The Stonecutter Earl's First Christmas, page 1
The Stonecutter Earl’s First Christmas
By Adella J. Harris
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Former solicitor Nathan Fitzroy is working at a molly house to make a bit of extra money during the holiday season. Owen Landon had been perfectly happy as a stonecutter, until a distant relative died and he became the Earl of Morebrook, a role he has no idea how to fill. Needing to get away from his new life, Owen goes to the seediest molly house he can find and meets Nathan, a man who is exactly the sort of gentleman he needs to be. When Owen sees him again outside the molly house, he hires Nathan to come to Limecrest Hall and help Owen learn how to act like a gentleman before the holidays. Nathan knows helping Owen act like an earl will be easy, it’s keeping himself from falling love with him that will be hard.
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Copyright (c) 2019 Adella J. Harris
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
About the Author
Chapter 1
Nathan Fitzroy hated the holidays. He was quite certain the other passengers getting off the mail coach in Southampton saw the sellers of mince pies and gingerbread lined up along the edges of the inn yard and thought warm, Christmassy thoughts. They were probably considering going over to the street vendors once they’d seen that their travel cases had arrived safely with the intention of buying something for whatever family they’d come to Southampton to see. Nathan was traveling to get away from his family, and the smell of gingerbread and spices only reminded him that this was only the start of the holiday season, and he’d be back on the mail coach in two weeks heading back to Brighton.
As soon as he could dart through the mass of newly arrived travelers and people coming to meet them, he grabbed his travel case and hurried away from the crowded inn yard as quickly as he could, avoiding a seller of candied fruit and another with sprigs of mistletoe.
“Hang it in the hall, sir, and catch your sweetheart under it.”
Nathan pretended he hadn’t heard that last bit as he rushed past then walked swiftly in the direction of the cheap-but-respectable part of town where he rented rooms.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. His father was Silas Fitzroy, the well-known barrister who specialized in land disputes among the rich and titled. His older brother was following in their father’s footsteps, taking on slightly less high-profile cases. Nathan was supposed to join the firm’s Brighton office as a solicitor and handle the sort of affairs they did not—estates and contracts and that sort of thing—eventually overseeing a fleet of solicitors. Nathan had studied for the role. He didn’t particularly mind it. The law wasn’t a passion, but he had a good head on his shoulders and could understand the legal matters put before him when he set his mind to it. If that had been all that had been required of him, he would have been content with his lot.
But of course Father could not be content with simply ordering his professional life; he’d had to interfere with the personal as well. In this case, the daughter of the owner of a firm of solicitors Father wanted to merge with. She was a perfectly nice, perfectly accomplished, perfectly fine wife…for someone else. Nathan had been informed that he would propose to her on the seventh of May and the wedding would take place on the tenth of September. And Nathan had said no. It had been simple. He hadn’t dithered or considered. He’d simply realized he couldn’t take a wife, not when he knew his interests lay so far in another direction as to make them both miserable, and said, “No, Father.”
There had been a long negotiation, on his father’s part, at least, if a series of demands and threats could be called a negotiation. All done with the full support of his brother, who alternated between cajoling and repeated Father’s threats. Nathan had responded to each one with a simple “No, Father” until he wasn’t sure he was capable of saying anything else. It had eventually ended with Nathan being sacked from the firm, his allowance being cut off, and his father putting the right words in the right places that saw to it Nathan wouldn’t be hired as a solicitor anywhere in Brighton or London. By that point, Nathan had been prepared to be stubborn, so he’d left Brighton and come to Southampton. The next-to-last thing his father had said to him as he left was, “You’ll be back when you see you can’t manage on your own.” The last had been, “I still expect you to do your duty to the family.”
That had been six years ago, and if it hadn’t been for that last admonition, Nathan could have taken some sort of position at a counting-house or something similar. Boring, but a decent, steady income. When he’d first come to Southampton, he’d managed to find a respectable position as a clerk for a cloth importer. The work had been manageable, the pay adequate for his needs, and the hours reasonable. After a week at the firm, he’d begun to feel he’d landed on his feet and everything would be all right. After two weeks, Father had written, reminding him he was expected to be at his brother’s birthday dinner at the end of the month. He’d written back to say he couldn’t come so soon after starting a new position, only to have Father write back by return post informing him that he had enclosed a letter to his employer explaining he was required in Brighton, and if Nathan was not given the time off to come, he expected a written explanation from said employer. Nathan had unsealed the enclosed letter, read it, and realized his father was completely serious.
And so a month after starting his first position in Southampton, Nathan had been forced to resign.
