Read Lady Louisa's Christmas Knight for Free Online

prayers while I’m gone, don’t tease each other too mercilessly, and mind Miss Hodges.”
    â€œYes, Papa.”
    He held out his arms, and the girls advanced, first Amanda—the elder, the one who elected herself in charge of taking risks—then Fleur, the loyal follower. They dutifully bussed his cheek, and he let them go.
    â€œAnd stay off the banisters.”
    There being nothing more to say, he left the nursery, mounted his horse, and pointed his gelding in the direction of London. The roads were dry, the weather fair, and Joseph’s horse—after about five miles—apparently in the mood to behave, which left Joseph to the task of brooding.
    He did not require a wife, but his dependents needed an adult female to take them in hand, and thus a wife he would get. His wife would know what to do with Miss Hodges, whom Joseph had overheard lamenting again the “plebeian” coloring exhibited by Sir Joseph’s daughters.
    Dark hair and dark eyes hadn’t been the least plebeian on King Charles II or his Iberian wife, had they? Females nowadays were held to some other standard, one which maintained that fair hair and fair skin were pretty, while dark hair…
    Louisa Windham had dark hair and dark eyes, and on her , the combination was… lovely. She was not a restful woman, having about her a faint air of discontent, of boredom, perhaps. But it was to Louisa Windham that Joseph had articulated the need for a wife, and to her he’d admitted that the title was figuring into his thinking.
    The title.
    Cousin Sixtus Hargrave Carrington had written to warn Joseph that he was not enjoying good health. To receive the annual letter so many days before Christmas was only to underscore the point: Sixtus did not expect to live out the year.
    Any party holding at least a one-third interest in a title in abeyance could petition to have that title bestowed upon him. Hargrave and Joseph, though each held an equal claim, had by tacit agreement declined to petition for a choice to be made between them. Upon either man’s death without male issue, the other fellow would be saddled with the title.
    And that… Joseph thought of his relief when Lady Louisa had spared him having to clomp and mince through a promenade—or perhaps spared herself. He thought of his offering to recite poetry to give them both a reprieve from his attempts at polite conversation. He thought of his daughters at the mercy of an employee who didn’t even approve of their coloring —something neither child could help or control.
    â€œMy life is not a fairy tale,” Sir Joseph informed his horse, “but it’s quite bearable. I can provide for my dependents. I have a measure of privacy and can, on occasion, steal away to read to an appreciative audience.”
    The horse snorted.
    â€œVery well, a tolerant audience.”
    A mere knight could limp; a lord must waltz. A mere knight could read Shakespeare to his favorite breeding sow; a lord was likely forbidden to have a favorite breeding sow. A mere knight could admire a lovely, dark-haired lady from afar, while a lord…
    A lord had a title and a succession to attend to, so he must—he absolutely must—have a lady to bear him sons.
    Joseph urged his horse from the trot into a rocking canter and put all thoughts of ladies and waltzes from his mind, the better to allow him to pray for his fourth cousin’s immediate return to good health.
    ***
    â€œMy love, I thought you’d be going out this morning.” As he spoke, His Grace, the Duke of Moreland, made an instantaneous assessment of the slight frown on his duchess’s brow and changed course to join her in her private sitting room. He saw the frown disappear and closed the door behind him.
    Whatever was troubling his bride of more than three decades, she was going to try to hide it from him. Silly girl. If the huntsman had blown “gone away,” His Grace would