Convenient Christmas Brides

A convenient arrangement: Three festive Regency romances!

In The Captain’s Christmas Journey by Carla Kelly, Captain Everard is escorting Verity to her governess job—and for propriety’s sake that means a convenient engagement!

In Louise Allen’s The Viscount’s Yuletide Betrothal, Eleanor advertises for a suitable gentleman to pose as her betrothed over Christmas.

And in Laurie Benson’s novella, Juliet Sommersby’s One Night Under the Mistletoe leads to a marriage of convenience with handsome former love Lord Montague...

A lovely, whimsical tale with unforgettable characters and richly detailed prose and lots of Christmas magic thrown in. The story of long-lost lovers finding each other against all odds proves a powerful one.

—RT Book Reviews on Captain Grey’s Christmas Proposal in Regency Christmas Wishes

An enchanting, enjoyable and tender hearted historical romance about second chances, convenient arrangements and everlasting love.

—Goodreads on The Earl’s Practical Marriage

A very beautiful fantastic book by an author who never lets us down, truly utterly adored from start to finish.

—Goodreads on An Unexpected Countess

Praise for the authors of Convenient Christmas Brides

CARLA KELLY

A lovely, whimsical tale with unforgettable characters and richly detailed prose.

—RT Book Reviews on Captain Grey’s Christmas Proposal in Regency Christmas Wishes

LOUISE ALLEN

Allen writes Regency romances that always become favorites.

—RT Book Reviews on The Earl’s Practical Marriage

LAURIE BENSON

Delightfully unexpected plot twists, with lively dialogue and witty repartee.... A charmer.

—RT Book Reviews on The Unexpected Countess

Carla Kelly started writing Regency romances because of her interest in the Napoleonic Wars, and she enjoys writing about warfare at sea and the ordinary people of the British Isles rather than lords and ladies. In her spare time, she reads British crime fiction and history—particularly books about the American Indian Wars. Carla lives in Utah and is a former park ranger and double RITA® Award and Spur Award winner. She has five children and four grandchildren.

Louise Allen loves immersing herself in history. She finds landscapes and places evoke the past powerfully. Venice, Burgundy and the Greek islands are favorite destinations. Louise lives on the Norfolk coast and spends her spare time gardening, researching family history or traveling in search of inspiration. Visit her at louiseallenregency.co.uk, @louiseregency and janeaustenslondon.com.

Laurie Benson is an award-winning Regency romance author whose book An Unexpected Countess featured Harlequin’s 2017 Hero of the Year, as voted by readers. She began her writing career as an advertising copywriter. When she isn’t at her laptop avoiding laundry, Laurie can be found browsing antiques shops and going on long hikes with her husband and two sons. Learn more about Laurie by visiting her website at lauriebenson.net. You can also find her on Twitter and Facebook.

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Convenient Christmas Brides

Carla Kelly

Louise Allen

Laurie Benson

Table of Contents

The Captain's Christmas Journey by Carla Kelly

The Viscount's Yuletide Betrothal by Louise Allen

One Night Under the Mistletoe by Laurie Benson

THE CAPTAIN’S CHRISTMAS JOURNEY

Carla Kelly

To my parents.

Dear Reader,

I’ll admit it: I like to get presents. I give good ones, too. Part of the fun of Christmas in our house—and yours, too, I imagine—is unwrapping presents from friends and family. I’ve long since given up the more childlike anticipation that involves shaking a package and hoping for a clue about what is inside, but I still anticipate.

Quite often in our family we give each other books. The fun lies in discovering what someone we know and love thinks we might like to read. How well do they know us?

This is the story about a wartime journal and a Royal Navy captain returning it to a family in mourning after the history-changing Battle of Trafalgar. Captain Everard has no other plan beyond returning a young lieutenant’s personal property. He’s done it before, and as the long war grinds on, he’ll likely do it again.

Through the special magic of Christmas, this prosaic duty, not uncommon during wartime, assumes much greater significance. Two people who are expecting nothing beyond the ordinary this sad Christmas find themselves swept up into something extraordinary.

Or so we assume. Everyone assumes in this story, for good or ill. And since this is a Christmas story, let us assume it’s for good.

