Mistletoe Magic

by Sophia James

  ‘Your small experiment to…determine emotion can hardly be consigned to the “fallen woman” basket. Nay, put it down instead to any adult’s healthy pursuit of knowledge.’

  He was more honourable in his dismissal of her lapse than he needed to be and a great wave of relief covered her. With shaking hands she took small sips of her wine and then laced her fingers tightly together.

  ‘I thank you for such a congenial summary, but my actions the other day were much less than what I usually expect from myself.’

  ‘As a dubious consolation I can tell you that the wisdom of age dims such exacting standards. When you are as old as I am you will realise the freedom of doing just as one wills.’

  ‘Like fighting with my cousin at the Lenningtons’?’

  ‘Or sending a beautiful woman flowers.’

  She was silent, the last rejoinder putting a halt to her fault-finding. Beautiful. He thought her that?

  ‘How old are you, Mr Clairmont?’ She hated herself for asking the question in the face of everything that had passed between them.

  ‘Thirty-three and judicious beyond my years, Miss Davenport.’

  ‘Some here might call you a gambler?’

  ‘Which I am.’

  ‘And a cheat?’

  ‘Which I am not.’

  ‘There are even rumours circulating that hint at the possibility that you have killed people.’

  ‘More than one?’ His eyebrows rose in a parody of an actor on the stage, though when she pulled back he laughed. ‘“A man can smile and smile and be a villain,”’ he quoted, a new wickedness supplanting the guile.

  ‘You are a puzzle, Mr Clairmont. Just when I think to understand your character you surprise me.’

  ‘With my knowledge of Shakespeare?’

  She shook her head. ‘Nay, with your intuition on the very nature of mystery!’

  ‘I’ve had years of practice.’

  ‘And years of debauchery?’

  Again he laughed, though this time the sound was less feigned. ‘Mirrors and smoke are not solely the domain of the stage, Lilly.’

  ‘Miss Davenport,’ she corrected him. ‘So are you telling me that what I see is not who you are?’

  He tilted his drink up to the light. ‘Does not everyone have a hidden side?’

  The chatter around her seemed to melt into nothingness and it was as if they were alone, just her and just him, the recognition of want making her feel almost dizzy. Clutching at her seat, she turned away, the room spinning strangely and her heartbeat much too fast.

  She was pleased when a delicate pheasant soup was placed before them as it gave her a chance to pretend concentration on something other than Luc Clairmont, and the turbot with lobster and Dutch sauces that followed were delicious.

  Lady Hammond, a strong-looking older woman sitting opposite, regaled them on the merits of the hunting in the shire of Somerset as the entrée and removes were served, and by the time the third course of snipes, golden plovers and wild duck came out the topic seemed to have moved on to the wealth and business advantages available in the colonies.

  ‘How do you see it, Mr Clairmont?’ one of the older guests asked him. ‘How do you see the opportunities in the area around Baltimore and Chesapeake Bay?’

  ‘Men with a little money and fewer morals can do very well there. My uncle’s land, for example, was swindled for a pittance and sold for a fortune.’

  ‘By fellow Americans?’

  ‘Nay, by an Englishman. The new industries are profitable and competition is rife.’

  The sentence bought a flurry of interest from those around the table and John Wilcox-Rice was quick to add in his penny’s-worth. ‘It seems that the fibre of our society is threatened by a new generation of youth without morals.’

  The Earl of Marling seconded him. ‘Integrity and honour come from breeding, and the great families are being whittled away by men who have money, but nothing else.’

  Looking down at Luc Clairmont’s hand between them, Lillian noticed his knuckles were almost white where he gripped the seat of his chair. Not as nonchalant of it all as his face might show.

  Wondering at his manner she was distracted only when a crashing sound made her turn! Lord Paget was drunk and his wife was trying to settle him down again in his seat, the shards from a broken glass spilling from the goblet to the tablecloth and dribbling straight into the lap of John Wilcox-Rice.

