Chapter One

Colin Rowley, Viscount Hartsford, glanced up from the billiards table where he contemplated his opening shot when his ancient butler shuffled into the room, a vellum envelope in his white-gloved hand. The man insisted in dressing himself in the silver and royal blue livery that had long gone out of fashion with the Duke of Lancaster’s household—Colin’s father—and no amount of gentle hints could change the old retainer’s mind. That was how he’d done things when he’d worked with the duke. He wouldn’t alter it now that he was in the employ of the duke’s second son. No plain black suits with white shirts for him, thank you very much.

“Put it with the other post and leave me be, Drayton.” Colin waved a hand and returned to pondering the colorful balls aligned in a triangle. He had no use for letters and had no interest in anything that didn’t directly benefit him. Christmastide season or not, he was a selfish bastard, and everyone knew that his first order of business was entertainment to please himself.

A soft clearing of the man’s throat indicated the butler hadn’t followed the instructions. Most annoying. “My lord, this didn’t come with the post like the others. It came by special courier and bears the Duke of Lancaster’s seal.” He coughed into his free hand. “I suggest that you attend to this if you won’t anything else.”

Now the butler was the expert on what he should and should not do? Of course, he was probably right, and if Colin didn’t do it, the man would tattle like he was a brat of ten in the school yard. “Bloody hell.” Colin threw his cue stick on the table and finally turned to the elderly servant, who’d been passed down from his brother when the butler had become too old to handle the needs of such a lively household. Hand-me-downs and second thoughts. Fitting, since no one expected much from him. “No doubt Father wishes to summon me to Christmastide festivities at Lancaster Hall.” The great monstrosity of a castle set amidst the rolling hills, lush farmland, and thick forests of Chesterfield in Derbyshire. Crumbling pile if ever there was one.

“I wouldn’t know, my lord.” Drayton, with a shaking, blue-veined hand, extended the note.

The familiar swoop of his father’s heavy black handwriting immediately caught Colin’s eye. How many times had he received letters with the same scrawl throughout the years? How many times had he tossed them away, unread? A handful, that he knew, for he hadn’t read a single letter from his father since that terrible year when everything in his life went south.

“Of course not.” Colin refused to let those memories loose in his mind. They were in the past for a reason. When he snapped up the missive, Drayton pivoted and made his doddering, ponderous way back toward the door. “There is one more item of business, my lord.” He glanced at Colin over his shoulder, a hint of a smile on his lips. “Your grandmother is in the parlor. She wishes to speak with you. Post haste.”

What other horrors will this day bring? All he wished to do for the rest of this month was meet his chums at the clubs, attend a few operas with various widows and then spend the nights in the perfumed arms of those same ladies. It might be the Christmastide season when everyone looked for signs, wonders, and miracles, but he was content to settle for physical pleasures and removing coin from his friends at the faro tables. Couple those things with wine or brandy, and it all sounded like the perfect way to usher in the season. With his mental faculties safely intact and no maudlin memories to bedevil him. “I’ll attend to her presently.”

The viscount stared at the familiar red wax seal that bore his family’s crest complete with a rampant lion. How long had it been since he’d seen his father, his family? Weeks, months, a year? Time moved quickly when one chased pleasurable pursuits. He blew out a breath. What a lie. Oh, he knew exactly how long it had been. Seventeen years. That’s how long it had been since he’d stepped foot in Lancaster Hall. Colin ignored the tightness in his chest that thinking of his family always brought. His father didn’t truly care about what he did with his life. Hadn’t he made that obvious with his silence over the years? Yes, the duke wrote regularly, and Colin dutifully tossed each and every missive into a trunk at the foot of his bed, unopened. Perhaps he didn’t care what his father had to say. Nothing would change the past.

Yet now, here was an official summons, sent by special courier and not the post. No doubt the duke wished for this one to have a better chance of being read. Or mayhap something dire had happened to one of his siblings. His gut clenched in sudden fear. Fine. Let’s have this over with. He’d be in heavy annoyance if this was a mere announcement that his older brother or sister had added to their nurseries again. Copulated like rabbits, those two, each with a passel of brats. Did they not value peace and quiet? At least his younger sister hadn’t bred yet.

