The Mischief of the Mistletoe: A Pink Carnation Christmas (19 page)

“Yes,” Turnip agreed. He had been planning to get it for her for Christmas anyway. No need to tell Sally that, though. She was happier if she thought she had the upper hand. “Earrings and all. Miss Dempsey?”

Sally arranged her hands demurely in her lap. “Miss Dempsey is out.”

“Out?”

“As in out of the building. Outside. Away. Not here. Since the school is so empty, Miss Climpson gave her a half day to do her Christmas shopping. At least, that was what Miss Climpson said. I think it was really so people would stop trying to ask her what all the hullabaloo was with Signor Marconi last night.”

“You couldn't have told me this before?”

“If I had,” said Sally logically, “I would have had to go back to French class.”

Turnip resisted the urge to bury his head in his hands. He would only crush his hat that way. Sally would still be Sally. And Miss Dempsey would still be out.

“Do you know when she'll be back?”

Sally opened her mouth to say something silly, but some latent sense of self-preservation stopped her. She shook her head. “I don't. Really. But you'll see her at the recital tomorrow. I do assume that whatever this secret matter may be can wait until tomorrow?”

Turnip ignored the sarcasm. “Recital?”

“Reggie! Don't tell me you forgot! The recital.
The
recital. The big Christmassy thing at which you are expected to sit quietly and clap loudly whenever you see me.”

“I will, I will. Very loudly.” Come to think of it, he had known about the recital. It would be hard not to. He had been dragged to two of them already. It had been a memorable experience, although not necessarily on account of its artistic merit.

“You're not playing a sheep again, are you?”

Sally narrowed her eyes at him. “I'm an angel. The Angel of the Lord.”

No wonder those shepherds had been sore afraid. Turnip would have been too.

“Oh, don't look like that. It won't be that bad. And you can see Miss Dempsey there.”

But he wanted to see her now.

Turnip's eyes strayed to the escritoire in the corner, supplied with paper, pens, and ink. He could leave her a note, but, not to put too fine a point on it, eloquent prose wasn't exactly his forte. Besides, he didn't trust Sally not to read it. And there really wasn't any way to put “hope you don't mind about that kiss” in code. He couldn't even figure out what he was trying to say in plain English, much less in circumlocutions obscure enough to be opaque to Sally, but clear enough to be understood by Miss Dempsey.

Maybe he had better wait for the recital.

Turnip brightened at the thought. The place would be milling with parents and siblings, all dutifully chewing their way through Miss Climpson's mini mince pies, which had all the adhesive properties and taste of strong glue. If the event ran to form, at least one piece of scenery would fall down over the course of the evening and one of the younger girls would have a strong case of stage fright. Amid all the traditional hullabaloo, there would be plenty of opportunity to sneak away for a private chat.

There might even be mistletoe.

“When is it?” he heard himself asking.

“I don't know why I bother to tell you
anything
,” said Sally. “Six o'clock. And by six o'clock, I mean six o'clock. Not half past or a quarter to seven.”

“What color enamel was it again?” asked Turnip.

“Blue.” Sally went up on her toes to kiss him on the cheek. “Thank you, lovely brother. I'll tell Miss Dempsey you called.”

“You do that.” He wouldn't want her to go a whole day thinking he had just kissed her and run off. “Tell her . . . well, tell her I called. And that I asked after her. And that I called.”

“Reggie?” Sally tilted her head at him. “Are you all right?”

“Perfectly.” Turnip clapped something on his head. Unfortunately, it turned out to be his gloves rather than his hat. He hastily switched hands. “ 'Course I am. Why wouldn't I be?”

Sally looked pointedly at his gloves. “No reason.”

M
y brother was looking for you.” Sally pounced the moment Arabella walked through the door.

Arabella put down her parcels and applied herself to untying the strings of her bonnet. Why had she never noticed before that the world was distinctly oversupplied with Fitzhughs? They were everywhere.

Arabella had woken this morning with a headache, a nasty taste in her mouth, and the wild hope that last night had, in fact, been a particularly bizarre dream. That was a hope that had been rudely counteracted at breakfast, where all the older girls were buzzing over the brilliant gossip that Signor Marconi had been caught climbing through a window and chased down and wrested to the ground by Miss Climpson, who had battered him into submission with a china cupid.

Fortunately, no one appeared to have seen a large man climbing the trellis.

In an attempt to give herself something to think about other than Turnip, Arabella had fled to the Austen house, commandeering a surprised but amenable Jane for some impromptu shopping. On a superficial level, the expedition could be counted a success. Arabella had found gifts for all the members of her family, even Margaret, but Christmas shopping hadn't been quite the distraction that she had hoped it would be.

When Jane had asked her what she meant to buy for Margaret, Arabella had replied, “A trellis.”

Arabella carefully removed her bonnet and gathered up her parcels before turning back to Turnip's sister. “Don't you have a music lesson?”

“No.” Sally sauntered along beside her as Arabella made for the stairs. “The harp needs to be restrung. Several strings were broken in the altercation last night.”

“The harp wasn't in the drawing room.” If she had tripped over it, she would have known. Harp strings left painful welts.

“Wasn't it?” Sally widened her eyes so far it was painful to watch.

“If you stay like that too long, your face will freeze that way.”

“People have told me that before. It hasn't happened yet. What do you think he wanted?”

“Signor Marconi?”

Sally rolled her eyes. “No. Reggie.”

