A Valentine For Christmas - A Regency Novella (2 page)

Still, he could always return early. As long as he was as removed as possible from the festive nonsense then he did not mind returning to London early in the new year. He could always have her taken back to London and return if the season was still too tedious. He smiled, settling back onto the seat. Although it was only five in the afternoon, twilight had fallen swiftly into night while the snow continued to swirl through the air, creating a strange, white silence as if the world itself were muffled.

He sighed and pulled the fur rug a little more firmly around them, closing his eyes. Lulled by the rocking of the carriage, his mind drifted and like the sleeping woman beside him, he began to doze… He must have actually slept because the next thing he knew, he was being jerked rudely awake by the unruly lurch of the carriage. Unruliness quickly turned to outright violence and Valentine was flung from his seat while Madeleine uttered a shrill scream, falling on top of him. He wrapped his arm around her waist to secure her while his hip connected painfully with the opposite seat. It took a moment for the carriage to stop moving and when it did, the world had taken on a different perspective for they were now resting on an angle.

‘What the devil?’ Beside him, Madeleine continued to shriek and he gave her a small shake. ‘Be quiet! You are perfectly all right.’

‘I am not all right! What has happened? Have we been set upon by brigands?
Nous allons mourir
!’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he said irritably, ‘we’re not going to die. We’ve lost a wheel, by the feel of it.’

The carriage might have come to a stop but it was leaning heavily to the left. Valentine cursed his ill luck. There were anxious shouts from without and the coach shook as somebody climbed to open the door that was above him. They looked up to see the face of Deakin, his groom staring down at them.

‘Well, now,’ the man said in relief, ‘you’re alive then.’

‘You fool!’ Madeleine snarled. ‘What have you done? Are you trying to kill us?’

‘Enough, Madeleine.’ Valentine said quietly but in a tone that brooked no argument. She subsided, although she still muttered to herself in French. His lordship ignored her, looking back at his groom. ‘A wheel?’

‘Right enough.’ He held out a hand and Valentine seized Madeleine around the waist. She gave a small shriek when he hoisted her upwards.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Well you can’t stay in here. Take Deakin’s hand.’

She did but it wasn’t an easy job, getting her out and made all the more difficult by her inclination towards histrionics. By the time his lordship had jumped down onto the snowy road to join her, he was sincerely regretting that he had brought her at all. There was a time and a place for a mistress, no matter how beautiful she was, and this was most definitely not one of them. Ignoring her, he turned and eyed the badly listing vehicle, which could be seen by the light of the travelling lanterns Deakin had unhooked. ‘The damage?’

‘Not good,’ Deakin grimaced. ‘Right front wheel and a snapped axel. It won’t be going anywhere on this eve, m’lord. Maybe not tomorrow, either.’

As bad as this news was, Valentine could see his groom spoke nothing but the truth. The vehicle wouldn’t be going anywhere until the axel and wheel where replaced and the necessary repairs made. ‘The horses?’

They would need a stable for the night for the horse and accommodation for all of them. He looked around him. Up ahead, through the swirling snow, he could see lights. Quite a lot of them, which probably meant that they belonged to a house of some substance. Sanctuary in this white, unwelcoming world. It was a miracle that the mishap had befallen them so close to help.

‘I took a look. It’s a manor house,’ Garrick, his coachman said, coming along the road to join them. ‘Reckon we need to head there.’

‘I will go ahead and send help. You two stay with the horses and make sure they don’t get too cold.’ He took one of the lanterns. ‘Come along, Madeleine.’

She stared at him and even in the lamp lit twilight, he could see she was incredulous. ‘Walk over there?
Ne pas être ridicule.
Send one of the servants. Tell them to bring another carriage.’

‘Madeleine,’ he said, tone pleasant, ‘you can either walk with me or you can stay here and freeze. It is up to you for, at the moment, I do not care one way or the other.’

Her lower lip quivered. ‘You do not care for me!’

