God Rest Ye Merry Spinster

  The Spinster Chronicles

  Book Five

  REBECCA CONNOLLY

  Also by

  Rebecca Connolly

  The Arrangements:

  An Arrangement of Sorts

  Married to the Marquess

  Secrets of a Spinster

  The Dangers of Doing Good

  The Burdens of a Bachelor

  A Bride Worth Taking

  A Wager Worth Making

  A Gerrard Family Christmas

  The London League:

  The Lady and the Gent

  A Rogue About Town

  A Tip of the Cap

  By Hook or by Rook

  The Spinster Chronicles:

  The Merry Lives of Spinsters

  The Spinster and I

  Spinster and Spice

  My Fair Spinster

  Coming Soon

  What a Spinster Wants

  Text copyright © 2019 by Rebecca Connolly

  Cover art copyright © 2019 by Rebecca Connolly

  Cover art by Tugboat Design

  http://www.tugboatdesign.net

  All rights reserved. Published by Phase Publishing, LLC. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.

  Phase Publishing, LLC first ebook edition

  December 2019

  ISBN 978-1-943048-99-1

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019918808

  Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file.

  Acknowledgements

  To Amy Grant for being the female vocalist of Christmas in my life. It just wouldn’t be Christmas without you, and that’s the truth.

  And to peppermint bark for being the most beautiful treat I never fail to forget I love until Christmas season rolls around.

  Want to hear about future releases and upcoming events for Rebecca Connolly?

  Sign up for the monthly Wit and Whimsy at:

  www.rebeccaconnolly.com

  Index

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  London, 1816

  “Really Elinor, you should find yourself some friends of your own to spend time with.”

  “I have friends, Emma, and they all wish to spend their time speaking of courtship and gentlemen and weddings, though none of them have understandings or beaux. It’s the silliest bunch of tittle-tattle you’ve ever heard, and I quite tire of it.”

  “So, you’d rather spend your time with a group of spinsters who speak of nothing of the kind, is that it?”

  “Yes, I rather think I would.”

  “Well, you can’t. You’re barely seventeen.”

  “You have to let me come with you. Mama insisted you get me out of the house today, remember? You’re charged with my care. How can you care for me when I’m not in your presence or your immediate vicinity?”

  There was a moment of hesitation, conflict dancing across features, and then resignation.

  Elinor Asheley knew she had won then. Her sister would have to take her to the Spinsters meeting now. She’d been trying to get access for an entire year, ever since she’d first discovered just what her sister and her friends were capable of. She hadn’t cared at all when they’d only been meeting and occasionally went about London together, but when they had somehow managed to get a paper circulated to all of London, she had grown curious. When she’d managed to snag a copy for herself and read it, which her mother had prevented for some reason or other, she had known in an instant that she must be part of them.

  She’d never thought of marriage or romance or the like. She did not care about courtship, and she was desperately tired of the wasteful young men she had seen come and go in Society. Surely young ladies deserved better, and if nothing else, the Spinsters could help encourage them in such straits.

  Some ladies did wish to marry, though Elinor had never seen any reason to. They should be able to marry the best quality of men, if such a thing existed, and someone ought to ensure that such men, whoever they were, could be easily identified somehow.

  Why, there could even be a collection of information about appropriate suitors with details of their natures and their prospects and the like. What a useful and wise endeavor that would be!

  And with that, those who did not meet the mark would never have a chance of ensnaring young women who were too naive or too ignorant to understand the dangers they were putting themselves in.

  Whoever engaged in such a work would surely be a champion of virtue and feminine rights.

  But, if nothing else, she could be part of a paper and a cause that would be far more exciting and invigorating than sitting around at home mucking up needlework or plunking away at the pianoforte.

  That would also suit.

  “Well,” Emma sighed as she tied her bonnet ribbons over her fair curls, still less than pleased to be toting Elinor along with her, “shall we go? I don’t know what Charlotte and the others will make of it, but I’ll assure them it will not be a regular occurrence.”

  “Of course,” Elinor demurred with a sly smile as she fetched her own bonnet. “Not at all regular.”

  Chapter One

  There is nothing like family at the holidays. Truly. Nothing at all.

  -The Spinster Chronicles, 4 December 1819

  Christmas at Deilingh was at once the best and worst time of her life.

  It would be one thing if the sprawling, near-crumbling estate contained only her siblings and her parents, and the accompanying spouses and children, naturally. It was quite another when the twenty-seven bedrooms were entirely filled with cousins, cousins by marriage, aunts, uncles, two great-aunts, and Uncle Dough, though no one was quite sure how he fit into the family schematic.

