Season's Regency Greetings Read online

“I could take her a can,” he suggested.

  “No, no. Let’s see if she comes for one. Some tea, Miss McIntyre?”

  “Delighted.” She accepted the cup from him. “It appears that your brother has told you of my fall from grace, since you are no longer calling me Lady Mary.” He nodded, and took a sip from his own cup. “I don’t understand it, though.” He glanced at the children. “Lord and Lady Davy took you in when you were a baby, and only decided just before Christmas to tell you that it was all a mistake? My Lord, that’s gruesome.” He took another sip. “I could almost think it cruel.”

  He was saying exactly what she felt, and until that moment, had refused to acknowledge. He must have noticed the tears in her eyes, because he gave her his handkerchief. “I didn’t mean to make you do that,” he told her. “Just another example of my barbarism, I suppose. Forgive me, Miss McIntyre. You can explain this a little later, if you wish. I don’t want to pry, but I’m used to thinking of you as Lady Mary.”

  “I’m used to hearing it,” she said. She had to change the subject. “Is Joshua’s mother away?”

  “Farther than any of us like. She died three years ago,” he said. “I don’t know if you even knew I had married, but she was a fine woman, a widow with a little boy.”

  “Josh?”

  “Yes.” She could see nothing but pride in his eyes as he regarded the boy at the Rumford. “Isn’t he a fine one? I’m a lucky man, despite it all.”

  She looked at Joshua, and back at Joe Shepard. I think I have stumbled onto quite a family, she thought. “He’s certainly good with sausages.” It wasn’t what she wanted to say, but it seemed the right thing, particularly since Agatha’s maid was stomping down the stairs now. Joe got up to help her.

  As the maid, her back rigid, snatched the can from Joe and started for the door, he called after her, “Miss, could you tell the others that dinner will be ready soon?”

  She turned around, her expression awful. “I do not announce meals!”

  “Good Lord, what was I thinking?” Joe said.

  “Papa, why is she so unpleasant?” Joshua asked when the maid slammed the door.

  “Happen someone forgot to tell her it was Christmas,” he replied. He bowed elaborately to Abby. “My dear Miss Abigail, if you and Miss McIntyre will go upstairs and lay the table, we will bring up dinner. Do I ask too much?”

  Abby laughed out loud. As Mary got up to follow her, she noticed the look that Joe and Joshua exchanged.

  “She came to us from a workhouse in September,” Joe explained. “I do believe this is the first time she has laughed, isn’t it, Josh?”

  The boy nodded. “Maybe she finds the maid amusing.”

  “I know I do,” Joe said.

  “Come, miss,” Abby called from the top of the stairs.

  “Right away, my dear!” She turned to Joe. “Did she stay here with you this Christmas because she has nowhere else to go?”

  “Precisely.”

  I have nowhere to go, either, Mary thought as she went upstairs. And then surprisingly, may I stay here, too?

  The thought persisted through dinner, even as she carried on a perfectly amiable conversation with Agatha, and everyone tried to ignore Thomas’s elaborate, rude silence. His eye on his father, Tommy began a cautious conversation with Joshua, which quickly flourished into a real discussion about the merits of good English marbles over the multicolored ones from Poland.

  Joe had placed Abby next to him. He kept his arm along the back of her chair in a protective gesture that Mary found gratifying. Joe carried on a light conversation about the changes underway in his house, but offered no apologies for the inconvenience.

  “Did you construct that beautiful cornice over the front door?” Mary asked.

  “I designed it, but I hired a stonemason for the work.” He beamed at her in the way that she remembered. “Familiar to you, Miss McIntyre?”

  “Indeed, yes,” she replied. “I seem to recall a similar cornice over the door that leads onto the terrace at Denton.”

  “I always liked it,” he said. He looked at his brother. “Tom, d’ye remember when we weeded the flower beds below the terrace?”

  Thomas turned red in the face. “I see no point in remembering those days.”

  “Pity, considering what an enjoyable childhood we had,” Joseph said. He turned his attention to Mary. “I remember a time you and Lady Sara got in trouble for coming to help us weed. How is she, by the way? And Lord Milthorpe?”

