His Christmas Pleasure

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His Christmas Pleasure Page 3

by Cathy Maxwell


  “Oh, Abigail,” a high-pitched woman’s voice said. “What have you found?”

  Her aunt, the duchess of Banfield and this evening’s hostess.

  “Hello, Your Grace,” Abby said. Even though the duchess was her aunt, Abby knew she expected every ritual of her station.

  “The two of you had your heads close together,” her aunt said. She was tall, like her daughter Corinne, although her hair was silver instead of blonde. “What’s so secret?” she continued. “Your mother will want to know, Abigail, especially since you are whispering to the one man every woman here is watching. Oh, if only I was half a decade younger.” She rapped the barón lightly with her folded fan.

  Abby was tempted to ask her aunt what secrets she held. Certainly the duchess knew Freddie and Corinne were going to announce their betrothal, but she’d not said a word of warning. “We are going to join this next set,” Abby said instead, nodding to the dance floor.

  “Oh, please do. And come join us when you are done. Corinne and I have taken up station by the Greek urn.” She nodded in the direction of a bronze urn the height of most men. A table and several chairs were set up there. Abby’s mother sat there, along with many of the duke of Banfield’s other brothers and sisters, but Corinne wasn’t with them.

  Instead, she and Freddie were having a confab not far from the urn. Corinne, tall, beautiful, blonde, said something angry to Freddie and stormed away, shoving aside several guests who were in her path.

  Abby wondered what he’d told her.

  “We shall, Your Grace,” she heard the barón answer her aunt, speaking for both of them. He nudged Abby toward the dance floor.

  The other dancers had already taken their places. Politeness dictated that she and the barón should stand this one out. The barón, however, was not polite. He took a spot on the dance floor, bringing her around to face him.

  She feared they were going to dance by themselves until another couple stepped from the crowd to join them.

  Abby didn’t recognize the couple. There were so many here this evening she didn’t know. She rarely traveled with this set—only when her uncle and aunt gave parties.

  The music started. It was a country dance, thankfully one Abby knew. But at that moment, as she moved to take the first step, Freddie came to stand at the edge of the crowd no more than an arm’s length from her.

  His expression was serious, distraught.

  He looked right at her—and Abby stumbled over her own feet.

  She felt herself falling, but before she made a complete fool of herself, the barón’s strong hands took hers and spun her in a circle, as if he’d been improvising a step.

  The movement was dizzying, and for the second time in less than an hour, Abby found herself again in the barón’s arms.

  “Smile,” he quietly ordered, and she found herself obeying immediately. The smile on her face felt false, but she’d not remove it, not with so many watching.

  Not with Freddie watching.

  Abby dared not look in his direction. Instead, she placed her focus on her dashing, bold partner, and an amazing thing began to happen: she started to enjoy herself.

  The barón knew how to lead. She found herself moving through the dance with an easy grace she’d not known before. He didn’t do anything awkward, just a touch here, a bit of pressure there, and the two of them were moving as if they had danced together before.

  The music was lively and long. Apparently, the young people had been waiting for such a robust dance and were making the most of it, their enthusiasm encouraging the musicians.

  How long had it been since she’d danced?

  Probably before she’d been betrothed to Mr. Lynsted. He’d not been one to take to the dance floor.

  The dancing grew more competitive. Couples danced down a line while others clapped, cheered, and stamped their feet. It seemed as if everyone in the ballroom was involved now. Everyone was as caught up as Abby. She didn’t even have the opportunity to hesitate when the barón took her hand and danced her down the center of the floor.

  She was not graceful. The music was moving too fast for her to think, and she took a misstep here and there, but she didn’t run for cover. Instead, she laughed her clumsiness away, and no one seemed to notice—save the barón.

  He used her lack of grace as an opportunity to rest his hand on her waist, to give her an extra twirl and bring his arms around her. He was masterful, gallant, incredibly thoughtful.

  All too soon, the music came to an end.

  The applause for the musicians and dancers was deafening.