  Elinor had tried to have her father explain to her why everybody retreated to Deilingh for Christmas in Derbyshire when the estate belonged to her uncle Howard, her father’s eldest brother, who wasn’t even in England this year, but it was no use. It had been a longstanding Asheley tradition to all gather together for Christmas at Deilingh, and so they continued to do so.

  Uncle Howard might have been the most fortunate member of the family, as he had left for Canada in the early autumn to look into some intriguing investment opportunities, whatever that meant, and had opted to remain there until spring. The house, therefore, and its running, went to Elinor’s father, as Uncle Howard only had daughters, and six of them at that.

  All of whom were here with their husbands.

  Add to that her aunt Catherine, her husband Mr. Jones, and their three daughters, none of whom were married; her father’s cousin, Mr. Perry, who was the stodgiest clergyman known to man, his wife Hortensia, who looked as one might expect a Hortensia to look, and their two homely yet eligible sons, Walter and Hubert; Uncle James with his very young second wife Anna and his three daughters from his first marriage, two with burly husbands and impressively vocal children, as well as the four children from the second marriage, who were the spawn of the devil himself.

  Also, her great-aunt Julie and her great-aunt Beatrice, who were both hard of hearing when it suited them, and had taken up the idea that being elderly gave them license to do and say as they pleased without consequence, as evidenced by their consuming the entire stock of port last Christmas and sliding down the
bannisters of the great stairs, then lining up every girl in the family and telling them exactly what was wrong with their form, figure, or finishing, and ending with falling into a snoring, babbling sleep in front of the Yule log, which had seemed a dreadful risk to the entire house in general, given the amount of alcohol in and around their persons.

  There were two or three other significant persons, aside from Uncle Dough, she was sure, but she really could not bear to go through the list again. Her own family seemed perfectly tame by comparison, and that was a terrible statement to make.

  It was madness. Complete and utter madness, there was no other way to describe it.

  And yet, every year, she found herself laughing, smiling, and generally admiring the fact that her perfectly respectable family could be filled to the brim with such extraordinary characters. No one quite understood her cousins the way they all did, and even they did not understand them half of the time. Nothing Great-Aunt Julie or Beatrice could say really bothered the lot of them anymore, and everyone knew full well not to go near Mr. Perry for any religious reasons.

  It was the same thing every year, dreading being cooped away at Deilingh and then finding the dread growing less and less as the usual activities and traditions took place. There was some comfort in the fact that nothing ever really changed between them, no matter what might have gone on throughout the year or during the Season. Christmas at Deilingh remained as it ever had.

  Somehow, she tended to forget that every year.

  Along with the recollection that when all gathered together, everyone expressed their opinion about everything. Such as the idea that Elinor was doing herself no favors by cavorting about with the Spinsters in London, and she was ruining her chances for marriage.

  Which was the current topic of conversation.

  “It’s just not sensible, Elinor,” her cousin Joan told her as she picked up her second, or perhaps third, child from the floor. “You’ll frighten off any man who might wish to try for you.”

  “Indeed,” Cousin Mary added, tugging a needle and thread through her abysmal attempt at embroidery. “What a terrifying prospect for a man. The Spinsters would surely ward them off.”

  “Your sister had the sense to leave them,” Cousin Millie pointed out absently as she sorted through various pieces of Christmas music. “And the moment she did, there was Mr. Partlowe, and now she is a wife and mother, and happy as a lark.”

  Elinor smiled tightly, smoothly pressing her own needle and thread into the handkerchief she was to give her father on Christmas Day. “Are larks actually happy birds, I wonder?” she mused to herself, keeping her tone mild. She looked towards her bluestocking cousin at the far side of the room. “Barbara, are larks considered jovial in the world of ornithology?”

  Barbara looked up from her pile of books, her spectacles blinking in an appropriately owlish manner. “I don’t believe so… Their song is considered cheerful, but as to the birds themselves, I confess ignorance. I don’t believe there is any particular temperament considered in the study of birds, is that significant?”

  “It ought to be,” Elinor’s sister Elizabeth muttered beside her, widening her eyes for effect as she sorted ribbons. “If Emma is compared to a lark, one would wish to know the manner of larks, would one not?”

  Elinor bit back a snort, nudging her sister a little.

  “What was that, E?” Joan asked with some distraction, as her child was now tugging at her lace cap rather insistently.

  Elizabeth smiled with perfection. “I was only saying that Emma was fortunate enough to meet Partlowe while being with the Spinsters, Joan. She left them after the marriage, if I am not mistaken.”

  Joan shared a look with her sister Millie, then shook her head at them. “No, I am sure you’re wrong. I am quite sure you are.”

  “Silly me,” Elizabeth grumbled to Elinor, pretending to match a ribbon to her thread. “I must be mistaken, of course, I was only there for the whole of it…”

  “Shh,” Elinor scolded softly, her affection for her sister growing stronger by the moment.

