Louise Allen - Moonlight And Mistletoe

Susan was helping an appalled Miss Prudhome to her chair. They were all too horrified at the desecration to be afraid. ‘Jethro, please go and fetch Mr Bunting. If nothing else, this should be lying in the church until we find out where it has been stolen from.’

It seemed an age until the vicar came, grave and anxious beside Jethro. The women sat and waited, eyes averted while he examined the box.

‘This is a truly dreadful thing for anyone to do,’ he said at last, ‘but you may at least rest assured that whoever perpetrated this revolting trick has not committed an act of sacrilege. This, unless I am much mistaken, is part of a skeleton that was stolen from Dr Forrest’s library last week. It is of the kind that every medical student uses to study anatomy. The bones of some poor criminal, I very much fear.’

‘Will you return it to him, Vicar?’ Hester asked. ‘And can I ask you not to say anything of this to anyone other than the doctor? Ask him to keep silent too, if you please. Lord Buckland knows who has been perpetrating a series of unpleasant tricks on this household and is preparing to unmask them. It would not do to give them warning.’

The vicar left at last, bearing the grisly relic and murmuring his distress at such wickedness in his parish. Hester regarded her solemn household. ‘This truly is the limit of what one could imagine those wretches to commit, but they will be unmasked tomorrow. Please do not say anything to Lord Buckland, there is nothing he can do and-’ Her voice broke and she regained control with an effort. ‘Quite frankly, I cannot cope with either his anger or his solicitude if he should discover it.’

‘Where are the pearls, Susan?’ Hester twisted round on her dressing table stool and regarded the maid with an worried frown.

‘Oh, I put them away safely,’ Susan reassured her. ‘Now, you are quite sure about the fern green crepe and not the rose pink satin?’

‘Definitely the fern green.’ Hester rummaged in her jewellery box and lifted out the small box with her diamond ear bobs. ‘And the dark green slippers and the silver drawn-thread scarf.’ She began to brush out her hair, watching Susan in the mirror. ‘Will you take some time to sit down and rest in a minute? I can help Miss Prudhome.’

Susan nodded. ‘I will do. But we’ll be fine once the guests start arriving, it is just that we’ve hardly stopped all day. Now, if you’ll just stand up…’

The gown was slipped on and both young women peered at the neckline. ‘Tighter,’ Susan pronounced, tugging firmly on Hester’s stay-laces until her bosom swelled above the soft floss edging of the low-cut neckline.

‘Oh, yes,’ Susan said with a decided nod. ‘Now that’ll make him sorry!’

She did not have to say who ‘he’ was.

* * *

There was already a small crowd making their way up the front path of the Moon House when Guy walked across with his two guests. He felt unaccountably on edge and spent the few minutes it took to get to the front door to run through his preparations. Nothing had been omitted, everything was as ready as it could be, he was backed up by two very senior magistrates and all the support they could possibly need. So what was he worrying about?

The answer hit him as he came through the front door in the wake of the curate and the Buntings. Hester.

She was standing in the hall directly under the lantern and the light sparked off her diamonds and burnished her hair. Her gown swathed her in a column of green so that she looked fresh and spring-like amidst the darker green of the swags. He had never seen her look lovelier and when she saw him her pale skin became rosy with a soft and charming blush. Should he really despair if he could make her colour like that? Surely she felt something for him still?

Her eyes, when he was close enough to take her hand, were expressive too: wide and brown and with the dangerous golden glint in them that warned him she was on her mettle and by no means ready to trust him tonight.

‘Good evening, my lord.’ Her voice held just the right degree of warmth and welcome and not one iota more.

‘Good evening, Miss Lattimer.’ He bowed over her hand saying, low voiced, as he straightened, ‘I have never seen you in greater beauty.’

If he had hoped to soften her, to prolong that delicate blush, he was mistaken. ‘Indeed, my lord? Then I must conclude that all my efforts were worthwhile, must I not?’

‘Viper,’ he returned, amused, and saw her eyes glint even brighter. ‘Please allow me to present my friends, Sir Jeremy Evelyn and Mr Earle. Gentlemen, Miss Lattimer.’

Sir Jeremy, rotund, jovial and a man who looked as if he spent his time acting as a model for Toby jugs rather than wrestling with difficult cases at Bow Street, bowed low over Hester’s hand. ‘Ma’am, we are in your debt. To be invited, as complete strangers, to share such charming festivities is a pleasure indeed.’

He was supplanted by Mr Earle, thin, cheerful and apparently, from his highly fashionable outfit and numerous dangling fobs, an amiable nonentity. This illusion served him well and it had taken him many years to perfect it.

Having greeted their hostess and yielded top coats and gloves to Jethro, resplendent in striped waistcoat and a tail coat only slightly too large for him, the gentlemen drifted through to the drawing room, which was already humming with company. Guy set himself to introduce his friends while mentally ticking off a list of who was there. Possibly half the expected company-and no sign of the Nugents. Too early to be concerned yet, they had a way to come.

Having chatted to the Redlands, met two new neighbours and congratulated Mrs Bunting on the results of her latest battles with the choirmaster, Guy moved across the hail to see who was in the dining room. Most of the young people, he noticed with amusement, The young men with half an eye on the buffet and half on the young ladies, the young ladies with no interest at all in the food and pretending complete indifference to the boys.

Smiling, he was about to turn and observe as much to Sir Jeremy when the picture propped on the mantel shelf caught his eye. He stared for a long moment, then strode up to it and studied it more closely. Where the hell had she found this?

‘Is that not strange, my lord?’ The voice, with nervous giggle, belonged to Miss Redland. ‘I mean, it has been slashed to shreds and just stuck hack together. But the lady is very lovely, is she not?’

