It hung up in the vee of a branch ten feet above their heads.
“Are you going to climb up and pull it out of the branches?”
“I will if you want me to.” He was already packing another ball, but he was looking at her. Between them, snow descended slowly in distinct points. His eyes were startlingly blue in the colorless white. “I like your work, Nugator.”
He truly did know everything. “You read my book Improba?”
“And Criso, the second book. I enjoyed them immensely. The part where Laia locks Terentius out of the bathhouse, naked. And the scene with the lettuce . . .” He shook his head, shedding snowflakes. “You’re a delight.”
For more than a year she’d written very naughty verse, in Latin, under the name Sutela Nugator. Verse that pretended to be previously undiscovered classical writing. She gave an English translation and provided footnotes in stuffy academic language. Her publisher illustrated with tasteful lithographs of the more explicit Roman statuary.
That was why she’d been in York. She’d spent the last two weeks with the artist, discussing illustrations for the next book.
“I’m still getting used to the idea.” He grinned, looking boyish. “All that wonderful, scandalous verse. Yours.”
“It’s not scandalous.” She thought that over. “Well, the Latin is, but the English half is formal and sedate and uses the Latin words when it isn’t. My publisher says men buy the books for the lithographs, anyway. The Latin is there to make the pictures respectable, so he can sell them.”
“Every Latin scholar in the kingdom owns Improba.”
“It’s a hoax. We all but admit it in the preface.”
“Maybe, but every student at university has it, and every schoolboy who can get his hands on a copy.” He was chuckling, so his shoulders shook, but his aim was straight. He caught the mistletoe in his hands as it fell. “That’s it. We’ve collected the magic of the holiday and scooped it up before it hit the ground. Our mistletoe is just full of pagan power. Here, give me that.” He dropped mistletoe onto the pile of holly she carried, then relieved her of the lot. “This is surprisingly prickly. Let’s get inside. If you’re not freezing, I am.”
“We will return to the inn and strew every flat surface with holly. We will drink wassail, which I think is rum punch at this particular inn. Possibly we will sing.”
“Always something exciting.” He talked over his shoulder. “Everyone in Oxford thought you were the quiet, deep sort, Elinor Sutela Nugator.”
“It’s classical Latin. With footnotes.”
“I think, all that time in Oxford, you were pretending to be something you aren’t.” He sounded pleased. He walked in front of her, so she couldn’t see his face.
The others, back in the stand of hollies, stacked branches red with berries, calling advice and triumph back and forth. Miss Trimm and Jeanne were there and the shy Timothy, housemaids and servants, even Mr. Broadleigh, who was particularly full of admonition. Jack stopped to send two husky fellows after more mistletoe, then took the path back to the inn.
She followed him. Out of the woods, out in the open again, they were small beneath the tremendous, hovering sky. They crossed the smooth indentation that was the road. There were no wheel ruts here, but a few horses had passed in the last few hours. She didn’t envy whoever had to be out on horseback today.
In the inn yard, dozens of journeys from stable to house marked the snow. A well-beaten track veered off to the back wall, where peats were stacked in a long battlement, high as the withers of a horse.
Jack didn’t head for the front door and the fire in the common room and the bowl of hot punch the innkeeper had promised. He led her around to the back of the inn.
The Laughing Wench sprouted additions like so many mushrooms. The shed-roofed room at the back was an example. Jack shoved snow from the step with his boot and managed, despite all that prickly holly, to pull the door open. He leaned against it, holding it back for her to walk by.
It was a small familiar act, Jack holding the door for her. She had a sudden, vivid memory of Jack kissing her in the doorway of the house in Oxford. It had been the long, warm twilight of summer, and neither of them willing to let go and say goodnight.
Cold wind pushed at her back. When she brushed past Jack, he was close enough that she felt his breath on her face.
Inside it was a few degrees warmer. This was a narrow room, empty and utilitarian, with flagged floor, a long, wooden bench, and one high window set asymmetrically in the wall. Boots and clogs lined up on one side under the pegs where maids hung their cloaks.
