A Christmas Waltz with the Viscount (Preview)

Chapter One

Viscount James Augustus Northwell stepped off the ship, shivering at the cold spray of the mist off the Thames against his back. Even with his coat to shield him from the wind and rain, the nip of the dreary English weather in fall was a vastly different from what he’d become accustomed to in the Southern Colonies, the cities of India, and most recently, Africa. His travels had shown him a much sunnier, more inviting climate, and returning to the drab grayness of London’s fall was the last thing he would’ve chosen on his own. 

He took a moment to gain his bearings. His legs wobbled on the solid ground after so many weeks at sea, and he wished he could get back on the ship and sail away, back to where he’d come from. Forcing his mind off the thought of running away, he looked up at the city of London, or, at least, the dingy dock area of it. This wasn’t the worst dock on the Thames. Far from it. But no dock on the Thames was his preferred place to be.

Others traveling to London on the ship from Africa began to unload behind him. The sailors handed down luggage from the ship, and he spotted a porter collecting his to be loaded into whatever carriage came for him. He’d sent word ahead that he would be coming, and he’d also had the ship’s captain send a bird to inform those on land to send word to the Northwell home for a carriage. One would be waiting on the street, no doubt.

The porter spotted him and waved him over. “Viscount Northwell,” the man said in the thick accent distinctive of the East End. “I have your luggage ‘ere, Lord Northwell. Top of the mornin’ to you, by the by. ‘Ow was the voyage?”

He smiled faintly, though he wanted to grimace at the shock of hearing the man refer to him as Viscount Northwell and the stark reminder the salutation carried that his parents were now dead and gone. “It was uneventful, thank you.”

Despite the smile and polite words, something of his bleak mood must have slipped through. Either that or the press had spread the news of his parents’ deaths in a distillery fire three months ago for all of London to read. Whatever the case, the porter was quieter after that.

“Just bring the luggage to the edge of the street,” he told the porter. “I should have a carriage waiting with the Northwell crest on it. I trust you can manage?”

“Aye, Viscount Northwell. Been doin’ this many years now, milord. Just you leave it to me.” The porter picked up James’s luggage and headed for the street. 

James plucked a bag of his personal effects out of the luggage before the man could make it too far. “I’ll carry this myself.”

The little bag was too precious to lose. It had all of his botany journals and a packet of letters from his father. Neither were things he could easily replace. The thought of the letters was a fresh reminder of the open wound in his soul following his parents’ deaths. The bag contained the final letter he’d received regarding his parents three months ago. It had been a notice that they had died in the distillery fire and a request from his sister that he return home. His family’s attorney had sworn he would take over the family fortune and estate since there were no other heirs to do it. 

The weight of that responsibility pressed on him. While he was not unhappy that his exile over something he hadn’t done was now over, he was returning to a family whose name was in shambles thanks to the lies and rumors spread about him, and he had a great deal of work to do if he wanted to restore their honor. He would bear not only his grief but also the curiosity and judgment of the ton regarding his return.

He moved along behind the porter to the street, examining the bustle of people and carriages as they went. It was so different, yet in other ways, so similar to the other major cities he’d visited in the last eight years. It was cleaner than the cities in India and the little villages in Africa, but it was dingier and dirtier than some of the cities he had visited in the Colonies. It lacked the bright fall colors of New England, but it had the same bustle and hubbub of people.

As he stepped to the side of the street, scanning for his own carriage, a closed carriage rattled past, and an embroidered handkerchief escaped a crack in the window, flying free to tumble into the street. James hurried to snatch it up when it came to a stop at his feet and looked for where the carriage had gone. 

The carriage was rumbling to a slow stop on the cobblestones just ahead of the porter, and James strode toward the carriage to return the woman’s handkerchief. The window of the carriage opened just as he came to a standstill in front of it and lifted a gloved hand to knock. 

He looked up into the angelic face of a woman whose striking appearance left him momentarily without words. Her blonde curls were done up neatly, swept back into a soft chignon with ringlets that gently framed her face, and her soft blue eyes met his for a moment before her full lips curled into a delicate smile. 

