The Christmas Carrolls Read online

  When she reached his side, she had plenty to say: “Tea, my lord? I added sugar. I’m sorry I haven’t had a chance to properly welcome you to Winterpark. Oh, and I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on earth.”

  Whether it was the sugar, the shock, or the slight pat Joia gave to the viscount’s sleeve as he raised the cup to his lips, Lord Comfort’s tea landed on Lord Comfort’s shirtfront, waistcoat, and cravat. And Lady Carroll’s Aubusson carpet. “Oh, dear,” Joia said as his lordship hastily excused himself. “The poor carpet.”

  * * * *

  Joia hummed to herself as she dressed for dinner that evening. A weight was off her shoulders. Now she could begin to enjoy the house party. Perhaps one of the young men would grow conversable upon closer acquaintance. Perhaps one would grow a beard to hide his weak chin. Who knew? Perhaps tonight she would fall in love at last.

  Joia put on her favorite bishop’s blue gown, the one whose neckline was the lowest Papa would allow. Her hair was gathered atop her head in a matching blue ribbon except for one long gold curl falling over her nearly bare shoulder. For an old maid, she’d do. Happily she tripped down the stairs to the parlor where the company was gathering, for sherry before dinner. Unhappily, the first person she saw was the viscount, who gave her a dark look before turning to Aubergine, at his side like a sticking plaster. The widow was batting her lashes—blackened with kohl, Joia was certain—so hard that the viscount’s intricately folded neckcloth was fluttering. Joia also noticed that the bodice of Mrs. Willenborg’s gown had less fabric than the blue ribbon in her own hair. She smiled. His lordship wouldn’t miss his opera dancers too badly before taking himself back to Town.

  Meanwhile Joia intended to enjoy herself, accepting the flattering attentions of Comte Dubournet. Somehow the usual compliments sounded less banal in French, if less sincere. Even Cousin Oliver, in his puce waistcoat and lemon-striped pantaloons, managed to say something not too offensive: “I say, Cuz, that gown is still becoming. And that curl’s a nice touch, even if short locks are all the crack.”

  Then, long before Bartholemew could be expected to announce dinner, the viscount was bowing in front of her. “Perhaps you would be kind enough to tell me something of the history of the tapestry on the far wall?”

  There was nothing for Joia to do but smile and accept the arm Lord Comfort was holding out for her. She walked with him across the length of the room, gritting her teeth at the knowing smiles on all the faces they passed.

  “Miss Carroll, is it?” the viscount asked as though he didn’t know.

  “You are correct that I am the eldest daughter of the house, my lord, but I am Lady Joia.”

  “Ah, yes. I wasn’t entirely sure about the lady part.”

  Joia was certain the lout was referring to the incident over tea, not the proper form of address. She turned from him toward the wall hanging, but not before noticing, begrudgingly, how attractive he looked in the black and white evening wear. Joia started to describe the tapestry, a depiction of the first Lord Carroll, or Karol, or Carl, fighting his liege’s battles to win the earldom. She was dutifully explaining how the symbolism of the dragons was repeated on the family’s coat of arms when Lord Comfort gestured for a footman. He lifted two glasses off the tray, then waited for the fellow to get out of earshot.

  “Lady Joia,” the viscount said in a measured tone, “I am sure you know more about tapestries than I could care about, but I brought you here because I have three things to say to you. One, I believe a lady waits to refuse an offer of marriage until after she receives one. Two, I am not in the market for a wife. And three, if I were, I would never choose some spoiled, flawed Diamond with all the warmth of a rock.”

  With that, he handed over the second glass of sherry. Somehow the glass slipped and the sticky red stuff dripped down Joia’s décolletage. “You did that on purpose,” she spluttered as the viscount reached for his handkerchief.

  “What, discommode a lady? I assure you, a gentleman never would.” Comfort held out the lace-edged cloth toward where the sherry was staining the bodice of her gown. “Shall I?”

  * * * *

  Joia was late for dinner, of course. She had to enter when everyone was enjoying the second course, forcing her supper partners to rise while she was seated. She made hasty apologies like the veriest peagoose, avoiding her mother’s eyes.

  She couldn’t avoid her mother for long, however. As soon as the ladies left the gentlemen to their port, Lady Carroll beckoned her eldest daughter to her side in the Chinese Room.

