His Lordship's Holiday Surprise
by Kate Huntington
ISBN: 082177493X

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Certainly, witnessing Clarissa’s prim, bluestocking of a sister rip into her with all the fury and passion of a termagant was almost worth the hurt of being jilted by Clarissa herself. But alas, here he is, bitter, jaded, and most decidedly alone. So where is Clarissa? As Augusta and Richard forge a tentative alliance to search for her and try to tend to her three rambunctious children, something warm and wonderful begins to happen. Is it just the Christmas spirit and the joy of beaming young faces? Or perhaps the herald of new love?

"Kate Huntington's wit sparkles brighter than snow on Christmas." -- Regina Scott, Author of Perfection

". . . True love is HIS LORDSHIP'S HOLIDAY SURPRISE (4 stars) in this bright gem by the very talented Kate Huntington. -- Teresa Roebuck, Romantic Times BOOKclub

Prologue

Miss Augusta Oglethorpe's eyes narrowed as she watched her lovely widowed sister, Clarissa, smile up into the wicked dark eyes of the devastatingly handsome Richard, Marquess of Ardath. He wore his Scots heritage plainly on the high, aristocratic bridge of his nose and his bladelike cheekbones. His lean, powerful figure in evening dress made all the other men in the room look insignificant.

Not that Augusta was impressed by such superficial traits.

The marquess seemed to sense the power of her gaze and lifted his eyebrows at her.

With a sniff of distaste, she averted her eyes, but not before she saw him whisper something into Clarissa's ear. It caused Clarissa to look in Augusta's direction and laugh.

"I'd keep an eye on your sister, if I were you," Mrs. Bonner, their hostess, said gaily. "Lord Ardath's conquests are said to number in the hundreds, and that is only this season."

"I will keep it in mind," Augusta said, refusing to let Clarissa's flirtations and that unprincipled rake ruin her evening.

Like most of London, Mrs. Bonner and her husband would flee for the country next week in preparation for Christmas and the New Year. Leading to the holiday itself would be a series of house parties and other country entertainments.

Augusta wished them joy of all their frivolous social discourse. In a few weeks, London would be thin of company, but that was when Augusta liked it best. She would attend lectures at the British Museum, meet friends at the circulating library and spend the long winter evenings before the fire in the parlor of her small, neat house reading books and petting her cat.

Absolute heaven.

In addition to that, she would be engaged in preparations for the party she gave every year for the indigent gentlewomen of London. They so looked forward to it, as did she. Her house would be full of greenery, the table would be groaning with food, and every corner of the house would be filled with candlelight and excellent conversation, for all the single ladies of less modest means with whom Augusta socialized would attend as well.

Just a simple, civilized, enjoyable party for Augusta and like-minded females. The very best time of her year.

Augusta loved Christmas in London.

* * *

Richard, the Marquess of Ardath, hated Christmas in London, but going to his ancestral home in Scotland would be even worse.

There were too many ghosts there. His parents. His brother. All dead now.

All about him, these good people were making plans to go into the country, to their house parties and their noisy gatherings of friends and family. Richard turned down invitations to join them by the score. As usual, he would spend Christmas alone in his hunting box, shooting pheasant by day, and drinking smuggled brandy and reading by the fire at night.

Strangely, the thought of this time that he normally welcomed as a period of quiet renewal seemed unspeakably lonely. He suddenly felt old, even though he was only thirty.

He looked down into Clarissa Fenshaw's lovely cornflower blue eyes and thought how appealing it would be to share the hunting box with the beautiful, sensual, accommodating widow. He had been seeing her socially for some months, ever since she came to London upon completion of her period of mourning for her late husband. She was cheerful, kind and passionate. He touched her cheek with his gloved hand as he bent to whisper a suggestion into her ear.

When he did, he once again encountered the eye of Miss Augusta Oglethorpe, who was watching him with a look of utter disdain on her face.

The two sisters could not have been more unlike in temperament, although there was a superficial family resemblance between them. Both were tall with elegant, willowy figures and had masses of lovely dark curling hair. Clarissa's hair was dressed in artful curls around her perfect, heart-shaped face. The prim Miss Oglethorpe's was pulled back into an austere chignon.

