Chapter 2

2

Cyril Lightbourne drummed his fingers against his knee and looked out at the passing landscape less with interest than with a growing worry. It wasn’t that the Peak District wasn’t lovely—it was, especially with that day-old dusting of snow. It wasn’t that he wasn’t glad to be escaping London and its freshly minted cruel memories—he couldn’t get away from reminders of Lady Pearl soon enough.

It was just that he knew he was about to be a failure. He hadn’t been born to be a lord, not really. He wanted only to accept the teaching position at university and talk about literature for the rest of his days. Instead, he would now be under the constant scrutiny of Lord Castleton, who would have expectations Cyril didn’t know how to meet. He would have to face the fact that he would stand to inherit this unfamiliar earldom someday, and that the promise of it was the only thing that had opened those doors in London he should have been wise enough not to waltz through.

But as his valet liked to remind him, Cyril had a bad habit of waltzing first and counting the cost later.

It was the fault of those books he read. Far too many stories of romance and adventure and finding friendships in unlikely places. They’d given him too rosy a view of the world—and of the people in it.

He reached up to touch his fingertips beneath his eye when a twinge fluttered through the flesh, and his valet smirked at him from the opposite bench. “Scarcely noticeable,” Kellie said. “I told you it would work.”

No doubt it was sour grapes to huff, but he couldn’t help himself. “I’m still not convinced it should have. Whoever heard of eating apples and pineapples and red onions to make bruises heal faster?”

“My mum.” Kellie’s smirk turned to a grin. “And you daren’t argue with her. She had plenty of chances to experiment on the lot of us boys, that’s for sure, with as many scrapes as we got in when we were lads.”

Cyril’s lips twitched too. “You say that as if you ever stopped.”

Kellie shrugged, no apology in his face—which currently only boasted one cut along his cheekbone, though often it was considerably more. “Fun’s fun,” he said. “Gotta do something on my half day off.”

Laughter rumbled up from Cyril’s stomach to his throat. “Most chaps I know would find a book or a girl or even a game of cards—not a fight.”

Or a street brawl, from what Cyril could tell. But for whatever convoluted reason, the more bruised and battered Kellie was when he returned from his half day, the happier he was the rest of the week.

Odd duck, that one.

“Most chaps don’t know what they’re missing. Nothing like a good boxing match.”

Cyril shook his head at the comment and probed his eye socket again. “I’m afraid I can’t concur.”

His valet’s gaze went dark under his red brows and face full of freckles. “You’re better off. Just remember that.”

Academically, Cyril knew he was right. The brawl that had led to the implosion of all his hopes and dreams was to be thanked instead of blamed. It had shown him Lady Pearl’s true colors. Or rather, her true feelings—or lack thereof—for him.

Even so, she’d have had to choose another way to let him down if he hadn’t shown up to her dinner bruised last week, and it might have been a better way. An easier way. One that hadn’t left his ears ringing with her blistering words and his heart more bruised than his eye had been.

And to think he’d earned the black eye defending her honor.

But she hadn’t wanted to even hear him out on that.

Ah well. In the moment, he’d been glad for the sparring Kellie had convinced him to do, and proud of himself for besting the smart-mouthed Dane who’d been saying things about the lady that no gentleman should have said. And that was still something, wasn’t it? Emil Gyldenkrone might think twice before making such claims in the clubs in the future, thinking he could hide behind his brother’s pristine reputation. Even if it hadn’t impressed Pearl, it could have taught the fellow a lesson. Maybe.

It had taught Cyril one, too, though. One never could trust a pretty young lady’s batting eyelashes. He should have known it from the start, but after the way they’d met ... Well, it should have meant something, shouldn’t it have? For once in his life he’d gotten to play the hero. He’d read the stories, he knew what that meant—he should have then been her hero. The champion always won the princess’s hand.

And yet here they were. He might have been twice her champion, but she had no interest in giving him either her hand or her heart, and he was nothing but a fool for having expected it.

