entertainments were free. Since she lived only an hour’s drive away—an hour and a half, perhaps, in snowy conditions such as these—Cynthia came up to spend the day whenever the Christmas spirit struck her.
In addition to being an absolute paradise for all things Yuletide, Cressmouth’s coziness would be another advantage over the London season.
Cynthia hoped.
Gertie’s come-out earlier that year had been a middling success.
Despite failing to mumble a shy response to any of her many smitten suitors, Gertie’s dance card remained full and her father’s mantel fairly sagged under the weight of so many calling cards.
None of the interested parties was good enough for the daughter of an earl, however. Gertie might not speak to strangers, but Lady Gertrude would be a disappointment to her family if she landed anything less than a wealthy aristocrat.
Cynthia knew exactly what it felt like to be a disappointment to one’s family. Now she did it on purpose, but once upon a time she had tried to fit in and to be chosen.
It hadn’t worked.
Her dance card, like the visitor dish upon her mantel, had remained empty.
Gertie, on the other hand, had a fighting chance. Cynthia considered this a rescue mission as much as a matchmaking one. Despite Gertie being all of eighteen years old, her father was planning to betroth her to one of his ancient, lecherous peers as part of a political alliance. Gertie would be miserable.
Cynthia liked Nottingvale. Any woman would be lucky to have him.
Cynthia loved her cousin Gertie. She truly believed the duke wouldn’t be able to help falling in love… if Cynthia could convince Gertie to speak in a voice loud enough to be heard, and to show the duke who she really was.
That was the best part of a Christmastide house party. Intimate close quarters where Nottingvale and Gertie would run into each other a dozen times a day. Even for shy Gertie, It would be impossible to avoid the duke.
“Here we are,” Cynthia said briskly as the carriage pulled up in front of the duke’s so-called cottage.
The only larger residence in Cressmouth was the castle itself.
Smart black carriages stretched down the long winding driveway up to Nottingvale’s cheerful brick façade.
Exquisitely dressed young ladies stepped onto the shoveled path, accompanied by equally proper-looking matrons ranging from hired companions to marriage-minded mothers.
Cynthia recognized most of them. Not the debutantes—she’d been out of society far too long for that. Many of the older ladies had either been in London the same time Cynthia was, or lived near enough to this area that they’d crossed paths in Cressmouth before, perhaps even at one of Nottingvale’s previous parties.
“Ready?” she murmured to Gertie.
Her cousin looked like she was going to be ill. “No.”
The carriage door swung open. A pair of gorgeously liveried footmen Cynthia recognized as Horace and Morris appeared at the opening to hand her and her cousin out of the coach.
“Pluck up, darling.” She dug her elbow into Gertie’s side. “You’re the swan following the ugly duckling into the water. There’s no need for speeches. You smile and curtsey and say ‘How do you do?’ just like we practiced.”
“Can we practice some more?” Gertie whispered. “Maybe we should come back next year.”
“He’s picking a bride this year,” Cynthia reminded her. “This is the only opportunity. If you’re not inside that house when the Duke of Nottingvale…”
There he was.
Right there in the doorway.
He’d only been visible for a brief moment. Half in shadow behind his stoic butler Oswald, a shaft of sunlight had fallen onto the Duke of Nottingvale’s absurdly handsome face and touchably tousled soft brown hair whilst he passed from one side of the entryway to another.
A second or two. The space of a heartbeat.
Cynthia’s breath froze solid in her lungs. She had become as stiff and silent as an icicle, teetering precipitously before a fall.
“All right.” Gertie’s voice was brave as she looped her arm trustingly through Cynthia’s. “I can survive it with you at my side.”
“Wonderful,” Cynthia croaked. Absolutely marvelous. The moment they’d both been waiting for.
It was time to matchmake Nottingvale to her cousin.
Chapter 2
His Grace Alexander Borland, seventh Duke of Nottingvale, stalked from room to room, ensuring everything was in order. The month-long Christmastide party was an annual tradition, and this year it had to be perfect.
It was already a disaster.
A sudden snowstorm had halted all travel for the past fortnight, reducing Alexander’s party from four weeks to two. He himself had only arrived that morning, just in time to have a hurried meeting with