The Captain's Christmas Bride Read online

  But what on earth was Nick doing here? And Herbert? Sitting right at the front? She would have thought they’d rather have all their teeth drawn than get all dressed up to witness her wedding—especially when they believed it was to a man she loved. Because neither of them got on terribly well with the ‘suitable’ wives Papa had arranged for them. And if her half-brothers were miserable in their marriages, they surely wouldn’t see any reason why she should be spared the same fate.

  And as for all the other guests—well, Aunt Frances had been correct in saying that just about every member of the family was here. But they wouldn’t have filled the pews like this. As she and her papa made their stately progress down the aisle, Julia realised that not only the family and most of the other guests who were attending the house party had come to witness her humiliation, but also a fair sprinkling of locals. She spotted the vicar and his wife squashed into one of the rear pews; the master of the local hunt, and his wife in another. Even Nellie’s theatrical company had been allowed to come in and stand along the walls on either side.

  Nellie nodded to her as Lady Julia walked past. As though to reassure her that all would be well. It was amazing how much that woman could express with just a nod and a sort of glimmer to her eye. No wonder she was such a hit on the stage. No wonder she had the entrée to so many homes, too. Just that one look had put more heart into her than anything anyone else had said today. Somehow, it reminded her that Captain Lord Dunbar was a decent man. That many people went into marriages knowing far less about their groom than she did, and had to face the terror of a wedding night with men who were practically strangers.

  At least the wedding night would hold no fear for her.

  Just as she reached that conclusion, she also reached the altar rail, where her reluctant groom stood waiting for her, his back ramrod straight, his eyes fixed forward—as if he didn’t want to acknowledge that any of this was happening to him.

  Captain Lord Dunbar barely glanced at her throughout the ceremony either. And he barked out his responses in a brisk manner that made even Uncle Algernon wince.

  Papa gave him her hand, and Uncle Algernon gave them his blessing, and it was done. They were man and wife. With a sense of acting out a part in a play, she laid her hand on his sleeve and turned to face the congregation, and the world, as a married woman.

  Marianne, who was sitting on the second pew, took one look at her and burst into noisy sobs. Julia had been aware of her sniffling all the way through the service, but not until that moment had she realised just how upset her best friend, and cousin, had been.

  As their eyes met she tried to convey the message that she didn’t bear her any ill will. How could Marianne even think it? As Captain Dunbar had so scathingly remarked, Marianne had never exerted the slightest bit of influence over her. She’d always followed in Julia’s shadow. Looked to her for guidance, if anything.

  She really should have spent more time consoling her friend.

  Just as she was cursing herself for her lack of foresight, she noticed someone passing her a clean handkerchief. It was David.

  David was sitting next to Marianne.

  Her step faltered. Who had invited him? And why hadn’t she noticed him when she’d been walking down the aisle? Because she’d been concentrating on her husband of course! Though—no, that wasn’t right. She’d noticed Nick, and Herbert, and even Nellie on her way to the altar.

  She stared at him for a moment in complete bewilderment. If she loved him, shouldn’t she have sensed he was there? The way she always sensed the presence of Captain Dunbar whenever he was in a room?

  Though what did it matter? David could be nothing to her now. He was there for Marianne, clearly. Which was a good thing. Yes, a very good thing. Marianne needed a friend today.

  And wouldn’t it have been terrible if this incident had deprived Marianne of that friendship? The three of them had been firm friends since shortly after Marianne had arrived at Ness Hall. Even though she’d forfeited David’s regard, she was glad he clearly didn’t blame Marianne for any of it. No, all his anger, to judge from the look on his face, was directed solely and squarely, at her. Which was exactly where he should direct it, of course. Marianne had urged her not to try to trap David into marriage. Begged her not to borrow clothes from Nellie and comport herself as a woman of easy virtue. And Julia had brushed all her scruples aside.

  Yes, she was glad he was there to comfort and console Marianne, until she had the opportunity to discuss her companion’s future. Because now she came to think of it, Marianne must be worried sick about it. Her status in this house had become that of a sort of unpaid companion. She must be wondering what would happen to her now.

  She glanced up at her new husband, wondering if she would be able to persuade him to take Marianne into their household. And then realised she had no idea what their household was to be like, or even where they were to set it up. They hadn’t talked about anything of that sort.

  Oh, how she wished she’d held on to her temper, yesterday morning, and had a sensible talk about practical issues. That was probably why he’d asked to speak to her privately. To discuss such things.

  Her husband’s arm stiffened under her hand. Even though he was looking resolutely forward, somehow she knew he’d noticed her staring at David and Marianne. And to judge from the stern set of his jaw, had drawn entirely the wrong conclusion. Oh...bother!

  She forced herself to look straight ahead as well. And saw the servants, jostling each other and leaning over the gallery to catch a glimpse of her in all her finery. As she looked up, they burst into a spontaneous round of applause. Which made her lower lip start quivering, and tears spring to her eyes. For she’d caused them no end of extra work, by getting married in such haste. And not one of them had complained. On the contrary, they’d flung themselves into the preparations with a goodwill that put her to shame. Even the gardeners had done her proud, stripping half the herbaceous borders, to judge from the amount of greenery decorating the chapel.

