Mistletoe Moment

by Bancroft, Blair

  Leading him a merry chase was Miss Ashburton. And Will was thankful for whatever moments she gave him. For conversation without obligation, insinuation, or hints of something more. A friend. Yes, that was it. They’d become friends. Which was more than Will thought he’d had left in him to give.

  He lifted his knife and cut a slice of rare meat. Ajax was waiting. Soon, they’d once again venture toward the border of Appledown Farm.

  Chapter Six

  “Pamela, my dear, a moment of your time, if you please.” Honoria Whitehurst’s voice, echoing from the breakfast room, brought Pamela to a halt on the last step of Appledown’s graceful staircase. Gustily, she sighed. She so wished to ride out this morning in hope of another “chance” encounter with Mr. Forsythe. Her new riding habit had arrived on Saturday, and this would be the first time she would wear it. Constructed of a positively shimmering blue-green velvet, enhanced by dark blue piping and a military-style shako to match, the ensemble set off her eyes to perfection.

  Drat! She’d been so certain her new look would break through Mr. Forsythe’s reserve, and now . . .

  Carrying her long, heavy riding skirt in her left hand, Pamela trudged the few steps down the corridor to the breakfast room. Aren’t you a sight? mocked her inner voice. The girl who vowed never to marry mooning over a half-pay officer who has to force himself to any expression lighter than a glower.

  Pamela paused in the doorway, schooling her face to a pleasant façade. “Good morning, aunt. You wished to speak with me?”

  “Good morning, dear. Am I correct that you found only three clusters of mistletoe?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Now that the leaves are off the apple trees, the number of clusters is clear. But surely three is enough? Each is more than a foot across and seems to have many berries.”

  Honoria frowned. “I suppose it is quite foolish to hope for more. But ’tis such a wonderful old custom, kissing beneath the mistletoe. I had thought to make our ball quite merry.”

  “Mistletoe is also quite rare, aunt, which is likely why the Druids held it sacred.”

  Honoria offered a wry smile. “They do say there’s no fool like an old fool, but I am determined to fill this house with romance. Kisses for everyone from Nan in the kitchen to the squire and his wife and, yes”—Honoria’s eyes sparkled—even the vicar and Mrs. Chillworth. A worthy goal, do you not agree, Pamela, my dear?”

  The vision of the staid Mr. Chillworth kissing his shrew of a wife beneath the mistletoe was enough to send both ladies into whoops. Pamela had to swallow a giggle and wipe tears from her eyes before she could say, “I’ll be happy to search out more.” She struck a grand pose, the voluminous folds of her habit forming a shimmering wing as she held them out to the left. “The great mistletoe hunt,” she declaimed. “I shall search every tree on Appledown Farm.” And have the perfect excuse to ask Mr. Forsythe for access to Mottram lands. A splendid idea. And wicked, quite wicked.

  Ah! Was that a knowing smile that just flickered across her aunt’s face? Surely not. A guilty conscience had her seeing expressions that were never there.

  “Pray do not worry if I stay out longer than usual,” Pamela told her aunt before sweeping along the corridor to the entry hall and hurrying down the front steps as fast as her riding skirts would allow. She accepted a boost into Boudicca’s saddle from the groom, and then she was off. But not toward her favorite ride where she so often encountered Mr. William Forsythe. Heeding her niggling conscience, she decided to begin her mistletoe search on the portion of Appledown farthest from Mottram Manor. After all, she had ridden there so infrequently of late that the acres to the east might abound in mistletoe and she none the wiser.

  Nearly two hours later, Pamela’s neck ached from constantly tilting it up to search every hawthorne bush, birch, ash, lime, and oak she passed. Mistletoe on oak was rare, she knew, which was likely why the Druids considered it the most magical. At the moment, she would settle for mistletoe on anything, even a wooden style.

  Silly! Mistletoe grew only on living trees, everyone knew that. From berries dropped by birds, some said. Though why birds would eat the berries Pamela had no idea. She’d been taught from childhood that eating mistletoe berries was dangerous.

  She slumped in the saddle, patting Boudicca’s mane. “I have been a good girl,” she announced to the gray mare. “I have examined well nigh every tree on the east side of aunt’s acres, and now that I have sufficiently punished myself in the name of duty, Mr. Forsythe has undoubtedly come and gone.”

