Christmas is in the Air

by Cary Morgan-Frates

  George pulled the horses to a stop, but before he could move off his perch, Cam got out of the carriage and took the steps up to the porch two at a time. At the top, the door swung open and Franklin, the Pembrokes’s butler ushered him inside.

  “Lord St. Cloud,” he said, making a hasty bow. “We were just about to send for you.”

  Cam cocked his head towards the sweeping staircase as he gave the servant his coat and hat. A faint wailing followed by a more distinct bellow sounded from the second floor. “Is something wrong?”

  “I think it best for Lady Lucy to tell you herself, my lord,” Franklin said. “If you will just excuse me, I will announce you.”

  The servant’s speedy gait as he headed in the direction of the conservatory only added to Cam’s uneasiness. Butlers didn’t move that fast unless the house was on fire. But soon Franklin returned, his features tight with worry.

  “If you will come with me, my lord.” Franklin took off again, and Cam followed. They stopped by an open door and Franklin stepped back to allow Cam to enter. Lucy rose from a long sofa near the fire, her expression composed and serene, as if she expected him. “Good morning, Cameron,” she said.

  He bowed. “Good morning, Lucy. Forgive my calling so early and without an invitation, but there is something I must say to you.”

  “And I to you.”

  Ignoring every good manner he possessed that would have allowed her to speak first, Cam said, “Lucy, I know this is going to be hard for you to hear, and I hope you know I would never hurt you, but I can’t marry you. I can’t.”

  Lucy’s eyes widened. “You can’t?”

  “No.” Cam spread his hands. “I don’t love you, so how can I possibly marry you?”

  “You don’t love me?”

  “No. I’m sorry.”

  Her lips tightened, then began to tremble, and then she let out a whoop of laughter that would have done Perdita proud. She clapped a hand over her mouth, but it was useless. She continued to laugh and laugh until Cam began to think she was having hysterics. “Lucy, I’m sorry—”

  “But that’s wonderful, Cameron! Simply wonderful!” she gasped, pulling out a handkerchief to wipe her eyes.

  Cam blinked. “It is?”

  “Yes, of course! Because you see, I don’t love you either.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No. I mean I like you, I’m fond of you—”

  “As I am fond of you—”

  “But it would never have worked anyway,” Lucy said through hiccups of laughter. “Because you see, I’m already married.”

  “Married?” Cam choked on the word. “Married?”

  “For three years.” Her laughter having finally subsided, she went to the French doors that lead out to the garden and called, “You can both come in now.”

  “About time! I thought we were going to freeze to death out there!” The unmistakable figure of Adelaide Cheswick, Dowager Duchess of Clairfield strode in, stamping the snow from her boots. Countless debutants had trembled under her scrutiny, and her approval was nearly as important as that of the patronesses of Almack’s. But today she was smiling, obviously very pleased with not only herself, but with the situation unfolding. She came forward to shake Cam’s hand with a firm grip. “Good morning, St. Cloud.”

  “Your Grace.” Cam bowed. “I trust I find you well?”

  “For someone of my age who’s spent all night traveling just to get here in time for the race, I’m well enough. Damn snow slowed us down, but we’re finally here in one piece. Lucy dear, do get on with it. St. Cloud looks as if he might fall over from shock.”

  Lucy gestured at the silent young man in travel-stained clothing who entered behind the duchess. He slipped his arm around Lucy’s waist and kissed her on the cheek. “So this is the fellow your parents wanted you to marry?”

  Lucy smiled at him. “It is. Cameron, this is my husband, Benjamin Hampson, just arrived from India. Benjamin, this is Cameron Hunt, the ninth earl of St. Cloud.”

  Cam bowed again. “Mr. Hampson. Did Her Grace bring you?”

  “She did,” Hampson said cheerfully, bowing as well as he could with one arm still around Lucy. “Pleased to meet you, my lord. I suppose an explanation is in order.”

  “If you wouldn’t mind,” Cam said.

  “A simple one, then. Lucy and I met shortly after her eighteenth birthday. It was love at first sight.”

  “He’s so romantic,” Lucy sighed. “I knew at that moment that Benjamin was the only man for me.”