  Freddie was nowhere in sight.

  However, her parents watched. Her father had joined her mother by the urn. Her mother appeared a bit teary-eyed, but her father’s gaze was calculating.

  Abby felt her confidence waver. Once again aware of her shortcomings, she hung back, not ready to be delivered to them yet.

  “What is it?” the barón asked, seemingly attuned to her every thought.

  “Why did you do this?” she asked. “Why did you insist I dance?”

  Annoyance crossed his face. “We are guests at a ball. I wanted to dance.”

  “You could have your pick of any woman. It’s the library, isn’t it? The dancing has to do with what I saw in the library. You are worried I know something you’d rather keep quiet.”

  “You saw nothing,” he answered. “And are you always this distrustful? Because if you are, no wonder life has disappointments. Or did your father train you to think this way? To look with suspicion on everyone?”

  His comment found its mark. He was right. Her father would warn her to be careful. And yet once she started to question, she could not stop.

  “You felt sorry for me,” she accused. It was the worst thing anyone could do to her.

  “Sí, I did,” he said without hesitation. “I do find it amazing that you interfered, palomita. Most would have opened the door, seen me standing there, gun to my head, and shut it to pretend they had not noticed me at all. Or was it that my path was meant to cross yours? I think so. I think there is a strong bond between us. Something we have in common.”

  “And what is that?” she demanded, surprised he felt the connection between them as well.

  “Loneliness,” he answered, the truth of the word exposing her.

  He saw. He knew. His knowledge made her feel vulnerable, naked. Flawed.

  And it equally stripped him bare as well. She met his gaze, stunned by his honesty. He was like no other gentleman in this room—

  “I have been looking for you everywhere,” a woman’s strident voice interrupted them, even as a gloved hand, rings on almost every finger, grabbed the barón’s arm and jerked him around, which was no small feat. The barón was tall, muscular. His attacker was petite and one of the most lovely women Abby had ever seen.

  She was also Carla, Lady Dobbins—a renowned poet, socially important hostess, and London’s reigning beauty.

  Rubies hung from her ladyship’s ears and around her throat. Small stars fashioned out of diamonds pinned her dark tresses into artfully arranged curls, a style she’d set and was all the rage.

  Her dress was made of a muslin so fine one could see straight through it to an undersheath, which had been dampened to hug her every curve. And she didn’t seem the least embarrassed that her nipples were boldly protruding against the thin material for everyone to ogle. Then again, her neckline was so low that the whole bounty of her chest appeared ready to overflow at any moment.

  Abby caught herself tugging at her own modest decollete in discomfort.

  “I have been here, my lady,” the barón said without enthusiasm. As he spoke, he took Abby’s arm as if to walk away.

  Her ladyship blocked their path. “You knew I wanted to dance with you,” she stated, her voice low but attracting attention all the same, judging from how quickly conversation stopped around them. People made no pretense about wanting to overhear what was being said.

  That’s when Abby remem
bered what else she’d read in the papers about “Baron V.” This was obviously the one they referred to as “the lovely Lady D,” the woman claimed to be his lover.

  Chapter Three

  Abby took a step away from the barón. Now might be a good time to return to her parents, with or without his escort. There was a wildness in her ladyship’s eyes and a tension in her body Abby didn’t trust.

  But her movement caught Lady Dobbins’s attention. Vivid blue eyes, the ones countless men had celebrated in poetry to her beauty, honed in on Abby with the intensity of a hawk seeking prey.

  “This is what you think to replace me with?” Lady Dobbins murmured. Her lip curled.

  “Not here, my lady,” the barón warned, steel in his low voice. “We have an audience. Let me escort Miss Montross back to her family, and then we will talk.”

  But Lady Dobbins either didn’t hear him or didn’t care. “Montross?” she repeated. “The banker’s daughter? The one who was jilted? Oh, I see now why she was tossed aside. Good heavens, Andres, have you no eyes? I thought you Spaniards were lovers of beauty. Or have you lost your good taste?”