Rolling his eyes, Colin tore into the envelope and then withdrew the parchment within, letting the ivory vellum envelope fall to the carpet unheeded. When he unfolded the single sheet of paper, he huffed. It was the summons he originally thought.

“What, I don’t even rank a proper salutation?” Colin flicked the paper with a finger before he continued to read.

You have been gone long enough, and it’s time I had my whole family together again for the Christmastide holidays. Your siblings miss you; I miss you. Please come to Lancaster Hall and spend the season with all of us. Get to know your nieces and nephews. No time like the present to mend fences and make a fresh start. No, it’s not the same since your mother died, but we do our best, and the holidays are always delightful.

I can already see the look on your face. You’ll tear this letter up the same as you’ve probably done with the others. However, let me sweeten the deal this year. If you arrive home to Lancaster Hall by Christmas morning, I shall give you my prized charger, Thor. He is a descendant of Thunder, the horse you adored as a young man, and he’s the fastest in the county. In addition, I will deed you my estate in Surrey, for those days when you tire of knocking about Town with your ne’er-do-well friends and scandalous women.

Please think about it. Christmas is for family. I’d like to have mine intact this year. I’m not growing any younger...

Yours respectfully,

Lancaster

Colin snorted. Family, indeed. They were a family when his mother was alive. However, the man had indeed sweetened the pot. This changed everything. He’d hankered after that charger, Thunder, for years, but his father had denied him time out of hand, saying he wasn’t responsible enough to handle such a powerful horse. Every horse Thunder had sired over the years had gone on to win countless races throughout England and a few times overseas. A gift such as this was nothing to sneeze at.

As for the small property in Surrey? Well, it had a decent manor in the countryside along with good hunting in the autumn, close enough to Town that he could make the trip in a day. He’d always salivated at the thought of having a place to remove to during the summer and winter months, especially since his older brother considered the castle in Derbyshire his home when he wasn’t in London.

Seventeen years was a long time to return as the family prodigal. When last he’d been at Lancaster Hall, he’d been a lad of one and twenty, and thought the world owed him everything as the second son of a powerful duke and the third out of his four children. He was reckless, selfish and spoiled, lived very much for himself.

A slow smile curved his lips. Not that he’d changed all that much. Sure, he was a widower with a daughter now, but that didn’t mean he’d given up chasing his own pleasure or entertainment. Anything to keep the past at bay. Could he give those things up for a couple weeks of rustication, and inundated by his relatives?

Then his smile died, and he glared at the letter. Once, there had been more than enough in the country to keep him occupied. A certain young lady who he’d thought to spend the rest of his life with had captured his attention and his heart, but that future had crumbled with his naïve dreams once he’d spoken them aloud on that long-ago snowy day, and he’d fled from Lancaster Hall with the bitter taste of embarrassment and defeat on his palate once Christmastide festivities concluded.

Perhaps he wouldn’t go after all. How could he when every foot of that property would bring him face to face with a past he’d rather forget on multiple levels?

“I cannot do it.” Colin folded the letter, retrieved the dropped envelope and then stuffed the paper inside. On the other hand, his father offered too great a prize to ignore, and no doubt Lucy Hudson had moved far away from Derbyshire over the years. There would be no awkward moments between them, and he wouldn’t need to remember...

...how things used to be so good, before she rejected him out of hand. His chest hurt with an ache as if he’d received the news only that morning.

Ah, Lucy, his first crush, his first love, his first heartache. She’d been eighteen the last time he’d seen her—fresh-faced, innocent, with her ice blue eyes full of love... for him.

Her family lived on the property neighboring Lancaster Hall, her father a second son to a baron. She and her siblings had grown up with Colin and his family. They were in and out of each other’s pockets, and when they’d grown old enough for schooling and they went their separate ways, there was always the Christmastide holidays when they came together again. Mischief inevitably followed, but those halcyon days were magical, full of games, stealing sweets from the kitchens, laughter, playing in the snow.... And kisses whenever he and Lucy could slip away.

