The Captain's Christmas Bride (15 page)

‘You promised to obey me, woman,’ he growled provocatively, rolling her into the centre of the bed and pinning her down. ‘And I promised to cherish you. I cannot have you leaving this room until you look...’ He ground into her with his hips. ‘Sufficiently cherished.’

He spoke in a jocular fashion. But she had to admit that—in the bedroom at least—he was doing his level best to be a good husband, even though he hadn’t wanted to be any such thing. The least she could do was reciprocate. Which she did with such enthusiasm it was noon before she thought of raising the topic of leaving the bedroom again.

‘I really cannot stay in here all day.’ She sighed, running one foot up and down his calf.

‘Nobody else much emerges from their rooms before noon.’

‘Yes, but not me. It is not the behaviour of a lady to neglect her guests.’

‘Not even when she’s only just got married?’

‘Not even then. Going down a little late might just be forgiven, since we are newlyweds. But it really isn’t fair on the staff. They have so much extra work to do this year.’

He’d nodded then. And, was she imagining it, or was there just a touch of approval in his expression when he answered?

‘Wouldn’t expect my crew to do all the work while I lounged about in my cabin, either.’

Good grief. She’d actually won a little grudging respect from him, at last.

They took turns to use the dressing room to get washed and dressed, and left the room arm in arm. In perfect amity with each other.

At least, she felt in perfect amity with him, when he gave her a peck on the cheek when their ways parted. There was a lightness to her step as she turned and began to make her way to Mrs Dawson’s sitting room. And a smile came to her lips when she heard her husband start whistling on his way to the rehearsal room, where he planned to spend what was left of the afternoon with his sister.

Mrs Dawson had been coping magnificently without her input, she soon discovered.

‘All that time you spent drawing up those charts of which rooms to use,’ said the housekeeper, pouring her a cup of tea, ‘in what order, and all the special likes and dislikes of those what would be using them have made things wonderfully easy. And it’s not as if I couldn’t have come to you if there was a real emergency now, is it?’

Julia’s face flamed as she had a vision of Mrs Dawson bursting into her bedroom and catching Alec doing one of those delightful, yet totally shocking things he’d spent the morning doing to her.

And then her attention wandered as she relived one or two of them. When Mrs Dawson said she was glad they’d settled the matter, she had no idea what she’d just agreed to. She’d just been humming a yes, or a no, whenever the housekeeper had paused, in a sort of expectant way.

‘Oh, dear,’ she said, setting her tea cup down. ‘Is that the time? I should be getting ready for dinner.’

‘Before you go,’ said Mrs Dawson, pursing her lips in an oddly disapproving way, ‘we should discuss the wedding tomorrow.’

‘Wedding?’

‘Of that Miss Marianne and David Kettley.’

Goodness—she’d completely forgotten about the wedding.

But now she
had
been reminded of it, the distaste, and the hurt, and the sense of betrayal all came surging back.

‘Ah. I see you do feel it,’ said Mrs Dawson sagely.

‘Feel what?’ She bridled at the suggestion she might be betraying a single one of her feelings regarding Marianne’s treachery.

‘That if she wants to go and get married all in haste, like this, then she shouldn’t expect any of us to run round helping. As if we haven’t all got enough work to do with the house full of his Lordship’s guests.’

None of them had seemed to mind the extra work her own wedding had caused. Unless they’d all just hidden it very well.

‘Does she...expect any of you to...do anything?’ Strange how loath she was to ask Mrs Dawson outright if her own hasty marriage had created so much resentment below stairs.

‘She’s just been playing her tricks, same as usual,’ said Mrs Dawson with a sniff.

‘Her...her tricks?’ Julia reached for a scone, split it in two, and slathered one half with butter. Why was it she was only seeing now that people might have had reason for disliking Marianne so much? Was she such a poor judge of character?

‘Giving orders, and pretending they were coming from you when we know very well she’s not been within twenty yards of your room to obtain them.’

‘What orders has she tried to give?’ In her name? That really was going a bit far.

‘Oh, wanting Cook to provide food for her wedding breakfast, trying to get Mabel to make alterations to one of her gowns for the ceremony. The usual sort of thing.’

