“These are for the children,” Lady Bellefonte said. “I’d thought to save them until Christmas, but with this weather, indoor entertainment seemed the better idea.”
Her footman set a box of wood-framed slates on the library’s reception desk. The slates were new and of the type used in schoolrooms.
“This was very kind of you,” Emmie replied. “I’ve been requesting slates from the directors for two years, and they remind me that the library is not a select academy.”
“But your library is a place of learning, my dear, and slates can be used to practice drawing, penmanship, sums, and much else that stands a child in good stead. Besides, I am giving these to the children rather than to West Bart’s Lending. If the children choose to leave their slates here for safekeeping, that is none of the directors’ business.”
“I suppose not.” They shared a conspiratorial smile that included more than a dash of determination.
The front door opened, and Emmie knew without looking who had arrived. The very air changed when Dane was on hand, and not simply because of his luscious scent.
“You are late, Mr. Dunn,” she said and ruined the scold entirely with a welcoming smile. “I have errands for you, sir. Lady Bellefonte, may I make known to you Mr. Dane Dunn, late of Perthshire, by way of the Peninsula. Mr. Dunn is on his way to a curate’s post in Wales come spring.”
The footman, whose job entailed hours of silence and miles of discretion, made a snorting noise.
Lady Bellefonte’s dark brows rose, and Dane looked as if he were one of Mr. Dingle’s kittens facing the mastiff with the cocklebur in his ear. Nowhere to run, no help in sight.
“Mr.… Dunn.” Her ladyship held out a hand for him to bow over, and he complied.
“My lady, a pleasure.”
A silence blossomed, with Lady Bellefonte sending Dane the sorts of looks she probably reserved for her husband when he led the children on a gingerbread-snitching raid.
“Mr. Dunn,” Emmie said, “if you take the slates up to my office, then nip over to the stationer’s for some ribbon, we can wrap them for the children later this morning.”
Lady Bellefonte made a shooing motion with her gloved hand. “Do as you are told, Mr. Dunn. Run along.”
He hefted the box of slates and made for the steps.
Lady Bellefonte watched him go with a gimlet eye. “Emmie, that man is no curate.”
“I have suspected as much, and he’s all but admitted the same. I’m hoping he’ll explain himself without my having to drag it out of him.”
“He had better have the best explanation in the history of explanations.” Her ladyship’s gaze roamed over the rows of bookshelves, the cheery hearth, and Aristotle batting gently at a low-hanging orange. “You have built something lovely here, Emmie. One could hardly see to read for all the grime on the windows before you took West Bart’s in hand. Mr. Dunn had best not be trifling with you, or my Nicholas will have a very pointed discussion with him.”
“He’s not trifling with me,” Emmie said, “and I’m not trifling with him either.”
Some of the starch went out of her ladyship’s posture. “So that’s the way of it? Nicholas said you simply needed time, and he’s very intuitive about these things. I will see you and Mr. Dunn at my open house.”
She swanned off, the footman in tow, though he cast a dubious glance in the direction of Emmie’s office as he held the door for the countess.
Emmie’s progress toward the steps was impeded by Mary, who stood on the bottom stair as if she’d taken her regular shift guarding the gates of hell.
“Will Mr. Dunn read us the story today, miss?” She imbued her words with characteristic truculence, and yet, Emmie heard the hope lurking in the child’s question too.
“He is a gifted storyteller, isn’t he?”
“Will he?”
“I shall ask him to. Do you happen to know where Caspar is?”
“Caspar has a proper job. A serious, proper job. He’ll be a groom or maybe a footman, if he don’t muck it up.” She sidled around Emmie and scampered off a few paces. “I’ll miss him, though he was always winning the map game. He oughtn’t to do a bunk on his mates, but a proper job… Mr. Dunn found him honest work, and it pays. We’re happy for him, though I’ll miss him.”
She went over to the window seat, picked up Aristotle, and stood gazing at the oranges with all the dignity of a miniature bereaved queen.
“I’ll miss him too,” Emmie said softly. She mentally added Caspar’s change of circumstances to the growing heap of matters Mr. Dunn had to explain. When she reached her office, the door was closed, the better to keep in the heat, of course. Rather than knock, she sailed in and found Dane seated at her desk.
Reading her story notebook.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she snapped.
He rose, looking not the least bit self-conscious. “Admiring your work. You left the notebook out on the blotter for anybody to see.”
