A Christmas Affair (31 page)

Amanda was aware of Justin’s distracted state, and it troubled her. He could be pompous at times, and even a bit of a prig, but she’d never seen him act as petulantly as he had while touring the house. He’d behaved just like one of the twins when denied their way, and she wondered if he was beginning to have second thoughts. The realization was almost too painful to be borne.

“Amanda,” Justin began, deciding it was time to make a clean breast of it, “there is something I need to discuss with you. Something that will affect both our futures.”

“I . . . I see,” she said, her heart clenching with unexpected pain. Her teacup rattled in her hand and she set it down. She had been expecting this from the moment he’d made his altruistic offer. Now there was naught she could do but sit stoically and listen to him sever the tenuous ties that bound them. “Go on.”

Justin cleared his throat nervously. “As you know, Napoleon is all but finished on the continent,” he said, unable to meet her dark gaze. “We drove him from Spain, and now his own people have demanded his abdication. One might think our job is done, but in truth, it is only just beginning.”

Amanda hid her surprise. Whatever she’d been expecting, it wasn’t a political discussion. “Really?” she managed weakly, wondering what he was hinting at. “Why is that?”

“Napoleon has left chaos in his wake,” he said recalling George’s persuasive arguments, “and the governments he helped overthrow will require a great deal of aid in restoring their countries. England . . . all the allies are most desirous to see that this is done with as little bloodshed as possible.”

“Well, thank heavens for that,” Amanda said, thinking of Daniel and the thousands of other young lives sacrificed to Napoleon’s insane thirst for power.

“Yes.” Justin was grateful she was taking the news so well.
“At any rate, our government wishes to see that the transition of power is accomplished quickly, and to that end they are sending men to those countries to assist the leaders. Men who have some knowledge of the land, its people and its customs.”

“That makes sense.”

“I have been offered such a post.”

It took a few seconds for his stark declaration to sink in, and when it did, Amanda could only stare at him in confusion. “I beg your pardon?”

“I have been offered such a post,” he repeated frowning at her puzzled look. “I spoke with an old friend of mine, Lord George Bramwell, and he seems to think I would make an excellent liaison between London and Madrid. I speak the language fluently, and I know many of the most influential families. He says he is certain he can have me appointed as the provost marshal of the area, and —”

“You’re going to be a diplomat?” Amanda demanded, torn between shock and relief. She had braced herself to hear his plea for freedom, but this was something else entirely.

“Good God, no,” he said quickly. “The post would be a military one. I would be in charge of the occupying forces and help oversee the orderly transition of power. Things are rather sticky in Spain just now, and a strong military presence is needed to keep the peace. As I am experienced in dealing with the Spanish, I am the most logical choice, and George thinks I should receive the appointment with little or no trouble.”

Amanda sat back in her chair. “But-but what of us? Our marriage?” she asked weakly. “Unless I will be accompanying you?” She gave him an uncertain look.

He shook his head decisively. “No. As I said, things are somewhat uncertain in Spain, and I won’t put you in danger. There is no reason why this should change our wedding plans. Even if I am offered the post, I should only be gone a
few months—a year at the most. Once I have completed my mission, we can retire to the countryside.”

Amanda’s shock was slowly giving way to fury. “Don’t you think you might have consulted me before accepting this post?” she asked, her hands clenching tightly in her lap. “You must admit this changes things between us.”

Justin’s brows snapped together in a formidable frown. He was unused to having his every command questioned, and he found her obstinacy infuriating. “I don’t see how,” he answered in his coldest tones. “Our reasons for marrying remain the same. You need help in caring for your family, and I have need of a wife to insure the succession. What has my accepting a post to Spain to do with all of that?”

“Only that I should think it rather hard for you to insure anything when you will be hundreds of miles away!” Amanda retorted, her fury overcoming her modesty. “How can we be a true man and wife if you mean to be gone half the time?”

“Is that all that worries you?” He gave her a look that made her burn with something other than anger. “You need have no fears on that score, my sweet. After all, we’ll have almost a month together before I shall be leaving.”

Amanda blushed scarlet with mortification. “You have a rather high opinion of yourself, sir!” she said, feeling decidedly harassed.

