The Captain's Christmas Bride

by Annie Burrows

  She darted across the room to a point where she couldn’t be seen from the doorway, trusting that Alec wouldn’t simply walk out and leave her. Though she wouldn’t blame him if he did. She’d been much too forthright. Contrary, even—venting her anger on him when he hadn’t done anything to deserve it.

  He didn’t walk out and leave her. He took first one tray, then a second, from whoever was outside in the corridor, setting them down on nearby tables.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, the moment the door had closed on the last servant. ‘For organising the smokescreen.’ She indicated the tea trays. ‘And also...’ She took a deep breath. Because humility didn’t come easily to her. ‘Also for bearing with my tantrum. And pointing out that they are better suited to each other than I ever was to either of them. You are right. For I cannot abide disloyalty. Or duplicity. Oh...’ She waved down the protest he might have made before he could voice it. ‘I know you must find that hard to believe, given the way I deceived you the night we...the night we...um...first came together. But...’

  He frowned.

  ‘Your code of morals is a little tangled, perhaps, but I concede that you do have one.’

  The beast! The pompous, judgemental...

  ‘And that it exceeds that of your...well, I was going to say friends. But they have proved to be no such thing to you.’

  Oh. Well, she supposed she couldn’t really take exception to any of that. Not unless she was determined to quarrel with him. Which might make her feel better for a little while, but wouldn’t do her any good in the long run.

  ‘I think,’ he said, lifting the lid from the teapot and peering inside, ‘that they took advantage of your generous nature.’

  Generous? He thought she was generous? Well that put paid to any lingering shreds of quarrelsomeness.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea, now? Or would you prefer to keep going with the brandy? There is plenty of both.’

  ‘I do not wish to develop a taste for brandy, thank you very much,’ she said.

  ‘Then I shall pour you some tea.’

  He replaced the lid on the pot, arranged the cup on its saucer, and settled the tea strainer across the rim.

  ‘Milk and sugar?’

  She clapped her hand over her mouth.

  ‘What is the matter now? What have I said?’

  ‘You...’ She pointed at him. At his bare chest. The delicate china milk jug in one hand. The sugar tongs in the other. ‘You look so...incongruous. Presiding over the tea tray without your shirt.’

  His face stiffened. ‘Do you wish me to put on a shirt to pour tea for you?’

  She shook her head. ‘To be honest, I rather like looking at your chest. It is such a very well-made chest.’ She ran hungry eyes over his beautifully sculpted torso. A sudden thirst made her lick her lips. And it wasn’t for tea. Or brandy. She glanced at the bed he’d unmade.

  The milk jug slipped through his fingers and landed with a clatter and a splosh on the tray.

  ‘You want me,’ he said.

  She nodded her head, too shy to admit out loud to having such feelings without the cover of night, or anything else to hide behind.

  ‘That’s the brandy talking,’ he said, putting the tongs down in the puddle of milk.

  ‘In vino veritas,’ she said with a shrug. ‘I wouldn’t normally have the nerve to admit it. To be so...bold. Or so...open, about what I feel. But with you standing there like that...’ She ran greedy eyes over his upper body again. ‘And anyway,’ she added crossly, when he continued to just stand there, fists clenched, glowering at her. ‘It was your idea to go to bed instead of going down to dinner.’

  ‘I only meant it as a ruse. I didn’t mean...’

  ‘Oh. You mean, you don’t want me, too?’

  ‘Don’t be absurd, woman, you can see that I do,’ he replied. Then, shockingly, uncurled one fist and gestured towards his manhood, which looked to her as though it was attempting to thrust its way right through his breeches. The sight sent a rush of heat to the very place it was clearly hoping to go.

  ‘Then what’s to stop us?’ She took a hesitant step towards him. ‘We’re married. And everyone thinks that’s why we’re staying up here anyway.’ She reached out and placed one hand, rather daringly she thought, on the mat of blond hair at the very centre of his magnificent chest.

