The Captain's Christmas Bride (12 page)

‘You see...’ Her voice was coming nearer. He glanced over his shoulder once more. She’d got a slinky sort of wrap round her. Though she was clearly naked underneath.

He took a deep breath, and lathered his face in record time.

‘By the time breakfast is over, I can tell what sort of mood Nicholas and Papa are in. And then I go and take tea with Mrs Dawson—that’s the housekeeper. And she lets me know if there’s anything else I ought to know about. The maids who light the fires, and carry up hot water, are always the first to find out if there’s any trouble brewing. And then I can take steps to nip it in the bud.’

She’d drawn up a stool from somewhere, and was watching him swipe the razor over his cheeks with a sort of rapt fascination. When she wasn’t running her eyes over his naked torso.

Julia had clearly never watched a man shaving before. Well, he’d never shaved while a woman—a practically naked woman—was watching him, come to that. Suddenly he felt more masculine than he’d ever felt in his life.

‘I’m sure you understand how it is,’ she persisted, though her voice now sounded a bit thready. ‘As captain of a ship, you need to know everything that’s going on with your crew. So that you can keep everything running smoothly.’

‘That is a fair point, actually,’ he grunted. He swooshed his razor through the water for longer than necessary while thinking through what she’d said.

‘You look young to be in charge of such a large household,’ he finally said out of the side of his mouth as he tackled his upper lip. ‘Just how old are you?’

‘Twenty.’

‘I didn’t make captain until I was much older,’ he admitted. ‘At your age, I only had charge of about eighty men. And I’d been trained for command for years.’

‘Well, I’ve been trained to command ever since I was born.’

‘Hmmm.’ He raised his chin to shave the delicate area beneath it.

‘I have been meaning to ask,’ she said, twisting her fingers together in her lap. ‘What you plan to do next? I mean, do you have a ship to go back to? No—’ she shook her head ‘—I seem to recall you saying something about things being uncertain now the war has ended.’

‘Yes, they are,’ Alec said, tilting his face one way, then another in the mirror, to make sure he hadn’t missed a spot. ‘Which makes it imperative that I return to London as soon as possible.’

‘Oh, but...’

He dipped his head to rinse off what remained of the lather. And paused. He hadn’t imagined it this time. There was definitely disappointment written all over her face. She’d even begun to protest.

‘There is no point in arguing with me about this,’ he said, rinsing his face swiftly, then reaching for the towel to dry himself. ‘Any new commands, any decent commissions, are likely to go to those men with connections to the Admiralty. Since I don’t have any influence, I need to be there in person. I need to cruise up and down the corridors so people will notice me. See how hungry I am for a new command. They won’t see that if I linger here.’ He tossed the towel aside with a grimace. ‘If they hear I have married. They will think I’m willing to settle down.’

‘You are leaving so soon? Leaving me here?’

‘Leaving you? Who said anything about leaving you?’ Though...hadn’t he just been saying
I
need to be there in person,
I
need to cruise up and down? He supposed he could see why she’d misunderstood. And at least she looked disappointed about it. Was she, too, starting to hope they could salvage something from the situation into which her irresponsibility had pitched them?

Or was she merely annoyed about how it would look for her groom to appear to tire of her so quickly after their hasty marriage?

‘Well, obviously I cannot leave Papa in the lurch,’ she said. ‘Not with a houseful of guests.’

He leaned back on the washstand, examining the pugnacious tilt of her chin. Not what he’d expected her to say at all. ‘It isn’t obvious to me,’ he retorted, stung that she thought helping throw a party was more important than his career.

‘I just told you, I have duties—’

‘You have new duties now. Wifely duties,’ he snapped, taking the two steps to close the distance between them, grasping her under the elbows, and lifting her to her feet.

She gasped, but it wasn’t a gasp of shock. The look on her face told him she knew exactly what he meant. And that gasp was an admission she wasn’t at all averse to what he had in mind either.

So he kissed her.

The moment he let go of her elbows, to wrap his arm about her waist, she put her arms round his neck, and sort of arched into him.

He was glad he’d taken the time to shave. He wouldn’t have been able to kiss her so thoroughly if he’d been worrying about scouring her soft cheeks with his rough whiskers.

Which reminded him of his plan to kiss his way down the entire length of her spine.

He broke off the kiss, and turned her round.

