Christmas with the Charming Earl Read online

  CHRISTMAS WITH THE CHARMING EARL

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  Copyright © 2018 Roxie Brandon All Rights Reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

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  Rebecca Ingram has lost everything: her inheritance, her home, her position. Forced to become a maidservant to a Duke, she loses all hope.

  Rebecca only has one option left. Without marrying the Duke, she can never hope to get back what she has lost. She can never hope to be whole again.

  However, there's one breath-taking problem she hasn't considered. After meeting the Duke's handsome and salacious son, she is overwhelmed with desire that she must ignore to safeguard her secret.

  What will Rebecca do when she’s faced with the risk of losing everything she has ever loved? Will she give in to the passion or will she walk away? Will this Christmas Eve spark a passion that lasts a lifetime?

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  Chapter One

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  December, 1817

  The wintry winter cold howled through the desolate field, which was covered with fluffy snow that was like a untouched blanket. Rebecca Ingram could feel the air being heavy as her lungs were filled with sharp cold and frost each time she breathed in. The bleak grey clouds overhead reflected her mood perfectly.

  Cold licked at her face and crept under her clothes, spreading across her skin like the lacy tide on a frigid winter beach. With purple lips tinged with blue and gently chattering teeth she wrapped her coat around her tighter.

  Gravestones lined the eerie graveyard, some recently placed, whereas others, cracked and crumbling. Mould covered the engravings dedicated to the dead, trees leaning towards the stones, branches reaching out to each other.

  Spiked, black fences surrounded the graveyard almost like it was a prison. The smell of old stone filled the dry air, weeds covering the graves of the dead, loved ones long since stopped visiting. Gravel paths weave through the maze of graves, allowing passers by to pay their respects to the people lined up in the earths embrace.

  Rebecca walked past the heavy gates. As long as she had her mother’s necklace embedded on her chest, a tiny cross, she would be left alone.

  A knitted black scarf hung around her neck loosely and it flew as the billowing wind brushed through her auburn hair. The sun was sinking fast below the horizons, giving her hair more reddish hue.

  Rebecca's eyes were the glimmering color of emerald, sparkling in the light of the morning sun like a fresh sheen of morning dew. And when she lifted her pale face to the sky, emerald shifted into the color of deep ocean shimmering in the sunlight.

  As she looked down at the grave, with her father’s name scrawled across the stone, and mother’s grave not two feet away, Rebecca wished she could just kneel here, and mourn.

  Rebecca was an only child. The entirety of their estate would pass onto her now. She would be wealthy, with a large income. She had to protect Emma. Her little girl was her only family now.

  She knelt at the grave, and laid her hand upon the headstone. “I love you, father,” she whispered. Then she rose and walked across the graveyard.

  Uncle Richard Hopkins, her mother's brother, and the lawyer, Michael Blunt stood near her.

  “Uncle,” Rebecca said, her tone icy. “Is there any reason you are here?”

  “For the funeral,” uncle said calmly.

  “The funeral ended an hour ago. I assure you there is no reason for you to be here.”

  “I am here to help you,” he went on.

  “I do not need your help,” Rebecca said. “Why on earth would I?”

  Rebecca would have preferred for uncle Richard to leave. Simply looking at him made her heart beat faster. Looking at him caused her to curl her hands into fists, and to bite her palms with her nails.

  “Let’s get this awful business over with,” she said, walking toward the exit. Mr. Blunt and uncle Richard followed at her heels. Like hungry dogs.

  ***

  Rebecca sat in Mr. Blunt's office, watching a fine bead of sweat slide down his forehead. The windows in the office were thick, almost thick enough to blot the light, but not quite. The light came in misty, and gave the room the appearance of a sun-baked horizon, where hitherto invisible lines rise and obfuscate the view. Everything was hazy.

  “I do not believe this is possible,” she muttered.

  “I am afraid it is, my lady,” Mr. Blunt said.

  He wiped his forehead with his sleeve and took a deep breath.

  “You see, here . . .” He slid the document across the desk. Rebecca picked up the document with a trembling hand, and held it to her eyes. She knew her father’s hand well and this was, indeed, her father’s hand. The message was clear, indisputable.

  “He left everything to him,” Rebecca said in disbelief, pointing at uncle Richard, who sat in the corner of the room with a grin on his face.

  “Why would father do that?”

  “Perhaps your father was fonder of me than I supposed," her uncle said. "Perhaps your father did not hate me as much as you wished he did.”

  “This makes no sense,” Rebecca said, finding it difficult to breath. The document was several pages. She flicked through each page, searching desperately for anything that would sustain her: any piece of property, any small sum, some items of furniture. But there was nothing. Everything was given to her uncle.

  She threw the document across the desk.

  “I am ruined,” she breathed, her head heavy, her sight blurring. This was not happening. This was not real. She gripped the edges of the table, her fingernails digging into the wood.

  She closed her eyes, thought for a moment she might faint. But she could not faint in his presence. She opened her eyes and took a deep breath. Mr. Blunt offered her a glass of water. She took it and drank it down in one gulp.

  “I am sorry, my lady,” he said. “But your father has made his wishes known. It is not for me to change them, or judge them. My only job is to carry them out.”

