The Mischief of the Mistletoe

Chapter 19

The Dowager Duchess of Dovedale had instructed her guests to arrive at Girdings House by noon on the day before Christmas, but not even the Dowager Duchess of Dovedale could control every axle on every wheel on every carriage in the kingdom.

It was full dark by the time Arabella arrived. After seven long days on the road, Arabella felt nothing but numb, from the blue tips of her toes straight through the mud that had somehow got in her hair. Her emotions were as frozen as her fingers.

The events at Miss Climpson’s seminary already seemed a world away. The idea that she might have kissed Turnip Fitzhugh or chased with him after a pudding through the grounds of Farley Castle was, quite frankly, ludicrous. She was back to her old life again, back to being that quiet Miss Dempsey who was invited to fill out a table, then shuffled off to the side of the room as quickly as possible.

There was no one from the ducal family to greet Arabella and her maid when they arrived at Girdings House. Arabella hadn’t expected there would be. Poor relations seldom got the full ducal treatment. They were informed that the rest of the party were already out in the grounds, collecting holly and ivy with which to deck the halls. A footman, resplendent in the Dovedale livery of green and gold, showed them up a grand staircase decorated with battle scenes portraying the triumphs of long-dead Dovedales, then up a less grand staircase, and finally down a long hallway that grew considerably less imposing as it went on.

He opened the door into a room that Arabella would have considered luxurious by everyday standards, but which was undoubtedly Spartan on the ducal scale of things. Her room had been allotted to her with a delicate understanding of her place in the great chain of being. No room in Girdings could possibly be called mean, but hers was off to the side, with a view of the kitchen garden and some rather workman-like outbuildings. There was water waiting and a fire in the grate, and that was all Arabella cared about.

“A fine pickle this is,” snapped Rose, vigorously beating mud out of Arabella’s pelisse as the door closed behind the footman.

“A pickle or a gherkin?” Arabella stripped her gloves off her frozen fingers and wandered to the one window to inspect the view.

Rose bristled, obviously suspecting Arabella of having fun at her expense. “Six of one, half a dozen of the other,” she said repressively, “and no question about it. I should have known that coachman was no good. Here. This is as good as I can make it without a proper cleaning.”

“Thank you,” said Arabella meekly, and let the maid help her back into her pelisse.

Rose wrung out a cloth, applying it vigorously to Arabella’s face, much the same way she had when Arabella was twelve and had underestimated the adhesive properties of raspberry jam. Rose had been with Aunt Osborne for a very long time. She had never quite made up her mind as to whether she approved of Arabella. Family was family, but poor relations something slightly less.

That, thought Arabella, was something she missed about Miss Climpson’s. It had been rather nice to have a place in the world that she had earned for herself, rather than being allotted it on perpetual sufferance.

She had thought it didn’t make a difference, but it did.

Rose narrowed her eyes at her, squinting at Arabella’s head with a critical air. “That’s the worst of the travel dust gone from your face, but there’s no telling what they’ll make of your hair.” She shrugged with the air of one abandoning a bad job. “Well, it’s dark and you’ll have your bonnet on and that’s the best one can hope for.”

“Thank you, Rose.”

Nothing like a few compliments to start one’s evening off well.

Despite the size of the grounds, Arabella had no difficulty finding the West Wood. More of the ubiquitous footmen, identical in their white wigs and pseudo-feudal livery, had directed her to the gardens, where flaming lines of torches had been set to guide the houseguests through the carefully clipped parterres of the formal gardens through to the artfully designed wilderness beyond.

Through the smoke of the torches, Arabella could just make out the shapes of marble statues, freed from their winter burlap for the company’s delectation. A nymph stretched cold arms into the air above a dry fountain while topiary beasts roared from the sides of the path. She couldn’t tell whether they meant to protect her or to warn her away.

There was a blaze of light at the end of the path, more torches, this time arranged in a semicircle, as though for a ritual sacrifice. Arabella hurried towards them. They might be planning to put a maiden on the block, but at least she would be warm while they did it. Her fingers were freezing inside her gloves and her legs had lost all feeling several days ago.

A dog darted forward, nipping at her skirts, growling pleasurably as it attacked and killed her hem. There were more dogs underfoot in the clearing, tripping up yet more of the liveried footmen who were passing among the crowd with silver glasses full of a steaming liquid redolent of spices and spirits. A group of men milled just at the entrance to the clearing, quaffing spiced wine and kicking at the dogs, tricked out in fashionable multi-caped greatcoats, their curly-brimmed hats pulled down low over their eyes.

