The Captain's Christmas Bride

Although—her hand stilled as she reached for a pot of rouge—only a few people knew she’d actually done so. If Marianne, or Nellie, or David, had let the cat out of the bag, breakfast would have been an ordeal of an entirely different nature.

Everyone who’d heard would have dragged themselves out of bed to goggle at the spectacle of Lady Julia Whitney, in love. As it was, the half-dozen or so habitually early risers had behaved the way they always did. There hadn’t been a keen glance or muttered aside to suggest she’d become the subject of gossip.

Not until Captain Lord Dunbar had made his way to her side and played the part of adoring swain.

She dipped her brush in the rouge pot, idly swirling it round and round. She still couldn’t really understand it. He’d been trying to make it look as though he was delighted to be marrying her. When he was anything but.

Perhaps he’d calmed down overnight, and was now resigned to his fate?

Absentmindedly, she flicked the rouge over her cheeks. No, that couldn’t be it. He hadn’t looked resigned to his fate. He’d looked determined. As though he’d decided to make the best of it. Hadn’t he said something to that effect last night? It was hard to recall. She’d been such a seething mass of mortification, and loss, and dread, and anger, and...oh, a dozen other negative emotions.

But later, when she’d tried to get to sleep—oh, heavens! She caught sight of herself in the mirror, her cheeks such a deep shade of carmine she looked like something out of a pantomime. She flung the rouge brush aside, dipped a clean handkerchief in water, and began to scrub it off. She had no need of rouge when she recalled the thoughts that had slid into bed alongside her last night. Far too many of them involving searching hands, and determined lips, and the feel of a large, masculine body pressing down on her. Pressing into her.

Not even now she knew exactly who it had been doing all those wickedly exciting things. And that was another thing. Modesty dictated she should have felt ashamed, not excited. So excited that she hadn’t been able to lie still. She couldn’t understand herself. Even thinking about it now made her feel all...

She wrung out the handkerchief and dabbed at her heated cheeks in an attempt to reduce the redness that the rouge, and the blushing, and the scrubbing had produced. Though perhaps a natural blush wasn’t such a bad look to wear. Didn’t they talk of blushing brides? People would expect her to blush, and look a little uncomfortable when they began to congratulate her over her marriage.

And they would congratulate her. Everyone considered Captain Lord Dunbar to be a terrific catch. His name had often been in the papers, in connection with some great naval victory or other. Nobody cared that he was penniless.

Oh. She sat up a little straighter. Hadn’t Papa said something last night about him now being able to buy as much property as he wanted? She’d been so angry that he wasn’t going to cut up stiff over the settlements, the way he’d threatened to do when she’d told him of her intention to marry David, that she hadn’t taken any notice of Captain Dunbar’s reaction to the news he was about to become a wealthy man. But perhaps that was why he looked more cheerful this morning. He’d had all night to consider what it would mean to be able to spend her fortune however he liked.

Well, she thought, shrugging one shoulder, he’d obviously decided that her money was some compensation for the fact he hadn’t wanted to have anything to do with her, let alone marry her.

Something cold landed on her lap. She looked down to see that she’d squeezed her handkerchief so hard a rivulet of pink water was trickling over her dressing table and onto her gown.

She’d have to get changed. Bother. Now he’d think she’d done so just to impress him—if he was the kind of man who noticed what a woman wore.

She’d pick something as close to this morning gown as she could, then. And hope he couldn’t tell the difference between muslin and cambric.

It was only as she went to ring for a maid that it struck her that on any other day Marianne would normally have been in here by now. Julia wouldn’t have needed to ring for a maid at all. Marianne would have helped her to change. But Marianne was clearly too embarrassed to face her this morning.

And no wonder.

* * *

Alec paused and narrowed his eyes as he left the ballroom through the door on to the terrace. Though whether it was the bright sunshine, or his reaction to Lord Mountnessing’s attitude that made him blink, it would be hard to say.

Not that he’d been surprised to find the old man so keen to get his wayward daughter off his hands. Alec hadn’t been surprised either, all things considered, to find her money tied up in such a way that if he had been a fortune hunter, he’d have been mightily disappointed.

He was surprised, however, by the amount left over, free and clear, to dispose of exactly as he saw fit. For the first time in his life, there wouldn’t have been any need for him to take out a loan in order to fit out a ship—had he a command awaiting him. He could have bought the best supplies, silver buckles for his shoes, new lace for his uniform—hell, he could have gone the whole hog and purchased a new uniform altogether while he was at it.

