“Nobody will notice for about five minutes,” Hector said, climbing aboard, “and Balfour’s situation was hard to gather information about. Until a year or so ago, the present earl was presumed dead, and a younger brother was styled as the earl. An older relation had the keeping of the earldom’s trusts, and the family has been wrangling ever since.”
“They’re Scottish. Of course they’ll wrangle,” Dante said, while outside, the sound of laughter cut through even the bustle on the platform. “The present earl owns ships, I know that much. Bloody fast ships, if the captains at the Edinburgh docks can be believed. Where there are ships, there can be capital.”
Dante hung his coat on a peg while Hector lingered at the window.
“Margaret isn’t wearing a bonnet.”
Neither had Lady Joan been wearing a bonnet. Perhaps Hector’s habit of observation was contagious. “A good wool scarf is better protection from the elements.”
They fell silent while porters appeared with another bucket of coal, more tea, and scones—in this modern age, could Her Majesty’s rail services boast no fare more imaginative than tea and scones?—and a few disapproving looks aimed at the swag-less mantel.
“I’d kill for a pair of hot bridies,” Dante said. “The spicy kind my grannie used to make for my nooning.”
“Shall I have meat pasties delivered on your next trip?”
Hector was quintessentially Scottish—in his diction, his substantial build, his stubbornness—and yet he made the occasional swipe at English vocabulary. Dante had no idea why.
“Not meat pasties, a batch of damned bridies. Somebody’s mama likely sells them out front of the station, fresh and piping hot.” Dante grew hungry even thinking about them. “Stay here and prepare to explain to me about Balfour’s personal assets when I get back.”
Hector raised one dark eyebrow high enough to let Dante know that attempts to deliver orders were humored rather than tolerated—Hector was plenty Scottish when he wanted to be.
When Dante returned with the box of chocolates, minus the last piece of that almond sweet, Hector had wedged himself in at the table and was making notes in pencil on a sheet of foolscap.
A conductor’s whistle sounded a single blast.
“I didn’t quite manage to memorize the guest list for this holiday farce,” Dante said, “much less untangle all the begats and wed-the-daughter-of’s. Tell me about Balfour’s money. Why would an earl who owns a shipping enterprise want to involve himself with my mills?”
And how much could Dante charge him for that privilege?
“You could sell the mills,” Hector said, running his pencil down the side of the page as if a few scribbled notes held the key to untold riches. “They’re profitable.”
In two words, Hector managed to put a strong whiff of disapproval in the air. The mills could be more profitable, of course. Significantly more profitable.
“If the mills aren’t to become more dangerous than they are at present, improvements are necessary. If I sell them to some greedy Englishman, nobody will make those improvements, an entirely avoidable accident will transpire, and then somebody—maybe a hundred somebodies—will have a gravestone, and my profits will be buried with them.”
If that accident took the form of fire or broken machinery, there’d be no wages for the hundred women employed at each facility, some of whom had held their positions for more than ten years. This signal fact kept Dante from selling one mill to finance improvements on the other two.
Which one would he sell?
How would his suppliers and buyers—many of whom were English—react to the news that he was liquidating a major asset?
How would the women fare when the new owner realized how much more profitable the mill could be if hours were extended, wages cut, younger children employed?
“I can’t imagine Margaret brought a box of chocolates along on a journey that involved the children,” Hector said, helping himself to a pair of sweets.
Dante sprawled lengthwise on the couch, pleased to think he might be napping in the same place Lady Joan had.
“Can’t you simply ask, Hector? Where did the chocolates come from? Maybe I bought them. Christmas is coming, you know. A few holiday treats might be in order.”
A silence from across the car was punctuated by a double whistle blast. The sound of laughter and thumping feet came from the adjacent car, and another queer pang assailed Dante.
Had that been Phillip laughing along with Charlie?
