Mischief & Mistletoe
by Tanya Anne Crosby
Published by Oliver-Heber Books
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used or reproduced or transmitted in any manner whatsoever, electronically, in print, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of both Oliver-Heber Books and Tanya Anne Crosby, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Mischief & Mistletoe by Tanya Anne Crosby
COPYRIGHT © Tanya Anne Crosby
Published by
Dedication
To love … the second time around.
Praise for Tanya Anne Crosby
“Crosby’s characters keep readers engaged…” –Publishers Weekly
“Tanya Anne Crosby pens a tale that touches your soul and lives forever in your heart.” –Sherrilyn Kenyon #1 NYT Bestselling Author
“Tanya Anne Crosby sets out to show us a good time and accomplishes that with humor, a fast paced story and just the right amount of romance.” –The Oakland Press
“Romance filled with charm, passion and intrigue…” – Affaire de Coeur
“A first class author.” –RT Book Reviews
“Ms. Crosby mixes just the right amount of humor … Fantastic and Tantalizing!” –Rendezvous
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page
Praise
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Books By Tanya Anne Crosby
Prologue
Newgale, Spring 1838
Emma didn’t quite know what to say.
The frown lines etched about the duke’s lips seemed to deepen with every attempt she made to cheer him. Pressing her hands at her sides, she quashed the urge to lift her fingers to his mouth and soothe the harsh lines from his face. It wouldn’t be proper, she realized.
Like a marble statue, her betrothed stood, hands linked behind his back, peering down at the narrow ribbon of beach below. He hadn’t spoken for the longest time.
Above them seagulls wailed, swooping gracefully toward the sea. The ocean crashed below, pounding restlessly at the shore.
Peering down alongside him, Emma mustered the courage to breach the silence. “Beautiful, is it not?” she asked, and swiped her palms down across her new lemon-yellow morning dress. She’d worn the gown just for him—because he’d once told her the color reminded him of sunshine. He said he thought it a very merry shade, and after her father’s warning of the duke’s sour mood, she hoped it might somehow cheer him.
“Lovely,” he replied, distracted.
Emma frowned. She had been so flattered when Lucien Morgen, the fifth duke of Willyngham, had first paid her notice. Of all the ladies he might have courted, he had selected her instead. It seemed a dream come true—a fairy tale, and even now as the duke stood before her, Emma could scarce believe he had asked for her hand in wedlock.
Distractedly, he lifted his glance from the beach below, and turned to look at her with the strangest expression; one Emma couldn’t quite begin to decipher. He seemed deeply troubled somehow.
She smiled for his benefit. “I just knew you would think so. I have always loved it here,” she confessed.
He was looking at her curiously, his blue eyes unnaturally brilliant, and something about his expression sent a shiver down her spine—a winter chill in the middle of July.
Emma’s frown deepened and she rubbed her arms nervously. “Although it does get rather chilly,” she said. “Even in summer, the wind manages to ravage everything in its path.”
“People have a way of doing that, as well,” he disclosed, and his eyes seemed a touch more melancholy suddenly.
She knew his mother had passed recently, but it was something more than that, she sensed. He’d been behaving curiously all afternoon and she thought perhaps the account in the Times must have upset him more than anyone realized. She only wished she knew precisely what had been said, for her father had refused to enlighten her. He had only mentioned it at all so that she might be apprised of the duke’s mood. And yet… how could she help him if she didn’t know what it was that was troubling him?
He was still staring at her… as though studying her… looking for some reaction… to something.
Emma didn’t believe she had said anything that might have unsettled him. If anything, she had been doubly attentive today, trying in vain to make him feel better.
Fidgeting under his scrutiny, she decided perhaps she should stop trying to cheer him at all and simply allow him his rotten mood. Everyone was entitled once in a while and she didn’t seem to be able to alter it anyway.
She sighed and turned to peer out over the tumbling gray-blue ocean, avoiding his gaze. “Sometimes, I come here... and imagine what wonders must lie across the sea. Father simply loved the ocean! Have you ever been on a ship, Your Grace?”
The duke’s face twisted, as though somehow her words had given him physical pain. “Devil hang me, Emma! You don’t understand, do you?” He shook his head.
Emma felt suddenly more ill at ease than she had ever felt in his presence. “Your Grace,” she began, “are you ill? You seem so—”
“You are so sweet, Emma.”
Emma thought it might have been a compliment except for the way he’d said it. Somehow, by his tone it seemed a less than desirable trait. Feeling defensive yet having no notion why, she demurred, “Not so sweet as you might think, Your Grace!” After all, how many times had her father complained that she was full of more spit and vinegar than most boys?
And once again, he gave her that look—that odd, odd look that tugged at her heart. That look that made her yearn to hold him tight. And yet she felt a little slighted as well, for the look upon his face also made her feel as though she were little more than a child. And to that end, she informed him saucily, “In fact, I do think you like to believe yourself a trifle more dangerous than you are, Your Grace.”