  She felt about two inches tall.

  To crown it all, as they passed through the door that led from the chapel into the great hall, where the wedding breakfast was laid out, Captain Dunbar bent and growled into her ear.

  ‘He isn’t worth it, you know.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘That medical student.’

  He was referring to David. She took a breath to explain that she wasn’t getting teary-eyed over him, but at the touching loyalty of the staff. when he continued, ‘You may have thought yourself in love with him, but he wasn’t in love with you.’

  And just like that, she forgot all about explaining anything at all.

  ‘Just because you despise me,’ she hissed between clenched teeth, ‘it doesn’t mean to say some other man couldn’t be in love with me.’

  ‘That wasn’t what I said. Some man may be stupid enough to fall in love with you one day. But that one didn’t. A man with a broken heart doesn’t sit through the wedding of his true love with an expression like that on his face.’

  She drew a breath to make a pithy retort, when something about what he’d said struck her. Very forcibly.

  Oh, not about David not loving her. She’d seen his love for her die the moment he’d walked into the orangery and discovered what she’d just done.

  No, it was the bit about what someone with a broken heart would feel like, watching someone they loved marrying another man. Because it surely applied to a woman, too.

  And Julia had to face the fact that she hadn’t been devastated when she’d made her vows. Nor, at any point, had she felt the slightest inclination to run to David and weep and plead for his forgiveness. She hadn’t felt the slightest bit jealous of him giving Marianne so much attention during her wedding, either. On the contrary, she’d been grateful that Marianne still had one friend upon whom she could count.


  Which meant that her own heart wasn’t broken at all.

  Her pride was bruised. Her self-esteem crushed.

  But she most definitely wasn’t suffering from a broken heart.

  She wasn’t sure what that meant. Hadn’t she loved David at all? Or had the love she’d felt died in the same instant as his?

  Or...

  Oh, what a time to be thinking about another man.

  She had to stop it. It was insulting to her husband. Even if they’d only met a couple of days ago, she’d just made vows before God and Uncle Algernon. And she intended to keep them. If at all possible.

  No. More than that. She would keep them. No matter what. She’d dreamed for so long of a marriage that didn’t involve seeking consolation in discreet affaires. And though nothing else about this marriage fulfilled any of her girlish promises to herself, she could at least hold on to the one where she never succumbed to the temptation to stray from her husband’s bed.

  * * *

  ‘You look like a medieval martyr on the way to the stake,’ said Captain Dunbar, later that evening, when he came to claim her for the waltz. The day had been long and arduous, but at last they were entering the final stretch. Only the impromptu ball to endure, and then she could go up to her room and hide.

  ‘You need to do better than this.’

  She took a deep breath. Counted to ten. And then waited another couple of beats before making her answer.

  ‘People will just think I’m nervous about our wedding night,’ she flung at him as he took hold of her hands for the march. ‘After all, I’m renowned for being particularly prim and proper.’

  ‘Good God! Really?’ He looked down at her with the first genuine smile she’d ever seen on his face. It made him look like a different man. A man she could, perhaps, talk to.

  The way she used to talk to David.

  ‘I must say,’ he said softly, bending to murmur in her ear as he snaked his arm round her waist and turned her into the pirouette, ‘I find it well-nigh impossible to think of you in that way. Prim, you may look, at this very moment. But proper? No. Improper is what you are...’

  Annoyingly, she felt her cheeks heating again. Why was it that she did nothing but blush, or lose her temper around this man?

  ‘And that, I think, gives us the perfect excuse to leave,’ he said. ‘You look delightfully flushed and nervous, and I’m sure I look like an eager bridegroom.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Haven’t you had enough?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Then let’s leave.’

  ‘Very well.’ She sighed. ‘But—’

  To her shock, he did away with any further protests by hefting her into his arms, right in the middle of the dance floor, and striding out of the room with her. His action was greeted by a series of gasps, and catcalls, and one or two ribald comments from the uncles who’d been imbibing a little too freely.

  ‘Put me down.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You will be exhausted, long before we reach our rooms, if you don’t,’ she warned him. ‘I’m not exactly made of thistledown.’

  ‘No, you’re very nicely rounded,’ he observed. ‘But perhaps you have a point.’ He stopped at the end of the hall and set her gently down at the foot of the staircase. ‘I wouldn’t want to expend all my energy getting you to the bedroom.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ She shot him a suspicious glance as he grabbed her hand, and tugged her up the stairs.

  ‘You know very well what I mean.’

  She was very much afraid she did. And her suspicions were confirmed when he made straight for her bedroom, and pushed the door open.

  ‘You cannot come in here,’ she protested, wondering how he even knew where her room was. Had he bribed one of the footmen? No—there had probably been no need to do any such thing. Her own maids had probably volunteered the information, thinking they were furthering the cause of some grand passion.

  ‘Of course I can,’ he said, ushering her inside, and following her in. ‘I’m your husband now.’

  Yes. He was. But it still felt like an invasion. No man but her father had ever come in here.

