What a Lady Needs for Christmas (6 page)

While all a lady needed were pretty manners and a fat dowry.

“Balfour House will be damned cold.” Bloody, goddamned cold, though Tye restrained his vocabulary in light of present company.

Her ladyship peered at the baby meaningfully. “Cold sometimes inspires you to great feats of cuddling, Tiberius. Is that baby wet?”

“Very likely.” Train travel inspired infant digestion—another salient fact to which the men of the family had drawn Spathfoy’s attention. “I’ll change him.”

Her ladyship dug more purposefully into the traveling bag, likely to hide her merriment. Tiberius was determined that he should be able to look after the boy in every needful fashion, which even his Scottish relations regarded as a queer start, indeed.

Determination, however, was a familial trait the Flynns prided themselves on, and thus—while the results were often lumpy, off-center, or droopy—Tiberius honed this aspect of his nursery maid’s skills on the rare opportunities to do so that came his way.

He laid the child on the bench of their first-class compartment, while his wife studied the frigid scenery of Deeside as it swayed past outside the window.

“Do you know who will join us for this holiday house party, Tiberius?”

Tye let the question wait—a wiggling child, a wet nappy, and a dry replacement required concentration. “Family, mostly.”

“You’re getting better at that,” his wife observed.

“Quicker.” Though the results exhibited a damnable lack of symmetry. Tye tucked the child’s dress down and folded the plush, cream-colored blanket about him. The hem was a riot of leaping, rolling, bounding rabbits—Joan’s work, no doubt—while the blanket itself was the softest wool Tye could recall touching.

“Dora and Mary Ellen will come with your parents, won’t they?”

Tye picked the child up and held him at arm’s length, blankets and all. “Kicking and screaming, but even my sisters wouldn’t abandon Joan to the heathen Scots in the dead of winter.” Much less to Mama’s tender machinations.

Next he hoisted the baby over his head, which provoked the boy to smiling hugely and waving his fists.

“Gahg!”

Both parents stared for a moment at the prodigy who’d uttered this pronouncement.

“Gahg-gaa!”

So of course, the next five minutes were spent waving the child about the train car, until Tye’s arms honestly grew a bit tired. “He’ll sleep now.”

“He’ll remain wide awake,” Lady Spathfoy countered. “Do you ever worry about Joan, Tiberius?”

And thus, they came to the real reason her ladyship had shooed the nursemaids off to the parlor car.

“Incessantly. I had envisioned her finding a genteel companion and establishing herself as a fashionable adornment to Paris society, but that hasn’t happened.”

“Gahg-gaa-gaa!”

The viscount—for the baby was the grandson of a marquess, and in the direct line to inherit the title—struck out at his father’s nose this time.

“Enough,” Tye said. “If God meant for little men to fly about train compartments, he would have given papas greater arm strength.”

Her ladyship waited patiently because it suited her, though she could be marvelously impatient under certain circumstances when private with her husband.

“Joan is my sensible sister. I hadn’t foreseen that she’d cause anxiety,” Tye said, putting the baby to his shoulder and rubbing the child’s small back. “She is doomed to fail with her little fashion venture, and it distracts her from finding a husband, another venture at which she does not seem destined for success.”

“Joan’s dresses are striking,” Hester countered loyally. “You’re putting the child to sleep.”

Tiberius slowed his caresses to the boy’s back. “Joan’s dresses are striking
on
her
. That’s not entirely a good thing when men seek agreeable, biddable, retiring qualities in their spouses.”

“They seek broad hips and empty heads,” Hester sniffed. “Most titled men are dense beyond belief when it comes to seeking a marriage partner. Joan is not in the common mode and deserves a man who can appreciate it. Perhaps she’ll find a prospect at this house party.”

No, she would not; not if Tye had anything to say to it.

“Balfour has invited mostly family, but also a few Scots with interests in trade. He’s of a mind to mix business with pleasure, and shift some of the earldom’s investments from shipping to local ventures.”

The child let out a sigh so great as to shake his entire body.

“That’s it, then,” Hester said. “He’s down for the nonce. The maids won’t thank you.”

Tye would not admit it, even to his wife, but the pleasure of holding the sleeping child was worth all the dark looks and long-suffering mutterings of the nursery crew.

