The Mistletoe Wager

There were sounds of gratitude and happiness in response, and for a moment she quite forgot the trouble of the last week’s preparation. And although at times she silently cursed her brother for causing the mess, she noticed that he was behaving strangely as he moved through the hubbub, making many restless journeys up and down the stairs. It was as if he was anticipating something or someone in particular, and his pleasure at each new face seemed to diminish, rather than increase, when he did not see the person he expected.

And then the last couple stepped through the open doorway.

‘Rosalind!’ Elise threw her arms wide and encompassed her in an embrace that was tight to the point of discomfort. ‘So you are the one Harry’s found to take the reins.’

‘Elise?’ The name came out of her as a phlegm-choked moan. ‘I had no idea that Harry had invited you.’

‘Neither does Harry,’ Elise whispered with a conspiratorial grin. ‘But how can he mind? This was my house for so long that I think I should still be welcome in it, for a few days at least. And since he made such a kind point of inviting my special friend, he must have meant to include me. Otherwise he would have left me quite alone in London for the holidays. That cannot have been his intention.’

‘Special friend?’ Elise could not mean what she was implying. And even if she did, Rosalind prayed she would not have been so bold as to bring him here. If Elise had taken a lover, Rosalind suspected that it was very much Harry’s intention to split the two up.

‘Have you met? I doubt it. Here, Nicholas—meet little Rosalind, my husband’s half-sister. She is to be our hostess.’

When she saw him, Rosalind felt her smile freeze as solid as the ice on the windowpanes. Nicholas Tremaine was as fine as she remembered him, his hair dark, his face a patrician mask, with a detached smile. It held none of the innocent mirth of their first meeting but all of the world-weariness she had seen in him even then. And, as it had five years before, her heart stopped and then gave an unaccustomed leap as she waited for him to notice her. ‘How do you do, Mr…?’

But it was too much to hope that he had forgotten her. ‘I believe we’ve met,’ he said, and then his jaw clenched so hard that his lips went white. He had paused on the doorstep, one boot on the threshold, snow falling on his broad shoulders, the flakes bouncing off them to melt at his feet. His clothing was still immaculate and in the first stare of fashion. But now it was of a better cut, and from more expensive cloth than it had been. It hardly mattered. For when she had first seen him, Nicholas Tremaine had been the sort of man to make poverty appear elegant.

If his change in tailor was an indication, his fortunes had improved, and wealth suited him even better. In any other man, she would have thought that pause in the doorway a vain attempt to add drama to his entrance, while allowing the audience to admire his coat. But she suspected that now Tremaine had seen her he was trying to decide whether it would be better to enter the house or run back towards London—on foot, if necessary.

The pause continued as he struggled to find the correct mood. Apparently he’d decided on benign courtesy, for he smiled, although a trifle coldly, and said, ‘We met in London. It was several years ago, although I cannot remember the exact circumstances.’

Liar. She was sure that he remembered the whole incident in excruciating detail. As did she. She hoped her face did not grow crimson at the recollection.

‘But I had no idea,’ he continued, ‘that you were Harry’s mysterious sister.’

Was she the only one who heard the silent words, Or I would never have agreed to come? But he was willing to pretend ignorance, possibly because the truth reflected no better on him than it had on her, so she must play the game as well.

‘I am his half-sister. Mother married my father when Harry was just a boy. He is a vicar.’ She paused. ‘My father, that is. Because of course Harry is not…’ She was so nervous that she was rambling, and she stopped herself suddenly, which made for an embarrassing gap in the conversation.

‘So I’ve been told.’

‘I had no idea that you would be a guest here.’ Please, she willed, believe I had no part in this.

If the others in the room noticed the awkwardness between them, they gave no indication. Elise’s welcome was as warm as if there had been nothing wrong. ‘How strange that I’ve never introduced you. Rosalind was in London for a time the year we…the year I married Harry.’ She stumbled over her own words for a moment, as though discovering a problem, and Rosalind held her breath, fearing that Elise had noticed the coincidence. But then the moment passed, and Elise took Tremaine’s arm possessively. ‘I am sure we will all be close friends now. I have not had much chance to know you, Rosalind, since you never leave home. I hope that we can change that. Perhaps now that you are old enough, your father will allow you to come to London and visit?’

‘Of course,’ she replied, fighting the temptation to remind Elise that Rosalind was her senior by almost two months. Her age did not signify, for her father would never let her travel, and certainly not to visit her brother’s wife. If Elise meant to carry on a public affair, no decent lady could associate with her. And the identity of the gentleman involved made an embarrassing situation into a mortifying one.

Elise continued to act as if nothing was wrong. ‘I am glad that you have come to stay with Harry. He needs a keeper if he has taken to engaging in daft wagers for Christmas. And this party will be an excellent opportunity for you to widen your social circle.’

‘Wagers?’ She looked at her sister-in-law with helpless confusion. And then she asked, ‘What has Harry done now?’

Elise laughed. ‘Has he forgotten to tell you, little one, of the reason for this party? How typical of him. He’s bet the men at the club that he can make Mr Tremaine wish him a Merry Christmas. But Nick is most adamant in his plan to avoid merriment. I have had no impact on him, and you know my feelings on the subject of Christmas fun. It will be interesting to see if you can move him, now that you are in charge of the entertainments here.’

