday festivities even commence.”

  Instead of rejoining her earlier pleasures with her siblings, Merry reluctantly quit the main gathering room in exchange for the rooms she’d shared with her sister through the years.

  A room she’d spend just one night in before being scuttled off to London to play at the role of decorator for the ungrateful, if generous, Lord and Lady Maldavers.

  There was some consolation in knowing that while she worked, she’d be invisible to the lofty Holmans and therefore able to spread holiday cheer throughout their no-doubt cheerless household.

  Merry smiled.

  Chapter 1

  Two days later

  London, England

  Ding-ding-ding.

  Lucas Holman, the Viscount Grimslee was dying.

  Ding.

  There was nothing else for the dull pain threatening to split his skull in two every time that high-pitched chime echoed around his darkened chambers.

  Ding.

  Despite his prior opinion on the matter, it appeared there was a God, after all, because the infernal chiming stopped.

  With a forcible effort, Luke struggled to open his eyes. A welcome inky blackness hung over the room. It was still too much. Sliding his eyes closed, he searched a hand around.

  Luke’s fingers connected with the slit in the curtains hanging over his four-poster bed, and with infinitely slow movements, he parted the heavy fabric.

  Even that minutest swoosh of the velvet landed like a blow to his head.

  Oh, God. His stomach roiled. Death would be preferable to this.

  When he trusted he could move without casting up the contents of his stomach, he rolled over and dragged himself to the edge of the mattress. At some point, the fire had died in his hearth, and a chill spread through the room. Even with that, sweat beaded on his brow at the efforts he expended, and he welcomed the cold.

  He hovered there, facedown, and promptly fell asleep. His slumber proved all too short.

  Ding-ding.

  Luke groaned. This was his penance, then.

  Ding.

  Nay, punishment, for the night spent drinking at his clubs.

  Ding-ding.

  Somewhere after the fifth peal of the clock, he stopped trying to keep track of that hellish chiming. “I’m going to hack you up and burn you for kindling,” he said, his words muffled by a mouthful of blanket.

  Once more, there was a beautiful surcease in that ringing.

  So, it was somewhere between five and twelve o’clock. Though whether it was day or night—or even, for that matter, what day it was—was all still a great mystery. Not that it mattered, either way. With the ton having retreated to their country properties for the Christmastide season—his parents fortunately among those numbers—Luke had no responsibilities.

  None.

  There were no gentlemen with whom to discuss the state of England.

  No brothers to see, though they hadn’t been seen since his youngest brother had been accused and, with the help of their other brother, cleared of treason.

  And there was no wife. Or betrothed.

  There was no Josephine.

  His chest spasmed at the reminder that was always near just how badly he’d bumbled, well, everything.

  He who, until five months ago, had never so much as had a cravat askew.

  For thirty years, he’d made his role as heir to the earldom—and all the estates, wealth, and responsibilities that went with it—his only priority. From the moment he’d left the nursery for the schoolroom, the importance of the Holman name and legacy had been well ingrained into him. And never had he deviated from those commitments. With his head for business, the responsibilities of seeing to the familial finances had fallen to him. A mantle he’d taken on as happily as he had any other before… and after it. Between those efforts and maintaining proper relationships with ranking members of the peerage, there’d been no time for pleasure… until he’d met Miss Josephine Pratt.

  She’d been unconventional, spirited, with a head for books, and he’d been alternately horrified and entranced by her. And then had come his brother’s scandal with the Home Office, and it had commanded all of Luke’s energies.

  Nay, that wasn’t altogether true. You broke it off with her because you thought it was best to sever all ties with her… for the both of them…

  If he could have mustered the energy for a sufficient chuckle without throwing up in his bed, he would have set that cynical mirth free. Instead, Luke managed to lift his right hand in a mock toast to the empty room. “And all in the name of honor,” he whispered into his sheets.

  There was a light scratch at the door, because even knocks in the Holman household were delivered with utmost decorum.

  Ignoring that irritating rap, Luke
stretched both palms out and drew the curtains tightly closed.

  They’d go away, because the servants were as loyal as the London day was wet and knew, unless instructions were given, they weren’t to bother a Holman with visitors who’d arrived without an appointment.

  Or, they had known.

