by Galen, Shana
“You’re not leaving until you explain yourself, my lord.”
Edward stepped into the foyer with Holly behind him. “Lord Ivy tells me you have an IOU with James Farthing’s name on it. How would you still have that IOU when James paid you years ago? You ripped it up in front of him.”
“I don’t have to answer these questions,” Haggerston sputtered.
“You do when you were attempting to blackmail Mrs. Farthing with it,” Adam said.
“What’s this now?” Lady Haggerston said, coming into the foyer. She was a lovely woman who looked weary and, to Holly’s eyes, unsurprised at finding her husband involved in an argument.
“It’s nothing, m’dear. I only wanted Mrs. Farthing to be made aware of secrets that should not have been kept from her.”
“That’s not true,” Holly said. “You said the IOU had not been paid, and I owed you three thousand pounds.”
Haggerston looked at his wife. “Oh, no. You must have misunderstood me.”
“Then I misunderstood as well,” Eva said, finally speaking. “Although, it seemed to me you were quite clear that Mrs. Farthing owed you money.”
Haggerston looked at Eva, then his wife, then Edward. “It was a simple mistake. I forgot the IOU had been paid. Thank you for refreshing my memory.”
Adam held out a hand, palm up. “The other copy of the IOU, Haggerston. Now.”
“Well, I don’t have it right here—”
“Now, my lord.”
With a huff, Haggerston extracted it from his waistcoat and slapped it into Adam’s hand. Adam handed it to Holly. “Burn this.” And then he pulled his fist back and slammed it into Haggerston’s cheek. Haggerston howled and went to one knee. The ladies jumped back, and the bustling servants went still. Haggerston howled. “How dare you? I will ruin you for this. I demand—”
“You’ll stand up and go home without another word,” Eva said, hands on her hips. “And if you dare breathe one malicious word about my friends then I will explain all of this to Lord Dorsey, who will be more than happy to inform your neighbors and ours about this whole sordid business.”
The foyer echoed with her words for a long moment as everyone watched to see what Haggerston would do. Finally, he rose to his feet and withdrew a handkerchief to press to his bloody nose. “I’ll take my leave,” he said, holding out a hand toward Lady Haggerston. But with a huff, she walked right past him, nose in the air.
The small group went to the door and watched the Haggerston carriage depart. When the conveyance finally disappeared, Eva put her arm about Holly’s shoulders. “Well, I am not sorry to see him gone. Thank goodness that’s all sorted. I knew James Farthing would have never gambled away three thousand pounds.
Holly nodded. She had known that too. And now she knew James hadn’t lied to her. Yes, he had kept the debt from her, but that was because it was not his debt, but her brother’s. James would have kept Edward’s secret if Edward asked. She smiled and glanced at Adam. He was looking at her, concern in his eyes. She frowned at it until she realized that without the threat of the debt she owed Haggerston hanging over them, there was no reason for them to marry.
Except that she was in love with him. And she rather thought Adam was in love with her too.
“Well, a confrontation like that does spur a man’s appetite,” Edward said.
“We have plenty of food.” Eva pointed to the dining room. “I’m only sorry I cannot join you quite yet. I have more guests to see off. But I daresay Lord Ivy and your sister have news to impart.” She squeezed Holly’s shoulders and turned to give more instructions to the servants, who had gone back to their tasks after Haggerston departed.
“What news?” Edward asked.
Adam looked at Holly.
“Edward, I need to speak to Lord Ivy alone for a moment. Might we join you shortly?”
Edward shrugged. “And to think I worried you were desperate for diversion. I see you had more than enough these past days to keep you occupied.”
Holly pressed her lips together and said nothing as Edward’s words were more than true.
She led Adam into the morning room, whereupon he immediately closed the door and took her hands. “As the bard says, all’s well that ends well.”
She raised her brows. “Has it ended then?”
He squeezed her hands. “I hope not. I still want to marry you.”
She smiled. “I dearly love hearing you say those words. I know when you first asked me, I declined your offer. I feared you acted only out of duty and obligation.”
He nodded. “That might have been true at first, but I assure you my feelings very quickly changed. I would even go so far as to say my love for you was already there, and after I proposed—well, after you turned me down—I realized what I truly felt. I realized that the woman I had been waiting for, the one I imagined sitting across from at the breakfast table each morning, was right before me.”
“Oh, I do like that image,” Holly said. “And you certainly showed me your affections were real, but I hesitated because I was not sure how I could give myself to another man in marriage when my faith in marriage had been so damaged. But I wanted to tell you, even before Edward arrived to restore my faith, that I was willing to trust you. I had faith in you. I love you, Adam.”
His hands tightened almost painfully around hers. “And I love you.” He kissed her and just as she was wrapping her arms about him, he pulled back. “Then you will marry me, won’t you?”
“Do you need the words?” she asked.
“Please.”
“I’ll marry you, Lord Ivy.” She kissed him. “I want to wake up with you.” She kissed him again. “Go to sleep with you.” Another kiss. “Sit at your side and across the table with you, every day and night.” Another kiss. “For as long as we both shall live.”
He gathered her in his arms and kissed her back a dozen times. Holly laughed, her heart full of love and joy and hope. For Eva had been right.
