A Mistletoe Masquerade

CHAPTER FIVE

'Did you think of anything last night?'

Lucas's question could not have been better designed to disconcert her. Rowan gave a little gasp, pretended to slip on an icy patch, and was then thrown into even greater disorder by him taking her firmly by the arm.

'Now what have I said?' he demanded, tucking her hand into the crook of his elbow.

She should protest at the fact he was squeezing it against his side rather than letting her rest it on his forearm. But then, he was not a gentleman, however polished his speech and his manner, so perhaps he did not realise that what he was doing was improper.

Rowan shot him a sideways glance as she tried to think of something to say. His face was composed, but there was the faintest curl to the corner of his lips and a twinkle she was becoming familiar with in his eye. He knew perfectly well he was disconcerting her. She tried to ignore the warmth of his body penetrating her leather glove and the recollection of the fleeting heat of his mouth on hers.

'Nothing. It is just that I lay awake too long trying to think of ways to prevent the Earl proposing to Miss Penelope, and I'm tired and clumsy this morning.'

'Any ideas?'

'I told her to confess to him about her fatal addiction to wagering and how she is always outrunning her allowance as a result.'

Lucas grinned appreciatively. 'That's a good one. I don't suppose she can have a fatal addiction to card play or dice as well?'

'Miss Penelope? Goodness, no, she can hardly remember the basic rules, let alone put on a convincing show as a hardened gamester.'

'That's what you were trying to hint about when we met in the brushing room, wasn't it? You thought you could drop hints to me and I would run back to Danescroft with the tittle-tattle.'

'Well? Did you? I can see that you did.'

'Your remarks about Miss Maylin's stepmother wrought most effectively upon him.'

'Excellent! What did he say to the idea of her living with them after the wedding?'

''Over my dead body,'' Lucas quoted with some relish.

'Oh. I suppose he is more than capable of enforcing that sort of decision,' Rowan brooded as they neared the edge of the coppice that filled one corner of the park and separated the church, graveyard and vicarage from the estate.

In front of them the upper servants walked in pairs, Sunday best muffled under shawls and scarves. Behind

them the lower servants straggled, a less disciplined crocodile, with the pair of giggling boot boys bringing up the rear.

'Why did he not put his foot down with his late wife?' she asked.

'Because the sense of betrayal was so great, I imagine. She broke his heart: dragging her away and locking her in was not going to bring back the woman he had thought he loved, was it?'

'No. I suppose not.' Rowan was shaken by the force of feeling in Lucas's words. 'Would you do the same thing? Turn a blind eye if it were your wife?'

'No. In his shoes I would kill her lover and lock her up on my most dreary and remote estate,' he said, with a smile that was pure ice.

There was not a great deal one could say to that. Rowan wondered just how a vengefully inclined valet would go about disposing of a rival. A gentleman would demand a duel, but Lucas was not a gentleman. Where, exactly, had he been when the late Lady Danescroft met her end? Lucas might have only become Lord Danescroft's valet after the murder, but he seemed strangely partisan for such a short acquaintance. She gave herself a little shake for giving way to such lurid Gothic imaginings. But there was a mystery here.

The group in front of them had slowed to pass through the gate that led into the coppice.

'Oh, look,' Lucas murmured. 'A kissing gate.' And so it was. A small gate hinged to move within a vee-shaped enclosure so that only one person at a time could squeeze through and stock or deer would not be able to move through it. The Steward was holding it for the housekeeper to pass, standing well back. But, as Rowan knew perfectly well, if the person holding it stood close enough they could snatch a kiss with ease.

'There has been all the kissing there is going to be,' she murmured back. 'If it were not that I need your help for Miss Penelope I would not be walking with you now, believe me.'

'I said a kissing gate.' Lucas managed to look convincingly shocked. 'I said nothing about intending to kiss you, Miss Daisy.'

'Good,' she retorted, furious with herself for betraying what she had been thinking about.

'Not in front of the entire Upper and Lower Halls, at any rate,' he added, freeing her arm and slipping through the gate to hold it open.

The presence of a gaggle of housemaids at her heels prevented Rowan from verbal or, more temptingly, physical retaliation. She ignored his proffered arm and continued on her way, both hands clasped with pious poise around her prayer book.

There was no possibility of further plotting, flirtation or quarrelling once the churchyard was reached. The housekeeper, Mrs Tarrant, gathered the female staff around her, reminding Rowan irresistibly of a mother hen with a large brood. After running a gimlet eye over them she led the way into the church and up the left-hand set of stairs into the gallery. The male staff trooped in, following the Steward, and took the right-hand flight.

It had never occurred to Rowan before to think what a perfect bird's-eye view the servants up aloft had of the pews below. There, in the box pews that seemed so private and enclosed to the occupants, the family and guests of the Tollesbury Court were taking their seats, while the village notables filed into their places.

And Christmas was coming. In the bustle of life below stairs she had lost sight of the reason for the house party. Now, seeing the nave decked with evergreen boughs, and trailing ivy and holly bunches hung on every pew door, she realised that this would be her first English Christmas for two years. What would it be like in the servants' hall? Would there be plum pudding and a Yule log? Hot punch and merrymaking?

Her attention was caught by Penny's entrance on the arm of Lord Danescroft. A short woman in a fashionable bonnet was with them; it must be Penny's godmother, his grandmother Lady Rolesby, who was promoting the match. The Earl held open the pew door and ushered the ladies in, assisting them to find their hassocks and prayer books. Heads turned to watch until they were seated and only the tops of their heads showed above the panelled walls. But from high above Rowan could see the occupants of the other pews leaning together to hiss a few words of gossip about the sight of plain little Miss Maylin and her scandalous catch.

She leaned in her turn, craning to catch a better glimpse of Lord Danescroft. Beautiful, Penny had called him. Sensitive. All she could see was his height and the top of a well-barbered dark head. If she could not manage to get a better look at him when they left church then she would have to find another way to view him. It ought to be possible to tell something from studying his face-the way he looked when he spoke to Penny, the way he comported himself with other people.

Mrs Tarrant was frowning at her. Returning an apologetic smile, Rowan straightened up, but not before she caught Lucas's eye. What is he staring at? she thought, already flustered at being caught out behaving inappropriately by the housekeeper. He winked, upsetting her precarious decorum, and she bit her lip hard in an effort not to dissolve into giggles.

Mortified, she opened her prayer book and made herself concentrate. She, Lady Rowan Chilcourt, behaving like a kitchen maid in church! The hassock was hard and lumpy under her knees: a just penance for her frivolity, she told herself sternly.

Her deportment for the duration of the service was perfect. Descending the staircase afterwards, Rowan determined to maintain her ladylike poise, whatever Lucas's provocation might be. Unfortunately for this worthy ambition the first thing she saw when she walked out into the snow-covered churchyard was Lucas, and the second Penny standing talking to Lord Danescroft.

'Bother it,' she muttered under her breath.

'What?' Lucas was at her side.

'Him. Lord Danescroft. Penny was right. He is beautiful.'