Page 1 of A Very Surrey SFS Christmas

Prologue

Denham Park, Surrey, four days before Christmas 1815

“Do come out and have some mulled wine. I won’t bite, I swear. A show of fangs at most…Faffy! If I have to speak to a bedchamber door for one more moment...”

Quite content for Lady Portia Denham to remain on the other side of the sturdy oak, Augustus Luxton, Duke of Fairfield scowled and took a defiant swig of brandy from his silver flask. Only his hellion daughter-in-law had the temerity to call him by the supremely undignified and frankly appalling moniker of Faffy, and he’d been unable to break her of the habit. In truth, she seemed to relish being a five-foot four-inch thorn in his boot. A bug in his wine. A lightning bolt at his picnic.

He shook his fist at the door. And cursed under his breath.

The Duke of Fairfield reduced to such a pitiful state. A longtime advisor to kings and prime ministers alike, society emperor with the power and consequence to make or break a man…drinking alone in a bedchamber and measuring the window and slope of the roof as a possible means of escape. December could don a suit of armor and go bathe in the Wey. Far too many bittersweet memories, and vivid dreams that left him reaching for something not there. Adding insult to injury, there wasn’t even any snow about. Not so much as a flake. Everyone knew that Christmas wasn’t truly Christmas until it snowed.

He didn’t much like house parties either, although at least this one boasted worthy companions in the thoroughly entertaining members of the Surrey Sexual Freedom Society: Miss Beatrice Irving, Miss Amelia Tilton, Lord Ethan and Lady Madeline Dare, Mr. Clayton Irving, Lord Joseph and Lady Susanna Fenton, along with his son Captain Randall Denham and Portia.

“Can’t come out!” he barked. “I’m unwell.”

“Oh dear,” Portia called back, amusement dripping from her tone. “Then I shall have no choice but to cut off your brandy supply and replace it with barley water. Or perhaps a nice herbal tisane. Do not fret, Faffy, tis quite normal for a gentleman of eighty-one years to suffer a little…irregularity.”

Augustus yanked open the chamber door and glared at her. “My innards are in perfect working order, gel. You are—”

“The sunshine of your life. I know,” she replied, with a beaming smile and a terrible glint in her eyes. “Now, be a good duke and join us downstairs for some pre-supper music and carol singing. Randall is currently regaling everyone with tales from the barracks. The babies are napping in the makeshift nursery, and your favorite feline is happily destroying a ball of yarn.”

His frown darkened. A Christmas house party in the wilds of Surrey was bad enough, but Portia had also invited half the damned county—noble and commoner—to a masked ball. Now she not only threatened him with bowel-loosening tisanes, but also Mittens, the ginger-striped, shoe-despoiling tyrant belonging to Beatrice and Amelia?

Insubordination, that’s what this was. Or a particularly diabolical attempt at patricide.

“Surely that feline has run out of lives.”

“I did think her time was up at last month’s meeting when Mrs. Berkley discovered the mauling of her best flogger,” Portia admitted. “But Mittens struts on. Come on now, if you join us downstairs, there is a large platter of marzipan squares. And a bowl of lemon drops.”

Damnation. His favorite sweets. The infernal woman never forgot a single detail, which made her a dangerous and cunning foe.

“Oh, very well,” Augustus grumbled. “I shall change my cravat. Perhaps you’ll comb your hair, unless of course you and that large spider have come to terms regarding free lodging.”

Portia’s hands flew up and began slapping her neat and spider-free chignon. “Argh! Where?”

“I may have been mistaken,” he replied, suppressing a cackle. One had to snatch victories where possible against society’s infamous Pistol Portia. “I shall see you downstairs presently.”

She smiled sweetly. Too sweetly. “Your tisane will be waiting, Faffy.”

Augustus scowled again as she winked, then marched away. After closing the door, he set down his brandy flask then walked over to his rosewood trunk to select a fresh cravat. Next to the four-poster bed piled high with his own pillows sat his most precious possession, the intricate portrait of the only woman he’d ever loved: Joanna Denham. The painting of his late mistress holding Randall as an infant accompanied him wherever he travelled, and he permitted no one else to touch it, not even to dust the gilt frame.

“Not sure what you find so amusing, madam,” he said, raising one eyebrow as he began arranging an elaborate knot. “Portia is a hoyden. Most unseemly for a woman of thirty-nine. Surely she should be embroidering handkerchiefs or wearing a turban. And yes, I know damned well you’d have shunned both embroidery and turbans to join her in all manner of hoydenish activities.”

Joanna stared back at him, her green eyes sparkling with mischief, her wild curls dark as midnight. The same color as Randall’s, although thanks to Portia’s antics, silver dusted his hair nowadays.

Christ, he missed her. The Fates had been terribly cruel, introducing them six months after his duty marriage, allowing them no more than stolen moments of happiness, before tearing them apart forever in the bad birth of a rosebud-pretty daughter who also passed. He would give everything he owned to have Joanna sitting next to him now, hair as silver as his own, face lined, creamy skin delicate and spotted with age, wearing the coronet of a duchess, rather than frozen in time as a young mistress. How she would have laughed at the nickname Faffy. Joanna had called him Gus, after all. Gus! Thoroughly beneath the dignity of a duke.

“I have to go downstairs now,” he continued, smoothing his black jacket and gray satin waistcoat to ensure no wrinkles. “Hear more news about the returned soldier barracks. Randall is doing a sterling job there with the men. Sterling. You’ll be pleased to know the fortune I settled upon him is being well spent. He’s a fine lad…”

Augustus’s voice trailed off, as it always did when past regrets overwhelmed him, misting his eyes and lodging a boulder in his throat. He’d lost his way badly after Joanna and their daughter died, failed as a father to their son, and they’d been estranged for over thirty years. But after retiring from a distinguished career in the British Army and marrying Portia, Randall had deigned to give him a second chance. For such a boon, he would do anything. Even celebrate Christmas without snow and tolerate devil-spawned cats.

Besides. Randall wedding a woman so alike Joanna in character filled him with pride, amusement and profound sympathy. It took nerves of steel to love a hellion.

Augustus swallowed hard and straightened his shoulders, before bowing to the portrait. “Wish me luck, my angel.”

Warmth enveloped him, and he could almost hear her husky laugh.

You’ll need it, Gus.