Christmas Brides (Three Regency Novellas) (22 page)

"You may come in, Lady Broxbourne." The beastly man persisted in calling her by that name she was so woefully qualified to take. Why could his mother not continue being the mistress of Farley Manor?

Holding Fanny's hand, she walked into a scarlet chamber filled with morning sun from a half a dozen tall casements, and there in the middle of the bed sat the viscount, his chest bare. In her entire life, Elizabeth had never seen a man without a shirt. Her modest father had not thought it proper to even be seen without his coat. She gasped, and clasped her hand to her eyes.

"My dear wife," he exclaimed, "there is nothing improper in seeing one's husband without a shirt."

She removed her hand from her face and glared at him. Her mouth went dry. He was the most provocative looking man she had ever beheld. And he was magnificent. Any sculptor would count himself blessed to have such a manly model. For a few seconds, she lost her train of thought, then she gathered her wits. "But you aren't really my husband!"

"I most certainly am. I had the settlements appropriately drawn up by my highly qualified solicitor, and did I not say my vows to you—in front of witnesses, mind you—at St. Clement's Church?"

Her hands went to her hips. "You know very well what I mean."

His gaze shifted to Fanny, and his teasing manner vanished. "Pray, wife, hand me a shirt."

She walked to the linen press and found a shirt of ivory linen and took it to him. That is when it suddenly occurred to her that he wore nothing at all. Thankfully, his coverings concealed the lower half of his body.

He shrugged into the shirt, then directed his full attention to Fanny. "Hello, Fanny."

"Hello."

"I am going to take you to meet your cousins this morning. Tommy is rather close to your size."

"Is Tommy a sister?" she asked in her whispery little child's voice.

Elizabeth was so proud of her. It seemed incredulous that just months ago she'd been a baby, and now she was able to converse with adults. At least as well as a child of two and half could.

"Have you eaten yet?" he asked Elizabeth.

"No, sir. That is one reason I elected to disturb you this morning."

"You're not disturbing me."

"I do not know where to go. You must own, Farley Manor is a very large house."

"Give me ten minutes to dress and shave, then I'll take you to breakfast myself."

* * *

"This first morning," he told Elizabeth before showing her and his sweet little daughter to the sunny morning room, "we will allow Fanny to eat with us. Pray, don't let my mother know. She is very strict about children taking meals in the nursery." He lowered himself to the beautiful child. "Will you allow me to carry you?"

A smile lighted her little face as she nodded.

He could scarcely believe he was now master of Farley Manor. Even though, as the only son, he'd always known he was in line to inherit, he had believed he would die on an Iberian battlefield. That was one reason he'd not hesitated to marry Elizabeth. Her widow's portion would have come out of the entailment due to go to a distant cousin he'd never met.

They each helped themselves to cups of tea from the sideboard, and Elizabeth poured some milk into a cup for Fanny. She put two pieces of toast on a plate and scooped marmalade onto it before sitting down at the big mahogany table.

"And what, my little miss, do you want?" he asked Fanny, still holding her.

"Toast and that." Fanny pointed to the grape jelly.

When he reached the table, he set Fanny on his lap. "She's much too little for such a big table," he told Elizabeth.

"I'm actually quite astonished she's allowing you to carry her about," Elizabeth said. "She's usually leery of strangers."

How deeply it hurt to think he was a stranger to his own child. "I intend to remedy that."

"You really must watch her with that grape jelly. It will be all over her pretty dress."

He took a damask napkin and tied it around her neck. "Eat to your heart's content, little one."

He had to laugh. By the time she had finished attacking the toast, her face was dabbled with bright purple. He and Elizabeth exchanged amused smiles.

"I begin to understand why your mother might not want little ones at her fine table."

"It is now
your
table, my lady. Besides, the table in the nursery is much more her size."

When they finished, they took Fanny to the nursery, but his nephews weren't there. "I'll check in Susan's chamber. Come along," he said.

His sister was still in bed, with a son snuggled on either side of her. "Oh Har-, Broxbourne, you will finally meet my lads."

