A Christmas Promise Read online

  “Be damned if she isn’t the cit that Pamela brought home from school with her just to defy her mother over something,” Sir Albert said. “Lord, she was an embarrassment. As vulgar as they come. Cockney accent, loud laugh, the whole show. She was out for a noble husband even in those days. Unfortunately for her, there were no takers. I’m sure her name was something like that, though we always just called her the cit. Hutchins was like a damned thundercloud.”

  The Earl of Falloden frowned and yawned. “Grenfell could be all mine,” he said. “I could have the house and the park restored and the cottages repaired and make some of those hundred and one improvements my steward is always talking about. If I put a bullet in my brain, I couldn’t do any of it, could I, Bertie?”

  “No,” his friend said. “Don’t nod off to sleep, Randolph, there’s a good chap. There’s nothing worse than having to carry a drunken deadweight from carriage to house.”

  The earl settled his chin more comfortably against his chest. “And as you said, Bertie, I wouldn’t have to live with her, would I?” he said.

  “No, Randolph, old chap, you wouldn’t,” Sir Albert said. “Don’t go to sleep. There is not far to go.”

  “Except to get my heir on her at some time in the future,” the earl said.

  “Plenty of time for that,” his friend said. “You aren’t even thirty yet.”

  “I’ll leave her here for Christmas,” the earl said. “She will want to be near her father and friends anyway. I’ll go out to Grenfell. Come with me, Bertie? We’ll have a spot of shooting. I’ll invite some other fellows too.”

  “You already did,” Sir Albert said. “At least half a dozen of them.”

  “Did I?” the earl asked. “For Christmas? It is settled, then. Perhaps Dorothea will come too.”

  “It would not be appropriate, old chap,” Sir Albert said. And then he peered more closely at his friend. But he did not need the evidence of his eyes. The sounds coming rhythmically from the earl’s chest were unmistakably snores. Sir Albert swore.

  MR. JOSEPH TRANSOME HAD been offered a seat, unlike the morning before. But the Earl of Falloden stood before the fire, his hands behind him, not even feeling the direct heat at his back. He had a headache, and his stomach was not feeling as settled as he would have liked it to feel. And yet he almost welcomed his physical discomfort. It kept his mind occupied.

  Mr. Transome was rubbing his hands together. “I am delighted that you have made the sensible decision, my lord,” he said. “I was quite sure that on reflection you would.”

  “I believe it would be best to have the wedding in the spring,” the earl said stiffly. “I have already invited guests—all male—to Grenfell Park for Christmas.”

  “Begging your pardon, my lord,” Mr. Transome said, “but the nuptials must be within the month. In fact, within the week. By special license. I have it all arranged.”

  The earl raised his eyebrows. “By special license, sir?” he said.

  “I want to see my Ellie well settled,” his guest said. “That must be done soon, my lord. I do not have much time.” He smiled.

  The earl looked at him in incomprehension and saw again the too-loose clothes on the spare frame, the hollowed cheeks and over-large eyes, the pallor.

  “It is doubtful that I will see Christmas,” Mr. Transome said. “Very doubtful. The chances are that I will not even see December, my lord.” He chuckled. “My physician declares that it is only through sheer stubbornness that I have seen November.”

  The earl said nothing. There was only discomfort to be felt in the face of imminent death.

  “I had to settle my affairs,” Mr. Transome said. “That is what has kept me going, my lord. We will have the marriage agreement signed this morning, if you please. My lawyer has all the necessary papers outside. I know you are a gentleman, my lord, and will keep to your side of the agreement once it is made. But still I have a hankering to see with my own eyes Ellie settled for life. I will know she is happy once I see her become the Countess of Falloden.”

  The earl’s lips compressed.

  “The financial settlement I outlined to you yesterday, my lord,” Mr. Transome said. “My lawyer will discuss it in greater detail in a moment. But two points are not in the written agreement and are important to me. I will have your word on them as a gentleman.”

