Miss Isabella Thaws a Frosty Lord Read online

  Miss Isabella Thaws a Frosty Lord

  Larissa Lyons

  Dominated by her father’s rigid ways since a twist of fate stole her sight, Isabella uses the magic of Christmas to steal away for an adventure of her own when invited to join friends for the holidays. Oh, how she adores Christmastime!

  How he abhors Christmastime! Lord Frostwood lives up to his name, freezing out everyone since a childhood tragedy hardened his heart. Everyone, that is, until a spirited wench falls at his feet and proceeds to warm his cold existence, thanks to some strategically placed mistletoe and their resulting Christmas kisses.

  Miss Isabella Thaws a Frosty Lord is an extended novella of 37,000 words. Heat Level is warm.

  Miss Isabella Thaws a Frosty Lord

  Published by:

  www.LiteraryMadness.com

  Miss Isabella Thaws a Frosty Lord, Copyright Larissa Lyons, 2011

  Smashwords Edition

  All rights reserved, including the right to decide how to market this book. By law, no part of this publication may be copied, uploaded or transferred to illegal recipients. Please respect the work of this author and only read authorized, purchased downloads. All characters are fictional creations; any resemblance to actual persons is unintentional and coincidental.

  Print publication: December 2012

  ISBN 978-0-9834711-5-8 (Print)

  Electronic publication: December 2011

  ISBN 978-0-9834711-4-1 (ePub)

  Edited by Elizabeth St. John

  Copy edits by ELF at [email protected]

  Cover art by The Killion Group

  At Literary Madness, we strive to create a book free of typos; if you notice an error, please let us know so we can correct it. Thank you.

  [email protected]

  Dedication

  This story is dedicated to the magical Jackie Rose, whose gift of enlightening others—to see both what is and what could be—knows no bounds. She’s priceless, as are her teachings.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One ~ The Festivities Begin…

  Chapter Two ~ A Festive Search

  Chapter Three ~ A Festive Berry Comes to Hand

  Chapter Four ~ A Festive Berry Changes Hand

  Chapter Five ~ A Dreary Morning Made Festive

  Chapter Six ~ A Slew of Festive Berries

  Chapter Seven ~ Isabella—gasp!—Rejects a Festive Offer

  Chapter Eight ~ Nicholas Commands a Festive Ending

  Chapter Nine ~ The Festivities Take an Intimate Turn

  Author’s Note

  About Author Larissa Lyons

  Larissa’s Other Regency Titles

  Larissa’s Spicy Short Stories

  Chapter One

  The Festivities Begin…

  and a Certain Frosty Fellow is Blind to the Truth

  The specter gazed down from her perch betwixt cloud and atmosphere. For nigh on four years she’d been ready to join her precious babes on the other side but ere she crossed the final veil, she had her darling full-grown daughter to see properly cherished first. Not an easy task when her dearest Issybelle wasn’t allowed off the estate. When the man who’d sired her daughter had become more jailer than father.

  With a shake of her head, a flap of her angelic wings, she tossed off the troublesome thoughts. The season of miracles drew near. Was she not in the proper place to orchestrate one of her own? Mayhap several?

  December 25th, 1813 ~ The First Day of Christmas

  “Pray, Anne, who is that fearsome fellow darkening your doorstep? Tut-tut. Such a tardy arrival.”

  “The black-haired frowning one, you mean?”

  Isabella’s ears perked up, awaiting the answer.

  As Isabella Spier had no chance of seeing him for herself—being completely blind and in the dark as it were—she paid particular attention to the whispered comments.

  Happily ensconced in her favored chair near the fireplace heating the great drawing room of her friend’s home, inhaling the fragrant greenery the servants refreshed that very morning, and listening to the uplifting music—from the quartet commissioned for the entire twelve days!—she’d never been more at peace.

  Pure sunshine on a dank and dismal day—that’s what Anne’s company and home had been these past weeks.

  Learning that the Spierton housekeeper, unaffectionately known as The Warden, would be spending the winter with her family in Wales, Anne had presented her pregnant self at Spierton the first week in December and insisted on bringing Isabella to Redford Manor for the entire holiday “Starting today, which will give you time to learn the arrangement of the house and grounds at your leisure before anyone else arrives”.

  How the lure of a month of freedom from the fortress she called home had beckoned.

  Her father was in London until after the new year. That, combined with Anne’s monetary mischief, had sweetened the pot nearly beyond bearing.

  Isabella had laughed when she’d learned of the gold coins that had changed palms. “You bribed our servants to not tattle?” she’d accused without rancor, deeply touched that merely the possibility of her company could inspire such devotion and generosity.

  “Not bribes,” Anne assured, “bonuses. Holiday bonuses. Something I’m sure your miserly father no doubt overlooks.”

  Eventually, with a lilt of joy in her heart, Isabella had succumbed to Anne’s urging. She could do no less when Anne had added, “Come now, Issybee, he forbade your presence at our wedding. Would you deny me now too?”

  Of course she couldn’t, not now that circumstances had seen fit to provide a reprieve from her solitary station. What was the worst Father could do to Isabella upon discovering she’d dared leave without his permission? Banish her to an asylum? A convent? It wasn’t as though he hadn’t already applied those threats.

  Though Mama was no longer around to grace Isabella with her shielding presence, neither was Isabella a child to be ordered about or threatened into obedience.

  And after reminding herself of that three hundred times or more in the days that followed, she’d finally begun believing it, her life since The Disastrous Accident seeming more remote with every second that passed. With every delightful moment she spent surrounded by cheerful friends and carefree fellowship.

  “Likely he’s all Friday-faced because he missed receiving any gifts this morn!” While she’d been woolgathering, speculation over the newcomer’s identity had continued.

