Page 2 of Once Upon a Gilded Christmas (To All The Earls I’ve Loved Before #4)

Thus were the impressions of the first guests to arrive at Lady Hammond's Christmas party.

More arrived, with Jacob making notes of each family.

Young ladies and their mamas, lord's heirs with their fathers not yet dead, all with the potential for marvellous matrimony, at least on paper.

Below them, the guests mingled quite casually as they waited for their luggage to be taken to their rooms.

And then there was the magic.

Magic was a feminine art, many considered, for it was slow to build, could be subtle, yet effective.

Only a woman would have the patience it took to employ magic.

It wasn't the sort of thing from fairy tales where one could chant a spell or wave a magic wand and the world would do your bidding.

Instead, magic was like the aethers, free-flowing until harnessed.

The best way to harness it was to catch it and store it in an item—a practice known as 'imbuing'.

Supposedly it took a long time—months, even—to imbue an item with the magic you wanted.

Not that Edward had much knowledge of such a thing.

Caroline, his late wife, wasn't one much for magic.

She never really needed it, she said. The last time anyone properly explained it to him had been thirty years ago.

He still thought of her from time to time.

Magic worked by proximity. It needed the touch of a person to activate it. Without someone nearby, magic just sat there in whatever item it had been imbued into, patiently waiting until someone came along, or until it evaporated.

Later the guests would all be formally introduced before dinner.

Before then, Edward wanted his sons to see them all from a distance.

From up here at the balustrade, magic had little impact.

All those desperate young ladies (and maybe a few young gentlemen) would have been magicked to the gills with who knew what kind of magical charms?

Unbeknownst to them, Edward knew of the pact his sons had made, to watch out for each other, lest some clever young thing trap one of them in a well-crafted web.

Maybe that would be a good thing, Edward mused, if an entrapment did happen.

If a young lady was dedicated enough to spend months of her life imbuing magic into her jewellery, her silver-shot ribbons, her stationery and more, maybe she'd have the sort of dedication to be a good wife in the House of Lavistock.

Magic took time. It wasn't like one could cast a charm on an item in an afternoon strong enough to attract a potential suitor. It took weeks, months, or even years to push enough magic into an item for it to be effective. That took much planning and patience.

There had been little-to-no magic in his own marriage. The Late Lady Russell saw no need for such enticements, as she didn't have to win him over (nor he, her). It was the starry eyes of their parents that had united them.

Still, she could have made some effort to dazzle him with some sort of glamour. Might have made the marriage a bit more tolerable. Maybe magic wasn't a bad thing.

Three daughters and two sons was nothing to sniff at. By that metric alone, theirs was a successful marriage.

Shame his evenings lacked the warmth of a pleasant companion.

Now that age had wriggled its way into his life, could there be any comfort better than a companion to sit next to a warm fire on an evening?

He yearned for a pleasant someone across from him, full of interesting conversation sometimes, companionable silence in others, but always present, always pleasant.

He'd experienced it once, a long time ago, a stolen night when a dinner party was avoiding him. He still thought of her.

"Lads," Edward said, "There is nothing wrong with magic. Let her charm you. Let her make you happy. If she is glamourous to you, and works hard to keep it like that, it's not a bad thing."

Jacob straightened. "Are you advocating feminine deception?"

"Not at all. I'm saying a spoonful of sugar in your tea makes it imminently drinkable."

"There is such a thing as too much sugar," Jacob retorted.

"Is there, Jamface?"

At the sound of his childhood nickname, Jacob bristled.

Kendall laughed. "He's got you there."

As a lad, Jacob had once plundered the jam jar. Stole it right out of Cook's pantry. Nurse found him hiding in the wardrobe, jar empty, face covered in jam.

Naturally, Jacob had been scolded. Edward would have never learned of the incident, if it hadn't been for Jacob's defiance.

When Nurse had told him that 'one should never eat a full jar of jam,' he stood up to her. "Why not?" the young lad demanded.

"Because too much sugar will make you sick." Nurse would know. She'd been an excellent nurse to all his children. None of them died, and rarely were they ill.

