What a Lady Needs for Christmas (5 page)

“How can you assess the management ability of a man you met only weeks ago, Lady Joan? I was born in a dirt-floor croft. I married for money, and I’m known to pinch a penny until it screams for mercy, hence the frequent references to me as Hard-Hearted Hartwell.”

Mr. Hartwell propounded these notions as if they were facts, while Joan suspected they were mostly myths—though a dirt floor was hard to argue with.

“I have witnessed you with your children, Mr. Hartwell. I’ve watched you stack your sister’s trunks. I’ve seen you eyeing those reports as if they were sirens calling you ever closer when I know you need a nap.”

She had also danced with him. Any matter put into his care had his undivided attention.

“I’ll not argue about the nap, but soon the children will be underfoot again, and they tend to frown on Hector’s reports.”

Joan wasn’t too fond of Hector’s reports, and she’d never met this Hector fellow. “Have your nap,” she said, rising. “I had mine, and if you’re headed for a house party, you will need your rest.”

When she might have put her hand on the doorknob, he stopped her by reaching it first. “While you do what?”

He really had no notion of polite discourse. Joan’s chin came up, rather than admit she might have liked a peek at those reports.

“I will explain diversification to your children.”

“How?”

Yes, how? “The holidays are approaching, Mr. Hartwell. I can put it in terms of holiday gifts. Would they rather have one large gift or four smaller ones, any one of which might hold their heart’s desire?”

“Charlie’s heart’s desire is a pet.”

“And Phillip’s?”

Mr. Hartwell studied Joan, which was a lovely opportunity to study him. He was a man in his prime, not a boy. The architecture of his jaw put her in mind of Arthur’s Seat, a geological formation overlooking Edinburgh. The cast of his face wasn’t stubborn so much as ageless. Enduring. His looks wouldn’t change appreciably for decades, and already, his children bore the stamp of his features.

“Phillip wants a baby brother to boss around. The boy is a born manager.”

“A baby—?” He was teasing her, the wretch. Joan patted his cheek, which was rather like patting the surface of the stove—warm and unyielding. “There’s always next Christmas, Mr. Hartwell, particularly for those who are well behaved.”

As Joan had not been.

Somebody ought to have been blushing and stammering—Joan suspected it was she—but instead, two people were smiling. Two adults.

Joan slipped through the door, her smile fading as the cold, smoky air assailed her on the noisy platform.

She had no business teasing Mr. Hartwell like that, no business touching him, no business even sharing a private car with him. For while she might, indeed, discuss diversification with his darling children, most of Joan’s mental efforts should be bent toward trying to recall what, exactly, had transpired in Edward’s parlor the previous evening.

***

Dante rooted through the stack of papers until he came up with the report Margs had put together for him. The document read like a book of the Old Testament, one begat after another, followed by was-brother-to, and wed-the-daughter-of.

Aristocrats tended to inbreed, and even line breed, particularly on the Continent. Prince Albert’s father, on the occasion of his second marriage, had chosen his niece for his bride, a common undertaking among the pumpernickel princes, for it kept land and wealth in the family.

The English weren’t quite that medieval, but memorizing the intermarriages of the aristocracy was sufficiently narcotic that by the time Dante’s daughter came barreling into the parlor car, his chin was on his chest, and his eyes were closed in…thought.

Marriage was a sort of diversification, or it could be. The titled and wealthy families understood that, as had the clan chiefs of old. The parallel hadn’t occurred to Dante previously, and he didn’t like it.

“Papa!”

“No need to yell, Charlene.” And no need to be fully awake to catch the child up in his arms as she scrambled onto his lap.

“Lady Joan is showing Aunt some fancy stitches. It’s boring.”

Sewing on board a swaying train could not be easy. “Is she stitching up her cuff, then?” The cuff Dante had torn.

“She did that first.” Charlie made herself comfortable on her father’s lap, a conquest simplified by the fact that Dante had folded the table down and propped his feet on the opposite bench. “Why did you take the decorations down, Papa? Christmas is coming!”

Christmas had been coming since Michaelmas, according to Charlie. Shortly after the Yuletide holidays had passed, Easter would approach, and May Day, too.

“I took them down because anybody who would drape pine swags directly over a burning parlor stove is an idiot.”

“The decorations could catch fire?”

