Chapter Seven
On the Seventh Day of Christmas
My True Love Gave to Me
Seven Challenges to Keep Him
She was still going to murder Alexander. He’d bought a reprieve upstairs, but several hours later, the torture had begun and he was going to pay for it. Somehow.
Adriana sat, tense, under the watchful eyes of vultures. And she wasn’t even in her own clothes. The borrowed gown fit her surprisingly well. Even the color, if she considered. Lady Jane, daughter of the Earl of Wentworth, had with a remarkable kindness slipped her into the wine-colored gown of brocade silk.
She’d never worn anything so magnificent or large in her life. The skirts barely fit beneath the table. Black lace dripped from the sleeves that barely touched her shoulders, leaving the vast majority of her bosom exposed to the company. She felt naked, far more naked than in those brief days she’d entertained gentlemen for her mother’s friend. At least then, she’d not been living a lie. She’d been herself.
Here in the dining room of Highburn, on Christmas Day, yards away from the duke, surrounded by those highest placed in society, she felt like the liar she in fact was.
“The table arrangements are absolutely breathtaking,” gushed a silver-haired lady across the wide table. “Have you ever seen anything so beautiful, Miss Grey?”
Adriana swallowed. “How very kind of you to notice. It was my great pleasure to help to design them.”
That garnered the silence of those sitting immediately about her. Vultures all.
“Well,” Lady Jane said quickly, her auburn curls sparkling under the hundreds of lit candles in their golden candelabras. “That is only fitting, as there is no dowager duchess or duchess. You are very talented, Miss Grey. And beautiful.”
Adriana wanted to dislike the woman who had bustled up to her tower room two hours earlier with her maid and boxes of frocks and accoutrement. But she couldn’t. Unlike the others who watched her every move, hoping she’d do something to betray her low class and provide their expected entertainment, Lady Jane seemed genuinely good-natured.
Adriana nodded in acknowledgement. “Thank you.”
It had taken the servants many hours to collect the evergreens and pinecones needed for the arrangements, and the hundreds of dark purple grape clusters had arrived from London only yesterday. Apples, oranges, and gold tissue cutouts of trees, horses, Father Christmas, and snowflakes decked the table in a decadent tribute to the wealthy and winter. Taking a note of pride in her work, she added, “Miss Georgiana and I truly enjoyed collecting sprigs of juniper for the design.”
One of the gentlemen clapped his gloved hands, his red cheeks bright as he then took a swig of wine. “But Miss Georgiana. Surely, it is difficult for her to get about.”
“Oh yes,” tutted the silver-haired lady. The older woman leaned forward, a look of secretive pleasure upon her face. “Poor creature. In her condition.”
Adriana grabbed her wineglass, gripping it tightly, lest she smack the woman currently gossiping at her charge’s expense.
Another gentleman, a Lord Rothby, young, his pale English skin sallow under the amber glow, said, “The wages of sin are often malformed.”
Adriana stared at him. Trying to make sense of his words. Rage gripped her stomach. “Did I hear you rightly, sir?”
Rothby, his russet hair slicked back with pomade, met her challenging gaze. “I don’t know, Miss Grey. What did you hear?”
“That Miss Georgiana’s infirmity is a result of her parentage.”
Rothby laughed slightly. “No.”
Adriana drew in a relieved breath. “I am glad to hear it.”
“It is a result of her lack of parentage.”
Her jaw clenched.
Rothby lifted his wineglass in salute, drank a large gulp, then placed it down. “Surely as an educator, Miss Grey, you have a moderate knowledge of science.”
Those around her fell silent except for a few murmurs that only encouraged Rothby. Most of the long table was oblivious to the suddenly provocative comments of the self-important lord.
“I do,” she gritted.
“Then you are familiar with animal husbandry.”
Several titters of shock came from the ladies around them.
“Lord Rothby,” began Lady Jane. “Perhaps this is unsuitable—”
“Miss Grey voiced interest, did she not?” Rothby shrugged elegantly. His dinner jacket, which likely would have fed a family in St. Giles for well over a year, barely wrinkled with his movement. “I am merely educating an educator.”
Why had she ever allowed Alexander to convince her to do this? He’d claimed he wished to be close to her, but he was so far away at the opposite end of the table. In fact, they’d not shared a single word since she’d come down. “Pray, go ahead,” she said tightly. Hoping Rothby would only expose himself as the ass he was.
But as she glanced around the table, she only saw agreement and the expectation that all their own views would be expressed upon his lips.
Sickness twisted her insides. No matter how much her heart had begun to light for Alexander, these were his people. These were the vanguards she would have to meet over and over again if she were to find a place with him and his heart.
“Miss Grey?” Rothby challenged. “Are you listening?”