Jack lifted his armful of greenery to the shelf above the bench and stowed it out of the way. Dark green and red of the holly jumbled with the oval leaves and white berry of mistletoe.
“We used to do this when I was growing up,” Jack said. “Holly and ivy and a Christmas pudding in the rectory. A Yule log up at the manor.” He brushed the sleeves of his coat, where the holly had been. “Life was a good deal less complicated before I started chasing spies. One of them’s disporting himself out in the snow right now. I wish I knew who. And somewhere about the place, I have a coded message to find.”
She could say this much: “It wasn’t in the bonfire this morning. He burned everything else in sight, but not the code.”
“Not a chance. That was pure theater, for my benefit. Since he left York he’s had time to move the list from the paper it was on. Now it’s something we won’t recognize.” He had his gloves off while she still tugged at the fingers of hers. He shrugged out of his greatcoat and slung it casually on a peg. Dropped his hat on top of that. He came over and began work on the buttons down the front of her coat, slipping them loose as fast as a maid shelling peas.
She said, “It will be a new code altogether maybe. Numbers, if it was letters. Letters, if it was numbers. He’ll write it in the lining of a coat or roll it up and hide it in the sole of his shoe. He’s walking around on it even now.”
He opened another button. “Give me six months and I’ll make a first-rate spy out of you. I went through everybody’s luggage after breakfast and didn’t find anything. It’s here somewhere.”
“He’s clever, whoever he is. He knows what you are. The minute you walked into the inn, something you did, something you said, gave you away.”
“I don’t think so. I’m careful.” He worked his way down her coat. Bits of snow fell where the buttons had frozen in place.
“Then he knows you by sight.”
“That’s possible. He might have seen me in France, or testifying in court in London. I don’t spend all my time in Oxford, betraying classical scholars. No, you don’t.” He grabbed her. “Don’t push away from me.”
She would have stalked off, wrapped in dignity and anger. Strong hands held her. Turned her to him impatiently. “You’re the only woman I’ve ever betrayed. You’re also the only woman I’ve ever loved. One woman. You.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“We’re going to finish this.” He didn’t let go.
“I ‘finished this’ a long time ago.”
“I didn’t. I never had the chance. I wasn’t even sure you were alive.” The pain in his voice swept right into her. There was no distance between them. He’d taken it all away. All the barriers, gone. “There’s no bloody corner in this inn where we can be alone. I have to say all this in a miserable little closet. Lift your chin.”
“No.”
He tapped her under the chin. “Yes.” And he was picking at her bonnet strings where they’d frozen together. “I betrayed you. That’s where we start.”
“What do you want me to say?” She’d thought he couldn’t hurt her any more. She was wrong. “You did what you had to do. You want me to forgive you? Fine. I forgive you.”
“And you say I tell lies. Elinor, Elinor, I’m an amateur next to you.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I don’t want you to forgive me in that tight little voice,
dammit. Be angry if you want to. Be furious. Find a knife and carve my heart out. Hate me, but stop being polite. Why do they make these ribbons all small and fiddly this way?”
No words. There were no words in her, just rage and ragged breathing. If she’d had a knife handy, she might have obliged him with that hole in his chest.
He said, “Nobody can get your hat off once this tying-on affair gets wet. I can take a gun apart, clean it, and reload with my eyes closed. There’s no reason I can’t . . . ah . . . That’s got it.” A few brisk tugs and he tossed her hat down on the bench. “I’m the same man I always was. Look at me, for God’s sake.”
She wouldn’t be cowardly. She raised her head.
He hadn’t changed. A tanned face. Brown hair. A heavy brow and emphatic nose. Feature by feature, he was the same, except that his eyes were grim and tired. The Jack Tyler of Oxford had always been laughing.
This was Jack, the man she’d loved . . . and he was more. Strength she’d only guessed at. Hardness and power. Experiences she’d never imagined. This was Jack Tyler without the mask, freed from acting a lie. What she’d felt for him once seemed pale compared to these new possibilities.