"Don't tell me," he said, winking at the sister who was closest to him in age. "The lad with the dark hair is Robbie, and the blond is Tommy."

Each of the boys nodded.

Susan beamed proudly. "This, boys is your uncle."

"The captain?" Robbie asked, his eyes flashing with excitement.

"Not anymore," Harry said. "I'm back to Farley for good. And I've brought you lads a soldierly present."

Their eyes rounded with excitement.

"I am told the epaulets off dead French soldiers are much prized," he muttered, "so I brought home a pair for my nephews."

"How lovely of you," Susan said.

Still holding Fanny—he rather liked the feel of the dear child—he eyed his nephews. "I declare," he said, peering at Tommy, "you're a fine looking lad, even if you do look exactly like your father."

"And Robbie looks exactly like his uncle Broxbourne," Susan said, her gaze shifting to Fanny. There was no way he could ever deny Fanny's paternity.

Harry smiled. "Lucky lad."

Robbie began to giggle.

Just then Robert entered the chamber. Unlike his wife, he was fully dressed. "Oh, there you are, Broxbourne. Fancy a ride?"

"Not this morning. I'm pledged to give my wife the tour or Farley."

"I was going to take the lads to the mews. They're mad over horses. Go get your coats."

"You must take Fanny," Susan said. I'm sure she'd love to see the new foal, and she can play with Tommy, too."

His little daughter had not been able to remove her eyes from the lads. He suspected she had not had the opportunity to be around other children.

Elizabeth came closer to her. "You can go with these little boys to see a baby horse."

Tommy has scooted off the bed and came up to them. Harry stood Fanny up beside the three-year-old lad. The top of her dark head was level with his nose. Both of them were fascinated with each other.

"Take the little girl's hand, love," Susan said in a sweet voice.

The little fellow took her hand, and to Harry's astonishment, she was perfectly comfortable walking away with her cousin. He faced Elizabeth, and they both shrugged.

Elizabeth went scurrying after her. "Allow me to fetch her coat and gloves."

"I must claim Lady Broxbourne this afternoon," Susan said.

Harry nodded. "I will need to meet with Hinckley."

After the children happily went off with Robert, Harry proffered his arm to his wife. They went back down the broad staircase beneath huge crystal chandeliers, and when they reached the entry hall, he stopped. "Farley is not grand by English country house standards. It's just a large family home that's evolved over the last three hundred years." He pointed to a huge painting of a man garbed in tights and plumed hat. "That was the first viscount. He's the one who originally built Farley Manor, but it's been modified and enlarged several times since." For the life of him, he failed to see any resemblance between that first earl and any of his present offspring.

From that broad, stone floored corridor, several tall carved wood doors opened. One was to the library. "This is one of my favorite rooms," he told her as they entered the chamber. The Tate family had always taken pride in their hand-tooled leather books, and he especially liked the way the library had been laid out with reading nooks arranged around the tall casement windows above cushioned window seats.

"It's such a comforting room," she said, her gaze spanning the dark wood cases on either side of the hearth, where a fire had been laid. "One of the saddest days of my life was when I had to sell Papa's library because I had nowhere to keep our treasured books." She began to stroll about the room, pausing to check titles. "This is nicely organized. I see the Latin titles here, and in that last alcove, poetry."

"If you are anything like my sisters, you must love to read poetry."

She shrugged. "I fear my reading tastes are not very feminine. Because my Papa had no son, he educated me as if I were a boy."

"Don't tell me you read Latin?"

She nodded ruefully. "And German, and French."

"Your father must have been quite a scholar."

"Actually he was, though he was not fluent in French. He always regretted he had to read Rousseau in translation. He insisted I learn the language, and he spent a guinea a quarter for me to receive instruction."

Which must have been somewhat of a hardship for a poor country cleric. He watched with pleasure as she flitted from one section to another, examining titles. "So if you are not enamored of poetry, what do you read?"

"If I tell you, you will think me a most unfeminine creature."

"Try me."

