Mistletoe Everywhere

by Linda Banche

  His breath sawing in and out of his lungs, he leaned against the table until the alcohol coursed through his blood and somewhat relaxed him. Then he dribbled a smaller amount of liquor into his glass. Straightening, he stumbled to the pair of wing chairs before the fire and fell into the nearer one.

  He sipped this brandy slowly. When he could see the fire through the snifter’s bottom, he cradled the glass on his lap and rested his head against the chair back.

  Muffled strains of music and laughter filtered to his ears, a soft accompaniment to the hissing of the dying fire.

  Women. They drove a man insane, the whole lot…

  The door latch rasped.

  Charles jerked awake. The fire had burned down to whispering orange coals, and shadows enveloped the room. Blinking, he leaned around the wing of the chair.

  A tall man entered. Without glancing right or left, he marched to the console table. As if repeating Charles’s actions, he snatched up a decanter and sloshed some of its contents into a tumbler. He upended the glass and swallowed.

  Then he coughed and coughed.

  Must not be used to strong spirits. With his hands on the chair arms, Charles levered upright. His snifter tumbled to the carpet with a muffled thud. “Here, let me help you.”

  The man spun toward Charles.

  The fitful light obscured his features, but such lanky, loose-gaited motions most often belonged to a boy.

  The lad sputtered. “I beg your pardon, sir. I did not see you.”

  “The chair is a good hiding place.”

  The young man again lifted the glass to his lips.

  Charles caught his arm. “Whoa, there. Do you really want more?”

  The lad’s thin shoulders drooped. “No. I hate spirits. But I must do something, or I will think of her.”

  “Ah, a woman.” Charles steered his comrade in misery to the second chair before the fire. “Why not tell me about her?”

  ***

  Please let the dancing end so I can leave.

  Sights and sounds tumbled over Penelope as if she were at the end of a long, misty tunnel. The guests, grey, murmuring wraiths, glided in and out of her field of vision. Music rumbled far, far away.

  Curse Charles. And curse her, too, for still loving him. But she would not think of him now. She would think of breathing in and out until she could flee the room.

  Something poked her in the shoulder. She turned her head toward the irritation.

  Aunt Lydia’s finger jabbed her again. Her aunt’s mouth moved, but what was she saying? Something about Charles…

  A bit of her emotional haze evaporated.

  “That scoundrel, to make such a scene in public! There is absolutely no excuse for such deplorable behavior. And to include you in his wretched display! Ungentlemanly, to say the least. I never cared for him, and this just shows how right I was—” With each word, her tirade escalated in intensity into a veritable tempest.

  Penelope shook her head, and more of the mist vaporized. Aunt had never liked Charles, but her flare-up was grossly out of proportion for mere dislike. “Why do you hate Charles?”

  Aunt Lydia paused in mid-word. “I do not hate him. I never considered him a fitting parti for you.”

  “Why?”

  “He had no money.”

  “Now he has a great deal of money, and most earned by his own effort and intelligence.” Gracious, why did she defend him?

  Her aunt sniffed. “A mushroom.”

  “He was born a gentleman, and will one day be a baronet.”

  Aunt Lydia tapped her foot. “Beside the point. He still works for a living. Five years ago, he was not good enough for a viscount’s daughter, and he still is not. I am glad my brother took my advice and rejected his suit.”

  Penelope shook her head again. She couldn’t have heard aright. “You convinced Papa to refuse Charles?”

  A smile with a hint of cruelty curved her aunt’s lips. “Yes, I did. Your dear papa always minded his older sister. He was inclined to accept Mr. Gordon. But I persuaded him otherwise.”

  Penelope’s mind snapped alert. “What did you do?”

  Aunt’s villainous grin widened. “I wrote a letter to Mr. Gordon in your father’s name stating you did not wish to marry a poor man. And I wrote you a letter, supposedly from Mr. Gordon, declaring his unwillingness to wed you.”