Sincerely,

Carla Kelly

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter One

‘Buck up, Captain Everard,’ he told his reflection in the mirror. ‘You promised you would do this, so to Kent you will go.’

Joseph Everard, post captain, Royal Navy, turned around to stare hard at Lieutenant David Newsome’s paltry heap of personal effects on his desk, wishing he could make it go away. It remained there unmovable, another sad testament to the fleet action now called Trafalgar. That one word was enough to convey all the horror, the pounding and the fire, which combined to create the most bittersweet of victories, with the well-nigh inconceivable loss of Vice Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson.

Had anyone been interested, Joe could have explained his reluctance to deliver David’s effects in person. It wasn’t because his second luff had done anything amiss, or behaved in any way unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. True, he was young, but weren’t we all, at some point?

Joe had done this sad duty many times before, whenever possible. He should have been inured to the tears, the sadness and the resentment, even, when a mother, father or wife had stared daggers at him, as if he was the author of their misery, and not Napoleon. Left to his own devices, Joe Everard would happily have served King and country patrolling the seven seas and engaging in no fleet actions whatsoever. He had never required a major, lengthy war to prove his manhood.

They were all puppets in the hands of Napoleon. Now that war had resumed, after the brief Peace of Amiens, Joe saw no shortcut to victory for years.

Something worse explained his reluctance for this distasteful duty, something Lord St Vincent, or as he had been then, Captain John Jervis, had described one night.

They had come off victorious in some fleet action or other—they tended to blur together—and Captain Jervis and his men were moping about in the wardroom. The wounded were tended and quiet, and the pumps in the bowels of the ship had finished their noisy job.

‘Look at us,’ Captain Jervis had remarked to his first lieutenant, an unfortunate fellow who died the following year at Camperdown. ‘There is nothing quite as daunting as the lethargy that victory brings.’

No doubt. Trafalgar, a victory as huge as anyone in the Royal Navy could ask for, dumped a full load of melancholy on Joe Everard’s usually capable shoulders. Why one man should die and another should not was a mystery for the ages, and not a trifling question for a mere post captain who had done his duty, as had every man aboard the HMS Ulysses, a forty-eight-gun frigate. He and his crew of well-trained stalwarts had babied the Ulysses through the storm the next day, limped into Torbay and remained there waiting a final diagnosis from the overworked shipwrights.

He and his officers had travelled from Torbay to Plymouth to sit in the Drake and drink. They talked, played whist and cursed the French until they were silent, spent and remarkably hung over. Joe couldn’t release anyone to return home to wives, but the wives could come to Plymouth.

More power to you, he thought, as he had listened to bedsprings creaking rhythmically and wished he had found the leisure, or perhaps the courage, to marry.

After a week, the verdict was a month to refurbish and repair in the Torquay docks. He released his officers to their homes for three weeks and cautiously gave his crew the glad tidings, wary that some might not return and truth to tell, hardly blaming them if they did not. His sailing master, a widower with children in Canada, had no objection to staying in Torquay for the repairs. Such a kindness gave Captain Joseph Everard no excuse to avoid the condolence visit to Weltby, Kent, where Second Lieutenant Newsome’s parents and one spinster sister resided.

Since England apparently still expected every man to do his duty, Joe sent a note to Augustus Newsome, explaining the reason for his visit and hoping he would not upset the family by returning their son’s belongings in person. He added a postscript stating when he could be expected in Weltby.

He chose to take the mail coach from Plymouth to Weltby, mainly because he enjoyed the sight of ordinary folk going about their business, almost as if the war raging at sea was happening on Mars. He could listen to idle chat and observe people not poised on the edge of danger possessed with that peculiar thin-faced, sharp-featured look that all men at war seemed to wear as a badge of office.

He hadn’t reckoned on the power of Trafalgar. Joe never thought of himself as a forbidding fellow, but truth to tell, an ordinary ride on the mail coach would have been a silent one. Maybe he did look like a man who had no wish to talk. God knows he had frightened a decade’s worth of midshipmen.

But Trafalgar had loosened people’s tongues and heightened their curiosity. If the spirits of the deceased hung around for a while, as Shakespeare claimed they did in Romeo and Juliet, Joe had to imagine Admiral Nelson would have enjoyed the praise heaped on him by England’s ordinary citizens.