"I like philosophers. Marcus Aurelius's
Meditations
, Jeremy Bentham, Rousseau, Aristotle, Burke."

He folded his hands over his chest. "Don't tell me I've married a bloody bluestocking!"

"Well, I do like Shakespeare. Will that make me seem more normal?"

His hungry gaze lingered over her: over her satin face, over the sweet swell of her breasts, along her slender fingers and down her lean trunk. She was a feast to behold. "Nothing about you, my lady, is normal."

Her cheeks turned pink. "You must tell me what you enjoy reading."

"I have to say I was astonished when the first book you mentioned was Aurelius's
Meditations
for it's a book I've read probably thirty times." His heated gaze met and held hers.

She finally looked away and strolled to the fireplace. "You have fires in every room? It's such an expense!"

He laughed. "Not in every room. We have one hundred and twenty-three chambers at Farley—many of them no longer in use. But we do like a fire in each room that is likely to be used."

Her mouth gaped open. "One hundred and twenty-three rooms? Do you ever get lost?"

He shook his head. "It's a linear layout, most simple to navigate."

Next, they poked their heads into the morning room and old hall before he took her down a long corridor that terminated at a small, but heavily ornamented chapel.

"Oh, it's beautiful!" she exclaimed as she moved down its nave and came to kneel before the baroque crucifix that was flanked by two stained glass windows, one depicting the Nativity and the other the Ascension.

Seeing her kneeling before the altar, so solemn, so angelic, flooded him with memories of the day they had met. They had both been so forlorn that day, and he liked to think their union the following day lifted away that veil of gloom. Now here they both were, two completely different beings than they were then but so very much happier. He felt overcome by the need to kneel and pray his thanks for bringing him to St. Clement's that morning, for bringing his precious daughter into their world. He came and knelt beside her and silently prayed.

When they left the chapel several minutes later, he took her hand.

* * *

"Where has your mother moved?" She could not shake the feeling she—a woman who most certainly did not belong here—had dislodged his mother from her home.

"My father had a dowager's wing added to the rear of Farley for his mother. The bedchamber is on the first floor, so the elimination of stair climbing is desirable for one getting on in years."

"Your mother, I think, is astonishingly young."

"Yes. Thankfully it will be many years before she has to avoid climbing stairs." He squeezed her hand.

This was the first time in her one and twenty years a man had ever held her hand, and she could not understand the odd connection there was between her hand and heart, but she could not deny that the minute his hand clasped hers, her heart went to fluttering like a bat flapping its wings.

"Don't worry about displacing Mother. She's most comfortable, and she will still be close enough to share family life with us."

"You are a most stubborn creature. I have told you repeatedly we are not a family. I'm not fit to be a viscountess. You must find a way to dissolve this . . . this make-believe marriage so you can marry a proper viscountess."

He shook his head, the corners of his mouth lifting with a smile. "Shame on you. A rector's daughter who does not respect the sacred sacrament of matrimony."

"I appreciate your gallantry, my lord, but I am inflexible on my resolve to return to my previous modest life."

"I thought you were most at home in both the library and the chapel."

"How could anyone not warm to those very special places?"

"There is Fanny to consider. You do not want to give her up, and I believe here at Farley Manor as my ward, she can be raised as I think you would wish for her to."

"You're most odious."

"You would wish for me to ignore my child's existence?"

She did not know what she wanted. For Fanny, yes, she knew he was right. Fanny belonged at Farley Manor. She deserved to be raised with the privilege his lordship could offer. And the maddening man knew she would never leave her child. But why would he be willing to forgo any chance of true love to saddle himself with a simple parson's daughter?

They continued down another long corridor, this one made of oak that had turned dark with age and worn smooth by Tate footsteps over the centuries. "Did you sleep well?" he asked.

"Indeed, I did. I have never experienced a more cozy feeling. I shall miss sleeping with Fanny when she returns to the nursery."

"You do realize, my lady, that Farley is reaching out and wrapping you in its comforting embrace?"

Dear heavens, he spoke the truth! Even though her mind kept telling her she didn't belong, her heart told her quite the opposite.