'Twas the Night After Christmas (2 page)

“So I’m to stay with you and Mrs. Waverly for the whole holiday?” Pierce asked.

The man nodded. “I have a little boy of my own. Roger is five. You can play together.”

With difficulty, Pierce contained a snort. Five was practically still a baby. “Are Mother and Father not coming to visit
at all
?” He wanted to be clear on that.

“No, lad. I’m afraid not.”

Pierce swallowed hard. He was trying to be strong, but he hadn’t really expected not to see them. It made no sense. Unless . . . “Is it because of something I did when I was still at home?”

“Certainly not! Your father merely thinks it will be good for you to be at the farm right now.”

That made a horrible sort of sense. “He wants me to be more like the chaps at school,” Pierce said glumly, “good at riding and shooting and things like that.” He slanted an uncertain glance up at his cousin. “Is that what he wants you to do? Toughen me up?”

His cousin blinked, then laughed. “Your mother did say you were forthright.”

Yes, and it had probably gotten him banished from Montcliff.
Perhaps it would get him banished from Waverly Farm, too, and then his cousin would
have
to send him home. “Well, I don’t like horses, and I don’t like little children, and I don’t want to go to Waverly Farm.”

“I see.” Mr. Waverly softened his tone. “I can’t change the arrangement now, so I’m afraid you’ll have to make the best of it. Tell me what you
do
like. Fishing? Playing cards?”

Pierce crossed his arms over his chest. “I like being at home.”

Settling back against the seat, Mr. Waverly cast him an assessing glance. “I’m sorry, you can’t right now.”

He fought the uncontrollable quiver in his chin. “Because Father hates me.”

“Oh, lad, I’m sure he doesn’t,” his cousin said with that awful look of pity on his face.

“You can tell me the truth. I already know he does.” Tears clogged Pierce’s throat, and he choked them down. “What about Mother? D-Doesn’t she want to see me at all?”

Something like sadness flickered in Mr. Waverly’s eyes before he forced a smile. “I’m sure she does. Very much. But your father can’t spare her right now.”

“He can never spare her.” He stared blindly out the window, then added in a wistful voice, “Sometimes I wish Mother and I could just go live in one of Father’s other houses.” Brightening, he looked back at his cousin. “Perhaps in London! You could ask her—”

“That will never happen, lad, so put that out of your mind.”
Mr. Waverly’s tone was quite firm. “Her place is with your father.”

More than with her son?

Manton’s nasty words leached into his thoughts:
I guess we both know what she saw in
him—
all that money and the chance to be a countess. She latched onto that quick enough.

It wasn’t true. Was it?

His cousin would know—he had to know something about Mother and Father, or he wouldn’t have said what he did. And he had a friendly look about him. Like he could be trusted to tell the truth.

“Is . . . that is . . . did Mother marry Father for his money?”

“Who told you that?” his cousin asked sharply.

“A boy at school.” When a sigh escaped Mr. Waverly, Pierce swallowed hard. “It’s true, isn’t it?”

Moving over to sit beside Pierce, Mr. Waverly patted him on the shoulder. “Whether it is or no, it has nothing to do with how your mother feels about
you
. In fact, she gave me this letter for you.”

As he fished it out of his pocket and handed it over, the tightness in Pierce’s chest eased a little. Eagerly, he broke the seal and opened it to read:

My dearest Pierce,

Your father and I think that staying at Waverly Farm will prove a grand adventure for you, and you do enjoy a grand adventure, don’t you? I miss you, but I’m sure you
will learn all sorts of fine things there. Don’t forget to write and tell me what fun you have!

Do be a good boy for your cousins, and keep your chin up. I know you will make us proud.

And always remember, I love you very, very much.

With many kisses,

Mother

Relief surged through him. She
did
love him! She did!

He read it again, this time paying closer attention, and his heart sank a little. It had the same determined cheer as Mr. Waverly.

And then there was the line:
I know you will make us proud.

He sighed. She loved him, but she had still let Father send him away. And why?
You will learn all sorts of fine things there.
Just like Father, she wanted to see him toughen up.

Tears filled his eyes, but he ruthlessly willed them back. Very well, then. No more crying, and no more behaving like a milksop and a mollycoddle. He had to get big and strong, to learn to ride and fight like the other boys.

Because clearly neither Father nor Mother would let him come home until he did.

December 1826

T
hirty-one-year-old Pierce Waverly, Earl of Devonmont, sat at the desk in the study of his London town house, going through the mail as he waited for his current mistress to arrive, when one letter came to the top, addressed in a familiar hand. An equally familiar pain squeezed his chest, reminding him of that other letter years ago.

What a naive fool he’d been. Even though he
had
grown bigger and stronger, even though he’d become the kind of son Father had always claimed to want, he’d never been allowed home again. He’d spent every school holiday—Christmas, Easter, and summer—at Waverly Farm.

And after Titus Waverly and his wife had died unexpectedly in a boating accident when Pierce was thirteen, Titus’s father,
General Isaac Waverly, had returned from the war to take over Waverly Farm and Titus’s orphaned children.

Even though Pierce hadn’t received a single letter from his parents in five years, he’d still been certain that he would finally be sent home—but no. Whatever arrangement Titus had made with Pierce’s parents was apparently preserved with Pierce’s great-uncle, for the general had fallen right into the role of substitute parent.

Despite all that, it had taken Pierce until he was eighteen, when neither of his parents had appeared at his matriculation from Harrow, to acknowledge the truth. Not only did his father hate him, but his mother had no use for him, either. Apparently she’d endured his presence until he was old enough to pack off to school and relations, and after that she’d decided she was done with him. She was too busy enjoying Father’s fortune and influence to bother with her own son.