  Scratch-scratch-scratch.

  “My lord?” His valet’s slightly strident voice stretched through the heavy oak panel.

  “Go away, Louie. I’m not to be disturbed,” he called and then promptly groaned at the misery he’d unleashed anew in his head. Swallowing another emission, he caught his head in his hands.

  “Yes, yes. I’m aware of your preferences—”

  “If you were aware of them, you’d not be jabbering on the other side of that door.”

  “However, I thought I might urge you to rise for the day, because—”

  “I cannot think of one damned reason why I should rise this day or any day,” he bellowed.

  Silence from the hall and a ringing in his ears were the only answers. That ringing sent another wave of nausea roiling in his gut.

  Good, you deserve it, you miserable bugger. Yelling at servants. This was who he’d become, then.

  The doors exploded open with a force that sent bile into Luke’s throat. “I can give you at the very least three reasons why you should rise this day.”

  That booming and all-too-familiar voice confirmed one truth—the good Lord hated him, after all.

  The Earl of Maldavers shoved the door shut with a thunderous boom that merely confirmed that, in addition to God, his own father despised him, too. And why wouldn’t he? Luke was a miserable, starchy chap.

  “Father,” he returned. The greeting, muffled by his blankets, was a rote form of politeness that had come from years of being the dutiful son. Reluctantly, he reached for the curtains.

  He needn’t have bothered with those exertions.

  His father ripped the fabric out of Luke’s hands and threw them wide, then stormed across the room.

  “Don’t,” Luke croaked.

  That plea didn’t so much as put a halt in the earl’s forward strides. He yanked open the drapes. Sunlight poured through, made all the more blindingly bright by the recent snowfall.

  It was too much.

  Retching, Luke fished around for the chamber pot and emptied the contents of his stomach into the nauseatingly cheerful porcelain piece.

  “There, that is a good deal better, my boy.”

  His father dangled a kerchief over the other side of the pot.

  Wiping at his mouth, Luke collapsed onto his back. “Boy.” He dropped a hand across his eyes. It’d been twenty-eight years since he’d earned that moniker from his father. “I’d hardly call myself a boy,” he said with all the dryness he could muster.

  “Well, given the way you’ve been conducting yourself these past weeks, I’d hardly call you a man, Lucas Holman.” His father snorted. “And certainly not a gentleman.” If displeasure had a sound, it would be that of his father’s cool, aristocratic tones all stretched out like the blanket of snow that had lined the London cobblestones last evening.

  “Ah, because being a gentleman matters above all,” Luke said coolly.

  “Yes. Yes, it does,” the earl said with a finality that declared any debate or discussion at an end.

  Not long ago, fool that he was, Luke himself had been of a like opinion.

  His father dragged over a chair. Flipping up his coattails, he settled himself onto the upholstered edge.

  Devil be damned. It was to be a lecture, then.

  Luke would have groaned if it wouldn’t have split his head in two all over again.

  It’d been so very long since Luke had received a lecture, he’d very nearly missed the telltale signs—the my-boying, the deliberate seat upon a chair. Though, in fairness, the grand presence of the earl should have been all the indication Luke had required. Particularly given that his father should at this very moment be buried away in merry festivities for the holiday season.

  Tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tock.

  His father took Luke’s chin in hand and studied him as if he were some scientific experiment to be figured out.

  Luke squirmed as, just like that, he’d become the boy of seven who’d made a pirate’s map out of page twelve of his father’s winter crofts ledger.

  He stole a look at the eight-day, provincial French grandfather clock. Tuesday, it was. “Don’t you have houseguests to entertain?”

  “We did. We do. We will.”

  Well, that was confounding and ominous, all at the same time. No more ominous, however, than that deliberate way his father tapped his chin.

  “Well, it can’t be all three,” Luke said when no further words were forthcoming.

  At that insolent retort, the earl’s red brows went shooting up.

  But then, why wouldn’t his father be filled with anything other than absolute shock at having his words countered or gainsaid? As a rule, none had dared to do it. At least not as long as Luke had toddled upon this earth.

  At last, his father let his hands fall to the casings of his puce satin trousers. “Actually, my boy, it can very easily be all three. You see, we did have a house full of company set to arrive on Monday when, imagine my horror, I received a note regarding my son’s antics throughout London.”

