Once Upon a Christmas Wedding

by Scarlett Scott

  “His hair is not nearly so light as mine,” George argued, but he glanced away when a flush colored his face bright red. “You think me handsome?” he asked in a whisper.

  Continuing her giggling, Angelica finally allowed a long sigh. “It matters not what I think, but rather what Lady Anne thinks, I expect,” she countered.

  His eyes rounding, George regarded his sister with alarm. “Anne Wellingham?” he countered. “Trenton’s daughter? Whatever has you thinking—?”

  “I saw how you looked at her the last time we were in Hyde Park. Do not deny it. And if you don’t make a move to court her soon, you will lose her to some rich tradesman in Wolverhampton. Or the heir to the Everly earldom.”

  “Nonsense. She’s probably been betrothed since the day she was born,” George replied, although his expression slowly changed, as if he were reconsidering his words.

  “She’s the daughter of an earl. Cousin to our cousins,” Angelica reminded him, remembering how the blue-eyed, curly-blonde-haired young lady had captured her brother’s eye that day in the park. “And she isn’t betrothed to anyone.”

  Angelica was sure she had felt a change in the air around them that day, a sort of charged atmosphere that had her hair lifting from their roots in an attempt to escape the elaborate coiffure Mary had created earlier that morning. She had expected fireworks to appear in the sky above them at any moment. Angels to begin singing...

  Except the angels were playing ninepin, for thunder rolled over the park and foretold of an impending shower that had everyone scattering to their respective homes.

  Her own eyes widened. “Perhaps she’s in London. Probably at the Trenton townhouse in Curzon Street. I can invite her—”

  “Would you do that?” George asked, with perhaps too much enthusiasm. A thrum seemed to permeate the air around him, and he remembered that sense of desire he’d experienced that day in the park.

  Angelica blinked, rather shocked to see the quick change in her brother’s demeanor. “Of course,” she whispered. “So... you are quite serious about her,” she accused. “Have you told Father?”

  George dipped his head. “I spoke with Mother.”

  “Mother?”

  “Yes, of course,” he replied, ignoring her look of disbelief. “I know it’s hard to believe, but Father isn’t a godfather to everyone in the ton,” he argued, a reference to the number of babies for whom Milton Grandby, Earl of Torrington, had agreed to be a godfather before he and Angelica were born. “And Mother happens to know Lady Anne’s mother.”

  Which had been a pleasant surprise to him. Sarah, Countess of Trenton, was rarely in London, and yet everyone knew she was a kind and agreeable women. All her children had been raised to be the same.

  Which is why Lady Anne was so intriguing.

  She was... nice. Pleasant. Ever so polite. Not the least bit proud. Beautiful, too, for she possessed blue eyes and curly blonde hair. Their children would be...

  George blinked.

  What the hell?

  Angelica giggled, which had George giving her a quelling glance. “Wot?” he asked in dismay.

  “Your children with Lady Anne,” she replied. “They will all be blonde, blue-eyed cherubs. They’ll look just like the statue of Cupid in Lord Weatherstone’s garden,” she accused. “And they will all be delightful, happy little babes. Not a colicky one in the bunch.” Then she suddenly sobered. “And I’ll be their old, spinster aunt, charged with spoiling them rotten.”

  George allowed a guffaw. “You, my sister, shall never be a spinster aunt, and much needs to transpire before you can ever become an aunt,” he reminded her. “But I do so enjoy the image you have conjured for my children,” he murmured. “Yours would look the same if you married one of the Trenton boys.”

  About to wallop her brother with another fist to his shoulder, Angelica pulled it back when a knock sounded at the door to their compartment.

  George slid the pocket door aside and gave a nod to the conductor.

  “Tickets, please.”

  George pulled four tickets from his top coat pocket and handed them to the portly man. “For us and for our servants across the aisle,” he said in a low voice.

