Betrothed by Christmas

by Jess Michaels

  She saw Simon’s eyes go wide and Miss Lesley gasped as she tried to explain that shocking statement. As she did so, Evangeline took another peek at Henry. He was looking at her now. No, not at her. At Simon Cathcart.

  His frown was deeper than ever.

  Miss Lesley was speaking again. “And I give you my word that no other young lady will hear it from my lips.”

  Evangeline smiled, for it seemed they had come to terms of some kind. “Nor mine,” she said. “And to make sure I know nothing of the affair, I shall leave you to arrange it as you will.”

  With that, Evangeline swept toward the study door. There she paused and looked back at Henry. He had returned to his telescope and was leaning over it intently, giving her a very nice view of a shapely backside beneath his trousers. She cleared her throat gently as she stepped away from the view and the confusing thoughts it made her think.

  Thoughts of a biddable groom. One who would thwart her own father’s potential interference and give her a lasting independence that few ladies of her sphere ever enjoyed. Certainly that was all she was thinking about. There was nothing else to consider.

  Chapter 2

  Henry Killam stared out the carriage window as his father’s London estate loomed large just past the parted curtain. It was intimidating, as always. That was by design, of course. The Viscount Killam had always wanted everyone to be aware of his station, and of the station he aspired to by toadying about for men higher than himself.

  Something Henry had never given a fiddler’s damn about. There was so much more to life than rank and inheritance and ill-gotten gains from world domination. There was science and stars and steam to be explored. But not today. Today he had been called here with a curt note that did not speak well of what he would find inside these cold, familiar walls.

  And so he sighed as he stepped down from the carriage.

  “I’ll walk home after my meeting, so you may take the carriage back to the little house,” he directed his driver.

  The little house. That was the nickname his father and brother had given his townhouse across the park years ago, and somehow Henry had taken to calling it the same, despite how dismissive it was.

  “Of course, Mr. Killam,” Adams said with a tip of his head before he encouraged the horses to jog on, and turned the vehicle back up the drive and to the street.

  Henry looked up the long stair to the red door above. Subtle, his father was not. Nor was his butler, Morley, who was already waiting for him at the entrance to the foyer. Apparently, Henry was late, for Morley’s expression was tight and irritated, which meant his father’s would likely be the same.

  He moved up the stairs, ignoring how Morley sniffed up and down at his lack of hat, which he had forgotten in his hurry to leave the Society of London Astronomical Studies an hour earlier. He did take Henry’s heavy coat and his gloves, then directed him to the blue parlor.

  Henry made his way there swiftly, wiping off his spectacles, which had steamed up when he entered the warm house out of the frigid afternoon temperatures. He had high hopes he could quickly finish whatever business his father had in store for him. He needed to return to the little house for but a moment to fetch some notes, and he hoped to be back to the Society meeting hall before supper. He had other things to occupy his time.

  He set his glasses back on the bridge of his nose and stepped into the room with a false smile. “Good afternoon, Fa—”

  He interrupted his greeting as he took in the room. His father stood at the fireplace, dressed like he was in mourning, his clothing was so dark and his expression so dour. Henry’s eldest brother, Philip, stood beside him, with an equally hangdog expression, though Henry knew that was from waiting for what he considered his “due”.

  Their middle brother, Robert, lounged on his back on the settee to his right, bored of it all, as usual. Henry glared, for that reminded him of another recumbent gentleman. Another parlor. He dismissed the thoughts with a sigh.

  “Ah,” Henry drawled. “It is an ambush, then.”

  “You are late,” Lord Killam barked without any other preamble.

  Henry glanced at the clock on the mantel. “Three minutes late,” he said softly.

  Philip’s eyes went wide and Robert lifted his head slightly from the settee pillow to give him a small shake of his head. Henry would see the warning in his middle brother’s stare, and his own defenses rose exponentially as he tried to recall whatever he could have done to deserve the rage that lit his father’s expression.

  “When the Viscount Killam says two, you come at one forty-five,” his father snapped, and stormed across the room to the sideboard, where he poured himself a drink. He didn’t offer anyone else in the room the same boon.

  “My apologies,” Henry said, shifting tactics as the mood of the room and its inhabitants truly sank in. A good scientist adapted—he was certainly capable of doing that with his father. He pushed at his spectacles, although they were perfectly in place, and continued, “I should have been early, you are correct. You are clearly upset and I must assume it is with me. So tell me, Father, what have I done to cause this? For I cannot think of what it could be.”

  “Can’t you?” the viscount asked with an angry bark of laughter. “My supposedly brilliant son cannot ferret out what it is that could upset me? Allow me to enlighten you. You were at the ball two nights ago, yes?”

  Henry tensed. Normally he did not love a ball, but he attended them regularly. Two nights ago, he had been at the gathering his father had referred to. The most memorable part of the night was when Lady Evangeline, the daughter of one of the dukes his father had toadied to Henry’s entire life, had come into the library. Evangeline, with her shiny black locks and impossibly blue eyes.

