Wicked Christmas (Blackhaven Brides Book 10)

by Mary Lancaster

  “And maybe the fact that I couldn’t stand him,” Kate said frankly. “Thanks for being so kind to me.”

  A knock sounded at the door.

  “Come in,” Lampton called, and Mrs. Graham brought in a sealed packet. “Thank you.” While Mrs. Graham and Kate exchanged information on pregnancy and babies, he broke the seal and opened the letter. A few gold coins fell onto the desk.

  “Hurray,” Lampton said. “It’s Christmas.”

  They came with a note, from Elizabeth von Rheinwald, last night’s princess, whom he certainly hadn’t expected to hear from so soon. As promised, he had sent her his bill first thing this morning, heading it, My Account, should you choose to pay it.

  The princess’s note was equally brief: My payment, should you choose to accept it.

  Unbidden, a smile flickered across his face.

  “Good news?” Kate asked.

  Mrs. Graham appeared to have left again.

  “Not really, just a bill paid.” He didn’t really know why the note pleased him so much, but he was curious about the sender. “Tell me, Kate. I know you haven’t been out and about as much as usual over the Christmas season, but have you come across a Princess von Rheinwald? She’s staying at the hotel.”

  “As a matter of fact, I have. Exotically beautiful creature with a lively little boy. We met at the pump room and discussed pregnancy. Everyone feels compelled to discuss pregnancy with me. I can’t imagine why. I rather liked her. She has a droll way with her that suited my mood.”

  “Is there a Prince von Rheinwald?” Lampton wondered.

  “The child, I believe. His father, one of those ten-a-penny German princelings, died a couple of years ago. The princess has been to the peace congress at Vienna to try and secure her son’s patrimony. But she now believes it to be a lost cause. Rheinwald will be swallowed up by Saxony or Prussia, or even Poland.”

  Lampton frowned. “Then what on earth brought her to Blackhaven, of all unlikely places?”

  Kate shrugged. “Who knows? I did not ask. I expect it is the waters.”

  “Did the boy drink?”

  Kate thought. “A little, I think. Why?”

  Because he’s one of the healthiest children I’ve ever seen and she is too anxious for him. Aloud, he said only, “No reason, save curiosity. Come, let me accompany you back to the vicarage before I begin my sick visits.”

  *

  His final visit of the afternoon was to Braithwaite Castle where one of the maids had been laid low with a chest complaint. He rode up from the town, only to discover the castle in the throes of a party. As he dismounted, he could hear the muffled music and laughter from inside. In fact, now that he thought of it, he had been invited, though he had politely refused as he did all formal invitations.

  Leaving his horse with the obliging stable boy, who would no doubt spoil her with superior Braithwaite oats, he ran up the steps to the front door, where a footman admitted him. Mrs. Gaskell, the housekeeper, was immediately summoned. She had the staff so well trained that it seemed a party on the premises did not disturb her calm or theirs. She certainly led him in person to Jane, the stricken maid in her attic chamber.

  Jane smiled at him wanly from one of the two beds in the room. “So kind in you, Doctor. I told Mrs. Gaskell you wouldn’t want to come out at Christmas…”

  “I assure you, I’m having a much better time than you. How do you feel? Better or worse?”

  “Better, I think, only I’ve no energy, sir. It exhausts me just to get out of bed, and there’s so much to be done with her ladyship entertaining nearly every day and—”

  “Her ladyship doesn’t dismiss servants for illness,” Mrs. Gaskell said firmly. “Only for malingering.”

  “Am I malingering, Doctor?” Jane asked anxiously, clearly under the impression it was some unforgivable form of illness.

  “Let us see. Take a deep breath for me…”

  After his examination, he pronounced Jane to be on the mend. “But you will feel very weak for a little. I’ll leave you this tonic—one glassful now and then one each morning. One more day in bed for her, Mrs. Gaskell, and then perhaps lighter duties than usual until she is more herself?”

  Mrs. Gaskell agreed readily enough, and Lampton took his leave. As he ran down the main staircase, the strains of a rather sweetly sung Christmas carol reached him. It made him pause for an instant, for that had been one of Mary’s favorites. She had used to sing it to herself as she cooked or walked or just sat with him of a winter evening, gazing into the fire…

  He closed his eyes and let the pain of guilt and loss wash over him, and then, opening them again, he carried on his way.

