The Duke's Christmas Greetings (Regency Christmas Summons Book 3) (21 page)

“Rosamond, you have made me the happiest man alive,” he breathed. “What an incredible Christmas gift you are.”

She rested her head on his chest. “I fell in love with you the moment I bumped into you at Thursan Grange. I’ve been sick with love, to be honest. I never dared to think you could love me back.”

“There they are!” A familiar feminine voice screeched from the doorway. “What on earth?”

The sudden change from Rosamond’s declaration of love to Helen’s accusatory shriek was disconcerting. He stopped dancing and turned to behold his father, mother, and two sisters standing in the doorway of the ballroom.

Rosamond gasped and pressed herself closer to him. “They sound angry,” she murmured.

He placed a protective arm around her. “Helen, do be quiet,” he commanded his sister. “You intruded on a private moment with my betrothed.” He turned to his parents. “Excuse me for being so plain-spoken. It’s just that it will be easier to tell the truth to all of you at once. It will save my sisters the need to listen behind closed doors.”

Helen stuck out her tongue at him.

“Betrothed?” Mother gave his a gentle smile. “What a lovely Christmas present.” She held out her arms, beckoning Rosamond for an embrace.

Anthony let her go, reluctantly, for he never really wanted Rosamond to leave his side now that he was sure she was his. But he had to smile when the two women hugged.

Helen and Frances looked at him dubiously. “I don’t understand why she is engaged to you,” Helen demanded. “She was supposed to marry Richard.”

Frances dug her elbow into Helen’s ribs. “Richard didn’t come after all. So it’s of no consequence.”

He had forgotten Richard in all of the romantic chaos of last night. “Richard didn’t come? Where is he?”

Frances shrugged. “A runner came last night with a message from him. He said ‘Happy Christmas’ to us all and then informed us that he had decided to take a trip to Majorca instead of coming home for the holidays. So he went.”

Anthony suppressed a grin. Something interesting must have come up in Spain—a chance at fortune, or a lady. Or, likely, both.

Rosamond stepped away from Mother, placing herself before the entire family. “I had nurtured a
tendre
for Richard over the years, it’s true. Helen and Frances very graciously tried to help me secure his affection.” She cast a glance over at Anthony that made his heart beat heavily in his chest. “However, over this wonderful Christmas holiday, which all of you so generously shared with me, I found the true object of my affection is Anthony. We have secured His Grace’s blessing, but I shan’t marry Anthony unless I have your blessing, too.” She looked at each of them in turn.

“Of course you do,” Father replied heartily.

“You have my blessing.” Mother gave them both a gentle smile.

Frances nodded. “We only ever wanted you to be happy, Rosie. I’m so glad you found love with Anthony.”

Helen alone stood, quiet and still. “Are you certain, Rosie?”

Rosamond nodded. “I am.”

Helen sighed. “All that hard work for nothing. Look at your hair! Why, there are bits of straw all over you. What have you two been doing?”

“Danby’s prized mare took sick,” Anthony hastened to explain. Many dubious conclusions could be drawn by the mussed-up way they both looked. “Rosamond helped me nurse her back to health. I knew, once she left the ball to be my help mate, that I had found the only woman for me.”

Father laughed. “Yes, indeed. Miss Hughes, you will be the perfect wife for my son. He chose quite well.”

Helen’s scowl vanished. She shrugged and then laughed. “Yes, she will be. Rosie, I think you chose the right brother.”

“Now that we have my eldest son suitably betrothed, let us all return to Graveleon Head,” Father announced. “This ballroom looks rather gloomy for such a celebration. After all, it’s Christmas. We should all be together as one happy family.”

Anthony and Rosamond followed the family out of the castle and out into the wintry weather. They all piled into the carriage, but this time, he sat close beside his beloved.

As the pale sun cast sparkling light on the fresh snowfall dusting the fields, he squeezed Rosamond’s hand. He had been relieved when Genevieve Hopwood jilted him, and now he was fiercely glad. What would life be like without Rosamond by his side? He shuddered to think.

Later that afternoon, after they had returned to Graveleon and enjoyed a magnificent Christmas feast, he was able to spend a quiet moment with Rosamond by the fire. He curled one tendril of her hair around his finger and held it, marveling at her loveliness.

All his life he had wanted to escape the bonds of his position, but they no longer felt like the bars of a prison. No, now he had Rosamond. She would be with him always.

His wife.

After a Christmas courtship, the farmer at last had a wife.

December 19, 1816  ~ Yorkshire

The last thing eighteen year-old Daphne Cavanaugh wanted to do was to ride all the way to Yorkshire and spend Christmas acting as her sister Jane’s companion.

It wasn’t that she disliked her sister, mind you. She loved Jane. Adored her even. And perhaps was the most excited of all of her sisters when Jane, an invalid, won the heart of an earl four years earlier without even trying.

But that didn’t mean Daphne
wanted
to travel to Yorkshire in the brutal and bone chilling cold to spend the most joyous holiday ever celebrated with a slew of stuffy, old relations she didn’t know—and all for the sake of allowing Jane and Gareth, Lord Worthe, a chance to escape her unusually curious family for a few weeks!