Emmie snatched up her stories and hugged them to her chest. “Then you should have realized these are rough drafts and not for public consumption.”
He came around the desk, in no hurry at all, and for reasons known only to unrepentant snoops, he looked even taller and more serious than ever.
“If these are your rough drafts, then your polished work should fetch you a very tidy sum. You studied the female satirists and went them one better. I would never have thought to use the jaundiced wit of the typical adolescent to illuminate society’s foibles.”
Despite her dismay and upset, Emmie grasped that her writing was being complimented. “People dismiss schoolgirls one week and want to marry them off to the nearest eligible the next. Boys are supposed to be translating Caesar in May and taking up arms for England in June. In my experience, young people are very keen judges of society. Then they finish growing up and succumb to the weight of propriety. They become disappointed and…”
“Bitter?” he asked, standing close enough that Emmie could see the gold flecks in his blue eyes. “Retiring? Cautious? Circumspect?”
“They lose their innocence and make pacts with the demons of expedience.” As Lord Hercules had chosen the expedient bride. Had Dane not peeked at her stories, she might have been able to leave the conversation there, but he had peeked, and she was upset, and he was most of the reason.
“Did you lie to me about your name out of expedience?” she asked.
Dane took a step back. “I assume Lady Bellefonte put you wise?”
“Why, no, she did not. You’ve been telling me yourself.”
“Does this have to do with my diction and dress?”
“Only in part.” Emmie stepped around him, slid her copybook into the middle drawer, and closed it quite firmly. “A curate might well be a younger son of a genteel family, and unruly spares are sent off to the countryside on repairing leases all the time. You, however, failed to make use of the library’s Welsh resources. Didn’t sign them out, didn’t even bother learning where we shelve them.”
He smiled slightly. “I was too busy lugging coal and fetching soup.”
“You told me on several occasions that you are not a curate, and I believed you. You also have a gold watch inscribed from ‘Uncle Quint, to the best of the lot as he prepares to battle the forces of ignorance.’ I assumed that was a gift given when you went off to university, and it is an exceptionally fine timepiece. “
“Too fine for a man who has taken a vow of poverty?”
“No, but too fine and too dear to you to be casually lent to a librarian, and you have yet to ask for it back.” She dug the watch out of her pocket, where it had been a comforting weight, like a happy secret or the memory of a precious kiss.
“You lent me your walking stick as well,” Emmie went on. “You are generous with fine things, and all that aside, I stopped by East Bart’s Lending to return some books that had been erroneously left here. I spotted a new fellow at East Bart’s, who was reshelving biographies. He’s neither Scottish, nor charming, nor patient with the patrons—the real Mr. Dunn, I now suspect. He also apparently has little sense of direction, but when he showed up at a Bartholomew Street library, willing to work in exchange for use of their Welsh resources, they doubtless obliged him with a mountain of reshelving.
“At the time I barely noted his presence in passing, but now… This is the misunderstanding you alluded to when first we met, isn’t it? This is why you were late on the first day, but never thereafter. Why Bevins and Petty watch you the way Aristotle would watch an industrious mouse. I’ve seen the puzzle pieces and when I put them together, I see that you cannot be some younger son in disgrace or a sartorially inclined churchman.”
Though part of her had wanted him to be. Part of her had wanted those puzzle pieces to make a simple, pleasing picture with only a few minor rough edges. Another part of her had been waiting for the disappointment.
Dane ran a hand through his hair. “My old tutor warned me that effective deception was not in my gift. I did wonder what had become of the real Mr. Dunn. You kissed me without knowing my name?”
“Your name is Dane, and you are about to tell me the rest of it. Besides, I’ve seen you reading to the children. I know who you are.”
“You could not possibly. When did you stop by East Bart’s?”
“The day you showed up on my doorstep, overly fashionable and insufficiently curious about the Welsh language.” Also too handsome, too robust, too much at home among a vast collection of books.
He studied her, perhaps as he’d studied battle maps in Spain—he would not have lied about that part. His gaze suggested he was noting details, cataloging facts, and developing contingency plans.
“Might we sit?” he asked.
“You will tell me why you dissembled?”
“I shall.”
“And what’s become of Caspar?”
He gestured to the sofa, and Emmie took a seat. “Does nothing escape your notice, Miss Armstrong?”
“At West Bart’s Lending, very little. One learns to be vigilant about what matters.”