‘Oh.’ This was news, thought Rosalind. For at one time Nicholas Tremaine had been of quite a different opinion about the holiday, much to their mutual regret.

But there was no reason to mention it, for Tremaine seemed overly focused on his Garrick and his hat, as though wishing to look anywhere than at his hostess.

Now Elise was unbuttoning her cloak, and calling for a servant, treating this very much as if it was still her home. It was even more annoying to see the servants responding with such speed, when they would drag their feet for her. It was clear that Elise was mistress here, not her. Rosalind’s stomach gave a sick lurch. Let her find her own way to her room, and take her lover as well. She signalled to the servants to help Tremaine, and turned to make an escape.

And then she saw Harry, at the head of the stairs. The couple in the doorway had not noticed him as yet, but Rosalind could see his expression as he observed them. He saw Tremaine first, and there was a narrowing of the eyes, a slight smile, and a set to the chin that hinted of a battle to come. But then he looked past his adversary to the woman behind him.

Resolution dissolved into misery. The look of pain on his face was plain to see, should any observe him. Then he closed his eyes and took a gathering breath. When he opened them again he was his usual carefree self. He started down the stairs, showing to all the world that there was not a thing out of the ordinary in entertaining one’s wife and her lover as Christmas guests.

‘Tremaine, you have decided to take up my offer after all.’ He reached out to clasp the gentleman’s hand, and gave him a hearty pat on the back that belied his look of a moment earlier. ‘We shall get you out of the blue funk you inhabit in this jolly time.’

Tremaine looked, by turns, alarmed and suspicious. ‘I seriously doubt it.’

‘But I consider it my duty,’ Harry argued. ‘For how could I entrust my wife to the keeping of a man who cannot keep this holiday in his heart? She adores it, sir. Simply adores it.’ There was the faintest emphasis on the word ‘wife’, as though he meant to remind Tremaine of the facts in their relationship.

‘Really, Harry. You have not “entrusted” me to anyone. You speak as though I were part of the entail.’ Pique only served to make Elise more beautiful, and Rosalind wondered if it was a trick that could be learned, or if it must be bred in.

‘And Elise.’ Harry turned to her, putting a hand on each shoulder and leaning forward to kiss her.

She turned a cold cheek to him, and he stopped his lips just short of it, kissing the air by her face before releasing her to take her wrap. ‘This is most unexpected. I assumed, when you said that you never wished to set foot over my threshold again…’he leaned back to stare into her eyes ‘…that you would leave me alone.’

Elise’s smile was as brilliant as the frost glittering from the trees, and as brittle. ‘When I heard that you wished to extend your hospitality to Nicholas, I assumed that you were inviting me as well. We are together now, you know.’ There was a barb in the last sentence, but Harry gave no indication that he had been wounded by it.

‘Of course. And if it will truly make you happy, then I wish you well in it. Come in, come in. You will take your death, standing in the cold hall like this.’ He looked out into the yard. ‘The weather is beastly, I must say. All the better to be inside, before a warm fire.’

Tremaine cast a longing glance over his shoulder, at the road away from the house, before Harry shut the door behind him. ‘Come, the servants will show you to your rooms.’

‘Where have you put us?’ Elise asked. ‘I was thinking the blue rooms in the east wing would be perfect.’

Rosalind swallowed, unsure of how she was expected to answer such a bold request. Although Harry might say aloud that he wished for his wife to have whatever made her happy, she doubted that it would extend to offering her the best guest rooms in the house, so that she could go to her lover through the connecting door between them.

Before she could answer, Harry cut in. ‘I am so sorry, darling. Had I but known you were coming I’d have set them aside for you. But since I thought Tremaine was arriving alone, if at all, I had Rosalind put him in the room at the end of that hall.’

‘The smallest one?’ Elise said bluntly.

‘Of course. He does not need much space—do you, old man?’ Harry stared at him, daring him to respond in the negative.

‘Of—of course not,’ Tremaine stuttered.

Harry turned back to Elise. ‘And I am afraid you will have to take the room you have always occupied. The place beside me. Although we are full to the rafters, I told Rosalind to leave it empty. I will never fill the space that is rightly yours.’

The last words had a flicker of meaning that Elise chose to ignore. ‘That is utterly impossible, Harry. I have no wish to return to it.’

His voice was soft, but firm. ‘I am afraid, darling, that you must make do with what is available. And if that is the best room in the house then so be it.’ He turned and walked away from her, up the stairs.

Elise hurried after him, and Rosalind could hear the faint hiss of whispered conversation. Nicholas Tremaine followed after, his retreating back stiff.

Chapter Four

By the time they reached the door to her bedroom, Nicholas had made a discreet exit. And for the first time in two months, Elise was alone with her infuriatingly reasonable husband.

‘But, my dear, I cannot give you another room, even if I might wish to. On my honour, they are all full.’

Harry was smiling at her again, and she searched his face for any sign that he had missed her, and had orchestrated the situation just to have her near. But in his eyes she saw not love, nor frustrated passion, nor even smug satisfaction at having duped her to return. He was showing her the same warmth he might show to a stranger. He held a hand out to her again, but made no attempt to touch her.