A Country Christmas (Timeless Regency Collection Book 5)

  Josi S. Kilpack

  Carla Kelly

  Jennifer Moore

  Copyright © 2016 Mirror Press

  E-book edition

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form whatsoever without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief passages embodied in critical reviews and articles. These novels are works of fiction. The characters, names, incidents, places, and dialog are products of the authors’ imaginations and are not to be construed as real.

  Interior Design by Heather Justesen

  Edited by Jennie Stevens and Lisa Shepherd

  Cover design by Rachael Anderson

  Cover Photo Credit: Richard Jenkins Photography

  Published by Mirror Press, LLC

  eISBN-10: 1-941145-86-8

  eISBN-13: 978-1-941145-86-9

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  The Timeless Romance Authors

  Autumn Masquerade

  A Midwinter Ball

  Spring in Hyde Park

  Summer House Party

  A Season in London

  A Holiday in Bath

  Falling for a Duke

  Saints and Sinners by Josi S Kilpack

  Other Works by Josi S. Kilpack:

  About Josi S. Kilpack

  The Christmas Angle by Carla Kelly

  Other Works by Carla Kelly:

  About Carla Kelly

  The Perfect Christmas by Jennifer Moore

  Other Works by Jennifer Moore:

  About Jennifer Moore

  Chapter One

  Neville Franklin was inspecting the small village pub that smelled like yeast and grease—as it should—when his companion spoke from the other side of the small, rough-hewn table.

  “Is Eloise promised to anyone?” Mr. Henry Burke asked unexpectedly.

  The men had gone riding that afternoon until the cold had driven them indoors. First, they’d had hot cider, and now that they were fully warm, they enjoyed a hearty ale before journeying the remaining two miles to Franklin Farm, Neville’s current home and future inheritance.

  “Eloise?” Neville said, taken off guard by mention of his childhood friend. “I don’t think so.” He nearly added that Eloise wasn’t old enough to be promised to anyone, but then he quickly calculated his age with hers and realized that she was nearly twenty years to his twenty-four—a perfectly eligible age. What an odd thought.

  Burke wagged his eyebrows. “Really?”

  Neville didn’t like the roll in his friend’s voice and narrowed his eyes. “Why do you ask?”

  “Well, tonight’s entertainment is a ball.”

  “And?”

  “And it’s been a while since we’ve had a kissing wager.”

  The connection Neville made in his mind was instantaneous.

  “Not Eloise,” he said firmly. He’d no sooner uttered the proclamation than he amended the rule. “And no other girl either. This is my village, Burke. We will be on our best behavior.”

  Burke slumped in his chair and let out a tortured breath. “All this prim and proper is driving me mad. A man has needs, Neville; you can’t expect me to ignore them forever.”

  “My home, my rules. No kissing wagers. Your needs be hanged.”

  Burke rolled his eyes and took another drink.

  The kissing wager was as simple as it was immature: a young woman was chosen, and the first man to steal a kiss received a drink purchased by the man who failed the task. It was a game Neville and Burke, along with a few other cronies from Oxford, had played when they’d first begun going to London—long before there was serious expectation of marriage.

  “Besides, haven’t we outgrown such childish antics?” It had been years since they had played the game. Why would Burke even bring it up?

  “I’m simply trying to add a little excitement to our time here,” Burke said.

  “You think it’s been dull?” Neville was genuinely surprised. “We have been to any number of dinner and card parties and hunted nearly every day. I thought you were rather pleased with the entertainment.”

  “Pleased enough, but a wager would spice things up, don’t you think?”

  “No, I don’t think a wager would ‘spice things up.’ I think it would show us as silly schoolboys and I live here, Burke. No wager. We are too old for silly trifles.”

  Neville had come back from extended travel through America—with Burke as his companion—a few months ago, expecting to formalize a match with his cousin Lila, whose letters had sweetened during his absence. Between Lila’s last letter and his surprise arrival, however, she had fallen in love with another. Aside from the blow to his ego, Neville had recovered from that setback easily enough to know that his feelings for Lila had never been all that strong. Lila was now married and on her way to India, while Neville was back in Shropshire and less opposed to country life than he had ever been before. In fact, he was excited to embark upon a gentleman’s future of estate management with his father as his guide.

  There was still the necessary business of finding a wife, but first, Christmas. And then January, during which time he would finish his formal proposals to Father about changes to the estate per his agricultural education in America, and then it would be on to the London season where the debutantes would be paraded about in search of potential husbands. He was not eager for such formal attempts at courting—could a young couple really get to know each other in such conditions? He thought of Eloise—good and saintly Eloise. And then he remembered the wager Burke had mentioned, and it stuck in his craw all over again.

  “Why has Eloise drawn your attention?” Neville had known Eloise all his life and had enjoyed spending time with her now that he was back in Hemberg, but she was not the type of young woman Burke usually took note of.

