The Duke’s Christmas Miracle

Book 0: Isle of Synne

by Christina Britton

Genres: Sagas; Holiday Romance; Family Life

Synopsis

After a lifetime of hardship, Poppy Tilburn is working as a cruel debutante’s maid when she finds herself at a duke’s holiday party—and the duke turns out to be her beloved childhood friend. No matter her joy at being reunited with Marcus—or the feelings still lingering in her heart—Poppy knows she must keep her distance. Any kind of relationship with a woman like her could ruin his reputation.

Marcus, Duke of Hollyton, spent years believing Poppy had died, but now here she is, staying in his home. Surprised as he is, he embraces the chance to convince her to remain with him. Knowing she is too prideful for charity, he offers Poppy the position of companion to his elderly aunt. But as the wintry days pass, and Marcus and Poppy find the romance between them that had sparked so long ago rekindle into something much stronger, will he get a Twelfth Night miracle and convince her to stay for good?

Release date: December 6, 2022

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 100

Sample

Chapter One

Isle of Synne, December 1819

If she didn’t lose her temper—and her position as a consequence—she would count it a miracle.

Miss Poppy Tilburn bared her teeth in a semblance of a smile and prayed for patience, something that had never been her strength. “I’m certain the young ladies never meant to insult you, miss, what with the chaos of arrival and all,” she said in an impressively calm voice as she put the last of the pins in the girl’s hair.

Miss Arabella Linley glared at Poppy in the dressing table mirror, her blue eyes snapping fire. Poppy, along with the Linleys, had arrived on the Isle of Synne for the Duke of Hollyton’s holiday house party at one of his minor country estates just that morning—though “minor” was the last word Poppy would have used for the place, as it was bigger than any house she’d been in before. By Miss Linley’s account, however, it was an insult to be invited to such an “unimportant” location, made worse by the fact that the duke had hardly acknowledged her upon her arrival, leaving his elderly great-aunt, the dowager duchess, and her friend Lady Tesh to do the brunt of the receiving.

Adding to her ire had been the surprising number of young, single ladies present, and those women had apparently been anything but warm. Poppy rather thought the lack of friendliness in their greetings could have been more from a dislike of Miss Linley than from any hostility relating to matrimonial chances with the duke. The girl was quite the most needlessly cruel person Poppy had ever had the misfortune to work for, after all, and it was doubtful her waspish nature was confined to her interactions with servants.

“You know nothing of society,” Miss Linley snapped, before placing a hand to her stomach and frowning. She’d had a tough time of it on the road, and it appeared she had still not recovered. Her waxen complexion was made all the worse by the rouge she’d liberally applied to her cheeks in an effort to disguise it.

But nauseated or not, she would not be dissuaded from her pique. She drew in a slow breath and squared her shoulders. “What those girls did came dangerously close to the cut direct,” she continued, returning her attention to her own reflection in the looking glass. “If we were in London, and not closely watched by the dowager duchess and that sharp-eyed viscountess, I would have shown them they cannot treat me in such a way.”

She reached for her enameled jewelry box and flung it open, riffling through the shimmering pieces within. Grabbing a diamond earring, she held it to her lobe before huffing in disgust and tossing it back into the box. Poppy fought to keep from wincing as the valuable jewel clattered among myriad strewn stones and gold chains. She could have fed a small village for an entire year with just one gem from that pile.

But Miss Linley, only daughter of Sir Reginald Linley, a baronet with more money than brains, was quite unaware that minor problems such as starvation existed, as her cavalier handling of her jewels proved. “Of course, how could you possibly know the importance of one’s social standing,” she continued, studying her sable curls, which Poppy had arranged so carefully, in the glass with a critical eye. “You’re a mere lady’s maid, after all. And before that, you were a common kitchen maid, as your amateur attempts to dress my hair prove.” Her lip curled, even as Poppy’s stomach sank. “In truth, Prudence, you’re lucky to be here at all.”

Poppy winced at the use of her birth name, a label she wore like a hair shirt to remind herself why she had left home all those years ago. Poppy was who she was in her heart, the private bit of herself she held on to with all her might. It was the name Marcus, her dearest—and only—childhood friend had given her, telling her that, with her flame hair and resilience even in adversity, she was much like the poppies his mother used to have in her garden. When the truth of her parentage had been revealed to her, so much worse than what she and the rest of the world had been led to believe, she’d been forced to put an end to that friendship. But she had never forgotten him. Nor had she forgotten that he’d made her feel like she wasn’t an outcast, a poor relation barely tolerated by the aunt and uncle who had reluctantly taken her in when her mother had died in childbirth.

But Poppy would not think on any of that now. She took a slow breath in through her nose, reminding herself that, if the staff at Sir Reginald’s London residence were to be believed—and they had been quite vocal on the fact—Miss Linley was lucky to have found anyone willing to take on the position as her lady’s maid.

