Hard work had won her a measure of security, and though her feelings might not be requited, she’d found a man she could esteem greatly. Dougal was capable of desiring her, for all he seemed reticent to take any further liberties, and that reassured the part of her rejected so long ago.
The problem wasn’t her—the problem had never been her.
“Patience, I account myself an articulate man, but some words elude capture when I need them most. You know I respect you.”
What was this? “You argue with me.” Nobody else did. Nobody else took her opinions seriously enough to differ with her.
“Arguing with you is a certain sign of my esteem. I think you enjoyed our kiss under the mistletoe.”
“I can barely recall our kiss under the mistletoe, Mr. MacHugh, and you’ve shown no inclination to refresh my memory.”
He kissed her knuckles. “I’m glad you’re making me work for this. The prize is worth every effort.”
“I’m not a prize. I’m a talented writer who has a lot to offer her readers, and—” Patience heard the battle cry in her words, heard how easily she’d taken up the cudgels, even in the absence of any threat. “Dougal, what are you trying to say?”
“I’m bungling this. I’d planned to wait, to see how the finances for the year closed, to have more to offer you, so I could take the next steps when it was prudent to do so, but circumstances have changed, and—”
He slid off the sofa, down to one knee. “Patience Friendly, will you do me the great honor of becoming my wife?”
Gracious heavens. Perhaps fatigue had made him light-headed. “Dougal, get up. You’ll get cat hair on your trousers.”
He resumed his place beside her, keeping her hand in his all the while. “Is that a yes?”
Douglas was proposing—proposing marriage to her. As the wind howled outside, and the fire danced in the chimney drafts, Patience savored the moment, and the clasp of Dougal’s hand. This was how a proposal ought to be offered, clearly, calmly, sincerely. Bless Dougal forever, because he’d thrown into high relief the disrespect done Patience by her titled former suitor.
She wanted to say yes, to Dougal, to a future that included love and meaningful work both, to a busy life far from what she’d been raised to expect. The thought that stopped her from giving him the response he sought was: If I marry, I lose my house.
Her grandmama’s legacy, all that had preserved Patience from a dreadful marriage or a life of drudgery. If Patience married, that house became her husband’s. If she married, she gave up even the right to spend her own wages. If she married…if she became Mrs. Horner in truth, then she ceased to be Patience Friendly in any meaningful sense.
“I’ve surprised you,” Dougal said.
Ambushed her, more like. She should have known that his brooding looks and odd distance were symptoms of a scheme afoot.
“I care for you, Dougal P. MacHugh. So much. I hope that’s not a surprise, but I don’t even know where you live. I’ve never met your family, and two weeks ago…”
“Come,” he said, rising and bringing Patience to her feet. “I can show you where I live, and we can talk about the rest.”
He grabbed the candle and led her to a door that Patience had assumed was a closet. A stairwell rose up into darkness, the air frigid.
“It’s not much,” he said, “but it’s mine and quite convenient.”
A merchant family often lived above or behind the shop. Why shouldn’t Dougal do likewise? His apartment was at the top of the stairs, his sitting room cozy, much like the one Patience had inherited. A velvet sofa sat before a brick hearth. A dry sink held china and glassware—also a pair of decanters.
“I didn’t realize you had quarters up here.”
“This apartment is part of the reason I bought the place,” Dougal said, kneeling before the cold hearth. “Starting a business calls for long hours, and the less time spent gadding about the streets, the more time spent on productive labor.”
The distinguishing feature of the room was the number of books. Shelves along one wall included classics, novels, atlases, histories, poetry, and herbals.
“You do love to read,” Patience said as Dougal coaxed a fire to life. “You speak French?”
“I was a schoolteacher. Once you have the Latin, you’ve a toehold on French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Greek. I like the look of you here, Patience, among my books and treasures.”
No longer Miss Friendly. “Show me the rest.”
He dusted his hands, replaced the fireplace screen, and bowed her through the door into the second room.
