The Christmas Carrolls (7 page)

* * * *

All of the pieces were coming into place. Not necessarily the right place or the proper place, Comfort thought, so thank heaven Joia wasn’t there to see him flirting with Aubergine Willenborg. The widow was in black tonight, but if she was mourning anything, it was the loss of her underpinnings. The dress was so sheer, Craighton could swear she had nothing else on. If this were London a month ago, he’d have taken her somewhere to find out before the dessert course was served. Now the mousse was more tempting.

He must have given a convincing performance, though, from the sour looks he was receiving from the earl and the countess, their two youngest daughters, and the butler. Comfort wouldn’t have been surprised if the chef came out to give an opinion of his behavior. Aubergine’s opinion was obvious, as obvious as her charms. She was relieved. If she could get him into her bed, she could get him to the altar.

“But not your chamber, my goddess,” Comfort whispered to her during Holly’s masterful performance on the pianoforte after dinner. “It’s too near the countess’s, and I understand she is a light sleeper. No, you must come to mine in the east wing. If anyone sees you, say you were hoping Lady Carroll was still awake, for you need her opinion of your gown for tomorrow. My chamber is the second one down. I’ll place a playing card under my door so you’ll know which one.”

“The knave of hearts, perhaps?” she cooed in his ear under cover of her waving fan.

“What else?” he answered, almost gagging on the heavy perfume sent wafting his way. Joia smelled of lilacs and lavender. “Oh, and you’d better wait an hour or so after everyone retires, my queen. I promised to teach young Carroll how to play piquet.”

* * * *

Oliver was eager to resume play as soon as the music was over. Craighton kept losing. He also kept signaling Bartholemew for refills of his and Oliver’s wineglasses. On one of the butler’s trips to their table in a secluded corner of the library, Comfort angrily gathered up the cards and tossed them onto Barty’s silver tray. “Stap me if this ain’t an unlucky deck,” he drawled, falling back in his seat. “Bring us a new pack like a good chap.”

“And some coffee, my lord?”

“What, are we out of cognac?”

When the butler left, sniffing his disdain, Oliver leaned toward the viscount. “Don’t worry about old Prune Face. He disapproves of everything. I intend to put him out to pasture as soon as m’cousin sticks his spoon in the wall.”

Comfort pretended to adjust his stocking to avoid Oliver’s sour breath of stale wine in his face.

The new deck proved fortuitous indeed. The viscount started winning the occasional hand, then nearly every hand.

Oliver yawned. “ ‘Pon rep, it’s past my bedtime. What say we continue the game tomorrow?”

“Can’t quit now. Only honorable to let a chap try to recoup his losses when his luck is in. ‘Sides, tomorrow is the ball. Got to do the pretty.”

All of Oliver’s financial troubles would be over then, so he agreed to play on. His opponent was drunk as a lord anyway. He couldn’t win much longer.

Comfort could, and did. Oliver lost back this evening’s gains and last night’s, too. Still the viscount wanted to keep playing. “Give a certain lady time to get ready, eh?” he said with a wink, one man of the world to another.

Oliver kept playing and kept drinking along with his new boon companion. He kept losing, too. “Dash it, ain’t it time to switch back to
my
lucky deck?” But the ever-efficient Bartholemew had told him that he’d taken that deck to the dustbin since the edges seemed a shade dog-eared. Oliver started signing chits.

“Are you sure, old man?” Comfort asked after the third or fourth.

Oliver waved his manicured hand. “M’cousin can’t live forever, don’t you know. Besides, you’ll be wishing me happy soon enough, and the dibs’ll be in tune then.”

“Why, I’ll wish you happy tonight,” the viscount declared as he won yet another hand. “Barty, how about some champagne?”

Oliver didn’t see Comfort’s signal to the butler, and he didn’t taste the powder that got mixed into his glass. He did hear the sum of his debts. “I... I don’t feel quite well, my lord. You’ll have to excuse me.”

As soon as Oliver staggered off to his bed, shaking his head like a dog with water in its ears, Bartholemew placed a cup of coffee on the deal table. He placed Oliver’s “lucky deck” beside it.

Craighton gathered up his winnings, leaving a neat stack of pound notes on the table that was beneath either man’s dignity to notice or discuss. He held up Oliver’s vouchers. “It seems I made myself a fortune tonight, Barty.”

The butler shook his head. “I hope you don’t grow as old as I am, my lord, waiting to be paid.”

Comfort stood and put the marked deck in his coat pocket. “Oh, I fully intend to collect.”