Arabella recognized most of them, although she doubted they would recognize her. There was Lord Frederick Staines, blond and arrogant, in line for an earldom; Lord Henry Innes, younger son of a duke, thick as a post; the Honorable Martin Frobisher, reputed to be anything but; Sir Francis Medmenham, dark and dissolute, but possessed of substantial properties both in England and abroad; Lieutenant Darius Danforth, formerly of the Horse Guards, also son of an earl, although there were rumors that he had been disowned. It had been all the usual sorts of reasons: drink, cards, and, if Arabella remembered correctly, seducing a young lady of good family. The lady’s family were clearly influential enough to protect their own; the name had never come out, but the general outline of the story had spread. The girl was rumored to have been all of sixteen, just a year older than Lavinia.

They were a motley lot, but they all had two things in common. All were monied. And all were unmarried.

They clustered around the low, three-legged braziers that had been provided for warmth, like the ones at Farley Castle.

Something pulled painfully in Arabella’s chest at the memory of Farley Castle. She felt suddenly, unaccountably alone.

Perhaps because she was.

It was ridiculous to feel nostalgic for something one had never had, or to regret the loss of a camaraderie that had been nothing more than the product of the moment. Even if she hadn’t — behaved like a hysterical shrew? her mind provided. Cut up at him like a demented fishwife? Even if she hadn’t put a precipitate end to their acquaintance, he would have forgotten all about her by now. He was the sort of amiable person who was sure to find friends wherever he went.

Arabella accepted a cup of mulled wine from one of the footmen and retreated to the shelter of a convenient tree, trying not to look as though she minded standing by herself. Again. There were other women present, but they seemed to be the ones doing all the hard labor of gathering the greenery. Typical. Lord Freddy and his lot wouldn’t want to get their gloves dirty. She could see the dowager’s granddaughter, Lady Charlotte Lansdowne, industriously piling mistletoe into a wicker basket, aided by a tall man in a cloak that looked as though it had been chosen more for warmth than fashion. Arabella didn’t recognize him, nor the man next to him, also travel-stained, talking to Miss Penelope Deveraux.

Who was just as striking as Arabella remembered. The man standing next to her was practically cross-eyed from staring. Put his tongue any farther out and he’d be panting.

Arabella sent Lady Charlotte a quick and unconvincing smile and hastily looked away, pretending to examine the rest of the party. There were some men who had ventured out into the wood, chopping away at the larger bits of greenery, the boughs of evergreen destined to decorate the hall of Girdings. One of them appeared to be attempting to chop down a tree using the wrong end of the ax.

Arabella’s hand jerked, slopping spiced wine over the already soiled leather of her glove.

It was dark away from the enchanted circle of torches, but there was enough reflected light to turn his hair to gold. He was very determinedly hacking away, his face averted from her, but there was no mistaking that profile.

Arabella hastily righted her cup before any more could spill, thinking very nasty thoughts about old family friends, the strange workings of Fate, and house parties generally.

Now she knew why Jane had asked about Girdings. And why she had smiled.

She was going to have to spend the twelve days of Christmas with Turnip Fitzhugh.

When Turnip spotted Arabella Dempsey, he did the sensible, mature thing. He began sawing at a tree with the wrong side of his ax.

On the long trip to Norfolk, as Sally’s mouth continued to move in an endless stream of school-related anecdotes, there had been far too much time for thinking. He had done his best to avoid it. He had challenged other drivers to race him; he had dragged Sally one day out of the way so he could attend a bout held by a much-praised pugilist and his local challenger; he had even paid attention to some of Sally’s stories. But that had still left plenty of time to fume and stew and stew some more as he revisited every baffling moment of their encounter in the blue drawing room.

Was it the money? He veered from anger to guilt as he recalled what that family friend of hers, that Miss Austen, had told him about the Dempseys’ circumstances. It had never occurred to him that she might need to work for her living or that his — hmm, how to phrase it? His incredibly well-reasoned and sensible activities might prove an impediment to that. In retrospect, she probably could have got into a good deal of trouble if he had been caught in her room. It would have been hard to pass that off as a visit to Sally.

It made him ashamed, to think how little he had thought. Not that there had ever been much need for thought before. He had muddled along fairly happily without it. But that had been all right for him, because, as Arabella had so succinctly pointed out, he was a man and he had money. There wasn’t any scrape he couldn’t buy himself out of, and he had certainly tried his hand at quite a few. Well, death. He doubted he could buy his way out of death, and there were probably some sorts of behavior — although he couldn’t think of any — that even thirty thousand guineas couldn’t redeem, but he couldn’t help but acknowledge the basic justice of her claim.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder. Turnip started, nearly dropping his ax.

“Two things,” said Geoffrey Pinchingdale-Snipe. “One. This is the pointy end. Not that. Two. One uses an ax to strike, not to saw. One uses a saw to saw.”

“Oh, ha bloody ha,” mumbled Turnip, but he reversed the ax. “Why is it that one uses a saw to saw but one doesn’t use an ax to ax? Bloody poor planning on the part of whoever wrote the language, I must say.”