  To her chagrin, he didn’t immediately sweep her off her feet, carry her across the room, and fling her onto the bed, though she could feel his heart racing beneath her palm.

  ‘You’re upset,’ he bit out. ‘And not used to drinking brandy. I don’t want to take advantage while you’re vulnerable. It wouldn’t be the act of a gentleman.’

  ‘That didn’t stop you this morning,’ she retorted. ‘Is it...is it because I’m the one trying to start it, this time?’ She snatched her hand away as though he’d burnt her.

  ‘God, no.’ He seized her hand and carried it back to where it had been, placing his own over it to keep it there. ‘I regret the way I treated you this morning. I shouldn’t have obliged you to submit, when it wasn’t what you wanted. I was angry. Trying to prove something.’

  Good Lord, this was unheard of. A man apologising for acting brutishly? If that was what he was doing. She couldn’t be sure since she’d never heard a man making any attempt to explain his actions. Not any man but him, that was.

  ‘What,’ she asked in fascination, ‘were you trying to prove?’

  ‘That...that you are not the one in control.’

  Dominance—he’d been asserting his dominance over her. Well, yes, she’d certainly felt dominated. Deliciously so, to be honest.

  But how far did that need for dominance go?

  ‘So it is just that you don’t want to...go back to bed, if I am the one to want it? To ask for it?’

  ‘No! That’s not what I meant. I meant... God, I don’t know what I meant.’ His fingers tightened until they were almost crushing hers. She had no doubt that if she complained he’d let her go. At once.

  But she didn’t feel like complaining.

  ‘And if it comes to wanting...’ he breathed, with such a look of pent-up longing and frustration in his eyes that it made her stomach flip with excitement. ‘I want you all the time. And I don’t know how that can be when I only met you a handful of days ago. And it...’

  Ah. She could see it now. He was in as much confusion as she was. And struggling to come to terms with the desire that kept on flaring between them.

  ‘Infuriates you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It infuriates me, too,’ she admitted. ‘But right this moment, I am glad to know that at least someone wants me. Really wants me. Enough to scandalise everyone else at the house party by taking me to bed in the afternoon.’

  And then, because he still looked so torn between the wanting, and the resentment, she tugged her hand free. But only so she could reach up and loop both her arms round his neck. She pushed her fingers into the soft curls that caressed the nape of his neck, and did a little caressing of her own.

  He smiled with his eyes. That was the only way to describe it. Because although his mouth hardly changed shape at all, she knew he was smiling at her as he put his arms about her waist and tugged her into his reassuringly hard body.

  ‘This time,’ he informed her sternly, ‘we are going to take it slowly. Neither of us is angry with the other, so we should be able to savour the bedding, rather than just exploding into release like when a match touches powder.’

  ‘S-s-savour?’ He made it sound so decadent, when his voice went all soft and growly like that, with that slight lilt emphasising his Scottish heritage.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he said, lifting her off her feet and carrying her to the prepared bed. ‘I want to strip you naked, and gaze on all that perfect, porcelain skin. Stroke it, and taste i
t. And bring you to release several times before I even enter you.’

  ‘B-before you...?’ Her heart was hammering so hard as he laid her gently down on the mattress that she couldn’t breathe the words out properly.

  ‘Aye. Before. That is how a husband should bed his wife, I think.’ He shook his head ruefully as he turned her to one side, so that he could undo the ties at the back of her dress. ‘Not hard, and fast, as though her own pleasure is of no account.’

  She’d had pleasure in their couplings so far, she wanted to tell him. But he’d slid his hand inside her gown and was easing it off her shoulders. Kneeling over her and kissing his way along the skin he bared. And she found that it was all she could do to breathe, never mind say anything.

  So she just reached for him, and touched him the way he was touching her, to show that she was, for once, willing to do exactly as he wished.

  And soon discovered that obeying a man could bring the kind of reward she’d never dreamed possible.

  * * *

  She didn’t argue the next day, either, when he forbade her to leave the room to go down for breakfast.

