The Scandal Before Christmas (10 page)

Devil take them if the weather stranded his father. God only knew what he would do if he were trapped in a house with the viscount. Patricide seemed the likeliest result.

“Then best get on with it, and then be off to bed. But take a moment for a bit of the yuletide cheer.” Pinky nodded at the steaming mugs. “Nothing like a bit of yuletide cheer.”

“Thank you, Pinky.” Ian slipped into the glasshouse, and waited for the peaceful hush of the shelter to clear his ears after the harsh whistle of the wind. But what he heard instead was a song. A carol.

A beautifully fine, clear voice was softly singing an old country carol.

“Arise and go,” the angels said,

“To Bethlehem, be not afraid.

And there you’ll find this blessed morn

A princely babe, sweet Jesus born.”

She was musical. She played the pianoforte and she also sang like a reverent angel, her voice a glorious combination of clear and bright and intimate that made him feel as if she were singing for him alone. But of course she wasn’t—she was singing for
herself
alone.

Her song faded into silence the moment his boot sounded on the slate floor.

“Anne? Is that you?”

It was of course she, standing at the end of a row, her cloak turned silver in the moonlight.

“I heard you singing.”

She did not answer, but disappeared a bit, back into the voluminous folds of the cloak. Only the long, elegant slide of her nose peeked out of the hood.

“It was very pretty,” he assured her. “But you must be cold. Here—I’ve brought some Christmas cheer. Although you sounded rather wonderfully Christmassy.” He handed her the mug, and stopped himself from telling her Pinky had sent it. He didn’t want to give all the credit to Pinky. The old tar had told him to make sail while the breeze was up, hadn’t he?

“Thank you.” She took the hot drink gratefully, wrapping her hands around the mug to warm her fingers. “Mmmm. That’s divine. That’s”—she blew out a rum-flavored breath—“potent. Goodness, what is that? I feel like I have turned into a fire-breathing dragon.”

He smiled at the image. “Rum, my girl. Dark, Barbados rum. A stiff drink for a stiff breeze. Christmas cheer as Pinky would have it.”

“Did that old cherub make this? Goodness,” she said again on a laugh. “Christmas cheer, indeed. Who knew he had it in him?”

Ian knew exactly what the old lad had in him, and at the moment he was more than glad. Pinky’s penchant for finding the best in people had proved to be more than a boon to Ian this long day and evening. And speaking of evening.… “It must be getting on for midnight.”

Anne turned her face to look at the sky, steely white with heavy clouds. “Makes me think of ‘Oh Holy Night.’”

“Sing it for me.”

She shook her head—a swift negative. “No. I couldn’t.”

“You were singing before. As I said, it sounded very pretty.”

She could not be convinced. “It’s the acoustics. The glass makes the sound sharper, clearer.”

He tried a smile upon her. “Then it must have been you that made it sound so sweet.”

Again she did not answer, so Ian bided his time, and let the rum do its work for him, softening her up.

He came to stand beside her, as if he, too, were contemplating the sky overhead. She seemed more comfortable when he wasn’t looking directly at her, though he himself wanted nothing more than to look at her again, and figure how she had gone from someone plain to someone rather astonishing in his eyes within the space of one day.

But standing so still, the cold began to seep through his boots—the price of his vanity in wearing the stylish Hessians. “Devil take us, but it’s cold. Raw and damp with a rising wind out of the northeast. I can smell it coming on to snow.”

“I should think the snow were the least of your worries.” Her voice was as quiet as always, but had something more of that pert intelligence he liked so much. “That was quite a lie you told your father.”

Ian winched up his face in a show of ruefulness. “You’re not going to let me sail on by this particular shoal, are you?”

“No.” The hood of her cloak tipped up to look at him. “You seem to have put yourself—put us all—in a considerable quandary.”

He laughed, the sound turning cold and bleak as it bounded off the glass walls. “That would be an understatement.”

“Would you care to explain?”

“No. I wouldn’t care to, but I know I must. I may be a ramshackle fellow, Anne, but I do know right from wrong, however, and I did lie to my father.” His breath was frosting in front of his face as he looked up. She must be frozen. “Do you care to sit? There ought to be a bench here somewhere, where you can rest.” And he could snug her up beside him, warped up tight.