"Shan't!" was Jacob's unrespectful reply.

Any other nurse might have given him a beating and rightfully so.

Not this one. Instead, she took him to his father and made Jacob tell the story.

Hadn't even cleaned his face first. Edward had sternly berated him for his disrespect.

"Nurse has explained how too much sugar can make you sick.

You will respect Nurse, for she knows these things. "

And had he learned his lesson, this might have been the end of it.

Two more times this happened in a week before Cook learned to lock the jam away.

Not once did Jacob get sick, a fact he declared proudly every time he was punished. A nickname, however, stuck to him longer than any jam ever could.

Kendall was not done with his teasing. "If you don't like sugar, you can have your strawberries plain." He pointed to Lady Frances, who had forgotten about the lads.

The front door opened once more, admitting two figures dressed against the chill December air. One of them threw back her cloak hood from her straw bonnet and stared upward at the three men. It was a young, dark-haired lass whose face tickled at Edward's memory. He must know her family.

True to form, Kendall and Jacob forgot their jammy disagreement and turned their attention to the new lass. Kendall blew her a kiss.

The lass sighed, rolled her eyes and dismissed them. Huh. She must have brothers.

The footman assisted the other first. That must be her mother.

Her back had been turned when the footman helped off her cloak, took her gloves and muffler, and eased her out of her full-length spencer.

Last she removed her bonnet, revealing steel-dark hair elegantly streaked with silver.

Unlike the other matrons, she was not a plump, overfed butterball, but retained some of the slimness of youth in her arms. Granted, her hips bore the signs of a well-lived life, but not to the point of overflowing the seat of a chair.

If anything, it gave her figure a nice curvature that pleased Edward greatly.

Then she turned around.

Edward's breath escaped his body, leaving him gasping. His heart beat as if to escape his chest. He gripped the balustrade as a little moan escaped his lips.

In an instant, thirty years melted away leaving only him and her.

Her. The only woman he'd ever loved, who had been cruelly snatched away from him.

Honora Radcliffe.

Honora Mildmay, Dowager Countess of Harwich, had no choice but to accept Lady Hammond's invitation to her Christmas party.

She had to, scandal bedamned. Honora was under no mistaken impression regarding Lady Hammond's matchmaking intentions.

It was Juliana's best opportunity, considering her circumstances.

The death of her husband Lord Charles had been a bit messier than she'd hoped for. While his son and heir Lord Brook had gotten most of the financial mess sorted out, there wasn't anything he could do about rumour.

In a subtle yet effective manner, that rumour of the ruin of the House of Harwich had all but tanked Juliana's last Season.

It was not her fault her father died one month in.

While the family had to withdraw from going out during the Social Season, nothing said that visitors could not be accepted.

It would be perfectly normal for them to come express their sympathy, regularly if they so chose.

They had not. Every single young man who'd doted such attention upon her in the beginning had evaporated as if they'd never existed. No visits, certainly no flowers, and not even a note expressing regret.

It baffled Honora until she heard the mostly-incorrect rumour of their financial straits. Not true, of course, once Brook got it all sorted out. Bad bookkeeping, nothing more. But the damage had been done.

Juliana's lonely summer had come and gone. Autumn came, devolving into winter. Nothing enlivened the darkening days, no hope of a future, only coldness.

December came. Honora had spent three hours staring at the letter of invitation from Lady Hammond.

While the flimsiest of tissue-thin rumours had trumped the strength of good bloodlines for the rest of the bon ton , Lady Hammond had ignored that, or so Honora hoped.

Why else would she have invited the Dowager Countess of Harwich and her most eligible youngest daughter to a weeklong celebration of Christmas?

Had to be the bloodline. The Late Earl's family had been impeccable, as had the Radcliffes, from which Honora had descended.

Naturally, the two had united splendidly.

Her eldest son Lord Brook had married well.

Even the second and third of her sons had managed decent enough matches without them needing to purchase commissions or sell their souls to the church.

Her other daughter had done well enough for herself with a baronet, leaving only Lady Juliana.

Poor Juliana, left behind. She'd never liked being left behind, her little legs racing to keep up with the elder children.