Joe thought he might be troubled to talk about the battle recently waged that was still giving him sweating nightmares in December, but he wasn’t. The other wayfarers were genuinely interested in the contest of the British fleet against the combined forces of France and Spain.

They even wanted him to explain his ship’s role, which also surprised him, because the newspapers had sung the praises—well deserved—of Mars, Victory, Agamemnon and Ajax, ships of the line with stunning firepower.

But, no, they had questions about the service of the battle’s four frigates and he was flattered enough to explain the frigates’ role as repeaters on such a roiling scene, with smoke obscuring battle signals. ‘We read the flags and passed on the messages, where we could,’ he said. ‘It meant moving about and coming in close so other ships of war could read Nelson’s flags.’

It sounded simple enough, but the reality was timing movements and darting about to avoid obliteration, which nearly came when the French Achilles’s powder magazine exploded and rained fire on the deck of the much smaller Ulysses. That was when David Newsome died, struck by a flaming mast. Joe paused in his narration and bowed his head, which gave the old lady next to him silent permission to hold his hand, the first such gesture he had felt in years. No one ever touched the captain.

‘It was a battle never to be forgotten,’ he said, when he could speak. ‘Our foe fought valiantly, especially the Spanish, but I do not think Boney will beat us now.’

The old lady still held his hand and Joe didn’t mind. ‘Then hurrah, Captain,’ she said quietly. The other travellers nodded.

When she did release his hand, she looked with sympathy at his face. ‘Does it hurt?’ she asked.

Joe touched the plaster on his cheek that covered black stitches from a splinter that missed his eye by a quarter-inch. ‘A little,’ he said. ‘My Trafalgar souvenir.’

She rummaged in the bag at her feet and drew out a ceramic jar. ‘Goose grease,’ she said. ‘Rub it in at night. Won’t scar so bad.’ She smiled at him. ‘A handsome fellow like you doesn’t need a reminder of battle, does he?’

He took it with thanks and turned predictably red, grateful none of his officers was there to chuckle at their captain. ‘It’s not as though I could forget, ma’am, but if you say it will prevent scarring, I believe you.’

He wondered if a traveller would comment upon his mail-coach journey, since they seemed to be settling into a certain camaraderie he found endearing. Sure enough, a little boy posed the question, curious why he was in a mail coach. Didn’t the Royal Navy pay better than that?

The child’s embarrassed mother tried to shush her son, but Joe laughed. Since they were all so plain spoken and kind, he felt no distance from them.

‘It’s this way...your name...’

‘Tommy Ledbetter,’ the boy announced. ‘I am five.’

‘Tommy, I like to travel by mail coach,’ he said. ‘I like to sit here and watch people like you going about your business in an England I hardly ever am privileged to see, as I serve on the ocean.’

Tommy looked around. ‘We’re not much,’ he said, which made the vicar sitting next to the boy smile and the old lady chuckle.

‘You’re England,’ Joe said. ‘That’s enough for me.’

Chapter Two

‘When will the mail coach arrive, Verity?’ Mama asked for the tenth time since luncheon. ‘I hope he does not expect too much from us.’

‘Mama, I am certain he will do what is proper, in such circumstances,’ Verity soothed.

‘Does he have any idea how much we are suffering?’ Mama asked in a voice close to a whine, but not quite.

Verity knew herself to be practical, a trait she had acquired from her father. Still, it was a good question and she knew her mother was in pain from the loss of Davey; they all were.

‘I expect Captain Everard has a considerable idea of suffering, Mama,’ she replied. ‘Quite possibly he does this sad duty often. I imagine it takes a toll on him, too.’

She could tell her mother had never considered this angle of mourning, so consumed had she been with her own loss of a beloved son in October. Perhaps the workings of time on even the most tragic of events would spread its unique balm. Verity could hope, anyway, because she suffered, too.

Verity had suffered another loss not long after Trafalgar, one that ranked low, compared to Davey’s death, but which caused her anxiety of another sort. Barely had they digested the news of his death when Lord Blankenship, the marquis who employed her father as his estate manager, had informed her that her services were no longer required as teacher in the entirely satisfactory school where she had educated tenant children, much to her delight and their gain.