  Rebecca’s mind whirred ahead. She had to find a way to sustain herself and little Emma. She had nothing to her name. “What am I do to?” she said, addressing her question to Mr. Blunt.

  But it was not Mr. Blunt who answered.

  Uncle stepped around the desk and leaned across to her. “I have arranged it all,” he said, with a twisted leer. "Duke Langley agreed to take you in . . .”

  “Very well,” Rebecca murmured.

  She tried to look uncle Richard in the eye, but she saw such wickedness there that she had to turn away. She ended up looking at a spot on the wall two inches above his head.

  “I do not know what possessed father to betray me like this, but if that is all, I will go now. Is the Duke expecting me?”

  “Oh, yes,” uncle said, and he licked his upper lip. “He is expecting you!”

  There was something in his tone which gave her pause. She had heard that tone before—and she detested it. It was the tone that told her uncle was enjoying himself at the sadistic expense of another.

  “What is it?” she whispered, a horrid sense of foreboding overcoming her. “What on earth is it!”

  She did not mean to, but on the last word she slammed her hand down on the table, causing the paper and pens and files to jump up for a moment. “Tell me!” she snapped.

  Uncle’s sickening grin grew wider. It was a depraved caricature of a true smile. “I have told you that the Duke has agreed to take you in, but do not forget, proud niece
of mine, that you are a beggar now. You are no longer a rich, autonomous lady. In short, you have few choices. So, yes, the Duke will take you in. But as a maidservant!”

  “A maidservant!” The shock was so great that Rebecca leapt to her feet and paced up and down the room, wringing her hands, looking now at her uncle’s leering face.

  “This cannot be correct,” Rebecca said, her words sounding frantic even to her own ears. “This cannot be correct. Isabella and I have always been civil friends. She would not agree to this. Even if her father wanted it – and I cannot see why he would – she would not agree to it!”

  Rebecca had gone to school with Duke Langley's daughter, Isabella, a pleasant girl, but Rebecca had gotten to know her better and the two were friends. Isabella had spoken enthusiastically of a brother named Anthony, but Rebecca never met him.

  She heard he was an attractive man, but Rebecca viewed him as immoral, and even though many women would have loved to be his wife, Rebecca found him to be distasteful. She knew of his reputation.

  “Oh, but she has!” uncle Richard laughed. “It seems you are not the kind of friends you arrogantly presume.”

  "What is going to happen with Emma?" Rebecca asked desperately.

  “Don't you speak to me about your bastard!” her uncle said. "The child will be brought up in an orphanage!"

  "No! Not my little girl!" Rebecca cried, backing away from him.

  He laughed again, and then walked back around the desk and loomed over Rebecca.

  “You have been a teasing, cockish wench for far too long. Yes! Even since you were a girl!”

  Rebecca crashed to the ground crying and then fainted.

  ***

  Rebecca pushed the gate open and walked down the long path that cut through the well-tended garden toward the house, with its huge pillars and dominating atmosphere. She reached forward, meaning to grab the pommel, when somebody cleared their throat behind her.

  Rebecca turned, and was greeted with a woman of about fifty years, with shocks of gray hair and hard, lined skin. “What’re you doing?” she said, a condescending smile on her face. “That ain’t your entrance. I’m Bessie. I’m guessing you’re the new maidservant?”

  She spoke quickly, not giving Rebecca time to answer. “Follow me. I’ll show you to your room. Quickly, now. We don’t abide tarrying here.”

  Rebecca was absolutely stunned. She had never been spoken to like this by a servant before. The woman standing before her was the kind of woman to curtsey and smile and offer kind words and bring Rebecca her food.

  Rebecca was so stunned that she did not move, did not talk, only breathed quietly.

  Bessie stepped forward, and aimed a mighty forefinger at Rebecca.

  “Listen, I know this is a big change for you, and you need time to react, but you need to get off the porch. We can’t have our masters coming out and seeing servants having a nice little chat here, now, can we? Come on.”

  Still Rebecca could not move. Bessie sighed, took another step forward, and grabbed Rebecca’s upper arm. She dragged her away from the porch and round the side of the house, past the stables, to the servants’ entrance.

  Rebecca was dragged through the door into a small mess hall in which benches and tables were laid. There were only women in this room. The manservants must have had their own area of the house.

  Bessie dragged Rebecca into the room and pushed her onto a bench. Three women from the adjacent bench looked around with something approaching pure hatred on their countenances.

  “Don’t mind them,” Bessie said.

  The three women were all around thirty years old, but could have easily been mistaken for older. Their hands were callused and their skin was worn.

  “Alright, ladies,” Bessie said, holding her hands up. “M’lady was kind enough to allow you to wait until the new maidservant has arrived. Well, she has arrived. Now get back to work.” The three women left the room.

  Bessie pulled out a servant’s dress and threw it onto the table in front of Rebecca.

  “Put this on," she said. "You don’t start work until the morrow. But for now m’lady wants to see you. I gather you used to be friends in a former life. Forget that. Erase it from your mind. You ain’t friends now. M’lady does not want to be reminded of that. When you go before her, you are naught but a new maidservant. Do you understand?”