Then he went to his room and undressed, coat, waistcoat, neckcloth, shoes, and stockings. He debated about leaving his silk shirt, but compromised by undoing the topmost buttons. Over the shirt and his breeches he put on a maroon velvet robe. Then he opened his door and listened. Sure enough, he could hear Oliver snoring from the room across the hall. Pulling a card from the deck Bartholomew had handed him, the viscount slid it half under the door—of Oliver’s room.

The card, of course, was the joker.

Chapter Eight

The screams came right on cue. First the viscount heard the whisper of—satin, he guessed from behind his own barely cracked door. Then a knob being turned. He’d have to tell old Barty the doors needed oiling. He couldn’t make out the whispered endearments, just a soft murmur, but he could imagine the satin negligee drifting to the carpet, the white hand reaching to turn down the bedclothes, and the lush body gliding onto the bed, under the covers. Having played the scene so many times, Comfort didn’t need to hear the widow’s next lines, about how her darling could have stayed awake for her, could have left a lamp burning for her, could have welcomed her with a bit more enthusiasm. Mistresses always found something to complain about.

Aubergine wouldn’t give up, not with so much at stake. She’d rouse her reluctant lover one way or the other. Craighton hoped Barty’d mixed just the right amount of the sleeping draught so Oliver got some pleasure out of the evening. It was going to be his last, unless matters were concluded to Comfort’s satisfaction.

    The clunch made either the wrong response or no response at all. The viscount thought he detected a ribbon of light from under Oliver’s door and started counting. Two ... three ... A banshee’s wail rang through the corridors of Lord Carroll’s country home. Aubergine wasn’t waiting for her maid to come cry rape or whatever she’d been planning; she brought the house down herself.

In case anyone missed the screech, and to cover up Aubergine’s cries of “You sure as Hades aren’t Comfort!” the viscount added his own efforts. “What’s toward?” he shouted as if to his valet. “Are we under attack? Is the house on fire?”

Comfort’s valet was long abed in the attics, but a voice down the hall picked up the call. “Fire? Did someone say fire?”

Doors opened, half-awake guests poured into the hall. The viscount made sure he wasn’t the first in the corridor, so someone else had to say, “I think the screams came from this room.”

As if he’d read the script. Lord Carroll thundered down the hall, nightcap bobbing, with his wife and daughters close behind. He pushed open the door to Oliver’s room and raced inside.

“Bloody hell, Oliver. In your own family’s seat? Have you no pride?”

Aubergine was beating the hapless Oliver over the head with a pillow. “You weren’t supposed to be here, you jackass! This is Comfort’s room!”

“Thought it was mine. Head’s not quite right, don’t you know.” Oliver was having trouble focusing his eyes, and not just because of the drugged wine. Aubergine was stark naked. The pillow wasn’t the only thing flailing about.

The chorus in the hall gave a collective gasp. One matron fainted. An ingenue giggled. Lady Carroll quickly ushered her daughters from the crowded room.

The viscount stepped forward, since everyone else seemed too stupefied to move, and handed the widow her robe. He was right; it was satin. He held it out, eyes averted, so Aubergine couldn’t see his grin.

“Well, you’ve torn it this time, Ollie,” Lord Carroll was shouting. “You’ll marry the wench tomorrow, b’gad, because you’re not heaping any worse shame on me and my house.”

The word “marry” cleared Oliver’s mind. “Can’t do it, Cousin. Am already betrothed. Can’t go back on my word as a gentleman.”

The viscount was at Oliver’s side of the bed, awaiting his turn. Now he leaned over and growled in the flat’s ear:

“Remember all those vouchers you signed? They’re due tomorrow.”

‘Tomorrow? I can’t—”

“I might be willing to forgive the debts if you do right by the lady.”

The lady was doing some fast thinking herself. She’d been gulled, all right and tight, for which Aubergine couldn’t even hold the viscount to blame. She’d planned on trapping him into matrimony, after all. Now she needed a husband in a hurry if she was ever to see the inside of a polite drawing room again. Oliver wasn’t much of a specimen, but he was better than nothing. Besides, the viscount had proven too wily for her. Aubergine rather thought she’d prefer a husband with a weaker will, an emptier brain box. Oliver fit the bill. So what if he was a spendthrift and a gambler? He wouldn’t get far with the tight hold she kept on her purse strings. The paltry fellow might be a nodcock, but he was going to be My Lord Nodcock, Earl of Carroll, someday.
“Oh, Ollie,” she cooed, patting his arm.