He looked around the room, an office teetering between cozy and shabby. His head nearly brushed the crossbeams, and Emmie was acutely aware of his recent remark regarding the limitations of the sofa.
Dane made her an elegant bow. “Dunfallon, at your service, as in His Grace of. The first part—my title—shouldn’t matter in the least, but the at-your-service part is what I hope you’ll take to heart.”
Emmie was very glad she was sitting down, because that was not the admission she’d been expecting. Not at all. “You’re Dunfallon?”
“I have that honor.”
“And you read my stories?” The Duke of Dunfallon had swept and dusted her library, hauled her coal, and… kissed her? The Duke of Dunfallon had tramped to the chop shop and back like some under-footman?
“I completed one tale in its entirety, and I would dearly like to read more.”
Emmie absently patted the place beside her. She’d been prepared for him to be a younger son, a spare, an impecunious society bachelor with a need to avoid dunning creditors, possibly even an heir kicking his heels while trading on his expectations… but Dunfallon?
Gracious, merciful, everlasting, almighty kittens. Emmie mentally re-shelved some conclusions and dusted off others. The notion that a peer of the realm, a duke, a war hero, had been Caspar’s pupil regarding the serious matter of how to clean out a hearth…
When the shock wore off, Emmie might find the situation humorous—provided His Grace was honest about the rest of it, because he might be a duke, but he was also far more than that.
“It’s only fair that you read my stories,” she said slowly, “seeing as I’ve read so many of yours.”
He dropped onto the sofa without ceremony. “Explain yourself. Please.”
If nothing else had convinced her of the truth of his confessions, that note of command in his voice would have. Dane… Dunfallon, rather, was accustomed to being obeyed, but Emmie wondered if he was accustomed to being understood, much less appreciated.
All things considered, Emmie appeared to be adjusting fairly well to having a duke as her adoring swain. Dunfallon could not make the same claim for himself regarding her latest revelation.
Nobody had accused him of writing the kitten stories, and he’d stopped worrying that anybody ever would.
“You are Christopher Dingle,” she said. “That was the secret I hoped you’d confide in me.”
“And how did you divine that near impossibility?” He sounded as testy as old MacAlpin when the indigestion plagued him.
“In a sense, Aristotle told me.” Emmie took up a green brocade pillow and fiddled with its tassels. “He will tolerate affection from the children when they are having a low moment, but he doesn’t like men. Bevvy and Petty have never been allowed to so much as pat his head. He has hissed at my brother.”
She clearly approved of the cat for that rudeness. “I like animals,” Dunfallon said. “That does not prove I could pen a few silly stories for children.”
Emmie stroked the tassel she’d been twiddling. “I wish you could hear the difference between how I read Mr. Dingle’s stories and how you read them. The children noted it at once. You didn’t need Mary to keep up with the page turning, because you knew every word by heart.”
Dunfallon felt the same rising anxiety he’d experienced in Spain when the sound of French war drums had grown ever closer on the day of battle.
He hadn’t run then, and he wasn’t about to run now. “I told you, I have nieces. I’ve read them Dingle’s whole collection, as well as Aesop, The Arabian Nights, and Lamb’s versions of Shakespeare.”
Emmie brushed her cheek with the silky green tassel. She doubtless did not mean these idle gestures to be distracting, but they most assuredly were.
“You have Dingle memorized,” she said.
“So, I hope, do you and many a tired nanny or parent.”
“You did not write those stories for the nannies and parents.”
Dunfallon’s panic rose higher, to the acid-in-the-back-of-the-throat stage. A cold sweat would soon follow if he didn’t…
Didn’t what? This was Emmie, who loved books and children and cranky old men and wayward cats. Emmie was not Papa bound on another excoriation of his third son’s myriad, egregious faults.
“The first volume of Dingle’s stories went into a second printing,” Emmie said, almost as if Dunfallon’s world was not coming asunder with old memories and new fears. “Between the two printings, there were, of course, a few corrections—printers are not perfect. There was also one change, made apparently by the author. Nobody knows why. He changed the word ‘commence’ to ‘begin.’ The sentence loses a little of its loftiness, but being both accessible to children and a tad lofty is a hallmark of Dingle’s style.”
Dunfallon wanted to beat himself over the head with her pillow.
“When you read to the children,” she went on, “you used the word ‘commence,’ found only in the rare first edition. Your publisher did not anticipate how wildly popular the stories would become, and thus the initial printing was quite modest. The second printing was much larger, and that’s the one all those nannies and parents have. The first editions are largely in the hands of collectors.”
