She set the apple core on the tray of a passing servant, and took back the linen she had given him to wipe her hands on it. ‘There is not. The fact of the matter is this: I have no other female relatives, and a father who wishes help with his parish. When I am finished here I will go where everyone expects me to go. Where I am needed.’ She tipped her head to the side. ‘Although I must say the parish would be better off if my father was encouraged to marry the widow who comes to see to the cleaning of the church. She is a very organised woman, and a skilled housekeeper. He is very fond of her. They would make an excellent match.’
‘If this woman is so well suited to your father, then why does he not offer for her?’
‘Because then what would become of me? While the widow is suited to my father, I do not like her at all. And two women under the same roof would be one too many, when those women are not in harmony. Any progress my father has made in finding a new wife will be thwarted by my return home.’
He could not be sure, but he thought for a moment she glanced at him in a most strange way, and the pause before her next words was a touch longer than normal.
‘Unless there is any reason that I should not go back to Shropshire.’
‘When your brother is finished with you he means to send you back to your father, with no care for your future?’ The thought rankled, for it was most sweet to see this girl doing everything in her power to help the brother who cared so little for her.
‘When he presented the idea of a house party, he offered me my pick of the bachelor guests to prevent my flight.’ She glanced around the room and frowned. ‘Of course since he neglected to invite any single gentlemen, it has done me no good to entertain them. I have never seen so many happily married men, so many wives and children.’ She gave another sidelong glance at Tremaine. ‘You are the only unattached man in the house.’
‘That was most unfair of him,’ Tremaine agreed. ‘But do not worry. I am sure when you least expect it you will find someone to suit your tastes.’
‘The men who seek me out are hoping for a moderation in my character.’ She glanced in the direction of Elise. ‘Someone more like my sister-in-law, who has grown in the last few years from a naive and somewhat awkward girl into a polished lady. I, on the other hand, am very much as you found me when we first met: wilful, short-tempered, and prone to acting in haste and following with regret.’
He suppressed a smile. ‘I will admit your personality is more volatile than Elise’s.’
She shrugged. ‘When the men of England come to value volatility over grace and candour over artifice, then I shall have my pick of them. Now, if you will excuse me, I should see to the other guests.’ She walked across the room to Elise, and said something that made the other woman laugh.
He took a moment to admire the two women together, and had to admit they had little in common. Elise’s cool beauty was paired with an equally cool wit. The sort that made a man long to melt the icy exterior and find the warm heart beneath. And Rosalind? Her kisses were as tart as Elise’s were sweet. And her skin and hair tasted of cinnamon and pepper.
He stopped and blinked. It had been years, and yet he could remember everything about that single kiss as though he had stolen it moments ago. With each new sight of her, the past had come flooding back, sharper than ever. She smelled the same, her skin was just as soft, and her face held the same mix of devilment and innocence.
He glanced across the room at Elise, and tried to remember the kisses that he had shared with her the year they’d met. There had been months of dancing, laughter, and a few passionate stolen moments alone. But it was all a vaguely pleasant blur, and not nearly so clear as their time spent in friendship since. Try as he might, he could not sort the incidents of his engagement, supposedly the happiest time of his life, from his time spent with the dozens of other pretty girls he had known before and since.
But he could still remember every moment of the hour he had spent with Rosalind Morley. The way he had felt when he’d looked at her. The way she’d felt in his arms. And how he had known it would be wrong to kiss her and done it anyway. She had positively glowed with an unsuppressed fire, and he had been helpless to resist.
A sensible man would have pulled her out from under the mistletoe that night and sent her home to her father before anything untoward happened. It would have been far better to douse the fiery spirit, even if it had turned her tart wits to bitterness. Only a fool would have leapt into the flames and laughed as he burned.
A fool, or a man in love.
He turned away quickly and took a sip of his drink, hoping for a soothing distraction. But the spices in the mulled wine heated his blood rather than cooled it. Love at first sight. What an utterly prosaic notion. It lacked the sophistication of lust or the banal thrill of debauchery. It was gauche. Naive. A simplistic explanation for a natural physical response to finding a beautiful young girl alone and willing, and taking advantage of the opportunity to kiss her senseless.
And running away had been a natural response as well. He had given little thought to what the girl might have felt over it. She would have given the incident too much significance, since she had nothing to compare it with. He knew better. That brief intimacy, and his resulting obsession with it, was a result of too much whimsy in a season given over to such behaviour. To avoid such revelry in the future was the best way to keep one’s head and prevent further mistakes.
He had ignored the vague feeling that his perfectly acceptable engagement to Elise was a misalliance of the worst sort. And the faint sense of relief he’d felt when Elise had rejected him. The feeling that he was very lucky to be free of it. His subsequent inability to find anyone to suit him better was merely selectiveness on his part. It did not mean that he’d given his heart away on a whim, several Christmases ago, and lacked the courage to find the girl and retrieve it.
He shook his head. This was not an epiphany. This was temporary insanity-brought on by too many parlour games, too much punch, and a severe lack of oxygen from too many nights packed in tight at the fireside next to people who were happier in their lives than he. One did not make life-altering decisions based on a brief acquaintance with a girl, no matter how delectable she might be. And, even worse, one should not make them in the presence of mistletoe.
Should he manage to get clear of his attachment to Elise, if he wished for the change to be permanent he should run and keep running. It would be even wiser to give a wide berth to Harry Pennyngton and all of his extended family.
He took another sip of wine.
His sip became a gulp, and he choked and spluttered on it, gasping to catch his breath.
A hand hit him sharply between the shoulderblades, to help him clear his lungs. And then hit him again out of sheer spite.
‘Anneslea,’ he gasped.
‘None other.’ Harry was grinning at him again, revelling in Nick’s distress. ‘First I see you nearly drown in the apple bucket, and now in a single glass of wine? It is a good thing I am here to take care of you. Heaven knows what might happen if you were left on your own.’
There was probably a double meaning in his words, just as there always was. But suddenly Nick found it impossible to care. He took in a great gulp of air, reached out and took Harry by the shoulders to steady himself, and announced, ‘I am a faithless cad.’
Harry clapped him on the back again. But this time it was in camaraderie. ‘You have realised it at last, have you? Good for you, sir. And a Merry Christmas to you.’ Then he disengaged himself and headed back to the apple barrel.
Nick stared after Harry, wondering if the man had interpreted that as an apology, or just a random statement of fact. Apparently, he had come to some level of self-awareness. But what was to be done about it? If he ran to Rosalind with the news, he was not positive that his discovery would be welcome. And even if it was, he did not dare risk breaking her heart again until he was sure how things would come out.
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.
