The Duke Under the Mistletoe

Chapter 1

“Is everything prepared to your liking, Your Grace?” asked Mrs. Greaves.

The Wentworth Abbey housekeeper’s tone was stoic.

To her credit, there was nary a hint of distaste in either her voice or her expressionless face.

She wore a stern black gown, her steel-gray hair pulled tightly into a chignon, and the chatelaine at her waist likely weighed as much as one of the many portmanteaus Lillian had brought from New York City.

The housekeeper looked rather as if she were dressed in mourning.

And perhaps she was.

After all, no one was happy that England’s most-revered bachelor, the Duke of Wentworth, had married an American heiress.

Including the duke himself, as he had made more than apparent in word and deed, breaking her fragile hopes and burgeoning feelings into tiny shards in the process.

“I’m sure it is, Mrs. Greaves,” Lillian returned politely.

They were ensconced in a sitting room that must have been cheerful a century ago.

Time and a marked lack of ducal funds had not been kind to it.

The ceiling paint had peeled in abject decay.

A large water spot in the shape of Pennsylvania marred the plaster below mullioned windows, the wall coverings had long ago faded, and the Axminster was threadbare.

On any number of walls, the rectangular shapes of pictures that previously hung proudly could be spied in darker damask once hidden from the punishing rays of sunlight.

The missing pictures hailed to an earlier time, before her husband and her father had met, when the duke had commenced selling off ancestral artifacts to sustain his ailing coffers.

It was that very act that had led to Lillian being where she now sat, in a room that even smelled stale itself, the result of having been shut up for some time.

The influx of money from Lillian’s dowry would soon cure all these ailments. It was the reason Wentworth had married her, after all. His withdrawal from her had made that more than apparent.

“It has been quite a few years since Wentworth Abbey was opened for Christmas,” the housekeeper continued. “The former duke and duchess dearly loved to spend the Yuletide here, but that was some time ago, before the tragedy.”

Lillian reached for her teacup. “Of course.”

Not knowing what else to say, she took a sip.

She was familiar with her husband’s family history.

Mother made certain of it, just as she made certain that Lillian would accept His Grace’s proposal.

Both his younger brother and parents had perished at sea during a sailing trip.

The duke had been abroad at the time. He had returned from the Continent an orphan.

Perhaps that was why he was so aloof and difficult to know.

“Would you care to review the menu for the week, considering that His Grace will be arriving later today?” Mrs. Greaves asked.

Lillian choked on her tea, nearly spitting it ungracefully back into the cup. “Forgive me. I must have misheard you. I thought you said His Grace would be arriving later today.”

“You didn’t mishear me, Your Grace.”

“His Grace, my husband?”

Husband still felt strange on her tongue, a bit like the poisonous berry she once picked at her family’s summer house as a child and placed in her mouth because her older brother had dared her to.

Brothers. Henry was fortunate she forgave him for nearly orchestrating her untimely demise.

She had been wise enough to spit it out after she collected her prize, which happened to be a ribbon candy he’d been keeping in his pocket.

She issued a silent prayer that the housekeeper was referring to some other duke. To any other duke. Surely she wasn’t speaking of the Duke of Wentworth.

Mrs. Greaves’s brows snapped together. “Of course, Your Grace. He sent word of his impending arrival a fortnight ago. I assumed the two of you had planned your visit accordingly.”

No, they had not.

In fact, the only thing they had planned was that they would avoid each other. Indeed, they had been doing so with great success for the last month, and Lillian had no desire for their mutual separation to end.

She forced a smile for the housekeeper’s benefit, her mother’s years of ceaseless training returning to her. “Oh yes, we did indeed. I had merely failed to realize that His Grace would be joining me here at Wentworth Abbey so soon.”

“He is expected within the hour.”

Within the hour?

A fluttering started in her belly. A ridiculous, irritating sensation she never seemed able to control, regardless of how much she disliked the man who was apparently determined to ruin her Christmas solitude.

The man who had kissed her with such overwhelming passion, making her burn for him, only to revert to his cool, reserved state once again. As if it had never happened. Seven months ago, and Lillian still could not forget the way he had set her aflame.

She gritted her teeth now. “Perhaps you might wish to review the menu with His Grace instead, then.”

“He asked me to defer to you.”

Lillian clenched her jaw. “Naturally. Well, Mrs. Greaves, I have every confidence in your ability to plan a menu that will be more than suitable for the occasion. Have Cook prepare His Grace’s favorite dishes.”

And I will do my best to refrain from dumping any of them on his head.

She didn’t dare say that aloud, however.

“I will do so, but are there any dishes that Your Grace would like to request?” Mrs. Greaves asked with her omnipresent polite patience.

“None that I can presently think of,” Lillian reassured her grimly.

Her mind whirled, plotting escape. If Wentworth intended to spend Christmas at Wentworth Abbey, she would simply go elsewhere.

Perhaps back to London. There must have been some sort of miscommunication between them.

Why else would he come to Hertfordshire when she wrote him with her intention to spend the Christmas season there?

Likely, he had failed to read the missive she sent him.

A sudden commotion rose from beyond the sad little sitting room, and her body seized, like a watch spring tightly coiled.

Mrs. Greaves brightened. “That would be His Grace now!”

Lillian couldn’t manage to summon even a hint of the housekeeper’s enthusiasm. What was Wentworth doing here?

“How wonderful,” she drawled without any accompanying emotion, when all she truly meant was how terrible.

It was going to be a long Christmas.

It had been a bloody long train ride to Wentworth Abbey, and all Alaric wanted to do was crawl into the nearest bed and sleep.

