What a Lady Needs for Christmas (37 page)

“It’s no damned good,” Hector informed an enormous black-and-white cat that had arrived with the Daniels household and taken to lurking in Hector’s room. “It’s like you and that damned rabbit. You share an owner in wee Fiona, but you and the rabbit can never be more than friends.”

The cat squinched up its eyes, looking sagacious and regal, as cats will.

A commotion in the corridor momentarily disturbed the cat’s display of indifference, provoking the beast to pop down from Hector’s desk and sniff at the door.

“That has been going on all night,” Hector said. “Some sort of scavenger hunt or midnight caroling without the tunes. Putting out the children’s presents, I suspect.”

Though the children would be getting a blessed lot of presents, based on the commotion Hector had heard.

“Makes it hard for a fellow to think.”

The thought of Margaret pursued by the titles and nabobs Lady Joan could introduce her to weighed on Hector with a sort of morbid fascination. Those fellows wouldn’t know what to make of quiet, sensible Margaret. They would dance with her, decide she had no conversation, and completely overlook—

He took up his pen again and kept his epistle short this time. The sooner he found a position with some opportunity to it, the sooner he could rescue Margaret from the imbeciles twirling about the ballrooms.

He had some money, he had brains, he had ambition, and Margaret wasn’t greedy. Maybe even by next Christmas…

By next Christmas, Margaret could be married to somebody else and have a baby on the way. She wouldn’t know Hector was leaving his post in search of betterment unless he told her.

Hector sanded his letter, let the cat out, and when he should have climbed into his own bed, he instead stole off in the direction of Margaret’s room.

***

Joan’s mattress finally, finally dipped and jostled with the weight of her husband finding his slumbers. He lay on his back, two feet and one world away from Joan, much as he had the previous two nights.

“Has Father Christmas taken to turning his reindeer loose in the house?” she asked.

“Aye. And his elves.”

Joan had not been a wife long, but something in Dante’s voice sounded different to her. Beneath the covers, she scooted closer. “Dante? Is something troubling you?”

Something more than a wife about to bring scandal and ruin down on all and sundry, and over some silly dresses.

“You told me Valmonte lured you to his house with an invitation to tea from his mother, who supposedly wanted to talk over a new dress with you.”

“And like a fool, I snatched up my sketch pad and parasol—”

He shifted onto his side, so he faced her, though the banked fire revealed little of his expression.

“Like a woman who trusts those she’s known for years, you obliged. And then Valmonte met you, and you started sketching. I’ve seen you sketching, Joan Hartwell. You become cast away with it, as if sirens have you in thrall.”

“Not lately I haven’t.” Lately, she hadn’t sketched anything except her husband’s features, his hands, even the way his kilt draped over his knees.

“Valmonte plied you with drink and took advantage, and he thinks to continue abusing your trust and your good name. Is there anything you haven’t told me?”

They weren’t quite nose to nose, weren’t touching, and that was fortunate, because abruptly, Joan had difficulty speaking around the lump in her throat.

Yes, there was something she hadn’t told him, though the words would seem self-serving now.

“What are you planning, Dante? You aren’t thinking of calling him out or dumping him on a ship bound for the Orient, are you?”

“I’d like to, but your family had other suggestions.”

Though she wore nothing except her silk nightgown, Joan abruptly felt as if she’d donned a heavily boned corset and laced it much too tightly.

“I won’t leave you, Dante. Not for them. Not for appearances. Unless
you
send me away, unless you ask it of me, I won’t endure one of those genteel, nasty Society separations. I never meant to shame you, never meant to shame myself.”

Never meant to do anything except hear somebody murmur a few appreciative comments about pretty designs that Joan took more pleasure in creating than she had in anything else.

Strong arms hauled Joan across the remaining distance, until she was plastered against her husband, wrapped in his embrace and crying as if her heart would never mend.

“Wheesht, love, none of that. Hush now, hush.”

“But I’ve made a terrible muddle out of what might have been so sweet—”

“You’re sweet,” Dante said, kissing her. “And dear, and you must not worry. Nobody’s leaving anybody. Nobody’s creating any scandal. We’ll reach an agreement with Valmonte.”

