What a Lady Needs for Christmas (28 page)

Breakfast was nerve-racking, but civil enough. For luncheon, a private dining room was reserved for such members of Joan’s family as hadn’t returned to Balfour House for the balance of the holidays.

Tiberius kept shooting her concerned looks across the table, while trying not to get caught at it. The Countess of Balfour offered to take charge of the wedding presents, and Joan’s sisters promised to organize the thank-you notes.

After lunch, Hector hovered about looking like a small boy in need of the facilities, until Dante disappeared with him to some location where men might spend an afternoon talking business in private.

And then Tiberius, looking intent on an awkward discussion, sat himself down beside Joan.

“You seem to have weathered your wedding night without serious injury.”

Awkward indeed.

“Unlike your countess, Tiberius, I chose a husband already broken to the bridle. Mr. Hartwell has been the soul of consideration.” Though Mr. Hartwell needed to learn a thing or two about celebrating holidays.

“If his consideration ever lapses, you will come to me, Joan Flynn. I’m still your brother, and this entire wedding came about far too suddenly. If he anticipated the vows with you, I could understand…?”

Tiberius had more in common with their papa, the marquess, than he knew, for the purpose of this interrogation was to convey love and support, after a fashion.

“We did nothing of the sort, Tiberius. I’m Joan Hartwell now, and I promise you, should Mr. Hartwell’s felicity toward me lapse, I will be on your doorstep bag and baggage.”

The relief in his eyes suggested this falsehood was what he’d needed to hear, though Joan would never turn her back on the husband who’d stepped forward to avert a scandal of her own making.

Her conscience piped up, sounding very like her brother: meeting with Edward Valmonte was a betrayal of her vows, for Dante Hartwell interpreted those vows to include loyalty and fidelity, both. Lying was not in any way a show of loyalty.

“If Hartwell’s felicity lapses,” Tiberius replied, “I will ruin him.”

“Spathfoy,” said a pleasant male voice from behind Joan’s chair, “shall I have the same chat with your countess? Offer her asylum if the pillaging Hun she married ever abuses her affection? Assure her that her husband and the father of her children will be subjected to social and financial disaster upon my whim?”

Tiberius rose, and a moment of silent male combat ensued—all tough glances and jutting chins that was really quite dear.

“No need, Hartwell. The lady’s own brother offered me the same assurances.”

Across the table from Joan, Matthew Daniels—brother to the Countess of Spathfoy—winked at Joan.

All in good fun, then.

The second night of Joan’s wedded life was less easily deciphered. Her husband had been dragged off to play cards with the gentlemen, while Joan endured tea with the ladies. Because Dora chose to linger in Aberdeen—shopping, of course—talk did not touch on Joan’s wedding night.

Overtly.

The sly glances and knowing smiles when Joan excused herself said enough.

Her husband had told her not to wait up for him, so she braved their chilly bed all on her own, and didn’t wake until a large, warm, male body curled around her from behind.

“Missed you,” Dante whispered, kissing her ear. Then a pause, while his breath, redolent of tooth powder, fanned over her cheek. “Go back to sleep, love. Your menfolk have fair worn me out.”

Joan drifted in slumber, torn between a desire to renew intimacies with her husband—they were married, and she had a sense that what had taken place on her wedding night was merely a prelude to how matters might eventually go on—and a need to hide herself away from him.

Hide herself, and the deceptions she’d perpetrate on him.

***

The subtlety required of a new husband was exhausting. Also daunting.

Spathfoy had taken himself back up to Balfour House, amid some glowering and handshaking, while Joan’s mama had kissed Dante’s cheek and given him speculative looks he was at a loss to fathom.

The marquess, oddly enough, had been the one to pat Dante’s shoulder and quietly admonish him to: “Give it time, lad. Our dealings with the ladies benefit from patience. God knows, we try theirs.”

Margs and Hector had boarded the train, the children shouting and waving with them, and then Joan had declared a desire to go shopping.

The previous night, Dante had damned near cut his throat shaving in the dark, then climbed into bed next to his new wife, determined to improve on his initial showing in the marriage bed.

