Holiday House Parties (6 page)

On the whole, the days passed pleasantly. The weather was chilly but clear, enabling the party to ride on horseback over the gentle hills of the Teale estate or to take brisk walks through the extensive gardens. Geordie rode out with Emmaline each morning (Lady Jane being too delicate to sit a horse), and escorted Lady Jane (carefully swathed in voluminous shawls to protect herself against the wind) through the gardens in the afternoons, thus dividing his attentions equally between them. Lord Powell, with whom he played billiards in the late afternoon, liked to tease him about his even-handedness with the ladies.

“My wife and I are wagering on the matter,” the cheerful old fellow confessed, laughing. “I've put ten guineas on the Dawlish girl, but Lucy claims she's too boyish and that you'll come to prefer the delicacy of Lady Jane and settle on her in the end.”

“Yer wastin' yer time if not yer brass, Powell,” Geordie retorted. “'Tis not a winnable wager. I'll not settle on either one. I'm only playin' the gallant to please my aunt.”

On the morning of the fourth day of Geordie's stay at Teale Court, the household woke to find that the air had turned icy cold, the sky was overcast, and the world was covered with a thin blanket of snow. The scene was lovely to the eye, but the cold prevented the assemblage from indulging in any outside activity. The gentlemen were disappointed, but the ladies were not perturbed. They gathered in the downstairs sitting room after breakfast, intent on making the Christmas decorations. Brimming with good cheer, they seated themselves round a large table and, abundantly supplied with greens and string, began to fashion ivy into festoons, holly sprays into wreaths, and evergreen branches into kissing boughs. (Only Lady Powell and Emmaline were set to making the kissing boughs, for they were the most adept at weaving the evergreen boughs into proper basket shapes—baskets that would later be filled with apples, tasseled with mistletoe, and hung in all the doorways.) The gentlemen, feeling themselves above participating in such trivial chores, wandered about the house complaining that they had nothing to do.

The ladies, however, freed from the constraining presence of the men, giggled and gossiped to their hearts' content. Lady Powell soon turned the conversation to the romances that she believed were blossoming beneath her very nose.

“What a very delightful grouping your mother has arranged for you and your friends, Bella,” she exclaimed as she twisted an evergreen bough round itself to shape a basket. “She's provided a trio of delightful suitors for you all to flirt with.”

“Suitors, your ladyship?” Bella countered shyly. “I shouldn't call them suitors. Just companions.”

“Companions, indeed,” Lady Powell scoffed. “You, Bella, should be the last one to call them that, when it's perfectly obvious that Sir Archibald is on the verge of offering for you.”

“Goodness, Bella, is that true?” squealed her friend Jane. “Why haven't you
told
us?”

“But it's not … I mean he hasn't … That is, there's nothing—” poor red-faced Bella stammered.

“It's much too soon for such speculation,” Maud said calmly, reaching for a branch of ivy. “They've only just met.”

“Yes, but the signs are clear,” Lady Powell insisted. “Just as they are clear for Caroline.”

“For me?” Caroline asked, her eyebrows lifting. “Whatever do you mean, Lady Powell?”

“She means my brother,” Emmaline said with a shrug.

“Of course that's whom I mean,” Lady Powell agreed. “His intentions are obvious to all of us.”

Caroline blinked at her. “But that can't be so. He's never indicated any such intentions to me.”

“Come now, Caro,” Lucy Powell insisted, “you can't pretend to be surprised. Not when the fellow's been chasing after you like a besotted puppy from the moment he arrived.”

“We may have spent some time in each other's company, Your Ladyship,” Caroline said in sincere denial, her eyes troubled, “but that's only because we have such a strong affection for Greek drama in common.”

“I've heard of happy marriages with less in common than that,” Lady Powell said coyly.

“Marriages!”
Caroline gasped. “I assure you, Lady Powell, that marriage is the furthest thing from our minds. Truly! It's quite beyond the intention of either Mr. Dawlish or me.”

Emmaline Dawlish gave her braying laugh. “You sound just like Jane, Caro. She also likes to deny that
her
suitor, Lord Dunvegan, has intentions toward her.”

“
My
suitor?” Jane squealed again on an even higher register, color flooding her pale cheeks. “Geordie is
your
suitor, and you know it.”

