The Mischief of the Mistletoe

by Lauren Willig

  “Will you excuse me, please?” she said faintly, and half stood, half slid off the side of the chair.

  Face averted, she stumbled towards the door that connected sitting room and bedroom. What Arabella could make out of her face had gone greener than her green wool dress.

  “Be right back,” she mumbled, fumbling at the doorknob. “Carry on without me.”

  “She has morning sickness,” said Pinchingdale distractedly, his eyes following his wife. “And afternoon sickness and evening sickness. Excuse me for a moment.”

  Pushing himself off his chair, he disappeared into the bedroom after her, leaving Arabella and Turnip momentarily unchaperoned.

  Scooching down in her chair, Arabella looked at the gilded frame of the door, all but disguised by the paneling. “She reminds me of my mother. Not physically”—her mother had been tall and big-boned where Lady Pinchingdale was short and plump, fresh faced where Lady Pinchingdale was freckled, straight-haired where Lady Pinchingdale’s was curly—“but in spirit.”

  It was nearly impossible to remember that Lady Pinchingdale was sister to the terrifying Lady Vaughn, scourge of wallflowers everywhere.

  During their ballroom days, she had often shared a patch of wall with the former Miss Letty Alsworthy, but they had never done more than exchange a smile and a nod. Arabella wondered why they had never spoken. She rather wished they had. She had been so busy trying to pretend that she wasn’t there that she had missed the chance for a friend.

  Arabella’s teacup listed dangerously to one side. Turnip plucked it from her hand. Lifting it to his nose, he sniffed the contents. “Letty must have emptied half a decanter in here. We’ll have to sober you up before tonight.” He hunkered down on his knees in front of her chair, looking up at her hopefully. “Unless you’d rather stay in your room?”

  Arabella shook her head, making his features swim. “And miss the Epiphany Eve dance? I wouldn’t think of it.”

  Turnip sighed. “That’s that, then.” Standing, he rested a hand on her shoulder, the only part of her showing above the blanket. “Won’t leave your side for a minute. I’ll keep you safe. I promise.”

  For just a moment, Arabella leaned her cheek against his hand, letting herself savor the prospect of comfort and tenderness it offered.

  Turnip’s hand lingered on her arm, protectively covering the slit in her sleeve. Through the corner of her eye, she could see his face, perturbed, his brows drawn together over his nose. “Arabella, I—”

  She knew what he was thinking. “Don’t worry,” she said, allowing herself, very fleetingly, the luxury of touching his hand where it covered her arm. She could feel the muscles in his fingers contract at her touch. “I’m not in any danger. This is England, not The Castle of Otranto. It is silly. The whole thing. Messages being passed in puddings, paper swords—it’s something out of farce, not tragedy.”

  “I hope you’re right.” Turnip’s hand tightened protectively on her arm. “But I’m sticking by your side until we know for sure. Anyone who wants you will have to get through me first.”

  Chapter 24

  It took only five minutes at the ball for Turnip to lose Arabella.

  The event was a small affair by the dowager’s standards. “A little entertainment for the country folk,” she called it, if a little entertainment could be held to comprise more than two hundred people, all rigged out in their very best. Tomorrow night, the long gallery at Girdings would be mobbed with fashionable folk come up from London, with peers and peeresses glittering with diamonds, but tonight the ballroom was crowded with an ill-assorted mix of the dowager’s country neighbors, the rarefied denizens of the house party, and guests come early for the following evening’s elaborate Twelfth Night festivities. The country squires, in their old-fashioned wigs and buckled shoes, looked askance at the pinks of the ton, with their elaborate cravats and painfully high shirt points, while the London matrons made moues at the heavy, full-skirted brocades and long curls of the country set.

  “So last-century!” Turnip heard one hiss to another behind her fan. “Do you think someone ought to tell them?”

  And they both snickered.

  Turnip craned to see over the towering headdress of one of the country ladies, who looked as though she was wearing her hair in memorial of the late lamented Queen of France—or simply had a few birds’ nests piled in there. He had seen Arabella settled in her customary place by her aunt’s side not five minutes ago, safely tucked away among the wallflowers and the dowagers.

