Louise Allen - Moonlight And Mistletoe

‘And then call upon Miss Lattimer?’

‘If I can think what best to say to her, yes, Parrott. I got the devil’s own sleep last night.’

‘The lady is somewhat up in the boughs, I collect.’

‘You may well say so, Parrott. Miss Lattimer has a number of things to throw in my dish, of which tactlessness is probably the least of it.’

‘But surely you will not be calling at this hour?’

‘I imagine it will take me two hours to arrive at my tactics.’ Guy grimaced with an attempt at humour he was far from feeling. Somehow he had to make it up to Hester. ‘I have no idea what I am going to say. If she has been as miserable as I these past forty-eight hours, then perhaps I have a hope- but who knows?’

‘Tsk. Miss Lattimer has always seemed a lady of acute common sense to me, my lord.’

‘Exactly what I am afraid of!’

‘I will find your lordship’s heavier coat; it will not do to arrive upon her doorstep with your teeth chattering.’

Guy walked out of the gate into the frosty early morning gloom and turned to pass the front of the Moon House, heading for the expanse of the Green. An hour’s brisk walk to the canal and back, followed by breakfast at the Bird in Hand, which he could eat without interrogation from Georgy, should at least clear his head.

He looked up at Hester’s room as he passed, seeing it in darkness, wondering what her reaction would be if he stood in the garden like a lovesick fool-which I am-and threw pebbles at her windows. ‘A jug of cold water off the nightstand, I imagine, if I know my Hester,’ he answered his own musings.

Then something fluttering on the front door caught his eye and he slowed. A Christmas garland? That boded well for the mood of the household if someone had spent the time making decorations. Then, as he came closer, he saw it had no festive air about it, but instead hung heavy and dark, its ribbons black.

Surely it was not what it appeared? It was the lack of light, that was all, but Guy opened the gate and strode up the front path.

Then he saw it was a funeral wreath fashioned of yew and ivy, tied with black ribbons and with two dead roses at its centre. A card, inscribed H.L. Requiat in Pace in Gothic script was secured at the top. Fear for Hester, a superstitious dread he would have sworn he was incapable of feeling, swept through him, leaving an icy clutch around his heart. A knife in the dark? A soundless attack on Hester leaving the household unaware? Or poison and they were all lying there…

With hands that shook he wrenched the wreath from the door and hammered the knocker on its base plate. Ten more seconds and he would break a window.

There was a fumbling sound as the bolts were drawn back. Jethro opened the door, saw who it was and began to close it, alarm on his face. Guy simply threw his shoulder against the panels and knocked the boy back into the hall with the power of his entry. ‘Where is she? Is she safe?’

‘You cannot come in here, my lord!’ Jethro was white-faced and clutching his shoulder. In some part of his brain Guy realised he must have hit the boy’s bad side and was sorry for it, but that would have to wait.

‘Have you seen Miss Hester yet this morning? Is she awake?’

‘What? Do you know what time it is?’ Jethro demanded, shocked out of any semblance of good manners or deference by surprise and pain. ‘Of course she’s not up yet, Susan said to let her sleep in.’

The door from the kitchen opened and Susan appeared, looking irritated. ‘Jethro, what’s this racket? You’ll wake Miss Hester and she needs all the sleep she can-You! Miss Hester said as how we weren’t to let you in, nor even speak to you, my lord. What can you be wanting at this hour?’

‘This was hanging on the front door.’ He thrust the wreath at them. ‘See? That says “H.L. Rest in Peace”.’ He was taking the stairs two at a time before they caught his meaning and began to run after him.

‘Oh, no,’ Susan was repeating over and over. ‘Oh, no, no one could have got in last night.’

Ignoring them, Guy threw open the door of Hester’s bed-chamber and crossed to the bed in two long strides. She was lying on her back, eyes shut, one arm flung back on the pillow, her face pale. For a second that seemed to last a year he thought she was not breathing, then she drew a long breath and stirred. Her eyes flickered open, blinked and she gasped when she saw who was looking down at her.

‘No!’ She scrambled back against the pillows. ‘No!’ She covered her eyes with her hands and shook her head violently. ‘This is a dream, I’m going mad.’

‘No, no, you are not.’ Guy rounded on Susan and Jethro, who were wringing their hands in the doorway. ‘Out!’ Retook a step towards them and they jumped back instinctively, giving him time to slam the door shut and turn the key in the lock. He had enough to do to cope with his emotions over Hester, let alone listen to their exclamations.

Ignoring the pounding on the door and the rattling of the handle, he turned back to Hester, who was wide awake and sitting bolt upright in bed. Her eyes were wide, her hair streamed down her back and her body was clad only in the flimsiest of nightgowns.

It raised no feeling of desire in him, only a horror at how fragile she looked, how white her skin, how delicate her shoulders and arms seemed. He had thought he had lost her and fury swept through him, anger with the Nugents, anger with himself for not protecting her better, anger at her for making him feel this way. It silenced him and he filled the empty space by stooping to touch a taper to the smouldering fire in the grate and light the candles.

‘I thought you were a nightmare.’ Her voice shook and she got it back under control; he realised her anger matched his, although it was much simpler, much more justified. ‘What possible reason can you have for bursting in here like this? Let my people in this minute.’

‘There was a wreath on your door. A funeral wreath. It said “H.L. Rest in Peace”.’ There was silence while she absorbed it, then went pale.

‘But we are all right. No one got in last night. Why should you leap to conclusions?’

‘Leap? After what has been happening here? I thought I would find you all poisoned in your beds.’ He was pacing angrily, fighting the urge to go and shake her until she admitted he was right to be frantic about her. Hester swung her legs out of bed and stalked over to confront him, quite unconscious of the transparency of her nightgown. A wave of desire lanced through the anger. It didn’t help.

