Wicked Christmas
Blackhaven Brides
A Novella
Mary Lancaster
Copyright © 2019 by Mary Lancaster
Kindle Edition
Published by Dragonblade Publishing, an imprint of Kathryn Le Veque Novels, Inc
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Books from Dragonblade Publishing
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Mary Lancaster’s Newsletter
Other Books by Mary Lancaster
About Mary Lancaster
Chapter One
Dr. Nicholas Lampton hastened through the freezing darkness to the Blackhaven Hotel. He had endured a trying evening, administering to the overprivileged who had little more to complain about than their own overindulgence. Very little could have dragged him out again, just when he was preparing for bed, but he never refused calls to sick children, whatever the time of day or night.
Frost lay thick on the cobbles, adding a pleasing glitter to the clear night. Inevitably, it reminded him of previous Christmas seasons, walking arm in arm with Mary, his wife, laughing together at some ridiculous event of the day. For an instant, as it often did, his loneliness rose up, seeking to drag him back down into the darkness of despair. He threw it off, all but charging through the hotel doors to fulfill his purpose in life, to make other people well if he could.
A few candles in wall sconces bathed the foyer in warm, s
ubtle light.
“Dr. Lampton,” a liveried hotel servant greeted him in clear relief, hurrying over from the desk. “This way, if you please. The princess is waiting for you.”
“Princess” took him a little by surprise. In his exhausted state, all that had registered of the message were the words child, urgent, and immediately. He had no idea if his young patient was a guest or a servant of the hotel, or even some beggar who had taken shelter in their back doorway. But he followed the servant up the staircase to the largest suite of rooms on the first floor.
“This is Dr. Lampton,” the servant said to the bleary-eyed maid who opened the door before he’d finished knocking. The maid all but pulled Lampton inside, calling something over her shoulder in German.
A lady was already hurrying across the luxurious sitting room from one of the bedchambers. Undoubtedly, “the princess”.
Perhaps it was the blaze of candles in the room, but Lampton felt momentarily dazzled. All the air seemed to leave his lungs, as though someone had struck him hard in his middle.
Emeralds and diamonds sparkled in the tiara set in her midnight-black hair, clasped her swan-like throat, and dangled from her delicate ears. Clearly, she was dressed for a party in an exquisite evening gown of bottle-green silk that rustled expensively whenever she moved. Appealingly, she seemed quite unaware of her gorgeous appearance but beckoned to him with such a heart-rending plea in her brilliant eyes that a lesser man might have run to do her bidding.
Lampton, who had long ago discovered the value of calm in a sick room, merely walked toward her, tossing his hat on the nearest sofa. “The patient, if you please, ma’am,” he said briskly and brushed past her into the bedchamber beyond.
A furious child of about three years sat up in bed, a massive scowl on his small, red face, his arms folded over his chest in obvious disgruntlement. A nursemaid was cooing in his ear and stroking his forehead. He glared at Lampton, and at the princess and the maid who both followed him into the room.
“Here is the doctor, Andreas,” the princess said in German.
“I don’t want him,” the child stated aggressively.
“Nonsense,” Dr. Lampton said in English. “What you don’t want is so many people in the room. Your mother will stay to help, and you and I can have quick talk.”
Whether or not the boy understood, the calm tone of Lampton’s voice seemed to have an effect.
“Off you go,” Lampton said amiably to the nurse, who stood up, rising to her full height in clear readiness for battle. Lampton shooed her and the maid from the room as if they were sheep, and firmly closed the door on them.
“What is the problem?” Lampton asked, sitting on the edge of the bed. He cast the princess a quick glance. “You do speak English?”
“Of course. But I don’t know what happened. I came home and found him on the floor unconscious. He began to scream when I picked him up, obviously in considerable pain. He has only just stopped crying.”
Her slightly husky voice combined with her exotic foreign accent to reach deep inside him. Ignoring such an inappropriate reaction, Lampton merely regarded the boy and smiled reassuringly.
“Fell out of bed, eh? I do that, too. Where does it hurt?”
“Nowhere,” the boy said crossly.
“I twisted my ankle once,” Lampton confided, “and it didn’t start hurting until the next day.”
The boy’s eyes widened. “Really?”
“Really. So, just to make sure you don’t start to hurt tomorrow, I should probably check.”
“How will you know?”
“I’m a doctor,” Lampton said in shocked tones. “Of course, I will know.”
The boy unfolded his arms, glanced at his mother, and sniffed. “Very well,” he said loftily.
Lampton didn’t allow himself so much as a twitch of the lips, but gravely adjusted the nearest candle and began to examine the child’s head for signs of cuts or bruises. There were none.
“Watch my finger,” he instructed, moving one digit from left to right in front of the boy’s eyes, then up and down and away from him.
Then he pulled back the bed covers and got him to wiggle fingers and toes, arms and legs, before examining him for any swelling or bruises. Apart from an old, almost healed graze on the child’s knee, he found nothing.
“You’ll do,” Lampton said cheerfully. “I pronounce you fit and well and ready for sleep. Goodnight, young man.”
He rose and opened the door.
