The Duke's Winter Promise: A Christmas Regency Romance Read online

  Contents

  Also By Isabella Thorne

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  The Duke’s Winter Promise

  I. Home for Christmas

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  II. All is Bright

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  III. Warm Woolen Mittens

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  IV. Let it Snow

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  Don’t Miss The Baggington Sisters

  Sneak Peek of The Countess and the Baron

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

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  Also By Isabella Thorne

  Also By Isabella Thorne

  The Ladies of Bath

  Winning Lady Jane ~ A Christmas Regency Romance

  The Duke’s Daughter ~ Lady Amelia Atherton

  The Baron in Bath ~ Miss Julia Bellevue

  The Deceptive Earl ~ Lady Charity Abernathy

  The Ladies of the North

  The Duke’s Winter Promise ~ A Christmas Regency Romance

  The Hawthorne Sisters

  The Forbidden Valentine ~ Lady Eleanor

  The Baggington Sisters

  The Countess and the Baron ~ Prudence

  Almost Promised ~ Temperance

  The Healing Heart ~ Mercy

  The Lady to Match a Rogue ~ Faith

  Nettlefold Chronicles

  Not Quite a Lady; Not Quite a Knight

  Stitched in Love

  Other Novels by Isabella Thorne

  The Mad Heiress and the Duke ~ Miss Georgette Quinby

  The Duke’s Wicked Wager ~ Lady Evelyn Evering

  Short Stories by Isabella Thorne

  Love Springs Anew

  The Mad Heiress' Cousin and the Hunt

  Mischief, Mayhem and Murder: A Marquess of Evermont

  Mistletoe and Masquerade ~ 2-in-1 Short Story Collection

  Colonial Cressida and the Secret Duke ~ A Short Story

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  1

  Miss Emily Ingram woke to a drizzle on a fine December morning in the English countryside. The pattern of raindrops on the rooftop brought a comfort and solace to her soul that could only be attributed to the depths of her British roots.

  The cold rain matched Emily’s mood. She was here. In the country, away from London and all of her problems, she told herself. She should be happy. Instead, she felt bothered.

  She supposed it was hard to feel beautiful in weather such as this. She paused with brush in hand. The rain had made the fine strands of her hair as limp as a dishcloth.

  Emily sighed. She would have to call her maid to do something with the locks. It hung in strings. Surely a grown woman should be able to brush her own hair, she thought as she rang the bell. She was on the cusp of womanhood. Perhaps, that was what bothered her most.

  Emily made her way over to the armoire to find her gowns hung in a neat row by the attentive servants. The room smelled of lemon oil and polish, fresh and well maintained. The once-vocal chamber door now glided on smooth hinges, the product of proper oil application and keen observation.

  It pleased Emily to know that her aunt and uncle were still capable of running Sandstowe Hill and that the manor had not fallen into disrepair as they aged. Of course, she thought, Cousin William took care of things, since he would one day inherit. Cousin William was a year younger than Emily and had already taken up the yoke of adulthood.

  Mother thought she was an adult, Emily reminded herself. Father was determined to marry her off by the spring. Yet, Emily did not feel equal to the task. Had she not already had a London season? Had she not attended the finest of finishing schools? In spite of her mother’s thoughtful advice and her instructors’ careful teaching, Emily still felt unfinished.

  She had never thought of herself as beautiful. She was interesting and unique, but not beautiful. She thought of all the girls who were dull, even in their youth, and thought things could be worse. She was distinctive. Emily was never dull.

  Womanhood must come easily to them, she imagined. These imaginary dullards would embrace adulthood and all the rules set by previous generations of gloomy adults. It was the path all young girls must take as they became women. She must do the same. She had very nearly set her mind to it.

  “I have set my mind to it,” she hissed. “I must.”

  Carrie peeked into the room. “What must you do, miss?” The lady’s maid asked.

  “I must make some semblance of order of this hair,” Emily replied touching the strands although the true problem was not her hair. It was the whole issue of finding a husband and becoming a wife. The entire notion was so very permanent.

  “Oh posh,” said Carrie with a wave of her hand. “That is my job. Yours is to make pretty conversation, and catch a fine husband.”

  Carrie’s words made Emily’s stomach turn.

  Carrie took up the brush. “Sit now, miss. I shall make short work of it.”

  “Thank you, Carrie. Will you miss London?” Emily asked her.

  “Oh, no, miss. My sister is here in Northwickshire, my mum as well. I haven’t seen my little brothers in an age.”

