The Captain's Christmas Bride (7 page)

So it was with a frustrated growl that he tried the handle of the door, and with a scowl on his face that he knocked on it.

She emerged from behind a screen of foliage, and gestured to one of the windows. Then she went to it and threw up the sash.

‘Gatley—that’s our head gardener—keeps the door locked when we have guests,’ she explained, beckoning him over. ‘You will have to climb in through this window, as we did last night. The lock is broken, you see. But hardly anyone knows. So we won’t be disturbed.’

So that was why she’d suggested they meet here. It was just as he’d thought. She was going to try to fuddle his mind with memories of last night, so that he wouldn’t see whatever trap she’d laid for him today until it was too late. He’d laid enough traps, himself, when he’d needed to sneak up close to an enemy in order to inflict maximum damage, to recognise one.

Well, if she thought he was going to be tricked by a slip of a girl—again—she’d got another think coming.

The scent of tropical foliage assailed his nostrils the moment he’d got one leg over the sill. And with it, a barrage of memories. The taste of her lips, the softness of her skin, the cry of pleasure she uttered as she’d welcomed his touch. And then the warm, wet welcome she’d given him. The encouraging way she’d risen to his rhythm as he’d thrust into her.

And just like that, he was ready to take her again. Even though she no longer looked like the siren he’d followed out here last night. Today she was wearing one of those insipid gowns that seemed to be the uniform with which all the girls at this house party had been issued. Pale, and formless, only hinting at what it concealed.

But he knew what it concealed. Had seen, or felt, every delectable square inch of it. The palms of his hands tingled with remembered pleasure. He curled them into fists, refusing to allow them free rein.

She saw the gesture and flung up her chin, as though assuming his action was one of aggression and was squaring up for a fight.

‘You wanted to talk to me?’ She met his gaze boldly. For a moment he admired her courage. But then her eyes flickered towards the cushioned bench which ran along the back wall. And she quivered. And lowered them.

‘Yes,’ he grated. Seeing her standing there, looking torn between defiance and wariness, so covered up, within inches of the place he’d stripped her, taken her, was creating a maelstrom of conflicting feelings to surge within him. Though uppermost was the desire to do it all over again. Which was out of the question.

He cleared his throat. ‘We need to reach an understanding.’

She sighed, as though relieved. ‘Yes. Indeed we do. But before we go any further, I just want to thank you for your forbearance.’ She glanced at his clenched fists again. This time they tightened in genuine anger. What kind of man did she think he was?

‘My...forbearance?’

A frown flickered across her face. ‘Yes. You could have told my father exactly what I’d done, last night. Destroyed his fondness for me at one stroke. Instead, you...tried to shield me. I noted the number of times you tried to take the blame. Saying I didn’t know what I was doing—’

‘You didn’t,’ he said brusquely. ‘Only a complete innocent would have lured a man out into a place such as this, dressed the way you were, and think he’d stop at a few kisses.’

‘Well, I—that is, thank you.’

‘I didn’t mean it as a compliment,’ he retorted. ‘It’s just the sort of hen-witted scheme Lizzie would come up with. Dressing herself like a whore, teasing a man who’s been so long without a woman he’s practically cross-eyed with the wanting, and then expecting him to make an honest woman of her when he does what any red-blooded man would do in the circumstances.’

‘You’re very cross. I understand that—’

‘Do you? Do you really understand how
cross
I am?’ He marched over to her and seized her upper arms. Shook her a little. ‘I didn’t come here to get tangled up with the likes of you. It was bad enough having to come here in the first place. And now I am here I should be dealing with my sister, not—’ He broke off, shaking his head as he considered the wild goose chase Lizzie had led him on from the moment he’d come ashore.

‘Is she in some kind of trouble?’ Lady Julia peered up at him as though she really cared what happened to his sister.

‘I didn’t come here to talk about Lizzie,’ he growled, thrusting her away from him. God, what the nearness of her did to him. The scent of her. The feel of her soft flesh, even through layers of cotton, or whatever it was she was wearing.