‘I must say, I’m surprised.’ Marianne had always seemed so...humble. She couldn’t imagine her trying to give any servants any orders. Indeed, she’d always seemed so timid, so reluctant to pass on the messages she really had given, insisting that the servants all terrified her.

And then she suddenly recalled Nellie, when she’d been mimicking Marianne saying
Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly
, in an arch, false sort of way that had made Marianne look rather cross.

‘Well, that’s just like you, my lady,’ said Mrs Dawson with a fond gleam in her eye. ‘Always willing to see the best in everyone. And so kind as you have been to that girl.’

Why did everyone always refer to Marianne as
that girl
? And what else should she have been, but kind, when nobody else had ever spared a thought for Marianne’s feelings? Her mind flew back to the very first day Marianne had come to live with them. She’d been in the schoolroom, poring over a grammar book, when Nick and Herbert had burst in, asking if she’d seen
‘the
little Froggy orphan’
.

‘We haven’t been able to catch her scent this past half-hour or more,’ Herbert had said.

‘Gone to ground,’ Nick had said. And then, in spite of her governess’s objections, had begun to wrench open all the cupboard doors, look behind the curtains and inside the window seat, even upsetting her desk before they were satisfied she wasn’t hiding the fugitive. Only when they’d completely ransacked the room did they caper over to the door, blowing a reedy fanfare on a hunting horn they’d brought with them. It was with a cry of
Tally-ho!
they’d set off in renewed pursuit.

Later that day, she’d found Marianne, huddled behind the sofa in the morning room, weeping silent, bitter tears. And had naturally taken the poor little mite under her wing.

‘She had nobody else,’ said Julia firmly. ‘I know that Marianne has never been popular in this house. But...once she came to live with me, at least I never felt so alone.’ Instead of having to deal with Nick and Herbert alone, she had another girl to stand with her. ‘She was my childhood playmate,’ she said wistfully. And later, they’d started poring over fashion journals, and gone shopping together, and oh, all the hundred-and-one things that all girls did as they became young ladies. ‘She was my companion when I went up to London for the Season.’

‘Ah, well, yes. I suppose she was a comfort to you. Like a little wraith you were, for a time after your mama passed on. And only you to comfort the boys with your papa shutting himself away like that...’

Exactly. Just because they’d fallen out, over a man, could she really forget how close they’d been, for so many years?

Especially since she no longer wanted the man Marianne had won. In fact, if someone handed David to her on a silver plate, with a red ribbon round his neck, she wouldn’t have him. Not now she knew how he’d toyed with her affections. What sort of man did that to an impressionable, lonely girl?

‘Well then, would it not be possible to donate a little food to her wedding breakfast? I wouldn’t ask Cook to provide the entire thing, but a cake or two, from his hands, would make such a difference to the kind of spread I should think David’s parents capable of providing at such short notice.’

‘Looked at in that light, I can see why you would wish to give her a good send-off. Very well, my lady,’ said Mrs Dawson, setting down her teacup decisively. ‘I shall see what I can do. Once everyone knows that it is you asking, I am sure Cook will make the effort.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Dawson. It would mean so very much to me. I don’t like to think of her feeling that we’ve all turned against her. Especially not at Christmas.’

At the mention of Christmas, Mrs Dawson wriggled a touch uncomfortably.

‘If you don’t have the time,’ she offered, ‘shall I have a word with Mabel, too?’

‘Thank you. Tell her she may...she may have the lace I’d been planning to use for my own wedding gown.’ It had been bought to adorn the dress of David’s bride. Sending Marianne that particular length of lace would send her the clear message that she was welcome to David. And she was. Only think, if Marianne hadn’t waylaid David, then she might have succeeded in luring him out to the orangery. She might have been obliged to marry
him
.

Her stomach turned over. She reached for the buttered scone, and devoured it in two bites, in an attempt to settle it down.

She would have to attend the wedding, of course. She had to show Marianne that she forgave her. And if she hadn’t completely forgiven her for everything, she had at least forgiven her for the mix-up at the Christmas masquerade.

Because that mix-up had freed her from David. The hold he’d had over her empty, lonely heart.

And she was married to a far better man.

She licked her lips on the last of the scone.