  ‘I thought...that is...’ She shook her head. She didn’t know what she’d thought about the sleeping arrangements. Actually, she’d tried not to think about it at all—her wedding night, that was. Apart from that fleeting moment on the way out of the chapel when she’d vowed never to stray from her husband’s bed. And even then, she’d never imagined him in hers.

  ‘You don’t expect me to stay up in that chilly little room your housekeeper found for me, do you? Not tonight?’

  He stalked across the room to the bed. Sat down on it. Lay back, and clasped his hands behind his head, crossing his feet at the ankles.

  ‘Ahhh.’ He sighed. ‘This is more like it. Very comfortable.’

  She stood there glaring at him. Just glaring at him, making himself at home in the room she’d always considered her sanctuary.

  And counted to ten again. She was so tired. She hadn’t slept last night. She’d been at everyone’s beck and call all day. And now, instead of being able to rest, it looked as though he was going to force some sort of confrontation. And she just wasn’t up to it.

  He sat up.

  ‘Come now, no point in standing over there all night. Time to come to bed. Wife.’ He held out his hand.

  ‘I don’t... I don’t want to,’ she said mulishly.

  ‘Don’t be a hypocrite.’ He sprang up off the bed.

  ‘I’m not a hypocrite—’

  ‘Yes, you are. You’re standing all the way over there, pretending to be shy, when we both know you’re nothing of the sort.’

  ‘That’s not why I’m standing over here.’

  ‘No?’ All his good humour evaporated. ‘Then it’s because you’re wishing I was another man, then.’

  ‘No!’ She shook her head with some vehemence. She didn’t want him thinking that, when it wasn’t true. Why, she hadn’t spent a tenth of the time, thinking about David, than she had thinking about him, today. Her body kept on leaping to attention whenever he was around. And whenever he’d touched her in the dance, her insides had gone molten. When he’d picked her up and carried her out of the ballroom, a sort of bubbling excitement had erupted on top of the molten feelings, so that when he set her on her feet again it was all she could do to stand up on legs that felt like blancmange. ‘That’s not it.’ She forced the humiliating admission between reluctant teeth.

  ‘Good,’ he said, stalking over. ‘I’m relieved to see you don’t intend to be dishonest about this.’ He set his hands on either side of her waist. ‘For this is the one real thing we have. Passion. Besides...’ his voice dropped to a low snarl ‘...you’re my wife now. And you are not going to deny me my wedding night.’

  She’d had no intention of denying him anything! How dare he suggest she would short-change him? And why was he so angry?

  ‘Now, look here—’

  ‘No. You look here.’ He threaded the fingers of one hand into her hair, and tipped her head back. ‘I never wanted to get married. But since I am married, I may as well get the one thing from it, from you, that I want.’

  His words stung. There was no need to remind her, not right this minute, that she was the last woman he would have married, if he’d actually been on the lookout for a wife.

  ‘I hate you,’ she hissed.

  ‘But you want me.’

  The arrogance of that statement made her want to slap his face. Especially since she couldn’t refute it. She did want him.

  Anger, and wanting, and resentment, and excitement, went swooshing through her veins, making her heart beat like a galloping horse. She found she was breathing hard, as though she’d been running.

  Her
one consolation was the fact that he was breathing hard, too. Looking at her with all the turmoil she could feel swirling through her own being.

  ‘And hell,’ he growled. ‘I want you, too.’

  His admission was all it took to snap the restraints. She wasn’t sure which of them moved first. But all of a sudden, they were kissing each other. Hard, desperate kisses, which would have rocked her off her feet if he hadn’t clamped his arms round her so tightly.

  Until he started tearing at her clothes. And backing her towards the bed. She fell onto it, with him half on top, his mouth fused with hers even as he let go of her to remove his own clothes.

  And then his hands were everywhere. Everywhere. As if he couldn’t get enough of her. Couldn’t decide which bit of her he wanted most. And since he was making free with her body, she didn’t see any reason why she shouldn’t do the same with his. He felt marvellous. Hard, and hot, and peppered with hair that felt wonderful against her own softer, smoother skin.

  She knew what was coming, this time. Was eager for it. Desperate for it. So much so that the cry she gave, when he drove into her, was one of completion. She clutched at his shoulders, then his buttocks as he pounded into her, urging him on. It was gloriously reassuring, the way he dominated her, possessed her, so completely. If he’d shown any hint of reluctance, she didn’t think she could have borne it. But this...

  Even as she was revelling in it, she erupted into a sort of wild ecstasy.

  And so did he.

  He collapsed to one side of her, his breathing ragged. As ragged as hers. She was sweating. The eiderdown was all bunched up in the small of her back.

  ‘I didn’t mean for it to be like that,’ he said with what sounded like regret.

  A shaft of cold uncertainty pierced to her core. It had felt spectacular to her. Hadn’t he wanted it to be?

  ‘Not on your wedding night. I meant to take it slow. Get you to liking it. But it was over as quick as last time.’

  What did he mean? Couldn’t he tell how much she’d liked it? If she’d liked it any more her heart would probably have exploded.