  But now she was gone.

  The space beside Lady Osborne on the settee was conspicuously empty. Captain Musgrave was still there, leaning over his wife’s shoulder, ostensibly whispering something in her ear even as his eyes scanned the room. Lady Osborne herself seemed entirely unconcerned, fanning herself with a feather-edged fan as she gossiped to the lady on her other side.

  The villain couldn’t have abstracted Arabella from among a ballroom full of people, could he? Not in the first five minutes of the ball?

  Turnip shoved and elbowed his way through the crowd, trying not to panic. If only he hadn’t let himself be distracted by Lady Henrietta Selwick—er, Dorrington—who insisted on smothering him in an embrace and then mocking his waistcoat.

  Ha! There Arabella was. Turnip’s breath escaped his lungs in an explosive gasp. For a moment, the relief was so intense that he felt lightheaded with it. There was no one next to her or behind her, no one holding a knife to her ribs or a pistol to her head. She was walking entirely alone and unescorted towards the doors of the gallery.

  Alone and unescorted. Turnip’s bubble of well-being popped. What was she doing leaving the safety of the gallery?

  Where in the bloody hell was Pinchingdale? Probably gone up to check on Letty, who would be having another bout of evening sickness. Which meant that there would be no one else watching for Arabella.

  Except, of course, her assailant.

  Turnip bolted for the doors to the gallery, skirting around a group of country squires discussing agricultural improvements, knocking over three old-fashioned periwigs and one wooden leg, dodging two lapdogs, and momentarily getting tangled with one ceremonial sword. Fortunately, it was sheathed.

  “Sorry, sorry,” he said generally, and kept going, leaping over the dowager’s small yippy dog to arrive breathless but triumphant at the doors of the gallery only moments after Arabella.

  An impassive footman, stiff as a toy soldier in his green and gold livery, opened the door before Turnip could go barreling through.

  Turnip skidded to a halt just beyond the door. A series of rooms stretched out enfilade, each opening onto the other. The ducal architects had believed in decorating on a grand scale. Among the more conventional pieces of furniture, huge pieces of classical statuary leered down from pedestals; trompe l’oeil panels on the walls created the illusion of alcoves holding vast flowering urns, mirroring the actual urns set across from them.

  In short, it was a villain’s playhouse. Turnip could feel the hairs on his neck begin to prickle. Even with the candles dripping wax from the great candelabra stationed along the route, there were far too many places for a man to hide, lying in wait. It was making him deuced twitchy just thinking about it.

  The rooms ran along the garden front, each boasting a set of doors, some cleverly concealed, others grandly displayed, opening into the same shrubbery into which Arabella had been dragged, blind, just hours before. It would be far too easy for a chap to slip out from behind a statue, clap a hand over her mouth before she had a chance to scream, and back her out through those cleverly concealed doors into the garden. The gallery, with its many balconies, looked out onto the West Front. The chatter from the ballroom, the pounding of dancing feet, the exuberant playing of the musicians, all would mask any sounds from the acres of garden at the back of the house.

  Back to the wall, Turnip slunk along behind, keeping one eye on Arabella’s back, the other on the lookout for potential villains. Deuced good thi
ng he had two of them.

  He would cling to her like a shadow, follow her like a bad dream, stalk her footsteps like a—well, something else shadowy and intangible. She would never know he was there.

  “Turnip?”

  Turnip ducked behind a statue of Neptune. Fortunately, Neptune had been a full-figured sort of chap. Tall, too. Especially since he was on a pedestal.

  Arabella stopped and turned. “Turnip, I know you’re there.”

  Turnip stepped out from behind Neptune. “Don’t mind me,” he said airily. “Never know I’m here. Just a shadow on the wall.” He thumped the wall for emphasis.

  “For a shadow,” said Arabella, “you are surprisingly corporeal.”

  “Shouldn’t do you much good if I weren’t,” he said, flexing one arm. If anyone attacked her, he would show them just how corporeal he could be. “What are you doing out of the ballroom? You weren’t supposed to leave the gallery.”

