A yuletide kiss, p.1
A Yuletide Kiss, page 1
Also by Madeline Hunter, Sabrina Jeffries and Mary Jo Putney
SEDUCTION ON A SNOWY NIGHT
Books by Madeline Hunter
THE MOST DANGEROUS DUKE IN LONDON
A DEVIL OF A DUKE
NEVER DENY A DUKE
HEIRESS FOR HIRE
HEIRESS IN RED SILK
Books by Sabrina Jeffries
PROJECT DUCHESS
THE BACHELOR
WHO WANTS TO MARRY A DUKE?
UNDERCOVER DUKE
The Rogues Redeemed series by Mary Jo Putney
ONCE A SOLDIER
ONCE A REBEL
ONCE A SCOUNDREL
ONCE A SPY
ONCE DISHONORED
ONCE A LAIRD
A Yuletide Kiss
SABRINA JEFFRIES
MADELINE HUNTER
MARY JO PUTNEY
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Anthology copyright © 2021 by Kensington Books
“When We Finally Kiss Good Night” © by Sabrina Jeffries, LLC
“The Unexpected Gift” © by Madeline Hunter
“When Strangers Meet” © by Mary Jo Putney
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ISBN-13: 978-1-4967-3130-2 (ebook)
ISBN: 978-1-4967-3129-6
Table of Contents
Also by
Title Page
Copyright Page
When We Finally Kiss Good Night
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
The Unexpected Gift
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
When Strangers Meet
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Teaser chapter
Teaser chapter
Teaser chapter
When We Finally Kiss Good Night
SABRINA JEFFRIES
To my husband, Rene, who’s always been my rock,
even when times are hard.
I love you forever!
Chapter 1
Konrad Juncker prodded the exhausted post-horse pulling his rented gig down a snowy lane. Normally, he’d reach Sanforth before nightfall easily, but not now that it was sleeting. The sign with a white rose at the turn from the main road could only mark the site of the exclusive inn he sought, which his friend Thorn, the Duke of Thornstock, had once described to him.
“Just a bit more, and you can rest,” Konrad muttered to the horse.
He hoped he was right. His stomach grumbled, his eyebrows were crusted with ice, and even his greatcoat failed to keep him warm. The horse struggled a few hundred yards more and suddenly the lane widened to reveal a circular drive with an impressive building nestled in the evergreens. There was an entrance arch and a sign with the words THE WHITE ROSE. This had to be the place.
Still, it didn’t look like a fully functioning inn. It seemed deserted, with no ostler bustling to attend to his horse, no noise from within to indicate people eating or drinking. But why should that be? The storm had come up suddenly—no one would have had time to gather their mounts and head off. They would have been stuck here . . . as he clearly was.
He’d been told it had a sizeable stable. That had to be through the other archway he could see. Even the horse pricked up its ears as if it knew this was to be its home until the storm abated and the roads cleared.
Konrad climbed down, tied the horse to a post, and entered the stables. There wasn’t a single groom about, although there were a couple of nags in the stalls. While that was a good sign, it didn’t explain the lack of people.
So he trudged back out and through the snow to the front of the inn. Hearing what sounded like voices coming from the other end of the archway—finally—he headed that way.
He shivered as he walked along the passageway, beyond which sleet fell steadily. As he came out into what proved to be an alley behind the inn, he spied two young women and a man of about sixty laboring to drag a rather stalwart fellow . . . somewhere.
“Good God,” Konrad couldn’t help saying as he strode toward them. “Is he drunk? Dead?” Or worse yet, murdered. It would be just Konrad’s luck to have stumbled across a criminal act in progress.
He’d expected the man to answer, but it was the older of the two women who blinked over at him while snow continued dusting her heavy wrap and blond hair. “Neither, I hope. We found him outside in this state. He seems quite ill.”
Konrad approached her and the brown-haired girl who was probably a maidservant, judging by her youth and her apron. Each was tugging on one of the prone fellow’s arms while the old gentleman attempted to lift the man’s legs.
Now that Konrad was closer, he could hear the ill chap mumbling and see his flushed face. “Where are you taking him?” Konrad asked.
“To a room, of course. Although how we’ll get him onto the bed, I don’t know.”
“Let me deal with dragging him.” Moving between the two women, Konrad hoisted the stranger up. As the women let go, he locked his hands around the fellow’s chest, enabling the older gentleman to finally lift the chap’s legs off the ground. “Tell me where you want him.”
