Chapter Fifteen

Tricks and Treats, Please

Jasper’s carriage stopped in front of the countess’s townhouse. The anger at the barrister had begun to melt like the ices in the bowls he juggled.

But he possessed second thoughts about tossing Miss Burghley to the wolves—his sweet daughters and Lady and Lord Crisdon. It might be too much.

“I’m done with my ice, Lord Hartwell,” Miss Burghley said, “I could help you with your bowls.”

Blue tinged her full, kissable lips.

“Was the barberry good? There was only enough for one lemon. I promised it to another. You don’t mind being second?”

“No, my lord. I’m very used to it. The barberry was very good.” She peered out the window. “Crisdon’s?”

Frederica didn’t seem angered by his baiting, but the beauty was too smart to be proven wrong so easily. That Jasper knew.

After setting the bowls on the seat, he leaned forward and dug a handkerchief out of his pocket but hesitated to mop the gorgeous mouth he wanted to explore. This wasn’t Lucy, or Lydia, or Anne, but a fully-grown woman.

His memories of the morning she’d awakened in his arms peeled away a little more. She had kissed him back. He had enjoyed the fullness of her soft lips.

He blinked as she stared at him. He took the cloth and mopped her mouth, slow and gentle like the kiss he needed to give her. “There’s blue….”

It was all he could say without babbling and taking her in his arms.

For a moment, Jasper closed his eyes to regain his composure. Perhaps, but the hunger was too strong. If he kissed her and did it right this time, would she be his? Would she kiss him back?

“So, I’m accompanying you to Crisdon’s or is this just one errand of many?” Her voice was airy as if he had kissed her. “Lord Hartwell?”

“Miss Frederica Burghley, be patient. Here, hold on to this bowl. You can give it to your favorite. Lucy loves lemon ice.”

Frederica’s hazel eyes widened. Sunlight reflected bits of gold and fear as she abandoned her muff and took the white bowls into her bone-colored gloves.

Jasper led the Butterfly up the stairs. A footman took her wrap and fur-lined cape, and Jasper stared him down for looking annoyed at holding the dripping bowls. After retrieving them, Jasper caught some of the spilling treat with his finger, then popped it into his mouth. He was tempted to share, hoping she would offer her lips to him even if was just to his finger…but not here with the earl. Somewhere private, like in the carriage.

“Lord Hartwell?”

“Just thinking. Come along, Miss Burghley.”

Fully into the polished marble hall, they were confronted by two blond sprites standing at the top of the stairs. Each bouncing up and down.

“Papa! A second visit.” Lydia began to dance about, dropping her book as she dashed down the steps.

Anne, his oldest, surely decided to adhere to Lady Crisdon’s demands of decorum particularly after the dressing-down for the bucket of snow incident. Ah, the countess knew how to make one feel low.

“Papa, Miss Burghley,” Anne said. She lifted her head high. “It is so nice of you to join us.”

He smiled inside. Anne looked the most like Maria, very blond, very slender, and medium in height, but then he silently rooted for her awful antics to start—Crisdon-over-the-top-level antics to start—buckets of water, snow, paint, a food fight, a plague, something to show Frederica she wasn’t ready for instant motherhood.

But Anne didn’t throw things, only offered a hug around his waist. “Ladies, we should take these treats to the dining room. The countess won’t like any more spills on her floors or the imported rugs.”

“Yes, Papa.” The girls said this in unison, as if their spirits had deflated.

He waggled his brows to encourage disaster, but they paid him no attention.

Lydia looped arms with Anne. “This way.”

So proper, the sprites dressed in their whitest muslin gowns, silver ribbons threaded through their curls. “Look, Miss Burghley, silver and gold for their hair.”

His friend seemed lost for a moment as they stood in the entry of Crisdon’s townhome. It was smaller than Downing or Grandbole. So it couldn’t be the lack of gilded trim making her reticent.

“What is wrong, Miss Burghley?”

“You’ve never asked me directly to spend time with your children. I only happened to do so because of Theodosia at Tradenwood or when you brought them to Papa’s.”

She looked genuinely touched. He wouldn’t ruin it by saying this was to prove a point. Instead, he smiled back at her then tilted his head toward his daughters, one skipping, the other traipsing down the lush mahogany floors.

“Miss Burghley, we need to get these to them before it turns ugly.”

“Ugly, my lord?”

“Unruly, Miss Burghley.”

When they reached the room with red-silk papered walls, he put the bowls on the grand table, a large oval dressed in crisp white linens and silver candlesticks.

Lydia stepped in front of Frederica. “Is that for us, Papa?”