That was before everything had changed, before the drastic shift in circumstances that had rocked his world to its foundations and caught him up as collateral damage. He’d never been the same after that.

Colin crushed the envelope in his fist. But Lucy wasn’t there any longer, and she hadn’t been in his life for seventeen years. She had followed her own dreams; so had he—separately. Why shouldn’t he visit Lancaster Hall now? It was his family’s country seat, and she? She was no one, a woman from his past. That was all. And his future was more than full of other, more interesting females, women who wished to be with him regardless of the kind of person he was. Women who took no issue with how he lived his life and had no problem bending themselves around his rakish ways. Women who didn’t expect him to live up to their ideals.

Women who were so different from Lucy Hudson, who he’d not had cause to remember after all these years, except for the damn ache in the region of his heart whenever he encountered anyone by the same name. So why the devil did those images jump out to bedevil him now? He chased away the thought with a string of vulgarity. Merely a weakness due to the impending holiday season. They’d once been interlocked—Christmas and Lucy; now they weren’t. Christmas only served to remind a man of his mistakes, and who wanted that? Time had moved on, and his life was his own.

Lucy didn’t deserve another second of his thoughts. She had certainly never wasted a minute on him after those damning words she’d said that long-ago winter’s day.

I owe her nothing. With a decided nod, Colin jammed the envelope into the inside pocket of his jacket. For the prize his father offered, he’d fight those old demons. He exited the billiards room and swiftly made his way through the townhouse until he reached the parlor where his grandmother waited.

As soon as he pushed open the door, he located the opinionated lady—his father’s mother—and the Dowager Duchess of Lancaster. But to him, she was the only woman to believe in him throughout the whole of his life, no matter what he did or didn’t do. She never judged, only asked occasionally if he was happy.

“Grandmother.” Colin moved across the floor. He took the old lady’s gloved hands in his before dropping a kiss onto each papery thin cheek. She smelled of roses, the same as she had all his life. The scent always took him back to summer holidays at Lancaster Hall where the days had stretched out in endless fun and the hills had echoed with sweet laughter belonging to... Lucy. Damn it all to hell. “What a pleasure to see you again,” he managed to utter around a growl.

Her faded brown eyes flashed with life. “What a liar you are, Colin.” She pulled away and then tugged him down beside her on the low, mauve crushed velvet sofa. Her snow-white curls bounced beneath a bonnet trimmed in dark green that matched her gown. “You neither want me here nor do you wish to see anyone just now, for the Christmastide season has always been difficult for you.”

A bit of heat crept up the back of his neck. “Is there any other way, love?” he quipped, as was his wont when she introduced this line of questioning. “Besides, I adore when you drop in to visit. I live for those times.” He would do anything for his grandmother.

She rolled her eyes. “You’ve lied so much you are incapable of telling a truth, or at least remembering what those truths are.” Then she winked. “I don’t mind. It makes you more interesting than your siblings. But it does make me worry.”

“I wonder if that’s true.” His grandmother sighed. She held his gaze, her expression sober. “I assume you’ve received the missive my son sent?”

“Oh, yes.” Colin patted his jacket. “Father wants me to come to Lancaster Hall, and if I do so by Christmas morning, he’ll give me a race horse as well as the property in Surrey.” The more he thought about the bribe, the more undecided his thoughts became. The second he arrived at the Hall, the family would suck him back within their folds with excessive demands upon his time. No chance of escaping. Did he want that for his life?

“Sounds like he’s desperate if he’s offering bribes.” She patted Colin’s hand. “Do you plan to make the journey?”

“It is quite tempting, I must say.” Colin allowed a small smile. “I’ve always hankered after that property, not to mention a race horse.”

“If that is what finally brings you home, then it’s all to the good, though I’m disappointed my son has stooped so low.” His grandmother smiled. “Your father wants to see you. That is all. He’s growing older and he misses you, takes it as a personal affront that you’ve stayed away for so long.”