  “I never took our servants for traitors.”

  All the color bled from his father’s cheeks.

  Traitors. “Forgive me, I forgot the mention of traitors is still a delicate topic in this household,” Luke said with a cool smile.

  Alas, his father didn’t rise to the bait.

  “Gossip columns.”

  Luke furrowed his brow.

  “Your name has been circulating. More specifically, your antics.”

  “I’d hardly consider enjoying fine French brandy antics.”

  “It is when you’re falling facedown on Bond Street,” his father rejoined without missing a beat.

  “I was never facedown on Bond Street.” It had been somewhere around Curzon.

  “Either way, people are gossiping, and your mother and I won’t let it stand.”

  Ah, the poor earl and countess hadn’t learned from their other son’s public shame that when it came to fodder for the ton, they didn’t have the power that they did in every other aspect of their life. Luke closed his eyes and was very nearly drifting off.

  His father tapped his face with his palm, bringing his eyes open.

  “What in hell?”

  His father dropped his voice to a whisper. “Allow me to help you, my boy. This isn’t where you sleep, but rather, where you ask our intentions.”

  Warning bells went off…

  Or mayhap that knocking at the back of his head was more a product of the bottle of brandy he’d downed.

  “This is the ‘we do’ and ‘we will’ part,” his father went on, a glee in his tones that added to Luke’s rapidly spiraling unease.

  “I don’t follow,” he said hoarsely.

  “Given you smell like you bathed in brandy, I don’t expect you’re up to your usual tact.” Coming out of his chair for a second time, the earl marched over to the window. “You stink, Lucas Lannister Reeve Holman.” The words came muffled and slightly off-key from the way he pinched the bridge of his nose. His father unfastened the lock and brought the window up, letting in a sharp blast of cold. “There, that is better,” the earl said, as triumphant as if he’d dealt himself the winning hand in a game of hazard. “Now, where was I?”

  “Leaving?”

  His father took up the seat he’d abandoned next to Luke’s bed. “Trust me, I’d rather that more than you, my boy. The last place I care to spend my winters is in London.”

  Oh, hell and damnation. His stomach sank for altogether different reasons than his overindulgence. “You needn’t.”

  “I needn’t,” his father agreed. “Until I received word of you. Just as all of the ton has heard tales of your scandalous escap
ades. Nay, I’m stuck here.” His eyes narrowed. “With a house full of company.”

  With a house full of…

  “Company,” the earl finished, confirming Luke had spoken aloud.

  “But…”

  “No buts. We’ve guests arriving for the holidays, and when they do you will be presentable, the household decorated, and all rumors about your escapades will be laid to rest.” The earl leaned closer, the chair creaking and groaning under that movement as he dropped his palms onto his knees. “Am I clear, my boy?”

  “Abundantly,” he said through tight lips.

  His father flashed a wide smile that curved up his rounded cheeks. “Splendid, my boy. Splendid.” With that, the earl stood and took his leave.

  The moment his father had closed the door behind him, Luke closed his eyes. In four days, the house would be crawling with guests. Nauseating, holiday revelers, at that.

  This was the punishment his family was determined to inflict upon Luke for his bad behavior.

  He’d been wrong, then, after all. This was to be his hell.

  Chapter 2

  Merry Read had lived upon the Earl of Maldavers’ properties for nearly twenty years of her life. She’d run through his gardens. She’d pilfered treats from his kitchens. She’d hidden within his French-inlaid armoires.

  But never had she set foot inside his Mayfair townhouse.

  Of course, she’d enjoyed those former luxuries only because, as the housekeeper’s daughter, Merry had been invisible to the lord and lady of the household.

  After all, the servants’ children were invariably shadowy little figures who drifted about, but were never truly noted.

  Now, as the butler escorted her through a maze of halls and corridors as winding as the ones in Leeds, Merry took in the austere, regal elegance that oozed from Lord and Lady Maldavers’ residence.

  Ornate gold frames hung upon the walls. They filled every space, the articles nearly touching.

  Sconces lined the opposite side of the hall. From the gilded waterfall lamps, crystals hung like icicles atop the eaves at wintertime.