Marry Christmas (Zebra Historical Romance)

by Jane Goodger

  Elizabeth’s suspicions were confirmed when she realized the favors for the cotillion were antique French etchings, fans, and gilded ribbon that her mother had brought back last year from Paris. The beautifully intricate Chinese lanterns were little duplicates of Sea Cliff that had come directly from China. It made Elizabeth realize that, as much as she’d longed to have some control over her life, she never really had any. Her mother had never sought her opinion on anything, not even the wedding dress that was secreted in the New York home, which Alva had ordered from Charles Worth. Every detail, from the ornate dance cards to the gold-trimmed, silver napkin rings, had been chosen by her mother months ago.

  Despite a tinge of resentment, Elizabeth couldn’t help but marvel at what her mother had accomplished. At the end of the grand hallway, a brass fountain, filled with blooming flowers, had been erected. Hyacinths, lilacs, and a tower of pale pink hollyhocks surrounded the fountain, and tiny hummingbirds seemed to float above the miniature garden. Forty small tables, covered in fine Irish linen, were set up in the dining hall and spilled out onto the veranda. The terrace was filled with exotic plants, including ferns and palms trees. And, as if Alva had control over the heavens, it was a spectacularly beautiful night.

  Alva didn’t stop with simply decorating the house, the lawn was turned into a fairy land, with palm trees lit by butterfly fairy lamps. As dusk fell, the mansion became more beautiful, an enchanted palace. Elizabeth wandered about the house and grounds before the guests arrived amazed at what she saw, and realized with a bit of panic that she would be expected to produce this kind of grandeur for the duke. She had never seen anything quite so beautiful as Sea Cliff on the night of her ball.

  “There you are, Elizabeth. It’s time for us to get dressed,” Alva said, looking about the gilt ballroom one last time.

  “Everything is wonderful, Mother,” Elizabeth said, feeling a sudden overwhelming tenderness for her mother.

  Alva let out a quick breath, as if she didn’t have time for more, and said, “Let us hope everything goes as planned.”

  “I don’t see how it cannot for you have planned so well.”

  Alva gave her daughter a quick smile. “Up to dress. And do please stop by my rooms before you venture downstairs. I want us all to go down together just in case some early guests have arrived. Then we’ll greet everyone in the pink room,” she reminded her for the third time.

  Elizabeth followed her mother’s brisk steps up the stairs at a bit more leisurely pace. Even though she was getting on well with the duke, her heart still ached for Henry. She’d kept his rose, now blackened and dried, in a small drawer by her bed and took it out each night before trying to sleep. Everyone would think her quite foolish for still loving him, but she simply could not turn her heart off as much as she wished she could. Henry had been so fervent, so completely enraptured by her, and that was a heady thing, indeed.

  The duke…he was still such a stranger to her. Though he’d been in Newport for several weeks and everyone knew of the engagement, the ball was to be the formal announcement. Elizabeth hadn’t been alone with the duke in three days, and had only exchanged polite words well in the earshot of her mother. He was formal and stiff and not at all like the man who taught her how to kiss, who let her hold the reins and dared her to race to town. He hardly even held her eyes, and she wondered why she even wanted him to. It was maddening to think that she would not be able to know any more about him before their wedding. She had so many questions, about his childhood, about Bellewood, about what he expected from her. It was all a swirl of unknown.

  Her gown was laid out on her bed, and finally her mother had allowed her to dress the part of a debutante. It was white satin, trimmed with rich white lace, a dress that had been remade from one her grandmother had worn for her engagement. That, as everything else, was dictated by her mother. Her gown, the heavy, diamond-studded tiara that sat so regally in her hair, even her shoes, which her mother had ordered small, because she refused to acknowledge that her daughter’s feet were larger than they should be, were all ordered by Alva. Elizabeth had stopped resenting it, and rode upon her mother’s plan like a piece of flotsam on an endless wave. Straighten your back. She straightened. Lift your chin. She lifted. Smile dear, smile. She smiled. And then, when the first guests started to arrive, when she stood next to the duke, she was let free and expected to act properly on her own, with only her mother’s words in her head.

