What a Lady Needs for Christmas (10 page)

“I cannot recall.” The words held equal measures of shame and relief. “Pieces of the evening come back to me when something prompts the memory. I was inappropriately intimate with a man who cannot marry me. I know that much. I cannot think I’m still a maid, and I might well be on my way to motherhood.”

He pushed away from the wall with his back, and such were his reflexes that when Joan’s cloak came free of its hook, Mr. Hartwell caught it easily before it could brush the floor.

“I’m sorry, then.” He drew Joan to her feet and wrapped the cloak around her. “A lady’s first time should at least be a pleasant memory, contrary to what your mama might have told you.”

He was sorry.

Joan was so far beyond sorry. The cloak settled around her, a comfort in dark velvet that eased her sense of regret.

“I’m sorry too, for my family would not understand what drove me to such folly.”

“Probably more important that you understand it yourself.” His fingers went to the frogs of her cloak, reminding Joan that Mr. Hartwell had children already. This was a good quality, and not simply because it made a man adept at bundling his womenfolk up against the weather. “I will not tolerate infidelity in my spouse, Lady Joan. The typical aristocratic marriage is a disgrace by my plebeian lights. You will endure my company even when I’m less than charming, and I will endure yours.”

Gracious saints. “Will you force yourself upon me?”

Dark brows knitted as he tugged the fastenings to her cloak closed. “Are ye daft?”

The memory of Edward’s inert, bony weight pushing against Joan’s chest suggested she was, indeed, lacking in sense, for the entire debacle with Edward had been her doing.

“
Will
you
force
yourself
upon
me?
”

“I
canna
force myself on a woman. Neither my spirit nor my flesh would comply with such a heinous venture. Where will you bide over the holidays?”

Joan did not understand his reply—many intimate details of married life were kept from young ladies—but she understood his question.

“I’m joining my family at the home of relatives-by-marriage. My brother has arranged this, and I owe him much. I’ll endure Christmas in the wilds of Aberdeenshire at his invitation.”

At Tye’s insistence, though he meant well. The whole Flynn family hadn’t been together at Christmas for years, and acquaintance with one’s in-laws was seldom a bad idea.

Though even in the snug train car, the temperature had dropped, suggesting the wilds of Aberdeenshire would not offer cozy holidays.

“We’re both to endure house parties, then,” Mr. Hartwell said. “Hector will give you my direction. And you will apprise me of the status of our betrothal within the next two weeks. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll assume other options have become available to you.”

His expressions were already becoming readable to her, for the careful diffidence of his words didn’t fool Joan. Mr. Hartwell sounded like he was discussing some option in a business contract when, in fact, he was being gallant.

Allowing the lady to change her mind, though Joan’s behavior had been far from ladylike.

“Thank you, Mr. Hartwell. I cannot envision those options arising when I’m limited to the company of family, but I appreciate the gesture.”

She wanted
him
. Wanted a man who was certain of his aims in marriage, and held to the old-fashioned requirements of loyalty and fidelity. She wanted honesty from her spouse, not manipulation and overimbibing. Mostly she wanted her child—if she was to bear a child—to have a father who wasn’t preoccupied with matters of succession and social consequence.

If that man also allowed her to sew to her heart’s content, and his kisses tasted of chocolate and smiles, then Joan could be not simply content, but happy.

“You’re thinking,” Mr. Hartwell observed, caution in his tone. “Has one of those options occurred to you?”

“No, it has not.” And likely would not. “My digestion has been tentative all day.”

“Train travel does that to many people.”

“I feel perfectly fine now.” For indeed, the upset in Joan’s belly had entirely settled, which made no sense.

No sense at all.

Five

When the children cavorting underfoot or Margs bustling about might have for once been convenient, when even Hector’s nagging might have been helpful, Dante was left more or less alone with a woman he’d had no intention of marrying even an hour past.

“If you’ll excuse me, my lady. Hector hasn’t finished haranguing me.”

She settled on the settee in a rustle of velvet and grace. “Don’t let me keep you, Mr. Hartwell. It grows dark quite early, doesn’t it?”

