Christine Merrill - The Mistletoe Wager

His silence must have unnerved her, for she said, ‘Do not fall asleep again, Tremaine. The festivities have not been so strenuous as to require rest in midday. And if you mean to imply that my conversation bores you to unconsciousness, I swear I shall box your ears.’

He gave a little cough. ‘Twenty-four?’

‘Twenty-five next month.’

‘But you are…’

She gritted her teeth. ‘Older than Elise. Just barely. And still single. But I look much younger and always have. Or were you about to say tiny? For if you mean to comment on my lack of height as well as my advanced age then you will have nothing more to fear from Harry. I will do more damage to you than he ever shall.’

For a moment, he could swear that he was looking at the same gamine he had found in the hallway at the Grenvilles’ ball, five Christmases ago. The only change in her was the cynical glint in her eyes and the determined set to her mouth. ‘You look no different than you did when I first met you.’

She put her hands on her hips. ‘Considering how well our first meeting went, I hardly know what you mean by that. But I shall assume you mean to compliment me. I hope you are not so cruel as to torment me with my appearance? There is little I can do to change it.’

‘I thought you much younger when we first met. You were standing in the doorway of the ballroom, behind a potted palm, watching everyone else dance.’

She smirked. ‘You remember that now, do you?’

‘I never forgot it.’

‘But when my father caught us kissing you announced, “I have never seen this girl before in my life.” I assumed that we were keeping to the established lie and pretending that our dance had never occurred.’

‘It was only an hour before we kissed. So technically I had not met you before. Not before that night, at any rate.’

‘Technically?’ She nodded sceptically. ‘My father assumed that I had kissed a man without even taking the time to learn his name. It was very awkward for me.’

‘But when we danced,’ he said haltingly, ‘you told me that you were not yet out.’

‘I’d have made my come-out in spring, if Father had allowed me to remain in London. Twenty would have been a bit later than the other girls, of course. But not too late.’ There was a wistful note in her voice, and she took a moment to crush it before continuing in a normal, businesslike tone, ‘But a come-out is not necessary for a happy life. Only so much foolishness.’

‘You were nineteen?’

‘As were you, once.’ There was another long pause as she came to understand him. ‘You mean when we first met? Well, yes. Of course I was. You did not think I had escaped from the schoolroom to accost you? It was only my father’s stubbornness, not my age that left me lurking outside the ballroom instead of dancing with the others.’

‘But you were nineteen,’ he repeated numbly.

‘The night we met?’ She shrugged. ‘It did not matter. My father has very strict ideas on what is proper and improper for young ladies. Girls who are not out should not dance, no matter their age.’

As he remembered that night, he knew there had been girls much younger at the party, giggling in corners, begging for gentlemen to stand up with them and being no end of a nuisance-just as there were in the house today. He had assumed Rosalind to be one of them. But she had been of marriageable age, and yet still denied the pleasure of adult company. Her actions made more sense.

‘That was rather strict of him.’

‘Perhaps. But there was little to be done about it.’

‘And you say you had not tasted wine unwatered?’

She stared at him, as if daring him to doubt her. ‘I had not. If you were to speak to my father on the subject, I still have not.’ She made a face. ‘He does not approve of strong spirits. He drinks his wine with water as well, and forgoes brandy entirely. He says that consumption of alcohol by gentlewomen is most improper.’ She smiled. ‘It is fortunate for me that I am the one who does the pouring in our household. For, while he trusts me to follow his wishes, he really has no idea about the contents of my glass.’

He tried to imagine what it would be like to have to forgo wine with a meal and could not comprehend it. It was as if she had been trapped in childhood, with no escape on the horizon. ‘And he still does not allow you to travel to the city, even after years of good behaviour?’

‘I am not encouraged to leave the house at all. He sent me to Harry, of course, because my brother was in need. But I suspect that says more about his disapproval of Elise than anything else.’ Rosalind made another stern face. ‘He has much to say on the subject of foreigners and their strange ways, and he is none too secret about the satisfaction he feels at Harry’s marital difficulties. He will expect a full report of them when I return home. Which will be very soon, should he get wind of the festivities I have organised. I do not care to hear what he will say when he finds out that I have been stringing holly on a Yule Log.’

‘How utterly absurd,’ Nick replied. ‘It is an innocent enough diversion, and most enjoyable.’ If one could manage to ignore the nuisance of going into the woods and focus on the blazing fire in the evening. He gave a nod to her. ‘And I must say, the thing was most attractively decorated, before Harry set it to light.’

Rosalind looked amused. ‘Are you a defender of Christmas now, Saint Nicholas?’

‘I do not defend Christmas so much as believe that small pleasures are not a threat to character or a black mark upon the soul.’

‘On that point you and Harry agree. It is one of the reasons I see so little of Harry, for he cannot abide my father’s treatment of his mother, nor of me. And Father has very little good to say about him.’ She sighed. ‘But my father means well by it, although he may seem harsh to others. It has done me no real harm. And I must admit, I bring much of his censure on myself. For I have a tendency to small rebellions, and can be just as stubborn as Harry when I’ve a mind.’

It made Nick unaccountably angry to see her resigned to her future, caring for a man who was obviously impossible to please. And the idea that she had to moderate a temperament which he found quite refreshing, irritated him even more. He said, ‘If a wild bird is caged long enough, even for its own protection, it will beat its wings against the bars. If it does itself an injury, whose fault is it? The bird’s or the one who caged it?’

