An Affair Before Christmas

by Eloisa James

  Charlotte thought of meaningless answers and then said the truth. “I never wished for much until I turned sixteen.”

  He raised his heavy eyes. “You fell in love?”

  “No. I just wanted a man to fall in love with me. I was sure I could adapt my emotions to whomever presented himself.”

  “Poor Charlotte,” he said, and his voice sounded less bored. She was right; he needed to think of someone other than himself. “Did no man ever fall in love with you?”

  “I thought one did, once. Lord Barnabe Reeve.”

  “Reeve was the Barnabe who brought you to my side? I never knew his first name.”

  “We danced all night long once,” she said. “I thought…but he left London within days and went mad, or so they say.”

  “I hate to dispel your sweet memories of first love, but in my view it’s better to have no spouse than one who’s cracked. And I know many who would agree with me.”

  His hands lay on the counterpane, looking strangely still. The sight of them made her hurry into speech. “Doubtless, you’re right. After a while I stopped wishing for someone to fall in love with me and just wished for someone blind enough to mistake me for someone he might fall in love with.”

  He smiled faintly. “You’re not an antidote. Particularly when you flare up and snap at me. I imagine that’s what Elijah sees in you.”

  “Elijah?”

  “Duke of Beaumont. I suppose I could marry you.”

  She looked at him with some horror. “You—” She stopped. He was dying, but how to say so?

  “Dying, dying, dying, how it gets in the way of my social life,” he said lightly. “To be but half-dead is as bad as being half-witted, like Reeve. Neither makes a man fit company for his betters nor a good consort for a woman.”

  “You don’t want to marry me,” Charlotte said, recovering herself. “Besides, you’re far too high in the instep and grand for me to marry. I wouldn’t have dared wish for you.”

  “I thought women liked to marry their betters. It does such nice things for one’s offspring.”

  “As you pointed out, I have no offspring,” Charlotte pointed out. “Why should I worry about their future titles under those circumstances?”

  “I suppose this will shock you, but I was thinking last night that I should have bothered to create a few children, and then I remembered that I had already.”

  “You did?”

  “Illegitimate ones,” he said. “As sometimes happens.”

  “Not to me,” she said tartly.

  “Women on the whole are better at keeping track of their children.”

  He looked rather feverish again, so she said, “I think I’d better go back to the Bible, though it’s likely too late for your soul.”

  “Do you think I might redeem my soul if I found a husband for you?”

  “You would do better to see to the welfare of your poor children,” she said. And then, hearing the fascinated horror in her own voice: “How many are there?”

  “Not as many as would fill a choir,” he said, “nor yet as few as to sing a solo. Can you sing, by the way?”

  “No.”

  “I know a very nice lad in need of a wife but he loves song.”

  “I’m not very good at things of that nature,” Charlotte said.

  “What about horses?”

  “They exist.”

  “Not an enthusiast. But you like to talk. We know that. And you have good ideas for Beaumont’s speech…what about a promising young politician? Plenty of those about.”

  “They want someone with a large dowry,” she said dispassionately.

  “You could have that.”

  “As it happens, I don’t.”

  “I could give it to you.” He opened his eyes very wide and looked at her. They were a deep black.

  “Why would you do that?”

  “I like you. And dying men have their foibles, their foolishnesses…”

  “I thank you for it.” But she added, a little sadly: “It would be distasteful, don’t you think, to buy a husband, even with a duke’s largesse?”

  “Oh, he wouldn’t know that. A better dress and you must put a bit of color on your cheeks now and then. And your hair!” He peered at her. “Worse than I remembered.”

  She didn’t tell him that she had dressed her own hair with trembling fingers that morning, afraid he was dead, or nearly so, and then rushed out of the house with May calling behind her. “I will still be just me.”

  “Not once I’ve transformed you. But I don’t think that a politician would be right. Too hard, too grasping. You’re correct: there’s a chance the man would marry you thinking of money and political influence. They all have those distasteful propensities. I think you need an intellectual.”

  “A what?”

  “A philosopher. Reeve was a thinker. I remember him madly talking about this and that. He was never boring.”

  “No,” Charlotte agreed.

  “Is it almost Christmas?”

  “Tomorrow is St. Nicholas’s day.”

  “God.” He whispered it. “It seems like yesterday that I fought that duel and it’s—it can’t have been months.”

  “It has been.”

  “I really won’t survive then, will I?”

  “You’re too unpleasant to die,” she said sharply. “If you’re not careful, I’ll marry you while you’re in a fever and then take all your money.”

  He stopped looking so dismal and laughed a bit, though it made him wheeze. “What the hell would you do with money? Buy some clothing?”

  “Give it to your children,” she said.

  “They’re set for money. No father, but money. I made a will. Seeing as I’m no father, they’ll be better without me.”

  “Poppycock. You are a father. You’re just a bad one.”

  “I’ll have to find you a deaf husband,” he said, eyes narrowed. “But I demand that you keep visiting me until I do.”

  “Why should I risk my reputation on your implausible matchmaking abilities?”

  “That’s something you don’t know about me. I never fail at what I put my hand to. I’ll find the perfect man. I’d like to see you refuse him.”

