“What is that mangy pile of rubbish you’re reading?” Her father snapped her out of her thoughts.
“It’s nothing,” Alice said with a gulp, slamming the pages closed and pushing the book back into her satchel before her father could read any of it.
“Don’t you lie to me, you useless girl,” he father growled.
“It’s an instructional manual.” Alice scrambled for an answer her father would believe and that wouldn’t result in him taking the book from her. “About the duties of marriage. Lettuce, Imogen, and I were all given a copy after our engagements.” It was marginally true, but Alice held her breath all the same.
“Who gave it to you?” her father asked, suspicion narrowing his eyes.
Alice had to lie. “Uncle Richard. He said it would improve our immortal souls.”
Her father continued to glare, but he didn’t comment. If there was anyone in the world that he feared, it was his younger brother. Uncle Richard was an army officer and a commanding presence. Her father didn’t dare say a cross word against him.
“It’s useless for women to read,” he grumbled. “There’s no point in improving what cannot be improved, and anything else is frivolous waste. But never mind. We’re here.”
Blessedly, the carriage rolled to a stop in front of an enormous house. Alice hadn’t realized they’d crossed onto the grounds of Holly Manor, but as she looked out when a footman raced down to open the carriage door, she was amazed by what she saw. The house itself was only fifty years old, but it had a gravity to it. At that moment, however, it was decorated for Christmas, with candles in the windows, boughs of pine and the holly that gave the estate its name strewn over the main door and front-facing windows, and cheery red bows adorning all.
Alice’s father exited the carriage without looking back at her. Alice had to wait for the footman to hand her down. The rush of icy air that swirled around her made her teeth chatter, but the short line of Count Camoni’s family and step-family waiting for them near the front door promised warmth to come.
“Hurry along, girl,” her father growled, marching up the gravel path that crunched under his feet. He headed straight for the Duke of Bolton himself. “Good day, Your Grace.” He smiled as though the world were filled with sunshine and light, as though he were a man prone to smiling.
“Lord Stanhope,” the duke greeted him in return. “Welcome to our home. I trust you had a pleasant journey?”
“It was excellent,” her father lied.
He continued his conversation with the duke, oblivious to all else, including Alice making her way toward the line of people at the front door, her limbs stiff with cold.
“This must be Lady Alice,” a matronly woman came forward to greet her with an eager smile. Alice assumed at once that she was the duchess, Count Camoni’s mother. “Oh dear, you look chilled through. Do come inside.”
“Y-your grace.” Alice managed a painful curtsy as she approached the woman. A second, much younger woman stood behind her, smiling at Alice with eager eyes. Behind her stood Count Camoni himself.
Alice nearly stumbled at the shock of seeing her betrothed again after so long. He was taller than she remembered, his shoulders broader and the power radiating from him stronger. He smiled at her as though she were a tasty morsel newly arrived for him to devour. Everything The Secrets of Love had taught her about the ways a man looked at a woman he wanted rushed back to her and she quivered on the inside, and not from fear.
“Georgette and I will have you warm and cozy in no time,” the duchess went on.
The other young woman, Georgette, rushed to Alice’s side, putting an arm around her and drawing her toward the house. “Goodness, you are cold,” she said, then added, “I’m Lady Georgette Farnsworth. The duke is my father and your fiancé, Count Camoni, is my step-brother.”
“Oh,” Alice said, too overwhelmed to say more. She blinked at the attractive young woman, her rosy cheeks and her friendly eyes, gaped at the house as they passed through the front door and into an enormous hall decorated with exquisite artwork and suits of armor, and caught her breath as Georgette escorted her into a parlor across the hall where a cheery blaze crackled in a festively-decorated hearth. Everything around her was beautiful and expensive, and the people who flooded into the parlor with them were lofty and well-mannered. Alice knew in an instant that she was in well over her head. And that was before Count Camoni approached her.
She was every bit as lovely as he remembered her to be. The moment Fabian laid eyes on his bride, he recalled all the reasons he had been so amenable to accepting her father’s suggestion of marriage that summer. Alice was like a breath of fresh, spring air in, well, December. Although, she did look frozen through as his step-sister led her to the fireplace in the Forest Parlor. The cold had brought bright pink to her otherwise pale cheeks, and if he wasn’t mistaken, the buttons standing out under the fabric of her too-thin bodice weren’t buttons at all. He would never understand ladies’ fashion and the inadequacy of the fabrics used these days. Alice should have been wearing a pelisse at the very least.
It had only begun to dawn on him that perhaps it wasn’t Alice’s intention to dress so scantily and that, in fact, something else was behind the too-light clothing she wore, judging by the way she huddled near the fire, looking as though she might weep with relief, when Lord Stanhope stepped up to his side.
“Count Camoni,” he said in an irritatingly ingratiating voice. “How nice to see you again.”
Fabian dragged his attention away from his bride to accept his soon-to-be father-in-law’s outstretched hand. “Lord Stanhope,” he said, the feeling that Lord Stanhope’s outstretched hand was asking for money settling over him. “I’m glad to see you and Lady Alice have arrived safely.”