He watched the first buildings of Castleton village come into view, noting almost begrudgingly that they were every bit as charming as he remembered from his one and only visit to Plumford Manor twelve years ago.

Kellie let out a low whistle. “Nice little place, isn’t it? Looks straight from a postcard.”

Cyril grunted his agreement.

Perhaps perceptivity was part of what made Kellie good at his job, but it was also a dratted pain in the posterior now. “You know, it won’t hurt you to like it. May even help.”

“I do like it. Or did, twelve years ago. But that’s the thing.”

Kellie blinked at him.

Cyril sighed. “I didn’t want to then either. My father’s whole side of the family is...” He made a face, but it was all the explanation Kellie needed. He’d met Mother’s people, and it had led to a conversation on the Lightbourne side that Cyril did his best to avoid at all costs. “All cut from the same cloth too. Lord Castleton seemed different, at least to my face.”

Leaning across the space between their benches, Kellie studied his face. “You were only a lad. What, ten? Eleven? What did he say behind the back of a boy so young?”

“That I was scarcely related. A stranger. That he couldn’t stomach turning everything over to me.”

Kellie leaned back again, face contemplative now. “And you’re certain that’s what he said? That he couldn’t stomach turning it over to you ? Or to a stranger?”

Cyril opened his mouth, shut it again. “Does it matter?”

“Oh, I reckon it does. ‘To you’ implies he has some argument with you personally. ‘To a stranger’ means it can be resolved by what you’re doing now—becoming not a stranger.”

The ten-year-old still sulking inside him wasn’t willing to grant the point. But the grown man had to do so with a long exhalation and tilt of his head. “You could have pointed that out five years ago.”

Kellie snorted. “You hadn’t hired me yet.”

No. He’d not had the money for a valet until Castleton had granted him an annual stipend upon his twenty-first birthday, just sixteen months ago. He’d granted it with the stipulation that Cyril must report to Plumford Manor for training by the end of 1902 ... and so here he was. Not because he’d been so eager for the continuation of that income—he’d have lived happily enough on a teacher’s salary—but because his mother had threatened to burn his library of books, starting with a book for each day that he went beyond his deadline, if he didn’t do what was expected of him.

He might be a fool about plenty, but not when it came to Mother. He’d agreed to come for Christmas and to stay ... indefinitely.

Blast it all.

“Still. I don’t know why a little thing like not knowing I existed should have stopped you from giving me advice.” Cyril flashed a smile, though he kept his gaze out the window. The village of Castleton trotted by, every doorway wreathed or swagged with greenery, every window bedecked with holly and ivy and mistletoe, every lamppost adorned with a red bow.

It really did look like a scene from a Christmas card.

“My apologies, sir. I’ll do better in any future past we stumble across.”

“See that you do.” He spotted the church steeple in the village’s central square, but the carriage turned rather than driving directly past it. He tried to recall if Lord Castleton had taken his family to the midnight service on Christmas Eve ... he didn’t think so. Wasn’t their big ball on Christmas Eve? He’d have to check the calendar that Kellie had begun for him. But if not at midnight, the whole family would no doubt go on Christmas morning. Something to look forward to, at least.

“Are you ready to tell me about this branch of the family yet?” Kellie’s voice sounded challenging, but Cyril knew well it was more probing. Inviting.

Because every other time over the last sixteen months his valet had tried to bring them up, Cyril had said he didn’t want to talk about them. Which he didn’t. But it seemed that leisure was expired, so he sighed and watched the village’s businesses give way to homes. Smaller buildings, but no less festooned.

“Lord Castleton is my fifth cousin.” It was as good a place as any to begin. “He apparently remained a bachelor longer than most, though the reason was never told to me. When finally he married, it was to a widow of a viscount who already had three children. Louise is the eldest. Fred is the middle child, four years younger than her and within a few months of me, actually.”

Kellie lifted his brows. “A built-in friend when you last came?”

“You’d think so, but no.” He directed his frown back out the window. “He’d just started at Eton, and according to the youngest sibling, Mariah, it had made him insufferable.” His lips tugged up of their own will, still able to see her standing in the family’s sitting room, a doll in her arms and anger sparking in her eyes. “I can’t say if he was any better before school. But I can attest to his insufferableness then.”