  “If I take him, you’ll have to do something for me in return.”

  “What? In return for finding you your heart’s desire, I have to do you a favor?”

  “It’ll keep you alive long enough to do it,” she pointed out. “Otherwise you’re like to tumble into the grave merely because your doctor told you to do it. I don’t think anyone in London realizes how malleable you are.”

  “You are a hellcat. What’s your favor, then?”

  “If you find me a husband—one that I like, I’ll turn wife and you turn father.”

  “I’m as much a father as my father ever was. Better, because I don’t ever shout at them.”

  “You might, if you knew their names.”

  “Worse than a hellcat,” he observed. “It’s going to take a miracle to marry you off.”

  “And you’re going to have to sit up,” she retorted. “Just how do you expect to find me a husband while you’re malingering in bed?”

  He eyed her. “When the fever comes on I don’t have much choice.”

  “Well, I can’t ruin my reputation in your house. What decent man would want to marry a woman he met in your presence—in your bedchamber?”

  “Good point,” he murmured. “I suppose you’re saying that I should get up.”

  “Well…” she hesitated.

  “I always thought that generals should be female.” He seemed to go to sleep, and she put her Bible back in her knotting bag, thinking to steal out. But he opened his eyes again and said, “A Christmas house party, that’s what we need.”

  “Go to sleep,” she said. “You’re looking all weedy again.”

  “If we were invited to a house party you could read me the entire Old Testament and no one would have the faintest idea that we were in such promiscuous contact. I’l
l deal with it tomorrow,” he said, his eyes closing again. “Do you know, I’m tired. But it’s not the fever-tired. Maybe you’re the miracle, Miss Charlotte What ever your name is.”

  “Humph,” she said, just to leave him with something to think about.

  Finchley was hovering in the hallway and she smiled at him. “I think that’s a healthy sleep,” she whispered. “He doesn’t have that feverish look.”

  “The Lord be praised,” Finchley said, and looked as if he might cry. “Your hackney is waiting, Miss Charlotte.”

  Chapter 35

  “Just what do you intend to do now?” Poppy was in-censed as she watched the door shut behind Elsie. “How am I supposed to ready myself for bed, let alone bathe? I can’t sleep with all this powder in my hair!”

  “Do you wash the powder out every night?”

  “Of course!”

  “I thought women slept with their heads upright so as not to disturb their curls. You never took your hair down when I visited your bedchamber.”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Well, why not?” He came up behind her and started tweaking her hair. “Even when I saw you in a nightgown your hair was always up; I thought you always left it so.”

  “I took another bath after your visits, naturally, so my maid would take down my hair then. What are you doing?” Poppy asked. She was starting to feel very peculiar. Even though Fletch wasn’t interested in bedding her anymore…well, they were alone. Really alone. No maid waiting to bathe her. No maid at all.

  “I’m taking all the pins out of your hair, of course.”

  “That young woman would have done perfectly well!”

  “She was wearing an apron, Poppy. Did you see that apron?”

  “She works in the kitchen. Why shouldn’t she wear an apron? I sometimes wear an apron when doing house hold things.”

  “You didn’t notice that the apron was bloody?” he enquired. “Because I did. It looked as if gentle Elsie had been twisting the heads off chickens with her bare hands.”

  Poppy had to admit that she was somewhat reluctant to be bathed by a chicken killer. “Ow!”

  “I can’t get this feather to come out. The long one in the back.”

  “Well, don’t just pull!” But when Poppy put her hands up and tried to help out, he batted her away.

  “I’ve got quite a few pins out,” he said a minute later. “But this black stuff isn’t coming out, Poppy. And the feather doesn’t budge.”

  “It will wash out,” she said. “If you leave now I’ll wash it out in the tub.”

  “And just how are you going to do that yourself?”

  She turned around and glared at him. A feather thwacked her in the eye and she brushed it out of the way.

  “Those feathers are glued into your hair. Did you know that, Poppy? Your maid must be gluing them in and then cutting them out later.”

  She hadn’t known that, but there was a great deal she didn’t know about hair dressing. That’s why she paid Luce so much.

  “The problem is that we don’t have a pair of scissors around here,” he said. “I suppose I can ask the innkeeper.” He opened the door and bellowed down the hall before she thought to answer.

  A moment later he waved a pair of scissors at her. “I’m going to have to cut out all that black stuff and the feathers. You’d better stay very still.”

  She backed away. “Are you jesting? You’re not cutting my hair. I’ll wash out the tar. And the glue.”

  “Right,” he said, folding his arms. Poppy really hated the fact that he looked…well…so male. That was it. He was a big male, with a lot of muscles, and it naturally made her nervous. Actually, it made her want to run her hand up his arm, the part where the muscle was straining against the linen of his shirt.

  “I’ll scrub it out,” she repeated. “So if you wouldn’t mind leaving, Fletch, I’ll get it done in a jiffy.”

  “Where am I to go? You want me to go down and ogle the King of Beggars?”

  “I certainly don’t care where you go but you can’t stay here while I bathe.”