  Every shred of haze evaporated in a white-hot blaze. “How could you? You knew I loved Charles.”

  “Tut, tut. Young chits have no idea what love is. If you had married him, you would be poor.”

  “Like I am now?”

  For a fleeting moment, her aunt’s eyes bulged out. “How dare you. Better poor befitting your rank, than poor and married to an upstart. But—” Her spiteful mask descended once more, a devil offering a seductive alternative. “—Mr. Bray is a suitable gentleman for you.”

  Penelope stood. She fisted her hands in her skirts to still their trembling. She had to leave now, before she shouted her aunt down. “You are wrong, Aunt. Mr. Bray is evil, like you.”

  Her aunt sputtered, shaking like a hen with wet feathers. “Mind your language, girl! You are beholden to me.”

  “Did you want me beholden to you? If I had wed Charles, I would not be under your thumb. You would have had to torment someone else.”

  “You ungrateful wretch! You shall suffer for this, I promise you.”

  “I am certain I will. But I will no longer suffer from you.” She pivoted and started for the doorway.

  “Come back here at once, you despicable creature. I am not finished with you!” Aunt Lydia’s booming voice drowned out the orchestra.

  The chattering in the room hushed. Everyone stared.

  Penelope held herself as proudly as a queen as she marched through the crowd without seeing anyone or anything.

  In the corridor, she stopped, her hands pressed to her knotted stomach. Her pulse roared in her ears. The Christmassy scents of pine and cinnamon that she loved so much choked her.

  Jane ran out of the ballroom. “What happened?”

  Penelope didn’t resist when Jane pulled her into a sitting room.

  Jane swung the door shut behind them and then guided her to a settee. Gently, her friend pushed her onto the silk cushion and then sank down beside her.

  “Aunt Lydia lied to me all along.” Her words a series of gasps, she poured out the tale of how her aunt had separated her and Charles.

  Jane squeezed her hand. “I knew something was amiss with that letter you showed me, but I could not put my finger on it. While I never liked your aunt, I could not imagine her being so malicious.”

  Penelope shuddered. Tears pricked her eyes, and she wrapped her arms around her waist and held tight. Soon she would break down, but not yet. “I must explain to Charles. He thinks I am chasing him, but he should know about this.”

  “I agree.”

  “He left the ballroom. Do you know where he is?”

  “No, I do not. But, please, wait until tomorrow. You are too overset now.”

  Penelope swallowed her tears. “I wrote to Aunt Elizabeth. I am certain she will take me in. But, may I stay here until then? Aunt Lydia expects me to crawl back, but I will not.”

  “Of course.” Jane put her arm around Penelope’s shoulders and pulled her close. “Tomorrow, we will sort out everything. Go to bed now.”

  Her mind numb, Penelope let Jane guide her to her bedchamber.

  Jane hugged her once more before she departed.

  With a shaky hand, Penelope locked the door behind her.

  ***

  Charles’s companion, his features indistinct in the dark, moaned. “I wrangled an invitation here so I could talk to her, but she refuses to speak to me.” He slid farther down in the chair. “And the worst part is, whenever I see her, she stands under mistletoe.”

  “You, too?” Charles sat forward. “But does she really stand under mistletoe? Or do you only think she does?”

  The lad shook his head. “I know
not. I mentioned the mistletoe to Smythe, and he looked at me as if I belonged in Bedlam.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I must be going mad. I see mistletoe no one else sees. And the lady I adore no longer wants me, when I was positive she would love me forever.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She did not say anything.” The boy dug into his inside coat pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “She wrote me a letter.” He handed the note to Charles. “Or, rather, her stepfather wrote me a letter.”

  “What?” Another father writing to his daughter’s unwanted suitor? Was his history duplicating itself in this young man? “Lad, make the lady say she no longer loves you.” Do not make my mistake.

  “But the letter—”

  “Devil take the letter. My lady love’s father wrote me a letter, too, saying his daughter spurned me. Although I pursued her, I could never find her, so she never denied me in person. Now I suspect her father lied.”