Rude. Good. His dark hopes were starting. “Not if you’ve been at your tricks. Then Miss Burghley will be forced to eat them all. Perhaps in front of you. Right, Miss Burghley?”

“I’m sure these girls have been angels, my lord. No one should deprive them of their treats. Tell your father, Miss Fitzwilliam and Miss Lydia, that his fears of you both misbehaving are unfounded.”

Frederica’s voice was sweet and plying.

And his girls smiled and ate it up like the ice they wanted to consume. His daughters bounced about him, innocent, without a care—this was how he loved them the best.

“Yes, we’ve been good,” Lydia said.

“It’s only a few hours since we saw you, Papa,” Anne said with outstretched hands.

Had he overplayed his hand? His moppets were jumping around Miss Burghley. “Did Aunt have her baby yet?” asked Lydia.

Anne nodded. “Yes, is the baby here?” But then she covered her mouth. “Don’t tell Lady Crisdon we called Mrs. Fitzwilliam-Cecil Aunt. She might be cross.”

Frederica bent to their eye-level and handed napkins to them as they sat. “I won’t, but your aunt has not. I think the first thing in the New Year.”

She put a finger to her plump lips. “However, Miss Fitzwilliam,” she said to Anne. “I’ve done the reconnaissance you’ve asked about at the Flora Festival. A new easel and watercolor paints may have been procured for a Christmas surprise for you at Tradenwood.”

“You’re not supposed to tell about surprises.” Lydia frowned, then grinned, her missing tooth showing. “Do you know what she’s gotten me?”

“I’ll keep looking, but girls, enjoy your ices before they melt.”

The scamps picked up their spoons and began to feast.

“Where’s Lucy, Lord Hartwell?”

“Follow me.” He stopped at the door. “Do not make yourself or the table or the walls untidy. Lady Crisdon will return this afternoon, and you both need to remain spotless. This room, too. But if you do have an accident, come retrieve Miss Burghley. She was remarking to me earlier how she wants to be of help to each of you.”

Hoping the hints would take, Jasper left the bobbing heads vying for melting ice, and escorted Frederica up the stairs to the second door on the right.

When he opened it, the heat of the room hit him. It was as he’d left it.

The creamy white-painted room was stark, and he’d stared at the walls too long as he’d waited in the wee hours of the morn for his baby girl’s fever to break. “Sunshine? Are you feeling better?”

His youngest, half buried in covers rolled over. “Tolerable, Papa. You’ve come to stay a little longer?”

The strings in his half-heart pulled a little, but this was the experience Miss Burghley needed. A few conversations and bribes were not caring for his girls. “No sweetness. But I’ve brought a friend who’ll sit with you all day while I run errands.”

“What? Lord Hartwell, you’re going to leave me with Lucy? She said she wanted you.”

“This one is your favorite, Miss Burghley. I’m to find where my father’s hiding and take him to his club. The tutors the countess employs and many of the servants are away sick. Dreadful winter colds. You’ll be virtually alone, providing adult supervision to my daughters.”

“But—”

Jasper kissed her wrist. “Practice those motherly skills, the ones you’ll need for your impending engagement.”

The horrified look on her countenance turned to fire, the challenge surely accepted. “Yes, sir. It’s my pleasure. This favor will require more bonbons, of the finest kind that chocolatier at the Burlingame Arcade can make. Enough for me and this one. You know where to procure them?”

“Can we get more to share with the others?” little Lucy asked between coughs. “Then they won’t treat me like a troll.”

“Sure, little angel,” he said. “See you later, Miss Burghley.”

She wrenched her hand from his. “How long will you be away?”

“Long enough for you to understand that becoming a stepmother is more challenging than you think. Every decision takes time. You have time, Miss Burghley. I’ll stay if you can agree to take your time in all pressing decisions.”

She didn’t reply, but the rising and lowering of her chest, in her prim blue carriage dress, was delightful. She’d forgive him later when her temper relented, after he’d procured her bonbons, a lot of bonbons.

He grinned. “The countess may be done with her engagements sooner, so you will have resources to aid you three or four hours from now.” He walked to the door. “Last chance to surrender.”

“Have fun, my lord. Your misjudgments will be your undoing.”

“They already have, Miss Burghley. That’s why I’m adamant on you waiting; waiting for the right man, the right moment to wed. A Yuletide wedding deadline is too soon.”

He felt pretty smug shutting the door and leaving Miss Burghley with Lucy, but as he went down the stairs, hunting for where his father hid, he wondered if he’d pushed too much. What if this stunt pressed her into marrying the vicar?

No, that couldn’t happen. His girls needed to give Frederica Burghley a lesson on motherhood, fast.