Poppy had thought herself blessed—finally—to land the post when the employment agency had offered it to her a month ago. After months of desperate searching, without a single reference from the long line of horrible positions she’d had up until then, Poppy had just about given up hope that she would find anything at all.

It hadn’t taken her long, however, to learn that the position had been offered only because the registry office had no other choice. Miss Linley, it seemed, had gone through six lady’s maids in less than a year and had run out of women willing to take on the monumental task of dealing with the young lady’s volatile nature.

Except for Poppy, apparently. Who wasn’t qualified so much as she was available. And desperate.

Miss Linley craned her long neck to glare over her shoulder at her. “Are you just going to stand there like an imbecile? Go and air my gown for this evening, the scarlet silk. I cannot fail to outshine the others with such a color.”

“Yes, miss,” Poppy replied evenly.

“While I’m out this afternoon, you’re to go and cut me some sprigs of holly; I spied several bushes on the drive up to the house. I shall wear them in my hair daily, in honor of His Grace’s title. Surely he will appreciate such an effort on my part.”

She frowned, studying her wan face in the glass. A twinge of concern settled in Poppy’s chest. She had thought once they were finally at Hollyton Manor that the young woman would quickly recover. But it seemed her stomach was not quite used to being on even ground.

“Mayhap you should stay behind and rest for the afternoon, Miss Linley,” she ventured. “To give yourself time to recover before the evening’s entertainments—”

An outraged look from the girl had Poppy’s jaw closing with a snap of teeth. “Are you mad?” she bit out. “And give those harpies below a minute’s more time with the duke? I shan’t provide them the advantage. Now go.”

Poppy needed no further urging. She hurried off to the adjoining dressing room, closing the door behind her with a sigh. She had worked under cruel housekeepers, and cooks who raged and threw pans. And before that, she had been raised by a couple who had never allowed her to forget that she should be grateful for every crumb she received from them. Surely, she thought as she hung up the exquisite red silk gown, she could handle one spoiled debutante.

Chapter Two

Damn and blast to all spoiled debutantes, Poppy thought sometime later as she trudged through the fresh snow.

She didn’t know how long she had searched for the holly bush Miss Linley had spied upon their arrival. It could have been ten minutes; it could have been ten hours. Though to Poppy, it felt closer to the latter. Her feet were numb in her shoes, her teeth chattering as she attempted to secure her thin wool cloak more firmly about her shoulders. All so a young woman might wear a few sprigs in her hair to impress a man.

She let out a frustrated huff, her breath forming a cloud in the frigid air. The only thing she knew was she had been tramping down Hollyton Manor’s long drive for what seemed an eternity and had not spied a single holly bush. No doubt the girl had been mistaken. Poppy should give up and return to the house.

But she was also painfully aware that Miss Linley would have her head if she came back empty-handed. And she needed this position so desperately. With her lack of references—and she had no doubt she would not receive one from the Linleys should they let her go—she would be lucky to land a position as a chambermaid now.

She would never regret fleeing her childhood home at such a young age, of course. Though to call it a “home” was a stretch to even the most fertile imagination. It had been a mere house, a cold place with neither love nor affection. And then it had become something much worse when, after she had been forced to drive Marcus away, the vicar, the one person in the entire village who had shown Poppy kindness, had died. Her aunt had wasted no time in ridding herself of her unwanted niece after that, practically selling Poppy off at fifteen to the village’s biggest lecher. She shivered with something other than cold as she thought of what her fate would have been had she stayed. No, she could not regret escaping.

Even so, she had begun to wonder if her aunt cursing her on her departure hadn’t set some fiery demon after her, intent on making her life hell. From losing her first position when her employer fled the country after killing a man in a duel, to being kicked out into the street after refusing her next employer’s advances, to being accused of breaking a valuable serving dish and thereby losing not only her job but any meager wages she had made as well, misfortune had seemed to bite at her heels. This position, a last attempt after months of searching, had given her the first spark of hope in years; life, it seemed, was finally turning in her favor.

What a foolish creature she had been.

Hunching down farther into her cloak to try to preserve what little warmth she could, she soldiered on, the snow crunching under her feet as she scanned the landscape for any sign of the shrub. If she developed frostbite and lost a toe, it would be only what she deserved after her ill-conceived bit of optimism. But she would keep moving forward, just as she always had. And right now, moving forward meant locating that blasted holly bush.

Finally she spied it, a beast of a shrub, the glossy dark green leaves and bright red berries under their blanket of snow like a beacon of hope. Sighing in relief, she hurried to it. Then, removing a small pair of shears from the pocket at her waist, she gingerly took hold of several of the prettiest branches, snipping them off, positioning them in her grip so the sharp leaves didn’t poke through her thin gloves.

She was just about to turn around and start the long trek back to the house when she heard the muffled galloping hooves of a single horse. A quick glance down the long drive and she spied the animal headed fas. . .