Mischief and Mistletoe

by Jo Beverley; Mary Jo Putney; Patricia Rice; Nicola Cornick; Anne Gracie; Joanna Bourne; Susan Fraser King; Cara Elliott

  “An excellent idea, thank you. Mack must be extremely proud that you have consented to be his wife. I hope he has been all that he should be as a suitor?”

  She clasped her hands and blinked long lashes, then replied with care, “As far as I’m aware, my lord.”

  That was not precisely the satisfactory answer he was seeking, and Trev’s worry knot twisted tighter. Should not a romantic blushing bride extol the virtues of her groom? Was she having second thoughts already? “Did he warn you that we were likely at sixes and sevens out here? I hope our country ways have not frightened you.”

  She looked quite surprised at that. Trev would have to wring his brother’s neck if he’d promised her roses. Trev didn’t want to be the one to explain to this demure lady that the household lacked the sophistication, decorum, and society to which she was accustomed. That they expected the young couple to live here, within their means, had to be sufficiently daunting. He really didn’t want the lady to run screaming into the night.

  “I have been treated with extreme kindness, my lord,” was her mild reply.

  Trev took a deep breath and decided if Lady Alice wasn’t the shining gem she appeared, he didn’t want to know. “I don’t wish to disturb you any longer. I hope your stay will be less eventful from here on out. Trevelyans are sound riders, and Jonathan MacOwen Trevelyan one of the best. He will arrive as soon as the road clears. Good night, my lady.”

  He bowed out, still a trifle confused but hopeful. The snow had stopped. He’d have messengers galloping to London in the morning in search of his lout of a sibling.

  The viscount had truly not seemed to be an ogre last night, Damaris thought, running her fingers across the fine fabric of Alice’s gown. She had found him breathtakingly gracious and kind. Or perhaps that had just been his charming dimple to which she reacted. He still had every right to fling her into the snow if he discovered she wasn’t an earl’s daughter and brought no money to his coffers. Which he would learn as soon as Jonathan MacOwen arrived. The last of the confusion had been sorted out.

  Despite being perfectly clear that she was a fraud who needed to figure out how to leave as quickly as possible, Damaris hadn’t argued when the luggage arrived and the maid had disdained her practical gray bombazines. Instead, Lady Trevelyan’s maid had delighted in picking through Alice’s fine muslins and choosing a confection in white. The girlish puffed sleeves and pink ribbons looked a trifle silly on Damaris, but she’d covered them up with a colorful kashmir shawl. She was feeling dauntingly rebellious and unlike her usual self.

  “Help! Hide me! She’ll kill me!”

  A blur of blue and soot dashed under Damaris’s bed, leaving the bed curtains swaying. Sitting in a fireside chair, Damaris stopped examining her bruised face in Alice’s hand mirror to stare in dismay from bed to door. She already knew to expect still another visitor to follow. A maid had chased the twins from the room twice this morning. She didn’t think she’d been introduced to the imp now hiding under the bed. A scullery lad, perhaps? What kind of household was this that threatened mayhem on children and servants alike?

  A harried maid arrived in the doorway as expected. “Did Master Georgie come this way, my lady?” she asked with a bob.

  “Would that be the young man covered in soot?” Damaris asked.

  “That would be the rascal, miss,” the maid said. “After his lordship sent Nanny packing, Master Georgie tried to climb the chimney to escape the nursery, and now there’s soot everywhere.”

  He really had thrown out the nanny! Oh, dear. Still, Damaris could not fight the disobedient twitch of her lips. She had often wished she could climb a chimney and fly away. She supposed the scamp ought to be punished, but if she was being willfully deceptive, then she could scarcely condemn a boy for a much more minor infraction. “Did he leave a trail of soot you can follow?”

  “He’s been all up and down the hall and stairs,” the girl said in exasperation. “There’s soot everywhere.”

  “Then when I see him, I shall tell him he must sweep it up.” That was no lie. Perhaps evasions were equal to lies, but Damaris had learned evasion in her first days as a companion. The earl had been difficult, the servants hadn’t accepted her, and she’d had trouble adjusting to her in-between position. Evasion and subservience had made life easier.

