The Virtues of Christmas

by Grace Burrowes

  Six ? Only six men in a decade of debauchery? Heathgate had occasionally had six partners in the course of twenty-four hours. Michael considered himself a good, formerly Catholic boy, and even he had enjoyed some notably adventurous house parties.

  “I detest serious weather,” he said. “The going will be difficult, and the coach will soon acquire a chill. We’d best break out the lap robes now.”

  Miss Whitlow arranged a soft wool blanket over her maid, then allowed Michael to tuck a blanket over their knees. The progress of the coach slowed, and before Michael could think up another conversational gambit, Miss Whitlow had become a warm weight against his side.

  His scintillating company had put the lady to sleep. Within five minutes, her head was on his shoulder, and Michael was more or less alone with his conscience in the middle of a gathering snowstorm.

  * * *

  Chapter Three

  * * *

  Henrietta resisted my lures for weeks—weeks spent cozening her into a parody of friendship. I admired her quiet nature. I begged to sketch her hands—as if a housemaid’s hands deserved that honor. I consulted her on my choice of cravat pin and other weighty matters. Never was a mouse stalked with more patience than I stalked Henrietta Whitlow’s virtue, and all the while, she was honestly unaware of her peril, such was my skill as a romantic thespian. When I recall my dedication to the task, I truly do marvel at my own tenacity, for once upon a time, Henrietta Whitlow was that bastion of English respectability, the good girl…

  In Henrietta’s experience, men truly comfortable with their rank and fortune were good company. They neither suffered fools nor put on airs, and the best of them operated under an ethic of noblesse oblige. Most were well educated and well informed about the greater world, and thus made interesting conversationalists.

  Henrietta had known she was at risk for foolishness with the last man whom she’d granted an arrangement, because His Grace’s conversation, his wealth, his grasp of politic affairs, and his generosity hadn’t appealed to her half so much as his tacit friendship.

  Noah, Duke of Anselm, had truly been a protector, deflecting any disrespect to Henrietta with a lift of his eyebrow. He’d escorted her everywhere with the punctilious courtesy of a suitor, rather than the casual disdain of a lord with his fancy piece.

  When he’d informed her that he was embarking on the hunt for a duchess, Henrietta had wished him well and sent him on his way with as much relief as regret. By way of a wedding gift, she’d informed him that his greatest amatory asset was…

  His ears.

  In the course of their arrangement, Anselm had lingered over breakfast with her, chatting about the news of the day rather than rushing off at first light. He’d never expected her to take him straight from the foyer to the bedroom, as some of his predecessors had, and he’d always approached lovemaking as a conversation. Behind the bedroom door, the taciturn, difficult duke had been affectionate, relaxed, and devilishly patient.

  Not quite garrulous, but a good listener. A very, very good listener.

  Michael Brenner’s willingness to listen eclipsed even the duke’s. He never watched Henrietta as if he were waiting for the moment when he could turn the topic to intimacies, and his gaze never strayed even playfully to places a gentleman ought not to look.

  Henrietta had lapsed into tired silence mostly because further acquaintance with the baron could go nowhere. She was mulling over that sad fact—also mentally rehearsing Christmas carols with her nephews, Dicken and Zander—when the coach came to a smooth halt.

  “That was a fast twelve miles,” she said, struggling to sound more awake than she felt.

  “Wait a bit,” the baron said. “Your hair has tangled with my buttons.”

  Henrietta was obliged to remain close enough to his lordship to appreciate the soft wool of his cloak beneath her cheek and the scent of lavender clinging to his skin. He extricated her hair from the offending button, and she could sit up.

  Lucille stirred as well. “I’ll just be having a nice, hot cup of—oh, I must have caught a few winks. Beg your pardon, ma’am. My lord.”

  “Let’s stretch our legs.” Anything so Henrietta could put some distance between herself and the man upon whom she’d nearly fallen asleep. She’d shared her bed with a half-dozen partners, which meant she was ruined past all redemption, and yet she was embarrassed to have presumed on the baron’s person.

