“No,” she agreed. “I did not. It was lovely to meet you, but if I do not return, I will be missed.”
“Return where?” he demanded.
Elizabeth knew that if she didn’t make her escape, it would be too late. He was handsome. He was charming. And she felt from him an incredible kindness. He was also handsome to tempt a saint and she was not a saint. But his proximity to her family, the very idea of ever having to face their censure again, was more than she could bear. He could be the most perfect man on earth—and he very well could be—and it would not be worth it. Facing her mother and her father after so many years would destroy whatever small bit of pride she could still cling to.
Once outside, Elizabeth climbed into a waiting hack. “Number Ten South Audley Street,” she instructed the driver. “And hurry!”
“What are you doing?” Burney demanded, simply materializing inside the vehicle next to her. “He was utterly charmed by you! I daresay, if you’d played your cards right—no pun intended—he’d have proposed before dawn!”
“I can’t marry him. I’m not marrying anyone it seems,” Elizabeth muttered. “Leave me be!”
“I can’t!” Burney insisted. “You’re my assignment. Well, part of my assignment!”
“Assignment?”
Burney sighed heavily. “It’s very important to me that I get to work on Christmas Eve on a very special case that I have a deep, personal investment in. But I must prove myself… and the challenge I was given was to see you matched with your true love before Christmas Eve.”
“Well, I’m very sorry, Burney. I’m afraid you are bound for disappointment. Now, I’m begging you, leave me be before this driver assumes I’m madder than a hatter and drops me at the nearest asylum. Some people aren’t meant for happiness, you know?”
Burney shook his head. “That isn’t true. Everyone deserves to be happy!”
“What we deserve and what we can have are very rarely the same thing,” she pointed out. “Please, leave me.”
And just like that, Burney vanished and she was once more alone in the darkness.
Chapter Three
By the time he’d made it to the street, she was long gone. Snow had begun to fall, thick and heavy, and even her footprints were quickly fading beneath it. Only the distant clatter of hooves and rhythmic thump of carriage wheels gave any indication of the direction she’d gone.
“Damn it all!” Oliver exclaimed in the darkness. “What the devil did I say?”
“Women! Who can ever make sense of them?”
Oliver whirled, ready to face down a footpad or a pickpocket. What he found was a young man, impeccably dressed and seemingly impervious to the cold. “Do you know her?”
“Perhaps.”
“And you are?”
“Burney. Just Burney,” the young man answered. “Walk with me?”
Oliver agreed, falling in step beside the young man. It all seemed odd to him—Elizabeth appearing and then simply vanishing into the night, the strangely familiar voice of this man who had just appeared out of nowhere. If he’d had slightly less brandy, he’d probably question it a great deal more. In his current state, his curiosity was overruling his caution. “Oliver then. Just Oliver. You said you might know her?”
“Well, I do know her, but not well. I would happily give you her direction, but only if I know what your intentions for the lady are,” Burney responded.
“My intentions? Well, to be certain she’s safe for a start. And to know her better,” Oliver replied. Intentions! Did Burney think he meant to marry a woman he’d just met.
An insidious little voice—one that teased and tormented as it tempted—resonated in Oliver’s mind. He could marry her. After all, half the ton already eyed him with half-concealed disdain due to his very American ways. Not that they detested Americans. It was rather that they disliked Americans who somehow came into possession of titles.
“Ah… as a friend?” Burney suggested.
“Well, certainly yes, as a friend,” Oliver agreed. It was a lie. Well, it wasn’t the entire truth. Of course, he wished to know her better and he certainly hoped there would be friendship between them, but the simple truth was that he’d taken one look at her and thought “mine”. Not in a gloating and possessive way as so many men might but in recognition of the fact that he instantly felt a connection to her. Perhaps it wasn’t the permanent sort of connection. He had no notion if such a thing as love at first sight or soul mates even existed. Even if they did, making decisions about such things after a night of cards and brandy was hardly a wise choice on his part. Regardless, he knew one thing about Elizabeth. They were destined to meet, and he’d be lying if he said his interests in her weren’t both romantic and carnal, but those were things best revealed to her than to some stranger on a sidewalk. What an odd man this Burney fellow was.
“So you’re not in the market for a wife then?”
Oliver’s steps faltered. “It’s not exactly something I’ve given a great deal of thought! A wife! I’ve only been a marquess for a few months. That would be a lot of new things to get used to, now wouldn’t it?”
Burney walked on ahead of him a bit. Oliver watched, somewhat perplexed. There was something not quite right about the man and yet he couldn’t for the life of him figure it out. Reluctantly, he picked up his pace and fell in step beside him once more.
“I suppose it would depend on the woman, wouldn’t it? If she were remarkable enough to be a suitable inducement to make those rather extreme adjustments?” Burney observed.
“Yes. I suppose it would,” Oliver agreed.
“And do you feel that your Elizabeth would be such a woman?”
Yes. Yes, she would.
He turned to say as much, but Burney was no longer beside him. The man had simply vanished into the darkness. Perplexed, Oliver turned around, looking for him high and low. It was only then that he realized one terrifying fact. There was only a single set of footprints in the snow. His were still visible, though certainly filling up quickly. But there were not footsteps for Burney.