  What she would really like was to tell the truth, but that never worked out well in her experience.

  The maid bobbed another curtsy and ran off.

  “Do you know where to find a broom, Master Georgie?” Damaris asked the seemingly empty room.

  “No, ma’am,” the boy said from under the bed. “Papa banished me to my room, and I’m bored!”

  “Yes, well, that may be, but it might have been more responsible to apologize for your infraction and ask politely if you might come out of your room instead of climbing a chimney. Now you must pay the price of your foolishness. There should be a broom in the kitchen. Go down, make your apologies to Mrs. Worth, and ask if you might have a broom and dustpan. She’ll be so shocked, she’ll forget to kill you.”

  A small chestnut head popped out from beneath the bed skirt. “Really? You promise?”

  “I promise,” she said rashly. “Tell her I sent you.”

  “Should he change from his filth first?” a dry male voice asked from the doorway.

  The boy popped back under the bed.

  “If he has anything he doesn’t need to wear again,” Damaris replied in the same tone. “He will be all filth either way.”

  The viscount was dressed in country drab this morning. From the ruddy color on his cheeks, she surmised he’d been outside in the cold for quite a while and had just returned.

  “You have some experience with young boys?” he asked, so obviously suppressing eagerness that Damaris had to bite back a smile.

  And just a frisson of hope. Could she offer to be taken on as nanny? Not if she continued to pretend she was Lady Alice. The next question—Did she wish to be thought of as a servant for the rest of her life?

  Of course. What else did the future have to offer?

  But gazing at the handsome viscount . . . She sighed in wistfulness. She could never dream to capture a man of his consequence, and if she told him who she really was, he’d throw her out into the blizzard, too. She was enjoying her brief respite much too well to wish for that.

  “Three brothers, my lord,” she said, condemning herself with the lie. Alice had three younger brothers in school. Damaris had no one. “But he is your son. You know him best.”

  “Georgie, remove yourself from the bed at once,” the viscount thundered in a voice that could command troops. “You owe Mrs. Worth an apology. Go change and then do as Lady Alice says.”

  “She’ll kill me,” a small voice whispered.

  Damaris almost melted at sight of her host’s stern visage softening into a grin with a dimple that disappeared the moment his son peered out from under the bed.

  “She cannot kill you, even if she might wish,” he said. “So take your punishment like a man.”

  The boy sighed and wriggled out of his hiding place. “But I am not a man,” he protested. “I am only a little boy.”

  “You are master of this household,” the viscount said sternly. “You must learn to take responsibility for your actions.”

  The boy stuck out his bottom lip and marched off, sending Damaris a last look of hope, as if she could free him from his burdens. She hid her smile and nodded solemnly in approval. He sighed and dragged out.

  “He is a little boy,” she pointed out the instant the child was gone. If she was about to be thrown into the blizzard, she might as well say what she thought. It wasn’t a freedom she’d be granted again. “Telling him he is a master may be too heavy a burden for small shoulders.”

  “It’s what I was told when I was his age. He is pandered to by every other soul in the house. Someone must teach him his duties.” He frowned at her, as if she’d accused him of making the boy into a slave.
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br />   Had her uncle frowned at her like that, she would have quaked in her shoes. It was amazing how fearless she could be when she had nothing left to lose. “I agree, but perhaps the duties should be small ones, like finishing his schoolwork. It must be rather daunting to believe he must take care of an entire estate. Children are very literal.”

  The viscount’s brow dragged down in a heavy frown, but he did not yell. “Literal? Perhaps.” He brushed off the argument and was again the cheerful host. “How are you this morning? You are looking much better.”

  “I am feeling much better, thanks to your kindness. I’m still a little vague on how I came to be here, but I’m most grateful to be rescued.” Here is where she ought to say, But there seems to be a misunderstanding. . . .

