The Mistletoe Wager

by Christine Merrill

  But if all went as planned, Elise would be home for good in a few short days, and Rosalind would be faced with a return trip to Shropshire. If he could bide his time until then, Rosalind might be open to possibilities that might prevent her homecoming.

  He grinned to himself. Even if she had doubts about a future with him, it would take only a closed door, some mistletoe, and a few moments’ persuasion to convince her of the advantage in total surrender.

  Elise stared down at the apples floating in the basin and forced a bright smile. Her head still ached, and her eyes felt swollen and sandy from crying. But she had promised herself there would be no more sulking in her room. After last night’s outburst it would not do to let the guests see that she was upset.

  Of course her husband’s continual rejection of her during the game had hurt her. He had known all the girls in the room by touch, and had joked and laughed with them. In his study, he had claimed to want her back. But he had shown no sign of it a moment later. And now she must smile and chat with the women he had hugged as though nothing was wrong.

  She focused her attention on the apples and dipped her face into the water, deep enough so that it lapped at her cheeks, cooling the fire in them. And if, while submerged, she imagined either of the Misses Gilroy, plunged headfirst into the same water until their hair dripped and their gowns were ruined? Then at least no one could see it in her face.

  She caught an apple easily in her teeth, and rose to laughter and applause. She set the fruit on the small table beside the basin, and turned to find Harry right behind her, holding out a towel.

  He grinned at her. ‘Very good, my dear. Very good indeed.’ And she noticed his eyes shift away from her face, lower, to the neckline of her gown.

  She could feel a drop of water sliding slowly down her skin, ready to disappear into the hollow between her breasts. Was it this that was drawing his attention? She took the towel from him. And then, as though she were flirting with a stranger, she offered him a languid hand. He took it, and led her away from the apples.

  She dabbed carefully at her face with the towel, taking care to leave the single drop of water quavering on the swell of her breast. When they reached a quiet corner of the room she paused and looked up, to catch him staring again. For a moment, she expected him to give her a guilty smile to acknowledge that he was behaving improperly, and fix his gaze upon her face. For this was her husband, not Nicholas or some other gentleman of the ton.

  But, although he must know that she had caught him, he continued to stare at her body as though the passage of the water were of the utmost importance to him. He wet his lips like a man parched from too long without a drink, and gave a small sigh of longing as it disappeared from sight. When he met her gaze again, his eyes were a dark, smoky green. And for a moment she was sure that honour, pride and propriety meant nothing to him. Even though they were in a crowded hall, if she gave the slightest of nods he would bury his face between her breasts, find that drop and kiss it away.

  She felt a thrill of desire, just as she always did when Harry looked at her with that strange intensity. But this time it was heightened by abstinence, and the fact that he was admiring her so obviously, in so public a place. If he had been brazen before she’d left she would have scolded him. Told him to wait for evening, until they were upstairs. And he would have laughed and complied with her wishes, banking his desire until they were safely behind bedroom doors.

  But he had been behaving quite unpredictably of late. It was possible she might never again see that look in his eyes. And suddenly dread mixed with desire, and she knew that it was of the utmost importance to hold his interest.

  So she played the coquette, just as she would with a gentleman whose affections were not guaranteed. She touched the skin of her throat with one hand, spreading the fingers until they gave the briefest caress to the track the water had followed, and then traced the neckline of her gown. ‘It is surprisingly warm in the house today, is it not?’

  ‘Indeed.’ His reply was innocent enough, but his eyes followed the progress of her hand.

  ‘The water was most refreshing.’ She smiled at him, gazing through her lashes. ‘I am surprised that you have not taken a turn.’

  ‘Alas, I have no skill in apple-bobbing. But there are other games I prefer.’ His voice was a purr, and the invitation it held was clear.

  Would it be success or failure to give in to desire, just for a night? It would not solve their problems, but at least she would be sure that he still wanted her. ‘But so many games require a partner. It is most frustrating to find oneself unmatched when one wishes to play.’

