Christmas At Hollywell (The Seldon Park Christmas Novella Book 4) Read online

  Feeling like a complete idiot and an even greater fool, Julian bowed to Lady Crossbury as deeply as he could, knowing that he needed to regain her good opinion - and quickly. Unless, of course, he wished for Nick to place his head upon a pike in the very near future. "My lady. I apologize. Very, very deeply. Lord Candlewood told me to expect an old friend of his, someone by the name of St. John who once resided here. I simply assumed that his friend was male." The look of hurt in her eyes faded a bit and something within his chest loosened at the sight. "Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?"

  Lady Crossbury looked a bit ashamed as well, as if she knew that her mere presence here was highly improper. And that her flash of temper was not particularly ladylike. "I am at fault as well, Mr. Valette. I was simply not expecting anyone to be here, other than the staff. Lord Candlewood informed me that you were off on a trip to the Continent until late January and that Hollywell was vacant for the season. I know that I should not have come at all, for it is not really the done thing. But I am a widow without a place in the world and this castle was once my home. All I wished for was one last chance to visit a place that I have loved so dearly throughout my life. When I first saw you towering over me after that rather dramatic entrance? Well, I did not know what to think, and I am afraid that I forgot myself and my manners." She frowned. "And forgive me for saying so, Mr. Valette, but you do not exactly seem like a French aristocrat. Nor do you sound like one."

  Julian bowed again, knowing that he needed to make peace with this woman and even more quickly than before. Not only was she a friend of Nick's but she was also a lady. And a peer. Likely still a high ranking one was well, despite the fact that she was a dowager. And Julian was a man of his word, especially when promising new and powerful friends - and most especially promising those who were dukes - that he would do them favors.

  Nor could Julian very well send this woman back out into this storm. If she had once lived here - and he saw no reason for her to lie about the matter - then she likely knew that when a storm blew in, it might not pass for quite some time. They might well be stuck here together for several days. It was best not to have animosity between them.

  Lady Crossbury also probably knew every secret entrance back into the castle anyway, so Julian likely could not keep her out of Hollywell even if he wished to. Which he most decidedly didn't.

  The fact that he still wanted to bed her so very badly was beside the point. Or so he tried to tell himself.

  In truth, there was little he could do about the attraction that sparked within him whenever he looked at her, but that was his cross to bear. Not hers. Besides, he doubted that she burned with this same strange fever that he did when their gazes met. It was simply that he had gone without a woman in his bed for far too long. Therefore, at the first glimpse of any reasonably attractive female, he was immediately ablaze with desire. Or so he tried to convince himself, though he doubted that any woman could spark this peculiar attraction within him the way that Lady Crossbury had with a single, violet-eyed glance.

  Julian also recognized the need to come to some sort of arrangement with her so that they might stay out of each other's way for as long as they were trapped together. The lady was far too tempting by half, and he did not need the complication of a female in his life. Even one as delectable as Lady Crossbury.

  Then again, Julian could not precisely ignore this woman either. That would not be the mark of a gracious host. Nor would Nick likely approve. After all, the duke had requested that Julian look after his old friend St. John. The lady still standing before him soaked to her skin was St. John. If Julian wished to honor his friend's request, there was really very little he could do about avoiding her.

  Ah, well. Julian always was a glutton for punishment. Well, he could look but not touch, he supposed. There was always that. Well, he thought he could, anyway.

  So the decision was made. The lady would remain. And Julian would keep his hands to himself. Maybe.

  Determined now to see his plan through, Julian gestured to the grand staircase. "Please. Allow my staff to see you settled with a hot bath and some time to refresh yourself. It is the least I can do after my rather rough handling of you earlier." He cleared his throat. "I assumed that you were yet another young lady barging through my front door in an attempt to trap me into marriage."

  That, thankfully, elicited a throaty laugh from her. "No, Mr. Valette, I can assure you that I am not some pretty young thing out to snare a husband."

