“Yes.” He glanced back at the snowy landscape which, if he was in the mood to admire it, would have been very pretty. But all he could think of now was a hot bath and a pot of tea. Perhaps a little brandy to top it off.
They tramped on in silence, the snow creaking under their boots. Harry’s fine riding boots had given up the fight and were now soaked through. His feet squelched in pools of cold water every time he took a step.
Why did he think walking in the snow would be a relaxing and enjoyable stroll? What madness had seized him?
But at least he had an intriguing companion. “I have two children,” he said. “They’ll probably be in the nursery wing.” They had better be.
“It’s going to be lively.” She flicked a glance at him, smiling. “I should tell you that I’m Matilda Cathcart, great-aunt to the children of the Countess of Cathcart’s first marriage. That makes me decidedly City,” she added helpfully. “You might not want to acknowledge me.”
Startled, he blinked, forcing a few snowflakes off his lashes. Damn, it was snowing again though, thankfully, not as thickly as before. “Why should I do that?”
“Because society does. We’ve unwittingly started a society war between two of society’s most prominent hostesses, the Duchess of Illingworth and our hostess here, the Countess of Comyn.”
“I heard about that,” he said. “It’s one reason I stayed away from balls this season.”
“Well, I’m glad you have no objection,” she said. “But someone does.”
“Who?”
She bit her lip. “I shouldn’t say. For all I know you might be him.”
“Who?” he repeated.
She stopped and gazed at him, a perceptive gleam in her eyes. Matilda hid nothing, but Harry wasn’t sure if it was because she couldn’t or because she didn’t care to. A person could never tell with women, and he was decidedly out of practice with them. His wife had died ten years ago and ever since, he’d avoided the marrying kind of woman.
“No, you can’t be him. He doesn’t speak to people,” Matilda said eventually. “He’d never have walked in the first place or risked the snow.”
Harry waited for the name of this paragon.
“Well, he’s a duke, the owner of this house. Not Glenbreck, Damaris’ husband, who is the sweetest man, but another one, Lady Comyn’s brother, the Duke of Trensom. He was supposed to have arrived before we did, but I daresay the snow delayed him. Lady Comyn says he wants to look over Delphi and Dorcas.”
Ah. Well, there was no mistaking that. She could be talking about him, although he’d never considered himself pompous. And yes, his sister had told him the same thing. “If this duke is so high in the instep, why would he want to marry the sister of an upstart?”
Matilda made a sound in her throat. “I don’t know. Money, perhaps? Dorcas is continually up to her elbows in soil, even in this season. She’s in awe over the hothouses at the country house. And Delphi has her nose stuck in a book, or she’s studying ancient statues. She’s mad to go to Rome. I’ve said I’ll go with her, but Gerald is adamantly refusing to let her.” She glanced down. “You’re married.”
He recalled that he’d stripped off the glove from his left hand. Although he’d stuck his hand in his pocket in a vain attempt to keep warm, she’d probably had time to see his wedding ring. Did her expression hold just a smidgeon of regret? “I’m a widower,” he said.
He wore it from habit, and a little self-protection when matchmaking mamas got too close. Perhaps it was time to take it off. Especially now that he was considering remarriage.
Harry was enjoying himself. Nobody talked to him so honestly. He wouldn’t shatter her preconceptions before he had to, because he wanted her to chatter. He’d actually slowed the pace somewhat. But as he did, he noticed she was limping. Annoying woman. She should have told him.
“I’ve spent the last few days sorting out the staff,” she continued blithely. “Although most of the guests haven’t arrived, their servants have. They swarmed in, insisting that their masters had precedence, and Lady Comyn went into an absolute panic. They tried to take over and we had to deal with full-out war. Nothing will upset a household like a servant’s feud. So I took charge, with her ladyship’s permission. It will provide me with useful work while I’m here, so you need not think you will see too much of me. I should be there now, but I couldn’t bear it anymore, so I came out here.”
