What a Lady Needs for Christmas (25 page)

Hector tromped off, satchel and biblical analogies in hand, leaving Dante alone with another list—potential investors known to socialize with Quinworth’s family—and check marks beside the names of those who’d be attending the wedding breakfast.

The train ride into Aberdeen had been lovely. He and Joan had had a compartment to themselves—though visitors had been frequent—and he’d sat beside her, listening to her chatter about her wedding dress, her niece Fiona’s rabbit, her parents’ hot-and-cold marriage, and the menu for the wedding breakfast.

Joan had been nervous, and Dante had availed himself of her hand. She’d blushed and chattered some more, and then fallen silent, her head on his shoulder.

And in that silence, they’d been nervous together.

***

“I must have said my vows properly,” Joan said, smiling out the coach window at the crowd waving them off, “because it appears we’re married.”

The coach lurched forward, the noise receded, and Joan let her smile fade as well.

“I’m sitting beside you, and if we were not yet married, I would be on the opposite bench—until we were safe from prying eyes.”

The sentiment was comforting, suggesting that marriage had taken Mr. Hartwell by surprise too. He grasped Joan’s hand—maybe having small children made a man prone to holding hands—and pulled the shade down.

“We still have the wedding breakfast to get through,” Joan said, because that would be the true ordeal. Edward Valmonte, his mother, and his uncle had attended the service, his fiancée also in their party. A man who would bring a fiancée to a recent lover’s wedding was a man who’d make good on threats of blackmail.

“I have it on excellent authority the menu for the wedding breakfast will be delightful, though I doubt I’ll taste any of it.”

“Don’t let me get tipsy,” Joan said, though she hadn’t planned on that request. She hadn’t planned on gripping Mr. Hart—
her
husband’s
hand so tightly, either.

“I wish you would,” he said. “I wish you would trust that on your wedding day, your small misstep has been dealt with, you are safely married, and none can destroy the contentment and joy of the occasion. For Christmas, you should allow yourself to cease fretting and have some fun.”

She shook her hand free of his and smoothed down the green velvet skirt of her wedding dress. The Christmas season had allowed her to choose a color far more flattering than virginal white would have been—also more honest.

“What token would you like for Christmas, Mr. Hartwell? I cannot imagine you’ve been anything other than a good, hardworking boy this year.”

Her teasing fell flat and sounded condescending. Also nervous.

“I have been given a wife to cherish and hold dear, a mother for my children, a friend for my sister—who faces the daunting prospect of taking a place in Polite Society—and a lot of fellows to play cards with at family gatherings.”

He apparently knew better than to mention love.

“Dora told me you’d been taken up by the press-gangs after supper. She said the smoke was so thick in the card parlor, you’ll be airing your smoking jacket for weeks.”

Joan’s hand was taken captive again as her husband slouched down against the squabs and propped a boot against the opposite bench. This, too, was proof they were married, for a man would not have taken those liberties with a woman he was merely courting.

“Little sisters make the best spies,” he said. “Just ask Charlie. I think Spathfoy was trying to make amends for nearly killing Charlie. Wait until that boy of his is in short coats. We’ll see Spathfoy’s hair turn white in the space of a year. You would have told me if the need for this wedding had grown less urgent, wouldn’t you?”

Having a husband would be quite an adjustment—having
this
husband.

“I am not—I have not been—indisposed.”

“That’s unusual for you?”

The hotel approached, all decked out in holly and red-sashed wreaths, though blessedly devoid of mistletoe. Joan wanted neither to remain in the coach with her smiling, relaxed husband, nor to go inside and face Edward and his innuendos.

Edward, who stood right beside his fiancée amid the throng lined up to welcome Joan and her new husband to the wedding breakfast.

“Might we finish this discussion later?” Joan asked as Dante handed her down. “For the present, we have more good cheer to endure.”

Twelve

“Too bad you couldn’t have ended up with the likes of her.”

Uncle Valerian’s comment had been made with enough half-soused jocular bonhomie that several heads turned in Edward’s direction. Thank heavens Mama and Dorcas were trying to draw the notice of some countess or other.