  On the first-floor landing, someone was striding along toward the gallery from the opposite direction.

  It was Lord Tamar, the earl’s brother-in-law. He cast a casual glance at Lampton and then grinned spontaneously, walking over to him with hand stretched out. “Lampton! How are you?”

  Lampton took his hand. “Well, as I see you are. I didn’t know you were back.”

  When Mary had been ill, and after she’d died, the eccentric marquis had occasionally just turned up at his house and drunk a glass of brandy with him in silence. It had been curiously comforting. There was more to most people than the faces they showed the world, and this was certainly true of Lord Tamar.

  “Serena wanted to come up for the Christmas season, so here we are,” Tamar said.

  “And a proud father now, I hear?”

  “Come and meet my daughter,” Tamar invited.

  “Oh no, you’re in the middle of a party. Another time.”

  “Serena and everyone else will be glad to see you. The children are all on display, at least until they get fractious.”

  Lampton had less than no desire to go into company. And yet Tamar’s insistence now seemed as genuine as his silent sympathy had been a year ago.

  “You can spare us five minutes, can’t you?” Tamar said persuasively.

  “Perhaps just five.” It seemed the least he could graciously do for a friend. “If the countess doesn’t object to my changing my mind. I already declined her kind invitation.”

  “Of course, she won’t. Especially if you’ve been tending to her sick staff, which I presume you have.” Tamar led him to the large drawing room off the gallery.

  Lampton’s first impression was of a sea of glittering, colorful strangers illuminated by an extravagant number of candles. His second was one of unexpected coziness. Despite the number of people, it almost looked like one family. Among the adults who were chatting, playing cards, or strumming on the guitar and piano, roamed several children. A couple of babies even sat on parental knees—presumably one of them belonged to Lord Tamar.

  The carol had stopped at some point, and now a woman of uncertain years but a merry face was playing a waltz on the pianoforte. A few young couples, at least some of them older children, waltzed around the piano in an enthusiastic but not entirely serious way. Among them, he recognized the earl’s sister, Frances, and her husband. Even old Lady Braithwaite, a stickler for propriety, was smiling at their antics.

  “Look who I found,” Tamar said jovially to the company.

  Young Lady Braithwaite jumped up at once. “Dr. Lampton, how wonderful!” And behind her came several people who seemed spontaneously glad to see him. The earl himself, Mr. Winslow the squire, Lady Serena, Colonel Benedict. Startled by their enthusiasm, Lampton did his best to return their greetings. Beyond them, saluting him from the fireplace, lounged Tristram Grant, the vicar.

  And on a sofa close by, sat Princess Elizabeth von Rheinwald.

  Chapter Two

  Elizabeth knew the moment the doctor saw her. Conscious of a spurt of interest when he walked into the room, she was intrigued as well as surprised by the welcome accorded him by her hosts and fellow guests. He entered with the man she knew to be the earl’s brother-in-law, a lord, and was thereafter greeted like an equal by the earl and countess and several other guests she did no
t yet have names for.

  To her amusement, the doctor looked both surprised and embarrassed by the warmth. And then his gaze met hers. She felt suddenly vulgar for staring, but refused to back down first. He did that when an importunate child tugged at his hand and he glanced down.

  “Goodness,” Mrs. Grant, the vicar’s beautiful and heavily pregnant wife, said beside her. “Did you actually persuade him to come, Tris?”

  “No,” the vicar replied. “It’s my belief he came to see a patient and was waylaid by Tamar.”

  “Tamar,” Elizabeth blurted, her attention caught. “That is Lord Tamar?”

  Kate misunderstood her interest. “Yes, that, Lord Tamar. But it’s good to see Dr. Lampton about at last.”

  “The good doctor does not care for parties?” Elizabeth asked casually, thrusting Tamar aside for now.

  “Not since his wife died,” Mrs. Grant said, involuntarily touching her distended middle. “He lost his unborn child with her.”

