Goodwill For The Gentleman (Belles 0f Christmas Book 2) Read online

  Goodwill for the Gentleman

  Belles of Christmas Book Two

  Martha Keyes

  Contents

  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

  Epilogue

  Preview of The Earl’s Mistletoe Match

  Also in this Series

  Other Titles by Martha Keyes

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Goodwill for the Gentleman © 2019 by Martha Keyes. All Rights Reserved.

  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 permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  Cover design by Ashtyn Newbold

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Martha Keyes

  http://www.marthakeyes.com

  First Printing: October 2019

  1

  London, England

  December 19, 1813

  Lieutenant Hugh Warrilow put an anxious hand to the strings holding up his eagle mask. The mask was large enough to conceal his face, but the strings seemed flimsy, not nearly secure enough to ensure his anonymity.

  The mask was the one thing which had persuaded him to venture out in public, and he was already regretting his decision.

  He looked at the hordes of people in the ballroom of Lord Trenton’s London townhouse: hooded, masked, and glittering. There was a sense of safety in numbers—it was comforting to be lost amidst a crowd. Besides, no one knew he was back in England. No one would expect to see him there—or even expect him to be alive, perhaps.

  But he couldn’t help feeling that it was reckless to attend such an event. What if his mask were to somehow come undone? He had no desire to face the whispers and rumors.

  “I thought you said it was a private gathering,” he said to Captain Gillingham, a touch of annoyance in his voice.

  “And so it is,” Gillingham responded cheerfully through his turtle mask, admiring the woman passing by in a shimmering gown meant to resemble fish scales. “Hardly a soul here! Everyone’s left town already for the holidays.”

  Hugh scoffed. “You could have fooled me. It bears a strong resemblance to the last masquerade I attended at Vauxhall Gardens three years ago—and that was hardly exclusive.”

  “Bah! Vauxhall would have ten times this many people. I’ll tell you what—you’ve become too accustomed to solitude.” Gillingham clapped Hugh on the back of his black domino. “Come, Warrilow.”

  Hugh grabbed his friend’s arm. “Don’t use my name, for heaven’s sake,” he said through a tight jaw, glancing around to see if anyone was listening.

  Gillingham shot him a troubled look. “If you’re heading for home, Warrilow, it’s only a matter of time before it’s out that you’ve returned.”

  “Yes,” said Hugh, “but I would much rather that the news come out when I am not here to witness its effect.”

  Gillingham clucked his tongue. “This won’t do at all! Let down your hair. Live a little. It’s high time you enjoyed yourself for a change. One doesn’t take a leave of absence to go hide in a cave, man!”

  “If one has my reputation, one just might,” Hugh said dryly.

  It was foolish to have let Gillingham persuade him into coming. The only thing standing between him and appalled glances was his mask. He should have made his way home from Spain directly to the family estate at Norfield—as he had planned to do—rather than agreeing to break his journey in London for a few days. Or he might have even gone to Grindleham, the Warrilows’ small estate in Derbyshire, for a chance to adjust to life in England before seeing his family. And yet, here he was.

  Gillingham had always had a way of cajoling Hugh into agreeing to his plans.

  “Your reputation?” Gillingham spat out. “That was years ago. You know as well as I that society has a memory for scandal shorter than Prinny’s breath.”

  Hugh wished he could believe that. He wished his own memory was as fickle as Gillingham seemed to think the ton’s memory was. But surely one never forgot the looks and whispers which had followed Hugh so doggedly, until he had decided to accept his uncle’s offer to buy a commission. In many ways, the battlefield had been a welcome reprieve.

  He rubbed at his shoulder and winced. Of course, not all of it had been a reprieve. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

  Gillingham shook his head, his eyes wide with wonder behind his black domino as he admired the scene. “I had forgotten how much I missed England. No offense to las señoritas españolas, of course,” he added quickly, “but I am tolerably certain that nothing can compare to an accomplished English lady.”

  Hugh was silent, but he found himself in agreement with his friend. He had been close enough to swearing off his home country forever, to staying in Spain where he had a fresh start, a clean slate. But there was something extraordinary about England and her people.

  Hugh was glad to be back.

  Of course, for all his family knew, he was still in Spain. Just as likely, they thought him dead.

  It had been months and months since he had written to them, after all.

  He worried his lip, thinking about the reception he was likely to receive from them. Whatever their reactions might be, he could hardly blame them after he had neglected to inform them of his injury and his intent to return.

  He had his reasons, though. At first, the ball in his shoulder had prevented it. Then it was the subsequent illness and the all-encompassing grief at losing Robert Seymour.

  He shook his head. He didn’t want to think on that right now. There would be more than enough time for it once he was back at Norfield.

  Regardless, holding a quill to paper had been the last thing on his mind after his injury. And then it had been easy to continue putting it off for one reason or another. Before he knew it, he had begun to wonder if perhaps his family wasn’t better off without him—better off believing him dead or disappeared like the coward so many believed him to be.