  He shook his head. That supposedly brilliant mind his father had just mocked knew one thing for certain, even if nothing else. Although he could admire Evangeline from a distance and sometimes she would grace him with a smile or a laugh or a brief chat…she was out of his reach by far. Like a star that looked so bright and close on a clear night in the countryside, but was really eons out of reach.

  That had been proven by all the attention she’d shown to Simon Cathcart in the parlor that night. Cathcart was smooth when he chose to speak, and women seemed to find him handsome. Henry had watched them talk. And though Evangeline had left the other man with her friend eventually, the sensation their interaction had caused on Henry’s chest was…unpleasant. And foolish.

  “Yes, I was at the ball,” Henry said, shaking off his uncontrolled thoughts and focusing on his purple-faced father. “What of it? I did not dance, nor cause a scene. I sat in the library with a few other chaps that night. Nothing that could have inspired this reaction.”

  “Your brother had a report from several people there that night. One I could scarcely believe except it has proven itself to be true.” The viscount folded his arms as if that was supposed to explain everything, but there was hardly enough evidence yet for a hypothesis on Henry’s part.

  He glanced at Philip for an explanation and his brother shifted with a guilty air. “What was reported to you?” Henry asked.

  “The paper, Henry,” Philip said at last, his tone soft.

  Henry wrinkled his brow and then understanding dawned. The paper. “You mean…you mean my piece on the equations I have used to track the possibility of a new planet?”

  His father’s eyes went wide. “He admits it!” he burst out, finishing his drink in one slug.

  “It was published three weeks ago,” Henry said.

  He shifted. He had written the paper for the Society and it had been published in a small monthly they produced for the scientific community and those interested in the research. Sometimes those papers were picked up by larger journals that were published quarterly and more widely disseminated, but he had yet to hear if his had been chosen.

  His father glared at him. “You said nothing to us of this great honor.”

  “I did not think you would car
e,” Henry said, the politeness of his tone at last fraying. “Perhaps not even understand.”

  Philip recoiled slightly as their father took a step closer.

  “That’s right, you got your mind from your poor, dead mother, didn’t you?” the viscount spat. “She never should have encouraged you with the comets and stars.”

  Jaw setting at the dismissiveness of his father’s tone, Henry fought to meter his reaction. His late mother had been the one to first introduce him to a telescope. He’d been but nine years old and seen his first comet that night. A memory seared into his mind, as was the weight of his mother’s hand on his shoulder, the warmth of it as they shared that brilliant flash of light. She had died a few months after, gone far too soon, just like the comet. It had been a devastating loss to their entire family, including his father, despite the viscount’s current attitude.

  Henry thrust his shoulders back slightly. “You ask if I admit that I wrote the piece. I do, with pride. The search for a new celestial body is no small thing, Father. It has been predicted to exist by equation for decades. A new star—or by my theory, even a planet. Can you imagine being part of that?”

  He asked the question but already knew the answer. His father’s bland expression told him he cared not one fig about that kind of thrill of discovery. The viscount turned away and Henry continued to speak, as if he could find words that might change his father’s hard heart.

  “If I could be a part of solving such an astronomical mystery…if the equations I have developed could help even a fraction—”

  The viscount slammed his drink down on the sideboard hard enough that the wood shivered. He spun back. “Enough! You can sputter at me all you like about the importance of this foolishness and perhaps you are right that what you are doing is vastly significant. You did it under your real name, Henry. Your real name.” He moved forward, now deceptively calm. “My name. It is one thing to have a hobby, boy. And one I have indulged, clearly to my detriment.”

  “This is not a hobby!” Henry burst out, hating that his emotions flooded to the surface. “You have dismissed it as such for years, but it is much more. This is a life’s work, Father. A new planet!”

  Philip shook his head with a snort of laughter. “That sounds like a children’s tale every time you say it.” Henry glared at him briefly.

  “This is a trade,” his father said, soft and deadly as a blade to the chest. “As much as if you worked in a shop.”

  Henry shut his eyes, trying to find calm, trying to find reason. “And what is wrong with a trade? Would you prefer I be a layabout like Robert?”

  His middle brother lifted his head from the cushion. “What’s that?”

  “Shut up, Robert,” their father said. Robert rolled his eyes and put his head back on the pillow. The viscount caught Henry’s arms none-too-gently and shook him slightly. “You will cease this foolishness, Henry.”

  Panic rose in Henry’s chest, overwhelming wisdom for a moment. He jerked from his father’s grip and staggered back a few steps. “Cease what?”

  The viscount crossed his arms. “It seems you must be cut away from all of it. The stars, the planets, the…science.” He said the last like it was a curse. Something disgusting to be scraped off his boot heel.

  “You cannot be serious,” Henry said, somehow managing to speak even though the rush of blood in his ears made hearing close to impossible.

  “I am entirely serious.”

  Henry shook his head. He was trembling and he hated himself for this emotional display. It was not his nature, nor his desire to let his heart rule him like some fool. And yet he couldn’t seem to control himself. “No,” he said at last. “No, I won’t.”

  There was a stunned silence from all in the room. Henry understood it. He felt its weight as much as the rest. No one refused their father. Certainly none of them ever had. Now Philip stood gape-mouthed, and Robert had sat up from the settee and was staring at Henry with wide eyes. Their father’s jaw was set.

