A Gentleman Under the Mistletoe

Chapter One

“What in the name of Grandmother Eulalie’s flaming punch recipe was I thinking?” I muttered this query for the third time in an hour as a footman leaned too far from his ladder and went tumbling into the snow. Ropes of greenery came down after him, along with a few whoops from the balcony above and a dash or two of profanity.

“You all right there, Jamison?” somebody called down.

Jamison sat up, snow atop his head, greenery about his shoulders. “Right as a trivet what’s got a pot of toddy keeping it warm. Oh, didn’t see your lordship there on the terrace. Happy Christmas, sir!”

A bit too happy. Clearly the day’s portion of toddies had already found its way from the pot into the staff.

“Carry on, Jamison.” I should have assisted the man to his feet, should have returned the cheery salutation. My dear father would have done both, my brother Harry would have been up the ladder himself, and Arthur—the present duke—would have good-naturedly ignored the whole ridiculous business.

Papa and Harry were dead, Arthur was cavorting about Munich or Salzberg in anticipation of a remove to Vienna—his letters were nearly incoherent with joyous plans and amazing sights—while I bided at the family seat and doubted my sanity.

Happy Christmas, indeed.

I returned to the warmth of Caldicott Hall, which would be spared decked halls until later in the month.

“Julian, there you are.” Dorothea, Her Grace of Waltham, made a cheery picture coming down the grand staircase. She was attired in green, which went nicely with her red hair and Celtic complexion. “I vow you have been least in sight for the past fortnight. Did I, or did I not, just see Young Jamison plummeting from the heavens outside the library?”

“Mama, good day. Jamison plummeted from a ladder, and is none the worse for losing his balance. He might well be the worse for drink, however.”

“Nonsense.” Her Grace swanned down the remaining steps. “A tot to ward off the chill never addled anybody’s wits. Jenny has sent word that she’ll be here tomorrow. Declan has a slight cold so they will tarry an extra day in Town.”

My youngest sister Jenny had two children, a boy and a girl. I was godfather to the boy Declan, whom I had last seen when the lad had still been a gurgling bundle of joy held securely in the arms of some adult other than me. His younger sister was a stranger to me.

With the arrival of Jenny and her offspring, the holiday onslaught would begin in earnest. “I shall endeavor to contain my disappointment at the delay. I assume Lord Kerrick is accompanying his wife and children?” He’d better be, or my brother-in-law and I would have words.

“Of course. Kerrick adores the holidays as much as I do.”

Lochlan, Earl of Kerrick, adored my sister and she returned his affection in scandalously full measure. They had been a love match, and I hoped they still were.

“Mama, might you have a word with Mrs. Gwinnett about the toddies?”

Her Grace peered at me. “If she made them any stronger, the peace of the realm would be imperiled.”

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“Precisely. The peace of Caldicott Hall has been shattered since Stirring Up Sunday. Some restraint with the rum is in order. The kitchen being a feminine domain, and Mrs. Gwinnet being a sensitive soul, I will leave it to you to counsel her to contain her generosity.”

The duchess’s expression took on that considering aspect mothers aim at children who just possibly have blundered onto the verge of vexing them.

“Are you coming down with something, Julian? An ague? A megrim? You used to get cranky when you were stalked by illness.”

I am not cranky. My mother and I were navigating a gradual thawing of relations after years of polite distance. That she would set a verbal trap of the classic maternal variety should have been reassuring.

“I am in the pink of health,” I replied, starting up the steps, “though somewhat short of sleep. I will leave you to negotiate some moderation with Mrs. Gwinnet while I tend to the day’s correspondence.” I bowed slightly and made for the steps.

“Arthur never complains about the holiday toddies.”

Arthur, His Grace of Waltham, seldom complained about anything. I loved my surviving brother fiercely and of late resented him in equal measure, even as I gained new sympathy for the burdens he so stoically carried.

“Of course he didn’t comment on the toddies. He was too busy shoveling himself out from under a daily deluge of reports, letters, invoices, and parliamentary epistles. I will now do my feeble best to impersonate him lest his duchy fall to pieces on my watch. I bid you good morning.”

Mama waved a graceful hand. “Very well, then, be on your way. Tend to business in the Caldicott male tradition, and I won’t tell you my news.”

