Christmas in The Duke's Arms

by Grace Burrowes

  “I understand.”

  “I’ll have you home in no time.” He secured the door, and a moment later, the carriage was headed uphill again. She could not afterward decide if it had taken a lifetime to reach Hope Springs or, as he’d promised, no time at all.

  She was, she thought, perfectly fine. Entirely in control of herself while she walked to the door with the duke at her side. She had her bracelet and hair combs safely in her pocket. As he had the last time he walked with her to her door, he said nothing. This time, though, he stepped inside with her.

  “Your Grace, I—” She put a hand over her mouth to stop the sob that rose in her chest. Her tidy, happy world had been severely shaken.

  He was a duke. If she’d won a hundred and fifty thousand pounds she’d not be his social equal. That he was standing here in her house was a miracle of condescension. That he had called her his duchess and said she was with child—the invention of desperation, but my God. My God. He’d called her my love and dearest.

  He put a hand on her shoulder. A light touch. “Shall I call your maid?”

  Her heart was lead. So small and heavy. “You might have been killed.”

  A faint crease appeared between his eyes. “Your point?”

  “That you might have been killed.”

  “So might you have.”

  “I did not confront two desperate highwaymen. Blackguards who could have murdered you.”

  “Neither one of them was The New Sheriff of Nottingham. In that respect, those two are imposters who ought to know better than to play at such games.”

  “That was no game. Or do you intend to argue no one’s pistol was loaded?”

  His expression turned fierce. “No.”

  “How do you know they aren’t the ones robbing everyone left and right?”

  “Allow me to represent to you that I recognized them instantly and that, further, I saw them at The Duke’s Arms at the same time the actual New Sheriff robbed some other poor soul.”

  “Does it matter?” She could scarcely speak. “You could be dead now, and it would have been my fault. You were right. You’ve been right about everything. I ought to have left your boot in the field.”

  “I—”

  “I ought to have refused to let you drive me home.”

  “Edith—”

  The sound of her given name shocked her. He’d called her that before, when they were in the carriage and he was preparing to face death. He’d said her name the way a lover would. He could not possibly think that. Edith.

  “Come here.” He took her hands in his, and she walked forward as if he were anyone, an everyday person, anyone one might simply meet. He folded his arms around her, and she leaned against him.

  There was a moment of awkwardness. In the back of her whirling thoughts, a voice warned her not to presume like this, but he drew her close, so close. His arms around her broke a barrier, demolished her defenses. His body was solid, and his heart beat steadily. She was racked. Shaken by what had happened, but far more by what could have happened.

  “We might both be dead.” She sniffed and breathed in his scent. “Lying there at the side of the road, bleeding. Gone.”

  “Darling.” His low, soft whisper wound around her. “Where are your servants?”

  Chapter Eleven

  ‡

  Edith walked into the stationers accompanied by her maid. While Edith headed for the counter, her maid found a seat on a bench along one side of the shop. The proprietor leaned his forearms on the counter top. “Good day to you, miss.”

  “A good day to you, sir. Come now. You know why I am here. I have your note in my pocket.”

  “That I do, miss. That I do.” He reached under the counter and brought out several sheets of paper.

  “Oh. Lovely.” She spread the paper out on the blotter that covered a portion of the counter. She had already purchased stationery printed with her name and direction at the top: Miss Edith Clay, Hope Springs, Hopewell-on-Lyft, Nottinghamshire. She’d even commissioned the design of a rose to be printed in red on every sheet. An extravagance that had been a fair trouble to have done to her satisfaction. This custom paper of hers was one of the expenses that leaped to the front of her mind whenever she fretted over having spent too much money.

  And yet, here she was because the stationer had sent her a note to the effect that he had just received shipments from Paris and Florence and would she be interested in seeing them first? The sheets before her were samples for her examination.

  “This is the Italian?” she asked.

  “Yes, miss.”

  “Lovely.” There was a blue cast to the paper she quite liked. She held up the other. Smooth grained, a fine, tight weave. “The French, I take it.”

