Christmas with the Duchess

by Tamara Lejeune

  “I certainly intend to make it look that way!” Monty replied grimly. “If this gets back to my regiment, I’m done for.”

  “They couldn’t bring it to a trial,” Colin scoffed. “There’s no proof of anything.”

  “The chaps in my regiment won’t bother themselves about proof,” said Monty. “They’ll just kill me in my sleep to preserve the honor of the regiment.”

  “Sell out, then, you goose! The war’s over, anyway.”

  “You’d like me to sell out, wouldn’t you?” Monty said bitterly.

  “Look, don’t panic. This is about me,” said Colin. “I stand accused, not you. This charming letter says absolutely nothing about you. If you were suspected, would your well-wisher have sent you this friendly warning? No!”

  “Lots of people got them, not just me. Oh, God! If my father hears of this, he’ll cut me off without a penny.”

  Colin shrugged impatiently. “So what if he does? We’ll go abroad. We’ll go to Paris. The French are not such prudes. We wouldn’t be treated like criminals there.”

  Monty set his jaw. “Go to Paris? With no money?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Monty,” said Colin. “I’ve got plenty of money.”

  Monty shook his head angrily. “Oh, no. You’re not going to pay my way.”

  “Why on earth not?”

  “Because I am not one your boys,” Monty said coldly.

  He was gone within the hour.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Who could have done such a cruel, cowardly thing?” Emma murmured, passing the note back to Otto that evening in her sitting room. “They are all over the house. Captain Palafox brought this one to me, but he said most of the officers got something similar. Will Colin be arrested, do you think?”

  “On the basis of an anonymous note? I shouldn’t think so,” said Otto. “There’s no proof of anything criminal. Is there?” he asked sharply, looking at his younger brother.

  Colin walked about Emma’s sitting room restlessly. “No, of course not. I’m always very careful. There’s no proof of anything. We don’t write letters, and I trust my servants completely.”

  “The servants are of no consequence,” said Otto. “Their testimony would be meaningless in court.”

  “Maybe I should just leave,” Colin pouted, looking at his siblings. “You don’t really want me around. You don’t accept me. Not really. You just pretend to. I know you’re all really ashamed of me. You’ll be glad when I’m gone.”

  Emma found his self-pity infuriating. “That’s right, Colin,” she snapped. “We wrote the letters! Otto and I were up all night, scribbling them out, left-handed to disguise our handwriting. Then we scurried all over the house, shoving them under doors like demented postmen! We have always stood by you. When one of us is attacked, we are all attacked. It’s just a pity that your friend doesn’t have more courage,” she added scathingly.

  “You don’t know anything about Monty!” Colin shouted at her. “You don’t know anything about anything! I’m leaving. I will go to Paris and spend Christmas gambling and drinking in the Palais Royal. In Paris, I can be myself.”

  “Oh, spare me your self-pity,” Emma called after him angrily as he made for the door. “Do you think you’re the only person who’s ever been forced to live a lie?”

  Otto’s calm voice stopped their brother at the door. “Colin, you cannot run away. If you leave now, it’s as good as an admission of guilt, and it may be assumed you are going to meet Monteith. There will be consequences for him, if not for you.”

  “Oh, who cares about him?” cried Emma. “He ran away at the first sign of trouble. From this moment, I have no opinion of Lord Ian Monteith!”

  “I believe our brother cares about him,” Otto told her gently.

  Colin flung himself down in a chair. “Perfect!” he said bitterly. “Just perfect. Happy Christmas to me. Stuck here with you lot!”

  “Yes, we’re fairly excited about it, too,” Emma said dryly.

  “I am going to find out who did this,” Colin fumed, “and I am going to get him.”

  “Count me in,” Emma said immediately. “Otto?”

  “Revenge is a dish best served cold,” said Otto.

  “In that case, can we count on you to supply the ice?” said Emma.

  “You don’t think I’d let you two fools go about it on your own, do you?” he answered dryly. Parting his coat tails, he sat down and crossed his legs. “Get out your notebook, Emma, and let us convene this council of war.”

  Emma obediently opened her journal to a clean page.

