Christmas in The Duke's Arms Read online

  Copyright – Christmas In The Duke’s Arms

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  A Knight Before Christmas – Copyright © 2014 by Grace Burrowes

  In The Duke’s Arms – Copyright © 2014 by Carolyn Jewel

  Licensed To Wed – Copyright © 2014 by Miranda Neville

  The Spy Beneath The Mistletoe – Copyright © 2014 by Shana Galen

  Cover Design by Seductive Designs

  Image copyright © Novel Expressions, Inc

  Image copyright © Shutterstock.com/Unholy Vault Designs

  Image copyright © Depositphotos.com/Bezergheanu Mircea

  Image copyright © Depositphotos.com/Lisa F. Young

  ISBN: 978-1-937823-33-7

  Kindle Edition

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the authors.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  A Knight Before Christmas

  by Grace Burrowes

  In The Duke’s Arms

  by Carolyn Jewel

  Licensed to Wed

  by Miranda Neville

  The Spy Beneath the Mistletoe

  by Shana Galen

  A Knight Before Christmas

  By

  Grace Burrowes

  Contents – A Knight Before Christmas

  Dedication

  About A Knight Before Christmas

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  About Grace Burrowes

  Books by Grace

  Dedicated to one of my first friends, Jeanne McCarthy, with whom I shared ownership of a fine, enormous buck bunny named Fat Chance (we won him at a raffle at the church bazaar). That guy thumped so loudly, they could hear him in the next county.

  About A Knight Before Christmas

  With her year of mourning at an end, Penelope Carrington must remarry in haste, or her portion of her late husband’s estate won’t be enough to dower her younger sisters. Shy, handsome man of business Sir Leviticus Sparrow longs to give Penelope a marriage proposal for Christmas—and his heart—but Sir Levi must first foil the other bachelors scheming to meet Penelope under the mistletoe in his place.

  Chapter One

  ‡

  A competent man of business could expect a comfortable life, but for the aggravations resulting from two kinds of people: former clients and current clients.

  The former clients were usually deceased, deported, or demented, so Sir Leviticus Sparrow forgave them their crotchets. The current clients were an ongoing trial, albeit an entertaining one.

  And then, in an entirely separate class of aggravation, was Mrs. Penelope Carrington.

  “Won’t you have a seat, madam?”

  Levi gestured to one of two comfortable chairs by the fire. Amid a quiet rustle of black skirts, the lady passed close enough to him that he caught a whiff of roses.

  “I do thank you for seeing me on short notice, Levi. Shall I pour?”

  He was indifferent to the offerings on the tea tray, most at home sitting behind his desk, and not much given to socializing. The cozy fire, deep cushions on the chairs, and comforting familiarity of the tea ritual were intended to steer his clients more quickly to whatever point they intended to make.

  With Penelope Carrington, however, Levi was in no hurry at all.

  “Nothing for me,” he said, taking the chair next to hers, “but you must help yourself to whatever appeals.”

  Levi watched her hands while she fixed herself a cup of tea. He’d chosen this service because the blue of the teapot exactly matched the blue of her eyes.

  “I shouldn’t take up much of your time.”

  “I have no other appointments today, Penelope. I am at your disposal.”

  She brushed a look over him, a trifle amused, as if she knew he’d cancel an appointment with the archangel Gabriel to spend half an hour with Penelope Carrington.

  To spend five minutes with her.

  “I have miscalculated,” she said, setting her tea cup down after one sip.

  She’d also lost weight since he’d seen her a month ago. He put several slices of fruitcake on a plate and passed it to her.

  Rather than meet his gaze, she studied the fire, a lovely decision on her part, for it gave him a view of her profile. Penelope Carrington was not pretty as a girl was pretty, she was beautiful as a woman was beautiful. Her skin had the flawless delicacy common to the true redhead, her eyes tilted upward, like a cat’s. Those eyes could laugh, they could praise, they could convey an intimate joke, and they could freeze social prospects for an entire season with one glance.

  Her nose might have been daintier, though without that nose her face would have lacked the hint of character that held a man’s interest so easily.

  When Levi had taken a thorough inventory of her features, the sense of her words sank in. “My dear lady, you never miscalculate.”

  “With my late husband’s investments, perhaps not, but in the more fraught waters of familial relations, I have blundered badly.”

  She wasn’t capable of blundering. Levi had never had the pleasure or torment of admiring a more poised, dignified, decent woman.

  “Eat something, and then you must tell me about this blundering. Whatever has gone amiss, I’m sure we can put it to rights.”

  She took a dutiful nibble of fruitcake, the gesture conveying forbearance.

  Levi tried again. “What is the problem, Penelope?”

  “I’ve changed my mind. I know what Sixtus’s will said, and I’ve decided I need to marry after all. Need to rather badly and soon.”

  While she took a second sip of tea, Levi’s world spun off its axis. She’d told him six months ago that she preferred the life of a comfortable widow to remarrying in haste simply to become the beneficiary of her late husband’s entire fortune. Levi had begun to hope, to plan even.

