To Wed His Christmas Lady Read online

  A small moue of surprise formed on the maid’s lips. “You are never without your necklace, my lady.”

  No, she was not. Cara dropped her gaze to the broken clasp of this piece that had once graced her mother’s neck. Incapable of words, she shook the chain once and Alison rushed forward to claim it. The girl took in the damaged pendant and made a clucking noise like a chicken let loose. “How very sad,” she said as though to herself. “’Twas a fine necklace.”

  The ten carat ruby and fine Italian gold had meant nothing to Cara. Rather, the memories connected to that piece as her mother had pressed it into her small hand were of far more value than any material worth attached to the necklace. “You’d still be your cheerful self with that,” she said tersely, jerking her chin at the heart.

  Alison blinked wildly and then a broad smile split her lips. “Oh, indeed!” She skipped over to the bed and gently wrapped the beloved piece.

  It was on the tip of Cara’s tongue to call for the return of that heart, but she compressed her lips into a tight line to keep from revealing that hint of weakness.

  “One must always find things to be cheerful about.” Her maid chatted like a magpie which, unfortunately for Cara, was often. “There were cranberry scones for breakfast.”

  As respected and revered as Mrs. Belden’s school was, one would never claim the headmistress’ cook was in any way accomplished. “They were drier than a sack of Cook’s flour.”

  The room trilled with Alison’s laughter as she hurried from the armoire over to the open trunk at the foot of the bed. Cara winced as the young woman, between her sniffling, proceeded to carry on about the texture of the cranberries and the other parts of her breakfast meal. Cara had resolved to see her sacked the minute she’d entered into her responsibilities as maid and first smiled at her. People did not smile at her. And they decidedly did not speak to her. The maid had prattled on in a manner that had set Cara’s teeth on edge. But then, the more she’d listened, the more she’d perplexedly found there was something rather comforting in hearing another person’s voice. Oh, she’d sooner wed the miserable, pompous, future duke her father would bind her to with a smile and a “yes, please” than ever willingly admit as much. A startled laugh slipped from Cara’s lips, and Alison shot a wide-eyed look back at her. Cara schooled her features and disguised that shocked sound as a cough. Alison resumed her packing, all the while humming as she went.

  Yes, though Cara made it a point to not engage the girl, there was an odd solace in being with a person who spoke to you—and not about you. Or even, at you.

  “Then there were the biscuits,” the plump woman said crushing one of Cara’s satin dresses close to her chest and hopelessly wrinkling the fabric. “Oh, the biscuits. A-choo!”

  Cara returned her attention to the grounds outside her chambers. “It is a sorry life indeed if you find joy in biscuits and scones,” she said, unable to keep the bitterness from her tone. Then really, what happiness was there? It assuredly was not found in the cold families a lord and lady were born into.

  “Oh, but surely you see it is a lovely day?”

  She squinted out into the dreary, gray-white, winter sky. A lovely day? Was the girl madder than a hatter? Her mistress had been summarily forgotten by her sole surviving parent at Christmas. Not that it mattered whether or not it was the holiday season. She abhorred all the false festive cheer of Christmas; a time when lords and ladies pretended they were happy and kind and all things different than the cold, unfeeling figures they truly were.

  “I daresay it will be a wonderful holiday.” Her maid wiped her nose on a handkerchief and quickly stuffed it into the front pocket sewn into her apron.

  On what did the girl base such a surely erroneous assumption? What joyfulness did she know as a maid in the Duke of Ravenscourt’s employ for Cara’s miserable self?

  “The skies are gray, without a hint of sunshine,” she said, hating that she engaged the girl, but it provided a small distraction from her own miseries.

  “Ah, but the smell of snow is in the air.” Then, as though she could smell anything more than the dark, lonely chambers through her stuffed up nose, the girl threw her arms wide and inhaled deep. She ruined that attempt at invigoration with another sneeze.