‘You were the one who brought her into the conversation. I thought that perhaps that was what you wanted to talk to me about. Her future. If I can be of any help—’

‘You? You are the very last person into whose care I would entrust a high-spirited lassie like Lizzie. As if she isn’t enough of a handful.’ He spun away from her, thrusting his fingers through his hair, not caring for once that by his gesture he was betraying his agitation. Not only to her, either. Anyone looking at him five minutes from now would know he’d done it, because it would be standing up in a spray of disordered spikes.

‘I beg your pardon,’ she said, coldly. ‘What did you wish to speak to me about, then?’

He whirled back to her.

‘Aye—that’s just it. Just like her. Standing there looking at me as though butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth, when you are probably hatching some devilish scheme.’

‘I’m not hatching any kind of scheme.’

‘Of course you are. Everyone plots and schemes, in my experience, from the lowest rating trying to get extra rum to the Admirals of the Fleet jockeying for public recognition.’

‘I’m not like that!’

‘You are. If that...’ he gestured to the bench expressively ‘...wasn’t the result of some devilish scheme, intended to entrap some poor man, then I don’t know what is.’

She coloured. ‘It wasn’t a devilish scheme. David has been in love with me for ages—’

‘Hah!’

‘But he couldn’t pluck up the courage to propose. Papa was set against the match. Because of the...the discrepancy in our fortunes, our stations.’

‘I’ve never heard anything so maudlin, or so unlikely, in all my life.’

‘You may very well sneer,’ she said, her eyes kindling. ‘But you make your own living doing far worse things.’

‘I do not.’

‘Yes, you do. I’ve heard all about how you hoist false colours to deceive some poor French boats, then blast them out of the water. How is what you do so very different from me...flying under false colours to...overcome the difficulties besetting David and me?’

The fact that he’d thought something very similar on the way here touched a raw nerve.

‘Dear God,’ he blustered defensively. ‘If you cannot see the difference, then...’

‘Well, come on then. Explain it to me.’ She planted her fists on her hips. ‘I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t even intend anyone the slightest bit of harm.’

‘But you did harm in the end, didn’t you?’

She flinched as though he’d struck her. Then rallied, lifting her chin. ‘You may not have wanted to get married, but it won’t do you any harm to have control of my fortune. You have, in fact, captured a rich prize, have you not?’

It was the worst thing she could have said.

‘Lower your voice.’

‘I will do no such thing. How dare you try to order me about? Is this the way you intend to behave once we are married?’

When they were married? When they were married, he would...he would have the right to...all that soft flesh...

He couldn’t keep his hands off her a moment longer. He strode back to her, seized her in his arms, and stopped her impudent mouth with a kiss.

* * *

Lady Julia wasn’t used to such ruthless treatment.
That
was why she froze instead of slapping his face. Which was a mistake. The nearness of him, the heated pressure of his mouth on hers pitched her right back to the night before. Her stomach flipped, and an ache sprang to life between her legs. Where he’d gone the night before.

Instead of struggling to break free, like any woman with an ounce of pride would have done, she found herself melting into his embrace.

Even when he broke off, to breathe into her ear, she couldn’t seem to raise a single objection.

‘There’s someone walking along the terrace,’ he murmured hotly. Then nibbled his way along her jaw. ‘And I told your father I’d do my best to make it look as though this is a love match.’ He mouthed the words against her lips, so that it felt as if he was kissing her. With tiny, breathy little kisses.

‘They won’t think that if they find us quarrelling, will they?’

It was only when the backs of her knees hit an obstacle that she registered he’d been steering her over to the bench. She sank down onto it, the pressure of his arm round her shoulder sufficient to overcome the spongy consistency of her knees.

She heard a burst of girlish laughter, caught a flurry of pale muslin through the steamy windows, then the patter of several pairs of slippers tripping back to the house.

‘That should serve to perpetuate the myth,’ said Captain Dunbar.

‘What?’ Julia blinked up at him.

‘Aye, the dazed expression on your face is very convincing. But you can drop it now. They’ve gone.’