‘I certainly do not care for your attitude. Decide before I lose patience. This snow is getting worse.’

Without a word, she turned and began to stalk through the snow towards the lights. His lordship looked at Deakin. ‘Walk them if you think they need it. I won’t be long.’

‘Aye, m’lord.’

Valentine pulled his greatcoat a little more firmly around him and strode forward, catching up with his mistress in a few long strides.

‘It is shameful, the way you are treating me,’ she snapped when he had fallen in beside her.

‘We have snapped an axel. I fail to see how that could be construed as shameless.’ He was looking ahead at the lights, a beacon in the night. The
only
beacon, so it was to be hoped that they would offer succor. He had no desire to have his horses stand around in the cold for too long and he would have to find beds for his entourage. The house was certainly a decent size, which meant that it undoubtedly belonged to the landed gentry. He glanced at Madeleine. This was going to be interesting. ‘You are going to have to pretend to be my cousin,’ he decided.

She gave him a puzzled look out of wide blue eyes. ‘What?’

‘My cousin. Staying with me for a period of time. Do not speak frequently and only if you are addressed directly. Do you understand?’

‘I understand nothing,’ she said coldly. ‘Why would I be your… your cousin?’

‘Because this is a respectable household and you, my sweet, are not respectable. They will undoubtedly offer us shelter but it will all be hellishly awkward if they hit upon the fact that you’re my mistress.’

Madeleine pouted. ‘Why cannot I not pretend to be your wife?’

‘Because there is a good chance that I have encountered, or will encounter these people at some stage,’ he said irritably. ‘And conversations can become awkward when no wife is in the offing. You are my cousin come to stay for a period of time before you return home to France. Do you think you can manage it?’

She bristled a little at that, just as he’d known she would. Madeleine fancied herself an actress and had spent time on the stage in Paris. ‘Of course. I can assume
any
role.’

Madeleine smiled and tucked her hand into the crook of his arm. ‘I am your cousin from Paris,’ she agreed sweetly, ‘just as you say.’

Valentine nodded and smiled but he suspected that the next few hours were going to be awkward indeed. How could his arrival in a country house with his mistress in tow be anything else? This was
not
the way he had intended to spend the night. In the wilds of Cambridgeshire – if he were still in Cambridgeshire and they hadn’t crossed the Norfolk boarder yet – beholden to a household of strangers for beds.

Perhaps he should have stayed at Suzannah’s after all, he reflected grimly.

He had the suspicion life was going to get even more complicated that it would have been at the Morleys.

Chapter Two

The girl in the middle of this mayhem, Charlotte Weathering, paused, arms outstretched. They were playing Catch The Donkey which entailed her wearing a blindfold while she tried to get her hands on the donkey, in this case one of her siblings. But Charlotte had an appalling sense of direction and had not a clue where the donkey, her brother Bardwell in this instance, might be. He was supposed to stay still while others gave clues but Charlie knew her brother well enough to know how unlikely
that
was. ‘None of you are being in the least bit helpful,’ she observed plaintively.

‘Of course we are,’ this from her younger sister Anne, ‘it’s just that
you
haven’t a clue which way is which.’

It was, in the Weathering household, a perfectly normal night. Festivities might be a little more rowdy than usual, thanks to the presence of Charlotte’s two brothers, James and Harry, but if there was one thing that the Weathering’s liked more than anything it was to ‘clown about’ as the children’s Aunt Sophia liked to phrase it. Tolerantly, as she was fond of all seven of the Weathering brood whose sunny dispositions generally endeared them to most people.

‘Very well then,’ Charlie said, trying to sound severe, ‘Bardie, do
not
move. I mean it. And the rest of you, try and be clear. I cannot be expected to find somebody if you are all rattling on, now can I?’

Meredith, at twelve the youngest of the Weathering clan, made a rude noise. ‘You couldn’t find a pineapple if it was put in front of you nose.’

