The Virtues of Christmas

by Grace Burrowes

  He closed the book and stared at the fire. “I couldn’t bear to further deceive you. I have misrepresented myself to you, Miss Whitlow, in part. I’ve also been honest in part.”

  Miss Whitlow? Miss Whitlow?

  “You’ve been inside me, Michael. Several times. Don’t call me Miss Whitlow.” And don’t remain halfway across the room, looking like a fallen angel on the eve of banishment to the Pit.

  “This book is the reason we met,” he said, holding up the little volume. “Lord Beltram wants it back, though legally it is entirely your possession. He’s begun searching for a bride and realized what a weapon he’d given you.”

  No flannel sheets, no cozy quilts, no secure embrace could have comforted Henrietta against the chill Michael’s words drove into her heart.

  “You seduced me to get Beltram’s bloody book, and now you’re confessing your perfidy?”

  “I hope we seduced each other, but yes, my original intention was to steal this book from you.” He thumbed through the most maudlin collection of bad verse and inferior artistry Henrietta had ever seen.

  She rose from the warmth of the covers, shrugged into her night-robe—and yes, that made her breasts jiggle, and what of it?—and Michael looked away.

  “Are you disgusted with the woman you seduced?” she asked, whipping her braid free of the night-robe. “Was bedding me a great imposition, my lord? What hold does Beltram have over you that you’d make a sacrifice of such magnitude with his cast-off mistress?”

  “Miss—Henrietta, it’s not like that.”

  Henrietta had a temper, a raging, blazing, vitriolic temper that had sent her from her father’s house ten years ago and sustained her when it became apparent that Beltram was exactly the handsome scoundrel every girl was warned against.

  She’d learned to marshal that temper in the interests of professional survival, but she was no longer a professional.

  And she might not survive this insult. “It’s never like that,” she snapped. “Good God, I thought I knew better. Never again, I promised myself. Never again would a man get the better of me, no matter how handsome, how charming, how sincere…”

  Michael rose, tossing the book onto the empty bed. “Henrietta Whitlow, I am not ashamed of you. I could never be ashamed of you. I am ashamed of myself.”

  “For sleeping with me?” She would kill him if he said yes and then burn his house down, after she’d carted away all of his books.

  “I am ashamed of myself,” he said, hands fisting at his sides, “for lying to you. For being an idiot.”

  “Idiot is too kind a term, Michael Brenner. I am Henrietta Whitlow. I turned down the overtures of the sovereign himself and scoffed at carte blanche from countless others, then gave you what they’d have paid a fortune to enjoy. I swore I’d never again… Why am I explaining this to you? Get out and take the damned book with you.”

  He stayed right where he was. “I should have asked you for the book, straight out. I apologize for not using common sense, but I was too long a thief, a spy, a manipulator of events. I could not simply steal from you, and I’ve left my honesty too late.”

  “Which means now you’re a scoundrel,” Henrietta said, though he seemed to be a contrite scoundrel. “You have exceeded the bounds of my patience, sir. Be off with you.”

  So she could cry, damn him. Henrietta hadn’t cried since her last cat had died two years ago.

  “Why have you kept Beltram’s book all these years, Henrietta? Are you still in love with him?”

  Through her rage, humiliation, and shock, Henrietta’s instincts stirred. Michael had what he’d come for—so to speak—and Henrietta’s feelings for Beltram ought to be of no interest to him.

  At all.

  “I kept his awful little book because I didn’t want him publishing it and making me the laughingstock of the press and public. Beltram is selfish, unscrupulous, mean, and not to be trusted.” And he had clammy hands. “Possession of that book was my only means of ensuring he’d not trouble me after he’d turned me from a housemaid to a whore.”

  Still, Michael remained before the fire, his expression unreadable. “Why not destroy the book?”

  She might have confided that to him an hour ago. How dare he ask for her confidences now? “I will join a nunnery, I swear it, rather than endure the arrogance of the male gender another day.”

  “You kept that book for a reason. Were you intent on blackmailing him?”

