Christmas in The Duke's Arms

by Grace Burrowes

  With a smile that was nearly friendly, he greeted those guests whom he already knew. She introduced him to the guests to whom he had not yet been introduced. After a brief, awkward silence as they adjusted to his unexpected arrival and the impact of his considerable presence, Mrs. Thomas filled in the conversation. Yes. Yes, indeed, she was the wife of a diplomat. Mrs. Worthy was of great assistance, too, in overcoming the difficulties. She was a delightful and attractive woman, who did not quail when the duke turned his pale eyes on her.

  Imagined difficulties never emerged. Oxthorpe was not a man of many words, but neither was he the silent figure she’d feared he might be. His erudition shone through, and he listened attentively to the others when they spoke. He was charming in his quiet way, both interested and interesting. She did not think she was the only one to notice that he and Mrs. Worthy got on well, and it was a rare woman who managed that feat.

  After dinner, they gathered again in the drawing room. Mr. Greene, who lived on the other side of the Lyft, picked up pencil and paper and sketched likenesses with his usual uncanny deftness, much to everyone’s delight and appreciation.

  “Tell me, Mr. Greene,” Mr. Thomas said, “will you be at the assembly to dance with our Miss Clay?”

  Still sketching, he glanced up from his sheet of paper long enough to wink at Edith. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  “Did they not just have an assembly?” the duke asked. At the moment, he was sitting by the fire, holding a glass of French Burgundy that had come very dear. She had her own glass, as she refused to restrict the ladies to sherry. The vintage was worth every penny she’d paid to stock her cellar.

  “You are thinking of last quarter, Your Grace.” Mrs. Thomas peeked at Mr. Greene’s work. “That’s quite good.”

  “Thank you.” Greene used a finger to smudge a line.

  “The first Monday of every quarter, Duke.”

  Oxthorpe tilted his head. “Not this quarter, though. Is not the Christmas assembly to take place on the twenty-second?”

  “Yes. Our holiday assembly is rightly famous, and the closer it is to the holiday, why, the better, Your Grace.” Mrs. Thomas curtsied to the duke. “Thanks to generous gifts of benefactors such as Miss Clay and yourself. This year’s Christmas assembly will be especially grand.”

  “Have no fear,” Mr. Greene said, “I shall be there. Indeed, I cannot imagine a pleasanter way to spend an evening than dancing with Miss Clay and the other young ladies of Hopewell-on-Lyft and environs.”

  Oxthorpe nodded as if he were responsible for organizing the entire event. “I hope the young ladies and gentlemen of the town enjoy the gathering.”

  “We would be so pleased if you attended.” Mrs. Thomas moved away from Mr. Greene and walked along the short side of the wall.

  “I have a great many obligations.”

  “Yes, yes. You are traveling to Northumberland. You did tell me that. I’d forgotten.”

  Edith noted he did not correct Mrs. Thomas’s supposition. Was he going after all, then?

  And so the evening went. Moving from one subject to another, and each of them contributing. They were not, alas, able to stargaze, as the clear sky of earlier in the day had given way to clouds. There was not a star to be seen.

  Oxthorpe made his good-byes at a quarter past eleven, and by half ’til midnight she was bidding good night to the last of her guests. Soon after, she told her staff to retire, for they’d made quick work of clearing the parlor and the dining room. The rest could be seen to in the morning.

  She walked through the house and experienced one of those moments of still, quiet joy. She, Miss Edith Clay, once penniless and with a future of nothing but dependence, had given a dinner party all on her own. With her friends and acquaintances. The Duke of Oxthorpe had been in attendance, in her home. Hers. She headed for the stairs, but when she reached them, she did not go up. Instead, she drew her shawl about her shoulders and walked into her garden, never mind the incipient chill of winter.

  As times like this, she was so grateful for the change in her circumstances she could scarcely contain her emotions. She tipped her head back to see the sky. The night had been too cloudy for stargazing, though now a few stars sparkled through the areas where the clouds had thinned. There was no moon to speak of, covered as it was by clouds, but there was light from the house.