‘Delicious,’ she informed Mrs Dawson.

Who smiled back, with no idea Julia hadn’t just been referring to the scone.

Chapter Ten

T
he next morning was one of those days when the rain felt like needles of ice. Snow would have been less unpleasant against his face.

‘I ordered the coach to take us to the church,’ said Julia, darting him an anxious, and apologetic, look as he stepped back up into the shelter of the porte-cochère. ‘As soon as I knew you intended to come with me.’

‘You didn’t expect me to come with you?’ So that explained the way her eyes had widened when he’d put on his own coat and reached for his hat when she’d told him where she was going. She’d really thought he would let her attend the wedding of the two people who’d so foully betrayed her, alone? Had nobody ever considered her feelings, or attempted to support her before?

At least that explained why she’d sent the little housemaid scurrying off—it must have been with a message to the stables to have a carriage prepared.

‘I am sorry, it isn’t the most comfortable carriage in the stables,’ she said as an ancient vehicle rumbled through the arch. ‘I do hope you don’t mind the state it’s in. Only I ordered the best chaise to take Marianne to church. A bride should have a little luxury on her wedding day, don’t you think? And anyway, I’d planned to walk.’

‘Walk?’ Her maid clucked her tongue as she draped a sable cloak round her shoulders.

‘I normally walk to church across the park,’ Julia retorted as the maid handed her a matching muff. ‘It’s hardly any distance at all.’

‘Not in this cold, my lady,’ said the maid with a disapproving sniff.

‘You certainly won’t feel the cold today, my lady,’ put in a towering footman as he opened the carriage door.

‘That you won’t,’ said the maid. ‘There’s heated bricks for your feet and an extra lap robe, too.’

The coach into which they clambered might be past its prime, but when it had been new it must have been the last word in comfort and convenience. The seats were well padded, the doors let in hardly any draught at all and when they set off, the quality of the springs gave them a smooth, gliding sort of ride.

This was her idea of second-best?

‘I would have walked with you,’ he said testily. ‘Had you decided to do so.’

‘But I couldn’t possibly expect you to trail all the way to St Andrew’s in this weather...’

‘Nonsense. Do you think I haven’t been outside in worse weather than this in my time? What do you think it was like sailing with the Baltic Fleet?’

‘I was just trying,’ she said snippily, ‘to show my appreciation. It was so good of you to come with me, that...’

He sighed, and clenched his fists on his lap.

‘And now I have spoiled it by taking offence at your attempt to shield me from the weather.’

He’d done a similar thing when she’d offered the use of her family’s town house. Perhaps it hadn’t been so much a desire to remain a Whitney that had motivated her then, either. Perhaps it had been a generous, impulsive show of appreciation, as it had been today.

With great deliberation he uncurled his fists, reached out, and patted her hand—or at least where he guessed her hand would be inside the muff.

‘It is...’ He cleared his throat, and started again. ‘That is, I wish to commend your
sangfroid
. This must be a very painful occasion for you. I was not sure you would wish to attend.’ But perhaps he should have seen that she wouldn’t want the world to know how much it hurt to discover that her childhood sweetheart preferred another. Especially since she’d even pretended she was keen to marry
him
, just to save face. ‘But, since you have chosen to do so, then you should have known you would have my support, and my company.’

‘Should I?’ She turned to look at him then, her brow creased in a frown. ‘Not many men would...especially since we...’ She floundered to a halt, her cheeks flushing.

‘I am your husband,’ he replied, with a shrug. ‘We did not marry for conventional reasons, it is true, but that is no excuse for neglecting my duties. This is our life now.’ He squeezed her hand inside the muff as tightly as he could. ‘And it will be what we make of it.’

‘What we make of it,’ she repeated, searching his face intently. Then she gave a decisive nod, and sat up a touch straighter.

God, but she was a proud piece. Though today, her pride didn’t seem such a terrible thing. She reminded him of the figurehead of a ship. Carved of oak. Bravely holding up her face in the teeth of a gale.

No matter what life threw at Lady Julia, she would just lift her chin, and weather it. The way she was weathering being married to him. To look at her now, nobody would guess at the turmoil that must be raging inside her.

