The Duke Who Ruined Christmas (Christmas Dukes #2)

Chapter 1

YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND

The Duke of Marchingham was an arrogant, haughty arse.

And Miss Adelia Fox of New York City, sole daughter of the ridiculously wealthy railroad magnate Cornelius Fox, had every intention of informing the intolerable fellow of that.

Supposing she didn’t freeze to death in a Yorkshire snowbank first.

Unfortunately, the likelihood of her imminent demise was growing stronger with each passing minute that she remained alone with a sea of her trunks in the midst of only heaven knew where.

She sighed heavily as she peeked through the frigid carriage’s Venetian blinds.

A wall of white descended from the leaden sky, giving no indication it would cease any time soon.

Sending their coachman Alfred and Aunt Pearl ahead of her with Dandy had been her only choice. With the overloaded carriage mired firmly in the snow and unable to move, and the manor house to which they were traveling nowhere in sight, she’d been forced to act. Poor Dandy would have frozen by now.

Still, reaching an untimely end in the wilds of England was decidedly not the manner in which Addy had planned to spend the Christmas season.

Rather, she had intended to surprise her dearest friends from the Swiss finishing school she’d been forced to attend at her mother’s determined insistence.

Mama was intent upon Addy finding a proper husband—the nobler, the better, a foreign prince if possible.

Addy, meanwhile, was equally intent upon never surrendering her freedom to the institution—and particularly not with some dreadful foreign prince.

As she’d predicted, finishing school had proven deadly dull.

Addy had done everything in her power to be sent home.

Only two good things had come of the decidedly miserable experience.

The first had been the friendship she’d forged with Lady Lila and Lady Violetta “Letty” Hawthorne.

And the second was her beloved French bulldog, Dandelion.

After discovering her at a stop in Paris, Addy had brought Dandy home to New York City with her, and they’d been inseparable ever since.

Lady Letty and Lady Lila, however, had returned to England following their equally ignominious tenure at Académie Clairemont.

And oh, how dearly she’d missed them over the past three years.

It was difficult to believe how much time had passed since Addy had been sent away from finishing school in disgrace herself.

They’d been relegated to long-winded letters and the occasional transatlantic telegram in the intervening years.

But it had been a pale comparison to the times they had spent laughing and singing and plotting their latest foibles together in Switzerland.

Finally, they were meant to have been reunited, Les Trois Mousquetaires, as they had been known at the Académie Clairemont.

And only because Addy had decided she’d had enough of their elder brother’s infuriating refusal to allow them to visit her in New York City.

This time, she had chosen to surprise her friends. When they had written to her with grave disappointment at their inability to accept her invitation for a Christmas in New York City thanks to the duke’s maddening disapproval, Addy had decided it was time to take matters into her own hands.

Mama had been thrilled. Addy’s trip to England—and to a duke’s manor house, no less—was a feather in her cap and a source of unabashed bragging to her inner circle.

“Only think of how fortunate the Duke of Marchingham will be to have my Adelia paying him a call,” she had told Mrs. William Spencer Clay with a smug air. “I can just imagine how utterly charmed such a gentleman will be by darling Adelia’s clever wit.”

Darling Adelia was something Mama only called her in public. The rest of the time, she was more commonly referred to as Adelia Louise Stonehurst Fox in an irate fashion. Mama was quite fond of reminding everyone she’d been born a Stonehurst. Even when she was enraged.

For her part, Mrs. William Spencer Clay had mustered up a smile that had more resembled a grimace of despair, for she had four daughters of her own, none of whom had been invited to spend Christmas with a duke. “Of course, my dear Bettina.”

Never mind that Addy hadn’t been invited either.

With another sigh, she released her hold on the blinds, allowing them to close and blot out the unrelenting snowy vista beyond. Her fingers were numb inside her gloves, so she tucked them beneath the furs in her lap.

Perhaps her end would be fitting. Mama had forever lectured her that she needed to be more judicious in her decisions.

And as much as Addy despised conceding any point to her mother, however small, as she shivered in misery in the carriage that had failed on the final leg of her journey, she had to admit that perhaps Mama had been right after all…

Thump, thump, thump.

Addy screamed. Then she jolted upright in her seat with so much force, propelled by her startlement, that she struck her head on the carriage roof.