He suspected her observation was a Proper Lady’s version of announcing a desire to nap.

“This time of year and this far north, we have more darkness than anything else. Makes sense we’d have holidays amid all the gloom.”

Small talk had ever eluded his grasp, but this was his potential prospective wife. They need not
make
small talk. They could, God willing, soon make love. Dante strode over to the woman perched on the fussy settee, kissed her on the mouth, shoved the box of chocolates at her, and got the hell out of the parlor car.

He stood for a bewildered moment on the platform, hoping the lethal cold might clear his mind. A woman of refinement and poise had been shamelessly taken advantage of by one of her own kind, and Dante had offered her marriage, friendship, and a solution to her problems.

Damned
well-done of him, too.

Joan would know everybody who was anybody—and know who among them had wealth. Joan would help Dante find a husband for Margs. She would take the children in hand, and take her husband’s heathen ways in hand as well.

His proposal had been brilliant from every pragmatic angle.

The lust still stirring through his veins was not pragmatic in the least.

Rowena had not been a martyr in the marriage bed—she’d wanted children, after all—but neither had desire for her plagued Dante when he was out of her company. They’d both preferred it that way.

Now he recalled why. Desire could knock a man sideways, destroy his focus, make his parts ache, and render him daft. Desire could send him back to his earliest youth, when sex, getting sex, recalling sex, and enduring times without sex, could order a young man’s entire existence.

He was out of practice was the problem. Thirst after a drought was predictable, and while Dante hadn’t been celibate since becoming a widower, he
had
made work a priority—the highest priority.

So for Christmas, he might end a sexual drought and be better able to focus on work for doing so.

On that steadying thought, he took his practical—if temporarily randy—self into the back car, where Hector remained at the folding table, scribbling away, despite the swaying of the train.

“I might be giving the children a mother for Christmas this year,” Dante said, somewhat to his own surprise.

Hector didn’t immediately look up but kept writing for another line or so, then put his pencil down and stared out at the passing darkness.

“I thought you said Edinburgh was a failed attempt.”

“I met Lady Joan in Edinburgh, and she and I might suit.”

The pencil went behind Hector’s ear, a ready writing implement being as necessary to Hector as a handy dirk was to others.

“Marrying her ladyship would be quite a sacrifice,” Hector said, tidying his papers. “I thought you liked your women merry and sonsy.”

“I barely recall how I like my women.” Was Lady Joan eating the remaining chocolates and recalling their kiss? She was the farthest thing from merry and buxom.

“I suppose she’ll do,” Hector said, scratching at his nose. “She’s the daughter of a marquess whose affairs are reported to be quite in order.”

Quite in order. “You’re sounding English, my friend. Lady Joan’s people have money—her very clothing makes that much plain.” Though Hector’s news was welcome—as easy to esteem a wealthy bride as a poor one, wasn’t it? Dante busied himself tidying the decanters rather than admit to Hector that Joan’s finances hadn’t, in fact, been a consideration.

Which was foolish when a man could take only one bride at a time.

“Her brother Tiberius, Earl of Spathfoy, manages the family’s mercantile interests, abetted by her mother, a formidable woman,” Hector said.

The parlor car boasted a selection of whiskeys, mostly from the islands, where a liberal hand with the peating ensured richness and subtlety accompanied the burn of good spirits.

Lady Joan had been brought low by a scoundrel wielding spirits, and yet, she was a formidable woman too. Dante braced his back against the sideboard.

“I expect if we wed, we’ll wed over the holidays. The lady has yet to give me an answer, though I’m hopeful she’ll have me.”

“You’re courting her?” Hector asked, folding the earpieces of his spectacles.

“A bit of courting wouldn’t go amiss.” Courting and a few more kisses. And yet, Dante would not relay the details of Joan’s folly to another. A husband—even a prospective husband—owed his wife loyalty.

“I’m fairly certain the courting is supposed to come before the engagement.”

“Are you scolding me on this too, Hector? Bad enough you inundate me with reports I can barely decipher, quiz me on the royal succession of a bunch of dead Sassenach kings, carp at me for wearing my kilts, and refuse to take any holidays for yourself.”