“Joan should have found somebody by now in London, Paris, or Edinburgh,” Tye said, leaning back so he could wrap an arm around his petite countess. “If she can’t snag some prancing dukeling or German prince, then I’ll not have her yoked to a cit with more money than manners.”

Hester nestled against her husband in a most agreeable fashion. “I am the daughter of a mere baron, Tiberius. I would caution you against such rigid expressions of fraternal concern.”

“I do not want to see my sister hurt,” Tye said against his wife’s hair. She was blond, a surprising contrast to her big dark husband, and she always felt just right in his arms. “If one of Balfour’s upstart business prospects thinks to entice Joan to the altar in a weak moment, I’ll soon have him thinking otherwise.”

The countess rubbed her cheek against her husband’s shoulder and closed her eyes.

***

A foul, foul stench pervaded Edward Valmonte’s awareness, more foul than usual the morning after his lordship had overindulged.

“Go away,” Edward muttered at the source of the odor.

Fergus yipped, which happy sound ricocheted around in Edward’s head like so many stray bullets. Waking up to hot, smelly terrier breath ought to number among the biblical plagues.

“I said”—Edward rolled over to bury his face in clean linen—“get the hell away from me.”

Another yip, which bore a warning quality.

“I don’t care how deep the snow is. If you tee-tee on Mama’s carpets again, she will have you made into a fricassee.”

After she’d done worse to her firstborn son. The woman had no sense of her proper place in the scheme of things. Fergus was mostly a very good fellow, much like Edward.

“Yip! Yip!” The dratted pestilence followed up with enthusiastic licking about Edward’s ear, which made Edward smile and rather put him in mind of Lady Joan’s breathy—

“Shite.” The worst curse Edward could manage under his mother’s roof, and still inadequate for the combination of woe and queasiness that welled up from within. “Shite and dog breath and tee-tee in the front hall.” He sat up, cradling the dog to his chest. “I am in such trouble. Fricassee will be too good for me.”

The outer door to the adjacent sitting room banged open loudly enough to make Edward wince. One instant too late, Edward understood that Fergus had been trying to alert him to Mama’s approach.

“One hopes you are awake, though Kyle says he has not attended you.” The Viscountess Valmonte’s heels drilled into Edward’s meager store of composure as they clattered against parquet floors. “And”—her ladyship barreled right into Edward’s bedroom—“you had best be up and about, for we’re expected to take tea with Lady Dorcas and her family in light of the day’s developments.”

Mama was no respecter of Edward’s privacy, as if he were still a boy in dresses.

“I’m not decent, your ladyship. You will please allow a fellow a few moments with his valet of a morning.” Against Edward’s chest, Fergus was a warm, reassuring little ball of canine loyalty. He gave a short bark, doubtless agreeing with his master.

“It’s past noon, young man.” Mama’s scolds were all the more effective for being delivered with a hint of a French accent. “And I am sorry to inform you, your lady wife will not take kindly to allowing animals of any description into her bed.”

She clapped her hands, the ultimate insult to Edward’s throbbing head and roiling belly. “Kyle! His lordship has need of you!”

What Edward needed was to apologize to Lady Joan Flynn before the woman’s brother sent his seconds to call.

“Mama, please leave. I must have peace and quiet, a pot or two of black tea, and somebody to take Fergus for a stroll in the mews.”

“I’m here, your ladyship.” Kyle bowed to the viscountess, Edward’s shaving kit in the man’s pudgy hand, a towel over his arm as if he were some damned waiter. “We can be ready in less than an hour.”

We?
As if Kyle were Edward’s nanny, getting him ready for an outing to the park.

“Excellent. When you are finished with Edward, you can see to the dog. Lady Dorcas deserves her day to preen and gloat, and of course, his lordship must show himself as her devoted swain.”

Lady Dorcas Bellingham—Lady Dorcas-Rhymes-with-Orcas, according to a zoological wit at Edward’s club—was not a bad sort, though she was prodigiously fond of sweets, and rather an armload to wrestle about on the dance floor. She had an agreeable dimness to her mental faculties, and a nice smile.

“I am not her devoted swain.” Edward fumbled about beneath his pillows for his nightshirt. “Kyle, procure a fellow a pot of tea, if you don’t mind.”

Edward set Fergus down, got a nightshirt more or less on, and mentally prepared himself for the ordeal of standing upright. The bed was elevated two steps for warmth, though what good did warm covers do a man when he broke his neck tumbling from bed in the morning?

