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Overview
For inexperienced, painfully shy Barnaby Traherne, the glittering society ball is akin to a battlefield . . . that is, until his attention is captured by an auburn-haired beauty. Scandalous rumors swirl around Miranda Pardew and now she has set her cap for a renowned rake. Ignoring the gossip, the already-smitten Barnaby gathers his courage and asks Miranda for a dance. When she rejects him—in a very public humiliation—he vows that when he reenters the fray, he will be better prepared. Eleven years later, he gets his chance, along with the opportunity to deliver to a certain haughty beauty her long-overdue comeuppance.
Once the belle of the ball, Miranda is now an impecunious widow. A stroke of luck lands her a governess position in Norfolk. Before she arrives, her stagecoach is ambushed by highwaymen, and Miranda finds herself stranded with an attractive stranger. She has no idea he’s the nobleman she rebuffed years earlier. But Barnaby has not forgotten her—and is shocked to discover that Miranda has been employed to look after his nephews. At his brother’s estate for Christmas, Barnaby tries in vain to conceal his still-wild attraction to Miranda, but a capricious fate conspires to throw Barnaby and Miranda together at every turn.
Award-winning author Elizabeth Mansfield delivers a sparkling Regency novel brimming with romance, wit, and festive holiday spirit.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781504040051 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Open Road Media |
| Publication date: | 10/04/2016 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 207 |
| Sales rank: | 237,626 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Elizabeth Mansfield is a pseudonym of Paula Schwartz, which she used for more than two dozen Regency romances. Schwartz also wrote an American immigrant family saga, A Morning Moon, as Paula Reibel, and two American history romances—To Spite the Devil, as Paula Jonas, and Rachel’s Passage, as Paula Reid.
Read an Excerpt
Winter Wonderland
By Elizabeth Mansfield
OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA
Copyright © 1993 Estate of Paula SchwartzAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5040-4005-1
CHAPTER 1
Honoria, Lady Shallcross, had a select circle of friends — like herself, refined, mature ladies of impeccable taste and breeding — who gathered in her drawing room weekly to do what ladies of such refinement are wont to do: drink tea and gossip. And one of their favorite subjects of gossip was Honoria's own brother-in-law, Barnaby Traherne. What made him interesting was the paradoxical fact that, although he was tall, handsomely featured, and reasonably well-to-do, none of the marriageable young ladies of the ton seemed inclined to set their caps for him.
The subject became almost heated one day when Honoria, pouring out the tea for the large-bosomed Lady Lydell, chanced to remark that this was Barnaby's thirtieth birthday.
"It's positively shocking," Lady Lydell observed, helping herself to a buttered scone, "that such a catch as Barnaby is, at his age, still a bachelor."
"I don't understand it," the white-haired Jane Ponsonby mused. "The girls should be pursuing him relentlessly. Why aren't they?"
"Because," Honoria replied in that tone of unalterable affection with which she always spoke of him, "he's shy."
This response brought forth a burst of satiric laughter. "Shy, indeed!" the sharp-tongued Molly Davenham, Honoria's closest friend, exclaimed. "The man's as shy as a shark!"
Honoria stiffened. "Molly! How can you say such a thing?" she demanded furiously.
"I can say it because it's true." Molly stirred her tea with perfect calm. "A man with a stinging wit can't be called shy."
"And didn't he win a DSO for his bravery at Waterloo?" Jane Ponsonby asked. "Hardly the act of a shy man."
"But ... but that doesn't mean —" Honoria sputtered.
"I heard, from my nephew in the Foreign Office," Lady Lydell cut in, "that your Barnaby is the only man there with the backbone to stand up to the Prime Minister. So how can he be shy?"
Honoria brushed back a lock of gray-streaked hair with fingers that shook with anger. "Nevertheless —"
"Never mind your neverthelesses," Molly Davenham said bluntly. "The fact is that every young lady I've tried to push in Barnaby's path was afraid of him."
"Afraid of him?" Honoria stared at her friend in disbelief. "What on earth can have made them afraid of him?"
