The Mischief of the Mistletoe: A Pink Carnation Christmas (26 page)

Arabella wove her way through the crowd of parents and friends to Jane. By the time she reached her, there was no sign of a broad-shouldered blond man with poor taste in cravats.

“Was that Mr. Fitzhugh with you?” asked Arabella without preamble.

“Were you looking for him?” asked Jane innocently.

“No,” Arabella snapped.

Jane raised an eyebrow.

“What I mean is”—Arabella tried not to follow him through the crowd with her eyes—“I was looking for you.”

“How flattering,” said Jane, and Arabella let herself hope that would be the end of it, until, “I like your Mr. Fitzhugh.”

“Good. You can have him.”

“Arabella?”

Arabella pressed her hands to her face. “I am sorry. It has been an exceedingly long evening.”

She had meant to tell Jane about Signor Marconi and the attack of the anonymous wise man, but now that she was here, she didn't know how to begin. It all sounded absurd. The only one sure to believe her was Turnip.

The same Turnip whom she had just told to go away and never come back.

Arabella looked up to find Jane looking at her speculatively. “You are still going to Girdings House for Christmas, aren't you?”

“Yes, with my Aunt Osborne.” At one point, the thought of spending Christmas with Aunt Osborne and her new husband had filled her with trepidation. Now Arabella found it hard to work up the necessary sense of dread. Being held at scimitar-point could do that to one. “Why?”

“No reason.” Jane examined a plate of miniature mince pies. “No reason at all.”

T
he Dowager Duchess of Dovedale had instructed her guests to arrive at Girdings House by noon on the day before Christmas, but not even the Dowager Duchess of Dovedale could control every axle on every wheel on every carriage in the kingdom.

It was full dark by the time Arabella arrived. After seven long days on the road, Arabella felt nothing but numb, from the blue tips of her toes straight through the mud that had somehow got in her hair. Her emotions were as frozen as her fingers.

The events at Miss Climpson's seminary already seemed a world away. The idea that she might have kissed Turnip Fitzhugh or chased with him after a pudding through the grounds of Farley Castle was, quite frankly, ludicrous. She was back to her old life again, back to being that quiet Miss Dempsey who was invited to fill out a table, then shuffled off to the side of the room as quickly as possible.

There was no one from the ducal family to greet Arabella and her maid when they arrived at Girdings House. Arabella hadn't expected there would be. Poor relations seldom got the full ducal treatment. They were informed that the rest of the party were already out in the grounds, collecting holly and ivy with which to deck the halls. A footman, resplendent in the Dovedale livery of green and gold, showed them up a grand staircase decorated with battle scenes portraying the triumphs of long-dead Dovedales, then up a less grand staircase, and finally down a long hallway that grew considerably less imposing as it went on.

He opened the door into a room that Arabella would have considered luxurious by everyday standards, but which was undoubtedly Spartan on the ducal scale of things. Her room had been allotted to her with a delicate understanding of her place in the great chain of being. No room in Girdings could possibly be called mean, but hers was off to the side, with a view of the kitchen garden and some rather workman-like outbuildings. There was water waiting and a fire in the grate, and that was all Arabella cared about.

“A fine pickle this is,” snapped Rose, vigorously beating mud out of Arabella's pelisse as the door closed behind the footman.

“A pickle or a gherkin?” Arabella stripped her gloves off her frozen fingers and wandered to the one window to inspect the view.

Rose bristled, obviously suspecting Arabella of having fun at her expense. “Six of one, half a dozen of the other,” she said repressively, “and no question about it. I should have known that coachman was no good. Here. This is as good as I can make it without a proper cleaning.”

“Thank you,” said Arabella meekly, and let the maid help her back into her pelisse.

Rose wrung out a cloth, applying it vigorously to Arabella's face, much the same way she had when Arabella was twelve and had underestimated the adhesive properties of raspberry jam. Rose had been with Aunt Osborne for a very long time. She had never quite made up her mind as to whether she approved of Arabella. Family was family, but poor relations something slightly less.

That, thought Arabella, was something she missed about Miss Climpson's. It had been rather nice to have a place in the world that she had earned for herself, rather than being allotted it on perpetual sufferance.

She had thought it didn't make a difference, but it did.

Rose narrowed her eyes at her, squinting at Arabella's head with a critical air. “That's the worst of the travel dust gone from your face, but there's no telling what they'll make of your hair.” She shrugged with the air of one abandoning a bad job. “Well, it's dark and you'll have your bonnet on and that's the best one can hope for.”

“Thank you, Rose.”

Nothing like a few compliments to start one's evening off well.

Despite the size of the grounds, Arabella had no difficulty finding the West Wood. More of the ubiquitous footmen, identical in their white wigs and pseudo-feudal livery, had directed her to the gardens, where flaming lines of torches had been set to guide the houseguests through the carefully clipped parterres of the formal gardens through to the artfully designed wilderness beyond.

Through the smoke of the torches, Arabella could just make out the shapes of marble statues, freed from their winter burlap for the company's delectation. A nymph stretched cold arms into the air above a dry fountain while topiary beasts roared from the sides of the path. She couldn't tell whether they meant to protect her or to warn her away.