  “As a third son, I had no money to call my own,” Hampson continued. “I had to make my own way. We married secretly by special license just before I set out for India. I swore to Lucy that after three years I would return either rich, or just as poor as when I left. I didn’t want to just take her money, you see, knowing she would inherit a pile of it from her Aunt Addy when she turned twenty-one.”

  The duchess beamed at them. “Aunt Addy. That’s me.”

  “Ah, yes. Of course.” Relief and understanding surged through Cam. “That’s why you insisted on attending that three-year finishing school,” he said. “It was a smokescreen to cover your marriage. As long as you were at school, your parents wouldn’t insist you marry.”

  “Didn’t I tell you Cam was clever, Benjamin?” Lucy asked proudly. She might have been describing the feats of an older brother. “Aunt Addy was in on our secret as was my school friend, Ruth. She has a brother in India and Benjamin would put his letters to me in with hers. We didn’t want Mama and Papa to find out. I’m sorry to have deceived you for so long, but—”

  Suddenly light-headed, Cam waved away her words. “Nothing to be sorry for, Lucy. There was only an expectation, not a promise made. And since bigamy is illegal in England and I cannot condone adultery, of course we can’t marry.”

  The others laughed and Lucy said, “I’m so glad that you understand Cam. And I’m so glad that you don’t love me!”

  “Trust me, I do understand.” Cam turned his head toward the open door. The faint wailing could still be heard, and he added, “But I don’t think your parents will.”

  “They’ll adjust when they see the size of Benjamin’s bank account,” the duchess said with a wink. “The lad has made a fortune.”

  Cam took Lucy’s hands and bowed. “May I be the first as an old family friend to wish you complete joy,” he said. “If you will excuse me, I need to help Richard prepare for the race.”

  And then Cameron Hunt, ninth earl of St. Cloud, a man known

  for his unswerving calm and complete dignity in public, ran from the room.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Where is Fleming?” Richard asked, blowing on his gloved hands. “Everyone else is here.”

  The temperature had fallen to below freezing the night before, and a wind ruffled the standards on the waiting sleighs. The horses stomped and tossed their heads as if they understood why they were there. A late December sun, while providing very little warmth, poured out a brilliant light.

  But the cold had not prevented hundreds of spectators, bundled to the eyes, from gathering at Heart’s Ease. Green and white flags staked to the ground, lined the two-mile stretch.

  “He has only five minutes before starting time,” Allister said, rubbing the neck of Charming, Richard’s horse. “Cam, do you think should we should send for him?”

  I’ll have plenty to say to him when he gets here. Cam shook his head. “He’ll come.”

  “There he is!” Perdita said, pointing at a rapidly approaching bright red Tilbury sleigh. She waved and called, “Hello, Stephen!”

  The sleigh stopped and the seated figure nodded. A long scarf wrapped several times around his neck covered the lower part of his face, showing only his eyes. A tall hat perched on his head and he nodded. “’Morning, Lady Perdita,” he said gruffly, the scarf muffling his voice. “’Morning, my lord.”

  “You’re late,” Cam said sternly. “The race is about to start.”

  Fleming shrugg
ed. “Sorry. Couldn’t find my lucky hat.”

  “Where’s Amanda?” Perdita asked. “Isn’t she coming?”

  “She’s around somewhere.”

  Squire Beecham, master of ceremonies, shouldered his way among them. “Glad to see ye, Mr. Fleming, glad to see ye,” he greeted. “If you and Mr. Richard will just take your place among the others, we’ll start.”

  Fleming nodded, clucked to his horse and they moved toward the waiting line of sleighs. Richard kissed Gwenyth, climbed into his sleigh and drove off. Cam looked at his family and asked, “Shall we go to our seats?” The Hunts traditionally sat on a reviewing stand to watch the race.

  “I’m staying right here,” Gwenyth said firmly. “I want to be as close to Richard as possible when he wins.”

  “Me too,” Rosalind said.

  “I’m staying here,” Perdita announced.

  “Have it your way,” Cam growled. “Allister, are you coming?”

  Allister laughed. “And anger my wife? You have a lot to learn about women, Cam.”

