Greetings of the Season and Other Stories

by Barbara Metzger

  Sir Otis didn’t entertain at home and never invited the two young women to accompany him on his evenings out. In fact, he barely allowed them to leave his house, determined not to share what he couldn’t enjoy. Be damned, he thought, if he’d have any dandified nodcocks strutting around his chicken coop. If they could get out of the Albemarle Street residence, Sir Otis and duties permitting, the girls knew no one in London and had barely the fee for the lending library between them. Their few treats depended on what Johna could squeeze out of the nipcheese household budget. The generous allowance her father had negotiated for Johna was going, according to Sir Otis, to pay for the maintenance of Hutchison Manor, to settle the baron’s last debts, and to keep the girls in modest home-sewn gowns so they didn’t shame him.

  ’Twould take the devil in lace drawers to shame the old reprobate, thought Johna. And ’twould take the heavenly host to please him. For sure her lovely Christmas dinner hadn’t. Johna had hoped to get Sir Otis in a mellow mood, to beg permission to take Phillipa to Bath for the winter. Social standards were less rigorous there, she’d heard, and the place was reportedly full of young army officers, widowers, and second sons. Well, she still had her Christmas wish. While stirring the pudding last month, she’d wished that Sir Otis would relent enough to provide dear Phillipa with a dowry and a future. Meanwhile, Johna was not going to permit the miserable old muckworm to ruin her sister’s joy in the holiday season. She’d been working on this Christmas pudding since early fall, just for Phillipa. First she’d let everyone from the scullery maid to the stableboy help stir the pudding and make their wishes—while the master was out, of course. Then she’d divided the mixture into four boiling bags to steam for hours, then hung them out to set and age, just as in her grandmother’s old recipe. According to the faded household book, one was for family, one for company, one for the servants, and one for charity. Since there was no company, Johna had traded the extra pudding for the special tokens she’d hidden that morning in the family’s dessert, the one that had been soaking in rum for the past week.

  As she carefully cut the pudding in precise sections, Johna asked, “Do you remember Mama’s little charms, Phillipa? The ones she used to hide in the Christmas pudding?”

  Phillipa clapped her hands again, beaming around the centerpiece. “Never say you found them, Jo. I can’t wait to see. Oh, hurry, do.”

  “What’s that you two are nattering on about now?” Sir Otis demanded. “Mealymouthed chits talk barely loud enough to be heard.”

  The footmen passed the plates while Johna tried to soothe her husband. “It’s just an old tradition, like making wishes when you stir the batter.”

  “Balderdash. Tommyrot. More nonsense to fill a gudgeon’s empty head.” He stuck his spoon into the dish before him.

  “Look, Jo, I got the ring! That means I’m going to be married within the year!”

  Johna smiled. Of course Phillipa had found the ring, right where Johna’d planted it. She dug around in her own portion and came up with a coin.

  “What’s this blasted jibber-jabber?” Sir Otis shouted around a mouthful of pudding. “Is this food or some tomfool parlor game?”

  “It’s just for fun—” Johna started to explain, and Phillipa chimed in with, “It’s part of the Christmas magic. I got the ring, and Jo got the coin. That means she’s going to come into great wealth this year.”

  Sir Otis took another heaping spoonful into his mouth, then banged his fist on the table and thundered, “You mean you stuck a coi—A ch—”

  Phillipa answered: “Not a real coin, sir, a special token. Besides the ring and the coin, there’s the shoe that means a long journey, and the key that portends a wonderful opportunity. What else, Jo?”

  But Johna was watching her husband down the length of the table. She was frozen in her seat, horrified, as Sir Otis went “Ch—ch—” a few more times, his face turning purplish, before he fell over, right into his dish of pudding.

  Sir Otis had gotten the shoe.

  *

  Six months of mourning was all the respect Johna was willing to accord her departed husband, and that was five months more than the dastard deserved. No improvements had been made at Hutchison Manor, no outstanding debts had been marked paid. And Sir Otis’s own private papers showed exorbitant interest rates on loans, dealings in smuggled goods, a strongbox full of nefarious and underhanded dealings. Johna relocked the box and hid it deep in her clothespress, wondering if a man could be more despicable dead than alive.