  Pushing his seat back, John tried to wipe away the damage and Paget in his stupor also reached over to help him, his fingers touching parts that Wilcox-Rice was more than obviously embarrassed by. The tussle that ensued knocked the first man into a second and the tablecloth was partly dragged away from the table, bringing food and wine crashing all around them.

  Luc Clairmont was on his feet now as Paget went for Wilcox-Rice.

  ‘Enough,’ he said simply, pulling the offender back and blocking an ill-timed punch. ‘You are drunk. If you leave with your wife now there will be little damage come morning.’

  Paget’s wife looked furious, both at her husband’s poor behaviour and at Luc Clairmont’s interference, but it was Paget who retaliated.

  ‘Perhaps you should be getting your own house into order, Clairmont, before casting aspersions on to ours. You were, after all, expelled from Eton and many would say that you still haven’t learned your lesson.’

  ‘Would they now?’ His drawl was cold and measured, the gold of his eyes tonight brittle.

  ‘Leave him, my dear, for he is not worth it. If St Auburn wishes to make himself a laughing-stock by insisting the American is a gentleman, then let him.’ Lady Paget seemed to be supporting the stupidity of her husband, no thanks being given for the assistance she had received from the man she now railed against.

  Anger seized Lillian.

  ‘I would say, Lady Paget, that your manners are far less exacting than the one you would pillory. From where I sit it seems that Mr Clairmont was only trying to make certain that Lord Paget’s flagrant lack of etiquette did not harm any of the other ladies present. I for one am very glad that he intervened, as your husband’s behaviour was both frightening and unnecessary.’

  With a haughty stare she looked about the table, glad when the nods of the others present seemed to support her assessment. Sometimes her position as the queen of manners was an easy crown to wear and a persuasive one. She felt the anger swaying back to the Pagets and away from Luc Clairmont as the wife picked up the heaviness of her skirts and followed her husband, an angry discourse between them distinctly heard.

  Lillian did not look around at Lucas Clairmont or question his silence. Nay, she was a woman who knew that if you left people to think too much about a problem then you invariably had a larger one. Consequently she swallowed back ire and began on a topic that she knew would surely interest all the ladies present.

  Luc sat next to her and hated the anger that the Pagets’ stupid comments had engendered in him. England was the only place in the world, he thought, where the deeds of the past were never forgotten nor forgiven, and where misdemeanours could crawl back into the conversation almost twenty years on.

  For now, though, Lilly was chattering on forever about dresses she had seen in Paris in the summer, and if he had not been so furious he might have admired her attention in remembering the detail of such an unimportant thing.

  Not to the women present, however! Each one of them was drinking in her every word and as the servants scooped away shards of china and crystal, replacing the broken with the whole, it was as if there had never been a contretemps. When the dessert of preserved cherries, figs and ginger ice-cream arrived, he noticed that everyone took a generous portion.

  Warmth began to spread through him. Lillian Davenport had stood up for him in front of them all, had come to his aid like an avenging angel, her good sense and fine bearing easily persuading everyone of the poor judgement the Pagets had shown.

  Indeed, she was lethal, a pale and proper thunderbolt with just the right a
mount of ire and refinement.

  No one could criticise her or slate her decorum and it was with this thought that her offered kiss was even the more remarkable. Lord, did she not realise how easily she could fall, how the inherent nature of man would make any mishap or misconduct accountable in one so loftily placed?

  He worried for her, for her goodness and her vulnerability and for the sheer effort that it must take to stay at the very top.

  This weekend had been his doing, his own need to see her alone and overriding every other consideration for her welfare. And she had repaid this selfishness with dignity and assurance.

  Respect vied with lust and won out. He would do nothing else to bring her reputation into disrepute. That much he promised himself.

  He had not come near her since the Pagets had left, the tea taken in the front salon a sedate and formal sort of an affair, with Lucas Clairmont placing himself on the sofa the furthest away from where she sat.

  Indeed, after her outburst she thought he might have been a little thankful, but he made no effort at all to converse or even look at her, giving his attention instead to Caroline Shelby and her simpering friend.

