Christmas with the Duchess

by Tamara Lejeune

  Julia tried again. “Nicky! I said it’s too bad.”

  She knew perfectly well that her husband loathed being called Nicky, at least by her, but it usually elicited some response from him. This time, however, the Earl of Camford merely turned the page of his book, a very dry, dull treatise on estate management.

  Julia sighed, exasperated by her husband’s indifference. Julia was the most interesting person that Julia had ever known. Why anyone would willingly deny himself her companionship was completely beyond her power to comprehend. “Nicky, are you listening to me?” she demanded. “Cousin Harry is not yet arrived.”

  Nicholas glanced at her, frowning. He had been married to Julia nearly a year, and, for nearly a year, he had been frowning at her, unwilling to forgive her for tricking him into marriage. At first, Julia had tried to make him love her, but her efforts had only served to make him resent her all the more. Nor could he be seduced, she had discovered. He had never visited her bed, and she knew by now that he had no intention of ever doing so. One night, he had told her frankly that he would sooner mate with a cat.

  After that, Julia had stopped trying to make him love her. Instead, she had begun to hate him, and the triumph of having made herself Countess of Camford turned to ashes in her mouth.

  “How could you possibly know the duke is not at home?” Nicholas asked her sharply. “We have not yet arrived ourselves.”

  “If he were here, the ducal standard would be flying from the ramparts,” she explained.

  Nicholas stuck his finger in his book. “You told me his grace invited us,” he said. “I don’t like showing up at a house when the owner is not home.”

  “His grace did invite us,” said Julia. “That is to say, I wrote to him, and asked him to invite us, which amounts to the same thing.”

  “You did what?” Nicholas said angrily.

  “Harry wouldn’t say no to me,” she said smugly. “I’m his favorite cousin.”

  “He might say no to you, out of deference to his mother. Her grace, certainly, will not want to see us. You assured me—”

  Julia waved a careless hand encased in fine yellow kid leather. “Oh, the duchess won’t care,” she scoffed. “She sees her old lovers everywhere she goes, without any awkwardness at all. Indeed, from what I hear, she’s quite friendly with her former flames. Why should you be any different?”

  Her wide, dark eyes looked at him very frankly. She knew perfectly well that Emma had been Nicholas’s first and only lover, and that any mention of the woman still caused him pain.

  Nicholas was sorry he had brought up the subject of Emma. He had not seen her since January 6, 1815, Twelfth Night. She had left Warwick before first light on the following day. After returning her sons to Harrow, she had gone to Paris, taking the child, Aleta, with her.

  Nicholas, meanwhile, had been obliged to go to London, to make his presentation at Court, to formally take his seat in the House of Lords, and, of course, to marry Julia. But hardly a day passed that he was not reminded of Emma. His brief affair with her at Warwick had become public knowledge, and he was taxed with it on every possible occasion. All of London gossiped of wicked Emma and her escapades in Paris, real or imagined, and all of London felt obliged to keep Lord Camford abreast of her affair with Chateaubriand, the great man of letters, or her intrigue with the Duc de Bourbon. Every report stung Nicholas like a fresh betrayal.

  Then, as February gave way to March, the situation in Europe changed. Napoleon Bonaparte escaped from Elba at the end of February 1815, landing on the French coast on March 1. Within three weeks, he had seized control of France from the weak Bourbon king, who fled with his court to Belgium. Abandoned by her French friends, Emma had been trapped in Paris. The Congress of Vienna had lost no time declaring war on France, making Emma’s position even more precarious.

  For several weeks, there was no word of Emma’s situation, and speculating about the fate of the unfortunate Duchess of Warwick briefly became a favorite pastime in London society. The duchess had been thrown to an angry mob, and subjected to every form of degradation before being ripped to pieces. Or she had been tried as a spy, found guilty, and sent to the guillotine. Or she had been thrown into the Bastille—a structure that had been torn down before the turn of the century, but why bother with facts?