Anything was possible at Christmastime.
About the Author
Shana Galen is three-time Rita award nominee and the bestselling author of passionate Regency romps. Kirkus said of her books: "The road to happily-ever-after is intense, conflicted, suspenseful and fun." RT Bookreviews described her writing as “lighthearted yet poignant, humorous yet touching." She taught English at the middle and high school level for eleven years. Most of those years were spent working in Houston's inner city. Now she writes full time, surrounded by three cats and one spoiled dog. She's happily married and has a daughter who is most definitely a romance heroine in the making.
In the mood for more holiday stories?
Enjoy an excerpt from A Royal Christmas.
He was being followed. Lucien hadn’t seen them, hadn’t heard them. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling someone watched him.
Perhaps he was delusional. God knew he came by it honestly, as his mother saw plots and assassins behind every door. The moral of every bedtime story had been not to trust anyone, not to be fooled. The sweet baker wanted to slit his throat, the smiling maid waited for an opportunity to smother him in his sleep.
His father had called it all rubbish, much to his mother’s dismay. The king had called it rubbish until the night the reavlutionnaire attacked and slaughtered the entire royal family.
In the end, his mother’s suspicion hadn’t saved her.
It might not save him either, but Lucien couldn’t help looking over his shoulder one last time as he stepped inside the bookstore in St. James’s. The heat reached out tentative fingers and stroked his frozen face as soon as he entered. He’d quickly learned December in London was colorless, cold, and compassionless. No one had the time or inclination to spare even a second glance at a poor man out in the sleet with only a threadbare coat for protection against the damp and cold.
His face stung as it began to thaw, and he unwound his scarf, exposing his face to the shopgirl, although he suspected she already knew it was he. He came here alm
ost every morning right after the bookstore opened, partly because he wanted out of the cold and partly because he was still searching.
“Good morning, Mr. Glen,” the pretty blond shopgirl said in greeting.
It wasn’t his name, but when he told people his name was Prince Lucien Charles Louis de Glynaven, they didn’t believe him. Mr. Glen seemed easier.
“Good morning, Miss Merriweather. How are you today?”
“Very well, and yourself?”
He was cold and hungry and so tired he could sleep a week. “Just fine. Thank you for asking.” He unfastened the top button of his greatcoat, although he didn’t intend to remove it. The store was warm, but old books were dusty. He took pains to keep his clothing clean and presentable. He could not afford to soil his coat or shirt, as they were the last vestiges of respectability he had.
“May I help you find anything in particular, Mr. Glen?” Miss Merriweather asked. She already knew the answer. They performed this play nearly every day.
“Just browsing, Miss Merriweather.”
The bell above the door tinkled, and a woman of middling years entered On the Shelf, which was the name of the little bookstore in Duke Street. Lucien took the opportunity to slip away, walking along the rows and rows of shelves along three walls of the store until he found the location where he’d left off the day before. The shop was as familiar to him as the lines on his hands by now. It had become an old friend to him, the smell of paper and ink and leather bindings almost as comforting as the smells of the palace in which he’d grown up.
Lucien had no trouble finding the shelf where he’d paused his search the evening before, which was not far from the counter where Miss Merriweather spent most of her time. He took solace in the fact that he was now several shelves deep in his search. He had made progress. Last night he’d ceased searching when he reached the bottom of the shelf, of course. His back had ached by the end of the day, and he’d left the lower shelves for the morning. Unfortunately, he’d spent the last of the money he’d earned tutoring students in Glennish, which meant he’d spent the night in a doorway of an abandoned shop, rather than in his usual spot in a cheap boarding house where men slept twelve to a room on straw pallets infested with lice and other vermin it was too dark to see.
As a consequence, his back felt no better than it had the evening before. He leaned against the shelf behind him and closed his eyes. How much longer could he go on this way? He’d fled the revolution more than seven months before and had been living on the streets of London for the last six and searching the bookshop whenever he did not have tutoring work for more than four months. He was hungry, cold, and tired. He didn’t want to give up hope, but at some point he must accept that he might never find the goddamn papers. He might never reclaim his title or the money so carefully put away for just this eventuality. He might die on the streets of London, and no one would give a damn.
To the world, he was already dead.
“What is that man doing?” he heard a woman ask Miss Merriweather. “Is he sleeping?”
“Oh, he’s harmless enough. I think he comes in to stay out of the cold,” Miss Merriweather answered. As he was the only man in the shop—for some reason, the bookshop seemed to always attract more women than men—he assumed the ladies were speaking of him. He wished he had a few coins so he might buy a book today. He tried to do that when he could in order to maintain the illusion of actually patronizing the bookshop.
“Miss Merriweather!” the first lady admonished. “Half of London will be loitering in your shop if you continue to allow this. I must insist you send him on his way.”
Lucien drew in a breath and held it. He might be weary of the search, but he was not ready to be forced to abandon it or the little shop he had begun to think of as home.
“Lady Lincoln, I assure you the man is no trouble. Please do not allow him to concern you. Now, just the volume of Fordyce’s Sermons today?”