  “Two mishaps in one day?” Lady Carroll’s eyebrows rose. “Now, if it were Hollice, I might understand. With her nose in a book, or without her spectacles, she does tend to be awkward. And Meredyth, unfortunately, still exhibits a tendency toward girlish exuberance. But you, my dear?”

  “I am sorry, Mama. It’s just that the viscount...”

  “Yes, I can see where such a paragon could turn a girl’s head, dearest, but I thought you above such nonsense.”

  “Turn my head? It’s no such thing, Mama. He infuriates me, the cad, the coxcomb, the conceited—”

  “Guest in our home.”

  “Yes, Mama.” Joia turned to engage old Lady Matthews in conversation, feeling like a chastened schoolgirl. Comfort be hanged.

  * * * *

  The next morning Joia followed her father to the estate office directly after breakfast.

  “I won’t marry him, Papa, and that’s final.”

  “And just who won’t you be marrying this week, my dear?” he teased.

  “Your pet peer, and well you know it!”

  “What, did Comfort offer? I did see you go off with him before dinner.”

  “No, Papa, he did not offer. But that’s why he’s here, isn’t it? So you and the Duke of Carlisle can continue your lines.”

  “Well, yes, actually, but with our Thoroughbreds, not our children. We’ve been meaning to mix the bloodlines this age, but never got around to it. Now Comfort came into a bit of land of his own in Ireland and intends to set up a new stud. He’s here to select some mares for breeding.”

  “That’s all?” Joia asked, beginning to feel a complete gudgeon.

  Lord Carroll shrugged. “What else? Oh, you thought he might be in the Marriage Market? I’m sorry, puss, you’ll have to look elsewhere.” He held a hand up at her protests. “Don’t mean you ain’t perfect, my favorite daughter and all.”

  “Papa, you tell that to all of us.”

  “And it’s true every time, I swear.”

  “Papa!”

  “Yes, well, I don’t mean Comfort is above your touch, either. It’s just that he ain’t interested in innocents. You’d have to dance naked on the table to catch his eye, puss. Of course, I’d have to send you to your aunt Irmentrude in Wales if you did such a thing, but you get my drift. Leave the viscount to knowing ‘uns like Aubergine Willenborg. She understands how to play the game.”

  “Marriage isn’t a game.”

  “You see, that’s my point.” The earl shook his head, almost in sorrow. “No, I doubt you could bring that young man up to scratch no matter how hard you tried.”

  “Fine. Good,” Joia declared on her way out the door, vowing to do that very thing. Oh, she’d never marry his libertine lordship, but she’d show him that proper young ladies had passion too, even if she had to flirt with the émigré comte and Cousin Oliver to prove it. Flawed Diamond, hah!

  * * * *

  Next to scratch on Lord Carroll’s door was, not unexpectedly, the viscount, dressed for riding.

  “Come in, my boy, come in. What, have you a question about one of the horses?”

  Comfort didn’t take the seat his host offered, choosing instead to pace in front of the earl’s desk. “No, sir. My question concerns the purpose of my visit.”

  “What, not finding any of the cattle to your liking?”

  “I like the horses very well, my lord. Your stables are some of the finest in the land. I am concerned, howev
er, that you and my father had some other matchmaking scheme in mind beyond the mares and stallions, when you invited me here and he urged me to accept.”

  “What, you think we’re trying to legshackle you to one of my daughters? I saw you with Joia last evening. Beautiful gal, eh?”

  “One of the finest in the land.” Comfort echoed his previous compliment, noting that the earl hadn’t denied the charge.

  “She’s a beauty, all right, just like her mother.” Lord Carroll beamed, then frowned. “Too bad she’s the most finicky female I’ve ever known. I can’t tell you the number of likely lads I’ve had to turn away. Don’t have daughters, my boy, they’ll give you gray hair.” He patted his own silvered mane, then laughed. “When you’re ready, of course.”

  “I’ll remember your advice, my lord, when I am ready.” Comfort waited.

  “About that other matter, you don’t have to worry. No offense, my boy, but Joia wouldn’t have a man of your stamp.”

  So the chit thought she was too good for him? Comfort tapped his riding crop against his boot.