  “Miss Clay?”

  She turned in the direction of the gate that led to the stable. “I thought you’d gone home.”

  “I misplaced Mr. Greene’s sketch of me.” The duke reached over to unfasten the gate. He crossed the lawn and joined her on her flagstone terrace.

  “You needn’t have gone to the trouble of returning when you might have sent a servant.”

  “I hadn’t got far.”

  “Manifestly.” He unsettled her, but not, now, because he was an object of magnificent terror. “But you make that complaint of me so often. I cannot pass by the chance to address your favorite admonition to you.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “In addition, Duke, it is cold.”

  He chuckled. “Then why, one wonders, are you outside, Miss Clay? You ought to be inside sitting before the fire.”

  “I shall be. Soon.” She faced the house.

  “What?”

  She glanced at him, and there was enough light for her to make out his face, but not the details of his expression. “This is my house.”

  “It is indeed.”

  “I own it, free and clear, and I have money enough that I need not worry about the yearly taxes.”

  He took off his hat. “Not your cousin’s.”

  “Not a single brick. It’s miraculous.”

  “A good Nottinghamshire house often is.”

  She could not help a smile. “The very best county in which to own a house.”

  “I am glad to have had the chance to dine here. On dishes that match my eyes.”

  “Your Grace, one of these days, someone is going to realize you have a piquant sense of humor.”

  “You’ve kept my secret so far.”

  He’d come close, a head taller than she, and though it was too dark to make out any details of his expression, she knew what he looked like. He put his hands on either side of her face, gently pressing his palms to her cheeks.

  She put a hand over one of his. The side of her finger brushed over the ring he wore. “Such warm hands.”

  His silence was comfortable now. She understood him better, knew this was simply his way. He moved closer, and that was a barrier crossed that made her breath catch.

  “Edith.”

  Inside the house, the case clock in the rear parlor began its midnight chime. “This is not wise.”

  At the last chime of the clock, soft and distant, the duke bent his head to hers. “I don’t care.”

  Her stomach took flight. He was going to kiss her. He was. He might.

  The silence stretched out.

  Please. Please, please.

  “Go inside, Miss Clay. I would be devastated if you took a chill.”

  Chapter Thirteen

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  Oxthorpe set his mare away from his hunting box on the vale side of Killhope Castle. He’d had good hunting yesterday, two stags sent back with his gamekeeper earlier this morning. He emerged from the woods into a gap that overlooked the Vale of West. To his right, the Lyft glittered with the morning sun. The canal and locks that would take a boater into Hopewell-on-Lyft were well behind him, on the complete other side of the castle. Ahead lay the stream that fed the pond between his property and Hope Springs, not yet frozen, though there would surely be a layer of ice.

  The snow on the ridge was melting. Only the ground still in shadow remained white. The vale below glittered with frost. Before long, the vale, too, would be white with snow.

  The three days of respite he’d promised himself were at an end, but he’d been tempted to extend his stay. Alas, he was due in Nottingham tomorrow afternoon. He had made an appointment wi
th Mr. Madison some days ago so as to have an excuse to be away for that damned assembly. He urged his horse forward. A part of him was infernally aware of how close he was to the boundary with Hope Springs. Not a quarter mile distant. Less.

  When, tomorrow morning, it became known he’d left Killhope, she’d think he was on his way to Holmrook to propose to Louisa. And she’d be pleased. Not devastated. No, she’d be devastated when he returned unencumbered by an engagement.

  His horse continued along the path that led to the uppermost boundary line. For some fifty yards, this path demarked the two properties. Had it been his great-grandfather who had married the woman who’d brought that property into the Fletcher family holdings?

  In the distance, he could see the pond and the hill that obscured a straight view to Hope Springs. More distant yet, the forest between Hopewell-on-Lyft and Hope Springs, traversed by the Great Northern Road. As he approached a curve in the path, he heard someone on the path ahead of him.