  The truth, when it came out, was rather less sinister. In the early days of his return, Napoleon had hoped to treat with Great Britain in a separate peace. According to the newspapers, the Duchess of Warwick had been offered parole, on the condition that she carry back to England a letter for the Prince Regent from Napoleon himself. Emma had politely declined, reportedly saying that she was neither a messenger nor an agent of France. Irate, Napoleon had placed her under house arrest.

  Even if, as Lady Jersey slyly observed, it was the first time the Duchess of Warwick ever said no to a man, that simple refusal was enough to restore Emma to the good graces of society. In absentia, she became the toast of London.

  While the rest of London celebrated Emma’s small act of defiance, Nicholas had a very different reaction. He had wanted to strangle Emma for her recklessness. She should have had more sense than to antagonize the most powerful man in France. She should have taken the tyrant’s letter and returned to the safety of England. That spring, as war gathered like an inevitable storm on the horizon, Nicholas had nearly driven himself mad with worry over Emma.

  But by June of that year, Napoleon had been defeated at Waterloo, and by July, Louis XVIII once again sat on the throne of France. Emma came through her ordeal not only unscathed, but more popular in her own country than she had been before. Her vouchers to Almack’s were restored; the old Queen welcomed the duchess at the royal levees; and the Prince Regent gave a dinner in her honor at Carlton House, where he presented her with a little gold medal.

  To avoid seeing her, Nicholas had retreated to the countryside, to Camford, returning to London only when he was certain she had gone away again.

  “Nicky? Did you hear me?” Julia’s voice pierced the air. “I said—”

  “I heard you, madam,” he said sharply. “You forget, Julia, that our marriage was a scandal. We cannot assume that we are welcome everywhere.”

  “Silly!” said Julia. “We got married to avoid the scandal, remember?”

  “I do not like going to a house when the owner is away from it,” he repeated stubbornly.

  “Nonsense, my love. We arrived at Warwick last year when the duke was not at home.”

  The endearment made Nicholas shudder. “That was your father’s doing,” he said darkly. “I shall never forget my embarrassment when I met the duke for the first time, and he said, ‘Who the devil are you?’ Not in so many words,” he amended. “But that was his grace’s meaning.”

  Julia shrugged. “Papa didn’t want you going to London to meet with the attorney,” she said simply. “The attorney would have told you about Cousin Catherine.”

  Before meeting with the attorney in London, Nicholas had had no idea of Lady Catherine St. Austell’s existence. She was his cousin, the daughter and only child of the last Earl of Camford, from whom Nicholas had inherited the title. Hugh Fitzroy had been her legal guardian, as he had been Nicholas’s before Nicholas came of age.

  Fearful that Nicholas would marry this other cousin, rather than one of their daughters, the Fitzroys had kept Lady Catherine a secret until after Nicholas was safely engaged to Julia.

  Julia, too, had kept the secret; it was another thing for which Nicholas could not forgive her. Not that she seemed to require forgiveness. She certainly felt no remorse.

  “We simply couldn’t let you find out about Catherine,” she explained. “You had to marry one of us. It was the only way.”

  “It was the only way to keep your father out of prison,” Nicholas agreed coldly. “Yes, madam, I do understand. He’d been stealing from the Camford estate for years.”

  Julia sighed impatiently. “I wish you would not glare at me,” she complained. “What did
I do? If you keep blaming me for all the dreadful things my father has done, we will never get on. We will never be husband and wife.”

  “You were complicit,” he told her stubbornly. “You could have told me that the last Earl of Camford had left behind a daughter.”

  “But then you might have married her instead of me,” said Julia, a puzzled frown on her pretty face. “I would not be Countess of Camford.”

  “That is a distinct possibility.”

  “Well, then!” she said, laughing. “Only an idiot would have told you. Besides, Catherine seems very happy married to her young man.”

  “That is the silver lining,” Nicholas agreed. In April, when Nicholas had come of age, he had replaced Julia’s father as Catherine’s guardian. At that time, he had provided Catherine with a generous dowry, making it possible for her to marry the young man of her choice. Lord Hugh Fitzroy previously had refused to allow the match because the young man was only a poor curate.

