Christmas with the Duchess

by Tamara Lejeune

  “No,” he said, giving the baby back to her. “Absolutely not. That is quite impossible, I can assure you. If this is Princess Elke’s baby, von Schroeder must be the father. I never touched the woman.”

  “You forget that it was I who discovered you together,” said Emma, keeping her voice low and pleasant as Mimi began to fuss.

  “She imposed on me,” said Nicholas, “but I declined to impose on her. That is not my child, Emma. It must be the major’s. I warned you he was a gigolo.”

  “No, she can’t be the major’s,” Emma said. “The major has a very serious war wound that prevents him from—from fathering a child.”

  “Oh,” Nicholas said, looking rather smug. “Not much of a gigolo, then, was he?”

  “He could do other things that were highly satisfying,” Emma said.

  Nicholas snorted. “Like what?”

  Emma sighed. “The point is, Nicholas, he could not be Mimi’s father. It has to be you.”

  “Well, it isn’t,” he said stubbornly.

  “But there’s no one else.”

  “Obviously, there is. I am not a liar, you know!”

  As he raised his voice, Princess Mimi began to cry. From his seat on the rug, Lord Scarlingford stared at them, wide-eyed.

  “I did not mean to accuse you of anything,” Emma began, rocking the baby.

  “Forgive me,” Nicholas said brusquely. “I am worn out from the journey. It is making me short-tempered. If your grace will excuse me, I will go to my room now.”

  Emma could hardly refuse. After he had gone, she remained in the nursery until she was summoned downstairs. Harry and Grey had returned to the house.

  “How do we know Lord Camford did not receive any money?” Harry was shouting at the top of his voice as his mother reentered the drawing room. “He might have pocketed it, for all we know.”

  “Harry!” Emma said, appalled. “How can you make such an accusation? We are indebted to Lord Camford. Another man might have refused to bring the child to us. The poor babe would have been left with lawyers.”

  “Poor babe is exactly right,” Harry yelled. “According to these documents, the child has been left on my hands—my hands, Mama!—without so much as a penny. If it weren’t for those emeralds, he would have nothing.”

  “The emeralds were a wedding gift to his mother. I’m sure, when he grows up, he will want to give them to his bride.”

  “Then we cannot even sell them to raise money,” Harry complained.

  “No, of course not,” said Emma.

  “In that case, his upkeep, his education…I shall have to pay for everything, I suppose! It must all come out of my pocket.”

  “You do not resent the child, surely,” Emma protested.

  “Of course not, Mama,” he said angrily. “I know I must sound petty and ungenerous! It is the principle of the matter, Mama. How dare this man take my uncle’s fortune, but leave my uncle’s child behind, penniless? And my uncle Chilton tells me there is little we can do about it. The Conde, as he calls himself, has skipped off to Portugal, beyond the reach of English justice. It could take years to bring a case against him, in any event. By then my uncle’s money will all be gone anyway. I daresay he’s spending it as fast as he can! And, of course, if I pursue the matter, people will call me a nipcheese, a miser, a mean penny-pincher.”

  “Worse than that,” said Emma. “If the child learns of it, he may think that no one wants him. Your cousin must never be allowed to feel that way.”

  “I know my responsibility, Mama,” Harry said. “I bear no ill will toward my cousin. It’s just so bloody unfair that I should be the one who has to pay! I’m always the one who has to pay. I have to pay for Aunt Harriet’s allowance.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Lady Harriet squawked indignantly.

  “I have to pay Uncle Hugh an allowance, too!” Harry went on. “After all he’s done to me, I still have to pay him a thousand pounds per annum. This mess with Cousin Julia has cost me, too. I could have tenants in my Lincolnshire house, you know. Tenants who pay rent! Instead, I have to house my unfortunate relations and their illegitimate babies! Now this! I shall have to be generous to the boy, of course, generous to a fault, or people will say I am selfish, no doubt. And, of course, I want to be generous.”

  “Of course you do, darling,” Emma said soothingly.

