The Mischief of the Mistletoe

Chapter 8

“Good heavens,” said Arabella. “What is it doing here? Who on earth is going about dropping puddings all over the place?”

There was something a little macabre about it, the gaily wrapped Christmas pudding so purposefully perched in the cold, marble hands of the effigy. Cold marble hands, cold marble lips, and beneath it all, the bones of the woman who had been, eaten bare by worms and slow time.

It might be decorative, but it was still a grave.

Arabella shivered, and not from the cold. “Is it just me, or do you find this a little... incongruous?”

Mr. Fitzhugh tilted his head, taking in the scene from another angle. “Not so odd as all that, when you think of it. We leave flowers on graves, so why not a pudding?”

“I doubt this one was intended for... well, whatever her name is.”

“Lady Margaret Hungerford,” Mr. Fitzhugh provided promptly.

Arabella looked at the tomb and then back at Mr. Fitzhugh. There was no inscription, at least none readily apparent from where they were standing.

Mr. Fitzhugh developed a deep interest in the folds of his cravat. “I read up a bit before we came,” he mumbled. “Thought you and Miss Austen might want to know. Let’s take a look at the pudding, shall we?”

“Someone has very odd ideas about billet doux,” she managed to say, with a suitable approximation of sangfroid, as Mr. Fitzhugh leaned over the pudding.

Mr. Fitzhugh grinned up at her. “If you’re going to have sweet letters, why not put them in a sweet meat?”

“Because it’s rather sticky?” ventured Arabella. She looked over her shoulder, very much hoping that no one else would take it upon themselves to visit the chapel just now. She could just picture the expression on Jane’s face when she entered to find the two of them avidly dissecting a Christmas pudding in search of secret messages.

Arabella grimaced at herself. If there was anything worse than being caught in an assignation, it was being caught in one that wasn’t about assignating.

“The ribbons are the same shade as the last one,” Mr. Fitzhugh was saying, leaning in for a better look. “And there’s definitely writing on it — whoever it was wrote on the ribbons this time. Guess she didn’t like the pudding goo mucking up her message.”

“So we assume it is a she?”

Going back to his examination of the pudding, Mr. Fitzhugh said, with great authority, “Looks like a woman’s handwriting to me.”

Did he see a wide range of women’s handwriting?

Arabella strained to see over his shoulder. “What does it say?”

Her shoulder bumped against his. There was no padding there. She could feel the muscles flex beneath his tightly fitted coat as he leaned forward to flip over a ribbon. Arabella edged a little closer. He was so nicely warm, and she was cold even in her long pelisse.

Mr. Fitzhugh squinted at the minuscule writing that nearly blended with the fabric. “Whoever it was wrote in French again. Il faut que...”

It is necessary that... Arabella tentatively tapped him on the arm. “Il faut que what?”

His breath steamed in the air as he peered at the ribbon. “Something about a deal. It is necessary that the deal be struck at once. The authorities...”

Arabella leaned over his shoulder, intrigued despite herself. “Which authorities?”

Mr. Fitzhugh shook his head in frustration. “The writing’s gone blurry. Something suspicieux.” He scrolled along the slippery length of the ribbon. “The authorities are suspicious — ”

“And this,” announced a faintly foreign voice, “is Saint Anne’s Chantry.”

Arabella’s head jerked up like a puppet on a string. Her eyes met Mr. Fitzhugh’s. In unspoken accord, they spun around, blocking the pudding with their backs.

Arabella banged into Mr. Fitzhugh’s side. Her elbow connected with a rib.

Mr. Fitzhugh smiled manfully and gasped out, “Cheval — um-er! Enjoying the ruins, eh, what?”

“Not nearly so much as you,” commented the chevalier blandly, amusement dancing in his hazel eyes. “You seem to have got ahead of me, Fitzhugh.”

Arabella hastily righted her bonnet. “Fascinating chapel, isn’t it?” she said brightly, her voice a full octave above its normal range. “So many funeral monuments!”

“Yes, indeed,” said Jane, wrinkling her brows at her. “One does enjoy a good funeral monument. Always amusing to be reminded of one’s own mortality.”