A sanctum sanctorum. In the corner stood a very large bed—neatly made, a blue and white patchwork quilt over the whole. More books graced another set of shelves, and a large desk occupied the corner nearest the windows. The table beside the bed held three books, one of them open, and on the desk the standish, stack of foolscap, and blotter sat in the same arrangement as on the desk one floor below.
A faded carpet of cabbage roses covered the floor, and a pair of large, worn slippers were positioned by the bed.
Those slippers would be exquisitely comfortable.
Patience peered behind the privacy screen and confirmed that Dougal was a tidy man, even in his private quarters. His wardrobe was similarly arranged, everything in order.
He wouldn’t expect her to pick up after him, and he’d set that example for their children.
That mattered, but still, Patience could not find the words to tell Dougal she’d marry him. She’d said yes once before—clearly, unequivocally—and hadn’t ended up married.
Perhaps instead of words, deeds might do.
She crossed the room and stood before Dougal. “I care for you a very great deal, Dougal P. MacHugh, publisher. I esteem you greatly, and circumstances have conspired to give me an opportunity to esteem you intimately as well. Take me to bed, Dougal.”
His brows rose, suggesting she’d surprised him, and then he raised her hands and kissed them, one after the other.
“Are ye sure, lass?”
“I’m sure,” Patience said, stepping into his embrace. Mrs. Horner and the professor would be scandalized, the Windham sisters might not understand, and Patience wasn’t entirely sure of her own motives, but she knew exactly where she wanted to spend the night, and with whom.
* * *
The part of Dougal that reveled in words worried that Patience hadn’t explicitly said yes to his proposal. Perhaps he should have asked permission to court her, which was how the Quality went about an engagement, except he wasn’t a true gentleman, in the strict definition of the term.
And yet, Patience was kissing him as if he were the crown prince of her every dream.
Dougal kissed her back, because she was the crown princess of his every dream, also the queen of his mercantile ambitions and the empress of his good fortune.
Patience shivered, and Dougal recalled that his bedroom was damned near freezing. “Come with me,” he said, leading her into the front room. “Swing the kettle over the fire, and I’ll get a blaze going in the bedroom. There’s bread, cheese, and apples in the window box. I’ll be but a moment.”
He needed that moment to regain his self-possession, then gave up the exercise for hopeless when all he could think of was Patience warming up the bed with him. He turned down the covers, traded boots for slippers, made sure the fire was off to a good start, then prepared to persuade a lady to accept his proposal.
Patience sat on the sofa, staring into the fire. “There’s much I don’t know about you,” she said. “How old are you?”
Dougal took the place beside her. “I’ll be thirty-two on St. David’s Day. What else do you want to know?”
“You don’t care how old I am?”
“You’ve reached the age of consent. A few years one way or the other aren’t relevant. I would like to know what day you were born.”
She drew her feet up under her skirts. “The viscount valued my youth.”
Him
again. “The viscount was a shallow, greedy, arrogant young fool. Cuddle up, Patience.”
The dubious glance she shot him confirmed that in addition to many other failings, the viscount hadn’t bothered to share simple affection with the woman he’d proposed to. Dougal hefted Patience into his lap and drew his grandmother’s quilt around her.
“Like so,” he said. “Cozy and friendly. Ask me more questions.”
“When will you take me to bed?”
“Your enthusiasm for this venture warms my heart, Patience. May I remind you, you haven’t eaten since noon. If we’re to put that bed to its best use, you’ll need your strength.”
She straightened enough to peer at him. “You’ll need yours too.”
“I live in that hope.” Dougal also hoped he’d be able to restrain his passion enough to please his lady, and he further hoped the snow didn’t let up for a few days, because recovering from his good fortune might take that long.
“Tell me about your family, Dougal.”
Over tea, cheese toast, and sliced apples, he obliged as Patience pulled pins from her hair. MacHugh the saddlemaker was his cousin, as was MacHugh the stationer. MacHugh the fishmonger wasn’t related as far as they could tell, but the trail was promising, three generations back on the Irish side.
