Sophia James - Christmas Betrothals

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ASHBLANE’S LADY

“An excellent tale of love, this book is more than a

romance; it pulls at the heartstrings and makes you

wish the story wouldn’t end.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews

MASQUERADING MISTRESS

“Bold and tantalising, plotted like a mystery and

slowly exposing each layer of the multi-dimensional

plot and every character’s motivations, James’s novel

is a page-turner.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews

HIGH SEAS TO HIGH SOCIETY

“James weaves her spell, captivating readers with

wit and wisdom, and cleverly combining humour

and poignancy with a master’s touch in this

feel-good love story.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews

SOPHIA JAMESlives in Chelsea Bay on Auckland, New Zealand’s North Shore, with her husband, who is an artist, and three children. She spends her morning teaching adults English at the local migrant school and writes in the afternoon. Sophia has a degree in English and history from Auckland University and believes her love of writing was formed reading Georgette Heyer with her twin sister at her grandmother’s house.

Look out for Sophia James’s latest exciting novel, One Unashamed Night , available in March 2010 from Mills & Boon ®Historical romance.

Christmas is a time of family and laughter and joyousness, a time when all the good things in the world seem to come together in a crescendo of happiness.

But what happens when people have no family left or the secrets that bind them to their kin preclude the simple ability to embrace the haphazard chaos that is often Christmas?

In this story I wanted to draw in two people on the edge of loneliness and add children, pets, colour and carols. I wanted to see whether the magic of the season had its own power and whether a kiss bought under a sprig of mistletoe could change two lives forever.

I’d like to dedicate this book to my friend Jane,

whose sense of style inspired Lillian.

Richmond, Virginia—July 1853

Lucas Clairmont found the letter by chance, wrapped in velvet and hidden in the space beneath the font in the Clairmont family chapel.

A love letter to his wife from a man he had little knowledge of and coined in a language that had him reaching for the pew behind him and sitting down.

Heavily.

He knew their marriage had been, at best, an unexceptional union, but it was the betrayal in the last few lines of the missive that was unexpected. His uncle’s land was mentioned in connection with the Baltimore Gaslight Company’s intention of developing their lines. Luc shook his head—he knew Stuart Clairmont had had no notion of such a scheme and the land, bought cheaply by Elizabeth’s lover, had been sold for a fortune only a few months later.

Loss and guilt punctuated the harder emotion of anger. Jesus! Stuart had died a broken man and a vengeful one.

‘Find the bastard, Luc,’ he had uttered in the last few hours of his life, ‘and kill him.’

At the time Luc had thought the command extreme, but now with the evidence of another truth in hand …

Screwing up the parchment, he let it slip through his fingers on to the cold stone floor, the written words still teasing him, even from a distance.

His marriage had been as much of a sham as his childhood, all show and no substance, but the love of his uncle had never wavered.

Shaking his head, he felt the sharp stab of sobriety, the taste of last night’s whisky and the few bought hours of oblivion paid for dearly this morning, as his demons whispered vengeance.

Here in the chapel though, there lay the sort of silence that only God’s dwelling could offer with the light streaming in through the stained glass window.

Jesus on the cross!

Luc’s fingers squeezed against the hard smooth wood of oak benches, thinking that his own crown of thorns was far less visible.

‘Lord, help me,’ he enunciated, catching sight of the pale blue eyes of a painted cupid, hair a strange shade of silver blonde, and white clothes falling in folds on to the skin of a nearby sinner, dazzling him with light.

A sinner just like him, Luc thought, as the last effects of moonshine wore off and a headache he’d have until tomorrow started to pound.

Elizabeth. His wife.

He’d been away too much to be the sort of husband he should have been, but the truth of her liaison was as unexpected as her death six months ago. His thoughts of grief unravelled into a sort of bone-hard wrath that shocked him. Deceit and lies were written into every word of these outpourings.

He should not care. He should consign the evidence of his wife’s infidelity to a fire, but he found that he couldn’t because a certain truth was percolating.

Revenge! One of the seven deadly sins. Today, however, it was not so damning and the ennui that had consumed him lifted slightly.

It would mean going back to England. Again.

His home once.

Perhaps he could claim it back for a while, for apart from the land there was nothing left to hold him here. Besides, Hawk and Nathaniel had asked him to come back to London repeatedly, and he felt a sudden need for the company of his two closest friends.

‘Ahhh, Stuart,’ he whispered the name and liked the echo of it. The bastard who had swindled his uncle was in London, living on the profit of his ill-gotten gains no doubt.

Daniel Davenport. The name was engraved in his mind like a brand, seared into flesh.

But to kill him? The dying glances of others he had consigned to the hereafter rose from memory.

Not again! He leaned back on the pew and breathed in, trying to determine only the exact amount of force necessary to make Elizabeth’s lover sorry.

London—November 1853

‘Miss Davenport is a young woman any mother would be proud of, would you not say, Sybil?’

‘Indeed, I would, for she countenances no scandal whatsoever. A reputation unsullied in each corner of her life, and a paragon of good sense, good taste and good comportment.’

Lillian Davenport listened to the compliments from her place in the little room, deciding that the two older women hadn’t a notion of her being there. To alert them of her overhearing such a private matter would now cause them only embarrassment and so she stayed silent, letting the heavy petticoats in her hands fall to her side and ironing out the creases in white shot silk with her fingers.