An Affair Before Christmas (19 page)

“I’ll ask Jemma to send you an invitation.”

His smile made her feel very peculiar, so she retired to her bedchamber.

Poppy didn’t pay any attention. “Look at its fifth claw,” she said. “It’s bent backward, almost as if it had a thumb. Isn’t that interesting?”

Fletch thought the little squirrel was going to haunt him in his dreams. “It’s supposed to be flying through the trees, though I don’t believe it really can fly without wings,” he said disgustedly. “Not pinned to a board. It smells in here.”

“Taxidermy is not a perfect science,” Poppy said. But she obviously didn’t give a damn about the odor.

Naturally the curator of the Ashmoleon was so overwhelmed by her blue eyes that he started opening all sorts of cabinets marked “Not for Display.” And then he started rootling around in the basement and coming up with dusty boxes full of extremely unsavory things.

“A shrunken head?”

“There’s no need to screech,” Poppy said, leaning over the disgusting little object as if it were made of gold.

The curator gave Fletch a scornful look, so he retreated to the entryway where the odor was less offensive and took out that blasted report of Linchberry’s. It was bad. Twisted, even, in the way it thought only about French products and not English farmers.

He read it again and then got a bottle of ink and a quill off the curator; the man barely registered his request, he was so enthralled by Poppy. Fletch rolled up his cuffs and started writing. The trick was to keep it simple, the way Poppy suggested.

He’d noticed during the last months of haunting the House of Lords, listening to every speech, that not a single man talked about himself. Everything they said was couched in so much fancy language that the forest couldn’t be seen for the trees. Hell, that’s what he had done himself when he decided to make a speech of his own—which likely explained why no one had the faintest idea what he said.

If there was going to be a treaty with France, it had to take into account the way that treaty would affect English farmers. Not English noblemen, and their penchant for French brandy and French silk—he cast an affectionate glance at the ribbed twill of his coat—but English farmers. Men like Higgle, who farmed part of the Fletcher duchy. Higgle had the de vil of a time making ends meet, what with his eight children and the price of bread.

Fletch thought about it, started a paragraph, threw it away.

The Duke of Beaumont had given him a bit of advice one day: that if he truly wanted to obliterate an opponent, the key was to create a story that would catch everyone’s attention. Higgle could be his story.

He started again, crumpled up the page when he was nearly to the end, threw it away.

Finally he started over again, just talking about Higgle. The way the man worked from dawn til dusk, tilling the ground. The way he had all his children working in the fields with him, until Fletch made him stop and let the children go to the village school. The fact that he received less than a penny for ten pounds of wheat, but then had to pay seven pence for a loaf of bread.

By the time shadows started to grow in the museum entryway, he had five credible pages. And what’s more, he knew that he could give the speech without looking at the paper, though it helped to write it down. It was simple, it was clear, and by God, it was powerful.

Just then Poppy came around the corner. He leapt to his feet. His wife looked as if she’d been in a fight. Her pink polonaise gown was streaked with brown smudges, and the lace hem was torn. “What the hell happened?” His voice echoed around the marble entry.

She blinked up at him, and he realized instantly that she was unharmed. Curls had fallen out of her elaborate arrangement; he’d never seen her so disheveled. Even when they’d made love she’d kept her head still so her curls weren’t rumpled.

Museums seemed to be the exception to that rule.

“Mr. Munson let me see the collections that Captain Cook sent back from his second voyage. Even the ones in the basement that are uncatalogued.”

“More flying squirrels?” Fletch tried to brush a black smear from Poppy’s shoulder.

“There’s an animal that’s about twice the size of a large rat,” she told him.

Fletch handed Mr. Munson a purse while Poppy wasn’t looking. He’d never seen her so excited. Her excitement had a terrible effect on his body; he was about to burst out of his breeches. Luckily, Poppy never paid the faintest attention to his body. It was just that her hair was flying, and her eyes were bubbling with excitement. Her cheeks were pink, just a soft rosy color on top of her cheekbones that made him want to kiss her there, and maybe bite her ear…

He realized she was staring at him. “Are you quite all right, Fletch?”