His brow arched. “Is that so?” He sounded suddenly amused by the charge, though by the bleak look in his eyes one would never have guessed he was amused at all. In fact, he was beginning to appear every bit the dangerous rogue her friends had claimed him to be.
He took her by the hand. “Emma, dear—you simply have no idea...”
She lifted her chin. “Oh, but I do!” she asserted, beginning to grow vexed with his insinuations that she was less than able to think for herself. She was eighteen now after all!
He shook his head. “No. No, you don’t. I have thought about this quite a long time... all day, in fact, I have been trying to find a way to explain—”
Somehow, sensing she didn’t wish to hear what he was about to say, Emma interrupted, “But I do know—I do!” She reached out to place her hand to his lips. “You’re a good man, Lucien, despite the rubbish the Times may have printed—despite what people might say.”
He continued shaking his head, denying her.
“And I know because—well, because I think I love you!” she exclaimed before thinking better of it. “I could never love—”
“Damn it, Emma!” he exploded, seizing her hand and bringing it tenderly to his lips, as though to shush himself.
/> Emma started at his tone.
Before her eyes his expression turned to one of utter disgust and her eyes misted at the way he looked at her.
He seemed to regain his composure swiftly and released her hand abruptly, discarding it. “I don’t want you to love me,” he assured her.
At his hurtful words, Emma felt hot tears sting her eyes. She took a step backward. “But I-I think I already do!” she heard herself saying, and even as she said it, she could scarcely believe she was disgracing herself so terribly.
“No,” he argued. “You don’t. I can assure you that you don’t know the meaning of the word.”
Wounded by his unexpected vehemence, Emma dared not speak for fear that if she did, great sobs would heave forth from her breast. Shaking her head in dismay, she took another step backward. She couldn’t believe she’d bared her heart and soul to him and that he was trampling it without so much as a thought. She averted her face, fighting back tears.
She did know what love was! She knew because she received it unconditionally from those she loved, and she returned it with equal measure. She refuted his claim with all her breaking heart, but said nothing.
He seized her by the shoulders and forced her to face him then, pulling her away from the cliffside. “But then again neither do I—listen to me!” He shook her gently. “Don’t you understand, Emma? I don’t want you to love me.” His eyes pleaded with her. “To love me, you may as well fling yourself down that bloody cliff.”
Turning to look below, Emma stifled a cry at how close she’d come to the edge, yet contrary to his hateful words, he drew her into an embrace, and she’d never felt more confused than she did in that instant. Try as she might, she couldn’t find her voice to speak, and then he broke away, placing one last chaste kiss upon her forehead.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, moving her safely away from the cliff edge. “I shall speak with your father at once.”
And before Emma could clear the catch from her throat, he was walking away. Only then did her tears begin to flow. She couldn’t imagine how things had gone so terribly wrong—couldn’t begin to perceive what had happened—couldn’t imagine what she might have done—what she might have said.
And then he was gone.
No explanation. Nothing. Pride forbade her to go after him.
Chapter One
Newgale, Christmas 1841
The calotype print was tucked into the frame of the dresser mirror. Taken only a month before his death, it was the only true image they had of their father. He sat on his favorite bench, dressed in his admiral’s uniform though it no longer fit his gaunt form. Apparently, it was a new type of portrait that captured the exact image of a person—a gift from the Duke of Willyngham.
The day it was taken was the day Emma discovered her fiancé had once been an officer in her father’s company.
Have you ever been on a ship—gah! The memory plagued her. What a paper scull she had been.
She hadn’t even realized the duke had had an older brother, or that his time in the Royal Navy—a promising venture, brief though it had been—had ended abruptly after his brother’s death, cut short by his duty to his family name. Apparently, he was not the cherished son, and he had taken every opportunity to earn his father’s umbrage. He had come into his title reluctantly and with much rancor, and the only father figure he had ever esteemed happened to be her own, but that was the only commendation she would allow him—that he had somehow earned her father’s respect—and that he had had enough regard for her father to wait until he was cold in the ground before coming forth with his final decision.
Scoundrel that he was, the Duke of Willyngham was apparently not the sort of man who cared for anyone but himself. He had merely wished for a breeding vessel was all. Emma understood that now, despite that her father’s portrait somehow belied the fact. She eyed the calotype. Whatever his reason for commissioning that portrait, she was certain it was entirely selfish.
“It’s cold,” she said plaintively, and shivered.
“Get dressed,” Cecile returned easily.
Emma crossed her arms, refusing to acknowledge it might be his presence here that affected her so profoundly. Certainly it wasn’t for his sake she found herself so persnickety this morning.
She was happy Jane, her maid, had gone home for the holidays, but only Jane would have truly understood. Nor would she have endeavored to correct her as Cecile seemed so determined to do.