‘That will do, Merry,’ their mother’s voice observed placidly from her place in front of the fire. ‘There is no need to be discourteous.’

‘I think there is every need,’ Merry returned, but quietly so that she wasn’t overheard by parental ears.

Charlie grinned. As the second of seven children, there was often a great many reasons to be impolite, but it didn’t do to point that out to Mama. ‘Are we ready?’ she enquired.

‘When you are. If you ever are,’ Bardie muttered.

Ah-ah! Trust the donkey to pipe up when he should have remained silent. Charlie had him now for the voice was a little to the left and not too far away at all. She ploughed ahead with determination, arms outstretched. Of course, he would try to move away at the last minute, even though that was against the rules but she knew her brother too well and if she feinted the same way…

‘Ooof!’

‘Ha!’ Charlie wrapped her arms around her brother so he could not perform one of his sleight of hand tricks and disappear. ‘I have you now, brother dearest.’

There was a pause. It was the kind of pause that did not occur all that frequently in the Weathering household, a kind of dense,
uncomfortable
pause. Even before she dropped her arms and removed her blindfold, Charlie sensed that something relatively momentous had taken place, if only because of that silence. Blindfold gone, she blinked up into the face of a frowning stranger and took a small step backwards, away from the body she had been enthusiastically embracing a few moments before. A good-looking stranger but, never-the-less, not somebody she had met before. She should have known immediately that it wasn’t Bardwell, who at fourteen had a rather concave chest and the underdeveloped body of adolescence. This gentleman’s body was very well developed indeed. Furthermore, he was wearing a greatcoat, which, she realized now, had felt decidedly damp as she had clung to him.

Tall, dark and handsome… Oh
dear
. Her heart picked up the pace a little as she blinked up at him, taken aback by the sight of the stranger.

Who was this that had walked into their drawing room? He looked exactly like one of the characters in the books she loved so well. Even the dusting of snow across his greatcoat and his beaver hat looked absolutely right. He smelt of cold and mystery and she immediately knew he was a Hero, one of those intricate, intense characters that walked through the pages of her literary favorites with tortured distain.

Such was her preoccupation, that it took her a moment to realize that he was not alone. A little behind his left shoulder a girl stood. Well, more of a lady, really and a magnificent one at that. She had the most dazzling white skin, the biggest blue eyes and the most golden ringlets that Charlie had ever seen. She was, in fact,
breathtaking
.

‘Oh! Excuse me, I…’ Charlie trailed off, for once at a loss for words.

The stunned pause did not last long. Pauses of any kind were a rare commodity in the Weathering household and Charlie’s six siblings more or less erupted at the same time, questions and comments spilling forth with all the force of a ruptured reservoir wall. For Charlie, who was used to it, she had no trouble separating and understanding the different conversational strains but the look of incredulous disbelief on the face of the tall man before her told her that he was overwhelmed while the divine creature beside him looked frankly astonished. Fortunately, Papa took over, his voice rising effortlessly above the mêlée to quell his offspring.

‘Children. Silence!’

And magically, silence descended.

Mr. Weathering came forward, a look of mild enquiry on his face at finding two unexpected people in residence in his drawing room. ‘Good evening. I am Thaddeus Weathering.’ He held out his hand as Charlie took a few more steps back.

The good-looking stranger seemed to collect himself and immediately took the proffered hand. ‘I am Lord August Valentine and this is my cousin, Miss Madeleine du Pont. I am sorry to disturb you like this but I did knock. Several times. When nobody answered the door I took it upon myself to enter.’

‘We sent poor Bartholomew to bed,’ Mrs. Weathering had laid her embroidery to one side and had also risen to her feet. ‘Our butler, you know. He is poorly. And I daresay Dorrie is in the kitchen helping Cook, while Florrie is somewhere upstairs.’ At Lord Valentine’s bewildered look, she added kindly. ‘Our maids, you know.’