Page 7 of The Virtues of Christmas
His smile was crooked, charming, and entirely unexpected. “It’s not my family seat, is it? It’s simply the real estate I purchased in hopes my great-grandchildren might think of it as home.”
Lord Angelford was a bachelor. Henrietta kept track, because she had never, ever shared her favors with engaged or married men.
“To have great-grandchildren, you’ll first have to acquire a few children, my lord. Perhaps next Season you’ll start on the prerequisites for that venture.”
Bride-hunting, in other words. Year after year, Henrietta had watched the marriage machinations from the outer periphery of polite society, half-affronted on behalf of the young ladies, half-envious of the respectability that was the price of admission for the race to the altar.
“If I seek a bride,” his lordship said, “the social Season won’t have much to do with it. In addition to four sisters, I have two brothers, and one has obliged me with three nephews. They are naughty, rambunctious, entirely dear boys, and any one of them would make a fine baron.”
“I have nephews.” Another unplanned admission. “They both have my red hair, and the youngest…” Henrietta had a niece as well, though she’d never met the child.
At some point, his lordship had shed his jacket—the room was toasty—and he’d turned back his cuffs. Each departure from strict propriety made him more attractive, which ought not to have been the case. Henrietta had learned to appreciate—and mentally appraise—masculine tailoring down to the penny.
What lay beneath the tailoring was usually a matter of indifference to her.
“Those small boys are why you quit London,” the baron said. “You love them madly.”
“A courtesan doesn’t love, my lord. She adores, treasures, or is fond of.” Eventually. At first she loved, and then she learned to be more careful.
“You love those children. My youngest nephew is a terror. The child scares the daylights out of me, and I can only guess at the prayers my sister-in-law has said to keep his guardian angels ever vigilant.”
“You’re a Papist?”
“Church of England, though my mother has likely harangued the Deity to correct that mistake since the moment she gained her place next to St. Patrick.”
His tone said he’d been fond of his mother, and worse yet, he missed her. Henrietta had been missing her own mother for more than twenty years.
“I used to dress in widow’s weeds and slip into the back of St. George’s on rainy Sundays.” Only Lucille knew this, though Henrietta was certain her secret was safe with his lordship. “I missed services, though my father would say my attendance was blaspheming.”
His lordship patted Henrietta’s hand. “Papas are the worst. My mother often reassured me of that, and I pass the sentiment along to my nephews.”
His touch was warm and surprising for its pure friendliness. The contact must have taken him aback as well, because when the maid bustled through the door, his fingers yet lingered on Henrietta’s knuckles.
“Madam’s coachman is come back,” the maid said. “He be cursing something powerful in the common, and I do believe it’s starting to snow again. The smithy’s gone off to Oxford to spend the holidays with his sweetheart’s family. Murphy could have told John Coachman as much. Don’t know why he didn’t.”
She piled dishes on a tray as she spoke, and Henrietta’s sentimental reminiscences collided, as sentiment so often did, with hard reality.
“I’ll have to bribe Murphy into renting me a room,” Henrietta said, taking a last sip of tepid gunpowder. “You will excuse me, my—”
She’d started to rise, but the baron stayed her with a raised hand. “My room is available to you, should you wish to tarry here for the duration, though you might be weeks waiting for the smithy to return.”
One of the greatest pleasures of falling from grace was learning to curse. Henrietta instead fell back on the words of one of her few old friends.
“Blasts and fogs upon this weather. I cannot take your rooms from you, my lord. I’ll probably end up buying a horse before I can journey onward, and it will be the most expensive nag this village ever sent limping onto the king’s highway.”
“You quoteKing Lear,” the baron replied. “And you need not tarry here at all. I’m traveling on in the direction of Oxford, and you’re welcome to share my coach. I can see about hiring you a spare horse when we reach the next coaching inn.”
He offered assistance, with no apparent thought of anything in return.
Years of disappointment made Henrietta cautious. “I will pay for any horses myself, my lord.”
“Will you at least accept my company as far as the next coaching inn?”
She shouldn’t. She really truly should not, but he’d surrendered his plum tart and understood the desperation with which she loved her nephews.
“As far as the next coaching inn,” Henrietta said. “No farther.”
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