"He's forbidding," Molly said, reaching for a cucumber sandwich, "and if you can't see that for yourself, I can't help you."
"Forbidding? My Barnaby, forbidding?" Honoria looked round the circle for support for her position, but there was none.
"I know what Molly means," Lady Lydell said thoughtfully, "although perhaps it's hard to describe just what it is that makes him forbidding...."
It was hard to describe, but everyone who knew him agreed that there was something about Barnaby Traherne that put one off. He had a strong, lean face and a body that showed not an ounce of self-indulgence, qualities not necessarily daunting in themselves (in fact, most females found him quite attractive), but when combined with a certain glower in his expression, forbidding he became. His dark eyes, which glittered with saturnine intellectual acumen, had a way of cutting through a lady's pretensions; his manner of responding to most questions with brusque monosyllables quickly exhausted most ladies' efforts at conversation; and his icy witticisms easily discouraged the most persistent of flirts. And though his normal expression was only mildly thoughtful, the least annoyance caused it to give way to a frown so glowering that most observers backed out of range.
But Honoria, who had no children of her own and who'd helped raise Barnaby since he was ten, saw the man with a loving mother's eyes. "What nonsense!" she insisted sternly. "My Barnaby is as shy as a wallflower. You may take my word on it."
But none of the ladies took her word. They all had eyes and ears, and from the evidence of those most reliable of organs, Barnaby Traherne was anything but shy.
Honoria didn't pursue the subject, though she knew how wrong they were. There was much they didn't know about her Barnaby, but his story was not one which she wished to tell, even to these close friends. If only you could have seen him as I did, she sighed to herself as she sipped her tea, eleven years ago, back in 1806, when he attended his first ball ... that dreadful ball that altered his character forever....
Honoria remembered that ball better than she remembered her own wedding. It was one of those affairs given to honor her husband's coming into his titles. After a year of mourning for his father, Lawrence Traherne, the fourth Earl of Shallcross, was ready to celebrate his new position. It was a happy time, a time of celebration in the family, for not only had their year of mourning come to an end, but Terence, the second brother, had become father to a bouncing boy, and Barnaby, who'd been an excellent student despite his shyness, had won his Oxford degree with honors.
To celebrate, Lawrence had taken the whole family to London for a season of gaiety. Many of the ton held fêtes for the new Earl. During that season, Honoria had often tried to entice the shy young Barnaby to accompany them to the festivities being held in his brother's honor, but Barnaby had been too shy to go. This time, however, something had made him change his mind.
Honoria was delighted. She'd looked forward to this particular affair, for it was being given by her good friends, Lord and Lady Lydell. She remembered how excited she'd been as she'd climbed the stairs of the Lydell town house in Portman Square, her husband holding her right arm, and Barnaby, her left.
But as soon as they approached the ballroom doorway, Honoria was struck with misgivings. Perhaps she shouldn't have urged Barnaby to come. Honesty demanded she admit to herself that she'd not thought things through. She'd been too eager, too hasty. Barnaby would not be presented at his best. There had not been time to prepare him properly. He'd not been schooled in ballroom etiquette; he'd not been warned of the many social pitfalls; he'd not even been dressed to advantage. The boy's hair had not been cut, his borrowed coat now seemed a poor fit, and his breeches positively baggy when compared with the exquisite tailoring exhibited by the other guests. This is all my fault, she berated herself. I should not have permitted him to attend his very first ball so ill-prepared.
She could sense that poor Barnaby, too, was beset with doubts, though not from the flaws in his costume or the gaps in his education, for he was too naive to be aware of them, but from the shyness that was so much part of his character. But Lawrence pulled him into the ballroom before she could prevent it. And before they'd had a chance to adjust to the noise, Barnaby spotted Miranda Pardew!
Honoria, following his gaze, felt her heart sink. Right before her eyes, the boy became bewitched. She could not blame him; the laughing young woman attracted the eye of many of the gentlemen present. But of all the women in the room, this one was the last she would have chosen for her shy, inexperienced brother-in-law.