  The conductor arched a brow and jerked his head in the direction of the opposite compartment. “Newlyweds, I suspect?”

  George dared a glance at his sister before he allowed a nod. “Is it that obvious?”

  Rolling his eyes, the conductor handed the tickets back to George. “If this train jumps the tracks, we’ll know why,” he replied in a manner so deadpan, it took George a moment to catch the man’s meaning.

  When he slid the pocket door closed, George turned to find his sister struggling to keep a straight face.

  “Angel!” he scolded.

  “I cannot help it,” she whispered as she dabbed at the new tears—these due to mirth—that dribbled from her eyes. She finally let out a loud giggle and fell sideways on the bench. Sniffling, she finally sat up and regarded her brother with a grin. “It’s funny and endearing and ever so...”

  New tears fell, and Angelica allowed an audible sigh. “I am so jealous of my lady’s maid.”

  George frowned, rather dismayed by his sister’s behavior. Angelica wasn’t usually like this. All weepy and easily amused and bothered all at the same time. “I am of the same mind as it applies to my valet,” he agreed. “Which means we really need to find spouses as soon as possible.”

  Angelica furrowed a brow as she regarded her twin brother. “Agreed.” Then she sniffled. “You would marry this young?”

  Dipping his head, George considered his options. He could remain unmarried for another six or more years. Sow his wild oats and behave as others his age were wont to do. But he yearned for the sort of relationship his parents had. Now that his valet had married a woman he claimed to love, George had no desire to seek companionship with a mistress or with a prostitute at a brothel.

  The distant sound of the train’s whistle had them both glancing at the window. The few buildings that made up the outskirts of northern London passed by their view.

  “Do you suppose we should warn your valet?”

  George shook his head. “I will not.”

  “But... but what if they don’t come out, and end up—”

  “Euston is the last stop on the line,” George reminded her. “Everyone has to get off.”

  Angelica inhaled and then allowed a sigh. “Well, let us hope they don’t appear too disheveled when they do,” she replied.

  Ten minutes later, the four that made up George’s party stepped down from the Midlands train. Although the servants appeared as if they had dressed in a hurry, they both displayed happy countenances and color in their cheeks.

  The same could not be said of the twins.

  Lost in thought and contemplating the next few weeks in London, the two boarded a hackney, followed by their servants, valises, and trunks, and made the trip to Worthington House in relative silence.

  Chapter 3

  A Knight Spies a Lady

  Meanwhile, back in the Euston station

  Sir Benjamin Fulton stood transfixed as he watched an elegant young woman step down from the train.

  The lady’s maid who followed her appeared most cheerful, while the mistress seemed...

  Heartbroken?

  Sad?

  Contemplative?

  Or perhaps her eyes were bothered by the coal smoke that hung in the chilly air.

  She looked as if she’d been crying.

  A woman as beautiful as this one shouldn’t have a need to cry, he considered. From her smart ensemble—a bright navy carriage gown and matching redingote—he knew she was a woman of some substance. The color of her hair—honey blonde—was evident given it was topped with a petite hat worn at a rakish angle and adorned with a short feather.

  Was she traveling alone? If so, she seemed quite at ease despite the new mode of travel.

  Confident, even.

  He liked that in a young
woman.

  Not because he liked being kowtowed by a woman, of course, but because he’d had quite enough of helpless females.

  Having a brother with four girls—all being brought up by a governess to believe they would never survive without the help of a husband—Ben wasn’t about to seek out the same sort of woman for himself.

  He wanted someone educated enough to carry on a conversation about topics other than French fashions or gossip overheard in a Mayfair parlor. Someone who would be interested in what he found interesting.

  A tall order, he supposed, given his interest in the heavens above.

  Until the week before, he hadn’t even been thinking of young women. Of marriage and what might—or rather what would—occur should his older brother die without having sired an heir.

  I will be an earl.

  Then two missives had arrived from the north, and he found he could think of almost nothing else.