“No more being polite.” He stripped her coat off her, peeling it down her arms. He tossed that on the bench behind her. “No more smiling and counting the minutes till you get back in the coach and roll away and never see me again.” Behind him a black wool shawl hung on one of the pegs. He flicked it free. “Borrow this. Don’t freeze while I talk to you.” He wrapped her inside, and his hands stayed on her when he was done.
She shook her head. She wasn’t sure what it meant when she did that.
He said, “I’m sorry. Not just for the lies. I should have stayed your friend back in Oxford. Just a friend. I shouldn’t have loved you and let you love me back. It wasn’t the right time for either of us.”
“I didn’t love you.”
The ghost of a smile crossed his face. “Yes, you did. We were honest about that, you and I. What we had . . .” He set two fingers where the black shawl crossed over her heart. “It’s still here, waiting for us to take it back. This time, it’s going to be better. We can make this right.”
He let his fingers rest there, rising and falling with her breath. It was more intimate than a kiss. Only lovers touched each other this way.
Tension built inside her. It wasn’t anger. It was a restless, hungry need to pull him to her and consume him, mouth to mouth. She hadn’t stopped wanting him.
The moment to push him away came and passed.
He smoothed his knuckles across her cheek. “Look up there. Do you see? The mistletoe.”
She looked up and saw tightly furled, glossy green leaves. Waxy white berries.
“Do you know why couples kiss under mistletoe? When you bring mistletoe down to the earth, that’s the first time it’s ever touched anything but the air and the branches of a tree. It’s magic. They’ve known that for a thousand years. Let me start over with you, Elinor.”
She didn’t say “yes.” But it was there, somewhere inside her.
She watched Jack read the nuances of her face and body and understand the featherweight of that small, almost “yes.” She’d missed that more than anything else—the absolute certainty that Jack understood her.
The shawl was cold from hanging in the hall here. He fed warmth through it where he stroked smoothly up and down her arms. She recognized persuasion. Softly, he kissed her.
Her hands tightened in the fabric of his jacket and she kissed back.
She had the strange feeling that time hung suspended. It was as if past and future had released their hold on her. As if she were free to be anything she chose.
Deliberately, she let the anger drain away. She lost herself in the sensation of Jack’s warmth and strength. His jaw was rough with bristle even a few hours after he had shaved. His skin was still cold from being out in the wind. His teeth nipped at her lips. This Jack, the real one, was more demanding than the man she remembered. More exigent. More sure of himself.
And she was no longer the sheltered girl she had been. Shuddering, she took every kiss and gave it back. Traded back every caress.
The inn filled with raucous whistles and cries of a dozen voices. Everyone had returned.
He held her face between his palms. “You take my breath away.”
Someone yelled for Jack. Someone else called her name. There was laughter and speculation and more laughter.
He said, “Pretty soon, I’ll get you someplace we can exchange ten words in private. Here. Take some of the greenery. I’ll carry the stickery stuff.”
They went toward the jollity, reluctantly, before it came looking for them.
Chapter 6
Elinor carried the last of the ivy upstairs to the bedchamber she shared with the others. Jeanne, hidden behind her own armload of holly and mistletoe, said, “Let us toss this on the mantle as if it were feed scattered for chickens and consider the matter done.”
“Properly.” Elinor imitated Miss Trimm’s voice. “It must be proper.”
“Whatever we do, she will come and change it around.”
“Very true. Set it down here.” Elinor tossed ivy onto the coverlet of the bed.
“You will get your blanket dirty.” But Jeanne let the holly fall beside the ivy. Ivy to the left, holly to the right.
Downstairs, they were singing noisily. There were meat pies and ale and the smell of dinner cooking. Miss Trimm was in the kitchen making elaborate decorations from gilt paper that had been dug up from the attic. Jack had made himself comfortable near the fire. He’d watched her like a hawk, waiting for . . . she didn’t know what. Some sign. He wanted that “yes” she felt bobbing around inside her, nearly ready to emerge.