“Your maid will have an apoplectic fit when she sees you. I was just thinking about that.”

“The odd thing,” Poppy said, ignoring the question of maids, “is that this animal carries its young in a pouch.”

“What?”

“It’s called a possum, though Captain Cook apparently decided it was in the family of dogs.”

“Ah,” Fletch said intelligently.

“I don’t agree,” Poppy said. “I shall write Dr. Loudan immediately and tell him so. Even though its head resembled a dog’s, the pouch puts it in an entirely different species. Do you see my point, Fletch?”

“Of course,” he said, handing her into the carriage.

“The Dog and the Partridge,” he told his coachman, James. The name of the inn had an odd rightness about it, given Poppy’s subject of conversation.

When he got inside the carriage, Poppy was still talking about the dog. In fact, he didn’t think she’d stopped for a moment.

“The curator said that Captain Cook suggested that the animal liked fruit. He gave one an orange. No dog would eat an orange.”

“Definitely not,” Fletch said.

They pulled up at the Dog and the Partridge, and Fletch stepped out into the damp twilight. The air smelled chill and raw, as if snow was on the way. Poppy still didn’t seem to have realized how awful she looked, so Fletch just took her arm as if there were nothing untoward about her appearance.

Given the raucous noises pouring out of the public room, not to mention the fellow sleeping at the end of the corridor, the Dog and the Partridge was overrun by customers. The innkeeper came forward to meet them smiling the peculiarly tight grimace of a man with one too many guests in his inn.

“My lord,” the man said, bowing nervously. “I’m not sure that we’re able to accommodate you…”

“We reserved the rooms,” Fletch said. “My man should have been here hours ago. I am the Duke of Fletcher.”

“I’m afraid your man hasn’t arrived yet,” the innkeeper said. “I have Andrew Whiston here, Your Grace, and he’s attracted quite a lot of attention, as you can see.” He didn’t even jump when a sodden heap of a man reeled out of a door and crashed into the wall.

“Hasn’t arrived,” Fletch said. “How can that be? The second carriage left Chalgrove when we did, early this morning.”

“Do you think there was an accident?” Poppy asked, knitting her brow.

“It’s possible,” the innkeeper asked. He snapped his fingers and two postilions leapt to their feet. “Accompany His Grace’s men; search the Chalgrove Road.” He turned back to Fletch. “It may be that they’re stuck in the mud. Unfortunately, there isn’t another inn for at least an hour’s drive. But I will do my best to accommodate you.”

“Naturally I will reimburse anyone who is inconvenienced by our arrival,” Fletch said.

Another man crashed out of the door and noisily began throwing up just outside the door. Poppy shuddered. “Who is Andrew Whiston?” she asked.

“The King of Beggars,” the innkeeper said. “Only twenty-eight inches high, he is, and he’s quite a curiosity in these parts. Comes out from London once a year and sings us a few songs.”

“He’s a drunkard, but a very short one,” Fletch said. “Spends every night drinking in Surr’s wine vaults when he’s in London.”

“He do love his liquor,” the innkeeper said, turning about. “And the lads love to share it with him, if you take my meaning. I’ll do everything I can to make you comfortable. I can put you in a good chamber now, but I’ll have to see about a private dining room for yourself and your lady.”

“We need two chambers,” Poppy chirped up, “plus accommodations for my maid, of course.”

A look of panic crossed the innkeeper’s face. “I gave away my rooms already, Your Grace. I can likely put two of my guests together, but I’m afraid I can’t turn people out altogether.”

Fletch took his wife’s arm. “We aren’t going to turn anyone out into the cold and dark, are we, Poppy?”

She looked up at him and said, “Absolutely, we are. If you pay them double, Fletch, they’ll probably be quite grateful.”