“And Lady Mariah is the youngest, then?”

Cyril nodded. “She was the one I befriended. Louise was ... well, already on the cusp of adulthood at fifteen and having no patience for childish things. Fred was an absolute bore. So Mariah and I spent most of the holiday outside, exploring and playing.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“It wasn’t.” An understatement, actually. He’d had a shockingly marvelous holiday at Mariah’s side, creating whole worlds together. But then he’d overheard that sentiment of Castleton’s before he left, and it had soured his whole memory. Even so, for years he and Mariah had exchanged letters once a week—he’d have called her not just a friend, but one of his best friends, despite the fact that he never returned to Plumford.

But time wrought its sad way, as it too often did. Round about the time that she was fifteen and he was heading to university, the letters had begun to shift in tone. They’d both put away childish things, that was all. Grown into themselves. And it seemed that the selves they’d grown into no longer had anything in common. The letters had first shifted and then tapered off and finally stopped altogether.

Another reason he dreaded this visit. A reason, frankly, he’d avoided London as long as the Castletons were there. He didn’t know exactly who this new, grown-up Mariah was ... only that she wasn’t the Mariah he knew. The one he’d wanted to see again.

“So Lord and Lady Castleton never had children of their own?”

At that, Cyril winced. “They did. A son. But he was stillborn, and the birth was so traumatic and ... damaging to the lady that, ah ... quite impossible, they said, for her to have another child. And given that it’s been fourteen years since then, no one sees any reason to doubt the physicians.” He certainly wasn’t going to. There were things a gentleman simply didn’t ask.

He could practically see Kellie doing the maths in his head. “So then it was a few years after that when he called upon you?”

“He had to hire a historian to trace the lineage back and then an investigator to track us down.” Cyril probably shouldn’t take pride in how difficult it had been, but for whatever reason, it had been satisfying to realize how much effort it had taken. Childish of him, no doubt. But then, he’d been a child when he learned of it.

And at the time, the thought of being so far away from his father’s family had been thrilling indeed. At this point, the memories were distant, but they hadn’t been then. Father had been a hard man. Cruel, when the mood struck. And it had begun striking more and more often before the sickness that hit him hard and fast had stolen his life.

Cyril had known that a good boy would have mourned him. He’d been too relieved to know how—and bordering on giddy when his mother had packed him up and left the Lightbourne home, returning to her own family seat in Hampshire. “That first visit was just an introduction. To verify I wasn’t a dunce and was fit to be trained up, I suppose. But Mother insisted I be raised among her family, and he relented. He paid for my schooling, though.”

“Something to thank him for.”

“I have done.” Every Christmas, and on the earl’s birthday too, he sent a long, compliant letter full of his accomplishments and gratitude that his lordship had made them possible—and he’d meant every word, given how much he loved the world of academia. Castleton inevitably replied with his pleasure and pride.

But it was a distant, unfamiliar pleasure. An empty, hollow pride. They were strangers still. And that scared ten-year-old still hovering within him was none too sure that any amount of time spent at Plumford Hall would change that. What if Castleton was just like Cyril’s father? What if Mariah had been so eager to play outside in order to escape him? She’d never breathed a word of that and always seemed fond of him ... but children of monsters learned quickly to keep their fear buttoned up tight. He knew that all too well.

The carriage slowed, the driver’s “Whoa! Whoa there!” loud enough to draw both him and Kellie to the windows and to open them wide so they could see what brought them to a rocking, clanging halt. Cyril poked his head out, and his eyes went wide. A cart full of evergreen boughs and what looked like four large trees had overturned. He jumped out half a second before he heard Kellie do the same from the opposite side.

Though snow frosted the grass and trees, the road was relatively clear. His boots had no trouble finding traction as he jogged toward the accident.

A man garbed in stout winter clothing stood with a hand on the bridle of the enormous draft horse currently unhitched, another man standing beside the overturned wagon.