  He’d begun to scheme, though only in his head, of course. One didn’t court a woman in mourning. Penelope was still in mourning—for another few weeks, she would observe half mourning.

  “May I remind you, Penelope, if you want to remarry in an effort to secure the benefit of Sixtus’s fortune, then you should find a husband before Christmas. That’s not much time.”

  For old Sixtus had gone to his reward mere days before Christmas, and the will required that Penelope re-marry by the anniversary of the reading of the will, which had happened immediately before the New Year.

  “That’s why I’ve come to you, Levi. If I’m to find the right husband, I need your help.”

  *

  Sir Leviticus Sparrow’s mind operated at a rate inverse to the speed of his words or his actions. Pen had taken a year to understand this about him. Levi was brilliant, but his brilliance was no more evident on the surface than the teeming life in the sea was apparent from sunlight sparkling on placid waves.

  Sixtus had called his man of business Sir Leviathan, saying his solicitor liked to dwell in the depths and had long tentacles of influence. The analogy hadn’t seemed to fit the big, quiet, dark-haired man who’d shown up at Carrington Close once a month with voluminous files and lit
tle conversation.

  Then Sixtus had fallen ill, and the visits had become more frequent.

  “Is there any way to modify the terms of the will?” Penelope asked.

  A slight pause—Levi Sparrow was a great one for pausing—and then, “No, my dear, not unless you find a crooked judge or effect a change of law. You have until the twenty-eighth of December to marry, or you will lose all but the jointure and life estate specified in the will. May I ask what has precipitated this change of position?”

  So polite, while Penelope wanted to smash her tea cup against the hearthstones. “Must I tell you?”

  His glance shifted to the desk, where he doubtless had more interesting business to transact than Penelope’s marital campaign. The elegant manner in which he crossed his legs at the knee suggested he was irritated.

  Well, so was she.

  “You are under no obligation to tell me anything, madam, though if you are in trouble, if you have gambling debts, or if your grief has led you to intimate indiscretions which some fool thinks to turn to his financial advantage—”

  “Indiscretions? You think I’ve been out merry-widowing, with Sixtus not yet gone a year? Dancing on his grave? You too, Levi?”

  Levi Sparrow was not precisely her friend, but he’d been Sixtus’s friend, also the solicitor entrusted with Sixtus’s most delicate transactions and negotiations. For Levi to suggest she’d taken lovers during the limited mourning Sixtus had prescribed hurt.

  Hurt badly, and did not bode well for her plans.

  “My dear lady, calm yourself. I lost my Ann eight years ago.” He took a bite of fruitcake, probably a strategic move to buy time to gather his thoughts. Levi gathered thoughts like old women knitted on familiar needles. Click, click, click, in rapid, sure succession, all of a piece.

  “Eight years is a long time.”

  He fell silent. Levi liked his silences, just as he took liberties with pauses, and yet, Pen had forgotten this about him: He was a widower. He’d known loss, and maybe that explained why months after the condolence calls had ceased and all but the most determined bachelors had stopped sniffing about her skirts, Levi still came to see her.

  He’d advised her against donating all of Sixtus’s clothes to the staff or the poor, suggesting she keep at least a good suit of clothes, a dressing gown, and the old fellow’s favorite riding boots.

  She’d cried, clutching those boots. Cried for an old man who hadn’t been able to sit a horse in years.

  An astonishing thought intruded on that dolorous memory.

  “Levi, are you telling me you took lovers during your mourning?” The question exceeded the bounds of any inquiry she’d made of him in the five years of their acquaintance. “Don’t answer that. I’m left much to my own company, and sometimes I don’t know if I’ve said something aloud, or merely thought it. I’ve doubtless taken my first step down the slippery slope of eccentricity.”

  Levi neither made light of her outburst nor ignored it. Instead, he picked up a piece of fruitcakes sporting a thick smear of butter and held it up to her mouth.

  “You must eat. Cook takes her company baking seriously, and I offend her at my peril.”

  Penelope took a bite, smooth, fresh butter blending with candied fruit and spices. Another extraordinary thought popped into her mind, though this one she kept penned up behind her lips: He was teasing her somehow, perhaps even—dare she hope?—flirting.

  “Excellent fruitcake, my thanks.”

  He set the remainder of the slice on her plate. “Do you think it impossible that I might have found companionship after my wife’s passing?”

  He must examine her lapse of manners, confounded man. “You’re quite comely, Levi. You were probably swamped by ladies offering their company.” She took another bite of fruitcake, because the words had come out all wrong. Levi was tall and well muscled, as if he spent long hours in the saddle or tramping his acres. He had startlingly blue eyes, disarmingly blue eyes, the only light feature in a face rendered dark by both sable hair and a paucity of smiles.

  A jaded view of the human race was probably a solicitor’s occupational hazard, like cow-pox befell dairy maids. Not fatal, and it had benefits.

