A Valentine For Christmas - A Regency Novella

A Valentine For Christmas

Kate Harper

www.kate-harper.com

copyright@kateharper 2012

Christmas Day

16 years before…

His mother had been crying again. She smiled and put on her I-am-perfectly-fine face, but he could see the red-rimmed eyes, the puffiness obvious. She had been crying a lot for so much physical distress to be visible. She wore a fixed smile because she was greeting her guests, a steady stream of people. So many people.

August looked around the well filled salons and wished them all to purgatory (he wished to use the word hell but he was not allowed such luxuries just yet – but his vocabulary was broad). Mama was unhappy and these people were not going to make her any happier.

As usual, the spacious rooms of Colchester Abbey were glowing with light and decorated with his mother’s usual flair. An enormous twelve-foot tree dominated the massive entrance hall. He and his mother, along with a flock of servants, had decorated it together several days ago. She had been happy then, laughing and smiling and hugging him. At the age of ten, August knew that he should not appreciate his mother’s affection so much and yet he did. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that his father displayed
no
affection for him, but Sandrine, Lady Valentine, made up for it. She had the happy knack of making even the most mundane things sparkle.

He looked at her now, standing beside his father, a slight figure in deep red brocade. His mother was considered a great beauty, or so his governess said, but August would not have cared what she looked like. She was the one stable, perfect thing in his life and he loved her with all his heart.

Beside his mother, his father appeared as a dark, sombre figure. Tall and thin, he had an aesthete’s face. Most people considered him cold and so he was, much of the time. But the cold façade hid a temper that he reigned in tightly with everybody but his wife and son.

August did not care for his father at all. He knew it was his filial duty to do so but it was hard to love a man one was scared of. Why Reynald, the thirteenth Lord Valentine had chosen to marry the mercurial Sandrine was a mystery, for never had a pair been so unsuited to each other. Or so said his governess and she seemed to know a great deal more about these things than he did.

Today was the commencement of the traditional Yule house party that had been held at Colchester Abbey for the past eleven years, ever since Sandrine had become Lady Valentine. For nearly a week the ton would be wined and dined and entertained. His father only vaguely participated in this frivolity and, up until a week ago, August had assumed that the whole thing had been his mother’s doing. But he had been passing an open window when he had heard his parents talking and had paused to listen. A ten year old had little opportunity to be privy to adult conversations and he had been caught by the note of desperation in his mother’s voice.

‘I do not want to hear about such nonsense. I will not participate in your ridiculous delusion that you have nerves. You are Lady Valentine. Colchester has hosted this event for years and it will continue to do so without interruption. Is that understood?’

There had been a pause. August had held his breath, waiting for what came next. His mother had spoken again, voice dull. ‘Do you ever consider my feelings, my lord?’

‘I consider your duty to me. I consider that you have done very well for yourself from this marriage.’ How August hated that tone. His father’s distain, in every word. Most of it was directed to his mother but August himself received his fair share.

It had been a devastating conversation and it had made his time with his mother all the more painful. He was going away and she would be left with his father, something he would not wish on anyone. Who would be there to distract her? To make her laugh? To ensure that she knew she was not alone?

It had been a sentence that must be bourn but he fervently wished it were his father that was going away. Without his miserable presence, life at Colchester Abbey would be very fine indeed.

He stood on the stairs, looking at his mother, wishing that she did not have to bear this ordeal. As if sensing him, she looked across the room and met his eyes and smiled, a brilliant flash of white that made his heart catch in his chest.

‘Come along, Master August. Time to go upstairs for your supper.’

The voice of his governess. He took one last look at the glowing hallway below; the tree, scenting the house with the resinous scent of pine. The candles, sprigged with holly, the winter greenery that decorated the dark wooden fixtures. A glorious mixture of spices and orange peel from the warm fruit pies scattered around the table, an informal touch that always made Christmas at Colchester so special.

Reluctantly, he turned and headed up to his own dinner, with one backward look over his shoulder. His mother, a slender flame in scarlet, had turned her attention back to another guest while beside her, his father stood and brooded.

He should have looked harder. It was the last time he saw his mother again.

Chapter One

Two days before Christmas, sixteen years later…

Lord August Valentine leaned back against the well-cushioned squabs on his seat and looked out the window at a world that had all but disappeared and thought himself a lucky man. While he would never actually say the words out loud, he was escaping, running away to Norfolk, to his hunting box for the two-week sojourn that had become his refuge during this, the most distasteful of seasons.

Christmas time.

Beside him, Madeleine moved a little and sighed, tucking her head a little more securely onto his shoulder. Even in sleep the girl knew how to negotiate the best possible level of comfort. She had been his mistress for six weeks now and was all together charming in every way, but her rapacious nature could be a little daunting, even to Valentine who knew the value of fair trade. This was the first time he was bringing a female ‘guest’ into Norfolk with him and he had asked her on a whim, having imbibed rather a lot of brandy prior to issuing the invitation. A combination of Madeleine’s charms and brandy had been mighty persuasive.

