Regency Mistletoe & Marriages: A Countess by Christmas / The Earl's Mistletoe Bride

Regency Mistletoe & Marriages: A Countess by Christmas / The Earl's Mistletoe Bride
Joanna Maitland

ANNIE BURROWS

Regency Mistletoe and Marriages

Annie Burrows

Joanna Maitland

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

A Countess by Christmas

About the Author

ANNIE BURROWS has been making up stories for her own amusement since she first went to school. As soon as she got the hang of using a pencil she began to write them down. Her love of books meant she had to do a degree in English literature. And her love of writing meant she could never take on a job where she didn’t have time to jot down notes when inspiration for a new plot struck her. She still wants the heroines of her stories to wear beautiful floaty dresses and triumph over all that life can throw at them. But when she got married she discovered that finding a hero is an essential ingredient to arriving at ‘happy ever after’.

Look out for Annie Burrows’s latest exciting novel, Captain Corcoran’s Hoyden Bride, available from Mills & Boon® Historical Romance in April 2011.

Dear Reader,

When I was writing this story, set during a Regency Christmas house party, I spent a lot of time considering what is most important to me about the season. If I’m not careful, I have to confess, I can get totally stressed out by all the extra shopping, baking and general organising that the celebrations can entail. But sitting down to really think about the themes of this story reminded me that Christmas, for me, is essentially about family. I want to spend time with them, see them enjoying the day, finding them that special gift that will make them happy.

The hero of the story, Lord Bridgemere, has, like me, very strong views about the importance of family. Even though he finds many of his own relatives hard to get along with, he is determined to do the right thing by them, at least at this time of year. Even if he has to do so with gritted teeth.

And a man who is so determined to do the right thing deserves to find a woman who can see past the outer, prickly shell. And love him for who he really is.

And so I wish you and your own family all the joys and blessings of this season.

Merry Christmas!

Annie Burrows

In this, the fifieth anniversary of the Romantic Novelists’

Association, I would like to dedicate this book to all those

writers I meet up with regularly at local chapters.

Since I have joined the RNA I have found your support,

enthusiasm, friendship and advice invaluable.

And, if not for you,

I might never have found out about PLR!

Chapter One

An Invitation is extended to Miss Isabella Forrest To attend the celebration of the Season at Alvanley Hall

Helen was tired and cold. The private chaise she had hired for the last stage of the journey across Bodmin Moor was the most uncomfortable and least weatherproof of all the many and varied coaches in which she had been travelling for the past three days.

She shot her Aunt Bella an anxious glance. For the past half-hour she had kept her eyes fixed tightly shut, but she was not asleep. Helen knew this because every time they bounced over a pothole she emitted a faint moan.

She had never thought of her aunt as old until quite recently. Aunt Bella had always looked the same to her, right from the very first moment they had met. A determined-looking but kind lady, with light brown hair shot through with silver. There was perhaps just a little more silver now than there had been twelve years ago, when she had taken Helen home with her. But in the months since their local bank had gone out of business, and all their money had disappeared into some kind of financial abyss neither of them fully understood, she had definitely aged rapidly.

And now, thought Helen with a pang of disquiet, she looked like a lady of advancing years who had been evicted from her home, endured a journey fraught with innumerable difficulties in the depths of winter, and was facing the humiliation of having to beg a man she detested to provide her daily bread.

The transition from independent, respected woman to pauper had been hard enough for Helen to contend with. But it looked as though it was destroying her aunt.

At that very moment a flare of light outside the coach briefly attracted Helen’s attention. They were slowing down to negotiate the turn from the main road onto a driveway, the wrought-iron gates of which stood open.

‘Almost there, Aunt Bella,’ said Helen. ‘See?’

She indicated the two stone pillars through which their driver was negotiating the chaise.

Aunt Bella’s eyes flicked open, and she attempted a tremulous smile which was so lacking in conviction it made Helen want to weep.

She averted her head. She did not want to upset her aunt any further by making her think she was going to break down. She had to be strong. Aunt Bella had taken her in when she had discovered nobody else wanted a virtually penniless orphan—product of a marriage neither her father’s nor her mother’s family had approved of. Aunt Bella had been there for her, looking after her, all these years. Now it was Helen’s turn.

Through the carriage window she could see, one crouching on top of each pillar, a pair of stone lions, mouths open in silent snarls. Since the wind which howled across the moors was making the lanterns swing, the flickering shadows made it look just as though they were licking their lips and preparing to pounce.

She gave an involuntary shiver, then roused herself to push aside such a fanciful notion. She had only imagined the lions looked menacing because she was tired, and anxious about her aunt’s health now, as well as already being convinced neither of them was truly welcome at Alvanley Hall. In spite of the Earl of Bridgemere sending that invitation.

He had sent one every year since Helen could remember. And every other year her aunt had tossed the gilt-edged piece of card straight into the fire with a contemptuous snort.

‘Spend Christmas with a pack of relations I cannot abide, in that draughty great barracks of a place, when I can really enjoy myself here, in my snug little cottage, amongst my true friends?’

Yet here they were, whilst the cottage and the friends, along with Aunt Bella’s independence, had all gone. Swept away in the aftermath of the collapse of the Middleton and Shropshire County Bank, to which all their capital had been entrusted.

Her feeling of being an unwelcome intruder into the Earl of Bridgemere’s domain only increased the further along the carriageway they drove. It had its foundation, Helen knew, in her aunt’s statement that the Earl was as loath to open up his home to his extended family as she was to attend the annual gathering.

‘It is about the only thing we have in common,’ she had grumbled as she wrote her acceptance letter. ‘A disinclination to go anywhere near any other member of this family. In fact, if it were not for his habit of going to Alvanley to preside over the Christmas festivities for the tenants at the family seat, nobody would know where to locate him from one year’s end to the next, so assiduously does he avoid us all. Which is why he issues these invitations, I dare say. We would run him to earth there whether he did so or not. And at least this way he knows how many of us to cater for.’

Though torches had been lit and set at frequent intervals along the winding driveway, ostensibly to help strangers find their way more easily through the rapidly falling winter dusk, the only effect upon Helen was to make her wonder what lurked beyond the pools of light they cast. What was waiting in the depths of the menacing shadows, poised to pounce on anyone foolish enough to stray beyond the boundaries the Earl had set for those he so grudgingly permitted thus far?

It seemed to take an inordinately long time before the carriage drew to a halt in the shelter of a generously proportioned porte-cochère. A footman in black and silver livery came to open the coach door and let down the steps. Her aunt slumped back into her seat. The light streaming from the porch lamps revealed that her face was grey, her eyes dulled with despair.

‘Aunt Bella, we have to get out now. We are here!’ Helen whispered in an urgent undertone.

‘No…’ the old lady moaned. ‘I cannot do this. I want to go home!’ Her eyes filled with tears. She shut them, and shook her head in a gesture of impatience, as though reminding herself she no longer had anywhere to call home.

Their landlord had visited promptly, as soon as the rumours began to spread that Aunt Bella had lost her entire fortune. To remind her that their lease expired in the New Year, and that if she had not the cash to meet the rent she would have to leave.

Leaving her eventually with no alternative but to apply to the Earl of Bridgemere—the head of the family—for aid.

‘That it has come to this,’ Aunt Bella had said three days ago, when they had climbed into the mail coach at Bridgenorth. ‘To be obliged to go cap in hand to that man of all men! But I have burned my bridges now. I can never go back. Never.’