“Memento mori and all that!” contributed Mr. Fitzhugh, resting his elbows on Sir Edward Hungerford’s marble arm in an attempt to block any view of the pudding.

“Are these all funeral monuments?” Jane asked, looking around curiously.

“Yes, indeed.” The chevalier must have been the sort of boy who put frogs in people’s beds. His eyes were bright with mischief. “Each one a marker of the mortal remains of your not-so-distant ancestors.”

“Well, then,” said Mr. Fitzhugh heartily, leaning so far back that he was practically lying across Sir Edward Hungerford’s lap. “No point in dwelling here among the dead. Shall we go back to the picnic?”

The chevalier showed no sign of moving. “Have you no interest in the fate of your ancestors, Mr. Fitzhugh? Look at this plaque. It dates to sixteen forty-eight. That was during your civil war, was it not?”

“Don’t know about you,” said Mr. Fitzhugh loudly, “but there’s a pie with my name on it out there.”

“It was not a good era for heads, your civil war,” said the chevalier.

“Civil wars seldom are,” agreed Jane.

“All these chaps seem to have their heads on straight. At least the ones on the walls,” said Mr. Fitzhugh in an attempt to redirect the attention of the chevalier. Arabella could feel him shift on his feet as he surreptitiously stretched out his arm, groping for the pudding.

“Well, they would, wouldn’t they?” said the chevalier, raising an eyebrow at Mr. Fitzhugh. Mr. Fitzhugh froze. Arabella was reminded of a children’s game, one called statues, where the players could only move when the primary actor’s back was turned. “One wouldn’t want to be preserved for posterity without one’s most identifiable feature. Like the Duke of Monmouth.”

“The duke of who?” asked Jane innocently.

Arabella gave her a hard look. Jane had written her own, rather mocking, history of Britain. She knew very well who the Duke of Monmouth was. But she would have her fun.

To Arabella’s surprise, it was Mr. Fitzhugh who answered. “Duke of Monmouth. He was a, um, er, child of Charles II.” He tactfully omitted the word bastard. “Got his head lopped off for treason.”

“But they didn’t do it right,” contributed the chevalier, in thrilling tones. “It took five blows of the ax to sever Monmouth’s head. And that — ”

Mr. Fitzhugh looked anxiously at the ladies. “Don’t know if — ,” he began.

“Is when they remembered that they had forgotten to paint his portrait,” the chevalier finished innocently.

“Oh,” said Mr. Fitzhugh. “Right.”

“You can see how that would be a problem,” said the Chevalier.

“History, real solemn history, I cannot be interested in,” pronounced Jane. “I read it a little as a duty; but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me.”

“How so?” asked the chevalier. Arabella wondered if he suspected that Jane was bamming him.

Jane waved a hand. “The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars and pestilences in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all. It is very tiresome.”

“That sounds like something out of a book,” said the chevalier. “Not Dr. Johnson, surely?”

Jane was at her most demure. “No, although no doubt someday someone will lay claim to it on his behalf. I have recently been informed with great authority that Dr. Johnson was the author of Camilla.”

“Nonsense,” said the chevalier blandly. “I have it on even better authority that both Camilla and Evelina were the works of Voltaire. Operating under a pseudonym, of course.”

“Of course,” agreed Jane. “And I’m quite sure that the collected works of Mrs. Radcliffe were all written by Monsieur Rousseau. In his spare time. I think I should like some of that pie you mentioned, Mr. Fitzhugh. If you would escort me?”

“I should like nothing better,” Mr. Fitzhugh said gallantly, casting Arabella an anguished glance.

It didn’t take terribly much intuition to interpret. The moment he moved, the pudding would be exposed to view.

Mr. Fitzhugh babbled on, playing for time. “Hope it’s a good kind of pie. Not that there are bad kinds of pie. Amazing thing, the pie! Sheer genius, in pastry form. You can take any type of food and wrap it in dough. Happy consumption and easy transportation, all in one. Doesn’t get much better than that.”

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.”