What a Lady Needs for Christmas (24 page)

He climbed in beside his wife and waited for sleep to claim him, as her ladyship rustled about on her side of the bed.

Hartwell was marrying
up
. Quinworth didn’t particularly like that, but he respected it, and couldn’t fault the man’s taste in wives, provided Hartwell showed Joan every possible courtesy.

A father need lose no sleep in that regard, for Tiberius would kill Hartwell if Joan were less than pleased with her husband. Dora, Mary Ellen, and her ladyship would probably have a go as well.

Hartwell’s motivation was plain enough, and not that unusual in these modern times, but why on earth would poised, lovely, well-dowered Joan accept Hartwell’s suit—unless she was truly in love?

***

“You will ride with me to the lake,” Tiberius said, and from him, Joan supposed that was an invitation.

“We’re in Scotland. It’s a loch, not a lake. Though I must say, a kilt becomes you.” Became him well, though Mr. Hartwell wore his with more casual swagger.

In the cavalcade of sleighs, Mr. Hartwell was farther up the line, with the Earl of Balfour, and Balfour’s younger brother, Ian MacGregor. Some of the ladies had elected to stay back at the house and decorate the two trees that had arrived on yesterday’s train, part of the batch the Prince Consort imported from Thuringia each year.

“Are you dressed warmly enough?” Tiberius asked. “There will be a wind, I’m sure of it, and some child or other will need to use the bushes, except there aren’t any bushes in this blighted shire, and it’s too cold to use them in any event.”

He more or less threw Joan into the sleigh, then climbed aboard himself.

“Have you been draining your flask too often, Tiberius? It’s a sunny day, at least, and the children need fresh air.” While Joan needed to get the wedding ceremony—and wedding night—behind her.

He clucked to the horse, a hairy behemoth whose rhythmic trot set the sleigh bells jingling.

“No, I have not been tippling, though if you’d like a tot?” He shifted the reins and produced a leather-covered silver container.

“No, thank you.” She’d beg a nip off her fiancé, later.

“If you detect a certain disquiet about the person of your brother, it’s because I am worried for you. Hester says I am being ridiculous, though, and my countess is nearly always right.”

“How could I possibly be a source of worry to you?” Joan asked. “You gained a promise from Papa that your sisters might marry where they pleased, within reason. I’m marrying where I please.”

With the horse churning along, the wind was biting. Tiberius was seething about something as only Tiberius could, and Joan still hadn’t come up with a strategy for dealing with Edward Valmonte.

For Christmas, might she please have some peace and contentment?

“Why this Hartwell fellow, Joan? He’s notably ambitious, has no pretensions to gentility, and you barely know him.”

Joan knew that Dante Hartwell had been lonely in his first marriage, though the man himself might not use that word. She knew he was decent and honest, and that he loved his family.

As did Tiberius, bless him.

“I am tired, Tiberius, of having my bosom leered at. I am sick to death of having the tabbies whisper about how it’s a pity the only person in my family taller than me is my older brother—though I suspect in bare feet, Papa tops me by an inch or so. I’m weary of seeing crop after crop of simpering schoolgirls swan up the church aisles with their lords and honorables and
comtes
. Mama had even started muttering about German princes.”

Until she’d said this to her brother, Joan hadn’t realized how true the words were.

“But a mill owner, Joan? He watches you to see which fork you pick up first, as does his sister.”

The path down to the loch curved, so Joan was momentarily cast more snugly against her brother. Tye was solid, strong, and confident in his faculties to a point approaching arrogance, and Joan wanted—for the duration of one sweeping curve—to confide her situation to him in its entirety.

Edward Valmonte was born knowing which fork to use, and where to thrust his
fork
for best advantage.

“Mr. Hartwell might be watching me for the same reason you watch your countess, Tiberius, and the same reason Papa watches Mama.”

Especially lately.

“Those two,” Tye snorted. “I caught them lingering beneath the mistletoe yesterday morning and about had apoplexy at the sight. Mama is a force to be reckoned with.”

Her son was only now realizing it? “Did you clear your throat and look appalled? Start lecturing them about decorum and children being underfoot?” Because Tiberius could deliver a prodigious scold any day of the week.