  “But there are things that I would like to do, you know! For example, I would like to build a hunting box. The harbourer’s hut is far too small for all of us. But how can I? When disaster may strike at any time? When I may be called up to lay out huge sums of money at a moment’s notice? Wouldn’t it be selfish of me to build a hunting box?”

  “Oh, Harry,” said Emma, reaching out to him. “You know that I will help you with Michael. Money has never been a problem for us.”

  “This is a Fitzroy matter, Mama,” he told her, exasperated. “You are a Grey. I cannot take Grey money for a Fitzroy matter. My father would never have done so.”

  “That is true,” Emma admitted. “Once my dowry was in his possession, your father never touched my accounts.”

  “So you see? I am stuck with it all.”

  Grey spoke up from the other side of the room. “I’m glad I’m not the duke. I’ve got plenty of money, and I don’t have to spend it on anyone but me.”

  “I have a broken arm, you know,” said Lady Harriet, glaring around the room. “I think it very bad of you, Harry, to start talking of stopping my allowance when my arm is broken.”

  “I never said I would stop it!” cried Harry. “I’m just saying, it is not fair!”

  He ran from the room, knocking over the tall Chinese vase beside the door as he went. It crashed to the floor, breaking into pieces.

  “That was probably worth more than ten years’ allowance,” Lady Harriet grumbled.

  “You should go after him,” Colin told Emma, giving her a sharp nudge in the ribs.

  “I will,” she said crossly. “Presently. He’ll be too upset to talk now. Anyway, I have a crow to pluck with you.”

  She dragged him out of the room, saying, “What do you mean by writing Nicholas that—that beastly love letter? You signed my name to it, didn’t you?”

  “You’re hurting me,” he complained, rubbing his wrist after she released his arm. “You asked me to write to him. I was only doing your bidding. You were too cowardly to write to him yourself.”

  “But you signed my name to it!”

  “I thought he should know the invitation came from you,” Colin replied.

  “You told him I loved him.”

  “I only told him the truth,” said her twin. “Didn’t I? It’s why you wanted him here in the first place, isn’t it?”

  “No. I thought—I thought he was Mimi’s father. I thought he should know her. But he says he is not her father.”

  “Of course he’s not her father,” Colin said indignantly. “I am her father.”

  “I mean her real father,” said Emma.

  “I am her real father! She is my daughter. Ergo, I am her father.”

  “You?” Emma said. “You and Elke?”

  “Why do you say it like that?” Colin said, frowning. “As if you doubted me?”

  “She would have been conceived at Christmas,” said Emma.

  “I know perfectly well when she was conceived! I was there. I felt sorry for Elke,” he explained. “You’d just ruined her chances with Camford, and that gigolo Schroeder couldn’t cut the mustard. The poor amazon was in tears. She said she couldn’t go back to Hindenburg without an heir. The Hindenburglars wouldn’t stand for it. As her husband, I felt slightly responsible.”

  “You felt responsible?”

  “Oh, all right,” he said impatiently. “It was Aunt Harriet’s idea. She thought it would be a real shame if someone as wonderful as me were to live out his days without taking the trouble to reproduce. I felt the sense of her argument. I am fairly wonderful, after all. So I did it. It was not very pleasant, but now I have Mi
mi, so I do not complain. She is perfect.”

  “She is really my niece, then?” Emma groaned in dismay. “And I didn’t go to her christening!”

  “You’re the worst aunt ever,” he told her.

  “Oh, Colin, I am sorry.” She touched his arm. “You forgive me, don’t you?”

  “No.”

  Emma sighed. “Well, I can’t help that. I have to go to Harry now,” she added impatiently. “He needs his mother.”

  “What a good thing you’re not his aunt!” Colin called after her.

  “Go away, Mama!” Harry shouted through the door of his bedchamber. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  “I will go away,” Emma answered, “if you will stop breaking things.”

  “All right,” he agreed.

  Silence ensued.

  “You haven’t hurt yourself, have you?” Emma called through the door. “I heard glass breaking. Are you sure you haven’t cut yourself?”