And how fortunate for Daphne, she was the one chosen to accompany Jane and Gareth. She frowned. That didn’t sound very kind. Truly, Gareth and Jane were good people. And so was the whole Whitton family, to be truthful. A wry smile played over her lips. Well, at least she’d
heard
they were a good family. She’d never actually met her great grandfather, James Whitton, Duke of Danby. Her entire family had always been invited to spend Christmas at his ducal estate, but had never attended before.

“Don’t look so glum, Daphne,” Jane said, stealing her attention. “This will give you a taste of what your Season will be like next spring.”

Daphne’s mouth went dry in less than a second. Call her unusual and strange and everything that no good young lady of breeding should be, but she did not want a Season. There was something about being put on display for gentlemen to ogle and decide, based almost completely on looks and the depths of her brother’s coffers, if she’d make a suitable wife. She sighed and on their own accord her lips twisted. She did wish to marry, but not by being auctioned off to the highest bidder, so to speak.

“Gads, I do hope that won’t be the expression you’ll wear when you enter the Marriage Mart,” Gareth teased.

“Why?” Daphne cocked her head to the side. “Do you think such an expression will garner me an unsuitable suitor?”

“Indeed,” Gareth said, grimacing. “One with at least eighty years in his dish.”

Despite herself, Daphne laughed. But only a little. “I’m sure he’ll be superb.”

“While many young ladies marry significantly older gentlemen I don’t think you’d really want to find out,” Jane commented. She was right, the last thing Daphne wanted was her own Methuselah. Jane smoothed her burgundy traveling skirt as the carriage came to a stop in front of a grand, grey stone estate, appropriately named Danby Castle. “Just remember this is only a sampling of what London will be like and we’re not here for you to find a husband.”

“You two might not be, but I am,” Gareth said with a wink in Daphne’s direction. “Ever since Holbrook asked me to act as your guardian until he returns from the Continent I have been on the hunt for you for a husband. You just never know, he might be just over there—” he nodded his head toward the window. Daphne peered through the window, then shuddered. Not fifteen feet from the carriage stood a group of men dressed in the finest of furs. Every one of them with a silver flask in one hand and a cheroot in the other, creating a cloud of smoke that could rival the chimneys at Castlemoor during wintertime.

“No, thank you,” she muttered, falling back against the squabs to wait for the coachman to open the door.

“Not to worry, Daph.” Jane patted her knee. “I wouldn’t allow Gareth to marry you off to one of them—”

“Thank you, I’m quite relieved,” Daphne said with perhaps a drop of sarcasm.

“I think
he’s
a much better catch.” Jane gave her head a pointed nod toward the window behind Daphne.

Slowly, Daphne craned her neck so she could get a look at the man Jane had alluded to marrying her off to.

When she saw him, she froze. He looked like a bear—and that was no exaggeration. Either he was a brute of a man, of a gargantuan height and broad build or he was as skinny as a riding crop and was wearing four fur coats. She highly doubted that though. He wore a thick beaver felt hat and had a scarf wrapped around his neck and lower face, revealing only a set of sapphire eyes that were the same shade as the brook behind Holbrook Hall where she grew up, they shimmered the same way, too. Daphne shivered.

“Decidedly not.”

Jane arched a dark brow. “Decidedly?”

“Yes,” Daphne confirmed. “That man looks as if he could eat me!”

Jane’s laugher filled the carriage. Gareth allowed a small smile and a cough and then another smile and then shook his head. Daphne had never seen him act so odd.

Before she could ponder what was wrong with him, the coachman wrenched open the door, Jane’s invalid chair already in place at the bottom of the steps. Daphne bit her lip. Jane had had an accident when she was a young girl, rendering both of her legs useless—an unfortunate circumstance that Jane would not allow to become a hindrance for anything she wanted to do: even spending a few weeks of the winter in a cold, icy place such as this.

Gareth slid one arm under Jane’s legs and the other around her shoulders, then lifted her up and carried her down the three steps of the traveling coach to the safety of her chair, then turned around and reached a hand up for Daphne.

“Thank you,” she murmured, taking her brother-in-law’s hand. She climbed down and fell in stride beside Gareth as he pushed Jane’s chair toward the front of the house.

This
was love.

Not an auction. Not a perusal of the Marriage Mart. Not a coming together because if they married it’d be beneficial for their families or their finances. Love. Pure, plain and simple.

Nearing the steps, the trio came to a halt as Dawson, the butler, called for the four footmen standing in the corner to come lower the boards they each held over the right side of the steps that led to the front of the house. Daphne glanced down to Jane who’d always acted a little uncomfortable when anyone did anything to accommodate her. Behind Jane, Gareth stood quiet, his chin inclined as if nothing was out of the ordinary. And it wasn’t—right down to the way he placed his hands on Jane’s shoulders, in a gesture Daphne had seen many times when Jane was uncomfortable and Gareth was trying to quietly reassure that everything would be all right. Daphne’s heart constricted. Again, just one more gesture of love.

Or perhaps what made her heart constrict was the heavy hand she suddenly felt on her own shoulder.