Christmas Brides (Three Regency Novellas) (12 page)

David's deep chuckle came from the drawing room. She removed her cloak, pelisse, and gloves before taking a deep breath and strolling into the drawing room.

David and his elder brother Michael rose when she entered. She politely greeted them as well as Michael's pretty wife, Georgianne, before taking her place on the faded green brocade sofa next to her sister.

How natural it looked to see David sitting there in the high-backed upholstered armchair. How happy it made her to have him here in her favorite room. This chamber, more than any at Stoneyway, bore Mama's stamp. She had brought the pianoforte—and many other lovely things—when she married Papa. The painting over the hearth was of Mama's grandmother. Cathy's gaze flicked to the striped silk draperies which had been pulled away from each of the tall windows. Their silk complemented green silk brocade Mama had selected when she'd come to Stoneyway as a bride. As a newlywed, Mama had sewn them herself.

“Please, my dear Miss Balfour,” David said to her, “tell me you did not walk all the way to the Williamson cottage in this cold!”

Her eyes flashed with mirth. “Then I won't tell you.”

Elizabeth beamed at David. “My sister has a most stout constitution—and she adores walking—which allows her to carry on with the family's benevolent works.”

“Poor Miss Elizabeth,” their Aunt Kate added, “is not possessed of such robust health. I positively must put my foot down and not allow her to go traipsing about the countryside—no matter how much her tender heart calls on her to minister to the poor of the parish.”

Brows lowered, Cathy spun to Elizabeth. “I have never thought of you as not having robust health, and I've spent every day of my life in your presence! Is there some terrible malady you're hiding from me?”

“If you will think back to last winter, you will recall that horrid cough that sent me to bed.”

Cathy nodded. “Of course I recall it. I was already in bed with fever!”

“I am quite convinced had I not gone to bed I, too, would have come down with a fever.”

“Elizabeth's so delicate,” Kate said to the visitors.

David's gaze flicked from aunt to settle appreciatively on delicate niece.

A moment later, he turned his attention once more to Cathy. “How was Mrs. Williamson? Has the baby come?”

Cathy was disappointed that he—and not her sister and aunt who were actually acquainted with the unfortunate widow—was the one to inquire about her. She shrugged. “She's very low. The babe has still not come, and she grows more melancholy as Christmas nears. Had we another bed, I would have brought her home with me. How can the poor woman even send for the midwife when she's so alone?”

“Now, dearest,” Aunt Kate said, “you can't bring all the unfortunate souls in the parish to live under our roof. My brother will be the first to tell you so.”

“I know, it's just so heart wrenching.”

David's gaze cut once more to her. “I remember well how Miss Catherine was always trying to bring home what she called orphaned dogs and cats.”

“We must speak no more of sad topics,” Elizabeth said. “The captain has the most splendid news! He's going to look at Belford Manor this afternoon. He may purchase it from Lord Haworth.” Elizabeth could neither disguise her affection for David nor her enthusiasm over the potential purchase of Belford. It had been a long time since she had been impressed over a gentleman caller. “Dare we ask if we could come while you look at it?” Elizabeth peered at him through lowered lashes.

“You girls can go on without me,” Aunt Kate said, looking across the Oriental carpet at the visitors, “that is, if there's room in your carriage for my nieces.”

Michael St. Vincent, who sat next to his wife on a silk damask settee, hugged her. “I can always put Georgie on my lap.”

Aunt Kate's eyes narrowed. She had never approved of public displays of affection.

Cathy turned to her sister. “You must change into warmer clothing. It's beastly cold out there.” Elizabeth wore a spring-like dress of sprigged muslin which completely exposed her arms and displayed the tops of breasts straining beneath the scooped bodice. She looked incredibly delicate.

Elizabeth pouted. “I suppose I must.” Her disdainful glance fell on Cathy's ugly brown wool dress.

“That is,” Cathy added, turning her gaze to David, “if we shall be permitted on this journey. You have every right to want to purvey so important a purchase without two babbling females in tow, meaning, of course, my sister and me.”

“I would be delighted to have the sisters Balfour accompany me. I should value a female's opinion.”

“Then my sister and I shall be honored to be included in your party,” Elizabeth said.

