The Captain's Christmas Bride Page 8

  ‘Yes. And we don’t want anyone knowing that you aren’t getting exactly what you want, do we?’ said Marianne brightly. ‘So I shall smile, and pretend I am pleased for you, and nobody will suspect a thing.’

  With Marianne on board, she did actually feel a little better. She could certainly manage to go about her duties with a more-or-less clear head. And if her nerves did get to screaming point she could always pick up something breakable and throw it against the wall.

  * * *

  The Meissen figurines she detested so much remained safe until luncheon, mainly because she didn’t have a spare minute to indulge her secret promise to herself to relieve her feelings by wreaking vengeance on them.

  Though there must have been something about the way she approached the table that revealed the simmering broth of emotions she was striving to conceal.

  ‘Your sister-in-law Ellen should be doing more,’ observed Aunt Frances from her sofa, as Julia stalked past with her eyes fixed on the cake stand. ‘Staines ought to spend more time here, so she could learn how to run a household of this size, rather than leaving it all to you. And you with a wedding to arrange, too.’ She shook her head in a reproving fashion. ‘No wonder you look so hagged.’

  Hagged? Julia froze with her hand outstretched. ‘Thank you for your concern,’ she replied politely, and picked up a plate. Though what she would dearly have loved to say, was Why don’t you get up off that sofa and do something to help instead of criticising everyone else? And couching your criticism of my appearance under a cloak of concern for my health?

  But that was just typical of her aunts. They’d always all been too busy scoring points off each other to get round to doing anything useful.

  ‘And as for poor Ellen,’ Julia continued, helping herself to a generous portion of pastries and sandwiches, ‘I wouldn’t burden her with anything more than she has on her plate already.’ Being married to Nick was a fate she wouldn’t wish on any woman.

  ‘Speaking of plates,’ said her aunt. ‘Do you really think you ought to put so much upon yours?’ She eyed Julia’s selection of cakes. Then smoothed a hand down her own, almost ethereal figure.

  ‘Well, as you pointed out, Aunt Frances,’ she replied with a tight smile, since there was no point in arguing with a woman who was never happy unless she had someone or something to criticise, ‘I do have a lot of work to do, what with one thing and another, and nobody but my dear Marianne to help me. So I need to keep my strength up.’

  ‘That girl,’ said her aunt with a disdainful sniff. But was prevented from saying anything else, when that girl herself came in, looking as harassed as Julia felt. Marianne hurried to Julia’s side, one hand fluttering to tidy her rather windblown hair after Aunt Frances, having raked her from head to toe, raised her eyebrows and pulled down the corners of her mouth.

  ‘You took the message to Gatley about the flowers then,’ said Julia, eyeing a smudge of what looked like moss on Marianne’s gown.

  ‘Oh!’ Marianne took out a handkerchief and dabbed frantically at the stain. ‘Yes,’ she said, blushing, and looking anywhere but at Julia’s Aunt Frances.

  ‘Well, one thing you have to say for holding your wedding at Christmas, while your family are already all about you,’ said Aunt Frances, as though Marianne wasn’t there, and hadn’t spoken. ‘It will save you having to write out and post the invitations.’

  Once again, Julia had to bite back a pithy retort. She was sick of Marianne having to endure such slights. And not only from the Caldicotts. For some reason, the only thing upon which all her aunts agreed, from whichever side of the family they sprang, was that Marianne was an encroaching hussy. A foreign encroaching hussy at that. As if she was somehow to blame for having a French father. And worse, a father who’d died penniless. They acted as though Marianne had deliberately pushed her way in at Ness Hall when the truth was she’d been brought here when she’d been far too young to have any say in the matter.

  ‘Indeed it will,’ was all she deigned to reply, though she would have liked to add that it would also deny anyone the chance to think up a refusal, too. Nick for one would have been sure to have found some excuse to avoid setting foot in Ness Hall. Let alone to attend her wedding.