Convincing? Oh! He’d kissed her because he’d heard her cousins coming. He’d done it to make it look as though they were madly in love. It had been bad enough when she’d assumed he’d just been trying to stop them arguing.

But this?

All the excitement she’d been feeling curdled and went sour.

‘I suppose,’ she said tartly, ‘you expect me to be grateful to you for trying to make it look as though you are as keen on this marriage as my father believes
me
to be.’

The moment the words left her lips, she realised they were nothing less than the truth. She should be grateful to him. He didn’t need to cover for her. If he’d been a peevish kind of man, or a man with little honour, he could have denounced her from the start. And everyone would be salivating over her scandalous conduct. Her reputation would be in shreds.

And she’d be embarking on a disastrous, miserable marriage.

‘You should,’ he snapped as he removed his arm from her shoulder and stood up. ‘But since you do not appear to be, perhaps we should go for that walk you promised me, rather than lingering here. This place appears to have a deleterious effect upon your behaviour.’

The beast! He was the one who’d swooped down and kissed her. All she’d done was turn up. And last night—he’d been the one doing all the swooping and kissing then, too.

‘And it is no use looking at me like that,’ he informed her sternly. ‘Dagger looks won’t have any effect upon me, any more than getting me out here, with the intent of trying to work your wiles on me again. Just because I lost my head last night when it was too dark to know who you were, I won’t have you thinking you can twist me round your little finger any time you like.’

‘I didn’t get you out here with
any
intention,’ she retorted. ‘You were the one who said you wanted to talk to me in private. And you don’t know the estate well enough to have arranged to meet anywhere else. Not without involving a footman. I just didn’t think you’d forget how to find your way
here
, that’s all.’

He glowered at her for a moment. Shook his head.

‘I will never know whether you are telling the truth or not.’

‘Then there’s no point in talking to each other at all, is there!’

She flounced over to the window with the broken latch and tugged it up. She was halfway along the terrace before it hit her that he hadn’t made any attempt to prevent her leaving. How insulting! After the readiness with which she’d agreed to his request for a private meeting, too.

She was almost at the top of the stairs before it occurred to her that she hadn’t found out what he’d wanted to talk to her about. All he had told her, apart from cataloguing her every fault, was that he’d agreed to make it look like a love match, which couldn’t have been what he had intended to say since he’d asked for a meeting
before
he’d gone to see her father.

Now she wished she hadn’t lost her temper and flounced off. But she didn’t slacken her pace. Walking swiftly was about the only outlet available for her if she didn’t want to make an exhibition of herself.

But really, how much was she expected to bear? He’d insulted her, and kissed her, and accused her of getting him to the orangery so she could work some kind of wiles on him.

Wiles? She didn’t have any wiles. She’d learned that the hard way, with David.

Captain Lord Dunbar was utterly impossible.

And arrogant. And overbearing. And touched in the upper works if he thought she’d enjoyed what had happened the night before so much that she’d lured him to the same spot for a repeat performance.

And when she next saw him, she vowed, reaching her room, entering it, swirling round and slamming the door behind her as hard as she could, she’d tell him so.

‘J-Julia?’

‘Oh. Marianne.’ Julia turned, slowly. This was all she needed. One look at Marianne’s woebegone face, and the way she was wringing her hands, was enough to tell her that her companion was on the verge of bursting into tears.

And it would fall to her, as it always did, to smooth her ruffled feathers. As if she didn’t have enough to contend with—she was having to act as though she was thrilled to be marrying a man who was a total brute. A brute who resented being forced into the marriage. Whilst still struggling with the grim reality of forfeiting the regard of the man she’d loved almost all her life.

Mouth tightening, she made for her dressing table and pulled out a fresh handkerchief. For when Marianne indulged in a fit of sobbing, it always took a great deal of mopping up.

Chapter Five

‘I
’m s-sorry.’ Marianne hiccupped. ‘So sorry!’

And then the floodgates opened. So Julia pressed the handkerchief into Marianne’s hand and led her to the bed, sitting her down on it and putting her arm round her slender shoulders.

