An Affair Before Christmas (20 page)

She eyed him and then said, “Don’t watch.”

He leaned back and closed his eyes. “I put all that behind me, remember? Besides, I have never had fantasies about women covered with dirt.”

Then he watched her from under his lashes because frankly, he was having his first fantasy about a woman covered with dirt. Poppy’s skirts were huge; she kept pulling them up and losing track of her underskirts. Finally she managed to get all the material bunched up in her fists.

Fletch had to take a deep breath when she pulled up her skirts. She had the sweetest turn of ankle he’d ever seen. He couldn’t see much higher than the back of her knee because she was wearing so much wire bracketry around her body. She was feeling around like a blind possum in the night, to use one of her own nature metaphors. She was never going to get that thing untied.

“Do you need some help?” he asked finally.

She whipped her head around and he grinned at her.

“You had your eyes open!” she accused.

He swung his legs out of bed and she let her skirts fall again. “You’re never going to get all that clothing undone, Poppy. I’ve seen you naked, remember? What’s the difference?”

She muttered something about privacy.

“You’ve taken off your clothes and laid down entirely naked on the bed in front of me,” he said, pulling up her skirts. “What are you afraid of? We’re an old married couple, remember? I’ll probably start breaking wind in front of you after every meal.”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

“Yes, and if we’re at a formal supper, I’ll blame you,” Fletch said, struggling with the tapes holding up her side bustle. “I’ll jog you on the elbow and say very loudly,
Don’t worry, darling, I’ll say it was I
.”

“I’ll kill you,” Poppy said with certain resolution in her voice.

“Just how would you do that?” He turned her to the other side so he could untie the other string. He had to keep her talking because otherwise she might notice how his fingers were trembling. It was utterly ludicrous that he was so wild with lust now, when she was clothed, when he could have had her anytime in the year before she moved out, and had declined to do so.

“I’ll give you a purge.”

She was grinning at him with a wicked twinkle in her eye. Instead of untying, he managed to yank the knot tight.

“I’ll give you a purge,” she continued gleefully, “and then I’ll drill a hole in your chamber pot.”

“Loathsome wrench. How the hell does your maid usually get this off you?”

She craned a glance over her shoulder. “They untie, obviously. You got the other one off easily enough.”

“Well, this one is stuck.” He thought of asking her to bend over a chair so he could reach the knot better and bit his own tongue. He’d likely run stark raving mad if she did that, and lunge at her. Instead he threw her skirts over his left arm and started wrenching the string apart.

“That’s a disgusting little idea you had about my chamber pot,” he said, trying not to look at the curve of her bottom, perfectly visible through her sheer chemise.

“My mother—” she said and suddenly stopped.

“I find it hard to imagine your mother attacking a chamber pot.”

“She might surprise you.”

The second bustle fell to the floor in a jostling of wires. He kicked it out of the way to Poppy’s little shriek. “Be careful with that! It’s delicate.”

“I like your own hips better,” he said, going back to the bed and lying down quickly so that she didn’t see the front of his breeches.

“I’m surprised to hear that from you of all people. After all, panniers are in fashion and surely that is of foremost concern for the Duke of Fletcher.”

“I’ve gone a bit far in that direction,” he said, propping himself up against the wall. “I was trying to get you to notice me, you know.”

She turned away from the window, her mouth open. “What?”

“I wanted you to notice me. But now I’ve accepted that you’ll never desire me, so I don’t have to try so hard.”

Instead of looking gratified, she suddenly looked as if she were going to cry. “That’s so
sad
, Fletch.”

“I’ve gone past that,” he said. “It’s not a problem.”

She turned back to the mirror and started fussing with her hair again, but what ever she was doing just made it worse.

“You know, is there any chance that black stuff is tar?” he said, after a while. “Because it’s spread over quite a bit of your hair in back now.”

“Tar? What’s tar?”

“Black, sticky stuff that doesn’t come off,” he said, getting out of bed again.