  “You must not think of things like that just now,” Elizabeth said at once. While her heart ached in response to the doctor’s tragic loss, she began to distract Kate from it with the story of Andreas falling out of bed and her own conviction that he was injured and fevered until Dr. Lampton arrived to diagnose a childish tantrum at being put back into bed.

  Mrs. Grant laughed. “You must not hold it against him. He does not suffer fools gladly and will tell you to your face when you are wrong whether you are a fisherman or a duke.”

  “Or a princess,” said a dry voice beside Elizabeth.

  She looked up quickly to see Dr. Lampton. Andreas, who had been last seen in the company of the earl’s young sisters, had him by the hand and was smiling up at him.

  “Doctor,” he pronounced.

  “So it is,” Elizabeth marveled. “How clever of you to find him. Dr. Lampton.” Something prompted her to offer her hand.

  If he was surprised, he hid it, clasping her fingers and bowing over them. It crossed her mind that when he chose, he had all the grace of a gentleman. Perhaps that was why the nobility here accepted him.

  “Princess.” Releasing her hand, he inclined his head to Mrs. Grant as to an old friend, and turned to her husband. “Not at home polishing your Christmas sermon?” he said sardonically.

  Mr. Grant, it seemed, was not offended. “Why tinker with perfection?”

  “So, you will just repeat last year’s?” Lampton suggested.

  “Almost certainly.” Grant smiled beatifically and strolled away.

  Elizabeth regarded the doctor as Andreas began to climb on to her knee. “You do not respect the vicar,” she observed.

  Dr. Lampton’s eyebrows flew up. “On the contrary, I respect him a great deal. It’s his office which offends me.”

  “Ignore him,” Mrs. Grant advised Elizabeth. “Dr. Lampton is a man of science and a free thinker. He and my husband argue until they are blue in the face but neither can convince the other they are wrong. Nor can anyone else understand how it is they are the best of friends, but there it is. Men are peculiar.”

  “So that is the real reason you do not normally attend Christmas parties?” Elizabeth suggested.

  “Oh no,” Lampton said. “The real reason is, I am grumpy and unsociable.” As if to prove the point, he inclined his head and turned to go.

  “A moment, Doctor, don’t run away,” Elizabeth said to his back.

  He only half-tuned back toward her.

  “I wish to ask a favor,” Elizabeth said, rising to her feet and taking Andreas’s hand.

  “You did not find my rates too steep?”

  She raised one eyebrow. “Oh. I didn’t realize you also charge for introductions. What a very mercenary man of science you are.”

  Amusement glinted in his intense blue eyes. “Introduction to whom?”

  “Lord Tamar. I saw you come in with him.”

  It was clearly on the tip of his tongue to ask what she wanted with Tamar, but somehow, he managed to bite his tongue. “Lord Tamar is the most amiable of men, and the party is hardly formal. You could introduce yourself without incurring my expenses.”

  “I could, but I desire the social advantage of your introduction.”

  “Then I shall increase my fee.”

  “For the social advantage?” she guessed.

  “For the mockery. And… I believe you have missed your chance. Lord Tamar is now dancing.”

  “How very tiresome of him,” Elizabeth said, gazing in the direction of the dancers. Tamar was indeed joining the dancers, with a rather lovely lady who seemed to be part of the castle family. “And with whom is he dancing?”

  “His wife.”

  “Well, it’s most vexing,” Elizabeth said lightly. “For one thing, I did not know he had a wife, and for another, to dance with her is most unfashionable.” She considered the doctor, who was tall and handsome in a saturnine, kind of a way. His features were even, if a little harsh, an impression emphasized by his generally forbidding expression. More than that, beneath his cynical eyes, she saw his personal tragedy, a loneliness she doubted he would ever admit to.

  Suddenly, she wanted to warm those cool eyes, to rattle his calm and make him live. The notion made her heart beat faster.

  “There is only one thing for it,” she pronounced. “You must dance with me.”

  Lampton blinked. “Forgive my gaucheness, madam, but I cannot dance.”

  “Never mind. Neither can they, for the most part. Don’t be an old curmudgeon, Doctor.”

  He made a sound like a snort, “Curmudgeon?

