What a Lady Needs for Christmas (40 page)

Phillip left off petting the rabbit. “Lady Joan will have a baby by autumn. She said she might name a boy Christopher, because she got exactly what she wanted for Christmas.”

Oh, Joan.
Dante had lost a mill—mills could be replaced—but Joan had been nearly certain she’d at least have a child to love. While Dante was relieved Valmonte would have no continuing connection to Joan, he also knew she’d already grown attached to the notion of motherhood.

“Maybe by next Christmas,” Dante said. “Though that will take some fast work. We should put Himself back in his box.”

Phillip gave his father an impatient look. “It doesn’t take a year for a baby to grow.”

“What would you know about it?” Dante teased. “Are you considering holy matrimony? Perhaps the scullery maid who sneaks you biscuits will be waiting for you under the mistletoe?”

Phillip produced one of his rare, sweet smiles. “I’ll never get married. Girls are silly and bossy, and they never like to get dirty. May I hold Frederick? Lady Joan said if she has a girl, then you should choose the name.”

Dante passed the rabbit to Phillip, who sat cross-legged before the fire. “Do you recall every bit of gossip you overhear?”

“I heard them this morning. I can remember what I heard this morning.”

“This morning?”

“They were giggling. Girls giggle too.”

A sensation rippled down Dante’s spine, a sparkling sense of possibility, of hope. “You’re sure you heard the ladies this morning?”

“Lady Quinworth, Lady Balfour, Lady Joan, Fiona’s mama. They were quite silly. Lady Quinworth said she refuses to have a granddaughter named Babette. I like the name Babette, and Frederick does too. His favorite girl name in the world is Babette.”

Dante rose, his thoughts hopping about like so many loose rabbits. “Put Frederick back in his box, my boy. I can’t think you’d fancy a sister named Babette.”

“Babette Bunny Hartwell. It’s better than Charlene.”

“It’s awful. Don’t you dare mention it to Lady Joan.”

“I’m to call her Mama. She said we could if we wanted to.”

Dante kissed the top of the boy’s head, because Phillip was smiling again—twice in one brief conversation. “Then so you shall, and I shall be the papa.”

The rabbit wiggled his nose, one papa to another, and Dante left the nursery at something close to a sprint.

***

“Leave off raiding Balfour’s decanters long enough to answer some questions.”

At Dante’s command, Spathfoy paused mid pour at the library’s sideboard.

“You’re a member of this family for little more than four weeks, and already you’re giving orders. Your atrocious manners suggest Joan has been remiss in her uxorial duties, Hartwell, and I’m sure my mother—”

“Cease yer bletherin’, Spathfoy,” Balfour said, passing the glass to Dante. “How is the situation in Glasgow?”

“Smoky,” Dante said. “Subdued chaos at the remaining mills as we sort out how to fill all the orders, keep everybody employed, and stop Hector from clothing himself in a hair shirt. They’re managing, though. That’s not what I wanted to ask you about.”

“A toast,” Spathfoy said. “To the New Year.”

Balfour lifted his glass. “Not very original, Spathfoy. But Hartwell can likely use any excuse to take a tot. If you won’t allow us to invest outright, we’ll lend you whatever you need.”

Dante paused, his glass halfway to his lips. “I wasn’t about to ask for a loan.”

“Of course you weren’t,” Spathfoy said, shooting a glower at Balfour. “But we heard about the insurance. Miss Hartwell mentioned it to Lady Quinworth, who told my father, and—”

“What did you want to know, Hartwell?” Balfour interjected.

Dante took a fortifying sip of a smooth, fruity whiskey. “How soon do the ladies know they’re carrying?”

The quality of the very air in the library changed.

“Long before they tell us,” Spathfoy said. He took up a slouch against the mantel, above which, the Highland laird still strutted about on a life-size canvas. He’d been a papa, that laird. Dante could tell from the twinkle in his eye.

“I think they know at the very moment of conception,” Spathfoy added.

“They suspect, anyway,” Balfour said. “My countess, who would fill every room with bouquets, abruptly took the scent of most flowers into strong dislike. I didn’t put the signs together until the child was born, but that was the first clue—and not two weeks after conception, as nearly as I can calculate.”

“That soon?”

“My mother claims to have conceived me on her wedding night, and said she was queasy within a week,” Spathfoy volunteered with a smugness that suggested the timing was his doing.