  Harry came to the door and opened it a crack. “I am fine, Mother,” he said. “As you can see. Just let me alone for a while. I’ll be all right.”

  Emma could not resist touching his cheek. “Of course, darling,” she said softly. “But I’m right down the hall, whenever you’re ready to talk. I’m always here for you, Harry. You know that.”

  “I know that, Mama.” He nodded glumly and closed the door.

  Emma went back to her own room suffering from a bad headache.

  “I could not wait until after tea,” said Nicholas, striding toward her as she was closing the door. “Emma, what can I do to convince you that I am not Mimi’s father? As you can see, I have nothing to hide. I have no secrets. I am yours.”

  Emma caught her breath. Except for a strategically placed bunch of hothouse flowers, Nicholas was completely naked.

  “Are those nasturtiums?” she asked curiously. “You took them from my vase, didn’t you? You’re dripping on my carpets!”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I was trying to make a point. Emma, I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”

  “I believe you,” she said.

  “You do?” he said eagerly.

  “You have an honest face,” she explained. “Now let’s put my flowers back where they belong,” she went on. Moving toward him, she pried the wet stems from his fingers and tossed the flowers away. “Everything in its place, would you not agree, my lord?”

  Nicholas shuddered as she took hold of him firmly. “It seems I am in no position to dispute you, ma’am,” he said, red faced.

  “Then let us find a better position,” she gently suggested.

  They did not quite make it to the bed. As he had two years before, Nicholas entered her without preliminaries, and took his pleasure almost immediately. While he was recovering, Emma began to undress. Her progress was interrupted by another attack, this one of much longer duration. It was some thirty minutes before she was able to join him in complete nakedness. By that time, she was too exhausted to do anything but collapse into his arms.

  Nicholas was ready for more, but he cheerfully accepted her silent refusal to permit him a third time. “You are a brute,” she complained, snuggling closer to him. “An animal.”

  “No,” he said. “It was lovely. Wasn’t it? Better than the last time.”

  Emma propped herself up on her elbows to look at him. “I’m sorry, my dear. If anything, it was worse. It was dreadful. You are dreadful.”

  “If I am so dreadful, then why are you smiling?” he countered.

  Emma laughed softly. “I am smiling because you are dreadful,” she explained. “It’s obvious you have not been with anyone else. You have never been with anyone but me, have you? Not Lady Bellingham. Not Lady Caroline Arbuthnot. They would not put up with your bad habits. They would have taught you better.”

  “Are you going to teach me better?”

  “Perhaps,” she said. “Eventually. I think I will. But for now, I think I’ll keep you in a state of helpless innocence.”

  “I don’t feel innocent,” he said.

  “But you do feel helpless,” she laughed.

  “Only because I love you from the depths of my being to the heights of my soul,” he answered, tugging at a loose curl of her hair until she took the hint and brought her mouth down to his.

  “Very poetic,” she murmured.

  “Don’t you recognize your own words?” he said, laughing.

  “Did I write that in my letter?” she said.

  “You’re not going to deny it,” he said.

  “No,” she assured him. “I won’t deny it. I meant every word.”

  Reaching down between their two bodies, she gave him a hard pinch on the thigh. “That,” she said as he yelped in surprise, “is for making me write it at all! You should have come to me the moment your marriage was annulled. Why didn’t you?”

  Nicholas sat up and rubbed his thigh. “I couldn’t. By the time I was free of Julia, there was another…entanglement. I am still not free of it, Emma.”

  Emma drew away from him. “What are you talking about? You are not free of what?”

  His shoulders slumped. “You know my cousin Lady Catherine gave birth to a daughter this year,” he began, not looking at her. “I told you that already. It was a difficult birth. The doctors—it is a certainty that she will never bear another child. It will be up to me, after all, to produce an heir. She has asked me to marry again, as soon as possible. Emma, I gave her my word.”

  “Is that all?” said Emma, almost ready to laugh. “You cannot break your word to Lady Catherine. I understand.”