“Is that my handkerchief, sir?” she asked, her voice sweet but strong enough to be heard over the chaos around them.

He held it up to her with an apologetic smile. “My apologies, my lady. Yes, I fetched it from the road when it fell and wished to return it to its rightful owner.”

She reached out and took it with delicate, lace-gloved fingers. His own fingers brushed her warm ones as he did so, and then the carriage jolted into motion again as the driver up front pulled the horse back out into the flow of carriages along the street.

James stared after it, trying to find his bearings. Such a gentle, sweet woman didn’t belong in such a dingy, dark place. Who had allowed her to come down here alone with that unmarked carriage? Certainly, no one who could afford a proper governess or chaperone for the young woman!

“Lord Northwell!” A man’s loud voice cut through his reverie and the noise of the crowded street.

He spun and found a valet waving to him from a carriage down the street just a little way. The porter was setting down his bags, and the valet, seeing that his call had been heard and his presence noted, turned to put them up in the carriage.

James made his way to the carriage and paid the porter for his help before climbing into his carriage. The carriage jerked and then rumbled into motion as soon as the valet had closed the door, and he was off, heading for the Northwell house and wondering what might await him there.

***

The family home sprawled across the front lawn of the Northwell estate just outside the inner boroughs of London. His parents had owned a sizable house and a good bit of land for a city dwelling, but though the house was sprawling and had once been considered beautiful for its time, James couldn’t help thinking it looked old and a bit ordinary. It had no beautiful eaves or bright, crisp white siding. Instead, it was blocky and gray, like everything else in this city.

It was home now, though, and there was something to be said for the way the glittering frost from the morning chill gave it a sort of worn-out charm. Whatever the case, the place could certainly use some updates, and he would make them if there were funds to do so. For now, his focus had to be on reintegrating into a household that had forgotten about him when his father sent him across the seas to get rid of the source of the family’s scandal. 

He helped his valet take the luggage inside while the carriage driver went to put the horses and carriage up, and he walked through the front door to silence. Inside, servants stopped what they were doing to greet him with subdued murmurs and curtsies. None of them seemed happy to see him. 

Looking up at the grand staircase in the entry hall, he wondered which bedroom would be his now. The master bedroom that had once been his parents’ quarters? It felt wrong. 

A woman appeared in the hall at the railing and began to descend the stairs, but she stopped to stare at him when she spotted him. With a start, James realized it was his younger sister, Lily. He hadn’t seen her in so long, and she’d grown a great deal. Instead of the little girl he’d left behind, Lily had grown into a striking young woman who surely turned heads at any social event she might attend.

Did she recognize or even remember him? He’d kept in contact with his father and mother, though the contact had been sporadic. They hadn’t wanted to send him away, though they’d been forced to it by the situation. He hadn’t wanted to go, either. But the whole scandal he’d been embroiled in when the young woman he’d been engaged to claimed he’d fathered a child with her had been too great to quiet no matter how his father tried. Leaving had been the only choice.

The moment between them hung awkwardly in the air. Lily didn’t rush to him. After a moment, though, she greeted him with a curtsy. “Lord Northwell,” she said, her voice carrying down the staircase.

Another woman, her hair graying and wrinkles around her pinched mouth, stepped into the upper hall and onto the staircase beside Lily. When she saw James, her mouth pinched even further. “You,” she spat. “Lily, I will be departing this moment now that this disreputable man has arrived. I am sorry that I cannot stay longer for your period of mourning and assist you in your dear mother’s absence, but I simply cannot stay under the same roof as a man like your brother. I will return to my husband and the parsonage and pray for the Northwell household.” She came down the stairs, scowling at James as she approached. “I do hope you will repent before it is too late for your eternal soul, young man! And for your poor sister’s sake, I hope you are ready to fulfill your duties as the man of the house.”

Lily winced and turned away, her cheeks blooming with color.

James gritted his teeth and took a deep breath to calm himself. His Aunt Maria had always been a bit of a harridan, judging everyone who didn’t live by her overly pious standards. Even her own sister, who had married up when she’d married James’s father, had never been good enough. 

“Aunt Maria,” he said stiffly. “Thank you for caring for Lily. I am quite certain I can manage now in taking over as the man of the house.”