  “Really, Joseph,” Thomas said in a low voice. “I already told you that Miss McIntyre has had a change in her circumstances.”

  “True, brother. What I know of Miss McIntyre, unless she has changed drastically, is that she couldn’t possibly forget the people she was raised with, unlike some,” Joseph replied, his voice calm, but full of steel. “I trust they are well?”

  Oh, bravo, Mary thought. “Lady Sara has got herself engaged to a marquess from Kent. Our … her parents have gone there this Christmas to renew their acquaintance with the family. Edgar—Lord Milthorpe—is desperately disappointed that the wars are over and he cannot pester Papa … Lord Davy … to purchase a commission.”

  “Do give Lady Sara my congratulations when next you see her,” Joseph said as his brother rose. “Thomas, I have no brandy, so I can offer you no inducement to stay at table. Agatha, I do not even have a whist table.”

  “That’s all right,” she replied. “I believe I will see the children to bed now.”

  “Oh, Mama!” Tommy protested. “I would very much like to see Joshua’s marbles. Oh, please, Papa. It is nearly Christmas!”

  Thomas opened his mouth and closed it again. He sighed and went to the door of the breakfast room.

  Joseph looked at his brother. “Is that someone at the door? Could it be Father Christmas, or is someone else lost? Tom, could you answer the door?”

  “I do not answer doors in strange establishments,” Tom snapped. In another moment they heard him on the stairs.

  “I doubt he would carry hot water, either,” Abby said. She gasped, and stared at Agatha Shepard. “Begging your pardon, ma’am.”

  Agatha rose to the occasion, to Mary’s relief. “I believe you are right, child.”

  Mary followed Joseph into the main hall and stood watching as he opened the door on a couple considerably shorter than he was, and older by several decades. “Frank! We are saved!” cried the woman.

  Mary turned away so no one would hear her laugh.

  They were Frank and Myrtle King of Sheffield, and the driver of their hired post chaise, with a tale to tell of crowded inns, surly keeps, full houses along the route, and snow with no end in sight. “I can pay you for yer hospitality, sir,” Mr. King declared as Joe tried to help him with his overcoat. “Nothing cheap about me! I’m assistant manager at the Butler Ironworks in Sheffield.”

  His eyes bright, Joseph turned to Mary. “Miss McIntyre, meet the Kings. I do believe we are all going to spend Christmas together.”

  The Kings had no objections to going belowstairs; Mary could see how uncomfortable they seemed, just standing in the hallway of Joe’s magnificent bargain house. Frank repeated his earnest desire to pay for their accommodations, and Myrtle just looked worried and chewed on her lip.

  While Mary stirred the eggs this time, and Joseph cooked more sausage, the coachman led his team around behind the house to unhitch them, and came inside again to report that he was going to be fine in the stables with the Shepards’ coachman. He tucked away the first order of sausage and eggs, and assured them that they would both come inside for breakfast, come morning.

  Provided there is anything left to eat, Mary thought as she poured more eggs into the pan on the Rumford. To her amusement, Joe nudged her shoulder. “We have a full pantry, Miss McIntyre,” he told her. “Too bad there is not a cook among us.”

  “There is, sir,” Myrtle declared. “There’s nothing I can’t cook.”

  “Then you are an angel sent from heaven, Mrs. Ki
ng,” Joseph declared.

  She giggled. “It appears to me that you and your missus shouldn’t have dismissed your entire staff for the holiday. Were you planning to go away, too, but for the snow?”

  “I did dismiss my staff, Mrs. King,” Joseph said. “As for going away, no. Miss McIntyre is an old acquaintance, and she and my brother and his family were stranded by the weather, too.” He turned back to the stove long enough to fork the sausages around and allow his own high color to diminish, to Mary’s glee.

  “Orphans in the storm, eh?” Mrs. King said.

  “Precisely. We will be in your debt, madam, if you would cook for the duration of this unpleasant weather. I have a scullery maid, and Mary here is a willing accomplice.” He laughed. “Did I say accomplice? Did I mean apprentice?”