“I don’t believe it was precisely planned.”

“Shouldn’t attempt a language without having a plan. That’s your problem, then, isn’t it?” said Turnip, watching Arabella as she accepted a silver cup of spiced wine from a footman and retreated against a tree.

“No,” said Pinchingdale with some amusement. “I believe it was your problem.”

That wasn’t Turnip’s problem. Turnip’s problem stood halfway across the clearing, wearing a violet pelisse and a bonnet instead of a hood. They were town clothes, not really appropriate for a country outing. Turnip wondered if they were all she had.

She lifted the cup to just below her lips, blowing a trail of steam off the surface of the liquid. It curled like smoke in the cold air.

“What do you find over there to occasion such interest?” asked Pinchingdale.

“Miss Dempsey just arrived,” said Turnip, trying to sound casual about it.

“Miss — ?”

Turnip found himself feeling defensive on her behalf. “Miss Dempsey. Third tree from the left. The tall girl, standing by herself. Blond hair, bluish eyes.”

Not that one could see either hair or eyes. The sides of her bonnet screened her face from view. She kept her head carefully down, from time to time taking a very small sip from the cup in her hand. It was as though she were trying not to be there. This was the Miss Dempsey he had known — or rather not known — in London.

“Ah. That Miss Dempsey.”

“Didn’t think you knew the others,” said Turnip. “Four Miss Dempseys, don’t you know.”

“No, I didn’t know,” said Pinchingdale patiently. It was clearly not a piece of information he found essential to his existence. “Do all of them cause you such consternation, or just this one?”

“Which was the pointy end of the ax again?” said Turnip.

Pinchingdale’s lips twitched into a smile. “Point taken. Or, rather, not.”

“It’s not about that sort of thing. Well, it ain’t,” Turnip said forcefully, although Pinchingdale hadn’t said anything at all. He didn’t have to. The man had the most bloody expressive eyebrows Turnip had ever had the misfortune of meeting.

Turnip shouldered his ax. “Miss Dempsey teaches at Miss Climpson’s. That’s all.”

“Miss Climpson’s?”

“Miss Climpson’s Select Seminary for Young Ladies. In Bath. It’s where the mater and pater farmed out Sally when the last governess refused to carry on.”

That had been one of Sally’s more spectacular triumphs. Either that, or her governesses had been a particularly weak-willed lot. Turnip’s tutors had shown considerably more staying power, even in the face of determined unwillingness to get past the first conju-whatever-you-call-it.

“I know what it is,” said Pinchingdale slowly. “And where it is. The name came to my attention recently in another context. I didn’t realize you had a connection to the school.”

“Context? What sort of context?”

Pinchingdale just looked at him.

“Oh,” said Turnip. “That sort of context.”

It wasn’t the sort of thing one trumpeted about, but Pinchingdale had got into the whole spying business straight out of school, letting on that he was moving to France to avoid his mother — which anyone who had met his mother could well believe. Over there, he had been the brains behind the League of the Purple Gentian, returning only when Bonaparte’s Ministry of Police had unmasked the Purple Gentian. There was also the little matter of Bonaparte banning all Englishmen from France, although, somehow, the Pink Carnation, clever devil, seemed to get around it.

Turnip didn’t know for sure, but he suspected that Pinchingdale was working for the Carnation these days. When a man asked a chap to stick a carnation in his buttonhole and parade around Dover as a decoy, one did tend to get that sort of idea. Not that Turnip had minded — aside from the small matter of French agents occasionally launching themselves at him, which could be a deuced nuisance, particularly when one had been expecting an assignation and wound up with a stiletto at one’s throat instead. But so far, it had all turned out right as rain, and Turnip had been delighted to do his bit for the effort.

He’d run the other odd job or two for Pinchingdale over the years. Generally, it seemed to consist of waylaying or blundering into people. Turnip was very good at knocking people over and making it look natural. Most of the time, it was. Blethering on was also a particular talent, and if he could employ it in the service of England, he was more than happy to do so. Not that Pinchingdale ever told him what it was about. “Talk to Innes for ten minutes,” he would say, and then melt into the shadows in that shadowy way he had. Deuced neat trick, that. It had come in jolly handy when they were boys together at Eton, playing pranks on the masters.

“What are you gentlemen doing standing around gossiping when there’s work to be done?” Penelope Deveraux swaggered past on the arm of one of the other houseguests, swinging a silver sickle from one hand like a pirate’s hook. She wagged her sickle at Turnip. “Deck those halls, young man!”

“Fa-la-la!” Turnip called back.

