What a Lady Needs for Christmas (3 page)

How to serve tea was a lesson a lady absorbed in the nursery, her nanny guiding, her dolls in attendance. Joan’s own mama had joined in those earliest tea parties and turned the entire undertaking into a game, eventually adding real tea and—Mama had a genius for raising little girls—real tea cakes.

“What’s the most important thing about serving tea?” Charlie asked, and the ring of the question suggested Papa, in addition to the other pearls of wisdom he showered upon his adoring daughter, tended to prose on about Most Important Things.

“The most important thing,” Joan said, “is to make your guests feel welcome, otherwise, they won’t enjoy their tea, or even their tea cakes.”

“It’s not to avoid spills?” Miss Hartwell asked.

Interesting question, and Miss Hartwell offered it hesitantly.

“Spills are inevitable.” Spills on the tea tray, and in life too, apparently. “That’s why we have trays and saucers and extra serviettes. If the hostess spills a drop or two, then a guest who makes a similar slip won’t feel so ill at ease.”

Joan poured out for Miss Hartwell, though to do so was presumptuous when Miss Hartwell’s brother owned the parlor car—and everything in it.

***

As a younger man, Dante had ended up in bed with any number of strangers. The cheaper inns were like that—a man might share a room, even a mattress, with some fellow he’d never met, share a table with a family he’d never see again. The locomotive had conferred that same quality upon the traveling compartment, where impromptu picnics, shared reading, and gossip turned the cheaper cars of each train into a series of temporary traveling neighborhoods.

Dante hadn’t expected that his private car would fall prey to such informality, but there Lady Joan lay, cast away with exhaustion on the settee bolted to the wall.

She did not fit on her makeshift bed.

Her ladyship was tall for a female. Had she been male, Dante would have called her “lanky,” but because she was
not
male, the applicable term was probably “willowy.” The luminous dark purple cloak swaddled her to the chin, but one half boot dangled free of her frothy lavender hems, an escapee from warmth and decorum both.

The question that dogged his very existence of late loomed once again:
What
would
a
gentleman
do?
He’d probably retreat to the other car, where Charlie was busy making enough noise for three little girls, a pair of small boys, and a barking hound.

If the gentleman were very pressed for time, would he ignore his guest, sit at the fussy little tea table, and plow through Hector’s stack of figures? Would he close his eyes for a moment and snatch a badly needed nap when nobody was looking?

That way lay two wasted hours, and yet, Hector’s reports were a daunting prospect.

Lady Joan looked daunted. Her eyes were shadowed with fatigue, and on this rocking, noisy, stinking train car, she was fast asleep.

In addition to her half boot and frilly hems, a slender, pale hand now emerged from under the purple velvet. A row of small nacre buttons started at the wrist of that hand—more subtle luster—marching right up the underside of her forearm to disappear under her cloak.

The poor woman would take forever to get dressed.

Or
undressed
.

Trying not to make a sound, Dante sorted through the half-inch-thick packet of documents he’d taken from the top of his traveling valise when he’d fled the other car.

Five minutes later, he was studying the rise and fall of Lady Joan’s chest beneath her velvet swags. Her stays did not confine her much, was his guess, and maybe that accounted for the freedom she exuded in her movement and in her smiles.

“You’ve caught me,” she said, opening her eyes. She started to stretch, her boot hit the end of the settee, and she subsided beneath her cloak. “Not well done of me, falling asleep where any might chance upon me.”

“I meant only to retrieve my reports. I’ll go back to the other car,” Dante said, shuffling the reports into a stack but making no move to rise.

“No need,” her ladyship said, pushing halfway to sitting and then stopping, awkwardly, half reclining, half sitting. “Gracious. I seem to have become entangled.”

She could not lift her hand to peer at the difficulty, because her lacy cuff was caught on one of the buttons fastening the upholstery to the settee’s frame.

“Hold still.” Dante extracted his folding knife from his coat pocket. He was across the parlor car in two short strides and on his knees before the settee. “I’ll have you free in a moment.”

Dante still wore his reading glasses, so he could see that three of those tiny, fetching buttons—that would inspire a man to stare at her slender wrists by the hour—were now twisted up in the lacy cuff. He flipped open his knife, prepared to deal summarily with troublesome fashions, when Lady Joan’s free hand landed on his shoulder.