  Cam strode away, trying not to be too obvious in his scanning of the crowd for Amanda Fleming. But with everyone in face-covering scarves and hats, it was impossible to spot her. He climbed into the St. Cloud’s reviewing stand and sat.

  He should have gone to the church after leaving Lucy to speak with Amanda. Tell her what had happened. Tell her he loved her. Ask her to marry him, if she would have him.

  But as tradition dictated, the kitchen staff at Heart

  Ease had prepared a special early breakfast for the Hunts, and Cam would not hurt their feelings by arriving late and missing it. He’d already skirted close enough to scandal this morning. Unfortunately, Amanda—darling Amanda—would have to wait.

  The starting pistol cracked and Cam stood as the crowd began to shout. The seven sleighs sped across the hard ground, the drivers whistling and calling encouragement to their horses, the sleigh’s standards whipping like leaves against a whirlwind. Cam followed the progress of Richard’s bright blue sleigh, easily pulling ahead of the others. Richard was an excellent whip, and Cam had no doubt he would regain the prize for the St. Clouds.

  But Fleming was right with him, passing the others with considerable skill. If not for his brother’s entering the race, Cam would have cheered for the clergyman, whose arrival in Huntingdown had done so much already for the village.

  As had his sister’s. Cam shifted his attention from the racers just long enough to scan the crowd again. As Richard and Fleming neared the halfway point, the crowd’s shouts became a roar, and Cam leaned forward. Fleming and Richard were side by side, and excitement told hold of him. “Go, Richard!” he shouted, getting to his feet. “Drive that pony!”

  “Good morning, my lord. Nice day for a one horse open sleigh race, isn’t it?”

  A man’s pulpit-trained voice jerked Cam around and he found himself face to face with Stephen Fleming. His long scarf was wrapped around not his face, but his neck and he wore not a tall hat, but the traditional one of a country clergyman.

  “Fleming?” Cam croaked. “But if you’re here, then who the devil is in—.” He squinted at the red sleigh and its driver, having passed the half-way mark and was hurtling closer and closer to the finish line. “No. It can’t be. Amanda?”

  “Fooled you, didn’t she?” Triumphant rage simmered in Fleming’s usually mild eyes. “We’ve done it before at a masked dress ball, dressed alike, and no one was the wiser. Being twins we were able to carry it off. We thought it would be a nice farewell touch since we’re being forced to leave Huntingdown.”

  Lack of sleep and Lucy’s news had stretched Cam’s nerves to the breaking point. “Forced to leave? Fleming, what the hell are you talking about?”

  Fleming’s stare was just short of contempt. “You really don’t know, do you, St. Cloud? About the triumvirate?”

  “Know what about whom?” Cam shouted.

  Fleming told him. Told him everything. “Amanda and I can’t possibly stay with both you and Perdita’s reputation at stake,” he concluded. “Amanda loves you, you silly clod. She loves Perdita as well. We’re leaving after the New Year for me to take up a teaching post at Oxford so you can marry Lucy Pembroke without scandal and Perdita can make a good marriage.”

  “Like hell you’re leaving,” Cam bit off. “Fleming, I—.”

  The crowd’s noise forced his attention back to the race and the final approach of two sleighs. Charming, Richard’s sleek black horse hovered on the verge of taking the lead, and Cam thought he heard his family cheering and chanting, “St. Cloud! St. Cloud! St. Cloud!”

  But then the red Tilbury burst ahead, and a gust of wind blew up, knocking off the driver’s tall hat. A mass of golden hair tumbled down, and Cameron Hunt’s heart was forever captured as Amanda Fleming’s sleigh surged forward over the finishing line to victory.

  The crowd’s shouts became howls and screams of surprise, outrage or outright laughter. Amanda pulled her horse to a stop, and Cam saw a small black head rising from underneath a blanket on the floorboard. It might have been madness or joy, but Cam could swear Hamish’s gaze locked on his face and once again, winked at him.

  A fit of laughter seized Cam and he jumped from the dais, his boots hitting the frozen ground. He stumbled, but regained his footing and straightened his coat.

  “Fleming,” he shouted over his shoulder as he bolted for the finishing line. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ve something important to ask you.”

  He shoved his way through the people crowding around Amanda’s sleigh, most of them applauding. Richard’s sleigh was beside hers, and to Cam’s immense relief, his brother was laughing.