  With the room in shadows, Henrietta could believe Michael Brenner had been a spy and a thief. He hid his ruthlessness beneath fine tailoring and polite manners, but his expression suggested he’d do anything necessary to achieve his ends.

  He made love with the same determination, and Henrietta had reveled in his passion.

  Now, she’d do anything to get him out of her room, even confess further vulnerability.

  “I kept the book because I wanted the reminder of what a gullible, arrogant idiot I’d been. Beltram laid out my downfall, page by page. He sketched me in my maid’s uniform, adoration and ignorance in my gaze. He sketched me the first night he’d taken down my hair—for artistic purposes only, he assured me. He sketched me after he’d kissed me for the first time. It’s all there, in execrable poetry and amateur sketches. My ruin, lest I forget a moment of it.”

  Michael crossed to the bed, and Henrietta stood her ground. He snatched the book off the bed, and she thought she’d seen the last of him. A convent in Sweden, maybe, or Maryland. If Borneo had convents, she’d consider them, provided they had enough books.

  “Henrietta, I am sorry.” Michael stood close enough that she could smell his lavender soap. “Beltram did, indeed, have a hold over me. I’ve fulfilled my part of the bargain and removed the book as a blackmail threat. I have no excuse for insinuating myself into your affections. I’m sorry for deceiving you. My coach will take you to Amblebank in the morning.”

  “You’ve insinuated yourself right back out of my affections, my lord. No harm done.”

  If she’d slapped him, he could not have looked more chagrined. “There’s been harm, Henrietta. I know that. I’ll do what I can to make it right.”

  Not more decency, not now when he’d betrayed the trust Henrietta hadn’t realized she’d given.

  “Comfort yourself with whatever platitudes you please, my lord, but leave me in peace. I’m tired and have earned my rest.”

  He considered the book, Beltram’s exercise in lordly vanity and a testament to feminine vulnerability.

  “This book means nothing to you?”

  “It’s reproach for my folly,” Henrietta retorted. “I loathe the damned thing and the man who created it.”

  Michael threw the book straight into the fireplace, landing it atop the flaming peat.

  Henrietta watched her past burn, incredulity warring with loss. As long as that book had been in her hands, she’d had proof—for herself, anyway—that once upon a time, she’d been innocent.

  “Did Beltram force you, Henrietta?”

  Nobody had asked her that, but Henrietta had asked the question of herself. “He took advantage of my ignorance and inexperience—I’d been chaste before I met him—he misled, he betrayed, he lied and seduced. He did not force. His actions were dishonorable, not quite criminal.”

  “Then I won’t kill him.”

  Michael stood beside her until the book was a charred heap, its ashes drifting up the flue, and then he stalked from the room.

  Henrietta gathered up the pile of fine tailoring Michael had draped over the chair, brought it into bed with her, and watched the flames in the hearth far into the night while her nose was buried in the scent of lavender.

  * * *

  Michael rose to a house made brilliant by sunshine on freshly fallen snow, though his mood could not have been blacker.

  He’d committed two wrongs. First, he’d agreed to thievery to settle his account with Beltram. Stealing was wrong, and neither starvation nor the security of the realm provided Michael any ro
om to forgive himself.

  Second, he’d made love with Henrietta Whitlow. Not for all the baronies in Ireland would he regret the hours he’d spent in her bed, but he’d go to his grave regretting that he’d betrayed her trust.

  “You will notify me if there are consequences, Henrietta.”

  He stood with her by the library window, waiting for the coach to be brought around. His house now sported wreaths on the front windows, cloved oranges dangling from curtain rods, red ribbons wrapped about bannisters, and an abundance of strategically placed mistletoe.

  The holiday decorations Lucille had inspired were enough to restore Michael’s faith in a God of retribution.

  “Last night, you called me Miss Whitlow, and I insist on that courtesy today, if you must annoy me with conversation.”

  Last night, he’d called her his love. “I am annoying you with a demand. If taking me as your lover has consequences, you will inform me, and we will make appropriate accommodations.”

  Had she grown taller overnight? She certainly seemed taller, while Michael felt once again like that grubby youth clawing his way up from the peat bogs.