  “Oh.” Emily had forgotten that Carrie had family in the Northwickshire district. The girl fit in so well in London, and rivaled the very best of lady’s maids with her talents. Emily sometimes forgot Carrie’s humble beginnings. She had kept the girl away from her family for too long. She had been gone for far too long as well, but her parents were adamant that she marry this season.

  Emily’s father, the Viscount of Kentleworth, was an active member of the court and a resident of Grosvenor Square. He rarely abandoned his post for fear that some catastrophe or other might strike in his absence. Mother stayed by his side. As a result, the Ingram offspring, Emily and her brother Edmund, had often taken their holidays with their maternal Aunt Agnes and her husband, Uncle Cecil, the Earl of Stratton.

  Uncle Cecil’s northern home at Sandstowe Hill provided a reprieve from the expectations of high society and a haven for the genteel youth of the area. Uncle Cecil and Aunt Agnes had no children of their own and seemed to welcome everyone else’s, but Emily reminded herself, she was no longer a child.

  She had other obligations although Aunt Agnes would not push her to it like her mother would. She would allow Emily her holiday, but the
re were visits to make and people to see.

  “Are you going to go skating?” Carrie asked. “I’ve heard that the pond is nearly frozen over, although I cannot testify to the thickness of the ice.”

  “Perhaps later in the week,” Emily said. “I want to be sure it is thick enough to hold.”

  “Ah, let some of those towering gents go first,” Carrie teased. “If it should hold them, it should hold you. Or perhaps if you were to lose your balance it is the gentleman who would do the holding.” Carrie giggled.

  Emily smiled, but that was not why she wished to go skating, at least not entirely.

  During the years of their childhood, Emily and Edmund had spent their days gallivanting across the sodden fields with Cousin William and the children of all the neighboring country manors within riding distance.

  Edmund could most often be found in the company of Alexander Burgess, the son of the Duke of Bramblewood, from the neighboring estate to the north. Emily was friends with Anne and Eliza Albright, the daughters of the Aldbrick Viscountcy to the southwest, as well as Henrietta Milford, daughter of Baron Shudley.

  Both Emily and her brother had fostered many life-long friendships, although some of those friendships had been maintained only through correspondence over the last years. Emily dearly missed her Northwickshire friends.

  While Emily had been sent to finishing school, Edmund, with all the freedoms that his gender allowed, had continued to make the journey to Northwickshire on an annual basis, usually with Alexander by his side.

  Edmund used any and every excuse to slip the confines of the cobbled streets of London, and mostly the harsh authoritarian nature of their father. Emily was lucky that Father considered his daughter in his wife’s purview.

  Lord Kentleworth felt his job was molding his son into a shadow of himself. Emily could not fault him. He was a good man, but Edmund was not his father. Edmund’s best and most successful excursion was the week long opportunity to take provisions from London to his northern relations.

  Emily envied him. She knew her mother would never have allowed her such freedoms. There was a bout of influenza in the town of Northwick the year past. Rumors had filtered south to London that several people had died of the illness.

  Emily worried greatly for her aunt and uncle who were getting on in years. She had wanted to come and help, but Mother’s crippling fear of contagions had put a stop to all thought of visits. Emily’s maternal grandmother had passed of such a sudden fever years ago, and Lady Kentleworth was terrified of the infection.

  She ordered her children home to London although Edmund had simply stayed on with the other gentlemen outside of the town proper in spite of his mother’s displeasure. Gentlemen, as it were, were often allowed, to do as they please, or so her father would say to silence his wife, and then he would chide his son for failing to attend when he spoke of politics.

  It was no wonder Edmund escaped to Northwickshire at every opportunity. Especially now, that the danger from the influenza was past.

  “Who has come to winter in Northwick?” Emily asked Carrie.

  “Well, I’m sure I don’t know,” Carrie said.

  “Come now. I am sure that Mrs. Tanner was bending your ear with the news,” Emily said. She knew the cook was a fount of gossip.

  Carrie shrugged. “Your brother, of course, and the young Mr. Singer. And his sisters, the poor dears, losing their mum. Mrs. Tanner was speaking of her this morning. Christmas will be hard for them at their age.”

  Emily thought losing one’s mother at any age was difficult.

  She had heard of the bout of influenza that claimed Cousin William’s mother, Kate. His father Mr. Singer had died years ago so now the sole responsibility of his sisters rested with him.

  “I’m sure it will be good to see Miss Albright,” Carrie said.

