An Affair Before Christmas (23 page)

May dithered, torn between distrust and an innate wish to help. “I just wish there was someone else who could do the succoring,” she had said over and over, wringing her hands. “Why must
you
be the one to read aloud the Bible?”

“No one will think anything of it, if they learn of it.”

“They certainly will!”

“Not if he dies,” Charlotte had said.

“Oh!” May had said. “It seems so…”

But Charlotte had stayed up half the night thinking about it. “I don’t see how Villiers can possibly survive. He’s had a fever for months now. He’s thin as a rail and stretched…you can see it. It’s a terribly cruel way to die.”

“Oh, dear,” May said.

“If there’s anything I can do, I shall.”

May wrung her hands again but they both knew Charlotte had no choice. Yet for all Charlotte talked of death, she had a plan. Villiers perked up when she sparred with him. He needed that. When he wasn’t fighting, he lay quietly in his gray and sleepy room. He let himself slip away. But when she insulted him and fought with him, he woke up.

It probably wouldn’t work. But it was the only thing she could think of.

She walked into his bedchamber, ready to insult him, and stopped. Villiers wasn’t alone.

Propped against the window on the far side of the bed was a lean man with a rugged face. His eyes were black as midnight, with great circles under them, as if he’d had no sleep. Even tired, there was no mistaking those sharp-cut cheekbones; she looked from Villiers to the stranger and back again.

“Look at that,” the man drawled, not bothering to come to a standing position. “Your churchifier has shown up and damned if she doesn’t see a resemblance between the fanciest man in the
ton
and myself.”

Villiers had been lying with his eyes shut. His skin looked translucent to Charlotte, drawn tightly over his cheekbones. He opened them now and looked—with the same eyes as his relative—at Charlotte. “There you are, Miss Tatlock,” he said. He smiled too, that sweet smile that came so rarely.

She walked over to the bed and looked down at him. “I came to read you the rest of that story I began, but I forgot my Bible.”

“Do tell,” the man by the window said. "‘The Song of Songs,’ Villiers?”

She would have thought he was horrible except there was something strained in his voice, as if he too were trying to wake Villiers up, make him answer by taunting him.

“The story of Jesus’s birth,” she said. “His Grace was quite curious to find out how it ended.”

“Badly,” came the voice from the bed. “It ends badly, like so much else in life. My dear Miss Tatlock, I find I am hideously tired today.”

She tried to think of something to say.

A thin hand waved. “My cousin. You see, I
do
have family. Someone has to be duke after me. It’s taken months, but my solicitor just managed to track down the man himself.”

The future duke grinned at Charlotte, his teeth white against his bronzed skin. “It’s killing him to admit that such a shaggy type as I will take over the title.” It was true that he wasn’t very elegant. His coat was rumpled and hung open. He was wearing a cravat, of a sort, but it looked nothing like the gorgeous pieces of linen that dukes tied around their necks.

“Cruel,” Villiers said. “Handing over my exquisite house, not to mention my collection of walking sticks, to this sad excuse for a gentleman.”

“Your name, sir?” Charlotte asked.

“Miles Dautry. I wouldn’t want to be rude, Miss Tatlock, but I think that the duke should preserve his strength at the moment.”

He was evicting her. But she couldn’t do that before she tried to rouse Villiers. “How can His Grace possibly relax when the dukedom is going to one such as you?” she asked, sitting down as if Dautry hadn’t spoken. “The very name Villiers is known for exquisite judgment, style, taste…no wonder the duke cannot rest.”

There was a moment of stunned silence in the room. Then Villiers started chuckling. It was weak, but a chuckle. And he opened his eyes and and peered at his cousin.

“A mess, isn’t he? I’m so pleased that you agree with me, Miss Tatlock. I should have taken him on while I was still on my feet.”

“It’s not too late,” Charlotte said quickly. “You could teach him all the ways of being a duke. How to dress.”

Dautry snorted but he didn’t say anything, which meant that he saw her plan. He raised an eyebrow at her and she gave him a quick frown, willing him to fall in.

Villiers waved his hand again. “Too late. I think the man has never polished his nails. He probably only owns one pair of stockings—”

“Not true,” Dautry said. “I have several.”

“Undoubtedly all worsted,” Villiers said with a sigh. “And his coat…just look at his coat, Miss Tatlock. I may be sick unto death, but even I noticed when that coat entered the room. My only plea sure is that I get to flee this cruel world before a man wearing that coat becomes duke.”

Charlotte looked. Dautry was singularly broad in the shoulders, wearing a black coat that had nothing to distinguish it but the fact it was made of linsey-woolsey. And it was rumpled.

“I rode all night after I got the message,” he said.

“I see just what you mean, Your Grace,” Charlotte said. “It’s a disgrace. A disgrace to the name.”

Dautry’s eyes narrowed. “What about you, Miss Tatlock? After all, you are surely here hoping to become a duchess?”

She blinked at him.

“I know your type,” he said. “You’re hanging out for a title and merely pretending to do a bit of good works. I expect you hoped Villiers would rally.”

“No,” Charlotte said. “I was planning to snare the heir. That means you…if I hadn’t had a
look
at you first! Now I shall have to reformulate all my plans.”

Villiers started laughing weakly. “Help me up, Dautry. She’s got you there. No decent woman will marry you when you look more like a dock-worker than a duke. And then what will happen to my poor estate? Handed from man to man without a woman’s intervention?”

Dautry looked around the bedroom and curled his lip. He still hadn’t unfolded his arms. “I don’t want to insult you, but the house shows signs of a woman’s hand, though you never bothered to marry one.”