  Well, he could, and at the moment, he should. He had a reason for being at the Euston train station, and it wasn’t to admire lovely young ladies or pontificate on the possibility of becoming an earl.

  His latest acquisition should have arrived on this afternoon’s train.

  A telescope. A reflecting telescope. The same sort of scope Sir Isaac Newton had used the century before when he was studying the heavens above. One with a large lens at one end and a small one at the other, housed in a broad steel tube mounted into a rotating fork.

  Once installed on the base he’d had constructed in his garden observatory, the scope would allow him to see well beyond the limits of his naked eye.

  When summer finally paid a call on an impatient London, he had commissioned an observatory to be built behind his mansion in Mayfair. Located well away from the soot-stained skies of London, his garden was a perfect place from which to stargaze. Although he would have preferred a property out in Richmond or Chiswick, his brother, Benedict, Earl of Wadsworth, insisted he live in the house the earldom had recently acquired. “I need a place I can go besides White’s should my visiting daughters threaten my sanity,” Benedict had said last spring. “Or my wife threatens my death.”

  Ben rolled his eyes at remembering the incident.

  The earldom already provided him with a modest allowance every month. Given Benedict hadn’t yet sired an heir, though, there was still a chance Ben would end up inheriting the earldom at some point. Given his lack of interest in government and politics, he really hoped a boy would appear soon. His brother was eight-and-thirty, and although his wife, Sylvia, was younger, they didn’t behave the same as they had when they were first married.

  Ben feared his brother would follow in their father’s footsteps, abandon his wife, and take a mistress or two. The man had no avocation, no interests outside of the earldom.

  Ben did, though. Astronomy.

  Upon Ben’s discovery of a comet the year before, the Prime Minister had taken note and recommended an honor be bestowed on him. With the King’s agreement came word that Ben would be knighted. The ceremony, painless despite the huge sword that had tapped his shoulders, was over in a moment.

  Thank the gods his new title didn’t require him to take a seat in Parliament. That meant he could spend his nights perusing the heavens and recording his findings in his very own garden.

  After only a few weeks of construction, the brick and steel observatory was nearly complete. He owned an exceptional pair of opera glasses to use as a finder scope, although he had ordered one of those be made special so that he could mount it on the telescope.

  Once the instrument was installed this afternoon, he could spend his evenings staring at stars. Communing with comets. Peeking at planets. Making moon eyes at the moon.

  His skills at sketching would assist in documenting his discoveries. He had an easel, pencils, and pens with a variety of nibs that would allow him to perfectly replicate what he saw in the telescope lens.

  He was determined to discover something new about which he could speak at a Royal Society meeting.

  The man in the moon? Or craters on the moon?

  Or the moons around Jupiter? Surely there were more than just the four.

  Or what of Saturn’s rings? And why did Saturn have rings while none of the other known planets could claim such a trait?

  And just why was Mars red?

  Ben was contemplating this and more when he suddenly blinked.

  The beautiful blonde had just been joined on the platform by another blond. But this one was a young man, well-dressed and sporting a top hat of good quality.

  Damnation!

  A servant, probably his valet, followed the young man out of the train car and offered his arm to the lady’s maid. Meanwhile, the young man offered his arm to the woman of his dreams, and the four made their way toward the station.

  Double damnation!

  She was already spoken for!

  Married, no doubt, although how was it she had managed to land a husband who could have been her twin brother? The two looked alike in a manner that was most unnerving.

  Ben blinked.

  He recognized the young man. An aristocrat’s son, but one who held his title as a courtesy, because he was due to inherit...

  Ben struggled to remember just which earldom the young man would one day inherit. Although he couldn’t come up with a name, the thought that the beautiful blonde might not be married had his heart skipping a beat.

  Something that rarely happened.

  When he sneezed, of course, for he knew it was a well-documented side effect of a sneeze. But other than that, when had his heart ever stopped?

