'Twas the Night After Christmas

235 Pages·2012·1.33 MB·English

by  Sabrina Jeffries

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Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
‘One More Kiss’ Excerpt
Acknowledgments
About Sabrina Jeffries
To the Biaggi Bunch—thanks for always having faith in me!
And to the love of my life, who lost his parents at a young age. This one’s for you, babe.
Prologue
April 1803
N
o one had called for him yet.
Eight-year-old Pierce Waverly, heir to the Earl of Devonmont, sat on his bed in
the upper hall of the Headmaster’s House at Harrow, where he’d lived for three
months with sixty other boys.
Today marked the beginning of his first holiday from Harrow; most of the other
boys had already been fetched by their families. His trunk was packed. He was
ready.
But what if no one came? Would he have to stay at Harrow, alone in the
Headmaster’s House?
Mother and Father would come. Of course they would come. Why wouldn’t
they?
Because Father thinks you’re a sickly weakling. That’s why he packed you off to school
—to “toughen you up.”
His chin quivered. He couldn’t help that he had asthma. He couldn’t help that
he liked it when Mother showed him how to play the pianoforte, which Father
called “dandyish.” And if he sometimes hid when Father wanted to take him riding,
it was only because Father always berated him for not doing it right. Then Pierce
would get so mad that he would say things Father called “insolent.” Or worse, he’d
start having trouble breathing and get panicky. Then Mother would have to come
and help him catch his breath, and Father hated that.
He scowled. All right, so perhaps Father would leave him to rot at school, but
Mother wouldn’t. She missed him—he knew she did, even if she didn’t write very
often. And he missed her, too. A lot. She always knew just what to do when the
wheezing started. She didn’t think playing music was dandyish, and she said he was
clever, not insolent. She made him laugh, even in her infrequent letters. And if she
didn’t come for him . . .
Tears welled in his eyes. Casting a furtive glance about him, he brushed them
away with his gloved fist.
“What a mollycoddle you are, crying for your parents,” sneered a voice behind
him.
Devil take it. It was his sworn enemy, George Manton, heir to the Viscount
Rathmoor. Manton was five years older than Pierce. Nearly all the boys were older.
And bigger. And stronger.
“I’m not crying,” Pierce said sullenly. “It’s dusty in here, is all.”
Manton snorted. “I suppose you’ll have one of your ‘attacks’ now. Don’t think
I’ll fall for that nonsense. If you start wheezing with me, I’ll kick the breath out of
you. You’re a poor excuse for a Harrovian.”
At least I can spell the word. You couldn’t spell arse if it were engraved on your
forehead.
Pierce knew better than to say that. The last time he’d spoken his mind, Manton
had knocked him flat.
“Well?” Manton said. “Have you nothing to say for yourself, you little pisser?”
You’re an overgrown chawbacon who picks on lads half your size because your brain
is half size.
Couldn’t say that one, either. “Looks like your servant’s here.” Pierce nodded at
the door. “Shouldn’t keep him waiting.”
Manton glanced to where the footman wearing Rathmoor livery stoically
pretended not to notice anything. “I’ll keep him waiting as long as I damned well
please. I’m the heir—I can do whatever I want.”
“I’m the heir, too, you know.” Pierce thrust out his chest. “And your father is
just a viscount; mine’s an earl.”
When Manton narrowed his gaze, Pierce cursed his quick tongue. He knew
better than to poke the bear, but Manton made him so angry.
“A fat lot of good that did you,” Manton shot back. “You’re a pitiful excuse for
an earl’s son. That’s what comes of mixing foreign stock with good English stock. I
daresay your father now wishes he hadn’t been taken in by your mother.”
“He wasn’t!” Pierce cried, jumping to his feet. The glint of satisfaction in
Manton’s eyes told Pierce he shouldn’t have reacted. Manton always pounced when
he smelled blood. But Pierce didn’t care. “And she’s only half foreign. Grandfather
Gilchrist was a peer!”
“A penniless one,” Manton taunted. “I don’t know what your father saw in a
poor baron’s daughter, though I guess we both know what she saw in him—all that
money and the chance to be a countess. She latched onto that quick enough.”
Pierce shoved him hard. “You shut up about my mother! You don’t know
anything! Shut up, shut up, shut—”
Manton boxed Pierce’s ears hard enough to make him shut up. Pierce stood
there, stunned, trying to catch his bearings. Before he could launch himself at
Manton again, the servant intervened.
“Perhaps we should go, sir,” the footman said nervously. “The headmaster is
coming.”
That was apparently enough to give Manton pause. And Pierce, too. He stood
there breathing hard, itching to fight, but if he got into trouble with the
headmaster, Father would never forgive him.
“Aren’t you lucky?” Manton drawled. “We’ll have to continue this upon our
return.”
“I can’t wait!” Pierce spat as the servant ushered Manton from the room.
He would probably regret that after the holiday, but for now he was glad he’d
stood up to Manton. How dare the bloody bastard say such nasty things about
Mother? They weren’t true! Mother wasn’t like that.
The headmaster appeared in the doorway accompanied by a house servant.
“Master Waverly, your cousin is here for you. Come along.”
With no more explanation than that, the headmaster hurried out, leaving the
servant to heft Pierce’s trunk and head off.
Pierce followed the servant down the stairs in a daze. Cousin? What cousin? He
had cousins, to be sure, but he never saw them.
Father himself had no brothers or sisters; indeed, no parents since Grandmother
died. He did have an uncle who was a general in the cavalry, but Great-Uncle Isaac
Waverly was still fighting abroad.
Mother’s parents had been dead for a few years, and she had no siblings, either.
Pierce had met her second cousin at Grandfather Gilchrist’s funeral, but Father had
been so mean to the man one time at Montcliff—the Waverly family estate—that
he’d left in a huff. Father didn’t seem to like Mother’s family much. So the cousin
who was here probably wasn’t one of Mother’s.
Pierce was still puzzling out who it could be when he caught sight of a man at
least as old as Father. Oh. Great-Uncle Isaac’s son. Pierce vaguely remembered
having met Mr. Titus Waverly last year at Grandmother’s funeral.
“Where’s Mother?” Pierce demanded. “Where’s Father?”
Mr. Waverly cast him a kind smile. “I’ll explain in the carriage,” he said, then
herded Pierce out the door. A servant was already lifting Pierce’s trunk onto the top