Lady Louisa's Christmas Knight (13 page)

As a tenet of business, politics, and domestic tranquility, Westhaven believed that when something seemed too good to be true—say, an ideal spouse for his brilliant, bookish, outspoken, pretty sister—invariably it
was
too good to be true.

“And how many times have you been blessed as regards the siring of sons, Carrington?”

“Eight—and they have four sisters similarly situated. These are in addition to the two daughters who share my household in Kent.”

Eight. The total number of extant Windham siblings, legitimate and otherwise. Twelve bastard children was… King Charles II had sired twelve bastards. A man had to admit to grudging admiration at the sheer stamina involved. And like His Majesty, Carrington was apparently making good provision for his by-blows.

Westhaven fetched the decanter.

***

“You have mail.” Jenny dropped two letters into Louisa's lap.

Louisa did not reply until the footman who'd rolled in the tea cart had departed. “And it has taken all day to be delivered to me?”

“You've had a busy day,” Eve said from her seat by the fire. “Though I must say you've borne up wonderfully under the strain.”

“Of shopping?” Her sisters had remained at her side throughout, and kept Her Grace's more profligate notions firmly in check.

Jenny set the tea tray down on the low table before the sofa. “The strain of knowing your intended fights a duel tomorrow at dawn.”

An unease that had nothing to do with impending matrimony coiled a little tighter in Louisa's gut. “There is that.”

“Read your letters, dearest.” Jenny's countenance was serene as she poured tea for all three sisters. “Sir Joseph will acquit himself honorably. That's all that matters.”

Eve's mouth screwed up in an unladylike fashion. “This honor business seems to create a great deal more problems than it solves. Women never mention it, and you don't see us blowing out each other's brains at a ridiculous hour over some imagined slight.”

“Eve.” Jenny's voice was sharp with rebuke.

Louisa scanned her letters, feeling equal parts grateful for and annoyed by her sisters' concern. “She has a point… And I have a letter from Valentine.”

“Is it words, or has he sent you a composition again?” Jenny held up a teacup. Louisa shook her head and scanned her brother's elegant, flowing penmanship. “Words. He felicitates me on my choice of spouse—as if I had a choice.”

Eve shot her a puzzled look. “You did.”

“So I did.” Though the idea of marrying anybody but Joseph, for any reason but the preservation of familial honor—and his honor—had been unthinkable and remained so. “Ellen is in wonderful health, as is the baby, and Val sends you two his warmest greet…” China tinkled, the fire popped out a shower of sparks, and as Louisa read the next few lines, her insides went queasy and cold.

“Dearest?”

Eve and Jenny exchanged a worried look. Until his marriage, Valentine had been their escort of choice, the brother they confided in, the one who seemed in greatest sympathy with female sensibilities.

“I must pay a call on Sir Joseph.” Louisa folded the letter carefully and got to her feet. If it was the last thing she did on earth, she was going to pay a call on her intended.

“Tonight? Dearest, it's already dark, and if you're not here when we sit down to dinner…”

“We'll tell Mama you have a headache or the female complaint,” Eve broke in. “Either is perfectly plausible. I'm happy to go with you.”

Jenny pursed her lips. “You can't both have a headache.”

“I'll go alone,” Louisa said. “I'll go on foot. It's only a few blocks, and I'll wear a veiled bonnet and have one of the footmen accompany me. This snow will keep people off the streets, and Sir Joseph will see me home.”

Her plan was arguably improper, also possibly dangerous.

They didn't stop her. They didn't even try.

***

Assuming you survive the field of honor, what would you be willing to pay to keep your new wife in ignorance of your profligate adultery in Spain?

Sir Joseph stared at the note, the words printed in a sloppy and unknown hand. The little epistle had been delivered with the day's correspondence, no address, no franking, and it had haunted Joseph for an entire cold, miserable day.

Somebody was determined to poison the marital well for him, and before the ceremony had even been held.