  Julian shrugged. "Even if you were, it would not matter. You are a friend of The Bloody Duke's and he has charged me with your safety for the duration of your stay. So, for the foreseeable future, my home is your home."

  "You are inviting me to say? Here at Hollywell? With you?" She frowned, even though that was obviously what she desired given the longing look in her eyes as she took in the grand, soaring foyer. "That is not precisely proper."

  He gave her a speaking look. "Does that truly matter to you, my lady? A widow who does, in fact, have a rather large entourage of her own following her every move? One who is likely free to do as she pleases? Or would you rather me toss you back out into the storm?"

  Catherine twisted her lips into a grimace. "Well, no. And I would rather like to stay. And enjoy a hot bath, if the offer still stands. That would be lovely, actually." She seemed almost embarrassed to admit such a thing, as if she was not accustomed to being offered such luxuries when she went visiting. What sort of life did she live as a dowager, anyway? Then he decided that he did not wish to know or else he might begin to care for her.

  Nodding, Julian gave her a grim smile, his cock tightening in his trousers at the image in his mind of her naked in the large copper bathing tub. "If anyone asks - not that they will, for we are quite isolated here as you well know - I will simply say that you are one of my guests for the holiday season who arrived early. So you know, I am planning a Christmas Eve ball for the local gentry and a few, select invited guests of some social standing. Given your name and reputation in this area, I do not think anyone will care. And, unless I miss my guess, they would likely expect you to be present at the festivities anyway."

  He was right. On all counts. Catherine knew it, as did he. More over, she was an aging widow. No one would care if she stayed here alone with him. If anything, most people would either assume nothing or laugh at her for attempting to snare herself a handsome and much younger man as her new husband. No, Mr. Valette would not suffer harm to his reputation, and since word of this cohabitation was unlikely to reach London, neither would she. Not that anyone there would likely care even if it did.

  "Very well," she nodded, still biting her lip with uncertainty. "I shall take you up on your offer of hospitality, Mr. Valette. Thank you."

  For some odd reason, his smile grew wider. "Then I would request that you please join me for dinner, my lady. Perhaps over some roast foul in a delightful cranberry sauce so we can straighten out the mess that our mutual friend Lord Candlewood seems to have created, as well as see about how we might conduct ourselves for the next several days until the storm passes." He turned to Bernard, his butler. "Since nothing else is made up, please put her in the green bedroom."

  "My mother's old room." The lady's voice was a whisper but it still pierced Julian's heart in a way that little else ever had. Her ties to Hollywell were strong. Almost too strong for his liking, making her that much more tempting to him with each passing moment.

  He nodded crisply, not wishing to show even a hint of weakness to her for some reason. "Yes. It was the previous countess' chambers." He coughed into his hand. "I am sorry to say that while it is clean, it has not been redone in years. Likely since your mother was here, given the look of things. There have been some improvements to Hollywell as you might imagine, but with no female in the house..." He trailed off, a bit embarrassed to admit that if he had no real need for a room, it remained as it had always been - clean but closed off. "Well, I simply did not see the need just yet, especially
as there were other repairs to be made. And, to be honest? I believe that, for the most part, Hollywell is quite lovely just as she is."

  "That is fine. Wonderful, even." Those expressive eyes of hers were now shining with gratitude. Julian rather wished that they weren't. She was unknowingly making things so much more difficult than they needed to be - especially for him. "I am certain the accommodations are more than adequate."

  "I shall rejoin you in, say, two hours then?" He honestly had no idea how much time a lady took to prepare for dinner any longer. "Is that sufficient?"

  Thankfully, she nodded in agreement. "I would like that very much, Mr. Valette. Very much indeed."

  As she allowed Bernard to lead her up the sweeping Seaside Staircase, the rest of the staff trailing behind with her luggage, Julian wondered just what sort of Christmas miracle his friend the Bloody Duke was hoping to pull off - and how disappointed the man would be when it failed.