Lord Blankenship, a kind enough fellow, had hurried to assure her that he did not question her abilities. The issue was a personal one. He informed her that an impoverished relative had petitioned him for employment, because the creditors were circling his wounded finances like wolves and all was not well.

‘He claims he can teach and blood is still thicker than water,’ Lord Blankenship said. ‘I had my secretary write this morning that I will employ him in your position, starting after Yuletide. I will give you a small supplement and any sort of reference you could wish, Miss Newsome. I trust you will understand.’

What could she do but assure him she understood? Because he seemed to expect it, she also pasted a pleasant smile on her lips and told him not to worry about her. He left her classroom relieved and justified; she seethed inside, angry because the world was not a fair place for ladies.

Her father had taken her dismissal with remarkable calm; her mother, in agony over Davey’s death, heard her not at all. Mama did question her two weeks later, when Verity stayed home from what would have been a school day. When Verity told her again, Mama patted her hand. ‘You can mourn here with me, Daughter,’ she said. ‘Besides, you do not need to earn your bread. Papa is able to provide, as long as he is alive.’

After then, what? she wanted to ask her parents. Papa earned a modest living that had sufficed, probably because for all of Mama’s flyaway airs, she had a remarkable ability to rein in expenses. The Newsome household probably even resembled the taut ship that Davey, in letters home, said Captain Everard ran.

Now Davey was dead, a promising career gone. In the course of things, he likely would have married and set up his own household, which, he had assured her, would always have room for his only sibling, should she never marry, as seemed the case now.

As she waited for Captain Everard’s arrival on that late December day, Verity chafed on several accounts. The death of her brother had rendered her as sorrowful as her parents, who mourned their son and comforted each other. She mourned her brother feeling much more alone, sorry for his passing above all, but sad that his death had diminished her own future.

The matter seemed dismal beyond belief, but for her parents’ sake, she stifled her emotion; they had enough to worry about. David Newsome, as bright and promising a lad as anyone in Weltby had known, had been consigned to the deep off the coast of Spain, fish food and out of reach. She also stifled her unreasonable anger that Admiral Nelson’s body had been returned to England in a keg of spirits, to be buried in the coming January with high honours in St Paul’s Cathedral. Everyone else was slid off a board into the sea. There was no grave where Mama could plant flowers.

I want what I cannot have, Verity thought, as she went to the sitting room, the better for her to spot a post chaise pull up and deposit a captain with a box of all that remained of David Newsome, Second Lieutenant, late of the HMS Ulysses.

Papa had said they could offer the captain a bed for the night and so they would. Perhaps he could tell them something of Davey at sea, before her dear brother faded from everyone’s memory except the memories of the three people who had loved him best.

She forced her unproductive thoughts to the sitting room, which had been decorated for Christmas with only a modest wreath over the fireplace. Mama had decided that ivy garlands on the banister in the hall were too much this year. Verity had waged a polite battle with her mother that resulted in the removal of the black wreath from the front door. The thing had grown more distasteful by the hour to Verity.

Braced for Mama’s tears, she had removed the odious wreath and thrown it in the compost heap. To her relief Mama only nodded, sniffed into her ever-present handkerchief, and let the matter rest. Verity wondered if she dared search for ivy, because the banister cried out for it.

Any day now, she knew she had to take some interest in her wardrobe, considering that, following Christmas, she was to show herself at Hipworth Hall near Sudbury in Norfolk. Relief expressed on his homely face, Lord Blankenship had announced that he had found her employment as an educationist to Sir Percy Hipworth’s children. Lord B. had informed her that Sir Percy was a baronet of some pretension, but nevertheless a ‘good fellow, once his bluster is stripped away’. His offhand remark that the Hipworth children were no better or worse than you might expect did not ease Verity’s mind.

The promised salary was adequate, but only just, and Sir Percy’s letter had also included passage on the mail coach. ‘He says he will have a dogcart there in Sudbury for you, which I consider a good beginning,’ Lord Blankenship had told her.

To Verity it seemed like the barest of courtesies. Had her future employer expected her to walk with her baggage to wherever Hipworth Hall found itself? Suppose it was raining or sleeting?