And yet, it wasn't quite a blackmail threat—not yet. The solution was simple, of course. All Joseph had to do was tell Louisa she was marrying a man with more bastards than most fellows had legitimate children—and watch a woman he esteemed greatly flounce off to a life of obscure spinsterhood she did not deserve.

“A young lady to see you, sir.”

Joseph glanced up from the ledgers he'd been staring at. His butler, a worthy old hound in demeanor and to some extent in appearance, wore a carefully neutral expression.

“Did she give you a name, Sylvester?”

“She did not, sir. The footman who escorted her was wearing Moreland livery.”

“Show her in, and tell the kitchen to send up two trays for dinner.”

“Very good, sir.” Sylvester bowed and withdrew, only to return shortly with Louisa Windham in tow. Joseph knew a moment's chagrin that she'd caught him in his shirtsleeves, but if they married, she'd find him in far more informal moments than this.

When
they married.

“The young lady, sir.”

“Thank you, Sylvester. That will be all, and close the door behind you.”

While Joseph rose from the desk and folded his reading spectacles into a pocket, Louisa remained standing by the door in a dress of red velvet. Her cheeks were rosy with either cold or self-consciousness. “Hello, Joseph. We should leave the door open.”

“In which case, we'll lose all the heat I've spent the past two hours coaxing out of this fire.” Joseph crossed the room and took her hand in his, her fingers chilly against his palm. “If you're concerned about propriety, may I remind you that we're engaged, Louisa? Your damp hems suggest you came on foot, and your passage here with only a footman in tow might well have been remarked already.”

“We stayed mostly in the alleys.”

“Did you?” He wanted to summon her footman from the kitchen and read the man the Riot Act regarding the foolishness of allowing young ladies into London alleyways after dark. But Louisa was cold, quiet, and around her eyes there was a tension Joseph did not like. “Come over by the fire. There's food on the way.”

He kept her hand in his and sat beside her on the sofa before the hearth. “If you wanted to cry off, Louisa, you might simply have sent a note.”

Her dark brows rose. “You think the night before a
duel
, I'd send along a note breaking our engagement?”

Joseph regarded his intended for a silent moment. Beneath the flush of cold, she was pale, and under her eyes, shadows suggested she was sleeping badly. “I would not blame you if you had sent a note, Louisa. Are you crying off?”

He'd managed to make the question sound causal, but could hardly fathom what else might have sent her out in dirty weather, virtually alone after dark. The idea of losing her…

It should have been a relief. Marriage to Louisa would be a challenge, to say the least, and yet, Sir Joseph did not let go of her hand.

“Do you want me to cry off?” she asked in a careful voice, a voice not at all appropriate to the passionate woman he'd become engaged to.

“I do not, and I am not offering you a gentlemanly platitude, Louisa.” Giving her the simple truth was surprisingly easy. He wished all truths were that uncomplicated.

Her shoulders relaxed a trifle. “Well, I'm not crying off. That is, I don't intend to.”

He was spared having to reply to that ringing assurance by the arrival of the dinner trays. Louisa eyed hers dubiously.

“Eat, Louisa. You are likely missing supper with your family, and if you're going to brave blizzards at night, you must have sustenance.”

“I eat too much.”

If she'd burped, she could not have looked more horrified at her own words. Joseph busied himself pouring them each a glass of wine, lest he witness the blush he knew she was suffering.

“If your feminine attributes are any indication, you consume exactly the right amount to fill your figure out to its best advantage. Shall we eat?”

In keeping with his preferences, the kitchen had sent up a simple meal of roasted beef, bread and butter, potatoes mashed with cheddar, and some stewed pears. He should have been ashamed to set such pedestrian fare before her, but if they married—when,
when
they were married—she'd catch him taking a tray in the library on many an occasion.

“This beef is cooked to a turn,” she said some minutes later. “Your kitchen takes good care of you.”

“They're on their best behavior of late. There's a rumor the daughter of a duke will soon take my humble self and my staff in hand.”

He saw she was pleased with the compliment but tried to hide her smile by taking a sip of wine.

“Louisa, as much as I enjoy your company, as flattered as I am by your presence, please tell me why you're here.”