But to hell with it. He was leaving London and he might as well have a companion. Or that was what he had told himself after he’d asked dear Madeleine to accompany him.

For once again, it was the season to escape, avoiding well meaning friends and the scant few relatives that he possessed – especially the relatives – who consisted of a dried up stick of an uncle and his extremely unpleasant wife. Neither felt the least bit of fondness for him, or him for them, but every year they insisted on asking him if he were hosting Christmas at his family home of Colchester Abbey and, every year, he politely told them that he was not. He never spent time at Colchester at this time of year. Inevitably, his answer elicited a tedious lecture from his uncle on how he was shirking his duty but it impacted Valentine not at all. It was his duty and he would shirk it as he saw fit.

Naturally, they then invited him to come to
them
. This, too, he refused with as much good grace as he could manage. Which, he suspected, did not add up too much at all. Despite the fact that his uncle disliked him, both he and his bird-witted wife insisted on taking offence every year. Not that it swayed him. There was nothing he despised more than people who wanted to gather together and celebrate the fact that they did not particularly like each other at any time of the year, let alone Christmas. At least he could depend on Madeleine to treat the day with the indifference it deserved. He angled a glance down at the face on his shoulder but could not see a great deal, thanks to the bonnet that she wore. The curve of one cheek and a glimpse of cherry-red lips, luscious and inviting. Well, at least he wouldn’t be bored. He just hoped that she wouldn’t grow too tedious.

Such was his distaste for this time of hear that, three years ago, he had taken steps to circumvent the affair entirely. This has been prompted by the marriage of his best friend to Lady Suzannah Gregory, a charming girl with a stubborn streak that would make a donkey proud. It had become something of a tradition for Suzannah after she had married Viscount Morley, to throw an extravagant house party each year, inviting an inordinately large amount of people that Valentine would never have socialized with at any time, let alone at this claustrophobic time of the year. From the first of November, or so it seemed to Valentine, Suzannah made it her mission in life to badger him into accepting her invitation to this event.

‘I cannot bear the idea of you being alone at Christmas,’ she would exclaim, in the overly dramatic way she favored. As Valentine was unmarried, she also made it her mission to get him buckled down as soon as possible, no matter that both Valentine and her husband insisted he wasn’t husband material. Not that it mattered. To a woman like Suzannah, all men were born for the institution of holy hell. It was her dream to have him meet his future bride at her Christmas soiree and so she was particularly fervent in her insistence that he join them. ‘You
must
come to Carringford. Edward darling, tell him he must!’

Her husband merely shook his head behind the paper he had been trying to hide behind. ‘I shall tell him no such thing, Suz. If Val wants to hide away in Norfolk, then more power to him.’ There had been a wistful note in the viscount’s voice but then, he was forced to face a houseful of guests every year. Valentine suspected that he would have given a pony to escape the ordeal himself.

Of course, none of this stopped Suzannah from trying but Valentine refused to be swayed. Actually, it was partly Suzanna’s fault that he had elected to take his mistress with him to Norfolk. The look of her face when he had breezily informed her that he had company this year –
female
company – had been delicious. She had been utterly shocked. She had expostulated, of course. Told him that he was quite without shame, that he was dead to all propriety.

‘Edward!’ she’d said finally, turning to her husband. ‘He can’t take such a female about on… on Christmas.’

‘Don’t see why not,’ her ever helpful husband had replied. ‘If he wants to take his barque of frailty away with him, not a damn thing to stop him. Is it the Parisian?’ he’d asked Valentine with interest.

‘Indeed.’

‘Well, I think you’re mad taking her to a hunting lodge. She’ll be fagged to death with the place in a day. But it’s your funeral.’

Which left his beloved wife staring at him in frustration. Valentine had laughed and left them to it. Suzannah could carp all she wished but he didn’t have to listen. She wasn’t
his
family, thank God.

Usually he would have ridden, with the coach coming along behind but Madeleine had wanted him to ride with her and the weather had turned nasty, snow falling in unprecedented amounts so he had agreed. With any luck he could sleep for part of the journey. He had been busy with his less married friends until the early hours, a last fling before they had become absorbed with the wretched holiday insanity and had had little sleep for the past few days. A comfortable carriage with a beautiful woman inside it was preferable to the back of a horse when one had a sore head. His hunting box was a comfortable, two-day journey and, if he had his timing right, they were about an hour from the inn they’d be stopping at over night. A civilized journey followed by a – relatively – quiet sojourn away from it all. He had begun to have his doubts about his stay being quiet. Madeleine was a glorious creature but her beauty had brought her a taste for the finer things in life. She had assured him that she did not mind doing without the ministrations of her maid, who had come down with a cold anyway and was perfectly useless, and was looking forward to a stay in the country. But Madeleine said all manner of things and meant only a quarter of them. He was inclined to think that she would be bored within twelve hours.
Then
the fun would begin.