  Slowly the viscount moved closer, invading Henry’s space once more. His face was less than an inch from Henry’s now. All the anger still burned in his eyes, but his voice was dangerously cool as he said, “I will cut you off.”

  The viscount had enunciated each word carefully, but Henry still gasped. “What?”

  “If you want to act like a commoner, you can live like one,” his father said. “You will be penniless. The little house? That will return to me. You will be roofless and bedless. Do I make myself clear enough for your sharp mind to understand?”

  “But then I would not be able to—”

  “You would not be able to do a great many things,” his father said, voice still soft. “I will end this nonsense one way or another.”

  Henry’s stomach roiled, what was left of his breakfast rising to his throat as he stared into his father’s eyes and tried to find a tiny kernel of hope. There was none. The viscount meant this threat. It was not empty.

  “Father, please,” he said softly.

  Silence greeted him. Stony and cold. “Think on it, as you like to do,” the viscount said after what felt like an eternity. “I expect to hear from you within a week’s time about your decision.”

  He pointed at the door, dismissing Henry as abruptly as he had been summoned. Henry had no choice but to do as he had been directed. He stumbled out into the hall and toward the foyer. He had almost made it there, almost with unseeing eyes, when he heard footfalls behind him.

  He pivoted to find Philip there. His older brother’s face was lined with guilt. “I didn’t know he would threaten this,” he said.

  Henry stared at him, hating him and understanding him with equal power in this charged, painful moment. “It wouldn’t have stopped you from showing him the journal, would it?” His brother’s darting gaze told the answer to that. Henry sighed. “You just wanted his approval, at any cost. Just as you always have.”

  The barb seemed to hit its mark, for Philip recoiled ever so slightly. Then he pushed his shoulders back and said, “Don’t be a fool. Do as he asks. You have no other choice now. Your life comes at his pleasure.”

  Henry shifted with discomfort. How he wished that there was a clever retort he could give, but there wasn’t because his brother was entirely correct. Henry was a third son, one who depended on the allowance the viscount allowed. He didn’t live extravagantly, but had little saved. When he had it, extra money went to the Society and their needs. A new telescope lens here, an abacus there. It had never occurred to him that those indulgences would be his downfall.

  He didn’t reply to his brother’s suggestion, but turned and made the rest of his way down the hall. Morley was waiting, his expression now concerned as Henry silently took his coat and gloves and exited the house without even putting them on.

  What was the cold when everything he’d ever cared about was about to be taken away? What was anything when compared to that?

  Chapter 3

  A brisk breeze blew through the park from time to time, and Evangeline tightened her coat around herself as she stared through the stripped tree branches toward the manor of Lord Killam. It was outrageous that she was here, spying on the house of her father’s old friend. And yet she could not help herself. Since two nights before at the ball, the seed of an idea had been planted in her mind and troubled her ceaselessly as it took root.

  And so she was here, pursuing it. What use was life if you did not manage it?

  “I must strenuously object to this foolishness once again, Lady Evangeline.”

  Evangeline turned toward her lady’s companion. Hester Tibbins was only a decade older than her. She had been let go by another house five years ago after a horrible experience with a duke who had been visiting. It had created quite the stir, with a shouting match between the duke and duchess that had rang through Society for months. It had been too interesting a piece of gossip for Evangeline not to ferret out more details and realize that the true victim in all the mess was the maid.

&n
bsp; Tibby would have been out on the street had Evangeline not interceded on her behalf. Tibby had been her maid and companion ever since. Her confidante. Her friend, or as close to it as Evangeline ever allowed. If that made Tibby a bit more familiar in private than she perhaps ought to have been, well…what was one to do?

  “I’m only feeling it out, Tibby.” She rolled her eyes in a most unladylike fashion, which she knew Tibby hated. “Gracious, you act as though I’m going to strip down naked right here.”

  Tibby shivered. “You’d catch your death if you did that, and deserve it. Spying on a gentleman is not for a lady to do. Following him? It’s unseemly.”

  “I’m two and twenty, Tibby, and have been a lady all my life. I do not need a reminder.”

  “Don’t you?” Tibby tried to sound stern, but there was a lilt of laughter to her tone.

  Evangeline fought the urge to stick her tongue out and shook her head. “Oh, hush. Men do this and worse all the time when they are in pursuit of a lady. Now look lively, I see Henry leaving his father’s house. Since his carriage was seen at his home, that means he’ll have to walk through the park to get there. It will be the perfect opportunity.”

  “To make a fool of yourself,” Tibby muttered.

  Evangeline did stick her tongue out this time and then focused her attention back on Henry. He was still standing at the top of the stairs at his father’s house. From this distance, she couldn’t read his expression, but his posture seemed…odd. His shoulders were rolled and his hands tight against his sides. He was holding his coat in his hand, despite the frigid temperatures.

  Then he started to walk. It was brisk and businesslike, and he moved across the lane without even looking for carriages in the way. She caught her breath as he entered the park and strode forward, ever closer to her. Now she could see his face as she stepped out into the path so he would be certain to observe her. His expression was…bereft.