  Abby wasn’t the only one stunned by the woman’s meanness. A collective gasp went up all around them, sending a burst of heat to Abby’s face—which only made her look more pathetic. The crowd’s sympathy aside, she could feel their eyes dissecting her every feature. Even the musicians had not lifted their instruments to play the next set.

  The barón pulled Abby behind him. “Do you think you are the only beautiful woman here, my lady? You are wrong. Miss Montross has a beauty you could never hope to attain.”

  “Beauty?” Her ladyship snorted her opinion. “You find beauty in ruddy cheeks and a button nose?”

  The barón answered. “Also her youth—”

  “She is not that young,” the countess lashed out. “She’s much younger than yourself, but I’m talking about her spirit. It is young. She’s a believer, Carla, something both you and I gave up long ago.”

  “Because we are realists,” Lady Dobbins said in her own defense. “Sophisticated.”

  “And value nothing,” he agreed.

  “I valued you.”

  “And see where you are now?” His mark hit home.

  Her ladyship drew back. She glanced at those around them as if just realizing she was creating a scene. A wiser woman would have retreated.

  Lady Dobbins wasn’t wise. “All a woman has, all that is important about her, all that matters are her looks. You’ve made that very clear, Barón, with so many of us. Now it appears you have developed a taste for, well, something other than the sublime. For example, her hair reminds one of a curly, overripe carrot.”

  “Her hair reflects her joy in life.”

  “Natural or not, eh?” her ladyship said. “And, yes, I am older, but she is wrinkled. She’s almost as withered as a prune.”

  “Those aren’t wrinkles,” he said with a sigh as if bored with the discussion. “They are the lines left from laughter. And who wants a blank canvas? A man needs to know his woman can think and feel. A rose opens as it ages, becoming more fragrant, more full in blossom, more lovely with time. I see in Miss Montross’s face her strength of character. She meets life on her terms and doesn’t need to humiliate another to make herself important.”

  Several heads around them nodded agreement. Most of those nodding were men.

  Lady Dobbins’s chin shot up. “Character?” she quizzed. “What would you, of all men, know about character? You are a pretty boy, Barón. A charm. You haven’t done one meaningful thing in your life, and now you are holding up this silly, gap-toothed, flat-chested chit as a paragon for all of us to admire. Look to yourself, my lord, before you chastise me.”

  Abby did have a small gap between her two front teeth. It was a family trait. Her mother and her cousin Corinne had gaps as well.

  She wished the floor would open up and swallow her whole. She didn’t care what people thought of her chest, but that small separation between her two front teeth made her terribly self-conscious.

  “Her smile is charming,” the barón said. “As for endowments, not all men like overripe melons, my lady. Especially amply displayed ones.”

  “You did.”

  Her words sucked the air out of the room for Abby. She’d tried not to think of the two of them together. She wanted to like the barón, and she didn’t like the countess … but he had.

  Without breaking stride, he coolly answered, “My tastes have changed.”

  He was defending her, but his words struck Abby as cruel. As male.

  And everyone listening would infer that now she was his next conquest. It would be her name linked to his in the papers on the morrow. She could see it now. She would be referred to as “mysterious Miss Gap Tooth"—and she was ruined. She wasn’t a married woman whose husband obviously looked the other way. She already had enough rumors swirling around her.

  Worse, Freddie’s father, the earl, could be smug in the knowledge that he’d saved his son from such infamy. Corinne would never find herself caught in such a scene as this. Corinne was perfect, sensible, dutiful.

  Nor was Abby the only one hit by his words.

  Lady Dobbins jerked, as if jolted with a shot of electricity. Had she truly thought she could stomp her satin-clad feet and a man like the barón would be contrite? Abby hadn’t known him long, but he didn’t strike her as a lapdog.

  Her ladyship’s venom came out in physical violence. She slapped the barón, the action short, to the point, insulting. Then, ignoring the gasps of shock around her, Lady Dobbins sailed away, head high, the crowd shuffling back to let her pass.

