The Duke Who Despised Christmas (Christmas Dukes #1)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

DECEMBER, 1883

S omething was different at Blackwell Abbey this cold, gray winter’s morning. The Duke of Sedgewick couldn’t quite discern what it was, however.

Quint sniffed the air, a new, unfamiliar scent invading his nostrils. It smelled…verdant and crisp, with a slight tinge of sweetness. What the devil could it be? Whatever it was, he didn’t bloody well like it.

“Dunreave!” His voice echoed in the marbled great hall like the lash of a whip cracking.

The servant who acted as both his butler and valet appeared, rather in the fashion of a wraith seeping from the old stone walls. “Your Grace?”

Dunreave was tall, though not as tall as Quint, and spare of form, with a solemn air that would have been more suited to a vicar than a domestic.

“What is that scent?” Quint demanded.

“Scent?” The man’s dark brows furrowed in confusion. “What scent, sir?”

He waved a gloved hand before him in irritation, indicating the air. “The smell in this damned great hall. Something has changed. What is it?”

Dunreave cleared his throat. “To the best of my knowledge, nothing has, Your Grace.”

Quint ground his jaw. “The best of your knowledge isn’t sufficient, Dunreave. Something has been changed. Discover what immediately, if you please.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“You know how I feel about change,” he growled.

Dunreave winced. “Of course, Your Grace. I’ll inquire about the scent with Mrs. Yorke at once.”

The name—as unfamiliar as the smell—made Quint’s eyes narrow. “Who the hell is Mrs. Yorke?”

“The new housekeeper, Your Grace.”

That information gave him pause.

Quint stiffened. “I neither want, nor need, a housekeeper at Blackwell Abbey. I have no intention of entertaining visitors of any sort.”

The last housekeeper hired by his mother—a Mrs. Brome, who had borne a perpetual scowl and rattled about everywhere with her nettlesome chatelaine—had been sent away several months ago, and the household had been delightfully quiet and absent of nuisances, such as an abundance of maids, ever since. The fewer people underfoot, the better. Quint didn’t like people either.

“I am aware of how Your Grace feels about housekeepers,” Dunreave said dutifully.

“Then why is she here?” he snapped impatiently before giving the air another sniff.

Was the scent her , the unwanted housekeeper, then? If so, he’d toss her out of Blackwell Abbey himself.

Dunreave looked as if he had just swallowed a fish bone and presently had it lodged in his throat. “The dowager duchess selected her for the situation, Your Grace.”

Curse his mother. Why did she insist upon interfering? He had banished her from Blackwell Abbey, and yet she continued to meddle from afar.

“There is no situation, because I don’t want a bloody housekeeper .” He was shouting by the time he finished, which he regretted.

It wasn’t Dunreave’s fault that Quint’s mother was as stubborn as a dog who had scented his favorite pig trotter hidden in the dirt and refused to surrender until he had dug it free of the earth. In this case, Quint was the pig trotter. However, he wished to remain quite miserably buried in a tomb of his own making.

Dunreave winced again, pushing his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. “I will write the dowager duchess to inform her, Your Grace.”

Quint no longer had a wife, and the distinction of referring to his mother as the dowager duchess was unnecessary. A reminder of what he lost. And yet, his mother and the domestics had grown accustomed to the change when he had married Amelia.

“I’ll write her myself,” he snarled, the weight of guilt and the pain of grief pressing down on his chest like a boulder, omnipresent particularly at this time of year. “But this Mrs. Yates must go.”

“Mrs. Yorke, Your Grace,” Dunreave corrected.

Quint’s lip curled. “I don’t give a damn what her name is. I just want her gone forthwith.”

“Of course, sir.” Dunreave bowed. “I’ll find Mrs. Yorke and tell her she is dismissed at once.”

“Yes. Do that.”

Feeling like a churl and yet helpless to stop the frustration burning through his mangled hide, Quint decided against the ride he had planned for this morning. Instead, he spun on his heel and stalked toward the drawing room, determined to find the source of the scent.

By God, if only his mother would allow him to wallow in the countryside in peace. Bad enough that she sent him an endless string of letters exhorting him to join her in London or to accompany her to country house parties or Christ knew what societal nonsense she had deemed a proper lure. This was the third housekeeper she had sent him in the span of six months.

He stopped near the broken fountain hidden in an alcove just behind the great hall when he heard a strange sound—the tinkling of water sluicing and trickling merrily down. But no, that couldn’t be. The fountain was broken.

Quint stalked into the alcove, shocked to discover that the ornate, carved fish that decorated the massive fountain were indeed spitting water, just as they had been designed to do a century earlier.

He hadn’t ordered the fountain’s repair.

When had it been done? And without his knowledge?

Clenching his jaw, he left the alcove, following the familiar path to the drawing room. With each step, the scent grew stronger. Until he had reached the open door and made a more astonishing discovery still.

Greenery.

Everywhere.

It festooned the mantel, hung suspended over the heavy old curtains, and in two corners of the drawing room stood not one, but two trees, ornamented with candles and shining trinkets and baubles.

He had finally discovered the source of the scent.

Not only had someone repaired his fountain without his consent. They had also decorated his goddamn drawing room.

“Dunreave!” he roared.

Joceline had yet to meet her employer, the Duke of Sedgewick. However, she had a sinking suspicion that she was about to, if the irate hollering and stomping footfalls nearing her were any indication.

“Dunreave!”

Oh dear.

The maid at her side cowered, dropping the candles she had been carrying to the floor in a clatter.