  Nathaniel St Auburn at her side turned to her to speak. ‘I see you had much to talk about with Mr Clairmont earlier on, Miss Davenport?’ St Auburn’s question was asked in a tone indicating manners rather than inquisitiveness. ‘He was an old school friend of mine at Eton,’ he enlarged when he saw her surprise. Lillian pondered the thought.

  ‘I didn’t realise that he once lived in England.’ The cameo of a younger Lucas Clairmont intriguing her. ‘He seems too…American?’

  Nathaniel chuckled, but there was something in the sound that made her think. She pressed on.

  ‘Have you ever visited him in Virginia?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘And you enjoyed it?’

  ‘I did!’

  Lillian grated her teeth, wishing that his answers might be enlarged so as to give her an insight into the personality of the man sitting across the room from her.

  ‘Mr Clairmont says his home is near a river. The James, I think he said. Does he have family there?’ She hoped that the interest she could hear in her words was not so obvious to him.

  ‘His wife was from those parts, but she died in a carriage accident. A nasty thing that, because Luc blamed himself, as any gentleman of sensitivity might.’

  Relief bloomed at Luc Clairmont’s innocence in his wife’s demise. After all the darker conjectures in society, Lillian was pleased to find out that the cause of the woman’s death had been an accident, though she had a strange feeling that St Auburn’s words were carefully chosen. In warning or in explanation? She could not tell which.

  ‘So you think him a sensitive man?’

  ‘Indeed I do, but I can see by your frown that you may not?’

  ‘I have heard things…’

  He did not let her finish. ‘Give him a chance,’ he said softly and she almost thought that she hadn’t heard it before he turned away.

  Give him a chance! Of what? She felt again the warmth of Lucas Clairmont’s arm against hers where they had not quite touched at the dinner table. If she had moved closer she might have felt him truly, but she had not been brave enough to try. Not there, not then, not with such hooded enquiry seen in so many eyes.

  Lord, she seldom came to these country weekend parties and knew now again why she did not. She was stuck here at least till the morrow, any means of escape dubious with her aunt in tow.

  John next to her interrupted, making his displeasure known. ‘Surely you can see, Lillian, just how the sort of outburst you gave at dinner is damaging? Far wiser indeed to let these small spats run their course and stay well out of it.’

  ‘Even if I should perceive the criticism unfair?’ she returned. His social mannerisms were becoming more and more annoying tonight with every new piece of advice that he offered her.

  ‘You are a lady of breeding and cultivation. It is not seemly to be defending a man who has neither.’

  ‘Paget was hardly in order.’

  ‘He was not expelled from Eton for stealing either.’

  ‘Stealing?’ The word caught her short.

  ‘Clairmont the youth took a watch from the headmaster’s study and hid it in his blankets. When it was found he admitted the theft and was sent down.’

  Lillian felt her hands grip her side. Why was nothing ever easy as far as Lucas Clairmont was concerned? Why could she not find out something noble and virtuous about him instead of being plagued with a never-ending lack of moral fibre?

  And why would a small boy steal a watch anyway? For money? To know the time? She could fathom neither the reason nor the risk. Why indeed had he not hidden it in a place no one would ever think to look? She took in a breath. No. She must not excuse him and take his side. Not for theft!

  She was pleased when the older guests began to take their leave and was able to gladly follow, John accompanying her upstairs to her room.

  ‘It has been a pleasure to be in your company today, Lillian,’ he said as she opened her door, and she had the distinct impression that he was angling to kiss her again.

  Consequently she sneezed three times, holding her handkerchief across her mouth and sniffing.

  ‘My goodness, perhaps I have caught Aunt Jean’s cold?’

  ‘Will I call the housekeeper and ask her for some medicine?’ The amorous look in his eyes was completely overtaken by concern.

  ‘No, please do not bother. If I just go to sleep early…’ She stopped and sneezed again and he moved back.

  ‘Well, I suppose this is goodnight?’ The words were said awkwardly and with disappointment.

