Christmas With The Duchess. Tamara Lejeune

ever had the pleasure of seeing.”

      “Did your valet arrive earlier in the day, my lord? I will try to find him.”

      “Oh, we don’t have such things as valets in the Royal Navy,” he told her, chuckling. “I was not the captain, ma’am, merely a lowly lieutenant! And a second lieutenant at that. I can look after myself. I always have.”

      Lady Harriet inclined her head. “In that case, my lord, I bid you good night.”

      “Good night, Aunt Harriet.”

      My God, they’ll eat him alive, Lady Harriet thought sadly as she left him. She had not expected him to be so nice.

      Emma’s French maid roused her very early the next morning. Emma sat up, rubbing her eyes as Yvette fired streams of French at her.

      “What?” Emma cried, jumping out of bed. “When?”

      Pulling on her dressing gown, she ran to the door. Carstairs, the dignified old butler, stood there. “When did Lord Hugh arrive?” the duchess demanded.

      “Very late last night, your grace. After everyone had gone to bed. My subordinates did not make me aware of it until this morning.”

      “I’m sure they wanted to let you sleep, Carstairs. My sons were not with him, I understand.”

      “No, your grace,” Carstairs answered in his funereal voice.

      “You have not received any instructions regarding their arrival?” she asked hopefully.

      “No, your grace. Lord Hugh has asked me to inform your grace that he will see you this afternoon at three o’clock in the Carolina Room—if he is not too busy. You are to wait for him there?”

      Emma bit back a curse. “Is that so? Is there anything Lord Hugh desires?”

      “No, your grace.”

      “I’m afraid three o’clock is not convenient,” said Emma. “Where is Lord Hugh now?” she asked, forcing herself to speak calmly.

      “He’s been placed in the Dresden Suite, your grace.”

      Emma frowned. “And where the devil is that?” she wanted to know. The house was so large, and she visited it so seldom that she did not know all the rooms. “No, don’t bother trying to tell me. You’ll have to take me to him, Carstairs,” she said decisively. “The house is full of strangers. It would never do if I went to the wrong room.”

      “No, your grace,” he agreed.

      “Wait here while I get dressed.”

      The duchess’s toilette usually took three quarters of an hour, but this morning her maid’s perfectionism had to be balanced with Emma’s desire to be done quickly. In the end, it took fifteen minutes, and neither woman was satisfied. The maid ran after her mistress, putting the finishing touches to Emma’s hair until she could keep up with the duchess’s pace no longer.

      “Is he awake, do you know?” Emma asked Carstairs. “If he’s gone down to breakfast already, I shall miss him.”

      “I do not know, your grace. I felt it best to come to you, directly. But it is not Lord Hugh’s habit to wake early.”

      “He brings his sad little wife with him, of course, and all their daughters,” Emma murmured as she followed the butler through the house. “I’m surprised he didn’t invite all his friends, too! But, perhaps, he has no friends.”

      “His lordship did bring one young man with him,” said Carstairs.

      “Only one?” Emma snapped angrily. “But why should he not invite anyone he likes to my son’s house? This young man is attached to one of the girls, I suppose,” she sniffed. “Do we hear wedding bells, Carstairs?”

      “The night footman informs me that the young man is Lady Anne’s nephew, your grace.”

      “Anne’s nephew?” Emma repeated, frowning. “If Anne has got herself a nephew, why, he must be the new Earl of Camford! The one they’ve been looking for all these years.”

      “Yes, your grace.”

      Emma gave a short laugh. “I’d heard they were scouring the globe for some long-lost heir, but I had always assumed he was entirely fictitious. I suspect this young man is nothing more than an artful impostor. His discovery—just as the Crown was about to take possession—! well, it’s too convenient for belief. Has the Crown conceded?”

      “There was an announcement in the Times of London some weeks ago. Your grace was in Paris.”

      “Oh, I see,” Emma said, making a face. “It must be true, then. Well! Hugh and Anne must be delighted that Camford won’t be reverting to the Crown, after all.”

      Carstairs prudently offered no comment.

      “I wonder they do not spend Christmas at Camford,” Emma said after a moment. “But then again, why shouldn’t they entertain his lordship here instead, with little trouble and no expense to themselves? The earl must be a single man.”

      “I believe so, your grace,” Carstairs replied evenly. “At least, his lordship does not bring his wife with him.”

      “Of course he’s single. They would not bother with him if he were married already; he would be quite safe from the Miss Fitzroys. He will be expected to marry one of them, of course. I suppose he is to be pitied.”

      Emma fell silent, mentally preparing herself for the coming interview with her husband’s uncle. She wondered if, in her battle with Hugh, Lord Camford could be an ally, or, at least, a useful tool.

      As they passed through the long gallery that separated the east wing from the west wing, a young man suddenly stepped from behind one of the marble columns, stopping directly in Carstairs’s path. Emma looked at him curiously. She was sure she had never seen him before, but, then Warwick Palace was always full of strangers at this time of year. He was too brown to be a gentleman, she decided, and his ill-fitting clothes, she noted with some amusement, were of poor quality. His coat was so tight that it all but pinned his arms to his sides. Though he was tall, much taller than she, his shoulders were pulled forward by his tight coat, giving him a round back, and causing him to stoop a little. She didn’t like his long hair.

      He looked distinctly out of place amid the incredible grandeur of Warwick, where even the servants were splendidly and immaculately dressed. He reminded her, oddly, of poor Cecily, who could never get it right, no matter how much she spent on clothes. Unlike Lady Harriet, Emma could not look past his flaws to see that he was actually quite good-looking. She did not see a bronzed Nordic god. She saw a scruffy-looking, badly dressed, overgrown boy.

      “May I be of assistance to you, sir?” Carstairs said smoothly.

      “Please! I’m completely lost, I’m afraid,” the young man confessed. “One needs a compass and a map in a place like this! Would you be so kind as to direct me to the breakfast parlor? I think it’s around here somewhere.”

      “Which breakfast parlor would that be, sir?” Carstairs asked.

      The young man’s eyes widened. “Which breakfast parlor?” he echoed in disbelief. “You have more than one, then?”

      “Yes, sir,” Carstairs said gravely. “There are four: the summer breakfast parlor, the spring breakfast parlor, the autumn breakfast parlor; and the winter breakfast parlor.”

      “Perhaps it would be simpler to ring for a footman,” Emma suggested, out of patience.

      At the sound of her voice, the young man’s eyes flew to her face. He blushed, staring. His mouth did not hang open, but it might as well have. Emma guessed he could not be more than nineteen. She promptly dismissed him as a mooncalf.

      “I beg your pardon, ma’am!” he exclaimed, stuttering and bowing. “I did not see you there.”

      “Do