‘Wh-what...?’ she stuttered, and then, when he lifted the hair from the nape of her neck and nibbled gently, gave a deep, shuddery sigh.

Signifying that she liked it.

So he nipped a bit harder. Slid the silken wrap from her shoulders, and slipped his hands down to cup her breasts. Both of them at once.

‘Oh, God,’ he groaned. ‘But your breasts are magnificent.’

She ground her hips back, against his hardness.

He groaned again. Tore her wrap from her arms and tossed it to the floor. Clamped one arm about her waist to hold her still as he began to nibble his way down her back.

Only, the little noises she was making, the gasps and whimpers, were so encouraging he gave up somewhere between her shoulder blades. Straightened up, grabbed her hand and tugged her back to the bed.

‘We shouldn’t,’ she protested. ‘I have to get down to breakfast...’

‘Not today,’ he growled.

Then turned her, and laid her face down on the mattress.

* * *

For a second, Julia felt alarmed. What did he mean to do? Was this to be some kind of lesson? He’d sounded so strict when he’d mentioned her duties. And surely this wasn’t good—being bent over with her bottom in the air like this? As though he meant to spank her? Just because she’d expressed a reluctance to leave Ness Hall in the middle of a house party?

If he did anything like that she would never forgive him. It might be his right, but nobody had ever beaten her. Not even with the flat of the hand.

But she wasn’t going to struggle, or give so much as a hint that she felt even the slightest, faintest, stirrings of alarm. Showing weakness only made bullies worse. She’d learned that from Nick and Herbert, as a little girl. Which was why she’d been able to teach her younger brothers how to deal with them.

But she was so very naked, so very exposed, so very vulnerable, that she couldn’t prevent her heart from banging against her ribs. Nor could she help flinching when his hands finally connected with her body.

Though it was the shock of him slowly caressing her bottom that made her jump. For she hadn’t expected it. Well, she hadn’t known what to expect. But it wasn’t that he should stroke, and knead, and squeeze her bottom like this.

‘Lush,’ he said. ‘That’s the only word for your behind. So soft, and sweet, and round as it is.’

The alarm she’d been refusing to let him see skipped a beat, and settled into a new, thrumming sort of excitement.

He swept the hair away from the nape of her neck, again. Nibbled. Then took up kissing his way down her spine, the way he’d begun to in the dressing room.

All her breath left her lungs in a whoosh of relief. He wasn’t trying to punish her for objecting to his plan, he was just determined to carry it out.

He slid one hand under her body to cup her breast as he reached the very end of her spine. His other slid up the inside of her right thigh. Pushed it aside so that he could insert one of his own legs between hers and nudged them further apart so that he could stand between them.

And then there was a pause. She glanced over her shoulder to see that he was undoing his breeches. She buried her face back in the bedding before she caught sight of that part of him. Or worse, the sight of him as he entered her. From behind. And then crouching over her, and sinking his teeth into the nape of her neck. The way a stallion held his mare while he was covering her.

The image sent a bolt of something purely animal screaming through her. Just about the same time as the hand that had been cupping her breast slid down her stomach. Toyed with her as he plunged into her from behind. And she didn’t know whether it was the pressure of his hand, or his hot breath in her ear, or the sheer dominance of his position, but she’d never felt so utterly feminine in her life. Or so glad to be female.

She groaned with pleasure. Gasped, and ground herself against his hand, and finally bit into the mattress to stifle the scream that tore from her as raw, primal excitement exploded through her whole being.

And then he stood up, and gripped her hips with both hands as he thrust to his own completion. While she lay completely immobile. Just letting him. She could do nothing else. She was too limp from the incredible sensations that had ripped through her frame.

When he finished, on a guttural groan that sounded as if it was torn from the very root of his being, he pulled her up, into his arms, and brought her down next to him on the bed, rearranging her while she still felt like a rag doll.

Then he gave a deep, satisfied sigh.

Well, he was bound to feel satisfied, wasn’t he? He’d just treated her to a masterly display of masculine dominance.

He hadn’t even had to shout at her, or strike her, to get his own way. To make her miss breakfast. He had just kissed her. And her own body had surrendered. No, worse than that, had gleefully gone to him. That realisation soured everything.

‘Now that you’re done with me,’ she said in a waspish tone, ‘may I get up and commence the
rest
of my duties?’

