An Affair Before Christmas

The walls were covered with red-flecked brocade. Huge sconces sprouted from the wall beside the fireplace, gleaming with a combination of brass and gold, candles thrusting in all directions. The fireplace itself could hardly be seen due to a screen set with an embroidery of cabbage roses and edged in a confection of frothing gold scrolls. The furniture had all been gilded to match.



“Mother?” Poppy asked, smiling at the butler to dismiss him.



Her mother rose from the depths of a brocaded sofa with all the elegance of Marie Antoinette herself on a Court Reception day. A positive forest of feathers bristled above her towering hair; her shoulders were bare though it was morning, and her dress was as formal as the rest of the room. In short, she looked like the portrait of a duchess.



“My daughter,” Lady Flora said, holding out her hand.



Poppy curtsied and kissed it.



Lady Flora backed onto the sofa and sat down. In truth, she would probably only fit on the sofa, given the size of her side-panniers. Poppy sat across from her and waited.



Sure enough, there was a shriek. It wasn’t a trilled exclamation of female alarm either. It was something like the full-throated bellow of alarm that Poppy had read certain monkeys uttered.



“Your hair!”



“I cut it.”



Her mother touched her own hair, the horror on her face transferring perhaps into some sort of dread that someone had taken a scissors to her without her notice. “Why—why—you stupid girl, why would you do such a thing? You look like a common shrimp seller! Don’t tell me that Luce had a hand in this!”



“I terminated Luce’s employment.”



“You terminated Luce! Luce! One of the finest French maids in En gland?”



She actually gaped. Poppy suppressed a smile. “She had been gluing feathers into my hair, Mama, and then cutting them out. I couldn’t allow that to continue.”



“How she achieved her effects is none of your concern! You should merely admire the effects. And Luce would faint to see you now; at least you were à la mode when she was with you!”



“My hair had to be cut off to remove the snarls.” Poppy eyed the towering series of curls atop her mother’s head. “Do you have any idea how many snarls might be inside your hair, Mama?”



“You sound like a common street girl,” her mother said, ignoring the question. “And you look like one too. A good French hairdresser isn’t found on the street corner. You’re going to have to find one immediately, before anyone sees you. I did want to tell you that I am gratified by the way that you have not advertised your stay with the Duchess of Beaumont. I have managed to keep it from the majority of my acquaintances.”



Obviously, her mother was not acquainted with the sort of person who attended the Royal Society lectures. “You said you wished to speak to me, Mama?”



“It is time for you to come home. I am holding a soirée tomorrow to celebrate your return to your rightful position. I have reformed your house—and your husband. The young fool has a mistress now and should bother you no further.”



The odd pinch at Poppy’s heart only lasted a moment. He wouldn’t lie to her. “Fletch doesn’t have a mistress, Mama.”



“For God’s sake, don’t insult both of us by lowering your speech to your hair,” her mother said. “Fletch! Fletch! He sounds like the unfledged baby that he is. I have addressed him as Your Grace, and I’ll warrant you that he liked it. Men always do. I summoned you, Poppy, because it is time to stop being so foolish and take over your rightful place as the Duchess of Fletcher.”



“But I thought you were enjoying it,” Poppy said.



The words fell into the drawing room like small stones.



Lady Flora narrowed her eyes and for the first time she actually looked at Poppy. “So that’s it, is it?” she said softly. “You’re jealous of your mother?”



“I am not jealous of you,” Poppy said. She hated that tone of voice. Any moment her mother was going to start screaming. Her brain was telling her to rush into speech, to patch over the wrong, to apologize, grovel…



Lady Flora rose to her feet. Feathers swayed above her head like a crowd of gossiping ladies. “Just what did you mean by that comment?”



Poppy rose as well, taking time to shake out her skirts. Then she met her mother’s eyes. “I thought you were enjoying living in this house. You have certainly made it more ducal.”



“I merely brought it to the correct standard.”



Poppy said nothing.



Lady Flora took a step toward her. “You don’t like it? After I spent months of my life, decorating the house that you were too stupid and timid to change into the appropriate dwelling for a duchess, you don’t like it?”



Poppy wanted to step backwards, if only because spittle hit her cheek, but she merely wiped it off.



Her mother’s voice rose. “You are jealous of my beauty and my refinement! You take after your father and it is not my fault that you are such a pitiful substitute for a duchess. I did my best! I raised you to your station in life!”



And then her hand flashed and she slapped Poppy across the face.



It was such a blow that Poppy’s head whipped backward and she fell back a step. But in some odd way, it wasn’t very painful. Since she had expected it.



Lady Flora threw herself back onto the couch and began to sob in a fashion that indicated to all who knew her—and Poppy had no doubt that Fletch’s staff knew her well by now—that a full-fledged fit of hysterics was about to erupt.



Poppy stooped and picked up her brocaded bag. Then she said, “Mama.”



Her mother raised her head and glared. “You are too much for me. What did I do to deserve such a fate?”



“I am leaving,” Poppy told her. “I love you. But I don’t wish to see you again. You may stay with Fletch for a period of time, if you wish. Certainly hold your soirée tomorrow. But then I must ask you to return to your own establishment.”



“I forbid you to go back to that house of sin!” her mother shrilled, suddenly forgetting her tears. “The Duchess of Beaumont is as much a disgrace to her title as you are. She’s a trull, who should be walking the streets in the dark instead of poisoning the very title she holds. I heard it on the best of authority that she is paying Lord Strange a visit this Christmas—at Fonthill! No one frequents that house but fornicators!”



“Goodbye,” Poppy said.



Her hands were trembling, but she didn’t stop, not even when her mother bellowed her name. She just reached out and pushed open the door to the corridor. She felt oddly detached and yet calmly triumphant.



She had done all that she could.



Quince took one look at her and began to stammer. Poppy put a hand to her cheek. It stung and was likely quite red. An appalling noise was beginning in the drawing room. “Do you help my mother—” she began.



But the front door swung open and a footman ushered in Fletch and his friend Gill.



Poppy’s hand flew back to her cheek but the moment their eyes met, she knew it was foolish to try to conceal it. In one stride he was pulling away her hand.



Then it was as if all the footmen and the butler faded away, leaving no one but the two of them in the antechamber. Fletch’s hair fell over his eyes and he put one arm around her and pulled her close. Without saying a word he bent to kiss her bruised cheek.