  That made Emily smile. She was forever thankful that one friend from her childhood exploits was sent off to school as well, her dear friend Anne Albright. Through Anne, Emily tried to keep abreast of the news in Northwickshire, but after school was completed, both Anne and Emily had gone on with their lives.

  Emily had traveled to London for the Season and Anne returned to the country. In spite of their attempts to stay in touch, they both grew apart until Emily worried there was little left that might be shared.

  Besides, Anne was a terrible letter writer. Despite regular correspondence, Emily gleaned more from the pages written by Anne’s mother, the Lady Aldbrick who was more like to speak of her own friends and family than the goings on of the younger generation.

  “I shall be glad to see her, and the others. Have you word of Alexander?”

  “I am sure I do not know of the young lord.”

  Emily nodded. Of course Carrie would have no way of knowing. Emily would just have to wait and see, but it had been so long since she had seen the duke’s son, she thought she might not recognize him at all.

  No, she told herself. Alexander, she would recognize no matter how he changed in the journey from childhood to adulthood, but would he recognize her? Would he even care to see her? The thought filled her with nervous anticipation.

  She remembered the last winter before she and Anne had gone to finishing school. Everything changed after that. They were children no more, but that last winter they had gone skating and sledding nearly every day, staying out until darkness called them home; Edmund, Anne, Alexander and herself.

  Their skin became raw from the wind and the cold, and Aunt Agnes fretted. They had not cared. Edmund would wake Emily first thing in the morning with a pounding upon her door.

  They would bundle up, never enough to ease Aunt Agnes’ anxious mind, before they would race out the doorway invariably forgetting something that Aunt Agnes had reminded them of at least a dozen times. As long as they had their skates to tie on over their boots, that was all that mattered.

  Emily remembered a day when it was particularly cold. Edmund and Anne were racing back and forth, trying to put each other off balance, but they had not a care, not a worry that they could be hurt. The world was theirs.

  Emily had wanted to sit for a moment. She simply collapsed in a snow bank and stared up at the branches of the pines above her. It was a beautiful day, full of sunshine although still cold. Emily remembered watching the friendly quarrels, content in the juxtaposition of the bright sunshine and the icy cushion beneath her. Eventually, Alexander flopped down beside her, winded from his own skating.

  Alexander complained that Edmund was no fun when Anne was present. “Anne goads him into these harebrained ideas,” he said cheekily. “Silly girls.”

  “Silly, are we? And none of the schemes are ever Ed’s fault or yours? You tease.” Emily replied with fire, knowing full well that the boys gave as good as they got.

  “Not at all,” Alexander laughed. “We are gentlemen, and Mother says a gentleman must never tease a lady.”

  “And we are ladies,” Emily countered, thinking with excitement that the next autumn she would be in finishing school. She would indeed be a lady, but not yet.

  Somehow a handful of snow was tossed and there was a grand snowball fight, girls against the boys. They had rushed off in pairs: Anne and Emily. The girls took the high ground for the boys could throw further. It was the only gentlemanly way to proceed, Anne had insisted.

  “And you should not give the ladies the side with the sun in their eyes,” she added.

  Edmund and Alexander graciously agreed and soon the battle of the century began. The girls were making a go of it, especially when Henrietta joined their side; until William joined the boys. William was taller and his longer reach added distance to the boy’s snowballs. The girls were pummeled, but when they admitted defeat, the boys helped them brush snow from their cloaks.

  “You alright, Em?” Alexander had asked, even then watchful and careful of others, so unlike his brutish father. He had taken off his hat and brushed back his sweat damp curls and jammed the cap back on his unruly locks.

 
“Are you cold?” he asked.

  “Just my hands.” Emily tucked her gloved hands into the sleeves of her coat and smiled up at him. Alexander held her hands in his and afterwards he had always remembered to bring an extra pair of mittens.

  Emily remembered it as the last innocent touch she and the duke’s son had shared. It was an end of childhood. The following winter Emily was home on holiday from school, but the Christmas season was a solemn affair spent in London with her parents.

  Emily missed those carefree days in Northwickshire. Days when waking to the fullness of the day brought a fresh surge of excitement for a new adventure, rather than dread at what new suitor Mother had found, along with the reminder that Emily was an adult now, and ought to get on with things.

  Emily looked at her visage in the glass. She was dressed in a warm woolen gown of forest green. The color looked exquisite on her and it was properly festive for the season.

  A matching ribbon gathered her long tresses up into a neat knot at the nape of her neck and completed the ensemble. Her chestnut strands had darkened over the years, leaving bronze highlights that danced in the light and matched the flecks in her amber eyes.