She had started out the day with a delightful hair arrangement involving one long feather, three shorter feathers, and a bunch of ribbons in the back. Plus a huge amount of curled, looped hair, naturally, a frizzed part on the top, and what must have been a full box of hair powder.

Now the feathers were bent and her hair…He put a finger to the black stuff. “Definitely tar,” he said.

“Can you brush it off?” Poppy asked. She tried to look over her shoulder at the glass again. “I can see there’s something black there, but—”

“First we have to get all these feathers and bows out of your hair.”

There was a moment’s silence. “Do you think Luce will be found soon?”

“Surely you know how to take down your own hair.”

“It’s different for men than women, you know!” She turned around and snapped at him, hands on her hips, and she looked so adorable he almost lost his head and kissed her. “All a man has to do is swat on a bit of powder—”

“Not me.”

“And tie your hair back. I could do
that.
”

“Why don’t you, sometimes?”

She started laughing. “Go outside with my hair tied back like a five-year-old girl?”

“Surely you could do it in the house?”

“It’s not done.”

“I would do it, if I were you. This looks heavy and it smells awful.”

“My hair doesn’t smell!”

“I didn’t mean it smelled dirty. It’s just that there’s so much lavender powder in here that I can’t smell
you
at all.”

“I don’t have a smell,” she said, setting that little jaw of hers and glaring at him.

“I do.” He sniffed his own armpit. “I wonder when that bath is coming.”

“You are disgusting!”

“I am not,” he protested. “I rather like the smell of my sweat. I’d like yours, too.”

A knock on the door signaled the entry of the innkeeper carrying a tin bathtub, followed by three men carrying buckets of hot water. He plunked it down by the window and turned to face them. “We’ve located your servants, Your Graces.”

“Oh, lovely!” Poppy said. “Is my maid on the way?”

“Unfortunately, their carriage turned over in a ditch. As I understand it, the men outside jumped clear. But Your Graces’ manservant and maid were inside the coach. Your valet was knocked clean out and only came to himself an hour or so ago. And your maid has broken her arm.”

“Oh no! Poor Luce!” Poppy cried. “I must go to her!”

“She’s right and tight back at the Fox and Hummingbird, Your Grace. My man said that she had a posset to take off the pain, and she was sleeping as sweetly as a babe.”

“Is my valet there as well?” Fletch put in.

“They’re both safe as bugs in a bed,” the innkeeper said. “Now I’ve thought about the duchess’s situation, and I thought that Elsie here, from the kitchen, would be able to help you with your women’s things.” He moved to the side, and a great, strapping lass with hairier arms than Fletch entered. She grinned, showing that she had only three teeth to her name.

Fletch cast a look at Poppy and said, “My wife and I will quite relish the rustic pleasures of being without personal help for the night. Don’t think about it twice; I wouldn’t want to take Elsie away from her work in the kitchen.”

Poppy opened her mouth, but Fletch had the innkeeper and his men out of that room before she could do more than splutter at him.

“I brought my Bible again,” she said primly. “I’m sure it will be a great consolation to you.”

“Will you read me the bits about David watching Bathsheba? That was always my favorite when I was a boy.”

“Absolutely not. I’m going to read you from
Luke
.” And she began to read the lovely old story of Christ’s birth. He surprised her and didn’t complain as she began, “There was in the days of Herod, King of Judea…”

At some point his man brought in a glass of water and Villiers sipped at it. “The Christmas story,” he said, his voice as wry as ever. “Do you think I need to hear of miracles?”

“It wouldn’t hurt you. Christmas is coming.”

“I used to love the holiday,” he said, handing the glass back to his man, who refilled it and quietly left the room. “Wishes, you know. Wishes.”

“What did you wish for?”

“To fly. I always wanted to fly. But I would have accepted the gift of speaking with animals. What about you?”

“We were never encouraged to wish, at least not in connection with Christmas. But I have very fond memories of the holiday.”

“You seem more starchy today.”

“This is the way I always am. Would you like me to continue reading, Your Grace?”

“Don’t Your Grace me, if you please.”

“And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit,” she said, starting to read again. “He was filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him.”