“Featherhead!” Emmaline said, patting Jane's hand fondly. “Hasn't the fellow taken you round the gardens every afternoon since he arrived?”

“Hasn't he ridden out with
you
every single morning?” Jane turned a pair of pleading eyes to Caroline. “You tell her, Caro. You, of all our friends, are the most perceptive. Tell her which of us you think Geordie is pursuing.”

“I can't answer that, Jane,” Caroline replied, her eyes fixed on the sprig of mistletoe she was affixing to the bottom of a basket. “I take no notice of the activities and intentions of Lord Dunvegan. His doings are of no interest to me.”

Maud, at the opposite end of the table, leaned over to her friend Lucy Powell and laughingly whispered, “I think the lady doth protest too much.”

Lady Powell blinked at her friend in disbelief. “Are you suggesting that Caro has an eye for your Geordie? That, my dear, is nothing but wishful thinking. I'm convinced she cares only for Dawlish.”

But Maud shook her head. “I think you're out there, Lucy,” she said with quiet self-assurance. “I've noticed that Caro shows interest in Douglas Dawlish only when Geordie is present to observe it. When Geordie is not there, Dawlish seems to bore her to death. Watch them next time, and see if I'm not right.”

“Makes no difference if you are,” Lady Powell argued in as firm a voice as whispering permitted. “Geordie is going to offer for Lady Jane, if he offers for anyone. I've wagered ten guineas on it.”

Maud did not respond. Only the knowing smile that hovered on her lips for the rest of the morning told Lady Powell that her friend was not at all convinced.

Since the snow continued to fall all through luncheon, the entire party, gentlemen included, spent the afternoon attending to the decorations. The women continued to weave and braid, while the men set to the hanging. They tacked the festoons over the windows, hung wreaths over the fireplaces, and nailed baskets over the doorways. Amid much laughter and the shouting of orders and suggestions, the house rapidly took on a festive look.

Suddenly, above the merry din, came a pained scream. It issued from the throat of the delicate Lady Jane, who'd pricked a finger on the sharp spur of a holly leaf and discovered …
blood!
“Good heavens, I'm bleeding!” she cried, turning white.

Bella and Caro exchanged amused glances, for they were quite familiar with Jane's tendency to hysteria from their school days. So was Emmaline, who had no patience for her friend's histrionics. “Heavens, Jane, must you carry on?” she hissed. “It's only a little pinprick.”

But Jane stared in horror at the bit of blood, now swelling into a huge drop. “I think I shall … swoon,” she gasped.

“Don't you dare,” Emmaline ordered. “You know you only do it to get attention.”

The gentlemen came running in from various parts of the house, Lord Powell and Archie from the drawing room where they'd been hanging a festoon between the two windows on the west wall, Dawlish from the library where he'd been decorating the mantel of the fireplace, and Geordie from the dining room where he'd been nailing a kissing bough on the lintel of the room's high doorway. “What on earth's amiss?” Lord Powell asked.

“Poor Jane has hurt her finger,” Maud said with the show of sympathy that was proper in a good hostess. “I think she's feeling faint.”

“Yes,” Jane said in a weak whine. “I ought to lie down.”

“I'll take you up,” the good-natured Bella volunteered.

“Oh, rubbish!” Emmaline swore. “She doesn't need to lie down.”

“A little rest won't do her any harm,” Bella said, patting her fragile friend's shoulder.

“Then let one of the gentlemen escort her,” Lady Powell suggested with a matchmaking gleam. “Lord Dunvegan can do it. You'd like Geordie's escort, wouldn't you, Jane dear?”

But Jane was too upset even to redden. She accepted Geordie's arm, and with her head drooping against his shoulder, let him lead her from the room.

Maud, after watching the pair go slowly out the door, threw her friend Lady Powell a look of amused disdain. “Much good that little ploy will do you, Lucy,” she said
sotto voce
. “A girl so lacking in spirit will never catch my nephew. You can kiss your ten guineas goodbye.”

The wounded girl's progress up the stairs was so slow that it took fully a quarter of an hour before Geordie could return to his task at the dining room doorway. But when he got there, he found that Caroline had taken his place. She was standing on a stepstool, attempting to nail the kissing bough to the lintel above her head, but she was having extreme difficulty. Even when standing on her toes on the very top of the three-step stool, she couldn't reach the lintel. If she extended her arm to its utmost, the head of the hammer just touched the overhead beam. Geordie watched her struggle for a moment before making his presence known. “'Tis a wee lass ye are, Miss Woolcott,” he said at last. “Here, come down and let me do it.”

