What A Lady Needs For Christmas
Page 32
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.”
He dabbed at her cheeks with a corner of the sheet. “Women are emotional when they’re on the nest. It’s nothing to fret over.”
She smacked him, which had about as much effect as if she’d smitten him with a swath of lace. “I’m so much more than on the nest. I’m Mrs. Dante Hartwell, and I love you, and I never thought beyond—Oh, you are awful.”
So she kissed him for an awfully long time, all the while sensing patience in him and great good cheer to go along with a rising arousal. When she let him up for air, she was straddling him, her braid coming undone, the covers in a tangle around them.
“You are trying to distract me,” Dante said, tracing a finger along the side of her jaw. “Flaunting your rosy wares, accosting me with your charms. And to think you once valued your modesty so exceedingly.”
He was teasing her, and the matter he alluded to was more complicated than modesty, having to do with trust, self-confidence, pride, and love.
“So say your piece, and then I have plans for you, M
r. Hartwell. We’re not finished celebrating our holidays.”
“No, we are not. I bought you that silly dress shop. I had a bit put aside, and we’ll have some investors in that venture too, at least until we can buy them out. But nobody would hear of me taking a mortgage, and Spathfoy said it would be seen as a hobby for you, an eccentric indulgence, like a collection of teapots, or—please stop crying, Joan. I wanted to make you happy. All I wanted was for you to be happy.”
She mashed her nose against his neck, hard, because tears and joy both had reached proportions too great for one lady to manage.
“I wanted to make you happy,” Joan said. “I wanted to be a good wife to you, to be worthy of your respect and affection. I wanted you to be p-proud of me.”
He let her cry, let her kiss the daylights out of him, and cry some more. When she could compose herself, to the extent a woman naked in bed with the most wonderful husband in the world could compose herself, Dante held her, his cheek pillowed against her hair.
“You’re pleased, then, to have a dress shop of your own? We’ll be firmly in trade, whether you’re simply sketching the dresses or handling the ledger books. I won’t have you on your feet greeting customers all day.”
“Of course not. We’ll hire snooty Frenchwomen for that, and this will be the best fun, Dante. Ladies pay dearly for their fripperies, too. Trade can be lucrative.”
He laughed at this profundity. “We’ll have a portion of the profits from the mills, and I have a few other ideas, if you don’t object to ventures involving family. We won’t starve, unless you deny me leave from this bed.”
“We’ve missed tea, haven’t we?”
And this would cause talk and knowing smiles, and Joan could not be less concerned. She stretched atop her husband, luxuriously, having her first experience of that condition known as “not a care in the world.”
“I can fetch you some clothes,” Dante said, hugging her soundly. “What shall you wear to your first dinner as a purveyor of fine ladies’ fashions?”
She would wear a smile, certainly, and it could well be a permanent addition to her wardrobe. “Choose anything, provided I can remove it easily.”
Dante rose from the bed, not a stitch on him, and crossed to the wardrobe. “These aren’t likely to fit you much longer.”
And what did that matter? Instead of patterns and fabrics and lace, Joan’s awareness was drawn to the line of her husband’s shoulders, the sculpted tapering of his ribs, the—
Oh, dear. They were going to miss dinner as well.
Though they did decide one thing before Joan again fell asleep in her husband’s embrace some while later. If the child was a girl, she would be named Joy Babette Hartwell.
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If you enjoy romance
set in the Scottish Highlands,
then be sure to read on
for a taste of
The Laird
Book 3
in Grace Burrowes’s
Captive Hearts series
“Elspeth, I believe a Viking has come calling.”
At Brenna’s puzzled observation, her maid set aside the embroidery hoop serving as a pretext for enjoying the Scottish summer sun, rose off the stone bench, and joined Brenna at the parapets.
“If Vikings are to ruin your afternoon tea, better if they arrive one at a time,” Elspeth said, peering down at the castle’s main gate. “Though that’s a big one, even for a Viking.”
From her vantage point high on Castle Brodie’s walls, all Brenna could tell about the rider was that he was big, broad-shouldered, and blond. “Our visitor is alone, likely far from home, hungry and tired. If we’re to offer him hospitality, I’d best inform the kitchen.”
“He looks familiar,” Elspeth said as the rider swung off his beast.
Brenna had the same sense of nagging familiarity. She knew that loose-limbed stride, knew that exact manner of stroking a horse’s neck, knew—
Foreboding prickled up Brenna’s arms, an instant before recognition landed in a cold heap in her belly.