  “Indeed.” He set pen and ink on the counter. “Go ahead, miss. You’ll not know if this is paper you want until you’ve written on it.”

  “Right you are. Thank you.” She examined the pen. “You have one of the steel-nibbed pens.”

  “Newly arrived from London.”

  “Do you like it? It’s not too rough on the paper?”

  “I’ve not found it so. I have a quill, if you prefer.”

  “Oh, no. I should like to try this.” From the corner of her eye, she saw there was another customer. He’d been on the opposite side of the shop. She dipped the pen in the ink but froze when she realized it was the Duke of Oxthorpe and that he was making his way to her.

  She held the pen suspended over the bottle. Somehow, this man who had never been anything to her but a title—words, a crest, a man whose existence was embodied in the word Oxthorpe—had become someone she knew well enough to expect they would greet each other. Remarkable. She, Miss Edith Clay, a woman of no consequence, was personally acquainted with a duke. “Your Grace.”

  She owed him her life.

  The duke nodded in his curt way. “How do you do, Miss Clay?”

  She tapped the nib of her pen against the rim of the inkwell and curtsied. “Well, thank you. May I hope the same for you?”

  “Yes.” He wore a green coat, buckskins, and the maroon boots. In one hand he held his hat, in the other, a notebook. His hair, medium length but thick and black, was cut short at the sides. She had an inappropriate urge to discover what it would be like to run her fingers through it.

  He fell quiet, but she understood this was his way. He was not a talkative man. Once, she’d imagined him sitting alone in his house, a monster ready to devour anyone who came near. What she imagined now was a man who had both his rank and his natural reticence working against him.

  She smiled at him. If he continued in his gruff ways the rest of his life, she would defend him to anyone. Anyone. “I very much like the notebooks sold here.”

  “Daykin & Towle make excellent paper.” Daykin & Towle being the local papermaker.

  “They do. I have laid in my supplies.” She turned to the sheet of Italian paper and wrote her name across the top. “From time to time, however, I wish to write upon paper that speaks to me in a foreign language. I see myself now, sitting at my desk, dashing off the most amusing note on the finest Italian paper.” She mimed writing. “My dearest Louisa, I had broiled smelt for breakfast. They were most excellent.”

  “Affascinante.”

  She laughed, and the duke might actually have smiled, though one could never be certain. He was no troll beneath the bridge, not if he could laugh. She dipped her pen again and wrote quickly at the bottom of the sheet before her nerve abandoned her. “I am having a small party tomorrow evening. You ought to come. At six. Mr. Amblewise will be there. Mr. Jacobs is an astronomer from Bunney. I do not know if you have met him, but he has engaged to show us the stars if the night is clear.”

  “I know of him.”

  She wrote:

  Miss Edith Clay requests the honor of your presence at Hope Springs for dinner and stargazing, weather permitting.

  Thursday at 6:00 pm

  Respondez, s’il vous plait

 
; Underneath the last line, she drew a flourish and blotted the paper. She carefully folded and tore the sheet and handed the bottom portion to the duke. “There. I am sure you have obligations every hour of the day and night, but should you discover you are not otherwise engaged, I would be delighted to have you join my party.”

  He unfolded the sheet and examined the page gravely before he tucked it into an inside pocket of his coat. “I will consult my schedule.”

  “Grazie, Duc.” He would never accept, of course, but she was glad to have made the effort. If he did not wish to make friends, that was his choice. But if he were to attend, he might find he had made one or two. They parted and went their separate ways, and Edith could not help feeling they might themselves one day be friends.

  Later that afternoon, she was sitting down to tea when her butler brought her an envelope on a salver. But this was not the post. The letter, with its distinctive seal, was from Oxthorpe. She took the letter. “Thank you.”

  “There is a boy waiting outside, miss.” He bowed and extended a second letter, this one intriguingly thick and also from Oxthorpe. “He’s brought a gig and a horse he says are for you.”