He led her to the end of the row, past covered plant boxes full of tender seedlings. No lush, tropical setting for seduction, this. It was a working glasshouse, where every spare inch of table space was covered with wooden flats of seedlings—evidence of Pinky’s penchant for the husbandry of herbs.

Ian wanted to take Anne to his bedchamber, and cuddle her against him and warm her there, and forget everything else and damn the consequences. But he was an officer and a gentleman. And there were her parents, not to mention Pinky—who had clearly appointed himself as her guardian angel—standing ready to make sure he did not.

There it was, a bench, plain and unadorned, sitting in an unused corner. “Let me warm your feet.” He turned and sat, holding out his hands.

She stood before him for a long moment, and with a whisper of a glance down at her feet, said, “You are avoiding making an answer.”

“So I am,” he agreed reasonably. “But I can warm your feet while I answer.”

There was another long, still pause before she agreed. “All right. They
are
cold.” She was nothing if not practical, this terrifyingly straightforward, logical girl.

“If I’m to keep my ancestors from rolling over in their graves at my ungentlemanly manner, and warm your feet, it would help if you would sit.”

She collected her skirts, and carefully sat at the far end of the bench. The pale oval of her face peeking from her hood was all that was visible of her in the darkness.

“I should light a lamp.”

“No, if you please. Pinky left a lantern, but I prefer the darkness. And I’d prefer that you explain your lie.”

Ian took up one of her feet, and set himself to unlacing her boot. “I lied to him before. Seven days ago. I told him then that I was already married.”

Ian could almost feel the wave of astonishment evolve off her, before she ever spoke. “Why?”

Ian busied himself pulling her half boot off, and plying his thumbs into the arch of her foot, to chafe some warmth back into her chilly extremities. He needed some action to occupy him while he sorted out what to say. Finally he said, “Because I wanted to choose for myself. I wanted to choose a young woman who was her own person, and wouldn’t be swayed, or fall prey to my father’s machinations about the title and the succession.”

“Oh.” She drew her foot away, and pushed it back into her boot. “I see,” she said in a whisper so bare he had to lean toward her to hear it. “But— I don’t see. Why should the title and succession matter at all to you?”

Ian turned his face back to the barren, frozen sky. “Because my brother is dying.”

Chapter Ten

“Oh, Ian!”

Even as the seeping heat of worry savaged his chest, Ian had to smile at her use of his Christian name. Finally. “See? That wasn’t so hard.”

She was not to be so easily distracted. “I’m so sorry. What happened?”

He might as well tell her all—there was no one else to whom he could speak, or even try to articulate the seething roil of anger and fear within. “He took a fall. From a bloody hunter that my father had scorned him for not being able to ride. A bloody, fractious, monster of a beast that should have been put to bed with a bullet years ago. There was no reason my father should have kept him on, except to taunt Ross. Poor Ross, whom my father knew would do anything to please him.
Every
thing he had ever asked.” Ian flung himself off the bench, and began to pace back and forth in the welcome dark, glad that the night would not truly reveal him in this agitated state.

Anne’s question was full of pity. “What has been done for him?”

“Everything possible, I am assured by my mother, who has gone to care for him. But on the advice of some of the doctors, my father despaired of his ever being whole—of ever walking again. He is especially fraught at the judgment that Ross will no longer be able to sire children.”

Though she said nothing, Ian could hear Anne’s sharp breath of distress.

“Yes.” He could only agree. “Hence his sudden interest in me. And my entry into the state of holy matrimony. And thus you. And the potential fruit, as it were”—he gestured hopelessly to the swathed fertile greenery about them—“of your loins. No. I’ve got it all wrong.” He let out a mirthless laugh. “Your womb. My loins.”

She exhaled the breath she had just taken in. “Oh heavens. I think I’m going to need more rum if I’m to contemplate my womb being fruitful.” She took a deep draught from Pinky’s mug.

“I don’t know.” Ian was happy to feel his face stretch into a smile. “If you are come to making jokes, I should think you’ve already had too much rum.”

“I don’t think too much rum is possible, given this news.” She patted her chest to dispel the effects of the strong spirits. “But I am sorry. You were talking seriously, when I interrupted.”