  Not when he’d left her a fortune to rival Golden Ball’s, he couldn’t. Not when he’d left, by heaven’s grace. Johna was twenty-one, rich, and free. There was no one to issue orders, no one to criticize her looks or behavior, no one to tell her what to do. Sir Otis’s solicitor threatened to challenge her in court: a young woman needed a guardian, a trustee. Johna threatened to find another man of affairs to handle her finances. Mr. Bigelow withdrew his complaints.

  For six months the Widow Ogden could not go to the theater or the opera or even the assemblies in Bath, not without permanently destroying her reputation. But she could spend her husband’s ill-gotten wealth, smiling with every bank draft she wrote. Johna refurbished the London residence top to bottom, with enough servants that she had a maid just to tidy the other maids’ rooms. She hired a manager for the Berkshire property, and made sure he had ample funds to restore the manor house to a glory never seen in her lifetime. She set up a bank fund for Phillipa’s dowry that made Mr. Bigelow’s hand shake. And then she called in the dressmakers.

  By the end of June they were ready. Johna wore pale grays, silvers, the smoky lavenders of half-mourning that became her better than any colors she might have chosen, while the fashionable high waists emphasized her slender elegance. Phillipa’s gowns were pretty pastel muslins, trailing ribbons and rosettes. The fabrics were the finest to be had, the styles absolutely à la mode.

  The Prince Regent went to Brighton for the summer and the cream of society followed. So did the Hutchison sisters. They rented a lovely house on the Steyne, frolicked in the sea, rode the little donkeys, and partook of every public concert, every promenade, every open-air pastry shop. To no avail.

  Johna made no secret of her widowhood or her wealth, and made sure to mention Phillipa’s dowry in the hired staff’s hearing. To no avail.

  They were noticed, of course, as two beautiful young women would be noticed anywhere, but not by the right people. The only persons who approached them, who tried to scrape up an acquaintance, were half-pay officers, basket-scrambling fortune-hunters, or outright rakes. The Regent’s set seemed to consist of an inordinate amount of all three, plus a contingent of bored, blasé snobs. Acknowledging any of their suggestive smiles, accepting a rum-touch as escort, being at home to a here-and-thereian, would have put paid to Johna’s hopes of seeing her sister creditably established. She knew what they all had in mind for a wealthy widow and she wasn’t having any of it. Not yet.

  By the end of summer, back in London, they were no closer to Johna’s goal of seeing her sister dance at Almack’s. Johna had overestimated the value of her father’s title and underestimated the stench of Sir Otis’s. She thought of hiring one of those well-connected ladies of the ton who, for a fee, acted as chaperone, social mentor, matchmaker. If they were so well-connected, though, Johna couldn’t help wondering, why did they need to hire out their services? Besides, she couldn’t bear putting herself under the thumb of some prune-faced dragon. Not yet.

  Johna wasn’t giving up her reputation, her independence, or her dreams for her sister’s future. Not yet. Instead she called in her markers.

  2

  Duty and dignity. Those were words a man could live by. A dainty morsel like the Black Widow was a delight a man would cheerfully die for. Merle Spenser, Viscount Selcrest, tapped Johna’s thick vellum note against his booted leg as he sat in his library, thinking. And smiling.

  Oh, the viscount had noticed the stunning widow in Brighton, all right. A man wo
uld have to be deader than that dirty dish Ogden not to notice her. Like every other man in Brighton, Selcrest had even tried to strike up a conversation with the dasher, at the library one day, at the jeweler’s on another occasion. Both times she’d turned her fine-boned shoulder and ignored him with a faint tilt to her rose-petal lips. His grandmother the duchess couldn’t have depressed his pretensions more elegantly or with more finality. The chit had style.

