A Christmas Scandal. Jane Goodger

an awkward hug. “We’ll be fine, you’ll see,” she said, not believing for an instant that she was telling the truth. “I’m sorry, Mama. Everything’s just been so upsetting lately,” she said, giving her mother another squeeze. “I’m not feeling well. Perhaps that’s why I feel so out of sorts. I think it’s the heat.”

      “Why don’t you go lie down?” her mother said gently. “Try not to think about anything.”

      Maggie left their dining room thinking that she simply could not bear another bad thing happening to her. She wished she could simply disappear, dissolve into the air forever. It wasn’t death she wanted, for she’d never contemplate anything so final. She simply wanted to cease to feel for a while, to lie on a cloud in a crystal-blue sky and stare into space for, perhaps, three years.

      “The post, Miss Pierce.”

      She looked up to see the sad face of her beloved butler. While she was growing up, Willoughby had been more like a gruff old grandfather than a butler. His wife, the housekeeper, and he were the only servants left in the house. “Thank you, Willoughby,” she said, feeling ridiculously close to tears. They were leaving this house in two days, never to return, and she likely would never see Willoughby again. She took the post without looking at it closely. “I know Mama already thanked you and Mrs. Willoughby for staying on ’til the end,” she said, forcing a small smile. “But I wanted you to know that I will miss you terribly. No house I ever live in will be quite the same without you.”

      “Thank you, miss,” he said gruffly, then gave a little bow and walked down the long hall to where his wife was no doubt working to pack their things.

      Then she looked down at her letter and smiled genuinely for the first time in weeks. It was from England, no doubt from her friend Elizabeth, the new Duchess of Bellingham. These frequent missives from her were the only normal thing in her life, she realized. Elizabeth wrote to her as if everything were the same, as if they still lived a few blocks apart, as if they were planning to go together to the country dinners she described. Indeed, her letters were so filled with details of her happy life, it was almost as if Maggie were there.

      Maggie walked to her room, holding the letter against her chest, hesitating to open it in order to savor it. But when she opened it, she immediately knew it was not from her friend, but from the Duke of Bellingham, her husband.

      June 3, 1893

      Dear Miss Pierce:

      As you know, my wife and your friend is expecting to deliver a baby on or around Christmas. It would be my fondest wish to give my wife the gift of her closest friend being nearby during this time. Elizabeth’s mother will be unable to journey here for the birth, and I feel it is necessary for her to have some sort of female companionship at this time. I pray it will not be a large inconvenience to you. Elizabeth speaks of you often and with great fondness. Please let me know whether you can come, and address any correspondence to me. If, indeed, you can travel to Bellewood, as is my fondest wish, I would like this to be a surprise for my wife.

      Sincerely,

      Randall Blackmore,

      Duke of Bellingham

      Maggie looked down at the letter, her eyes watering, the finely scrawled letters mere blurs before her. The duke would never know what he had done, how those few words he’d so casually written would completely change her life. She had thought so many, many times in the past few months that she needed something good to happen. How often had she wished for just one thing good among all the bad and horrid things that had happened to her since Elizabeth had gone away? Maggie Pierce, whose life had taken a decidedly desperate turn, knew she held in her hand her only salvation.

      Chapter 3

      England, one month later

      Edward Hollings was trying, rather desperately, to think of a single reason why he should not bring his step-aunt and her brood of children to visit Bellewood. Finding reasons to avoid his best friend’s estate had not been an issue until he’d received a happily worded note from the duchess gushing about the imminent arrival of one Miss Pierce.

      He’d held that note in his hand and crushed it with a curse. Damnation. His life had been wonderfully bland, filled with the normal pleasures, willing married women, balls, gambling, and overseeing his late uncle’s vast and remarkably astute investments. Unlike many of the peerage, Lord Hollings was fortunate to have inherited a title that was once held by a financial genius. The former earl had been unsuccessful in only one aspect of his life: bearing children. So, finding himself a widower rather late in life, he’d married a woman who had more than proved her fertility by bearing six children in quick succession. Step-aunt Matilda’s fertility ground to a halt the moment her first husband died and she married his now-deceased uncle. And so when Edward’s uncle died, without an heir, he inherited the estate, as well as his step-aunt and her children. A few men had wondered aloud why he was continuing to support an entire family when he had no legal responsibility to do so, but what was he to do? Send a poor family packing to live in some moldering estate in the middle of nowhere? No.

      And so his step-aunt and her six children had become part of his bachelor family, which already included a sister who refused to marry. Refuse was likely an exaggeration, for no one had actually asked her yet. But Edward was quite convinced no one had asked her because she had purposefully made herself completely unappealing to every male in all of Britain. He’d threatened to ship her off to America if she persisted in being so absolutely obstinate, something she’d enthusiastically agreed to, much to his frustration. The duchess was no help in that regard, insisting that, even though her own forced marriage had ended wonderfully, no woman should be asked to marry someone she wasn’t completely in love with.

      What utter rot.

      His sister, Amelia, would point out with sharpshooter precision that she should not be asked to be married when her brother was so apparently opposed to that particular life state. She would also point out, rather gleefully, that he needed an heir and so should be required to marry sooner than she. As far as marriage went, he’d only been tempted once, and had found that particular time so horribly trying he’d vowed to avoid any sort of emotion that could be construed as love.

      And now she was coming to visit.

      Surely, he was being tested by God or played with by the devil.

      “So,” his sister Amelia said, waltzing into his study as if she had every right to be there, which she didn’t. It really was as if his sour thoughts had conjured her from nothing. “Are we all going to Bellingham?” she asked, waving a piece of vellum in front of her that looked suspiciously like the one the duchess had sent to him. “It’s always so much fun there. I absolutely adore the duchess and the children do, too.” She lifted the letter up with a flourish and read, “My dearest friend, Maggie Pierce, is arriving within the fortnight, and as Miss Pierce is already well acquainted with your brother, it will be a homecoming of sorts for her.” She lowered the letter, an evil little twinkle in her eye. “You are well acquainted with Miss Pierce?”

      Edward pretended to look over his own letter, silently cursing the duchess for also writing to his sister. “Yes. We met in Newport. I thought she mentioned it.”

      “How well are you acquainted? I only wonder that Her Grace would mention someone so specifically if it would have little or no meaning to you.” In a flash, she changed tactics and jumped down onto his favorite leather chair, her skirts billowing up in her exuberance. “Oh, do tell. Is she the one?”

      “There is no ‘the one,’” he said darkly.

      “But I’m quite certain I overheard His Grace and you discuss someone of importance. And you were an absolute ogre when you first returned from America,” she pointed out rather happily. “Everyone thought there could be only one reason for a man to be in such a mood. Love.” She was fairly giddy with her teasing.

      Edward let out a beleaguered sigh. “I am so sorry to disappoint you, Amelia, but I have no tragic love story to impart to you. Miss Pierce is Her Grace’s best friend. I am the duke’s best friend. We were thrown together