Christine Merrill - The Mistletoe Wager

Harry rubbed his hands together. ‘But now we are on my home turf. He knows nothing about country living, or the true likes and dislikes of my wife. And he has no taste at all for the sort of simple Christmas diversions that bring her the most joy. It will take no time at all for him to wrongfoot himself in her eyes, and his disgrace will require very little help from me. When that happens I will be here to pick up the pieces and offer myself as an alternative, just as I did before. If you wish to help me in the matter of persuading Elise to return home, then I wish to hear no more talk of bringing her to heel. Help me by helping Tremaine to make an ass of himself. I will see to Elise, and things will be quite back to normal by Twelfth Night.’

Rosalind left her brother and his mad plans alone in the entry hall. If what he was saying was true, then their marriage must have been as frustrating as Elise had claimed. The man had no clue what was wrong or how to fix things. And, worse yet, he refused to stand up to his wife, no matter how much she might wish for it.

This would be more difficult than she’d thought.

As she walked past the door to the library she paused, noticing the mistletoe ball from the doorway had fallen to the floor. She stared down at it in dismay. That was the problem with bringing live things into the house in such cold weather. There was always something wilting, dying or shedding leaves. And even with the help of the servants, she was hard pressed to keep pace with the decay. She shook the tiny clump of leaves and berries, patting it back into shape and re-tying the ribbon that held it together. Then she looked up at the hook at the top of the doorframe. It was hardly worth calling a servant, for to fix the thing back in place would be the work of a moment.

She reached up, her fingers just brushing the lintel, and glanced across the room at a chair. She considered dragging it into place as a step, and then rejected the idea as too much work. The hook was nearly in reach, and if she held the thing by its bottom leaves and stretched a bit she could manage to get it back into place, where it belonged.

She extended her arm and gave a little hop. Almost. She jumped again. Closer still. She crouched low and leaped for the hook, arm extended-and heard the stitching in the sleeve of her dress give way.

The mistletoe hung in place for a moment, before dropping back on her upturned face.

‘Do you require assistance?’ She caught the falling decoration before it hit the floor and turned to see the head of Nicholas Tremaine peering over the back of the sofa. His hair was tousled, as though he’d just woken from a nap. And he was grinning at her, obviously amused. Even in disarray, he was as impossibly handsome as he had been the day she’d met him, and still smiling the smile that made her insides turn to jelly and her common sense evaporate.

She turned away from him and focused her attention on the offending plant, and the hook that should hold it. ‘Have you been watching me the whole time?’

Tremaine’s voice held no trace of apology. ‘Once you had begun, I saw no reason to alert you to my presence. If you had succeeded, you need never have known I was here.’

‘Or you could have offered your help and saved me some bother.’

He paused, and then said, ‘If you wished assistance, you would have called for a servant. I thought perhaps you drew some pleasure from it.’ He paused again. ‘I certainly did.’

She reached experimentally for the hook again. ‘You could at least have done me the courtesy to mention that you were in the room. Or in the house, for that matter. You said that you wished to be gone.’

He sighed. ‘I assumed you had looked out of the window this morning and guessed the truth on your own. You were right and I was wrong. I am told by your brother that the roads are quite impossible, the drive is blocked, and I am trapped. So I have gone to ground here by the library fire, and I was doing my best to keep true to my word and stay out of your path.’ She heard the rattle of china and glanced over her shoulder to see his breakfast things, sitting on the table beside the couch.

‘When you realised that your plan was not working, you could have given me warning that I was being observed. It would have spared me some embarrassment.’

He gave a slight chuckle. ‘It is not as if I am likely to tell the rest of the company how you behave when we are alone together.’

She cringed. ‘I did not say that you would. I have reason to trust your discretion, after all.’

‘Then are you implying that my presence here embarrasses you.’ He let the words hang with significance.

It did. Not that it mattered. She turned back to look at him. ‘Perhaps it is my own behaviour that embarrasses me. And the fact that you have been witness to more than one example of the worst of it.’

He laughed. ‘If I have seen the worst of your behaviour, then you are not so very bad as you think.’

She gave him her most intimidating glare, which had absolutely no effect. ‘Tell me, now: are you accustomed to finding Elise leaping at doorframes, like a cat chasing a moth?’

‘No, I am not. But then, she would not have need to.’ His eyes scanned over her in appraisal. ‘She is much taller than you are.’

‘She is tall, and poised as well, and very beautiful.’ Rosalind recited the list by rote. ‘She will never know how vexing it is to find everything you want just slightly out of reach. It all comes easily to her.’ And Elise, who had two men fighting over her, would never have to cope with the knowledge that the most perfect man in London still thought of her as a silly girl. Rosalind glared at the hook above her. ‘I must always try harder, and by doing so I overreach and end up looking foolish.’

‘Perhaps you do.’ His voice was soft, which surprised her. And then it returned to its normal tone. ‘Still, it is not such a bad thing to appear thus. And I am sure most people would take a less harsh view of you than you do of yourself.’

She picked at the mistletoe in her hands, removing another wilted leaf. Behind her, there was a sigh, and the creak of boot leather. And then he was standing beside her and plucking the thing from between her fingers.