  She also had a younger sister in tow, a pretty bit of fluff and frill. The reluctant consensus among the sporting gentlemen in Prinny’s circle was that the widow wouldn’t be entertaining any proposals—honest or otherwise—while chaperoning the girl. Even before Selcrest entered the lists, enough money to pay half the Regent’s debts had been wagered and lost on which lucky swell would capture this so-ripe plum. Odds changed when the well-breeched, well-favored viscount took the field, only to go down in ignoble defeat.

  And now, that same speedily dispatched challenger to the widow’s supposed virtue wondered, what had changed her mind? Had she sent the sister back to school or off to the country? Or had she finally realized she’d never reach respectability, not with the baggage she carried? Marrying a disreputable old man for his money and then, rumor had it, killing him to get it sooner was not a high recommendation. There were at least four loose screws in Brighton who needed her blunt badly enough to marry Johna, Lady Ogden, despite the on-dits. She hadn’t given them the time of day either. And she hadn’t sent for them in London.

  Viscount Selcrest had a broad chest. It swelled a tad broader as he called for another tub and shave—his second of the day. His only problem, as he sat in his sandalwood-scented bath, was the wording of her message: Could he please call at his earliest convenience, on a family matter. A female like Lady Otis Ogden had nothing to do with his family. Not ever.

  Duty and dignity meant everything to the viscount. Granted he hadn’t gotten around to marrying and filling his nursery but, ’struth, he was only twenty-eight and did have his brother Denton to ensure the succession. Other than that minor detail, he tried to lead an exemplary life, guarding the family honor as zealously as he protected his property and dependents. Perhaps because of his own unfortunate beginnings, Merle firmly believed that his sons had as much right to inherit a good name as a good income. The viscount was a conscientious landlord, a dedicated member of Parliament, and a devoted son to his widowed mother. He wasn’t a gambler, a drunkard, or a womanizer—not by the measure of the day, at least. That’s where discretion mattered.

  And that was why the viscount stepped down from his curricle two blocks from the address on Albemarle Street and handed the reins to his tiger. “Keep walking them around the square. I’ll find you when I have concluded my business.”

  Contrary to his preconceptions, Merle was impressed with the widow’s home. The entry was light and airy, furnished in the best of taste with priceless Chinese vases filled with flowers and a Turner scene he’d love to own. The liveried footmen were properly deferential as they accepted his hat and gloves, and the be-wigged butler’s backbone was as starched as his shirtpoints as he announced that, yes, milady was receiving.

  Here was another surprise: she wasn’t receiving him alone. The sister sat on the sofa beside the widow, sharing the latest issue of La Belle Assemblee. A pretty little filly, Merle noticed in passing. Too bad she came from such a dicey stable. While the widow asked his preference for refreshment and gave directions to the butler, Selcrest made a mental list of suitable chaps to match the gel to, one of his local squire’s sons out in Suffolk, or a distant cousin in the Horse Guards who needed a rich bride-price to further his career. The chit’s future settled to his satisfaction—and his convenience—Merle turned his attention to the widow. “Yes, the weather is cool for this season,” he agreed, thinking that she was even more lovely than he remembered. She wore a gray-striped cambric gown with a black shawl draped casually over her shoulders. With her black hair and magnolia skin, she looked good enough to undress.

  The poker-backed butler returned with a tea cart and two maids. While they were busy positioning the plates of poppy seed cake, macaroons, and raspberry tarts, Johna took time to observe her guest. She congratulated herself on picking just the right name from Sir Otis’s strongbox. Lord Selcrest was as polished as a fine diamond, hard-planed yet vibrant with an inner glow. He had the self-assurance of a born nobleman and more than a tinge of the haughtiness she’d noted in Brighton. And yes, he still had that raffish smile, as if his brown eyes could see beneath her clothes. Johna tugged her shawl closer. “Do you take lemon in your tea? Sugar?”

  “Just sugar, please. One lump.”

  Johna busied herself pouring and stirring and passing plates until all three of them were served and the butler and maids were dismissed. “Phillipa, dearest, perhaps his lordship would enjoy some music while we chat,” she suggested, indicating the pianoforte at the far end of the well-appointed room.

