As the play began, recited in rhyming couplets, Pen let herself look for Ross and for her rival. Cassandra was sitting beside her mother, which was bad of her, for she hardly needed the comfort of a chair. She looked delightfully peevish, probably because Ross was nowhere near her. Where was he?
Then the Turk approached her, declaring,
“Now here’s an English maiden, it would seem
Ideally suited for my infidel hareem!”
He made to grab her, and Cassandra screamed, flailing at his hand.
Amid laughter, Robin Hood leapt to the rescue.
“Unhand the wench, you dragon-loving beast!
You’ll take no Englishwoman to your hareem feast.”
The play moved on to interact with others, but Cassandra was in tears and her mother led her away.
“What a widgeon,” Julia said. “As if she was in any danger.”
“Serves her right for sitting with the older people,” Azure said, “presenting such a juicy treat. I wish he’d tried to raid up here.”
“He normally does,” Julia said, “and we make a play of it, the chosen maiden pretending to be afraid and calling for help. It goes on a little while.”
Pen felt sorry for Cassandra, who hadn’t been prepared, but if she’d ended up in that situation she wouldn’t have reacted so foolishly.
“Here comes Robin Hood’s song,” Julia said. “We all join in the refrain.”
All the mummers, in their motley costumes, began a stamping dance in a circle around the knight.
“So here’s a knight from distant lands
Come here to eat us all-oh!
But Robin Hood so bravely stands
To defend us all, forever-oh!”
Robin Hood turned to the audience to encourage everyone to join in.
“And it matters naught who assails our land,
French, Dutch, or Spanish, or dragons-oh!
True men of England will always stand,
To defend us from invasion-oh!”
Next came a verse about the French, with references to Napoleon worked in, and everyone belted out the refrain with particular vigor. Pen realized that Azure was singing “true women of England,” so in the next refrain, after a verse about the Armada, she did the same.
But then she whispered to Julia, “Where’s Ross?”
“Gone to soothe Miss Gable-Gore?”
Pen searched the room frantically. Could he really be doing that, and perhaps being inveigled into a formal proposal? She shifted to work backward and escape. Ross wasn’t going to be caught in Cassandra Gable-Gore’s sticky web. . . .
Julia grabbed her arm. “Don’t leave now. It’s the fight!”
Insisting would create another scene, and surely minutes wouldn’t matter.
Robin and the Turk were fighting with a great clashing of wooden swords. Robin slew the dragon, which rolled to lie on its back, legs in the air. The Turk fought on, however, until Robin tripped him and drove his sword through his heart. Or, in fact, between arm and chest.
Everyone applauded, the dead came to life, and the mummers began their begging song to end the event.
“At Christmas be merry and thank God for all,
And feast thy poor neighbors, the great and the small.
Yea, all the year long have an eye to the poor,
And God shall send luck to keep open thy door.”
Baskets were passed and the gentlemen all tossed in coins—Lord Skerries was particularly generous....
But then Pen noticed the Turkish Knight. He’d taken off his helmet, which had the black hair attached, and was peeling off the mustache and beard. It was Ross!
Julia laughed. “I knew you’d not want to miss that. He’s been playing that part for years. Come on.”
She led the way down the stairs and through the crowd where guests were admiring and rewarding the mummers, but by the time they reached the other side, Ross had gone.
“He’ll be changing back to English gentlemen,” Julia said. “Come along to the drawing room. We’ll play charades soon.”
Pen smiled, but said, “I really do need to go to my room.”
She saw Julia understand that she needed the chamber pot and not try to delay her, then she was free to hurry upstairs. There was no enduring this longer.
True women of England will always stand
To defend us from invasion-oh!
Cassandra Gable-Gore was a vile invader to Cherryholt and must be opposed. Ross Skerries was Pen’s man, and must be won. After that kiss, there was only one way to bring the matter to the point—another, and much more passionate, kiss.
Pen knew which room was Ross’s, for as the heir and only son he’d moved down from the schoolroom area at twelve. In innocent youth they’d often gone to his room to discuss a plan, or inspect a captured insect with his microscope.
Perhaps it was those memories that made her walk in without knocking. “What on earth were you doing to upset . . . ?”
She froze, dry-mouthed, at sight of his bare chest. He still wore his breeches, fair enough, and stockings below, but he was stark naked from the waist up.
Chapter 9
“What on earth are you doing?” he asked, but mildly. Then he added, “If you’re coming in, come in.”
Dazed and dumbstruck, Pen shut the door behind her.
“You have a complaint?” he prompted. Was he looking amused, damn him?
Pen straightened and pulled herself together. “You should have known better than to terrify Cassandra Gable-Gore like that.”
“I’m surprised you leap to her defense.”
“I . . .” Pen abruptly remembered her purpose in coming here. It was a great deal harder when confronted by a half-naked man, especially one whose half-nakedness was so splendidly . . . masculine, with the outline of muscles and . . .
She jerked her eyes up to his. He was laughing at her!
“You can’t marry her,” she said, then winced. That wasn’t how she’d meant to put it.