  Nicholas glanced at her. “You understand? It means I will have to go to London after the first of the year and select a bride from amongst the eligible debutantes. It means I will not be able to see you again, Emma. It wouldn’t be fair to the girl.”

  Emma recoiled as though he had struck her a blow to the chest. “Is that what it means?” she said coldly. “You don’t want to marry me? You think I am too old to give you a child, is that it?”

  Her voice reeked of bitterness, but she could not help it.

  “Of course I want to marry you,” he said, pulling her roughly into his arms. “I have always wanted to marry you. You’ve always said no.”

  Emma laughed shakily. “I said no two years ago, Nicholas. A lifetime ago. Well, to be perfectly accurate, I never said no because you never asked the question!” she went on. “Two years ago, you simply announced it at dinner, without talking to me first. Last year, you only mentioned marriage to exclude it. You asked me to sail around the world with you as your concubine.”

  “Concubine! Who do you think I am? The Sultan of Baghdad? Emma, I am asking you now.”

  “That’s not a proposal,” she said.

  “Emma, will you marry me?”

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather marry some seventeen-year-old debutante?”

  He shuddered. “Please don’t make me go through all that again.”

  “Very well,” she said primly. “Since you ask. Is there anything else you would like to ask me?” she went on, climbing on top of him and nuzzling the side of his face. “I’m in a very generous mood at the moment. You could probably ask me for anything, and I would give it to you, provided, of course, that we do not leave this bed for another hour at least.”

  “That is generous indeed,” he agreed breathlessly as she began to touch him.

  A hour later to the moment, Harry went to his mother’s room. Giving it a smart rap with his knuckles, he strode in. “There’s something I have been meaning to talk to you about, Mama,” he announced, strolling over to the window with his hands clasped behind his back.

  On the other side of the room, Nicholas dove under the bed. Emma came running out of her dressing room. “Harry!” she cried, pulling her dressing gown around her.

  Harry looked at her in surprise. “You look like a mad-woman, Mama,” he said. “Your hair’s all tumbled. I thought you were in the bed just now,” he added, pu
zzled.

  “No, I was just about to have a bath,” Emma said quickly. “I tried to have a nap,” she went on, making an effort to smooth out the bed, “but I couldn’t sleep.”

  “I’ve upset you, Mama,” the young man said contritely. “I’m sorry.”

  “You said there was something you’d been meaning to talk to me about,” Emma reminded him gently. “Something besides little Michael, you mean?”

  “Yes, Mama,” he said, allowing her to lead him over to the window seat. “I tried to before, but it just felt so awkward. I don’t really know how to talk to you about it, but now I must. I can’t put it off any longer.”

  “Is it a girl?” Emma asked, delighted.

  “A girl!” he said scornfully. “I hope I don’t need to talk to my mother about a girl!”

  Disappointed, Emma folded her hands in her lap. “All right then. What is it?”

  “Well,” he said, “to peel the bark from the tree, it’s your dower portion.”

  Emma met these words with a look of blank astonishment. “My dower portion?” she repeated. “What about it?”

  “I might have mentioned it earlier when I was talking of Aunt Harriet’s allowance, but I didn’t want to embarrass you,” said Harry. Standing up, he began to pace back and forth in front of her. “As you know, it’s twenty thousand pounds a year. You’re thirty now, or thereabouts, but you’re very healthy. You could live to be eighty.”

  “Thank you,” said Emma. “I hope so.”

  “So do I, naturally,” said Harry, with a brief frown. “But that would be fifty years, if you see my point. Twenty thousand pounds a year for fifty years. Why, that’s a million pounds, Mama. A million pounds!”

  “Harry, I will gladly forego the money,” said Emma. “You know I don’t need it. I’ll give it back to you, every penny. You can make little Michael a very handsome settlement at no real cost to yourself.”

  “It’s very tempting,” said Harry, “but I can’t let you do that, Mama. I’m the Duke of Warwick. How will it look if I don’t pay my mother her dower portion?”

  “All right, then. Pay me, and I will give it back to you.”

  “I’m not a charity case, Mama!” he said angrily.