Miss Isabella Thaws a Frosty Lord(2)

Isabella soon became acquainted with the immense estate her friend had moved to upon her marriage to Lord Redford—or Edward, as he gave her leave to call him—and reacquainted with Harriet whom she’d last visited with almost ten years before when Harriet’s only topic of conversation—unlike her current fascination with men—tended to be that of kittens and kittens and more kittens.

A time when Isabella had still been in a position to see. Cats and ribbons and most everything else…

“A girl can dream, can she not?” Harriet sighed wistfully before straightening and rejoining the general conversation, leaving Isabella to ponder her own dreams for the remaining fortnight. A mere twelve days and the most wondrous holiday season she could imagine would be at its end, as would her expectation of ever enjoying anything so grand again.

But she refused to think of that now! Certainly not. Not with so many entertaining companions huddled nearby.



He hadn’t wanted to lend his presence. Hadn’t wanted to dance and make bloody merry. Most especially, he hadn’t wanted to celebrate the blasted Christmas Season.

Yet there he was.

Tidings be damned, he should’ve cried off.

He’d tried. Had, in fact, tendered every excuse he could legitimately think of—and a few illegitimate ones as well—but Ed would have none of it.

“It’s Christmastime we’re talking about,” his longtime friend had proclaimed a month ago with all the persistence of a nagging nanny, as though Frost were still in the nursery instead of just acquiring a tidy sum over the pugilistic endeavors the two had wagered upon. “You simply must celebrate with us. I am not at liberty to brook refusal.”

“You weren’t this tenacious last year,” Frost remarked dryly after his fifth excuse was shot down.

On foot, they headed to No. 23 Henrietta Street where Frost had offered to treat them both to the best beefsteak and ale around.

Perhaps the sustenance would lend strength to his arguments.

“Ah…but I wasn’t married last year,” Ed responded with an odd softening in his gaze—one Frost found unaccountably difficult to witness.

Then again, perhaps sustenance wouldn’t aid his cause at all because witnessing Ed’s love for his wife was downright painful.

When had Frost ever felt soft toward another human being? Toward anything during the season under discussion?

He looked away and hastened his pace. Offley’s wasn’t far now. “I don’t see how my presence will signify one way or the other. The goose will still be stuffed and served, the plum pudding—”

“Nicholas.”

That was it, just his name.

Followed by a heavy sigh as Ed matched him stride for stride. He ground his teeth, refusing to succumb to the guilt hovering on the fringes, and waited. He knew there’d be more.

And he was right. “It signifies because you’re my friend, and now that your remaining family has passed on,” Ed glossed over the demise of Frost’s contentious mother nearly a year past, “I don’t want you spending the holiday alone.”

Frost swallowed the instinctive retort. Though he counted Ed Redford among his most intimate of companions, had ever since the two of them shared rooms while at Oxford, he’d never shared his apathy toward the holidays. Or the reasons behind it.

“Moreover,” Ed continued, dodging the efforts of a Covent Garden nun to wave him down, “Anne charged me with the task of securing your attendance. She says we shall gather all those closest to us and celebrate the spirit of the season with those we love.”

At the reminder of the amiable, gregarious woman his friend had married, Frost finally allowed his jaw to unclench. “Might I ask why your paragon of a wife did not accompany you to tender this…this… Hmm, I’m not sure I would call such an impassioned appeal an invitation. A campaign, more like.”

One with a well-thought-out battle plan, he acknowledged, feeling the familiar, holiday-induced irritation start to take hold. He ruthlessly shoved it away. December had barely begun, they trudged through the dirty, wet streets of London yet he was already smelling pine boughs and evergreen, tasting gingerbread and wassail and bloody wanting to spit.

Simply the thought of the so-called “joyous season” soured his mood and his stomach. Maybe he’d skip the beefsteak for once, go straight to the ale.

“Quit demurring and I’ll tell you!” Ed’s voice rang with happiness. “She’s breeding, don’t you know! I bid her to stay at home while I met with my solicitor and called on you. We suspected you’d likely disdain any written invitations, as you have our prior requests to join us.”