“We are all older, Grandmother. He could see me whenever he liked during his stints in London, but he does not.”

“He’s afraid of his reception, and he’s proud. Same as you.” Silence brewed between them for long moments marked by the relentless ticking of the long case clock in one corner of the room. “It wasn’t his fault your mother died.”

His gut tightened, the same as it always did when he thought of his mother. He’d suspected he’d been her favorite, for she’d doted on him differently than she’d done with his siblings. Mother had loved all things Christmastide so much—as had he—that she’d started talking about decorations and festivities in the autumn. She’d even instructed the servants at Lancaster Hall not to take the evergreen boughs, ribbons, and the tin and glass baubles down until mid-January when the family departed for London so his father could attend to his parliament duties and the children returned to school.

Without her in his life, Christmas fell flat, seemed empty. It was one of the many reasons he actively avoided the holiday.

“No, it wasn’t, but it is his fault he didn’t care enough to keep up her traditions. As if her views never mattered.” The year following his mother’s death, when he’d discovered the duke wouldn’t indulge in half of what she’d always done, he’d decided right then visits to the Hall were over. How could a person celebrate the season correctly without all the accompaniments? It was almost as if his mother’s death had happened again.

His grandmother’s smile held a sad edge. “Your father was grieving back then, the same as you, but you are both so stubborn, you didn’t realize you needed each other during that time. You need each other now.” She grabbed his hand and held it, and the frailness of her grip surprised him. Soon she would leave him as well. “He has changed from those early years, Colin. Now, he keeps up with traditions in a way your mother would have loved and celebrated.”

Colin snorted. “Somehow, I don’t believe that. Father didn’t enjoy the holiday as much as Mother.”

“True, but then, he is much different than her.” His grandmother’s eyes filled with annoyance. “Perhaps you need to change perspective, for it’s true, but you wouldn’t know because you’re too obstinate to visit.”

“Yes.” Then she softened her tone and approach. “Your sister Julia misses you the most.”

Julia, his younger sister, all of two and thirty now. She’d been fifteen when he’d left. His chest tightened. “I’ve been away so long, I don’t even know her anymore. She’s not a schoolgirl.”

“No, she’s not.” His grandmother wagged a finger. “Lady Julia is a bit like untamed countryside. Was a hoyden then. Still is, and she’s broken hearts along the way, never caring to settle down.” A flash of admonition filled the older lady’s eyes. “Perhaps she saw your bid for freedom as something she wanted for herself.” She shrugged. “I wish she would calm enough for a man to tame her.”

Colin rolled his eyes. “At times men don’t wish for the challenge.” He waved a free hand in the air. “I refuse to discuss my little sister’s love life. Why are you really here?”

“Direct. I like it.” Her smile held a mysterious edge and sent shivers of foreboding up his spine. “Come home, boy. Where your father will use bribery, I shall appeal to your emotions. Find a lady and settle down. Marry. Be happy, but come home this year.”

“I am happy.” Gently, he withdrew his hand from hers. “Why the devil does everyone assume a fellow has to marry in order to be happy?” He glanced at his grandmother. “Remember, I did marry once. I am a much merrier chap now.” If a man didn’t set his heart on a woman, that organ couldn’t get broken. And that union had been ill-advised at best, brokered because the lady in question had been with child. It had been a matter of honor, prompted by threats from his father to avoid scandal, and he’d thought he could truly find the gladness he’d spent a lifetime chasing.

“Don’t lie to me again.” She rapped his hand with her fingers. Her gravelly voice rang with the authority to which she’d become accustomed over the course of her lifetime. “You’re not happy. Hell, you’re not content. I can see it in your eyes. In fact, I think you’re searching for something, even if you don’t know that yet.”

“Grandmother...” Why couldn’t his family see that his life as an eight and thirty gentleman worked perfectly for him and that he needed nothing else in life? But the longer he held her gaze, the more his protest began to disintegrate. If he acknowledged she was correct and that sometimes in the dark of night when he awoke alone, he wished things had been different, then his carefully crafted façade would break.