Cousins Hamish, Rhona, Colin, and Edana might visit London in the spring, though Hamish had no use for city life. Dougal’s younger sister Bridget was walking out with the blacksmith’s son.
“So many people,” Patience said around a yawn. “Do you suppose the bedroom has warmed up?”
“Aye. I do admire your ability to focus on a topic, Miss Friendly.”
She was back in Dougal’s lap, a warm, lovely weight of female cuddled in his arms. She’d put away a good quantity of food, while the wind had rattled the windows and spindrifts of snow had whirled from the rooftop.
“I like this,” she said. “I like that you’re affectionate. I suspect I am too.”
Please, may it be so. “Let’s find out, shall we?”
Dougal rose with Patience in his arms and carried her to the bed. For all that she’d asked after his relations, his education, his favorite books, and whether he knew how to ride a horse, she still hadn’t officially, entirely, unequivocally accepted his proposal.
He settled her on the bed and closed the door, the better to keep in the heat. “Do you need help with your hooks and stays and whatnot?”
“Hooks, yes, but I favor jumps,” she said, pushing off the bed and giving him her back. “I have experience, you know. The viscount saw to that.”
She swept her braid away from her nape and stood before Dougal, her back to him, a tender, private part of her exposed for the most mundane reasons.
“You must not tell me the viscount’s name,” Dougal said, starting on the three thousand hooks marching down the center of her back. “Not ever.”
“You can’t call him out. He’s a titled gentleman, and he’d decline to meet you, owing to the differences in your stations. That tickles.”
“I’m not about to give some useless prat of a title a chance to injure me,” Dougal said, “but between the MacHughs, the MacQuistons—my mother was a MacQuiston—the MacDuffs, and the MacPhersons, all of whom I claim as relations, the viscount’s every debt, inane blunder, stupid wager, or expensive mistress would soon become common knowledge if you tell me his name. My competitors would pay dearly to publish that sort of tattle.”
Patience peered at Dougal over her shoulder. “You don’t publish tattlers. Why not?”
“It’s not my calling. How do you ever get dressed in the morning?”
“My housekeeper assists me, and not all my dresses are this impractical.”
Her chemise was a surprisingly frothy, frilly affair peeking up over her jumps. Dougal was not a connoisseur of lady’s underlinen, but he wanted to see Patience some fine day wearing only that chemise and a smile.
Though stockings might be a nice touch too. White silk with red garters.
“All done,” he said, wrapping his arms around her waist. “I haven’t a sheath, Patience. Do you know what that means?”
He felt the heat of a blush rise over her skin. “It means the apothecary on the corner is a gossip, among other things. Can’t you…wait?”
Dougal kissed her nape. “Withdraw, you mean?”
“Is that the term for when you don’t spend?”
Her blush would have scorched the entire West End. “Coitus interruptus gets the notion across as well. The idea is to prevent conception. I’ll withdraw.”
He paused between kisses in case she had any other comments, questions, or pithy observations to offer, but the lady had gone quiet. Dougal acquainted his lips with the soft skin below her ear and the pulse beating beneath that.
The simple act of kissing her neck had him aroused. He slid a hand down over her derriere and gave her a gentle shove in the direction of the privacy screen.
“Use my tooth powder, and I’ll heat you some wash water.”
Patience moved off to the privacy screen on a soft rustle of fabric, her braid swinging gently above her fundament.
Dougal went into the front room, opened a window, and breathed in a half-dozen lungfuls of frigid air. He was considering whether arctic air wafting over his open falls might aid his flagging self-restraint when God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen floated from the bedroom on a soft hum.
He warmed an ewer of water from the steaming kettle on the pot swing, sent up a prayer for fortitude, then brought Patience her wash water.
“Will you undress, Dougal?” she called from behind the screen.
