’Tis the Season for Giving Revenge
By Clarissa Weatherby (and her faithful transcriptionist, Courtney McCaskill)
Ah, Christmas! ’Tis the season for hope and hospitality. For festivity and family. For mirth and miracles.
But occasionally, it is the season for revenge.
Picture yourself receiving an invitation to a house party from the Earl and Countess of Helmsley, requesting the pleasure of your company at their Yorkshire estate during the month of December.
You know it is all the work of Sir Henry Kenchington, your contact at the Foreign Office. Wallflowers such as yourself do not receive invitations to such lofty entertainments without someone pulling a few strings, but, as England’s head spymaster, Sir Henry has more than a few strings at his disposal.
You know it is a mission. You know you are there to do a job. As Sir Henry is wont to say, behind every weakness, there lies a strength, if you are clever enough to see it. As a wallflower, you blend into the wallpaper. But the one advantage of no one ever noticing you is that, well, no one ever notices you. Men do not notice you at dinner, and they do not notice you at the ball. They do not notice you during the game of lawn bowls organized by your hostess, nor do they notice you when you hand them the cup of tea you took the time to prepare to their exact preferences.
But, most importantly, they do not notice you lingering in the corner when they are discussing their deepest, darkest secrets.
This is why you, Clarissa Weatherby, are on Lord and Lady Helmsley’s guest list, in spite of your firmly established status as a wallflower. Everyone thinks you are meek and dull. And perhaps you are, but that is beside the point. The point is that you are clever. You are talented.
And you have been invited to this house party to leverage those talents, as you always do, for king and country.
And yet, even for a seasoned professional such as yourself, it is hard not to experience a moment’s yearning. This is, after all, the first proper holiday house party to which you have merited an invitation! And the earl and countess even live in a castle! Even if you know you are there to perform a job, it’s hard not to daydream about curling up with a book in the great hall next to a roaring Yule log. Or enjoying a glass of piping hot eggnog after a morning spent gathering holly and mistletoe.
Who knows—perhaps there will even be snow upon the moors.
By the time your hired carriage finally makes its way into York, and you prepare to start the last leg of your journey, you have been anticipating this assignment so keenly, you think that nothing could possibly dull your enjoyment of it.
You are wrong.
Because there, in that last carriage leaving York in the gathering snowstorm, you encounter him.
Rupert Dupree.
The same Rupert Dupree who jilted you.
Humiliated you.
The man whose actions caused not only you but also your three sisters to be saddled with the cruel nickname The Weatherby Wallflowers.
The man who did his level best to ruin your life.
Not that he succeeded. As if the likes of Rupert Dupree could keep Clarissa Weatherby down!
But I am sure you can imagine why, upon encountering Rotten Rupert in that carriage, a girl’s thoughts would turn away from mistletoe and plum pudding, and toward revenge.
Because Rupert Dupree is going to pay.
Christmas or no.
You’ll find Clarissa and Rupert’s story in Snowbound with the Scoundrel by Courtney McCaskill, available November 12, 2024. Before that, be sure to check out the story of the eldest Weatherby sister, Eleanor, in A Wallflower Never Surrenders, available July 9, 2024.