Oh, he liked this woman, although he supposed he shouldn’t. If she’d handled his staff, then she was a paragon, indeed. He would make sure she didn’t hide herself away during the visit. This woman deserved to shine.
They were on the main approach now. The driveway swept around in a circle before the house, allowing coaches a grand entrance. Then they could take the path to the stables. No other coaches stood before the house, but here the drive had been cleared. They passed a couple of footmen who were working with shovels to clear the snow. Flakes were pattering down, but sparsely.
The footmen looked up and bowed slightly. Harry nodded, but discreetly waved them back to their work.
“And with Annie expecting again, I don’t want her worried,” Matilda said.
By all accounts, the countess was a formidable person in her own right, but pregnancy would slow the fieriest of women down. When Julia had been expecting, she’d been positively indolent.
As they turned the corner of the drive, Matilda skidded, giving a shriek before she went down.
She flailed in an attempt to keep her balance, but in vain. Without thinking about it, Harry reached for her.
Chapter Three
A fraction of a second before Matilda slammed into the hard, unpadded drive, a pair of strong arms clasped her waist firmly. Even as she was opening her mouth to thank him, he lifted her into his arms. He held her like a baby, cradled close to his chest.
His heart beat firmly under her hand, where she’d instinctively pressed her palm to his chest. His arms, curved so protectively around her, seemed to have muscle on top of muscle. Altogether, he was a magnificent specimen of humanity. He’d lost his wig somewhere in the snow, so his natural hair was on display under his hat. Dark brown, with silver at the temples, soft and thick by the look of it.
But he didn’t have the right to manhandle her like this. “Sir! I am capable of making my own way into the house.”
His smile was half-amused, but this close revealed a sensuality she was not used to, nor wanted. Her own heart missed a beat and she gasped for breath.
“Hold on to your spoils,” he said, nodding to the bundle of greenery she was still clutching. “And allow me to act the gentleman, ma’am,” he murmured, his voice reverberating in his chest.
“Rather lowering, to be addressed as ma’am.” Still, this man, who must be around her age, was considered in the prime of life, in the full flowering of his manhood. On the other hand, she was an old maid, a spinster, on the shelf. Dried-up. Which was completely unfair.
He glanced at her, his smile turning to a grin. “Be quiet and let me be the knight errant.” He paused. “For once.”
He climbed the stone staircase and strode inside the great front door as it opened. Mortified, Matilda wondered how long people had been watching them. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have known to open the door.
“Where is Miss Cathcart’s bedroom?” he demanded. “The lady is hurt, and I wish to see her safely to her chambers. Send her maid to her, would you?”
The servant bowed and opened his mouth to speak, but Matilda’s self-imposed rescuer appeared to change his mind.
“Never mind, I’ll let her show me.”
He plucked the bundled mistletoe out of Matilda’s unresisting hold. “And find somewhere for this. It was dearly bought.” He handed it to the nearest servant, a maid, who dropped a curtsey and scurried away.
“Put me down!” she demanded.
“If I do, you’ll only crumple onto the floor. Do you think I didn’t know you’d hurt your leg? I will not stand by and watch you
limp up the stairs.”
Nobody was about, apart from the servants, so Matilda could be thankful for that at least.
“I still don’t know who you are,” she pointed out. Now that she came to think on it, he hadn’t mentioned his surname, and seemed evasive. The way he was dressed, he could be anyone from a duke to a high-ranking servant. His manner when he walked in here just now favored the former.
A guest, obviously. And now, she had to put up with this infuriating man sweeping her off her feet and carrying her up the stairs, like a marauder of old, a Viking—or worse.
But she couldn’t deny that she enjoyed being cradled in his arms. He surrounded her with a fresh, cedarwood scent and the warmth of a male in his prime.
When he demanded it, she told him the location of the room she’d been assigned.
Up another flight of stairs and down a corridor, and they were at her room. At last. He strode to the bed, and laid her tenderly on it, softly easing her onto the silk coverlet. Without being asked to, he sat by her side. “Stay there. Let me look at that foot.”
