Betrothed by Christmas Read online

  A Lady’s Gift for Seduction

  Copyright © 2019 by Jess Michaels

  A Lady’s Gift for Scandal

  Copyright © 2019 by Elizabeth Essex

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Betrothed by Christmas

  A Holiday Duet

  Jess Michaels

  Elizabeth Essex

  Contents

  Jess Michaels

  A Lady’s Gift for Seduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Elizabeth Essex

  A Lady’s Gift for Scandal

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  About Jess Michaels

  Also by Jess Michaels

  About Elizabeth Essex

  Also By Elizabeth Essex

  A Lady’s Gift for Seduction

  Jess Michaels

  This project would not have been possible at all without the wonderful Elizabeth Essex. Your enthusiasm and wonderful writing helped me take this story to the next level. And your friendship makes me love our new city all the more. Thank you and love you!

  * * *

  Also for Michael, my own smart hero.

  Chapter 1

  London, December 1814

  “Lady Evangeline, you should smile more! There is peace!”

  Lady Evangeline lifted the corners of her lips in only the barest sense as one of the diamonds of the previous season spun by her on the arm of some duke or earl or one of their sons. What did it matter? The lot of them were the same, they even dressed in identical style.

  She sighed as she turned back to the table and drew another ladle of wassail into her cup. It seemed her enthusiasm for the season would not be found until she had drunk some more. And she supposed she did need to find that enthusiasm. After all, it was true—for the first time in over a decade, the world teetered on peace. There had been a terrible cost, which hadn’t seemed to occur to most of the titled, rich fops around her.

  Of course, it was a cost most of them had not paid. They and their sons and grandsons were too important to fight in wars. They only benefitted from them.

  She sighed and shook her head. No, this sour mood would not do. She couldn’t even place the cause of it. Normally she didn’t hate a party. She was often the center of them. But tonight it all felt so very…stale. Like this year that was circling the drain with 1815 looming large behind it.

  Would the next year be any different for her? She feared the answer was no. And perhaps that was the cause of the dreary malaise she couldn’t seem to shake.

  The noise of the crowd behind her lifted, and she turned in time to see a group of men bringing out a bowl brimming with brandy. She let her eyes come shut as someone shouted out, “Ah yes, it’s about time we played Snapdragon! Dim the candles there!”

  She folded her arms as the silver bowl was placed on a low table that had been dragged to the center of the room. The lights went down and, with great pomp and circumstance, one of the men brought over a candle and laughed as he lowered it to the liquor. Flames leapt from the brew, nearly singeing off the man’s hair as he yelped in surprise.

  “I suppose a game of Snapdragon can’t be counted a success until at least one idiot has lost an eyebrow.”

  Evangeline jerked her head to her right. She had been so caught up in the foolishness going on around her, she hadn’t noticed that another lady had stepped up near her. She recognized her. Miss Thomasina Lesley, eldest daughter of Colonel Lesley. She was a pretty enough girl, with an air of reserve that was put down to modest country manners. But with her wide blue eyes, fair hair and petite features, she had been proclaimed a diamond just as Evangeline was.

  And right now she had as judgmental an expression on her face as Evangeline felt down to her soul.

  “Sometimes two,” Evangeline added.

  Miss Lesley jumped and pink lifted to her cheeks, as if she hadn’t realized Evangeline could hear her. “I do beg your pardon,” she said. “I fear I should not be so critical of the fun, especially at this time of year.”

  Evangeline snorted out what could only be described as a very unladylike laugh. “Do not go back now, I need an ally. You are utterly correct that they are all idiots. They’re not the sort of fellows one wants for a husband, are they?”

  “Heavens, no.”

  They watched in silence as those very idiots now stood around the flames, faces dancing in shadow and light as they tossed raisins into the cauldron. Evangeline had never liked this game. Her older brothers had made her play as a little girl and she’d always known it was foolish. Who thought it fun to toss perfectly good fruit into a flaming bowl of hell, then snatch them out with bare fingers and toss them into one’s mouth? Her tongue had never fully recovered, she was certain of that.

  And yet here was a group of adults—titled, supposedly respectable men—doing just that. One by one they reached into the fire, forever shocked that they were getting burned.

  “Lord, grant me the confidence of a man of supposed education who knows absolutely nothing in truth,” Evangeline sighed.

  “Indeed. If this is what’s on offer, I don’t think I want any sort of a husband at all. It seems a devil’s bargain at best.”

  “True, but what sort of life can one have without one?” She asked the question sarcastically, for that was the established mode of thinking, after all. That a lady could have no future without a man to bind herself to.