“You look positively bilious, Eddie. Were you up late sketching? I must say, those drawings in the sitting rooms are quite the cleverest efforts I’ve seen from you to date.” Mama seemed to look at him for the first time, while Fergus bounded off the bed and turned an encouraging pair of bright black eyes on Edward.

“I was up quite late.” Joan had been sketching—at first—beautiful, flowing, ingenious sketches that provoked Edward to equal parts envy and admiration. And curiously enough, the sketches were apparently still here. “Mama, you really ought not to be in my bedroom.”

“Nonsense. You’ve nothing to display I haven’t seen before. We’ll be stopping by the salon on our way to Lady Dorcas’s, and I cannot afford to indulge your penchant for dawdling. Lady Dorcas could cry off, despite the announcement.”

Edward was focused on navigating the steps, but it didn’t do to ignore Mama’s nattering entirely. “What announcement?”

“Coyness doesn’t become you, Eddie. The announcement of your engagement to Lady Dorcas. Brilliant match, if I do say so myself.”

Edward’s ears began to roar, and his stomach rebelled against his mother’s words, even as his headache escalated to a point past agony.

“I never proposed to Lady Dorcas Bellingham. She and I cannot be engaged.” Though a dim recollection of Mama chattering about productive discussions, and Uncle nodding approvingly suggested Edward’s objection was too little and too late.

Mama regarded him with her head cocked to the side, making her look like a small, puzzled French bird—a bird of prey.

“Don’t be tedious. Bended knee and dramatic declarations are hardly necessary among the better families. The girl has pots of money, and she has the look of an easy breeder. Get dressed, lest we be late for a call on your intended. The announcements went out this very morning, and if we’re quick about it, we can have you married before the New Year.”

Oh, God.

Oh, Joan.

“I’m going to be sick.”

As his mother fled the room in another tattoo of heels, Edward was indeed sick, barely missing her ladyship’s prized Axminster carpets, while Fergus looked on with sympathetic eyes.

***

How soon after conceiving could a woman turn up queasy?

Joan knew of no treatise she could read on the subject, and she had no doting auntie to whom she might discreetly put the question. Tiberius’s wife, Hester, was a good sort—witness, she’d taken on the care and handling of
Tiberius
—but Joan could not test her sister-in-law’s loyalties with such an inquiry.

“He works all the time,” Miss Hartwell muttered, biting off a length of green thread. “Dante, that is. For Christmas, I wish my brother would be given the gift of the occasional afternoon or morning spent at leisure.”

“What about you?” Joan asked, wondering if another chocolate might settle her digestion. “Do you spend the occasional afternoon or morning at leisure? Sometimes example is the best teacher.”

Miss Hartwell regarded her hoop, which sported a pair of doves amid a riot of green-and-gold leaves. “As if Dante would be guided by my example in anything. Charlie can occasionally make him laugh.”

The train was slowing, perhaps in deference to the thickening snow.

“Maybe your brother won’t be
guided
by your example, but he might be
tempted
by it.” Just as Joan might tempt Mr. Hartwell with the lone piece of marzipan remaining in the box of chocolates.

He’d sampled that marzipan with the same focus he’d brought to reading his reports or to stacking luggage. Joan could not imagine what such a man would
do
with a morning’s leisure, much less how he could need one.

While Joan needed for her belly to settle, and for Edward Valmonte to magically acquire unfailing discretion.

“We’re coming to Aberdeen,” Margaret said, putting down her embroidery and going to a window. “The children will want to leave the train, lark about for five minutes, catch a chill, and generally get in the way.”

Something was afflicting Miss Hartwell’s spirits, for she struck Joan as a sanguine lady, and yet her litany was nearly a complaint.

“Fresh air sounds lovely. Shall we bundle the children up and get off for a few minutes too?” Gray, bleak granite structures flashed by the windows, a few draped in pine roping, some sporting wreathes on doors. In the occasional window, lone candles tried to shed light amid a thickening gloom.

“Darkness will soon fall,” Miss Hartwell said. “So yes, let’s get off the train, stretch our legs, and chase the children about.”

They retrieved the children from the part of the car partitioned off for sleeping cots. Charlie had been lecturing a doll about reading reports, and Phillip had countered that dolls didn’t read reports.