“Emma, dear. You mustn’t do this to yourself.”
“I am not afraid to face him,” Emma reassured her brother’s wife. “If only I can find something to wear, I shall be merry as a cricket, I assure you!”
Cecile eyed the mountain of dresses that had already been discarded upon the bed and with a groan of distress, Emma shoved the gowns aside and sat glaring at the calotype. Having tried nearly every dress she owned, she was now at a loss. And truth to tell, she’d never felt more like weeping than she did at the instant—although precisely why she felt like weeping she could not fathom. In effect, this decision had been made long, long ago. Clearly he had not changed his mind, so why should she care what he thought of her dress?
Cecile lifted up for Emma’s scrutiny a lovely bottle-green gown, trimmed with blond lace. “How about this one?”
Emma sighed and shook her head, feeling like a wayward child. “No.”
“Perhaps he’s changed his mind?” Cecile suggested, as she searched diligently through the wardrobe for another suitable gown. “I could let you borrow the velvet plum…”
Emma glanced up and frowned. “I don’t want him to change his mind.” And the velvet plum was far too lovely… it wouldn’t do.
Really, it was better to have discovered sooner, rather than later, just how inconstant her betrothed could be. That he had spared her the scandal as long as he had in light of her father’s illness and death she was grateful for, but all else about the man rankled—everything, down to the fact that he’d chosen the holidays to invade her life once more.
Emma was certain he couldn’t care one whit how she fared for not once in nearly three years had he enquired after her well being. He had never even bothered to give her a choice in the matter of her future—or the courtesy of an explanation. He’d simply left her wondering all this time, waiting for a public announcement that was certain to ruin her life—well, she was tired of waiting. She wanted it to be over.
Now.
Lord! She had been such a silly little girl full of silly dreams, but no more. She had mistakenly believed that because her father and mother had found love, and her dear brother Andrew had found it with his lovely wife, Cecile, that she, too, could—and would—find love as well. Even more foolish yet… she had truly believed she might find love with him—that blackguard who had already left a trail of broken hearts!
As for that article in the Times… Emma learned only after bedeviling her brother that The Times had printed a scandalous account of his involvement with one of Queen Victoria’s Ladies in Waiting. Apparently, there was a suspected out-of-wedlock pregnancy that most people assumed had been conceived by the duke of Willyngham. As it turned out, the poor woman simply suffered from an illness, but it said quite enough that the entire lot of them—except apparently, Queen Victoria—were willing to blame it upon the duke so readily. No doubt he had manipulated the Queen with that rogue smile of his! Well, thankfully, the Queen was newly married now and hopefully immune to the charms of the Duke of Willyngham! Emma, for one, was determined to guard her heart at all cost. “That man is as cold as Newgale in winter!” she swore.
“He must have had something to recommend him for your father to hold him in such high esteem?”
Emma glanced at the calotype, glowering at it. “Whatever that might be,” she said. “How dare he simply appear now of all times!” With merely four days remaining until Christmas, his presence was bound to cast a pall over the entire occasion.
“It’s possible he’s changed his mind,” Ce
cile offered once more.
Emma gave her sister in law a censuring glance. “Really, Cecile, I wouldn’t marry that man now if I were dying and he held the only keys to Heaven.”
“Tsk.” Cecile admonished, and shook her head with disgust over the gown she held in her hand. She tossed it upon the bed, not bothering to offer it for Emma’s consideration.
“Oh, yes! That one,” Emma exclaimed, leaping up from the bed.
If he wanted indifference, so be it. She vowed to be as dispassionate as he seemed to be. The very last thing she intended to do was to dress to please the cad. Seizing the gown Cecile had tossed away, she made her mind up at last, nodding with satisfaction as she held it before herself in the looking glass. “Yes, this one will do quite nicely,” she declared, looking past the calotype. “Sorry Papa.”
“Hmmm?” Distracted, Cecile turned to look at her and then, spying the gown she held in her hand, exclaimed in dismay, “Oh, Emma!” She scrunched her nose. “Not that one, please!”
“Yes, this one,” Emma said stubbornly, and smiled.
“Oh, my dear, puce does not suit you at all!”
“Precisely,” Emma said. “And I’ve never cared much for the gown, besides. It’s ugly. The buttons are too big and the bosom much too snug. But that’s entirely the point, isn’t it?”
Cecile’s face screwed, clearly not understanding. She looked at Emma as though Emma had gone completely off her head, and then heaved a sigh, telling Emma, without so much as a word how thoroughly she disapproved of her choice and went straight out the door, closing it, shaking her head and leaving Emma to brood all alone.
Plum, puce; it was all the same, really—she’d like to see the duke wear plum, in fact—plum pie right in the face! The thought of it, childish as it was, made her smile a little.
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