Dane’s late father would have thundered at her to cease her impertinence, to spare him further exhibitions of female insolence. Dane was torn between a pressing need to leap out the French doors and a yearning to hug the library cat.
In the midst of this old dread of censure, a single thought penetrated: If he asked Emmie for her discretion, she would not betray his authorship. She was not a mean, blustering duke, but rather, a woman who applied reason and compassion in equal measure.
You can trust her, laddie. The warning came not in MacAlpin’s gruff baritone, but in the voice of a brother long gone to his reward.
Dunfallon took the pillow from Emmie and set it aside. “I promised my brother Secondus one thing as he gasped his last. Weak lungs, my father said. My brother expired of damned consumption, which isn’t supposed to afflict ducal heirs.”
“What did you promise your brother?”
“That I would not be like our father. Secondus was my friend and ally, the person who insisted that MacAlpin accompany me to Oxford. Secondus took the blame for many of my blunderings, because even Papa would not beat a consumptive, nor would he accuse his heir of lying.”
She patted Dunfallon’s arm. “I am so sorry.”
“One does not express pity for a duke, Miss Armstrong.”
Her next touch was more of a caress than a pat. “Is that what your strutting papa would have said?”
“God, yes, and then he would have treated the world to a good twenty minutes of shouted bloviations grounded solely in his conceits and fearful fancies.”
Emmie rose to go to the door, and Dunfallon’s heart nearly stopped beating. Don’t leave. I can try to explain. Please…
She let in the cat and returned to the sofa, this time sitting at Dunfallon’s hip. “I gather your father did not approve of your stories?”
Dunfallon was tempted to reassert his denials, to lie, strut, and paw and generally make an ass of himself before the woman he loved. That’s how a proper duke would handle the situation.
From the depths of his imagination, Dunfallon heard four small feline voices reproaching him: Use your head. Think before you act. Keep trying. Don’t give up. There’s always a way home.
Though he was not an intrepid kitten, and the family seat was a distant, drafty castle full of grim memories.
Where was home? Who was home?
“Dane?” Emmie took his hand and let her head fall to his shoulder. “Please tell me the rest of your story.”
Dunfallon’s heart began to beat like one of those war drums. “Not much to tell.”
Aristotle leaped to the sofa and sat at Dunfallon’s other hip, close enough that the cat’s purring was both a physical sensation and a soft hum.
“Tell me anyway.”
He was helpless to decline her invitation. “My father hated my stories, almost as much as he hated me. My oldest brother should have been the duke—a great strapping, bonnie laddie who loved to ride to hounds, shoot, and drink. Secondus was at least handsome and witty. But Papa was left with me, a shy, gangly, bookish disappointment—a disgrace. When he found out I’d been writing for children, he had me sent to Spain, to a unit that saw a great deal of action. He admonished me to make a man of myself or die trying.”
Somewhere between landing in Lisbon and surviving Waterloo, Dunfallon had figured out that one could be a man and still pen a few children’s stories. He’d never had the satisfaction of sharing that insight with his father.
“Dane, the old duke was the disgrace, not you. Your stories are about helpless kittens winning the day—through cooperation, cleverness, and bravery. Your father apparently regarded those tales as literary treason against his mutton-headed authority and the peerage generally. The kittens are decent little souls, and those who menace them are always abusing positions of authority.”
She saw without effort what Dunfallon had taken years to put together. “I sorted out that much in Spain. I also became an exemplary officer, then did my bit at Vienna, anything to avoid going back to my father’s house.” He would not call that dreary castle home, not in this context.
“And now you lead the matchmakers a dance here in London, when you aren’t lugging coal for me. Who else knows that you are a brilliant author?”
“I’m not brilliant.” Papa had been very clear on that point, and for the most part, Dunfallon agreed with him. “I’m a plodder, conscientious, and more than a bit stodgy.”
“Shy.” She hugged his arm. “And a brilliant author.”
That little, affectionate squeeze did something to Dunfallon’s heart. A weight slid away, a grief. “I am Christopher Dingle.” The words should have felt portentous, imbued with the gravity of a long-overdue truth, but instead, they felt… comfy. True, in an unremarkable way. The same way mulling spices smelled good and a purring cat was a delight.
In this office, with Emmie tucked against one side and Aristotle purring madly on the other, to admit authorship of some children’s tales was safe.