  “There are three reasons Eloise has caught my eye,” Burke said with a cock of his eyebrow. “First, I’ve gotten to know her better than any of the other girls in this forsaken place. Second, have you noticed the perfect shape of her lips? I have vast experience, you know, and I believe she has just the right fullness of mouth to give a most excellent kiss.”

  Neville’s chest caught on fire—completely confusing him—but he took a drink to cover the unexpected reaction.

  “And third, she fancies me.”

  Neville’s hand tightened around the handle of his mug. “Eloise does not fancy you any more than she fancies any other man.”

  “Have you not noticed how raptly she listens to my stories and how often she compliments some aspect of my person?” Burke asked, quirking a brow. “She is very attentive to me every time we are together.”

  “I do not believe that’s true.” Neville shook his head. “She asks both of us questions and is well-mannered enough to give generous compliments to everyone. It’s simply her nature.”

  “No, it’s the dazzling effect I have on women—especially those with such kissable lips as hers.”

  Kissable lips? They were very nice lips, of course, but Neville had never considered kissing them.

  Why not?

  The thought startled him. This was Eloise he was thinking about—Eloise whose lips Burke was . . . maligning. She wasn’t some star-eyed deb in London wanting to feel the compliment of a man’s attention, and she was among Neville’s oldest friends. “If you try to st
eal a kiss, Eloise will slap you silly.” And then I will knock you flat.

  “Who said anything about stealing a kiss?” Burke asked, obviously enjoying the ire he was drawing. “One cannot steal what is gladly given. In fact”—a gleam lit Burke’s eyes as he leaned forward across the table—“let’s see which of us she prefers. Let’s set that wager and make a night of it, for old times’ sake and as an ushering in of this lovely Christmas season. I’ll find us some mistletoe.”

  “No,” Neville said, shaking his head, though his eyes were drawn for a moment to the rather bedraggled wreath mounted over the bar on the far side of the room—the only tribute to the season offered in the pub. “Eloise is my friend, Burke. I’d as soon kiss you as kiss her.”

  Burke raised one eyebrow and leaned back in his chair. “Truly?” he said, thoroughly surprised. “You have no attraction toward her?”

  “I-I, well, to be honest I have never thought about it. She’s just . . . Eloise.”

  “Just Eloise is a beautiful woman and an excellent conversationalist. I daresay she will make someone a very fine wife. If she was also a good kisser, why, I would be tempted to make her an offer myself.”

  The darkness that filled Neville’s thoughts was as strange a sensation as he’d ever felt—likely how an older brother would feel about his sister, if it were she Burke was talking about so glibly. “Eloise would never accept an offer from you.”

  Burke raised both his eyebrows. “And why not?”

  “Because . . . because she doesn’t even know you.”

  “We’ve seen her dozens of times these last weeks at one event or another, and she gave me leave to call her by her Christian name as you do. I expect I know her as well as I know any other female, and my mother is eager to marry off her only son now that I’ve returned from my travels. She would be quite pleased with Eloise, I believe. She has preferred girls from the country for my brothers over a girl of the ton. Eloise would fit Mama’s hopes for me very well, indeed.”

  Neville opened his mouth but didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what to think. This was such a bizarre conversation. Eloise a wife? Burke a husband? “No wager,” Neville said to cover for the fact he could think of nothing else.

  Burke finished his drink in one last swallow. “Fine, no wager.” He put his mug heavily on the table. “But I will not promise there won’t be a kiss.”

  Neville narrowed his eyes, but Burke spoke before he formulated a response. “And don’t be surprised if one day I race away from this place and never look back. You expect too much restraint of me. Gads, you expect too much restraint of yourself.” He pushed back from the table, grating the chair legs across the stone floor. “Well, we might as well get going. We’ve a country Christmas ball to prepare for.” Burke stood, straightened his waistcoat, and headed for the door of the pub, leaving Neville to glower at his back and follow.

  Chapter Two

  Eloise looked at her reflection and swallowed nervously, putting a hand to the flat of her belly, just below the waist of the red dress she was wearing for the first time. Her golden hair had been arranged so that three thick ringlets draped over one shoulder. New stays had been necessary to accommodate the dress, and they accentuated her bosom in ways she was not used to. What would Neville think of her in this dress? Would he see her as a grown woman tonight?

  “You will be the belle of the ball,” Mama said from where she stood next to Eloise. She put one arm around Eloise’s shoulders. “Do you feel as beautiful as you look?”

  Eloise took a deep breath and tried to give herself a critical assessment, and yet she couldn’t. “I do, Mama,” she said, shaking her head in surprise. Normally she would never wear a red dress, but seeing as how they were in the country and it was a Christmas ball, Mama had agreed to the bold color when Eloise asked. Eloise would not be the only girl to wear a vibrant gown to the Websters’ annual Christmas ball, but it was the first time she had presented herself so boldly. Mama’s encouragement went a long way to enhancing Eloise’s confidence of putting off her usual style choices. “Is it a sin for me to say as much?”