Hector became absorbed with polishing his spectacles, which hadn’t sported a smudge since Moses had been found among the bulrushes.

“Shall I leave you to your house party, then? Give you a few weeks respite from my irksome company?”

Irksome
was another of Hector’s prissy words, and yet, coming from a braw, bonny fellow who never seemed to do anything but write and read reports, irksome had an off quality.

“If you did not join us at this infernal gathering, you’d be down at the mills, pacing the floors like a hungry pantry mouser, flooding the King’s mail with more correspondence than I can read in this lifetime, and aggravating the women in my employ.”

“A woman’s hair must be tidily braided if she’s to work in a mill. If it’s aggravating to insist on simple safety precautions from your employees—”

The sideboard dug into Dante’s back as the train shook its way over some rough patch in the tracks. “Cut line, Hector. We need to find you a wife.”

Abruptly, Hector’s linen handkerchief ceased circling on the right lens of his spectacles.

“Do you suppose Margs might marry if you take a wife?”

Interesting thought, and exactly what Hector’s restless appetite for angles, details, and contingencies might seize upon.

“Joan will likely be an asset when it comes to finding a fellow for Margs. She’ll be an asset in many regards—if she’ll have me.” And increasingly, he hoped she would.

“Can I fix you a wee dram, Hector? Ballater will be colder than hell.”

Hector stashed his glasses away and rose. “Marrying a woman because she’s a marquess’s daughter with money is colder still.”

“I thought you, of all people, would approve of an advantageous match, Hector.” Though Hector had been notably silent regarding Dante’s sortie to Edinburgh.

Hector stalked over to the door, for once leaving his reports lying all about on the table. “I’d like to make the acquaintance of the English lady who’d consider taking you on as a spouse.”

Dante did not particularly want to be cooped up in the same car with a man of business who’d grown moody at the mention of an advantageous match.

“Hector, if I don’t replace the floors in Faith Mill, we could have an accident. That equipment is deuced heavy and shakes like doomsday hour after hour. Hope Mill needs a new roof, and the looms in Love will need replacing by this time next year.”

From Rowena, Dante had inherited a great lot of problems—also ridiculous names for the mills—mostly because she and her father before her had taken a shortsighted view of profit. Five years after Rowena’s death, many of those problems remained unsolved.

“Court your lady then,” Hector said. “I’m off to see if Charlie and Phillip might be up for a game of marbles.”

Even in this comment, Dante felt a hint of the Parthian shot from Hector—for Dante had not been invited to join that game of marbles.

“I’ll finish with your reports then.”

Dante sat at the folding table and saw that Hector’s most recent list had been of Christmas presents Dante might purchase for his family. The possibilities for Margs were damnably few—they always were—while Charlie’s list was as long as Margs’s and Phillip’s put together.

Dante set aside those lists—Christmas was several weeks off—and tried to focus on estimates for the new roof on Hope Mill. A roof could be constructed to allow light into the facility, but such innovation cost money.

Everything cost money.

In her situation, Joan would not want a lavish ceremony, and while Dante was in favor of saving coin wherever possible, he wished that particular economy not be imposed on the woman he might take to wife.

***

Joan’s dignity lay in tatters all over her satin-lined cloak, which—much to Joan’s consternation—had been shanghaied into service as a field of play for the Great Christmas Traveling Marbles Tournament. The children and Hector had delivered a handy defeat to Joan and Miss Hartwell, amid much merriment and forfeiting of chocolate treats. Phillip played with a concentration and skill far above his years, Charlie made a lot of noise, and Margaret and Hector assiduously avoided the near occasion of flirting.

While in the other car, Mr. Hartwell did…
what
?

“The train is slowing down,” Charlie announced, springing up and going to the window.

“It’s dark,” Phillip said, also getting to his feet. “You can’t see anything out the window.”

“I can see lights. We’re coming into Ballater.”

“Somebody had best tear Dante away from his ciphering,” Miss Hartwell observed as she gathered her skirts. “Children, get your coats.”