Her scream died in a cry of distress.

Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.

The angry raps on the carriage door had nearly doubled. And they were growing louder.

“Are you in there, madam?”

The deep, masculine voice was accented and unfamiliar.

Not Alfred. Oh dear. Surely Alfred would have returned with whatever help he had managed to find.

He would never dare to abandon Addy’s side.

Not unless she had ordered him to, which she had only done so that the most vulnerable members of their party might be spared.

What if the man at her carriage door was an opportunistic thief who had spied her stranded carriage and all its trunks? What if his intention was to rob her?

Her first instinct was to avoid answering. She held her breath and her tongue, pressing her back to the squabs and not daring to move.

Addy reached a gloved hand toward her favorite diamond earrings as she kept her stare fixed upon the door.

“Madam?”

Perhaps she ought to let him rob her in exchange for getting her to the nearest fireplace so that she could warm herself. She flexed her toes in her silk boots. They, too, were icy and numb.

Thump, thump.

“The door is frozen shut. Stand back. I’m going to have to break it down to reach you.”

So that was why the man was beating on the carriage.

The warning spurred her to action. Addy held up a hand. “Wait. Don’t break down the d—”

Her words were swallowed by the splintering crack as the carriage door thundered open.

“Door,” she finished lamely as she stared at the irate man who had just crashed into her carriage, broad shoulder first.

A frenzied burst of snow puffed around him, making him seem, for a brief moment, otherworldly.

His hat had been knocked from his head, revealing thick, golden waves.

His jaw was strong, leading to a cleft chin and lips that were as forbidding as they were inviting.

His cheekbones were prominent blades, his forehead was high, and he possessed more beauty than she’d ever seen in a man.

His form was large and strong, and he was tall beneath the snow-flecked greatcoat he wore.

He stole Addy’s breath. Or no, perhaps that was the cold bursting in from the outdoors, making it difficult to inflate her lungs, forcing her heart to beat fast and hard.

Pinning her with a glacial blue glare, he extended a hand. “Come.”

She eyed his hand as if it were a bear trap. “I don’t think so, sir.”

He regarded her, his demeanor brooding. “You have somewhere else to be in this maelstrom?”

“Yes,” she snapped back, nettled by his smug air. “That is why I’m in a carriage.”

A lone, golden eyebrow winged upward. “A carriage that is stuck in a snowbank. I doubt it’s capable of conveying you anywhere for the foreseeable future.”

Well, damn him for mentioning it.

He wasn’t wrong, of course. But she had no wish to feel as if she were easy prey for this strapping stranger who had come upon her.

“Have you passed anyone on the road?” she asked, thinking of Alfred, Aunt Pearl, and Dandy.

If anything ill had befallen them before they had reached Marchingham Hall…

No, she refused to think it.

“I daresay no one else is stupid enough to venture into a snowstorm at present,” he drawled.

His uncharitable response instantly drew her ire. “Are you insinuating I’m lacking in intelligence, sir?”

Her mind whirled. Perhaps that meant Alfred, Aunt Pearl, and Dandy had made it to Marchingham Hall. She hoped and prayed that was the case. They’d taken the horses at her insistence, leaving Addy with her trunks. Someone had to guard her belongings. She couldn’t simply abandon them to the road.

“I am not insinuating anything, madam,” the man said, his tone biting.

Of course it would be just Addy’s peculiar brand of fortune to find herself being robbed in the midst of a snowstorm by the most insolent, dreadful man she’d ever met. Still, she needed his help. Perhaps he could be persuaded to aid her without resorting to nefarious means.

“Take my earrings,” she said suddenly, reaching for them both with gloved hands. “They’re diamond and worth quite a bit. They’ll fetch you more than enough if you’re willing to take me somewhere safe and warm until this infernal storm passes.”

Unfortunately, her frozen fingers and the impractical kidskin rendered it impossible for her to remove either earring.

He watched her, his stare unnerving. “Get out of the carriage.”

His tone was icy and brusque.

“You needn’t be so rude, sir,” she chastised him.

“Out,” he commanded again in a cold, clipped voice.

She took umbrage at that voice. If he had dared to speak to her thus back home in New York City, why, she would have had him thrown out on his ear. Addy looked over his shoulder at the swirling snow. Pity there was nowhere to throw him now.