Mistletoe'd! Read online

  “There. I think that is the best that can be expected of us,” Penelope said, standing back and examining her handiwork.

  At last Vivian was allowed the mirror. She stood in front of the cheval glass and blinked in surprise. She had not been transformed into a beauty—that much even Penelope’s pastes and lotions could not achieve. But what charms she had were brought out while the flaws were concealed.

  Her brow that was too high was shortened now by the dark brown curls that covered it, and that brought attention to her eyes, whose color was brighter for the contrast with the red of her lips and cheeks. The powder helped to conceal the one or two faint pink blemishes, while allowing the whiteness of her skin to shine through.

  “Astonishing!” Vivian said. She touched lightly at her hair, the back brought up in a braided coil, flowers and ribbons tucked around it. It was so much lovelier than the plain chignon she usually wore. She could not quite believe it was Vivian Ambrose in the mirror, it was such a change from the familiar reflection.

  Penelope tucked her chin in, a tight-lipped smile of pride and satisfaction on her face. “Don’t spoil it by acting as if you think yourself plain. He’ll value you as you value yourself, or so Mama has told me a thousand times.”

  At that, the tension crept back, for how could she value herself any higher than what she was? She saw now the way her collarbones were sharp under her skin, and the boniness of her wrists. Her shoulders were too square and broad, and her jaw as well.

  She had a prodigious appetite that had never been satisfied with the stingy trays of food sent up to her and Miss Marbury. Her cousins’ servants had sensed the disregard with which she was treated, and had in turn treated her accordingly, ignoring requests she made for extra food. The effects showed in the angular body beneath the lace and silk of this new dress, the powders and the ribbons.

  She looked what she was: a nervous, hungry spinster.

  Noises came from below, voices raised in greeting. Guests were beginning to arrive.

  Vivian felt, all at once, the true loss of those years at Miss Marbury’s bedside. She had had no training in the rules of society, knew little of making pleasant conversation, and even less of how to win the heart of a man. She was going to make faux pas left and right, and the baronet would wonder indeed where this graceless cousin of his aunt’s had come from.

  This, though, was her chance, and she would not—could not—let her lack of experience stop her. She straightened her spine and raised her chin.

  She had spent nine years waiting for her life to begin, waiting to live as other people did. Her patience was worn away, her hunger all-consuming. She wanted a snug house; she wanted children she could spoil as badly as Penelope had been spoiled; she wanted a husband who, however old and smelly, would look upon her as a treasure and call her “my dear.” And she, in return, would make certain he was well fed and that his clothes were fresh and mended, and treat him with tender regard and gratitude.

  If Penelope thought Vivian had a chance at this unnamed man, then perhaps she did. And she would take it.

  *

  “Mr. Brent, it is good to see you again,” Captain Twitchen said. “I hear you’ll be giving us Tories a hard time of it.”

  “As hard a time as I can possibly manage,” Richard Brent said. “What’s the good of buying oneself a seat in Parliament if one cannot obstruct Tories?”

  “By Jove, you’re as blunt as I remember! You won’t go far without a bit of finesse, though, Mr. Brent. Politics, you know. Can’t always say what you think. I shouldn’t go about advertising my seat was from a rotten borough, if I were you.”

  “I don’t see why not. I am always honest about my corruptions.”

  “Ha! Ha! And so you are. If nothing else, you’ll be an entertainment this session; that you will.”

  “I’ll do my best to distract you and your cohorts from your duties,” he said, grinning. He couldn’t help but like the bluff old captain.

  “That you will!” the man agreed.

  “Richard, you naughty man,” his sister Elizabeth said, coming up and taking his arm. “Talking politics? I’d say you should know better, only that would encourage you all the more. Come, there is someone you should meet.”

  “Must I?” he asked, and the question was not in jest.

  “You must. Captain Twitchen,” she said, nodding her head to her uncle-by-marriage.

  “Lady Sudley,” the captain acknowledged with a brief bow.