But Joan was in the grip of a tantrum of the heart, and while part of her knew she ought to rein herself in, another part of her would not be dignified—
or
alone
—any longer.

“You cannot trust Valmonte, Dante. He’s desperate, an animal backed by pride into a dirty corner of arrogance. He’s all fight and no honor. I love you, and I will not allow somebody I love to face such—”

This kiss was as tender as the last, but more fierce. “Say that again.”

“I cannot allow a varlet like Ed—”

“Not that, the other. Say it.”

What had she—?

The constriction around Joan’s emotions loosened, more swiftly and thoroughly than if someone had taken a knife to her laces.

“I love you, dearly. Completely. I love my husband. I am profligately proud to be Mrs. Dante Hartwell, and I love my husband. I always will.”

More fierce, delighted kisses followed as Dante wrestled himself over her. He wore not a stitch, and every warm, solid inch of him was lovely in Joan’s arms.

“We’ll buy Valmonte’s silence,” Dante whispered. “Tie it up in a bow and never let anybody pry it open. You’re right that he’s desperate, Joan, and a desperate man will take even a poor bargain if it’s presented as his only option.”

Joan wrapped her legs around her husband’s flanks and locked her ankles at the small of his back.

“Do not say his name ever again in our bed. I hate him and the entire vain, silly, venal company he keeps. I love you. I love you. I love you.”

Something rent as Dante levered up on his arms—silk from the sound of it.

And Joan felt freer still.

“My nightgown,” she said, trying to wiggle free of the silk with fifteen stone of husband atop her. “Get rid of it, please.”

He lifted away another two inches to bunch fabric up in his fist. “You’re directing me to toss aside your nightgown? We’ve ripped it, Joan, torn it properly down the middle, and you—”

She snatched it from him and pitched it who knew where. “Stop blathering about a lot of silly fabric. Make love with me.”

This hurling of verbal thunderbolts was great fun when undertaken naked under the covers with her husband. Dante rolled them though, putting Joan on top.

“You make love with me as well, Wife, and that’s a bargain we’ll both enjoy keeping.”

Abruptly, Joan’s nakedness was not under the covers, but rather, perched atop her spouse, illuminated by firelight—and a blush.

She curled down against him, nose to his chest. “This is quite intimate, this absence of clothing.”

“Shall I fetch you another nightgown?”

He would, too. He’d climb of out the bed, march naked across the room, and look away while Joan’s modesty came between her and the man she loved.

“I cannot bear to turn loose of you for even that long,” she said, which was nothing more than the honest truth. “Though this is not dignified.”

“Don’t suppose it is dignified, but I love you too, Joan, and this trust you show me is more precious than dignity. Kiss me.”

She showed him her trust, kissing him with all the ferocious possessiveness in her, then with protectiveness, and ultimately with a pure, roaring passion for him and the intimacies a husband and wife were entitled to give each other.

She showed him a few other things too—how much she enjoyed kissing him, how dearly she delighted in running her hands over every inch of him, how ferociously tender her embrace could be.

Dante likely would have joined his body to hers slowly and carefully, but Joan was having none of that. She’d discovered a pleasure greater than silk or velvet against her skin, better than crisp linen or delicate lace.

Her husband, as God made him, as close as he could get, skin to skin, breath to breath, passion to passion. When he was intent on nudging and teasing, Joan gloved him in a single, exquisite roll of her hips—and then gave in to the compulsion to keep moving.

“You have hair on your chest,” Joan said inanely, but the sensation of his bare chest rubbing against her breasts was novel, raw, and delightful.

“While you—” He guided her up so he could get his hands on her breasts, and the feel of his callused fingers and palms on her flesh was better than lace.

“Don’t you stop,” she whispered, bracing her hands on either side of his head, the better to meet him thrust for thrust.

Sensations robbed her of speech, sensations of pleasure and yearning and intimacy.

But also of anxiety, that she would again find herself some minutes hence, lying beside a sated husband, feeling all manner of tenderness, but also distance, and disappointment that she was not his equal in passion.

“I love you,” Dante said, low, harsh words accompanied by his arm lashed tightly across her back. “I love you, and nothing and no one will change that,
ever
.”