“I clapped his lordship on the shoulder as I fled the scene. It’s Christmas, they’ve recently fallen back in love, and allowances must be made. Love is a form of madness in some people, and I don’t think age or station has anything to say to it.”

***

“I want to disdain Hartwell because he’s in trade,” Tiberius admitted, accepting a nip from the Earl of Balfour’s flask—for he’d drained his own before the hockey game had even started.

Asher MacGregor was cast in the same mold as the rest of his family: tall, muscular, and green-eyed. His dark hair flirted with the chilly breeze as he and Tiberius watched the teams on the ice circle around the puck.

“You canna disdain a man who moves like that,” Balfour said. “He’s a demon with that stick.”

On the ice, Hartwell leaped, spun, and came down with his stick already smacking the puck—hard—directly for the barrels marking the opposing team’s goal. And in the next instant, he was off, ready to follow up, defend, or score as the opportunities arose.

“I can’t fault his athleticism. I also can’t feel my knees,” Tiberius said. “And I wish I’d remained behind this morning to read stories to my son in the cozy privacy of the nursery. When there’s a break, we’re going back in.”

For they captained opposing teams, of course. Behind them, near the bonfire, the children were enjoying hot chocolate and the doting attentions of the women, who had some gender-specific ability to ignore all the grace and power—and freezing knees—on display on the ice.

“I don’t disdain Hartwell,” Balfour said, capping his flask and mercifully allowing Tiberius’s whining to go unremarked. “I respect the hell out of a fellow who can build up an empire on the strength of hard work, shrewdness, and daring. My own family took in paying guests, for God’s sake, and that was hard enough, though the only thing they risked was the respect of their neighbors.”

The puck shot forward, no less party than His Grace, the Marquess of Quinworth, defending for the southern team. A mad scramble ensued, and more than a little swearing—in Gaelic, English, and broad Scots—as players took off toward the northern goal.

“I want to disdain Hartwell,” Tiberius said. In truth, he couldn’t feel anything below about mid thigh. “I’m not succeeding very well at it. He treats Joan with utmost respect, though his manners aren’t exactly polished.”

“Ach, manners. Now those will keep a woman warm at night. I’m sure your countess would agree, though mine might argue the point. You’re daft, Spathfoy, to carp about manners and disdain. Lady Joan is beautiful, well dowered, and knows exactly what an English marquess’s daughter is worth to the bachelors prowling around the ballrooms. Christ, that had to hurt.”

The puck had hopped up, as pucks will do, and clipped Balfour’s younger brother Gilgallon on the arm.

“He’s Scottish,” Tiberius said. “He’ll play more fiercely for the pain, or perhaps he’s so cold he can’t feel anything.” For both teams were kilted in the interests of better mobility, or—Spathfoy suspected a sadistic streak in his in-laws—freezing several pairs of English ballocks into oblivion.

“Spathfoy, get in here!” Gilgallon called. “I need me wife to kiss it better.”

Play suspended until Tye was in position on the ice, and then damned if it didn’t feel glorious to skate all out for the sheer hell of it. In minutes, his lungs were heaving, and his focus fixed on whacking the bloody puck into the opposing team’s goal.

The moment came, the sweet, surprising instant when a clear shot opened up, with none to defend it. Spathfoy cocked his stick back and put every ounce of fraternal frustration, family concern, and sheer male exuberance into his swing.

The puck went aloft rather than skidding along the ice, and for a progression of heartbeats, Spathfoy purely admired the hurtling shape silhouetted against a blue, blue winter sky.

Somebody swore, and with the speed of thought, Spathfoy’s internal admiration shifted to horror. A child had wandered onto the ice, outside the bounds of the makeshift field of play. She twirled, red braids flying out behind her, as if in her boots, she could practice the moves of the men on their skates.

Spathfoy’s bodily reality became sympathy for every bullet ever aimed at a living creature:
Hit
me, not the child.
For God’s sake, not the child.

From nowhere, a kilted shape tackled the girl and went sliding across the ice with her, the ice cracking. The puck slammed into a meaty male shoulder, and the women came running down the bank en masse.

“She’s all right,” Hector MacMillan said, skating past Spathfoy. “He got to her in time, and she’ll be all right.”