  And yet to Penelope, Levi was attractive. In his silences, in his rare dry wit, in his integrity, and in his devotion to a lonely old man, Levi was attractive.

  He was also sporting the slightest approximation of a smile. “I was not swamped. My wealth is modest compared to what Sixtus amassed.”

  Plain speaking. She reached for a second piece of buttered fruitcake only to find Levi had put two more on her plate.

  “It’s a relief sometimes, when you say things like that, Levi. I do not flatter myself the bachelors condoling me so heartily are smitten with my charms. They want a wealthy widow to ease their difficulties. Mr. Amblewise’s devotion beggars description.”

  He topped up her tea. “Vicars are as prone to pragmatic attachments as other men.”

  Was Levi? Could he be inspired to form such an attachment?

  “You don’t judge them, all the vultures trying to pluck wealth from Sixtus’s estate?”

  “From his widow?”

  “Her.” Pen wrinkled her nose at the young woman Sixtus Hargreaves Carrington had taken pity on six years ago. He’d married her and showered her with every comfort a devoted husband might bestow on a wife five decades his junior, despite the ridicule and snickering he’d endured as a result. None of his generosity—not the carriages, not the jewels, not the finery, not even the small thoughtful tokens—had been of any value to her at all compared to Sixtus’s friendship.

  “Sixtus’s widow is very pretty,” Levi said, the same way he might have remarked that the tea had grown cool. “Perhaps the bachelors are circling her because she brings repose and calm with her wherever she goes. Maybe they’re drawn to the kindness in her eyes, or the willingness to laugh she keeps close at hand. Sixtus chose wisely. Do you doubt another man could show the same good judgment?”

  The conversation had strayed far afield from its intended agenda, onto new and boggy ground—interesting, boggy ground.

  “Are you scolding me, Levi, or complimenting me?”

  “Perhaps I’m defending the bachelors. I call on you as well.”

  His penchant for logic was one of his less attractive features. “You and I discuss investments, projects, bills pending before Parliament. You warn me when your sisters are planning to call on me.” And he never, ever made any improper overtures—drat the luck.

  “I warn you?” He was the picture of the perplexed male, which might fool his sisters—they doted on him.

  “Might we return to the matter at hand?”

  He leaned back in his chair, making a sturdy piece of furniture creak. A log fell forward on the andirons, sparks shooting up the flue while Pen endured lawyerly scrutiny. If he’d been a barrister and he’d put her in the witness box, she’d have told him anything he asked. His silences bore that much gravity, the answers would have been sucked right up out of her soul.

  “You have decided to marry. You may slap me for my impertinence, but I’ll ask anyway: Are you carrying a child?”

  Maybe this was also part of a solicitor’s lot in life. They expected bad behavior from their clients.

  “I will not slap you, and I am not carrying.” If he’d known how absurd his inquiry was, Pen would have been even more embarrassed. “The problem is my sisters.”

  “Two, if I recall the number. Born within a year of each other. One shudders for your mother’s constitution, if not her nerves.”

  He would know exactly how many sisters she had, and their ages. Levi was a baronet, after all, the sort of fellow invited to every house party in Nottinghamshire to make up numbers and add a dash of class among the gentry.

  House parties at which he was apparently offered companionship of an intimate nature. Pen brushed a stray crumb from her lap.

  “One shudders for my sisters’ futures,” she said. “On the strength
of my expectations as Sixtus’s devoted young wife, my dear papa has been living beyond his means. He has used my sisters’ dowries to maintain appearances, but I gather from my mother that the situation has become difficult. One usually pays the trades in December, and Mama has applied to me to address even those bills.”

  Levi steepled his fingers and tapped them against his lips, as if considering a chessboard with only a half-dozen pieces left. He had a lovely mouth, which one tended not to notice because of all the lawyering that came out of it.

  “Do you know the extent of your father’s indebtedness?”

  She did. Something else Sixtus had bequeathed to her: a keen understanding of figures, and of the power wielded by studying those figures. She named an appalling sum, a figure amassed over the past five years apparently, that included debts of honor, necessities, and all too many fripperies.

  At the mention of the sum, Levi rose and took a stance with one elbow propped on the mantel—one of his many thinking poses, all of which were doubtless more attractive than he knew.

  “Your sisters are not as pretty as you, neither are they as intelligent.”

  Penelope wanted to defend them—they’d had no devoted husband to take their education, their true education, in hand—but she remained silent. Levi was thinking, and she’d forced herself to come here and share her problem with him in part because he excelled at rational analysis.

  While she was becoming eccentric and hatching peculiar schemes that did not involve Levi’s legal expertise.

  “Have you sought aid from Joseph Carrington?” Levi asked. “He’s titled, wealthy, and your relation through Sixtus.”

  “Joseph is also again a new father, and if you think I’ll bother Sixtus’s distant cousin with troubles my family has caused, you mistake the matter.”

  “I will need to consider this.”

  The very outcome Penelope had been hoping for, though she was not comforted. Had she expected Levi to produce a fortune at her request? To dower her younger sisters?