  “My aunt wanted her vinaigrette. She forgot it in here.” Placing her hands on her hips, Arabella surveyed the room, a small drawing room decorated in yellow and rose.

  “Ah. There it is.” Arabella dove for the ground, getting down on hands and knees to peer beneath a small settee upholstered in pale gold stripes. Candlelight shimmered distractingly off the peach silk lovingly covering the curves of her backside as she wiggled head and shoulders under the settee.

  Turnip swallowed hard as the movement caused the rest of her to wiggle too. He inserted a finger beneath his collar.

  “It rolled some way,” came Arabella’s voice, slightly muffled, from beneath the settee. “Ha! Got it.”

  She backed out from beneath the settee, a small object clutched triumphantly in one gloved hand.

  Blinking, Turnip recalled himself to his duty. He was supposed to be protecting Arabella from spies. Not—well.

  He looked sternly at her. “I don’t care if your aunt forgot her own name. You’re not to leave that ballroom. Can’t keep an eye on you if you go on wandering about.”

  Whatever else she wanted—the moon on a platter, the head of John the Baptist, tea and figgy pudding—it would be hers for the asking, but this, this was too important for negotiation. Couldn’t bring her heads on platters if she wasn’t alive to receive them, could he?

  Her eyes fixed thoughtfully on his face, Arabella swiped a dust clump from the shoulder of her gown. “All right,” she said.

  “It ain’t negotiable,” Turnip said belligerently. “Don’t matter if she forgot her left rib, I—all right?”

  “All right,” Arabella confirmed. “Until we know who it is, I would have to be an idiot to take risks just for the sake of taking them. There’s no point in courting danger unless it gets us something.”

  Turnip didn’t like the idea of her courting danger even then. He had nearly come to blows with Pinchingdale over it, an argument only derailed by Letty’s turning a pale shade of green and bolting for the bedroom again. It was, Pinchingdale had argued, the best and easiest way. How else could they get the villain to expose himself, but by giving him the opportunity—a false opportunity, he had specified carefully—to corner Arabella? Turnip’s answer to that, but for the presence of the ladies, would have been profane. As it was, it had simply been incoherent.

  Turnip’s plan, that they put messages in puddings and plant them in various key places around Girdings House, had been universally voted down.

  In the end, they had compromised. Arabella wasn’t to be exposed to unnecessary danger, but neither was she to be locked up in her room with a guard at her door (Turnip’s preferred plan). Instead, they were all to go about their normal activities, with someone keeping watch at all times, ready to catch the villain if he pounced.

  Or, as Pinchingdale put it, when he pounced.

  “If your aunt needs anything, I can get it,” declared Turnip grandly, before remembering that that, too, would rather defeat the purpose. Couldn’t keep an eye on her if he wasn’t there. “Stay where I can see you! And no more vinaigrettes.”

  Arabella lifted the vinaigrette to him in salute and turned her back. She wore a thin silk shawl looped over her elbows, and he watched the gentle sway of it as she walked briskly back down the long line of rooms.

  Turnip waited five minutes before following her. It felt like a great deal longer. When he returned to the gallery, it was to find the long room even more crowded than before. A set was just about to finish in the area that had been cleared for dancing, boasting a line of twenty couples. He could smell the reek of strong perfume, sweat, and the ale the dowager had provided for her country guests warring with the more familiar sickly sweet scent of champagne.

  As he threaded his way through the room, looking for a good vantage point from which to keep watch on Arabella, he passed a mutinous-looking Catherine Carruthers, standing with her parents on the edge of the dance floor, wearing a dress as flounced and frilled as current fashion would allow. Her light brown hair had been twisted into curls that bounced on either side of her small-featured, oval face.

  She would have been pretty enough but for the sulky expression that drew down the corners of her mouth, turning her otherwise pleasantly featured face into something one wouldn’t want to run into in a dark alley.

  Although her betrothal to Lord Grimmlesby-Thorpe had already been officially announced in the papers, her parents were obviously taking no further chances with her. One stood to either side, flanking her like gaolers guarding a prisoner.

  As Turnip passed by, he could hear her high-pitched, slightly nasal voice saying, “At least I didn’t elope with the music master.”

