What a Lady Needs for Christmas (14 page)

“Dante is better than had you been named for some misguided Papist lady saint who came to a martyr’s end trying to lead a bunch of fool men on the battlefield,” she said, opening the door farther. “I need to put on my boots, though.”

She did not like her own name?

He was probably supposed to wait outside her door, like a dutiful hound, but what other opportunity would they have to talk privately?

“Is it proper for you to put on your boots in the presence of a gentleman?” he asked, following her into a room less laden with plaid than his, but no less comfortable.

“Certainly not. A glimpse of even
my
ankles will send you into a passion.” She took a seat in a chair before the hearth and peeled thick wool socks off to reveal feet covered in purple stockings.

Dante lounged against the bedpost, a good eight feet away from the heat of the fire. “Even
your
ankles?”

She stuck out a narrow, high-arched foot. “Not the stuff of raptures, Mr. Hartwell, though my feet serve me well enough when I’m dancing.”

If he married her, he’d make it a point to kiss her ankles, mostly because they were pretty, but also because she apparently needed such attentions. She slipped on a pair of white half boots sporting purple laces, and tied a perfectly symmetrical bow on each one.

“Those can’t be very warm,” Dante said.

“I had them made with low heels, Mr. Hartwell, and for that—”

The little blond appeared in the doorway, tidily turned out in soft green. “Oh, I see Mr. Hartwell has beat me to your door, Joan. Good morning, Mr. Hartwell. Will you escort us down to breakfast?”

“Good morning, Hester,” Lady Joan said, smiling creditably as she rose. “You may lead us to our destination, for I vow I’m famished.”

The smaller woman was married to Joan’s brother, who was earl of something. Dante bowed and prayed he was guessing right. “Countess, good morning.”

“You may call me Hester,” the lady said. “I wasn’t raised lady anything, you see, and all this formal address, it doesn’t seem very friendly or Christmasy, does it?”

This woman was too good for the glowering, imperious Spathfoy, of that Dante was certain.

“Good morning, Hester. You must lead on before I’m reduced to devouring Lady Joan’s boots.”

The ladies exchanged a look, confirming that idle banter was not one of Dante’s strengths. The children, Dante was informed, were settling in nicely, Miss Hartwell was taking a tray in her room, and Mr. MacMillan would appreciate a moment of Mr. Hartwell’s time after breakfast.

Dante did not understand the niceties of formal address, he wasn’t sure where the honorables stopped and the plain misters began, but his grasp of management principles was solid, and this small, busy woman in green was clearly the hostess’s aide-de-camp. He was careful to seat Joan beside her as a result, and took the seat across from the countess for himself.

Spathfoy, of course, came sauntering in before Dante had enjoyed his first cup of coffee, but the Earl of Arrogance did not turn his gun sights on his sister. He kissed his little countess on the cheek then settled in on Joan’s left side.

“So, Hartwell, how did you and Balfour meet?”

While his lordship started in on a prodigious quantity of eggs, Dante endured a predictable inquisition.

“We met in a card game down in Newcastle, when an early storm temporarily stranded us both in the same hotel. Butter, Lady Joan?”

“Please.”

Spathfoy’s fork paused halfway to this mouth. “On the strength of that one encounter, we’re blessed to have you join our family Christmas gathering. That must have been some card game.”

A brother was entitled to be protective of his sister, but Dante had the sense Spathfoy’s questions would have been equally rude regardless of the context.

“Balfour and I traveled on together to Edinburgh, and found we had some interests in common. We kept in touch and have shared a few meals since. Jam or marmalade, Lady Joan?”

Something was amusing the lady, which suited Dante fine.

“Jam, please. Tiberius, would you like some butter and jam?”

“No, thank you. What were these common interests, Hartwell? Perhaps I share them too.”

The countess reached over and appropriated a slice of his lordship’s toast, then applied both butter and jam.

“We had a rousing argument regarding child labor, your lordship. Balfour believes any child over the age of ten can be given some quantity of useful work, and while that might be true in a domestic setting, I will not hire a child under the age of thirteen for the mills.”