Maria shook her head and looked up at Lily, who was slipping quietly away from the scene. “That poor, poor child! Think of the ruin of her future thanks to your foolish, wicked behavior. At least the woman you foisted a child off on has left the city!”

Upstairs, Lily froze in the hall. Her gaze darted to James as he felt heat creeping up into his cheeks. He held her gaze. Did she believe the same of him? Did she think he had fathered a child with his former fiancée and then abandoned her to deal with his bastard child alone? He couldn’t blame her if she did.

Lily’s cheeks flushed, and she looked away. “Please excuse me,” she said before fleeing from the hall’s landing. 

His aunt harrumphed and shoved past him to the door. “God have mercy on this household with you in charge!”

The door slammed with an ominous boom behind her. The servants, who had been peering around doorways and corners, quickly disappeared, leaving him all alone in the house’s large, empty entryway.

James closed his eyes and fought back the wave of despair and fury threatening to overwhelm him. Then he opened his eyes and headed upstairs. He wandered down the empty halls with his luggage until he found the master wing where his parents had lived. Staying in the main room didn’t feel right, so he put his luggage in the large guest room that they’d kept for important family who deserved a place of honor in the home. He would transform the old master bedroom into the new guest room later when he could bring himself to look it over and decide how to go about that.

He dropped onto the cold bed and stared forlornly out the window at the city beyond their grounds and the rain falling over the lawn now. The whole house felt barren and void without his parents here.

His stomach clenched in a mixture of anger over the past and fear for the future. Why had he come home at all? Traveling an unknown world to places that might be hospitable or hostile had never felt so dreadful or uncertain as coming home to a place he had known for most of his life. Had he been better off before he’d known of their deaths, thinking that he was still disowned and exiled? Or would he be better off here when he’d settled and managed to escape the specters of the past that haunted these halls and his soul?

Chapter Two

Lady Genevieve Stoneham folded her hands in her lap as she and her family sat in the silent, dim powder room of her mother’s bedroom. She fought the urge to race from the room as she, her mother, and her older sister, Katherine, waited to meet her betrothed, who was to arrive soon for dinner along with his sister and two nieces. 

She’d seen Viscount Walter Goulding, heir to the Goulding estate, when his father, Walter Goulding Senior, the Earl of Aston, passed. Timberdale had come many times at dinner at her family’s home, much like tonight. But tonight, he was coming to discuss the date for the wedding. Gen had avoided thinking about the possibility of a date on their engagement’s ending at the altar, but the time was here, and there was no more arguing over it.

Kate adjusted Gen’s necklace where it rested against the cream-colored dress Gen wore, and Gen fought a shiver of disgust. She was like a prize piece of meat, all dressed up to attract the highest bidder, and this dinner was her final hour before the slaughter would commence. A bit melodramatic? Yes, perhaps, but the way that Timberdale always looked at her, it felt like an apt description.

She began to chew on her lower lip as she stared at her pale complexion and freckles in the mirror.

“Genevieve,” her mother chided. “Stop chewing on your lip. Lord Timberdale will not want you if you appear to be damaged goods.”

She quit chewing on the lip, her heart pounding. It was always Timberdale would want this and Timberdale would want that. No one cared what she wanted. She had to do this because the family was in ruin, thanks to her father’s poor investments. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t her fault. She was the only unmarried child, so it was her duty to fix this. And so, she had agreed to marry Lord Timberdale when asked.

Instead of chewing on her lip, she began picking at the kerchief tucked away in her pocket. It was the same one she’d almost lost earlier that day, the one her father had given her when she’d first been introduced to society a year ago before the financial ruin had hit and left them hanging on by a thread. She’d nearly lost it returning from her walk with Kate in the park. 

Her mind wandered to the handsome man who had returned it to her. The man with wild black hair and piercing green eyes that she’d never seen on anyone before. He’d looked like some god from the old myths she loved to read, emerging from the sea with the storm in his hair and the salt wind on his skin. The scent of salt from seawater had stung her nose as he’d handed back the kerchief, betraying the fact that he’d been at sea for some time.