“Perhaps,” he drawled, his eyes dancing with mischief as he smiled at her. “But I shall leave it to you to decide if that opinion is warranted. On the morning after our marriage, you must let me know if I have lived up to your expectations.”

“Oh! You are insufferable!” Amanda exclaimed, stumbling to her feet. “You are no gentleman to say such things to me!”

Justin also rose, his amusement vanishing at the flare of temper he saw in her eyes. “I may be no gentleman,” he answered, his voice deliberately provocative, “but I will be
your husband. That much hasn’t changed. You are my fiancée, Amanda, and within the sennight you will be my wife. Whether circumstances force us to live together or apart, I expect you to honor the bargain we have struck. For better or worse, we are bound together. Remember that.”

Chapter Seventeen

The next evening Amanda stood before her mirror, turning this way and that as she studied her reflection. “Are you quite certain this gown will do?” she asked Amelia as she ran a nervous hand down the front of the bodice. “You don’t think it too daring?”

The gown had been delivered that afternoon, a note from Madame Chiennette pinned to the box. Fashioned out of the sheerest black silk Amanda had ever seen, the simply cut gown was completely unadorned except for the white satin rosettes scattered across the filmy skirts. The daring neckline left her shoulders and arms bare, exposing the soft swell of her breasts to what seemed a shocking degree.

“Oh, no,” Amelia said in answer to her question. “I think it most stylish, and I love your hair! That rose is just the thing to set off your hair and eyes.”

Amanda touched the black silk rose the maid had spent a full hour pinning into place. Her hair had been gathered to one side in an artful swirl, with only a few curls escaping to trail down her neck. It wasn’t quite the elegant coiffure Madame had envisioned, but it was far more flattering than her usual chignon.

“I suppose you’re right,” she said at last, deciding she’d
fussed over her appearance long enough. Turning from the mirror, she smiled at her sister. “You’re certainly looking lovely, darling. Is that one of the gowns Justin bought you?”

“Yes,” Amelia fingered the celestial-blue silk, her expression growing dreamy. “Do you think Charles will like it?”

“He’ll love it as he loves you,” Amanda assured her, giving the modest gown with its heart-shaped bodice and belled skirts an approving look. “Now I suppose it’s time we checked on the twins. I only hope they haven’t tied their bedsheets together and slipped out the window. You know how unhappy they were not to be included in the festivities.”

“It would have been difficult to miss,” Amelia replied, smiling as she remembered the dust her brothers had kicked up upon being informed they wouldn’t be allowed at the party.

They found the twins languishing in their room, their faces wearing expressions of such mistreatment that it was all Amanda could do not to burst out laughing.

“Are you
quite
certain we can’t come?” Jeremey asked, hoping his sister had experienced a change of heart. “We will be ever so good.”

“We’ll even let the old ladies pinch our cheeks and call us their darling boys,” Joss offered, prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice.

“That is very noble of you.” Amanda’s lips quivered as she held back a smile. “But as I’ve explained, this is Lady Rayburne’s house, and it is her right to invite whomever she pleases. And no sulking, or I won’t let you join us when Justin takes us out to see the sights,” she added, raising an admonishing finger when she saw two bottom lips thrusting out.

The pouts disappeared as if by magic. “Do you think he’ll take us to see the catch-me-who-can?” Joss asked, his tone so diffident as to be automatically suspect.

“And the Frost Fair?” Jeremey added hopefully. “You needn’t buy us anythinig; we just want to look.”

“Oh, very well, you shameless beggars,” Amanda capitulated with a laugh. “But first you must ask Justin. If he is agreeable, then I have no objection.”

“It’ll be all right, then,” Joss said with smug satisfaction. “He’s a man. He understands how it is with us.”

“I don’t know about you,” Amanda said as she and Amelia made their way down the stairs, “but I have the strongest suspicion we have been properly gulled.”

“I fear you’re right,” Amelia agreed, and then gave a shiver of anticipation. “Oh, Amanda, aren’t you excited? Our very first London ball! I vow, I am all a-tremble!”

“They are only people, Amelia.” Amanda firmly suppressed her own anxieties. This would be her first introduction to Justin’s world, and for a moment it was all she could do not to pick up her skirts and scamper back to the safety of her room. Then she remembered what Justin said about giving their son a place in the Fashionable World. What sort of place would he have with a mother who couldn’t even face thirty or forty people without trembling like the greenest girl?