And still be able to leave his wife living in the kind of luxury she’d always been used to enjoying.

Of course, he’d never be sure who she’d be enjoying it with, but that was a risk all men who spent most of their lives at sea had to run.

Shaking his head, like a dog caught in a shower of rain, he set off across the terrace with the measured tread his officers and crew called his ‘mulling’ walk—behind his back, naturally. Any landlubber who saw him would have assumed he was just out for a stroll. But the way he clasped his hands behind his back and the angle of his downbent head were a certain sign to those who knew him. He was mulling over a plan. A complex plan, if his completely wooden expression was anything to go by. The deeper his thoughts, the less they always showed on his face.

Or so his crew had believed.

Right now the thoughts uppermost on his mind concerned the woman he was about to marry. In particular, did he stand any chance of making such a spoiled, society beauty pay him any heed?

He didn’t hold with beating wives, though it was within his legal rights to do so, should she misbehave. It might make a certain kind of man feel better, but he wasn’t that sort. And yet her father had just informed him that he was relying on his son-in-law to discipline his lively, self-willed new bride.

‘I’ve always been too soft with Julia,’ the earl had admitted ruefully. ‘Could never deny her anything. She was such an affectionate, demonstrative sort of child, you see. As well as being the first fruits of my second marriage. I was terribly in love with her mother.’ He took a pinch of snuff then shut the box with a snap, as though he was annoyed with himself.

‘She gave me another brace of sons, as well as those I had from my first wife.’

Had there been just a hint of distaste about his lips?

‘But you cannot mollycoddle boys if you want them to grow up to become men.’

‘Indeed not, my lord,’ he’d agreed wholeheartedly. He’d gone to sea himself at the tender age of twelve. If his own father had ‘mollycoddled’ him, the harshness of those first few weeks on board his first ship might well have destroyed him.

‘When my Maria died,’ the earl had continued, ‘I suppose I switched all the affection I felt for the mother to the daughter. Very much like her, you see.’ He sighed. ‘Now, of course, I see that it was disastrous to appear to favour her over my other children. But at the time...’ He shook his head.

‘However, since she claims to love you, I have no doubt she will do her best to be a good wife to you.’ He frowned. ‘Her idea of a good wife. It will probably not be your idea of what a good wife should be, but then, women, you know...’ He’d finished with another of his grimaces of distaste.

Captain Dunbar had made no response. If Julia really had been in love with him, it would have been the act of a scoundrel to complain about the way she’d entrapped him. Especially since her poor old father was trying to encourage him to hope the union might bring him the same kind of happiness he’d experienced with her mother.

Nor could he very well explain that Lady Julia had been as appalled as he when their masks had come off. He hadn’t needed to question her assertion that she hadn’t been trying to trap him. He’d seen his own shock mirrored on her face. She didn’t love him, but another. The last thing on her mind was making him a good wife. No, for her, it was all about saving face.

So why the hell had she asked him to meet her in the orangery? His heart started skipping like a frigate in a stiff breeze as it hove into sight. But he kept his pace even and steady. He wasn’t going to betray, by any outward sign, just how much it affected him to approach the scene of last night’s tryst, in broad daylight.

Which was a foolish resolution to make. The moment his mind turned to the astonishing events of the night before, his body began to behave in a most unruly manner, springing enthusiastically to attention. Giving an all-too-visibly outward sign that he was far from reluctant to be meeting her in such a secluded spot.

So it was with a frustrated growl that he tried the handle of the door, and with a scowl on his face that he knocked on it.

She emerged from behind a screen of foliage, and gestured to one of the windows. Then she went to it and threw up the sash.

‘Gatley—that’s our head gardener—keeps the door locked when we have guests,’ she explained, beckoning him over. ‘You will have to climb in through this window, as we did last night. The lock is broken, you see. But hardly anyone knows. So we won’t be disturbed.’

So that was why she’d suggested they meet here. It was just as he’d thought. She was going to try to fuddle his mind with memories of last night, so that he wouldn’t see whatever trap she’d laid for him today until it was too late. He’d laid enough traps, himself, when he’d needed to sneak up close to an enemy in order to inflict maximum damage, to recognise one.

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