“I'm quite capable of doing it myself,” Caroline muttered, wielding the hammer in a firm, upward swing that resulted in her banging her index finger painfully.

Geordie pretended not to notice her wince of pain. “I ken ye can hammer a nail,” he said, “but since the stepstool isna adequate for a lady yer size, it'd be an easier task for me. Dinna be so thrawn this once, lassie. Come down.”

Caroline glared down at him, ready to do battle. “If I remember our last conversation rightly, my lord, thrawn means perverse. I don't care to be called thrawn, nor do I like the epithet lassie. You can take your insults and … and go away!”

He did not move but continued to look up at her with what she interpreted as a leer. Despite the stinging pain of her finger, she made up her mind to show him that he was no better than she at any task. Once more she lifted the basket, once more she pushed the nail through the handle, and once more she swung the hammer with all her might. There was a very satisfactory thwack as hammerhead met nailhead, with no finger between them to blunt the contact. Gingerly she took her hand from the basket. To her delight, the kissing bough hung there quite securely.

Still poised on the top of the stepladder, she smiled down at Geordie triumphantly. “There, my lord, I've done it,” she announced proudly. “Now, if you'd be so obliging as to step aside, I'll climb down.”

“Nay, lass, I winna step aside. It wouldna be gentlemanly. Here, let me help ye down.”

Without waiting for a reply, he boldly took hold of her waist and lifted her from the top of the stepstool. The act was so sudden it caused her to drop the hammer, which fell to the floor with a loud clump. Geordie ignored it, for he was utterly absorbed in the task at hand. The girl he was holding in the air, his two hands almost completely encompassing her waist, was feather-light, and her face, staring down at him in surprise, was—he had to admit it—breathtakingly lovely.

“My lord,” she said somewhat breathlessly, “this is not necessary. I can climb down three steps. Please put me down.”

But he didn't put her down. Something came over him—a whim that was not at all gentlemanly but that he found irresistible. He was not going to set her down until he was good and ready. He held her up in the air, his prisoner. “'Tis a wee dautie ye are,” he said, grinning up at her. “Light as a bubble.”

Caroline was not amused. She didn't know what the word
dautie
meant, but she was sure it was another insult. And she didn't like being held up in the air like a plaything. “Confound it, your lordship,” she snapped angrily, “put me down!”

“Aye, Miss Woolcott, I will. Soon as ye call me Geordie. I dinna take kindly to yer
my lords
. They're as bad as yer
indeeds
.”

“Damnation, Lord Dunvegan, I won't be bullied! Put me down, I say!”

“Michty me, such a curfuffle owre naught!” he laughed. “'Tis a stubborn lass ye are, to be sure.”

“Is it stubborn to hold to a bargain? I thought we had agreed to keep a distance between us?”

“
You
agreed. I was no party to it.” He lowered her to his chest and peered directly into her gold-flecked eyes. “Wheesht, my dear, is it so hard to call me by my given name?”

“Yes,” she said stubbornly, trying not to notice that she could feel his heart beating—and hers, too. “To address each other by given names is too … too intimate for us.”

“Intimate, is it?” Slowly he set her down, but he kept one arm tight about her waist, holding her pinioned to him. Everything she said infuriated him, but he didn't want to let her go. He felt like a small boy on a rampage of mischief that had become so uncontrollable that only crashing into a wall would stop him. “That is not my understanding of the word intimate,” he teased, hurtling on down his mischievous path by pulling her closer. “
This
is intimate.” And, with malicious zest, he kissed her on her cherry-red mouth.

Caroline was startled into momentary inaction. She had been kissed before, but never with such fervor. The sensation it produced was surprisingly pleasant, and before her brain reminded her that the man holding her so tightly in his arms was the obnoxious Lord Dunvegan, she quite enjoyed the taste of his lips and the feeling that the blood in her veins had turned to bubbling champagne. But then she remembered. This was the man who'd told his aunt that she was not beautiful, that she was full of toplofty airs, and that he disliked her intensely. Remembering, she wrenched herself free. “
Lord Dunvegan
,” she exclaimed in breathless fury, “just
what
do you think you're
doing
?”