She was the kind of woman he’d have been proud to have as his wife—if she’d actually chosen him, that was.

* * *

His heart gave a funny kind of tremor when she smiled into his eyes as he handed her out of the carriage when they arrived.

‘Oh, goodness,’ she murmured a few seconds later. ‘I am glad we came. We are the only ones sitting on the bride’s side of the church. Nobody else from the house has come.’

Though plenty of people were sitting on the groom’s side. He had to suppose they were his friends and family.

He felt a strange shifting inside him as she bowed her head in prayer. How could she still wish to show friendship to a girl who’d so thoroughly deceived her? He would have thought most women would want to scratch out a rival’s eyes. She didn’t even seem to care that the stoutly built medical student was waiting at the altar for the arrival of a bride who wasn’t her, even after all the effort she’d gone to, to try and trap him.

Though the moment the poor relation took her place at the groom’s side, Julia’s hold on her emotions wavered. She had to delve into her reticule and pull out a tiny lace-edged square of linen, with which she had to repeatedly dab her eyes.

He braced himself for a flood of tears.

But it never came. Indeed, Julia made no more use of her handkerchief than any of the other females present.

There had been a good deal of sniffing and nose-blowing during his own wedding, he recalled now. It must just be one of those unfathomable things that women did at weddings. All of them.

She attempted a watery sort of smile for the bride as the newly married couple went back down the aisle, arm in arm, though the girl gave no sign she’d noticed.

He looked at the crown of Julia’s downbent head as she stuffed her sodden hanky back in her reticule. No, she wasn’t as unaffected as she was attempting to make out. The way the bride had cut her had hurt. It must have done.

He wasn’t a man who was used to making gestures of affection, but he couldn’t help taking her hand, then, and raising it to his lips.

She looked up at him, wide-eyed with surprise, for the second time that day.

‘What was that for?’

‘For being you.’

‘Me? But...’ Her forehead creased into a perplexed frown.

She ducked her head and blushed fiery red as he tucked her little hand into the crook of his arm to follow the bride and groom to the door of the church.

‘I must just wish Marianne well,’ she said the moment they emerged into the churchyard. ‘I don’t think it would be appropriate to actually attend the wedding breakfast, but I do want to let her know that...’ She floundered to a halt, a world of regret and trepidation in her face. ‘I cannot let her go into her new life with this...hanging between us.’

* * *

Marianne had deliberately ignored her. She must have done. For she and Alec had been the only two people on her side of the church. She couldn’t have not noticed they were there.

Thankfully, Alec didn’t raise any objection, though most men would have had plenty. He really was being terrifically supportive today. And...gallant, the way he’d kissed her hand for no reason at all. Suddenly it felt rather silly to be rushing away from him towards the groom who’d been the object of her girlish infatuation. For that was all it had been, she saw now. But then, David had
seemed
to have more substance, more worth than the titled, wealthy men who considered themselves eligible suitors for her hand. And he was clever, and hard-working, and determined to do good with his life, not fritter it away in clubs or at the races.

Her steps faltered as she neared the lychgate, where the newly married couple were sheltering from the freezing rain. But she’d come this far...

‘Congratulations, David,’ she said, thinking it might be easier to deal with him first. He granted her a slight nod of the head, and a frosty look. Oh, well, it was all she could expect, she supposed.

‘Marianne,’ she then said, stepping closer and holding out her hand. ‘I do wish you well. I do not want to part on bad terms. And you seem...’

Marianne let go of David’s arm and stepped close, so they could hug rather than just shake hands. Heartily relieved by the show of friendship, Julia hugged her back, hard.

‘I’m angry,’ Marianne hissed into her ear. ‘Can’t you see that? You never pay for anything you do, do you? If it had been me caught with my legs spread like that, I would have been cast out in disgrace. But since you are your father’s pampered pet, you get a lavish wedding, and a ball thrown in your honour, and a groom who can’t keep his hands off you.’

Julia flinched away, wounded. But Marianne hadn’t finished.

‘But I got David,’ she said quietly, so nobody could overhear. ‘There’s something you couldn’t get your hands on, no matter how you tried. He’s mine. Has always been mine. The only thing I’ve had that wasn’t yours first.’

