All I Want for Christmas...is you

Copyright © 2007-2009 Gayle Eden

All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
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without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent
purchaser.

The right of Gayle Eden to be identified as
the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All characters in this publication are purely
fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is
purely coincidental.

Published by Air Castle Books at
Smashwords

Smashwords Edition

Chapter One

“Good evening, milord.”

“Happy holidays, milord.”

“Lord Bennington.”

“Lucas…”

“Moncrief...”

The Earl of Moncrief, Lord Lucas Bennington
nodded and touched the brim of his beaver hat, hearing those
greetings a dozen more times before he made it from the coach to
the club. Once there, he did it all again and again, absent the
caped great coat and hat he’d removed, before finally sinking down
in a chair, taking a brandy from a passing server and muttering,
“It has begun, hasn’t it, Radcliff?” then downing the drink.

His friend Jerome Radcliff grunted and
drawled, “You garner such respect year round, Lucas, 'tis just at
Christmas time, what with the guest lists to balls and assemblies
making or breaking some hostesses rep for the rest of the year,
they are all vying for you at the same time.”

“I’ll be damned if I know why.” Lucas
signaled another brandy and lit a cheroot, his longish raven hair
sliding forward as he tossed the Lucifer into a dish and nodded to
the server, taking up the second sniffer.

“Don’t you?” Jerome smiled lazily, his sable
brow lifting. “You may have considered yourself off the lists years
ago, but you still have a title and fortune, a reputation as an
astute man of business, and blue blood runs through your veins.
Unlike me, whose ancestors diluted the lines a bit—you are a man of
esteem and reputation.”

Lucas grunted and blew a stream of smoke, his
violet eyed gaze going over the lanky and relaxed Jerome, who was
six years his junior at only thirty. Though the thirty six years
wore well on Lucas, who had only a few sprinklings of distinguished
silver in his raven mane, and whose high cheek bones and
aristocratic handsomeness had drawn comments in his younger days,
he knew that feeling of being in another category, the category of
older and out of the game gentleman, who had their nose to the
grindstone during their prime years, trying to save the family
fortune from the recklessness of the generation before him.

Jerome was not even titled, though wealthy,
and only Lucas knew that the whispers and rumors that Jerome was a
bastard were true, he still could reach out and grasp whatever he
wanted in life, whereas Lucas saw that it was too late for him.

“Are you attending the Fairchild’s ball?” He
asked eyeing Jerome’s undone neck cloth and rumpled shirt, which
likely scandalized the elder lords at the club. But then, Jerome
tried his best to do just that.

“Of course.” Jerome glanced at him and raised
his half-full glass, his mouth holding a laconic smile. “I have a
wager on the Carlyn beauty being the belle of the ton this year. No
sure bet, that. However, this season appears to have presented a
crop of lovely fillies, a hundred beautiful, single females. It
always amuses me to watch the lordlings run after them like a pack
of wolves.”

“At least they have marriage in mind.”

“Um. Sniffing fortunes instead of skirts…
‘Tis unnatural.” Jerome chuckled low. “I let them wed them at
least, before I bed them.”

Lucas shook his head, grinning, though he
knew well enough that women sought out rakes like Jerome as lovers.
He looked away and around the tables at the mix of peers, many old
widowers and bachelors, puffing clouds of cigar smoke to hang in
the air, and drinking port. God, do not let that be me next
year.

“I suppose I must attend.”

“You must,” his friend said. “If nothing else
but to join me in the card room. You know I cannot abide those
sorts of things beyond an hour.”

Lucas laughed. “Ah. I see. Well, I shall of
course oblige, if only to relieve you of bit of that useless
fortune you throw around.”

There followed the usual back and forth, the
kind of ribbing friends will do. Though they were in many ways
opposite, in one thing they were very similar, their feelings about
the ton and the fickle oft shallow ways of the society they moved
in.

After an hour of conversation, Jerome
unfolded himself and stood, casting Lucas a glance before he
departed and saying, “It is nice, my friend, when you do not take
your life so seriously. If I did not know that you had at least
kept a mistress in your prime, I would call you a monk, so seldom
do you relax that aloof and intimidating reputation of yours, and
amuse yourself.”

Lucas merely smiled wryly and nodded,
watching him leave and then swiftly following, nodding, bowing,
doing the whole formal leave taking again, before he made it out of
the rooms, on the street, and into his coach.

He arrived in Upper Brook Street and his
townhouse, stepping inside and shedding his coat and hat, the
scarf, groaning mentally as his butler, Cubbage gestured to the
overflowing tray of calling cards and invites.

“They have come steadily all morning, m’lord.
Shall I put them with the others?”

“Yes. Please, Cubbage. Just dump them on my
desk. I’ll go through them later.” He headed up the stairs and to
his rooms, where his valet Feyer had already laid out his formal
black and white.

“I’ve ran your bath, sir.”

“Thank you. I’ll see to the rest, Feyer.” He
was tugging off the neck cloth as he waved off the slender man.

“Very good, sir.” The man turned on his heel
and left.

Lucas tossed the neck cloth and his jacket on
a chair, removing his collar as he walked to the tall windows in
the sitting room, which set in the center of the upper apartments,
between his bedroom and the bathing chambers.

As he noted the first minute flakes of snow
trickling down, he also observed all the elaborate doors of his
neighbors. The rows of mansions across the street had wreaths and
bows, the trappings of holiday décor. As did his own, though he
could not say if there were bows, bells or holly, because he had
been in a distracted mood, since the New Year meant another year
added to his age.

