Lady Joy and the Earl: A Regency Christmas Novella

by Regina Jeffers

  “Should we venture a fortune?” Constance asked, curiosity marking her features.

  Jocelyn glanced to the bright red tent at the end of a line of stalls. “There appears to be a line waiting for the entertainment. Perhaps we should look around first and decide what we want to experience before wasting time in a line,” she cautioned. “Your being seen entering the woman’s tent would indicate your father holds no objections to the more nefarious activities of some of the Romani. Not all among the camp deal honestly with those in the village and the farms.”

  Constance expression fell. “I understand.”

  Andrew’s brows pulled together into a frown, objecting to what he perceived to be a wrong against his cousin. “I see no harm in a bit of frivolity.”

  Jocelyn guarded her words in response. She would not criticize her son before Constance, with whom Andrew had made a connection. “I suggest you mention your desire for a bit of entertainment to Lord Hough. It is his reputation upon which your actions will directly reflect.”

  “Most assuredly,” Constance said as she placed her free hand upon Andrew’s arm. “I did not consider the opprobrium either Lord Hough or father might encounter because of my actions. I must remember my lessons. Like you, before you were married, I am the daughter of a marquess, and my life is not completely my own. I know my duty, and I thank you for your astute guidance.”

  As her son and niece turned toward a stall selling combs and the like, Jocelyn’s heart sank. The life she had just pronounced for Constance was the same one Jocelyn despised. For years, she had wanted her freedom, now she denied her niece the same privilege.

  Chapter Seven

  O thou invisible spirit of wine! If thou has no name to be known by,

  let us call thee devil! ... O, God! that men should put an enemy in their mouths

  to steal away their brains; that we should, with joy, pleasance, revel,

  and applause, transform ourselves into beasts!

  William Shakespeare, Othello, the Moor of Venice, Act II, Scene iii

  Everyone in his party had nothing but praise for the fair—everyone, that is, but Jocelyn. The dratted woman had silently followed, first her sons escorting Lady Constance and Meredith about the streets, and then his aunt and Mr. Charles. She made no effort to enjoy any of the entertainments, nor did she purchase any of the wares on display. At length, she sat at a table outside the inn, pretending to read a book she had brought with her, specifically for the purpose of driving him to Bedlam. James was at his wit’s end. Nothing he did brought Jocelyn around, and he was beginning to wonder if he had misjudged her. Perhaps she had never been the vibrant woman his memories declared her to be. The woman he recalled would have moved the heavens and earth to prove him wrong about her, but not Jocelyn. Lady Lathrop accepted whatever strictures the world placed upon her. It was bloody frustrating.

  His thoughts interrupted, James looked up to discover his butler bowing to the room. “My lord, I have placed Mother Kezia in the small pantry, as you instructed.”

  “Mother Kezia?” Meredith squealed in delight. “Thank you, Papa.”

  Jocelyn asked, in what appeared to be embarrassed incredulity, “You brought the fortune teller into your home? If I had known you would approve of the ladies having their palms read, I would not have discouraged Constance from doing so at the fair.”

  “You acted appropriately, my lady,” James said quickly. “I, too, denied Meredith’s entreaty, but after speaking to Mr. Lawson, I thought it better to employ Mother Kezia as part of this evening’s entertainment, rather than chance thievery upon my estate. Old Motshan reportedly passed in September, which is the reason the gypsies tarried in Lincolnshire longer than usual. Lawson says their new leader, Manfred, is more ‘aggressive’ in his principles, than was Motshan. I agree with Lawson’s suggestion that we provide them with enough employment to speed their departure. I understand, weather permitting, they will leave after Christmas. They wish to reach Wales by the first of the year.”

  “I see.” Jocelyn dropped her eyes in submission, and James wished to catch her arms and shake some sense in her. What had Lathrop done to break her spirit so?

  Instead, James thanked his butler and then excused himself from the room to speak to the gypsy before the woman began her readings.