  ‘Very,’ he agreed.

  She bit her lip and pretended to hesitate. ‘You seemed quite taken with the young ladies of the Gilroy family during yesterday’s game. Perhaps either of them would suit?’ She waited for the assurance that he would much prefer someone else.

  Instead, he said, ‘It is an interesting idea. They are both lovely girls-well-formed, fair of face. And on the whole I find them both to be good company. Too young, of course. Although their mother remarked, after you had left the room, that Lord Gilroy always retires early. I suspect she is also in search of a partner.’ And he glanced away from her, to Lady Gilroy, who was wearing a dress cut far too low for daytime, and bending over the apple barrel to call attention to the fact.

  He looked back to Elise, and she could feel the jealous colour rising in her face, spoiling her efforts to appear coy and detached. ‘It is no business of mine,’ she snapped. ‘I am sure it does not matter who you choose to partner you.’

  He sighed. ‘You are wrong, of course. I’m sure it would hurt some people very much.’

  Me. It would hurt me. Even the thought that Lady Gilroy was interested caused an ache in her heart. It was even worse than seeing Harry’s innocent flirting with her daughters. But she must remember where she was, and the number of prying eyes around her. For she had a shameless urge to grab him by the arm and plead with him to assure her she had nothing to fear.

  He continued. ‘Think of Lord Gilroy, knowing that his wife is eager to give her attentions to another. It is most difficult to suffer in silence.’

  Suffering. He was right to call it that. For now, with each minute they were apart, she would know that he was free, and she would worry that he might choose to exercise that freedom. It did not matter that he did not care for her, nor that there were other women who would be a better wife than she had been. She was overcome with a desperate, selfish desire to have her old life back.

  Harry was staring across the room in the general direction of Lord Gilroy. ‘I suppose it is easier to let people think he does not care than to appear a tired old fool who cannot keep his wife satisfied.’

  Oh, God. Perhaps it meant nothing. Perhaps he was only speaking of Gilroy, and not of himself. If it mattered to him, why had he not spoken? If he truly cared for her, then every smile that she’d given to Nicholas, every dance, every shared laugh, would have been like a knife in her husband’s heart.

  ‘Harry?’ Her voice was shaking, as were her knees. In fact it felt as if her whole body were trembling, afraid of the answers to the questions she must ask him.

  ‘Darling?’ He reached out and took her hand again, gave it a squeeze of encouragement.

  ‘Anneslea!’ Lord Cammerville was tottering over to them, smiling broadly and gesturing with his glass. ‘So good to see you with your lovely wife at your side again.’

  Harry gave a slight bow of pride.

  Elise smiled as well, letting the curses flow in her mind. Why had the fat old toad chosen now to interrupt them?

  ‘And how have you managed to keep that delightful sister so well hidden from society? You are truly fortunate to be surrounded by such beauty.’

  ‘Hardly surrounded, Cammerville. This is the first time I’ve been able to enjoy the company of both of them for an extended period. Rosalind’s father, the Reverend Morley, has very little faith in my ability to watch out for t
he girl, even though it is long past time for him to let her fly the coop.’

  Elise turned her wrath upon the absent Morley. ‘He is very foolish. There can be no better place for her than with you if she wishes an introduction to polite society.’

  Harry gave a surprised smile in response to her small compliment. ‘If you asked her father’s opinion, I doubt it would be the same. I was eight when he married my mother, and he still looks on me as a wilful schoolboy with a decadent upbringing that has permanently flawed my character. Didn’t think much of my late father or his family, I’m afraid. Couldn’t abide Grandfather, who was Anneslea before me.’

  Cammerville laughed knowingly. ‘Tried to cane the title out of you, did he?’

  Harry winced, and laughed in response.

  ‘He beat you?’ Elise stared at him in surprise. For he had never mentioned any such thing.

  ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child,’ Cammerville answered.

  Harry nodded. ‘And Morley was a firm believer in biblical retribution-especially when it concerned the sin of pride.’