“Seems an arbitrary distinction to me. I was certainly expected to endure a day’s labor at my studies by age twelve.”

Eton was not easy, particularly not for the younger boys. Short rations, bullying, strict discipline, and high academic expectations were the typical reality, or so Dante had heard. And yet, he answered honestly.

“I was permitted to remain at my studies until I was twelve,” Dante said. “It seemed only fair I accord other children the same privilege.”

“And after age twelve?”

The countess’s brows were furrowed, while Joan had become fascinated with her toast.

“I went down to the mines, until I became too big at age sixteen. I was fortunate, though, because my father was a senior foreman and well liked by the mine owner. I was kept from the most dangerous work. Many of the other lads were not so lucky.”

Mining was the filthiest work on the planet. After Dante had left the mines, six months had passed before his fingernails had been fit to be seen in Polite Society.

“Fascinating. Does mining still interest you?”

The conversation no longer
interested
him, and Joan had barely eaten a quarter of a slice of toast.

“My wealth comes from the mills, your lordship. I will never own any interest in a coal mine, nor will I burn coal in my private residence. Would anybody like more coffee?”

“You have an aversion to good English coal, Hartwell?”

Spathfoy was tenacious, also more rude than Dante could tolerate with Joan sitting quiet and miserable at her brother’s side.

“My lungs object to coal smoke, Spathfoy, and the same sensitivity has presaged the death of many of the fellows I worked with as a lad, though they, of course, went down the shafts until they were too sick to work. My objection is not to good English coal, it’s to a constant reminder of the lives given up to get that coal to your cozy English hearth.”

Rather than embarrass Spathfoy, Dante’s show of temper seemed to mollify the man. He helped himself to a sip of his wife’s tea, and sat back.

“My condolences on your losses. Are you up for a ride when we’ve finished our meal? Balfour keeps guest mounts, and it looks like we might have some sun today.”

As if Dante would spend one avoidable minute in this buffoon’s presence? And yet, the buffoon likely had money, so Dante did not have the luxury of putting him in his place.

“My man of business has spoken for my time this morning, and I must look in on my sister too. My thanks for the invitation—perhaps another time.”

Food should not be wasted, so Dante finished his eggs, bacon, and toast while three feet away, he could feel Spathfoy mentally loading more questions to fire across the table.

“Are you also off to the nursery?” Lady Joan asked.

Well, of course, though mentioning that to Spathfoy hadn’t seemed quite politic.

“I am.” A man with better manners might linger at the table until his host or hostess showed up—though Balfour could well have already broken his fast.

“I’ll go with you.”

“But, Joan,” Spathfoy said, “I haven’t seen you for weeks. Surely you’re not leaving the table without catching us up on all the gossip from Edinburgh and Paris?”

She rose when Dante held her chair for her. “Gossip is ill-bred, Tiberius. I’d rather renew my acquaintance with Mr. Hartwell’s children, who have at all times and in all company exhibited delightful manners.”

Spathfoy ought to have accepted this chiding with some chagrin, though it was no less than he deserved. Instead, the man saluted with his toast—his wife’s toast?—and blew his sister a kiss.

Joan appropriated Dante’s arm in a rather snug grasp as they quit the breakfast parlor.

“Do you even know where the nursery is?” Dante asked when they were a safe distance from Spathfoy’s personal interrogation chamber.

“Upstairs. Nurseries are always upstairs, so girls might spend their entire childhoods, peering out windows at the wide world unavailable to them while they practice deportment and elocution, and write letters to the brothers who are off at public school, playing cricket and making friends.”

She churned along beside him, hems swishing with what Dante fancied was a sartorial testament to indignation. The exchange with her brother had upset her, for which Dante was tempted to haul the man up short.

“You escaped the mines, Lady Joan, and they can never make you go back there. You were smart enough to grow too tall.”

She led Dante up a set of stairs he had not seen before.

“Tiberius is not generally rude, though he’s protective. I’d apologize for him, but there is no apology to be made for the men in my family. The older he gets, the more Tye becomes like my father, and between the two of them—”

While Dante had been deflecting rude questions from dear Tiberius, Joan’s breakfast had likely been ruined by fears of impending scandal. She’d probably taken those same fears to bed and held them close through the night.