“You are attending this house party to find investors to capitalize updating your mills,” Hector said, folding the table down and crossing his feet on the opposite bench. “Your efforts to catch a wealthy titled bride having failed, I’d think you’d want to focus on business, and not on cadging treats provided by charity cases wearing ermine cloaks.”
“Lady Joan wears a velvet cloak.” Also a velvet dress, lots of lace, and a lovely scent.
“Your efforts to find a bride did fail, then?”
Finally, a direct question.
“Spectacularly. English mamas aren’t stupid. They aren’t about to marry off their darling titled daughters to a climbing Scottish cit when so many of the English variety ooze about the ballrooms with better manners and their knees decently covered at all times.”
“What do knees have to do with it?”
Another question, nearly drowned out by the third whistle blast.
“I should have left my kilts in Glasgow. Balfour has a wealthy brother, doesn’t he?”
“Several, in fact. Connor MacGregor is married to a wealthy Northumbrian widow. Ian MacGregor married an English baroness with significant assets, and Balfour—Asher MacGregor—is doing very well for himself. A third brother, Gilgallon MacGregor, also married money—pretty, English money. The MacGregors are Scotsmen. If you can’t scare up interest among them, then you really ought to consider selling one of the mills.”
“Tell MacDermott to start stocking that almond sweet in this car.”
“It’s expensive, if you’re talking about marzipan.”
“Not as expensive as my trip to Edinburgh. Everybody in town knows I tried to find a well-connected bride and failed. That will make attracting investors for the mills that much harder.”
“Then you’d better give it your very best effort, hadn’t you?”
In the next car, Charlie was laughing uproariously, and a lady in a velvet cloak was probably wondering where her box of chocolates had got off to. In this train car, Dante was trying not to become annoyed with Hector, who had a sniffy little answer for everything.
Dante closed his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest.
“You were telling me about Balfour’s assets.” One of the man’s assets was family. Three brothers, all doing well, plenty of family wealth to help out any sibling whose fortunes suffered a reverse, a nice big country house to gather everybody together for the holidays…
While Dante had a few dependents, and Hector’s reports.
“Are you even listening, Dante?”
Dante rose and crossed the car, which was lurching and swaying away from the train station.
“I always listen, but be patient with me. Margs sprang the nursery maids before we’d even reached Edinburgh. My nerves are delicate right now.”
His patience was delicate, for Hector’s very competence grated. Dante opened the parlor stove and used the wrought iron poker to redistribute the fresh coal.
“It’s only a house party,” Hector said, helping himself to another chocolate. “You eat and drink, flirt a bit, dance and sing, play cards, and casually mention that the mills are doing well enough to support a few more investors.”
Dante closed the stove, the poker still in his hand.
“Do you ever think maybe those old fellows with their claymores and targes had an easier time of it? No mincing and flirting involved—you wielded your sword against any who opposed you, plain and simple. No investment opportunities, just life and death with a wee
dram now and then.” He made a few passes at thin air with the poker, then felt silly at Hector’s pitying expression.
Dante would feel equally silly dancing and flirting away the coming weeks, much less playing cards night after night with men he’d likely never see again.
“Edinburgh was worth a try,” Hector allowed charitably. “I don’t suppose Miss Margaret met anybody there?”
“She met plenty of fools sniffing around for her dowry, and an equal number of well-bred ladies I wouldn’t turn my back on. Maybe MacGregor will have a spare relation who might catch her eye.”
Though the children would miss Margs terribly if she married and moved away.
“Maybe MacGregor will have a relation who might catch your eye.”
“That would at least quiet the gossips I left snickering behind my back in Edinburgh. If she were a well-dowered relation, then she might spare me all that mincing and toasting and caroling too.”
Also warm his bed, which notion a tired, single, and possibly lonely fellow shouldn’t be blamed for contemplating wistfully on a cold, snowy afternoon.
Hector’s pencil paused in its journey down the right side of a page of notes.