  “I think you meant accomplice, Joe,” Mary said, without a qualm that their relationship seemed to have changed with the use of her first name. “Mrs. King, I do hope you like your eggs scrambled. It is my sole accomplishment. Mr. King?”

  She made no objection to Joe’s suggestion, an hour later, that they adjourn to the bookroom upstairs with a bottle between them. The Kings were safely tucked in belowstairs in the housekeeper’s room. Abby had retired to the room that she shared belowstairs with the absent maids, and Mary promised to join her there later.

  “Of course, more properly you should be upstairs, but the only room left unoccupied has two sawhorses and everything else draped in Holland covers. Joshua thinks it is spooky, and so do I.”

  “I am certain I will be quite comfortable in the maids’ room. Is that brandy? Didn’t you tell your brother you had none?”

  “Hold your glass steady, Mary,” he said as he tipped in a generous amount. “It is smuggler’s brandy and my last remaining bottle. I doubt that I will drink it anymore now that the sea lanes are open and the challenge is gone.” He took an appreciative swallow of his own glass. “Chateau du Monde, 1790. Would you waste that year on a prig?”

  She propped her feet up on the hassock between the chairs. “Never!”

  Joe took another sip, and leaned back. “I’ll tell you my troubles, but you first, Mary, unless it makes you desperately unhappy. I want to know what happened to you. It’s not every day that an earl’s daughter turns into plain Mary McIntyre.”

  She settled herself comfortably into the chair, wondering if the late Mrs. Shepard had used the chair before her. If that was the case, Joe’s wife must have been about her size, because it suited her own frame. “I don’t suppose it is, Joe,” she agreed. “My mother—oh, I know she is Lady Davy, but please, you won’t mind if I call her my mother, will you? She still feels amazingly like my mother.”

  Joe was silent. She looked at him, startled to see tears in his eyes. She touched his arm. “Joe, don’t feel sorry for me.”

  “Call me a fool, then.”

  “Never,” she declared. “Mama never let me read those ladies’ novels. You know, the ones where the scullery maid turns out to be an earl’s daughter? Isn’t that what happens in those dreadful books? Who can believe such nonsense?”

  “I can assure you that my scullery maid isn’t an earl’s daughter. Where do authors get those stupid notions?” He took another drink.

  She held out her glass for more. “My case is the precise opposite of a bad novel. Papa and Mama had been married for several years, with no issue in sight, apparently.”

  “It happens.” He held up his own glass to the firelight. “I know.”

  “Mama had a modiste who called herself Clare La Salle, and claimed to be a French émigrée.”

  “That’s glamorous enough for a bad novel,” Joseph said. “I take it that Clare was not her real name.”

  “No, indeed. Apparently Clare found herself in an interesting condition.”

  “Any idea who the father was?”

  Mary giggled. “I think I am drunking … drinking … this too fast.”

  “You can’t be too careful with smuggler’s brandy, my dear,” Joseph said.

  “I don’t think he was a marquess or a viscount,” she said. “Clare came to Mama in desperation, and she and my parents hatched a scheme. You can imagine the rest.”

  “What happened to Clare?”

  “She was so obliging as to die when I was born, apparently. Mama had retired to Denton, so no one knew I wasn’t really hers,” Mary said. “What could interfere now? Mama found herself in an interesting condition later, and Sara was born. And then Edgar.” She tipped back the glass and drained it.

  “You’re not supposed to drink it so fast. A sip here, a sip there.” Joe set the bottle on the floor between them. He settled lower in his chair. “So Lady Mary, daughter of the Earl of Denton, spent a blissful childhood of privilege, completely ignorant of her actual origins.” He looked at her. “Do you think it was just two weeks ago that they had second thoughts about their philanthropy?”

  She shook her head. “As I reflect on it now, I think not.”

  “You never had a come-out, did you?”

  My stars, she thought, you were mindful of such a thing? “No, I never did. I am surprised that you were ever aware of it, though.”

  He took another sip. “Don’t think me presumptuous when I say this, but your family was a choice topic of conversation in our cottage.” He shrugged. “I expect this is true of any large estate.”

  She digested what he said, and could not deny the probable truth of it. The reverse gave her some pause; at no point in her life had she ever been interested in those belowstairs. “We never spoke of you, sir,” she said honestly.