‘If you are attempting to draw some parallel between me and the bird, then I wish you would refrain from it. The fault would lie with the bird. For, while such creatures are lovely to look at, they are seldom held up as an example of wisdom and good sense.’

She was standing close enough to him that the smell of her perfume blended with the pine boughs on the mantel and the other inescapable smells of Christmas, turning the simple floral scent she wore into something much more complex and sensual. It was just as tempting as he remembered it, and just as hard to ignore. He wondered if it had been the same for her. For all along she had been old enough to understand temptation, but lacking the experience to avoid it. He smiled in sympathy. ‘It seems I have done you an injustice, Miss Morley. For this explanation of your behaviour on the night we met puts the event in a whole new light.’

‘I thought we had agreed not to speak of that again,’ she muttered, and tried to turn away.

He put a finger under her chin and urged her to look up at his face. ‘After you were forced to apologise repeatedly for something which was no real fault of yours? What you were doing was not so unusual, compared with other girls of your age. If you lacked seasoning or sense, it was because your family did not train you to know what was expected of you. They thought that they could confine you until the last possible moment and then thrust you into the light, where you would exhibit flawless behaviour with no practice. When you failed, it was more their fault than yours.’ He hung his head. ‘And mine as well. I might have behaved quite differently had I known the circumstances involved. And I do not remember at any time giving you the apology that you deserve in response.’

She swallowed. ‘It is not necessary.’

‘I beg to differ.’ He moved so that he was standing before her, and said, ‘Give me your hand.’

She was obviously trying to come up with a response that would make things easier between them, but none was forthcoming.

So he reached, and took her hand in both of his. ‘I am sorry for what occurred that night,’ he said. ‘The fact that you were behaving without caution did not require me to respond in kind. If anything, I should have been more circumspect, not less. You have been punished inordinately for it, although I have always deserved the majority of the guilt. Please forgive me.’

He was staring into her eyes, and it made things difficult. For it reminded him of the way she’d looked at him that night, and how it had made him feel, and why it had been so easy to throw caution to the winds and kiss her when he had known he had no right to.

But this time she managed to look away from him, instead of drawing nearer. ‘Of course,’ she said, and then she closed her eyes and dropped her head, as though praying that humility would be sufficient to bring this awkward scene to a close.

He brought her hand to his lips and held it there. Her skin was soft against his, and he lingered over it for longer than a simple apology would warrant, imagining what it might be like to kiss her palm, her wrist, and all the rest of the white skin leading to her lips. And then he smiled, remembering that this was what had caused the problem five years ago. The suspicion that all parts of Rosalind Morley were eminently kissable, and his sudden, irresistible compulsion to test the theory.

And now she was looking up at him again, over her outstretched hand, as though the kiss were causing her pain when he suspected that it was an excess of pleasure that was the problem. Should he take another liberty with her, she would yield-just as she had the last time. And he would probably run away from her-just as he had been running his whole life, from any situation that smacked of responsibility.

And so he released her, smiling. ‘There. I hope it is settled at last. There is nothing wrong with you, Rosalind Morley. Nothing at all. Never mind what your father says, or what others might think of you. You are perfect just as you are.’

It occurred to him, in an idle, confusing way, that it would take a lifetime to catalogue the things about her that were perfectly suited to his temperament.

‘Thank you.’ Her voice sounded hoarse, as though it were difficult for her to speak. He wished that she would call him Tremaine, and return some sharp rebuke that would put things back to normal between them. But instead she murmured, ‘I must go. To see about…something. And you must come as well. I…’ She touched her hand to her forehead, trying to remember, and then looked into his eyes again and went very still.

Her vision cleared and she muttered, ‘Apples. That is it. We are bobbing for apples. Harry is there. I have managed to get Elise to come out of her room, but she is looking very cross with him, and threatening to go back to bed with a megrim.’

‘So I must let your brother drown me to put her into good humour again?’

‘If you would be so kind.’

She held out her hand to him, and he was more than ready to follow wherever she might lead. But when he smiled at her, she looked so worried that he put on his most perturbed expression and yawned. ‘The least you could do is deny it, you know. If you wish me to behave, you will do much better with flattery than you do with the truth.’

‘If I flatter you, it might cause your head to swell more than it already has.’ She gave him her usually cynical smile. ‘I dare not risk it, Tremaine. Come on, then. We can finish this business by New Year if we apply ourselves to it.’

Rosalind pushed him into the hallway ahead of her, announcing, ‘I have found him.’

Harry beamed in triumph. ‘And about time. Do not think that you can avoid the party, Tremaine. It is hardly keeping in the spirit of the bet if you do not try.’

Nick sighed, and prepared for a dunking. ‘Very well, then. What have I to do to get you to leave me alone?’

‘Play our little game.’ Harry led him into the hall and gestured expansively towards the centre of the room. ‘We have all had a turn, and the other guests are eager to see how you fare.’

True to his word, there was a large crowd gathered around a basin of water, and the air smelled of apples. The daughter of a lord was holding a fruit in her hand and shaking the water from her pretty blonde locks, and everyone was laughing heartily and congratulating her on her success.