A Christmas Promise by Mary Balogh

one. But doubtless you will think it inappropriate to have a family celebration less than two months after his death.”
    He wondered with the beginnings of unwilling anger how many other fictitious promises to her father she would invent over the coming weeks and months. Obviously she was a woman who craved a life of gaiety and was not going to allow respect for a dead father to get in her way. “We can celebrate in a subdued manner,” he said.
    “Not with my family,” she said, “They are the loudest, most boisterous—most vulgar—crowd you could possibly imagine.”
    The anger built. “Exactly how many are we talking about?” he asked.
    She was silent for a few moments, her eyes lowered. But he could tell by the slight movement of her fingers that she was counting, doing a mental review of the relatives she had invited.
    “Twenty,” she said, looking back up at him coolly, “counting Cousin Tom’s two children. Is that too many, my lord? Should I have assumed when you said that I might invite any number that you meant no more than four?”
    “Twenty,” he repeated.
Good God.
    “It is a dreadful prospect, is it not,” she said, “to think of Grenfell Park, seat of the Earl of Falloden, being overrun by businessmen and merchants and farmers? Rather like cattle being let loose in the nave of a cathedral. But you must remember, my lord, that Grenfell Park has been paid for and will continue to be paid for with a merchant’s money.”
    He stayed in his chair. If he got to his feet, he thought, he might show his fury in deeds as well as in words.
    “I am not likely to forget it this side of the grave, my lady,” he said. “Not with a shrew of a wife to remind me constantly.”
    “Well,” she said, “you can always escape from me, my lord. You can always take yourself beyond the range of my shrewish tongue. I am told she is refined. That must be a comfort to you.”
    “
Who
is refined?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.
    “Your mistress,” she said. “The woman with whom you take your pleasure.”
    “Ah,” he said. “And who was kind enough to inform you that she is refined, pray?”
    “The mother of the girl you loved—or love, perhaps—and were too impoverished to marry.”
    “Lady Lovestone,” he said. “Yes, I loved Dorothea and would have married her if circumstances had been different. She is beautiful and sweet and tenderhearted.” He felt a pang of longing for the sweetness and refinement he might have had in a wife.
    “All the things I am not,” she said.
    “The words are your own,” he told her coldly.
    “And doubtless you would have given up your mistress for her and lived happily ever after,” she said. “How unfortunate that you are a spendthrift, my lord, and like to play deep at gaming and have not a great deal of good luck. And how fortunate for me. I might never have won myself such a noble husband if you had learned to live within your means.”
    “Fortunate you might call it,” he said, getting to his feet at last. “You have my title and all that comes with it for the rest of your life. But you will never have one corner of my heart or my liking or my respect. Or my company, either, whenever I can help it.” He bowed deeply to her. “Enjoy your triumph, my lady. I hope—I sincerely hope—it will prove to be an empty one.”
    “And I hope,” she said through her teeth as he strode toward the door, “that my father’s money brings you not one ounce of happiness, my lord. I sincerely hope it.”
    Something smashed violently as he closed the door of the library behind him. He guessed that in her passion she had hurled something, probably the porcelain figurine from the table beside her, across the room.
    “My coat and hat,” he said curtly to the footman in the hall.
    “Shall I send for your carriage, my lord?” the man asked with a bow.
    “I shall walk,” he said, restraining the urge to bark at the man, who had done nothing to offend, and he strode out