He tensed. The way he’d done when she’d slid her hand under his coat and cupped his bottom, that very first night.

Oooh! It made her mad as fire that everything he did made her think about...
that
. Congress. Conversation. Whatever you wanted to call it.

When she disliked him more than any other man she’d ever met!

With an angry huff, she got off the bed—irritated even further by the way her legs felt so weak—and tottered to the dressing room. She sloshed his cold washing water into the bucket, and poured some fresh for herself, with hands that were shaking. Ooh! She couldn’t even make her way to the dressing room, and have a wash, with any dignity.

By rights Mabel should be up here, laying out her gown for the day, and helping her with her hair. She soaped the sponge, and gave herself a brisk rubbing down. Well, that was what you did to a mare, wasn’t it? After a lengthy gallop.

‘Is something amiss?’

She didn’t need to turn round to
feel
him, standing in the doorway.

‘Can I not even have a wash in privacy?’

‘You watched me wash and shave,’ he said silkily. ‘It’s only fair you let me do the same.’

‘There’s nothing fair about this,’ she almost sobbed. ‘Most husbands let their wives have their own room.’

‘Not when they’re first married,’ he said with utter certainty.

Could that be true? She had no idea. Nobody had told her what to expect from marriage. Not even one such as this. Not one of her aunts had bothered asking her if she needed any advice—not that she’d have welcomed it from them. She’d already solved the great mystery of what men and women did with each other if they could get each other’s clothes off. So she didn’t need a married woman to tell her what to expect on her wedding night.

Anyway, not one of them had the kind of marriage she’d ever wished to endure. It was probably one of them that Nellie had spied, doing what she shouldn’t with one of the guests. Or one of the locals.

‘Is that why you didn’t have my things brought down here? You expected to have the kind of bloodless marriage that high-born society people have?’

‘No,’ she blurted out. ‘That’s the last thing I wanted.’ She’d dreamed of a marriage in which they could be friends, as well as lovers. ‘But...’ she turned to look at him, pleading with him for understanding ‘I was so busy planning the wedding I never thought about the marriage at all. About where you’d want to sleep.’

‘I want to sleep in this room.’

Her heart gave a funny little twist.

And then plummeted when she couldn’t see any sign of tenderness in his face. No sign that he’d forgiven her for the way the marriage had come about, or her lack of foresight about making
her
room into
their
room. Just a sort of hard determination. Determination to have his own way.

Which suddenly turned distinctly lustful as he eyed her naked, soapy form.

‘The view is much better,’ he said, with the start of a wicked smile.

With a squeal of outrage, she flung the sponge at him.

He fielded it. Laughed. And strolled back to the bedroom, where he disposed himself gracefully on the bed.

She slammed the dressing-room door shut on him.

And kicked his valise, for good measure.

Chapter Eight

J
ulia had never been so glad she had a suite of rooms. By getting Mabel to remove her clothes from the armoire in the bedroom, and taking them into her sitting room, she managed to get dressed without once having to set eyes on her husband. He’d dressed himself...well, she didn’t care whether he’d done it in the bedroom or the dressing room. By the next time she saw him he’d made himself decent, which was the main thing.

‘You are still angry with me?’

Well, what a stupid question. She glowered at him from the doorway, undecided whether she was more angry with him for making her miss breakfast, or insisting she leave Ness Hall before her father’s guests.

Breakfast. Missing breakfast was the worst offence. Because she’d told him how important she felt it was to be there, and he’d ignored her wishes. Would he always ride roughshod over her? Try and reduce her to the status of...of one of his deckhands?

That was what happened in a marriage without love and mutual respect at its core. Two individuals, yoked together, each striving to go the way they wanted and having to drag the other along, instead of both pulling in the same direction.

He got up. Clasped his hands behind his back. ‘I’ve been thinking.’

Something she’d said had made him think? Good grief.

* * *

She was pushing out her lips again, the way she did when she was biting back a sharp retort.

He sighed. ‘I can see you take your responsibility to your guests seriously. It was the way you likened your post to being the captain of a ship that made me think. Because, as a captain, I would have found it impossible to desert my post.’ He’d thought about more than that as he’d listened to her sloshing about in the dressing room in a sort of thwarted rage. It had put him in mind of the way he’d felt when Lizzie’s letter had arrived, and he’d had to come tearing down here instead of staying until the task of gutting his ship was finished.

‘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.