  Well, there was that one time when he had paid witness to a total solar eclipse. But did that really count? The other three gentlemen in his company had all clutched their chests in awe as they stared at the ring of fire that perfectly surrounded the black moon.

  They would probably be blind before they reached their fifties, but he had decided paying witness to such a spectacle was well worth the consequences.

  Given his current view of the young lady, he was glad blindness hadn’t yet taken his sight.

  “Sir, are you here to collect this crate?” a uniformed man asked as he pointed toward a wooden box mounted on a two-wheeled cart. He held a manifest in one hand, the perfect penmanship displaying his name in black ink. “Benjamin Fuller?”

  Pulled from his reverie, Ben dared a quick glance around. He was now the only other person on the platform besides the rather portly porter. “I am,” he acknowledged. “Is it heavy?”

  “Nothing I can’t manage, although you’ll want assistance to get it out of your carriage,” the porter replied. He saw to grabbing the handles of the luggage cart and then gave the knight a salute.

  Once he was sure the short man was following him, Ben made his way to a town coach parked in front of the train station—just in time to watch as the beautiful blonde stepped up and into a hackney. Ben hadn’t intended to allow his attention to wander, but the sight of the young woman had him making some sort of noise, for the porter was regarding him with an arched brow.

  And a look of amusement.

  “Lady Angelica,” the short man said in a hoarse whisper.

  Ben arched a brow, immediately recognizing the name.

  Unless there was more than one.

  “Daughter of...?”

  “Torrington, of course,” the porter replied, his look of amusement quickly replaced by a display of his contempt for the knight, as if ignorance of the Torrington family was beyond the pale.

  “That is Torrington’s daughter?” Ben half-asked in disbelief, acting as if he knew exactly to whom the man referred. He knew of her, of course. She had been the subject of the two letters he had received the week before.

  Which meant she definitely wasn’t married.

  Thank the gods.

  At the porter’s continued expression of disappointment, Ben sighed. “I have only been in London a month. I haven’t had the pleasure of an introduction,” he ad
ded, hoping the porter wouldn’t leave him—as some sort of punishment for his ignorance—before seeing to it the heavy crate was loaded onto the back of his town coach.

  “Sort of a surprise to see them here this time of the year,” the porter murmured.

  “Them?” Ben repeated. He still wondered about the identity of the lady’s escort.

  “It ain’t yet been Christmas. Usually don’t see the earl’s family in London until well after January.”

  Ben inhaled, the letters now making more sense. Earl’s family. The porter referred to Milton Grandby, Earl of Torrington. The young man who had followed Lady Angelica was definitely George Grandby, Viscount Hexham, which meant Lady Angelica was his sister.

  He ignored the thrill he felt just then—she was most definitely the subject of the missives.

  His short-lived euphoria abated. “I didn’t see the earl,” Ben commented, hoping to draw out more information from the short man.

  The porter loaded the crate onto the back of the town coach with the help of another porter. “Neither did I, nor the countess,” he agreed, pausing in his effort to secure the crate with leather luggage straps. His brows waggled, and he seemed about to say something before he suddenly sobered and quickly finished his task.

  Pulling a coin from his waistcoat pocket, Ben offered it to the porter. “Perhaps they’ll come on a later train?” he half-asked. He pulled yet another coin from his waistcoat pocket and held it out to the porter.

  Taking the proffered coins, the porter tipped his hat. “Much obliged, guv’nor.” He paused before adding, “Doubt the earl will be in town ’afore Parliament starts in the spring.”

  Ben considered the comment. The thought of Lady Angelica without more than her brother as protector had him wondering if he might gain an audience with the young woman before the first ball of the Season.

  And then he rolled his eyes.

  Whatever was he thinking? He would never have enough courage to approach Lady Angelica, despite the information contained in the letter he had received from the Earl of Torrington. And given that his hobby—astronomy—kept him up late at nights and abed until past noon, it was unlikely he would ever see her again.