“Please, do not.”

“You’re trapped, my lady. A quick slice, and you’ll be free. You can stitch up the lace by the time we’re halfway to Aberdeen.”

Her contretemps put them in close proximity, Dante kneeling before the settee, the lady’s cloak and skirts brushing his knees. What he felt crouched beside her semi-recumbent form was not a temptation to sniff at her spicy fragrance, not a desire to unbind all that fiery hair, but rather, an itch to divest her of the velvet covering her from neck to toes.

“But that’s a
knife
, Mr. Hartwell.”

“Aye, and I keep my blades honed.”

“One doesn’t…velvet and lace should not be…a knife is…oh, bother. Give me a moment.”

He knelt before her, feeling helpless and stupid, while she tried to use her free hand to worry the buttons from the lace. She was doomed to fail—one hand wouldn’t serve for this task—and Dante had every intention of allowing her to struggle while he returned to the boring safety of Hector’s reports.

Except, when she bent forward to work at the trap she’d fallen into, Lady Joan shifted so her décolletage was a foot from Dante’s face. The spicy scent of her concentrated, nutmeg emerging from undertones of cedar, clove, and even black pepper.

The lace of her fichu was a cross between pink and purple—she could doubtless tell him the name for that shade in French and English both—and the cleft between her breasts was a shadowy promise between two modest, female curves.

“I can’t get it,” she muttered. “Drat this day. I can’t even properly sneak a nap or occupy a settee.”

She occupied a settee quite nicely, but one didn’t argue with a lady. Dante knew that much.

“Let me have a try.” He scooted two inches closer and covered her hand with his own. “You’re at the wrong angle.”

She slid her hand out from under his. “Please do. At some point I must leave this train, and dragging furniture behind me will make that a difficult undertaking.”

“You could always take the dress off,” Dante said, studying the problem. Because of the way she’d twisted things up, the trick would be to free the buttons in sequence, top, middle, bottom. He carefully spread the lace around the top button, making an opening for the button to slip through.

The quality of her ladyship’s silence distracted him from the buttons.

What had he said? Something about taking the dress—

She stared at him, her brows drawn down, her mouth a flat, considering line. Then, the corners up her lips turned up, hesitantly. “Taking off the dress would extricate me from the settee’s clutches, though it might be a bit chilly, too.”

She
was not chilly. When Dante considered the picture she’d make, all lace, silk, and pale garters—probably embroidered with lavender flowers—he wasn’t chilly either.

“I’ll have you out in a moment,” he said, focusing on the two remaining buttons.

The third button was not, in fact, the charm. Number two obeyed Dante’s fingers as he created another temporary buttonhole for it, but the last button was tightly caught, and Dante’s efforts to rearrange the lace resulted in a small tearing sound.

“Oh, no,” Lady Joan moaned, trying to still Dante’s fingers by covering his hand with hers. Her palm was cold, her grip stronger than he would have thought.

“Ach, now, my knife—”

“
No.
No knives, not on my cuffs, not on my sleeves, not on my buttons.” Her tone was pleading rather than imperious, but she’d covered the junction of button and lace with her hand so Dante could not have freed her if he’d wanted to.

The moment turned awkward, with the lady trapping his hand against her wrist, as if she’d protect a bit of cloth from the infidel’s knife.

A single hot tear splashed onto the back of Dante’s hand, and the moment became more awkward still.

Two

Joan did not have a favorite fabric, a favorite color, a favorite style of dress. She loved them all—right down to the smallest lacy cuff—with a dangerous, undisciplined passion.

Her passion for fabric would soon cost her everything she held dear.

“I’m sorry,” she said, trying to straighten, but even this small attempt at dignity was thwarted by the perishing sofa. “I’m fatigued, and the day has been t-trying, and no matter what I—”

“There we go,” Mr. Hartwell said, lifting Joan’s wrist from the arm of the sofa. “You’re free.” He dug in his sporran for a handkerchief, which Joan accepted. Her white silk handkerchief was for show, and these tears were all too real.