There was a blaze of light at the end of the path, more torches, this time arranged in a semicircle, as though for a ritual sacrifice. Arabella hurried towards them. They might be planning to put a maiden on the block, but at least she would be warm while they did it. Her fingers were freezing inside her gloves and her legs had lost all feeling several days ago.

A dog darted forward, nipping at her skirts, growling pleasurably as it attacked and killed her hem. There were more dogs underfoot in the clearing, tripping up yet more of the liveried footmen who were passing among the crowd with silver glasses full of a steaming liquid redolent of spices and spirits. A group of men milled just at the entrance to the clearing, quaffing spiced wine and kicking at the dogs, tricked out in fashionable multi-caped greatcoats, their curly-brimmed hats pulled down low over their eyes.

Arabella recognized most of them, although she doubted they would recognize her. There was Lord Frederick Staines, blond and arrogant, in line for an earldom; Lord Henry Innes, younger son of a duke, thick as a post; the Honorable Martin Frobisher, reputed to be anything but; Sir Francis Medmenham, dark and dissolute, but possessed of substantial properties both in England and abroad; Lieutenant Darius Danforth, formerly of the Horse Guards, also son of an earl, although there were rumors that he had been disowned. It had been all the usual sorts of reasons: drink, cards, and, if Arabella remembered correctly, seducing a young lady of good family. The lady's family were clearly influential enough to protect their own; the name had never come out, but the general outline of the story had spread. The girl was rumored to have been all of sixteen, just a year older than Lavinia.

They were a motley lot, but they all had two things in common. All were monied. And all were unmarried.

They clustered around the low, three-legged braziers that had been provided for warmth, like the ones at Farley Castle.

Something pulled painfully in Arabella's chest at the memory of Farley Castle. She felt suddenly, unaccountably alone.

Perhaps because she was.

It was ridiculous to feel nostalgic for something one had never had, or to regret the loss of a camaraderie that had been nothing more than the product of the moment. Even if she hadn't—behaved like a hysterical shrew? her mind provided. Cut up at him like a demented fishwife? Even if she hadn't put a precipitate end to their acquaintance, he would have forgotten all about her by now. He was the sort of amiable person who was sure to find friends wherever he went.

Arabella accepted a cup of mulled wine from one of the footmen and retreated to the shelter of a convenient tree, trying not to look as though she minded standing by herself. Again. There were other women present, but they seemed to be the ones doing all the hard labor of gathering the greenery. Typical. Lord Freddy and his lot wouldn't want to get their gloves dirty. She could see the dowager's granddaughter, Lady Charlotte Lansdowne, industriously piling mistletoe into a wicker basket, aided by a tall man in a cloak that looked as though it had been chosen more for warmth than fashion. Arabella didn't recognize him, nor the man next to him, also travel-stained, talking to Miss Penelope Deveraux.

Who was just as striking as Arabella remembered. The man standing next to her was practically cross-eyed from staring. Put his tongue any farther out and he'd be panting.

Arabella sent Lady Charlotte a quick and unconvincing smile and hastily looked away, pretending to examine the rest of the party. There were some men who had ventured out into the wood, chopping away at the larger bits of greenery, the boughs of evergreen destined to decorate the hall of Girdings. One of them appeared to be attempting to chop down a tree using the wrong end of the ax.

Arabella's hand jerked, slopping spiced wine over the already soiled leather of her glove.

It was dark away from the enchanted circle of torches, but there was enough reflected light to turn his hair to gold. He was very determinedly hacking away, his face averted from her, but there was no mistaking that profile.

Arabella hastily righted her cup before any more could spill, thinking very nasty thoughts about old family friends, the strange workings of Fate, and house parties generally.

Now she knew why Jane had asked about Girdings. And why she had smiled.

She was going to have to spend the twelve days of Christmas with Turnip Fitzhugh.

W
HEN
T
URNIP SPOTTED
A
RABELLA
D
EMPSEY, he did the sensible, mature thing. He began sawing at a tree with the wrong side of his ax.

On the long trip to Norfolk, as Sally's mouth continued to move in an endless stream of school-related anecdotes, there had been far too much time for thinking. He had done his best to avoid it. He had challenged other drivers to race him; he had dragged Sally one day out of the way so he could attend a bout held by a much-praised pugilist and his local challenger; he had even paid attention to some of Sally's stories. But that had still left plenty of time to fume and stew and stew some more as he revisited every baffling moment of their encounter in the blue drawing room.

Was it the money? He veered from anger to guilt as he recalled what that family friend of hers, that Miss Austen, had told him about the Dempseys' circumstances. It had never occurred to him that she might need to work for her living or that his—hmm, how to phrase it? His incredibly well-reasoned and sensible activities might prove an impediment to that. In retrospect, she probably could have got into a good deal of trouble if he had been caught in her room. It would have been hard to pass that off as a visit to Sally.

It made him ashamed, to think how little he had thought. Not that there had ever been much need for thought before. He had muddled along fairly happily without it. But that had been all right for him, because, as Arabella had so succinctly pointed out, he was a man and he had money. There wasn't any scrape he couldn't buy himself out of, and he had certainly tried his hand at quite a few. Well, death. He doubted he could buy his way out of death, and there were probably some sorts of behavior—although he couldn't think of any—that even thirty thousand guineas couldn't redeem, but he couldn't help but acknowledge the basic justice of her claim.