“When shall we set our wedding date, Mad? Will you make me wait three weeks for the banns to be read, or shall I procure a license?”
She gulped her wine like a trull in a tavern, then touched a finger to the side of her mouth, dabbing as a last drop. Garrick had wanted to catch it with his tongue.
“Let me ask Maman,” she said, and walked away. Walkedawayfrom him to talk with his brothers, Judah, who was her age, and Giles, five years younger, both of them on holiday from school. The boys gawped and stuttered as if they’d never beheld an entrancingly beautiful woman before.
Garrick, brooding by the wassail bowl, had to field his mother’s endless suggestions about where to hold the wedding—St. George’s, of course—who to invite to the wedding breakfast—everyone—and if it would insult their French cook to ask Mrs. Bird to prepare some of her pastries. He’d managed to involve his mother in a heated debate with Victoire about whether it was safe to send to Paris for articles for Mad’s trousseau, and thereafter escaped, only to catch Mad laughing as Judah kissed her cheek beneath the kissing bough.
The fourth day of Christmas, Garrick escorted the ladies on a shopping trip along Bond Street, which was as much as social excursion as retail expedition. They avoided the BondStreet Loungers, who never took a holiday from crowding the streets and disrupting traffic and commerce, and he felt like a knight of old guarding his queen as she went about her business of beautifying the world.
As her husband, this would be his duty: to shelter her path through the fraught world, and to ease her way wherever he could. For the first time, it seemed like a privilege to be responsible for the happiness of another person, and not just his sorry old self.
Madelina took such care with the gifts she selected for her family and his, and Garrick realized, for the first time, how perceptive she was about people. She observed everything, yet rarely put herself forward. She let her lively sister, Georgette, and Garrick’s shy younger sister, Edina, choose the shops and lead them to and fro inspecting every shiny object they spotted in a window and tasting every twelfth cake they saw on display. She nodded in agreement as Garrick’s mother freely opined on everything that came through her notice, and she bore with good cheer her own mother’s continued corrections.
Finally, Garrick took her hand and pulled her aside, tucking her gloved fingers in the crook of his arm. He drew her to the bow window of a jeweler’s shop, where an assortment of silver jewelry sat nestled in white velvet boxes and cushions of silk.
“The brooch in the shape of a peacock? Or the rivière necklace with garnets and rubies?” He had a feeling it would take more than riches to buy this woman, but he was willing to try.
He tried peering beneath her pert hat with its feathers and flowers. He wanted so desperately to read her. Know her. Understand this defiant, energetic girl who had grown into such an enigmatic and appealing woman.
Her eyes lingered on the jewels shining in their settings of delicate silver cannetille. “Just think how long Polly mightsupport herself and her children on that piece.” She pointed to a carnelian ring in a cabochon cut.
“I’ll shower you with jewels, Mad. Pin money. Gowns. Your own carriage, if you wish it.” That was a great expense, but he’d find a way. He’d do whatever it took to win her heart.
He hoped that note in his voice was not pleading. He’d vowed, long ago, never to beg for love. He’d spent his boyhood trying to win his father’s blessing and approval, and would never have it now that the man was dead. He’d learned early that his mother moved in her own world and was not to be fretted with her children’s demands; that was why she employed a nurse.
He'd won admiration from his friends by perfecting his single skill, that of using his looks and charm to bend people to his will. But he’d always thought—clung to the hope, actually—that there must be some good and decent thread at the core of him, if Mad loved him.
If she did not love him anymore…what did that make him?
Her gaze slid away from his, back to her family, and a small line appeared between her brows.
“You must stop speaking as if you intend to marry me,” she said. “My mother wants so desperately to believe it.”
The heat of panic singed the sides of his vision. Why wouldn’t the dratted woman confess that shewantedhim?
He was not an unobjectionable match. He was young enough. Rich enough. He had a home, several of them, and he could grant her the title of Lady. He wouldn’t part her from her family, he wouldn’t be capricious or willful or cruel, and he wouldn’t exhaust her with sexual demands. His sexual demands would be frequent, true, but he would allow her to eat and rest in between, and he would occasionally dress her up and take her out to show off to the world the prize he had won. This woman who, inconceivably, had chosen him.
Or at least, once upon a time she had. Something in the past years had turned her against him.
Or someone.
“Three years ago, you offered yourself to me, Mad,” he said softly.
She tossed her head in that unself-conscious, queenly way he was coming to adore. That manner that said she knew her worth, and she wasn’t about to cheapen herself.
“I’ve changed,” she said.
So had he, and in ways he thought to his credit. When Barty had tapped him to be eyes and ears on the Continent, reporting on doings in France, the work had given Garrick focus. A way to prove his worth. He’d stopped burning through women in a mad rush for touch, for reassurance that he had worth. He’d put the money he spent on lovers into wiser investments. He’d been useful, for the first time.
And then Barty died, and the barony and the estates and all the associated burdens and expectations settled on Garrick’s shoulders. His family had depended on Barty, and now they depended on him.
Mad could, too. But she didn’t know that yet.
“I cannot find it in myself to enjoy the festive season when my brother’s fate is so much in doubt,” she said finally. “I hope you will forgive me if I am not in the mood for jests.”
It was as much as an assignment from his contacts at the Home Office. Find Constantin, put her mind at ease, and Mad would marry him. Garrick appreciated having a clear task to execute, for once.
But he was having a devil of a time getting information out of his contacts. Garrick tugged the cuffs of his shirt and straightened his waistcoat. It was the seventh day of Christmas, the eve of the New Year, and he had no new means to beguile or win Madelina.
