Squire Hungerford came striding through the crowd, his gold waistcoat a lovely complement to the ballroom’s blue and gold velvet curtains.
“Damned thing is loose again? He’s enormous, I tell you. Would feed my steward’s entire brood a fine Christmas meal. Shall I get my—”
Diana, bless her, put a hand on the good squire’s arm. “No shooting in the house, sir. Penelope is very attached to Franklin.”
“Franklin was quite dear to Sixtus,” Penelope said, which was true enough, though Sixtus had also considered his decanters quite dear and his naughty drawings by Mr. Hogarth dearer still. “I should hate for harm to befall him.”
Which it would not, if Franklin remained where Levi has deposited him.
“We must find Mrs. Carrington’s rabbit, then,” Mr. Stoneleigh said.
“Capital notion!” Hungerford thundered.
“But quietly,” Mr. Stoneleigh added. “One doesn’t catch a rabbit by marching up to it singing God Save the King.”
That was probably the entirety of what Mr. Stoneleigh knew about catching a rabbit, but the neighbors apparently understood his wisdom. The murmuring and muttering ceased immediately.
“Franklin is very partial to the small parlor,” Penelope said. “The French doors mean the floors in that room remain cool, and rabbits like Franklin cannot abide heat.”
“Let’s split up,” Mr. Stoneleigh suggested. “Some start at the top of the house and come down, some try the family wing, and some to the servants’ wing. You lot”—he gestured in the direction of Amblewise and Hungerford—“come with me.”
The duke was apparently disinclined to go rabbit hunting, but several small groups left the ballroom, whispering and smiling, though not to the destinations suggested by Mr. Stoneleigh. As best Penelope could figure, most of her guests had disappeared in the direction of various conspicuously displayed bundles of mistletoe, which was, thank goodness, all part of Levi’s plan.
*
Miss Amanda Houston closed the door to the small parlor, then swilled her punch like a drover downing his first ale at the end of a 20-mile day. Rather like a drover’s doxy, the seams of her gown were straining, and her brunette hair looked more disheveled than artfully styled.
“We’ll announce our engagement tonight,” she said, setting the empty mug aside—her third, for Levi had given her his, then switched glasses lest the lady suffer unnecessary thirst.
“Happy Christmas to you, too, Miss Houston.”
She marched over to the sofa and flopped down, while Levi opened the door to the corridor a few inches.
“Propriety now, Sir Levi? Isn’t it a bit late when we’ve been engaged all these years?” She grinned, as if she’d made an exceedingly clever joke.
“Mrs. Carrington has a house rabbit and a cat, and they find this room among their favorites. We are not engaged, Miss Houston.”
“Call me Amanda. Mr. Vanderburg calls me Mandy. I like that. I would like to be Mandy Sparrow.”
Either the lady was very confident of herself, or she was tipsy—or both.
“Perhaps Mr. Vanderburg called you that at the Newmans’ house party?”
A narrow foot clad in a dancing slipper thunked onto the low table before Penelope’s sofa, then a second foot joined it.
“Either the Newmans’ or the Hunder—Hungerfords’. It’s time you married me, Sir Levi. You have a soft spot for the Carrington widow, I know it.”
“Penelope is a dear friend, and you and I are not engaged.”
Did he hear footsteps in the hallway? Was that a giggle?
“We’re engaged if I say we are,” Miss Houston said, sitting up straight. “I assuredly do say we are.”
Levi raised his voice to courtroom-declamation level. “I never proposed to you, Amanda Houston.”
“What difference does that make?” She rocked herself, one-two-three, onto her feet, then caught the arm of the sofa for balance. “You wrote those beautiful poems to your departed wife, though you forgot to mention that good lady by name, and you sent those poems to me. You ought not to sign your correspondence, Sir Levi. Ann said you were too innocent for your own good.”
“Innocent I might be”—or might have been—“but I have never offered for you, and I shall never marry you.”