But she didn’t think about the words she was reading; she thought about the way Villiers’s skin was drawn so tightly over his cheekbones. He was dying. She knew it in the pit of her stomach. So why was she being so prudish with him, when she could tell that it made him miserable?

She put the book down again. After a bit he opened his eyes—he really did have the longest eyelashes—and said, “Well, do keep going.”

“I thought you’d heard enough.”

“I want to know how the story ends.” And then he started laughing at the expression on her face.

“You ought to drink the rest of your water.”

He picked up the glass and she cudgeled her brains for something to say that would make the spark come back into his eyes. “Why did you want to fly?” she asked.

“Who wouldn’t? To have wings at your back, and the sky at your mercy…to drift on the belly of the wind the way hawks do, and perch on a tree to chatter to friends. I am persuaded that conversations that take place on the branches of a tree are far more interesting than those that take place in London town houses.”

“That’s lovely!”

“You must have wished for something,” he said. “There’s not a true Englishman in the world who hasn’t wished that he won the bean in his slice of cake and became King of the Bean, or wished that his horrid little sister would lose at snapdragon, and perhaps even singe a finger on a burning raisin.”

Charlotte thought of meaningless answers and then said the truth. “I never wished for much until I turned sixteen.”

He raised his heavy eyes. “You fell in love?”

“No. I just wanted a man to fall in love with me. I was sure I could adapt my emotions to whomever presented himself.”

“Poor Charlotte,” he said, and his voice sounded less bored. She was right; he needed to think of someone other than himself. “Did no man ever fall in love with you?”

“I thought one did, once. Lord Barnabe Reeve.”

“Reeve was the Barnabe who brought you to my side? I never knew his first name.”

“We danced all night long once,” she said. “I thought…but he left London within days and went mad, or so they say.”

“I hate to dispel your sweet memories of first love, but in my view it’s better to have no spouse than one who’s cracked. And I know many who would agree with me.”

His hands lay on the counterpane, looking strangely still. The sight of them made her hurry into speech. “Doubtless, you’re right. After a while I stopped wishing for someone to fall in love with me and just wished for someone blind enough to mistake me for someone he might fall in love with.”

He smiled faintly. “You’re not an antidote. Particularly when you flare up and snap at me. I imagine that’s what Elijah sees in you.”

“Elijah?”

“Duke of Beaumont. I suppose I could marry you.”

She looked at him with some horror. “You—” She stopped. He was dying, but how to say so?

“Dying, dying, dying, how it gets in the way of my social life,” he said lightly. “To be but half-dead is as bad as being half-witted, like Reeve. Neither makes a man fit company for his betters nor a good consort for a woman.”

“You don’t want to marry me,” Charlotte said, recovering herself. “Besides, you’re far too high in the instep and grand for me to marry. I wouldn’t have dared wish for you.”

“I thought women liked to marry their betters. It does such nice things for one’s offspring.”

“As you pointed out, I have no offspring,” Charlotte pointed out. “Why should I worry about their future titles under those circumstances?”

“I suppose this will shock you, but I was thinking last night that I should have bothered to create a few children, and then I remembered that I had already.”

“You
did?
”

“Illegitimate ones,” he said. “As sometimes happens.”

“Not to me,” she said tartly.

“Women on the whole are better at keeping track of their children.”

He looked rather feverish again, so she said, “I think I’d better go back to the Bible, though it’s likely too late for your soul.”

“Do you think I might redeem my soul if I found a husband for you?”

“You would do better to see to the welfare of your poor children,” she said. And then, hearing the fascinated horror in her own voice: “How many are there?”

“Not as many as would fill a choir,” he said, “nor yet as few as to sing a solo. Can you sing, by the way?”

“No.”

“I know a very nice lad in need of a wife but he loves song.”

“I’m not very good at things of that nature,” Charlotte said.

“What about horses?”

“They exist.”

“Not an enthusiast. But you like to talk. We know that. And you have good ideas for Beaumont’s speech…what about a promising young politician? Plenty of those about.”

“They want someone with a large dowry,” she said dispassionately.