  The young man straightened. “Do you really think so?”

  “Only one way to find out.” He returned the note unread. “Most likely, she is still in the ballroom. Go to her now.”

  “Yes, I will.” A smile on his shadowed features, the lad stood and stuffed the paper into his pocket. “I thank you, sir. May I ask your name? I do not believe we have met.”

  Charles rose. “Charles Gordon.”

  The boy’s grin faded. “I am Miles Price. The lady I love is Miss Ward. I heard you are interested in her.” For the first time, the firelight illuminated his features.

  “So, you are the young man she rebuffed time and again. I admire your persistence, Mr. Price.” He extended his hand. “Have no fear. I have already decided we would not suit. I was loathe to hurt her, but now I know I will not. In any event, we are allies in this. I see mistletoe over Miss Lawrence.”

  The lad’s long face smoothed into another grin.

  “Be warned, though, she still may not want you.”

  Price pumped Charles’s hand with a strength that belied his slender form. “I will take my chances. Thank you, sir.” He bolted out of the room.

  Charles contemplated the shut door for a minute before he lowered himself back into his chair. Pray he had helped Price.

  Something soft in his inside breast pocket rubbed against his shirt, and he pulled out Penelope’s handkerchief.

  After lighting a candle from the fire, he set the taper on the table between the chairs. Then he held the silk square up to the flame, the additional illumination picking out each individual stitch of the monogram.

  Such fine, delicate work. How he wanted to cradle Penelope in his arms, protect her the same way the embroidered “C” embraced the “p”.

  Would she let him?

  He sat forward and held the pocket square closer to the taper. The silk was yellowed, as if the fabric hadn’t been washed in a long time.

  He sucked in a breath. She hadn’t embroidered this recently. Had she sewn this five years ago, as a gift for him?

  Why had she kept it?

  Chapter 13

  Shadows danced in his candle’s flickering light as Charles trudged up the stairs toward his bedchamber.

  Not for the first time, he stopped and pulled out the handkerchief, holding up the monogram to the taper’s illumination. Whatever had gone wrong between Penelope and him was in the past. He would take his own advice, the same advice he had given young Price. He would talk to her and ask if they could start anew.

  He winced. That is, if she would listen, after all his harsh words. First, he would apologize. Grovel, if he had to. Then, maybe, if he were lucky, she would hear him out.

  He secreted the handkerchief in his breast pocket over his heart, where his love for Penelope had never stopped residing.

  At the landing, he yawned and stretched. Strange, he could have sworn the pattern on the corridor rug was of diamonds, not squares. And that mirror over the table against the wall—that hadn’t been here this morning.

  A shiver crept over his skin. Was he on the right floor?

  He shrugged. Of course, he was—familiar objects often appeared different in the dark. He hadn’t paid much attention to the carpet, and the servants probably hung the glass sometime today.

  At his room, he halted a second time, another frisson slipping over him. The latch should be on the other side of the door.

  Then he grinned and pushed the wood panel open. Nonsense. He wasn’t that drunk. His imagination certainly was overactive tonight.

  Shadows drenched the room, and the fire’s crimson embers sputtered in the hearth. The door closing with a soft snick, he padded to the bed. He set the candle on the nightstand, peeled off his coat and then wrestled his cravat unknotted. A coal popped.

  A feminine voice gasped. “What are you doing here?”

  He spun around.

  Penelope, clad only in her nightdress, rose from the chair before the fireplace, a book clasped to her breast. Her hand trembling, she pointed to the door. “Leave here at once.”

  With the light behind her, the thin nightgown disappeared, displaying every inch of her form.

  All the air in the room vanished. His wildest dreams had come true and she was in his bedchamber. Or was she a drunken mirage…

  Air slammed back into his lungs. She was here and—damnation! Again she stood beneath that hell-spawned mistletoe. “Miss Lawrence, this room is mine.”