  “An independent life,” Miss Lesley said. “I had rather entertain myself, not with silly parties with flaming punch bowls, but with intelligent salons where ideas and ideals might be exchanged. Where books might be discussed or poetry recited.”

  Evangeline turned to face her a bit more directly, and her smile went wide and very true. “You’re a secret bluestocking.”

  “It’s no great secret. I would be a true bluestocking if I were allowed, like my aunt Dahlia—she has her own establishment here in London and has the most elegant salons, full of the most interesting people.” Miss Lesley’s face was lit up with a passion that only increased her beauty. Still, her smile fell as she continued, “But the sad truth is that if I don’t marry one of them, I’ll only be married off to my odious cousin who is to be a baronet someday but cares nothing for books or ideas, unless they’re to do with beef cattle or crop rotation.”

  Evangeline shook her head with a shudder that wracked her ent
ire body. “Great God.”

  She could sympathize with the woman beside her. After all, such had been the lot of many a lady she’d known in her life. Including her mother, including her sister and her sister-in-law. Marrying well was what one did when one was a woman of a certain stature, whether or not one wished for it.

  Even Evangeline, who had what anyone would describe as a preposterous level of independence, was not immune to the possibility in her own future. Her father mentioned it from time to time, that she would be married off to some gentleman who was nearly his same rank. He spoke of it more often than ever, truth be told.

  Just that morning, actually.

  “Might you be able to manage him into thinking better?” Evangeline pressed, seeking any kind of solace, not just for her new friend, but for herself. “A good woman can often make a mediocre man into something more.”

  “I doubt it.”

  Evangeline shivered despite the heat of the close room. What Miss Lesley was facing was not so very far from her own worst fear.

  “Lady Evangeline?”

  “Yes?”

  Miss Lesley shifted. “I was only saying I wish we were truly allowed to choose, don’t you?”

  She forced herself to attend and ignored the question. “I’m sorry, Miss Lesley, I was just woolgathering. Thinking of your situation. So you do not wish to marry this dreadful cousin?”

  Miss Lesley shook her head, faint tears glistening in her eyes.

  “What is it you do want, then?”

  The other woman drew a long breath, and from her expression Evangeline could tell this was not a question she was often asked. But it was one she had an immediate answer to.

  “I’d rather be a spinster, like my aunt Dahlia. My mama does say she ruined herself coming to London on her own, but she’s left to live in peace with books and cats and no men. It’s heavenly.”

  It did sound the stuff of dreams. And for a lady like Thomasina Lesley, Evangeline could see how that might work. For herself…her father would never allow it. He was too important a man, too important a duke to have his daughter adopt an eccentric lifestyle of cats and Gothic novels. Ruined or not.

  “That is what I want. But my mama will never approve,” Miss Lesley continued. “I must choose, and by the end of this little Christmas season. The very thought of Cousin Edward makes me want to ruin myself like Aunt Dahlia, so he’ll have nothing to do with me.”

  Evangeline lifted her chin. Perhaps this gauzy dream life of spinsterhood wasn’t something she could have, but that didn’t mean Miss Lesley should be trapped. If Evangeline could help her…

  “Why not do it then?”

  Miss Lesley shook her head. “Do what?”

  “Ruin yourself,” Evangeline repeated. She looked around the room as her mind spun on the problem. “It would have to be light ruination. To maintain your standing on some level. It all has to be done very carefully, in a controlled fashion.” She rubbed her chin. “A bespoke ruination, if you like."

  Miss Lesley stared at her. “Do you really think so?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Miss Leslie drew her away from the edge of the ballroom floor and the crowd still engaged in the game of Snapdragon. “Pray, tell me more.”

  Evangeline shrugged, for it all seemed rather obvious to her as the entire scenario played out in her mind. “If you truly do not want to fall victim to the machinations of your parents, you must do a little machinating of your own.”

  “How?” Miss Leslie asked, her eyes wide.

  Evangeline drew a long breath as she pondered the question. Then the answer hit her like a punch to the chest, and she smiled. “We must simply think like the men, mustn’t we, when they want to find a biddable bride.” She clapped her hands together as the plan snapped in place, easy as a child’s wooden puzzle. “And who is a biddable bride, at least in their minds? A wallflower.”

  “A wallflower,” Miss Leslie repeated. “A masculine wallflower.”

  “Exactly,” Evangeline insisted with a grin, and reached out to catch Thomasina’s arm. “And I know just where they are.”

  Miss Leslie didn’t resist as Evangeline drew her from the ballroom and down through the long, twisting halls of the manor. At last they reached a door that was partially ajar, and Evangeline pushed it wider so they could see inside.

  “The library,” Miss Leslie said in the hushed tones of reverence such a place afforded.