  Still, she had far too much to do to allow Nick’s constant state of warfare with their father to distract her. Which was just as well. Organising a wedding, as well as tonight’s ball, left her with no leisure to worry about her marriage. Let alone take time off to throw porcelain shepherdesses against marble fireplaces.

  She didn’t have time to think about Captain Dunbar, or the argument they’d had that morning, or the way he’d made her feel the night before. Not for more than a second or two, every now and then. And there was always some task on which she could concentrate, which prevented her wallowing in the shame, or the anger, or the more treacherous, quivery flashes of excitement.

  * * *

  In fact, there had been so many tasks that, had she not had Marianne to help her run the more tedious errands, by the evening she would have been in no fit state to attend the ball she’d spent so much time that day adapting to the circumstance of her betrothal. As it was, she would still rather have gone for a lie down, then had a tray sent to her room. But people were travelling to Ness Hall from all over the county. Invitations to the Hunt Ball had gone out weeks ago. It couldn’t be cancelled, any more than she could refuse to attend.

  And so Julia donned the gown she’d had made for the occasion, when it had merely been the Hunt Ball, with gritted teeth. Though she had to admit, as she checked her appearance in the mirror before going down, that it was a splendid creation. The crossover bodice flattened her bosom and then the rest of the gown swirled down in such a way that it disguised her defects, rather than clinging to them.

  * * *

  Although more than thirty members of her family plus assorted houseguests were going to be sitting down to dine, the first person she saw when she entered the salon where they were all assembling, was Captain Dunbar. And the minute she saw him, her whole body seemed to go on the alert. Her breasts felt full. The bodice now felt as if it was caressing her bosom, rather than confining it. Her lips parted and her heart thumped. Her legs felt too quivery to carry her all the way across the room to where he stood. She could only assume that it was all because she’d been intimate with him. No matter what her mind thought of him as a person, her body had enjoyed his body.

  It could be the only thing to account for it. For she’d never reacted to a man like this before.

  Not even David.

  She fixed a polite, social smile in place and forced herself to walk across the room to the man she was going to have to marry, because she’d become so impatient with another.

  He didn’t smile back. But the look in his eyes was so intent, so focused upon her progress towards him that she felt as if he was stripping her naked in his mind. Which, instead of embarrassing her, simply made her wonder what he’d look like unclothed. She’d felt the power of his broad shoulders, the roughness of his thighs, and the skill of his calloused hands, but it had been dark. Besides, he hadn’t removed a single item of clothing, not completely.

  Not that she’d wanted him to!

  By the time she reached his side, her face was aflame.

  As he reached out and took her hand, bowed over it, kissed it, she dimly heard someone laugh. Someone observed caustically, ‘Right off her pedestal...’

  Someone else chimed in with, ‘It’s what she always wanted, though, isn’t it, a love match...?’

  And the first voice again, laced with bitterness. ‘And the old man let her have her way, as usual, instead of arranging something suitable and sensible, the way he did for us...’

  Nick and Herbert. Seething with resentment against her, as usual. Though how they would crow if they knew this wasn’t what it appeared at all.


  From the sudden tension in Captain Dunbar’s jaw, she suspected he’d heard the comments, too. But it was what he wanted, wasn’t it? Or at least, what he’d agreed. They were trying to convince everyone this was a love match. That they were so in love they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. So that if the story about what had happened in the orangery ever did get out, their behaviour would have an excuse everyone would accept.

  It was a far cry from the truth. Which was...was... Her face grew even hotter. It was something that made it extremely hard to get through dinner. Only the occasional word or phrase broke through the daze she was in, the way Nick and Herbert’s comments had done. But she couldn’t really follow the thread of any conversation, because her body was in a state of melting excitement, simply because he was sitting next to her. It was so vexing. She’d sat next to dozens of men, at hundreds of dinners, but never before had she been so aware of the muscular build of a man. Nor become flustered by the way his long, supple fingers wielded his cutlery.