“Mary Frances’s situation with Fiona was apparently different,” Balfour said, reaching above the estate desk to yank down a wilted sprig of mistletoe and toss it into the fire.

“Your footmen won’t thank you,” Spathfoy observed as the greenery blackened and curled to ashes.

“Next Christmas we’ll all descend on your household, Spathfoy,” Balfour muttered. “We’ll see who has the happiest footmen.”

“About the ladies,” Dante interjected. “They can tell within two weeks?”

“I should think so,” Spathfoy said.

“As loath as I am to agree with yon Lord of Mistletoe about anything,” Balfour said, finding more mistletoe over the sideboard and another sprig affixed above the library’s globe, “my sense is most women can tell fairly quickly if they’ve conceived. I came to that conclusion when I practiced medicine, and my experience as Lady Balfour’s husband confirms it. Now I have a question for you.”

Balfour
had
been
trained
as
a
physician.
Dante had forgotten that.

“They can tell,” Dante murmured. Rowena hadn’t been forthcoming about such matters, and Dante hadn’t dared interrogate her.

“Hartwell, finish your drink. One senses you need the fortification,” Spathfoy said, pushing off the mantel and steering Dante to the couch.

Balfour came around with the decanter.

“As for my question, and please pay attention, Hartwell: If you weren’t inviting us to invest in your mills, and you won’t accept a loan now, then why were you willing to disrupt your entire holiday to accept my invitation to Balfour House?”

Perhaps they would name a daughter Babette after all.

“I don’t think he heard you,” Spathfoy said. “The Scots can have very poor hearing.”

“I heard him. I did want investors, or thought I did.”

But he’d found so much more.

“Then why don’t you want them now?” Balfour asked, taking an armchair by the fire. “Shipping is a chancy business. We’re seeing only the first hints of what steam can do, pirates continue to plague us, nations go to war, navies get unpredictable when attempting to justify themselves in times of peace—”

Spathfoy resumed his place at the mantel. “And the New Year will be here before you make your point.”

“My point is that diversification is sound business. I would like to invest in your mills, Hartwell.”

“As would I,” Spathfoy added. “I’m half-Scottish, and nobody works harder than a Scot in pursuit of coin. Investments in Scotland strike me as a sensible use of my wealth, and my parents agree.”

“You both need to know something,” Dante said. “I never got a signed confession from Valmonte, nor would I ask for one now. Of all his transgressions, the one covered in that document was apparently not among them.”

Some throat clearing went on, some sipping of whiskey.

“Well, then,” Spathfoy said, raising his glass. “If you didn’t get a signed confession, what did you get?”

“A bloody dress shop.”

Spathfoy fell prey to a sputtering cough before mirth overcame him, Balfour’s guffaw soon degenerated into hooting laughter, and Dante kept to himself that the name Babette Hartwell was growing on him by the minute.

***

“My lady?”

Before her eyes opened, Joan had the thought, “He’s back,” and yet a curious midafternoon lassitude kept her sprawled beneath the sheets.

“Mrs. Hartwell?”

“Mmf.”

The bed dipped, the scent of Dante—pine and spice, husband and delight—wafted across the sheets. “I have married a slugabed. Fine quality in a wife.”

He snuggled up next to her, a hairy muscular leg tucked against her backside, his chest to her back.

“Mrs. Hartwell, you’ve neglected your wardrobe.”

For him, she would make the hard slog up from a delicious nap. “How are the mills?”

“I remark on a complete lack of attire, and you ask about the mills. The mills are abuzz. We had a miracle, according to the women. The first time old Hard-Hearted Hartwell gives them Christmas Eve off, and the fire has no victims. I’ve never seen such a lot of smug, busy women. I’m Happy Christmas Hartwell now, according to them.”

His hand, callused and warm, paid a call on Joan’s breast.

“I missed you,” Joan said, wiggling closer to him. “I am already accustomed to sleeping with my husband. You’ll not be traveling without me again soon, sir, not even for two nights.”

“You’re sleeping through teatime. Balfour said you might be prone to napping.”

The hand so charmingly full of Joan’s breast made no lascivious overtures, but remained, a pleasurable addition to the pleasurable sensations of clean sheets and friendly husband.

“What would his lordship know about my naps?”

