The Earl’s Mistletoe Bride Read Online Free PDF Page A

by drum rolls of thunder. Between them, Mother Nature and Father Zeus were showing what they could do.
    Behind the closed door of the dressing room, Jon’s valet was probably still tutting over his ruined hat and coat, or muttering about the mud on his boots. Jon did not give a fig for the man. An earl’s consequence required a tonnish manservant, and Vernon was certainly that, but he had little else to recommend him. Jon should have chosen with more care on his return to England, but he had been too world-weary to bother with such a chore.
    He had of course ensured that Joseph, his army batman, was properly recompensed and given a comfortable annuity for his years of devoted service. Joseph planned to set himself up in a small public house, he said. He might even find himself a wife.
    A wife?
    Jon groaned and rose to put more logs on the fire. At this moment, he really longed to see cheerful flames. One of his good and abiding memories of his years in Spain was sitting round the camp fire, sharing the local brandy with his comrades, and laughing together at the very silly tales they told each other.
    The valet might be new to Jon’s service, but he had at least thought to provide a decanter of brandy in the master’s chamber. Jon smiled wryly and poured himself a large measure. He was minded to toss it down in a single swallow, but he did not. Once or twice in Spain, he had allowed himself to get very drunk when the pain of loss was almost unbearable. Returning to England’s damp countryside did not justify seeking oblivion indrink. It would insult the friends who had been left behind in baked Spanish earth.
    Jon took one large mouthful, savouring the flavours.
    The dressing room door opened. ‘Is there anything else I can do for your lordship?’
    Jon shook his head and waved the man away. He was too punctilious by half. Perhaps if Joseph had not yet spent his money…? No, that would not do. Joseph was a batman, not an earl’s valet. Besides, he wanted more than a business of his own. He wanted a wife, and perhaps a family. If he returned to serve Jon, what woman would have him? Let it be.
    Jon sat down again and took another slow sip of his brandy.
    A wife. Everything always came back to a wife. Particularly in his mother’s eyes. Jon had barely had time to kiss her cheek before she started on the subject. Since Jon’s first wife had been dead for well over a year, he should be looking about him for another. The matter was urgent, the Dowager maintained. And this time, he must set up his nursery.
    Her ideas of duty—an earl must make a dynastic marriage and produce at least an heir and a spare—were much the same as his late father’s. And just as blinkered. Jon’s wife, Alicia, had been a duke’s daughter, but their marriage had been a total disaster. Even his mother would admit that now. And yet, she wanted him to do it all over again, to select a bride of rank from among the simpering debutantes on the London marriage mart. It would not cross her mind that an age gap of well-nigh twenty years might be unbridgeable. How was he, a manof thirty-five, to take charge of a green girl just out of the schoolroom? He need not spend much time with her, of course—except for the inescapable duty of getting an heir—and he would certainly hold himself aloof, as his rank required, but still, the prospect of all that empty-headed gabbling was more than he could stomach. That was the kind of marriage his father had made, and his grandfather before him. But neither of them had been to war or watched friends die. War changed what a man valued in life…
     
    Beth felt a bit of a fraud, leaning on a walking stick. It was not as if she had done any real damage. On the other hand, it was extremely painful to put her full weight on her injured ankle. So, for the moment, the walking stick would have to stay. The most difficult part of life was coping with the stairs without a strong man to help her. The rector was much too