But her husband, with typical male ineptitude in these matters, would not heed her warnings. Before she could persuade him to change his intent, Lady Lydell came up to them, linked her arm to Honoria's and, without giving her a chance to object, bore her off to make the social rounds. As she moved away, the last words Honoria could hear were her husband's: "Come, boy," he was saying, "and let me introduce you to that charming creature who has you gawking."
Honoria had wanted to wring his neck. She kept looking back over her shoulder, wishing urgently that she could find a way to keep her husband from throwing Barnaby to the mercy of the room's most notorious flirt. But her hostess's strong grip was irresistible. She tried to signal her alarm to Lawrence by means of meaningful glances, but the Earl did not receive his lady's mental messages. He merely pushed the boy onward to what Honoria feared would be certain disaster.
Later, at home, after everyone in the household had gone to bed, Honoria learned how right her feelings had been. She came downstairs to find Barnaby brooding before the embers of the sitting room fire. With gentle prodding, she drew the story out of him. It moved her to tears. "Oh, my poor, sweet boy, how dreadful! That you should have had to experience such a set-down ... and at your very first ball ... it breaks my heart!"
But Barnaby was past self-pity. "Don't cry over the incident, Honoria," he said to her, his jaw set and his eyes dark with resolve. "It won't happen to me again. When next I set foot in society, I shall be fully prepared."
And so he was. No sign of shyness ever again appeared in his demeanor. He conquered that tendency so completely that now, eleven years later, none of the ladies drinking tea with Honoria would believe that the word shy could possibly apply to him.
Honoria looked up from her reverie to find Jane Ponsonby staring at her speculatively. "Well?" she was asking.
"Well, what?" Honoria blinked at her in confusion, not having heard a word.
"Well, do you think Barnaby would like her?"
"Like who?"
"Dash it, Honoria, haven't you heard anything?" Molly Davenham asked in disgust. "Your habit of drifting off is becoming positively distressing. Jane was speaking of her niece, Olivia. Do you think Barnaby might take to her?"
"Little Livy?" Honoria looked from one to the other in surprise. "But she's much too young, isn't she? A mere child."
"She's twenty-two," Jane Ponsonby declared, "and has been out three seasons."
"Has she really? How time does fly! But how did you come to think of her as suitable for Barnaby?"
"Because of what you said about him, insisting that the fellow is shy. So is Livy. If she weren't, she'd have been spoken for years ago, pretty thing that she is. Three seasons on the town and the chit still hangs back behind her mother's skirts. She's perfectly charming and talkative at home, but bring her to a ballroom, and she barely utters a word!"
"It might be a perfect pairing," Lady Lydell cooed, her eyes alight with a matchmaker's gleam.
Molly Davenham, however, was not a romantic. "I don't see how it can be done, with Barnaby so put-offish and Livy so shy."
"I do," said Honoria, already smiling dreamily at the prospect of a bride for her darling Barnaby. "I know just how to manage it."
"How?" asked the skeptical Molly.
"The family will all be meeting at Terence's place for Christmas. I'll simply bring Livy with me. At a quiet family gathering in the country, we can all relax and be ourselves. No one need worry about being shy."
The ladies all smiled at each other over their cups. Not even Molly could think of an objection. And as for Honoria, her heart actually sang in her chest. Olivia Ponsonby, little Livy, was just the sort of girl Honoria had wished for Barnaby all those years ago at the Lydell ball: a girl who was sweet, modest, pretty and shy! Livy had come along eleven years late, but better late than never.
Honoria lifted her cup in a toast. "To sweet little Livy!" she said happily.
"To sweet little Livy," the others echoed.
"May she have success," Molly added wryly, "where braver girls have failed."
CHAPTER 2Miranda, Lady Velacott, looked most unladylike sitting on the dining room floor. She was swathed in an oversized apron and employed in wrapping pieces of china in sheets of old newspaper. It was an unusual occupation for a lady, but Miranda had long since grown accustomed to performing menial tasks. In a household that had once been run by a dozen servants but which had for a long time been reduced in staff to only three, she'd learned that her title did not protect her from having to engage in such unladylike but necessary tasks as bedmaking, laundering, mending, cooking and dusting.
