My Christmas Gift to You

Chapter 1

She wasn't one of those crazy people who followed others around to do them harm. But she sure as hell felt like one.

For the better part of three years, she'd been the victim of just such people. Men who wanted her dead. Or at the very least, gone. Lady Dinna Lundon was a threat to the men those people worked for. Well, she was a threat to their businesses because she was much better at doing their job than they were. 

Of course, those men didn't know that their competitor – enemy – was Lady Dinna Lundon because she had used her middle name of Willow and her mother's maiden name of Johnson from the time she had escaped England.

Of course, that wasn't enough in the male-dominated country of China, where she had eventually landed. Hell, it wasn't acceptable in most countries around the world. Not in 1810. It still wasn't in 1815. Which was why she'd had to create a fictitious husband to open the business that made her so many enemies in China.

In the three years she’d lived in China, she and her imaginary, world-trotting husband, W.C. Johnson, had built one of the most profitable shipping companies in China. It wasn't the largest by any means of the imagination. Dinna hadn't wanted it to be. That would have attracted too many questions. Being a very successful shipping company had garnered enough questions about her and her non-existent husband. Enough that eight months ago, William Johnson had unfortunately drowned when his ship had gone down in the China Sea.

One of Dinna's ships had indeed floundered and been lost in a bad storm. But most of the crew had in fact survived. Just a few poor souls had not. And it had been the perfect time for her fake spouse to meet his demise. 

Devastated by the loss – she was actually quite happy about it – Dinna, or Mrs. Willow Johnson, had hired a woman to run the China office and moved to England to set up offices there. Fortunately, one of the things China had in abundance was talented artists that could create anything you wanted. Including marriage lines that would hold up in any court of law.

The reason Dinna felt it was safe to return to her home country was the same reason she had become so good at protecting herself. W.C. Johnson Shipping and Imports had made Dinna a very wealthy woman. As a rich widow, she could return to England and reenter English society without the fear of having her freedom taken away from her. At least she hoped it was enough.

Five years ago, her parents, the Viscount and Viscountess Bright, had threatened to incarcerate her in a mental hospital if she did not do what they wanted; marry a man they had chosen for her. The fact that her bridegroom was a lifelong friend had not changed the fact that Dinna did not want to marry him. She didn't want to marry any man. She wanted to marry a woman. The woman that had been her best friend for all of her life. And the woman she was currently stalking.

Dinna was doing exactly what her China competitors had done to her, she was following someone around in secret. Only she wasn't doing it to harm someone, as they had. She was doing it to save someone. Her best friend in the world, Chriss Rochosh. Or she had been Chriss Rochosh. Her friend was now Lady Chriss Perterson, Baroness; true widow, and mother to a six or seven-month-old girl. Dinna wasn't sure of the child's age as she had been born while she was en route back to England. And in all the chaos of her arrival yesterday evening, she failed to ask her man of business when the child was born. So, all she knew for sure was that the child was a baby girl. That and that Chriss had named the child Dana. Dinna's childhood nickname.

The current rumor about town was that the only heir to the late Baron Perterson was a frail and sickly infant girl. Yet, her man of business had not been able to verify the reports. And since they were being spread by Chriss’s parents, Dinna had serious doubts about their validity. Especially, since they were spreading the same type of gossip about Chriss herself.

The little girl's birth was the real reason Dinna's husband had to die. The Perterson family had threatened to take the child away from Chriss if it had been a boy. And Chriss's family was threatening to take the child away if it was a girl. Either way, Dinna's best friend would lose her child if she did not do what her family wanted her to do. Which was to marry another man. One of their choosing. And this one was not the kind, benevolent one that Chriss's first husband had been.

"Did she go to school with us?"

Dinna glanced over at her tea companion, the Duchess of Belfort, Katie Seymour. "No, she was a few years behind us. And her parents sent her to a different finishing school."

She turned back to the woman across the street from them. Chriss was sitting in an open carriage, despite the cold and brisk wind of the December afternoon. Her old friend had always hated tight spaces, including coaches. And Chriss loved the cold. She seemed to thrive in winter while everyone else hid from it.

The duchess leaned toward the frosted window of the tea shop and peered intently at the woman Dinna had been watching. "Is she getting an ice?"

Dinna laughed. "Orange or cherry flavored." They were Chriss's favorite flavors. And if her friend was true to form, the ice she was getting from Gunter's was probably a combination of the two flavors.

Katie shuddered. "Your friend is crazy."

Dinna smiled but it didn't reach her eyes. "Her parents seem to think so."

The duchess missed the sarcasm. "Would you like to invite your friend to join us?" She turned away from the window to face Dinna. "I am sure the ice would taste better if she enjoyed it in a warm shop as opposed to sitting in a cold carriage."

Knowing Chriss as she did, Dinna doubted it. "No," she said but not because she disagreed with the duchess. She just wasn't ready for her old friend to know she was back in London yet. Or more to the point, she didn't want Chriss’s parents to know she was back in England yet. They had disliked her before she had run away from her own wedding. According to Chriss’s letters, they now hated Dinna for the scandal she had caused her parents to endure. 

Leaning forward, Dinna glanced up and down the nearly empty street and spotted a couple of dark coaches sitting within view of Gunter's. According to Chriss's letters, once it was known that her husband was dying, her parents had taken to having her followed everywhere she went. Ostensibly, it was to protect Chriss from unwanted attention or fortune hunters since her husband was too sick to do so. Ironic, as Chriss’s parents were the worst fortune hunters in all of England.

Regardless of the true reason for having her followed, it was probably the real reason Chriss was sitting in an open carriage, in front of Gunter's, on a cold blustery day. It would make the men following her miserable.

"Why?" Katie asked.

"Her parents don't approve of me," Dinna said.

Katie's brow wrinkled. "She is unmarried?"

Dinna shook her head. "Like me, she is a widow. Her husband was older and ill for some time. I am told that he died about seven months ago."

The duchess's brow wrinkled further. "Then her parents have nothing to say about who she spends her time with."

Dinna grimaced. "You would think so. Unfortunately, they are making her life a living hell. So, I will find a time when I know they are not having her followed before I contact her."

Katie's voice lowered an octave. "Followed?"

Dinna's lips thinned. "I am afraid so." She nodded toward one of the two black coaches sitting a few shops down. "I cannot be sure, but I suspect one of the coaches sitting idly down the street is part of the men her parents have following her."

Katie pressed her face against the window. "Is there anything I or Gabe can do to help?"

Dinna reached over and patted Katie's arm. "Thank you, but no. At least not right now. Chriss is staying with her parents at the moment, but she has her own residence here in London. I am not sure why she is not living there, but I amsure she has her reasons. So, I'll wait until I am sure one of her father's men is not watching her before I try to talk to her."

Katie nodded and sat back in her chair. "Just let me know. There are a few advantages to being married to a duke." She smiled sarcastically. "Not to mention, a duke who used to be a common soldier. He knows how to get things done."

Dinna laughed. "I will keep that in mind."