“That’s it,” he said. “The bitter loneliness of England has finally driven me mad.”
Ignoring his uneasiness, Oliver made his way to his home on Park Lane, the gauche and ostentatious monstrosity that he was growing to hate more and more on a daily basis, and let himself in. He detested having a houseful of servants. There was only himself, his cook, and a valet that refused to be fired. The remainder of the staff arrived in the mornings and departed after supper.
“Good evening, my lord,” the butler intoned, stepping forward from some unseen shadowed corner to take his coat.
Oliver’s hand flew up, landing with a thump over his heart. “God above, man! I’m going to tie a bell around your neck! Do not sneak about in the darkness like that. If I die of heart seizure, it will be on your head!”
“My apologies, my lord. Do you require anything from me besides a greater degree of noise in carrying out my duties?”
Oliver ignored the sarcasm. “No, good night, Fisher.”
“Good night, my lord.”
Alone in the grand entryway, once more, Oliver let out a sigh. “Elizabeth what?” The question escaped him as a whispered oath. But no answer came from the heavens. So he marched from the entry hall to his study. It was the only room in the garish display of wealth that passed for a house that he could abide. Once there, he poured himself a liberal glass of brandy and settled in before the fire to contemplate the strangeness of his evening.
Burney stood outside the palatial home of the Duke of Averston. He hadn’t planned that particular detour. Really, his only intent had been to prove to the powers that be that he was perfectly capable of being a Christmas Spirit as opposed to being just a regular sort of spirit. Honestly, the idea of having his death mean something when he’d allowed his life, through his own pride and myopic focus on things that should never have been priorities, to mean so very little, was something that appealed to him greatly. It was
an added benefit for him that he could check in, as it were, on those he’d treasured so much in life.
It was a funny thing, death. He missed them. He missed Amelia and his mother. He missed Winn and even Winn’s new bride who really was alarmingly pretty. And he missed Averston, but perhaps a more appropriate statement would be that he missed what might have been. It was impossible to say whether or not he would have found any lasting happiness with the very stoic and reserved, some would even say cold, duke. But he liked to think otherwise. He liked to think that he might have taught his brooding duke to have more fun, to be more carefree. And perhaps, in time, Averston might have taught him how to be more responsible, more focused on the things that did matter in life.
Alas, it was not to be. He’d made a fatal error in judgment which turned out to be… well, fatal. Despite everything, he really had no one to blame but himself. If one dabbles in blackmail, one must pay the consequences for it.
“It wouldn’t hurt to take a peek inside, would it?” Burney voiced the question aloud. It wasn’t to anyone, per se, as there was no one about who could see him or hear him. Only Elizabeth Burkhart and Oliver Weston, Marquess of Whittendon, could interact with him currently. They were his assignment, after all, his trial to see if he could actually execute the duties that would be assigned to him as a Christmas Spirit. “Surely checking in on the welfare of someone I once knew isn’t such a terrible breech of etiquette!”
Bolstered by his own encouragements, Burney simply willed himself inside the luxurious abode of his former paramour. When he opened his eyes, he was in the foyer, surrounded by marble floors and pillars, the ceiling above adorned with gilt moldings and frescoed cherubs. His feet moved silently over the floor as he closed the distance between himself the small bit of light filtering beneath the door of Averston’s study. Slipping through that closed door was much easier than willing himself through the thick stone walls of the exterior. Somehow, Burney resisted the urge to pat himself to be certain that all parts of himself had survived the process. It was something that he’d not quite become accustomed to yet. Not having a true, solid, physical form was quite remarkable.
His gaze moved unerringly and instantly to the large desk occupied by a man who wielded wealth and power with both ease and skill. Whatever the world believed of him, whatever society whispered of him, Averston was impervious to the lot of them. Because he frankly didn’t care about their opinions. That was the source of power, really, his complete and utter disdain for all of society. There were very few people the man actually cared for. In all honesty, Burney wasn’t even truly certain that he was one of those lucky few. He liked to believe that, had he lived, he might have been. It had been a unique connection between them, instantaneous and undeniable.
Closing the distance, Burney stared down at Averston for a moment. But it wasn’t the man that drew his gaze. It was the sketch spread out on the desk before him. Burney was staring at his own likeness and the charcoal staining Averston’s elegant fingers was evidence enough of who the artist had been. It was gratifying but also heartbreaking. In a way that he never could have while counted amongst the living, Burney could feel the waves of sadness and grief emanating from the man most thought of as heartless. And all he wished for him that moment was happiness and peace.
“I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry for my carelessness and what I cost us both,” Burney said softly.
Averston said nothing, but he did shiver as if the temperature of the room had dropped significantly. For Burney, that was another sort of proof altogether. He wasn’t supposed to be there. If so, his presence would not cause discomfort to the living. He was breaking the natural, or in this case, the supernatural order of things. And so he stepped away, easing backwards toward the door he’d entered through. But just as he reached it, Averston looked up, his gaze locking on the spot where Burney stood, almost as if he could see him.
“I’m sorry,” Burney whispered again and then simply slipped away into the darkness. He had work to do, after all.