  Chapter Three

  Catherine studied the dining room as she waited for Mr. Valette to appear. When she had come downstairs to wait for Julian in the drawing room as was traditional, a footman had directed her to wait in the dining room instead, only saying that the drawing room was "in transition." Whatever that meant. So Catherine had moved into the dining room and accepted the glass of claret that another footman had brought her with a grateful smile. Whatever else he might be, Julian was clearly an excellent judge of staff.

  Given that the man was likely a good bit younger than her, in her mind, Catherine had already taken up the habit of referring to him as Julian. She prayed that she did not slip up and use his Christian name when she was with him. He would truly think her a doddering old lady then. Or he might think her too brash and eager to get him into bed.

  Which would not be far from the truth. For there was something about the man that sparked a powerful reaction in her, one of indefinable attraction that defied logic. After all, Catherine had never known true attraction to a man, at least not the sort that she was feeling towards Julian at this very moment. She had encountered other, far more handsome men at balls and other entertainments over the years, certainly, but with those meetings also came the knowledge that she could never experience what they had to offer her - if anything. Just as she could not with Julian. Yet for some reason, her body and mind did not seem to be in agreement upon that issue for once. It was a bit...confusing.

  Not to mention worrisome. Was she losing her mind? Oh Lord, she hoped not.

  Determined not to dwell upon her sinfully handsome host, with his holly green eyes and coal black hair, Catherine instead refocused her attentions upon the room she was now in, a room that had hosted more than one St. John family gathering over the years. When Hollywell had passed to Crossbury upon their marriage, the earl had seen little reason to change even a single stitch of the decor, especially since they only spent one week a year at the estate - if that. Crossbury had never truly been attached to Hollywell, at least not like Catherine had obviously been and clearly still was to a large degree. While the old earl had spent adequate funds to maintain the estate, likely only for her benefit she now realized, he had done little to improve it either.

  Julian, however, obviously cared about Hollywell a great deal. Though he had been correct when he said that her bedchambers - the ones originally belonging to the old countess - were unchanged, they were meticulously clean and neat, with new bedclothes, new drapes, and some new Persian rugs being the more subtle improvements. Not that Catherine had cared. In fact, she felt so at home in the room that she had sat on the bed and cried with relief at the familiar sight of the countess' chambers, then been unable to describe the source of her distress to the maid that had arrived to help her undress for her bath as Catherine's own maid, Molly, was still busily unpacking trunks in the other room.

  Now, looking around the dining room, Catherine could see the same sort of pieced together style present in here as well. Not that it likely mattered, for soon enough there would be a new Mistress of Hollywell to place her stamp upon these venerable old walls.

  From what Catherine had gleaned while she bathed and changed out of her dusty traveling gown, Julian Valette did not host many balls or parties or musicales, though she had heard the maids who poured the steaming water into the copper tub for her bath whispering about this particular event that was to be held in a few days on Christmas Eve. Mostly for the local gentry, this ball was to be the first time that Julian had opened Hollywell to any significant number of visitors since he had purchased the castle nearly a year before.

  Among the servants, there was speculation that Julian was using the event as a perfect opportunity to sort through the young women from the nearby villages, hoping that one might suit him as a wife. Though there was obvious disagreement about that topic as well, for according to some servants, Julian was nowhere near ready to wed and was simply attempting to be neighborly. The maids had whispered that the man had impossibly high standards for a wife and that most doubted such a paragon of perfection could be found. He might enjoy a wife, they had also whispered, for the man was rumored to be some sort of French aristocracy with a deep love of female company, but he was also not desperate to return to London, a new bride on his arm, any time soon.