  She clapped her hands together before Rebecca had time to respond.

  “Right, now get changed.” She grabbed Rebecca’s arm and directed her to the bedroom. “Don’t take longer’n a minute.”

  The door slammed behind her. There were two beds in this room, both with threadbare hard-looking mattresses and insignificant sheets. The windows were set high in the wall and let it in only pale shafts of light. And the smell was musty, as though it had not been cleaned in a long time.

  “What’s taking so long in there?” Bessie snapped, banging on the door.

  “I am almost ready!” Rebecca exclaimed, tearing her mourning dress off and pulling the maidservant’s dress.

  She exited the bedroom and stood before Bessie. “Right, good, come on,” Bessie said.

  Rebecca was led through the house to the drawing room. She knew this house fairly well. She had visited here many times.

  Finally, they arrived at the drawing room. From within, Rebecca heard Isabella’s voice, raised in soft song.

  Rebecca felt her lips twitch into a smile. There was no way that a lady capable of such beautiful music would truly consign Rebecca to her fate.

  How wrong she was! Upon entering the room the foolishness of this thought was shown to her immediately. Isabella, who in days gone by had laughed and joked with Rebecca, stopped her singing when Rebecca entered and turned her nose up at her.

  Isabella's hair was blonde. The way her long lashes framed her eyes when she captured a target turning them into stone and the way her full lips would curl into a mischievous grin every time she did so.

  It was inevitable and certain that once you looked at her, you couldn't look away. She kept you still and held your beating heart with one gaze, feeding off of you. She was a succubus, beautiful and dangerous.

  Now, looking upon Rebecca, her new maidservant, she was not smiling. Her face was twisted into a scowl.

  “So,” she said, shaking her head slowly, “this is the great Rebecca Ingram. This is the lady who looked down upon me the last we met. Speak, maidservant!”

  Rebecca did not know how to respond to these words. Her mind instantly set about trying to find some wrong that she could have caused Isabella.

  She could not recall having wronged her. In her mind, no mean words had been spoken, no slights had been offered. They had last met two months ago for afternoon tea, and the conversation had been innocuous: flowers, dress, suitors.

  “I apologize, my lady,” Rebecca said slowly, looking her directly in the eye, with her head held high, as though they were still equals. “I do not know why you are speaking to me like that. As I recall, our last meeting was—”

  “How dare you?” Isabella cried, her face blooming red. “Who do you think you are?”

  Rebecca took a step back. She did not say anything in the face of this fury. She could not think of anything to say. She had not experienced such hatred before, and she did not know how to deal with it.

  "Listen, Rebecca, you are perhaps stunned by this turn of events," Isabella said. "I can see that. I was stunned, too, when yesterday your uncle contacted me. I have been kind enough to invite you to work in my home. Will you not return that kindness? Will you not be nice, humble chattel?”

  She stepped so close to Rebecca that Rebecca soon found herself backed up against the wall.

  “Or will you force me to cast you out, and leave you to wonder England neglected, starving? Please, won’t you, tell me which you will choose!”

  Rebecca could have stood up to the woman before her and proclaimed herself to be independent, separate from the label which she would so eagerly cast upon
her. But she had to think about her little girl. She had to save Emma.

  “I will serve,” Rebecca said, forcing the tears away which threatened to choke her speech. “I will serve, my lady.”

  “Good,” Isabella said, turning away with a dismissive wave of her hand. “I am done with you now. You can go.”

  Rebecca turned thankfully away and left the room. When she arrived in the servants' room she wept. For the sorrow. For the hope. For the love she'd lost. Emma was alone in an orphanage and it was Christmas Eve.

  Chapter Two

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  Anthony Langley had served his King in France for five years, five years in a world of blood and mud and pain and now was home again. Today is a happy day! he thought sardonically. Today my life resumes!

  He rode his through the gates and led him around to the stables. He was about to walk around to the front of the house when he heard a womanly “Ah!” from the backside of the estate. Curious, he moved toward this noise. The sound had been akin to pain, but muffled like someone who is used to pain.

  He walked around the corner of the house. There, standing at the edge of the private wood, he saw a maidservant. The woman spun as he approached. When she found a handsome, dark eyed devil smiling into her cleavage she found herself in quite state of shock.

  The man who stood before her was breath-taking. Rebecca felt her face flush. He was tall, with broad shoulders, his muscular thighs encased almost sinfully in buckskin breeches. It was his face though, which had her so flustered, he was classically dark and handsome and his eyes held a devilish gleam as he regarded her.

  “Who are you?” she demanded, her face bright red.

  “I am sorry if I startled you,” Anthony said. “I did not intend to. I heard moaning. I thought, perhaps, somebody was in distress.”

  The woman was beautiful. She had her hair tied up in a bun, but even so Anthony could see it was auburn. Her eyes were green, and her cheeks were pale white.

  Her body was slight, lithe, and her limbs were thin. Her breasts budded under her dress, and her neck was feline. When she moved, it was with the appearance of a cat, ready to spring here or there at a moment’s notice. Her eyes sparked with intellect.