“Who else knows?” Emmie asked.
“MacAlpin, my old tutor. He would never betray me. Lord Bellefonte knows. He read the stories to his oldest daughter, whose juvenile critiques helped shape the final drafts.”
“How is it you entrusted the Earl of Bellefonte with this knowledge? He can be a bit frivolous.”
“Flirtatious, perhaps, but don’t be fooled by his charm. Nicholas is shrewd and ruthless when he has to be.”
“And he is your friend. I’m glad. We all need friends who understand us and stand by us even when we aren’t making much sense.”
Emmie had seen what all of society had ignored: The current Duke of Dunfallon was a lonely fellow, somewhat adrift, and not at all enamored of his title.
Whose privilege was it to stand by Emmie?
“Nicholas was sent off to school without warning,” Dunfallon said, “as I was. My oldest brother had just died, and my surviving brother was prone to a winter cough that lasted ten months of the year. Bellefonte had been separated from his older half-brother, and the parting left him heartbroken. Bellefonte was outlandishly tall even then, a giant among the other boys, with a heart to match. He took me under his physical and figurative wing and was no respecter of my privacy. We remained friends through university and beyond. That he liked my stories and did not laugh at them meant worlds to me.”
That Emmie liked Dunfallon’s kitten stories, and liked him, meant even more. “The countess knows of my authorship as well,” he went on. “Bellefonte let the secret slip in one of their many marital moments, but he assured me her ladyship can keep a confidence.”
“I haven’t shown my stories to anybody,” Emmie said. “I’ve pored over Dingle’s every word, drawn diagrams of his plots, studied his sentence structures, but what I wanted most to learn from him was how to reassure the vulnerable and the overlooked that they are equal to life’s challenges. You could write those stories because you know what it is to be without allies or influence. One would never think that of a ducal spare, but the truth is on the pages.”
Perhaps that’s why Dunfallon was determined to preserve the safety of his pseudonym—because the sad reality of life in his father’s house was in those stories.
“I like Dingle’s stories,” he said. “They represent my riposte to all of Papa’s lectures and sermons. I could never say, ‘Papa, you are a selfish embarrassment…’ But I could say, ‘There’s another way to go through life besides blustering and threatening when abusing one’s authority doesn’t see one’s every wish satisfied.’ The old man made me watch while he burned my first editions on his library hearth. I’m sure I was the picture of youthful devastation, but all the while, I knew the stories were safe.”
“Because you’d had them published?”
“Because even Papa could not burn down every library in the realm. I suspect he was unwell, in heart, soul, and mind. As his family dwindled and his years advanced, he became fanatic about standards, decorum, and consequence.”
Syphilis, perhaps, or the corrosive effect of meanness, drink, and loneliness.
“The children will want their story soon,” Emmie said, resting her head on his shoulder. “Will you read to them?”
“With pleasure, provided I don’t again find you napping with Mr. Johnson when I finish.”
They remained behind the closed door with Aristotle for another half hour. Emmie laughed at Dunfallon’s explanation of his initial foray into West Bart’s Lending, and Dunfallon agreed to make comments on the draft of her story.
He emerged from her office a changed, happier man. He was a fellow who had only one more question to pose if his joy was to be complete.
“Before we join battle with the Vandal horde, Emmie, please say you will be my wife. I would go down on bended knee here on the mezzanine, but that would make a spectacle of what should be a precious moment.”
At the top of the steps, she paused and gazed out over the library. “I would love to be Mrs. Christopher Dingle, and I thought Dane Dunn was a very worthy fellow too. Becoming a duchess, though… even your duchess would be quite a step.”
She deserved to be wooed, of course. He should not have rushed his fences with a woman who had every reason to view polite society—and marriage proposals generally—with a jaundiced eye.
He took her hand. “I would expect my duchess to be almost as devoted to libraries as she is to her duke.”
“You have the right of that, sir. I’ll not turn my back on West Bart’s Lending simply to mince about Mayfair at your side.”
“If we marry, I can promise you mincing about Mayfair will fall very low on my list of priorities.” He kissed her ink-stained fingers, ready to beg if necessary. “Please say you’ll have me, Emmie.”
“I can still look after West Bart’s Lending?”