“He’s a physician. Are you well, Joan?”

“I am quite well.” Also naked. Why on earth hadn’t she indulged in such decadence before her marriage? “I believe I sleep better without clothing.”

“You sleep better when you’re carrying my child.”

The sweet, sleepy sense of well-being in which Joan had been wallowing expanded, to encompass an aching tenderness toward her husband. She shifted, the better to cuddle against his chest.

“I am carrying,” she said. “The other ladies have confirmed the signs, though it’s very early days.”

“Earlier than you know, my love.”

A note of smugness in his tone had Joan burrowing closer. “What does the loss of the mill do to our situation, Dante? A child is an expense, but I can make do on little, I assure you. My pin money is excessive, and—”

“The loss of the mill, the oldest and least productive of the three, will be the concern of my investors, and of Margs and Hector MacMillan.”

“Hector blames himself, Dante, but anybody can forget the post.”

“I blame myself. I expected Hector to be at my beck and call, to have no holidays with his own kin, to step and fetch and do the work of three men, as if a mind that astute should be content with endless clerking and haring about.”

Joan kissed the center of his chest and laid her cheek over his heart.

“You told him that, didn’t you? Of course you did, and probably with Margs right there to hear every word.” Hard-Hearted Hartwell, indeed.

“We were standing on the weaving floor at Hope, with more than a shift of employees looking on. I didn’t admit to him I was responsible, I roared it. Productivity suffered for all the shouting and betting going on.”

“I’m so proud of you.” Maybe a wife shouldn’t say those words, but the way Dante kissed her ear suggested he’d needed to hear them.

“Better late than never,” Dante went on. “The ladies cheered like sailors, Margs loudest of all. Hector has more than a few admirers.” He patted her bare bum, a scrumptious blend of possession, affection, and naughtiness in a single glancing caress. “I don’t hate the mills, but I’m glad to know they’ll be in good hands with Hector.”

She kissed his chin. “And Margs?”

“And Margs. I suspect we’ll soon see a merger of interested parties there. Are you falling back asleep?”

“I like sleeping naked. Perhaps it’s fortunate I never knew this, though in other regards, I can’t say naïveté served me well. You never told me how you left things with…”

She didn’t want to say his name. Not in bed, not when enjoying the freedom of an unclad state for one of the first times in her adult memory.

“About that.”

Dante’s hand ceased its slow, soothing pattern on her hip, though beneath her ear, Joan still felt and heard the steady tattoo of his heart.

“Should I get dressed, Husband? I’d rather remain with you here.”

“If you go down to tea in the altogether, I won’t answer for the consequences.”

“Wear your lucky kilt. We’ll find some consequences you might like.” Impending motherhood was making her daft, also happy, and yet, a serpent remained in her marital garden. “What were you about to say?”

“I met with a certain party as planned and can assure you he’ll never cause you another moment’s trouble. He’s removing to Paris, in fact, and taking his harpies with him.”

Contentment shifted again, to encompass profound, enormous relief, and gratitude bigger than a Highland summer sky.

“Thank you, Dante. Thank you, thank you. I could not have a better Christmas gift from you, though I love Babette dearly, of course.”

“Not as dearly as wee Freddy does, but I’ve another gift for you. For us.”

“So many gifts. I am your wife, I have Charlie and Phillip and Margs to love—Hector, too—and this baby—”

“Is our baby, Joan Hartwell. I know you don’t want certain names brought up in our bed, but you need to know that when a man overimbibes, his ability to perpetrate certain kinds of mischief deserts him. Your sketches were the objective of his venery, not your virginity.
You
gave
that
to
me.
”

A shiver passed over Joan, a delighted, elated disbelief, anchored at the same time by a bodily knowing. “To you?”

“You were a maid when you came to my bed. You’re to be a mother now, and I’ll be a papa again. We’re a fine team, Mrs. Hartwell.”

“I’m to be—”

That Dante would have loved any child born to them was a measure of his heart, but that their firstborn would be his in every sense moved Joan beyond happiness to a transcendent, intimate joy.

“We’re to be,” he corrected her. “We’ll also be late for tea, though I’ve one more small parcel to lay at your feet.”

“No more,” Joan said, wiping her cheek against his shoulder. “No more, Husband. My heart cannot hold any more glad tidings.”