  His gamekeeper? Not possible, since the man was on his way to Killhope with the venison and birds he’d taken. Mr. Amblewise, perhaps, if he was traveling between parishioners. Or the New Sheriff of Nottingham.

  No sense taking chances. Before he rode around the corner, he checked the pistol in his pocket and kept it at the ready.

  Not a servant, nor the vicar, nor a robber, but Edith. She stood at the edge of the path, the reins to a tall bay mare clenched in one hand, her whip in the other. Edith was not, as he had previously observed, an accomplished horsewoman. The horse was perhaps not the most suitable mount for a woman who was not confident in her abilities.

  No wonder she’d been so worried about the purchase of another when she had bought, or more accurately, been sold a headstrong animal that did not suit her. Her groom was nowhere to be seen.

  With a cheerful grin, she lifted her whip hand in greeting. “Good morning, Duke.”

  “Miss Clay.” Not one word exchanged between them since he’d come so perilously close to kissing her. Not a word. He’d not dared take the liberty. His emotions rode too near to the surface with her.

  “Lovely morning.” She wore a green habit and a matching hat with black feathers. Her boots, too, were green.

  “Where is your groom?”

  “On his way back to Hope Springs. His horse threw a shoe.”

  “You did not accompany him?”

  “I meant to. But she”—she nodded at her horse—“preferred otherwise. I don’t know what’s got into her. She’s not usually this much trouble. Then I dismounted, and, well, you see the predicament I am in.”

  Indeed, he did. Unless she found a stump or a rock to stand on, she would not be able to remount that mare on her own. “Shall I assist you?”

  Her relief touched him. “Thank you, yes. I was resigned to walking home.”

  “No need for that.” He dismounted and joined her. He bent, hands cupped. She put her foot on his hands, he boosted her up, and she swung into her saddle, and that was that.

  He remounted. “I will ride with you.” With some effort, he gentled his voice. “If that would be agreeable to you.”

  “How kind of you, Duke. Thank you.”

  He did not move. Neither did she. She adjusted her skirts, an endeavor that included, deliberately, or by coincidence, her averting her gaze from him. He could not think what to say to her. The silence killed him. Crushed him. Desperation sent words from his brain to his mouth with no stop in between for reflection. “Did your bouquets of mistletoe pass muster with the assembly committee?”

  “They did. We have been madly tying ribbons and lace ever since.”

  That night he thought he’d saved himself from a mistake, and now, he saw, he hadn’t. Not at all. He could not bear the thought of having lost what little progress he’d made with her, yet he had. He had. “I regret I shan’t be there to see them.”

  As he’d known, this brought a smile to her face. “Oh?”

  “I have business to attend to.”

  “In Northumberland?”

  He crushed her hopes, too. “In Nottingham.” Another silence descended. Defeated, he nodded in the other direction. Away from Hope Springs. Toward Killhope. “This way, then.”

  “Hope Springs is that way.” She pointed.

  “There is a view,” he said. “You will admire it.” A command. All wrong. He meant for her to hear that he wanted her to see the view, but no. By habit, he demanded that she accompany him. “I should like for you to see it. Please.”

  She nodded. Whatever she thought privately of his peremptory manner, they rode in companionable quiet to the top of the ridge with its view of the Vale of West and the towers of Killhope Castle.

  She leaned forward, and he saw the view with new eyes, hers. “This, sir, is why I chose to live in Nottinghamshire. Surely there is nowhere else in England so lovely as this.”

  “None.”

  Her gaze stayed on him. “Thank you, Your Grace, for sending William to me.”

  “I hope he gives satisfaction.”

  “I shall do my best to deserve your trust in me.” She looked out over the vale again. “The gig is everything I wished. Thank you. I hope you received my cheque for the amount.”

  “Promptly.” He let as many minutes pass as he could stand before he directed his horse along the path that would, as it happened, take them past his hunting box. She followed, and that he must take as a positive sign. If she could but forgive him that awkwardness at Hope Springs, he would be grateful.