His declaration set her free, hurled her beyond worries and wishes into a pleasure so pure, the Christmas star itself could not have shone more brightly. Dante was with her in that pleasure, closer than thought or touch or any experience Joan might have foreseen when she’d taken her wedding vows.

When she’d endured with him in that light as long as she could, other pleasures awaited her.

The pleasure of lying spent upon her husband, both of them panting and naked, both of them needing the other’s continued touch.

The pleasure of letting go—of pride, appearances, loneliness—everything, to trust that a shared future of any description would be the greatest gift imaginable.

The pleasure of a silence devoid of secrets and devoid even…

Even of shame.

“My love, are you crying?” Dante’s hands on her back could not have been more tender, which only provoked Joan to worse lachrymosity.

“Of course, I’m crying. I’ve torn my favorite nightgown.”

“Now will you let me fetch you another?”

The naughty wretch was laughing at her, and well he might. They faced ruin, very likely parenthood, and who knew what else. Their families had front-row seats for the entire farce, and Dante was naked and laughing in her arms.

“If I do allow you to fetch me another nightgown, and I’m not saying I can bear to let you go for that long, may we tear that one as well?”

And then Joan was naked and laughing in her husband’s arms too.

***

Christmas Day had been a circus, with Hector twitching at every slammed door, Margs looking preoccupied, the children shrieking and galloping, while inside Dante, a stillness had taken root, a solid quiet that had to do with knowing his wife would not leave him or forsake him.

Even if he bungled today’s encounter with Valmonte.

The plan was simple: List for Valmonte every gambling debt known to the collective MacGregor and Flynn males. List the business debts Quinworth, his lady, Balfour, and Spathfoy had been able to unearth. List the gambling debts Valmonte’s mother had amassed, probably without informing her son of her peccadilloes.

And offer to make it all go away for a signed confession of rape. Quinworth would hold the document, and he’d be in a position to slander Valmonte without revealing particulars if the need arose.

Joan shifted her rabbit to one side and kissed Dante’s cheek.

“Don’t trust Edward. He’s a weasel without honor, meaning no disrespect to weasels.” She cuddled Babette closer—Lady Frederick—though the cold at the Ballater station didn’t seem to bother the wee beastie.

“You like that rabbit.”

“I like that you bought me something soft and warm to cuddle while I wait for you to return from Edinburgh. Very thoughtful of you.”

And the rabbit would spare Joan’s cuffs and hems from the twiddling and stroking she inflicted on them when nervous, for Lady Frederick thrived on affection.

“I won’t kill Valmonte,” Dante said as the conductor blew a single, long whistle blast.

“Also very thoughtful of you. I wish you’d let Tiberius accompany you.”

Dear Tiberius had sat next to Joan at breakfast, and Dante had overheard the words “profoundly sorry,” “remiss,” and “apologize.”

Truly, Christmas was a season for miracles.

It would take a miracle to make Valmonte see reason, but for Joan, Dante would try.

She accompanied him onto the train and kissed him good-bye so thoroughly the rabbit began to protest against Dante’s chest.

“Don’t kill him,” Joan said as the “All aboard!” was called. “Lady Dorcas has plans for him, and I have plans for you.”

The trip down to Edinburgh took hours, and in those hours, Dante occupied himself as he typically did on board a train—ciphering, estimating, projecting, and rearranging assets and liabilities, until almost every contingency could be accounted for.

Almost.

***

“You’re doing what?” Margs shouted.

“Lower your voice, Margs,” Hector pleaded. “It’s for the best that I leave.”

He’d not found a way to share his plans with her last night, though he’d shared his kisses and a great deal more. Then Christmas Day had been too hectic, and now, on Boxing Day, Hector had tracked Margaret to the library.

She paced away from him and from the wilted greenery above him, her blue velvet skirts swishing. “You would abandon Dante
now
, when he’s taken a new wife, his household is in chaos, and these titled relations haven’t a spare coin to invest?”

“They have spare coins. I did a report—”

Fury made Margaret Hartwell beautiful. Her normally placid eyes turned stormy, her pretty features animated with passion. Hector wasn’t about to report on
those
conclusions.