A few feet away from Miranda, kneeling in front of two wooden crates into which she was carefully placing the wrapped dishes, was her Aunt Letty, a bony, spare, aristocratic old woman with small black eyes, a beak-like nose and a smooth helmet of iron-gray hair, all of which gave the impression of a silver-headed bird. Miranda, in her shapeless apron and with her curly auburn hair falling in neglected disarray around her shoulders, made a sharp contrast to her formally-clad, neatly-coiffed aunt.
The younger woman, her head lowered and her falling hair shading her face, was carefully keeping her back to her aunt. By hiding her face, Miranda hoped the sharp-eyed old woman would not notice that she was crying again. She couldn't seem to keep from dripping tears today. The sight of the familiar blue willow pattern on the Minton china reminded her of the many soothing cups of tea she'd taken in Letty's company during the past eleven years in this London house. Through those long years of her disastrous marriage, the companionship of this honest, blunt, sensible yet affectionate woman — who'd been like a mother to her after her parents died — was her one blessing, her bulwark against life's storms, the lifeline that kept her from drowning. The thought that this was their last day together was too hard to bear.
But Aunt Letty was indeed sharp-eyed. "You are not working, my dear," she said, eyeing her niece's back suspiciously. "Don't tell me you've turned on the waterworks again."
Miranda surreptitiously wiped her eyes. "No, of course I haven't," she said bravely. "I was only ..." Her mind raced about, searching for an excuse for her idle hands. "... only noticing something in the newspaper here."
"Were you indeed?" Letty was too shrewd to be easily fooled. "And what on earth can interest you in a newspaper so old that it's good for nothing but wrapping?"
Miranda looked desperately at the printed sheet she had half-folded over a pretty saucer. "Advertisements," she said with false brightness. "Have you ever read these advertisements, my love? Did you know that ladies of quality actually use newspapers to find themselves household help? Here's a Lady Millington in Kent seeking 'a well-qualified butler with experience in supervision of household staff of more than two dozen.' Two dozen! Imagine! And here ... a family in Norfolk by the name of Traherne seeks 'the assistance of a gentlewoman to supervise and educate three boys, ages five through twelve.' And this one, from a Mr. Drinkwater in Essex for 'a gentleman's gentleman, skilled at hairdress —'"
"Thank you, my dear, that's quite enough. You may find such reading interesting, but I do not. Besides, did you not insist that we pack these crates before I take my leave?"
"Sorry, Aunt," Miranda said, making a last brush at her cheek with the back of her hand and hurrying on with the wrapping, "but we have all afternoon. We'll finish in time."
A sound of wheels on the gravel drive outside the windows caught their attention. "Goodness me, Higgins can't have brought my carriage round so soon!" Aunt Letty exclaimed, raising herself to her feet with the stiff awkwardness of age. Once on her feet, however, she scurried to the window with the agility of a much younger woman and peered out. "Heavens, that's not my carriage! It's a drayman's cart! Those blasted Velacotts have sent their things!"
"Already?" Miranda felt her heart sink.
Aunt Letty frowned in irritation. "Isn't it just like your brother-in-law and his grasping little wife to take over the house a day early?"
Miranda rose and joined her at the window. "It's their right," she said, trying to keep her voice steady. "At least they gave me a year's mourning before moving in."
Letty snorted. "How very good of them."
They stood in the window, arms about each other's waists, listening to the November wind rattle the panes. The draymen down below ignored the wind as they busily carried furniture and boxes from the equipage and piled them up in the drive. Letty leaned closer to the window, her birdlike eyes glittering in disgust as she watched them. "I suppose this means that the Charles Velacotts themselves will be following shortly."
Miranda winced at the prospect. "Oh, dear, I suppose they will. I had hoped for one more night ..."
Aunt Letty threw her niece a quick look of sympathy before turning away from the window and starting across the room. "Then I'd best send Higgins for the carriage and take myself off before they arrive."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Winter Wonderland by Elizabeth Mansfield. Copyright © 1993 Estate of Paula Schwartz. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
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