  “A boy?” She opened the thicker of the letters, beyond curious at receiving not one but two letters from him. Inside this one were three folded sheets. The topmost was an invoice for the gig and necessary accoutrements, the second for the horse. The combined amount was enough to make her heart beat faster. She had the funds, she told herself. This purchase would not bankrupt her.

  On the third sheet, he’d written two paragraphs, on paper with his crest embossed at the top. They informed her he was attaching the invoices and sending along one William Benedict, who, he had reason to believe, would make her an excellent groom, if she were of a mind to hire him.

  She looked up. “Tell Mr. Benedict I will be with him shortly.”

  “Yes, miss.”

  She slipped the other letter into her pocket, for this development required her time and attention. In far less precise letters at the bottom of the paragraphs, though it was plain the entire document was in the same hand, was the word Oxthorpe. Once, that word had conjured up a cold and forbidding feeling.

  Outside, William Benedict stood beside the gig. A young man of seventeen or eighteen, tall and gangly, he snatched off his hat when she came down the stairs. He bowed. “Miss Clay.”

  He struck her as familiar, but she could not think where she’d seen him before. She walked around the gig. Gleaming black-lacquer body with a black leather seat and folded-down cover. The inside rims of the wheels were painted yellow, the spokes green. The duke’s colors, which she supposed must be a coincidence. Perhaps the carriage maker did so for every vehicle the duke ordered. She ran a hand along the leather seat and the side of the gig.

  “Are you from Hopewell-on-Lyft, Mr. Benedict?”

  “No, miss.” He watched her walk around to the horse. “From Bunney.”

  “I like his looks. Do you?” She patted the gelding’s shoulder. It was dark gray with a black mane.

  “I do, miss.” He shifted his weight between his feet. “You’ll have no trouble with him.”

  She considered the young man, and his familiarity to her was as coincidental as the colors of the gig’s wheels. If Oxthorpe believed in this boy enough to send him to her, then she would not disagree. “His Grace recommends you highly. Do you know why?”

  Benedict swallowed hard. “I’m grateful for the chance, miss. I work hard. I’m honest.”

  “So long as you want to earn an honest wage.”

  He swallowed again. “Yes, miss.”

  “Would you like to work for me?”

  “I would, miss.” His hands crushed the brim of his hat. In short order they settled the details of what she would pay, his days off, that she expected to see him at church, and that she would pay for two suits for him to wear.

  “You will have no desire to supplement your income by any other means, I hope.”

  “No, miss. Thank you, miss.” He met her gaze for only an instant before his focus skittered away, but his cheeks turned bright red.

  “Go around to the back after you’ve seen to the gig and the horse, then. You’ll be looked after.”

  “Thank you.” He bobbed his head.

  “You’ll let me know if there’s anything you need.”

  “I will, miss.”

  She had a gig. A very smart gig among gigs. There would be no reason for her not to hold her head high when she attended the next meeting of the assembly committee. For that, she had the duke to thank.

  It wasn’t until two or three hours later that she remembered Oxthorpe’s other letter. She left off writing to Louisa about her gig and the beauty of the horse that was new to her stables, and drew the letter from her pocket. She bent the paper enough to lift the seal without badly breaking it. This must be instructions for remitting the monies she owed him. But it wasn’t. It was his reply to her impromptu invitation to dinner, signed with his title. Oxthorpe.

  Not his regrets.

  An acceptance.

  Chapter Tweleve

  ‡

  What if no one came? Edith jumped up from her seat in the drawing room and began pacing again. This was her first official dinner party at Hope Springs, and she was nervous about her guests and all that might go wrong. Dinner might be burned. She might spill something on her gown—she wore her best silk tonight, and her ebony hair combs, too, because she now considered them doubly lucky; because of her mother and, now, the duke.

  She smoothed her skirt and told herself she would not consult the time again. She did, though. She’d had acceptances from them all but Mrs. Quinn and her husband who had an engagement that night. The members of the assembly committee, naturally. Mr. Jacobs, the astronomer, and others.