But when one had been born the eleventh Duke of Wentworth, that simply wasn’t done. Instead, one affected a congenial persona and greeted his domestics, who were all pleased with him for at last opening up the moldering country estate he had largely abandoned.

Because his wife had wished it.

Ah, yes. Lillian Amelia, now the eleventh Duchess of Wentworth.

The woman he had married a month ago in an opulent spectacle of New York City wealth.

The woman who hadn’t wanted to marry him.

The woman who was in love with someone else.

Some nameless, faceless suitor. The knowledge that her heart was reserved for another still stung.

There she was now, hovering at the periphery of the servants with Mrs. Greaves.

Her blonde tresses were plaited into Grecian braids and confined in a knot at her crown.

Her summer-berry lips were pinched with slight distaste, almost as if she’d taken a bite of something spoiled.

Her pale-blue eyes were unreadable as they met his over the sea of smiling maids and footmen.

His wife must have been busy procuring additional help.

Just as well. As the daughter of a hideously wealthy American businessman, Lillian was accustomed to a phalanx of servants catering to her every whim.

Whilst he, on the other hand, had spent much of his life on the edge of penury.

The Dukes of Wentworth were once proud and rich as Croesus, but that was centuries ago, before his profligate predecessors had wasted their funds on gambling, drink, and wenches, though not always in that order.

Before the crops had failed. Before the estates had begun to tumble headlong into ruin.

The servants parted neatly, coaxed by Mrs. Greaves.

Alaric strolled up the avenue they had created in the great hall, stopping before his wife and offering her the most gentlemanly bow he could muster.

She curtseyed in response. They were the politest two souls ever to have graced the marble floor of this grand estate.

Because they were strangers. The fault for that lay with both of them.

But he was here to rectify it now. He hadn’t married her because he had fallen in love with her.

That had come frighteningly quickly, somewhere between their first meeting and the day he had taken her into his arms in a New York City mansion, only to have his feelings summarily dashed like a ship on rocky shoals.

He had married her because he needed her dowry to save his estates and because he needed an heir.

Alaric had already set to work on the first objective over the last month, and now it was time to see to the second.

“Madam,” he greeted her.

Lillian gave him her hand as regally as a queen, never mind a duchess.

He grasped her fingers lightly with his, pressing a chaste kiss to her bare skin.

The faint scent of jasmine danced along his senses, pleasant and familiar, taking him back to the kisses they had shared upon the signing of their betrothal contract, before everything had gone so hopelessly awry.

“Your Grace,” she responded, jerking her hand from his hold.

A slight pink tinge had risen on her elegant cheekbones.

Her countenance gave no indication of what she might be thinking beneath the lovely mask.

The former Miss Lillian Penrose was a celebrated beauty.

The newspapers had been filled with flowery descriptions of her glorious face and figure.

She hailed from the cream of New York high society, and aside from the size of her dowry and the fact she loved someone else, Alaric knew scarcely anything about her.

“You are well, I trust?” he asked her politely.

Her letters to him had all been succinct and impersonal.

She looked healthy, if not happy. Dimly, he recalled her mother relaying a concern that their curious English weather, as she had called it, would not be suited to her darling daughter’s fragile constitution.

The worry hadn’t been sufficient to prevent Mrs. Augustus Penrose from marrying her daughter off to the first duke she’d found, however.

“I am quite well, thank you, Your Grace,” his wife said, unsmiling.

She issued this reassurance in a voice she may have also used to say something like I adore being bitten by spiders and swimming with leeches, Your Grace. Have I mentioned I would dearly love to be eaten by a bear?

“I am relieved to hear it,” he offered, feeling equally stiff and formal.

She said nothing in return, simply staring at him as an awkward silence unfolded.

Not for the first time, he wondered if the woman he had married cared for him at all.

Perhaps the passion she had shown him had been nothing more than an act.

He had told himself, again and again, that it must have been.

Alaric turned to the faithful housekeeper who had been with his family for over twenty years, genuinely pleased to see her. “Mrs. Greaves. I must thank you for the warm welcome from the domestics.”

“It is our pleasure. We are so very pleased that you and Her Grace are spending Christmas at Wentworth Abbey,” Mrs. Greaves replied, her countenance the opposite of his wife’s.

“As am I,” he lied, grinning through a clenched jaw for the sake of his housekeeper and the rest of the servants.

Alaric ventured another glance in his wife’s direction to find her staring at him.

Their gazes clashed, and awareness jolted through him.

Lillian was incredibly attractive, though almost a bit too perfect.

Her silk Worth gown was no doubt the height of Parisian fashion, a pale green that hugged her shape, ornamented with jet beads and black lace.

Briefly, he wondered if she still yearned for her lover.

Their wedding had been the talk of New York City society.

During his miserable tenure abroad, he had read the papers so he could learn about their impending nuptials.

He’d had no hand in the planning of it. He had merely been told when to arrive and where to stand.

It had suited Alaric well enough. Had there been nary a single flower decking the church pews instead of thousands, he wouldn’t have given a damn. His purpose had been to wed her.

And that, he had done, even if he had still yet to bed her.

“Your valises will be sent to your chamber, Your Grace,” Mrs. Greaves informed him brightly. “The ducal apartments have been aired out and cleaned in anticipation of your arrival.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Greaves. Perhaps you would see a tray of tea brought to the gold salon for Her Grace and myself?”

He didn’t miss his wife’s eyes widening at his suggestion. Likely, she’d hoped he wouldn’t require any of her time or attention. But they had been married for…damn it all. An entire month.

And it was more than past time he did his duty in consummating their marriage.

Even if he didn’t want to.