“To you, my lord?” she mocked. “How could I not?”
Not hearing the insult, the pompous young lord continued. “It’s a matter of two pieces. You see, there is the simple element in breeding. There perhaps Miss Georgiana is fortunate. Likely half her parentage is superior in every way, but the other half?” The lord tsked, shaking his head.
That sick feeling built inside her. Harder and faster, as did her stillness. How could he have the audacity to say such things at his host’s table? Oh, yes, how could she forget? The entitlement of his birth dared him.
“The other half is likely contaminated, and though sometimes the superior breeding stock will win out, there is the point of morality.”
“I beg your pardon?” Adriana asked.
The other guests sat rapt, and suddenly she realized the entire table had fallen silent. All twenty souls. Including His Grace.
Did Rothby realize he had such an audience? But then she realized he didn’t, and his arrogance was so palpable that even if he did, he didn’t care, as he was so certain of his own point of view. She’d met men like him, who would denigrate anyone they felt superiority over. And it would never occur to someone like him that others might think he was in the wrong because he felt so righteous.
“Everyone knows Miss Georgiana comes of questionable parentage. It was exceptionally kind of His Grace to take the child in, truly Christian and an example to us all. But her condition is simply more proof that when a child is born in a particularly immoral state, God inflicts punishment upon the child in the form of a defect. Thusly, all the world may see His displeasure at its birth—”
Adriana stood suddenly, knocking back her chair. “Sir, you are insulting, and I will not hear another word.”
“Queen of Christmas, you may be, but”—Rothby’s watery blue gaze narrowed—“have you forgotten your station?”
She lifted her chin. “I have not, but you have clearly forgotten you are a gentleman.”
A gasp went up around her, but she remained firm, standing over the seated lords and ladies, alone in a sea of nobility. At present, her outrage her only friend.
Now, she was going to have to leave. There would be no getting around it. Alexander would toss her out into the snow for her appallingly bad manners, but her heart couldn’t bear such words against Georgiana.
“Because you are a woman, I shall overlook such a remark,” Rothby gritted.
Suddenly, silently, the duke was behind her, his hand at her elbow. “Fortunately, I am a man, Rothby, and you can take it up with me.”
Rothby paled. “Your Grace.”
“I don’t know if you’re a fool or a product of this bad breeding you so intriguingly describe, but anyone who insults my ward or her governess is no friend of mine.”
Rothby’s mouth worked furiously for a moment. “She’s but a servant.”
Fury crackled from Alexander’s body, pulsing into hers, and she resisted the urge to press her hand against his arm to calm him.
“She may be a servant, but she is more a lady than you shall ever be a gentleman. Please leave Highburn, Rothby. Now.”
Rothby glanced from Adriana to Alexander and sneered. “More bad breeding on its way, I see.”
Adriana winced. Was it that obvious?
Alexander’s face was a mask of cold fury. Totally controlled fury, but it was there in his eyes, the tinder waiting to be lit and explode. “That remark will cost you dearly. I do hope you shall think it worth it in a month’s time.”
Alexander looked about the table then said flatly, “If I hear that any one of you offers this man a kindness after his departure, you shall suddenly find yourself cast out from Her Majesty’s affections and Carlton House’s.”
Rothby stood, shaking. “Your Grace, that is hardly—”
“You have denigrated a child and a young lady who deserves respect, not insult. I should call you out.” Alexander looked the man up and down for one agonizingly painful instant. “I find you unworthy of the honor. Now, slink off, like the slime you are.”
Rothby hesitated, his gaze darting around the table for any sort of help. When none came, he flung his napkin down and darted out of the room.
Wordlessly, Alexander left her side and headed back to his seat at the head of the table. As he lowered himself, a smile as bright as the fire in the great hearth behind him beamed on his lips. “Sit. Enjoy. After all, this is Christmas. And what is Christmas without one fool?”
His guests erupted in slightly brittle laughter.
Alexander raised a glass. “To our brave Miss Grey, Queen of Christmas, protector of children and all that Christmas should uphold.“
At that, all nineteen remaining lords and ladies about the table raised their glasses, all smiles and admiration. “To Miss Grey, protector of the innocent,” they cried.
Slowly, she sat down and caught Lady Jane’s eye.
The other young woman lifted her glass again in a smaller salute. “Well done,” she mouthed before sipping her red wine.
Trembling, Adriana took a small sip from her own goblet and suddenly found herself unable to look away from Alexander.
Her heart pounded so hard and fast she was sure it would burst. He had rescued her. He had walked down to her side and defended her as no other man had done in her entire life.
And the feeling she felt was not of gratitude but of something infinitely more terrifying.
Love. She felt love.