  She could not bring herself to do it. She wanted to stay here for as long as possible. If they were waiting for irresponsible Jonathan to come claim Lady Alice, Damaris wagered they’d have a long wait. Of course, once he showed up, her game was all over.

  “You took quite a bad blow. It is not unusual to forget the accident that caused it,” the viscount said sympathetically. “Sufficient to say that your coachman and horses are safe and well, and you were the only victim. I’ve sent your carriage home, and you are welcome to stay for as long as you like, although with no nanny and Christmas only weeks away, the children are likely to be wild, I fear.”

  Damaris thought longingly of childhood Christmases. Her parents had not been wealthy, but they’d been happy. She remembered the lovely scents of pine boughs, oranges, and boiling puddings, the happy laughter filling the halls as her parents hid presents from each other. That had been so very long ago . . . before the influenza epidemic that had snatched them away.

  Sniffing back a tear, she smiled weakly. She had no chance of sharing that happiness again, unless rakehell Jonathan refused to leave London, and even then, her stay could only be temporary.

  She could live with temporary. Perhaps Alice would have found a place for her by then.

  “I will gladly help with the children while I am here,” she offered, holding back her hopes. Perhaps they would not be too angry at her pretense if she was helpful.

  “I cannot ask that of you!” he said, genuinely shocked. “Even experienced nannies cannot deal with the brats. They’ve been dreadfully spoiled, I fear.”

  “Children do not spoil in the same way milk sours,” she pointed out. “They simply need love, attention, consistent rules, and occupation that suits them. It is rather difficult for one person to provide all that, but if everyone agrees on what they should be doing and when, and enforces the rules, they’ll learn quickly.”

  “That was the nanny’s job,” he protested. “I cannot be expected to spend my days tracking them, and my mother has always been inconsistent in her treatment. Perhaps I should hire two nannies.”

  “A governess,” Damaris boldly suggested, wishing she could be the one he hired. “The children have active minds and they are not toddlers. I’m surprised your son is not at school already.”

  “My mother did not allow us to go to school until we were much older, and we survived. But if I keep him home instead of sending him to school, I need both a tutor for Georgie and a governess for the twins. I have difficulty keeping even a nanny.”

  Damaris was thoroughly enjoying have a real conversation with a man who respected her intelligence instead of ignoring her as if she were invisible. The sensation was so heady that she did not hold her tongue as she ought. “You need to know the right people and ask the right questions to find good servants. I suppose, if you were married, your wife might do that. But I can write . . .” She hesitated, trying to think and speak like Alice. “I can write to my brothers’ former tutor and ask for suggestions.”

  He nodded gravely. “I would be most appreciative. I’ve not had time for visiting London, and my man of business is in Manchester. Most of our servants have been from that area. Perhaps it is time to look farther.”

  A loud thump, a terrifying screech, and a clamor of screams interrupted any more pleasant communication. The viscount dashed away without apology. Unable to bear staying idle, Damaris lifted her—Alice’s—narrow skirt and rushed after him.

  Trev tore into the morning salon from which the screams were emanating. A massive Jacobean bench blocked his view of the floor. A chandelier chain jack swung freely, but the massive chandelier no longer hung from the ceiling. The sight gave him heart palpitations.

  Two doves distractedly flapped their wings on the enormous timber mantel amid a stack of evergreen boughs he didn’t remember seeing earlier. The kitchen cat clung to the frayed medieval tapestry on the wall, wailing its fury. And for some reason, the goat the twins had adopted last summer was nibbling the fringe of his mother’s upholstered chair.

  Georgie was shouting and jumping up and down in an attempt to reach the chain jack that lifted the chandelier. Maids screamed uselessly. He could hear the twins but not see them. Not a good sign. Trev vaulted the bench and nearly fell over the ornate iron and crystal chandelier on the floor.

  One twin lay beneath the heavy ring of iron, while the other desperately attempted to lift it with her chubby hands. Candles and crystals were scattered across the floor and thick carpet. Trev crushed them as he dropped to his knees to lift the chandelier from his daughter’s crumpled form.