  “A candid statement,” he said. “I appreciate your honesty.” He took another sip. “I wager that you do not remember the first time I could have come to your attention.”

  “You would lose, sir. I remember it quite well.”

  “What?”

  “Let me tell you here that Sara and I both fell in love with you when we were little. We decided you were quite the nicest person on the whole estate.”

  “My blushes.”

  “You rescued me from an apple tree when I was five,” she said, enjoying the embarrassment on his face. “As I recall, Thomas put me there on a dare from the goose girl.”

  “That was it,” he said, and took a deep drink. “I trust you and Lady Sara survived your infatuation?”

  “I think we did. But you know, I never thanked you for rescuing me.”

  “You weren’t supposed to.”

  “Then I thank you now.”

  They were both quiet. Mary smiled and looked into the flames. “Now that I think of it, by the time for my come-out, my parents were likely coming to realize the deception they were practicing on those of their rank regarding my … my unsuitability.”

  “I say, sod’um all, Mary.”

  She gasped. “Joe, your language!”

  He leaned across the space between them, his eyes merry. “Sod them, I say. You always were the most interesting of the lot, Mary McIntyre.”

  “Joe, you’re mizzled.”

  “No, I’m stinking. I do this often enough to know.” He winked at her. “Did you want a come-out?”

  “No. I like to dance, but I have no patience for fashion—can you imagine how my real mother is spinning in her grave? Idle chat bores me.” She rested her chin on her hand. “Joe, I’m going to miss Denton.” The tears slid down her face then. She had never drunk herself into this state before, and she decided to blame the brandy.

  Joe seemed not to mind. He didn’t harrumph and walk around in great agitation, as Lord Davy had when she cried after his terrible news to her. He regarded her for a moment. “What finally brought the matter to a head? Who connected the McIntyres with Clare La Salle?”

  She took another drink. “It was a Bow Street Runner, of all things. Mrs. McIntyre—she would be my real grandmother—had long mourned that wayward daughter. After some years, she contacted the Bow Street Runners. After considerable time and much perseverance, they connected her missing daughter
to Clare La Salle through one of London’s houses of fashion. They found me less than a month ago,” she concluded simply.

  She took a deep breath. “Mama couldn’t face me. Papa told me the whole story. He offered me an annuity that Hailey and Tighe drew up. I … I signed it and left the room Mary McIntyre.”

  “Damn them all, Mary.”

  “No,” she said quickly, startled at his vehemence. “I have an income that most of England would envy, and all my faculties. It could have been much worse.” The silence from the other chair told her quite eloquently that Joseph Shepard did not agree. She folded her hands in her lap and felt greatly tired. “I will miss them all. Lord Davy thinks it best that I quietly fade from the scene. No family needs scandal. I have … had a suitor, Colonel Sir Harold Fox. Perhaps you remember him?”

  “Yes, indeed. A tall fellow who rides his horses too hard.”

  “Does he? I have written him a letter laying the whole matter before him. We shall see what he chooses to do. Rides his horses too hard, eh?”

  Joe laughed. “Sod him, too, Mary.”

  She joined in his laughter, feeling immeasurably better. “Your turn, Joe,” she said when she quit laughing. “Why are you and Tom so out of sorts?”

  She thought he was disinclined to reply at all, considering the lengthy silence. Or it may have been only a few moments. The brandy had enveloped her in a cocoon that either shut out time, or let it through in odd spurts.

  “I hope this won’t offend you,” he began finally.

  “No one else has been concerned about offending me lately,” she reminded him.

  “Your father—well, Lord Davy—is a misguided philanthropist, I do believe.”

  Two weeks ago she would have disputed with him, but not now. “My father was his estate steward, as you know,” he went on. “One day he told my father that he wanted to educate Tom and me. You know, send us to university, give us a leg up. Lord Davy paid Tom’s charges at the University of London, and he became a solicitor.”

  “But not a barrister? Does that bother him?”

  He looked at her with some appreciation. “Bravo, Mary! Poor Tom. No matter how fine his patronage, no one would ever call Tom, the son of a steward, to the bar.”