He always knew that women were the crueler sex. But there was something slightly unnerved in her voice that he found interesting. “Unkind wench. I don’t turn people out into the dark. It’s coming on to snow. That isn’t right.”

She pursed her lips but he turned away. “Her Grace has kindly agreed to these uncomfortable arrangements,” he said to the innkeeper, who bowed so low that his nose surely touched his knees.

“I’ll prepare a private parlor,” the man said, leading the way to the stairs, “and the very best meal that you’ve ever had in Oxford, that I can promise you. Just give me an hour to prepare the parlor, Your Graces, and you’ll be completely comfortable, I assure you.”

“You can sleep in the parlor,” Poppy murmured to him, on the way up on the dark little stairs.

“I certainly will not,” Fletch said. “I’m covered with dust and you are covered with worse. We are both going to have baths, supper, and then go to sleep. Remember, Poppy, I’ve put bedtime activities out of my mind. And I’m a man of my word.”

She nodded. And if she believed that, Fletch had a whole army of flying squirrels that he could sell her. For some reason, his desire was utterly in flames again. It was as bad as when they first met.

He took his wife’s arm and the only thing he wanted to do was spin her against the wall and kiss her so hard that her knees would buckle. It had to be because she looked disheveled. He never managed to get her in disarray; even when she was naked she always looked as if she were wearing an invisible corset.

The bedchamber was large with a sloping roof that slanted down over the bed. “It’s cosy,” the innkeeper said nervously. “Our best room, Your Graces.”

The sheets were snowy white and the room looked clean. That and a drink were all Fletch really cared about. “We shall require hot baths, both of us,” he said, “and meanwhile bring me a brandy, if you would. And a glass of wine for Her Grace.”

“Wine?” Poppy said, looking up from the notes she had taken in the museum.

“Wine,” he said firmly. “And a bath.”

The innkeeper left and Poppy focused on him. “Hadn’t you better leave? That is, if you’ll allow me to have the first bath.”

Fletch had just managed to wrench off his boots and in reply he walked over to the bed and fell onto it like timber crashing in the forest. “You’re joking,” he said from among the mounds of featherbed that popped around his face. “I’m exhausted, Poppy. We’ve been in the carriage for two days, and then spent seven hours in a bloody museum. I’m trying to get the sour taste of dust out of my mouth.”

Poppy wandered over to the glass. When she saw herself she gave a little scream and started poking ineffectually at her hair.

“It’s a mess,” Fletch said, having managed to beat back the pillows and sit up. “You look awful.”

“You never said such a thing before,” she said, scowling at him. She’d managed to make things worse; there was a bit of that black furry stuff on her hair now.

“Ah, but we were properly married then. Now it’s all different. It’s as if we’ve been married for forty years. No interest in each other in bed. We can tell each other the truth and not worry about hurt feelings.”

She turned back to the mirror and started poking around again.

“You’re getting black all over your hair,” he said a while later.

She shrieked again.

“Couldn’t you brush it out?”

“Of course not. I’m sure you haven’t arranged your own hair.”

“I certainly have. I don’t like men touching my body,” he said. “I’ve always dressed myself, perhaps just a little help with my boots.”

“Well, women can’t do that,” she said flatly. “I can’t even tie my own side bustles.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but your maid is not here. Can you get your own clothing off?” he said, thanking God that the quilt was concealing the rise in his breeches.

“Of course,” she said firmly.

“Well, then, why don’t you?” Fletch was starting to enjoy himself. “Because,” he added in his most reasonable voice, “this room really isn’t large enough for those baskets you’re wearing on your hips. And frankly, I don’t think the innkeeper is going to be happy with the way you’re spreading that furry stuff on everything you touch.”

“Furry stuff?” She twisted around to look over her shoulder and started screaming again. In truth, it was rather disgusting. Lord knows where those smudges came from, probably down in the basement.

“If you take off the bustles, you’ll deflate,” he said, grinning. He sat up just long enough to strip off his coat and waistcoat, and pull open his cuffs.