He gave an elaborate sigh, to prove that her words had little effect upon him. ‘Very well. I am your humble servant, Miss Morley. What do you require of me now?’
‘Elise is out of temper with Harry again. She looks as if she has not slept a wink. Harry is little better. He appeared at breakfast still in his evening clothes, smelling of brandy.’
‘And what am I to do with that? Make possets and sing lullabies?’
Rosalind smothered the desire to kick him again, and to keep kicking him until she had made her feelings known. She took a deep breath and said, ‘We are having charades. Elise adores the game, and I’m sure she will play to show the world that nothing is wrong. Harry means to remain in whatever room has the punch bowl, so he is easily controlled. I have prepared clues to remind them of the happiness that is married bliss. The game will either leave them in the mood for reconciliation or murder. At this point I do not really care which. Either would solve my problem.’
‘And what do
She narrowed her eyes. ‘You need merely be as you are-incorrigible, irritable and unbearable. Harry cannot help but shine by comparison.’
He sat up and glared back at her. ‘You have no idea what it means to know of your confidence in me. You have decided I’m unbearable, have you?’
She lifted her chin and said, with all honesty, ‘Yes. I have.’
‘I was dragged here against my better judgement. For reasons that have nothing to do with the sincere celebration of the holiday and everything to do with schemes concocted by you and your brother. I am forced to be the bad example so that everyone else may shine. And yet you find fault with my behaviour?’ He had gone white around the lips, and was looking at her with a curious, hard expression, almost as though she had hurt his non- existent feelings.
She shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, and for a moment she was tempted to retreat. But then her anger at him got the better of her, and she retorted, ‘You talk as though you are the injured party in all this. I am sorry, Nicholas, but you are not. In my experience, you are just as I have described you. You are wilful, self-serving, and have no thought to the comfort of anyone but yourself. Because of this, you are finally getting what you deserve.’
He stood up and came near to her. When he spoke, his voice was so soft that only she could hear it. ‘You have a very limited experience where it concerns me.’
She shook her head. ‘I have more than enough.’
He stared at her for a long moment, as though there was something he wished to say. Or perhaps he was awaiting a sign from her.
She glared all the harder, and deepened her frown.
At last, he said, ‘In your eyes I will always be a monster who ruined you and then abandoned you. Very well, then. Let us play-act. And I shall be the villain, since you have cast the parts.’
He stepped past her and stalked to the door. On his way he stopped, looked down at the floor, and scooped up the tattered ball of mistletoe, which was out of place again. Then he turned back, glared at her, and threw the thing into the library fire.
Nick preceded Rosalind into the drawing room and took a place at the back of the room, arms folded. The little chit had all but told him that he was repellent to her, and now expected him to do her bidding like a common lackey. Rosalind Morley had never been anything but trouble to him from the first moment he had laid eyes on her-cutting up his peace, altering his plans, and disappearing in body but remaining stuck in his mind like a burr, a constant irritant to his comfort. He had wondered on occasion what had become of her after they had first parted. In moments of weakness he had even thought about enquiring after her, before common sense had regained the upper hand. If a single dance with her had turned into his life’s most fateful kiss, there was no telling what a casual meeting or a friendly letter might become.
And his fears had proved true. For after only a few days in her company his life had been turned upside down. There she stood at the front of the room, with a false smile on her face, acting for all the world as if she did not even notice him. Which was a total falsehood. He could feel when they were together that she was attracted to him, and he had a good mind to go up there and drag her back to the library, to give her a demonstration of the flaws in his character. No matter what she might claim, once the door was closed it would take only a few moments to prove that her character was no better than his. And afterwards he would have her out of his system and could go back to London in peace.
At the front of the room, Rosalind continued to explain the rules in an excessively cheerful voice that gave the lie to everything he had just seen. ‘First we must choose who is to guess and who is to help with the clues.’ She scanned the crowd. ‘I must stay here, since I already know the answer, but I will need two helpers.’
Elise came to her side immediately, and looked hopefully across the room to Harry.
Harry began to rise unsteadily from his chair. Very well, the two would play nicely together, just as Rosalind wished. But that did not mean that Nick had to waste his time watching over them. He began a subtle retreat towards the door, hoping that Rosalind had forgotten her original plan after his outburst in the library.
But she was ignoring Harry, and had turned her attention to the doorway. ‘Mr Tremaine. You as well, I think.’
So she still meant to involve him in this? He turned back into the room and saw the dark look on Harry’s face before the man collapsed back into his seat with an easy and devious smile. Whatever Rosalind had planned, the results were not likely to be as she expected. Nick strode to the front of the room, conscious of all eyes upon him.
‘The rules are simple,’ Rosalind announced to the group gathered before her. ‘I have a riddle, and the answer is a three-syllable word. If you cannot guess the word from the riddle, we will act out the parts to help you. Here is the riddle:
She passed a folded piece of paper to Elise, and then to Tremaine.
Elise frowned.
Nick read it, then stared at Rosalind. ‘This is a four-syllable word. Not three.’
She gritted her teeth. ‘It does not matter.’
‘I think it does if you mean people to guess the answer.’
She glared at him. ‘And if I do not care for them to guess too quickly,’ she whispered, so that Elise could not hear, ‘it does not matter at all.’
She had that wild look in her eye again, that she normally used on mistletoe. And she was turning it on him. He glared back at her. ‘You are right, it does not matter.’
‘Here, Elise,’ Rosalind said, smiling too brightly. ‘You must take the first clue.’
Elise read the clue again and stepped forward. She stooped to lift an imaginary object and then remove from the ground another, which appeared to be a key. She made a great show of placing it in a non-existent lock and opening an invisible door to step through. There were the expected calls of, ‘Doorknob,’ ‘Enter,’ and Harry’s muttered, ‘Leave.’
‘Don’t be an idiot, Harry,’ Rosalind whispered, loud enough so that everyone could hear. ‘It is clear that she is coming back.’
‘Clear to you, perhaps,’ he responded, looking more sullen than Nick had seen him all week.
Elise frowned in his general direction, and then went back to her play-acting. She pretended to look back over the threshold and notice something on the ground, to go back to it and stare down and carefully wipe her shoes.
Whereupon Harry announced, in a clear voice, ‘Husband.’
Elise’s glare was incandescent, and to stop the outburst that she knew was coming Rosalind announced, ‘I should think it is obvious. The answer is-’
Nick put his hand over her mouth, stopping the word. ‘You cannot make the riddle and give us the answer,’ he announced, giving everyone a false grin. ‘Where would be the fun in that?’
‘Door,’ announced someone in the crowd.
Elise pointed to her feet.
‘Feet.’
‘Shoes.’