  “First, we identify the enemy,” Otto began. “Then we formulate a plan to destroy him. Then we execute said plan.”

  “It was obviously General Bellamy,” Colin said presently. “He became positively incensed on the subject of buggery last night.”

  Emma made a face. “But I know his ugly black scrawl,” she said. “He wrote me a cheeky letter. I don’t think he’s clever enough to disguise his handwriting.”

  “And he was far too drunk to have accomplished anything last night,” Otto pointed out. “It’s obviously a woman.”

  Emma frowned at him. “Why do you say that?”

  “Men are forthright. They favor the direct attack, preferably physical. A man would simply find Colin on his own and beat him to a pulp.”

  “That’s how they did it at school, anyway,” said Colin. “I don’t remember anybody passing notes under doors at Eton.”

  “Quite,” said Otto. “But women are deplorably sneaky. And it looks like a woman’s handwriting to me.”

  Emma frowned, but she was unable to argue the point. “It would have to be someone who knows the house,” she said. “None of these officers’ wives have ever been here before.”

  “That leaves Aunt Susan, Aunt Harriet, and Aunt Anne,” said Otto.

  “It could have been Octavia,” said Colin. “We quarreled this morning at the stables.”

  “Did you?” said Emma. “But the letters would have been delivered sometime last night. She could not have predicted that you would quarrel with her the following morning.”

  “True,” he said. “Well, it must be Aunt Susan, then. Aunt Harriet is a friend of mine, and poor Anne wouldn’t say boo to a goose.” Colin’s steel-blue eyes glinted. “Now, then,” he said. “What are we going to do about it?”

  The duchess was very late in arriving for dinner that evening, and the company went in to the banquet hall like a pack of hungry wolves. Colin sat between Lady Harriet and his sister-in-law, Lady Scarlingford. Cecily’s nervous laughter drifted down the room. To Emma’s left, Captain Palafox kept up a stream of easy banter, while farther down the table, Otto conversed in his careful, perfect French with Lady Michael. Nicholas divided his attention between Lady Susan and Mrs. Camperdine, the wife of General Bellamy’s quartermaster. Nothing unpleasant took place until the ladies withdrew.

  “Shouldn’t you retire with the other ladies, Lord Colin?” General Bellamy began at once. “Lord Colin Buggerbum, that’s what you are, from what I hear!”

  He sniggered, vastly pleased with his witticism. Hardly anyone laughed, and more gentlemen than usual left the room for the privy.

  “Just ignore him,” Otto quietly advised his brother. “Whatever the provocation.”

  “I am looking forward to my first riding lesson, Lord Colin,” Nicholas said. “Her grace assures me that I cannot get along in the country unless I learn all about horses. Would tomorrow morning be convenient for you?”

  Colin shrugged. “I seem to have plenty of free time,” he said dryly. “If you’re sure you still want me for a teacher,” he added. “Or didn’t you get a letter?”

  “I did,” said Nicholas, “and a number of these officers were good enough to share theirs with me as well.”

  Lord Hugh cleared his throat delicately. “Perhaps, Nephew, it would be better if one of your cousins were to give you lessons. All my girls are excellent riders.”

  “But what does
your nephew want with a girl, Hugh?” snorted the general. “He’s a bloody navy man.”

  Lord Hugh glared at his brother-in-law. “You go too far, Bellamy,” he complained.

  “You don’t care if the boy’s a shirt-lifter, as long as he marries one of your ugly daughters,” the general retorted.

  “Let’s just finish our port and rejoin the ladies, shall we?” Lord Michael interrupted.

  “But there is a lady among us!” cried General Bellamy. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you! She wants a good bumming, too, unless I miss my guess.”

  “Uncle Bellamy, you’re drunk,” Lord Michael snapped. “As loathe as I would be to aggrieve my Aunt Susan, if you cannot keep a civil tongue in your head, I shall have to ask you to leave Warwick.”

  “But don’t you care that there is a pederast among us?” the general bawled. “You arouse my suspicions, Lord Michael. Indeed, you do! What possible reason could you have for wanting someone like that around? Hmmm? You do not answer me, sir!”