  She wasn’t sure how she got through it. But somehow it was over and it was time to remove to the front hall, to welcome those guests who hadn’t been invited to dine, and who were starting to arrive for the ball.

  He stuck to her side like a limpet. Not that she made any attempt to shake him off. Though the feel of his hand at her elbow drove her half-demented. Because she couldn’t help recalling where else that hand had been. And what it had done. And how it had made her feel. Just a touch to the back of her waist, or a brush against her hip sent her well on the way to feeling exactly the same.

  She supposed he was doing his best to look like an adoring fiancé. And at least her blushes, coupled with his proprietary air, were enough to convince people they were madly in love. At least when her father introduced him as her fiancé—with such a proud and pleased expression anyone would have thought he’d had a hand in arranging the match—everyone congratulated them. Even if they did so with sly barbs and knowing smiles.

  Her own cheeks ached with the effort of smiling back at everyone. Her neck was stiff with the effort of keeping it still, instead of tossing her head, or shrugging either of her shoulders. And the tension that had started to form between her brows that morning was working into such proportions that she was sure to have a splitting headache before much longer.

  It didn’t get any easier when it was time to abandon their post and go through to the ballroom where they walked out, arm in arm, to form part of the opening set. She always felt a twinge of sadness when she was one of the first to dance upon a floor so beautifully decorated for a ball. Because the very first dance would obliterate the work of the artist who’d spent all day on his knees chalking it out. But tonight it felt especially poignant. Her own designs, for her own life, had been just as swiftly erased.

  When the set ended and Captain Dunbar escorted her to a chair at the edge of the room, she noted sadly that there was nothing left of the artist’s work but the tail of what had once been a comet, and the crowned hat of one of the huntsmen he’d drawn leaping over a five-barred gate. The rest was just smears on the floor, and smudges of chalk dust on the hems of the ladies who’d danced all over his best efforts.

  And suddenly, it was all too much.

  ‘If you will excuse me,’ she said to him. ‘I need to go to the ladies’ retiring room.’

  His grip on her arm didn’t slacken. For a second or two he gave a very good impression of a man who couldn’t bear to be parted from his bride-to-be for more than a second. Probably because he suspected her of getting up to mischief the minute she was out of his sight.

  ‘You do not need to look at me like that,’ she snapped. ‘I really do need to take a few minutes to...collect myself. Or I am going to end up prostrate with a headache.’

  He let her go with grudging acceptance—for, really, what mischief could one get up to in a ladies’ withdrawing room? There was always at least one maid in attendance, ready to pin up torn flounces. As well as a steady stream of ladies making use of the chamber pots handily situated behind a bank of screens.

  Julia made straight for the table upon which various restoratives and emergency provisions were laid out, and reached for the bottle of lavender water. She tipped a generous amount onto a handkerchief, and pressed it to her temples. Closed her eyes, and gratefully, deeply, breathed in the calming scent.

  She felt someone sit on the stool next to her.

  ‘I’ve been wanting to speak to you all day,’ said the woman in a low voice.

  Julia opened her eyes, and met the concerned ones of Nellie in the mirror before which they sat. Nellie picked up a pot of rice powder, placed there for any lady who needed to counteract the redness of a face overheated from her exertions on the dance floor. She began dabbing it on her face, though she didn’t look the slightest bit flushed, and spoke, moving her lips as little as possible.

  ‘I don’t know what to say...’ she began.

  ‘Please, don’t say anything,’ replied Julia.

  ‘But, last night...that wasn’t meant to happen, was it. I mean...’

  Julia sighed. Braced herself for the lie she was about to utter. ‘I do apologise for dragging you into one of my schemes. It was infamous of me to use the disguise you lent me to lure poor Captain Dunbar out to the orangery. You mustn’t blame yourself for anything that happened.’

  ‘Yes, but I might have known some gentleman would try and cross the line. I should have kept a closer watch on you. Everyone will think so,’ she finished gloomily.