  The earl tried to explain. “That is, I’d be proud to welcome you to the family, lad, if you were so inclined, but Joia’s been properly raised. Too sheltered, perhaps. She’ll make some man a loyal, loving wife, but not until she finds one she can trust, if you take my meaning.”

  “She doubts my honor?” Comfort asked disbelievingly. Gentlemen were known to meet at dawn over lesser slurs.

  “It’s not a question of your honor, my boy. Gentleman and all. It’s fidelity that has my girl in a swivet. She doesn’t want one of those modern marriages where husband and wife go their own way after the heir is born, if not before. I cannot say that I’d look with favor on such a match for one of my lasses. So no, my boy, you don’t have to worry about finding me holding a pistol to your head if you walk out in the spinney with Joia. I’d never force you into marriage, not when it would make one of my girls miserable for the rest of her life.”

  So Lady Joia believed he would not be faithful to his wife when he took one. Of course he would, Comfort fumed. He wasn’t about to give his vows, else, which was why he wasn’t yet wed despite his father’s urgings, cajolery, and outright threats. He hadn’t found a woman who could hold his interest. Lady Joia certainly couldn’t. And he wasn’t good enough for her? Hah! Miss Prunes and Prisms had a lesson or two to learn about men in the meantime, fiend take the plaguey chit, and Comfort was just the man to teach her.

  * * * *

  After the viscount stormed out of the office, jaw clenched, knuckles white around the riding stick, Lord Carroll checked his pocket watch and smiled in satisfaction. He’d already done a fine day’s work and it wasn’t even nine o’clock in the morning.

  Chapter Three

  Joia knew she couldn’t become a dasher overnight, but she could dashed well show a certain cocksure clunch that she wasn’t any milk-and-water miss. A judicious snip of her scissors here, a dab from the rouge pot there. That was all it took, she was sure, less lace, more skin. Joia even let her maid trim some of her long hair so tiny tendrils curled around her cheeks, as though a lover’s hand had freed the blond tresses from their pins.

  “You look like you just got out of bed,” Merry said.

  But Holly sagely nodded her approval. “That’s the point, silly.”

  And Joia flirted more, too. Didn’t all sophisticated ladies? She wasn’t as brazen as the Widow Willenborg—she’d have been sent to Aunt Irmentrude on the instant—but she did manage to keep one spotted youth perpetually ablush, and she inspired another to sudden versification. She let the Frenchman— Phillipe, he insisted—hold her so close during a waltz that the Almack’s patronesses would have rescinded her vouchers, and she even feigned interest in Cousin Oliver’s lisping catalog of his snuffboxes, for Papa’s sake.

  Lord Carroll harrumphed a few times at the lower necklines, but Lady Carroll frowned, especially after Joia complimented Cousin Oliver on his new peacock-embroidered waistcoat. “Are you sure you aren’t sickening for something, my dear? You haven’t been yourself at all these few days.”

  No, but she’d been a woman of the world, and she’d made sure the high-nosed Nonesuch saw it whenever he left the paddocks and stables and Mrs. Willenborg’s side. “La, you shouldn’t say such naughty things, my—Phillipe,” she cooed for Lord Comfort’s benefit, not pulling her hand out of the Frenchman’s grasp until the viscount turned away.

  Soon enough, Joia’s efforts began to bear fruit. Lemons.

  She’d agreed to go for a ride with Cousin Oliver, for Papa’s sake. Oliver didn’t hunt because his clothes might get mud-spattered. He didn’t race because his hair would get all windblown—or his hairpiece might blow away. He didn’t drive because Papa wouldn’t let his ham-fisted heir near his highbred cattle. And Oliver didn’t take walks lest he scuff his new boots, which were likely not paid for yet, so Joia consented to what Oliver considered an agreeable ramble through the countryside: an agonizingly slow perambulation atop the oldest horses in Papa’s stable. After trying to coax him into a gallop—Oliver, not her ancient mount—Joia concluded that the next Earl of Carroll was a craven. The pockets-to-let peer-to-be was petrified of horses! No wonder Papa was so affronted by the thought of this fribble taking over Winterpark and its marvelous stables.