  He didn’t think he could breathe unless he knew Mina was breathing. Of course it was Mina. He could picture the entire episode from beginning to end—the children carrying in evergreens followed by doves and goat. Birds flying to roost on the chandelier. Georgie trying to lower the fixture to capture the birds. Mina reaching for them.... Trev wanted to close his eyes and gasp for breath, but he had to lift a half-ton wheel first.

  And he needed someone to extricate Mina while he did. Now that he was here, she started to cry, and her big eyes stared at him pleadingly from her nest of ragged curls. She was alive. Trev heaved the wheel up and shouted to the room at large.

  No one did the obvious.

  His mother raced in and added her screeches to the maids’. The goat wandered over to taste his trousers. Georgie hauled on the chain reel—sensible but useless because he was much too small to wind it.

  Where were the damned footmen? Trev couldn’t hold the fixture forever, but he couldn’t allow Mina to be crushed again!

  Into his panic raced fragile Lady Alice, a single strand of fair hair falling from her coiffure, her delicate muslin clinging to her womanly curves. To Trev, she was a vision of an angel. Without a single shriek or question, she slid beneath the section of the chandelier he’d lifted. She shouted at one of the maids to kneel down and brace the weight so she might check Mina for broken bones before moving her. She ordered the other maid to fetch a footman.

  And miraculously, everyone obeyed her crisp commands. She was sturdier than he’d thought when she’d been lying pale and listless in the bed. She was everything feminine on the outside but capable of thinking for herself. Where had women like this been all his life?

  With someone to share his burden, Trev could think clearly again. “Georgie, wrap the chain around the ring in the fireplace to help hold it,” he ordered. “Mother, help him, or at least call for a stable lad to help him. Tina, see how much of the glass you can sweep away with the chimney broom so we may move Mina from under here without scratching her.”

  With Lady Alice speaking reassuring words to his daughter, easing her from danger, Trev could have held the wheel for a century. It was as if the weight of the chandelier was as nothing compared to the weight of the household he’d been carrying all his life. He sent a footman running for a physician. Under Lady Alice’s direction, another lifted Mina as if she were porcelain. Trev even managed a few comforting words for his other children as he lowered the wheel back to the carpet.

  He hadn’t wept since he was ten and his father had died, but he was on the verge now, only these were tears of gratitude. And perhaps a little of despair that Mack had found this gem
and would never appreciate his good fortune.

  Trev hugged Georgie and Tina and reassured them as they cried and tried to explain. He really didn’t care what had happened. It would happen time and again if he did not gain control of his household. And he feared that would never come about as things stood. He needed help, he had to acknowledge. He could no longer convince himself that nannies and nursemaids were sufficient to watch over his children, but he could not do it alone.

  Trev left Georgie and Tina in the hands of his mother, forcing Vi to take charge instead of retreating to her chamber. In her confusion, she actually ushered them upstairs without protest.

  Then, drawing a deep breath and steeling himself for the worst, he entered the nursery where Lady Alice and a nursemaid were tending to Mina—who was chattering like a chickadee.

  Trev nearly staggered with relief. Lady Alice glanced up and offered him a tentative smile. He probably looked like a towering tyrant to her, but he couldn’t bring himself to relax just yet. He pulled a chair up close to the bed and took Mina’s tiny hand. He adored his children. He just didn’t know what to do with them. He despised being helpless.

  “I think she may have tried to stop the fall with her arm. That appears to be the worst damage, but I’m no physician. I’ve asked your mother for some of the medicine she gave me, to ease the pain, but I think we must give her only a little bit since she’s so small.” Lady Alice didn’t look up from binding Mina’s swelling arm with a length of muslin.

  Mina winced and looked at him tearfully. “I just wanted to shoo the birdies out,” she whispered. “I knew you wouldn’t like them.”

  “It’s all right, sweetheart. You couldn’t know how heavy the wheel is. Georgie shouldn’t have lowered it, but he didn’t know, either.” Trev had known, but he hadn’t been there. A nanny would have known, but he’d thrown her out. He wanted to howl his dismay to the moon, but that wouldn’t help anyone.