When she’d wandered close to Jack, every eye in the place fastened on them. So she’d avoided him, and that was watched just as carefully.
She laid ivy across the mantle, turning it here and there so the leaves pointed outward, all neatly in the same direction. Organized ivy.
Jeanne went to the dresser and took her hair down to brush. “I will take a small nap, I think. I have had an exhausting day. There was much to be accomplished.”
“Holly and ivy,” she said. “Like the song.” Long, floppy sprays of ivy made the background. The holly was a more complex beast, all brown twigs, leaves that were not cooperative, and red berries scattered at random. She put some up and took it down again. Shifted a little branch to the left. Set another one just so.
Jeanne said, “You were alone with Monsieur Jack for some time. We are all interested. No. Do not say anything. I do not pry. I will admire your art of greenery instead.”
“The trick is to use all of it. If I don’t, Miss Trimm is going to find something else that needs holly on it.” She didn’t have the least idea what to say about Jack. “Is that even on both sides, do you think?”
Jeanne looked in the mirror, braiding her hair tight. “It needs more on the left.”
My left, or hers? Or the left in the mirror? Life was full of such conundrums. “I’ll put the mistletoe here. And . . . here. We don’t want it exactly even. It’s more interesting if we make a pattern. What do you think?” She stepped back and considered it from left to right, reading the pattern, as it were.
A pattern of leaves and berries. Different colors make a pattern.
A pattern. Jeanne’s workbag lay on the trundle bed, casually tossed down.
What was it Jack said? “He’ll move the list from the paper it’s on and put it in some other code.” She drew Jeanne’s bag toward her and opened it. Inside was linen cloth and thread with the needles hanging. A woman’s handwork. What could be more open and obvious? She’d watched Jeanne hour after hour in the coach, reading her book and stitching away at her needlework and thought nothing of it.
The code is here. In the embroidery. It had been laid down, stitch by stitch, right under her nose. There would be tiny variations in the direction the thread was set. In
the choice of color. The background was an expanse of white and cream in a pretty, rich, stippling effect. No one would be surprised that the threads seemed laid at random.
Jeanne said softly, “This is very tiresome.”
When she looked up, Jeanne held a small pistol.
Oh, dear. Cold fear pierced her stomach, sharp as an icicle. “You assume I’ve discovered you. You could have been wrong.”
“I am not. You are the only one I watched. The one I stayed close to. If anyone were to uncover and expose me, it would be you. Even the very clever Monsieur Jack Tyler would not see this. Only a woman would have the combination of intelligence and an understanding of matters such as”—the gun indicated the embroidery on the bed—“needlework.”
“It really is exquisite.”
“Thank you. My mother taught me to sew. I have practiced it for exactly such a use. It is not the first time I have used this device, though generally I am not forced to produce my little masterpieces under the watchful eye of half a dozen people.”
“If you shoot me, everyone will hear.”
“That is one of many reasons not to shoot you. I like you, most honestly, and it is Christmas Eve. Also, I have no wish to face an enraged Jack Tyler after I have shot his chosen lady.”
“He’d track you to the ends of the earth.” Jack would do that.
“Very true. And I have only a single shot. Given a choice, I would reserve it for him.”
“I’d rather you didn’t shoot either of us.”
Downstairs, everyone was hoping gentlemen would rest merry and undismayed. She could have used some of that herself.
“Perhaps you will give me my needlework, and allow yourself to be tied up, and I will depart. That will assure that no one at all gets shot.” Jeanne’s eyes were sober. “You understand? I cannot remain, trying to convince you. I swear to you in great seriousness that I could stab you as you stand, nearly as quickly as I could shoot, and in absolute silence. Do not think otherwise.”
A cold shiver trembled down her spine. She backed toward the fireplace.
“I do not wish to earn the enmity of the organization Monsieur Tyler represents. I am trying to think of a way out of this impasse, frankly.”
Mischief and Mistletoe Page 13