While Elizabeth went upstairs to don warm clothing, Cathy said, “I must apologize that Papa has not come to greet you. He buries himself in the library each day. Had he known you'd come home, I daresay he'd have flown out of the musty chamber.” She stood. “Pray, Captain, let us go and see Papa.”

Aunt Kate's brows lowered. “You know your father does not like to be interrupted when he's in his library.”

“My dear aunt, I assure you Papa would be angry not be notified that David St. Vincent is at long last home. David's a great favorite with Papa.”
Uh oh.
She had slipped and called him David. Hopefully none of the others noticed.

“Are you certain I won't be imposing on your father?” David asked as he stood.

“I am absolutely certain.”

Papa's library was just across the hall. “Look, Papa, who's come home.”

If the drawing room bore her mother's stamp, the library bespoke Mr. Balfour's introspective personality almost as thoroughly as a portrait bespoke his physical appearance. Every shelf was crammed with a vast assortment of books on every topic. Some had been purchased new, most second hand, and a few were gifts from young men he had tutored in the classics over the years. The wall of shelves was not enough to hold all the clergyman's books. They stacked in teetering columns on the floor, with many other book stacks surrounding his desk.

He sat at his desk, which was piled high with stacks of papers. Its drawers were so crammed with old letters, they could not be closed but reposed at varying degrees of openness.

The moment he beheld David, a smile brightened his craggy face, and he leapt to his feet. “David St. Vincent! You are home! What a happy day this is!”

Cathy beamed. David was almost as special to her father as he was to her.

* * *

While he had fully intended to finagle a seat in the coach next to the Incomparable, somehow she ended up sitting across the carriage from him. True to his jovial word, Michael had yanked Georgianne onto his lap, and the disgustingly happy husband and wife were seated beside the beauty. As he settled back into the squabs, David realized this seating arrangement worked very well since it afforded him the opportunity to openly gaze upon the extraordinary Miss Elizabeth Balfour.

The wistful memories of her fair blond loveliness that had invaded his daydreams and night dreams for years had not embellished her beauty at all. As a woman of two and twenty, she had grown even more beautiful than she had been when he last saw her at sixteen. How stupendously fortunate he was that she had not married.

That lady bestowed a bright smile upon him. “I am so happy you are home, Captain. You must come to our Christmas Eve assembly.”

“To be fortunate enough to dance with you, Miss Balfour, I would tread through snow.”

Her lashes lowered coyly.

Then he remembered his manners and turned to the plainer sister who sat beside him. “And I pray that you will also do me the goodness of standing up with me at the assembly, Miss Balfour.”

Cathy favored him with a smile. “I would be honored.” Even though the bracken color of her eyes was not as pretty or as striking as her sister's blue, there was something in the way they sparkled with such warmth that captivated him. He found himself staring at her before he quickly looked away.

“I am so excited about the assembly,” Elizabeth said. “I am making a new dress just for it.”

“What color?” Georgianne asked.

“Golden. And I'm embroidering its border with gold thread.”

“How lovely!” Georgianne eyed Cathy. “And what color is yours?”
“It is the same green one I've worn to the last three assemblies.” She shrugged. “I'm the practical sister.”

“Enough talk of fashions!” Michael said. “I'd rather boast on my brother. He's quite the naval hero, you know?”

Miss Elizabeth Balfour's mouth gaped open. “I did not know!”

Miss Catherine Balfour turned to him. “My sister finds reading about sea battles utterly boring, but I read the accounts of every single battle during the war, and I saved any newspaper which mentioned you or one of your ships.”

As surprised as he was that his actions had been reported in newspapers back in his homeland, David was equally surprised at Cathy's loyalty to him. His mouth curved into a smile as he remembered her as she looked when he'd left that day in his midshipman's uniform, how she had exclaimed, “I shall wait for you to come home and marry me for no one but you will ever do.”

He had forgotten her proclamation until the other afternoon when he'd felt her back pressed against him as they shared his horse, his arms bracketing her. He had been shocked to realize that Cath was no longer that little girl who'd once called him Dabid. She was a woman now, and he was flooded with memories of that long-ago day.