  “And the two points are?” The earl spoke quietly. The blood was beating through his temples rather as if someone had placed a clock there.

  “The marriage must be consummated,” Mr. Transome said, smiling apologetically. “On your wedding night, my lord. I want to die without the fear in my mind that perhaps at some future date there will be some suggestion that my daughter has not been a proper wife to you.”

  “An agreement is an agreement,” the earl said. “I would allow no such thing to happen, sir.”

  “Nevertheless.” Mr. Transome continued to smile. “I will have your word, my lord.”

  “Your daughter will become my wife in every sense of the word on our wedding night,” the earl said curtly. “And the other point?”

  “You will live in the same house as my daughter for at least the first year of your marriage,” Mr. Transome said. “I will not be alive to hold you to your word on that, my lord, but I know how much honor means to a gentleman. I know you will keep your word once it is given.”

  There was a lengthy pause. “You have my word,” the earl said quietly at last. “Are you all right, sir?”

  “Just a spasm.” Mr. Transome held up one staying hand while the other was spread over his stomach. “If you would be so good as to have my lawyer brought in now, my lord, he will go over the details with you while I sit here. It should not take long.”

  The earl reached out and pulled the bell rope.

  “You have made me a happy man,” Mr. Transome said.

  The earl said nothing but merely nodded to his butler when the door opened so that the man who had waited in the hall might be admitted.

  Half an hour later it was all done. The Earl of Falloden had affixed his signature to the marriage agreement after having paid very little attention to the explanations made by the lawyer. If it was to be done, it would be done, and to the devil with the details, he thought. They were thoroughly distasteful to him. Only one thing caught his notice. Mr. Transome’s fortune, of which he was to receive half on his marriage to Miss Eleanor Transome, was many times larger than he had dreamed. Even the half of it would make him one of the wealthiest gentlemen in England.

  Mr. Transome got slowly to his feet when it was all over. There was a stoop to his body that had not been there the day before or that morning when he had arrived. He extended a hand to the earl.

  “You will not regret this day’s dealings, my lord,” he said. “And you will come to realize that my daughter is a greater treasure than the other riches that will become yours on your wedding day.”

  After a brief hesitation, the Earl of Falloden placed his hand in the thin one stretched out to him.

  “I will expect you to call this afternoon, then, to make your formal offer to my daughter?” Mr. Transome asked.

  The earl bowed.

  And that was that. Two minutes later he was alone in the salon, staring down at his copy of the agreement. Within a week he was to be married to a girl he had not yet seen. To a cit’s daughter. To a loud and vulgar creature, if she did indeed turn out to be Bertie’s cit. And for the basest of all reasons. He was marrying her for her money and she was marrying him for his title and his position in the ton. He smiled arctically. The girl would soon discover that it was not so easy to break into the ranks of his class. Though perhaps she would not notice. She probably did not have a sensitive bone in her body.

  Within a week he was to bed the girl and to live with her for a full year thereafter. So much for his plans to leave her in town while he went into the country for Christmas with Bertie and whoever else he had invited when in his cups the night before. But even without the promise, by Chri
stmas she would be entirely dependent upon him for protection. Her father would be dead.

  The earl clamped his teeth together and turned sharply to the door until he realized that there was nowhere he could go to escape what he had just agreed to. Damnation, he thought. Oh, damnation! And he wished for one moment that his cousin, the former earl, were still alive so that he could have the pleasure of killing him.

  He thought of Dorothea Lovestone—the delicate and delectable Dorothea—with whom he had been in love for almost a year. She would be at the Prewetts’ that evening. And he would be there too—to inform her in the line of polite conversation that he was betrothed.

  Betrothed! Good Lord, he thought, glancing at the clock on the mantel, twenty-six hours before he had never even heard of Mr. Joseph Transome and his precious Ellie. Yesterday he had been merely miserable over his hopeless financial situation. Yesterday he had not known what misery was.