“No!” Oliver shouted, jumping off the bed like a scalded cat. “You can’t do this to me. I’m supposed to get Joia.” He pointed a shaking finger at Lord Carroll. “You can’t preach propriety to me after what you’ve done. I’ll tell everyone about the—”

Comfort grabbed a handful of the slug’s nightshirt and lifted him clear off the floor, bony bare feet dangling in air. “Do you remember your ‘lucky deck’? It’s in my pocket, sirrah. You’ll be hauled off to prison tomorrow, an’ you don’t wed the lady. Botany Bay, I don’t doubt. A dainty chap like you mightn’t even survive the passage.”

Oliver’s face was growing red from the constriction at his throat. He couldn’t have answered if he’d wanted. Comfort gave him no chance, just another shake. “You’ll marry the lady, and you’ll keep your mouth shut. If I ever hear you’ve breathed one word to damage Lord Carroll’s honorable reputation, I’ll make sure you are never received anywhere, not in the clubs, not even in the lowest hells. Then I’ll kill you, if Aubergine doesn’t.”

Comfort dropped Oliver to the floor and wiped his hands as if they were soiled. Lord Carroll was glaring at the onlookers to begone; the widow was tapping her foot impatiently. Oliver was already on his knees. He nodded and mumbled something about the happiest of men.

“There, now, that’s all shipshape,” the earl declared, not looking his wife in the eye as she led Aubergine back to her own room. “We’ll hold the ceremony right before the ball tomorrow. Dashed if I’m going to give up my hunt for any wedding breakfast. And you deuced well better take a long honeymoon trip, out of my sight.” He looked around to make sure his trusty butler was still in attendance. “We’ll need a special license, Barty.”

“The riders have been alerted, my lord. They merely await your signature on the letter to the archbishop.”

“Good man. Oh, and put a footman outside the sapskull’s door to make sure he doesn’t shab off on his blushing bride.”

“And one below his window, my lord. The men are already assigned.”

“I daresay you and the viscount thought of everything.” Lord Carroll couldn’t keep the bitterness from his voice. They hadn’t thought to tell him what was going on in his own home, as if he were too decrepit to be disturbed, or too senile to see to his own affairs. “I shall expect you, sir, in my office before breakfast tomorrow,” he ordered the viscount. “Meanwhile, take your hands off my daughter, sirrah. I saw you panting after that trollop all night.” He turned his back on them and marched down the hall, so they couldn’t see the wink he gave Bartholemew. “Ten minutes ought to be long enough, eh?”

“Five, my lord. He’s a bright lad.”

* * * *

“Were you?” Joia asked, still in Craighton’s arms from their congratulatory hug, despite her father’s orders. It only seemed natural to celebrate their success together.

“Was I what, sweetings?” Comfort was finding it difficult to concentrate with such a delightful armful, so near to his bedroom door.

“Were you panting after Aubergine, sir?”

“Only in the line of duty, I assure you. She is much too showy for my taste. Like some park prancer, all flash and no go.”

“That’s not what the
on dits
columns say.”

“But it’s what I say. I find I much prefer modest elegance to a brazen display.” He was finding Joia, in her flannel gown buttoned to the chin, with a shawl over it to boot, infinitely more alluring than Aubergine in all her naked splendor. The widow’s yellow hair reminded him of straw, while Joia’s long golden night braid, so virginal, so innocent, begged a man to separate the tresses and run them through his fingers, to spread them on a pillow. This loyal and caring young woman stirred his blood like no dasher ever could. He didn’t just want to take her to his bed, either. He wanted to take her to Ireland and to meet his mother. “There’s a place for propriety, after all.”

Propriety? Joia jumped back, out of an embrace she was enjoying much too much. His lordship would prefer whatever woman was in his arms at the moment, she feared. Still, he’d helped her and her family, so she mustn’t appear ungrateful. She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek, which was the least of what she felt like doing. “Thank you, my lord. I don’t know how I can ever thank you enough. I still cannot believe how you managed to get rid of Oliver so neatly.”

The viscount grinned. “Brilliant if I have to say so myself. Of course, the inestimable Bartholemew deserves some of the credit, but none of your kisses, sweetings.”

The corridor was too dark for him to see her blushes. “But to have the toad married, settled where he won’t be able to bother any of us, where Aubergine will make sure he doesn’t do anything to make himself persona non grata in Town, far exceeds brilliance. It’s ... it’s miraculous.”