But if Jasper’s girls didn’t change her mind about becoming a Yuletide stepmother, what would?

…

Frederica bristled, staring at Lucy’s closed bedchamber door. She was at Lord Crisdon’s townhouse, a house she’d been to only once with her father. She remembered being so nervous. The countess hadn’t warmed up until she’d played the woman’s favorite tune, oddly enough, Mozart’s “Requiem.”

Lucy coughed again. “You don’t have to stay. I’m an outcast.”

The lonely tones of the child’s voice broke through the nonsense Frederica sorted in her head. The outcast needed her. She went to the little girl. “Why would I leave, when you need help eating this delicious ice?”

“You sure?” Lucy’s lips poked out, and her face was cherry-red.

The child tried to sit up and get to the slurpy treat, which looked soupier than before, but then she sank back down in her pillows.

Frederica pulled a chair a little closer to the bed, took the bowl, then scooped up the ice, aiming for the child’s eager mouth. “How long have you been sick?”

Slurp. “I felt bad yesterday. So glad Papa came. He sat in your chair, reading to me.”

The girl gulped up a big mouthful, but the cherub looked sad, as if she didn’t enjoy the lemon ice.

“Is something wrong, Lucy? Am I feeding you too much?”

“No. Papa looked tired. Don’t you think so? It’s still November. He hates sick people in November.”

Frederica sighed inside. She should forgive him, but his smirk at thinking he was right was hard to ignore. “He looked quite happy as he fled. You don’t need to fret.”

Lucy stuck her tongue out. Perhaps asking for more ice or agreeing with Frederica’s thoughts.

Another scoop of the treat must’ve been too much. Most of the lemon ice went in, but a good amount drizzled down Lucy’s face.

Frederica caught it on her gloves, keeping the bedsheets from staining. “Maybe you should sit up a little more. Gunter’s lemon ice is a terrible thing to waste.”

Pulling off her sticky gloves, she took smaller scoops and lowered them to the girl’s open mouth. Soon the bowl was empty, and Lucy’s blue eyes had brightened. The child wiggled from beneath the sheets and propped her face up.

“Thank you, Miss Burghley. I was hungry but couldn’t keep down the tomato broth the countess ordered.”

“Sweet ice is so much better than mushed tomatoes.” That didn’t sound motherly. “But vegetables are good, too. They can be healing.”

The child tossed her a look that surely mirrored Frederica’s disdain.

“That’s what I hear,” she said to Lucy.

Red-and-gold tousled curls stuck to the girl’s button face. “Will you stay for a while, Miss Burghley?”

There wasn’t any place in Town she wanted to be, not with Hartwell bringing back more treats. And there was no need to attract her thief’s attention. No one would ever think of Burghley’s daughter being left to supervise children in Crisdon’s townhome. “Yes. I will stay.”

“That’s good. Papa will stay at night, but I don’t think he really likes to stay both day and night. Reminds him of Mama.”

“Lady Hartwell was sick a long time.”

“I was much younger, but Anne and Lydia will tell you. He never left her side, all day long. He kept hoping she’d get better.”

“One needs to have hope. You miss her? Sorry, Lucy, that’s a silly question. Of course you do. I miss my mother, too.”

Chubby, still baby-like lips dipped into a frown. “Yes. But I miss Papa being happy. He doesn’t look hopeful anymore. Not until you made him laugh at the Flora Festival.” She put a finger to her cheek. “He did look happy today.”

Frederica reached out and smoothed Lucy’s hair. “Your father’s an interesting man.”

“You’re interesting, too. You made him dance around a pole with flowers. That takes special talent.”

That was the day she’d met Lord Hartwell, and this cute little girl, looking lost, not knowing how to join in the fun. Poor sweet Lucy. Frederica had asked her to play, but then her nervous father had come, too. Soon all three had laughed and laughed.

“I hope he keeps bringing you around. He smiles more when he does.”

Frederica’s heart fluttered then slowed. “I’ll be married soon, Lucy. So, I won’t see you as often at Tradenwood.”

The girl stared straight ahead then slipped lower in the bed. “Maybe you’ll marry someone nice who’ll still let you come to play.”

With a thickening throat, Frederica nodded. She couldn’t tell Lucy that she’d probably only see her on the rarest occasions. The only offer she could stand was the vicar’s, and he lived a whole day and a half from Grandbole and Tradenwood.

Now Frederica needed another ice, something to sweeten her souring mood. “I’ll read to you until you sleep.”

Lucy smiled.

Good.

Frederica would do this right, and she’d keep on doing the right things to win over the vicar’s sons, too.