  “Do tell, Anne,” another lively voice chimed in, “who is he? I certainly wouldn’t want to be seated next to such a glowering crank at dinner.”

  Amidst the excitement surrounding the grim arrival, the not-quite woman at her side leaned over and spoke in Isabella’s ear. “To be sure, I find him rather handsome—always have—and if I were permitted to join the adults for dinner, you can be assured I would sit next to him. Or directly upon his lap!”

  Laughing at Harriet’s emphatic pronouncement, Isabella missed the name of the belated guest. “Harriet!” she admonished Anne’s younger sister with a smile. “Let Anne or your mother overhear you and it’ll be straight to bed without any supper.”

  Not yet sixteen, Harriet had appointed herself Isabella’s guide upon her arrival, saying she was better suited to the task than Anne, not having a house full of guests to prepare for, and not being pregnant—which caused their mama to exclaim, “Thank the heavens for small favors! And don’t you be getting any ideas, young lady!”

  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 on
ly 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.”

  “Disdain? I’ve done no such thing.” But neither had he responded to the three separate missives.

  “Ignore, then. In truth, man, I want you with us as well. Were it not for you, I wouldn’t have made it home for the wedding. Or at all.” Granted, Frost had ridden in and rescued his fallen comrade at Albuera when a blade from a French dragoon found its mark, knocking Ed from his horse and severing the lower part of one arm clear off in the process, but he was uncomfortable with the reminder.

  “You know I always observe Christmastide here.” Alone. In actuality, he spent the days just as he did any other…if colder of heart and chillier of soul.

  “Then it’s time for a change, by damn. I’m sure it won’t equal the level of revelry you’re used to but be assured we’ll try.” Little did Ed know the traditions of Nicholas’ youth, the ones he’d spent so much time at Oxford blathering on and on about, were nothing more than figments of a guilty imagination. He’d last celebrated a true Christmas when he was eleven, and he had no intention of ever doing so again. He despised the holidays and everything they stood for—family and merriment and memories.

  God, how he detested the memories. The only way he could muster through the wretched season was if he faced it more soused than sober.

  “Nothing on the grand scale you enjoyed growing up, ours is simply a little gathering of friends and family, and we want you with us. Come now, how can you deny Anne’s request when it is one I myself echo a thousand times over?”

  How indeed?

  “Aye, I’ll be there,” Frost finally conceded just as they reached their destination, anticipating the ale more than ever, needing to drown the taste of cider and spices that coated his tongue, almost strangling him with the reminder of the sugary wassail he and his sister had loved sneaking sips of as children. “Be forewarned, I do have other invitations.” Which was true, although he’d declined every single one with no hesitation whatsoever. “Other commitments. So I’ll likely not arrive until the eve of Christmas or the morning of and don’t expect me to stay the full twelve days.”

  “Aww, Nick—”

  “Or I could not come at all,” he added coldly, wondering when he’d started living up to the appellation Frigid Frost, assigned by his former mistress directly after she bid him adieu with a flying porcelain figure—straight to his head. Decapitated the poor flute-playing shepherd with his hard rock of a noggin, he had, splitting his eyebrow open in the process.

  “Your brusque ways hold no sway with me, old friend. You said you’d be there, ergo, I’ll tell Anne to expect you.”

  So it was with ill-disguised dread that Nicholas Michael Henry Winten, seventh Earl of Frostwood and despiser of everything merry, made his way downstairs for the evening’s entertainments, having arrived as late as he dared at Redford Manor.

  The first of twelve supposedly festive nights he’d be forced to endure before departing on the celebrated day of Epiphany, January 6th. Unless he decided to decamp earlier…

  “Thunderation!” he muttered beneath his breath, pounding down the ribbon-and-ivy-bedecked stairs. How he abhorred Christmastime.

  How she adored Christmastime!

  The sounds, the scents, the very feel in the air that fostered such a beautiful sense of exuberance and harmony.

  Isabella let the warmth from the fire soothe the chill in the air and the companionship soothe the one in her bones, finally losing the apprehension that had gripped her during the first days of her visit. The anxiousness that spiked once the guests began arriving and she’d feared tripping over someone, being in the way and generally making a nuisance of herself.

  She’d been re
lieved to discover her fears were all for naught as her first weeks at Redford Manor passed without mishap. She really had been imprisoned at Spierton, Isabella was dismayed to realize. Anne had claimed it was so, ever since Isabella’s mama went to her heavenly rewards four years ago and Isabella’s father neglected to do the same—or so Anne accused, saying if he had any consideration for his sole progeny at all, he would’ve been generous enough to depart for his own hellish rewards.

  Isabella could snicker over the thought now, after time away from his overbearing presence. But with no dowry (Father refused to spend a cent of his blunt “advertising a defective wife likely to breed defective heirs”) and no chance of receiving callers (he generally turned visitors away before they reached the gate), Isabella had long since faced the certainty of her situation. She had no hope of marriage and little hope of a happy ending to match her friend’s.

  “Ooo, look yonder, comin’ in from the card room, a veritable bonny tulip among men, that waistcoat is surely the brightest shade of green and yellow paisley I ever did see!” a Scottish neighbor complimented Lord Redford’s visiting cousin Aylmer. ’Twas not the first time his appearance had garnered comments.

  “Wears his inexpressibles too tight if you take my meaning,” Anne’s mother huffed, causing Isabella to free a smile. Who needed their own good fortune when they could share in others’?

  “Did you notice precisely where the fabric’s come undone?” Harriet asked everyone in a loud whisper. “Between his legs…high on the inside of his left thigh?”

  “Harriet! Be gone with you, girl, if you’re so impudent as to mention such a thing!”