An Affair Before Christmas

Villiers waved his hand again. “Too late. I think the man has never polished his nails. He probably only owns one pair of stockings—”

“Not true,” Dautry said. “I have several.”

“Undoubtedly all worsted,” Villiers said with a sigh. “And his coat…just look at his coat, Miss Tatlock. I may be sick unto death, but even I noticed when that coat entered the room. My only pleasure is that I get to flee this cruel world before a man wearing that coat becomes duke.”

Charlotte looked. Dautry was singularly broad in the shoulders, wearing a black coat that had nothing to distinguish it but the fact it was made of linsey-woolsey. And it was rumpled.

“I rode all night after I got the message,” he said.

“I see just what you mean, Your Grace,” Charlotte said. “It’s a disgrace. A disgrace to the name.”

Dautry’s eyes narrowed. “What about you, Miss Tatlock? After all, you are surely here hoping to become a duchess?”

She blinked at him.

“I know your type,” he said. “You’re hanging out for a title and merely pretending to do a bit of good works. I expect you hoped Villiers would rally.”

“No,” Charlotte said. “I was planning to snare the heir. That means you…if I hadn’t had a look at you first! Now I shall have to reformulate all my plans.”

Villiers started laughing weakly. “Help me up, Dautry. She’s got you there. No decent woman will marry you when you look more like a dock-worker than a duke. And then what will happen to my poor estate? Handed from man to man without a woman’s intervention?”

Dautry looked around the bedroom and curled his lip. He still hadn’t unfolded his arms. “I don’t want to insult you, but the house shows signs of a woman’s hand, though you never bothered to marry one.”

“There’s nothing manly about being a sartorial disgrace,” Villiers said, looking truly awake now. “Dautry, you’ll have to submit to my tailor. Dying man’s last wish.”

Charlotte couldn’t grinning. “Don’t forget the barber,” she said, her voice as sweet as syrup. “No woman would marry a man who looked like a shag-bag.”

“I think you should do the same for Miss Tatlock,” the future duke said, his eyes narrowed. “Look at her gown. I’m surprised that you can tolerate being in the same room with it. Plain serge and tucked in the style of two years ago.”

“I almost forgot,” Villiers said. “I’m planning to find her a husband. What Miss Tatlock needs is a philosopher. I don’t suppose you know any?”

“What a lucky little hymn-singer,” Dautry said, his eyes flicking over her plain gown. “I’m afraid that philosophers rarely venture to sea. We prefer men who do rather than just think about it.”

“She must wear colors,” Villiers said dreamily. “Brilliant colors, jewel colors.” He seemed to be turning a little pink and the words tumbled out in a manner that Charlotte recognized.

She bit her lip and looked to Dautry. He came over to put a hand on Villiers’s forehead. “A cool cloth, if you please,” he called to the footman outside the door.

Villiers’s eyes closed again.

“Miss Tatlock,” Dautry said.

It was time for her to leave.

“Strawberries…embroidered taffeta,” Villiers murmured.

She could feel Dautry’s eyes on her as she picked up her knotting bag. Then, just as she was leaving, he said: “I trust that you were not indeed hoping to make yourself a duchess, Miss Tatlock?”

She didn’t pretend to misunderstand him. She didn’t want to turn around, because her eyes were shining with tears, but she did. “I don’t even know him, sir. He gave my name to the valet by accident whilst in a fever, I believe. So, no. But I wished that reading the Bible would keep him alive.”

“I would agree with you there,” he said with a rueful twist of his lips.

“He’s been ill for months,” she said. “Why weren’t you here? He’s so alone.”

“I had no idea he was indisposed. I met him once, at seven years of age. I scarcely recall the event, and I certainly had no idea he’d fought a duel. Fool, at his age.”

“He’s not so old!”

“Cut velvet,” the duke suddenly said. “With roses.” His cheeks were stained with color.

“Too old to be fighting duels,” Dautry said.

“I’ve never seen you before at any event.”

He leaned back against the window and crossed his arms again. “So you’re not just a good Samaritan happened off the street, but a member of the so-called ton?”

“It happens by birth and you, sir, are in the same dire predicament,” she snapped.

“Actually, no.”

“You are a future duke.”

“An unlikely duke, and I never spent much time thinking about it. I only inherit due to a younger son two generations back who fell in love with the daughter of a sailor and went to sea.”

“A sailor!” Of course it all made sense now. He had a windswept look about him, and there were crinkles at the corners of his eyes, for all he couldn’t be more than thirty. A duke’s son turning sailor. What a scandal that must have been! Charlotte couldn’t help grinning. “Did she run away to sea with him?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Celebration from a dulcet young lady of the ton?”

She picked up her knotting bag again and slipped through the door. He followed, but stopped in the doorway.

“Don’t you ever stand straight up?” she demanded.

“I like to know where the nearest solid support is.”

“You’re not on board ship now.”

“I wish I was.”

“Don’t let him turn you into a duke too easily. You have to fight every inch of the way, do you hear?”

“Damned if you don’t sound like my mother,” he drawled.

The words thumped to the bottom of her stomach and she felt the old maid she was. “Well, goodbye.”

“Wait a minute!” he said. “He’s going to remake you as well.”

“You need to get to know him,” she said, halfway down the stair and not turning around. “He’ll forget me. He doesn’t remember things well. You can take care of him now.”

“He’s going to put me in cut velvet with roses.” The future duke’s voice was so disgusted that she couldn’t help smiling.

“It will suit you,” she said. She couldn’t say what she really thought: that there probably wasn’t enough time for a tailor to fashion a whole costume before Villiers slipped away. Charlotte went out the door.

May sighed with relief when she heard that a member of Villiers’s family had appeared. “Well, of course there had to be an heir!” she trilled. “Trust the man to show up only at the deathbed.”

“It didn’t seem to be like that,” Charlotte said. “I didn’t get the impression that he cared much for the dukedom. I think he’s a sailor and had no idea of the duke’s infirmity. He only met the duke once.”

May’s rounded mouth was as circular as her cheeks. “A sailor!A sailor as the next Duke of Villiers. That’s—that’s— awful.”