  “Who now?” Richard asked as Elizabeth led him away. He was visiting her and her family at Haverton Hall for the Christmas season, a tradition he had been faithful to since she had married some five years previously. In that time he had met a goodly number of the eminent citizens of Dorset County, and of Corfe Castle, the small village named for the ruined keep that loomed above it.

  “You shall see.”

  Worrisome words. Elizabeth was forever trying to reform, if not his behavior, then at least the appearance his actions took, and her chosen method was unfortunately matrimonial. Despite the evidence that no well-bred gentlewoman would have him, Elizabeth persisted in thinking one would.

  Her disappointment was greater than his when most declined so much as even a dance with him.

  Blind Elizabeth—she could not see that her brother’s presence in the same room with gentlewomen was tolerated only because his family had rank and he had money. For that kind, honest toleration of society he was suitably kind in return, and he gave its hypocrisies the respect they deserved.

  “You’re not going to frighten some tender young creature by introducing me to her, are you?”

  “No one who knew you could possibly be frightened of you, for all your growling.”

  “So you are introducing me to one,” he said.

  “She may be different.”

  He sighed. “At least she will have a tale to share with her friends of how she was forced to speak to that dastardly Richard Brent. I shall not disappoint her.”

  “Be kind, Richard.”

  “I shall be completely myself, for did you not just say that no one could possibly be frightened of me if they knew me?”

  Elizabeth made a rumbling noise in the back of her throat, most unladylike. Then her expression lightened, her smile softened, her grip on his arm loosened, and he knew that the victim was at hand.

  “Miss Ambrose, there you are,” Elizabeth began as they came up to a dark-haired woman dressed in pale yellow. “I would like to introduce to you my brother, Mr. Richard Brent.”

  The girl stared at him, blinking great sea green eyes, then raised her hand for him to take.

  “Miss Ambrose,” he said, taking her fingers and bowing over them. They trembled in his grasp, and when he looked up from under his brows he saw the faint sheen of perspiration on her upper lip and the plane of her bosom. Not that he allowed his eyes to linger there. “How do you do?”

  “How do you do?” she whispered back, her voice cracking on the words.

  “Miss Ambrose is cousin to Mrs. Twitchen, and newly arrived from Shropshire,” Elizabeth said, as he released the young woman’s hand.

  “Do you find Corfe Castle any improvement?” he asked. She looked to be one of those nervous girls who, if she was not careful, would grow into a sinewy, discontented old woman around whom one could never relax. She was probably thinking disdainful thoughts about him at this very moment.

  “I like the people better,” she said.

  “Do you?” he asked.

  “I think the food looks to be better here, as well.”

  He startled himself by laughing. Miss Ambrose gazed at him with widened eyes, as if not understanding why he found her amusing. Elizabeth smiled and excused herself.

  “Let’s hope Cook has not tried to be fancy and created a gothic mess of a meal, with four sauces for every dish,” Richard said. “I can never decide if a free dinner should be counted as a gift or a curse. I think it is only the meager excitement of discovering which it shall be that
draws me into accepting what few invitations come my way.”

  Miss Ambrose’s lips parted, and she stared dumbstruck at him for several seconds. “You came only for the food?” she finally managed to ask.

  “You look a hungry sort of girl,” he said, intentionally being as blunt as his reputation had him. She would scamper off, and he would be free of another young miss who lived her life by the rules, not by the truth of her heart. “Aren’t you looking forward to sitting down to dine more than you are to any songs on the pianoforte or games of whist?”

  She gaped at him as if he were an exotic animal, then leaned forward confidentially and whispered, “I am perishing of hunger. I could eat an entire goose, were one to wander in and conveniently fall dead at my feet.” Then she pulled back and put her fingertips to her lips as if she could push the words back in. “A lady is not supposed to admit to such things, is she?”

  “I hardly think the scandal sheets will pillory you for it,” he said, utterly surprised by her answer.