Now in his brother's carriage, with the side of her leg pressing his, he was swamped again with awareness that little Cathy Balfour was now a grown woman.

He turned to her. “I am humbled, but not humbled enough that I wouldn't derive great pleasure from seeing those newspapers.”

“I would be happy to show them to you.”

He addressed his brother. “It is my good fortune to have had a loving family—as well Miss Catherine Balfour—praying for my safe return.”

“La!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “I'm sure I, too, prayed for you.”

As much as he wanted to believe this incredible creature had spared a thought for him during the years he was gone, somehow her words lacked sincerity. “I thank you, Miss Balfour.”

“It was terrible the way Johnny Oliphant came home from the war!” Elizabeth scrunched up her nose in distaste. “If it wasn't bad enough that he lost his leg, he lost an eye, too. Poor thing. He was so handsome before.” She shook her head. “Now I don't suppose any woman would have him.”

Her words turned his stomach.

“That's a terrible thing to say,” Cathy chided. “Johnny's still the kindly person he was before the war, though God knows he's endured enough to have changed him. And he gets around almost as well as a man with two good legs.”

“Indeed he does,” Michael added.

Elizabeth's brows lowered. “But the disfigurement!”

“Dearest,” Cathy said, eying her sister, “I pray that just because you had the good fortune to be born beautiful doesn't mean that you put great stock in appearances.”

Her lashes lowering in that unique way she had, Elizabeth tossed a quick glance at him. “I am sure I'm not that great a beauty! My nose could certainly be a bit straighter, and I do wish my hair would curl naturally.” She shrugged. “It would make life so much easier.”

Had she completely missed her sister's point? It was becoming abundantly clear to him that in the Balfour family the younger of the sisters had inherited their father's uncommon good sense while the elder possessed the mother's beauty—tenfold. To his utter disappointment, he had to admit The Beauty also seemed to have inherited her aunt's want of good sense.

Nevertheless, his heart still accelerated when he beheld her.

Since his return, he'd once again sensed that connection that had been between them before he left. As an adolescent lad, he had known by her flirty actions toward him Elizabeth favored him over all the others. Even then, she'd been proficient at lowering those eyelashes seductively and at favoring him with sultry gazes that caused his breath to grow short. Which it still did.

“Oh, dearest,” Georgianne said to her husband, “don't forget we must invite the girls to dine with us tomorrow.”

“Oh, yes. My friend from Oxford, Lord Neely, will be stopping by for a few days. The poor fellow has been orphaned, and being an only child, he has no family to visit at Christmas. Several of us that ran together at university have asked him to come spend Christmas with us, but it was I who was so singularly honored.”

Georgianne smiled. “Because Lord Neely lives for shooting, and the shooting in Ramseyfield is very good.”

“How delightful!” Elizabeth said. “Is. . . his lordship bringing his wife?”

Michael shrugged. “He has no wife, either. No family whatsoever.”

Elizabeth smiled at her sister. “What great fun it will be to meet Lord Neely.”

The sense of wellbeing that had buoyed him since his return vanished like the snuff of a candle. Yesterday he'd been fairly confident he would not have to compete with an aristocrat for the lady's hand.

And now he realized there would be no smooth sailing to marriage with the girl of his dreams. Why did that bloody viscount have to come before David secured Miss Elizabeth Balfour's hand in marriage? The viscount was sure to fall in love with so beautiful a maiden.

The very thought of Lord Neely put David in a foul mood.

When they arrived at Belford Manor, he was pleased that Elizabeth stood beside the carriage until he stepped out, then she possessively settled a hand upon his arm. Together, they led the way along the stone path to Belford's neoclassical portico.

He'd been told that staff no longer resided there, but the caretaker would see to it that the door was unlocked. As he stood there looking up at the substantial stone blocks of which the house was constructed, he was completely awed. He had never dreamed that the second son of gentleman farmer could ever afford such a residence.

By comparison to other country houses of the nobility, Belford was small. More like a dowager house. It had never been a seat but had come to the present earl through his grandmother, who had been the daughter of a duke. When David's mother was a girl, she had been a guest here and loved to reminisce about the fetes Lady Eleanor had held there. How happy his widowed mother would be to have her own chamber here.