  Evangeline looked up at the massive bookshelves that reached almost to the high ceiling of the room. She gave a contented sigh and then shook off her reaction to focus on matters at hand. “And just as I promised, here are the wallflowers.”

  There were three gentlemen in the room at present. Two sat on opposite ends of a long settee, reading. The third stood at the window, staring out of a telescope into the night sky. As he turned toward the door and the intruders who had invaded the privacy of the men, Evangeline caught her breath. Lost it entirely as he smiled at her.

  Miss Leslie’s gaze followed Evangeline’s and her grip tightened on her arm. “Who is that?”

  Evangeline glanced at her new friend from the corner of her eye. “Do you not know Henry Killam?” she said, her tone a bit sharper than she’d meant to make it.

  “Might he do? He seems quite a bluestocking sort himself,” Miss Lesley said, her tone now full of regard of Evangeline’s plan. A plan that suddenly felt a little ill-thought.

  “Well…” Evangeline hesitated. “He is a thorough, scientific sort of fellow, who never does anything by halves, so that would be an advantage in your predicament, specifically…”

  Evangeline swallowed as her attention shifted back to Henry at the window. Miss Lesley spoke of his obvious intellect, but she must have also noticed how handsome Henry was. Not as showy as the dukes, perhaps, more plainly dressed. Not as puffed out like a peacock. But his figure spoke of a lean strength. A grace. He had a very nice face with interesting angles.

  His hair was a bit too long, of course, and always looked as though he’d just run his hand through it. And then there were his eyes. Hidden behind spectacles, but still lovely green depths that reminded one of pale fields in the spring and…

  Her teeth were clenched and she had to force herself to unclench them. “Do you know, I don’t think Henry will do at all for your purposes, not at all,” she heard herself say.

  “No?” Thomasina said with a bit of disappointment lacing her tone.

  “No. Because he’s…because he’s not…” Evangeline stammered and stuttered as she tried to think of one reason Henry Killam was not a good choice for her new friend’s endeavor. Before she could, her gaze was caught by a fourth person she hadn’t realized was in the room with them. A handsome gentleman, fast asleep on another settee across the room.

  “Simon!” she burst out as she all but leapt toward him, crossing halfway to the alcove in that one long step and drawing the brief attention of the other men before they went back to reading almost as if she wasn’t there at all. She motioned to him with one hand. “Oh, yes. Simon Cathcart ought to do quite nicely.”

  Miss Lesley stared at him and her face twisted in disbelief. “Really? He looks rather too indolent. And too…too everything.”

  She thought she saw Miss Lesley’s gaze flicker back toward Henry, and she motioned her closer to Cathcart instead.

  “Hmmm, yes,” she said, fighting for as many reasons as she could to turn her new friend’s attention to the sleeping man before her. She ticked them off on her fingers, waxing poetic about his days as a soldier, his lack of opinions, anything that jumped to mind about him just so that the attention would stay where it belonged.

  And if she embellished, well, what harm was there? The more she thought about it, the more Cathcart seemed the better fit for Miss Lesley! Better than Henry, for heaven’s sake. Evangeline was doing her a favor turning her away toward a far more appropriate match for the job she wanted done.

  Miss Lesley looked down at Cathcart over the edge of th
e spectacles she had pulled from her pocket at some point during Evangeline’s poetic recitation of the gentleman’s better qualities.

  “I suppose if I were going to all the ugly trouble of being ruined, I might want something beautiful to look at,” Miss Lesley said at last.

  Relief flooded Evangeline. “Exactly, he is imminently suitable for the purpose. Uncomplicated, simple Simon.” She glared at the man still sleeping on the couch. He was not helping. She closed the remaining distance to him and nudged him with her foot. “Aren’t you, Simon?”

  Cathcart opened his eyes with a grin that had probably melted a dozen hearts, but had never done a thing for Evangeline. “Of course I am. Is that you, then, Evie, old girl?”

  Evangeline let out her breath and glared at him. God’s teeth, she’d forgotten what a shameless tease the man could be. Of course, Miss Lesley might like that about him. Cathcart was fun, in his own way. “It is. Good evening, Simon. Do get up, dear man. Miss Lesley has a proposition for you.”

  She glanced away as she said it, her interest brought again to Henry at the window. He was frowning now as he gazed up at the stars. Like something had troubled him. She found herself wondering what it was.

  To her left, Simon said something and she forced her attention back to her friends. Miss Lesley looked a bit uncomfortable. She was shifting, in fact, and Simon just looked confused. She started as she realized the man had been lamenting treaties, of all things. Gracious, did she have to do everything? “Miss Lesley desires to be ruined,” she said bluntly.