Miss Mandy Houston blinked at him owlishly. “Ann said you were a terror in bed. I am too, you know. All the fellows say so, especially the married ones. This time next month, I’ll be a terror in your bed.”
“You’d blackmail me into marriage, and then expect intimacies with me?”
In the corridor, somebody sneezed.
“What was that?”
“Probably Mrs. Carrington’s rabbit. He makes a deal of racket. Answer the question, Miss Houston. Are you saying you’d not only keep a grieving widower’s poetry about his departed wife when he’d asked for his letters back repeatedly, but you’d also use that correspondence to force him to marry you?”
She ran a gloved finger along the mantel, then examined her fingertip. “Not a speck of dust.”
“Miss Houston?”
“Yes,” she said, sashaying closer to Levi—and to the door. “Yes, Levi Sparrow, I would cheerfully blackmail you, and though it might take you a while, sooner or later, you’d find your way to my bed. You’re the sort who wants children, and there is that baronetcy.”
An honor earned in battle, appropriately enough. “If I refuse to be blackmailed?”
She made a farcical pout. “What is she called? Dabny? Daphne? You have a sister who’s so quiet I can’t recall her name. The dear creature tipples, I suppose, or has gambling debts. I might decide she has a fondness for her laudanum, or—oh, this would do nicely—for other women. I haven’t decided yet. You’ll marry me, Levi. I’m tired of those other fellows and, quite honestly, running out of money. Twelfth Night will do, don’t you think?”
Another noise came from the direction of the corridor.
“That wasn’t a rabbit,” Miss Houston said, her hand going to her middle. “We’ll need a special license if we’re to be married that soon. Be off with you. Send me a maid and have my carriage brought around. For some reason, I feel poorly.”
A third sneeze confirmed that Levi, by contrast, had grounds to feel exceedingly fine. He was about to tell the woman so, when the door swung open and an ample older lady came barreling into the parlor, a crowd of Levi’s neighbors behind her.
“Amblewise, is this the sort of holiday nonsense your parishioners get up to?” Whoever she was, she had excellent timing and knew how to project her voice.
The vicar appeared at her side. “Certainly not, Mama. Miss Houston, what have you to say for yourself?”
Yes, what could Miss Houston possibly say, when half the shire had overheard her confess her schemes, past, present, and future?
A gaunt fellow with thinning sandy hair and a drooping mustache cleared his throat—Vanderburg, if memory served. Looked as if the punch hadn’t agreed with him, either.
Miss Houston’s gaze slewed around the growing crowd in the parlor. “I think I’m about to be sick.”
“You can be sick once we lock you in the storeroom at The Duke’s Arms,” Squire Hungerford said. “I’d be a poor excuse for a magistrate if I ignored brazen announcements of blackmail.”
Levi let the squire’s bluster hang in the air, for this threat wiped the smiles from the faces of those enjoying Miss Houston’s predicament. Hungerford would do it too—would lock her in for a few nights among hanging hams, sacks of flour, and boxes of eggs.
Then dismiss the charges when the case came before him in Monday’s parlor assizes, though Miss Houston couldn’t know that.
“All I want is my letters back,” Levi said. “I want them back now.”
“I’ll want to see Miss Houston at the manse tomorrow morning,” Amblewise snapped.
“Get her things,” Levi said, “and somebody look in her reticule for my letters.”
Amblewise’s mother did those honors,
fishing out a largish flask before she extracted the packet of letters from Miss Houston’s purse.
“These are your letters?” Mrs. Amblewise asked, holding out a stack tied with a green ribbon.
Levi took them, feeling as if Ann could finally rest in complete peace. “If somebody would see Miss Houston home, the rest of you are likely ready to resume the dancing. Has anybody seen Mrs. Carrington?”
“Gone to look for that damned rabbit,” Hungerford groused. “She’ll never find it in a house this size. Miss Diana, shall I lead you out?”
Diana obligingly led the good squire from the room, while Amblewise departed with Doreen on his arm.
Levi was soon once again alone with Amanda Houston, who leaned on the mantel, crying like a child.