  She regarded him from blazing green eyes down a magnificent nose. “You must be one of those Irishmen who longs for death. I don’t fancy such melodrama myself, but I will cheerfully oblige you with a mortal blow to your cods if you don’t cease your nattering.”

  He leaned closer. She smelled of neroli—orange blossoms—this morning rather than patch leaf, and he was daft for noticing.

  “Kick me in the balls, Henrietta, if that will ease any of the hurt I’ve done you, but we shall marry if you’re carrying my child.”

  She drew in a breath, as if filling her sails for another scathing retort, then her brows twitched down. “Not your child. Our child.”

  The coach came jingling around the drive from the carriage house, for some fool had put harness bells on the conveyance.

  “You’d marry me?” Henrietta asked as the vehicle halted at the bottom of the front steps.

  “Of course I’d marry you.”

  “Out of pity? Out of decency? Don’t think I’d ever allow you into my bed, Michael.”

  “I’d marry you in hopes we might put the past behind us, Henrietta. I have wronged you, and I’m sorry for that, but I would not compound my error by also wronging my—our—child. If you closed your bedroom door to me, I’d respect that, for I respect you.”

  “Perhaps you do,” she said, her gaze unbearably sad, “but your version of respect and mine differ significantly. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be on my way.”

  “Henrietta, I’m sorry.”

  She paused by the door, her hand on the latch. “Would you have stolen from me if I’d been Beltram’s sister rather than his ruined housemaid?”

  “To get free of that man, I’d have stolen from the bishop of London on Christmas Eve.”

  Henrietta crossed back to Michael’s side, kissed his cheek, and remained for one moment standing next to him. “If there’s a child, I’ll tell you.”

  She hadn’t agreed to marry him, but Michael was grateful for small mercies.

  * * *

  “There’s no room at the inn,” Henrietta said, crossing her fingers behind her back. “I’ve come home for a visit, and you will either make me welcome, or take yourself off elsewhere.”

  Papa had aged significantly in ten years. His shoulders were stooped, his hair had thinned, and his clothing hung loosely on his frame. Henrietta steeled her heart against the changes in his appearance, because the jut of his chin and the cold in his eyes promised her no welcome. The housekeeper had tried to show her to the formal parlor, but Henrietta had scoffed at that bit of presumption and let herself into Papa’s library.

  He stood in the doorway, still apparently unwilling to be in the same room with her. “Madam, you are not welcome in this house.” Even his voice had grown weaker.

  “Too bad,” Henrietta retorted, “because I was born here, and I’ve nowhere else to go. The least you could do is ring for tea, Papa. Traveling up from London has taken days, all of them cold, and the dratted coaches nearly rattled my teeth from my head.”

  “Your mother never liked—” He caught himself. “Be gone from this house. Immoral women must fend for themselves.”

  Stubborn, but then, Henrietta had learned to be stubborn too. “I’ve given up being immoral. I content myself now with garden-variety wickedness. When I burn my finger, I use bad language. I forgot to say grace before breakfast today, but I was anticipating this joyous reunion. I haven’t had a duke in my bed for months, Papa.”

  “Henrietta!”

  Had his lips twitched?

  “Well, I haven’t.” One handsome baron, for a few hours. That hardly mattered. “Unless you intend to scorn me for the rest of my life—or what remains of yours—then you will endure my company over the holidays.”

  Please, Papa. Please… She’d tried pleading once before, and he’d not bothered to reply to her letter.

  His gaze strayed to the portrait over the mantel. Mama’s likeness needed a good cleaning, something Henrietta’s brothers would never dare to suggest.

  “There isn’t a single bed available at the inn?”

  The inn had never once been full, in Henrietta’s experience. “Not that I know of. You’re letting out all the heat from the fire.”

  He took two steps into the room and closed the door behind him. “You have grown bold, Henrietta Eloisa. I do not approve of bold women.”

  “I do not approve of hard-hearted, cantankerous men.” Or thieves or liars.

