ChapterOne
“Your mother has lost her mind.”
James Bartholomew Benedick de Malheur, more commonly known as Brat, surveyed his father with a jaundiced air.“I doubt it,” he said dryly.
His father, Lucien de Malheur, more commonly known as the Scorpion, was not discouraged.“She’s gone Christmas mad!She’s decorated everything—there isn’t a spare amount of wall unadorned by holly and ivy and mistletoe hanging from every door.”
“Surely not every door.You’d never get anything done.”
“She has three Christmas trees!Twenty years ago we didn’t even have one, and now she has one in the dining room, one in the drawing room, and one in the great hall.The servants have been doing nothing but decorate for the last two weeks and the place smells like a forest.”
“I can think of worse things for it to smell like,” Brat observed.
“She’s put candles in every window of Pawlfrey Hall.Do you know how many windows there are?”
“It sounds disgustingly festive—I’m just glad I don’t have to be there to partake in it.”
“That’s what you think,” Lucien said.“Your mother wants you home.”
Brat’s expression of polite boredom didn’t change.“She always does.”
“This time she means it.We’ve got most of the uncles coming with their large and assorted families, and she wants her eldest there too.”
“No.”
“Tell that to your mother.”
“You tell it to my mother,” Brat shot back.“I should have known this wasn’t a mere social call.Tell her you couldn’t find me.Tell her I’m abroad.Tell her I’m dead.”
“That would go over well,” Lucien drawled.“You’ll come for Christmas, do your mother’s bidding, and you won’t have to deal with family again for another year.”
“I don’t have to deal with family now.Uncle Benedick disapproves of me, Uncle Brandon dislikes me, and their wives deplore me.”
“I never would have thought you such a sensitive soul, to let your relatives’ opinions matter.If you’re so delicate, then perhaps you’d better mend your ways.”
“I don’t give a damn what they think of me.I’m merely pointing out that I won’t be the most welcome addition to the house party.The skeleton at the feast, so to speak.The only person less desirable is my stalwart Uncle Charles.”
The Scorpion shuddered.“God save us from such a fate.At least he’s promised to his sour wife’s family, as always.He finds the bunch of us much too diabolical for his saintly peace of mind.”
“God help us,” Brat murmured.
“So you don’t have to worry about him.”He rose from his chair and strode around the elegant confines of his son’s London drawing room.
“I don’t have to worry about anyone.I’m not coming.Christmas is simply a construct of organized religion, used to lure people away from Saturnalia.Now I’d be a great deal more amenable to a rollicking harvest festival than some innocuous and unlikely baby who’s supposedly going to save us from our sins.Mine are too great to be forgiven, and I intend to continue on in my flagrant ways without being distracted by my numerous family members.”
“You need to worry about your mother.”
He saw the shadow cross his son’s dark eyes, and he knew he’d got him.Brat de Malheur didn’t care for anyone or anything, a true offspring of his regrettable father, but he had a soft spot where his mother was concerned.
“You can…”
“She cried,” Lucien said, shutting Brat up.
He rallied.“She doesn’t cry.”
“She gets sentimental at Christmas time, and she wants her family around her.She wants you.”
“I don’t want to go.”