If she could marry him instead of Lord Timberdale, what sort of life might she have? He was certainly far more fetching than Lord Timberdale, who was much older than her and was going bald early. He’d been far more polite than Timberdale was, too, and he’d looked at her like he was star-struck instead of like he couldn’t wait to take what he wanted of her.

There was a knock at the door that startled her from her fantasies. 

“Madam?” the head maid called through the door. “Lord Timberdale and his sister, Lady Chesterton, have arrived.”

Gen’s mother looked at her with a smile and squeezed her arm. “You will do perfectly tonight. Simply remember not to be too shy but to be quiet and polite. Timberdale wants a woman who can run his estate, not a frightened girl, but you must remember how he feels about women. They are to be seen, not heard.”

Kate cast her a sympathetic glance before she disappeared out the door. The family’s financial ruin wouldn’t touch her sisters. Her brother, Viscount Stephan Lakeshire, would suffer the most for this once her father was gone. If she failed to secure this match, Stephan would be stuck trying to right his father’s investments and find a woman who would marry him even though there was nothing much left to inherit.  

The thought of Stephan reminded Gen why she had to do this. She loved her older brother, who was both well-respected in society and a quiet, bookish sort like herself. The two of them had always gotten on well, and she didn’t want to see him ruined because her father had been tricked into bad business investments overseas in the newly formed United States.

Gen followed her mother downstairs to greet their guests. Her father was already there, fawning over Lord Timberdale with a simpering smile. They all knew their fortunes depended on him and the bank he and his father ran. 

Behind Timberdale, his sister, Lady Chesterton, and her twin daughters, Sienna and Agnes Kent, stood looking at the room around them in disdain. Agnes actually stuck her nose up at a painting she spotted, sneering at it as if it had offended her sensibilities.

Forcing herself not to bite her lip, Gen stepped forward and plastered a smile onto her lips. She curtsied to Lord Timberdale and Lady Chesterton and then smiled at the two girls. 

The twins snickered behind their fans.

“She is terribly plain, is she not?” Agnes murmured just loudly enough that Gen could hear.

Gen’s cheeks flushed, and she glanced at Lady Chesterton. Wasn’t she going to correct her daughter’s behavior?

“She all but announces she is a pauper by the way she dresses, too,” Sienna added.

The blush grew warmer, and Gen took a step back, trying to hide the flinch that the words inspired. 

Lady Chesterton smiled thinly at Gen. “Yes, rather true, Sienna. Agnes, we mustn’t blame the poor girl for her looks. She cannot help how she was born, now can she? How she dresses, however, is another matter altogether.”

Gen gritted her teeth and glanced at Timberdale. Surely he would step up and say something about their behavior? He might not care very much for her, but propriety ought to be upheld, and he couldn’t just stand by while his sister and nieces mocked his potential bride.

He didn’t say anything. His gaze trailed over her gown and frame, lingering far too long on the bodice of her dress and the low neckline her mother had insisted on. He looked at her like she was the piece of meat she’d felt like earlier, and her shoulders slumped a little. Her title and status were all he wanted besides her body, and he didn’t make any secret of it. If she were to lose her title or the ton were to become aware of how bad her father’s financial situation was before the wedding, Timberdale would drop the engagement without hesitation.

Timberdale would never defend her because he didn’t care. To him, she was only there to look pretty on his arm, like any woman he could have chosen for a bride. Seen but not heard. The others could mock her as much as they wished, and he would never listen. He would never hear her because, to him, women were objects, not people.

Then a warm hand fell at the small of her back, and she looked behind her to find her brother, Stephan, standing behind her to offer his quiet support. She hadn’t heard him ghost into the room. That was her brother, though. Quiet and unassuming unless the situation forced him to be otherwise. 

He didn’t tell Lady Chesterton or her daughters off for their behavior. It wasn’t his way. He just stood beside her and offered the comfort of a friend’s presence in this awful hour, and while it wasn’t enough to fix the hurt, it did help to make it bearable.

***

At dinner, Gen sat quietly beside Kate, who took the place of the eldest married daughter beside their father near the head of the table. Stephan sat across from Kate since Kate’s husband was not in attendance, and Timberdale sat beside him, leering at Gen from across the table.