“Is anyone hurt?” Cyril shouted as he drew near, searching the ground for any other limbs of person instead of tree.

The two looked up and over as if just noticing the arrival of a carriage—and gaped when they spotted it. Not, Cyril knew, because of who it carried. But because of the crest on its side.

Castleton had sent it to pick him up from the train station in the neighboring village of Hope.

“We’re both fine, sir,” the one by the wagon said, doffing his cap. “Just fine. Thank you kindly for asking.”

Fear? No, it didn’t seem like it. It was more curiosity that colored his tone. Cyril smiled. “What happened?” He expected a wheel to have come off the axle, but that didn’t appear to be the case.

The man sent a scowl toward his partner. Or, no. Toward the horse. “That ornery Scabbard, that’s what happened. Decided to jump into the ditch for no apparent reason, then out again, and it tipped the wagon.”

The horse shook its head and snorted, seemingly put out at the insult to his behavior.

Kellie had come up alongside Cyril. “Well, perhaps we can help you right it.”

“Oh, we couldn’t ask that of a couple of gents like you,” the man said, waving a hand as if to dismiss them. “My brother’ll be coming along soon enough with a second load. He can help us, and we’ll get these Christmas trees up to the manor house in no time.”

“We’re not a couple of gents,” Kellie said, grinning, his Irish coming out. “Just one, and he’s a sorry excuse for one, at that. Plenty educated, but not really trained up yet, you know.”

“I beg your pardon.” Cyril let his Oxford intonations shine through, but then smiled. “Happy to lend a hand, though.” He strode toward the locals. “Mr. Cyril Lightbourne, and this is Aiden Kellie.”

He knew saying his surname in these parts would come with some recognition, but he was surprised at the quick flash of pleasure across both men’s faces. The first fellow took his proffered hand with far more enthusiasm than he deserved.

“His lordship’s heir! A true honor to meet you, sir. A true honor. We’re most excited for the chance to get to know you in the coming months and years, ain’t we, Joe?”

Joe let go of Scabbard’s bridle and was coming forward with his hand out, too, his face just as bright. “Indeed, indeed we are! Happy Christmas to you, sir. And won’t our wives be jealous when they hear we’ve met you already and haven’t had to wait for the ball!”

Kellie darted Cyril a questioning look, but apparently his face was blank enough that his valet thought he’d better ask the obvious question aloud. “Forgive me—I dunno much about this ball yet. It’s for...?”

“Oh, the whole neighborhood. Rich and poor alike, it is. Highlight of our year. The kiddiewinks can never wait to see what treats Lady Mariah and Mrs. Trutchen have made for them this time, and what toy the good professor has crafted for them.”

Professor? Cyril had no memory of a professor in residence ... though the thought of Lady Mariah devising treats for the village children made something long unsettled shift a few degrees toward peace inside him.

Maybe she hadn’t changed quite as much as he feared. Maybe revisiting Plumford wouldn’t be all cold feelings. Even if Lady Pearl’s parting, sneering prediction still set his teeth on edge. “Go to your long-lost cousin’s estate, where it won’ t matter that you’re a sorry excuse for a gentleman. I’m certain one of his stepdaughters will be tossed at you anyway, to keep the property in the family.”

He wasn’t interested in having Mariah or Louise—she was widowed now, wasn’t she?—tossed at him. But he was supremely interested in a friend, either in one of the daughters or in Fred. They were adults now, on more equal footing. The hope of real relationships with the family wasn’t altogether impossible, was it?

He offered a smile to the men and moved with Kellie and the one who wasn’t Joe to the grounded side of the wagon. “Well, friends, I for one can’t wait to see what treats lie in store for us either. So let’s get you righted, shall we?”

Not-Joe grinned, and Joe gripped the skyward side of the wagon. “On three, then. One ... two ... three.”

The wagon crashed back onto its wheels, sending a shower of pine needles over them like fragrant green snowfall. Cyril couldn’t help but laugh.

No, maybe this wouldn’t be so horrible a Christmas after all.