For two pins she’d have indulged in a fit of crying herself. But then Marianne had enough tears for the both of them. And it had always been Marianne’s role to weep, hers to offer the shoulder upon which to do it. Because by the time Marianne had come to live with them, Julia had given up the habit of crying. She’d learned that it only made things worse. Papa became uncomfortable when he saw her crying, and sent her out of the room until she was calm again. Her older brothers mocked her. And her younger ones took their cue from her and started crying as well, which earned her a slap from their nurse. All of which had made her vow that Marianne, at least, should have a shoulder upon which to weep should she need it.

‘I... I never meant for it to happen! I swear!’ Marianne lifted tear-drenched eyes to her imploringly.

‘I know,’ said Julia, giving her a comforting squeeze. ‘You couldn’t have known I’d mistake Captain Lord Dunbar for David.’

‘Oh, it wasn’t that! I was... I was distracted, you see, and didn’t notice you going off with the wrong man. Indeed, I never thought you would go off with anyone, when David was...that is... I should have been watching you! I can’t think how you came to make such a mistake! When I saw you in the orangery, with that man
on top of you
...’ She gave a theatrical shudder and went off into a fresh burst of noisy sobs.

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Julia repeated soothingly, over and over again, to the crown of Marianne’s dark head and shuddering shoulders.

Suddenly, Marianne flung up her head, and gazed at her with incomprehension.

‘But how came you to make such an awful mistake?’

‘Don’t you recall, at the start of the masquerade, how there was a pirate prowling about the ballroom? Blackbeard the Pirate wore a tricorne hat, and a long, Cavalier-style wig, and one of those full-skirted coats. He even carried a telescope. Of course, he also had a bushy black false beard, then, but I suppose at some point he must have taken it off.’ He most definitely hadn’t been wearing it when she’d sidled up behind him. She distinctly recalled admiring the plane of his freshly shaved jaw.

‘And to be honest, I couldn’t see all that clearly through my mask. We concentrated on concealing my features, not making it easy to make out where I was going. It’s hardly surprising I mistook Blackbeard for Sir Isaac Newton.’

‘Yes, but to leave you out there for so long that...’ Marianne shook her head, and pressed her hands to her cheeks. ‘And if it hadn’t been for Nellie, trying to find you so that she could stand beside you at the unmasking, it would never have occurred to me you’d gone missing. Of course, I took them straight to the orangery, as agreed, when I saw what must have happened. But...’ Her eyes filled up again. ‘Too late! Oh, how can you ever forgive me?’

‘It was all just a series of terrible mistakes, Marianne. You warned me often enough I shouldn’t attempt to force David’s hand. But as usual, I wouldn’t listen. So the last person to bear any blame in all of this is you. So stop crying. I can’t have you crying all over the place, or people will start to think you are jealous of me getting married, or something.’

‘Jealous!’ Marianne looked horrified. ‘How could anyone think I might be jealous of you having to marry a man who isn’t David?’

‘Well, you know what Nick and Herbert’s relatives are like. Always trying to stir up trouble between us. Besides, they don’t know how I truly felt about David, do they?’

Felt
about David? Was her love already a thing to speak of in the past tense? A little perturbed that she’d just done so, she went on hastily, ‘We won’t give them any excuse to make snide remarks about us, will we?’

Marianne sniffed, and blew her nose, and attempted a brave smile.

‘That’s the spirit,’ said Julia bracingly. ‘There is too much to do today to worry about what the Caldicotts think about our friendship. We have a betrothal ball to organise. And then a wedding.’

‘Yes. And we don’t want anyone knowing that you aren’t getting exactly what you want, do we?’ said Marianne brightly. ‘So I shall smile, and pretend I am pleased for you, and nobody will suspect a
thing
.’

With Marianne on board, she did actually feel a little better. She could certainly manage to go about her duties with a more-or-less clear head. And if her nerves did get to screaming point she could always pick up something breakable and throw it against the wall.