Lady Lincoln sniffed. “Your mother will hear of this. See if she does not.”
When the bell tinkled again, signaling her retreat, Lucien blew out the breath and crouched. He pulled the first volume of a book of poetry from the shelf, opened it, and turned every single page. He liked to think of this as his “no page left unturned” method. He knew it was highly unlikely the papers he sought had found their way into a book of English poetry—mediocre poetry, he decided after scanning a page or so—but all other methods of obtaining the books and documents had failed. He had no other choices, no other options, and so he did the only thing he knew. He searched.
“Will she really tell your mother?” a voice he recognized as the young Miss Hooper, the auburn-haired friend of Miss Merriweather, drifted across the shelves. She’d lowered her voice, but the store was almost empty and quiet, and he knew every sound by now. Lucien paused in his perusal of a poem about a lovelorn shepherd to listen.
“She has nothing else to occupy her time, so I imagine she will.”
“Will your mother force him out?” Miss Hooper asked.
“I don’t know. Why? Don’t tell me you’ve developed a tendre for him.”
Lucien could almost hear the blush rise to Miss Hooper’s cheeks. “Of course not, but I do feel sorry for him. Imagine. The poor man thinks he is a prince.”
Lucien laid the volume of poetry on the shelf and moved closer. He did not want Miss Hooper’s pity—Miss Merriweather’s either, unless it served to keep him from being evicted from the shop. Strange to be the object of pity after so many years of being reviled for his privilege.
“I am well aware of his delusions.” That was Miss Merriweather’s voice. “You forget I was here the morning he stormed in and demanded we hand over the shipment of Glennish books we bought at auction. I had no notion which books or which auction. The man was quite mad with desperation, so I showed him the only books we had on Glynaven.”
“But he didn’t want them,” Miss Hooper said. She knew the story and could have probably told it herself at that point. “And he’s come every week since?”
“Yes, and he even apologized for his rude behavior that first day.”
“Did he? I am not surprised. He has a very kind look about him.”
Miss Merriweather gave a bark of a laugh. “I beg to differ. He has no such thing. He has the look of a gypsy—all that dark hair and golden skin.”
“But his eyes,” Miss Hooper said with a sigh.
Lucien rolled his oft-mentioned eyes. In Glynaven, poetry worse than the volume he’d just perused had been written about his leonine eyes. They were brown—a golden brown, yes—but brown. He might think it ludicrous, but he was not above using those eyes to persuade the Merriweathers to allow him to continue his frequent browsing.
At this point, he was not above anything. Oh, how the mighty—and haughty—had fallen.
He turned, intent on returning to the shelf of mediocre poetry, and almost rammed into a petite blond woman, who circled her arms frantically for balance. Acting on instinct, he reached out and caught her shoulders, hauling her back to her feet. Lucien realized immediately he wasn’t quite as gentle as he might have been. The force of his action sent the woman careening toward him, and he was forced again to right her.
He held her shoulders, ensuring she was finally stable.
“I beg your pardon,” he said. “I didn’t see you there.”
She had the fair complexion typical of the English, and a pink flush crept over her cheeks when he spoke. “It is my fault,” she said in a voice little more than a whisper. “Please forgive me.”
She wore spectacles, and her eyes behind the lenses appeared quite large and blue. Those were the sort of eyes one should honor with bad poetry. They were the blue of the Mediterranean Sea.
“Excuse me,” she whispered, looking down so he had a view of the top of her head of golden hair. She’d pulled it tightly back and secured it at her nape with a black comb.
“If you would release me, sir?”
Lucien released h
er as though she were poison and stepped away. “I apologize. I didn’t realize—”
“No apology necessary. Excuse me.” She moved toward a small round table of books in the center of the shop, her black skirts swishing as she moved.
Lucien returned to his shelf of poetry only to find someone else had taken his place—a woman with a bonnet trimmed in yellow flowers and a black net veil over her hair. He could not see her face. He turned to occupy himself with the novels until such time as the lady moved on, but the shelf of novels was also occupied by a tall well-dressed gentleman and a woman in a dark green redingote. He thought he recognized the woman as the shopgirl from Markham’s Print Gallery, which was situated just next door. She often watched the bookshop when Miss Merriweather was away on an errand, and she’d always been kind to him.
The shop was damnably crowded now that the holidays approached. Lucien took a book from a shelf he’d already searched and looked through it in order to appear to be shopping. He wondered about the woman he’d bumped into earlier. She must have been a widow to be dressed in such severe black without any adornment. Was she one of the many women who frequented the shop, or was this her first visit? He did not recall having seen her before, not that he paid much attention to the shop’s patrons. He was engrossed in searching the books. He continued his search, ignoring the slight headache from lack of food and drink. Lucien withdrew another book, examined every page, then replaced the volume. Before he withdrew the next, he glanced behind him, hoping he’d see the Englishwoman in black again.
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Also by Shana Galen
REGENCY SPIES
While You Were Spying
When Dashing Met Danger
Pride and Petticoats
MISADVENTURES IN MATRIMONY
No Man’s Bride
Good Groom Hunting
Blackthorne’s Bride
The Pirate Takes a Bride
SONS OF THE REVOLUTION