‘And there’s no saying there will be any new commands for me to take up even if I were to leave Ness Hall and start my blockade of the Admiralty this very day.’
‘So, what are you saying?’
‘I am suggesting that we stay here until...until Lizzie leaves.’
‘Lizzie?’
‘Yes.’ He didn’t want to look weak. He didn’t want her to think she could bend him to her will every time they had a difference of opinion. But, upon reflection, he did wonder if he had been a touch unfair.
Just as Lady Julia hadn’t considered sharing her room with him, he hadn’t considered altering his plans regarding the Admiralty. Marriage had come as a bit of a shock to them both. And it was going to take a bit of time to make the necessary adjustments.
‘It was out of concern for Lizzie that I came here in the first place,’ he said. ‘And now I am here, I may as well use the opportunity to get to know her better.’
* * *
So. He wouldn’t stay as long as she’d requested. But only until his sister had gone.
Though it amounted to the same thing. Her husband clearly didn’t know that Lizzie would only be leaving when everyone else did.
And it was only natural for him to show more concern for his own flesh and blood than for a woman he hadn’t even known existed before Christmas.
Besides, wasn’t the important thing that he had altered his plans?
‘When we do go to London,’ she said, ‘I can write and have the town house opened up for our use.’
‘I am perfectly capable of arranging lodgings more suitable for a married man than a bachelor.’
‘I am sure you are, but wouldn’t it make more sense to mount your blockade of the Admiralty from a good address? Nothing could better advertise the fact that you now have Papa at your back—’
‘I will get a new command on my own merit or not at all,’ he snapped.
‘I only meant to...’
‘You are no longer a Whitney now, with rights to make use of the Whitney property. You are a Dunbar.’
She knew that! Oh, blow him for being so proud and prickly. Julia had only wanted to show she could help him in his career, rather than be a hindrance—which she felt, to be honest, after seeing that she’d made him stay at Ness Hall with her instead of pursuing his next commission.
But at least he had made that concession. At least he was trying to act like a married man, and not a bachelor. Even though he hadn’t wanted to get married at all.
And as for being proud and prickly—well, weren’t all men? She should have known he’d interpret her willingness to help as a slur on his ability to provide. Men liked women to flutter around like helpless butterflies, while they strode round with their chests puffed out. They didn’t like wives who were completely capable of looking after themselves. Reading between the lines, that had been half the trouble between her father and Nicky and Herbert’s mother.
She was going to have to make allowances. It would be better than storing up grievances, and nursing them.
‘You said you wished to spend time with your sister,’ she decided to say, instead of furthering the argument by objecting to the way he’d slapped her down rather than thank her for offering to help.
‘I do.’
‘She’s most likely to be in the drawing room in the east wing. That’s where rehearsals are taking place.’
‘Rehearsals?’
‘Yes. The younger people, and some of the ones who have little interest in hunting and shooting, are putting on an entertainment for Twelfth Night. It has become something of a tradition over recent years. It is one of the reasons why Papa engaged so many professionals from the theatre this year.’
Papa had said he was sick of having to endure the amateur efforts of the younger set. He’d hoped that the professionals might be able prevent the worst excesses of some of those with the least talent. Perhaps even stop the production running for hours and hours until they’d all reached the limit of their ineptitude.
Her husband scowled. ‘Lizzie is too young to perform in front of an audience.’
‘She’s fifteen.’ Julia sighed. ‘And this is a private party, not a public performance. Anyway, I don’t suppose she will take a lead role. She may sing some songs in a chorus, or play for the older performers if she’s proficient on an instrument. Or she may even only be helping paint scenery, or sew costumes. Really, it’s just an excuse for the older girls to get together and gossip and giggle should the weather be too dismal for them to go out for walks.’ Which was why the programme, in recent years, had been so chaotic. Nobody had really had the determination to take charge. ‘You cannot expect girls of that age to be content to stay with the schoolroom party all the time. Surely?’
His scowl did not lift. ‘I certainly don’t expect girls like Lizzie to spend their days with actresses.’
She winced. He was bound to think that women like Nellie would be a bad influence. He wouldn’t want to hear that she liked Nellie, very much, and thought he might do so too if only he wasn’t so prejudiced.
‘Well,’ she said, in as calm and reasonable a tone as she could muster. ‘You may give your sister your opinion about actors, and why you do not wish her to spend too much time with them, or, indeed, take part in any amateur theatricals, the moment you get there. And then,’ she added pointedly, ‘see how well your belated decision to spend the rest of this house party getting to know her proceeds.’
She turned and walked from the room, without looking to see if he was following her. She didn’t flounce. Because ladies didn’t flounce. They kept their heads erect, their posture correct, and their carriage elegant.
Whereas her husband, she was sure, was prowling along behind her like some great predator. Growling and swishing his tail. Not that he really had a tail. She was just being fanciful, imagining him stalking her.
Because she was walking briskly, in a purposeful manner, they reached the east drawing room before either of them had time to exchange a single word.