Where would that leave him? Facing the facts that he led an empty existence with no way out? Or that he was a horrible father who was teaching his only daughter bad habits?

Finally, he sighed. “I’m afraid I don’t know what true happiness is anymore.” Women, cards, coin, drinking, they didn’t hold the appeal they once had and hadn’t for some time. Without them, what was left of him?

“Oh, my dear boy.” His grandmother patted his cheek. “I’ll give you the best advice I can. Find Christmas again and you’ll find the happiness that eludes you.”

“It is. Do it for your daughter. You’ve neglected her enough leading this lifestyle. It’s time to grasp change.” The old lady pierced him with her gaze. “Bring her with you and show her the place that built your childhood. Let her see the holiday through your memories, for you loved it so. It will bring you closer. Not all of those memories are bad.” She raised an eyebrow. “Show her, before you lose her too.”

His chest tightened. Another truth, and this one hit all too close. His fifteen-year-old daughter, Ellen, was growing into a hoyden with no sense of manners or morals, two steps away from being expelled from her finishing school, and it was very much his fault. “Is it that obvious?”

“To me? Yes. To others?” His grandmother shrugged. “There is still time for her to behave in a manner acceptable for a young lady of breeding, but you need to be a father instead of a contemporary.” The older lady stood. She shook out her skirts. “I’m telling you to think about things that don’t directly affect you. Come home for Christmas. Sometimes the balm of family is all you need to heal.”

Colin hopped to his feet. “Do you go to Lancaster Hall as well? Perhaps we can travel together.”

“I have made other arrangements, for I assumed you would not agree to the trip. In fact, I leave in two days.”

“So soon? If I go, it will most certainly not happen until the 20^th. That assumes four days for travel with one to spare.” No reason to depart sooner and spend even more time with his kin.

“I have my reasons.” Her smile was decidedly mysterious. “I will be waiting for you in Derbyshire and we will enjoy the Christmastide together, as we used to, and I will tell tales by the fire with a cup of mulled wine with my whole family gathered around.”

“Fair enough.” Feeling nostalgic, he collected his grandmother into an impulsive hug. “I shall see you for Christmas breakfast.”

“I know you will, sonny. Oh, I cannot wait!” With a last pat of her hand, she sailed from the room.

Colin tried to relax against the squabs of his traveling coach, but the vehicular traffic that clogged the streets of Mayfair worked against that coveted state. Carriages creeped and crawled until finally the coach came to a rocking halt just past Hanover Square.

“Devil take it! I knew I should never have consented to this trip.” With jerky movements, he rolled down the window and then stuck his head out to gauge the trouble himself. “It’s a sign, I tell you.”

“What is happening?” his daughter asked as she glanced out her window. Boredom lined her face in profile while she twirled a golden curl about her forefinger. She looked much like her mother, right down to the pout.

“I am not certain, but this is ridiculous.” In desperate need of action, Colin opened the door and then swung himself down from the conveyance.

A mail coach had apparently broken down. The vehicle tilted alarmingly to the left while the driver helped passengers out. Another man freed luggage from the top only to drop it in an ignoble pile in the middle of the street. His journey would take four days; he didn’t need further delay.

To his driver he said, “Wait here. I’ll see what the trouble is and if I can fix it so we might be on our way.”

The closer he came to the cluster of displaced travelers, the more he couldn’t believe the evidence of his own eyes. It couldn’t be. Why the devil is she here? Surely it couldn’t be true. Trick of the light, ghosts of the past? He stared harder and even narrowing his gaze didn’t give him any different information. It is! His chest tightened, and his heart thudded into painful life as if it had previously been dormant.

Standing within that knot of people was Lucy Ashbrook nee Hudson, a little older and wiser but still quite fetching with her experience.

A slow, calculating smile curved his lips. How fortuitous, frightening even. Perhaps he could alleviate his ennui, plus acquire a traveling companion for Ellen, for he’d completely forgotten she would need such on the journey. Hell, he’d offer to drop Lucy wherever she wanted along the way, but in the meanwhile, he would make her regret ever rejecting him.