“Stop it,” he said. “I would never have married you. This way nobody has to suffer for my scruples—except you, and you deserve to suffer.”
She dabbed at her eyes with a gold handkerchief. “I can’t stay here now.”
“Very likely the point of Vicar’s meeting with you tomorrow. Vanderburg at least isn’t married. Had you mentioned the names of any of the married ones, they’d likely stuff you on the coach to London by force.” Abetted by their wives and sharp pitchforks.
Though Miss Houston wasn’t to blame for men who chose to break their vows, was she? A fraught moment stretched, with pity pulling Levi one way and anger pulling him the other.
“Sir Leviticus? I was told I’d find you in here.” Penelope stood in the doorway, looking lovely in her dark green velvet dress. “We never did find my rabbit. Miss Houston, are you well?”
Miss Houston stuffed her handkerchief into her reticule, then snatched the flask and stashed that among her effects too. “I am quite unwell, Mrs. Carrington. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be going.”
“What a pity that you must leave. Happy Christmas,” Penelope said, with every evidence of sincerity.
Miss Houston swept out, Penelope closed the door, and Levi nearly collapsed with relief.
“Send a footman to follow her,” he said. “We cannot trust that woman.”
“Yes, we can,” Penelope replied, wrapping her arms around Levi’s waist. “You were about to give her money, weren’t you, Levi? You felt that sorry for her, and after all the misery she’s caused.”
“She’s pathetic, and God knows what will become of her. A man disporting as she did would be said to enjoy healthy manly humors, but she’s female, and so—”
“So she’s judged differently. You are too fair-minded, Levi.” Penelope kissed him, and his nerves settled, just like that. “You were magnificent, and you need not trouble yourself over Miss Houston.”
Penelope left Levi’s arms only long enough to lock the door.
“She will find a note,” Penelope went on, returning to Levi’s embrace, “in the pocket of her cape informing her that a sum certain awaits her in the City offices of Mr. Gervaise Stoneleigh, and further, that various gentlemen of the shire would appreciate if she’d collect that sum in person. I expect she’ll be waiting for the stage at The Duke’s Arms tomorrow morning, assuming no highwaymen interfere with the coach’s schedule.”
Levi rested his chin on Penelope’s crown. “Unless she can catch a southbound stage tonight. Did Stoneleigh suggest that note?”
“Franklin did. Won’t you ask me to dance, Sir Levi?”
Down the corridor, fiddles in close harmony lilted along in triple meter. “I’d like nothing more.”
For now.
He led the lady to the dance floor by way of several batches of mistletoe and waltzed her down the room under a smiling portrait of Sixtus as a younger fellow. The mood of the crowd was happy—a half-dozen men were doubtless very pleased to be dancing with their own wives, and even His Grace was on the dance floor—while the punch flowed freely.
When Penelope pled fatigue, Levi quietly offered to light her up to her room, and if anybody remarked his gallantry, well, what were holiday revels for?
“We should let Franklin out,” Penelope said. “We have him to thank for tonight’s happy ending.”
“He merely sat wiggling his nose in Sixtus’s chambers,” Levi said, though the rabbit did deserve thanks. Were he not a fixture in Penelope’s house, the entire plan would not have worked.
“I am confused about something,” Penelope said, as they made their way down the shadowed corridor. “Mr. Stoneleigh claimed to have seen a rabbit leaving the ballroom, though I know you would have fastened the door securely after you left Franklin up here.”
“Perhaps Stoneleigh had been at the punch?”
“Surely, you jest, Sir Levi. Did you hear him sneezing in the corridor?”
“All three times.” The door to Sixtus’s room was still latched, just as Levi had left it. When they had the privacy of the room, Levi set his carrying candle on the desk by the windows and drew Penelope into his arms.
“I ought to wait until morning,” he said. “I had planned to make you a lovely speech with all the rabbits looking on. Spring is coming. You’ll soon have a deal of baby bunnies.”
“Franklin is somewhere here in Sixtus’s chambers. Might you make your speech before him?”