‘There she is, as you can see,’ she said, waving her hand in the general direction of a table under the window, on which lay a heap of costumes. The theatre company her father had hired had brought dozens of wicker hampers with them, containing all sorts of costumes and props—including the mask she’d worn for the masquerade. Though what on earth they were going to do with the stuffed duck, which her cousin Winifred was daubing with yellow paint, she couldn’t imagine.
‘Wait.’ He seized her arm when she made for the door through which they’d just come. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Since I missed breakfast,’ she replied, smiling through gritted teeth, since several people were looking in their direction, ‘I am going to Mrs Dawson’s sitting room, to take tea with her, so that I can make sure there are no problems that I should know about.’
‘But—’
Did she imagine it, or had a faint trace of panic flashed across his face?
‘Alec!’ Lizzie had just noticed them standing in the doorway. She dropped whatever it was she’d been sewing, and came bounding across the room, her face alight. ‘Have you come to help with the play? We’re going to perform—’ She clapped her hands to her mouth. ‘Oh, it’s to be a secret. I cannot tell you. Not unless you are going to be one of the troupe.’
Julia tensed. Oh, how she hoped he wasn’t going to drag her away, and read her a lecture on proper behaviour. She might be cross with him, but it was rather endearing, the way Lizzie seemed to worship him. It would be terrible for all her faith, and trust, and esteem for him to be destroyed at a stroke. Not that it would do Lizzie any harm to learn what selfish beasts men could be. But it would hurt him, in the long run, to lose his sister’s devotion.
Though why should she care? She gave herself a mental shake.
To give him credit
, his features softened when he looked at Lizzie. And he didn’t immediately order her to stop enjoying herself, but, instead, had a good look round the room. Lady Julia watched his face as he took in what he was seeing. A couple of her cousins, sitting at a desk, copying out what looked like a script. Another pair watching them from the table where Lizzie had just been stitching costumes.
At the far end of the room, on a huge refectory style table, several of the older boys from the schoolroom party were busy painting something—no doubt a piece of scenery—on a huge piece of canvas, under the direction of the artist who’d chalked the decorations on the ballroom floor. And Mr Atterbury, who was currently employed as tutor to Aunt Constance’s boys, was sitting on a nearby armchair, keeping half an eye on them from behind his newspaper.
It all looked just as harmless as she’d promised. A productive way to engage the interest of the members of the schoolroom party who were too old for nursery games and afternoon naps, yet not quite ready for more adult pursuits.
It looked particularly innocuous because not one single actor or actress was present. As far as her husband could see, the young people were being supervised by one of the tutors and a couple of matrons who, for one reason or another, preferred to stay within doors than go out riding. They weren’t supervising all that closely, but sitting on chairs by the fire, drinking tea and gossiping. But their presence was enough to convey respectability. Of course all that would change after noon, when the actors finally started emerging from their rooms. But by then, her husband might have mellowed toward them.
Or he might have grown bored and gone elsewhere.
‘Who is that lanky youth, with the spotty face, waving at you and spraying paint in every direction?’ her husband suddenly asked.
Julia looked towards where he’d indicated, her face breaking out into a warm smile as she waved back. ‘That is my youngest brother, Benjamin. Though I cannot think what he is doing here. He usually haunts the stables whenever he is home.’
Her answer came when Lizzie blushed, and gave a nervous laugh.
But—good heavens. Lizzie and Ben? Surely Ben wasn’t old enough to be noticing girls, let alone dangling after them? Why, it seemed no time at all since she’d been holding his chubby little hands as he took his first tottering steps round the nursery.
‘Oh, do come and meet Winifred,’ said Lizzie, seizing her brother’s arm. ‘She’s Lady Julia’s cousin, you know, and is at my school. I’m sure you recall I have written to you about her...’
Lizzie’s chatter faded as she tugged her brother deeper into the room where he was promptly swamped by a wave of feminine enthusiasm. Julia couldn’t help smiling as she abandoned him to his sister’s friends. They’d all been dying to get their hands on him, from the moment he’d arrived unannounced. At dead of night, too, and all windswept and wet from the storm, the way all heroes in stories should arrive—at least the kind of stories her younger cousins seemed to enjoy reading.
For her part, she couldn’t imagine why that image of him, standing in the doorway, his unfashionably long hair whipping round his grim face, had stuck in her mind. She hadn’t swooned at the first sight of him, the way the younger girls had. And she’d met many men as handsome as him, during her London Seasons.
Though she couldn’t, just at this moment, recall what any of them looked like.
Nor had she ever felt anything more than irritation when any of them had tried to hold her hand a little longer than was appropriate during the measures of a dance. She certainly hadn’t gone all...soupy inside watching them walk away from her on the arm of another female. Even if that female was his sister. Or felt the urge to snap her fingers in the faces of the other girls who came clustering round him, just to remind them all that he belonged to her.