“I’ve delivered her into your hands, sir,” Lord Stanhope said with a sly smile. “I trust the wedding will take place soon and we can settle on the bride price.”
Fabian blinked in shock at the abruptness of Lord Stanhope’s words. If it weren’t for the fact that he truly did find Alice to be everything he wanted in a woman, he never would have entered into any sort of agreement to attach himself to the man. “Everything is in order,” he answered without a smile. “But if you will excuse me, I would like to greet my bride.”
“Yes, yes. You do that,” Lord Stanhope said, thumping him on the back when he turned toward Alice.
Fabian frowned over his shoulder as he crossed the room. He caught the eye of his step-brother, Lord Matthew Farnsworth. The two were roughly the same age and had gotten along famously from the moment Fabian’s mother had married Matthew’s father. They exchanged a look of brotherly knowing before Fabian reached the fireside and Alice.
“Lady Alice,” Fabian greeted his vision of loveliness with a warm smile. “It is a joy and a pleasure to see you again.”
To Fabian’s disappointment, Alice glanced down, dipping into a short, polite curtsy before saying, “My lord,” with all the disinterest of a child forced to sit through a particularly dull sermon.
Fabian’s brow twitched as he scrambled to think of something more inviting to say. “I’m happy to see you looking so well. I thought the summer sun was becoming to you, but the coziness of a winter fire does just as much justice to your beauty.”
She was silent, not meeting his eyes, shaking slightly, but whether from the cold or from something more sinister, Fabian couldn’t tell. At last, she mumbled, “You are too kind.”
Fabian’s initial enthusiasm flattened to wary concern. “Are you well?” he asked. “You look a bit cold. Perhaps the journey was too taxing for you?”
“I am perfectly well, my lord.” She snapped her eyes up to meet his with a look of tight frustration. Her hands clutched the satchel she carried to the point where her knuckles went white.
Worry took over entirely from the eagerness Fabian had felt while watching her carriage roll up the drive. Something was wrong, but he couldn’t imagine what it was. Unless….
�
��Please forgive me for not writing more often,” he said in a quieter, more intimate voice. “I have had quite a few commissions to design winter gardens and greenhouses all across England this autumn. And the business of my father’s family’s estate in Tuscany has preoccupied me to an unforgivable degree. I swear, I will make it up to you by lavishing you with attention during this holiday party, before and after our marriage.” He added a mischievous flicker of his eyebrows on the off chance that a hint of sensuality would thaw her icy demeanor.
“As you wish, my lord,” she muttered, glancing down.
Fabian opened his mouth to say more, but he couldn’t think of a blasted thing to say. Ladies usually adored him, though it was awkward to even think it. Apparently, he had a combination of good looks, good fortune, and exoticism that sent female hearts fluttering. Alice’s was the only heart he cared to make flutter since the house party that summer, though. She’d been so free and curious then. Now he wasn’t certain who she was.
“Perhaps,” he began slowly, glancing to Georgette, “you would like to retire to the room we have prepared for you?” He lifted his eyebrows with the question. “There you might warm yourself by a fire or under layers of down quilts.”
At last, she looked up at him with a measure of gratitude. “Thank you, my lord. That would be nice.”
“Come along,” Georgette said, looping an arm around Alice’s waist and nudging her forward. “I’ll show you where you will be staying. I made certain Mama assigned you a room overlooking the garden. It’s decorated in splendid fashion for the season.”
Fabian stepped aside and watched as Georgette walked Alice out of the room. Lord Stanhope paused in the middle of what looked like an invasive conversation with the duke to stare at Georgette with open interest. He went so far as to absent-mindedly wipe his mouth, as if spotting a tasty morsel. Fabian kept his smile in place until Alice and Georgette disappeared around the corner, then let it drop into a troubled scowl. Lord Stanhope could be a problem if he latched onto Georgette.
“I thought you said Lady Alice was agreeable,” Matthew said, stepping up beside him and tugging his thoughts back to his initial problem.
“She is,” Fabian told him with a frown. “At least, she was this summer in Shropshire.”
“Something must have happened between then and now,” Matthew speculated, fingering the holly that decorated the mantel over the fire.
Fabian hummed, considering that. “I really shouldn’t have been so distant with her once the engagement was settled.”
“What could you have done?” Matthew shrugged. “You’ve been in high demand for over a year now, though why people hire a half-Italian to design gardens for them is beyond me.” He grinned.
Fabian smiled at his friend’s teasing. “Designing gardens is a fair sight better than idling around, waiting for your father to die so you can become a duke.”
Matthew laughed and nodded toward his father. “The old man isn’t going to keel over any time soon. Your mother has infused him with new life.”
Fabian arched a brow warily. “I’d rather not know what my mother gets up to behind closed doors.” He shifted his stance, studying his mother and the duke with a thoughtful look all the same. “They may have the right way of things, though.”
“How do you mean?” Matthew asked.
Fabian crossed his arms and rubbed his chin. “Your father put on quite a show to woo my mother. I never had a chance to do the same with Lady Alice.”
“And all women love to be wooed,” Matthew added.