He passed her his nightshirt over the top of the screen. “In a moment.” Will you become my wife?
Tonight, he would become her lover. For now, that was Christmas gift enough. By morning, he had every intention of becoming her fiancé.
Though for that to happen, she’d have to say yes to his proposal, wouldn’t she?
Chapter Six
Late on a bitter winter evening, Patience delighted in her own personal springtime. The soft breeze of Dougal’s breath at her nape had been her only warning that a man could kiss a lady in places every bit as interesting as her mouth. The sensations that followed had been sweet, surprising, lovely, and so…
Words failed. Patience suspected they’d fail frequently when it came to Dougal P. MacHugh’s lovemaking. His nightshirt bore the scents of heather and lavender, his blue and white quilt put her in mind of the sky on a fine May morning.
He came around the privacy screen, his manly wares on display from the waist up.
Gracious, everlasting angels. “What was the point of combing your hair, Dougal?” She would delight in mussing it up for him.
“To be presentable for my lady. My nightshirt has never looked so fetching. I haven’t a warmer to run over the sheets.”
Patience had cuddled in Dougal’s lap for the better part of an hour, and nothing—nothing at all—compared to the snug, cozy intimacy of his embrace.
“I suspect a warmer won’t be necessary.”
“I wish I had one, though,” he said, starting on the buttons of his falls. “Seemed like an extravagance for a bachelor. For you, I want only warm sheets, fresh sachets, and a steaming pot of chocolate in the morning.”
He might have been reciting the legend of Beowulf for all Patience could heed his words. The tone, though—the intimate, casual tone—did odd things to her insides. The placket of his falls draped open, and he stepped out of his remaining clothing all at once.
He folded his breeches over the privacy screen, giving Patience a good view of his backside.
“I’ve seen statues,” she said. “The Elgin Marbles, for example.”
Dougal, as naked as God made him, banked the fire. “Are you a connoisseur of ancient sculpture, then?”
Patience’s breath had developed a hitch to go with the peculiar leaping about of her heart. “I have a lively sense of curiosity, which I suspect you are generously
obliging.”
The viscount certainly hadn’t. He’d fussed about under her skirts, told her to close her eyes, and then commenced slobbering, poking, and muttering mangled French allusions to flowers and honeybees.
“I am a great believer in the power of knowledge,” Dougal said, hanging the cast-iron poker on the hearth stand and facing Patience. “I also favor deliberation over a heedless rush.”
Patience had lost the ability to fix her gaze where a lady should. She’d apparently acquired the eyes of a lover, because every inch of Dougal fascinated her. His arms, his knees, the distribution of hair over his chest, and…elsewhere.
“That ancient sculptor would have needed a deal more clay if you’d been his model.”
Dougal scratched his chest and yawned, looking magnificently male and oh so gloriously comfortable with it. “I beg your pardon?”
“If you were one of those Greek fellows, in the museum. The sculptor would need…perhaps the Greeks were a diminutive lot. I’m babbling. Are you giving me time to change my mind?”
Had Patience been cold earlier? The sight of Dougal in his natural glory pooled heat low in her belly.
He stepped closer. “You can change your mind, Patience. If you ask me to share that bed with you and not touch you the whole night through, I’ll do it. Don’t adhere to an earlier decision out of stubbornness, pride, or some notion that Mrs. Wollstonecraft would approve. Become intimate with me solely because you want to.”
Dougal’s regard was the least lover-like expression Patience had ever seen on a man. He was serious, almost somber.
“You could share a bed with me, having proposed marriage to me, and simply roll over and drop off to sleep?” She didn’t like that idea at all. Her fists were clenched with the effort to not touch him, to not lean in and taste him, not feel him body to body.
“I’d be daft by morning,” he said, threading a hand beneath Patience’s braid. “You might find me lying in the snow stark naked on the roof of the awning, only George to guard my carcass, but if you tell me to keep my hands to myself, I will.”
“I’d rather you made the effort to warm up the bed with me.”
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