  Mama laughed and leaned in to kiss Eloise on the right temple. “No, my dear,” she said, giving one more squeeze and then dropping her arm. “We should order the same pattern in a color we can take to London. Perhaps after the New Year we can meet with the seamstress again and choose a sample fabric. You have a lovely figure, and I should have insisted on more flattering styles before now.”

  Eloise smiled, still anxious with this transition but ready, too. In the mirror, she watched her mother move toward the door. A different wriggling discomfort in Eloise’s belly became too much to bear, however. “Mama,” she said.

  Mama turned from where she stood with a hand on the doorknob and raised her eyebrows expectantly. Eloise turned as well so that they faced one another across the room.

  “Would you be very disappointed if I didn’t go to London in the spring?”

  Mama paused, then came back into the room.

  “You don’t want to go to London?” Mama asked. “Any number of your friends would love to have the chance.”

  There were parts of England where every girl of the gentry class was expected to have a London Season, but in Hemberg only those girls belonging to families with titles or parliamentary duties had such expectations. Eloise’s father was a successful attorney in their village and had served as a clerk for Lord Terimid these last eight years during Parliament. The position afforded the family a reason to go to London, and, therefore, both of Eloise’s sisters had London seasons where they’d made good matches. Everyone expected Eloise would do the same.

  “I know I am fortunate to have the opportunity,” Eloise said, looking down at the skirt of her dress, a sheer top layer the same red as the underskirt, with rosettes along the hem. It really was a remarkable dress. “And I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but, well, you know I don’t care for large crowds or strangers.”

  “Yes, that’s why we’ve waited this long—too long, according to some. You will be twenty years old in a few months’ time.”

  She knows I am not saying everything I feel. Eloise took a breath, if she was truly ready to own her age and level of maturity, she needed to speak her mind more freely. “And I appreciate you and Papa being patient with me, but the more I consider the situation, the more I think I would prefer to make a match closer to home.”

  “Here? In Shropshire?”

  Eloise nodded and looked up at her mother’s puzzled expression.

  “Have you someone particular in mind?”

  Eloise hated that her cheeks heated up when she was attempting to take responsibility. Perhaps she should have waited to tell her mother, at least until after tonight, but every time her mother spoke of London, Eloise felt guilty for the hope she harbored that she would not go. The closer London became, the more preparations would be made.

  “Eloise?” Mama said. “Have you formed an attachment to someone here in Shropshire?”

  Eloise shook her head. “No. But, well, I hope that I might.” It felt so presumptuous to say this out loud!

  “Who?”

  Eloise’s cheeks burned even hotter. “I don’t know if he shares my level of affection,” she said, thinking over these last few weeks when she had sought out every opportunity to be in Neville’s company. She turned away from her mother’s intent gaze and fidgeted with the brush on her dressing table. “And I have ample reason to believe he has never seen me as anything more than a girl he once played with as a child, but I . . . well.”

  Mama gasped and crossed the distance to grip Eloise’s arm. She opened her mouth to speak, but Eloise cut her off.

  “Don’t say his name!” Eloise said. “It will make it too real, and I will feel ridiculous.” Eloise had been fourteen years old when she first realized how her heart rate increased when Neville Franklin entered a room. He was eighteen years old then, away at Oxford, but every time he came home, she hung on every word he said.

&
nbsp; She had only just accepted that she was in love with him when her best friend—and Neville’s cousin—Lila had confessed her own feelings. Eloise could not take anything from Lila, who had so many disadvantages, so she had kept her feelings to herself all these years. It wasn’t until Lila’s engagement to Mr. Lutherford that Eloise fully faced the fact that she could allow her own affection for Neville to play out.

  Certainly her own feelings were no guarantee that Neville felt the same, but these last weeks she dared to hope he might feel something more than childish affection. He was always happy to see her and sought out her company at different events they attended. It took courage to present herself as something other than his friend, but she was ready to take that step.

  Mama closed her mouth and then nodded. “Is he the reason you wanted this dress?”

  Eloise looked at the ground and nodded, feeling foolish.

  Mama put a finger beneath Eloise’s chin and lifted it so that Eloise was looking into her mother’s face again—her mother’s smiling face.

  “You are a woman, Eloise, and though you have been raised to be demure and proper, it is not a sin to feel beautiful, and it is not a sin for a man to see you that way. Marriage is a complex business, but you should be desired by the man who chooses you, and there is no sin in that either. We shall talk of him and London and whatever else we need to discuss when you are ready. For tonight, I want you to remember what I told you about feeling beautiful.”

  Eloise nodded and repeated her mother’s words in her mind: It is not a sin to feel beautiful.

  “I don’t mean to appear . . . seductive,” she said out loud. “I just want him to see me as a woman instead of a girl.”

  Mama leaned in, kissed Eloise on the forehead, and then pulled back. “You look beautiful, Eloise, without any reason to regret your presentation. Have a wonderful time tonight. We’ll talk more when you’re ready.”