Page 12 of A Diamond for Christmas (Diamonds of the First Water #6)

This custom of discussing their year on Stir-Up Sunday had begun when he’d been sent away to school.

Upon his return for the long winter break, they would enjoy recapping what each had done, with the comforting knowledge that in their well-staffed kitchen the Christmas puddings were being made as they traditionally were on this day.

For the next month, the liquor-soaked puddings would cure until they were brought to the table on Christmas day.

“With Angerstien’s collection, we now have a public art gallery,” his mother reminded him. “I think it’s wonderful and worth every penny. If my loving husband wishes to commission a painting of me before I lose my looks, then I shall donate it.”

“I shall do so in the new year at the earliest instant,” the earl promised. “As soon as I find the best painter.”

Lady Diamond narrowed her eyes. “Why the rush, husband? Are you saying I am already in danger of showing my age?”

When his father threw him a desperate look, Geoffrey merely shrugged. Let the man get himself out of it.

“Not at all, my love,” Lord Diamond said. “But you cannot fault me for wanting the public to be able to enjoy your likeness on canvas as soon as humanly possible.”

Marianne Diamond smiled and lifted her glass of wine in agreement.

Geoffrey ignored them. The new National Gallery, as it was known, only reminded him of seeing Caroline there before their debacle at the Hollidge dinner party. Her mother had kept him at bay.

“I sat in on the founding of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals,” his father continued to boast his list of accomplishments.

“I was invited to Old Slaughter’s Coffee House by the Reverend Broome himself and am proud of our members of parliament who sat with me for such a worthy cause. ”

“A good thing, too,” Lady Diamond said. “There is no reason to strike a dog or a horse.”

“No more than one would strike a woman,” the earl agreed. “Poor creatures.”

“Women or animals?” the countess quipped.

They laughed .

Geoffrey didn’t join in and thought he ought to have stayed home this year and avoided the family tradition, especially since his biggest accomplishment was failing to gain the hand of the woman he loved.

And he could hardly share that since he would garner no sympathy with his parents for the loss of a Chimes as his wife.

Nevertheless, he knew how to put a damper on their fun.

“As a nation, we hosted the King and Queen of the Sandwich Islands,” he said. “Hosted them right into an early grave.”

“Geoffrey!” his mother exclaimed. “How could anyone know they would catch the measles so easily? Besides, they had a wonderful time before they got sick.”

“Got sick and died , Mother, far from home. What’s more, the king was a year younger than I am.”

“Still,” she said, “they enjoyed the opera at Covent Garden.”

“And you saw them at the Theatre Royal, didn’t you?” his father asked him. “I saw the king myself, tall chap.”

Geoffrey had seen King Kamehameha before he fell sick without ever getting an audience with King George.

Poor man! But that night, Geoffrey had also seen Caroline with her parents.

Again, that had been when his future still seemed as if it might have her in it.

She’d looked beautiful, and he’d watched her instead of the stage.

She had even discreetly waved at him in the dimly lit auditorium.

“The king and queen couldn’t have done any of the entertaining things they did in London,” Lady Diamond pointed out, “if they’d stayed on their little island.”

“Island s , Mother. It’s a chain of them. Never mind.” Geoffrey shook his head. His mother was indeed frivolous. Apparently, she thought coming to London to see the opera and meet a bunch of noblemen had been worth their lives.

“Come now, think of something happier,” Marianne Diamond insisted.

“Lord Byron died,” Geoffrey said. At least the adventuresome baron had lived life to the fullest and known more than his share of passionate love, too, if all the newspaper recounts were true.

“I said happier ,” his mother reminded him. “Poor foolish man!”

She might as well have been speaking of her own son as of Byron. For Geoffrey was foolish through and through to have thought Lady Caroline genuinely cared about him.

He still wasn’t sure whether she’d merely been exacting revenge on him for her parents’ sake. It had seemed so when she cavalierly said she didn’t wish to marry him and left the room. He remembered the moment as if it had been yesterday.

Geoffrey imagined it was why she’d allowed him to take liberties, too.

Now that Stir-Up Sunday was done and dusted, they would hurtle swiftly toward Christmas and the new year. Strange how he’d been all but certain he would have proposed to a willing wife by now.

The following day, he met Jasper at White’s and endured another cheering-up similar to what his parents had attempted, although they were ignorant of the reason for his fit of the blue devils that would not abate. With Jasper, he could speak plainly.

“I haven’t seen Lady Caroline for months. Yet sometimes, it seems as if I’ve seen her quite recently — she is still so clear before my mind’s eye.”

“Saw her and kissed her,” Jasper added.

“And kissed her,” he agreed.

Geoffrey had no wish to continue moping and feeling sorry for himself.

Nevertheless, it was hard to disabuse his heart and his brain of the notion that he had found the one woman who suited him best in every regard.

Even less did he have enthusiasm for hunting another, knowing she would be second best.

With his fist, he hit the linen-covered table, making Jasper jump as well as some of the other diners nearby .

“I can’t stand this another minute,” Geoffrey vowed. “I tell you she is mine and meant to be. She said she would not marry me, but I ought to have tried harder.”

“Harder than the notes, flowers, and getting the Chimes’s door slammed in your face?”

“Yes, harder. She is worth it. And I didn’t ever try flowers. That seemed a tad sappy, frankly.”

Jasper shrugged. “Do you have a plan?”

“Actually, yes, I do.” Geoffrey could think of only one plan, clichéd as it was. “You provided it to me with your talk of Romeo and Juliet months ago.”