He’d tried an experimental kiss, missed Joan’s cheek and bussed her ear. She hadn’t so much as twitched. Hadn’t rolled over to ask him about his evening, hadn’t touched his face to appreciate his machinations with soap and razor.

And yet, he’d awoken that morning to find a silk-clad wife plastered to his side.

Daunting.

“Shall I accompany you on these shopping raids, my lady?” Dante asked his wife when the train had disappeared from sight. “Seeing and being seen out and about is doubtless part of why we’ve been allowed a few days here in Aberdeen without your family’s company.”

Without their meddling.

“They left us here so they might resume their bucolic holidays,” she said, taking his arm. “And we were seen by quite a few people at the church when we took our vows.”

Her tone was a bit off, insofar as a husband of two days could tell such a thing. “Was it hard to say good-bye to your family?”

The train station was a busy place, right on one of Aberdeen’s main thoroughfares. People came and went all around them, mostly happy, some harried. The scent of the place was “winter travel.” Wet wool, cold air, and mud, overlaid with the meaty fragrance of fresh bridies sold by the street vendors.

“Hard to say good-bye?” She twitched at her hems as Dante escorted her back to the street. “Yes. They worry. I wasn’t sure they would, but they do.”

About her. “Are
you
worried?” He could not be more specific—about their marriage, about the scandal it might have caused versus the scandal it should have averted.

About his abilities as her sole source of intimate pleasure for the next few decades.

“Not as worried as I was. Let’s get you back to the hotel so Dora and I can start on our shopping.”

He accompanied her along the busy streets, glad to have a woman on his arm who didn’t mince about, forced to a doddering pace by excessive corsetry or boots more stylish than practical.

And yet, Joan was quiet, and that quiet suggested that even
less
worried
, she still had concerns she kept to herself.

“I’d be happy to go with you this afternoon,” he said as they marched along. “Fabric shops aren’t exactly enemy territory, particularly if they sell wool.”

“I couldn’t ask it of you. I can linger over bolts of cloth the way some men become absorbed with choosing a horse to purchase. When the fabric is purchased, one must consider thread, binding, linings, that sort of thing. I wouldn’t want to bore you so early in our marriage.”

She walked more quickly, though the day was as close to sunny and pleasant as December in Aberdeen could be.

“I’m glad to see the last of your family for a few days,” Dante said, and that slowed his wife’s pace. “They’re decent, but I had some notion that endless games of cards might result in more than hours of cigar smoke, casual insults, and petty bets.”

Surprisingly modest bets, in fact.

“I thought men enjoyed cards. I thought you hatched up grand schemes over hands of whist, decided who was to stand for which seat in the Commons, that sort of thing.”

He drew her back from the curb lest a passing dray splash mud onto her hems. “So did I. Hector assured me I’d pick up some hints about who’s amenable to investing in the mills. I’ve since realized Hector himself has never sat through an evening of cards with such as your family. He does not know how business is done among the wealthy and titled any more than I do.”

They didn’t conduct business over cards, or while playing hockey, or during drinks before or after dinner. Perhaps Dante ought not to have admitted as much to his new wife, but if he wanted her trust—and he did—then he had to offer his own.

In vain, apparently.

All Joan had to say when they gained the hotel lobby was, “Dora and I will be back by tea. I’ll expect you to save your company exclusively for me when I return.”

She kissed his cheek, while Lady Dora pretended to study a couple across the room admonishing a porter to be so very,
very
careful with their luggage.

“Enjoy your shopping.”

Dora grabbed Joan’s arm. “We always do.”

And away they went, leaving Dante feeling…restless. No, not exactly restless…

Orphaned.

His sister and his children were on their way back to the cheerful company at Balfour House, his wife was reveling in the blandishments of Aberdeen’s fabric shops, his man of business had for once agreed to leave him in peace.

What was he supposed to do with himself when abandoned for an afternoon the day after his nuptials?

An office in Aberdeen might be possible with additional investments in the mills, so Dante took himself out walking the city during the limited hours of daylight. He had no idea how far he’d wandered, but he must have traveled in a circle, because when he left off trying to compose a letter to Hector, he found himself about three blocks from the hotel.