“Come, Amelia,” she said, lifting her chin with determination, “let us go and greet our guests.” And she swept down the stairs before her courage could desert her.

“Ah, here’s your little bride now,” Lady Lettita said, cutting into Justin’s conversation with her usual disregard for polite behavior. “How very lovely she looks.”

Justin, who had been enjoying a reunion with an old comrade-in-arms, glanced casually over his shoulders, his eyes going wide at the sight of Amanda. Compared to the other ladies present, he knew she couldn’t be termed a beauty, but that was something a man could easily forget when he saw her glorious hair curling about her creamy shoulders. That those shoulders were bared by the daring cut of her gown hadn’t escaped his notice, and his jaw hard
ened with possessive fury.

Amanda spied Justin the moment she and Amelia entered the crowded drawing room. He was standing by the fireplace, deep in conversation with a gray-haired man whose proud carriage and tragically empty sleeve was mute evidence of his profession. For a moment she was unable to resist the opportunity of studying Justin, and a soft smile touched her lips as she admired his handsome form.

It was the first time she had seen him in the strict formal wear demanded in London, and the sight of his broad shoulders straining against the black velvet of his jacket made her heart race in admiration. His cravat was tied in a simple but stylish arrangement, and his hair was brushed back from his tanned forehead, adding to the aura of masculinity that radiated from him. She thought he was by far the most attractive man in the room, and she knew an oddly feminine sense of satisfaction that he was her fiancé.

“Hello, my dears!” Lady Lettita trilled as the girls joined them. She gave them both an airy kiss above their cheeks before drawing back to smile at Amelia. “You look like a veritable angel, my dear,” she told the younger girl. “Your fiancé — and really, dearest, I had no idea he was so handsome—is right over there talking to Lord Greenton.
Listening
to him, actually, for he is the most infamous gabbler. Do you go and fetch him; I’m sure he will thank you for it.”

After Amelia went to rescue Charles, the countess turned her attention to Amanda. “And you, my sweet, are simply exquisite. I must remember to send Madame a note, thanking her for her Herculean efforts on our behalf. I vow, one could hear the masculine hearts shattering as you walked past. Isn’t that so, Justin?”

“I wouldn’t know, ma’am,” Justin said, taking Amanda’s hand in his and carrying it to his lips. “I was too busy listening to my own heart break. You look beautiful, my love.”

“Thank you, sir,” she returned, her cheeks warming at the look in his eyes. To cover her embarrassment, she turned to
the older man standing quietly to one side. Justin was quick to take the hint and performed the necessary introductions.

“Allow me to make you known to an old friend, Sir Everett Howard, my first commander on the Peninsula. Sir Howard my fiancée, Miss Amanda Lawrence.”

“Miss Lawrence.” The old soldier bowed over her hand, his dark eyes studying her with approval. “It is a pleasure to meet you. Stockton is demmed lucky to have found such a charming bride.”

Amanda blushed with pretty pleasure and stammered a reply. Lady Lettita, never one to let a moment of silence slip into a conversation, began pointing out her guests to Amanda, revealing their vices and virtues with happy indiscretion. The dinner bell finally sounded, and she turned to Justin, holding out her arm to him commandingly.

“Come, Colonel, you may escort me into the dining room. That scapegrace brother of yours is late as usual, so you may have the honor. No dawdling, now, I am sure we are all famished!”

As guest of honor, Justin sat at Lady Lettita’s left, while Amanda was seated directly across from him at the countess’s right. Any hopes he’d had of exchanging more than a few words with her were quickly dashed when his dinner partner, a stunning brunette with eyes the color of costly emeralds, began speaking, her determination to fix his interest more than obvious.

“So, you’re dearest Edward’s brother,” Lady Deidre Howell purred, eyeing Justin with predatory intent. “I’ve heard him speak of you so often, I feel as if I’ve known you forever.”

“Your ladyship is too kind,” Justin drawled, returning her bold appraisal with sardonic amusement. He wondered if she was foolish enough to think him so blinded by her appeal that he couldn’t guess the true reason behind her
heavy-handed flirting. If so, she was sadly mistaken. Even without Edward’s warning, he had no trouble recognizing a scheming fortune hunter when he saw one.