  “Good evening, Mother Kezia. It is good to see you have returned again this year.” He glanced about the room to note, as he had instructed, his staff had removed all the valuables. “I have asked Mrs. Beasley to provide you a meal and drink.” He placed a small cloth sack filled with coins upon the table. “My mother and I host twelve others in our party. There is more than enough in the pouch to pay for thorough readings for each, although I am not certain all of the gentlemen will participate.”

  She caught his hand where it rested upon the table. “Do you wish to participate, m’lord?”

  “I know my future, Mother Kezia.” Unfortunately, the future looming before him appeared bleak.

  She ignored him and turned his hand over, her fingers tracing the lines crossing his palm. “These lines,” she indicated the small lines located just below the base of his smallest finger, “tell me you will marry for love.”

  James shook his head in denial. “Mother Kezia, you are aware my wife passed recently. Your prediction is some two decades late.”

  The gypsy held tighter to his hand when he made to remove it. “The lines be close to the base of your finger, meanin’ a relationship will come later in life. The first of the three lines has another cuttin’ it off sharply. This means an end to a relationship due to death.”

  His features crunched up in a frown. “Is it not convenient you predict an end of a relationship due to death after I remind you of my wife’s passing?”

  She smiled knowingly, as if she expected his cynicism. “Do you see the heart line? It’s long and curvy, meanin’ you be free with your emotions.”

  James felt like a bug beneath a glass. He did not want to think upon what appeared to be his lost hopes of spending the remainder of his days with Jocelyn. He had thought upon it enough to make him sad. Fate could not bring about what man failed to do on his own. Presenting the woman a quelling look, he said, “I have heard enough, Mother.” He tugged his hand free of her grip. Straightening his waistcoat, he said pointedly, “I pray the payment assists you and yours to your home in Wales.”

  “In other words, our welcome be limited to a few days,” the woman said with a twitch of her lips, in what appeared to be irony.

  “None of us wish to infringe upon the goodwill of others,” he countered.

  “I’ll relay your well wishes to Manfred, m’lord.” She palmed the bag of coins. “Be there someone you wish me to speak to of your love, m’lord?”

  For a split second, James thought to provide Mother Kezia extra coins to convince Jocelyn to trust him, but he shook his head in the negative. “Just tell my guests what you see for each.”

  * * *

  The door to the dry pantry remained open to permit the heat of the kitchen to keep the chill away. Jocelyn had no desire to sit before a gypsy sibyl who had read her sons’ and her niece’s and nephew’s fortunes in sanguine terms and with more insight than Jocelyn had expected. The gypsy had spoken of Andrew’s stubbornness, but also of his practical and responsible side—of Michael’s perceptiveness, as well as her youngest’s quiet sympathy and his occasional emotional withdrawal.

  The woman addressed Edward’s impulsive nature, making him sometimes appear insensitive to others, a characteristic the boy shared with his father, but Mother Kezia also termed Jocelyn’s nephew to be instinctive and bold and optimistic. The gypsy praised Constance’s creative and witty side, but warned Jocelyn’s niece to avoid tendencies toward jealousy and thinking only of herself. The others in their party had experienced similar results, causing Jocelyn to know qualms regarding the experience before she even left the drawing room.

  She was the last among the upstairs party to have a reading, and the hou
r had grown late. In some ways, she had hoped the woman had departed, but a glance into the room said otherwise. Setting her shoulders in a stiff line, she decided to be done with the woman quickly. The idea of another knowing her secrets wreaked havoc with Jocelyn’s emotions. As she looked on from the open door, Mother Kezia casually sipped a glass of wine, her eyes closed—her strong chin raised regally. A single lit candle stood upon the makeshift table. A cloth covered what Jocelyn assumed was a large wooden box. Before she crossed the threshold, a shiver of anticipation ran down her spine, and Jocelyn instinctively wrapped her shawl tighter about her as protection. She was not certain she wanted to know anything of her future when the past still troubled her days.

  The woman on the other side of the table could be anyone’s grandmother. Although no one would mistake the gypsy for an English aristocrat, she could easily be considered as one from the Continent. As Jocelyn waited, the woman’s eyes slowly opened and settled upon her. “Come in, my child.” She gestured to the low chair before the table.

