Christmas With The Duchess. Tamara Lejeune

before.

      “Oh, excellent. What you want to do is find a bell and ring it,” Emma told him. “Do you think you can manage that, sir?”

      “Yes, ma’am! Thank you, ma’am!” he said gratefully. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of that. I’m not used to servants, you see.”

      Emma caught sight of a footman at the end of the hall. She beckoned to him, and he hurried over. “Would you be good enough to take this young man to the nearest breakfast parlor, with my compliments.”

      “Yes, your grace. This way, my lord, if you please.”

      Emma started in surprise. “Did you hear that, Carstairs?” she said in amazement, when the young man was out of earshot. “Arthur milorded him. Does he know something we don’t?”

      Carstairs looked aggrieved. “He must be Lord Camford. Now that I think of it, he does meet the description.”

      “What!” Emma exclaimed in astonishment. “That—that cub who gawped at me like a country bumpkin? That is the Earl of Camford? Where in God’s name did they find him?” she went on, beginning to laugh. “In a Hertfordshire hayrick?”

      Carstairs was still suffering from the mortification of having incorrectly addressed a Peer of the Realm as “sir.” But he set aside his pain to answer the duchess.

      “I understand his lordship was a lieutenant in the Royal Navy.”

      “The navy?” Emma echoed in surprise. While the younger sons of the aristocracy routinely served as officers in the army, the navy was considered quite beneath them. Naval officers typically were drawn from the gentry. Emma laughed lightly. “Well, that explains it, I suppose! What a fine thing for the Miss Fitzroys!”

      A short while later, Lord Hugh was shrieking in terror as Emma threw open the door to his bathing closet. Without his corset he was fat, and without his wig he was bald. Boiled pink by the hot water, he was not a pretty sight.

      “Oh, good, you’re awake,” said Emma, in a tone of dire boredom.

      “You!” he sputtered, his round, black eyes staring from his bald head. “How dare you! I am naked!” he cried. “Have you no shame?”

      “Of course not,” Emma replied. “Don’t you read the gossip columns? Shame is exactly what I do not have.”

      Lord Hugh’s heavy face turned almost purple. Veins stood out in his forehead. Quickly, he snatched the corners of the bathing sheet that lined the big copper tub, wrapping himself up like a package. All the while, he screamed for his manservant.

      “Don’t worry, Uncle,” said Emma, as Lord Hugh’s valet came into the room, fluttering his hands ineffectively. “I did not come to gaze upon your crudites. You know why I’m here. I want to see my sons. Where are they?”

      “Don’t just stand there, you idiot!” Hugh screeched at his valet. “Get this woman out of here! Throw her out, you imbecile!”

      “Touch me, and I’ll have you killed,” Emma calmly told the valet, securing his immediate withdrawal. “Now then,” she said, turning back to Hugh with a wide smile. “You were just about to tell me where my children are.”

      Lord Hugh sank down in the tub, scowling at her. “I do not have to tell you where they are,” he said petulantly. “There is nothing you can do. You are only a woman.”

      “I am their mother!” Emma protested.

      “But I am their guardian.”

      “You stupid man!” said Emma, reduced by frustration to petty insults. “Where are they?”

      He sniffed. She had caught him off guard, but he was back in control now. “I thought you were in Paris,” he said conversationally.

      “I always come home for Christmas. You know that,” she said coldly.

      “I could have saved you the trouble. Did you not get my letter? But I suppose,” he went on contemptuously, “you were much too busy entertaining your French lovers to bother about your children.”

      “I received no letter,” Emma snapped. “And my children were perfectly safe and content at school, along with all the other children of the nobility. You took it upon yourself to interrupt their education, take them out of Harrow, and put them God knows where! Where did you put them? Are they even at a school?”

      “If you had read my letter, madam, you would know where they were,” he told her. “You would also know that I have many debts of honor.”

      Emma stared at him. “And why should I be interested in your gambling debts, sir?”

      “Because you must pay them, of course,” he answered as if she were a simpleton.

      “Indeed! Why is that?” she asked.

      “Because I cannot pay them, and you are rich,” Lord Hugh explained, apparently amazed by Emma’s stupidity. “When he was alive, my nephew Warwick always paid my debts. I explained all this to you in my letter,” he added petulantly.

      Emma controlled her temper with difficulty. “Even if my husband did pay your debts—which I do not believe—what has it to do with me?” she demanded. “I am no relation to you, except by marriage. Why should I pay your debts?”

      He sighed. “In a perfect world, madam, your son would pay my debts. But his grace is still a minor. If I could borrow the money from the duke’s estate, I would, but these damned lawyers are very tightfisted. I can’t squeeze so much as a farthing out of them! Nay, madam, it will have to come from you. My debts are very pressing. Let me be blunt. If you do not pay my debts, you will not see your children. Is that simple enough for you to understand?”

      “You expect me to pay to see my own children?” Emma said incredulously.

      “Money is nothing to you,” he stated resentfully. “That German mother of yours left you millions, didn’t she? Seven thousand pounds would clear me entirely.”

      “Then you must raise the money, sir,” she said coldly.

      “I am a Fitzroy. We are descended of King Henry the Eighth. A Fitzroy does not go to Jews,” he said indignantly.

      Emma laughed angrily. “No! He blackmails women, using their children as pawns!”

      Hugh grew red in the face. “Will you pay or not, madam?” he snarled at her.

      “No, I shan’t!” she said.

      “Then you will not see your children,” he huffed, “if that matters to you.”

      “You are bluffing,” Emma said confidently. “The war is over. Michael will be coming home any day now. He will expect to see his brother’s children. How will you explain to Lord Michael Fitzroy that you have kidnaped his nephews and are holding them for ransom?”

      “There will be nothing to explain because you will pay me, madam,” he answered. “I came up with the plan myself. Therefore, it is bound to succeed.”

      She scoffed at his sheer stupidity. “You would not dare prevent the Duke of Warwick and his brother from returning to their own home for Christmas. You would be reviled by everyone you know. You would be blackballed from your clubs. And, if it comes to it, do you think Lord Camford would marry the daughter of such a man?”

      Lord Hugh started up in his bath, the color draining from his face. “What do you know of Camford?” he demanded, but his voice was hollow.

      Emma saw at once that she had struck a nerve. “I know you would like him to marry one of your daughters,” she said, pressing her advantage. “When I expose your character, he will not be able to get away fast enough!”

      “You speak to me of character?” he cried furiously. “Harlot! Jade! If my judgment is questioned, I will simply say that, as their guardian, it is my sacred duty to keep the boys away from the poisonous