  ‘You promised to obey me, woman,’ he growled provocatively, rolling her into the centre of the bed and pinning her down. ‘And I promised to cherish you. I cannot have you leaving this room until you look...’ He ground into her with his hips. ‘Sufficiently cherished.’

  He spoke in a jocular fashion. But she had to admit that—in the bedroom at least—he was doing his level best to be a good husband, even though he hadn’t wanted to be any such thing. The least she could do was reciprocate. Which she did with such enthusiasm it was noon before she thought of raising the topic of leaving the bedroom again.

  ‘I really cannot stay in here all day.’ She sighed, running one foot up and down his calf.

  ‘Nobody else much emerges from their rooms before noon.’

  ‘Yes, but not me. It is not the behaviour of a lady to neglect her guests.’

  ‘Not even when she’s only just got married?’

  ‘Not even then. Going down a little late might just be forgiven, since we are newlyweds. But it really isn’t fair on the staff. They have so much extra work to do this year.’

  He’d nodded then. And, was she imagining it, or was there just a touch of approval in his expression when he answered?

  ‘Wouldn’t expect my crew to do all the work while I lounged about in my cabin, either.’

  Good grief. She’d actually won a little grudging respect from him, at last.

  They took turns to use the dressing room to get washed and dressed, and left the room arm in arm. In perfect amity with each other.

  At least, she felt in perfect amity with him, when he gave her a peck on the cheek when their ways parted. There was a lightness to her step as she turned and began to make her way to Mrs Dawson’s sitting room. And a smile came to her lips when she heard her husband start whistling on his way to the rehearsal room, where he planned to spend what was left of the afternoon with his sister.

  Mrs Dawson had been coping magnificently without her input, she soon discovered.

  ‘All that time you spent drawing up those charts of which rooms to use,’ said the housekeeper, pouring her a cup of tea, ‘in what order, and all the special likes and dislikes of those what would be using them have made things wonderfully easy. And it’s not as if I couldn’t have come to you if there was a real emergency now, is it?’

  Julia’s face flamed as she had a vision of Mrs Dawson bursting into her bedroom and catching Alec doing one of those delightful, yet totally shocking things he’d spent the morning doing to her.

  And then her attention wandered as she relived one or two of them. When Mrs Dawson said she was glad they’d settled the matter, she had no idea what she’d just agreed to. She’d just been humming a yes, or a no, whenever the housekeeper had paused, in a sort of expectant way.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ she said, setting her tea cup down. ‘Is that the time? I should be getting ready for dinner.’

  ‘Before you go,’ said Mrs Dawson, pursing her lips in an oddly disapproving way, ‘we should discuss the wedding tomorrow.’

  ‘Wedding?’

  ‘Of that Miss Marianne and David Kettley.’

  Goodness—she’d completely forgotten about the wedding.

  But now she had been reminded of it, the distaste, and the hurt, and the sense of betrayal all came surging back.

  ‘Ah. I see you do feel it,’ said Mrs Dawson sagely.

  ‘Feel what?’ She bridled at the suggestion she might be betraying a single one of her feelings regarding Marianne’s treachery.

  ‘That if she wants to go and get married all in haste, like this, then she shouldn’t expect any of us to run round helping. As if we haven’t all got enough work to do with the house full of his Lordship’s guests.’

  None of them had seemed to mind the extra work her own wedding had caused. Unless they’d all just hidden it very well.

  ‘Does she...expect any of you to...do anything?’ Strange how loath she was to ask Mrs Dawson outright if her own hasty marriage had created so much resentment below stairs.

  ‘She’s just been playing her tricks, same as usual,’ said Mrs Dawson with a sniff.

  ‘Her...her tricks?’ Julia reached for a scone, split it in two, and slathered one half with butter. Why was it she was only seeing now that people might have had reason for disliking Marianne so much? Was she such a poor judge of character?

  ‘Giving orders, and pretending they were coming from you when we know very well she’s not been within twenty yards of your room to obtain them.’

  ‘What orders has she tried to give?’ In her name? That really was going a bit far.