  Jocelyn swallowed her trepidation, and with a practiced smile, she stepped into the small room and pulled the chair out so she might sit. “A reading is not necessary,” she said in polite tones. “The hour is late. I am certain you are eager to rejoin your people.”

  “You no want to learn somethin’ of your future?” The gypsy’s voice was as decided as was her steady gaze.

  “Without wishing to offend, ma’am, I put no faith in such entertainments.” Jocelyn decided her dogged determination would serve her well in this matter.

  “I knew your obstinacy when I heard your approach before enterin’ this room. Your doubts preceded you.”

  “Did they?” Jocelyn asked in skepticism. “Quite miraculous.”

  “My gift be miraculous, m’lady.”

  “What other gifts do you claim, ma’am?” Jocelyn asked testily.

  “Only those necessary to convince ones of your nature.” The woman leaned back, her eyes roving across Jocelyn’s feature. “Why do you not believe in my art, m’lady?”

  “I am of a practical nature,” Jocelyn countered.

  “Be you? Permit me to prove you in error. Present me your hand.”

  Jocelyn felt uncharitable, but she did not know quite what to say. Therefore, she placed her hand, palm up, upon the table. “Be about it, old woman,” she said irritably.

  The woman’s eyebrow rose in objection, but the gypsy kept her comments to herself. Instead, she lifted Jocelyn’s hand into her two. Using the fingers of her left hand, she traced the fleshy mounds at the base of each of Jocelyn’s fingers. “This mount be controlled by Jupiter. It indicates you should be dominant in your relations with others, but you lack the necessary confidence. And this one, under your middle finger, be Saturn’s domain. Like the young man earlier, the one with your eyes, in another’s face, you can be stubborn and cynical and know a case of the nerves.”

  Jocelyn’s jaw clenched in apprehension. She looked up sharply, but Mother Kezia’s expression was unreadable. A part of Jocelyn wished to question the woman on what she had told Andrew, which her son had not shared with her. Part of her wished to run away. Her eyes swept the woman’s unusual features for any indication of what the gypsy knew of Jocelyn’s life, but the crone shook off the question resting on Jocelyn’s lips.

  “For neither you nor the young gentleman be these deficits natural. You’ve both learned them from another.”

  Jocelyn swallowed her growing fear. “The young gentleman is my son, and like most young men of his age, he seeks to mimic his parents.”

  A slow smile crept across Mother Kezia’s mouth, and her eyes were alight with secrets. “Then he possesses the look of his father.”

  “He has the look of his father’s ancestors,” Jocelyn corrected. “And as you have declared me cynical, you will understand if I disagree with your interpretation of my character. I would imagine you say something similar to many of your clients.”

  “I could, indeed,” the gypsy remarked with another lift of her eyebrows, “but would the words hold as true for others, as they be for you?”

  “There must be thousands who fit your description,” Jocelyn argued.

  “But only one of those thousands learned his reticence at the same hands as did you and the young gentleman.”

  Jocelyn began to wonder if this particular gypsy troop had spent time in Kent and had heard the rumors of Harrison’s tragic death.

  “Tell my future, ma’am. As I said previously, the hour grows late,” Jocelyn instructed. She made a silent vow to listen and not respond.

  “As you’d have it, m’lady.” The woman traced the lines on Jocelyn’s hand. “This be your heart line. It say you freely express your feelings.” Jocelyn thought, Hardly. “Your head line—this one beneath the heart be straight. You be practical and structured. It’s separated from your life line, which be farther down your palm. It indicates you thirst for life and spontaneity.”

  “How can that be?” Jocelyn questioned. So much for her vows of silence. “How can I be both logical and desire adventure?”

  The old woman’s courage caught Jocelyn’s attention. “Some behaviors, as we discussed moments earlier, be learned, in the same manner one teaches a dog to fetch or a horse to accept a saddle.”

  “Apt analogies, Mother Kezia,” Jocelyn charged sarcastically.

  “They are, my child, but such doesn’t need to mark the remainder of your days. See your line of fate. It be your line of destiny. The line of fate marks how a person’s life be affected by circumstances beyond his control. Yours be strongly controlled by fate. Fate once presented you a poor hand, but there’s a slight separation at the end of the line. Another path is within your reach if you’re brave enough to accept it.”