“Mary, you may return to the kitchens to assist Mrs. Stewart,” Joceline told the wide-eyed girl, saving her from the duke’s impending wrath.

She had been warned that the Duke of Sedgewick was a monster—and by his own mother, no less. Joceline was prepared to face him.

“Thank you, Mrs. Yorke.” Mary fled in a flurry of drab skirts.

Joceline had only sufficient time to stiffen her spine and assume the position of an infantry soldier about to take charge. And not a moment too soon.

For the Duke of Sedgewick stalked into the hall from the drawing room, a tall and imposing figure. He was dressed to go riding, a hat clasped in his leather-glove-clad hand at one side. His blue-green eyes shot irate fire at her.

He didn’t look like a monster at all. Indeed, the duke was unusually handsome. His dark-gold hair was far too long for fashion, hanging about his chiseled jaw and brushing his broad shoulders. His forehead was high, his lips full, his cheekbones well-defined. His sun-bronzed skin suggested he spent a large amount of time outside, and his coat fit snugly around his powerful arms. How strange for a duke. The aristocrats Joceline had known had been soft and pale and round about their middles. They had been nothing at all like this virile, masculine man who exuded rugged power. The Duke of Sedgewick was strikingly gorgeous.

He was also glaring at her.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

Belatedly, she dipped into a curtsy, aware she had been staring. “I am Mrs. Yorke. Your Grace, I presume?”

“You presume correctly.” His gaze dipped to the mess of candles scattered over the floor. “What is the meaning of this?”

Well. She couldn’t cast poor Mary beneath the carriage wheels, could she?

Joceline pinned her brightest smile to her lips. “Forgive me my clumsiness, please. I will see to it that the hall is tidied at once.”

The duke scowled. “Someone else shall see to it. You are dismissed, madam.”

“Dismissed, Your Grace?”

“I am giving you the sack,” he enunciated coldly.

Sacked? She had only just arrived three days before. And an arduous journey it had been, too, taking the 5:15 a.m. train from King’s Cross in a cramped carriage. She had traveled for many hours, hopeful that her situation at Blackwell Abbey would provide some much-longed-for permanence. To say nothing of the handsome sums she had been promised by the duchess.

“Have I done something to displease Your Grace?” she asked hesitantly, wondering if it was the dropped candles that had so distressed him.

Her Grace had mentioned that her son would be exacting. That he was content to be a hermit in the wilds of the north and that he did not prefer the company of others. That he was stern and forbidding, frigid and aloof, and that she must not expect a warm reception upon her arrival.

The dowager duchess had neglected to say that he would dismiss her upon arrival, however.

“I have no need for a housekeeper,” he snarled. “Or this…this… greenery . Have it removed before you go.”

“The greenery is part of the decorations I have organized for Christmas, Your Grace,” she explained.

“We don’t decorate for Christmas at Blackwell Abbey, Mrs. Young.”

“Mrs. Yorke,” she corrected firmly, though she knew she shouldn’t.

But he had already given her the sack, had he not? Her small rebellion could not cost her anything more than what she had lost.

“I beg your pardon?” he asked with deadly menace.

Were she younger, less hardened by the world, no doubt, Joceline would have flinched and wilted at the duke’s impenetrable frost. But the shell around her heart was quite firm.

She held his gaze, still smiling. “My name, Your Grace. It is Mrs. Yorke.”

“It hardly signifies, madam. You’ll be gone before tomorrow. Dunreave will see to the arrangements taking you to Durham.”

“Of course, Your Grace.” She offered him another curtsy.

“Good day.” He nodded and then stalked past her.

For a moment, his scent swirled in the air he had just disturbed with his cantankerous retreat. It was a pleasant scent—musky and spicy, with hints of citrus and amber—quite unlike the man who wore it.

What an absurd contrast he was. Beautiful on the outside, harsh and angry on the inside. She sighed heavily as his footsteps faded down the hall, echoing in the grim silence that she had noted upon her arrival at Blackwell Abbey three days before and which made sense now that she had finally met the master of the estate.

At least she had yet to make herself at home in the plain, chilly housekeeper’s room she had been given. Her valise was still mostly packed. But there was the matter of her incredibly brief tenure here, and no personal character from the duke to be sure, not after he had so rudely dismissed her.

Frowning, she bent to retrieve the fallen candles, placing them carefully in the apron she had donned to help Mary and the footman, Peter, with the Christmas decorations. The day had begun bright with possibility. She had made use of the holly hedges in the garden, which were quite overgrown and in need of a sound trimming anyway. And then there had been some fir boughs which had been added. How pleased she had been with the overall effect. The trees had been cut from a wooded area out of sight of the manor house and hauled on a wagon. With Christmas approaching, she had been eager to make Blackwell Abbey festive and welcoming as the dowager duchess had requested of her.

But she had been quite wrong in believing her efforts would be appreciated by the duke. It was not the first disappointment in her life, and she knew without question that it wouldn’t be the last.

If only the dowager had been firmer in her warning. Joceline would never have traveled so far, uprooting her life in London, lured by the promise of many more pounds per annum than she had previously earned. Now, she would have to somehow find the funds to return, secure lodging, and start anew.

Dread curdled her stomach as she picked up the last fallen candle and stood, apron full of decorations she’d intended to place on the Christmas trees. But then, with sudden clarity, it occurred to her that the Duke of Sedgewick was not who had hired her as housekeeper. His mother had.

Joceline’s smile returned.

With renewed determination, she moved toward the drawing room.

Her decorating was not yet complete. And if the duke thought he could be rid of her so easily, he was about to realize he was wrong.