Penelope’s companion snickered and whispered something in her ear, to which Penelope replied by poking him with the non-pointy end of her sickle. Good to see that someone had worked out which end was which. Otherwise, the house party might not last the whole twelve days of Christmas. Deuced daring of the dowager, providing her guests with both brandy and pointy objects. Turnip wondered if there would be a prize for those who managed to survive until Twelfth Night. Knowing the dowager, she had probably done it on purpose, a modern form of the Roman Coliseum, without the lions.

“Shall we join the others?” suggested Pinchingdale, nodding in Penelope’s direction. “You might want to try using the proper end of your ax. You’ll cut more holly that way.”

Arabella had neatly returned her glass to the refreshment table and was methodically using a small pair of garden shears to clip neat bundles of shiny leaves. The glossy leaves and bright red berries reminded him of those he had seen adorning those Christmas puddings.

There are no spies, she had said. And jolly emphatically too.

Turnip turned back to his old school chum. “That context you were talking about,” he said abruptly. “Would it have anything to do with puddings?”

Pinchingdale arched an eyebrow. “Puddings?”

Clearly, that bit hadn’t yet reached the War Office.

“Never mind. Christmas and all that. Someone was smuggling messages in them.” Turnip gave a deliberately casual wave of one hand. “Messages in French. Deuced odd.”

Pinchingdale stopped giving him the eyebrow treatment and started paying genuine attention. “What sort of messages?”

Turnip looked innocently at his old school chum. “What sort of context?”

Pinchingdale looked around, checking that they were safely removed from the rest of the party. He did it very subtly and very thoroughly. Turnip was impressed. But then, years in the secret service could do that for one. Turnip wondered if they had classes on it.

“Do you really want to know?” Pinchingdale asked quietly.

For a clever man, Pinchingdale could be deuced thick sometimes. “Wouldn’t ask if I didn’t. Waste of time and breath and whatnot.”

“You know what they say about curiosity.”

Something about cats, wasn’t it? “My little sister attends that school. She might be more of a threat to the French than the French are to her” — an eventuality that Turnip found highly likely — “but if there’s going to be trouble there, I want to know.”

“Fair enough.” Pinchingdale drummed his fingers lightly against the trunk of the tree as he sifted through his mental dossier, winnowing the details down to a version he found it acceptable to tell. “One of Miss Climpson’s pupils has a father who is very highly placed in the government.”

Turnip nodded intelligently. Nothing too unusual about that. Took a great deal of blunt to keep a girl at Miss Climpson’s.

“He came into possession of... a very sensitive document.”

From the look on Pinchingdale’s face, this wasn’t going to be a story with a happy ending.

“What happened to it?”

Pinchingdale pressed his eyes briefly shut. “He misplaced it.”

“He what?”

“He misplaced it.” Pinchingdale’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “He can’t remember where he put it. He swears he kept it on his person at all times and he can’t think what became of it.”

Turnip frowned. “Hard to lose something when it’s on one’s person.”

“One would think,” said Pinchingdale drily. “Yet, somehow, he managed it.”

“Could one of the servants have taken it? My valet’s always taking things off for cleaning.” Clothes, for example. Sometimes things got stuck in them, like bills or love letters or little notes to himself to remind himself not to leave notes to himself.

“No,” said Pinchingdale. “We’ve had his staff and his laundry checked.”

Turnip decided not to ask what the former entailed. It was the nineteenth century, after all, and they were Englishmen, committed to fair play, due process, and, well, all that sort of thing, so he doubted there were racks or thumbscrews involved.

“How does Miss Climpson’s come into this again?”

Pinchingdale sighed. “He was visiting his daughter at Miss Climpson’s when the paper went missing. It’s not much of a connection, but it’s the best we have.”

“How long ago?” asked Turnip, with interest.

“About a month ago. The end of November.” The corners of Pinchingdale’s mouth tightened grimly. “He only told us last week. He said he was hoping it would turn up.”

“Huh,” said Turnip. He might not know much about international espionage — his application for active membership in the League of the Purple Gentian had been repeatedly turned down — but even he knew enough to know that such things didn’t generally just turn up. Or if they did, they didn’t turn up where one wanted them to.

It occurred to Turnip that he had left out one very crucial detail. “What sort of sensitive document?”

Pinchingdale regarded Turnip thoughtfully. Somewhere, in the elaborate mechanism of his brain, levers and pulleys were being adjusted as weights were moved from one scale to another. Turnip could see him calculating the benefits and detriments of sharing the information, or, at least some piece of it.

Turnip squared his shoulders and did his best to look trustworthy and close-lipped. And he was. Well, in a manner of speaking. It wasn’t so much that he was close-lipped as that he was so open-lipped that no French spy had ever been able to wade through all the verbiage to get to the essential bits. They generally got bored and gave up.

The silence pressed around them.

“A list,” Pinchingdale said finally. “A list of Royalist agents in France.”