“Hold still,” Dante said, kneeling. “I’ll have you free.”
“That’s not the point.” He was bareheaded, kneeling at her hems, and Joan was desperate to make him understand. “I’ve torn the hem, ruined the lace. Now the lace will drag in the snow, and I’ll step on it, and it will tear further, and the entire petticoat is at risk, and I love this dress. I sewed every stitch of it, tatted every inch of the lace. I chose the fabric and made the patterns, I love—”
He rose holding a scrap of lavender lace, and used it to dab at Joan’s cheek. The sensation of hot tears on her cold cheek, of the rough-soft lace against her skin, put the moment into higher relief than a simple torn hem merited.
“It’s only a dress, Joan. You can make another.”
Dante spoke gently, he touched her gently, and he might just as gently give up on their marriage.
He hadn’t believed her lies about that tête-à-tête in the tea shop. The next time Edward commandeered Joan’s presence or her sketches or her time, Dante wouldn’t be fooled by those lies either.
Joan wrapped her hand around his, around the frivolous bit of little lace he’d used to dry her tears. The lace was worth nothing, while her husband meant so much to her.
“I don’t want to sleep apart,” she said, tugging him closer by virtue of their joined hands. “I don’t want anything to come between us.”
He rested his forehead against hers, so their breath joined, and a startling patch of warmth touched Joan’s brow, like a kind thought might touch her mind. The laughter came again, and somebody took up a song about the wise men, long journeys, and hope.
“I followed you, Joan, the second time you met with him. The first time was by chance, but then I saw Valmonte’s note, his summons, and followed you. I should not have dissembled, but he’s of your ilk, a handsome young lord, a gentleman by birth. Nonetheless, I suspected his motives. I did not trust—”
She kissed him, quickly, because the cold was threatening to make her teeth chatter. “I did not deserve your trust. Edward certainly did not deserve mine, and he’s about to make such trouble.”
“Valmonte was the one who used you ill?”
Down the snowy street, the revelers at the inn had fallen silent, while a lyrical duet lifted into the night, like the single star sending a beacon of hope long ago.
To withhold details from Dante now would be to protect Edward, and a cheering, simple thought made Joan’s decision effortless.
Her marriage mattered to her more than anything. More than pretty clothes, pretty society, pride, familial associations, titles, appearances, anything. She would become Mrs. Dante Hartwell in truth, and the rest of the world—and their little dogs—could all have a Happy Christmas without her.
“Edward is the scoundrel, and I suspect he duped me with an invitation to tea, purportedly from his mother. I’ll tell you all of it, but let’s find some ale and a meat pie.” She kissed him again, more lingeringly.
“Aye,” Dante said. “We shall. Before our lips freeze together.”
***
Scandal was not necessarily bad for business.
Dante rubbed his eyes, and for the thousandth time, resisted climbing into bed beside his sleeping wife. After the Christmas Eve tree lighting, he’d remained awake, rearranging figures and wrestling emotions.
Joan was embroiled in a situation that could bring ruin not only to her, but also to Dante’s businesses, and to Joan’s family. For Quinworth’s brood, the scandal would be temporary, particularly if they distanced themselves from Joan’s folly, though Joan’s guilt over the inconvenience to her family would be eternal.
A drink to settle the nerves was in order, or to take the edge off the worries keeping Dante awake.
He could not foil Valmonte’s scheme.
He could not protect Joan from the ridicule and judgment of her peers.
He most certainly could not attract investors from among Joan’s family, which meant going hat in hand to the banks or continuing on the present course, reaping profit, but with a sense of disaster looming when a roof gave, a loom broke, or a strike threatened.
Fire, thank God, could be insured against.
He rose, kissed his wife’s forehead, and took himself into the darkened corridor, a frigid place even in Balfour’s commodious dwelling. Despite the challenges facing him, Dante enjoyed fierce satisfaction that Joan had entrusted him with her problems, surrendering a burden she should never have been made to carry.