  “You remind me of a mate we had on board when I was a midshipman on the Redoubtable,” Nicholas said suddenly. “He had buggery on the brain, I think. He went about accusing everyone of having indecent relations with everybody else.”

  “He was probably right,” snarled the general. “That’s the Royal Navy for you.”

  “As it happens, he was only trying to deflect suspicion from himself,” Nicholas answered calmly. “One night, we caught him trying to rape the cabin boy. Turns out, he was the only danger we had on board. We hanged him off the yardarm and buried him at sea. Now, whenever I hear someone going on and on about buggery, I can’t help but think of him, and wonder.”

  The general glared at him helplessly. “What are you implying, sir?”

  “Shall we rejoin the ladies?” Lord Michael said quickly.

  “What happened?” Emma demanded of Colin, when the gentlemen joined the ladies in the drawing room a little later. She was sitting a little apart from the others with Cecily. The general went immediately to the card tables set up at the back of the room, and surrounded himself with his officers. “The general looks as though he’s about to have an apoplexy!”

  “He is rather puce,” Colin said smugly. “But your young man put him in his place.”

  “Captain Palafox?” Emma said incredulously. “I would have thought Charles much too politic to antagonize a superior officer!”

  “O faithless one,” Colin chided her. “I refer to lovesick young Camford, of course. He defended my honor most admirably. Though I can’t help but think that, if you were not my sister, he’d like to see me and all my kind hanged off the yard-axe or whatever it is.”

  Quickly, he told her about the unpleasant exchange that had taken place over port.

  “That was very good of Nicholas,” Emma admitted. “It’s a pity he has the pox.”

  “I suppose I ought to tell you,” Colin said slowly. “He doesn’t actually have the pox.”

  Emma opened her fan and spoke behind the Italian scene painted on its silk-covered silver blades. “You mean he’s cured?”

  “No. He never had it.”

  “But you told me he had the pox,” Emma reminded him.

  “Ixnay on the oxpay,” said Colin. “Croft was mistaken.”

  Emma frowned. “How do we know he isn’t mistaken now when he says Nicholas doesn’t have the pox.”

  “When I say that Croft was mistaken, what I mean is that I lied.”

  “You lied?” Emma echoed in disbelief.

  “I made the whole thing up,” he clarified.

  “Colin, how could you lie about something like that?”

  “I had a bet going with Aunt Harriet,” he explained. “But that’s all over now. He’s clean as the proverbial whistle. In fact, he’s a virgin.”

  Emma stared at him. “A what?”

  “Are you so far gone that you don’t even remember what a virgin is?” Colin teased her.

  “This is ridiculous,” said Emma, fanning herself rapidly. “He’s been all over the world.”

  “But not to Singapore.”

  “What does that mean?” Emma demanded.

  “It means that you could be the lucky lady who takes him to Singapore,” Colin said. “Metaphorically speaking, of course.”

  Emma sighed. “Oh, I don’t know. I’ve moved on, Colin. There’s Charles to think of now. From the moment he arrived, he has devoted himself to me. It wouldn’t be fair to throw him over. It’d break his heart.”

  Colin gave a loud snort. “Let me tell you about your friend Palafox! He’s been caught twice in as many days making love to little Julia Fitzroy. If Nicholas hadn’t caught them this morning, Palafox would probably have ravished her in the shrubbery!”

  Emma laughed incredulously. “Oh, yes! And, I suppose, he has the pox as well?”

  “Ask Nicholas if you don’t believe me.”

  Emma snapped her fan closed. “Perhaps I will ask him now,” she threatened.

  “I dare you,” Colin responded with a shrug.

  Nicholas was sitting in a quiet corner of the room playing chess with Otto. “Cecily wants you,” Emma told her elder brother, walking up to them. When Otto had gone, she sat down in his place. “Is it my turn?” she asked Nicholas.

  “Are you sure it’s safe for us to be together like this?” he whispered. “People are looking.”

  “I’m sure it’s very dangerous,” she answered. “But I feel reckless this evening.”

  Taking up the white knight, she moved it diagonally across the board until it collided with the white bishop on the other side of the board.