“Michael has come home.” Nine years of waiting and worrying while the Corsican had wreaked havoc on the Continent, of not knowing what to wish for.
Her damned husband hadn’t even had the courtesy to warn her of his return.
Elspeth peered over the stone crenellations, her expression dubious. “If that’s the laird, you’d best go welcome him, though I don’t see much in the way of baggage. Perhaps, if you’re lucky, he’ll soon be off larking about on some new battlefield.”
“For shame, Elspeth Fraser.”
Brenna wound down through the castle and took herself out into the courtyard, both rage and gratitude speeding her along.
She’d had endless Highland winters to rehearse the speech Michael deserved, years to practice the dignified reserve she’d exhibit before him should he ever recall he had a home. Alas for her, the cobbles were wet from a recent scrubbing, so her dignified reserve more or less skidded to a halt before her husband.
Strong hands steadied her as she gazed up, and up some more, into green eyes both familiar and unknown.
“You’ve come home.” Not at all what she’d meant to say.
“That I have. If you would be so good, madam, as to allow the lady of the—Brenna?”
His hands fell away, and Brenna stepped back, wrapping her tartan shawl around her more closely.
“Welcome to Castle Brodie, Michael.” Because somebody ought to say the words, she added, “Welcome home.”
“You used to be chubby.” He leveled this accusation as if put out that somebody had made off with that chubby girl.
“You used to be skinny.” Now he was all-over muscle. He’d gone away a tall, gangly fellow, and come back not simply a man, but a warrior. “Perhaps you’re hungry?”
She did not know what to do with a husband, much less this husband, who bore so little resemblance to the young man she’d married, but Brenna knew well what to do with a hungry man.
“I am…” His gaze traveled the courtyard the way a skilled gunner might swivel his sights on a moving target, making a circuit of the granite walls rising some thirty feet on three sides of the bailey. His expression suggested he was making sure the castle, at least, had remained where he’d left it. “I am famished.”
“Come along then.” Brenna turned and started for the entrance to the main hall, but Michael remained in the middle of the courtyard, still peering about. Potted geraniums were in riot, pink roses climbed trellises under the first-floor windows, and window boxes held all manner of blooms.
“You’ve planted flowers.”
Brenna returned to her husband’s side, trying to see the courtyard from his perspective. “One must occupy oneself somehow while waiting for a husband to come home—or b
e killed.”
He needed to know that for nine years, despite anger, bewilderment, and even the occasional period of striving for indifference toward him and his fate, Brenna had gone to bed every night praying that death did not end his travels.
“One must, indeed, occupy oneself.” He offered her his arm, which underscored how long they’d been separated and how far he’d wandered.
The men of the castle and its tenancies knew to keep their hands to themselves where Brenna MacLogan Brodie was concerned. They did not hold her chair for her, did not assist her in and out of coaches, or on and off of her horse.
And yet, Michael stood there, a muscular arm winged at her, while the scent of slippery cobbles, blooming roses, and a whiff of vetiver filled the air.
“Brenna Maureen, every arrow slit and window of that castle is occupied by a servant or relation watching our reunion. I would like to walk into my home arm in arm with my wife. Will you permit me that courtesy?”
He’d been among the English, the military English, which might explain this fussing over appearances, but he hadn’t lost his Scottish common sense.
Michael had asked her to accommodate him. Brenna wrapped one hand around his thick forearm and allowed him to escort her to the castle.
***
He could bed his wife. The relief Michael Brodie felt at that sentiment eclipsed the relief of hearing again the languages of his childhood, Gaelic and Scots, both increasingly common as he’d traveled farther north.
To know he could feel desire for his wedded wife surpassed his relief at seeing the castle in good repair, and even eclipsed his relief that the woman didn’t indulge in strong hysterics at the sight of him.
For the wife he’d left behind had been more child than woman, the antithesis of this red-haired Celtic goddess wrapped in the clan’s hunting tartan and so much wounded dignity.
They reached the steps leading up to the great wooden door at the castle entrance. “I wrote to you.”
Brenna did not turn her head. “Perhaps your letters went astray.”
Such gracious indifference. He was capable of bedding his wife—any young man with red blood in his veins would desire the woman at Michael’s side—but clearly, ability did not guarantee he’d have the opportunity.