On the other side of the table, Gen’s mother presided at the opposite end of Gen’s father and was doing her best to entertain Lady Chesterton in conversation. Agnes and Sienna were seated beside each other on Gen’s right, and both were studiously ignoring her.

As they ate their first course, her father straightened in his chair and directed his attention to Timberdale. “Lord Timberdale, how is Earl Aston? I had heard he was in rather poor health.”

Timberdale waved off the question. “Yes, rather poor. We expect him to recover eventually. The bank is doing very well, though. In fact, we are opening another branch near Norwich!”

Gen’s father, the Earl of Grendall, leaned forward with a smile. “Is that so?”

“Quite!”

Gen glanced over at Lady Chesterton, who sat beside her brother. 

The older woman met her gaze with a sneer and leaned forward slightly to speak to Gen. “Do you think you will learn to better manage fortunes before you become responsible for my brother’s household?”

Gen flinched back, her cheeks burning. They had not hidden the dwindling of the Stoneham fortune from Timberdale or his family. Even if they’d wished to, they couldn’t have because her father’s fortunes were invested in Earl Aston’s bank, and the Goulding family knew the state of their finances all too well. In fact, Earl Aston and Timberdale had only agreed to help mitigate her father’s debts to them on the condition that she marry Lord Timberdale. 

Of course, Timberdale hadn’t seemed terribly thrilled about it. She suspected Earl Aston had been the one to state the condition since her family’s name had been in very high standing until recently. The ton didn’t know the extent of their ruin yet, though they were speculating about the shift in social habits from the Stoneham family. Rumor was not proven fact until it became a rumor that had backing, so for now, their reputation was still worth something. That was all that was holding Timberdale to her. 

That and her father’s promise that once he paid off his debts and got returns from his latest investments next year, they would be able to offer a dowry of a good sum in retrospect. Timberdale was likely after the prestige and banking on her father’s better fortunes in the new investment. If those things were lost, the engagement would be, too. Timberdale certainly wasn’t marrying her because he liked her!

She glanced to her mother, Lady Francesca Grendall. Would she not say something to make Lady Chesterton step back into the expectations of good social graces? Her mother didn’t look at her or Lady Chesterton, though.

Determined to move on and not let Lady Chesterton know how deeply the remark had hurt, she turned to the girls. If she married Timberdale as planned, they would be her nieces someday soon. “How are you two liking your studies?”

Sienna looked her up and down with a smirk before saying, “We like them well enough. Our tutors are the best money can afford, and I am certain they have left nothing lacking in our education.”

“Yes, we expect to be presented to society in a few short years as very eligible matches.” Agnes twirled one of her curls around a finger with a smirk that matched her sister’s. “Were you a very eligible match when you were introduced to society, Gen?”

Gen clenched her hands in her lap, fury warring with anxiety. She couldn’t answer that. It was clearly intended to gain an impolite response from her, so she kept her mouth shut and did her best to shove down the hurt at their unjust behavior. Just because she had less money than their mother and family didn’t mean she was any less educated or eligible.

Her father stood and tapped his spoon gently to his glass to get everyone’s attention. “Now then, everyone! I know that tonight was a night to set a date for the wedding, but Lord Timberdale has requested that we give a little more time for that. He has also asked we continue to hold off on announcing the engagement to allow time for both parties to be certain of it, a request that Gen has also made. He and I have worked out the details for how it will be announced, Genevieve.”

“But it will not be announced until Christmas?” Gen asked in a wavering voice. 

Everyone around the table eyed her with disapproval. Too much was riding on this for such a request, but she wanted this time. She didn’t want a public engagement announcement out if there was any way to avoid this marriage after all. She couldn’t bear to add more scandal to her family’s name by breaking off the engagement if it were public already when their salvation came through other means.

Her father looked sad for a moment before he squared his shoulders and glanced at Timberdale. “That is acceptable to you still, is it not? Just so that you can get to know one another and adjust.”