  But in the end, he realized he couldn’t stay away from England, from his mother—from his past. Everyone else might come to forget him in his absence, forget the shame he bore, but he wouldn’t have forgotten, no matter how long he stayed away.

  Gillingham grabbed his arm with an intake of breath. “Come. I must dance with that young woman over there.” He indicated a young lady wearing a gold domino and cat ears, standing—quite strangely—alone.

  “Do you know her?”

  “No,” Gillingham reasoned, “but how is she to know that? After all, a masquerade is the only ball where I can conceivably approach a stranger and ask her to dance.” He grinned, and Hugh shook his head with a chuckle, following alongside him.

  He would accompany Gillingham without complaint, but it was a waste of time for Hugh to set his own sights on any of the women in attendance. At least he assumed so. Who would wish to dance with a man reputed to be a jilt? Of course, his mask kept them from knowing such a thing, but it felt wrong to take advantage of their ignorance.

  “My lady,”
Gillingham said in his most alluring voice as they came upon the young woman.

  She turned, and Hugh noted her almond-shaped eyes of blue-flecked gray, which peered at him through her cat mask. He felt his heart rate pick up slightly and shook away the thought of two women he knew with just such pairs of eyes.

  “Might I persuade you,” Gillingham continued, “to stand up with me for the next set?” He extended a hand toward her, dipping into an overly-formal bow.

  A woman in a tiger mask and an orange- and black-striped, hooded domino approached them, coming shoulder-to-shoulder with the woman in the cat mask as she glanced at Gillingham’s extended hand.

  “Lucy,” she said, shooting a watchful glance at Hugh and Gillingham. “I thought you were with Mr. Pritchard or I shouldn't have left you.”

  Hugh stilled, glancing back and forth between the two women, his wide eyes lingering on the hooded one: her confident posture, her direct gaze, the color of her caramel brown hair that peeked out from her hood. He would recognize her anywhere, domino or no.

  It was Emma Caldwell, the woman he had loved—the woman he hoped fervently that he didn’t still love—and beside her Lucy Caldwell, the woman he had jilted.

  Hugh’s jaw clenched, and he suppressed the impulse to check that his mask was still on. He wasn’t ready to face the Caldwells. Not just yet.

  His first act upon arrival in England had been to inquire as subtly as possible whether the Caldwell sisters were—as he assumed they would be—married. He had hoped that Emma, at least, would have married, for it would have been a type of forced closure to his abominably persistent affection.

  But neither had married during his absence. This was perhaps not a surprise for Emma, as she had often proclaimed her lack of desire to marry. But Lucy…he trusted that she had reasons beyond any related to Hugh and his purposeful rejection of her.

  Either way, he had to do what he came to do: repair the brokenness he’d left behind him when he’d gone off to war. He had to face up to it, and that meant making things right with Lucy—it meant offering now what he hadn’t been able to bring himself to offer three years ago: marriage.

  At the time, he had rationalized his choice—they hadn’t been formally engaged, after all. But the arrangement between the families had been long-standing: that Hugh, the heir of Norfield would marry Lucy, the eldest of the Caldwells. It had made perfect sense to his own parents and to Lucy’s parents.

  But it had made no sense to Hugh’s heart, which had stubbornly latched onto Emma and dug in its heels at any of Hugh’s attempts to change its affections. His heart simply refused to give up the confident, bold protector he had seen Emma become. How ironic that it was what he loved so well about Emma that had ensured she would never forgive him.

  But, hated by Emma or no, he had simply not been able to subject Lucy to marrying a man who was in love with her sister.

  He’d had three years away from Emma, though—long enough, he hoped, for his heart to see sense; or at least to subject itself to his strengthened determination. He knew now that there were more important things in life than following his heart: he had a duty to his family and to Norfield. Lucy might reject his offer of marriage, and she might well hate him, but Hugh was prepared to face that if it meant a chance of righting the wrong he had done years ago—a chance to prove himself.

  At least Lucy would no longer be laboring under the misapprehension that he was some sort of nonpareil, as she had thought him to be before it had all happened.

  A man strode up, his fiery red hair set off by the blue of his domino, his face masked in black. He bowed slightly to Hugh and Gillingham before offering an arm to the young woman in gold—to Lucy.

  “Ah, my apologies,” Gillingham said, clearing his throat. “I see that I am too late in my request.” He smiled at the man in the blue domino without any rancor. “But don’t let that prevent the two of you—” he indicated Hugh and Emma — “from joining the set.”

  Hugh clenched his teeth, wanting nothing more than to strangle his friend. But that was not an option, and for the first time in three years, Emma’s eyes looked at him.