Levi released his lady and went down on one knee. “I’ll make my speech before you. Will you marry me, Penelope? Will you become my wife, and if God is generous, the mother of our children?”
A muffled thump came from the direction of the bed.
“You too, Franklin, of course,” Levi added. “A lady’s household accompanies her when she takes a husband, and Penelope wouldn’t think of leaving you.”
A second thump followed, more softly.
“Penelope?”
“We say yes, Levi. We say a delighted, exuberant yes, and Happy Christmas too!”
She drew him to his feet, and though the room lacked mistletoe, kissed him soundly. Her kisses were more potent than punch as far as Levi was concerned, and the true holiday celebration was overdue to begin.
“May I escort you to your bed?” Levi asked.
“Or you may carry me, though I’ll take the candle, if you must impress me with your manly—Levi, there are two rabbits on that bed!”
Penelope had raised the candle so more of the room was illuminated, and indeed two furry bunnies reclined on Sixtus’s bed, only one of whom was Franklin.
“We’re not the only couple to become engaged,” Levi said. “I do believe that’s Bathsheba.”
“Sheba, you minx!” Penelope crossed to the bed and cuddled the doe in her arms while Franklin wiggled his nose patiently. Bathsheba had lost her listless, disappointed expression and had become, in Levi’s opinion, the most smug-looking bunny on God’s earth.
“They make a lovely couple. We’d better start picking out names, Penelope.”
She returned the doe to Franklin’s side, picked up the candle, and led Levi from the room, leaving the door slightly ajar. Levi accompanied his lady to her own bedchamber, where they did, indeed, spend much of the night choosing names.
Or something very like it.
About Grace Burrowes
Grace Burrowes started writing romances as an antidote to empty nest and soon found it an antidote to life in general. She is the sixth out of seven children, and grew up reading voraciously when she wasn’t enjoying the company of her horse. Grace is a practicing child welfare attorney in western Maryland, and loves to hear from her readers.
For more excerpts, special give aways and news, sign up for Grace’s newsletter. Vist her on the web at http://www.GraceBurrowes.com.
Books by Grace
Ready for more holiday reading from Grace Burrowes? Please consider
What A Lady Needs for Christmas, a full-length Highland Victorian Christmas story
To escape a scandal, Lady Joan Flynn flees her family’s estate in the Scottish Highlands. She needs a husband by Christmas, or the holidays will ring in nothing but ruin. Practical, ambitious mill owner Dante Hartwell offers to marry Joan, because a wellborn wife
is his best chance of gaining access to aristocratic investors.
As Christmas—and trouble—draw nearer, Dante and Joan’s marriage of convenience blossoms into unexpected intimacy, for true love can hide beneath the most unassuming trappings, especially at the holidays.
Click here to order What A Lady Needs for Christmas
Grace also enthusiastically recommends:
The Rogue Spy (November 4, 2014) by Joanna Bourne, fifth novel in the award-winning Spymaster Series.
Or treat yourself to Grace’s upcoming Sweetest Kisses contemporary series, beginning with a pair of novellas…
Kiss and Tell (November 2014), or A Kiss for Luck (December 2014)
Or A Single Kiss, the first novel in the series, coming out in January 2015.
In The Duke’s Arms
By
Carolyn Jewel
Contents – In The Duke’s Arms
Dedication
About In The Duke’s Arms
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Tweleve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
About Carolyn Jewel
Books By Carolyn
Dedication
To my co-conspirators in this project: Grace Burrowes, Miranda Neville, and Shana Galen. I am so glad to have been asked to contribute to this project. What wonderful writers to work with.
About In The Duke’s Arms
What’s a Duke to do when he’s made an awful impression on the love of his life?
The Duke of Oxthorpe lost his intensely guarded heart to Miss Edith Clay when Edith’s rich cousin sought to attach the duke’s marital interest. So smitten is Oxthorpe with the former poor relation that he’s gone through intermediaries to sell Edith a property adjoining the ducal seat.
Christmas in The Duke's Arms Page 9