  What if her guests had been robbed on their way here? Whoever this New Sheriff of Nottingham was had robbed a gentleman on his way to Scotland just three days ago.

  Outside, she heard a carriage arrive. Until her butler announced Mr. Thomas and his wife, she was convinced the arrival must be either a servant carrying regrets or the constable with terrible news of the fate of one of her guests.

  Mrs. Thomas came in first and Edith was beyond relieved for their safe arrival. Mr. Thomas met her with a hearty “Good evening,” and a bow over her hand. His wife was all smiles and a quick kiss on the cheek.

  “You had an uneventful drive, I hope?” Her encounter with the highwaymen had made her anxious about the safety of all her friends. Word of the duke’s bravery had got out, not because he’d said anything, but because she’d told everyone who would listen.

  “We did, Miss Clay.” The former ambassador to the Porte briefly set a hand on her shoulder. “We made good time and met with no robbers.”

  Mrs. Thomas looped her arm through Edith’s. “You’ve done wonders with this room.”

  She welcomed the distraction of the remark, no more because it was a heartfelt compliment. She was determined to surround herself with colors that she loved. “I was so worried the color would not be what I hoped, but it is precisely the shade of orange I wanted to have in this room.”

  “Perfection, if you ask me.”

  “Thank you.” Mrs. Thomas had dressed in a reminder of her husband’s former occupation, for she wore a turban and a gown of gold-and-blue silk brocade. A sash wound around her waist, and her slippers matched that band of silk. Her husband stood by his wife and beamed at her. “May I say what a lovely ensemble this is?” Edith said. “Wherever did you find such a fabric?”

  “Anatolia. The souk in Aleppo. Mr. Thomas thought I’d gone mad, as much as I bought.”

  “No, no, not in the least.” She gave the former diplomat a sideways smile. “No one would be mad to buy such gorgeous cloth as this. Why, to do so defines good sense and a rational mind.”

  “There, you see?” Mrs. Thomas sent her husband an arch and fond look. “She understands.”

  “Since you are divine in that g
own, beloved wife, I cannot now disagree that you were correct when we were at the souk.”

  She blew him a kiss. “There was never a woman luckier in her husband than I.”

  “Nor I in my wife.”

  Edith wanted to sweep them both into a hug. They loved each other, and it brought both joy and tears to her heart to see that fondness.

  The others arrived in short order. Distinguished and silver-haired Mr. Jacobs who, weather permitting, would lead their stargazing, Mrs. Bolingbase; Mr. Amblewise. Mr. Greene, a gifted artist, and his wife, and the Worthys. Mrs. Worthy, Edith had discovered, was pure inspiration at the piano-forte. No Oxthorpe as of yet, but since her receipt of his acceptance, she had decided that he would not, in fact, arrive. She’d given him the invitation too informally. His acceptance to her must have been sent in the same less-than-serious manner.

  There was no reason for her to delay dinner. All the guests she’d expected to attend were present. Quite wisely, she’d not mentioned the possibility that the duke might attend. Their numbers for what she hoped would be a semiregular gathering were complete. She summoned a footman and gave instructions that dinner was to be served in twenty minutes.

  Much sooner than she expected her butler appeared in the doorway.

  “Ah,” she said to the others, turning away from the door. “Dinner is served.”

  Behind her, Walker cleared his throat. “His Grace, the Duke of Oxthorpe.”

  The astonishment that paralyzed her was reflected in the faces of her guests. Mr. Thomas stood at the sideboard with the wine he intended for his wife. Those guests who were seated, rose. Edith turned and indeed, the duke was moving toward her. She blinked several times. He was here.

  The duke took her hand. “Miss Clay.”

  “Duke.” He was resplendent in a coat of midnight blue, a pewter waistcoat, and tan breeches. His much-traveled top boots were a divine complement to his attire. A sapphire gleamed from a ring on his index finger.