  Phillipa obediently took her cup and a third raspberry tart and sweetly asked if he had any favorite pieces.

  Other than raspberry tarts, Selcrest wanted to say, he favored elegant widows, so she should play anything long and loud. “I’m sure whatever you select will be charming, Miss Hutchison.” When she moved off, with still another tart, the viscount resumed his seat on the cane-back chair, nudging it slightly nearer the sofa, the widow, and the platter of pastries. “A lovely girl, ma’am. And you have a fine cook.”

  Johna smiled. “And you’re likely wishing them both to perdition right now.”

  “What, am I that transparent, my lady? I had hoped to make your acquaintance in Brighton, so naturally I was delighted at your invitation to call. I was hoping we could come to some agreement.”

  Merle was hoping he hadn’t rushed his fences despite her candor, so he was relieved when the widow said, “Good. I am hopeful of that myself.” Then, before he could inch his chair a bit nearer, she surprised him yet again with, “Did you know my husband, Lord Selcrest?”

  “Why, no, I never had the, ah, pleasure.” He’d sooner eat nails than go near a Captain Sharp like Ogden.

  “But you knew of him, surely?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I was going through some of his papers and came upon this note.” She pulled a paper from the journal at her side and handed it to him. “I believe it to be your brother’s. Am I correct?”

  There it was, as big as life, Denton Spenser. The amount scrawled under the unmistakable IOU was bigger than life. Bigger than Den’s yearly income, for sure. The viscount was staggered by the sum. He knew his scapegrace brother was running with a rackety crowd, but to fall into the clutches of a makebate like Otis Ogden? And not consult Merle, or ask his help? That was a crushing disappointment when he’d striven so hard to be head of the family. Then his lordship realized an even larger disappointment. “So you didn’t invite me here to…”

  “To throw myself at your feet, to ask you to make a scarlet woman out of me, to beg your protection against the cold, cruel world? To—”

  “Enough! I beg your pardon if I have offended you with unwarranted assumptions.” Thunderation, Merle could feel his cheeks growing warm, the first time a woman had confounded him in years.

  “But you don’t think they are unwarranted, do you? Everyone believes Sir Otis’s wealthy young widow must be a trollop, so naturally you supposed I’d be amenable to your suggestions.”

  The bitterness in her voice was unanswerable, and the sadness. He reached for another raspberry tart rather than look her in the eyes with a lie. When the silence became uncomfortable, even with the Bach in the background, the viscount smoothed Denton’s note on his thigh. If the widow was too virtuous to join the muslin company, what was she doing taking over her husband’s loan-sharking? Merle’s compassion for her plight died aborning. He’d redeem the vowel, of course. Devil take him if he’d let some harpy get her talons into his little brother.

  As if reading his mind, or his sneer, Johna quietly
explained, “When I found the voucher I did not write to Mr. Spenser. I had heard that he is always pockets to let and I did not want to send such a young man to the moneylenders.”

  Selcrest acknowledged her meager benevolence with a curt nod. “I don’t carry that much of the ready. Will a check do?”

  “I do not want the money, my lord.” She waved one delicate hand at the room, the house, and all its splendor. “I have more than enough wealth for my needs. I do, however, require something that only you can provide.”

  Now this was more the thing, Merle thought. She wasn’t calling in the chit, she was begging a favor. After which minor feat of dragon-slaying, the damsel would likely fall into his arms in gratitude. “I am at your service,” he said with that lopsided smile that left no doubt as to what service he’d like to render.

  “What I’d like”—she paused while the viscount helped himself to the last raspberry tart—“is an introduction to your mother.”

  “My mo—” The notion so startled the viscount that he swallowed wrong. He coughed, or choked, or perhaps laughed.

  In any other household, a gentleman might be gently slapped on the back or politely offered a drink of water. Not in this household, not now. Johna leaped to her feet, upsetting her teacup. “Oh no, not again! Pippy, come quickly!”