“You could have that.”

“As it happens, I don’t.”

“I could give it to you.” He opened his eyes very wide and looked at her. They were a deep black.

“Why would you do that?”

“I like you. And dying men have their foibles, their foolishnesses…”

“I thank you for it.” But she added, a little sadly: “It would be distasteful, don’t you think, to buy a husband, even with a duke’s largesse?”

“Oh, he wouldn’t know that. A better dress and you must put a bit of color on your cheeks now and then. And your hair!” He peered at her. “Worse than I remembered.”

She didn’t tell him that she had dressed her own hair with trembling fingers that morning, afraid he was dead, or nearly so, and then rushed out of the house with May calling behind her. “I will still be just me.”

“Not once I’ve transformed you. But I don’t think that a politician would be right. Too hard, too grasping. You’re correct: there’s a chance the man would marry you thinking of money and political influence. They all have those distasteful propensities. I think you need an intellectual.”

“A what?”

“A philosopher. Reeve was a thinker. I remember him madly talking about this and that. He was never boring.”

“No,” Charlotte agreed.

“Is it almost Christmas?”

“Tomorrow is St. Nicholas’s day.”

“God.” He whispered it. “It seems like yesterday that I fought that duel and it’s—it can’t have been months.”

“It has been.”

“I really won’t survive then, will I?”

“You’re too unpleasant to die,” she said sharply. “If you’re not careful, I’ll marry you while you’re in a fever and then take all your money.”

He stopped looking so dismal and laughed a bit, though it made him wheeze. “What the hell would you do with money? Buy some clothing?”

“Give it to your children,” she said.

“They’re set for money. No father, but money. I made a will. Seeing as I’m no father, they’ll be better without me.”

“Poppycock. You are a father. You’re just a bad one.”

“I’ll have to find you a deaf husband,” he said, eyes narrowed. “But I demand that you keep visiting me until I do.”

“Why should I risk my reputation on your implausible matchmaking abilities?”

“That’s something you don’t know about me. I never fail at what I put my hand to. I’ll find the perfect man. I’d like to see you refuse him.”

“If I take him, you’ll have to do something for me in return.”

“What? In return for finding you your heart’s desire, I have to do you a favor?”

“It’ll keep you alive long enough to do it,” she pointed out. “Otherwise you’re like to tumble into the grave merely because your doctor told you to do it. I don’t think anyone in London realizes how malleable you are.”

“
You
are a hellcat. What’s your favor, then?”

“If you find me a husband—one that I like, I’ll turn wife and you turn father.”

“I’m as much a father as my father ever was. Better, because I don’t ever shout at them.”

“You might, if you knew their names.”

“Worse than a hellcat,” he observed. “It’s going to take a miracle to marry you off.”

“And you’re going to have to sit up,” she retorted. “Just how do you expect to find me a husband while you’re malingering in bed?”

He eyed her. “When the fever comes on I don’t have much choice.”

“Well, I can’t ruin my reputation in your house. What decent man would want to marry a woman he met in your presence—in your bedchamber?”

“Good point,” he murmured. “I suppose you’re saying that I should get up.”

“Well…” she hesitated.

“I always thought that generals should be female.” He seemed to go to sleep, and she put her Bible back in her knotting bag, thinking to steal out. But he opened his eyes again and said, “A Christmas house party, that’s what we need.”

“Go to sleep,” she said. “You’re looking all weedy again.”

“If we were invited to a house party you could read me the entire Old Testament and no one would have the faintest idea that we were in such promiscuous contact. I’ll deal with it tomorrow,” he said, his eyes closing again. “Do you know, I’m tired. But it’s not the fever-tired. Maybe you’re the miracle, Miss Charlotte What ever your name is.”

“Humph,” she said, just to leave him with something to think about.

Finchley was hovering in the hallway and she smiled at him. “I think that’s a healthy sleep,” she whispered. “He doesn’t have that feverish look.”

“The Lord be praised,” Finchley said, and looked as if he might cry. “Your hackney is waiting, Miss Charlotte.”