A coach churned up the street, squeezing
between the many closed carriages and hacks going to and fro. The
public vehicles sporting red ribbons on the lanterns, bridles with
bells jingled merrily. He undid his shirt and pulled out the tails,
feeling a tinge of envy for Jerome and his peers. If he had it to
do over, he would have taken into consideration what his life was
going to be like when his fortune and future was secure, and there
was nothing left but to live.

However, he had missed his chances, and there
were a dozen young and wealthy lords for every deb and unmarried on
the mart. He was out of the race before it started. Raking his hand
though his hair, Lucas turned away and went to the bathing room,
stripping down to his swarthy, broad shouldered, and still muscular
frame, and easing into a large steaming tub.

He went under the water and emerged, slicking
his hair back and laying a moment in that preoccupied muse, trying
and failing to recall the mistresses and affairs, the sexual trysts
he fit in between his busy hours. He did not consider time then, in
context of what the future would look like. Just as he did not
realize that every hard-earned success and every ounce of respect
he’d gained, may work against him in some aspect of his
existence.

He had everything that he had been determined
to achieve, wealth, preserving the holdings, estates, and
investments, a reputation that was taken seriously. Nevertheless,
what he had missed and what passed him by now, was so glaringly
apparent.

Almost two hours later, he stood by that
window again, dressed formally in snug black trousers and polished
Hessians, white shirt and cravat, a formal black coat. His shoulder
length mane tied in a que, which threw his aquiline features in
prominence, marking that blue blood that Jerome loved to tease him
about.

He enjoyed another cheroot while watching the
congested vehicles carrying titled and gaily dressed guests to a
dozen balls. The Fairchild’s being the coveted one, for the duke
and duchess’s gatherings, particularly during the holidays, was the
place to be.

He looked down at the cheroot, sighed and
then walked over to toss it in the fireplace, before gathering his
lined cape and hat, and heading down the stairs. May as well get
the bloody thing over with, he thought. One good thing about having
gained the rep he did, one did not have to appear gay, cheerful,
and gushing. He may even manage some amusement via Jerome’s
observations whilst at cards. The dear boy did have a way with
words.

* * * *

The Fairchild’s ballroom was a mad crush. The
orchestra played from the greenery swagged balcony twenty feet up.
Around the marbled floor was scarcely a path to traverse, even in
such a massive room. Chandeliers sparkled down on richly gowned and
bejeweled females, their male counterparts in everything from
conservative black to more flamboyant brocades and wine red. The
champagne flowed, laughter, talk, the scents and sounds of London’s
cream de la cream at their merriest, filled he air.

Lucas had long since done the gauntlet of
receiving lines, and bowed and kissed hands, looked at faces that
were familiar blurs as he saw them daily, every season, for too
many years. New faces, young debs and fresh bucks, it was as if
they swelled and grew in number and nothing changed save the fact
those who wed or engaged from the seasons before.

He did not see Jerome as yet, and found a
space by one of the pillars beside an area arranged with a green
velvet setae and table. The table sufficiently cluttered with
holiday berries, ribbons, and topiaries of scented cinnamon and
mint. The decorating of trees for the holiday was certainly
embraced by the Fairchild’s, for there were several around with
everything from white ribbon and doves to sparkling gold and red
stars. It was one week before Christmas and it was snowing out. He
tried to recall what he had done differently for the past fifteen
Christmases, and could not.

As his gaze was moving idly around, his
shoulder against the pillar and his spot hopefully, affording him a
respite, from being socially energetic, which took on a somewhat
frantic tone at these things where the loftiest titles and noble
faces were won’t to be common. Lucas looked past and then back at
his right, where in the corner stood the groups of bluestockings,
wall flowers, and old maids, as well as the overlooked, who were
normally distinct simply by the fact that among their company
seemed to be turbaned dowagers, widows and lower ranked or
non-titled.

In contrast, the belles and fresh debs were
in the center of the ballroom floor, being twirled in dance by
eligible young bachelors, and some old ones with deep pockets.
Their dance cards full and likeness of blond slender paleness, made
it almost seem a result of selective breeding that produced so many
fashionable and waif like gems, displayed in their best and smiling
because of the number of anxious available partners.

They were awaiting their turn like so many
colts at the starting gate, wishing to impress the lady of choice
enough to score a point ahead of their fellow contenders.

As his gaze moved back, he sought and saw the
female he had noted too many seasons, though she was only twenty
and five now. Certainly, she was young compared to himself. Men
were such fools, in Lucas’s mind. Those bucks who waited in line
for those ton belles, when there were women like that in the same
room.

She stood with her gloved hand on the back of
a chair which the rotund Duchess of Clyburn sat in. Her gown of
gold velvet was unadorned though its deep V neckline and shoulder
edging, minute, sleeves, and the simple lines, flattered her
healthy figure. He noted from the first time he had seen her, some
seven years ago, that deep wine red hair. It was done simply, drawn
up and back with a few long s-shaped ribbons of it down.

Lucas thought of that time he had passed her
on Bond Street and been close enough to see her topaz eyes. She had
met his for a split second and then looked away. It was enough to
make him turn and watch her walk to the coach with her maid,
distracted until someone bumped into his shoulder. He had
discovered through some vague channel that she was the sister of
twenty nine year old Bram Shyer, Viscount Brydon. The half sister,
to be exact, and her come out at sixteen had been as quiet and as
uneventful as succeeding seasons seemed to have been. He never
heard her name again, and it was only at these crushes, the ones he
made some short appearance, that he would see her again.