  He had been haunted by those gray eyes since his sudden departure; haunted by the cold contempt they had held when she had last looked on him. Any flicker of hope he had been harboring that she would forgive him for jilting Lucy had disappeared in that moment.

  His first inclination was to make his excuses to Emma, to avoid the prospect of standing up together for a set. If they danced, she was bound to discover his identity, and what would she do then? She was quite capable of deserting him on the dance floor. He could almost see the look of revulsion that would transform her otherwise-kind eyes.

  He shuddered slightly. The prospect was too reminiscent of their last encounter. It brought flashbacks of the humiliation that had consumed him and the astounded faces that had surrounded him when she had given him the cut direct in just such a ballroom as this.

  A fourth gentleman joined the group, coming up beside Emma. Hugh swallowed the lump in his throat. Who was the gentleman? According to a mutual acquaintance, she wasn’t married. But was she engaged? His heart dropped.

  “I am afraid I must ask your pardon,” Emma said. “I am promised to stand up with Mr. Douglas.” She indicated the man beside her.

  Hugh bowed politely, feeling relief as well as regret, then put a firm hand on Gillingham’s shoulders and pulled him away.

  “Confound it,” Gillingham said. “Should have known the angel would be spoken for with a smile like that. I should have asked her to save me the next set, but with that fellow’s eyes boring into me, I lost my nerve.”

  Hugh was silent, feeling the beads of sweat which were gathering at his hairline. How had he not considered that he might happen upon the Misses Caldwell at the masquerade? He had assumed that they would already be at home for Christmas. The Caldwells took the holiday season very seriously.

  It hadn’t taken him more than two minutes in Emma’s presence, though, to feel the magnetic draw to her; the pull that he fervently hoped had dissipated during his time on the Continent.

  But perhaps it was simply the unexpectedness of the encounter in combination with his nerves that he had mistaken for lingering romantic attraction?

  He sincerely hoped so.

  * * *

  The violins strung out the last notes of a cotillion, and Emma’s partner, Mr. Douglas, bowed. She took the opportunity to steal a curious glance at the man her sister Lucy was promised to marry, who was making his bow next to Mr. Douglas.

  Mr. George Pritchard was nothing like the sort of man she had expected Lucy to wed, with his close-cropped red hair, freckles, and bland gaze.

  He must have felt Emma’s eyes on him, since he looked over at her as he straightened. He offered an abashed smile before turning his head away, as if embarrassed he had caught her looking at him.

  She kept her eyes on him, one side of her mouth tilting upward at his behavior. At least he was kind. Perhaps that was all that mattered.

  “It was an honor to stand up with you, Miss Caldwell,” said Mr. Douglas, taking a step toward her.

  She smiled politely. A dance with Mr. Douglas was very much like any other dance—full of civil small-talk and polite smiles. But that was what Emma needed: someone ordinary and reliable; someone she could respect but never fall in love with; someone with the ability to make her comfortable but without the ability to hurt her.

  “I understand,” Mr. Douglas continued, “that you are to journey home for the holidays.”

  She nodded. “Yes, my mother is staunchly traditional, you know, and she insists that we all return home to celebrate the season together. It is her idea of heaven, and she guards it somewhat aggressively.”

  Mr. Douglas nodded his understanding. “She is German, is she not?”

  “Yes, and very proud of it, too,” Emma said with a significant look. “At this time of year more than any other.”

  “I should very much like to meet
her. Allow me to wish you a very happy Christmas with your family. I hope that, once your father has returned to town, I might perhaps beg an audience with him.” His brows raised in a question.

  Emma felt her stomach clench oddly. Ignoring a silly reaction to a very expected comment, she nodded with a smile and bid him goodbye.

  It was precisely what she had been planning for, so there was no reason to regard a bit of unease. Surely it was natural to feel nervous at the prospect of marriage, something she had been putting off for so long.

  She turned to Lucy, who was watching Mr. Pritchard walk off, his blue domino sweeping behind him.

  “He is very amiable, Lucy. I think you have done well.” Emma tilted her head as she watched him. “Though he is perhaps not precisely the type of gentleman I had pictured you marrying.”

  Lucy turned toward her, drawing her head back slightly with a frown. “What kind of gentleman did you think I should marry?” Her voice was soft, just like her kind eyes and the ringlets which hung loosely on her shoulders.

  Emma narrowed her eyes in thought. “I think I assumed that you would marry someone a bit taller. More imposing and protective. And though I am beginning to think it very distinguished, the red hair was certainly unexpected.” She sent Lucy a teasing smile.

  “Oh?” Lucy said, amused. “I had no idea you had such an opinion on the matter. Anything else, pray?”

  Emma nodded with a teasing smile. It was absurd of her to have acquired such strong beliefs about the appearance and character of Lucy’s future husband. And yet she had acquired them. “Perhaps just one or two more things: formidable on first inspection, but with a soft light in his eyes and a kind heart.”