An Affair Before Christmas

“The one who pretended to be in love with my mother.”

His face went utterly still. “Oh—”

“Yes,” she said, nodding. “That young man.The one who defended my mother’s reputation so bravely. He obviously had a certain amount of dramatic talent.”

“Wouldn’t you rather picture your mother’s affection for a handsome young lad?”

Fletch smiled winningly, but Poppy just shook her head. “Is he here to night?”

“For goodness’ sake, no,” Fletch said, giving in. “He was, how shall I put it, a gentleman of the night. A night-walker.”

“Gentleman of the—” Poppy’s eyes went round. “Really! Where on earth did you find him?”

“I simply asked a woman who knows about that sort of thing.”

She narrowed her eyes. “And what woman might that be?”

“A young relative of Mrs. Armistead, Fox’s consort.”

“I wasn’t even aware you were acquainted with Mrs. Armistead.”

He swept her off the dance floor and then looked down at his own sweet wife. “You do realize how much I love you, don’t you?”

She frowned.

“Tell me you’re jealous. Her name is Cressida, and she is very beautiful.”

“I am not jealous,” she said instantly, wrinkling her nose at him. “So you have been consorting with night-walkers and day-walkers and Fox-walkers—”

“Very clever,” he said, reprehensibly kissing her right in the ballroom.

But Poppy had the sense that the Duchess of Beaumont’s Twelfth Night Ball would be the subject of gossip for years, and a marital kiss or two wouldn’t receive much attention.

Naturally, now that the Duke of Villiers was on the mend, the Duchess of Beaumont’s chess matches—with her husband, with Villiers—had flared into a wild source of gossip again.

“Did you beat him?” Mrs. Patton asked, pausing for a moment in the ladies’ retiring room.

Jemma threw her a lazy wink. “Do you doubt it?”

“Not after the way you have thrashed me in the last few days.”

“You took a very nice game off me last night,” Jemma pointed out. “That was a very cunning move with your castle. You utterly foxed me.”

“A rare victory,” Mrs. Patton said. “But none the less enjoyed for that! So you won the game with your husband…and finished the game with Villiers as well?”

“Alas,” Jemma said, frowning at herself.

“You didn’t win?”

“He sacrificed and sacrificed, a whole battlefield of them. Brilliant, ruthless and cunning.”

“So both matches continue to a third and final game,” Mrs. Patton said. “Fascinating!”

“And the final games are to be played blindfolded,” Jemma said, rubbing a bit of ruby color on her lips.

“And—or so I’ve heard,” Mrs. Patton said, pausing delicately.

“In bed,” Jemma confirmed.

“In bed with the Duke of Villiers,” Mrs. Patton said, rather dreamily. “There’s not a married woman in En gland who wouldn’t consider sacrificing her queen for the chance.”

“Villiers refuses to play the game until he is fully recovered. He says six months.”

Mrs. Patton laughed. “Will you play your husband immediately?”

“I don’t know,” Jemma said, tucking in an errant curl. “I won our game a while ago and we haven’t had time to discuss the topic. That’s a decision for another day…”

Epilogue

The Nursery, the Fletcher Estate Seven years later December 25

It was Christmas, and a small girl was singing rather tunelessly, the way untalented but cheerful children do: “I saw three ships come sailing in, on Christmas Day, on Christmas Day.”

Her father joined her, his deep smooth voice sliding like chocolate below her piping high one. “I saw three ships come sailing in, on Christmas Day in the morning.”

Then she squealed. People do that when they find themselves suddenly sailing through the air and landing on someone’s shoulders. Even if they are small people, who should be used to this kind of mishandling.

“Papa!” Clementina said, clutching the Duke of Fletcher’s hair. “You must stop doing that. Grandmère told me that I shouldn’t shriek because I’m a young lady. But you made me shriek. It wasn’t my fault.”

Her father obligingly dipped her upside down until she screamed even more loudly, so much so that they attracted attention from the other person in the room.

Before Fletch realized what was happening, plump little arms wrapped around his legs and a set of five sharp teeth, two on the top and three on the bottom, clamped together. “You let Clemmie go!” screamed a voice only slightly obscured by a mouthful of silk stocking. “You let Clemmie go, bad Papa!”

“Not my stockings, Alexander,” Fletch said, putting Clementina down on the ground so fast that her hair flew up around her shoulders like corn silk. “Oh dash it,” he groaned, unwinding his son from his leg, “that’s the death knell for another pair of stockings. Now what will poor Morton say?”

Alexander had no sympathy for the duke’s valet. He was too busy correcting the duke himself. “You’s not nice to Clemmie,” he said. Then: “Assander, up!”

Fletch swung his son up on his shoulders.

“Come on, Papa,” Clementina said, tugging his hand. “Let’s pretend we see three ships!”

She danced her way over to the window, dragging him behind. “I saw three ships come sailing in…” she started over. This time he let her sing it alone, standing there with her warm little hand clutching his, and Alexander’s plump knees next to his ears. Clementina swayed back and forth, obviously seeing tall sailing ships glide over the snowy lawn.

Then he turned around, because somehow he always knew when his wife was in a room. Their daughter kept singing, wildly off-key, so Fletch just smiled rather than interrupt her. Alexander made a cooing sound and started bouncing in a way that indicated either a wish to learn to fly—or a wish to be in his mother’s arms.

Poppy’s smile was so beautiful that Fletch felt his heart almost break from the joy of it all as he tucked her under his arm. Alexander put a hand on his mother’s curls and they all looked out the window as Clementina sang on. “On Christmas day in the morning!” she carrolled, coming to a stop.

Poppy looked as if she might move, so Fletch put his son down and snatched his wife into his arms instead. “Hello,” he said. She was as lovely as the moment he first saw her in Paris, and as delicious as the first time they made love under a fir tree.

The children were so used to their parents embracing that Alexander toddled away and Clementina picked up her doll and began crooning to her, a special rendition of—yes!—“Three Ships.”

“It’s Christmas,” Fletch said, dusting Poppy’s lips with a kiss. And then another one because she tasted good, and she smelled good, and she was his. “Do you remember when I first kissed you like this, on the tower of Saint Germain dés Pres?” He gave her a kiss to illustrate, a deep, possessive kiss.