Once again, it was the blond woman who answered. “Go straight back to the end of the alley. I’ll take care of the door.” He heard the creak of snow and ice being shoved aside by the door opening. As he and the other fellow half lifted, half dragged their burden along the alley, the woman said to the girl, “Alice, go light a fire on the hearth to dispel the cold and damp.”
“Yes, Mrs. Waverly,” Alice said.
Ah. So the outspoken woman was the owner of this place. Thorn had told him of her.
As Konrad and the old gentleman maneuvered the fellow into the bedchamber, Konrad grumbled, “This chap must weigh thirteen stone.”
“At the very least,” Mrs. Waverly said as she drew back the covers.
Still, they finally got him on the bed and rolled him to his back.
“Help me get his coats off, Peter,” Mrs. Waverly told the old gentleman as she unbuttoned the feverish man’s greatcoat.
“I’ll do it,” Konrad said and brushed her aside. Peter lifted their patient’s shoulders so that Konrad could pull the coat off his arms. Then they dragged the sodden, heavy wool out from under him. More buttons and pulling, and the frock coat and waistcoat followed. The woman threw a blanket over the man, then hung the coats on pegs.
She turned to Konrad. “Thank you for your help, Mister . . .”
“Juncker. Konrad Juncker. I assume you are the keeper of this fine inn, Mrs. Waverly.” He figured a compliment couldn’t hurt.
Apparently, Mrs. Waverly didn’t share his belief. “Yes, I own this place. But at present it is closed for the holidays.”
Not ready to give up, Konrad kept a smile on his face. “I’ll accept any shelter you have. Perhaps there is an extra place with the grooms? I’m happy to pay your price.”
“That’s not the issue. We’re not only closed, but we lack provisions for guests at present. Nor are there any other servants here beside Peter and his granddaughter, Alice.”
“I am sorry to intrude on what you probably thought would be a quiet few days, but I can’t go back or forward. The road has become impassable. There is ice to the west, and it is beginning to fall here. You can hear it, even if you didn’t see it while you were out in the cold.”
The woman looked torn.
“I can do for myself,” Konrad added. “I won’t need servants.”
She sighed. “Of course you can stay until the road improves. There are plenty of chambers above, off the gallery over the courtyard. Alice will show you to Room Four if you will fetch your own bag. Peter can see to your horses and equipage. You are welcome to dine with us, simple as our fare will be.”
“Thank you.”
With a nod to Mrs. Waverly, Konrad followed Alice and Peter to the front of the inn to get his valise. Then, as Peter h
“How did you hear of our ‘fine inn’?” Alice asked, a bit tartly.
“My friend, the Duke of Thornstock, praised the White Rose once, which brought it to my mind when I was struggling on the road.”
She relaxed a bit. “I know of His Grace. Sometimes he stops here on his way to Armitage Hall. He even has a pint while he waits for his horses to be changed.” She looked back briefly as she climbed. “Mrs. Waverly is a good woman, you know. She was just hoping for some time away from the bustle. Generally, we’re full up most of the year.”
“Trust me, this wasn’t where I wanted to be, either.” He caught himself. “I’m grateful for the shelter, but I was headed for a comfortable country house in Sanforth owned by my friends.”
“Sanforth, is it? We know people there. But no one in a country house.” Her mouth dropped open. “Are you visiting the Duke of Armitage? Oh, that’s right, the Duke of Thornstock is your friend, too. Now there’s a family—three dukes as half brothers! Are they as wild as they sound? You must know them fairly well if you were invited to—”
“Ah, look, Room Number Four.” He halted, not wanting to engage in this discussion. He knew firsthand how gossipy village folk could be, and he didn’t want to betray any secrets he shouldn’t. “I take it this is mine?”
“Oh, yes.” She blushed furiously. “And me going on and on so I nearly passed it by.” She unlocked the door. “There’s a bedchamber and separate sitting room. They’ve been closed up these past two days, so they may need airing. I’ll get the fire going, make up the bed, and fetch you fresh water for washing up. That’s about all I can manage before dinner.”
“I can build a fire and fetch my own water if you tell me where the well is.”
She looked taken aback. “That would be a help, thank you.”
As he doffed his damp greatcoat and hung it on a hook, she took clean linens from a chest underneath the bed. The hearth was in the sitting room, so he went in and grabbed the tinderbox, then set about building the fire. Once the logs were stacked with the kindling, he struck flint to steel until a spark caught on the charcloth. A minute later, he had a nice fire going.
He caught Alice watching him through the connecting doorway.
“For a gentleman, you’re very good at that,” she said.