* * *

The Meissen figurines she detested so much remained safe until luncheon, mainly because she didn’t have a spare minute to indulge her secret promise to herself to relieve her feelings by wreaking vengeance on them.

Though there must have been something about the way she approached the table that revealed the simmering broth of emotions she was striving to conceal.

‘Your sister-in-law Ellen should be doing more,’ observed Aunt Frances from her sofa, as Julia stalked past with her eyes fixed on the cake stand. ‘Staines ought to spend more time here, so she could learn how to run a household of this size, rather than leaving it all to you. And you with a wedding to arrange, too.’ She shook her head in a reproving fashion. ‘No wonder you look so hagged.’

Hagged? Julia froze with her hand outstretched. ‘Thank you for your concern,’ she replied politely, and picked up a plate. Though what she would dearly have loved to say, was
Why don’t you get up off that sofa and do something to help instead of criticising everyone else? And couching your criticism of my appearance under a cloak of concern for my health?

But that was just typical of her aunts. They’d always all been too busy scoring points off each other to get round to doing anything useful.

‘And as for poor Ellen,’ Julia continued, helping herself to a generous portion of pastries and sandwiches, ‘I wouldn’t burden her with anything more than she has on her plate already.’ Being married to Nick was a fate she wouldn’t wish on any woman.

‘Speaking of plates,’ said her aunt. ‘Do you really think you ought to put so much upon yours?’ She eyed Julia’s selection of cakes. Then smoothed a hand down her own, almost ethereal figure.

‘Well, as you pointed out, Aunt Frances,’ she replied with a tight smile, since there was no point in arguing with a woman who was never happy unless she had someone or something to criticise, ‘I do have a lot of work to do, what with one thing and another, and nobody but my dear Marianne to help me. So I need to keep my strength up.’

‘That girl,’ said her aunt with a disdainful sniff. But was prevented from saying anything else, when
that girl
herself came in, looking as harassed as Julia felt. Marianne hurried to Julia’s side, one hand fluttering to tidy her rather windblown hair after Aunt Frances, having raked her from head to toe, raised her eyebrows and pulled down the corners of her mouth.

‘You took the message to Gatley about the flowers then,’ said Julia, eyeing a smudge of what looked like moss on Marianne’s gown.

‘Oh!’ Marianne took out a handkerchief and dabbed frantically at the stain. ‘Yes,’ she said, blushing, and looking anywhere but at Julia’s Aunt Frances.

‘Well, one thing you have to say for holding your wedding at Christmas, while your family are already all about you,’ said Aunt Frances, as though Marianne wasn’t there, and hadn’t spoken. ‘It will save you having to write out and post the invitations.’

Once again, Julia had to bite back a pithy retort. She was sick of Marianne having to endure such slights. And not only from the Caldicotts. For some reason, the only thing upon which all her aunts agreed, from whichever side of the family they sprang, was that Marianne was an encroaching hussy. A foreign encroaching hussy at that. As if she was somehow to blame for having a French father. And worse, a father who’d died penniless. They acted as though Marianne had deliberately pushed her way in at Ness Hall when the truth was she’d been brought here when she’d been far too young to have any say in the matter.

‘Indeed it will,’ was all she deigned to reply, though she would have liked to add that it would also deny anyone the chance to think up a refusal, too. Nick for one would have been sure to have found some excuse to avoid setting foot in Ness Hall. Let alone to attend her wedding.

Still, she had far too much to do to allow Nick’s constant state of warfare with their father to distract her. Which was just as well. Organising a wedding, as well as tonight’s ball, left her with no leisure to worry about her marriage. Let alone take time off to throw porcelain shepherdesses against marble fireplaces.

She didn’t have time to think about Captain Dunbar, or the argument they’d had that morning, or the way he’d made her feel the night before. Not for more than a second or two, every now and then. And there was always some task on which she could concentrate, which prevented her wallowing in the shame, or the anger, or the more treacherous, quivery flashes of excitement.