“We can set up an endowment that will keep West Bart’s, its urchins, pensioners, cats, and pickpockets in cider and sandwiches until Mary Smith is named queen of the May. I will court you before all of London, flirt with Mrs. Oldbach herself, and—”
Emmie put her fingers to his lips. “You mean it? About the endowment and about not having to flit about every Venetian breakfast, grand ball, and musicale in Town?”
Dane was more than happy to give the social whirl a rest, and Emmie had good reasons to be wary of society.
“Within the limits of my station, I promise we will socialize only selectively.”
Emmie held his hand against her cheek. “Thank you. With those assurances, I can happily consent to be your wife, though I expect to wake up from a nap and find I have neglected my overdue notices while dreaming this whole conversation.”
“You are not asleep, Emmie Armstrong, and you are making my dreams come true. Thank you. Clichés come to mind, effusive, paltry clichés, so I will content myself with thanking you.”
Her smile was mischievous and sweet. “Is the sofa still too short?”
“It’s getting longer by the minute.”
“Naughty, sir. We’ve been spotted.”
Mary was at her post at the foot of the steps, glowering doom at any who thought to put off the reading of the daily story.
“When we’ve dispensed with the morning’s tasks,” Dunfallon said, “we can discuss particulars pertinent to the immediate future. Perhaps a repast in your office will suit?”
“A repast in my office will suit nicely. And I can tell you right now that for my morning gift—after a very short courtship—I must have a new story by the estimable Mr. Dingle. If you truly seek to impress me, a new volume of stories would be even better.”
She swanned down the steps and began assembling the children by the hearth, while Dunfallon remained on the mezzanine and hoped like hell that his beloved had been joking.
“Dunfallon’s father was awful,” Emmie said. “A martinet with no sense for his children’s feelings. What sort of man numbers his sons?”
Leah, Lady Bellefonte, sipped her tea and marveled. For the first time in living memory, Emmie Armstrong was babbling. She had been holding forth since ensconcing herself on the love seat opposite her ladyship’s perch on the sofa. The fire on the hearth in the countess’s private parlor softly crackled, and flurries danced past the window, while Emmie Armstrong chattered gaily on.
And about time too.
“His given name is Tertius,” she said. “The older brother was Secondus. He was consumptive and expired while Dane was in the military. Secondus held out until Dane could get leave so they at least took a proper farewell of one another. Secondus was also Dane’s ally. I suppose I should refer to Dane as Dunfallon, but the children still call him Mr. Dunn, when I so want them to be able to call him Mr. Dingle.”
Emmie was wearing a pretty frock for a change, in holiday red and green, and her eyes had taken on the sparkle Lady Bellefonte usually saw only when Emmie was critiquing Mr. Coleridge’s poetical maunderings.
“Emmie?”
“Hmm?”
“Has His Grace declared his intentions?”
“Yes.”
Nicholas had predicted as much. He’d said that if and when Dunfallon succumbed to love, he’d fall hard and not for a predictable diamond.
“Have you informed your brother?”
Emmie’s sparkle dimmed, and she considered her tea. “Ambrose is in Town. I know not why. He sent a note, and my fingers nearly froze holding it, the tone was so chilly. ‘I plan to spend the holidays on Humboldt Street. Please inform Aunt. Threadham.’”
“Now that is odd,” Lady Bellefonte said. “He might have written to your aunt rather than to you, and by rights, a dutiful nephew should pay a holiday call on his auntie.”
Emmie made a face at a cup of excellent China black. “You think he was warning me of such a visit? Or does he expect me to go down on my figurative knees, begging for his brotherly forgiveness when he’s the party in the wrong?”
Her ladyship considered what she knew of brothers—she had grown up with two, Nicholas had four, and the lot of them were difficult, dear men.
“I suspect Lord Threadham wasn’t clear in his mind about his own motives. He probably told himself you had a right to know his movements, that you and he might meet at some holiday function, and you are his sister after all. He would not have examined his reasoning more closely until after the letter had been posted, when it was safe to do so.”
Lady Bellefonte knew Ambrose, Viscount Threadham, only in passing. That no gossip concerning the viscount had reached her ladyship spoke well of him, but perhaps both discretion and debauchery numbered among his talents.
“Ambrose was such a happy boy,” Emmie said. “That he has become a grim, judgmental prig baffles and disappoints me.”
“Dunfallon might understand the transformation. He’s not exactly a dashing blade himself.”
Emmie cut herself a slice of the gingerbread loaf that had as yet escaped predation by Nicholas or the children.