  ‘Well, if anyone says so, you just let me know, and I will deal with them. I shall assure them that you had no idea what I planned. That you were an entirely innocent party in all this.’

  ‘Nobody has said anything iffy to me,’ she said. ‘But I still can’t help feeling responsible. You couldn’t have planned that. If only I’d known exactly why you wanted to swap costumes with me. I could have warned you that it wouldn’t work out the way you wanted. Men don’t treat me with the respect they accord a young lady of your quality.’

  ‘I found that out for myself,’ she said drily.

  ‘Yes, I could see on your face what a shock it was to you.’

  ‘Mmm,’ she said vaguely. For her shock had been at seeing the man she thought was lying on top of her, standing in the doorway instead.

  ‘I certainly didn’t expect Captain Dunbar’s, um, ardour,’ she admitted with complete honesty. ‘But indeed, he didn’t do anything I didn’t like. I mean...’ She flushed and reached for the rice powder herself. ‘I could have stopped him at any time, I’m sure I could. He didn’t...force me, if that is what is worrying you.’

  From the relief on Nellie’s face, it clearly had been worrying her.

  ‘I heard you arguing in the summer house this morning, you see. Then saw you running away. And I wanted to tell you that if you couldn’t bear to marry him, then I could speak out, if you like, and see if we can’t put a stop to it all...’

  ‘No!’ The thought of stopping the wedding filled her with panic. ‘There is no need for that,’ she said as calmly as she could. ‘It was a tiff, what you overheard this morning, that is all.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure?’

  Nellie still looked a little worried. So Julia patted her on the hand, and summoned up her most sincere smile. ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘There’s just one other thing. When Eduardo realised it was you wearing my costume all evening, he started saying some very peculiar things. And now I’m worried your father is going to be so mad about it he’ll send the lot of us packing.’

  ‘Good heavens, no! Your troupe is central to most of the entertainment over the next few days. We need you to keep the younger ones busy with rehearsals for the play, during the day, as well as continuing with your musical items for the rest of the family at night. Besides which,’ she added, thinking of the hostilities simmering be
tween Nick and Papa, Nick and his wife, and all the aunts in varying, fluctuating combinations, ‘if we were left to our own devices, someone would be strangling someone well before twelfth night.’

  ‘Well, good.’ Nellie sighed. ‘That’s good.’

  A sudden horrid thought struck Julia. ‘You...you haven’t told anyone what you saw, in the orangery, have you? When you said, about Eduardo—’

  ‘No, no, nothing like that. He just got worried because of some liberties he said he took with you, without knowing who you were, is all. I won’t never tell what I saw in the orangey. Don’t you worry about that.’

  Nellie’s gaze flicked to the bottle of lavender water, then back to her reflection in the mirror. ‘I see a lot of things you gentry don’t expect anyone to see.’ She shook her head and clucked her tongue. ‘Which I suspect you’d all blame on the mistletoe anyway.’

  ‘I wasn’t the only one misbehaving last night?’

  Nellie grinned. ‘Lawks, no. You wasn’t the worst-behaved neither,’ she said, lapsing into her rather less-refined accent.

  ‘Really? How...? I mean... But...’

  ‘Well, put it this way. Neither of you was married, was you? Not hurting anyone else with what you was doing.’ She shrugged.

  ‘Oh. Oh, my goodness.’ Though she was a little shocked by what Nellie implied she’d witnessed, for the first time that day, some of her guilty shame lifted. She’d felt wretched that her plan to force her father to allow her to marry David had gone so badly awry. But at least she hadn’t ended up with someone else’s husband in the orangery. Her stomach hollowed out. How dreadful that would have been. She truly couldn’t have lived with herself if that had happened.

  Which wife had betrayed which husband, though? She ran through the various family members, and the local gentry who’d been at the ball last night, a swirl of disquiet eddying through her. Such things happened at house parties like this. All the time. Because marriages in her class were generally arranged for financial or dynastic reasons, rather than for love, which was why she’d been hoping never to have to make such a match herself.