She sucked in a sharp breath. Good grief, she was becoming possessive. Even a touch jealous of the time those girls would spend with her husband while she was busy elsewhere.
Turning on her heel, she hurried from the drawing room before she started experiencing any more stupid, weak emotions about her husband. It was bad enough that his domineering behaviour in the bedroom had thrilled her. She would never forgive herself if she started hanging on his coat tails by day, too. The way poor Ellen used to do with Nick, when they were first married. Before she discovered that behind his handsome face—and, yes, she could concede that Nick was a handsome specimen—he was nothing more than a bully and a philanderer.
* * *
It had felt like the longest day of his life. Why on earth had he told Julia he’d been willing to spend it getting to know Lizzie? Because Julia had been so upset at the prospect of leaving before the end of the house party, that was why. And then he’d forced her into fulfilling one of his fantasies, instead of permitting her to go and have breakfast. And all just to prove that she couldn’t do as she pleased any longer. Not now she was married.
Only after he’d proved she was very married indeed, her words about being like the captain of a ship had reared up to goad him. While he’d been putting on his clothes, he’d remembered how he’d felt when his last commission had been cut short. It had been most unpleasant, having his entire identity stripped away, just as he’d been stripping the ship in which he’d fought for the past six months, down to a hulk.
Did she feel like that? he’d wondered as he listened to her taking out her temper on the washbasin. Bewildered and adrift? Or as he’d done when marriage had been thrust upon him? Angry and resentful?
He most certainly didn’t want to drag an angry and resentful wife with him to London. And then again, something about the way she’d slammed the door on him put him in mind of scenes he’d witnessed as a child. Of his mother accusing his father of doing exactly as he pleased. And his father laughing and saying why not? That it was a woman’s role to obey.
And maybe that was so. But it was not a man’s role to crush his wife. Which was why he’d suggested the compromise.
Only now it turned out to be no such thing. Lizzie had let slip that she was staying to the bitter end of the house party, so she could take part in the pantomime the youngsters were rehearsing.
He shucked off his jacket and waistcoat on his way to the dressing room, where he poured water into the basin for a swift wash. Someone had laundered his shirt from the night before, and hung it from a peg above his valise, he noted with gratitude. Alec hadn’t brought many changes of clothing, thinking he’d only be here for a day or so. Just long enough to wrest Lizzie from whatever man it was he’d feared was trying to seduce her.
Seduce her? Hah! A man would have to get up very early in the morning to stand a chance of besting Lizzie. She had a shrewd head on her shoulders, and total confidence in her own worth. What’s more, she was already practising her wiles on Lady Julia’s bacon-brained brother. He’d watched her toying with the poor besotted fool all day. Glorying in the power of her beauty. She’d known Benjamin could hardly take his eyes off her, so the baggage had studiously ignored him, for the most part. Only to encourage him to carry on sighing after her by darting him the occasional brief glance, coupled with a slight smile, after which she’d lower her head and probably play with a curl of her hair for good measure.
The idiot boy had spilled more paint down his trousers and on his shoes than he’d managed to daub on the canvas. Which Lizzie’s friends had found hilarious.
Frowning, he pulled his shirt over his head, then splashed his face with water. To think that, in the past, he’d regretted not spending much time with Lizzie. Regretted not being closer, not being able to watch over her in person, but instead having to trust her to the care of schoolmistresses and the goodwill of friends.
Well, having spent the entire day with her, he decided it hadn’t been such a bad way to go on, after all. Girls of Lizzie’s age were extremely tiresome. Their heads were full of nonsense, which they talked about incessantly. If they’d e
ver actually had the chance to live under the same roof, he’d have been sorely tempted to send her away to school, just to get some peace and quiet.
He rubbed his face vigorously on the towel, as though he could slough off the day’s irritations along with the water. He was just wondering whether he should shave again, when the door to the sitting room opened, then shut with a resounding slam.
It could only be his wife. A servant wouldn’t dare slam any door anywhere in the house.
He slung the towel over the rail, and went out to see what ailed her now. He was just in time to catch her sweeping the dozens of pots that cluttered her dressing table to one side, bury her face in her hands, and emit a sort of strangled scream.
She clearly had no idea he was here.
She probably wished he wasn’t.
Indeed, the door-slamming, and the wanton destruction of all her cosmetics, and the strangled scream might all stem from her frustration at having to own to him as a husband.
He leaned his forearm against the doorframe while he considered his next move. He’d upset her this morning, insisting she bend to his will, rather than go about her duties as though she was still a single woman. Oh, she’d enjoyed everything he’d done to her. But the very fact that she had enjoyed it all so much had angered her, too.
He even understood her anger. His physical reaction to her angered him almost as much. He didn’t want to want her. And was guilty of taking out some of his frustration on her.
He should apologise.
He cleared his throat.
The way she started, then lifted her head to look in his direction, confirmed his suspicion she hadn’t had a clue he was there. She’d clearly come here to let out her frustration in what she’d hoped was privacy.
The Captain's Christmas Bride Page 13