“Not an unwelcome interruption.” Not at all unwelcome. Very welcome in fact.
She
was welcome. Very welcome.

“Is it a sure thing, that he will not recover?”

“I don’t know.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t think anyone knows for sure. I can only hope. And pray. And worry.”

“Yes. Of course.” She shook her head, even though she was agreeing with him.

“God, Anne. I used to envy him, you know? I used to be jealous of all the things I thought Ross had that I had not. The inheritance … the privilege of someday being the viscount. The attention that I thought he received from our parents. The trappings of the heirdom—the hunters and the dogs and the assemblies and the girls. The holidays at home—Christmas full of fire-breathing nogs and family and fun. Damn my eyes, Anne. I was twelve when my father took me from all that. Twelve years old, and forced to give it all up to go to sea.”

This time, her distress could not be hid. “Oh, Ian. I can’t imagine.”

He tried to dispel both her pity, and his own, with a laugh—gallows humor. “Neither could I. I could not believe it. I thought it was all a bloody awful mistake. A cruel hoax. I thought for sure they would take me back, and let me come back home. I was wrong.”

“Twelve years old. That’s monstrous.”

“That is life, and life in the navy. I wasn’t the only one, by any means. Just the only one who didn’t want to go. But I was wrong, about Ross. And I learned. I learned better. And I have long since outgrown such foolishness. I have long since realized that he has had the far harder road—the expectations and the ludicrous pressure to perform, and to perform perfectly. He has had day after day of our father baiting and berating him, always telling him that he is not good enough. Always. Devil take me. All I had to do was not get myself killed.”

She made another sound—of pity or distress, he could not tell. “Anne?”

She shook her head, but when she finally turned her face up to his, he could see the liquid path of tears streaking down her cheeks. “I’m so glad that you didn’t die.”

Ian stopped thinking, and simply pulled her into his arms. “Don’t cry, Anne. Please, don’t cry. I’m here in one piece.” Ian concentrated on giving her some comfort, so he could not have to feel the enormous relief and gratitude at the evidence that she cared for him.

It was incredible really, to feel that anyone could care for him, the scapegrace, ramshackle man that he was.

He drew her closer. She felt good in his arms. She felt right.

“I will pretend that we are married.”

Her words were spoken against the wool of his coat, and he was not sure he heard her right. “Anne—”

She raised her voice higher. “I’ll send my parents off, so they can’t give the ruse away. I’ll tell your father—”

“Anne. They’ll never go without knowing you are legally married. I wouldn’t expect them to.”

She let out a watery sigh, so he went on. “But I thank you for the offer.” He took her cold fingers in his. “You cannot know how much it means to me that you should offer.” He clasped her closer, until she was snugged tight against his chest. “I’m a man of the navy, Anne. A man defined by my friendships. Friendships with the men—and women—who have helped to make me the man I am today. Loyalty means everything to me. Everything.” He swallowed over the scaling heat in his throat.

Her voice came back, low and solemn, and full of the woman she was. “I may be a dishcloth with only pert intelligence to recommend me, and nothing much else by way of entertainment, but I will say I am loyal.”

The heat in his throat ripped down through his chest. And he knew it for what it was—shame. “My God, Anne. My God.” His voice was cracking open like a split timber. “Devil take me. How am I ever going to deserve you?”

*   *   *

Her heart felt so full, she could only smile. And tease him. “You could dance with me.”

“Dance?” His tone was both amused and incredulous all at the same time.

“Well, we neither of us got to go to any assemblies,” she explained. “I just thought it might be…” Romantic. The sort of thing she dreamed about but never allowed herself to believe. The sort of thing that happened to other girls—dancing in the moonlight with a dashing, handsome man.

Ian turned his kind blue gaze upon her. “No? Have you not even been to village dances?”

“No.” Such events were an agony to her, standing under the eyes of strangers. “We live very far from the village. Too far.”

“Ah.” He took another deep breath, and smiled his rueful, I’m-a-shallow-fellow smile. “Why not? Although, I do feel I ought to point out that in the normal course of things—in the normal course of a courtship—dancing would typically come before kissing and midnight talks in glasshouses. But I suppose that we’ll just have to accept that this”—he pointed his finger back and forth between them—“is not the normal course of things.”