His care overwhelmed her. “No, truly. I do appreciate you bringing me here, sir, but my maid will take care of me.”
He shook his head. “I brought you all the way here. The least you can do is allow me to see your well-turned ankle. You know men are driven wild by the glimpse of a shapely calf.”
Matilda snorted. “What drives them wild is the chance to look further up the limb in question, and you know it. Just as when I was climbing down the ladder.”
“If you’d let me hold it, you wouldn’t have hurt yourself,” he retorted.
“I could have brought us both down. We could be lying there, beyond help, dying because nobody knew we were there. Then they’d find our bodies, emaciated and frozen. That would make for a good Christmas.”
Throwing back his head, he laughed, the good-natured roar ringing around the walls. “Good Lord, Madam, your imagination is something to behold! We were barely three hundred yards from the house. But I appreciate the sentiment, and the chance to become a romantic hero.”
“Dying in the snow is romantic?”
“According to the novelists, it is. Have you not read the direst trials the heroines go through?”
“Pooh, I don’t have time for those.” Although she had read a few, she found most of them a dead bore. “I did try Clarissa, but it drove me out of temper. The things that young woman suffers for her virtue pass my understanding. If I were Clarissa, I’d have had the villain quietly done away with long before I collapsed in my fatal decline. Since when are fatal declines romantic?”
He chuckled. By now, he’d pushed up her sodden skirt the few inches he needed to examine her ankle. Her stockings must be done for, and the rending sound as he pulled the silk confirmed her fears.
When he touched the soft part of her ankle, Matilda winced, but repressed her cry of pain. It wasn’t too bad.
He probed gently. “Does that hurt?”
“Not too much. I’m sure it’s only a wrench. Is it swollen?”
“I’m afraid it is. But I don’t think anything is broken. I was concerned, you know.” Restoring her skirts, he lifted his gaze to her face. “That was why I picked you up. The cold could have tricked you into thinking the injury was minor. But I think it’s a sprain or a wrench. Order a bath, and have your maid bind your ankle.”
She nodded, relieved when he confirmed what she was thinking. No broken bones. He got to his feet. “I’ll leave you to your maid’s ministrations.” His attention went to something on her gown. Bending, he plucked it away. “Ah, I thought so.”
Opening his palm, he revealed a berry. A single mistletoe berry.
Before she fully realized what he was up to, he bent, and dropped a kiss on her mouth.
Matilda lay there, stunned. She should push him away but, somehow, she found herself clutching his shoulders, holding him closer.
He made a small sound at the back of his throat and leaned over her, planting his hands on either side of her head. His lips settled more firmly on hers, and he lingered. Matilda was in no hurry to push him away, though she should really do so.
In a moment. When he flicked his tongue against her lips, she gasped. He tasted her, the brief, intimate caress sending tingles of a completely different kind through her. Instant warmth flooded her and she had the strong urge to move closer, to tug instead of push.
He was the first to pull away. Straightening, he gazed down at her, eyes sultry. “I have claimed my reward, Matilda Cathcart. Consider us quits. I take it I won’t see you at dinner tonight?”
“What makes you think you won’t see me at dinner?” she demanded. “I have a good hour and a half to prepare. I’m sure I will be ready. I’m no craven, sir.”
“My name is Harry,” he said softly. “Say it.”
His lips were reddened from that shocking kiss. No doubt hers were, too. “Harry,” she repeated.
“When we’re in private, I want to hear more of that.”
“Private?” she echoed. What on earth did he mean by that?
“Madam?” Her maid’s voice came from the doorway.
He smiled as she jerked back and then winced. Harry held out his hand to touch her shoulder in a tender gesture. “Take care,” he murmured before he turned around.
The maid gasped and dropped a deep curtsey. “Watson says, if you please, your grace, that your bath is ready. A footman is outside waiting on your pleasure.”