  A knock sounded at the door and Alison rushed over to open it. Cara thrust back her pathetic musings, despising the weak creature who still mourned the loss of a father’s love, nearly as much as she despised the man himself. As Alison pulled the door open, one of Mrs. Belden’s instructors—aptly named dragons—remained in the corridor. She whispered something to the maid. Cara pointedly kept her attention at the window, away from that slight exchange. All the while, her neck pricked with humiliated hurt at the obvious reason for the interruption.

  Down the length of the gravel drive, a black carriage rattled toward the front of the establishment. Her heart gave a funny leap. With blossoming hope, she pressed her face to the window and squinted. Young ladies did not squint and they certainly did not show enthusiasm or, well, any hint of emotion. But she didn’t give a jot about proper ladylike behavior just then. A cry, born of a hope she didn’t believe herself capable of, stuck in her throat. For there was a carriage rattling slowly down the drive and that black conveyance signified she’d not been forgotten. She brushed a hand over the frosted pane, the glass ice cold on her bare palm. Ignoring the slight sting, she attended that elegant, black barouche as it came to a sudden stop outside the front of the revered finishing school.

  An odd emptiness settled in her chest. She stared unblinkingly down at the crest—the crest of someone else’s father. A sire who likely didn’t love his daughter, because none of those self-important, officious peers who ruled the world did, but one who, at the very least, had not forgotten his daughter at the holiday times, either.

  Alison cleared her throat. Schooling her features, Cara turned around. “What is it?” Her sharp tone came from a woman who was one word too many away from dissolving into a mewling, weepy mess.

  The girl’s usually sunny smile dipped. “Mrs. Belden asked to see you in her office, my lady.”

  She curled her hands into tight fists. The summons. Cara stole one more glance out the window and stared at the intersecting lines of her palm marked upon the frosted glass. Through that space left by her hand, the faint flecks of snow began to fall. Prove me wrong. Come now. I command it. From a place where she didn’t know hope still dwelled within her, Cara willed another carriage down the drive. Except, just as she’d been a girl of seven willing her mother to breathe once more, no matter how long she stared or how much she wished it to be, it was not coming.

  “My lady?”

  It was that warm gentleness that snapped her from her miserable standstill. “Hurry along with the remainder of my belongings,” she forced past tight lips. Cara spun on her heel and marched from the room, though it was remarkably hard to save face when you ordered your maid to pack your belongings and there was really no place to go.

  Cara moved through the quiet, now empty, halls of this place that was no more home than the cold, empty halls of any one of her father’s opulent estates. Mrs. Belden’s, just like His Grace’s townhouses and grand estates, was nothing more than a place with a roof and any number of walls and windows and doors. There was no warmth here.

  Though, once upon a lifetime ago, there had been a place she’d considered home.

  …but Father says you are to only call me Clarisse…

  …ah, your father insisted you be named Clarisse, but I am your mama, and Cara mia, you shall always be…

  Cara came to a sudden, staggering stop outside Mrs. Belden’s office as the long-buried memory trickled in. She’d not allowed herself to think of her mother in the eleven years since she’d been gone. For with those thoughts came the aching reminder of what it had once meant to laugh and smile and be happy. She pressed her eyes closed and willed back all remembrances of the last person who’d loved her, not for what she could do or bring to someone
else, but simply for herself.

  “But I despise her.”

  That plaintive entreaty cut across Cara’s thoughts and brought her eyes flying open. She stared at the wooden panel of Mrs. Belden’s closed office door where the nasty headmistress now spoke to Lady Nora. Lady Nora Turner, the Earl of Derby’s daughter, and one of Cara’s greatest enemies at Mrs. Belden’s. Though in truth, it was really more a tie for the top place among the ten other girls who’d had the misfortune of being scuttled off to Belden’s lair.

  “Everyone despises her,” the woman spoke with a crisp matter-of-factness. She thumped her cane once. “But she is a duke’s daughter and as such, is afforded our respect.”

  “I don’t respect her,” the fiery-spirited lady groused. “I hate her.”

