The Mischief of the Mistletoe: A Pink Carnation Christmas (11 page)

His fingers glanced off the side of the pudding, sending it rocking on its precarious marble perch. Gathering speed as it went, the pudding went rolling slowly backwards over the side of the monument to fall with a splat on the other side.

“What was that?”

“My reticule. I dropped my reticule,” said Arabella, diving towards the ground before they could see that her reticule was still dangling from her wrist.

From this vantage point, Mr. Fitzhugh's boots were very shiny. She could see her own reflection in them.

“You all right down there?” asked Mr. Fitzhugh.

“Yes! Fine! Perfectly all right!”

Arabella made a show of groping around on the floor, scrabbling at the ground with her hands, before popping back up with her reticule in hand. She waved it around a few times so everyone could see that it was, indeed, a reticule.

“These strings are such a bother. I've nearly lost it at least three times today. Shall we? Chevalier?”

She swept forward, bearing the Frenchman along with her. Glancing over her shoulder, she could see Mr. Fitzhugh mime his approval with a little happy dance, which he brought to an abrupt halt as Jane turned to him.

“Are you joining us, Mr. Fitzhugh?”

“I say!” Mr. Fitzhugh made a show of clapping his hand to his head. “Can't think how I came to be so clumsy. Dropped a watch fob, don't you know. Do go on without me. Shan't be a moment.”

“Such a rash of falling objects,” commented the chevalier.

He led Arabella out into the sunlight, directing her unerringly towards the smell of food and the sound of lute strings being tortured.

“Did you know,” said the chevalier conversationally, “that for a time it was rumored that Mr. Fitzhugh was the spy known as the Pink Carnation?”

“That's the silliest thing I've ever heard,” said Arabella.

On the other hand, it might take a very clever man to play that much of a fool. But could anyone sustain that kind of act for that long?

“Just because Mr. Fitzhugh wears carnations embroidered on his waistcoat hardly means that he—oh, I don't know.”

“Flies in the face of danger? Sneers at the name of risk?”

“Something like that. I should think that having carnations embroidered on one's stockings would be tantamount to taking out an advertisement that one wasn't the Pink Carnation.”

“You question the wisdom of Bonaparte's secret police?” The chevalier's lightly mocking tone invited her to join in the joke at the expense of the French regime.

“If that is the extent of their intelligence, then it's a wonder that Bonaparte wasn't unseated ages ago!” Flushing at her own presumption, Arabella modulated her tone. “What I mean is that Mr. Fitzhugh is a highly unlikely conspirator.”

“So was Sir Percy Blakeney in his day,” replied the chevalier. “He played the buffoon so well that his own wife did not guess it.”

“I hardly know Mr. Fitzhugh so well as that.”

“No?” said the chevalier gently, steering her towards a refreshment table, where steaming silver cups of punch had been set out on an equally silver tray.

“No,” repeated Arabella firmly. “But I would be willing to wager that he is exactly what he seems.”

“A dangerous wager, Miss Dempsey. People are seldom what they seem.”

Arabella didn't appreciate being condescended to. She frowned at the chevalier. “Including you?”

Stopping beside the refreshment table, the chevalier abstracted a silver mug from among its fellows, lifting it to his nose to breathe in the hot, scented fragrance of it before passing it over to Arabella. “That, my dear Miss Dempsey, would be telling.”

“Telling what?” asked Lord Vaughn, coming up behind them.

“Terrible tales of scandal,” said the chevalier, reaching for a second glass and handing it to Vaughn.

Vaughn raised his brows. “Like an old lady by her hearth, enjoying a spot of gossip with her tea.”

“I've never known you to balk at scandal, Sebastian,” returned the chevalier, unperturbed.

Lord Vaughn looked at him with all the arrogance of two hundred years of semi-supreme rule. “I prefer to cause it, rather than discuss it. Other people's scandals are tedious.”

“Speaking of which,” said Lady Vaughn, “you've just missed your aunt. She left only a few minutes ago.”

“She did?” What with one thing and another, with puddings and Pink Carnations, Arabella had almost forgotten about them. “My aunt and my uncle?” She was proud that her voice didn't falter on the last word.

Lady Vaughn shrugged. “At that age, one wants an early night.”

Arabella pulled herself together. What had she really expected? That her aunt would fall on her bosom and tell her how much she missed her? That Musgrave would weep tears of remorse?

Fool, she told herself. Three times a fool. She knew Captain Musgrave was false and a cad, so why did she still care what he thought of her, or want so desperately to get his attention?

Habit, she told herself. Habit and wounded pride. He had courted her so assiduously for a time, discovering her interests, praising her prose, pressing her hand just a little too long in greeting. She had wanted—oh, something. Some sort of reparation or revenge. Some sort of acknowledgment.

“It's no matter,” she said, with a nonchalance she didn't feel. “I'll be with my aunt at Girdings for Christmas.”

Arabella's domestic plans didn't interest the Vaughns. Lifting his quizzing glass, Vaughn let it trail across the shifting groups of people.

“Here comes our favorite vegetable,” Vaughn commented languidly. “Looking rather pleased with himself. He must have outwitted a rutabaga.”

Looking around, Arabella saw Mr. Fitzhugh striding towards them across the winter-wilted grass, his puce coat a splash of color against the time-weathered walls of the old castle. He had removed his high-crowned hat, leaving it to swing from one hand.

“Is he still dangling after the Deveraux girl?” Lady Vaughn asked her husband in an intimate tone that pointedly cut the others out of the conversation.

Arabella knew Penelope Deveraux. More accurately, she knew of her. It was hard not to know about Penelope Deveraux: She created an eddy of excitement around her wherever she went, a
hiss hiss hiss
of whisper and gossip and speculation that preceded her like the rumble of thunder before lightning.