  She flashed him a grateful smile, and he wondered if she was ignorant of his minor infamy. He had not killed anyone, he had not cheated anyone of their wealth, he had not ruined any virgins, yet for his past and present choices gentlewomen had closed ranks against him and counted him a nefarious fellow, unworthy of their daughters. He knew he had been a frequent topic of the cruelest sort of gossip. But it did not bother him much; he had not found any daughters worthy of him.

  The announcement came for dinner, and he gave this new young woman his arm. After the briefest of hesitations she took it, and he saw that it was shyness that had stayed her for a moment, not offended honor. She really might not know anything about him! He was surprised by his pleasure in that thought.

  Mrs. Twitchen indicated with a benevolent nod that he should sit beside Miss Ambrose at the table. Miss Twitchen sat on his other side, the young girl exchanging a long, meaningful look with Miss Ambrose before smartly turning all her attention to the gentleman farmer who sat on her other side. The look sent Miss Ambrose into blinking blushes, and she stared at her dish of soup as if she had never seen such a thing before.

  And perhaps she hadn’t. The pea soup had chunks of blue-veined Stilton cheese, half-melted, floating about in it.

  “Oh, dear,” he said from the side of his mouth. “Cook has been creative.”

  Her spoon clattered into her dish, and she gave a snort of nervous laughter. She peeked at him, a wary look in her eyes.

  Had Miss Twitchen spoken of him earlier, and Miss Ambrose not connected the topic of that conversation to him until that long look? How disappointing. He had started to think he might get through a meal with an attractive female companion and not feel as if she thought he might give her fleas.

  For Miss Ambrose was attractive, in those moments she began to relax and the tendons in her neck smoothed out, and the little worried frown between her brows disappeared. He put her age at about twenty, six years younger than he himself, but even for that age there was a remarkable lack of polish and ease about her.

  Ah, well. She’d have her London season, and then her unaffectedness would be gone forever in the name of social graces.

  “I would have my dinner backward if I could,” she suddenly said in a very soft voice.

  “How’s that?” he asked, glad she was still speaking to him. His meal need not be passed in icy silence, after all. What had that long look with Miss Twitchen meant?

  “Dessert and sweatmeats first. I do think pea soup with Stilton should be left as a final deterrent to gluttons who are overlong at table.”

  For the second time he was surprised by his own laughter. Heads turned in their direction. “Are you going to eat it?” he asked.

  “Oh, I must,” she said, picking up her spoon. “I could not embarrass Mrs. Twitchen by not doing so. And I am hungry enough that I don’t think even clippings from Cook’s toenails in the soup could put me off.”

  He set his own spoon into his bowl, any intention of tasting the vile stuff gone from his mind. “That is a thoroughly repulsive thought.”

  She glanced at him, a spoonful of green and white at her lips. She raised her brows, then purposefully sucked it in.

  For the third time, he laughed.

  “Miss Ambrose,” Captain Twitchen said, speaking across the intervening diners, interrupting their conversations. “What is it that you are saying to amuse our Mr. Brent so?”

  “I really don’t know, sir,” she said, dipping her spoon back into her soup.

  “Damn if it isn’t the first time I’ve seen the man in a good humor. Mr. Brent, what is so funny?”

  “You will have to amuse yourself with wondering,” Richard said.

  “Damn!”

  “Captain Twitchen!” his wife admonished from her end of the table.

  “But damn, Mary. It must be a confoundingly good joke.”

  “Direct your attention to the fish, please,” Mrs. Twitchen said, and the servants on their silent feet came around and carried off the offending soup, replacing it with a platter of fish that the captain would have to serve to his guests. The man looked somewhat peeved.

  The fish was served and eaten, and Richard could not fail to note that Miss Ambrose consumed every sliver of flaky white meat upon her plate. “You enjoyed the fish?” he asked as it was removed and the platters of the main course were arrayed around the table.

  “It helped to erase the memory of the soup,” she said.

  “Where did you come from, Miss Ambrose?” he asked, as he served her from the platters nearest to them. “And no, don’t tell me Shropshire. You know that is not what I mean.”