  “You are beautiful tonight,” the duke said, when there was a brief break in the line. She could not think of him as Randall. Not here in this formal setting.

  Elizabeth thought she looked silly, like a little girl playing dress-up wearing a faux crown. Her mother had insisted on the lavish tiara, but Elizabeth was slightly embarrassed by it, as if she were trying to be something she was not. But she took the duke’s compliment nicely and thanked him and told him he looked very fine in his formal outfit. He seemed stiffer, if possible, than she’d ever seen him and she remembered that he disliked such events. He bowed and shook hands and nodded when appropriate, but he rarely smiled. Then again, neither did she. By the time the Cummings were done greeting guests, Mullally’s Orchestra had begun to play for the informal dance before the light dinner. Already she was exhausted and the evening wouldn’t end until at least four in the morning.

  “Would you care to dance?” the duke asked, coming to stand in front of her and bowing.

  She looked up at him in surprise. He was a different man, this evening, far more formal than he’d ever been before. He held out a stiff arm, his gloved hand curled in a loose fist.

  He leaned toward her slightly. “Your mother wants us to begin the ball,” he said.

  And so for the first few strains of a Strauss waltz, they danced alone on the gleaming marble floor, unsmiling and self-conscious beneath the gaze of everyone in attendance. The women sighed aloud and Elizabeth heard a smattering of manly chuckles. How she hated being the center of such attention, and her cheeks flushed knowing even as they did that everyone would take note and wonder why. They would suppose, she thought, that she was blushing for the duke, that it was the bloom of love or some such silliness. And to spite them, she refused to smile, refused even to look at the duke to see how he was faring. They didn’t talk, even when the others joined them on the dance floor. When the waltz ended, the duke bowed before her, held out his arm, and escorted her to her father.

  “Sir,” he said, before handing her off and giving her a small bow. She curtsied, feeling silly and had to stop herself from putting her hand on his arm to stop him. He had kissed her, he had brushed his mouth against hers, and this night he hardly looked at her. Elizabeth danced with her father, with Maggie’s brother, with Mr. Belmont and Major Gibbs. It was her duty to dance every dance, to never falter, to never yawn or beg to sit. By the time dinner was announced, Elizabeth thought she would faint from thirst and hunger. But she sat with her mother and father and the duke even though she longed to sit with Maggie and the earl. They looked like they were having so much fun, while she felt as if she even dared smile her mother would give her a look.

  “I hope you’re finding everything in Newport to your satisfaction, Your Grace,” Alva said pleasantly.

  “I am, indeed, Mrs. Cummings. Yesterday I took in a bit of tennis at your Casino. Quite nice,” the duke said.

  “I heard you play well,” Jason Cummings said. “Never was one much for running about whacking a ball. Too old, I suppose. It’s a young man’s sport.”

  “Or young woman’s, Father,” Elizabeth said, and got a severe look from her mother.

  The look did not escape Rand. Every time the poor girl opened her mouth she got some sort of reaction from her mother and usually it was not favorable. He continued to be amazed that the girl she was in front of her mother was not at all the woman he saw when they were alone. He was trying his best to act formal at this ball in particular, for every word he uttered, every look he gave her would be noted by someone. He’d even seen so
me sort of reporter wandering about the place and been told the gent was from the New York Times.

  “I suppose you’re right,” Jason said. “I hear the Canfield girls are quite good.”

  Alva let out a light laugh, that was somehow cutting. “The Canfield girls are so exuberant on the court,” she said in her sweet southern drawl that Rand noticed she affected when she was particularly offended by something. He was still getting used to all these American accents, surprisingly as varied as England, though more difficult to discern. Unlike Britain, where the educated aristocracy sounded much alike, the Americans did not. Bostonians sounded nothing like the southerners, though they could be equally held in esteem. Elizabeth sounded nothing like her mother, whose southern drawl could be so pronounced.