  “Mama and Papa forbade us to tell you about Catherine,” Julia went on. “I was only trying to be an obedient daughter. I didn’t even know Papa was stealing from the estate. He always said it was borrowing. It was very wrong of him to steal, of course, when he should only have borrowed, and I think you were right to turf him out of the house when you came of age. But am I to be punished forever for the sins of my father?”

  The day he had sent his in-laws packing had been one of the most satisfying of Nicholas’s life, but even the memory of that happy occasion was not enough to bring a smile to his face as he looked at his wife. After all, he had not been able to send her packing. “You are not blameless. It was not your father who climbed naked into my bed,” he reminded her.

  Julia giggled provocatively. “Lucky for you!”

  Nicholas shook his head in disgust.

  Julia scowled, hating him for his complete immunity to her charms. “I wonder what my mother will say when I tell her you have not yet consummated our marriage,” she said threateningly.

  “I neither know nor care,” Nicholas said as the carriage rolled to a stop.

  “But aren’t you afraid of looking ridiculous? Everyone will think you are impotent!” she protested, quite bewildered by his nonchalance.

  “When it comes to you, madam, I am,” he answered rudely.

  Servants dressed in black livery trotted out to meet the carriage, and huge black wreaths hung on the double doors of the great house. At the sight, Nicholas was forcibly reminded that Lord Michael Fitzroy had died less than six months before, fully ten days after the Battle of Waterloo, from wounds he had sustained in the action. Warwick was in the depths of mourning.

  Nicholas suddenly felt ashamed of himself. Despite Lord Hugh’s pilfering, Camford was still a rich estate, throwing off a staggering income of ten thousand a year. And, as unappealing as he found the idea of making love to his sixteen-year-old cousin, Nicholas knew that few men in his place would be so particular. Sometimes he envied those other men for their ability to use women without regret or remorse.

  The footmen were already removing Julia’s trunk from the boot. There could be no turning back from Warwick now. Barring some calamity, Nicholas and Julia would be obliged to stay until Twelfth Night. Darting through the icy rain, Julia hurried into the house, lifting her skirts to show off expensive stockings of purple silk. The more soberly dressed Nicholas followed her slowly. He did not mind the cold rain. It reminded him of his days at sea when exposure to the elements was an everyday occurrence.

  “Where is everyone?” Julia called to the butler.

  Carstairs, looking about a hundred years old in a suit of funereal black, was moving slowing across the Great Hall to them. Gone were the garlands and wreaths of balsam fir that had filled the room with their scent the year before. In their place were drapes of black bunting.

  “I have the distinct impression that you were not expecting us, Carstairs,” Nicholas said, when the butler had greeted them. He glared at Julia, who merely tossed her head.

  Carstairs looked frailer than he had the year before. “Lady Anne did give us to understand that your lordship and your ladyship would be spending Christmas at Camford,” he apologized. “I shall have a suite readied for you at once, my lord, if you would be good enough to wait.”

  “I am sorry for the misunderstanding,” said Nicholas. “If it’s not too much trouble, Lady Camford and I would prefer separate rooms.”

  Julia shot him a hurt, angry look.

  “Very good, my lord,” Carstairs replied without a change of expression. “We have several rooms at the ready now. I had assumed your lordship required an apartment. If you will follow me…”

  “Was that really necessary?” Julia hissed at her husband as they followed the butler. “Must the whole world know that you hate me? What will people think?”

  Nicholas shrugged. “Tell them that I snore. Tell them I am impotent. I don’t really care. I will not share a room with you. Indeed, I can hardly bear to share a house with you.”

  Julia forgot to keep her voice down. “Oh, you take delight in humiliating me!” she complained. “I should have let Octavia have you. Then you would be sorry!”

  “I’m quite sorry enough as it is, thank you,” he returned, drawing from her an inarticulate burst of rage. “Compose yourself, madam,” he said severely. “You wanted to be my wife. You have no right to complain of your treatment.”

  Julia flounced into her room and banged the door shut. Nicholas moved on to his. When he had washed and changed his clothes, he headed for the stairs. Julia caught up to him on the landing. Insisting that they go down together, she seized his arm.