* * *

In fact, there had been so many tasks that, had she not had Marianne to help her run the more tedious errands, by the evening she would have been in no fit state to attend the ball she’d spent so much time that day adapting to the circumstance of her betrothal. As it was, she would still rather have gone for a lie down, then had a tray sent to her room. But people were travelling to Ness Hall from all over the county. Invitations to the Hunt Ball had gone out weeks ago. It couldn’t be cancelled, any more than she could refuse to attend.

And so Julia donned the gown she’d had made for the occasion, when it had merely been the Hunt Ball, with gritted teeth. Though she had to admit, as she checked her appearance in the mirror before going down, that it was a splendid creation. The crossover bodice flattened her bosom and then the rest of the gown swirled down in such a way that it disguised her defects, rather than clinging to them.

* * *

Although more than thirty members of her family plus assorted houseguests were going to be sitting down to dine, the first person she saw when she entered the salon where they were all assembling, was Captain Dunbar. And the minute she saw him, her whole body seemed to go on the alert. Her breasts felt full. The bodice now felt as if it was caressing her bosom, rather than confining it. Her lips parted and her heart thumped. Her legs felt too quivery to carry her all the way across the room to where he stood. She could only assume that it was all because she’d been intimate with him. No matter what her mind thought of him as a person, her body had enjoyed his body.

It could be the only thing to account for it. For she’d never reacted to a man like this before.

Not even David.

She fixed a polite, social smile in place and forced herself to walk across the room to the man she was going to have to marry, because she’d become so impatient with another.

He didn’t smile back. But the look in his eyes was so intent, so focused upon her progress towards him that she felt as if he was stripping her naked in his mind. Which, instead of embarrassing her, simply made her wonder what he’d look like unclothed. She’d felt the power of his broad shoulders, the roughness of his thighs, and the skill of his calloused hands, but it had been dark. Besides, he hadn’t removed a single item of clothing, not completely.

Not that she’d wanted him to!

By the time she reached his side, her face was aflame.

As he reached out and took her hand, bowed over it, kissed it, she dimly heard someone laugh. Someone observed caustically, ‘Right off her pedestal...’

Someone else chimed in with, ‘It’s what she always wanted, though, isn’t it, a love match...?’

And the first voice again, laced with bitterness. ‘And the old man let her have her way, as usual, instead of arranging something suitable and sensible, the way he did for us...’

Nick and Herbert. Seething with resentment against her,
as usual
. Though how they would crow if they knew this wasn’t what it appeared at all.

From the sudden tension in Captain Dunbar’s jaw, she suspected he’d heard the comments, too. But it was what he wanted, wasn’t it? Or at least, what he’d agreed. They were trying to convince everyone this was a love match. That they were so in love they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. So that if the story about what had happened in the orangery ever did get out, their behaviour would have an excuse everyone would accept.

It was a far cry from the truth. Which was...was... Her face grew even hotter. It was something that made it extremely hard to get through dinner. Only the occasional word or phrase broke through the daze she was in, the way Nick and Herbert’s comments had done. But she couldn’t really follow the thread of any conversation, because her body was in a state of melting excitement, simply because he was sitting next to her. It was so vexing. She’d sat next to dozens of men, at hundreds of dinners, but never before had she been so aware of the muscular build of a man. Nor become flustered by the way his long, supple fingers wielded his cutlery.

She wasn’t sure how she got through it. But somehow it was over and it was time to remove to the front hall, to welcome those guests who hadn’t been invited to dine, and who were starting to arrive for the ball.

He stuck to her side like a limpet. Not that she made any attempt to shake him off. Though the feel of his hand at her elbow drove her half-demented. Because she couldn’t help recalling where else that hand had been. And what it had done. And how it had made her feel. Just a touch to the back of her waist, or a brush against her hip sent her well on the way to feeling exactly the same.

She supposed he was doing his best to look like an adoring fiancé. And at least her blushes, coupled with his proprietary air, were enough to convince people they were madly in love. At least when her father introduced him as her fiancé—with such a proud and pleased expression anyone would have thought he’d had a hand in arranging the match—everyone congratulated them. Even if they did so with sly barbs and knowing smiles.