  Well, now he knew. And by God, Miss Eleanor Transome would know too before Christmas came and went. By God, she would. And yet, he thought, his hands opening and closing into fists at his sides, it was against himself his anger should be directed. He felt disgust and shame at what he was doing. He was marrying for money.

  SHE STOOD IN FRONT of the parlor window, her back to it. She felt cold, but she would not move closer to the fire. She wanted to be as far from the door as possible. She wanted to see him clearly when he came into the room. She did not want him upon her before she could even catch her breath.

  He had arrived already, she knew. She had heard the bustle in the hallway more than five minutes before. He would be sent to the parlor soon. There could not be much for Papa to say to him. All the business had been conducted that morning. He would be sent—Papa would not bring him. He had almost collapsed when he arrived home and was sitting now in a large chair in his study, moved in there several weeks before so that he could carry on with business almost as usual. He should be upstairs in bed, but she knew he would not go there until this day’s business was all over with.

  She would not sit. She did not want to be caught at a disadvantage when he came into the room. She stood motionless before the window. And then there was a tap on the door and it opened.

  He was a harsh and a proud man, she decided in an instant first impression. There was a set to his face and his jaw and a lift to his chin and a glint in his eye that all proclaimed he was less than pleased with the situation. He would have been far better pleased to take Papa’s money without being saddled with her into the bargain, she thought. And her own chin rose an inch.

  He was also a handsome man, his hair a dark brown and slightly over-long, his features regular, his eyes blue. He was not particularly tall, but he was muscular and slim all at the same time—and in all the right places. The sort of man who lived an idle life and spent that idleness in riding and boxing and otherwise exercising his body in useless ways. He was an earl, she reminded herself—one of the idle and haughty rich. Except that he was not rich. He was a spendthrift and probably a gamer. She held her shoulders back and looked him steadily in the eye.

  He was more handsome than Wilfred.

  “Miss Transome?” he said, and ice dripped from both words, or so she fancied.

  Who else could she be? She said nothing and deliberately did not sink into the curtsy that she knew the occasion called for.

  “Falloden, at your service, ma’am,” he said, making her an elegant bow. “Randolph Pierce.”

  Pierce. She would be Eleanor Pierce, she thought, testing the name curiously in her mind. His name was Randolph. Papa had mentioned only his title. As if there were no person behind it. But then perhaps there was not.

  She did not respond to his bow.

  He came a few steps closer across the room and she could estimate that the top of her head would reach his mouth if he stood right against her. The thought turned her a little colder.

  “I have your father’s permission to call on you,” he said. His face looked even harsher now that he was closer and the light from the window was shining full on it. And his eyes looked bluer.

  Yes, of course. What foolish words. Why else would he be there? She knew that this moment must be as difficult for him as it was for her, but she would not make his task easier. Oh, she would not. He could never in a million years earn the fortune that Papa had worked for all his life and that was to be given him with only one encumbrance—her. Let him feel at least a moment’s discomfort.

  “I have the honor of asking you to be my wife,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said at last. “Of course. And my answer is yes. Of course.” She was proud of the chill contempt in her voice. She would not add the words “my lord.” All the training of her school years and the years before that at home with a governess prompted her to do so and to drop into that curtsy she had neglected on his entrance. The occasion called for the words. But she would not say them. He was not her lord. Not yet, at least.

  He looked at her with his harsh, set face as if he did not quite know how to proceed. She felt a moment of triumph and no sympathy for him at all. And no discomfort on her own account. She did not care if ten minutes passed without another word being exchanged between them.

  “Then I am a fortunate man,” he said, making her another bow and reaching out his right hand.

  It was a slim, long-fingered hand, well-manicured. The hand of an aristocrat. She looked at it for several moments before finally placing her own in it. But it was a warm and surprisingly strong hand, she thought as it closed about hers. And then he was lifting her hand to his lips—warm lips—and her eyes traveled over their hands and upward to his eyes. They were very blue and very cold and held hers as steadily as hers held his.