  The most highly paid courtesan in London, embarrassed by a catnap.

  The baron handed them down from the coach amid steadily falling snow. The coachman clambered off the box, and Lucille disappeared around the side of the inn, doubtless in search of the jakes.

  “Please see to accommodations for the ladies, Logan, and a fresh team, unless you’re not inclined to press on.”

  “A bit of snow needn’t stop us, my lord,” Logan said. “Though you’ll be wanting more bricks heated, and we’ll have to unload the lady’s trunks.”

  “What are my trunks doing on your coach?” Henrietta asked, counting a half-dozen traveling cases lashed to the roof and boot of the baron’s conveyance. “I thought you understood that a valise would be sufficient for my needs.” The idea that he’d made free with her possessions or countermanded her orders sat uneasily.

  “I gave no order to transfer your belongings,” the baron said as his coachman stomped up the steps into the inn. “Perhaps your coachman tried to anticipate your needs. We can unload your bags easily enough and have them sent up to your rooms.”

  Now that the moment to part was upon her, Henrietta didn’t want to lose sight of his lordship. He’d behaved toward her as a gentleman behaved toward a lady, nothing more, and yet his consideration had solved many problems.

  “I suppose this is farewell, then,” she said.

  “If you’re biding in Oxfordshire, our paths might well cross again.” He’d eschewed a hat, and snow dusted auburn locks that brushed the collar of his cape.

  “I generally stay at the Duck and Goose in Amblebank.” Henrietta’s own father refused to grant her the use of a bedroom, though his manor house boasted eight. She refused to impose on her brothers lest their hospitality to her cause difficulties with Papa.

  The baron reached into the coach and produced Henrietta’s scarf. “I have the great good fortune to dwell at Inglemere, due east of Amblebank by about five miles. I’d welcome a call from you or your family.”

  Welcome a call .

  His lordship spoke a platitude, but in the past ten years, no one had offered Henrietta that courtesy. She was not welcome to call on old friends and neighbors. They didn’t judge her for having wealthy protectors in London, but her own family refused to openly welcome her, and the neighborhood took its cue from that behavior.

  If only Papa weren’t so stubborn, and if only Henrietta weren’t even more stubborn than he.

  The grooms led the team around to the carriage yard, where fresh horses would be put to. Abruptly, Henrietta was alone with a man who tempted her to second thoughts and if onlys.

  If only she’d met him rather than Beltram when she’d gone in search of employment all those years ago.

  If only she’d realized sooner what Beltram had been about.

  If only her father had written back to her, even once.

  Such thoughts went well with the bitter breeze and the bleak landscape. The falling snow created a hush to complement the white blanketing the steps, bushes, pine roping and the wreath on the inn’s door.

  The baron studied that wreath as if it bore a Latin inscription. “Will you slap me if I take a small liberty, Miss Whitlow?”

  Henrietta wanted to take a liberty or two with him, which came as no little surprise. “Is it a liberty when you ask permission?”

  He looped her scarf about her neck and treated her to a smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. “Excellent point. We’ll call it a gesture of thanks for making the miles pass more agreeably.”

  He bent close and brushed his lips over hers. In
that instant, Henrietta regretted her decision to retire from the courtesan’s profession. To earn even a semblance of acceptance from any polite quarter, she’d been prepared to give up all kisses, all affection, and certainly all pleasures of the flesh.

  She’d thought the absence of masculine attention would be a relief, and she’d been wrong.

  The baron tendered a kiss as respectful as it was surprising. His lips were warm, his hand cradling Henrietta’s jaw gentle. He didn’t handle her, he caressed, albeit fleetingly.

  He’d be a devastatingly tender lover, and that realization was more sobering than all the arctic breezes in England.

  “I’ll wish you a Happy Christmas,” Henrietta said, stepping away, “and thank you for your many kindnesses.”

  The door to the inn banged open, and Lucille trudged back around the side of the building. Now—now—the chill wind penetrated Henrietta’s cloak, and a damnable urge to cry threatened. The baron made matters worse by tucking the ends of Henrietta’s scarf about her neck.