“There’s nothing manly about being a sartorial disgrace,” Villiers said, looking truly awake now. “Dautry, you’ll have to submit to my tailor. Dying man’s last wish.”

Charlotte couldn’t grinning. “Don’t forget the barber,” she said, her voice as sweet as syrup. “No woman would marry a man who looked like a shag-bag.”

“I think you should do the same for Miss Tatlock,” the future duke said, his eyes narrowed. “Look at her gown. I’m surprised that you can tolerate being in the same room with it. Plain serge and tucked in the style of two years ago.”

“I almost forgot,” Villiers said. “I’m planning to find her a husband. What Miss Tatlock needs is a philosopher. I don’t suppose you know any?”

“What a lucky little hymn-singer,” Dautry said, his eyes flicking over her plain gown. “I’m afraid that philosophers rarely venture to sea. We prefer men who
do
rather than just think about it.”

“She must wear colors,” Villiers said dreamily. “Brilliant colors, jewel colors.” He seemed to be turning a little pink and the words tumbled out in a manner that Charlotte recognized.

She bit her lip and looked to Dautry. He came over to put a hand on Villiers’s forehead. “A cool cloth, if you please,” he called to the footman outside the door.

Villiers’s eyes closed again.

“Miss Tatlock,” Dautry said.

It was time for her to leave.

“Strawberries…embroidered taffeta,” Villiers murmured.

She could feel Dautry’s eyes on her as she picked up her knotting bag. Then, just as she was leaving, he said: “I trust that you were not indeed hoping to make yourself a duchess, Miss Tatlock?”

She didn’t pretend to misunderstand him. She didn’t want to turn around, because her eyes were shining with tears, but she did. “I don’t even know him, sir. He gave my name to the valet by accident whilst in a fever, I believe. So, no. But I wished that reading the Bible would keep him alive.”

“I would agree with you there,” he said with a rueful twist of his lips.

“He’s been ill for months,” she said. “Why weren’t you here? He’s so alone.”

“I had no idea he was indisposed. I met him once, at seven years of age. I scarcely recall the event, and I certainly had no idea he’d fought a duel. Fool, at his age.”

“He’s not so old!”

“Cut velvet,” the duke suddenly said. “With roses.” His cheeks were stained with color.

“Too old to be fighting duels,” Dautry said.

“I’ve never seen you before at any event.”

He leaned back against the window and crossed his arms again. “So you’re not just a good Samaritan happened off the street, but a member of the so-called
ton
?”

“It happens by birth and you, sir, are in the same dire predicament,” she snapped.

“Actually, no.”

“You are a future duke.”

“An unlikely duke, and I never spent much time thinking about it. I only inherit due to a younger son two generations back who fell in love with the daughter of a sailor and went to sea.”

“A sailor!” Of course it all made sense now. He had a windswept look about him, and there were crinkles at the corners of his eyes, for all he couldn’t be more than thirty. A duke’s son turning sailor. What a scandal that must have been! Charlotte couldn’t help grinning. “Did she run away to sea with him?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Celebration from a dulcet young lady of the
ton
?”

She picked up her knotting bag again and slipped through the door. He followed, but stopped in the doorway.

“Don’t you ever stand straight up?” she demanded.

“I like to know where the nearest solid support is.”

“You’re not on board ship now.”

“I wish I was.”

“Don’t let him turn you into a duke too easily. You have to fight every inch of the way, do you hear?”

“Damned if you don’t sound like my mother,” he drawled.

The words thumped to the bottom of her stomach and she felt the old maid she was. “Well, goodbye.”

“Wait a minute!” he said. “He’s going to remake you as well.”

“You need to get to know him,” she said, halfway down the stair and not turning around. “He’ll forget me. He doesn’t remember things well. You can take care of him now.”

“He’s going to put me in cut velvet with roses.” The future duke’s voice was so disgusted that she couldn’t help smiling.

“It will suit you,” she said. She couldn’t say what she really thought: that there probably wasn’t enough time for a tailor to fashion a whole costume before Villiers slipped away. Charlotte went out the door.

May’s rounded mouth was as circular as her cheeks. “A sailor! A sailor as the next Duke of Villiers. That’s—that’s—
awful.
”

“Yes.” A tear rolled down her cheek.

May gave her a sharp glance. “You have to put Villiers out of your mind, Lottie.” May only called her by her childhood nickname in moments of the greatest distress. “I know it’s difficult, but life is like that. Here! Here’s something that will help.” With all the éclat of a conjurer with a rabbit, she pulled a franked letter from her pocket. “You remember how we thought that the Duke of Villiers’s letter was from Beaumont?”

“Beaumont wrote to me?” Charlotte said, more puzzled than anything.

“No, the duchess did! Perhaps she’s having another dinner!”

Charlotte tore open the sheet. “She’s invited me to her estate for a Christmas house party.”

May gasped. “Christmas at the duchy! You must go. Though it only begins just before the twenty-fifth.”

“It isn’t clear that the Parliament will adjourn until the last minute,” Charlotte explained. “I thought you wanted me to stay away from the duke.”

“A house party is different.”

“How so?”

May bit her lip. “It’s what you said.”

“Beaumont isn’t attracted to me?”

“And this proves it, don’t you see? The letter is from the duchess. She would never invite you if the reverse were true.”

“I did tell you so,” Charlotte said wearily.

“You must go.” May came over and sat down next to Charlotte. “Villiers is going to die soon, isn’t he?”

Charlotte nodded miserably.

“Go,” May said. “Go.”