  “By Jove,” he gasped, “that’s the best piece of racing I’ve seen in years! Where did you learn to handle a horse like that?”

  “This is outrageous!” Tarwater shouted. “A woman racing? Women aren’t allowed to race.”

  “There’s nothing in the rules that says a woman can’t race,” Amanda shouted back, brushing aside her curls. “It says, ‘the racer must be of good character and have the necessary skills.’ And I have both.”

  “It’s disgraceful!” Tarwater’s voice became a bellow. “You’re disgraceful, and we’re well rid of you and your brother!”

  He reached up as if to grab Amanda out of the sleigh, but Cam seized his shoulder and spun him around. “I’ll ask you not to speak to my future countess that way, Tarwater,” he warned. “And since I can’t hit your wife for making Amanda’s life miserable these past few weeks, you’ll do quite nicely.”

  With one well-placed punch, Cam’s fist put Tarwater on the ground, clutching his nose. Glaring at the shock-silenced crowd, and finding more guilty parties, Cam asked, “Baker? Hopewell? Your wives are just as much a part of this. Do I need to redesign your noses as well?”

  “N-no, my lord,” Baker stuttered. An ashen-faced Hopewell only nodded, shock muting any protest he might make.

  “Good.” Cam directed his gaze at the crowd again. “Anyone else?”

  When no answer came, he turned and held up his hand to Amanda. “Dearest,” he said, not giving a damn who heard him, or that his voice was on the point of breaking. “Would you allow me to help you down?”

  For a long moment, Amanda stared at him and the hope in Cam’s heart threatened to turn to despair. Silence spread out over the crowd, as if they, like Cam were holding their breath.

  Then Hamish barked, breaking the silence, and Amanda laughed. Giving Cam her hand, she let him lift her over the side of the Tilbury to stand beside him.

  “I suppose I should wait and do this privately,” he said in a voice that carried out over the heads of the spectators. “Or at least until I’ve spoken to your brother. But I will have no rumors or talk about us. Amanda Fleming, I love you with all my heart. Will you marry me?”

  A love he prayed he would deserve answered in her eyes, giving them a brilliance that was almost blinding. She placed her beloved hands on either side of his face. “Of cours
e,” she said in a much softer voice. “Of course.”

  “I’ve never kissed a woman wearing trousers before,” he said. “But since today seems to be about breaking traditions, I might as well add another of my own.”

  “Oh, Cam, this is marvelous!” Perdita said. “Amanda and I are going to be sisters?”

  “Hush, Perdita.” Cam pulled Amanda into his arms to kiss her most thoroughly and the crowd erupted into wild applause. Her scent, one of flowers and summer days, filled his head and if not for her embrace, he would have floated right up to the heavens from happiness.

  “Lucy’s married,” he whispered under the continuing applause, guessing she’d want to know. “Her husband of three years arrived this morning from India along with Aunt Adelaide.”

  She pulled back. “Really? Are you sure?”

  “Met the fellow myself this morning,” he said. “I’ll tell you all about it once we’re back at Heart’s Ease.”

  “Will someone please let me through?” A slightly disheveled Stephen Fleming was pushing his way through the crowd. The applause stopped and silence swept over the crowd again as he stopped in front of Amanda and Cam.

  “Well, my lord St. Cloud,” he said, putting his hands on his hips. “I’ll give you full points for bravado. A public proposal and a kiss indeed.”

  “I do have your permission, don’t I?” Cam asked.

  “You better say yes, Stephen,” Amanda warned. “After all, I know all your secrets.”

  “Not all of them.” A smile better suited to a rake than a clergyman crossed Fleming’s face. “My lord, you said something earlier about having something important to ask me? Well, I need to ask you something as well. May we go somewhere private?”

  ****

  The Next Day.

  “It’s a bit untraditional to do this on Christmas Eve, but I’m told the past twenty-four hours in Huntingdown have been vastly untraditional.” The Reverend George Winterson, vested for the holiday, stood behind the pulpit and beamed at the packed church of All Souls. “I’m very glad Stephen invited me to spend the Christmas holidays with him and his sister or I would have missed this.”