Chapter Four
Oliver awoke to a splitting head and a stomach that roiled with nausea. He’d consumed much more brandy than could ever be recommended, especially for a man of his age. What he couldn’t quite fathom was why the hell he was awake so impossibly early. To that end, he cracked one eye open and glared at his valet who moved briskly about the room.
“What is the meaning of this, Rollings? I demand some sort of explanation for why you would invade my chamber at such an ungodly hour,” Oliver groused. For the first time, he sounded like a damned aristocrat, he thought bitterly.
“Only at your request, my lord. You directed me to wake you in time to attend church services at St. James. Your bath awaits you.”
At that, both eyes cracked open. “Have you ever known me to attend church, Rollings? Dammit, man! What sort of torment is this?”
“My lord,” the valet began, his tone clearly placating and more than a bit condescending, “You left a note for me that I should wake you. In that note, you stated that it was imperative that I wake you for church. That a lady’s future rested upon your attendance on this particular day!”
“A lady?” Oliver echoed back at him. Memories of the previous night flooded his mind. The beautiful and mysterious Elizabeth, the strange encounter with the man who called himself Burney—all of it came rushing back. But he had no recollection of leaving a note for Rollings or of having had any inkling that he was to meet Elizabeth at a church. He’d been foxed certainly, but surely not that far gone.
“Yes, my lord. You were quite specific on the matter. It was of utmost importance your note said!” Rollings reiterated.
As unlikely as it all seemed, Oliver found himself unwilling to dismiss it out of hand. The previous night had been too strange, the events too significant and too bizarre for him to now simply ignore this unexpected turn. In for a penny and in for a pound, he thought. “Fine. Thank you, Rollings… and if you have it, I’d like to see that note.”
“Certainly, my lord.”
Oliver, despite his uncertain stomach and pounding head, went through the routine of his morning toilette. Bad enough to be going to church, it would be far worse if he showed up looking like he was still recovering from his evening of excess. After bathing, allowing his thankfully steady-handed valet to shave him, Oliver dressed and made his way below stairs. He had no desire for the breakfast that had been laid out. Instead, he grabbed his coffee, much preferred over tea, and drank it down quickly. The hot liquid stung but it brought him to some degree of wakefulness which he supposed was a blessing.
“Your coat, my lord,” Rollings said. “You will be late for the service if you do not leave immediately.”
Oliver let the small man help him into the heavy woolen garment. “Thank you, Rollings.”
“And the note, my lord,” the valet said, producing the slip of paper with a flourish.
Oliver began fiddling with the folded note, preparing to read it and see if he could make any sense at all of what was happening in his household. It was chaos. Pure and simple!
“You haven’t time, my lord! You’ll be late!”
Taking the valet at his word, Oliver tucked the scrap into his pocket to be reviewed later, donned his hat and stepped out into the street. Snow covered the street, a thin white coating already giving way to mud. Climbing up into the carriage, Oliver questioned the soundness of that decision. He could likely have made it more quickly on foot but it was not the done thing at all to show up as a mere pedestrian. A carriage was a symbol of status, after all, and his was very fine, indeed. It was yet another albatross that he’d inherited.
As the vehicle lumbered along the snow-covered street, he reached into his pocket and retrieved the note once more. It was difficult to make out in the dim light. Of course, that might have as much to do with his own bleary eyes and aching head as the lighting and the motion of the coach. Regardless, he was struggling to read it. Squinting, he could recognize that it did appear
to be his handwriting, thought he couldn’t be certain. And despite it being his handwriting, the wording of it was very odd for him.
“How the devil can I remember the entirety of the night save for writing this note?” Of course, there was no one there to answer him.
Frustrated, suffering for his excesses and struggling to figure out what exactly was going on, Oliver leaned his head back against the upholstered seat of the carriage and willed the lot of it to make sense.
Elizabeth detested attending church. No, that wasn’t true. She detested attending church when she was surrounded by judgmental society matrons who couldn’t complete their prayers without pausing to whisper about her. She could feel their speculative gazes upon her, as if they were waiting for the Lord Himself to smite her for her sinful ways. Despite the festive atmosphere of the church, decked out in ivy and holly, there was no cheer in her heart. Not that day.
“Stop fidgeting, Miss Burkhart!”
The whispered admonishment had come from the dowager duchess. Uttered in a low hiss, it made Elizabeth jump, startled by the sound. She dared a glance at the elderly woman and sighed. Once more, facing forward, the rector was reciting his sermon with all the verve of a corpse when the sound of the door creaking open caused him to stutter, tripping over his words.
In unison, every head swiveled toward that door, including her own. What she saw made her heart sink. The Marquess of Whittendon—Oliver—stood there, silhouetted by the dim light of the snowy morning beyond. As she stared at him in both recognition and horror, he simply stepped inside, brushed the snow from his shoulders and allowed the door to swing closed behind him. He appeared to be entirely unconcerned about the degree of interest and gossip he had just stirred.
“American,” the dowager duchess muttered with disdain.
“Is he?” Elizabeth asked.
O Night Divine: A Holiday Collection of Spirited Christmas Tales Page 9