  However, most of the servants did seem to agree that, overall, Julian preferred the life of the bachelor gentleman farmer, managing Hollywell's lands and tenants and rarely leaving the estate, save for the occasional visit into the nearby village of Kestwick Upon The Sea. Nor was he in any great hurry to invite a woman into his life to upset his domain. Or redecorate his new home, preferring to leave it just as he had purchased it, whether in current fashion or not

  Here in the dining room, in fact, Catherine could still see much of her mother's old decorating style mixed in with some new improvements. For instance the chairs had been reupholstered, something that had been sorely needed even before the castle was sold. However the original paintings of life within Hollywell that her mother had commissioned long ago still hung upon the walls, their gilded frames lovingly cleaned and then the artwork re-hung back into their original positions.

  All around her, Catherine could see pieces of her old life mixed in with Mr. Vallete's new one. In a way, it was comforting not to see another woman's touch in these halls. There was also, she noted, no trace of her time here with Crossbury, not that she had expected there would be. She and her late husband had only visited the castle five times during their brief marriage and the earl had been too ill during their final year together to make the arduous trip to the coast. Therefore, he had left almost no imprint within these walls, nor had Catherine been permitted to do so either during their six-year union. There was a part of her that was sad that her husband had not left even a small bit of himself here in the place that meant to much to her, but then, it also seemed fitting as well, for they had not truly shared their lives in any meaningful way. Not even from the very beginning.

  Crossbury had wed Catherine for one reason and one reason only - to beget his much-longed-for heir. When they were not about that business, which generally consisted of a quarter hour or less each month, husband and wife saw each other very little. Oh, they sat opposite each other in the coach as they traveled to entertainments, but they did not speak and once inside their host's home, Crossbury had usually disappeared almost as quickly as he could, wandering off to find a card game or some other pleasure while leaving his young wife alone to find her own amusements. Especially as her "little friends," as he had termed Catherine's acquaintances, held little interest for a man his age. At home, Catherine and Crossbury rarely dined together, only seeing each other over the dining table when they hosted their occasional dinner party, and even then, the earl always made certain to place one of his old friends within easy speaking distance - largely so that he would not have to speak to Catherine, as Crossbury was of the opinion that she had little to say that would be of interest to him.

  Catherine wasn't certain how long she had been standi
ng there studying the room and becoming lost in her thoughts, but soon she felt a pair of eyes watching her and looked up to see Julian in the doorway, looking utterly scrumptious in his eveningclothes. She was both surprised and pleased to see that he had dressed so formally for dinner. It wasn't necessary, especially since she was little better than an intruder in his home. Still, it was a kind gesture and one that made her feel just the tiniest bit appreciated.

  "Mr. Valette." Catherine was certain that she blushed when she looked at him, a stirring of something hot and achy beginning deep within her stomach. She hoped she was not falling ill, for what else could this odd sensation be? "I beg your pardon. I did not hear you enter. I was woolgathering over the past, I fear." For a moment, she wondered how long the handsome young man had been standing there watching her.

  "Julian. Please." He ambled into the room with an easy smile, though she noted that those intense green eyes of his never left hers. "Mr. Valette is my father." He shrugged. "Or my uncle when my father is not using other, far more colorful names to refer to him."

  She nodded, almost shy now in this man's presence despite her earlier bravado. "Then please, call me Catherine." Crossbury had often referred to her as Katie, a nickname Catherine had always hated. She had not argued with her husband about much, but she had on that point. As expected, she had lost. Always. After his death, she had silently vowed never to be referred to as Katie ever again.

  "You honor me, Catherine." Julian bowed low over her hand and kissed it gently. She swore she could feel the heated press of his lips against her flesh, even through her glove. "Join me for a drink?" He nodded to the empty glass in her hands. "More claret if you like?"

  Catherine shook her head. She had only taken the glass to be polite, as claret was far from her favorite drink. "Whatever you are having will be fine." As a young bride, she had learned to drink everything from scotch to brandy to rare Caribbean rum, hoping to have something in common with her husband. Her plan had not succeeded, but she had developed a liking for the taste of the various alcohols.