“What are you doing out of bed?” The question came from Spathfoy’s father, who managed to look dignified even at this late hour.
“Fetching a nightcap. Join me?” The Marquess of Quinworth was Dante’s father-in-law, and yet, they’d hardly exchanged two words since the wedding.
“If I tarry with you over a drink, my marchioness will fall asleep in my absence, for which I will be scolded in the morning.”
This scold didn’t bother his lordship much, based on the affection in his tone.
“A wee dram, then,” Dante said. “We can toast the health of our ladies.”
“And the Queen, of course,” Quinworth said, a small English nudge to his son-in-law’s cultural ribs.
“Two wee drams, then, for—”
In the darkness at the end of the corridor, a pale, shadowy blur disappeared around the corner, a blur about the size of a cat, but closer to the ground.
“What was that?” Quinworth asked. “Has Frederick got loose again?”
Dante hurried down the corridor, the older man keeping pace. “Frederick?”
“My granddaughter Fiona’s damned rabbit. He’s a complacent enough chap, though lately, Fiona says he’s looking peaked and wan.”
They were nearly running, but quietly, in deference to the sleeping household. “That rabbit weighs a good stone at least,” Dante said, for he’d made Frederick’s acquaintance on many trips to the nursery. “He’s no more peaked and wan than Spathfoy’s gelding.”
“Or Spathfoy himself,” Quinworth said as they rounded the next corner.
Just in time to see a bunny tail disappearing toward the stairs.
“That’s not Fiona’s bunny,” Dante said, anxiety tearing at him. “That’s the rabbit I bought Joan for Christmas. If it gets outside in this weather—”
“It will hop out to the stables and dine on oats and hay until spring,” Quinworth said, sounding more stern than optimistic.
“It can’t hop to the stables through more than two feet of snow,” Dante countered.
They next spotted the beast at the top of the main stairs, which it descended with enough speed to suggest the rabbit knew it had pursuers and wasn’t in any mood to be caught.
“We should fetch the hounds,” Quinworth said. “This time of year they get mopey, and a bit of a run—”
“They’ll tear my Joan’s Christmas present to pieces, all over Lady Balfour’s carpets.”
That brought the older fellow up short at the bottom of the steps. “Well, it was a good thought. Perhaps one couple, on a leash—”
“That way!”
They thundered off, past the formal parlors, in pursuit of one downy little tail that moved not at a panicked speed, but at the speed of a damned rabbit out to have a lark at the expense of its supposed betters.
Spathfoy emerged from the library, drink in hand. “What is this commotion?”
“Damned rabbit is loose,” Quinworth said. “I say we get the hounds, but Hartwell isn’t in the mood for indoor blood sport.”
“We’re starting a fresh hand,” Spathfoy said, swirling his drink. “You can get another rabbit sent out from Aberdeen, for God’s sake. Come join us, and get out of this freezing corridor.”
“Capital notion.” The marquess appropriated his son’s drink and downed it in one swallow. “What’s the game?”
“That rabbit,” Dante said in low, furious tones, “is my sole gift to my lady wife, for she loves soft, comforting textures. I’ll not sit about choking on your cigar smoke w
Father and son exchanged glances that blossomed into identical smiles. Spathfoy snatched back the glass and bellowed into the library.
“You lot! Hartwell says to get off your lordly arses and help him find his wife’s rabbit!”
The next two hours saw Dante, Quinworth, Spathfoy, Balfour, his three brothers, his brother-in-law, and the night porter tearing around the house, amply fortified by many a wee dram, until the hunt converged outside the nursery.
“The little bugger went this way,” Connor MacGregor muttered. “Damned near skinned m’ knees on the stairs, chasing him here.”
He took out a flask and tipped it up, and up some more.
“I nearly had the blighter in the library,” Spathfoy said, taking out his own flask. “That is one quick rabbit.”
“That’s a sober rabbit,” Balfour said. “The odds are stacked against us.”
“It’s a missing rabbit,” Gilgallon said, adding a few Gaelic curses at rabbits, their progeny, their tails, and their rabbity ideas about Christmas.