“Why do you think Ambrose wrote to me?”
“Because he misses you, and the holidays are a time to be with loved ones?”
“This gingerbread is wonderful,” Emmie said, a little too brightly. “Lighter than the usual varieties.”
“The recipe was developed by Nicholas’s brother Max. He’s something of a food chemist, and he has a blend of mulling spices that goes so perfectly with his gingerbread that the Regent ought to pay to serve it at court. Max claims pepper is the secret ingredient in both.”
“If he admits it, is it a secret?”
“A family secret, then. I’ll send some gingerbread to West Bart’s with you. Have you and Dunfallon set a date?”
If they were wise, they’d make a start for Scotland after the first of the year and marry north of the border without any fuss—or with as little fuss as ducal nuptials could involve.
The parlor door opened, and as predictably as bees flew to blooming honeysuckle, Nicholas, Earl of Bellefonte, sauntered into the room, pointedly ignoring the offerings on the tea tray.
And still, after years of marriage, parenting, and muddling on together, Leah felt her heart leap as she beheld her golden god of a darling husband.
“Lovey mine, I did not know Miss Armstrong had graced us with a call. Miss Armstrong, you look positively radiant. Pray tell, what has put such becoming roses in your cheeks? Could it be you’ve had a sample of Max’s gingerbread?”
“Paws off the gingerbread, your lordship,” Lady Bellefonte snapped. “You will spoil your supper.”
“A man of my generous proportions needs at least four snacks between luncheon and supper.” He batted his lashes at Emmie. “Support me in my famished desperation, Miss Armstrong, or I shall faint dead away.”
Emmie offered him the plate holding her half-finished slice of gingerbread. “I could not have a fainting earl on my conscience, particularly when allowing you to topple to the carpet would shake the rafters and frighten the children.”
Nicholas took a bite and put the slice back on the plate. “A woman of keen understanding. I am told by a little ducal birdie that felicitations are in order.”
Even for Nick, that was forward, but then, he was protective of his friends. Also of his family, his pets, his employees, and his enormous mare—Buttercup, by name.
“I have given Dunfallon permission to pay me his addresses,” Emmie said, positively glowing to impart that news. “The rest of the situation requires further discussion.”
Nick helped himself to the rest of Emmie’s gingerbread, for which Lady Bellefonte would remonstrate with him in private and at length. Her sternest scolds would probably result in his lordship resorting to some kissing. Not the most desperate tactic in his marital arsenal, but lamentably effective when a wife was trying to be dignified and imposing.
“If Dunfallon should for any reason vex you in the course of this courtship,” Nick said, looking for once serious as he took a seat beside his wife, “you will apply to me, and I will sort him out.”
“If there’s sorting to be done, my lord, that office falls to me as His Grace’s intended. I’ve encouraged him to resume writing his children’s stories, for example.”
Emmie was quietly exploding with joy, if her smile was any indication. Her ladyship had read the Christopher Dingle stories and been charmed by them. The tales worked well for children, and the prose was entertaining to adults as well. The wit was subtle and uproarious, and more than a bit irreverent.
Nicholas was eyeing the rest of the gingerbread loaf, which he could consume in its entirety as one of his fourteen afternoon snacks.
“Dunfallon has agreed to resume penning children’s tales?” he asked.
“As my morning gift, I’ve requested a new kitten adventure, and I’m sure a second volume will be very well received. Christopher Dingle has a following, and we’ve been waiting years for more of his work.”
“Have you met Dunfallon’s sister?” Nicholas asked, edging his knee closer to the tea tray. “Impressive woman. Has three daughters, and in a very few years, they will be gracing the ballrooms.”
Nick had just changed the subject, though he was among the most devoted of Christopher Dingle’s followers. He’d read those stories to Leonie, the oldest daughter of the house, when she’d been in leading strings.
“Lady Crestwood will be at my open house,” Lady Bellefonte said. “The one you will attend, along with your prospective spouse. I believe her ladyship is coming in part to watch her brother dodge all the mistletoe Nicholas is hanging in unavoidable locations.”
“Please say you’ll come.” Nick took a sip of Lady Bellefonte’s tea. “I want to see the look on Dunfallon’s face when my brothers celebrate the season with you beneath that mistletoe.”
“They won’t find me lurking near the kissing boughs, my lord. I’ll be assisting her ladyship to guard the gingerbread from hungry elves.” Emmie rose. “I have tarried too long away from my duties, and I can see myself out. I’m busier than anticipated this holiday season, and there aren’t enough hours in the day.”