“Maybe marriage and money ought not to be on the same ledger page. The English aristocracy has bound up matrimony and wealth for generations, and look how they’re turning out.”
Lady Joan was an English aristocrat—a rather pretty one—though the woman had a peaked, pinchy look to her Dante couldn’t approve of.
“I hate it when you make a good point. Move over and pass me the chocolates.”
Four
When silence descended not fifteen minutes out of Aberdeen, Joan missed the chatter of the children and Miss Hartwell’s gentle clucking and scolding. One of the nursemaids was coming down with a sniffle, so both had been banished from the parlor cars for the duration of the journey, lest the children take ill too.
A lady did not pace.
A lady did not worry the lace at her cuffs, much as a child might compulsively stroke a corner of a favorite blanket or doll’s dress.
A lady did not allow herself to become inebriated by strong drink, then overcome by a man’s illicit passions.
The sheer shame of Joan’s folly with Edward Valmonte threatened to choke her and had her heading for the platform between the train cars. As she opened the door to one car, Mr. Hartwell opened the door to the other. He had in his hand the box of chocolates Joan had stashed in her bag before making a hasty departure from Edinburgh.
“My lady, where is your cloak?”
Cloak. She’d come outside in the dead of winter on a speeding train without her cloak. A lady probably didn’t do that either.
“I forgot it.”
Something shifted in his regard, though his stance on the swaying platform was utterly solid. Feet spread, chocolates in hand, he looked to Joan as fixed as the enormous trees dotting the white landscape whizzing by.
“Were you going to jump, my lady?” he asked gently.
“No.” Her reply lacked conviction, though Joan had no more intended to jump from the speeding train than she’d intended to become inebriated in Edward Valmonte’s company.
Mr. Hartwell reached past Joan to open the parlor door behind her. In the limited space of the platform, that brought him near enough that Joan could catch a whiff of his heathery, piney scent.
“Let’s get you back inside. You’ll catch your death taking the air out here.”
Her teeth had begun to chatter. Mr. Hartwell took her by the arm and steered her back into the cozy light of the parlor car. He sat Joan down at the small settee, then came down beside her and passed her the chocolates.
“I ate all the almond ones. I think you had better tell me what’s amiss.”
No, she had better not.
“I wanted air. My insides are unsettled.”
He set the sweets aside on one of the fussy, scaled-down tables beside the settee. “Charlie lies better than you do, though falsehoods don’t sit well with her, either. Whatever is bothering you, it’s not worth jumping from a train.”
Margaret and the children were napping behind a closed door not twelve feet away, and yet, outside, darkness had all but fallen, suggesting they’d remain asleep as long as the train kept moving.
“I had no intention of jumping.”
“How about if you have no intention of trusting me, but you give it a try anyway? Nothing is so desperate it can’t be shared with a friend.”
The wind had disordered his hair, again. Joan searched for a way to remind him that he and she were not friends.
“I need a spouse,” came out of her mouth. “Rather desperately. Before the holidays would do nicely, but I’m off to join family, where the prospects will be lamentably l-limited.”
How could she become so chilled in a few short moments out of doors?
“Damnedest thing, needing a spouse,” Mr. Hartwell said. “They get thrust at you when you’ve no notion one might come in handy, and then when you need one…not a blushing bride to be found.”
Surprise cut through Joan’s misery, accompanied with a frisson of amusement.
“Everybody said you were hunting a wife in Edinburgh. I couldn’t credit why they’d believe such a thing, but I suppose your children need a mother.”
He smoothed the fabric of his kilt over a large male knee.
“True enough. I was also hoping Margs might see a fellow she could tolerate, but we made no headway on that score either. Spouse hunting is a dismal business, probably invented by the English.”
Joan’s situation remained unchanged. She was still horribly compromised, and quite possibly in anticipation of a troubling event, and yet, Mr. Hartwell’s commiseration comforted.
“I was so stupid.”