“My thanks, Mr. Hartwell. I do apologize. I’m not normally so easily—”

A large, blunt finger touched her lips. “You’re about to spew a falsehood,
another
falsehood. In case it has escaped your notice, we are alone in this train car, and nobody’s on hand to whom you need lie.”

Lie
was a blunt word, and Mr. Hartwell’s touch was far from soft, but the kindness in his eyes was real. Rather than fall into that kindness, Joan smoothed her fingertips over the corner of the plain cotton handkerchief.

“Who embroidered this?”

“Margs.”

“She does lovely work.” The small square was monogrammed in green with exquisite precision. “She must have excellent eyesight.”

Mr. Hartwell took the place beside Joan on the sofa, draping her cloak over the arm. “She’s determined, is Margs. Why were you crying?”

A gentleman wouldn’t ask, but a friend—if Joan had had a friend—wouldn’t have let the matter drop.

“Allowing me to share your parlor car doesn’t mean I can inflict all my petty difficulties on you, Mr. Hartwell.”

Though her present difficulties would be the ruin of her, if not of her sisters too.

“I was married,” her companion said. “Sufficiently married to have two wee bairns, and that means I have a nodding acquaintance with women, if not with ladies.”

Soon, Joan wouldn’t be worthy of such a distinction. The notion prompted more tears, not because she would be a discredit to her title, but because her family would be so
disappointed
in her.

She was disappointed in herself, come to that.

Mr. Hartwell wrapped a heavy arm around Joan’s shoulders, and she gave in to the comfort he offered. For long moments, she simply curled into the solid bulk of him and cried, all dignity, all self-control gone, while the train rumbled and swayed ever northward.

When her upset had eased to sniffles, his arm was still around her shoulders, and she could not have moved off the sofa to save what remained of her reputation.

“The wool of your coat contains a quantity of merino,” she said, rubbing her cheek against his sleeve. “The blend is lovely, if unusual. Why aren’t you horrified when I cry?”

“I’m Charlie’s da. You think a few tears will put me off?”

Joan’s father would not have sat with her like this, a quiet, tolerant presence offering handkerchiefs and a calm that had something in common with loyal hounds and plow horses.

“Tears put
me
off,” she said, dabbing at her cheeks and trying to sit up. “I must look a fright.”

His big hand settled on the side of her neck, his callused palm an interesting contrast to her velvet and lace.

“You look frightened, Lady Joan, and tired, and much in need of a friend. You have nowhere to run for the next two hours. The children have gone down for naps, Margs is reading some improving tract, and you have no one else to talk to. I am not—”

Joan waited while Mr. Hartwell chose his words, because she liked the sound of his voice, and she had a soft spot for merino blends.

“I’m not refined,” he went on, “not
of
your
set
, but I have a few resources. I’ll help if I can.”

He was rumored to be wallowing in filthy lucre.

“You are helping. You are helping me flee Edinburgh, where I am sure scandal is about to erupt all over my good name. I was foolish.”

“Edinburgh must breed foolishness, then, because I certainly did not acquit myself well there either.” His admission was grudging, self-mocking, and endearing.

His thumb rested right below her ear, and abruptly, Joan was assailed by a memory of Edward’s nose mashed against her neck. He’d been on top of her, breathing absinthe all over her and wrinkling her gown terribly. If she could forget a man nearly crushing her, what else had she forgotten about last night?

“I cannot imagine you being foolish, Mr. Hartwell. You strike me as the soul of probity.” He was certainly the soul of sober colors, at least when he took to the ballrooms. No extravagant jewels, stickpins, or even formal Highland dress, which was common enough in Scotland.

Joan knew with a certainty that Mr. Hartwell wouldn’t slobber on a woman’s neck while he yanked at her bodice.

“I am the soul of low birth,” he said. “I should know better than to impose myself on my betters, but Margs needs a husband, and someday, Charlie and Phillip will need prospects their papa’s money cannot buy. I sought to start securing those prospects, and found the task utterly beyond me.”

Joan set aside her troubles for a moment—they weren’t going anywhere, heaven knew.

“You’re giving up on Polite Society after a few weeks of waltzing and swilling punch? This isn’t even the social Season, Mr. Hartwell. The prettiest debutante knows she must campaign for more than a few weeks.”