‘What nonsense,’ she declared scornfully. ‘No one could poison our food.’

‘No? Where does Susan keep your milk and butter and cheese to make sure it is cold? Where is your meat safe? In that lean-to by the back door, that is where, and if I know that you may be sure half the village knows, let alone anyone putting their mind to doing you harm.’ He kept his eyes locked with hers, if nothing else it kept them away from the tantalising rise and fall of her breasts, the shadow of the nipples through the fine lawn. He recognised the primitive source of his anger even as he chose to ignore it-this was his woman, he would fight to the death for her and he wanted nothing more than to make love to her when he had done so.

‘Could you not have sent Susan upstairs to check on Miss Prudhome and me?’ she enquired, her voice sinking to a dangerously reasonable level. ‘Why all these dramatics?’

Guy could feel his teeth grinding. ‘Because I was frantic with worry about you, that is why.’

‘Indeed?’ She was positively icy now. ‘You have no justification, no business, to be concerned about me.’ She glanced down, realised what she was wearing and coloured, turning away.

‘Hester, I asked you to be my wife.’

‘Yes, you did,’ she agreed, pulling on her dressing gown and making rather a business of tying the cord before turning back to him. ‘However, now you are aware I am another man’s leavings, that is irrelevant.’

‘I do not want another man’s leavings,’ he snarled in savage echo of her words. As soon as he spoke he knew it had not sounded as he meant it.

‘Quite.’ Hester was white with anger now. ‘You made that abundantly clear the other day, it is unnecessary to repeat it.’

The thud at the window made Hester start and Guy swing round with an oath. Against the lightening sky, Jethro could be seen peering in through the window. He banged on it.

With an exclamation Hester brushed past Guy and dragged up the lower casement. ‘It is all right, Jethro, you can climb down. Oh! Be careful!’

There was a cry from Jethro and the sound of the ladder hitting the flags below. Grimly the youth scrambled over the window ledge with Hester tugging on his jacket. With a darkling look at Guy, he stalked over to the door, turned the key and opened it. Miss Prudhome was on the threshold, poker in hand, Susan at her shoulder.

‘Monster!’ she declaimed, entering dramatically, an effect somewhat marred by curl papers and a red flannel dressing gown.

Guy made a desperate attempt to find his sense of humour and removed the poker from her grip. ‘Now, Miss Prudhome, we have been all through this before, have we not, on the night I slept in the drawing room-and with the poker too?’ She glared at him. ‘And we established then that I am not a monster and I am not here to ravish Miss Lattimer.’ He waited and was rewarded by a grudging nod.

‘Good. Now, I freely admit that this is very early in the morning and I should not be in Miss Lattimer’s bedchamber, but I was very concerned about her. I also admit,’ he got in rapidly as she opened her mouth, ‘we were having a blazing row, which is not something that a gentleman should be doing with a lady under any circumstances, so I will remove myself and wait downstairs until Miss Lattimer recovers the tone of her spirits and we can continue our discussion in more acceptable surroundings.’

He was halfway out of the door before Hester flared, ‘I have nothing to speak to you about, my lord.’

Guy turned back. ‘There is the party.’

‘That is no concern of yours.’ God, she looked lovely, her colour high, her bosom heaving, her eyes flashing. All the anger drained away, leaving nothing but pure, aching desire.

‘We agreed to trap the Nugents, did we not? Have you forgotten they could have killed Jethro in that fall down the stairs? I will wait downstairs.’

Hester stared at the closed door until Susan said, ‘Shall I fetch your water now, Miss Hester?’

‘Oh, what? I am sorry, I forgot you were there. Yes, please, Susan.’

She was standing there when the maid came back with the steaming jug. ‘He’s still in love with you, you know,’ Susan observed, pouring the water. ‘Come along now, do, Miss Hester or he’ll come up here again looking for you.’

‘Yes.’ Hester untied her robe and began to wash. Everything felt rather numb. ‘It isn’t as easy to fall out of love as people say. I can’t fall out of love with him just because he hurt me, and perhaps he can’t fall out of love with me just because he thinks I was a kept woman and a trollop.’ She rubbed her face with the towel. ‘I expect he’ll manage it soon enough.’

‘But why not try again?’ Susan demanded, shaking out a petticoat.

‘What, with a man whose first reaction on hearing his betrothed accused of being an Impure is not to refuse to believe it, not to defend her, but to ask why?’

But, oh, she did still love him, did still want him so very, very badly. What would she have done if he had taken her in his arms just now and kissed her? Struggled? Perhaps not. It was a mortifying thought, but then she had seen the desire in his eyes. It had burned hot, hotter than she had ever seen, and yet he had been quite capable of not acting upon it. But of course, he would not want to touch another man’s leavings.

Buoyed up by angry pride, Hester came downstairs and found Guy standing in the kitchen with Jethro rather stiffly laying the table for five and Maria rattling pans on the stove.

‘I thought a council of war over breakfast might be a good idea.’

‘Indeed? I am sure you would be more comfortable in your own dining room. May I help you with anything, Maria?’

‘I have a great deal to do today that depends upon your agreement, and would prefer an early start.’ Frustrated by Maria, who was hastily disclaiming any need for assistance and able to see that Guy might have a point, Hester sat down and waited with what composure she could muster.

Guy took the chair at the other end of the table and watched her steadily from blue eyes that seemed shadowed, perhaps by sleeplessness. Poor darling. She wanted to go to him, smooth her fingers over his brow and temple, pull his head back until it rested on her breast and kiss away that expression. What was he thinking? That he wanted this over and done so he could leave and forget her?