  Jocelyn could tolerate no more of the woman’s ramblings. She did not wish to hitch her hopes to a dead-end tale of fate. She made to stand. “You may tell Lord Hough a play such as this is not one meant to entertain.”

  “His lordship also does not believe in my craft,” the old crone confided.

  Jocelyn rose quickly to her feet. “Then, for once, Lord Hough and I agree. Good night, Mother Kezia.”

  She was halfway to the door when the woman said, “Why should you not agree? You and the earl share more than a common path.”

  Jocelyn wished to ask to what the woman referred, but she would not encourage the woman to spew more balderdash. Moreover, Jocelyn realized she could never speak of the secrets she carried. Therefore, she set her resolve, lifted her chin, and made her way to her room. She would leave Hough House soon. Her days were no longer hers: She was placed on this earth to protect her sons. They had survived remarkably well. They were strong. She was stronger.

  * * *

  Although she had not slept well, Jocelyn forced herself to put on a pleasant face when she gathered with the others in the main foyer. Despite having sworn not to do otherwise, she had risen from her bed in the night’s middle and made her way to the house’s portrait gallery. Since arriving upon Jame’s threshold, she had avoided this particular section of Hough House, for fear the memories would be too great, but the gypsy’s words had bothered Jocelyn more than she cared to admit. She found James’s portrait easily. The image, captured for all time, was of him as a young man fresh from university. It contained the face she had seen in her dreams for the past twenty years.

  As she looked upon the portrait, she thought the artist had done an excellent job of capturing the essence of the man she remembered—had captured the mirth often found in James’s eyes. Although not as prominent as it was now, the easy manner in which his lordship accepted each obstacle thrown his way shined in those lovely cinnamon-brown eyes.

  “Perhaps that is the way of men,” she murmured to the darkened passage. “Women seek perfection, while men keep adding sugar until even the sourest apples make a tasty cider.”

  She had no idea how long she stood before James’s portrait, memorizing each stroke of the artist’s brush th
at gave his face character before she thought to look upon a newer portrait of the man she held in her heart. However, there was none of him as the Earl of Hough. In fact, the only new image was one of Lord Bluffton, quite recent, if she were accurate. Not one of Lady Meredith, nor of Hough’s wife, Louisa. Had James’s tenure as the earl been so without life that he did not wish to chronicle it?

  In many ways, Jocelyn was happy to discover no portraits of the most recent Countess of Hough existed in the hall. She had never laid eyes upon the woman and wanted no image of Louisa Highcliffe to cloud her intimate dreams of James. She wondered if Lady Meredith resembled her mother, but Lady Mary had mentioned Meredith carried the look of her and Lady Hough’s mother.

  Instinctively, she turned to the other images of which she was familiar—those of Lady Hough and James’s father and uncles. Jocelyn was never certain whom she had despised more: her father for arranging a marriage with Lathrop or Robert Highcliffe for bargaining away his son’s future. In many ways, she thought it was the former earl whose betrayal stung the most, for she had always believed if she had not been forced to marry Lord Harrison Lathrop, James would have refused to marry Lady Louisa Connick when time came to pronounce their vows. Instead, he and she would have run off together and lived happily in each other’s pockets until James was summoned home to assume the earldom at his father’s passing.

  At length, wiping the tears away she had not realized she had shed, she made her way along the line of portraits—generations of earls and Highcliffes, each with strong chins and thick black hair, but she knew there was one unlike the others. Growing up, she had spent many happy hours playing soldiers and the like with Emerson and James at the foot of the portrait of a famous sea captain. James had always said the man was a pirate and not respectable and that was the reason the family had hidden his portrait in a recessed alcove. The closer she came to the spot, the more desirous she became to look upon the portrait again. However, she was brought up short to discover the portrait of James’s great-great-grandfather was not in its customary place. Captain Lord Jackson Hough, 6th Earl Hough, once proudly hung in the now empty space. She spun around to see if it had been moved elsewhere, but in the shadowy room, nothing appeared from order.