The girl was tempted to suck her thumb, Dante could feel it in her, though she’d never sucked her thumb until her mother had died.

“Almost anything can catch fire.” He took her right hand in his and kissed little knuckles that tasted sweet—also a bit sticky. “If you could choose between four small Christmas presents and one big one, which one would you choose?”

He asked, because a discussion of fire was not conducive to a small child’s peaceful dreams, and because he enjoyed the way his children’s minds were unburdened by adult preconceptions.

“How small?”

“Smaller than a kitten, larger than a ring.” Charlie cared nothing for rings, yet.

“How big is the big one?”

“You’re gathering your facts, which is smart. The big one is smaller than a pony.”

“Not smaller than a dog?”

Neatly done. “Not smaller than a dog, no.”

“I’d want both. I’ve been very good, though not as good as Phillip. He and Lady Joan were talking about bad things happening or good things happening.”

“They were talking about risk.” Why had Dante never thought to broach such a topic with his small son? The boy would take to the subject with relish—to the extent Phillip did anything with relish.

Dante rose, Charlene affixed to him like a particularly large neckcloth. “Let’s join their discussion, shall we?”

“Aunt said I was to fetch you.”

Well, of course. Because Lady Joan was pretty and single, and Margs was determined to see Dante remarried—Margs was also oblivious to the ironclad rules of Polite Society.

“Then you’ve completed your assignment,” Dante said, making his way from one car to another. The countryside was blanketed in white now, the pines on either side of the tracks bowing branch by branch with a burden of snow. “Pretty out here.”

“Pretty, but cold, Papa.”

A good description of most of the women Dante had met in those fancy ballrooms, though not of Lady Joan. He left the bracing air of the platform for the other parlor car, coming upon a scene of such domestic tranquillity, it might have been some cozy sitting room in Edinburgh.

“Ladies.” Dante put Charlie down and bowed slightly, which folly made Margs’s eyes dance. “Charlene said I’d been summoned.”

“Charlene misheard,” Margs replied, all innocence as she bent over her embroidery hoop. “I said it was a shame you had to bury yourself in your reports when we see so little of you.”

Charlie had excellent hearing, also a soft heart.

“Reading on the train is difficult in the best circumstances.” Dante took a place beside his sister on a silly undersized blue sofa bolted to the wall. Clearly, train cars had gender, and the paneled, dark,
decantered
car he’d left was for the fellows, while this space was for the ladies.

For the back of the sofa curved exactly in the shape of a heart, or of a woman’s breasts at the top of her décolletage.

Phillip, as ever, watched the exchange from across the room without saying a word. The boy had made gathering facts into a life’s work.

“Would you like a chocolate, Mr. Hartwell?” Lady Joan held out a box of sweets, more silliness, but Dante suspected the polite thing to do was to take one.

“Thank you.” Except the blasted confections were nestled among colored paper, so Dante had to dig to extract one—any one at random—and he nearly ended up causing Lady Joan to drop the lot.

“Perhaps I might suggest one?” Lady Joan asked.

Was that how polite people went about such an undertaking? In none of the etiquette books Dante had trudged through had he seen a discourse on the proper method of selecting a chocolate.

He did not want a damned chocolate. He wanted to stand out on the platform until his temper and his cheeks cooled, and then stand out there until his awareness of Lady Joan cooled as well.

Which could well see him frozen before they reached Aberdeen.

“Any one will do.” Because he did not favor sweets, and had said so to more than one titled hostess. He did not say so to Lady Joan.

“No, not just any treat,” she said, peering into the box. “For you, this one, I think.”

In her hand was a treat for which the French probably had a name. Dante took it from her fingers and popped it into his mouth, aware that every other occupant of the car was watching him for a reaction.

“Quite good…quite…” He’d had chocolate before, which came in varying blends of bitter and sweet, much like life. He didn’t care for it, but this was ambrosial. “What is it?”

The flavor was interesting, substantial, appealing, and neither too sweet nor too bitter, and the pungent chocolate balanced whatever the filling was.

“Marzipan,” Lady Joan said. “Mostly ground almonds, some sugar, eggs, a dash of vanilla, that sort of thing. I’m partial to it myself, particularly as the holidays approach. This box was a gift from a family friend.”