  ‘Oh, wanting Cook to provide food for her wedding breakfast, trying to get Mabel to make alterations to one of her gowns for the ceremony. The usual sort of thing.’

  ‘I must say, I’m surprised.’ Marianne had always seemed so...humble. She couldn’t imagine her trying to give any servants any orders. Indeed, she’d always seemed so timid, so reluctant to pass on the messages she really had given, insisting that the servants all terrified her.

  And then she suddenly recalled Nellie, when she’d been mimicking Marianne saying Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly, in an arch, false sort of way that had made Marianne look rather cross.

  ‘Well, that’s just like you, my lady,’ said Mrs Dawson with a fond gleam in her eye. ‘Always willing to see the best in everyone. And so kind as you have been to that girl.’

  Why did everyone always refer to Marianne as that girl? And what else should she have been, but kind, when nobody else had ever spared a thought for Marianne’s feelings? Her mind flew back to the very first day Marianne had come to live with them. She’d been in the schoolroom, poring over a grammar book, when Nick and Herbert had burst in, asking if she’d seen ‘the little Froggy orphan’.

  ‘We haven’t been able to catch her scent this past half-hour or more,’ Herbert had said.

  ‘Gone to ground,’ Nick had said. And then, in spite of her governess’s objections, had begun to wrench open all the cupboard doors, look behind the curtains and inside the window seat, even upsetting her desk before they were satisfied she wasn’t hiding the fugitive. Only when they’d completely ransacked the room did they caper over to the door, blowing a reedy fanfare on a hunting horn they’d brought with them. It was with a cry of Tally-ho! they’d set off in renewed pursuit.

  Later that day, she’d found Marianne, huddled behind the sofa in the morning room, weeping silent, bitter tears. And had naturally taken the poor little mite under her wing.

  ‘She had nobody else,’ said Julia firmly. ‘I know that Marianne has never been popular in this house. But...once she came to live with me, at least I never felt so alone.’ Instead of having to deal with Nick an
d Herbert alone, she had another girl to stand with her. ‘She was my childhood playmate,’ she said wistfully. And later, they’d started poring over fashion journals, and gone shopping together, and oh, all the hundred-and-one things that all girls did as they became young ladies. ‘She was my companion when I went up to London for the Season.’

  ‘Ah, well, yes. I suppose she was a comfort to you. Like a little wraith you were, for a time after your mama passed on. And only you to comfort the boys with your papa shutting himself away like that...’

  Exactly. Just because they’d fallen out, over a man, could she really forget how close they’d been, for so many years?

  Especially since she no longer wanted the man Marianne had won. In fact, if someone handed David to her on a silver plate, with a red ribbon round his neck, she wouldn’t have him. Not now she knew how he’d toyed with her affections. What sort of man did that to an impressionable, lonely girl?

  ‘Well then, would it not be possible to donate a little food to her wedding breakfast? I wouldn’t ask Cook to provide the entire thing, but a cake or two, from his hands, would make such a difference to the kind of spread I should think David’s parents capable of providing at such short notice.’

  ‘Looked at in that light, I can see why you would wish to give her a good send-off. Very well, my lady,’ said Mrs Dawson, setting down her teacup decisively. ‘I shall see what I can do. Once everyone knows that it is you asking, I am sure Cook will make the effort.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Dawson. It would mean so very much to me. I don’t like to think of her feeling that we’ve all turned against her. Especially not at Christmas.’

  At the mention of Christmas, Mrs Dawson wriggled a touch uncomfortably.

  ‘If you don’t have the time,’ she offered, ‘shall I have a word with Mabel, too?’

  ‘Thank you. Tell her she may...she may have the lace I’d been planning to use for my own wedding gown.’ It had been bought to adorn the dress of David’s bride. Sending Marianne that particular length of lace would send her the clear message that she was welcome to David. And she was. Only think, if Marianne hadn’t waylaid David, then she might have succeeded in luring him out to the orangery. She might have been obliged to marry him.