  “Fustian. I am in my own chamber and you walk in—through a locked door, too. Where did you find a key?”

  “The door is unlocked, as you well know.” He strode back to the door, lifted the latch and then tugged. The door remained shut. He pulled again, harder this time. The door didn’t budge.

  Something odd here. He twisted the key in the lock and a click sounded. He lifted the latch, yanked, and the door popped open. “What the devil—”

  “I told you the door was locked. However you managed to get in, leave now.”

  He backed away from the portal. Details the gloom had hidden emerged from the darkness—a woman’s silver hairbrush and hand mirror on the vanity table, the armoire door ajar, displaying a pitiful few dresses, a pair of women’s boots—the ones he had given her—beside the chair. A faint scent of apple blossoms hung in the air—her perfume.

  And the mistletoe was still there. She had stepped closer to the fire, but the mistletoe remained above her.

  Enough mistletoe madness for one night. He bowed. “I beg your pardon. I am indeed in the wrong room. I have no idea how I made such a mistake.”

  “Spare me the explanations. Just leave.” She dropped the book onto the chair and turned away.

  He gathered up his coat and candle and returned to the now unlocked door. He paused as he lifted the latch.

  Penelope stood head down, her posture slumped. She looked—unhappy.

  That filmy nightdress which left nothing to the imagination taunted him with the treasure he had lost. He’d planned to apologize tomorrow, but after this latest mistake… “Penny, I want to—”

  “Wait.”

  He set his candle and coat on a nearby table and then leaned back against the panel.

  “I intended to speak to you tomorrow, but you may as well hear this now.”

  She pushed the book aside and sank into the chair. Clasping her hands tightly in her lap, she stared at the floor. “I spoke to Aunt Lydia tonight. She wrote the letter you received, supposedly from my father. She also wrote the one I received, that I believed you had written.”

  She looked up, her eyes misty pools. “Aunt Lydia hates you with an almost demented passion. She hates me, too, because she spent the last four years punishing me for loving you. I should have known something was amiss. She never treated any of her previous companions as badly as she treated me.”

  “The old witch. How she must have gloated when she sent me to Scotland in the dead of winter.”

  She nodded. “My father forbade me to write to you. I sent her the letters, and asked her to forward th
em to you. No wonder you never received them.” The last word ended on a sob and she buried her face in her hands.

  In a flash, he was at her side. He fell to his haunches, and, with gentle fingers, clasped both her hands in his.

  Tears streamed down her cheeks.

  “Do not cry, my love.” He wiped the tears away. “I am so sorry I hurt you. Seeing you with Bray drove me insane. But he and your aunt can no longer come between us, and the past is gone. Can we start anew?”

  She hiccupped. “I love you, Charles.”

  “I never stopped loving you. Marry me?”

  “Yes.”

  He swept her up in a fierce hug. Never would let her go. She was his life and his new beginning, his world forevermore.

  He took her place in the chair and settled her in his lap. She whimpered against his neck and he lifted her chin. “No more tears.” His kiss was an apology and a promise to wipe out all the sorrow of the past.

  Much later, they sat with their arms tight around each other, the hissing fire casting an orange glow over them.

  He nuzzled her hair.

  She smiled as she raised her face for his kiss.

  A horse neighed outside.

  A question entered her eyes. “Why would anyone travel now?” With a quick peck to his nose, she hopped from his lap and ran to the window. After she swept the drapes aside, she rubbed the frost off the pane.

  Charles gave an irritated snort. He didn’t care about anything or anybody outside this room. But he followed her and cleared a wider area of the glass with his shirt sleeve.

  The storm had passed. Starry pinpricks twinkled in an onyx sky, and the fat, lopsided orb of the almost full moon silvered the snow.

  In the shadows by the stables, a man helped a woman into a gig. As soon as the lady had seated herself, the man ran around the rear of the vehicle and then jumped up into the driver’s side.

  The lamp by the stable door lit the woman’s smiling countenance.