One Snowy Regency Christmas: A Regency Christmas Carol / Snowbound with the Notorious Rake. Christine Merrill
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wealth. Reception room the first, library, breakfast room, dining room, private salon, stairs, reception room the second, card room, music room, ballroom. And then a climb to the second floor: red bedroom, blue bedroom, master bedroom … There was a third floor as well, and servants’ rooms, larders, kitchens and possibly some small and useful places he had not bothered to investigate.
It was a sharp contrast to his childhood. When it had been but one room they’d lived in there had been no reason to count. As his father’s business had grown, so had the rooms. A three-room flat. A five-room cottage. A house. They had risen from poverty in the days long before the war, when trade was unobstructed and money easier. But the successes had been small, and the work hard and unpleasant. He had hated it.
He had broken from it, rebuilt the work in his own image. And now he lived in the grandest house in the county—and was not happy here either. Perhaps that was his curse: to hurry through life reaching for the next great thing, whether it be invention or business. Each time he succeeded he would be sure that this time he had gained enough to please himself. Then the success would pale and he would seek more.
The thought left him chilled, and he felt the unease that seemed to stalk him through these halls. He remembered again the eyes of Barbara Lampett, who could see through him to his clockwork heart. It made him want to grab her and prove that his blood flowed just as hot as other men’s, and perhaps a little warmer for the sight of her. If the girl were the daughter of any other man in the village he’d have at least attempted a flirtation. But she was too young and too much of a lady to understand the discreet dalliance he had in mind. Even if she was of a more liberal nature it would not do to have her thinking that sharing her charms might lead him to show mercy on her father.
While he might consider offering a bijou, or some other bit of shiny to a pretty girl, something about Barbara Lampett’s freckled nose and the sweet stubbornness of her jaw convinced him that she was likely to bargain for the one thing that he was not willing to share: clemency for the man who plotted his undoing.
He shook his head, rejecting the notion of her as the long-case clock in the hall struck twelve and he opened the door to his room. To be sure he would not weaken, it was best to leave all thoughts of her here in the corridor, far away from his cold and empty bed.
‘Boy.’
Joseph started at the sound of a voice where there should have been nothing but the crackle of the fire and perhaps the sounds of his valet laying out a nightshirt. The opulence of the room, the richness of its hangings and upholstery, always seemed to mute even the most raucous sound.
But the current voice cut through the tranquillity and grated on the nerves. The familiar Yorkshire accent managed to both soothe and annoy. The volume of it was so loud that it echoed in the space and pressed against him—like a hand on his shoulder that could at any moment change from a caress to a shove.
He looked for the only possible if extremely unlikely source, and found it at the end of the bed. For there stood a man he’d thought of frequently but had not seen for seven years. Not since the man’s death.
‘Hello, Father.’ It was foolish to speak to a figment of his imagination, but the figure in the corner of his bedroom seemed so real that it felt rude not to address it.
It must be his distracted mind playing this trick. Death had not changed his da in the least. Joseph had assumed that going on to his divine reward would have softened him in some way. But it appeared that the afterlife was as difficult as life had been. Jacob Stratford was just as grim and sullen as he’d been when he walked the earth.
‘What brings you back? As if I have to ask myself … It was that second glass of brandy, on top of the hubbub at the mill.’ When he’d rescued the Lampett girl he’d been literally rubbing shoulders with the same sort of man as the one who had raised him. The brutal commonality of them had attached itself to his person like dust, sticking in his mind and appearing now, as he neared sleep.
‘That’s what you think, is it?’ The ghost gave a disapproving grunt. ‘I see you have not changed a bit from the time you were a boy.’ Then he ladled his speech thick with the burr that Joseph had heard when he was in the midst of the crowd around his mill. ‘Th’art daft as a brush, though th’ live like a lord.’
‘And I will say worse of you,’ Joseph replied, careful to let none of his old accent creep back into his speech. No matter what his father might say of him, he had changed for the better and he would not go back. ‘You are a stubborn, ignorant dictator. Two drinks is hardly a sign of debauchery. And I live in a great house because I can afford to. It is not as if I am become some noble who has a line of unpaid credit with the vintner. I pay cash.’ He’d been told by Bob that the habit was horribly unfashionable, and a sign of his base birth, but he could not seem to break himself of it. It felt good to lie down knowing that, though he might need investors for the business, he had no personal debts.
Although why his rest was now uneasy he could not tell. The bad dream staring him down from the end of the bed must be a sign that all was not right in his world.
His father snorted in disgust. ‘No matter what I tried to teach, you’ve proved that buying and selling is all you learned. You know nothing of art, of craft or the men behind the work.’
‘If the men behind the work are anything like you, then I think I’ve had enough of a lesson, thank you. You may go as well.’ He made an effort to wake and cast off the dream. To be having this conversation at all was proof that he was sleeping. To rouse from slumber would divest the vision of the last of its power.
His father gave a tug on his spectral forelock. ‘Well, then, Your Lordship, I am put in my place. I hope by now you know that you don’t fit with the posh sort that you suck up to. You are as much of a dog to be kicked from their path as I am to you.’
‘Probably true,’ Joseph admitted. There was no point in lying about that, even to himself. Though the gentry might be forced to mix with those in trade, there was nothing to make them enjoy it. ‘But if I am a dog, then I am a young pup with many years ahead of me. Their time is ending, just as yours did. In the day that is coming men of vision will be rewarded.’
‘At the expense of others,’ his father replied.
‘Others can seize this opportunity and profit as well, if they wish to,’ Joe snapped back. ‘It is not my responsibility to see to the welfare of every man on the planet. They had best look out for themselves.’
‘That is no better than I expected from you,’ his father replied. ‘And not good enough. Believe me, boy, I can see from this side of the veil that it is not nearly enough. It is no pleasant thing to die with regrets, to have unfinished business when your life is spent and to know that you have failed in the one thing you should have profited at: the care of another human life.’
The statement made the speaker uncomfortably real. It was most unlike anything in Joseph’s own mind. It sounded almost like an apology. And never would he have put those words in his father’s mouth—no matter how much he might have wished to hear them. If things went as planned Joseph would be a father soon enough. It would not take much effort on his part to do a better job of it than his father had done with him.
‘You would know better than I on that, I am sure. As of this time, I have no one under my care. I answer only to myself, and I am happy with that.’ Surreptitiously he made a fist and dug his nails into his palm, pinching the skin to let the pain start him awake.
‘Boy, you are wrong.’
‘So you always told me, Father. Although why I should dream of your voice now, I do not know. I have only to wake up and look around me to prove that I am doing quite well for myself.’ Although, thinking on it, he could not seem to recall having fallen asleep in the first place. But it was the only explanation for this. He was not in the habit of conversing with ghosts.
He was sound asleep in this bed and having a dream. No. He was having a nightmare. If he could not manage to wake, he must try to go to a deep, untroubled rest where his father would not follow. To encourage the change he sat upon the edge of the bed