Marguerite Kaye - Gift-Wrapped Governesses - Christmas at Blackhaven Castle / Governess to Christmas Bride / Duchess by Christmas

‘Of course, my lord.’

‘The hills to the back of the castle can also be cold and windy. Do you have a thicker cloak than the one you arrived in, Miss Moorland?’

‘I do not, sir.’

‘Then ask the housekeeper to make one of my late wife’s available to you. She had quite an assortment from memory.’

‘Oh, it would hardly be—’

He cut her off. ‘My marriage was not a love match, Miss Moorland. I would divest myself of all Lady Blackhaven’s clothes if I could do so easily, but Mrs Thomas insists they have hardly been worn and that it should be a great travesty. You would be doing me a favour by taking at least one garment off my hands.’

Some of his words held an accent of Europe, Seraphina thought when he spoke, and she wondered just how long he had been stationed there. His hair was wet this morning, pulled back into a tight queue, a style far from fashionable. It suited him entirely.

He looked like a man too big for the room, though there was a grace about him that was also apparent. She imagined him on the battlefields, sword drawn and at the ready. He had been decorated for bravery on the Heights of Penasquedo in the final fiasco before the British retreat at Corunna. Perhaps it was there his cheek had been injured.

Not a love match! There had been rumours of the lack of emotion between the Lord and Lady of Blackhaven, but Catherine Stanford had played the part of duchess with aplomb, her clothes always of the latest vogue and her face unmatchable. Every man had adored her. Even her mother had been outshone by the beauty of the woman.

‘David informs me that you wish to decorate the castle hearth with bounty from the forest. I will assign a man to help you with the cutting and another to drag back what is found.’ His eyes were caught by a movement as Melusine slunk in behind her and sat at his feet.

‘It seems your hound has finally been tamed, Miss Moorland.’

‘I promised her a bone if she was obedient.’

When he laughed their eyes met. In London she had been plagued by dandies, their only thoughts those of the elegance of their clothes and the pleasure of the moment—minions who followed the Regent into hedonistic pursuits of little importance: Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we may die .

Trey Stanford was different. Even as a thirteen-year-old she had been able to recognise the fact. Had her mother, as well?

Lord, were Elizabeth and he once lovers? Is that why he had helped her mother so substantially when nobody else would? The thought was horrifying. Was this also the reason he was pulling back this morning, an edge of wariness on his face and in his words? Like mother, like daughter, though Elizabeth’s vivacity and joie de vivre had always eclipsed her own.

The bright and joyous world she had built up in her mind overnight came crashing down upon her. Lord Blackhaven would not join them in their search for Christmas greenery and he was very obviously readying himself for a coach ride away from the castle.

Another thought chased in upon that one. Would there be news of Ralph Bonnington, the Earl of Cresswell, at the destination he was bound for? Please God, let the man not have died from the blow to his head! No, the impact of the ewer had been substantial, but the bone of his scalp had held and there had been many a time with her brothers as a youngster when she had clouted them as hard. Worry swamped reason and of a sudden she wanted Trey Stanford to stay close, away from the gossip and a world that was not kind.

As a governess, however, she had no mandate to question his movements or ask for his presence here. She was a nobody now, a pauper mired in debt and scandal.

‘I shall be back before the evening sets properly. Is there anything you might wish for in Maldon?’

She shook her head and then stopped, her mind running on to the pursuits of the day. ‘Ribbon, my lord, and sweets. I have promised the boys a tree, you see, like the one King George allowed Charlotte. My mother used to speak of it—a giant yew erected inside the Queen’s Lodge at Windsor with its sweets and nuts and candles.’

‘I am astonished such a tree did not burn down the palace.’

When she smiled the air between them lightened. ‘Ours shall be an evergreen fir bough, my lord, and the candles can stay on the mantel.’

‘And where shall this tribute to the oncoming Yule be placed?’ The tone in his voice suggested resignation.

‘Mrs Thomas proposed the room downstairs to the left of the front portico.’

‘My father’s favourite haunt. I imagine him turning in his grave at the thought of the Christmas spirit displayed in the very spot where his ancestors railed against anything festive.’

‘It could, of course, be changed, my lord?’

‘No, leave it, for there is a certain retribution at the thought.’

‘You did not like your father?’ The new habits of servitude were not ingrained yet and there was a sadness about him that was beguiling.

‘I impose few rules on my sons because as a child I had to obey so many. He was a good man underneath, though, a moral man.’

‘Then you were fortunate that he cared enough to worry. My own papa barely knew my name.’ Until he signed it away on a piece of paper, promising her into unholy matrimony. Like horseflesh at Newmarket, no emotion save greed in any of it .

‘That I find hard to believe,’ Trey Stanford said obliquely, knocking his hat against his thigh. ‘But for now I bid you farewell, my lady.’ The lines around his eyes creased at her title as though he found irony in her situation; indeed, in a gown that had been remade and remodelled so many times the stitching lines were beginning to fray, Seraphina felt perhaps there was.

‘Thank you.’

He turned at her words. ‘For what?’

‘For allowing me to keep at least a measure of pride here.’

‘One cannot take away that which was never lost in the first place, my lady.’

‘I will bear that in mind when I wrap myself in the borrowed cloak then, my lord.’

‘Aye,’ he said, ‘you do just that.’

This time he did not tarry as his man came forth and they both disappeared through the portal that led to the front steps.

She never said or did what he expected her to, Trey thought as he walked through the snow to the carriage. He wondered if it was deliberate, this knack of hers to throw him out just when he was beginning to understand her, her pale blue eyes laced at times with the fear of saying the wrong thing or inciting anger.

Hell, he would like to have laid his hands around the neck of her father and brother and squeezed hard, so little care they had taken with her. The dress she wore today was, if possible, even worse than the one she had on yesterday, the seams on the side of the bodice showing through to her white chemise. A ruffled velvet over-layer hid some of the damage, but the overall effect was unlike anything he had ever seen a lady wear before.

Catherine had been a woman whose wardrobe was full to bursting and one who was never happier than when taking a new shipment of ornate and expensive clothing. He grimaced. Would Lady Seraphina be slighted if he asked Mrs Thomas to select a few of the winter gowns his wife had never worn and take them to her room for appraisal?

Pulling his hand across his eyes as he felt the movement of the coach, he breathed in. He wanted Seraphina Moreton happy. He liked her smile and the deep dimples in each cheek, apprehension and alarm making way for the sort of joy he had long since forgotten. Part of him wanted to bang on the roof of the carriage and order it back so that he might go and find the Christmas greenery that she had spoken of, and the laughter. But he had promised her ribbon and candles and sweets and the look in her eyes when he had done so made the mission as important as any he had ever undertaken.