“I am content with my choice,” Edward said, a diplomatic overstatement. Dorcas had a tendency to manage—witness her insistence that she join this outing in the North, and Christmas only two weeks away.

“I am content with your choice too,” Uncle said, lowering his voice. “Get your hands on those settlements, my boy, and my contentment will bloom into glee.”

Because that remark had also, no doubt, been overheard, Edward allowed his smile to become naughty. “It isn’t the settlements I’m longing to get my hands on.”

That was not quite a lie. Dorcas had permitted him only chaste pecks to her rosy cheeks—three so far. Miserly little gestures that did not bode well for the succession Edward was intent on securing.

While Joan looked radiant, and when her new spouse had kissed her on the lips as they’d descended from their coach, the bride—
without
blushing—had kissed him back and cradled his cheek as if her every wish had come true in the church an hour past.

A fine show, but Edward gambled it was mostly show when he cornered the bride between well-wishers at the wedding breakfast.

“Where is your new husband?” Edward asked, sliding into the empty seat beside Joan. “He leaves his treasure unguarded on the very morning he acquires it?”

“Hello, Edward. My brother and father have taken my husband to introduce him to Their Graces. Perhaps it’s your fiancée who should take more notice of your wanderings.”

Her smile was positively diabolical, suggesting… Edward slapped aside the notion of Joan and Dorcas whispering in some corner.

“There’s a duke here?”

“Moreland and his lady, a charming older couple who’ve formed a connection with the MacGregors. Her Grace enjoys the braw, bonnie lads in their kilts.”

The wedding party had sported a small army of those.

Joan beamed in the general direction of a knot of people, one of whom was her plebeian—braw, bonnie, kilted—choice of a husband.

“You received my latest note, my lady?”

She took a nibble of cake off her husband’s plate and chewed slowly, as if assessing the strength of the vanilla flavoring in the frosting. “Did you send me felicitations, Edward? I would have thought Lady Dorcas might have handled that formality for you.”

Lady Dorcas, who was watching this exchange with undue interest from two tables over.

“I am happy for you, Joan. Sincerely happy, but you and I have matters to discuss if you are to have any chance at happiness as well. I have your drawings, and the lower orders are known to be possessive and old-fashioned regarding matters of chastity and marital fidelity.”

Edward had made a life’s work out of reading his mother’s expressions, and he was becoming adept at reading Dorcas’s as well. If Joan were truly unconcerned about her evening in Edward’s private parlor, if she were daring him to start scandal, she would have laughed, patted his hand, or asked him to renew her acquaintance with Dorcas.

Instead, the lady’s gaze went to her husband, who was smiling at something a tall, lean, older gentleman had said.

“You were naughty, Lady Joan,
very
naughty, and while you might feel compelled to confess that naughtiness to your new husband—wedding nights can be so awkward, can’t they?—you won’t want your lapse bruited about among Polite Society. You will meet me the day after tomorrow at the tea shop just off Wapping near the green. Three of the clock, sharp.”

“How do you know I’m not off on a wedding journey?”

Not a go-to-hell, not a slap to the face. He wished she’d do both, and he wished ladies’ fashions were a lot more profitable than they had been in recent years. He also wished Dorcas’s casual perusal wasn’t turning perilously close to inconvenient curiosity.

“Nobody travels with the Yule season approaching, and your Scotsman will make a great fuss over the New Year, as they all do. Your family will want to make sure he doesn’t gobble you up whole, too, so for the next few weeks, you and I can see a bit more of each other.”

Because she was the bride, and it was her wedding day, Edward leaned over and would have kissed the lady on the cheek, except a large hand clamped down on his shoulder.

“Ach, get yer own lady to take liberties with,” said a jovial male voice. “I can assure you this lady is spoken for and will remain so for the rest of my natural days.”

Edward rose to greet the groom, the first time he’d come face-to-face with the man—or face to chin, for Joan had married a veritable brute.

“Edward, Viscount Valmonte, at your service. Old friends like to offer good wishes on such a felicitous day.”

How it galled to play the pretty, but from the calculation in Hartwell’s eyes, Edward could not be certain—not absolutely, positively certain—that the groom’s jocular warning hadn’t been in deadly earnest.