She looked up to find Tremaine far too near, and grinning down at her. ‘I understand your irritation with me, for we agreed to keep our distance,’ he said. ‘I have been unsuccessful. But what has that poor plant ever done to you, that you treat it so?’

She avoided his eyes, focusing on the leaves in his hand, and frowned. ‘That “poor plant” will not stay where I put it.’

He reached up without effort and stuck it back in its place above their heads. Then he tipped her chin up, so she could see the mistletoe-and him as well-and said innocently, ‘There appears to be no problem with it now.’

As a matter of fact it looked fine as it was, with him beneath it and standing so very close to her. For a moment she thought of how nice it might be to close her eyes and take advantage of the opportunity. And how disastrous. Some lessons should not have to be learned twice, and if he meant to see her succumb again he would be disappointed. ‘Do not try to tempt me into repeating mistakes of the past. I am not so moved.’

He smiled, to tell her that it was exactly what he was doing. ‘Are you sure? My response is likely to be most different from when last we kissed.’

Her pulse gave an unfortunate gallop, but she said, in a frigid tone, ‘Whatever for? What has changed?’

‘You are no longer an inexperienced girl.’

‘Nor am I as foolish as I was, to jump into the arms of a rake.’

He smiled again. ‘But I was not a rake when you assaulted me.’

‘I assaulted you?’ She feigned shock. ‘That is doing it much too brown, sir.’

‘No, really. I cannot claim that I was an innocent babe, but no one would have called me a rake.’ He held a hand over his heart. ‘Not until word got round that I had seduced some sweet young thing and then refused to do right by her, in any case.’

‘Seduced?’ The sinking feeling in her stomach that had begun as she talked to Harry was back in force.

‘The rumours grew quite out of proportion to the truth when Elise cast me off. Everyone was convinced that something truly terrible must have happened for her to abandon me so quickly.’

Her stomach sank a little further.

He went on as though noticing nothing unusual. ‘And it must have been my fault in some way, mustn’t it? Although I was not exactly a pillar of moderation, I had no reputation for such actions before that time. But it is always the fault of the man, is it not? Especially one so crass and cruel as to refuse to offer for the poor, wounded girl because I was already promised to another. And then to deny her father satisfaction, for fear that I might do the man injury.’ He leaned over her. ‘For I am a crack shot, and a fair hand with a blade. And your father, God protect him, is long past the day when he could have hurt me.’ He put on a face of mock horror. ‘And when I refused to make a full explanation to my betrothed, or give any of the details of the incident? Well, it must have been because it was so very shameful, and not because it would have made the situation even more difficult for the young lady concerned.’

‘You needn’t have used my name. But I would not have blamed you for giving the truth to Elise. It was not your fault, after all.’ She wished she could sink through the floor, along with the contents of her heart.

‘When she came to me with the accusation, I told her that the majority of what she had heard was true. I had been caught in an intimate position with a young lady, by the girl’s father. But I had not meant to be unfaithful to her, it would not happen again, and she must trust me for the rest.’ He frowned. ‘That was the sticking point, I am afraid. Her inability to trust. The woman has always been quick to temper. She broke the engagement and went to Harry. I happily gave myself over to sin. And thereby hangs a tale.’

‘So you are telling me not only did I ruin your engagement, and spoil Christmas for ever, I negatively affected your character?’

‘It is not so bad, having a ruined character. I have found much more pleasure in vice than I ever did in virtue.’ He frowned. ‘And after all this time the woman I once sought has come back to me.’

Her anger at him warred with guilt. Elise and Harry were in a terrible mess, and she might have been the cause of it all. But how could Tremaine stand there, flirting so casually, as though it did not matter? ‘She might have come back, but she is foolish to trust you. What would she think of you, I wonder, if she found you and I here, alone together?’

‘I think she would go running right back into Harry’s arms, as she did once before.’ He seemed to be considering something for a moment, before reaching out to brush his knuckles against her cheek. ‘But enough of Elise. I know what she has done these past years, for we have been close, although not as close as I once wished. At no time did she ever mention that Harry had a sister.’

Rosalind cleared her throat, to clear her head, and stepped a little away from him, until he was no longer touching her. ‘Half-sister.’

‘Mmm.’ His acknowledgement of her words was a low hum, and she thought she could feel it vibrating inside her, like the purr of a cat. ‘If it was not a trick, as I first suspected, is there some reason that they kept you so well hidden?’

She swallowed hard, and when she answered her voice was clear of emotion. ‘Harry and my father do not get on well. He was sent away to school when we were still young, and took the opportunity to spend all subsequent holidays with his own father’s family, until he was of age. Then he came to London.’ She hung her head. ‘I remained at home, where I could not be an embarrassment to the family.’

He was still close enough that if she looked up she could admire his fine lips, see the cleft in his chin. And she remembered the feel of his cheek against hers, the taste of his tongue. She had lost her freedom over a few kisses from that perfect mouth. And somehow she did not mind.

She could feel him watching her so intently that she feared he could read her thoughts, and he said, ‘What did you do in the country, my little black sheep? Did you continue in the way you set out with me? Were there other incidents of that kind, I wonder, or was I an aberration?’

Rosalind pulled herself together, pushed against his chest and stepped out of the doorway further into the room. ‘How rude of you to assume that there were. And to think that I would tell you if I had transgressed is beyond familiar.’