  Nicholas smiled. “That is not how a knight moves, ma’am,” he told her. “And you cannot take your own man. Not if you want to win.”

  “Is that so? Otto has taught you well.”

  “But I already knew how to play,” he told her. “I often played with my captain.”

  She smiled faintly. “At sea? But don’t the pieces slide all over the place?”

  “Not at all. I carved the pieces with little pegs on the bottom, and drilled little holes in the chessboard.”

  “And the little pegs fit in the little holes, do they? How ingenious. But I didn’t come here to talk to you about chess,” she went on. “I have been hearing the cruelest gossip about poor Captain Palafox.”

  Nicholas’s eyes lit up with anger. “Poor Captain Palafox, indeed!” he said angrily.

  “Lower your voice. Go on!” she urged him, as he obeyed her with complete silence.

  “Emma, that man is not to be trusted,” he whispered. “Yesterday, I caught him in my room with Julia. I told him she was not yet sixteen, but his interest in her was undiminished. This afternoon, I found them together again in the shrubbery. They appeared to be very…intimate. He gave me some story about her having something in her eye, but I—I do not like to accuse an officer of lying, of course…”

  “I see,” Emma said, tight-lipped with anger. “Something in her eye.”

  “If he were not a friend of Lord Michael’s, I think I would be obliged to challenge him.”

  “I will speak to my brother-in-law about his friend’s behavior,” said Emma.

  “I did want to warn you about him,” said Nicholas. “He seemed to be flattering you at dinner. I should have known you would see right through him.”

  “Of course,” said Emma. With a wave of her hand, she dismissed the subject of Palafox completely. “Where’s your queen?” she asked Nicholas curiously, looking at the board. “Or don’t you have one?”

  “Your brother has taken it,” he answered. “But I am not at all worried. I will get her back when my pawn crosses the board. Then I shall checkmate him in two moves. There’s really nothing he can do about it. But he thinks he can still win.”

  Emma picked up the white queen from where it stood beside the chessboard, on Otto’s side. “If you want her back,” she said, tucking the piece between her breasts, “you may come to my room tomorrow, at the stroke of m
idnight.”

  “Emma!” he protested, blushing.

  “People are staring,” she said, rising from her brother’s chair. “I’d better go before they start talking.”

  “But I cannot win the game without my queen!”

  “Just as well you will have to forfeit,” she answered. “Otto is a very poor loser. Beat him at chess, and you’ll never be his friend.”

  She had scarcely returned to her place at Colin’s side when Lady Susan was upon them.

  “I sincerely hope you are not pining for the loss of Lord Ian Monteith,” she began, smiling archly.

  Colin glared up at her. “I am enduring it the best I can, Aunt Susan.”

  “But I was talking to your sister, of course,” Lady Susan tittered. “At least, we all supposed it was dear Emma to whom he was so devoted! Such a fine young man,” she went on. “He seemed so reliable, too! I had hoped to get him for one of my poor little nieces, but I fear they are not as attractive as my girls. I wonder, what could have made him go away so suddenly? Trouble at home, was it? I trust his father is well?”

  “I’m afraid we don’t know anything more about it than you do, Aunt Susan,” Emma answered firmly, placing a restraining hand on her brother’s arm.

  “I’m sure it had nothing to do with those dreadful letters going around,” Lady Susan said smugly. “Who could have done such a thing?”

  This was too much for Colin. “You know perfectly well who did it, you nasty old cow,” he told her. “But don’t worry. You’ll get yours. We Greys do not take these things lying down, you know.”

  Lady Susan blinked at him. “You don’t think that I had anything to do with it, do you? Anonymous letters? I prefer to be recognized for all my hard work.”

  She laughed heartily. “Besides, why should I care if you’re a poof or whatever it is you call it. Some of them are very talented people—not you, of course, Lord Colin—but the man who makes my corsets is an absolute genius. And, then there’s Mr. Grigg, in London, who makes the most wonderful hats. And, of course, the theaters would all be empty if it weren’t for you people, and I do love the theater. If you really want to know who’s behind these nasty letters, just ask Harriet.”