She’d treated him to her favorite sweet. Any thought of returning to his reports evaporated, as did a pressing need to make a solitary visit to the frigid platform.

“Shall you join our discussion of risk, Mr. Hartwell? Phillip raised an interesting point, about risk varying with the person taking it.”

“Did he now?” Phillip was a man of few words, and fewer smiles, and yet, as Lady Joan spoke, the boy beamed at her.

Beamed. When was the last time wee Phillip had beamed?

And why hadn’t his father noticed?

“I have a few opinions on risk,” Dante said as the last of the marzipan melted from his palate.

“We thought you might,” Margs murmured. “About avoiding risk whenever possible.”

His sister was twenty-five years old. She had never, as far as Dante knew, been kissed, and she was lecturing
him
about avoiding risk.

“I’ll take a prudent risk,” Dante said. “Witness our holiday destination, Sister.”

She might have stuck her tongue out at him, but for Lady Joan’s presence.

“Phillip and I were discussing the risks inherent in a business that depends on women’s fashions,” Joan said, searching with an index finger through the box of chocolates. “Purely as an example of a difficult undertaking.”

“Because women are fickle,” Phillip volunteered, his expression wary.

“Fashion is fickle,” Dante said, though the boy was quoting his own papa. “The textile market is fickle, and competition is fierce. Ladies’ fashions are not a business I’d advise anybody with any sense to go into.”

Lady Joan put the lid back on the box of chocolates and scooted closer to Margs. “Perhaps you’re right, Mr. Hartwell.”

Her tone—and her unwillingness to offer him another treat—said clearly, “And perhaps you’re dead wrong.”

He wished she’d argue with him, and he wished she’d offer him another one of those almond treats—or get her cuff caught, or something.

Stupid wishes. He should have brought his reports along with him from the other car. Instead of studying the slight furrow between Lady Joan’s eyebrows, he might instead have tried—again—to get straight all the interlocking dynastic connections of the prigs and buffoons with whom he’d be spending his holidays.

Three

Tiberius Flynn, Earl of Spathfoy, loved his countess and his family, though both could try the patience of a damned saint.

“You have that ‘I wish I could use foul language’ look on your face,” his countess said, bussing his cheek.

They were on a train headed for Ballater, and thus Tye’s store of retaliatory kisses was limited.

“How is the boy to learn manly discourse if I never let loose around him?” Tye groused. “Some things a fellow needs to learn by example.”

“Perhaps I should refuse your overtures on occasion, then, hmm?” Lady Spathfoy tucked the blankets up around the baby more snugly, though the child seemed to take to train travel easily enough. “Then you might have had an example for how to refuse Balfour’s invitation to this house party?”

“I could not refuse him. Give me that baby.” Tye plucked the child from his mother’s grasp. “He’s growing too heavy for you to be carting about all the while, and it isn’t as if we’re lacking for nursemaids.”

Both of which had been given leave to stretch their legs, because the train was an hour from Ballater at least.

The other men in the family had warned Spathfoy: once the child started toddling, a papa’s role was sorely limited. The ladies closed ranks about the youngster, as if realizing that once a lad was in breeches, the menfolk would have the raising of him forevermore.

Spathfoy’s firstborn son and heir smacked his papa on the chin. “He’ll have a bruising right cross and fierce uppercut.”

Lady Spathfoy—Hester, by name—treated her husband to the gentlest of you-are-ridiculous looks. “I wouldn’t dream of arguing with you, Tiberius. Do you suppose we’ll be the first to arrive?”

She was small, blond, and argued with him brilliantly and often. Her uppercuts were delivered by virtue of embroidered peignoirs, and her bruising right cross was a function of kisses, caresses, and soft asides that rendered a man witless.

Though happily witless.

“I hope we are not the first on the scene. Ian and Augusta promised they’d meet us there, and I cannot imagine my parents lingering in Northumbria when Mama might be matchmaking for my sisters.”

May God help them. Joan was racketing about between Paris, London, and Edinburgh, intent on designing fashionable dresses for the women of the aristocracy. The eccentricity of this objective bothered Tye, not because his sister lacked the talent to succeed at such an endeavor, but because Society dealt poorly with eccentricities in an unmarried female. For a man, any hobby, interest, or peculiar start was considered a charming sign of intellect and passion.