  “Why not? I’ve seen you naked, Poppy. Hell, I’ve kissed you all over naked. We’ve been married four years, remember? That side of our marital life is over. I think you need help.” He picked up a strand of Poppy’s hair and looked at it with a distasteful expression on his face. “Have you ever bathed yourself?”

  There was something in his voice that sounded critical. “No, I have not,” she said fiercely. “But neither has any other woman of my acquaintance.”

  “I was just offering to help.”

  Now he’d made her feel guilty for snapping at him. After all, what difference did it make? He’d seen her naked more times than she could count. And she could see tar clumping her hair powder. The itch was beginning to drive her mad. “All right. But I’m going to bathe in my chemise.”

  He shrugged. “I like to be really clean myself but I know many ladies aren’t like that. One only has to walk into a ballroom in July to realize it.”

  “I am clean!” she snapped.

  “Your choice,” he said kindly. “It certainly doesn’t matter to me what you wear in the bath. I might as well say it again, but that part of our marriage is over.”

  It was all quite embarrassing. Poppy started trying to untie her gown and realized that she couldn’t unhook her sash by herself so it was just as well Fletch was there. He was working at the little hooks when she remembered what Jemma had said and started giggling.

  “Thinking happy thoughts about Loudan again?”

  He sounded rather unfriendly. “Jemma told me that men could come in quite handy on carriage trips,” she said, feeling the laughter bubble up inside her again. “She was right.”

  He pulled her dress backward, off her shoulders and arms, and she stepped out of it. This par ticular dress had three separate petticoats sewn into it and it weighed quite a lot. Her stays laced behind, so Fletch started working on them and cursing a little under his breath. He certainly wasn’t very handy. Poppy started thinking about the possum in the Ashmolean again.

  “Those opposable thumbs are very important,” she told him.

  There was a ripping noise and her stays fell away. She spun around to find him holding up bits of lacing.

  “They wouldn’t come apart,” he said with a silly grin.

  Poppy put her hands on her hips. “Now what am I going to do without laces?”

  “Well, you can’t wear that gown again anyway.” He turned it over with his toe and Poppy could see black marks on the sides. When she raised her eyes, Fletch was staring right at her chest. She looked down too and realized that she was wearing a chemise so light that the line of her breast could be seen through it. She even saw the pink tip of one of her nipples.

  But before she could wrap her arms around her chest, his eyes slid away as if there was nothing interesting there and he said, “You get in the bath, and I’ll try to wash out that tar.”

  Of course he wasn’t attracted to her body anymore. After all, he’d had four years to sate himself on her, and that was more than enough. Plus, Poppy knew quite well that many women had really large bosoms compared to hers.

  She lifted the hem of her chemise and stepped into the bath. She cast a quick glance at Fletch, but he was over on the other side of the room, looking out the window.

  “It’s snowing,” he said. “A proper snowfall.”

  She could just see a blur of white over his shoulder. It made the room seem even smaller and more private.

  “I’d like snow for Christmas,” she said. She sat down in the water, thinking about what would happen to her chemise when it got wet.

  Not that it would matter to him, anyway.

  The wet cloth looked as fine as netting where it clung to her legs. She tugged it over her knees, but where it fell between her legs she could even see golden hair through the tissue-thin cloth. Quickly she brought her knees up to her chest, splashing water on the floor.

  “Are y
ou ready?” he said from the window.

  “No!” If she wrapped her arms around her chest and kept her knees up, she was covered. Not decent, but covered.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m ready.”

  Chapter 36

  Jemma and her husband were nearing the end of their game. If Jemma had to bet on it, she would say that she was winning, hands down. Beaumont had played the first game in this match with a fiery intensity, as if every move would determine the change of government.

  But this game he kept moving carelessly and then talking of Fox’s India bill, the French trade treaty, the brandy tax, the situation of Scottish peers in the House of Lords. Almost as if he wanted her opinion. And she would lay out the board for another game (for they had fallen into the habit of playing a side game, as they called it), and if she felt he was truly spouting nonsense, she would point it out.

  She’d actually started reading the Morning Chronicle and the Morning Post, though she was careful not to let him know. There was no point in letting one’s husband think that he was interesting; it would only end in disaster.

  This night Jemma looked at the board and knew she had him. There would be three more days, because of the one-move-a-day rule, but the game was over. “You didn’t play this game seriously,” she said, moving her queen to King’s Four and taking his only remaining castle.

  He moved a pawn in a hopeless gesture of solidarity toward his threatened queen. “True,” he said. “But I wouldn’t want you to think that I want any less to win.”

  “I believe it’s competition that spurs you to play,” she said. “Last game, Villiers was your competition, not myself. Without Villiers playing a parallel game, you can’t bring yourself to play your best.”

  She didn’t say the obvious: that if her assessment were correct, he didn’t really care to win. And given that she herself was the purported prize for winning the match…well, there was nothing there that she hadn’t known for years, was there?

  “Fox’s India Bill will be voted on any day,” he said. “Shall we go to the country soon? My mother writes that she will remain in Scotland.” There was no need to explain that comment: the dowager duchess was known far and wide as a harridan.