‘Very,’ Guy agreed, staring back at the image, so hauntingly like his sister. I am going to strangle Hester.

‘Do you admire the lady from the attic?’ Hester spoke, cutting across his thought, ushering the Nugents into the warmth of the room. Guy turned, narrowing his eyes at her, furious he could not express his anger in such company-and then realised just what a masterstroke it was.

Both brother and sister had gone white to the lips, staring at the ravaged portrait. Of course, they would recognise Diana from the locket in the box. He fingered the golden oval that lay in his pocket.

‘Whoever is it, and what has become of it?’ It was Sarah Nugent speaking, recovering far faster than her brother, as Guy might have expected. She would be the hardest of the two to break, he knew that.

‘Yes,’ Guy chimed in, peering at the picture with every appearance of interest. ‘Do tell us about this, Miss Lattimer.’

‘Why, I know nothing,’ Hester said lightly with a shrug. ‘I found it in the attic in a terrible condition. I mended it as best I could, but she remains a mystery.’

‘I wonder you should care to have such a damaged thing on display, Miss Lattimer.’ Sarah Nugent’s brittle laugh made heads turn and several other people strolled over to look.

‘In a way I do not,’ Hester was saying, a troubled look in her eyes as she stared at the portrait. ‘But I felt… compelled. The thing positively haunts me.’

‘Fascinating.’ It was Sir Jeremy, braving the fire to stand as close as possible to study the scarred face.

‘Fascinating,’ Sir Lewis echoed, edging away. ‘Come, Sarah, there is Marcus Holding, and you recall he was interested in buying that mare of yours.’

‘Well done, Miss Lattimer,’ Sir Jeremy murmured. ‘I see you have a talent for intrigue.’

‘Hester.’ Guy took her arm and steered her as far away from the other guests as he could. ‘What are you about? That could have been dangerous.’

She smiled at him, maddening him and arousing him at the same time. ‘She looks so lovely from across the room. She used to hang there, I am quite sure. Do you think you will be able to get her properly restored?’

‘Me? But she is yours.’

‘Oh, no.’ Hester shook her head. ‘Do you think me blind? She is your grandmother, I assume.’ Without waiting for an answer she moved away to speak to other guests, leaving Guy staring after her.

Hester was soon too busy with her guests to worry overmuch about Guy’s inimical stare upon her or what the Nugents might be up to. The front rooms were filled to the point where she could be confident that this party would go down as a thorough-going success and she was in constant demand to chat to old friends and more recent acquaintances.

Then the footmen borrowed from Parrott began to carry through the hot savouries and the guests flowed into and out of the dining room, carrying plates of food, brimming glasses and finding themselves places at the numerous little tables she had managed to fit in.

‘So delightfully informal,’ said a laughing voice and Hester realised with amazement that it was Mrs Redland and she appeared to be flirting, just a little, with Mr Earle. She looked away, caught Guy’s eye and raised an amused eyebrow. He smiled back and she was lost.

It was not simply that he looked so handsome, although he most certainly did in his elegantly simple evening clothes, with his air of assurance and poise and just the hint of controlled, dangerous power under all the civilised trappings. No, she was back at the moment when she first saw him in her drawing room and recognised her ideal. Her heart seemed to move in her chest and her skin felt hypersensitive as though she was naked and exposed to thousands of tiny, prickling ice crystals.

He is mine, and I love him. And I want him. Oh, how much she wanted him. Hester could feel the colour rising under her skin and dragged her gaze away. But there was no escape while she was in the same room. She moved through the throng of guests into the relative quiet of the hall and turned instinctively towards the kitchen.

‘You can’t go in there, Miss Hester.’ It was Susan, bustling back with a stack of dirty plates. ‘Honestly, what a pickle; we’re having to just stack everything in the scullery, can’t do a thing in the kitchen.’

Back in the drawing room the more mature guests had finished eating and were sitting back with glasses of wine, chatting comfortably. Hester opened the piano and, as she expected, several mamas were not slow to urge their daughters forward. Lucy Piper sat and began to play and three of her friends grouped round and started to sing. Hester found the curate and he needed little persuasion to add his pleasant baritone to the chorus; she suspected he was somewhat enamoured of Lucy.

Half an hour passed pleasantly with a cheerful selection of seasonal songs and carols. Hester, moving from group to group in the dining room, chatting and passing sweetmeats, tried to see what Guy and his two friends were doing, but it seemed that they had nothing on their minds other than conversation. She waited until Guy looked in her direction, then raised her eyebrows in interrogation; he merely nodded almost imperceptibly towards Sir Jeremy, who was talking to a wide-eyed Annabelle Redland.

‘Ooh, Sir Jeremy! What a good idea!’ Annabelle craned her neck and located Hester. ‘Miss Lattimer, Sir Jeremy was telling me that it is a tradition in many houses to tell ghost stories before Christmas-might we do so, do you think? It sounds such fun, and so scary.’ She shuddered dramatically and batted her eyelashes at Sir Jeremy.

‘What do you say, Miss Lattimer?’ he appealed to her. By now all the guests in the dining room were watching for her reply, and, by their animated expressions, it appeared they favoured the suggestion.

‘It seems an entertaining idea,’ she conceded with a smile, then looked around the room. ‘But we cannot all sit in one chamber and it would be a pity to split the party up so definitely.’

‘How about the kitchen?’ It was Mr Earle. ‘Might I go and see?’ Before she could reply he was out of the room.

‘Very impulsive, but means well,’ Sir Jeremy remarked, at which point his friend reappeared.