Reggie. Arabella applied the name to the person and tried to decide if it fit. She had kissed him, but she had never called him by his first name. Or even by his nickname.

She didn't want to think about that. If she were ten years younger, she would have stuck her fingers in her ears and made loud humming noises.

“What do you think he wants?” persisted Sally.

“The answer to that completely eludes me.”

Sally wasn't that easily dismissed. “You must have some idea.”

“I've sworn off all ideas until after Christmas.”

Once upon a time, she had prided herself on her critical judgment, on her ability to step back and take a clear view of her own character and those of other people. But what if it wasn't that her judgment was so good? What if it was just that she had spent most of her life untested, and now, having been tested, failed miserably? It hurt to find that her feet were as clay-like as anyone else's.

It wasn't that she didn't like Turnip. She did. She liked him tremendously. She liked his innate decency and his ridiculous sense of humor and—no, she wasn't supposed to be thinking about that bit. In any event, she did like him, and she was fairly sure that he was equally fond of her, but the thought of anything more between them was entirely out of the question. He was Turnip Fitzhugh—and she was Miss Who? Miss What-Was-Your-Name-Again?

As for Turnip, he was made of a different clay than she was—a shinier, more sophisticated clay. She knew his world, even if she wasn't quite part of it, knew it well enough to know that flirtation was just part of the game, and that it was a game for them. Not meant maliciously—she didn't think Turnip could be malicious if he tried—but the stakes were different for him, for all of them who had the backing of fortune and standing.

It was easy enough for him, with no intent to harm, to kiss Penelope Deveraux on a balcony one day, and Arabella the next, never thinking that in the world from which Arabella hailed, the quiet assemblies of the country gentry, a kiss might be taken as more than a kiss. The gilded circle of the elite operated by less rigorous rules than a country parson's daughter.

The best thing for everyone concerned was simply to pretend that the kiss had never happened.

It didn't help that she could still feel the curve of his cheek beneath her fingers and the way the short hairs at the back of his neck had prickled against the palm of her hand. The body, it seemed, had a long memory.

Well, her body would just have to forget. When she saw him, as she supposed she must someday, she would be friendly but distant. Dignified. If she could put it off until she were eighty or so, that would help tremendously. Nothing said dignity like gray hair and a cane.

“Reggie did say he would be at the recital tomorrow night.” Sally watched Arabella out of the corner of her eye. She was about as successful at looking sly as her older brother. Their faces just weren't constructed for it.

“Splendid,” said Arabella. “Brilliant. Lovely.”

She would be the one there with a burlap sack over her head, hiding. Or perhaps she could find a nice potted plant to hide behind. Now all she needed to do was locate a six-foot-high poinsettia and her plan would be complete.

“He's really not a bad sort,” said Sally. “When he isn't acting like a complete buffoon, that is.”

“Signor Marconi?” It hadn't worked the first time, but it was worth another try.

Sally cast her a reproachful glance. “No. Reggie.”

“Good,” said Arabella brightly, heaving herself up the last few stairs. “I wouldn't want you getting any ideas about the music master. I doubt your parents would approve.”

“Ugh.” Sally shuddered. “Those mustachios.”

Jumbling her packages, Arabella nodded to her door. “Would you mind opening that for me? I'm afraid I'll drop something.”

“Oh, certainly.” Sally gave the door a shove on Arabella's behalf. “Did you hear about Signor Marconi and—oh.”

She broke off, stopping so abruptly that Arabella nearly tripped over her foot.

Arabella grappled for a sliding package, catching it just before it fell. “What—oh.”

She very slowly straightened, still clutching her inconvenient mound of packages, staring openmouthed at the wreckage that had been her room.

“Good heavens,” Sally said breathlessly.

Arabella attempted to wrestle her jaw back into its usual position. “More like the other place.”

Her room—while she hadn't exactly left it in a pristine condition—had been nothing like this when she left it. The compositions that had been piled on her desk were now strewn about the floor. Black sludge seeped down the side of the desk from the overturned inkwell, puddling on top of Arabella's favorite Kashmir shawl, which was wadded into a crumpled heap. Her best petticoat sprawled wantonly over the splayed legs of the overturned chair, while bits of ribbon, bonnet trim, and gloves littered the floor like the ground after a parade. The wardrobe doors gaped open, the empty drawers sticking out as though the wardrobe were putting out its tongue at her.

Feathers adhered to everything, even the walls. It wasn't hard to tell where they had come from. She could see the burst skin of a pillow, belching yet more feathers. Who knew that such a little pillow could have so many feathers in it? It was positively Shakespearean. Some of the feathers had landed in the ink, turning the color of a crow's wing.

Without waiting to be asked, Sally wandered into the room ahead of her. Paper crunched beneath the heels of her slippers. The coral beads from Arabella's one decent piece of jewelry skittered about underfoot.

“What happened here?” Sally asked in wonder. A stray feather, stirred by her passage, grazed her nose in passing and she sneezed explosively, covering her mouth with her hand.

Whoever it was had even stripped the bedclothes off her bed, dumping them in an untidy mound at the foot. Whoever it was had ripped long gashes into the mattress itself, out of which sprayed a combination of wool and feathers and whatever else it was that people stuffed inside mattresses. It looked as though rats had been burrowing in it. But it wasn't rats. Just one very malicious human.

Mechanically, Arabella reached out and tried to smooth out the bent brim of a bonnet. The straw stubbornly bounced back out of position. Arabella pushed, harder. The bonnet pushed back. Angry tears prickled at the back of Arabella's eyes.