Which was good. If Joan had a jealous husband, she’d be all that much more likely to meet Edward’s demands.

Edward bowed to the lady. “Happy Christmas, Lady Joan.”

He sauntered back to the company of his fiancée, whose cheek he did kiss, right there in public, where Dorcas couldn’t do a damned thing to stop him.

***

Dante’s objective was simple: he wanted no dirty looks from the new Mrs. Hartwell come morning. How to achieve that goal as yet eluded him.

“You’ve married a lazy man, Mrs. Hartwell.” He confessed that sin while taking Joan’s cloak from her shoulders. They’d seen the last of the guests off, smiling and waving in the chilly afternoon air as clouds had hastened the early darkness common in December.

“You’re not lazy,” Joan said, more tiredly than loyally. “If Hector had his way, you’d do nothing but work. How did I get mud on this hem?”

“I am lazy. Hector equipped me with a list of the wedding guests, and in the time I might have memorized the names of every wool supplier in the realm, all I could keep straight is that Moreland is the one with the pretty duchess.”

Of all the titles who’d come to see Lady Joan Flynn’s hasty wedding, the duke and his lady had seemed to genuinely wish the couple well.

“Her Grace took an interest in Balfour’s situation.”

Much of Society had taken an
interest
in Lady Joan Flynn’s downfall, though they’d at least been polite about it. One well-dressed, smiling lord or lady after another had found a moment to accost Joan, while Dante had been dragged from guest to guest by Balfour’s family. He’d not known whether to return to her side and force her to present her lowborn spouse to her friends, or leave her in peace to make what excuses she could.

“The maids can tend to your hem in the morning,” Dante said. “I’ve left instructions we’re not to be disturbed.”

The day had been a progression of revelations, such as any wedding day between relative strangers might be. Joan had been a beautiful bride, for example. Not pretty, not well dressed, not even blushing, but beautiful.

“But my hooks—”

Beautiful, though not eager. Dante twirled a finger. “I’m competent to unhook a dress, if you’ll permit it?”

“Of course.” She presented her back and swept her hair from her nape, the gesture brisk and…unseductive.

“Are you nervous, Joan?” He started at the top, grateful that the myriad hooks meant this wedding night could get off to an unhurried start.

“I’m still Lady Joan, not that it matters.”

He suspected it mattered a great deal. “I’m nervous, my lady. The vows cannot be consummated without your participation.”

The nape of her neck turned an interesting shade of pink. “One gathered as much.”

He rested his cheek against the bump at the top of her spine, wishing she’d turn around and gather her husband into her arms. “Promise me, no dirty looks in the morning.”

She didn’t laugh—perceptive of her. “I’ll want the lights out.”

Dante went back to unhooking her dress, because he’d progressed less than halfway down her long, graceful back. “We can manage in the dark.”

Though her request made him uneasy. Whose face would she rather see on her wedding night? Prancing lordlings by the dozen had bowed over her hand, and Valmonte had been on the verge of stealing a kiss.

“We can even manage so you need not see my face at all,” he said, though the offer made him angry.

More hooks came undone, while Dante realized he’d made an offer he could not support. If Joan wanted him to toss up her skirts and rut on her from behind, like some ram after the ewes in spring, he could not accommodate her.

“I like your face very well,” she said. “But I’m not…”

She wasn’t in love with him, which notion shouldn’t bother a man who’d used his wedding breakfast to make the acquaintance of dukes, earls, and viscounts. “You’re not what? Not ready? Putting off the intimacies won’t make them any easier. Not for me.”

“I’m not pretty.”

Of all the daft—

Six more hooks to go, and Dante dispatched them in silence. Rowena’s looks had been average—pretty enough—but she’d been so confident of her father’s affections, of her entitlement to deference as a function of her father’s wealth, that pretty hadn’t come into it.

Not ever.

“No, you’re not pretty.” He pushed the sleeves of the dress off her shoulders, slowly, slowly, revealing pale skin and elegant curves. “You’re beautiful. Pretty is for schoolgirls, shopgirls, and debutantes. Pretty is for bouquets and hillsides. You have dignity, poise, charm, wit, and courage. God save me from a wife whose sole attribute is mere prettiness.”