My Merry Marquess
Wallflowers’ Christmas Wish, Book 3
Annabelle Anders
Copyright © 2020 by Annabelle Anders
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Epilogue
Eve’s Apple Pie
Full Series Bonus Epilogue
My Dashing Duke
About the Author
Regency Cocky Gents
The Lord Love a Lady Series
Devilish Debutantes Series
Free Novella
Chapter 1
Maybridge Falls, England December, 1823
“Mr. Kringle is going to grow fat now that you girls have moved here.” Lady Winifred Tannenbaum shot Lady Eve Bailey a grin and a wink as they walked across the Town Square in the charming little village of Maybridge Falls. “Not to mention your dear old aunt, what with your apple pies and Noelle’s ginger crisps.”
“The baker keeps giving Holly shortbread cookies too.”
“Yes, but for such a petite little thing, she manages to take care of those.”
Eve merely shook her head. “It’s because Cook is an abomination in the kitchen. If it wasn’t for the baked goods, we’d starve half the time.” This was not an exaggeration. In the week since their father had sent them to live with their aunt, they hadn’t had a single good meal. Eve held up the aromatic dish and inhaled the warmth of cinnamon and apples. She’d risen before the sun to bake and had only removed it from the oven half an hour before. “Do you think it’s a fair trade? The pie for a roast? Mr. Kringle is far too generous.”
“He gets his due,” Aunt Winifred answered mysteriously as the two of them plodded the short distance from her aunt’s rambling old mansion across the village commons to the elderly gentleman’s nearby home. “That storm was a doozy last night. But look at all these footprints out here. Did you come out earlier?”
Eve glanced backward and sure enough, two sets of footprints led from the middle of the square straight up to Aunt Winifred’s front door. “Perhaps it was Mr. Clark.” Eve frowned. When she’d come downstairs early, she hadn’t seen the butler. In fact, the house had been unusually silent.
“I’m sure you’re quite right. Oh, look at that gentleman coming out of the inn. He’s a fine one to look at.” Aunt Winifred lifted her arm and waved. “Yoo-hoo! Can we help you find where you’re going, young man?” She nudged Eve in the side with her elbow. “You mustn’t allow such an opportunity to pass. It’s not often that a quality gentleman turns up in Maybridge Falls. He must be stranded here from the storm.”
Eve glanced up and then quickly back down at the pie she was carrying. If it was up to her, she’d keep right on walking. She had about as much interest in a ‘quality’ gentleman as she did in catching the pox.
“Oh, he’s coming. Stand up straight, Eve. I do wish you’d worn something prettier.”
Eve nearly laughed out loud at that. Beneath her wool evergreen cape, she wore the same dress she’d donned to work in the kitchen. Since she and her two sisters had arrived to stay with their aunt, they’d yet to have met a single person under the age of sixty.
“And yet, you’re still pretty as a picture. Just like your mother was at your age. I was always jealous that she was so nice and tall and slim.”
Eve blinked away the familiar stinging at the back of her eyes. Last Christmas, rather than celebrate the holiday, she and her sisters had been reeling from their mother’s death. They might as well have lost their father. He’d taken to drinking the day of her funeral and hadn’t been the same since.
It had almost been a relief when he’d sent them away last week. Although everything here was unfamiliar, she wasn’t met with haunting memories everywhere she turned.
“It’s a shame your Season in London was cut short by her illness.” Aunt Winifred’s words were not meant to be unkind, but she might as well have put a knife through Eve’s heart. Eve had thought she’d found her true love that spring, but it had only been an illusion.
“It was more important to bring Mother home. The air in London would have made it worse.” The memory of their mother after they’d returned was now a bittersweet one. Gradually, before their eyes, her mother’s life had dimmed, faded, and then been extinguished forever.
Eve’s aunt frowned and nodded but then quickly straightened. Summoning a wide smile, Aunt Winifred waved again, her eyes pinned on the person approaching from somewhere behind. “My good sir, welcome to Maybridge Falls!” Heavy crunching footsteps sounded behind Eve but she kept her gaze focused on the pie, her thoughts lost in the past. They so often were these days.
“Good morning, Madam!” A tingling shot up Eve’s spine. “My companions and I blew in with the blizzard last night. Such a lovely village you have. I’m certain there is nowhere better to be stranded.”
“Oh, to be certain it is. Nasty storm, though, you’re lucky you found us.” Her aunt’s eyes gleamed in such a way that Eve could only surmise that the gentleman was slightly more than tolerable to look at.
“I don’t wish to be a bother, but you haven’t seen another gentleman wandering about, have you? I have lost one of my companions. About so high, black hair and blue eyes. Not nearly as good looking as myself, but a few questionable ladies consider him handsome.”
That laugh! Eve knew that laugh all too well. Her fingers went numb and cold shot through her entire body.
And not from the snow.
“A second one of you, eh?” Aunt Winifred’s voice rose higher as excitement punctuated her words. “We