A bookshop sat across the street, and next to that, one of the tea shops starting to spring up in the larger British cities. He considered stopping in for a cup—tea with Joan was still two hours distant—when both Joan and Dora emerged from the bookshop. They spoke briefly, and then Dora ducked back into the bookstore, like a pirate returning to her smuggled treasure.

Dante had lifted his hand to wave at his wife when she marched into the tea shop alone—no sister, no maid—and took a seat in the window, across a small table from none other than Edward Valmonte.

Who had been waiting for her.

***

“I’m not sure marriage agrees with you, my dear.”

Edward lounged back, looking honestly concerned, for which Joan purely hated him. Women perfected the drawing-room art of appearing kind while they politely assassinated another lady’s marital chances or her entire reputation. False compassion on a man was…

Joan wanted to hit Edward with a closed, bare fist, not a polite slap with her open palm.

Or dress him in pink lace—soiled, ill-fitting pink lace, like a…a bawd.

“Marriage to Mr. Hartwell agrees with me entirely. Give me back my sketches, Edward, and I’ll rejoin Dora at the bookshop next door. Nobody need know you’re a thief as well as a seducer.”

He hadn’t brought the sketches, though. Joan could see that much, and the last thing she’d do—the very, very last thing—was heed another invitation from Edward to join him somewhere private.

“Not a thief, certainly, though some might consider that other accusation flattery. Would you like some tea?”

For the sake of appearances, she should order something. “Darjeeling, please.”

He placed their order and waited until the tray had been brought to the table, the service laid before them.

And now, she would have to serve him. He knew it too, as evidenced by the smirk lurking in his gray eyes.

Joan sat back without even taking off her gloves. “My sketches?”

“
If
you left any sketches with me, I have misplaced them—temporarily, I’m sure. Won’t you pour?”

“I’m not in the mood for tea, though if you aren’t more forthcoming, my lord, I might accidentally spill that pot some place your unborn children would regret.”

The smirk vanished, replaced by an appraising gleam that—God help her—bore as much approval as speculation.

“I’m designing Maison du Mode’s ladies’ fashions for this spring in these weeks before Christmas,” Edward said, pouring for Joan and then himself. “My ideas are the best ones my mother has seen, from me or even from those poseurs in Paris, and Mama has a very discerning eye. I noticed something, though, Mrs. Hartwell.”

The scent of the tea was soothing, and yet, Joan would not partake of even a sip in Edward’s presence. Neither would she correct his form of address—she was still
Lady
Joan—when her wedded status was a source of significant comfort.

“I’m all attention, Edward. You noticed something. How fascinating. Perhaps you’ll notice that you are in anticipation of holy matrimony, and I doubt your fiancée would be pleased to know how you comported yourself with me while newly engaged to her.”

Edward shot his cuffs, which were not exactly pristine. “I noticed signatures on the back of each page of a certain sketchbook. Legible signatures, one of them accompanied by the date of our little encounter.”

The tension Joan had been carrying inside for two weeks congealed into despair.

“Signatures proving the sketches are mine, the designs are mine—assuming forgery isn’t among your many criminal gifts. You’ve stolen my good name, Edward, stolen my ideas, and forced decisions on me I should not have had to make. Give me back my sketches.”

He stirred his tea, as if answers might float up from the tea leaves.

“I wish I could, but alas, I’m in a quandary. As long as I have that sketchbook, I have evidence that you were quite, quite private with me not two weeks prior to your wedding, for the sketches are also dated. If I surrender those sketches to you—assuming I can find them—then you have proof the lovely spring dresses on my mother, my fiancée, and half the aspiring cits in the realm were your fashions, and not mine.”

The only thing worse than being coerced was being coerced by somebody who lacked a shred of sense.

“My designs are not fashionable, Edward. Hoops are growing wider, skirts more elaborate. My designs are not
à la mode
and you know it.” They were designs that made a tall, slender woman appear graceful, rather than like the handle of a bell too wide to pass through any door.

“Another quandary, dear Joan, for though skirts
are
growing wider—which means they’re costing a great deal more to make—the Queen herself finds that style nothing less than a fire hazard, and will not wear it. Mama reminded me of this when she was cooing over those sketches.”