Clarissa was a vision in celestial blue gauze; Miss Oglethorpe wore pearl gray muslin made up close to the throat.

A smile trembled on Clarissa's lush, sensual lips as she looked up into his eyes.

Miss Oglethorpe's expression suggested that she recently had eaten sour prunes.

Oh, how disapproving the prim spinster would look if she knew what plans the wicked marquess had for her pretty sister this holiday!

Chapter One

December, 1813 The Marquess of Ardath's Hunting Box

Jilted.

Richard, the Marquess of Ardath, washed the bitter taste of the word from his mouth with a glass of the best French champagne, smuggled at exorbitant expense into England to please a faithless female who dared spurn his distinguished title, his enormous fortune, and, if a succession of infatuated ladies over the years were to be believed, his not inconsiderable powers of seduction.

The bitter taste was just as strong after four glasses of champagne as it had been before the first.

"Dinner is served, your lordship," his butler announced.

"Don't want it," Richard said, sighing. For once he cursed his hard head for liquor. He would have wished to be pleasantly sedated on such an occasion. Instead he was painfully sober. He had eaten nothing since breakfast, but he could not bear the filet of sole, the pâté de foie gras and succulent purple grapes, the asparagus with white sauce and truffles, the hothouse strawberries and fresh cream that he had ordered conveyed to this secluded place to please the woman he had been given every reason to think eagerly anticipated the consummation of their union.

Unfortunately, there was little else to eat in the house.

The scent of the hothouse roses that filled the little hunting box sickened him.

"You must eat something, my lord," ventured Minton, unintimidated by the black glare Richard cast him. The butler had come to Ardath in Richard's father's time and had known him from the time he was a child.

Unfortunately, in Richard's present state, a demonstration of sympathy was likely to unman him.

"Go away," Richard said through gritted teeth.

Minton compressed his lips in disapproval and obeyed.

Richard scowled at the half-filled glass of flat champagne in his hand and deliberately threw it across the room into the fireplace.

Minton poked his head back into the doorway, made a silent assessment of the situation, and withdrew, looking affronted.

Good, Richard thought with mean satisfaction. Maybe they would leave him alone now. He had imported his principal servants from his townhouse to ensure he and his bride received the most impeccable and discreet service possible during what was to be this magical prelude to their marriage. Now he wished he had left the concerned busybodies at home. With the slightest encouragement, he would have them all in here clucking over him.

At that moment, an urgent knocking sounded at the door.

Richard raised his eyebrows. Who would come calling at this hour of the night in such a secluded place?

Minton walked in his usual unhurried, dignified gait toward the summons and opened the door with all the majesty he employed when he presided over Richard's townhouse during the height of the season.

Richard gave a smile of sour satisfaction when he heard a woman's voice raised in mingled demand and entreaty.

So, he thought. The fair Clarissa has come to her senses.

Well, if she decided she wanted to be a marchioness after all -- and evidently she did or she would not have come here -- she would have to beg.

Would he forgive her? That depended upon how persuasively she did so.

He thought of the carefully prepared bedchamber upstairs with distaste.

No.

Not even if she begged.

A man had to have some pride.

"Set the dogs on her," he shouted.

"Uncle Richard!" cried a small voice.

Well, he thought, taken aback, he had told Clarissa's children they could call him that.

How like an unprincipled woman to bring her children along to soften him up.

"Cynthia?" he said, going to one knee as a tiny blonde girl dressed in a haphazardly buttoned blue velvet coat managed to get around the butler, who was blocking her way, and ran forward to cast herself on Richard's bosom. The four-year-old was followed by Gerald, her three-year-old, red-haired brother.

He forced himself to smile at the weary children. It was not their fault their mother was a traitoress. He rose and stood with a hand on each child's head as he waited for the bedraggled female to approach him. She was holding the youngest child, two-year-old, er, Harry, Richard believed the child's name was. In truth, Richard did not know the children well, although he had been determined to do his duty with regard to them, which he had not expected to be arduous. He had simply ordered the nurseries of his primary estate opened and refurbished to receive Clarissa's brood.

Ah. Mother and child, he thought sarcastically. A touching picture, carefully designed to soften his heart.