  Once they were past the home woods and the outbuildings, Oliver did allow as how it might be pleasant to have a bit of a trot, if his cousin was sure there were no rabbit holes. “Wouldn’t want to jeopardize a lady, don’t you know.”

  Not two minutes later, Joia felt old Nelson come up lame. She pulled him to a halt and dismounted, without waiting for Oliver’s assistance. “Nelson can’t be ridden,” she told her cousin after examining the hoof, while Oliver stayed mounted. Joia looked around for her groom so they could switch saddles and Tom could walk Nelson back. The dratted fellow was nowhere in sight. They couldn’t have outdistanced him, Joia knew, not at the pace they’d been keeping, so Tom must have had a problem with his own horse. He should have let her know, Joia thought, but she was more concerned over the old horse than her missing groom. “We’ll just have to walk home,” she said, waiting for Oliver to offer her his mount. They didn’t both have to walk.

  “Neither of us has to walk, Cuz. We can ride double on my horse.”

  She didn’t bother looking at him, just gathered her skirts over her arm so they wouldn’t tangle as she led Nelson back the way they had come. “That would be highly improper, Oliver. It’s bad enough that we are out here alone, out of sight.”

  “It wouldn’t be improper if we were betrothed,”

  “What?” Now she did look at him, aghast. “Betrothed?”

  He’d finally dismounted, awkwardly enough, and came to take Nelson’s reins, Joia thought. Instead he grabbed for her own hand and squeezed it. “I’ve come to see that you cared for me. I hadn’t thought we’d rub along so well together until you proved so attentive to my interests. Why, you positively drooled over my snuffboxes, didn’t you? And you know this is what your father has always had in mind.”

  Joia tried to free her hand, but he held tight. Her skirts were trailing in the dirt again. Obviously she wasn’t going to reclaim her hand until she’d given her cousin some kind of answer. “I am terribly sorry, Oliver, but I never meant to give you the impression that I’d welcome an offer. That is...”

  “Nonsense, Cuz. No one’s watching, so you don’t have to pretend to this false modesty. I know you’re interested in me, my pet, so don’t play coy now. I’ve seen the way you smile at me. I know what you want.”

  Then he pulled her closer and pressed his limp, wet lips against hers. No, Joia thought, this was not what she wanted. She couldn’t do this, not even for Papa. So she kicked Oliver in the shin with her thick-soled riding boot until he released her, cursing. “There,” she told him, “now you’re as lame as your offer. You’re as lame as old Nelson, but he’s better company.”

  She led the horse off toward home, not ev
en caring about her skirts anymore, she was that angry. She was outraged with Oliver, of course, and furious that she’d brought his repulsive advances down on herself. Mostly, though, she was angry with Lord Comfort, who was responsible for the entire hobble. She was too busy muttering to Nelson about the male species in general, present company excluded, of course, to hear Oliver ride alongside her.

  “Come on, Cuz, you cannot walk back by yourself. Uncle will have my hide. Leave the beast and ride behind me. He’ll find his own way home.”

  Leave a horse loose? Papa would have her hide! That was how little Oliver knew of Papa, or horses, or women. He proved it by continuing: “I’m sure that with a bit of reflection, you’ll see the benefits of my offer. The future of the stables, security for your mother, the continuance of the Carroll line, don’t you know. I don’t doubt you were merely overwhelmed by my offer. I’m prepared to forgive your childish temper tantrum and accept your apology.”

  “Overwhelmed? Apology? I’ll show you my apology, you mincing mawworm!” Joia brought her riding crop down on the broad rump of Oliver’s mount, sending the animal into the first gallop the gelding had had in years, with Oliver screeching and hanging on for dear life. “I’ll apologize to the horse tomorrow.”

  Joia expected to meet her groom coming to find her, especially if Oliver made it back to the stables. Then again, his horse had been facing in the opposite direction. She didn’t expect to meet Comte Dubournet strolling up the carriageway, nor was she pleased with his company at this moment The count didn’t ask if there had been an accident, if she was hurt, if he should run for help, if she needed assistance with the horse. Instead he wanted to pay her pretty compliments.

  “Enchanté, ma belle. As beautiful as ever.”

  She was all over damp, her riding habit was in a shambles, and her feet hurt. The man must need spectacles. That or his attics were to let.