  He hated her as she hated him, she thought. Good. That was good. Let him suffer for Papa’s money.

  “I understand,” he said, “that your father wishes the nuptials to be celebrated next week. Will that suit you, ma’am?”

  “Of course,” she said. As if it would make any difference to anything if she said no. “If we wait any longer, my father will be dead. Even as it is, he may not live long enough.”

  The flicker in his eyes showed that he was somewhat taken aback by the frankness of her words. “I am sorry about your father’s health,” he said. “It must be distressing to you.”

  How could he know anything about her or what distressed her? He cared for nothing but getting his hands on Papa’s fortune. Papa would not have been so rash with it or so hasty and unconsidered in his plans for her future if he were not dying. “We must all die sooner or later,” she said.

  “Yes.” If it was possible for him to look colder, he looked it as he uttered the one word. “Next week it will be, then, ma’am. I have plans to spend Christmas in the country, but all will depend upon your father’s health, of course.”

  “He will not last nearly so long,” she said, and she held herself still and frozen, speaking as a matter of simple fact what the past months and weeks had shown her to be the harrowing truth. Papa was already living on borrowed time. Only his strong will would keep him alive until after the wedding. She was quite sure that he would live that long. But not many days longer.

  “Well, then,” he said, taking a step back and clasping his hands behind him. His eyes swept over her from head to foot. “Everything seems to have been settled satisfactorily. Shall we proceed to your father’s study? He wishes to see us both after this interview is over.”

  He removed one arm from his back and was about to offer it to her, she knew. But she swept past him to the door, waiting for him to reach past her to open it only because it would have been too vulgar a breach of good manners to have opened it herself. She led the way across the hallway, nodding to a servant as she did so to open the door into her father’s study.

  “Well, children,” her father said, opening his eyes. He was reclined back in his chair. “Together, are you? All is settled, then?”

  “Miss Transome has consented to be my
wife, sir,” the earl’s voice said stiffly from behind her.

  Papa had had his medicine only an hour before. But he was still in pain, she could see. The knowledge chilled and frightened her. What would they do if the medicine became ineffective? He smiled and held out his arms to her.

  “My darling girl,” he said. “Come and be hugged.”

  But they were words from the old days. He had forgotten that she could no longer hug him or climb onto his lap as she had used to do all through her childhood at the end of a long day to tell him about her own day’s activities. She could no longer touch him with more than the lightest of touches. She crossed the room and set her hand on one arm of the chair before leaning over and kissing him gently on the forehead. He dropped his arms.

  “You should be in bed, Papa,” she said, and her words sounded cold and abrupt, she thought. And she knew why. The Earl of Falloden was standing quietly a few feet away and she felt self-conscious.

  Her father chuckled. “But this calls for a celebration,” he said. “Ring the bell, Ellie, and we will have the tea tray and a decanter brought in. It is not every day that my only daughter becomes betrothed to a peer of the realm.”

  “Papa,” she said, and she could still hear coldness in her voice, “you need rest.”

  “I must be taking my leave, if you will excuse me, sir,” the Earl of Falloden said in a voice that quite matched her own—what a strange betrothal day! she thought—“I have a pressing appointment.”

  With his tailor, doubtless, she thought, or his jeweler. Or with his barber.

  “Ah,” her father said, holding out his hand to the earl. “We must let you go then, my lord. Must we not, Ellie?”

  She watched him flinch in a manner perhaps observable only to her own eyes as the earl took his hand in a firm clasp. And she allowed relief to flood through her when her father instructed her to summon a servant to show their visitor out. She was not, then, to be given that task herself.

  They were not to meet again, it seemed, until they came together at church the following week for their wedding. They were to be man and wife, she thought in some bewilderment as she watched him bow and take his leave. They were to live together in the intimacy of marriage for the rest of their lives—this stranger from a class she hated and she from a class he despised. She resolutely held her thoughts away from Wilfred.