“Wait,” the princess instructed.
Lampton chose to interpret that as “wait in the other room” and kept walking. He heard her soft voice murmuring goodnight as he strolled past the two waiting maidservants. Moments later, the princess closed the bedchamber door and stalked up to Lampton, her brilliant green eyes blazing.
“Is that the full extent of your examination?” she demanded. “Could you not even tell that my son has a fever?”
“No, he hasn’t,” Lampton said. “His temperature was certainly elevated when I first arrived, but I gather I caught the tail end of a tantrum—no doubt caused by being wakened in the middle of the night and fussed over when he needed to sleep. His body temperature is now quite normal again.”
The princess’s face flushed with outrage. “Tantrum? That is what you put it down to when a child is discovered unconscious on the floor?”
Lampton picked up his hat. “No. To begin with, he wasn’t unconscious. He was merely asleep. Lots of children fall out of bed without waking. Your son is whole and healthy, madam. Rejoice.”
The princess’s eyes showed fury. “I find your flippancy offensive, sir. Likewise, your arrogance, rudeness, and sheer incompetence. I shall most certainly get another opinion.”
“Actually, I meant it,” he interrupted.
Caught in midstream when she had only paused for breath, she frowned with confusion. “Meant what?”
“Rejoice,” he said mildly. “You have a healthy, spirited son, which is something to celebrate. As for the rest, you are at perfect liberty, although I would advise you to let your son sleep peacefully until the morning before you disturb him with any more annoying doctors and examinations. Either way, I shall send over my account tomorrow.” He inclined his head and donned his hat. “Good night.”
He got as far as the door before she caught up with him. “Account?” she raged. “For what? You did nothing! I shall not pay.”
“Then don’t, madam,” he said wearily. “It is Christmas, and I am quite used to being roused in the middle of the night by the wealthy for no reason. At this point, a good night’s sleep is all I want. Let us look on both as gifts.”
She frowned up at him, the anger dying from her eyes along with the anxiety. “You are a very strange physician. Do you retain much patronage among the nobility?”
“Surprisingly, yes.”
“Why? Because you tell them nothing is wrong and that is just what they want to hear?”
“No. Because I never lie to them.”
Her eyes searched his. To his surprise, a rueful little smile curved her sculpted lips. “And you would not deign to feed a mother’s unnecessary anxieties just to earn a fatter fee?”
“That is the other reason the nobility tolerates me. I am not vulgar.”
“Just rude?”
“I cannot recall being rude to you. If I was, then I apologize.”
Her perfectly arched eyebrow twitched once. “No. It was I who was rude.” Her gaze fell to the table beside the door. She lifted a card from the little pile there and held it out to him. “For your account,” she said. “Which I shall not pay.”
Lampton laughed. He couldn’t help it. His reward was the answering smile in her eyes before she turned and walked back across the room. He was still smiling as he closed the door behind him.
*
The following morning, as he saw out th
e last patient of the morning—a sailor who had somehow broken his ankle in the tavern and departed on crutches—Lampton found the very large figure of Kate Grant waiting for him.
“Kate! What are you doing here? I would have come to you, you know.”
“I know.” Taking his proffered hand, the vicar’s wife heaved herself out of the chair. “But I wanted some fresh air.”
Kate had passed the “glowing” stage of pregnancy. Although still beautiful, her enormous shape forced her to waddle and the burden was clearly tiring her.
“Do I really have to wait almost weeks to give birth?” she asked. “I won’t be able to get through the door by then.”
Lampton eased her into a comfortable chair in his office. “You’ll be surprised. What can I do for you today? Or is just a social visit?”
Kate’s husband, the vicar of the local church, was Lampton’s oldest and closest Blackhaven friend. Kate had always appeared to like him, but she hadn’t been in the habit of visiting him without Grant.
“No, I’m afraid I call as an over-anxious, expectant mother,” she said, laying her hand on her distended belly. “He is an active little monster, as you know, but I have not felt him kick since yesterday. There is nothing you can tell me that I have not told myself repeatedly, but I find I still need to know. Will you listen?”
Lampton opened his desk cupboard and took out the ear trumpet with the thick paper tube on the narrow end. Placing the trumpet over her stomach, he knelt and listened at various places until he managed to pick up the galloping little heart.
He smiled. “There it is. Strong and regular.”
“Then why has he stopped kicking and punching me?”
“When did you eat last?”
“Tea time yesterday,” she confessed. “I feel I can’t cram anything else down there sometimes.”
Lampton passed her his ignored plate of scones that Mrs. Graham had brought him earlier this morning. “Have one.”
Sighing, she took one and ate it. Half way through it, she stopped and laughed, touching her stomach. “There he goes!”
“Eat regularly. He likes it.”
“Actually, I’m beginning to think he’s a ‘she’,” Kate said. “Difficult, like me.”
“Does it matter?”
“Not to me or to Tris. I’m still shocked to be having a baby at all.”
“It is the custom to blame the woman for lack of children in a marriage,” Lampton observed. “But it has no basis in fact. Clearly, in your case, your first husband was the problem.”