  “The pleasure was mine, Miss Whitlow. If I can ever be of assistance, you need only send to me at Inglemere, and anything I can do…”

  Henrietta’s heart was breaking, and over a chance encounter that ought never have happened.

  “Godspeed, my lord.”

  He took out his gloves and pulled them on, and the coach returned from the carriage yard, minus Henrietta’s trunks. This team was all gray, their coats already damp and curling from the falling snow.

  “Begging your lordship’s pardon,” said his coachman, who’d emerged from the inn. “I don’t think the ladies will want to bide here. There’s rooms aplenty, because there’s illness in the house. Half the staff is down with influenza, and the innkeeper said the cook was among those afflicted. Shall I have the lady’s trunks loaded back onto the coach?”

  “Henrietta?” Not Miss Whitlow, and his lordship’s familiarity was that of a friend.

  Henrietta’s relief beggared description. “Lucille catches every illness, and as tired as she is, she’ll be afflicted by this time tomorrow if we stay here.”

  “And then you might well succumb yourself. The next inn is but twelve miles distant, and surely there, you should have better luck.”

  “Twelve more miles, then,” Henrietta said, smiling despite the cold, despite everything. “But no farther.”

  * * *

  “How many more years will we be coming here for a weekly dinner, listening to Papa’s pontifications and making our wives and children listen to them as well?” Philip Whitlow kept his voice down, because he stood on the squire’s very doorstep.

  Thaddeus turned to shield the bundle in his arms from the winter breeze. “I promised Isabel that after the baby came, we’d invite Papa to our table rather than keep trooping over here every Sunday, but the child is nearly six months old, and here we are. Again.”

  Thaddeus’s wife had presented him with a daughter over the summer, and Philip acknowledged a pang of envy. Dicken and Alexander were dear, and he’d gladly give his life for either boy, but Beatrice longed for a daughter.

  “Papa gets worse as the holidays approach.” As the oldest sibling, Philip expected a certain diplomacy of himself, but at some point, that diplomacy had shaded closer to cowardice.

  “Because Henrietta insists on visiting,” Thad replied. “She hasn’t met her namesake. I expect they’ll get on famously.”

  The infant in Thad’s arms was Isabella Henrietta. Her mother called her Izzy. Her father referred to her as his little red hen, owing to her mop of ginger hair.

  Unfortunate, that. Both of Philip’s boys were red-haired, but they were boys. “Beatrice says we must do more to make Henrietta welcome.”

  Thad left off fussing with the blankets enveloping his daughter. “Beatrice says? I thought Bea had no patience with straying women.”

  Bea had no patience with families who couldn’t get on with being families. “I might have misread her, somewhat.” Or hidden behind her skirts, as it were, or betrayed a sibling for the sake of keeping peace with a parent.

  “Isabel said if I ever treat our daughter the way Papa has treated Henrietta, she’ll disown me. I do not favor the prospect of being disowned by my dearest spouse.”

  “If you wrap the child up any more tightly, she’ll expire for want of air.” How many times had Bea offered Philip the same warning when the boys were small?

  Thad rubbed noses with his daughter, which set her to squirming and cooing. “Who looked after Henrietta, Philip? Having a daughter sets a man to wondering. Henrietta was six when Mama died, and my earliest memory is of Henrietta reading to me. I have no memory of our mother, but I can’t forget that when Papa was too grief-stricken to recall he had children, Henrietta read to me every night.”

  Philip came the rest of the way down the steps. “Henrietta was a good girl. That’s part of what makes Papa so angry with her.”

  “He’s not angry, he’s ashamed. Time he got over it, I say.”

  Thad was the family optimist, and in part because Henrietta had been such a devoted sister, his recollections of the years following their mother’s death were sad but benign. Squire Whitlow’s grief had expressed itself in temper and discipline with his two older children.

  “People don’t get over a hurt because we say so, Thad, but for what it’s worth, Beatrice and I agree with you. Henrietta asks nothing of us but some hospitality at Christmas, and she always offers to help if we need it.”