  The muscles of Cara’s stomach knotted at the blunt admission. Of course Nora hated her. They all hated her. From the students to servants here and in her father’s home. She furrowed her brow. With the exception of the obstinate, always cheerful Alison. Cara flattened her lips into a hard line. Which was well and fine. She despised them all for their silly, joyful smiles and grating giggles and for their abundant reasons to be happy when she had none.

  “Even so, do you expect your father would allow the Duke of Ravenscourt’s daughter to be left here because you do not like her?”

  “I did not say I do not like her. I said I hate her.”

  And if she didn’t herself abhor the other young woman so much, she’d have admired her for going toe to toe with the vile dragon.

  “She cannot very well stay here for the holiday.”

  “Why? You do.” Desperation and confusion leant the girl’s words a high pitch.

  The headmistress sputtered. Young ladies did not challenge the woman.

  A smile pulled Cara’s lips; the feel of it rusty and painful from ill-use. Her grin withered at the other student’s next words.

  “I am sure her father will eventually remember he’s forgotten her.”

  That was a wager Lady Nora would handily lose.

  Another thump of the cane. “A duke does not forget his children.” And that was another misspoken statement from this combative pair. The duke had forgotten more birthdays than Cara remembered. A memory slipped in.

  “You are as pretty as a princess, Cara mia.”

  Mother placed her hands upon her shoulders and they stared at Cara’s visage in the full-length mirror.

  Cara cast an eager glance over her shoulder. “Papa is truly taking me to Gunter’s?”

  “Why, it is your birthday, dear.”

  The excited laughter trilled around the chambers of her mind.

  She’d waited all day—and he’d never come.

  Cara blinked. Where had the thirteen-year-old memory come from? For she’d been summarily forgotten at various points through her life.

  This, however, was the first time she’d been so forgotten during the holidays. She blinked several times as a sheen misted her vision. Dratted dust. Odd, she’d never noticed the immaculate establishment was so dusty, and yet, how to account for this odd blurring? “A duke is very busy with matters far more pressing than his children.”

  To those powerful noblemen, all matters were more important than his children. With the exception of his heir, of course. She’d spent years hating Cedric for their father’s favor. Then she’d spent the other years hating him for being as coolly indifferent as their sire.

  “It will be a short carriage ride and then she will continue on to the duke’s estates for Christmas. I consider this matter concluded, Lady Nora.”

  Blast and double blast. A carriage ride with Lady Nora, a girl who despised Cara and would delight in her misery? Perhaps being summarily forgotten and forced to dwell in the lair of the other dragons was preferable. She rapped once.

  “Enter.”

  Cara pressed the handle and swept inside. Carrying her shoulders with a stately bearing even her father would have been forced to find pride in, she pulled the door closed and ran a cool, condescending look over Lady Nora. A flush stained the girl’s cheeks and by the way she tightened her hands into balls at her sides, she was as prepared to resume the physical blows they’d come to six months earlier when Cara had single-handedly seen their instructor, Miss Jane Munroe, tossed out. Guilt knotted her belly.

  “That will be all for now, Lady Nora,” Mrs. Belden said in dismissal. She thumped her cane once in a manner more befitting a witch wielding the magic of her broom that would see the other girl vanish.

  The two young ladies eyed each other a long moment. Cara met the vitriol and loathing teeming from the other lady’s gaze with an icy derision. She’d not allow Nora the triumph of knowing her words and sneers had wounded like a well-placed barb.

  “I said that will be all for now, Lady Nora,” Mrs. Belden gave a tellingly furious two thumps of her cane.

  As Lady Nora passed closely by Cara, the young woman yanked her skirts back.

  The spectacle-wearing dragon spoke as soon as the door closed loudly behind the other student. “Your father failed to send ’round his carriage to collect you, my lady.”

  She’d known as much. The already eight departed carriages and the barren halls indicated all those slightly aware parents had sent for their daughters. While her own power-driven father, consumed by his own lofty status and advancing his wealth, could not be bothered to even send his servants to collect her. For Christmas. Having the headmistress utter those words aloud only made the truth of her circumstances all the more real.