  “Elinor isn’t getting married,” her youngest sister Ellen rang out with a devious edge. “She’s sworn against it.”

  The entire room gasped, even Barbara, who was nigh on thirty herself and could not speak to men she was not related to without molting in parts. Elinor hissed through her teeth as she glared at Ellen, who knew full well she would be in for it later.

  “That cannot be so,” Cousin Letitia breathed, horrified at such an idea. “Your life would be over.”

  “Was it an earnest vow?” Fredericka asked as she crossed herself three times. “Surely it was not made in a church.”

  Elinor looked up at the delicate moldings of the faded ceiling above her. “No, I am no apostate, nor am I inclined to making public vows. I am inclined to be a spinster due to the lack of incentive to marry, and the lack of appealing prospects in the potential candidates. I am quite satisfied that my soul is safe from eternal damnation, given the Lord himself would not object to a young woman wanting the best husband possible for her life and not just any man who might ask.”

  The silence of the room seemed to refute her logic, but she was quite used to that particular notion.

  “Have you refused anyone?” her cousin Lavinia asked with hesitation, the faded, nondescript shade of her hair even more flat in the faint winter light.

  Elinor shook her head. “No, cousin. No one has asked.”

  There was a general sigh that irritated her, but she said nothing in response to it.

  “You’ll feel differently when someone does ask you,” Mary assured her. “I did.”

  “So did I,” Joan replied with fervent nods. “Very much so.”

  “Oh, good,” Elinor said to no one in particular. “Something to look forward to, then.”

  Elizabeth snickered. “Shall we begin parading suitors to see how it feels to be asked?”

  Elinor shrugged once. “Why not? It seems that’s all that is necessary to change my mind.”

  “And one never knows,” Letitia remarked with a wry smirk that did not suit her plain features, “there are bound to be several balls of mistletoe hanging about Deilingh in the next few days.”

  The others seemed to giggle and nod at that, but Elinor had no such inklings. “I am related to everybody currently in the house, cousin,” she retorted, kindly refraining from adding that this particular cousin she was addressing did not have a husband either and was far and away more a spinster than she.

  “Cousins marry all the time,” she shot back, completely unperturbed. “And your father is bound to invite local families. It is tradition.”

  “Speaking of mistletoe,” Elizabeth said quickly, seizing Elinor’s arm and forcing her up, “we did promise to help Emma and Mr. Partlowe with assembling the greenery so that it might be ready for Christmas Eve. Do excuse us. Ellen, come.”

  Ellen did so with remarkable obedience, a thing unheard of in her young life, and she flocked to Elizabeth’s side as they left the room.

  “Why did I have to come?” the girl hissed. “I didn’t promise.”

  “None of us did, you ninny,” Elizabeth replied. “I don’t trust you in that room unsupervised, and they were about to eat Elinor alive. Thank God everyone thinks seventeen too young for a husband in there, or I would be lumped in.”

  “I wouldn’t,” Ellen said with a sniff. “I am still a child to everyone, though I am fifteen.”

  Elinor rolled her eyes, wondering if this was how Charlotte felt with her on a regular basis. “Fifteen is a child, Elle. The only wives of fifteen are scandalous ones and no one likes a ruined woman, married or not.”

  Ellen ignored her. “Was it just me,” she began, “or was Letitia saying she was not above marrying a cousin?”

  “She was indeed,” Elizabeth confirmed, shuddering and making a face. “Given the only eligible cousins in the house are Walter and Rupert, I’m surprised she could stomach the admission. What are we, desper
ate royals?”

  “Royals marry cousins?” Ellen gasped.

  “Loads of people marry cousins,” Elinor groaned, swatting the air in front of her sister impatiently. “The royals are simply more public about it.”

  “Would you marry one of them?”

  “Not if we were the only two people on earth and civilization depended on it. Humans could die out, for all I care. I’d have a clear conscience.”

  Elizabeth shook her head, brow furrowed. “Local families, she said. Does she think we’ve had new neighbors in the last fifteen years? Or do you think she’d actually consider Lord Clarksdale?”

  “Lord save us,” Ellen whispered, pressing her hands into praying motion. “That would make him related to us, and I’d never bear the shame.”

  “There’s always Phillip Drew,” Elinor remarked with a coy smile. “He’s closer in age.”

  “And three times the size!” Elizabeth laughed. “Not to mention constantly intoxicated.”

  “And poor,” Ellen broke in, as though that were the worst part of it.

  All three nodded, for it truly might have been.

  “Perhaps the Spinsters should put their talents to work on Letitia, Elinor,” Elizabeth suggested with a sly smile. “You have plenty of research to find her someone worth having.”