  What was that about the music master? Turnip came to an abrupt halt. “Beg pardon?”

  Mr. and Mrs. Carruthers gave him strange looks, but Catherine took his rude intrusion into their conversation with the peculiar sangfroid known only to sixteen-year-old girls.

  She gestured to Turnip in a world-weary way, showing off the very shiny gold bracelet fastened over her glove. “This is Sally Fitzhugh’s brother, Mama. You remember Sally Fitzhugh? The one I visited at Parva Magna last winter.”

  “Oh, yes.” Mrs. Carruthers totted up the cost of Turnip’s clothes and decided to forgive him for his breach of etiquette. “How nice to meet you at last, Mr. Fitzhugh. Your sister is a charming girl.”

  “She puts on a good show when she has to,” agreed Turnip. Mrs. Carruthers looked mildly startled, but he barreled on. “What’s that about the music master?”

  “Oh,” said Catherine, looking superior, “didn’t you hear? He ran off with Clarissa Hardcastle just before Christmas. Apparently they had been meeting by night in the music room. Disgusting.”

  It was unclear whether the adjective referred to the location or the event.

  “Frightfully bad ton,” complained her mother, who looked more like a Pekingese than a Pekingese, “eloping with music masters.”

  “Bad idea eloping at all,” said Catherine’s father, looking stern. If Mrs. Carruthers was a Pekingese, Mr. Carruthers was an elderly blood-hound. He had a long, narrow face, made longer and narrower by the fact that his cheeks seemed to have slowly slid straight off the side of his face to dangle on either side of his jaw, like the droopy jowls of a tired old dog.

  “Wasn’t intending to,” Turnip said hastily. “Wouldn’t dream of it. Deuced hard on the shins, climbing down bedsheets and all that.”

  The Carrutherses, parents and child, give him strange looks, but Turnip didn’t notice. So that explained what the music master had been doing, blundering about the school in the wee hours.

  “An heiress, I take it?” said Turnip.

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Carruthers, as though the word soiled her mouth. “Her father does something in the city. Something with guns. Frightful . I don’t know what Miss Climpson was thinking.”

  About the music master or munitions heiresses? Turnip decided not to ask. He was spared the necessity by the arrival of Catherine’s intended, Lord Grimmlesby-Thorpe, who was tricked out in a getu
p nearly as brilliant as Turnip’s, with a canary yellow waistcoat sewn with brilliants and a pair of breeches so tight they creaked when he walked.

  The creaking sound might also have been the corset that he, like his great friend, the Prince of Wales, wore to contain the embonpoint attendant on too much port and game.

  Grimmlesby-Thorpe set his hand on Catherine’s half-bared shoulder. “There you are, my dear.”

  He was the only one who didn’t notice the way Catherine flinched away from his touch. The expression on her face reminded Turnip of a half-broken horse he had once seen. The horse had rolled his eyes and bared his gums in just the same way—right before dumping his rider, stomping on his knee, and jumping three fences and a small brook before he was finally caught.

  Turnip had never liked Catherine—she had pulled one too many supposedly friendly tricks on Sally during the duration of their intimacy—but, at this moment, he felt sincerely sorry for her. It wasn’t right marrying a young girl like that off to an old bon vivant like Grimmlesby. No matter how many half-pay officers she had tried to run off with, it just wasn’t right.

  On the other hand, from the look Catherine was giving her intended, she fully planned to get her own back. Turnip didn’t envy Grimmlesby-Thorpe his half of the marriage bed either. If ever he had met a junior Lady Mac-whatever-it-was in training, Catherine was it.

  Speaking of marriage beds . . . Turnip peered across the couples on the dance floor to make sure that Arabella was still with her aunt. She was, although she had been ousted from her seat on the settee by the Dowager Lady Pinchingdale, forced instead to stand beside the settee, her back against the wall. She didn’t see him. She was watching the dancers in the center of the floor, her skirt moving almost imperceptibly as her foot tapped in time to the music. There was a wistful look on her face as she watched the couples move through the patterns of the dance. Then her aunt tapped her on the arm, demanding her attention, and her face cleared and her foot stilled. The patient mask was back in place.