  Cara stood stiffly, silent as Mrs. Belden moved around her desk and claimed a seat at the head of the immaculate, broad, mahogany piece. She eyed her over the rims of her thick spectacles. “Most ladies would be in tears by such a fact, my lady.” She eyed her with a pride better reserved for a mother to a daughter. “I am pleased with your absolute dignity and reserve in the face of your father’s inactions this day.”

  It was an ill-testament to the person she’d become in her eighteen years that this headmistress, as hated as a venomous serpent, should find pride in her. “You summoned me, Mrs. Belden,” Cara said with the ducal chill she’d heard in the handful of exchanges she’d had with her absentee father. “Say whatever else you’d say so we might,” she dusted a speck of imagined dust from her puffed white sleeve, “conclude our business here.”

  The other woman froze a moment but then another one of those cold, dark smiles hinted at her pleasure. She no doubt applauded Cara’s frigidity. “Will you please sit, my lady?”

  She eyed the hard, wood chair at the foot of the desk, filled with a childlike urge to hurl that piece across this hated office, into the fire, and then take off running into the world outside, running as far and as fast as her legs could carry her, away from this world and into another where she ceased to be this and managed to be someone else—

  “My lady?” Mrs. Belden eyed Cara standing there like she was an oddity on display at the Egyptian Center.

  Except, after her mother’s death, she’d spent her life being the perfect, ducal daughter and knew no other way. With wooden steps, she walked with a long-practiced calm over to the proffered chair and sat.

  “Lady Nora is to leave today. She has graciously agreed to allow you to accompany her. From there you will then be given leave of the earl’s carriage to return to His Grace for the holiday.” For the holiday. That last part may as well have been nothing more than an afterthought. Holidays were not celebrated in the Duke of Ravenscourt’s home. As they did not advance his power or prestige, he’d never allowed those festivities and inane affairs. All they were, anyway, were artificial moments of false happiness.

  The leader of the dragons steepled her fingers and rested them on her desk. She stared at Cara, expecting, what? Thanks for being shuffled off, humiliated and shamed, in Lady Nora’s carriage? A promise to speak favorably to the powerful Duke of Ravenscourt? Alas, the woman still did not realize the duke preferred his hounds and horses to his one daughter.

&nbs
p; Cara spoke and when she did, she stripped all emotion, all hint of caring, and even the disdain she felt for one who’d bow before an almighty duke for his total alone. “Is there anything else you wish to speak with me about, Mrs. Belden? I would oversee my maid’s packing of my belongings.” It was a blatant lie. By now, Alison had likely already clicked the trunk closed.

  Mrs. Belden frowned. “That is all.” She pursed her lips, likely in an attempt to keep from saying more.

  With a toss of her head, Cara rose with the graceful care ingrained into her by the army of nursemaids and governesses who’d reared her and swept from the room.

  *

  Cara sat rigid on the seat of the Earl of Derby’s carriage, alongside her sniffling maid. Her body carefully angled as it was, and had been for the better part of the journey, had developed an ache that traveled from her neck, down her shoulders, and to her hips. The same stilted silence that had fallen the moment Lady Nora’s groom had closed the carriage door at Mrs. Belden’s Finishing School had stretched on for these two hours.

  The seventeen-year-old lady with her outspoken thoughts on anything and everything from a woman’s place in the world to Cara’s constant frown, as she called it, broke the silent impasse. “I did not want to bring you.”

  Alison burrowed against the wall of the carriage, as though she were trying to escape the charged exchange.

  Cara bit the inside of her cheek. It should not matter that this surly, deservedly angry lady abhorred her, and yet, strangely, an odd pang struck her chest. Refusing to give the other young woman any idea that her words had any effect, she flicked a cool gaze over her frame. “I do not care whether you wished to bring me or not.” Then, in a bid to ruffle the infuriatingly cool woman she peeled her lip back. “Furthermore, you’ve already indicated as much, two,” four, “times now. Your words grow tedious.”