Verity Newsome, you are feeling sorry for yourself, she scolded. Positions of any kind for ladies of a certain age—hang it all, you are nearly thirty—didn’t spring forth unbidden from the brow of Zeus. True, she could remain at home in idleness, but that had even less appeal to a capable woman. To Norfolk she would go.

Dusk was fast approaching. She told her worries to go on holiday until she felt more inclined to deal with them and returned her attention to the window.

And there he was. Not for ordinary mortals was the bicorn of a post captain, which made the man walking up the lane with a swinging stride appear considerably taller than he likely was. He wore a dark cloak and had slung a duffel on his shoulder. She smiled because he looked like a man home from the sea and maybe not too happy about it.

The smile left her face. He carried a smaller grip, one she recognised. Davey Newsome had come home, too.

Chapter Three

Joseph Everard raised his hand to knock, but the door opened before he needed to. He found himself looking at an older female version of his second luff, down to lively eyes and curly black hair.

‘You bear a remarkable resemblance to your brother,’ were the first words out of his mouth. He could have smacked his forehead for his idiocy when those brown eyes, so like Davey’s, filled with tears.

‘I’m sorry. That was clumsy of me,’ he said. ‘I am Captain Everard of the White Fleet, your late brother’s commanding officer. May I come inside?’

‘Of course you may,’ the woman said quickly. ‘How clumsy of me! You’ll think we never have visitors.’

‘Not at all, Miss... Miss Newsome, is it?’ he asked. ‘I didn’t actually arrive in a coach and four with post boys, did I? I like to take the mail coach and so I walked from Weltby.’

She ushered him inside, let him unsling his duffel like the common seaman he suddenly felt himself to be, then helped him from his boat cloak. With a start, he realised he was being organised by a woman used to management and, by God, it felt surprisingly good. With the heavy cloak slung over her arm, she handed it to a maid who had stopped at the sight of so much naval splendour, here in quiet Kent.

Or maybe it was the crosshatch of black stitches that still ruined whatever looks he had imagined were his. He had taken off the blamed plaster in hope that the air might prove more useful to its healing. He might even apply goose grease tonight as he prepared for bed back at the inn.

‘Your hat, Captain?’ Miss Newsome said and held out her hand.

He doffed it and gave it to her, hoping that his hair wasn’t sticking up on the side. He had never given his wretched cowlick much thought before, but for some reason, it mattered, standing in the hall of David Newsome’s childhood home. At least he had the good sense not to lick his fingers and try to tame the thing. Certainly there were worse physical afflictions.

His bicorn overwhelmed the maid, who gave him a plaintive look. ‘Just rest it on its side,’ he told her. ‘It won’t bite.’

The girl grinned at him and darted away, in spite of the fact that his boat cloak threatened to trip her.

‘I...er...assume you don’t see too many navy men in Weltby,’ he said, wishing he knew more about polite conversation. ‘At least the servants don’t.’

‘No, indeed, Captain Everard,’ Miss Newsome said, her eyes on his stitches. ‘A Trafalgar souvenir?’

Joe knew better than to say that the same flaming mast that crashed to the deck and killed her brother managed to shoot a splinter through his cheek. ‘Aye, it was. Should’ve healed by now, but for several weeks the surgeon couldn’t decide whether to suture it or leave it alone. He finally decided to stitch me up. Consequently, I am not as far along the path of recovery as I could wish.’

He couldn’t think of anything else to say. Miss Newsome gestured towards the hall. ‘My parents are in my father’s book room. Y-you could bring Davey’s effects to them, if you please.’

‘I will.’

He walked beside her down the hall, pleased not to have to shorten his stride to accommodate her. He was on the tallish side, but so was Miss Newsome.

She was dressed in black, a daunting colour for most females, except that it became her, with her pink cheeks, pale face and black hair. She was by no means thin, but he found her pleasant shape more to his liking, anyway. She looked practical and kind, which he found soothing.

‘My father is an accountant and estate manager for Lord Blankenship, who owns numerous properties in Kent and East Sussex,’ she said. ‘I have lived on this estate all my life.’

‘It must be a fair property in the springtime,’ he said, wincing inwardly at his paltry supply of conversation.

Either it passed muster, or Miss Newsome was even kinder than he suspected. ‘It’s glorious in April, when the lambs