  There was a beat of assessing silence during which Abby assumed that most people were like herself—shocked beyond belief. And then came the low, agitated hum of conversation as word of the scene was passed from one pair of lips to another.

  The barón turned to her, his silver eyes somber, as if he knew the cost of this scene to Abby. But she wasn’t in the mood for apologies. Her reputation—indeed, her life—was now completely in a shambles with no hope for recovery. Freddie would never marry her and her father would be hard-pressed to find any husband for her.

  “I am sorry,” the barón said, and Abby lost all sense.

  Her hand flew through the air, powered by her frustration, her shame, and her fear.

  Her slap was not as neat, concise, and ladylike as Lady Dobbins’s. It carried the full force of her turbulent emotions. Not only that, but she was a rather strong woman. The sound reverberated through the ballroom.

  For a heartbeat, the world stopped.

  Shocked by what she’d just done, Abby couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.

  Her angry finger marks reddened on his skin. He raised a hand to his jaw, frowning, angry, confused. He’d want answers—and she didn’t want to give them. Not here.

  She took the only action open to her; she ran.

  The crowd didn’t part for her. She had to shove her way through, heading for her father, the only refuge she had in the room. He met her halfway. He must have seen all, but once he put his arm around her and started escorting her toward the door, Abby didn’t care. Having him by her side gave her the bit more courage she needed to leave the ballroom.

  Her mother was already standing by the door. “I’ve asked for our cloaks,” she informed them. She took Abby’s hand, and together her parents led her to the front door. Her father gave a vail to the footman, who left speedily to hail their coachman.

  Abby’s father was a gruff man with shaggy red eyebrows under a thatch of curly, graying black hair. He claimed he was Scot although Abby and her brothers secretly thought his ancestry was from Ireland. It was difficult to tell, since he took great pains to speak the King’s proper English and expected as much from his children.

  Banker Montross woke early in the morning, worked a full day, came home to a light supper and a reasonable bedtime. This ball was not his usual routine, and Abby had been both surprised and delig
hted he’d agreed to attend. In the past, he’d left escorting duties to her mother or one of her brothers if in town.

  Her mother was an inch shorter than herself. The former Lady Catherine had been the most petite of the old duke of Banfield’s daughters, and the prettiest—another reason the gossips and her suitors had been so quick to savage her reputation when she’d defied her father and married a mere banker. Her thick, honey gold hair was turning silver, and her figure was still trim in spite of her having borne four children.

  Abby didn’t draw a full breath until they were safely tucked in their coach and on their way home.

  Her father broke the silence. “Damn them all to hell.”

  “Heath,” her mother protested.

  “I’m sorry, Cate, but this shouldn’t have happened, and it has made a sorry mess for our Abby. By the way, what did happen?” he demanded of his daughter. “I saw you dancing, looking for all the world like a happy poppet, and then the next thing I know, you slapped a man.” He didn’t wait for Abby’s explanation before announcing, “Once I have the two of you home, I’m returning to that ball. I’ll call that blackguard out. I’ll make him pay for his arrogance. Foreigners! They are overrunning London. Makes a good Englishman sick to his belly.”

  “No, please don’t call him out,” Abby said.

  Her mother echoed the sentiment. “You are too old for such nonsense, Heath.”

  “And if anything happened to you, I will never forgive myself,” Abby claimed. “Please, Father, I want to forget this whole evening. It was a terrible night. I should never have gone out.”

  “You can’t forget what has happened,” her father said, punctuating the air with his gloved finger. “I’ve endured slights from the aristocrats all my life, even as they ask me to manage their money and turn a profit for them. But I’ll be damned if some foreign nobby is going to insult my daughter. Now, what did he say to offend you so?”

  “He said I was beautiful,” Abby answered. “In front of everyone.”

  “See, Cate? I should boil him in oil—” Her father’s voice broke off as he digested what Abby had said. “He said what?”

 

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