Pain had exploded into rage for a time, until he’d reached his majority, at twenty-one, and had traveled home to confront them both . . .

No, he couldn’t bear to remember
that
fiasco. The humiliation of that particular rejection still sent pain screaming through him. Eventually he would silence that, too; then perhaps he’d find some peace at last.

That is, if Mother would let him. He stared down at the letter, and his fingers tightened into fists. But she wouldn’t. She’d poisoned his childhood, and now that Father was dead and Pierce had inherited everything, she thought to make it all go away.

She’d been trying ever since the funeral, two years ago. When
she’d mentioned his coming “home,” he’d asked her why it had taken his father’s death for her to allow it. He’d expected a litany of patently false excuses, but she’d only said that the past was the past. She wanted to start anew with him.

He snorted. Of course she did. It was the only way to get her hands on more of Father’s money than what had been left to her.

Well, to hell with her. She may have decided she wanted to play the role of mother again, but he no longer wanted to play her son. Years of yearning for a mother who was never there, for whom he would have fought dragons as a boy, had frozen his heart. Since his father’s death, it hadn’t warmed one degree.

Except that every time he saw one of her letters—

Choking back a bitter curse, he tossed the unopened letter to his secretary, Mr. Boyd. One thing he’d learned from the last letter she’d written him, when he was a boy, was that words meant nothing. Less than nothing. And the word
love
in particular was just a word. “Put that with the others,” he told Boyd.

“Yes, my lord.” There was no hint of condemnation, no hint of reproach in the man’s voice.

Good man, Boyd. He knew better.

Yet Pierce felt the same twinge of guilt as always.

Damn it, he had done right by his mother, for all that she had never done right by
him
. Her inheritance from Father was entirely under his control. He could have deprived her if he’d wished—another man might have—but instead he’d set her up in the estate’s dower house with plenty of servants and enough pin money to make her comfortable. Not enough to live extravagantly—he
couldn’t bring himself to give her
that
—but enough that she couldn’t accuse him of neglect.

He’d even hired a companion for her, who by all accounts had proved perfect for the position. Not that he would know for himself, since he’d never seen the indomitable Mrs. Camilla Stuart in action, never seen her with his mother. He never saw Mother at all. He’d laid down the law from the first. She was free to roam Montcliff, his estate in Hertfordshire, as she pleased when he wasn’t in residence, but when he was there to take care of estate affairs, she was to stay at the dower house and well away from
him
. So far she’d held to that agreement.

But the letters came anyway, one a week, as they had ever since Father’s death. Two years of letters, piled in a box now overflowing. All unopened. Because why should he read hers, when she’d never answered a single one of his as a boy?

Besides, they were probably filled with wheedling requests for more money now that he held the purse strings. He wouldn’t give in to those, damn it.

“My lord, Mrs. Swanton has arrived,” his butler announced from the doorway.

The words jerked him from his oppressive thoughts. “You may send her in.”

Boyd slid a document onto Pierce’s desk, then left, passing Mrs. Swanton as he went out. The door closed behind him, leaving Pierce alone with his current mistress.

Blond and blue-eyed, Eugenia Swanton had the elegant features of a fine lady and the eloquent body of a fine whore. The
combination had made her one of the most sought-after mistresses in London, despite her humble beginnings as a rag-mannered chit from Spitalfields.

When he’d snagged her three years ago it had been quite a coup, since she’d had dukes and princes vying for her favors. But the triumph had paled somewhat in recent months. Even she hadn’t been able to calm his restlessness.

And now she was scanning him with a practiced eye, clearly taking note of his elaborate evening attire as her smile showed her appreciation. Slowly, sensually, she drew off her gloves in a maneuver that signaled she was eager to do whatever he wished. Last year, that would have had him bending her over his desk and taking her in a most lascivious manner.

Tonight, it merely left him cold.

“You summoned me, my lord?” she said in that smooth, cultured voice that had kept him intrigued with her longer than with his other mistresses. She had several appealing qualities, including her quick wit.

And yet . . .

Bracing himself for the theatrics sure to come, he rose and rounded the desk to press a kiss to her lightly rouged cheek. “Do sit down, Eugenia,” he murmured, gesturing to a chair.

She froze, then arched one carefully manicured eyebrow. “No need. I can receive my congé just as easily standing.”

He muttered a curse. “How did you—”

“I’m no fool, you know,” she drawled. “I didn’t get where I am by not noticing when a man has begun to lose interest.”

Her expression held a hint of disappointment, but no sign of trouble brewing, which surprised him. He was used to temper tantrums from departing mistresses.

His respect for Eugenia rose a notch. “Very well.” Picking up the document on the desk, he handed it to her.

She scanned it with a businesswoman’s keen eye, her gaze widening at the last page. “You’re very generous, my lord.”

“You’ve served me well,” he said with a shrug, now impatient to be done. “Why shouldn’t I be generous?”

“Indeed.” She slid the document into her reticule. “Thank you, then.”

Pleased that she was taking her dismissal so well, he went to open the door for her. “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, Eugenia.”

The words halted her. She stared at him with an intent gaze that made him uncomfortable. “That’s the trouble with you, my lord. Our association has always been one of business.
Intimate
business, I’ll grant you, but business all the same. And business doesn’t keep a body warm on a cold winter’s night.”

“On the contrary,” he said with a thin smile. “I believe I succeeded very well at keeping you warm.”

“I speak of you, not myself.” She glided up to him with a courtesan’s practiced walk. “I like you, my lord, so let me give you some advice. You believe that our attraction has cooled because you’re tired of me. But I suspect that the next occupant of your bed will be equally unable to warm you . . . unless she provides you with something more than a business arrangement.”