The game broke up, as well it should when tragedy had been narrowly averted. Had the puck struck the child on the head…

“Tiberius!” His countess stood on the shore, swathed head to toe in the Flynn hunting plaid. The other skaters moved past him, back to the benches around the bonfire, back to the women and children.

Hester must have been watching, must have understood that it was her husband’s wild shot that had jeopardized the child. Perhaps she also grasped that Spathfoy could not make his feet move.

“Tiberius,” she said again, striding onto the ice. “Charlie’s quite unhurt, but my chin went numb an hour ago. Cease looking so virile and impervious to the elements, if you please, and stand at my back around the bonfire.”

She reached him and wrapped her arms around him. His stick lay some yards away, though he didn’t recall dropping it.

“I could have killed her,” Spathfoy said, arms around his wife. Hester was quite petite, and with the added height of his skates, she felt like a child against him. “With one shot, I could have killed that girl or worse.”

A shiver passed through him that had nothing to do with the cold.

“The child shouldn’t have been on the ice, but the nannies aren’t used to the cold, and Miss Hartwell was engrossed in cheering for the northern team. Are you all right?”

Spathfoy had no idea what his wife had just said, but he could see she was worried—could feel it in her continued embrace.

“I must apologize to the child, and to her father.” He let Hester take his hand and walk beside him as she led him toward the bank of the loch. “I was worried about his manners. He has protective instincts that defy human limitations, and I was worried about his manners.”

Hester gave him a look of wifely exasperation and let him clamber up the bank on his own.

***

“You’ll both join us for cards after supper,” Spathfoy said, sounding very much like he was offering Dante the English aristocrat’s version of a one-way trip down a dark alley.

“I’d be delighted to.”

Spathfoy departed, no doubt to change out of his kilt now that the wedding entourage had reached the relative civilization of Aberdeen. The ceremony would be held at St. Andrews the following morning, provided both bride and groom showed up.

“I think he’s trying to be friendly,” Hector said, looking puzzled. “Hard to tell without his countess to translate.”

Dante set aside the list of guests attending the wedding breakfast.

“I think it’s tradition that the men hold a wake for a fellow’s bachelorhood the night before the wedding. You may have this back, with my thanks.”

He passed Hector the list of wedding guests, which had given him a headache, to say the least.

“You will not have a better opportunity for finding investors,” Hector said, letting the list lie on the table between them. “Two dukes, a marquess, five earls, not including the two intent on getting you drunk tonight, a sprinkling of viscounts, and more barons and honorables than any one church should hold.”

“They’re all strangers to me, Hector.” Dante hadn’t much acquaintance with inebriation either, though its appeal was growing on him.

Hector stuffed the report into a satchel that went with them everywhere, even on this traveling circus of a wedding excursion. “Are you having second thoughts now?”

“The mills are producing capital steadily, the workers are happy, our products are respected, and our name is growing trustworthy. I don’t
need
to refurbish and expand, I simply want to.”

They were in the sitting room of the elegant hotel the MacGregors and Flynns had all but taken over upon arriving in Aberdeen. Balfour’s countess had conferred with Joan, messengers had been dispatched, and all put in readiness—on less than a week’s notice.

“The mills are producing capital,” Hector said, snapping the satchel closed. “That’s exactly why you can attract investors now. But your looms are aging, you need ventilation to keep up with the newest mills, a modernized loading dock would allow you to move a lot more raw wool in and finished product out, there’s hardly enough light for the women to—”

Dante held up a hand rather than hear the very same arguments he himself had made to Rowena for five straight years—when they were speaking at all.

“My point is that business partners should have a sense of one another. A title does not make a man honorable.”

Though lack of one certainly made his honor suspect in certain quarters.

Hector rose, and damned if Hector wasn’t wearing proper trousers. “A title makes a man a gentleman with a pressing need to diversify his income, because nobody lives well off the land rents anymore. Polite Society took fifty years to realize diversification won’t put dirt under their fingernails, and now they’ve caught onto the notion with a vengeance. Play cards, Dante. Marry Lady Joan, ingratiate yourself with the wedding guests, and turn wine into money at the marriage feast.”