Timberdale straightened his jacket with his free hand, a smirk slipping onto his thin face. “Of course. If it will make my bride-to-be more comfortable, I can delay a formal announcement until Christmas, perhaps later if there is a need. But we will be married soon.” 

Timberdale paused and then grimaced. “My father has demanded that we set a date for it before the New Year and that the marriage happen before next summer. If no date is set or the debt paid prior to his passing, he has sworn I will not inherit his title.”

There was a hesitation in everyone at the table as her father and mother tried to decide how to respond to the very rude mention of the family’s debts to the Goulding family bank and the pressure of potentially being the cause of another being harmed if the marriage didn’t happen. 

Gen squirmed in her seat under Timberdale’s cold, dispassionate gaze and looked away. She didn’t want the pressure of knowing that not only her family’s fortunes, but also Timberdale’s, seemed to rest on this wedding happening soon.

Finally, her father plastered a smile onto his face and raised his glass a little higher. “To the engagement, then.”

Gen offered a weak smile as the family toasted their official engagement.

“And the date for the wedding?” her mother asked softly. “Has that been decided even tentatively, at least, given the circumstances, or has Lord Timberdale requested that be held off indefinitely?”

“Madam, I am most eager to marry your daughter,” Lord Timberdale said smoothly. “Most eager. If it were up to me, we would announce the engagement in a month or two, when she has had ample time to come to know me. The wedding would be by Christmas to secure your fortunes and mine. However, Lady Genevieve has requested a long engagement to provide us time to come to know one another, and I am a patient man when I know that what is mine is secure. Once it has been publicly announced, we will wait only long enough for banns to be read. I expect the wedding should be possible only a month or two after Christmas.”

Gen shrank down in her seat, the promise of a speedy wedding after the formal announcement ringing in her ears like a death knell. It wasn’t that Timberdale was a monster to look at. It was that, even in their short time interacting tonight and the few other times he’d spoken to her before their engagement had been arranged, he’d proven himself a monster on the inside. She was being thrown to a wolf to save her family. 

As much as she loved her family, she couldn’t help the wave of helpless anger and frustration she felt that one of them couldn’t do this duty instead so that she might be spared.

Dinner seemed to drag by, but at last, the Goulding family rose to depart. Timberdale rounded the table when it was time to bid her farewell and took her ungloved hand in his, lifting her knuckles to his lips. He pressed a dry kiss to her hand and then pulled back with an oily smile. “Until next time, my dear.”

Gen took her hand back as quickly as she could without being impolite and watched them head to the front hall with her mother and father. She shivered, not bothering to suppress the urge to squirm now that Timberdale was gone. He might not be bad-looking, but he was repulsive all the same.

Kate stepped up beside her to watch them leave, too. “Are you all right?” she asked gently. “You look a little ill.”

She shook her head, tears welling. “I hate him,” she whispered. “Him and his dreadful sister and nieces. They treat me like I am chaff underfoot, and he does nothing. She is not even our social equal, and yet she looks down on me. As for Timberdale, he looks at me like I am only his means to satisfying his lusts and his desire to inherit, not a woman he means to treasure, and I do not know how I am going to do this. I know I must, but with Timberdale? Is there truly no other way?”

Kate pulled her into a hug with a sigh. “Oh, Gen…I hate that this is the man you are to marry. I should have made you a better match, but I could not find anyone else who would come up to scratch for what we could offer him. I am so very sorry…”

Gen hugged her sister back. It wasn’t Kate’s fault. She’d played matchmaker to the best of her ability considering the situation, and Timberdale would save them, even if it wasn’t ideal. 

“I forgive you the inability to do better.” She laughed a little. “Not all of us can marry for love, after all, though I begin to wonder if any such thing exists these days. But I know you did your best, Kate, and I do not blame you for him. It is Timberdale I blame for his despicable manners and allowing his sister and her dreadful nieces to behave thus.”

Kate hugged her a little more tightly. “Perhaps you will win him over, and he will fall in love with more than your angelic appearance, little sister.”

“Miracles do happen at Christmas,” she murmured.

But deep down, she doubted those words. Did she really think a miracle could happen for her and with Timberdale, of all people? Did love really exist at all in a world of marriages arranged to save a family fortune?