  ‘Why did you not tell me?’ It was the wrong time to ask him, in a room full of people. But suddenly it was urgent that she know.

  He considered for a moment. ‘Have I not? Hmm. I thought I had.’ He shrugged in apology. ‘I find I am happier if I do not think on him much. As I am sure he is content not to think of me.’

  ‘Is that why you left home so early? Rosalind said that you found it easier to stay at Anneslea with the old Earl. And that she hardly saw you at all until after she was grown-up.’ She reached out and touched his sleeve.

  He smiled at her in reassurance. ‘That is the way we like to remember the facts, yes. I came to live with my Grandfather Pennyngton because Lincolnshire was closer to my school than our home in Shropshire. It was much easier to come here for holidays.’ He shrugged again. ‘But I suspect that if we measured the distance it would have been a much shorter trip to the rectory, and on roads that were better and less affected by weather. The truth of the matter was Morley would not have me at home, and I had no desire to return. Nothing my mother could say would sway him.’

  ‘That was most unfair of him.’

  ‘I cannot say I blame him overly. By the time I was thirteen I was nearly as tall as he was.’ He gave Cammerville a knowing wink. ‘The day came when I disagreed with his parental advice. So I snatched the stick from his hand and broke it over his back.’

  Cammerville laughed so hard that tears ran from his eyes, and Harry laughed as well.

  ‘You struck him?’ Elise looked at him in continued amazement.

  He must fear that she was angry with him for keeping secrets, for he hurried to say, ‘I doubt that Rosalind has heard that story either. It is one of the many things that we do not discuss in my family. Nor do we dwell on the fact that Morley threw me, bag and baggage, from his house. But that is the real reason I ended up with my father’s family.’

  ‘That is horrible.’ She looked back and forth between his smile and Cammerville’s obvious amusement, and her lip trembled in sympathy for the little boy he had been.

  Harry reached out and laid a comforting hand on her shoulder, as though surprised by her strong reaction to something that had been over and done with for almost twenty years. ‘It was not so terrible. It was quite possible that I earned the punishment he gave me. After Father died I was well on the way to having an uncontrollable temper. Grandfather took me in and put me right. He taught me that one does not need to rage to accomplish what one desires. One can do as much by patience as one ever can with temper.’

  ‘Perhaps you learned too well,’ she murmured. ‘But it was better, if Morley beat you, that you remained away.’

  ‘And in time I demonstrated my improved character to him, and he allowed me home to visit Rosalind.’ He frowned. ‘Of course it was too late to heal some wounds. I only saw my mother once before she died.’

  ‘He separated you from your mother?’ Her voice was an anguished bleat, and Cammerville laughed at her tender heart.

  Harry blinked, and absently brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes. ‘It had to happen eventually, once I went away to school. The miserable old goat brought the whole family up here for Christmas, after I was of age. Of course, he turned around in only a day and rushed them all home again. But I had a very nice dinner with mother and Morley that evening.’ He put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a cautious hug. ‘It was fine, really. And over very long ago. Nothing to be so distressed about.’

  ‘Oh, Harry.’ Now she was both tearful and slightly disgusted with him. And he was giving her such a puzzled look, as though he knew he had done something wrong but had no idea what it might be. Like a lost little boy.

  She stamped her foot, trying to drive the sob back down her throat, and whimpered, ‘Excuse me, Lord Cammervile.’ Then she seized the towel from Harry’s hand and hurried towards the door.

  Behind her, she could hear Cammerville’s explosive, ‘Women, eh? They are an eternal mystery. Is it too early for a brandy, do you think?’

  And Harry’s response. ‘Let us find Rosalind and see where she is hiding it. I feel strangely in need of cheer.’

  Elise hurried into the hall before the tears could overtake her. Of all the times for her husband to open up and reveal his soul it would have to be when they were chatting with one of his more ridiculous friends, in a room full of people. Lord Cammerville must have thought her quite foolish to be near to crying over a story that they thought was nothing more than a common fact of boyhood.