  If he was looking for her at all. And was she not full of herself to think their encounters anything more than mere chance?

  With a grimace of derision for her foolishness, Pamela turned Boudicca west toward Mottram Manor.

  Mistletoe clusters remained elusive. She was craning her neck, peering up at what might be a cluster in the depressingly high branches of an oak when she heard the snap of a branch, the soft thud of hoofbeats on ground covered in fallen leaves. Mistletoe forgotten, Pamela straightened her protesting back, adjusted her hat, and turned a hopeful gaze toward the approaching sound. Was it . . .?

  It was.

  Mr. William Forsythe raised both hands in a gesture of surrender. “You said I might trespass on Appledown land, and I have taken you at your word. Do you wish me gone?”

  “Good heavens, no!” The words flew out before Pamela could stop them. She might well have been a fifteen-year-old, still in the schoolroom. Drat! She was blushing again.

  Evidently taking pity on her confusion, he said, “May I ask what you were staring at so intently just now? Are you an aficionado of birds?”

  “Oh, no.” Pamela flashed a relieved smile for the change of subject. “I am on a mistletoe hunt. My aunt wishes to have veritable mountains of it for her Twelfth Night Ball.”

  Mr. Forsythe looked up, then up some more. “I very much fear, Miss Ashburton, that unless one of our horses turns into Pegasus, the mistletoe in that oak is forever out of reach.”

  If only he would smile when he made remarks like that. He was quite clever, no doubt about that, but even when he tried to make light conversation, his face remained agonizingly solemn.

  “You have sharp vision, Mr. Forsythe. If I am not being too forward, perhaps you would care to join my search?”

  “As toll for trespassing?” he returned without so much as a twitch of his lips. “A fair enough bargain. Where have you not looked?”

  “From here to the stream, a rather broad area, I fear.”

  “Then let us proceed,” Mr. Forsythe said, sweeping a hand toward the north. “I’m pleased to say I am an experienced scout. Finding mistletoe in a copse should not be much more of a challenge than finding French snipers hiding in the mountains. En avant, ma belle.”

  She had to stop blushing! “The French are our enemies, sir. Why use their language?” Pamela asked as they put their horses side by side and headed in the direction the former major had indicated.

  “Ah, but it so much more beautiful than ours,” he said just loudly enough to be heard. “And somehow French makes it easier for a man to say what is in his mind.”

  His last words were so soft Pamela was not certain she had heard correctly. Had he actually said that he found it easier to call her beautiful in French than baldly say the word in English?

  She must say something innocuous. Immediately—before their conversation got out of hand. But the hammering of her heart had driven a lump into her throat. She swallowed, tried again. “I am also looking for fir trees and pines, Mr. Forsythe. Aunt Honoria wishes to have garlands on the banister and along the mantlepieces and a wreath on every door and between the wall sconces in the ballroom. Simply masses of green.”

  “I wonder you shall have any woods left.”

  Pamela cast a sharp glance in Mr. Forsythe’s direction but could tell nothing from the expression on his face. She was certain he was teasing but . . .

  “Will you have a Yule log?” he asked.

  Did she detect
a note of nostalgia? Perhaps talk of Christmas was piercing the armor he held so close? “I believe my aunt is arranging a hunting party of the sturdiest men on the farm—”

  Merciful heavens, what had she said! Mr. Forsythe’s face drew up into scowl. His hands tightened on the reins, Ajax huffed and pawed the ground.

  Stoo-pid! Pamela clamped her jaws over her tongue. Apologizing for the unintended barb would only make things worse, but what to say . . .? How to extricate herself from her faux pas? Perhaps by acting as if it had never happened.

  “My aunt and I will go with them, just to watch of course, and approve the final choice. Hopefully, there will be snow to make it easier for the horses to haul the log home. And then on Christmas Eve we will light it and—”

  “And keep it burning ’til Twelfth Night.”

  “Indeed.” Pamela offered a smile filled with memories. “There is something about keeping the old traditions alive, is there not? Tell me, Mr. Forsythe, do you plan to spend Christmas with family?”