“They do. And perhaps that’s why Lady Alice was so cold just now. Perhaps the key thing is for me to spend the next few days before the wedding truly wooing her, making her feel special.”
“Of course.” Matthew laughed as if it were obvious. “You need to fall prostrate at her feet and worship the ground she walks on. You need to show her that you want to marry her because she is a goddess and you want to be in her temple at all times.” He added a ribald wink to his comment.
“I wouldn’t mind pouring out daily libations on the altar of her inner sanctum,” Fabian agreed, equally lascivious.
“So do you know what you’re going to do to win her?” Matthew asked.
Fabian glanced to the side, out the window, to spot the greenhouse he was in the middle of redesigning as an overdue wedding gift for his mother. “I have a few ideas,” he said. “All it will take is a little plotting and a little magic.”
Chapter 2
It took Alice what felt like an eternity to warm up after Georgette showed her to the beautiful and lavish room that was to be hers for the first part of her stay at Holly Manor. The bed was piled sumptuously with down-filled quilts, and a cheery fire danced in the grate. Georgette even had one of the housemaids send up piping-hot tea to warm her from the inside. Between the cheery surroundings and kindness with which she’d been treated, Alice’s spirits almost rose.
Until Georgette said, “It will be such a treat to have you as an almost-sister, once you and Fabian are married. He’s not actually my brother, but he is so kind and jolly that it seems like it. Everyone has been thrilled that he will be married at last. We’ve all been blessing your father’s name for arranging the union.”
The smile that had worked its way onto Alice’s face dropped. “Yes, my father has been quite keen on the match.”
Georgette continued to smile as she helped herself to one of the biscuits on the tea tray. “Your father seems like a wise and thoughtful man. It surprises me that he hasn’t married again.”
Alice was grateful that she’d just set down her teacup. She would have spewed tea all over her would-be friend if she hadn’t. “If you had spent any amount of time in my father’s presence, you would understand why he remains unmarried,” she said, debating whether it was safe to come right out and tell a new acquaintance all the horrors of which her father was capable.
“I will make it a point to attend to him, then,” Georgette said. Before Alice could do more than widen her eyes in horror, she sped on with, “Now, if you will excuse me, we have more guests due to arrive, and I promised Papa and Lady Marie that I would play hostess.”
Georgette finished her biscuit with a giggle of delight, then rushed for the door. She sent Alice one last smile before dashing out into the hall and shutting the door behind her.
Alice snapped her mouth closed without having a chance to warn Georgette to stay away from her father. Her shoulders slumped as she stared at the closed door. The young woman couldn’t possibly have it in her head that her father would make a good match, could she? Georgette was the daughter of a duke. Her father was an earl, but he was easily double Georgette’s age, and not even the title Countess of Stanhope was worth being married to a cruel and heartless man like him.
The fear that Georgette was on the verge of doing something awful lingered with Alice through the rest of the afternoon, during which she climbed into bed and napped until she was warm, and through a dull supper attended by over a dozen travel-weary guests who weren’t in the mood for conversation. It niggled at the back of her mind through the night and was there with her when she woke and dressed the next morning.
She had firmly decided to take Georgette aside and explain the folly of her ways by breakfast the next morning. After fixing a plate of the finest pastries and meats she had ever seen, she deliberately took a seat by Georgette at the breakfast table.
“There is a matter of great importance that I must discuss with you,” she began.
Georgette had only just turned away from her brother and glanced to Alice with a questioning look when Count Camoni stood from his place on the other side of the table and cleared his throat. The rest of the chattering guests quieted with astounding speed to listen to whatever he had to say.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to invite you to a special display of horticultural wonder in my mother’s greenhouse this morning,” he said.
A chorus of oohs and aahs sounded around the table. Alic
e didn’t know any of the other guests, but they all clearly knew exactly who Count Camoni was. They all watched him with looks of admiration that bordered on worship. But what made Alice squirm in her chair was that Count Camoni watched her with the same near-worship. What stories had her father told him about her that inspired such misplaced affection toward her? It felt like yet another one of her father’s traps that she was helpless to escape.
“This display is not only in honor of Christmastide,” Count Camoni went on. “It is a tribute to my lovely bride, Lady Alice Marlowe.”
He gestured across the table to her and Alice wanted to sink into the floor. Every eye at the table turned to her, scrutinizing her as the woman who managed to snatch the famous object of their adoration away from them. Worse still, near the head of the table, her father looked on with a smirk that was so self-satisfied it turned Alice’s stomach and put her off her bacon.
But that wasn’t the very worst of it. Her father’s grin slid past Alice and landed firmly on Georgette, who returned the look with a smile and a nod. It was the most horrible set of circumstances she could possibly have found herself in. Count Camoni was still standing across the table from her, watching her, but his pleased smile had faded. Alice felt like a bloom that had failed to live up to his standards as he sat once more. She tried her best not to look at him as conversations resumed around the table. Saving Georgette was her first priority, though, not living up to whatever lies her father had told Count Camoni about her.
She turned to Georgette and opened her mouth to speak, but before she could get a word out, Count Camoni said, “I do hope you will enjoy the display this morning.”
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