  Papa had always had a leonine quality, and his eyebrows had grown positively fierce. “I’ll not tolerate disrespect, Henrietta.”

  “Then we understand each other, because neither will I.”

  That earned her a definite twitch of the paternal lips, though she’d never been more serious.

  Then Papa drew himself up, into a semblance of the imposing man he’d been in Henrietta’s childhood. “Tomorrow, you will find other accommodations. You may stay the night, but no longer.”

  One night? He’d toss his own daughter out into the snow come morning? Henrietta was tempted to remonstrate with him, to air old grievances and trade recriminations until he admitted his share of responsibility for ten years of rejection.

  She was sorry she’d disobeyed him and had apologized for her transgressions in writing. She was about to remind her father of those salient facts when she recalled Michael, apologizing with desperate sincerity in the cold morning sunshine.

  “Thank you, Papa. I’ll have one of my trunks brought in and introduce my maid to your housekeeper.”

  “You travel with a maid?”

  “Of course, and I usually take my own coach and team, though on way up from Town I had a mishap.” I fell in love, but I’ll get over it.

  He settled into the chair behind his desk, his movements slow and gingerly. “You have a coach and team. My daughter. Racketing about England in the dead of winter with her own…”

  “And a maid too.”

  “Whom you will see to now,” Papa said. “Be off with you, Henrietta. I have much to do, and your brothers will want to know of your arrival. Send them each a note, lest they hear of your visit from some hostler or tavern maid.”

  Be off with you , not five minutes after he’d stepped into the room. When Henrietta had taken herself away to London, he’d not spoken to her for ten years, now she was to be off with herself.

  “You can write those notes to my brothers,” she said. “My travels have exhausted me, and I’m in need of a hot cup of tea. Shall I have a tray sent to you as well?”

  Papa scowled at her as if she’d tripped over a chamber pot. “I prefer coffee.”

  “Coffee, then. I’ll let the maid know.” If Henrietta brought him that tray, she might dump it over his head. “It’s good to be home, Papa.”

  She left him in his comfy chair in his cozy study, before she started shouting. For Christmas, she’d lo
nged to have his respect. They were speaking to each other, mostly civilly, and he’d granted her shelter from the elements, albeit temporarily.

  That was a start, and more than she’d had from him for the previous decade.

  * * *

  Five days went by, during which Michael rehearsed enough apologies and grand speeches to fill every stage in Drury Lane. On Friday, he received a holiday greeting from Lord Heathgate that was positively chatty.

  Heathgate, once the greatest rogue in Britain, maundered on about his daughters’ intrepid horsemanship and his sons’ matchless abilities at cricket. The paragraph regarding his lordship’s marchioness was so rife with tender sentiment that Michael had nearly pitched it into the rubbish bin.

  Instead, he took himself for a long walk and ended up in the stables.

  “You again,” Liam Logan said. “I’d thought by now you’d be traveling into Oxford to see those sisters of yours.”

  Michael joined him at a half door to a coach horse’s stall. They still had the grays from the last inn Michael had stopped at with Henrietta.

  “I thought by now my sisters might see fit to pay their brother a holiday visit,” Michael said. “But sitting on my rosy arse amid a bunch of dusty old books hasn’t lured my family into the countryside.”

  “Then you’ll want to go into Oxford to purchase tokens for the Christmas baskets,” Logan said, reaching a gloved hand to the gelding nosing through a pile of hay.

  “My staff has already seen to the baskets. Didn’t I give you leave for the holidays, Logan?”

  The horse ignored Logan’s outstretched hand and instead gave Michael’s greatcoat a delicate sniff. Horse breath on the ear tickled, but Michael let the beast continue its investigations.

  “That you did, sir, but here I am.”

  “I won’t have much use for—”

  The horse got its teeth around the lapel of Michael’s collar and tugged, hard. Michael was pulled up against the stall door, and—with a firm, toothy grasp of his coat—the horse merely regarded him. The domestic equine was blessed with large, expressive eyes, and in those eyes, Michael detected the same unimpressed and vaguely challenging sentiment Henrietta had once turned on him.