His second position, as a note-taker for a scrivener, had been much the same, only it had been the supper party celebrating his parents’ wedding anniversary, held every year despite the fact that Mother had been gone over a decade and Nathan could not recall hearing her mentioned once since outside of the annual supper party, which had required his attendance, and he’d been able to stay five weeks before resigning. After his third position, selling gloves in a genteel sort of shop, ended after a mere three weeks and the ball Father insisted on holding every year to commemorate the victory at Trafalgar, he realized he was in real danger of being seen as unreliable, a dilettante unable to stay at one thing for any length of time. He needed another way to earn a living. He hit on it by accident.
Nathan had just returned from that particular ball, which had been ridiculously flamboyant, with a replica of the H.M.S. Victory in sugar in the center of the table, when he’d run into one of the clerks from the cloth importers at the pub and had had no choice but to strike up a conversation. It was then he’d learned one of the other fellows was getting married and taking two weeks’ holiday to celebrate. Nathan had gone back to the importer’s office and offered to work for those two weeks. It had meant he’d be able to attend the celebration of his nephew’s being accepted into Harrow (hardly surprising, as both Nathan’s father and brother knew everyone in charge there and counted several as clients) at the end of the month without having to quit a new position. While there, he’d asked how they normally went about finding people to fill such short vacancies and had gotten the names of registry offices that managed just such things and a promise to mention his name should the owner know anyone who was in need of someone reliable on short notice.
And so Nathan was able to work in offices and shops between his family obligations, taking on short jobs filling in for clerks or working on special projects, like the one he’d left just before going to Brighton, a terribly dull round of copying invoices for an audit at a counting-house. But Father expected him to go to Brighton whenever there was a family event: dinners celebrating his brother’s victories in court; the party celebrating the anniversary of the founding of the firm; the hunt ball that opened the Season. If Nathan said he couldn’t attend, he’d be grilled on why. If he tried saying he couldn’t get away from his office, Father would simply reply that he would write to the owner of the company directly and explain the situation and to send the name at once, which would then be followed by several letters asking why the name had not yet been provided. But at least Nathan was able to find good, steady work in between his obligations.
Or he was able to most of the time. The holidays were different.
While Silas Fitzroy prided himself on being firmly and unemotionally in charge of any situation, he wanted his clients to think of him as a devoted family man benevolently guiding his sons into the family business. Nathan supposed that was why his own refusal to do as he was told regarding marriage had been met with such anger and a near-complete break. It also meant his father liked to be known for his generosity over the holidays, and the only way he knew to be generous was by showing off his wealth to anyone and everyone, but most especially to clients. And that meant as many balls and dinner parties as he could manage during the holiday season. Nathan had just come back from Brighton, where he’d been expected to attend the St. Nicholas Day dinner party his father always threw for their middling clients, complete with seven courses, a small amount of dancing in the parlor, and ridiculously extravagant gifts for the guests, this year India shawls for the ladies and walking sticks for the gentlemen, although not one for Nathan, he noted.
Nathan remembered the planning that had gone into that dinner party when he’d been working in the family firm. The lines of secretaries poking through files to determ
All of that meant Nathan had a bit less than two weeks in town before he had to turn around and go right back to Brighton for the rest of the holiday celebrations, two balls and a house party. All the activity always left him wondering if, as elaborate as Father made these affairs, the attendees might not have preferred spending the holiday season with their own families. Or perhaps all of their families were as difficult as his, and they relished the excuse to avoid them. He could certainly understand that sentiment.
And so now Nathan was back in Southampton, in his little set of rooms on one of the upper floors of a cheap but respectable boarding house, ready to fill the time between the just-finished St. Nicholas supper party and the seemingly endless series of holiday balls. Entertaining clients had been his Father’s whole purpose in buying the large house not far from the Royal Pavilion, with its grand ballroom and massive dining room, and he made certain to get his money’s worth. Nathan knew if he said he couldn’t afford the trip or showed in any way that money was tight, Father would gloat and lecture him on how he should have stayed with the firm and married as they wanted then magnanimously offer that if Nathan was compliant, the family would take him back. And naturally, the performance would be carried out in front of the largest crowd possible. Nathan wasn’t one to like a fight, and he wasn’t sure how long he could hold out in such circumstances, so he’d never tried it, instead scrimping to buy himself a small wardrobe he could wear when he went to Brighton that made him look moderately successful and filling the time between visits with short jobs, constantly searching for word of offices with clerks on holiday or out with illness or projects out of the usual run of things, like the audit at the counting-house. But those jobs were usually measured in weeks, sometimes as much as three months. During the holidays, there were so many parties and events he was expected home for that he couldn’t reasonably expect to find an office that would need him and be able to fit in around all the family obligations, so he’d been forced to find something more temporary.