Rather than answer, she pushed her pears around with her fork. “I got a letter from Valentine.”

Joseph extricated the fork from her hand, speared a bite of pear, and held it up to her lips. “And?”

She took the bite from the fork, holding his gaze as she did. “These are good too.” She munched slowly while Joseph made a bid for patience. “Valentine was at university with Lionel, Grattingly, and the fellows they sport around with.”

“Because,” Joseph said, feeding her another bite of pear, “it is the stated purpose of Oxford to ensure the sons of the Beau Monde form generational solidarity with one another.”

While he pronounced judgment on his alma mater, Louisa slid the fork from his hand and speared another bite of pear.

“Because,” she said, holding the fork to Joseph's mouth, “they are of an age. Valentine sent you a warning.”

Joseph closed his lips around the dessert and tasted pear, cinnamon, and brandy in an explosion of sweetness on his tongue. “What is this warning?”

He did not relieve her of the fork.

“Grattingly was involved in several duels at university. Valentine seconded two of his opponents.”

As Joseph swallowed another bite of pear and heaven, he let his gaze travel over Louisa's hands. Pretty hands, and despite what he faced tomorrow—maybe because of what he faced—he wanted to feel those hands on his person.

“I've been a second myself. Life on the Peninsula seemed to breed displays of bravado like an army bedroll breeds fleas.”

She paused, feeding herself a bite of pear from the fork they'd been sharing. She had a pretty mouth too. “You'll tell me about that sometime, won't you?”

“About the fleas?”

“About campaigning under Wellington. Bart's letters made it sound like a jolly lark, but a jolly lark does not explain why Devlin came home in such a deplorable condition.”

“One hears St. Just is doing much better now, but yes, Louisa, I will tell you whatever you wish to know about army life. What was Lord Valentine's warning to me?”

Between gorging himself visually on her beauty, letting her feed him a subtly decadent dessert, and awareness of what awaited him in the morning, it took Joseph until the pears were gone to understand something: Louisa Windham—soon to be Louisa Carrington—was afraid.

For
him.
Fear put the pallor to her complexion, the shadows beneath her eyes, the tension around her mouth. Seeing this, the anger Grattingly's behavior had provoked bloomed into a simmering rage.

For
her.
For the lady who closed her eyes for a moment every time Joseph fed her a bite of pear.

“Valentine said for both duels Grattingly provided the pistols, and both of Valentine's friends said they did not aim true. They pull left, both men were wounded too, one seriously, while Grattingly suffered not a scratch.”

“Interesting.”

As if he were already married to her, Joseph draped an arm around Louisa's shoulders and tugged her back against his side. “So if I'm to use Grattingly's pistols, I will compensate by aiming slightly right. I expect we will delope, my dear. You will try not to worry about this.”

“I can't help but worry.” She remained stiff, as if trying to keep some semblance of authority over her person even as she permitted him his half embrace.

“I'm flattered, you know.”

His intended turned to regard him. “You could be
dead
this time tomorrow, and you're
flattered
the woman who has agreed to marry you is
worried
? Joseph, you must not allow that man to do harm to your person.”

He kissed her, lest she work herself into a fit of the vapors over something neither of them could control. Rather than turn the kiss into a display of disregard for her anxiety, he offered her a kiss of comfort, of reassurance, and even gratitude for her concern.

“Joseph…” Her hand, no longer cold, cradled his jaw. “This solves nothing.”

He tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. “It settles my nerves and distracts me from the looming ordeal.”

“Is it an ordeal?” Concern made her green eyes lambent. Joseph turned his cheek into her palm lest his gentlemanly restraint drown in those eyes.

“Of course not. It's the merest nuisance, but I'm pandering to your tenderhearted nature.”

“You're not lying to me? Not trying to set my nerves at ease with prevarication? You must not lie to me, Joseph. Not ever.”

“Louisa, I was a marksman for Wellington.” He kissed her palm. “I can handle any firearm, crossbow, long bow, or dart you put into my hands, and I give a good accounting of myself with knives, swords, and bare knuckles too.”