The Heart Of Christmas: A Handful Of Gold / The Season for Suitors / This Wicked Gift. Nicola Cornick

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      It was that idea that caused the embarrassment. Mr. Hollander appeared to be a pleasant gentleman. He had a good-looking, amiable face and was dressed with neat elegance. He greeted them with a hearty welcome and assured them that they must make themselves at home for the coming week and not even think of standing on ceremony.

      He greeted her, Verity, with gallantry, taking her hand and raising it to his lips before tucking it beneath his arm and leading her into the house while begging her to call upon him at any time if he might be of service in increasing her comfort.

      And yet there was something in his manner—a certain familiarity—that showed he was a gentleman talking, not with a lady, but with a woman of another class entirely. There was the frank way, for example, that he looked her over from head to toe before grinning at Viscount Folingsby. It was not quite an insolent look. Indeed, there was a good deal of appreciation in it. But he would not have looked at a lady so, not at least while she was observing him doing it. Nor would he have called a lady by her first name. But Mr. Hollander used hers.

      “Come into the parlor where there is a fire, Blanche,” he said. “We will soon have you warmed up. Come and meet Debbie.”

      Debbie was the other woman, Mr. Hollander’s mistress. She was blond and pretty and plump and placid. She spoke with a decided Yorkshire accent. She did not rise from the chair in which she lounged beside the fire, but smiled genially and lazily at the new arrivals.

      “Sit down there, Blanche,” she said, pointing to the chair at the other side of the fire. “Bertie will send for tea, won’t you, love? Ee, you look frozen, Jule. You’d better pull a chair closer to the fire unless you want to sit with Blanche on your lap.”

      She was addressing Viscount Folingsby, Verity realized in some shock as she took the offered chair and removed her gloves and bonnet, since no servant had offered to take them in the hall. She directed a very straight look at her new protector, but he was bowing over Debbie’s outstretched hand and taking it to his lips.

      “Charmed,” he said. “I do hope you are not planning to order tea for me, too, Bertie?”

      His friend barked with laughter and crossed the room to a sideboard on which there was an array of decanters and glasses. The viscount pulled up a chair for himself, Verity was relieved to find, but Mr. Hollander, when he returned with glasses of liquor for his friend and himself, raised his eyebrows at Debbie. She sighed, hoisted herself out of the chair, and then settled herself on his lap after he had sat down.

      Verity refused to feel outrage. She refused to show disapproval by even the smallest gesture. These were two gentlemen with their mistresses. She was one of the latter, by her own choice. There was already more than two hundred pounds safely stowed away in a drawer at home. The rest of the advance payment had been spent on another visit to the physician for Chastity and more medicine. A small sum was in her purse inside her reticule. It was too late to go back even if she wanted to. The money was not intact to be returned.

      And so she resigned herself to what must be. But she had made one decision during the days since she had accepted Viscount Folingsby’s proposition. She was not going to act a part besides what she had already committed herself to. She spoke with some sort of accent to disguise the refinement of her lady’s voice. She had invented a family at a smithy in Somersetshire. But beyond those things she was not going to go. She was not going to try to be deliberately vulgar or stupid or anything else she imagined a mistress would be.

      She had brought with her the clothes she usually wore at home. She had dressed her hair as she usually wore it there. She had kept her end of the bargain by coming here. She would keep it by staying over Christmas and allowing Viscount Folingsby to do that to her. Her mind still shied away from the details and from the alarming fact that she was ignorant of many of them. She had hardly been in a position to ask her mother, as she would have done had she been getting married and facing a wedding night.

      She had told Mama and Chastity that Lady Coleman was going into the country for Christmas and required her presence. She had told them that she was being paid a very generous bonus for going, though she had not mentioned the incredible sum of five hundred pounds. They had both been upset at the prospect of her absence over Christmas, and she had shed a few tears with them, but they had consoled themselves with the belief that as a member of a house party she would have a wonderful time.

      “Are you warmer now?” Viscount Folingsby asked suddenly, bringing Verity’s mind back to Mr. Hollander’s sitting room, into which a servant was just carrying a tea tray. He leaned forward and took one of her hands in both of his. His were warm; hers was not. “Perhaps I should have cuddled you on my lap after all.”

      “I believe the fire and the tea between them will do the trick nicely for now, my lord,” she said before turning her attention to Mr. Hollander, who was smiling genially at them. “I have never before been into this part of the world, sir. Do tell me about it. What beauties of nature characterize it? And what history and buildings of note are there here?”

      She would no longer be mute, wondering what topics of conversation were appropriate for an opera dancer and a gentleman’s mistress.

      “Ee, Bertie, love,” Debbie said, “there is a right pretty garden out back. Tell Blanche about it. Tell her about the tree swing.”

      It was not tree swings exactly that Verity had had in mind, but she settled back in her chair with a smile as the servant handed her her tea. Viscount Folingsby relinquished her hand.

      “For now,” he murmured. “But later, Blanche, I beg leave to do service in place of the fire and the tea.”

      It took her a moment to realize he was referring to her earlier words. When she did so, she wished she were sitting a little farther back from the fire. Her face felt as if it were being scorched.

      It did not seem, she thought suddenly, as if Christmas was close. Tomorrow would be Christmas Eve. For a few moments there was the ache of tears in her throat.

      THERE MUST have been a goodly number of bedchambers in the house, Julian guessed later that night as he ascended the staircase with Blanche on his arm. But Bertie, of course, had assigned them only one. It was a large room overlooking the small wooded park at the back of the house. It was warmed by a log fire in a large hearth and lit by a single branch of candles. Heavy velvet curtains had been drawn back from the large canopied bed and the covers had been turned down.

      He was glad he had not had her before, he decided as he closed the door behind them and extinguished the single candle that had lit their way upstairs. Pleasurable anticipation had been building in him for over a week. It had reached a crescendo of desire this evening. She had been looking almost demure in the green silk dress she had worn the evening they first supped together, her hair dressed severely but not unattractively.

      And she had been acting the part of a lady, keeping the conversation going during dinner and in the sitting room afterward with observations about their journey, about the Christmas decorations and carol singers in London, and about—of all things—the peace talks that were proceeding in Vienna now that Napoleon Bonaparte had been defeated and was imprisoned on the island of Elba. She had asked Bertie what plans had been made for their own celebration of Christmas. Bertie had looked surprised and then blank. He obviously had no plans at all beyond enjoying himself with his pretty, buxom Debbie.

      Paradoxically Julian had found Blanche’s demure appearance and ladylike behavior arousing. He considered both erotic. She had too many charms to hide effectively.

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