  But not to her. Never had she seen her father raise a hand to Carl. Nor had her brother reason to respond in anger to punishment. And the sight of Harry running a hand through his hair like a lost child, telling her how one mistake had cost him his mother…

  She gulped back another sob.

  ‘Here, now, what is the matter?’ Nicholas reached out and seized her by the arms, arresting her flight. ‘Crying in a common hallway? What is the cause?’ He looked happier than she had seen him in months, but his expression changed quickly to concern.

  ‘I have done something terrible.’

  He looked doubtful. ‘Surely not?’

  ‘I have left my husband.’

  ‘Not again.’ He drew away from her in alarm.

  ‘No. Before. When I left him to come to you, Nicholas.’ And she took him by the arms, trying to get him to listen. ‘I teased him, and it hurt. And then I left him when he needed me.’

  ‘And you have noticed this now?’ Nicholas shook his head in amazement. ‘Very well. And what do you mean to do about it?’

  ‘I do not know. You are a man. Tell me. What can I say to him that will make it all better?’

  ‘Say to him?’ Nick responded with his most rakish smile. He put his hands on her shoulders and looked deep into her eyes. ‘Oh, darling, I doubt you need say anything at all to have a man at your feet. You have but to wait until the guests are safely asleep, and open your bedroom door. You will not need words after that.’

  There was the sound of masculine throat-clearing, and an inarticulate noise of female distress. And then her husband and his sister walked past them, down the hall.

  Harry looked his usual calm, collected self. But Rosalind was nearly overcome with emotion, her eyes darting from Elise, to Nicholas and back, trying to choose whom she should scold first.

  When she slowed, Harry took her by the arm and pulled her along, refusing to let her stop. But as they passed he gave Nicholas an arch look that made the man carefully release Elise’s arms, as though he were taking his finger off the trigger of a primed pistol. Then Harry smiled to his sister, and said, ‘The brandy, Rosalind. Remember the brandy. We shall find a glass for you as well. Your father will not approve, but so be it.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Rosalind’s foul mood continued unabated through dinner, despite the small glass of brandy Harry had given her to calm her nerves. While he’d said it was flattering to have a sister
so devoted to one’s happiness as to be reduced to spluttering rage by the scene of one’s wife and her lover in a position that could be considered by some as compromising, he’d assured her it was hardly a reason to ruin Christmas dinner.

  His assurances that it did not require action had been met with frustrated cries of, ‘Oh, Harry,’ and elaborate threats on her part to chase down Tremaine and make him pay bitterly for his lack of manners.

  A rumour from the cook that the evening’s goose was past its prime and too tough to eat had driven the scene temporarily from her mind, and Harry had made a mental note to reward the kitchen staff generously on Boxing Day for the timely distraction. He had smiled to himself in satisfaction and poured another brandy. For, after seeing the tears in his wife’s eyes over his tragic childhood, he doubted that Tremaine, annoying though he might be, was making as much progress as it appeared.

  After a dinner of goose that had been more than tender enough for his taste, Rosalind stood and announced, ‘Tonight, for those who are interested, we shall have dancing in the ballroom. Come and join us once you have finished your port.’

  Harry followed her out of the dining room and down the hall to the ballroom. ‘If you can still manage a ball, darling, you are a magician.’

  ‘And how so?’ Her gaze was defiant, her smile frozen and resolute.

  ‘There are no musicians,’ he said reasonably. ‘They did not arrive today-probably because of the bad weather. I am certain we can forgo the dancing and no one will mind.’

  ‘It is not the first problem I have had with this party of yours,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘And I doubt it will be the last. But if we cancel the dancing then I will have to find a better activity to pass the evening, and I can think of none. Besides, the room has already been decorated and the refreshments prepared. The servants have moved the pianoforte to the ballroom, and I am more than capable of playing something that the guests can dance to.’