  “Curmudgeon,” she said firmly. “Only dancing with me can save you from that now.”

  He halted, gazing down at her speculatively. She let him see that she was laughing at him. It was a challenge, though she truly didn’t expect him to take it up.

  He offered his arm. Surprise widened her eyes for an instant. She almost panicked, for it seemed she could not after all mock him with impunity. But she had wanted to dance with him, though she could no longer remember quite why. With a feeling of stepping into an unknown world, she laid her hand on his sleeve.

  His eyes blazed, then his eyelids swept down, veiling the fire. When they lifted again, his expression was once more cool and cynical. He led her toward the dancers by the piano.

  “Now you are well-served,” he said with apparent satisfaction. “My toes are at your disposal. Yours, are most certainly at mine.”

  “Fortunately, you are a doctor and may repair any damage you do to them.”

  He slipped his arm around her waist and took her hand. She hadn’t expected his arm to be so strong and firm. He was a doctor, not a soldier.

  “This is proving quite an expensive evening for you.” he observed. “Would you like me to kill two birds with one stone, as it were, and make the introduction as we dance?”

  “No,” she replied at once. “I would like you to pretend to enjoy yourself.”

  “I never pretend,” he said, spinning her around into the dance. “But there is nothing I would rather do than dance with you.”

  Again, he had surprised her. “Civility?” she wondered aloud. “Or gallantry?”

  “Flirtation, madam,” he said severely. “Kindly respond in an appropriate manner.”

  She laughed. “If you imagine I shall flee in horror, you are wide of the mark. You don’t get off my hook so easily, sir. And I thought you never lied.”

  “I don’t.”

  “But you do dance. Very well.” He did, with a natural grace that seemed somehow un-English. For an instant, she imagined him in a very different, intimate dance and knew he would be good at that, too.

  “Ah,” he said as though in relief. “This is the flirtatious response. Thank you. It seems I can only dance with you.”

  “Oh, well said, sir,” she approved. “I believe we shall rub through this very well after all.”

  “You speak English very well.”

  “I engaged an English governess for my son. My forethought
amazes even me.”

  “Have you been in England long?”

  “Not long. A week or so…” The music came to an abrupt halt and turned into a hectic Scottish reel.

  “Alice!” Lady Frances, the earl’s sister, expostulated amidst considerable laughter from the flummoxed dancers. A child of about fourteen had sat down beside the older lady, presumably brushing her aside.

  “There, you have done your penance,” Elizabeth told the doctor.

  His eyes gleamed. “But Scottish reels are my specialty.”

  “What a pity there is no room,” Elizabeth mourned. In fact, a reel would have been beyond her. She could already feel the sharpening ache in her side. And as he released her and she lowered her arms, the sudden pain deprived her of breath. Oh no, not again, not now… Somehow, she forced herself to smile and ignore it.

  Fortunately, Lord Tamar strolled toward them—without his wife, who had flitted away to the piano, no doubt to deal with the musical dispute there. Elizabeth nudged the doctor with her good arm and was pleased to see the gleam of amusement in his eyes.

  “You may perform your introduction,” she said regally.

  “My lord,” Lampton said.

  Tamar halted in front of them. “You’re not going already, are you? You really meant five minutes.”

  “On the contrary, I wanted to introduce you to the Princess of Rheinwald.”

  Lord Tamar bowed at once. “Delighted to make your acquaintance, ma’am. I hope you are enjoying your time in Blackhaven.”

  “Of course. I have found nothing but kindness and hospitality.”

  Beside her, Dr. Lampton let out a hiss of laughter—or perhaps just disbelief.

  Tamar cast him a quelling glance but said only, “My sister-in-law has been telling us about you. You have mislaid your governess.” He grinned down at Andreas who had materialized with an older girl. “Which I daresay doesn’t bother the little prince here at all!”

  “Well, I’m hoping she will return before he realizes he misses her,” Elizabeth said optimistically. “When we first came to England, she asked for leave to visit her family in Yorkshire, which seemed quite reasonable. I asked her to meet us in Blackhaven, but so far, she has not arrived. I expect her or her letter of resignation, momentarily!”