  ‘Thank you for walking me up.’

  ‘It was my pleasure.’

  She stepped inside and closed the door, standing still on the other side and replacing her handkerchief in her pocket. One night down and one more to go! Tomorrow she would make certain that she came up with the women in order to ensure no repeat performance of John’s eagerness in seeing her alone.

  Chapter Nine

  A riding expedition seemed to be the entertainment for the next afternoon and as a keen horsewoman Lillian was looking forward to the freedom of racing across the Kentish countryside, though the eastern sky was draped in black billowing cloud.

  Lucas Clairmont was again distant; he had tipped his hat as he had passed her, making his way to his horse, but he neither stopped in conversation nor offered to help her mount. John on the other hand was all attentive vigilance and her heart sank. Lucas Clairmont was due to return to America at the end of December, and would not return for many a long, long year, if ever. She was running out of time, the month of December almost upon them, and her father’s demands of a Christmas engagement beginning to look more and more worrying.

  Pulling her cloak around her neck to make the fur collar sit up, she ordered the horse on. A sorrel mare, it was neither fancy nor plain and its disposition as far as she could tell was pleasant. A horse much like the man who rode beside her, seeing to her every whim.

  Caroline Shelby’s mount trotted between St Auburn and Luc, her laughter returning on the eddy of wind to the rear of the pack. Three other couples completed the group, the Pagets conspicuous by their absence; Lillian presumed them to have packed their things and left. She sighed, hoping her father would not meet the odious man at his club and hear the story of her defence of Mr Clairmont as only he would probably see it. She seldom made enemies of people and the fact that she had worried her.

  ‘Lady St Auburn has not joined us this morning.’

  John’s tone was puzzled.

  ‘Perhaps she will later,’ Lillian ventured, though she, too, had been surprised by Cassandra’s absence. In fact, if she thought about it, she was also surprised by the closeness of the relationship between the St Auburns and Luc Clairmont. Nathaniel had said that he had been to see him in Virginia. Had Cassandra gone as well? Tonight she would make certain that she asked Cass
ie of the details and ask her also as to the size of any land Lucas Clairmont owned.

  If only he were…what? she ventured. Rich? Well liked? Connected to the right people? Her musings took on a shallowness that she would have thought abhorrent in others. Yet she could not pursue a man whose very presence aroused such strong condemnation in those about him.

  The strictures and codes that applied to everyday social life were after all there for a reason and the protection that they afforded was comforting. Even John’s own layer of conventionality heartened her, for at least she could control him.

  Luc Clairmont would be raw and ungovernable. The words made her wonder. He would not be repelled by a few false sneezes as John had been last night or distracted along any lines that she might favour. He would not be cajoled or dominated or managed. She remembered his kisses and her own unrestrained reaction to them and breathed in hard.

  No. No. No.

  Safety lay in correct behaviour, just as ruin lurked in the narrow margins of error and she would do very well to remember it. Sighing loudly, she tipped her head to the sky and decided that his entrancement with the Shelby heiress was probably for the best, though another feeling lingering beneath propriety wanted to scratch the woman’s eyes out. Oh, she was beautiful, there was no doubt about that. But she was also more than forward, a girl who would eye up her quarry and go for it, and here her quarry was definitely Lucas Clairmont.

  The clap of thunder came as they wound their way into a meadow almost at the edge of the St Auburn land, and everybody reined in their horses. Everyone, that is, except for Caroline Shelby, whose mount bolted towards a copse some few hundred yards away. Her screams this time were truly alarming, the timbre of them sending Lillian’s own heels against the flank of her steed in pursuit.

  Luc Clairmont, however, was in front of her already, his stallion galloping down upon the smaller mare and catching up with each long stride.

  ‘Keep your head down,’ he called to the terrified girl, ‘and hold on.’

  Caroline Shelby, however, seemed frozen solid, her gait unsteady and swaying. Another few yards and she would be off and if the stirrup wrapped about her boot was not freed she would also be dragged.