“Rabbit haggis sounds good about now,” Matthew Daniels added. “And I loathe haggis.”
They were panting, more than half-tipsy, and had spent their Christmas Eve in pursuit of Dante’s Christmas present rather than whiling away the evening at cards.
Would they have been as generous with their time had they known Dante was all that stood between Lady Joan and endless scandal?
The nursery door opened, revealing Charlie in nightgown and ratty braids.
“You’re all up past your bedtime,” she said. “May I stay up too?”
A pale, furry blur shot between her slippered feet, directly into the warmth of the nursery.
“There’s the little bas—blessed bunny!” Spathfoy roared.
A general melee followed, with seven grown men and one little girl trying to crowd through the doorway at once. The child, like the rabbit, was sober and fresh from her slumbers, with the result that at least three of her uncles suffered an elbow to some inconvenient location.
“We’ve got you now,” Dante said to the little gray beast, who sat serene and fluffy before the box in which Frederick resided. “Quinworth, get the door.”
Such were the bonds forged in the hunt field that the marquess obeyed Dante’s command smartly.
“He’ll not get out now,” Balfour said. “Little wretch owes me two hours sleep beside my countess, and at least four bottles of the finest—for God’s sake!”
Frederick’s head popped up over the edge of his box, an enclosure with sides about two and a half feet high.
“That’s a tall bunny,” Gilgallon said, foreboding in his tone, “and likely a fast bunny too.”
“Frederick is a quite good size,” Charlie observed. “And oh, look, they’re making friends!”
Dante hadn’t given the second rabbit a name repeatable in polite, sober company, but the Infernal Beast also went up on its back legs to touch wiggly, pink noses with Frederick. A conversation of some sort transpired between the rabbits, consisting of sniffing, interspersed with moments of unblinking, leporine consideration, followed by more sniffing.
“They could start fighting any moment,” Quinworth muttered. “Buck rabbits aren’t to be trifled with—prodigious teeth and claws, you know.”
“Frederick is a gentleman,” Charlie said, as if instructing a slow student in a familiar catechism. “Who’s his new friend?”
“Frederick is a fat, indolent parasite and a disgrace to the male gender,” Spathfoy muttered. “But even a rabbit bestirs himself when his territory is threatened.”
A moment passed, while grown men recovered their wind, two rabbits exchanged bunny-greetings, and a small child hoped none of the adults would notice the hour.
“Charlie, you should be back in bed,” Dante said softly, because Phillip and Fiona slept nearby.
“Oh, good luck with that,” Spathfoy grumbled. “I was about to invite the child to join us for cards. It’s the bunny’s turn to deal.”
Charlie beamed at the earl. “You were?”
“He was not,” Dante retorted, trying to figure the best angle to attack the rabbit so it wouldn’t disappear under a wardrobe or into some gap in the wainscoting. “Spathfoy was teasing.”
Phillip emerged from the dormitory. “Teasing about what? You’re all up past your bedtimes, and Father Christmas won’t visit us.”
Charlie’s hands went to her hips. “He will too. Lady Joan promised!”
Fiona appeared on Phillip’s heels, making the playroom just the sort of crowded, dimly lit space in which a pair of rabbits might run riot until dawn.
“Is there a lid to Frederick’s box?” Dante asked. And where were the nursery maids at such an hour?
“We don’t use it,” Fiona said. “Frederick likes to come out and play, though lately he’s been—”
“Peaked and wan,” her uncles said in unison with her grandfather.
“Rabbit haggis,” Gilgallon whispered.
“Get the lid to the box,” Dante instructed his daughter. “If we can chase Lady Joan’s pet in with Frederick, we can separate them before they take up arms against each other.”
“Frederick is a gentleman,” Charlie said again as she rummaged behind a toy box for a square of wood. “He won’t take up arms against a guest under his roof.”
Dante was directly behind the loose rabbit, who was absorbed touching noses with Frederick. “Nobody move.”