Julia was dumbfounded. She hadn’t expected the venom in the words, or the hatred sparking from Marianne’s eyes.

She stepped smartly back, pinned a smile to lips that felt strangely stiff, and walked away with her head held high.

Alec held out his arm, then handed her into the carriage without saying a word.

* * *

‘You look,’ he said once the door was shut and they were under way. ‘As though you regret lending them the best chaise now.’

Lady Julia’s eyes filled with tears. For the first time that day, she really did look as though she was struggling to contain her emotions. Perhaps he shouldn’t have said anything at all.

But then she pulled her mouth into the semblance of a smile. ‘As a matter of fact,’ she said, ‘I do. Because she said...she seemed to think...’ She shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut.

‘What is it? Tell me.’

After only the briefest of hesitations, Julia looked up at him, her face working with indignation.

‘She said she was sick of only ever having things that had been mine first.’

‘Ah.’

‘And that she was glad that for once she’d walked off with something I wanted but could never have. Oh, lord,’ she said, her gaze turning anxious. ‘Do you think she’s only married David because she thought I wanted him?’

‘If she has, then she’s a very stupid girl.’

‘I don’t understand.’ Lady Julia searched his face as though he might possibly have the answer. ‘Why does she resent me so much? I stood up for her. I shared everything with her. Why, the very first day she came to Ness Hall, and I saw her weeping for her parents, and from fright at what Nick and Herbert were trying to do, I gave her my favourite doll. I loved that doll.’ She looked the very picture of bewilderment.

‘You have never been on the receiving end of charity, have you?’

She shook her head.

‘It isn’t a pleasant feeling.’

‘Are you saying that I made her feel uncomfortable?’

‘You made me feel uncomfortable,’ he pointed out. ‘When you offered me the use of your father’s town house.’

‘But I—’

‘I know you didn’t mean to. But you see, I have a particular aversion to becoming the kind of man who lives off a woman’s money. It was what my father did. He squandered my mother’s fortune on his own pleasures, leaving us all nothing but debts upon his demise. I have always sworn I would do better.’

‘But I offered it freely. And, yes, it was to help you achieve your goals, but...well, I am your wife.’

‘But only by accident. And I’m a proud man, besides.’

She looked as hurt as though he was rejecting her, not just her offer of help.

‘How would you feel if you suddenly became penniless, and dependant upon the goodwill of others? And people suspected you of marrying someone only to get your greedy, grasping hands on his money?’

Her face cleared.

‘Just like you, I suspect. I’d throw the money back in your face.’

‘Exactly.’

‘But...’ She frowned. ‘Marianne never did. She always seemed...grateful. I never dreamed she...’

‘Ah, but perhaps she was frightened as well. Perhaps she felt she had no choice but to appear grateful to you, since it sounds as though you were the only person to show her any sympathy.’

‘Which...might have made her resent me all the more,’ she said slowly. ‘I had everything she’d lost. Wealth. A secure home. Family. Oh, why did I never see it? I couldn’t understand why others thought she was sly, and spoke of her with such dislike.’

He plucked her hand out of the muff. Patted it.

‘Well, she’s out of your life now. And it sounds as if you are well rid of her.’

‘But...David. Poor David. Can he know? Does he have any idea how...how two-faced she is?’

Poor David? The blasted man had been as underhanded as the girl, from what he’d heard.

‘What is it about that man?’ He’d meant to remain sympathetic and understanding. He’d come to this benighted wedding to show his support. He’d even let her go and speak to the podgy groom alone, to show that he trusted her. But as that man’s name fell from her lips with such obvious emotion, something very far removed from sympathy and understanding swept his good resolutions aside.

‘He isn’t handsome. He isn’t wealthy. He has no title. And yet the two of you appear to have been fighting over him like two dogs over a string of sausages.’

‘He was...different,’ she said, turning her head to look out of the window. Probably just as well. He was so angry at her persistent refusal to see any wrong in that man that it must, by now, be showing on his face. And he didn’t want her to see how angry he was growing—not while she was still so hurt. She’d had enough hurt for one day without him adding to it with a display of...petty jealousy, or whatever black humour it was that David stirred up.