  “Then what do you mean?”

  “There, now you’re sounding more like the usual young lady, delicately fishing for a compliment.”

  “I certainly am not! I cannot help if you ask questions of uncertain meaning. I come from Shropshire, and there is very little to add to my history than that.”

  “Your parents?”

  “Deceased.”

  “Ah.”

  “‘Ah’ what, sir?”

  “More oysters?”

  “Yes, thank you. ‘Ah’ what?”

  “‘Ah,’ you will be hunting for a husband this season.”

  “And what girl does not?”

  “Have you an inheritance?”

  “That is an impertinent question,” she replied.

  “I thought we were done with illusions of proper conversation, after that mention of Cook’s toenails,” he said, disappointed that she had retreated behind that false shield of propriety.

  She speared a fried oyster on her fork, and met his eyes. “No, I have no inheritance. This is not my gown, nor my jewelry, nor my ribbons, nor my flowers.”

  “Then ‘Ah,’ you are going to be whipping your hounds into a fine frenzy to run down and trap a husband, for all that you have a pretty face.”

  Emotions he could not read flowed across her face. She ate her oyster and speared another. “I shall do my best. Do you have any advice to offer, you who are so worldly?”

  “Are you mocking me?”

  “Would I dare?” she asked, eating the second oyster and going for a third.

  He laughed, genuinely delighted. “You would, wouldn’t you? I doubt you are quite so daring as you pretend, though.”

  “How so?”

  She was working her way through the chicken, the lamb, and the stewed venison on her plate. The girl had not been jesting about being hungry. “More oysters?” he asked.

  “Please.”

  He served her, taking all but the last oyster from the dish and depositing them on her plate. “I would wager you are one of those girls who will venture to the edge of propriety, but never take a step beyond. In words you may take a risk, but never in deed.”

  She finished off the last of the venison and applied herself to the new batch of oysters. “I would not know.”

  “More pretty obfuscation?”

  “No,” she said, looking at him
with an oyster on her fork, her eyes large and guileless. “I have never had the opportunity to find out.” Then she downed the oyster.

  He swallowed. Just who was this Miss Ambrose?

  *

  Vivian collapsed onto a love seat and with shaking fingers pushed back the limp curls that had begun to fall out near her damp face. The oysters, venison, fish, soup, chicken, four different wines, anchovy toasts, pigeon, tarts, fritters, and a cup of syllabub churned and roiled in her stomach.

  “Tea?” Penelope asked.

  “Yes, please.” Perhaps it would settle her. The women of the party had at last retreated to the drawing room, the men still at the table with their claret. She had half an hour or so to compose herself and prepare for another round with Mr. Brent.

  “Here you are,” Penelope said, handing her a cup of tea, then sitting down beside her and leaning forward confidentially. “I didn’t know you had it in you—what an artful thing you are!”

  “I didn’t know I had it in me, either,” Vivian agreed, raising her cup in quivering fingers and taking a cautious sip.

  “He’s fascinated by you! Fascinated!”

  “What is it that is wrong with him?”

  “To be fascinated by you? Heaven only knows, but I won’t argue with it.”

  “That is not what I meant.”

  “You are a handsome couple. How surprised Mama will be when you marry so shortly after coming to us!”

  “Must I ask your mama what it is?”

  “What what is? Really, cousin, you are being far too suspicious. Why not enjoy that a well-bred man has taken an interest in you? Though I must say that eating so greedily cannot have helped your cause any. No one could fail to remark upon it.”

  “‘Twas Mr. Brent who insisted on serving me.”

  “You are not a child. You need not eat everything put before you.”

  But she did need to. Her nervousness with Mr. Brent had only increased her appetite, and however it had looked she had been unable to stop eating. She felt like a boiled Scottish haggis, ready to burst, and still she could not help thinking of the sweetmeats on the mistletoe pyramid.

  “But tell me, you like him, don’t you?” Penelope asked.