The nursery became the still, quiet place it ought to have been at such an hour. Soundlessly, Dante crouched behind the rabbit, reaching slowly, slowly toward the errant gift. He’d just touched soft, soft fur, when the dratted creature shot straight up—
And into Frederick’s box.
Frederick’s head disappeared.
“They’re going to be friends!” Fiona said, clapping her hands as Dante slapped the lid onto the box.
“Got you.” He held the lid down, expecting a furious thumping and squealing to ensue, but all in the box was quiet.
The menfolk exchanged uneasy glances, while Quinworth, in a grandpapa’s blend of command and cajolery, spoke to the infantry. “Off to bed with you now, children. Father Christmas is doubtless on his way even as we speak.”
“Silly English tradition,” Connor commented.
“Which you will observe when your children are toddling, if you don’t already,” Spathfoy countered.
The children turned for their beds, just as the box thumped loudly, repeatedly.
“Let Frederick out,” Fiona cried. “They’re having fisticuffs, and Frederick is too sweet and dear and kind and—”
Dante angled himself between the child and the rabbit box, and cracked the lid.
He dropped the lid abruptly, while the thumping went on in a merry rhythm.
“They’re fine,” he managed.
“But I can hear them fighting!” Charlie said, tugging on Spathfoy’s restraining hand. “It isn’t good to fight with your friends, especially when you’re the only bunnies in the entire Highlands.”
“They’re…” Dante looked to the other men for reinforcements, and found only suppressed, incredulous mirth and darting gazes. “They’re doing the bunny get-acquainted dance. Sort of a bunny version of the Highland fling. I don’t think Frederick will be peaked and wan after this. Listen, nobody’s yelling in there.”
The thumping paused, then resumed.
Both little girls looked dubious. Phillip turned and headed for his bed. “I’ll not be the reason Father Christmas passes this house by. The dancing bunnies can go hang.”
The child had management written all over him, and the little girls fell in behind him. Quinworth closed the dormitory door just as seven grown men tried to quietly fend off hysterical laughter.
And failed—utterly.
Sixteen
“We need a nightcap,” Spathfoy announced, because Hartwell’s pursuit of the rabbit had been more than a new husband’s dedication to a good impression on Christmas morning.
“My cellars will be empty by Hogmanay,” Balfour groused. “Never saw such a lot of Englishmen for drinking whiskey as you, Daniels, and Quinworth.”
“Marriage to a Scotswoman will do that,” Quinworth replied, all equanimity.
Spathfoy draped an arm over Hartwell’s shoulders, lest Hartwell, like his rabbit, go darting off into the shadows. “You married an Englishwoman. She seems happy enough with her bargain.”
But Joan was also worried. Spathfoy’s fraternal intuition told him as much, backed up by his countess’s observations.
When Hartwell ought to have offered some remark about a Scotsman’s ability to keep a woman happy, he tromped along in silence and made no move to cast off Spathfoy’s arm.
“Early days in a marriage can be a challenge,” Connor MacGregor offered, with the peculiar delicacy he demonstrated about twice a year. “Though Lady Joan watches her new husband the way Quinworth’s hounds might watch those rabbits.”
“More affectionately,” Gilgallon suggested. “Maybe the way the rabbits were watching each other.”
This engendered more merriment, and yet Hartwell didn’t join in, even when they gained the warmth of the library, where the Christmas tree lent its pleasant scent and holiday cheer to the entire room.
“You’re quiet, Hartwell,” Quinworth said as Balfour poured drinks. “Has chasing the rabbit worn you out, or does my daughter have something to answer for?”
Hartwell accepted his drink, though the gesture had an odd, dazed quality.
The fire crackled cozily in the hearth, shadows danced across the carpets and walls. Father Christmas was no doubt making his way up the drive that very moment.
“Spathfoy mentioned that even a rabbit will defend his territory,” Hartwell said softly. The other six men comprehended his tone, for they left off suggesting names for Lady Frederick’s progeny.
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