Only, instead of cuddling the boy to her breast and simpering at Richard, she was holding the child awkwardly, as if she didn't know quite what to do with his arms and legs. She looked about her and unceremoniously dumped the child into Minton's arms in such a way that he either had to accept the boy or allow him to fall to the ground.

"If you wake him up," she said with a gimlet stare at the butler, "I shall cut your heart out. He has been wailing these past two hours."

She turned on Richard with a look of pure fury on her face. He staggered back a few steps.

He had been misled by the dark hair, elegant cheekbones and tall, graceful figure -- not to mention the trio of somewhat familiar children in her company -- into mistaking this woman for Clarissa.

But instead of Clarissa's clear cornflower blue, this woman had eyes of dark brown, and they were looking daggers at him.

Augusta Oglethorpe.

Egad.

Just what he needed when his spirits were at low ebb -- Clarissa's disapproving bluestocking of a sister, who had always looked at him as if he were a bug swimming in her tea.

He had never seen Miss Oglethorpe anything but self-possessed and meticulously turned out in her prim, well-cut clothes and with every dark hair tortured into obedience.

But now her hair was straggling from its pins, her hat was all askew, and her clothing was rumpled. Her nose was red, as if she had been crying, although Richard suspected it was just the cold. Her steps were halting, for obviously her limbs were stiffened from spending some time on the road, but there was nothing whatsoever wrong with her voice.

"Where is she, you unprincipled blackguard?" she demanded. She forgot herself so much as to grasp the lapels of his coat and give him a shake that almost caused her to topple over. Reflexively, he clasped her arm to steady her, and she drew back from his touch as if he were the devil incarnate.

"What the dev -- " he glanced at the two older children's attentive faces and bit off the expletive he had been about to utter. "What are you doing here, Miss Oglethorpe?" he amended hastily.

"I have come to deliver my poor sister from your treacherous hands, as if you did not know," she spat out. "I went to your house and learned that you had come here.

Her gaze took in the room filled with Clarissa's favorite pink roses and the bucket of ice containing the empty bottle of champagne. She gave him a look that would cut glass.

"You lecher!" she cried as she pushed past him and went up the stairs followed by in haste Richard. Minton had the presence of mind to block the two other children with his body when they would have followed them.

"See here," Richard said, embarrassed that Clarissa's sister should see the extravagant preparations he had made for the faithless minx. He strode in front of her and grasped her shoulders to halt her progress, but she stepped down hard on his stockinged foot.

"Miss Oglethorpe! You can't go in there!" he shouted as she quickly darted around him and into the bedchamber.

"Aha!" she cried. "I knew it!"

Richard gave a long sigh of humiliation. There were roses in this room, too, a fragrant symphony of red, pink and yellow in crystal vases on every surface. There were white beeswax candles in crystal candelabra. The counterpane was pink satin, and the sheets were scented with rosewater.

"You filthy scoundrel," the woman said. She raised her voice. Clarissa!" she shouted. "Come out! I know you are hiding in here. I have come to take you home."

"She is not here," Richard said. "Come away, now."

"Not on your life," she said. "Not until I've found my sister. Clarissa!"

As Richard watched, she went to the wardrobe and cast it open to find only his clothes there. She poked through them with her gloved hand as if she expected to find her sister cowering among them. She even dropped to her knees and looked under the bed.

He sighed and leaned against the fireplace mantel with his arms crossed.

After a moment, Miss Oglethorpe's shocked face peered over the counterpane at him.

"She is not here," she said in a choked voice. "She's really not here."

The sound of childish voices raised in argument reached them and, to Richard's consternation, the woman's shoulders began to shake as she drew herself upright. Abruptly, she sat down on the counterpane and let her head drop into her hands.

"What am I going to do?" she cried out in despair.

"See here," Richard said, appalled. The bloody female was falling apart, and he would be dashed if she was going to do it on the bloody satin counterpane he had purchased for her little tease of a sister. "Pull yourself together, woman!"

"I was certain she was here," she said, sniffling. "You and she have been somewhat discreet, but one would have to be blind not to know that eventually you would . . . do this!" She indicated the sumptuous furnishings with a distracted hand. "Villain! Lurking about, seducing perfectly respectable women -- "

"Perfectly respectable! Clarissa?" he said, then had to add out of justice, "Well, I thought her respectable or I wouldn't have asked her to marry me. Little did I know she would serve me such a trick."