Like Arabella, Miss Deveraux was tall, but there any resemblance ended. Rather than a dusty blond, Miss Deveraux's hair was a flaming red—true red, no nonsense about red-blond or auburn. Her dresses skirted the edge of impropriety, cut low enough to make a matron blanch, transparent enough to set men hoping and gossips whispering.

In short, she was everything Arabella wasn't. Daring. Bold. Memorable.

Mr. Fitzhugh might have escorted Arabella to the frost fair, but no one would ever believe he had designs on her. Not when there were women like Penelope Deveraux to be had.

He was smiling as he made his way towards them, a smile that lit his face with its own inner radiance. He was, thought Arabella, one of nature's golden children, all light and no dark, happy just to be happy.

He and Miss Deveraux would make an exceptionally striking couple.

Lord Vaughn shrugged. “I make it a point never to interest myself in nursery brangles. Ah, Fitzhugh! We were just talking about you.”

“Did you save some pie for me?” Mr. Fitzhugh enquired genially, with a grin at Arabella that made her want to hit him, without quite knowing why.

“We haven't explored the pie yet,” said Arabella repressively. “I believe it's on the other side of the keep.”

Undaunted, Mr. Fitzhugh held out a hand. “Care to join me for the quest, Miss Dempsey? Shouldn't like to tackle that pie alone.”

Arabella set her silver mug down on the silver tray, where it made a distinctly unmusical clanking sound. Discordant. She was discordant, the odd note out in an otherwise coherent symphony.

“Why not,” she said. Best to get it over with.

“Splendid,” exclaimed Mr. Fitzhugh, and all but dragged her across the clearing, bursting to share his news.

“That was well played in there,” he said under his breath. “Deuced cleverly done, getting the chevalier out.
What kind of pie do you think this is?
” he bellowed suddenly.

Arabella rubbed her ears. That had been rather loud.

“
Squab, I think
,” she bellowed back. When in Rome. She lowered her voice, “Did you find the pudding?”

Mr. Fitzhugh tipped his hat to reveal a fleeting glimpse of white muslin and red ribbons. “All right and tight and accounted for. Took another look at those ribbons. That's what took me so long.”

He sawed energetically at a venison pie with a silver serving knife. Arabella couldn't remember the last time she had seen so much silver in one place. Silver, like the Chevalier de la Tour d'Argent. Arabella looked at Turnip.

“Did you know that the French secret police think that you're the Pink Carnation?”

An expression of intense irritation passed across Mr. Fitzhugh's amiable face. “Not
that
again. Deuced inconvenient. Not that I don't consider it a compliment, but it's bally irritating, constantly being dogged by murderous operatives all looking to stick a carnation in their caps.”

“Has this happened to you frequently?” asked Arabella.

“Oh, once or twice.” Mr. Fitzhugh gestured airily with the salver. “Shouldn't think it has anything to do with our pud—oh.”

Mr. Fitzhugh looked blankly down at the remains of his pie, which had slid with a splat onto the red damask cloth covering the table.

No. Impossible. No one's acting skills were that good.

“Let me,” said Arabella, and took the salver from him.

“Deuced alarming, this pudding,” said Mr. Fitzhugh, leaning over her shoulder as she deftly transferred a slice of pie onto a plate. “That bit about a deal. Don't like the look of it a'tall. Couldn't make out much more, but one word looked like
guerre
. You know what that signifies.”

“Love is war?” suggested Arabella. The pudding was beginning to give her a headache.

Like the rest of the frost fair, the messages in the pudding were nothing more than a game, a diversion for bored aristocrats. The authorities were probably nothing more than the headmistress, the deal nothing more sinister than an exchange of schoolgirl gifts or lovers' tokens. The illusion of intrigue was all make-believe, like the faux medieval livery on the servants, the deliberately aged lute in the hands of the musicians, the bright pennants hanging from the crumbling walls. In a few hours, the coals would be stanched, the silver cutlery would be carted away, the gaily dressed guests would drive home, and the castle would be left as it was, empty, a ruin, all the enchantment gone.

And for that, she had traipsed across half of Sussex on the coldest day of the year.

Not that there hadn't been consolations. She had enjoyed being Mr. Fitzhugh's conspirator—a little too much perhaps.

“Er, was thinking more of the War Office, myself,” said Mr. Fitzhugh gamely. “I had some ideas. Some ideas for our investigation.” Mr. Fitzhugh's blue eyes were bright with excitement.

Thrusting the plate at him, Arabella broke in before he could go further. “Mr. Fitzhugh, this has been very amusing, but—”

“You're right.” Mr. Fitzhugh nodded emphatically. “This isn't the place for it. Ears everywhere. I'll call on you tomorrow. Safer that way.”

For whom?

Margaret would hover, casting suspicious glances from behind her embroidery. Her father would remain firmly planted at his desk, surfacing from time to time to quote obscure Latin lines to no one in particular. And Lavinia would probably drop the tea tray on him.

Knowing Mr. Fitzhugh, he probably wouldn't mind.

But that wasn't the point. The point was that this had been—a lark. A stolen moment in time. Mr. Fitzhugh could afford to go about chasing down puddings for the sheer sport of it, but she had a living to get and a family to care for. She was for teaching.

And he was for Miss Deveraux.

“There's no need for you to call,” said Arabella quietly. “I'm sure you were right before. This is just a schoolgirl prank. Nothing more.”

T
he Middle Ages were called the Dark Ages because they had no windows. In the Renaissance, they discovered glass and everything became light.”

Arabella stifled a yawn with the back of her hand. Half past ten, five papers still left to mark, and her mind was already beginning to wander. Arabella squinted at the dense curlicues and ink blots of Clarissa Hardcastle's history composition.