  “No, Miss Ashburton, I do not.” He wheeled his horse and continued the search, his gaze fixed on the bare branches of the surrounding trees.

  A hedgehog, a veritable hedgehog. Pamela frowned after Mr. Forsythe, knowing perfectly well most of the fault was hers. She should not have reminded him that he was not as hale and hearty as he would choose. Nor should she have asked any personal questions at all. A few chance meetings did not give her that right.

  She had, after all, been told he suffered from a pronounced limp. She should have realized he did not care to display his infirmity. Which would explain his determination to be a recluse, even to the point of turning down her aunt’s invitations to tea and twice to dinner.

  Fool! She who had her own scars should have been the first to understand.

  Will—Mr. Forsythe!—was already lost behind a stand of firs, and she could scarce mend fences with him sitting here, still as a statue. “Come, Boudicca.. Let us find our prickly friend. Perhaps, if I am more careful of my tongue, we may yet see him at Appledown Farm.”

  Chapter Seven

  Mistletoe. Holly. Garlands. Wreaths. Will snorted in disgust, while resisting an urge to toss his brandy onto the dancing flames in the ancient fireplace. He should have kept on riding straight back to the gatehouse, instead of allowing the chit to bamboozle him into getting a crick in his neck hunting allegedly magical white berries, so yet another gentleman could find himself on the fast road to the altar. Mistletoe indeed! Man-trap would be more apt. One kiss and a man could find himself leg-shackled for life.

  Will sipped his brandy and gazed into the leaping flames as they somehow transformed into the face that was beginning to haunt his days and nights. A taking little thing, Miss Pamela Ashburton. A female of considerable character, whose face, he suspected, would remain handsome when more superficial beauties had faded into matronly obscurity. No, indeed, he wouldn’t mind being caught under the mistletoe with her. The vision sent heat coursing through him that had nothing to do with the fire. Surely mistletoe kisses were exempt from the gossip-fed hysteria that forced the union of a couple caught kissing in a room with the door closed . . .

  Will felt his lips curl into something close to a smile. She did that to him, the little minx—swept aside his vow to live like a hermit, forced his expression to a pleasantry long forgotten. Reminded him the world was not all booming cannons, clashing swords, and blood as far as the eye could see.

  There was good out there. Even beyond Miss Pamela Ashburton and Appledown Farm, there were people who cared about the fate of others. People who cared for their land and their tenants. People who actually practiced the Ten Commandments. Yet, all too often, the very same people ignored returning soldiers, dead soldiers’ widows and children, the farmers and craftsmen losing their livelihood to enclosures and steam-driven machines. These were the people who needed an advocate, someone who truly cared. If he accepted the pocket borough his father had offered, instead of stonily folding his arms and telling the Earl of Poynings never to mention the subject again, he could, as a Member of Parliament, do good for those in need. A possibility he’d refused to consider until Miss Ashburton had so boldly inquired what he wished to do with the rest of his life.

  Undoubtedly, his papa would berate for him a Whig. Which brought a sudden glow of deep satisfaction. Enough satisfaction to knuckle under and accept the earl’s largesse?

  Oh, yes, Will realized, with something close to shock, as an Member of Parliament, he would not only have to rejoin the world, he would have to seize it by the throat. And suffer for his beliefs. But was it not his final duty as an officer and a gentleman not to run from battle, not to shut himself up in a gatehouse, speaking to no one but Joseph Tubs and Miss Pamela Ashburton?

  And facing a future so unlike soldiering was not the only crack in his armor. In a moment of honesty on the day of the great mistletoe hunt, he’d left Ajax’s back and limped his way to a hawthorne bush, gingerly avoiding its thorns as he parted the branches, only to discover the green they’d glimpsed was a small pine branch downed by the winter wind.

  Pamela had said not a word about his limp, but he was already suffering humiliation from her overly kindly attempts to divert him from her remarks about the strappingly healthy men who would hunt for the Yule log. No teasing after that awkward moment, no sprightly repartée—just cloying sweetness and light until she’d begun to sound like his mama and his sisters, and he was tempted to flee back to the gatehouse at full gallop.