  Their wives emerged from the manor house, chattering volubly despite being wrapped up in scarves and cloaks.

  “I wondered if Henrietta’s generosity extended to you as well. I’ve never had to ask for help, but I’d ask her before I’d ask Papa.”

  “So would I.” Though Philip hadn’t realized that truth until he’d spoken it aloud.

  “I suppose we’ll see you next week,” Thad said, taking Isabel’s hand. “Unless Henrietta’s come to visit.”

  Beatrice took the place at Philip’s side. “Where have the boys got off to?”

  “The stable, last I saw them.”

  “Where they will get their best clothes filthy. Come along, Philip, and prepare to be stern.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Thad smirked, Isabel took the baby from him, and Philip wished the holidays weren’t bearing down on them all like a runaway team on a muddy road.

  * * *

  One did not kiss an innocent woman and then steal from her, not if one had any honor.

  Michael accounted himself in possession of a modest store of honor, and yet, he’d kissed Henrietta Whitlow, or started to kiss her. That chaste little gesture in the inn yard barely qualified as a kiss, especially when offered to a woman whose affections had been coveted by kings and princes.

  And yet that kiss had been enough to set Michael to wondering.

  What would kissing Henrietta passionately be like? Holding her through a long and lazy night? Waking to see that red hair in glorious disarray? What would she feel like wrapped around him, half mad with desire?

  As the coach jostled along the increasingly snowy road, Michael set aside those speculations. He could sleep with any number of women, make love to many more, and hair was hair. What bothered him was that he wanted to know more about her, and not simply so he could steal from her with less risk of discovery.

  What books did Henrietta Whitlow treasure most dearly?

  Did she ever stay up all night reading?

  What holiday token would make her smile the way she’d smiled at the serving maid?

  How did she like to be kissed, if she cared for it at all?

  “You’ve grown quiet,” Miss Whitlow said. “You needn’t worry for Lucille’s slumbers. I’ve seen her sleep through a gale.”

  Indeed, the stalwart Lucille had fortified herself with two cups of tea at the last inn and was now wedged against the opposite squabs, a lap blanket tucked beneath her chin, her snoring a counterpoint to the rhythm of the horses’ hooves.

>   “My former employer had the same ability to sleep any time,” Michael replied, “though Heathgate limited himself to naps and delighted in making me think he was asleep when he was in truth eavesdropping.”

  “You miss him.”

  Michael missed his sisters. Did they ever miss him? “Heathgate and I became a good team. Ten years ago, I was the shy Irish lad willing to do anything to better myself. Heathgate was a fundamentally decent man trying to impersonate a jaded rogue. I had the better classical education and stronger organizational skills, while Heathgate had business intuition and daring. He took a modest fortune and made it enormous, if you’ll excuse a vulgar reference to commercial matters.”

  Miss Whitlow rustled about on the bench beside Michael, tucking the lap robe around her hip.

  “Patch leaf,” he murmured.

  Her fussing paused. “I beg your pardon?”

  “The scent you wear. It reminds me of the patch leaf used to keep the moths away from Kashmir shawls. I couldn’t place it and have never come across its like on a woman before.”

  She extended her left arm beneath his nose. “I have it made up specially. At first I was simply storing my clothing with the leaves used to protect the shawls, but then my Parisian perfumer found a way to capture the scent.”

  Michael turned her wrist and sniffed translucent skin. Blue veins ran from her forearm to her palm, and a single tendon stood out.

  “It’s different,” he said, resisting the urge to taste her pulse. “Unusual.”

  “I don’t care for it. Too exotic, too… loud. I no longer have to be loud or exotic, and what a relief that is.” Her fleeting glance asked if her admission offended him, though her idea of loud was probably a healthy man’s notion of a seductive whisper.

  “What scent do you prefer?” he asked.

  “My favorite scents are green tea and freshly scythed grass, but those would hardly do for a fragrance. My mother hung lavender sachets all about the house, from the bedposts, in the linen closets, in the wardrobes, and among the dry-goods pantries. In the new year, I will wear proper English lavender.”