“Why not?” he asked, picking up his shirt from the bed.
No, don’t put it on yet.
“She doesn’t suit Cherryholt.”
“Is that my main duty?” he asked, simply holding the shirt.
“It has to be a principal duty, yes. I don’t know why you’re even considering her.”
“Temporary madness.”
He’d spoken softly, and she wasn’t quite sure she’d understood.
“Temporary?” she asked.
“Perhaps a different madness,” he amended thoughtfully. “Why is this your cause, Pen?”
She remembered her purpose, her bold purpose. It had seemed simple when it had shot into her mind like lightning. Now, here, it wasn’t simple at all, but it was the only way. She couldn’t endure uncertainty anymore.
She walked up to him. “Kiss me.”
He glanced up. “No mistletoe.”
“We don’t need mistletoe. Kiss me, Ross.”
“No,” he said. “You kiss me.”
She frowned into his eyes, surprised to find them guarded.
Very well. It wasn’t so huge a challenge, except that she felt she should put a hand on his arm or shoulder, but they were bare, and she couldn’t.
She went on tiptoe and kissed him.
“A mistletoe kiss,” he said, but smiling now. “You can do better than that.”
That was a challenge, a true challenge. She put one hand on his shoulder, his warm naked shoulder, and the other at his nape to draw down his head. Then she tilted her head as she put her lips to his, parting her lips in invitation.
He accepted, pulling her tight against him and deepening the kiss so they seemed sealed together. Plighted. Betrothed.
She’d never been kissed so passionately in her life.
He tumbled them onto the bed and was over her, between her sprawled legs but with layers of cloth safely between them. The position made hot kisses even more delicious, though, and when they rolled so she was on
top, it was even better.
She looked down at his bright, bronze eyes and ran fingers through his short, springy hair. “You see. You can’t marry her. It wouldn’t be right.”
“After this, the only right course would be for me to marry you.”
“Yes!” But then she had qualms. “No, Ross. I’ll never tell, and we’ve not done anything truly . . . committed. So you mustn’t feel . . .”
“Idiot,” he said, and pulled her head down so he could kiss her again, rolling them again until she was trapped beneath him. He gripped her wrists on either side of her head.
“It seems to me we should do something that would be truly committed.”
Pen felt her eyes stretch wide. “What?”
“We’re going to marry, yes?”
“That’s not quite . . .”
“Backing out already, Miss Breakheart?”
Hurt, she struggled, but she couldn’t get free. “Let me go!”
“No, never. That’s the point, Penelope Brockhurst. You said yes, you agreed that we should marry, and this time you’re not getting cold feet about it.”
“I will if I want,” she spat, “and there’s nothing you can do about it!” His earlier meaning suddenly stuck her. “Even if you rape me, you . . . you . . .”
He let her go and rolled off the bed. “Of course I wouldn’t do that.”
Pen scrambled to a kneeling position. “No? What else did you mean, then?”
“That we could do what we want so much to do, that’s all! Admit it, Pen. Why else did you come here?”
She tried to hold the glare, but he knew her too well, and she was too honest to fight it. “I came here to win you, yes. You’ve been driving me mad these past days.”
He surged forward to lean arms on the bed, his face only inches from hers. “You’ve been driving me mad for years! I’d pluck up my courage to try my luck, and you’d commit yourself to some other man!”
“I . . . Why did you never say anything?”
“I do have some honor, you know. I couldn’t pursue a woman pledged to another.”
“What about Miss Gable-Gore?”
“I have a duty to the line, to fill a legitimate nursery, so I decided to put an end to the madness. She seemed suitable.”
Pen sat back on her heels. “I’ve been very slow, Ross. I’m sorry. I chose men who seemed suitable, and then I couldn’t do it, but I didn’t know why. I hardly ever saw you in the past years,” she added in defense.
“And I couldn’t believe you’d be interested in a rough-and-ready type like me. Is it my improved appearance that’s made the difference?”
“What? No! I do like your hair short, but it makes no difference to me.” He’d opened his heart to her, and she knew she must take the same brave step. “You weren’t so elegantly turned out in Oxford Street, but that’s when I really knew.”
“You were betrothed to Thretford.”
“I broke it off the next day.”
“Before I heard that, I invited the Gable-Gores here for Christmas.”
“I resolved never to accept another man’s offer.”
“Does that include mine?”
She smiled. “No.”
He touched her chin. “Another broken promise.”
“That’s not fair!”
“Fair or not, I’ll have your word, Pen. Here, now, just the two of us. That from this moment it will be as if we were married, till death do us part, with no possibility of breaking the bond.”
“Ross!” she objected, tears in her eyes. “I’d never jilt you.”
“You can’t blame a man for being nervous about it. Your promise, Pen.”
“In blood, then,” she said. “Remember how we did that once—made a blood pact over something? We’ll seal it in blood.”
He laughed and went to his desk to return with a pen knife. “Just as we did before?”
Pen remembered, and went hot at the thought. At thirteen their toes had often been naked as they waded in streams or even ran across dewy grass, and a nick in a toe would only be what adults were always warning about.