  And then, after she watched his struggle to remount, she fixed him with the depths of her blue-green eyes and told him of the disaster that marked her very first dance.

  “Oh, my dear,” he murmured without thinking, “you should have gone straight back into the set.”

  “Ha!” she ejected scornfully. “And you should go straight back to the army.”

  “That’s not—” Will began hotly, only to realize she had the right of it. Her wound did not have to be physical to make it as painful as his own.” He frowned at the prickly hawthorne bush as he tried to make sense of his thoughts. “We are, I think,” he suggested at last, “two self-made pariahs. Perhaps not the wisest thing we ever did.” Silence. “Pam—Miss Ashburton?”

  “My aunt has recently suggested the same. I am attempting to modify my thinking,” she added rather stiffly.

  Will almost chuckled. Dash it, but the girl could pierce his gloom without even trying.

  “I shall see you receive invitations for Christmas Eve and Twelfth Night,” Pamela announced, pinning him into a corner.

  He’d nodded curtly, reverting to his customary solemnity, “Good day, Miss Ashburton.” His back stiff as a poker, he turned Ajax toward home.

  Trapped, by God, and by his own big mouth. Perhaps he could slip through the business by agreeing to Christmas Eve and pleading a sudden illness on Twelfth Night.

  Impossible girl. She’d called his bluff and . . .

  Hm-m-m. Will’s lips curled into a sly smile. What was sauce for the goose could be sauce for the gander. Perhaps he would attend the Twelfth Night ball, after all.

  But now, two days later, any interaction with Miss Ashburton seemed fraught with pain. If he could not come to terms with himself, how could he even consider admitting another into his life?

  Scowling, Will levered himself up from his chair. Ignoring the walking stick propped against the upholstery next to his right hand, he set out for the far side of the room, moving cautiously, but at a steady pace. On the far side, he leaned back against the window draperies and gazed across some twenty feet to his chair. Devil a bit! His startling suspicion was correct. He was moving far better than when he came to Mottram. He had, in fact, swung off Ajax today without thought, just as he’d dismounted without stopping to consider the consequences when he investigated the hawthorne bush, his mind so filled with Pamela’s sparkling blue-green eyes that he had not felt so much as a twinge of pain.

  The irony hit him like a blow. To escape to the isola
tion of Mottram Manor, he had fought his entire family. Caused his mama to cry. And now, scarce two months later, he was considering accepting an invitation to a private family event like Christmas Eve. And, of all the absurdities, a ball.

  Yet he had been so much in Pamela’s company of late that a refusal was tantamount to an insult. He had even promised to help bring in the mistletoe, and he was a man of his word. Though Mrs. Whitehurst might have to settle for the three clusters in her apple trees, as the few other balls of mistletoe he and Pamela had found would require an agile monkey to scale the trees. If, that is, the magic of the mistletoe proved incapable of transforming Ajax into a winged Pegasus.

  To his surprise, Will chuckled. Obviously, his darling sprite had done him a great deal of good.

  His darling sprite. Grimly, Will strode back to his chair and plumped himself down. His family was right. Isolation could turn a man mad.

  “Aunt! Aunt!” Pamela, clutching her riding habit high so she wouldn’t trip, burst into the drawing room, eyes wide with horror. “It’s gone. The mistletoe’s gone, every last bit. The apple trees are stripped bare.”

  Honoria Whitehurst laid down the quill she was using to make lists of the tasks needed to assure the smooth running of the holidays and stared at her niece, uncomprehending. “Impossible,” she murmured.

  “’Tis true. Some dastard has stolen it all!”

  Honoria’s eyes grew wide. “No one would dare,” she breathed.

  “Perhaps thieves from Great Malvern or even Worcester?” Pamela offered. “Planning to break the clusters into sprigs and sell them?”

  “Christmas Eve is but a week away.” Steepling her hands before her face, Honoria wailed, “Oh, my dear, what shall we do?”

  Pamela rushed to her side. “Don’t worry, dear aunt. Will and—” Pamela broke off, clasping her hands in front of her and assuming a look of eager reassurance. “I found other clusters. They will require a bit of maneuvering, but somehow, I promise you, you will have your mistletoe.” After all, how else would she have an opportunity to trap Will Forsythe beneath it?