  The yellow drawing room was about half the length of the main, or blue drawing room. It was used by the family for smaller, intimate gatherings. As Carstairs opened the doors to announce the arrival of Lord and Lady Camford, three ladies dressed in black looked back at them, startled.

  Julia snickered at the sight. “Double, double, toil and trouble,” she murmured under her breath before surging forward to kiss her mother and her two aunts.

  “Mama! Aunt Harriet! Aunt Susan!”

  Lady Harriet and Lady Susan were playing piquet. With her severe white crop of hair, Lady Harriet looked much the same—tough and thin as a whip—but Lady Susan had grown so fat that her newest chin almost rested on the broad shelf of her bosom. She seemed to have abandoned her corset entirely, and her bright red hair had been allowed to go gray. Like an actress without cosmetics, she was almost unrecognizable.

  “My dear Julia,” Lady Anne said faintly, as her daughter embraced her. She had been working at her embroidery frame, and the sudden arrival of her daughter had caused her to prick her finger. Next to her mother, Julia looked like an exotic bird with her vivid red hair and her bright blue and green costume. Lady Anne’s black gown emphasized her thinness and made her faded blue eyes look almost colorless. These eyes widened as she caught sight of her son-in-law, who had followed Julia into the room. Nicholas looked every bit as angry as he had when Lady Anne had seen him last, but she gave him a hopeful smile. For added protection, she touched the gold cross that hung around her neck on a fine chain.

  “Nicholas! I did not expect to see you here. Oh, but you should be at Camford, both of you! Who will give the Christmas Ball at Camford if you are not there?”

  Nicholas bowed to his aunt. “The same person who gave it last year, I should imagine.”

  “But there was no ball last year,” Lady Anne said, puzzled. “Catherine could not give a ball on her own, and you were here with us.”

  “You need not remind me of that, Aunt!” he said sharply.

  Lady Anne was bewildered. “But you said—you said the same person—I asked you who would give the ball this year, and you said the same person who gave it last year.”

  Julia rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Mama! You seem to grow stupider every year.”

  Nicholas sighed. “My cousin, Lady Catherine, and her husband will be giving the ball this year at Cam
ford.”

  “But you are the Earl of Camford, not he,” Lady Anne protested mulishly. “He is nothing more than the son of my late brother’s steward! A mere country curate!”

  Julia snorted. “With the dowry my husband gave poor Catherine, Mr. Prescott can well afford to play the country gentleman.”

  “It is the least I could do after the way my uncle treated her when she was his ward,” Nicholas argued.

  The jet ornaments on Lady Susan’s gown rattled like beetles as she bristled with anger. “You accuse my brother of being a poor guardian? Why, he doted on the chit!”

  Nicholas snorted. “How? By stealing her allowance and gambling it away? Locking her in her room? Intercepting her letters? These are signs of affection, indeed! Why, he was like a villain in a novel, preying upon the weak, defenseless girl. His own niece, too!”

  Lady Anne’s fingers felt at her throat for her gold cross. “Let us not speak of my husband,” she pleaded with Nicholas. “God has punished him for his misdeeds,” she added with a certain relish. “He can do no more harm to anyone.”

  In July, Lord Hugh had suffered a severe apoplectic attack that had left him partially paralyzed. He had a nurse now, a brawny woman who pushed him around in a Bath chair. Every evening, Lady Anne sat with her husband for one hour, reading to him from the Bible. Otherwise, she had nothing to do with him. She had never known such contentment.

  Julia flung herself down in a chair. “Is God punishing me, too?” she wanted to know. “Practically speaking, Nicky has given Camford to Catherine,” she told the other ladies with the air of one reporting a terrible crime. “After he turfed out my mother, my father, and all my sisters, we did not stay long ourselves. I have been living in London all these months, while Catherine plays the great lady at Camford. Anyone would think that she was the countess.”

  “London?” Lady Anne echoed in disbelief. In her usual way, she missed the crux of Julia’s complaint. “London in the summer? But it is so very hot. How can you bear it?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” Julia said resentfully. “But my husband is determined that Catherine should be mistress of Camford, and that I, his wife, should be a vagabond.”