"Marry you?" Miss Oglethorpe repeated. "You intended to marry Clarissa? Do you think I am a fool, my lord?"

Goaded, he dug into the pocket of his coat until he found the rumpled special license signed personally by the Archbishop of Canterbury, no less.

"Good gracious," she said faintly when she had snatched and examined this article. Richard gave an unamused snort at the mild expletive.

Her eyes were huge with something akin to reverence as she stared at him.

"You were going to marry her," she said. Then she assaulted Richard's ears by giving a faint scream.

"What the deuce is the matter with you now?" he said with a sigh.

"She must be dead, or lying injured somewhere," she cried. She sprang at him and grasped the lapels of his coat again. "I was persuaded that she had given into your blandishments to go off somewhere with you, but I never dreamed you intended to marry her. Something dreadful must have happened to her, for it is her chief ambition to marry well to provide for her children after poor Stephen's estate was found to be such a disappointment. You must send to Bow Street at once!"

He disengaged her surprisingly strong fingers from his person and put her away from him.

"Absolutely not," he said. "Your sister is nothing to me."

"But . . . but what am I to do with the children?" she asked, looking distraught. "She left them at my house while I was asleep two nights ago, then she went away without explanation. The letter she left for me said that the children's nurse had gone without notice, and she must go off into the country to think."

"Into the country to think? Clarissa?" he scoffed. "Without the shops or parties? With no one to flirt with except a few country squires? Highly unlikely."

"So I thought at the time," she admitted. "But the children -- "

"Are none of my concern. I wash my hands of Clarissa, her children and, I thank The Almighty, you. Leave my house, Miss Oglethorpe. Immediately, if you please."

She sank to the counterpane and began weeping.

"Stop that!" he said, disconcerted. "Stop that at once!"

She wept with great, wracking sobs as if her heart would break. No coy play of long, wet eyelashes to get her own way, this, but a violent, gusty demonstration of utter despair that completely unmanned him.

"I cannot bear it," she said. "I know nothing about children. Two members of my staff have resigned. My poor cat is losing its hair. And from day to night there is this unbearable clattering in the house to the point where I am about to lose my mind."

"So you brought them here, into what you fully expected to be a scene of debauchery? Are you insane?"

"I did not know what else to do with them! It is easy for you. You are a man!"

"Easy," he sneered. "By God, that's rich!"

She blinked and looked around as if seeing the pink counterpane, the candles and the flowers with new eyes.

"Oh," she said in a small voice. "How inconsiderate of me. You must be . . . disappointed."

"Well, I did have plans for this evening other than entertaining Clarissa's disapproving watering pot of a sister and her children!"

"I must find her," Miss Oglethorpe said, pulling herself together.

She marched down the stairs with head held high and relieved the butler of the awake and cranky two-year-old.

"Come, children. We are leaving," she said.

At that, all three set up such a fit of wailing that Richard fought an impulse to cover his ears with his hands. His head was beginning to hurt.

"Can you not make them stop? How in . . . Hades can you tolerate that unceasing noise?" he asked.

"I can't," she admitted with a rueful sigh. "I think my hair is going to fall out, too. Come along, Cynthia. Gerald. We must go back to London now."

"I want my mama!" cried Cynthia.

"I'm hungry!" cried Gerald.

"I'm sorry, my dears," Miss Oglethorpe said, looking tired. "Your mother is not here, after all, and Lord Ardath wants us to go away."

"Uncle Richard," said Cynthia, looking pathetic as a single tear rolled down from one melting cornflower blue eye.

Her mother's daughter, but blameless for Clarissa's sins.

Richard could not let them go like that. Not hungry.

"What have we in the kitchen that children can eat?" Richard asked Minton.

"Dinner has been served this past quarter hour, my lord," Minton said with superb dignity. "Will you and your guests go in?"

Richard raised his eyebrows at Miss Oglethorpe and extended his arm, for all the world like a good host. She gave a half-hysterical laugh and accepted with her free hand as Harry fussed against her shoulder. Cynthia trotted on ahead.

Gerald clutched the marquess's leg as he escorted the odd little party into his dining room.

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