In his rooms, Nathan finished unpacking and looked over the clothes he’d brought back. Two good jackets, one blue and one grey, three pairs of trousers, two pairs of boots (one for riding one for everything else), enough waistcoats for variety (two of which were missing buttons that he’d have to find and figure out how to sew back on), an evening suit that was looking more than a bit worse for wear, and barely enough shirts and cravats for the week. He could clean the boots and brush out the jackets and trousers himself, but he’d have to have the shirts laundered and the cravats starched. If he was lucky, Mrs. Morris down the road would do it for him in exchange for reading a letter from her son and writing out the reply she dictated. Her son was away at sea on a merchant ship, and his letters were infrequent. Nathan knew he didn’t have any credit with her at the moment—he was happy to read letters for her and have her repay him when he had shirts to be laundered, but he never liked to ask her for credit once he’d realized it made her worry that something might happen to her son and she’d not receive any more letters to be read. And if she didn’t have a letter at the moment, he couldn’t afford to wait, not with needing to return to Brighton in less than two weeks. So he’d have to go to Griggs, a valet who worked for a pretentious and perpetually-on-his-uppers young fool and demanded a far less enjoyable payment. Still, that was no worse than other things he did.
Nathan could have stayed longer at the family home, of course, and not come back to Southampton at all in December. Father might even have liked that, as it would give him more time for lectures. But then someone would notice Nathan only had a few changes of clothes, and eventually the servants would have to launder his shirts and see that, while the collars and cuffs looked new, most of the elbows were worn thin and some of the seams were starting to fray, and a couple had stains on the back that wouldn’t come out, all things normally covered by a jacket and waistcoat. So he was back in Southampton until it was time to leave for the second round of Christmas parties. And in need of work that he could pick up and drop at a moment’s notice. He’d only found one profession where he could do that, so he would be off to the Goat’s Horn that evening for the first of several nights working at the molly house. He tossed the last of his shirts into a pile and looked out the window at the clock on the building across the street. He’d have time to go to the pub and bring something back for his supper and something to keep in the room so he could eat when he got home and for a trip or two down to the pump in the yard so he’d have water to wash with when he got back. Then he’d have to set off for the Goat’s Horn if he wanted to get there early enough to be sure of not annoying the management.
Nathan always found coming back to Southampton and heading straight for the Goat’s Horn depressing. It reminded him that he couldn’t continue as he was forever. When he’d first left his family, he’d considered emigrating a time or two, but he knew going somewhere like Scotland would be too close. He’d have to cross an ocean before his father would accept the distance as an excuse, and he’d realized he didn’t want to do that, didn’t want to be driven out of England, didn’t want to start over somewhere where he knew no one and nothing about the law or the businesses in the region. He was trained as a solicitor, but that would mean very little outside of England, where laws were different. But he also knew he’d probably have to leave someday. He couldn’t continue as he was forever. And he certainly couldn’t work at the Goat’s Horn forever. He’d been lucky so far, but he knew if he were to lose what looks he had or catch something from one of the punters, that would be over too. Who would want him? That was his selling point, the whole reason they’d been willing to hire him, the handsome young gentleman with his fine accent willing to do whatever the clients asked. Going there always reminded him he was working up either to leaving or selling his arse on the docks, although where he’d find the money to leave he had no idea.
Normally, Owen Landon liked the holidays, but not this year. The festive bits of holly and ivy in the shop windows should have cheered him. Owen had enjoyed the holidays back in the village of Lower Weybeck. The smell of mince pies and the chestnut sellers in town. The taste of the gingerbread and candied fruits he’d always buy from Mrs. Clemm on the corner, always making sure there would be enough for his brother Sean as well. The troops of mummers who would show up with their plays and their hats out for coins. Going out on the twenty-fourth with Sean to collect holly and ivy to decorate their cottage. Owen was tall and dark haired, so they’d often been invited to Yule log parties for good luck. He should have found being surrounded by hints of those celebrations comforting, even familiar. But not this year. This year, the smell of the gingerbread filled him with dread. When he’d left Limecrest Hall, some of the younger servants had been cutting out gold paper stars just like those decorating the shop windows around him, and that reminded him how different things were now.
Owen knew how to be a stonecutter. He had been perfectly content to be a stonecutter. His father had been one before he drank himself into a permanent stupor and then an early grave. Every master he’d learned under had told him he was good at it. There was something satisfying about making blocks of stone do what he wanted them to and in seeing a wall go up and knowing he’d cut the stones that made it. He’d even been chosen to carve the monument for the churchyard when the village’s well-loved mayor had died. Even he knew that had been a fine piece of work. It had been a good life and, once Da wasn’t there yelling and drinking away every bit they made, one in which he made enough to keep a roof over his head and pay school fees for his little brother, who was not cut out for stonecutting as he put it.