Fiend. I came back down the steps. “Unfair, madam. If my mood has suffered for being nearly potted by a tipsy footman, you cannot blame me. Christmas is weeks away and the lot of them are teetering on the brink of riot by the hour.” The maids abetted their confreres, giggling and scampering about and lingering beneath the forest of mistletoe boughs dangling from every doorjamb and crossbeam in the Hall.

I could not honestly say I missed Spain. I’d spent several hard years in uniform mostly on reconnaissance. I’d been good at my job, to the surprise of both the enlisted men and my superiors, and to my own surprise most of all.

I did miss the simplicity of that life, desperately, and the sense of having an occupation at which I was competent. This business of serving as steward of Arthur’s dukedom was irksome in the extreme, and yet, I’d nearly demanded the job when I’d exhorted Arthur to see some of the world. That Arthur’s devoted paramour, Osgood Banter, traveled with him meant the duke’s eventual return was in doubt.

Merry Olde was murderously intolerant of those who preferred the intimate company of their own gender. Arthur and Banter were safer on the Continent, and thus I sent them traveling with heartfelt best wishes.

“What is your news?” I asked, while Her Grace fiddled with a red ribbon dangling from a kissing bough suspended from the foyer’s chandelier.

“The news is happy, for the most part. To see old friends and distant family is always a happy occasion, or it should be.”

“Mama, I am honestly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of work required to maintain Arthur’s correspondence. He could glance at some Parliamentary report and know whether it required reading, skimming, or a summary toss into the flames. I must read every word, and my eyes… what is your news?”

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I need not remind my mother of my weak eyes. Since the day a mortar shell had landed on a powder wagon in my general vicinity, my eyes had been sensitive to excessive light. I wore blue tinted spectacles in bright sunshine and when my eyes otherwise bothered me, which was frequently of late.

“Hire another secretary,” Her Grace said. “Hire three. We can afford them, and Arthur would not want you ruining your vision over the price of turpentine or sail cloth.”

Both were vital issues to the Royal Navy. “Your news?”

“Uncle Terrence will join us for the holidays this year.”
I weathered this blow as I might have weathered the news that my much-treasured personal mount, one Atlas, was colicking, which is to say, badly.

“Merry Uncle Terry is inflicting… that is to say, visiting us for the holidays?”

“He’s mellowed, Julian, and he did worry so about you and Harry.”

Uncle Terrance was neither merry nor in the strict sense an uncle. He’d been a friend of my grandfather’s from Grandfather’s Four-in-Hand days, though Terrence was years Grandfather’s junior. The march of time had nonetheless turned Uncle Terrence’s disposition from salty to sour. Some of my most bewildering boyhood memories had been of Uncle Terry sitting glum and silent at the Christmas feast, or stalking around the Boxing Day open house like some sort of bad fairy at a storybook christening.

“You are the hostess of this gathering, Mama. If you chose to admit Uncle Terrence, I will welcome him graciously as well. Now, if you’ll excuse me?”

“Have you paid a call on the nursery yet today, Julian?” Her Grace asked the question a bit too casually.

“I still stop by after I have reviewed the morning mail.” I’d said the same thing yesterday, with predictable results. I’d finished my day apologizing to my young nephew for my neglect—again.

“Of course you will. Truly, Julian, you are not entering into the spirit of the holidays. One would despair of you, but for the fact that you are pining for Miss West.”

With every fiber of my being, I missed Hyperia West. “She and I do not dwell in each other’s pockets. I look forward to her eventual arrival at the Hall.” Had dear Perry not agreed to spend her holidays at the Hall, I’d likely be swilling toddies and tumbling off ladders and adorning myself in greenery too.

Hyperia West was my friend, fiancée, and the lodestar of my honor. Love was too pallid a term for the esteem in which I held her and yet, the date of her arrival was still in flux.

“Well, then away with you,” the duchess said, tucking the red ribbon into the kissing bough. “Back to your turpentine and sail cloth, and Leander will simply have to accommodate your more important duties.”

Mama took few shots, but she aimed each one for the bull’s eye. “Good day, Your Grace. I’ll see you at luncheon.”

“No, you won’t. I’m meeting with the committee to discuss prizes at the Boxing Day fete. You will take a tray in the study, which you will ignore, and then you will eat half the offerings cold, and Mrs. Gwinnett’s feelings will be hurt, and I will have that to deal with as well as your disdain for a hearty toddy.”

She blew me a kiss and sailed off in the direction of the conservatory, while I… contemplated ordering up a whole pot of toddies.