He returned to the bedroom. “That’s because I’m not a gentleman.” When she looked perplexed, he said, “I work for a living.”
She eyed him skeptically as she fluffed the pillows. “Making fires?”
He laughed. “No. Writing plays.” Or rather, pretending to write the popular plays his best friend, Thorn, actually wrote.
“Like ones in a theater?”
“Exactly like those.”
But Konrad wouldn’t be “writing” them much longer. Thorn planned to pen new plays under his own name, so he no longer needed to pay Konrad to stand in for him. Even though Konrad had put aside a great deal of the money he’d earned, what would he do when it ran out? He must have a plan for his future.
He could fall back on acting, but he’d had his fill of traveling the country, and competition among actors was fierce in London, the only place where acting paid a living wage. Besides, he didn’t know how long his credit in the theater community would last once Thorn revealed that he’d written the Felix plays and not Konrad. That was also why Konrad might have no luck selling his own plays. Even if he thought he could write them, the theater community might not agree.
His poetry, which was where his heart was, would never make enough to support him unless he found a wealthy patron, and he didn’t like the idea of going hat in hand to his rich friends. His novel was only half finished. The words for it didn’t come as easily as they did for his poetry.
“So, these plays you write,” she said, beating at the feather mattress to fluff it up, too. “Are they for theaters in London?”
“Yes. You could go see them if you ever travel there.”
She eyed him askance. “London might as well be in China for all the good it does me.”
Damn. He was thinking like a gentleman, worrying about what work to do so he could remain in London while this poor girl had never even been there. Servants generally only traveled with their masters or mistresses, and even then only a few did, although paid companions like Flora might be taken along.
Flora? What had him thinking of her?
Well, he had seen her in London last month, looking as lovely eight years later as she had at nineteen. Just the sight of her had brought it all flooding back: dances and long talks and furtive touches during their month of half flirtation, half courtship. It had made him want to start up with her again, even though little had changed in his life, and her life had only changed for the worse.
He’d squandered his one chance at making amends. He’d had so many questions and hadn’t asked a single one. Nor was he likely to see her again.
God, he had to stop thinking of her. He stepped forward as Alice finished with the sheets. “Let me help you put the pillow-cases on.”
“How kind of you, sir,” she said and circled around to the other side.
Then something seemed to catch her eye outside the window. “There’s an equipage coming up the drive, I think.”
He joined her there. “It looks like a carriage. A rather large one.”
Alice began clucking her tongue. “Oh, I’d best go tell the mistress, but she ain’t going to be happy about it.” She hurried for the door. “That’s the last thing we need right now.”
All he could do was agree.
Chapter 2
Miss Flora Younger cleared a spot on the carriage window with her gloved hand and tried to make out what lay at the other end of the drive. “I fear the White Rose Inn is abandoned.”
“Poppycock!” Lady Hortensia Whitmarsh, Flora’s employer, peered out of her own window. “No one abandons an inn. It would be terribly rude to travelers.”
“I doubt that was the intention,” Flora said dryly. “And I can’t see anyone around. Not that beggars can be choosers at the moment. Shelter is shelter.”
“We are not beggars. And we can choose to go wherever we jolly well please. I shall simply tell Braxton to drive on until we find a more felicitous abode.” The viscountess knocked on the ceiling. “Braxton! Braxton, my good man!” When no answer came, she muttered, “Damned fellow is pretending not to hear me again.”
Flora stifled a laugh. “He’s nearly deaf.”
“Only when he chooses,” Lady Whitmarsh grumbled.
“Yet you keep him on.”
“Of course. He’s the best coachman I’ve ever had.”
“Exactly.” Flora had long ago given up on following the winding roads of Lady Whitmarsh’s mind. “Braxton would only come this way because it’s our last chance at shelter.”
“Perhaps,” Lady Whitmarsh said, though she began to retie her boots. The poor woman’s feet had a tendency to ache in cold weather, so she often undid her half boots when the two ladies were traveling. Apparently that helped.
Flora buttoned up her cloak of forest-green velvet, a castoff of her ladyship’s, and pulled the hood over her head in anticipation of having to disembark. “Now I wish I’d worn my other gown when we set out from last night’s lodgings.”
“Pish, you wanted to make a good impression on the guests at the house party. Nothing wrong with that. And this gown is such a pretty thing, with the flourishes and furbelows you embroidered on it. It’s nice for the season, too, with all the ivy and holly leaves.”
“Yes, but it’s too thin for this weather. I should have worn my heaviest gown, no matter how outdated—or unseasonable—its design.”