The stairs took a turning, up to a landing between floors. Dante paused and pulled the lady into his arms.

“Settle, woman. Your brother was having some sport with the new fellow, is all. It’s on the curriculum at all the fancy schools and even for those of us who worked the mines. Balfour suggested Spathfoy might be looking to diversify his investments. Those questions were not aimed at ferreting out your secrets, they were intended to unearth mine.”

She took the space of a slow breath to accept his embrace, then her forehead dropped to his shoulder.

“I cannot grasp that I could be with child. I simply cannot—”

What she could not grasp was telling her family she was with child—and without a husband.

“Even were you happily married, conceiving a child would have an element of disbelief, my lady.” She nuzzled his shoulder, like a kitten missing its mama. “My late wife explained to me that her condition became real to her only when she could see the changes to her body in the mirror.”

Joan pulled back. “She examined herself in the mirror
without
benefit
of
clothing
?”

“Clothing is not always a benefit.” He had offered marriage to this woman, a shrewd, bold move that would also…put him in bed with her. Unease joined the bacon, eggs, and toast in his belly.

“Clothing is a benefit to me.” She strode up the next flight of stairs, her pace moderated, perhaps by the novel notion that for some people, even some female people, clothing served a function other than social armor.

“Joan?”

She paused at the top of the stairs, while Dante remained several steps below her.

“You should tell your brother what’s afoot. He’s pompous, arrogant, and completely lacking in subtlety, but he cares for you and would take your situation to heart.”

“While you would take my situation to the altar, which outcome will do something to solve the problem, while Tiberius would only make it worse. Are you coming, Mr. Hartwell?”

He climbed the last few steps, so he and Joan stood nearly nose to nose.

“What if your brother opposes our match, Joan? Will you choose the cold comfort of marriage to me over the warm regard of your family?”

He could see the gold flecks in her green eyes, could pick up the fragrance of spices and flowers from her person—and that subtle hint of black pepper.

“I do not anticipate that marriage to you would be entirely cold, Mr. Hartwell. In fact, you have assured me it would not be.”

His assurances were moot, if Spathfoy took a notion to spoil Lady Joan’s matrimonial schemes.

“Dante,” he said. “You agreed to call me Dante.”

Like the fellow who knew so much about hell.

***

Asher MacGregor, Earl of Balfour, had not precisely slept late, though he had tarried in bed overlong. His countess yet slumbered there, exhausted by her husband’s marital enthusiasms.

And her own.

“Good morning, all,” Balfour said to the breakfast room at large, and then, because Spathfoy’s dark brows lowered a telling quarter inch, “And, Countess, you are in particularly good looks today.”

“You are to call me Hester,” the lady said, pushing the teapot up to the head of the table. “My cousin Augusta is married to your brother Ian, my brother Matthew to your sister Mary Frances. Titles at such close range would be silly. The tea is lovely, by the way.”

“A blend with some Darjeeling,” Balfour said, crossing to the sideboard. Here were all good, delicious things. The footman, one of at least three Donal MacGregors on Balfour’s house staff, held up a dish cover so the earl might enjoy steam rising from fluffy eggs. Crispy bacon was piled next to the eggs, kippers sat farther down the sideboard, along with Spanish oranges, ham, and—Balfour had insisted—a steaming bowl of porridge that had apparently appealed to nobody.

The porridge wasn’t to feed Scottish national pride, it was to feed Balfour’s countess, for Hannah occasionally suffered delicate digestion in the mornings.

A peat fire added to the cozy scents of breakfast, and later today, the Christmas pudding would be set to soak in its brandy bath—provided the kitchen staff remained sufficiently sober to manage a few English Christmas traditions.

Balfour piled his plate with eggs and ham, then served himself a bowl of porridge too, in the name of marital sympathy.

“Shall you go riding with me this morning, Spathfoy?” Balfour asked as he took his place at the head of the table.

“He will not,” Hester said, passing the newspaper up to Balfour. “I am concerned my husband is coming down with an ague, and it’s beastly cold out.”