He produced his dented silver flask, then offered it to Joan, who shook her head.
“I know of nobody else who’s ever been stupid, my lady. I myself have been a paragon of common sense and prudence, as any will tell you. This sojourn into the mountains to cavort for weeks among strangers only looks like sheer, bleeding folly.”
His foul language relieved Joan of an urge to air similar vocabulary. Sheer, bleeding folly, indeed.
“You’ll manage, Mr. Hartwell. The holidays are a merry time.”
He put his flask away and patted her hand. “Tell me his name. I’ll pass along my compliments.”
The hand covering Joan’s knuckles would close into a delightfully formidable fist.
“That won’t help anything, and it might try the gentleman’s meager store of discretion. I was exceedingly stupid.” Though Edward was vain as a peacock with four hens, and a few ugly bruises were the least he deserved.
“Exceedingly stupid. You have an English way of making that sound dire indeed. I suppose the bastard kissed you?”
Bastard was such a hard word. Joan’s free hand went to her belly, which had calmed a bit, while her other hand remained in Mr. Hartwell’s warm grasp.
“I do recall kissing.” Enthusiastic, naughty kissing, at first, for Joan had been curious and surprised by Edward’s overtures.
Then there had been struggling. She had struggled, and now recalled this for the first time.
“Doesn’t sound like he got the kissing bit right. You poor wee thing.”
Joan was skinny. She would never be wee. “Poor wee, exceedingly stupid thing.”
“Did you mind the kissing so awfully?”
What had that to do with anything? “Not awfully.”
“A spouse will probably expect some kissing, you know.” He gave her fingers a squeeze.
He had been married, and he was a father twice over. He was also not a fussy, proper fellow who’d blush beet red at matters pragmatic and biological. Joan pushed out a question before the tattered remains of her dignity could stuff themselves into her mouth and silence her.
“How soon might a lady experience digestive upset upon conceiving a child?”
He reached into his
coat for his flask, his hand stilling short of its goal.
“Some presuming twit needs killing. You must have menfolk who can see to the matter. You said this embarrassment to the male gender was engaged, too, which tells me his death ought to be slow and painful.”
Mr. Hartwell did not sound as if he were teasing.
“As heartening as the notion of justice for my partner in folly might be, that would not solve my problem.” Joan tossed her dignity out a figurative window and seized her courage with both hands. “Such measures would not solve a child’s predicament either.”
The train swayed along through the cold darkness for a few moments, while Joan marveled that she’d confided in a man more stranger than friend.
“I like you,” Mr. Hartwell said, his pronouncement the sort of gruff, unpolished sentiment Joan suspected hadn’t aided his cause in the ballrooms. “You are honest, and you don’t put on airs. Do you suppose you might stand to kiss me?”
Then he went and said things like that. Joan withdrew her hand.
“I am not wanton, Mr. Hartwell. If I’ve said anything to make you think my favors might be available in the general case, then you’re sadly, severely mistaken. I made an egregious, imbecilic error—one misstep—which I sorely regret and have no intention—”
He put his hand over her mouth, gently. “I meant no insult, ye ken?”
Joan managed a nod, but he’d leaned closer and whispered his question, and abruptly, his company no longer comforted. Mr. Hartwell grew larger with increased proximity, also stronger and more…more masculine.
“My family is on the other side of that partition, my lady. I’ll no’ ravish you in a damned parlor car. If you can’t abide my company, then all you have to do is say so. Before I offer you marriage, we’d best establish that we can tolerate a shared kiss first, aye?”
***
The nobs considered business a dirty, dull, tedious undertaking, but in truth, commerce was exciting. Something close to sexual anticipation attended the rattle and hum of competition, cooperation, and the myriad challenges attendant to keeping three mills profitable.
Wolves and tigers lurked in the jungles of commerce, and a man needed quick wits and courage to avoid disaster and capitalize on good fortune.
What A Lady Needs For Christmas Page 6