Toes were still not terribly risqué, but she continued to blush as she untied a garter and rolled down her right stocking.
“Green stripes,” he said, “and a red garter. How deliciously Yulish—and bold.”
Pen glared at him, still hot-faced, but at the look in his eyes she couldn’t help but grin. “And even pagan?”
“A man can always hope.”
He pulled a chair close to the bed and took off the white stocking on his right leg. Then he jabbed the point of the blade in the outside of his big toe. He held out his hand and she put her heel into it. She winced as he stabbed her, but then they pressed their cuts together.
“Bound in blood,” he said, as he had in the past, “never to be parted.”
Pen smiled at him. “A bit tricky to dance if we stick together like this.”
“And tricky to do other things.” He had his handkerchief at the ready, and when they parted he dabbed the blood away on both.
Pen pulled up her foot to look at the wound. “Stopped bleeding, but if it starts again, how do I explain it?”
“A pin in your shoe.”
He was smiling in a particular way, however, and Pen realized she was sitting on the edge of the bed, right ankle on left knee, showing a great deal that a gentleman wouldn’t normally see. She smiled back before slowly restoring decency.
“And thereto we plight our troth?” he said.
Pen slid off the bed. “Stop this, Ross. I only jilted those other men because they weren’t you! It’s always been you.”
He took her hands. “It’s always been you, but we men are often even slower than you women. My parents will be delighted. I hope your mother will be, too.”
“Of course. She adores your mother and Cherryholt.”
“I was thinking that she might like to come to live here once we’re married. I know there’s Lowell Manor, but I don’t have the impression it’s a true home.”
“Oh, I’m sure she’d love that! Bother it, you’ve made me cry, you wretch. I’m not a watery sort of female.”
He hugged her. “I know that. You see, everything falls into place when the central pin is inserted. We are that pin.”
“What of Cassandra?”
“I’m sorry for any dashed hopes, but she’ll find a man more in tune with her nature, especially with her handsome portion.”
“You don’t mind that mine’s small?”
“I’d take you without a shilling and consider myself the most fortunate of men.”
“Tears again! But you surprise me with your eloquence, indeed you do!”
“You bring out the gift in me. But we really should return to the company before a search party is sent.”
Smiling, they separated to restore their clothing. Pen delighted in adjusting his cravat, even though he probably didn’t need her help.
“Do we tell anyone?” she asked.
“What better way to celebrate Christmas? Anyway, love, I doubt we can hide it as we both have stars in our eyes.”
She went into his arms, simply resting there, in the most perfect place in the world. “I’m not sure I deserve to be this happy. I came here to win you.”
“Did you?” He tilted her chin up to his. “Then may I claim a forfeit?”
“That depends what it is.” But then she said, “No, I’ll not constrain you. I deserve a penance.”
“I hope it won’t be that, but will you grow your hair again?”
“My hair? It makes me look like a Restoration rake.”
“Then perhaps I have a taste for Restoration rakes.”
“That, sir, would be decidedly off. But if you insist, then yes. It’ll take years, but I’ll grow it down my back again and suffer the consequences.”
“And the pleasures. I’ll adore you hair, all tangled around your enchanting, naked splendor.”
Pen was dry-mouthed again, and hot in a different way
, with a burning desire she’d never experienced before. She glanced toward the bed.
He took her hand and dragged her to the door. “Come, wench, but of your mercy, name a date soon.”
Pen let him tow her out into the corridor. “With a Special License, we could be wed by Twelfth Night.”
And so they were, and the mummers returned to celebrate the union, playing lovers’ parts this time. Robin Hood had his Marian, and King Arthur his Guinevere. Saint George had his princess, and King Edward his Eleanor.
Pen and Ross said their vows beneath the mistletoe in the hall, on which one berry had been preserved to permit the couple’s first married kiss.
The company enjoyed the Twelfth Night feast, and everyone was in the merriest spirits because the sour note—the Gable-Gores—had left on Saint Stephen’s Day, complaining that they found the pagan nature of Cherryholt uncomfortable.
After the feast, Lord Skerries and some of the other men went out to fire guns in the orchard to salute the trees and ensure good harvest in the coming year, but by then Pen and Ross were in their marriage bed, hoping for a harvest of another side.
“Perhaps there’ll be a child here next year,” Pen said, contentedly in her husband’s arms. “The perfect addition to Christmastide in the country.”
INTRIGUE AND MISTLETOE
Joanna Bourne
Chapter 1
Snow came down in flakes the size of cake crumbs. Determined snow. Heavy, abundant, enthusiastic snow that had finally blocked the progress of the York-to-London coach with drifts the height of a full-grown man. Stubborn snow that showed no signs of stopping.
Elinor Pennington followed the dark shape of Mr. Broadleigh’s back down the narrow path cleared to the front door of the inn, watched her step on the packed ice, and sought consolation in the classical philosophers. Despite extensive acquaintance with Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, no useful quotations came to mind. The Romans didn’t have much to say about snow.
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