Gift-Wrapped Governesses: Christmas at Blackhaven Castle / Governess to Christmas Bride / Duchess by Christmas. Marguerite Kaye
It was Trey Stanford’s way of telling her that he was nothing at all like him. She was speechless as he bowed his head and left because his troth was exactly that which she wanted, and because the compliments he had given her were so unexpected.
He liked her and so did his sons! Even a new blast of snow did nothing to diminish her happiness as she turned the strange conversation over and over in her mind. He had promised her so much more than she thought he might, and although the gardens were not the place to press anything further, Seraphina was certain they would soon find another occasion.
Laying her fingers across her lips, she smiled behind her hands, a joy rising from deep within her. She was overwhelmed with the astonishment of one who finds herself in exactly the place that she had long hoped to be. Her eyes wandered across the high-and-ancient walls of Blackhaven, the patina of stone worn in places from time and weather, hundreds of years of protection imbued in their very strength. When she had arrived here she had found the castle forbidding and hostile. Now all she could see was the beauty of it.
Chapter Six
23 December
Voices brought Seraphina from her room early the next afternoon to be confronted directly by a large group of strangers in the salon at the foot of the stairs.
She recognised one of them as Lady Frobisher, an inveterate gossip and snoop and her heart sank accordingly. Lord Blackhaven did not look pleased at all as three young women leaned in towards him and amongst their company she saw exactly how he would be received in London. It would be with complete and utter delight, for his form was nothing at all like the fops that overran the social halls and ballrooms with their mincing ways and effeminate habits.
Nay, Trey Stanford with his night-black hair, amber eyes and danger would be like a panther amongst kittens. The Titian-haired beauty next to him had her hand upon his arm. Proprietary and challenging!
‘I should love you to come to our place for Christmas, my lord. Mama has made a great show of the decorations and our cook came highly recommended.’
‘I think not, Lady Lydia.’ His fingers unlinked her hand and he moved back.
The Frobisher matriarch, however, was having none of it. ‘You said the same last year, my lord, and we heard that you had hardly celebrated the season. Besides, my daughters and I would be most happy to see you at our table with the children, of course.’
The girl she presumed to be Lydia coloured dramatically. There was not much of an age difference between them, but Seraphina felt a hundred years older. Not wishing to be caught in the awkward position of an uncertain exit, she came forwards. Helen Frobisher raised her monocle, peering up at her with a quizzical expression and Seraphina saw the exact moment she recognised her.
‘Good God, Stanford. This gel on your staircase is the lost Moreton chit, is she not? What on earth is she doing here and in such awful clothes when the whole of London town is searching for her? Come down, gel, and let me see you better.’
The mouths of the three younger ladies behind were wide-open, eyes filled with shock as Seraphina moved to the last step. She was glad for the slight height that kept her above them all—it meant she did not have to meet their glances so directly.
‘Why is she here, Blackhaven?’ The older lady’s voice had taken on a shrill tone, the flinted anger in her words mirrored in her eyes. ‘If she is alone in your company, then she is exactly as her mother was—a whore who pretended to be a lady.’
‘No, you have it most wrong.’ Seraphina finally found her voice at such a brutal criticism. ‘I am at Blackhaven Castle because—’
‘Because she is my intended.’ Trey Stanford finished the sentence for her as he strode forwards, taking her hand in his and pulling her close. ‘Just this morning, Lady Seraphina has done me the honour of agreeing to become my wife.’
Seraphina felt the pressure in his fingers bearing down on her own. Keep quiet, they said, and we may yet get through this. Her heart was beating so fast at this unexpected new turn of events that she doubted speech could have come anyway.
‘Your intended? There are rumours she is promised on the bequest of her father to Ralph Bonnington, the Earl of Cresswell, and now you say she is also your bride-to-be? If this is a trick, Stanford, you will pay for it. My Lydia was under the impression that it was her hand in marriage you had sought and to be so rudely compromised …’
The young woman in question began to sob, softly at first, but then building, until the whole room was filled with her anguish.
Trey stepped forwards. ‘I have been largely reclusive in Essex, Lady Frobisher, and I am sorry if you were under the impression that my one meeting with your family in town a month ago constituted anything like a proposal of such permanency. It was not my intention at all.’
‘Lydia said there were other more clandestine arrangements made?’
The howling heightened.
‘I see.’ The woman pulled herself together and faced Seraphina straight on, the chagrin on her face because of her daughter’s lies sharpening her query. ‘I take it that you are without a chaperone?’
Seraphina was relieved when the Duke answered for her. ‘My sister Margaret, Lady Westleigh, and her husband are in residence and she is a stickler for the correct.’ His lie sounded eminently authoritarian, but short of demanding the presence of these others, Lady Frobisher had no way of accounting for the truth or otherwise.
‘Then be careful, Stanford, that this betrothal is not as foolish as your last one and hope that the daughter of Elizabeth Moreton failed to inherit the wanderlust her mother was cursed with.’
The stillness in the Duke of Blackhaven was more menacing than any raised shout. ‘You have said enough, Lady Frobisher. It would be wise if you went now before you say more.’
‘Now listen here, my lord …’ A man at the rear of the group had taken up the argument, his face florid with anger.
But the Duke was at the very end of patience. ‘Get out.’
With a heavy click of her fan the woman turned, then thought better of it. ‘I feel it to be my God-ordained duty to let the magistrate in Maldon know of this contretemps. If I were you, Stanford, I should keep all the silver ewers well out of sight before you, too, feel the heavy weight of the Moreton temperament descend upon you just as Cresswell did.’
With that they were gone, the door shut behind them and a servant Seraphina did not recognise standing at attention by the door.
Trey unlaced his grip on her hand in a quick movement and waved the man away, the tension in the room building as all the shouted insults of the woman were remembered. Finally, he spoke.
‘Lady Frobisher will probably calm down once she has had the time to think things over. I doubt she will want to alert the magistrate.’
‘How could she know anything about me?’
‘The papers are full of the mystery of your disappearance from London and with you gone …’
He stopped as she looked up at him.
‘With you gone anyone can say anything. And they have.’
‘I see.’ He had not mentioned the matter of her being his intended at all. Rather he moved back and poured himself a drink from a decanter on a small desk. Brandy, Seraphina thought by the colour, so shocked that she had begun to shake. Trey Stanford swallowed his tipple in a single shot and poured another. This one he handed to her.
‘I find a clear mind often only makes matters worse, Seraphina.’ The first time he had ever used her Christian name and she liked the sound of it off his tongue. Upending the liquid just as he had, she coughed as the burn crawled down her throat.
‘Lady