  A footman came to whisper something in Alva’s ear and she instantly lost her pleasant look. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said, and got up from the table to handle whatever disaster had befallen the Cummings’ ball. Once she was gone, Elizabeth visibly relaxed, and Rand was self-deprecatingly aware that he did, too.

  “Your mother and my mother would either be best of friends or mortal enemies,” Rand said near Elizabeth’s ear. She stiffened, and he thought at first that he’d insulted her mother. But he looked at her mouth and could tell she was, rather desperately, trying not to laugh aloud. Then she shushed him.

  “You are not allowed to shush a duke,” he said softly, if not imperiously.

  “And you are not allowed to make sport of your duchess’s mother,” she shot back.

  He lowered his head and laughed. “You are not my duchess yet.”

  She looked at him askance, as if she feared she may have insulted him somehow, but looked decidedly unrepentant.

  Impulsively, he put his hand around her left wrist, which lay on her lap. “I have missed you,” he said, and she looked at him with such shock, he nearly laughed again.

  “You saw me two days ago.”

  He withdrew his hand and tried not to be disappointed in her response, but he did feel rather idiotic to have blurted such a thing. “Quite so,” he said. “But I should have liked to have gone on another picnic.” She immediately stared at her Cornish hen with heightened intensity. Rand, who never felt foolish with women, found himself acting like a moonstruck youth. He rather felt like one at the moment. Of course she’d be thinking of their kiss. It wasn’t as if he didn’t want to kiss her again, and far more, but he’d only meant that he wanted to be alone with her in a setting far less formal than this. So they could talk. And kiss.

  Just like that, he grew hard, just from thinking about kissing her, just from sitting by her, from touching her wrist.

  And she was carefully sawing through her Cornish hen probably wishing he was still in England. His humiliation was complete.

  Then she turned to him, her blue eyes wide, staring at him as if willing him to know what was in her head. His eyes drifted downward to her mouth, her plump lower lip, the freckle, my God, the freckle at one corner that he’d not noticed before, and he saw that she was smiling a Mona Lisa smile, like she shared a secret.

  He grinned at her, feeling relief rush through him just as fast and hard as lust had.

  “I do enjoy picnics,” she said, her gaze direct and unwavering and Rand had a difficult time not leaning forward and kissing her, giving these pseudo-peers something really interesting to talk about.

  I do believe I’m falling in love with you. “Then we shall picnic every day when we are married,” he said, and watched her smile broaden just a bit.

  Chapter 13

  New York, December 22, 1892

  “You have gone too far, Mother,” Elizabeth said, holding up a copy of the society gossip magazine, Town Topics.

  “I have no idea what you are talking about,” Alva said, but she gave the magazine a quick look before schooling her features.

  Elizabeth held the magazine up to the fading light to read for her mother: “‘We have discovered that Miss Cummings will wear a corset cover and chemise embroidered with rosebuds and that her clasps are made of gold.’ My underclothes are no one’s business but my own.”

  Alva waved a hand at her distraught daughter. “Oh, they just wanted a little tidbit. I think it’s delightful how many people are curious about your wedding. It’s already being called the wedding of the century.”

  “Better the farce of the century,” Elizabeth said bitterly. The past months had been a long nightmare of wedding plans. Her mother did not bother consulting her on a single detail, including whom would be selected as her bridesmaids. She’d confronted her mother tearfully when she realized Maggie wasn’t standing up by her simply because her pedigree didn’t match some of the other girls. Worse, she’d included Charlotte Grayson, a girl she actually disliked. Her mother wouldn’t budge on the issue.

  She hadn’t seen the duke at all, though about a month after his departure he’d sent her a pair of lovely silk-lined kidskin gloves. He’d sent no note, but she knew immediately they were from the duke. It was such a thoughtful gift that she’d held them in her hands for several minutes before putting them aside. And then, a week later came a box full of lemon tarts, which her mother immediately confiscated. “Why ever would the duke send this?” she said, before giving the tarts to their housekeeper to disperse among the servants.