Lady Bellefonte stood and tugged her husband to his feet as well. “We’ll both see you out, Emmie, and you—when next we are private—will regale me with an explanation for why a duke ended up sweeping the hearth at West Bart’s Lending. I will hold the matter in confidence, but I am dying of curiosity.”
“An interesting tale, I’m sure,” his lordship said, all innocence. “Shall I escort you back to the library, Miss Armstrong? Send a footman with you?”
“You shall not,” Emmie replied. “I’m traveling exactly two genteel streets over, and one of the benefits of becoming socially obscure is that I can eschew some of Society’s sillier rules. For now.”
She was still beaming and blushing as she bustled out the door.
“So in love,” Nick said. “Almost as in love as we are.”
“You are enamored of the gingerbread on my tea tray and think to sweeten me up with flirtation. I neglected to serve myself a portion. For that reason only, you may accompany me back to the parlor.”
“I am your most humble servant, though if you asked me to lug coal and sweep the hearths, I might be a bit… nonplussed.”
“What was Dunfallon doing at a lending library, Nicholas? His castle probably has a library bigger than West and East Bart’s combined.”
Nick paused outside the parlor. “He was hiding, lovey. He dodged into West Bart’s to avoid an encounter with Miss Peasegill. I waited half an hour for him to emerge, and yet, he tarried among the books. I understand why he’d enjoy a literary refuge, but I fear our Emerald is in for a rude shock.”
Lady Bellefonte opened the parlor door. “He’d never play Emmie false, Nicholas. Duke or not, Dunfallon is a gentleman.”
“He’d never play her false—not in that sense, especially not after this masquerading as a curate business—but he’s also not about to resume writing children’s stories. I’ve tried every way I know to get him to take up his pen again, but he’s not having it. When a Scottish duke makes up his mind, only his granny or his conscience can make him change it, and Dunfallon has no living grannies.”
Lady Bellefonte took her place on the sofa and gestured for her husband to close the parlor door. Nick complied, then came down beside her and curled an arm around her shoulders.
“Dunfallon dedicated his storybook to my Leonie,” he said, referring her ladyship’s step-daughter, who’d come into the world well before the marriage. “‘To a very young lady of grace and charm.’ He’d not met her, but she was his first critic, after me. You need a larger slice than that, lovey.”
“This is your slice.” She passed him his treat on a plate. “Why won’t Dunfallon resume writing? His authorship has stayed secret for years, and it could surely remain so. Emmie seems to think more stories are both inevitable and to be prized above all other gifts. She’s happy to marry the author, and willing to tolerate the ducal trappings that come with him.”
“Emmie is bound for disappointment. Dunfallon says Spain changed him, but I think the loss of his brothers changed him more, and inheriting the title finished the job. He’s entirely the lofty peer now, not a fanciful youth bent on literary rebellions. Why is your piece larger than mine?”
“Because, as God and all his herald angels know, I must keep up my strength.”
“What about my strength?”
“Eat your gingerbread, Nicholas, and tell me why Spain or Waterloo or losing siblings would disincline Dunfallon to write more stories. He has the knack of crafting a tale that entertains and instructs without ever preaching.”
Nick took a nibble of his gingerbread. He was a dainty eater, for all his size. “Dunfallon’s father burned his stories, and that had to hurt like hell. To burn books your own son has written, lovely little stories about fluffy kittens and their intrepid feline adventures… I did not always understand my father, but I knew without doubt that he loved me in his way.”
Lady Bellefonte poured herself another cup of tea. “My father hated me, and books were one of my few consolations. I hope His Grace does start writing again. That he resume the use of his talent would mean a great deal to Emmie.”
Nicholas set aside his plate of half-eaten gingerbread. “I don’t think it’s that Dunfallon refuses to write more stories. I think it’s that he cannot.”
“That is a problem, given Emmie’s expectations. Getting them to the altar will take more than mistletoe and kisses, Nicholas.”
“I fear you are right, as usual, lovey mine. But speaking of kisses…”
“I saw you lock the door, sir. My holiday wish for Emmie and Dunfallon is that they are as prone to locking doors years after speaking their nuptial vows as we are.”
“Don’t neglect your gingerbread, lovey. You are soon to need all of your considerable strength.”
Lady Bellefonte finished every crumb of her gingerbread.