  “This is one of the prettier rides on Killhope lands.” In deference to her lack of skill in the saddle, he kept his horse to a walk.

  “It is lovely here.”

  They rode side by side on a path that wound through trees and past a meadow still covered in a dusting of snow. He would have passed by his hunting box, but she stopped at the top of the tree-lined drive, gazing curiously toward the building.

  “I’d no idea this was here. Who lives here?”

  “I do. When I am hunting.” This time, he filled the quiet before it was unendurable. “Would you care for a tour?” He braced himself for a polite no.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  At the end of the driveway, he dismounted and held out a hand to assist her down. “None of the staff is here. I closed up the house this morning.”

  “Is this where you’ve been?” At his inquiring look, her cheeks turned pink. She was still on her horse, her hand reaching for his. “It was remarked you were not at home these past days. We thought you’d gone to London.”

  He knew what she would say next.

  “Or Northumberland.”

  “I was here. Hunting.” He moved in, close enough to set a hand on her waist if need be, but she slid off without incident. She put her wrist through the loop that held up the long skirt of her habit, and they walked to the stable. She waited by the doorway while he settled their horses.

  On their way to the house by way of the back garden and the path to the front door, she looked avidly at the grounds. He said, “If it were spring, there would be more to admire here.”

  “I like this well enough.” He put a hand to the back of her arm. Edith ignored her reaction to that. “Did your hunting go well?”

  “Two bucks. A doe. When they are dressed, I will send you a haunch. A pheasant as well, if you like.”

  “You are too kind. Thank you. What a Christmas dinner we shall have at Hope Springs with a goose, a pheasant, and venison.”

  He opened the front door for her and again had the odd experience of seeing the house as if it were new to him instead of familiar. As if he’d not spent the last three days here. He was not surprised that she walked first to what, at Killhope, would be the great hall. Here, a series of arched windows overlooked the woods only he had the right to hunt.

  She went straight to the bow windows. There was a window seat, but she stood to the side, inches from the glass, one hand on the carved stone that separated the window casings. When he joined her, not too cl
ose, she turned. At ease because she did not see him with intimate eyes. Nothing at all like the way he saw her. “You think you don’t notice, but you’re wrong.”

  “About?”

  “This. This lovely little house, and the panorama before us. Beauty like this becomes a part of one’s heart and soul.”

  “It does.”

  “I’ve felt it happening to me since I came to Hope Springs.”

  “It is a pretty property.”

  “It is. You’ve shown me Killhope and your conservatory. That view. And now this.” She whirled to the window again and spread her arms wide. “This, too, is a part of me.”

  He came to where she stood and sat on the window seat, arms crossed, legs stretched out. “I would say come here when you like, but this is no fit place for a lady.”

  She laughed, and the sound pierced his heart. “Can you imagine? You’d come here to hunt with all your gentlemen friends and acquaintances—”

  “More likely only me.”

  “Even worse.” She stared out the windows again, smiling. “You would say, ‘Who has been sitting in my chair?’” She looked at the ceiling, laughing now.

  He did not see how he could live without her. How could he bring himself to marry another woman when she owned his heart? Yet he must. He must. He could not remain unmarried, with no heirs. No sons. No children at all.

  “You’d say, ‘Who has been eating in my dining room and sleeping in my bed?’ Then you would find a snoring lump on your chaise—”

  “A chaise-longue, here? I think not.”

  She glanced around. There was little furniture, but chairs for servants or people asked to wait on his pleasure. A table or two against the wall. A carpet from India covered most of the floor here. “Very well, your favorite armchair, my shoes on the floor, my shawl fallen to the ground, and me, insensible from the beauty of the view.”

  She showed no awareness that she had said something one might take as meaning more than the mere words. Something salacious. Because she had not intended any such thing. Yet. Yet, he could not dismiss the idea. Of her in his bed.