  In addition to the small gifts, he wrote several polite letters that read more like travelogues than letters from a fiancé. It bothered her more than a little that he signed the letters “Yours Truly, the Duke of Bellingham.” She would take out those gloves and put them on and wonder if he truly could know how much those gloves could mean to her. She could hardly remember what he looked like, and her trepidation about marrying a stranger increased daily. That picnic they’d shared seemed very long ago.

  Her appearances in New York had been carefully staged by her mother, who gloried each time Town Topics or the New York Times put her name in the paper. The Times had printed exhaustive details of the wedding, including the type of floral arrangements, the order of songs, the people attending, the food to be served at the reception. The reporters knew more about her wedding than she did. People were beginning to hang about the front of their Fifth Avenue mansion on the hope that they would get a glimpse of a future duchess.

  “My life has become a circus,” she said dramatically. And even that statement couldn’t ruffle Alva’s feathers. “Don’t you care that I’m suffering?”

  “Not in the least,” Alva said sharply. “I only care that you are an ungrateful girl.”

  Elizabeth let out a huff of frustration and threw herself down upon a settee. Before her mother could utter a word about sitting up straight, she did so, with great flourish.

  “I know these past weeks have been difficult for you,” Alva said nonchalantly. “That is why I have arranged for you and Margaret to go out shopping. Quite anonymously, of course.”

  “Truly, Mother?” Elizabeth said, so happy she couldn’t stop herself from throwing her arms around her mother. Alva suffered her daughter’s spontaneous affection for the space of perhaps three seconds before she gently pushed Elizabeth away.

  “If you leave before nine o’clock I doubt anyone will spy you leaving in the plain carriage. Wear a shirtwaist and skirt and your dark cloak. No muff, of course, and that little velvet hat, you know, the one with the small white feather? You should probably remove the feather,” she said thoughtfully. “You may take this time to purchase your Christmas gifts. I suggest something nice for the duke would be appropriate. He will be your husband, after all.”

  With a sinking feeling, Elizabeth suspected her mother already had picked the item out. Still, she asked, “What would you suggest?”

  Alva smiled. “I took the liberty of buying something for him.”

  “Quelle surprise,” Elizabeth muttered.

  Alva’s smile disappeared, but she continued undaunted. “I knew how busy you were going to be and likely would not have the time for such a frivolous thing. If you
stop by Tiffany’s, they have the most wonderful fountain pens. Your father said the duke admired his, so I ordered one for him. It’s beautifully engraved.”

  “I’m certain it is. Thank you, Mother.” Elizabeth could forgive her mother’s presumptuousness if she was going to be allowed a day of freedom and shopping with her dearest friend. That night she went to bed with a smile on her face for the first time in months.

  Maggie and Elizabeth were beside themselves with excitement. They felt like spies, peeking out the windows of their simple carriage to see if anyone were following them. Elizabeth hadn’t had such fun in ages, and she prayed no one recognized her. The drive to Broadway took nearly thirty minutes, for traffic was heavy with Christmas shoppers. The city was decorated with trees and garland, and everywhere people were bundled up against the frigid winter air. There was a wonderful festive air about the city, and the girls, filled with cheer and heady with freedom, giggled like schoolgirls. A snowfall a week ago left the streets wet and muddy, and the small piles that remained along the walkways were dirty. Along Barclay Street, a man was selling Christmas trees from a great pile stacked in the middle of the road.

  “I do hope it snows before your wedding so all this dirty stuff is covered,” Maggie said, wrinkling her nose at the mud-covered slush. She looked up to the gray sky. “It might snow a bit today. It feels like snow, doesn’t it?”

  “What does snow feel like?” Elizabeth asked, smiling.

  “Like it feels today. Like snow. Oh, I just love the Christmas season. It just does something to me. It’s magical. And with you getting married, it’s going to be even more magical.”

  Maggie’s good cheer was contagious, and Elizabeth wouldn’t even let talk of her wedding bring her down. “It is rather all exciting, I suppose.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I haven’t seen the duke since August. August. It’s almost as if he doesn’t exist at all, that some stranger could be standing at the end of the altar and I wouldn’t know the difference. I’m just nervous, I suppose.”