“Thank you. Please ensure that Miss Cathcart receives a hot bath, and her foot is attended to.”
“Yes, your grace.”
The maid’s speech temporarily deprived Matilda of reason. Did she say “your grace”? Damn and double damn. She knew the other two dukes attending this gathering—the other two dukes! The notion nearly forced a laugh out of her—startled and shocked. While she considered herself as good as any duke, that three were going to be staying in the same house as she was, struck her as preposterous.
Even more that one of them would have carried her tenderly up the stairs and stolen a kiss from her. Good Lord, and she looked like a scarecrow. Even before she’d fallen out of that blasted tree, she’d been wearing her oldest clothes, and given no thought to her appearance. After the snowstorm made new arrivals today all but impossible, and the servants had cleared the front of the house, she’d decided to make herself scarce and do something useful for a change.
Look how well that had turned out.
As she recalled what she’d said to him, Matilda groaned.
The duke turned and shot her a wry smile. “Are you in pain?”
“Only in my head. The windmills in them suddenly grew to mammoth proportions.” She was an idiot. A complete idiot. But she’d liked him on sight, and instinctively trusted him. No doubt, he’d found some amusement from her. And maybe something to anger him, too, considering her words. This was the duke she’d called pompous and annoying, whose servants referred to him with reverence. While she was glad that she’d voiced her complaints, she was also sorry for the mess she’d left for Annie to clear up. “I’m sorry for what I said.”
“I’m not,” he said. “I’ll see you at dinner.”
Nodding to the awed maid, he strode out of the room.
Chapter Four
As he expected, his sister was waiting for him when he quit Matilda’s room. She sat on his bed in his room, watching the door. “Well done, Brother,” she said. “You’ve created quite a stir. Not like you at all, Harry. What were you thinking?”
Harry knew his usual hauteur wouldn’t work with her. It never had. Amelia was his older sister and, as such, she’d always had the upper hand. Before he’d been a haughty duke, he’d been a small boy, whose parents had him reared strictly. Amelia had been the sibling who had slipped him treats when he’d been on bread and water for a week, or hand him a newspaper to pad his backside from a whipping.
He sighed, giving in. “She could have broken her ankle. There was nobody else around. What
was I supposed to do?”
Amelia swung her foot. “Go to the house and send a footman for her.”
Everything in him revolted at her suggestion. “She could have frozen in that time.”
“Hmm. Do you like her?”
The direct question made him blink. Few people would dare. He stilled his instinct to say yes immediately. Instead, he shrugged. “She is well enough.”
Her response was to snort, a most inelegant sound in a lady well into her fifties. “You do like her. Well, Brother, society expects you to marry a well-connected lady. I do not.”
She swung off the bed, revealing her diminutive height compared to his. That had never stopped her ordering him about or offering her robust opinion. In society, Amelia was known as a flighty gossip, but a mind of steel hid beneath that exterior.
“I expect you to follow your example this time. You’ll like the Dersingham sisters; they have a lot more about them than the usual fresh-to-society woman. For a start, they’re in their mid-twenties. And they are clever, they know their own minds. But if you should take a fancy to the eccentric aunt, so be it.”
“I help a woman in distress and you immediately assume I’m about to fall in love with her?” he queried, more amused than alarmed.
She shrugged and strolled to the door. “The choice is yours. I’ve invited a number of people here for the season, to make the affair less pronounced. You are under no obligation to choose any of them. So take your pick or do not, it’s up to you. But don’t allow society to make the choice for you. You deserve better than that.”
Bemused, Harry stared at the closed door after she’d left him to the mercies of his valet. Society expected him to remarry to make an heir. Recently, the pressure had grown more intense, especially now that his heir, his cousin, Anton, had joined the army.
Was the dukedom really worth more than his personal happiness?
He dismissed the concern with a snort, very like his sister’s. His happiness mattered for naught in the grand scheme of things. It was foolish even to consider it.
A Bunch of Mistletoe Page 2