“Madame.” St. Just addressed the mare. “I’ll come for you soon. The grooms at Morelands are bedding your stall with enough oat straw for an entire team. Nonetheless, try to look downcast when you take your leave here, hmm?”
She regarded him out of large, patient eyes, her mental workings as unfathomable as any female’s.
St. Just made his way to the manor, noting the number of horses in the Sidling paddocks and the several conveyances outside the carriage house. Her Grace said the Charpentier family gathered for the holidays, and it looked like what ought to be a quick exchange of coin, documents, and a toast in the viscount’s study was going to require some seasonal socializing to go with it.
He looked at the sky, which bore the same sun as was shining at that very moment on his wife and daughters in Yorkshire. A comforting thought.
“Rosecroft! Come ye in and sing wassail!” Rothgreb stood grinning at the front door, his nose a bright red contrast to his green velvet jacket. “The place hasn’t been this full of noise since the old lord’s third wedding breakfast.”
“My lord.” St. Just stopped just inside the door and bowed to the older man. “I didn’t mean to impose, but came to fetch the mare and thought I’d—”
“Here they come!”
St. Just looked up to see a half-dozen very young ladies trotting up the hallway in a giggling, laughing cloud of skirts and smiles.
“Another guest, girls! This is Lord Rosecroft. Make your curtsies and then line up.” The ladies assembled with an alacrity that would have done St. Just’s recruits in Spain proud. “All right, Rosecroft, best be about it. They get bold if you make ’em wait.”
St. Just looked askance at his host, who was grinning like a fiend.
“It’s the kissing bough,” Vim Charpentier said as he emerged from the hallway, a tumbler in his hand. “You have to kiss them each and every one, or they’ll pout. And, Rosecroft, they’ve been collecting kisses all afternoon between trips to the punch bowl, so you’d be well advised to acquit yourself to the best of your ability. They will compare notes all year. So far, I believe I’m your competition.” He took a sip of his drink, eyeing his cousins balefully.
“I’ve charged headlong into French infantry,” St. Just said, smiling at the ladies, “praying I might survive to enjoy just such a gauntlet as this.” He went down the line, leaving a wake of blushes, kissing each cheek until he got to a little girl so small he had to hunker down to kiss her.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?”
“Cynthia Weeze Simmons.”
“The prettiest has been saved for last.” He kissed a delicate cheek and rose. “Any more? I was cavalry, you know, legendary for our charm and stamina.” This was said to tease the young ladies, but they all looked at their grandfather without breaking ranks.
“Once with you lot is enough,” the old man barked. “Shoo.” They departed amid more giggles.
Sindal looked disgruntled. “You made that look easy.”
“I have daughters, and I’m half Irish. It was easy, also fun. Rothgreb, can we repair somewhere private to transact a little business?”
“What? Business? Sindal can deal with those details. I’m going to find my viscountess and tell her she missed a chance to kiss Moreland’s war hero.”
Sindal passed St. Just the tumbler. “It helps if you’re as half seas over as the rest of the household. I have never longed more ardently for sunset. Uncle has set himself up as the Lord of Misrule until then.”
“And you’re not feeling the seasonal cheer?”
“Bah, to quote my uncle.” An odd smile flitted across Sindal’s face. “Among others. Let’s repair to the study. There’s a bill of sale and a decanter—and no damned mistletoe.”
“I rather like mistletoe.”
“I rather like a fine brandy.”
They dealt with the documents quickly, but Sindal had to hunt up the sand with which to blot them. “It should be in here some damned where. The old fellow is nothing if not—” He fell silent, peering into a low cupboard behind the estate desk.
“Something amiss?”
Sindal straightened, a divided serving dish in his hands. “What would an olive dish be doing secreted in my uncle’s study?”
St. Just sipped at his brandy while Sindal withdrew a ceremonial sword, a carved chess set of ivory and onyx, an ivory-inlaid cribbage board, an antique pair of dueling pistols, a small crossbow, and several other curiosities from the same low cupboard.
“Is somebody putting away the valuables while company’s underfoot?”
Sindal shot him a look, a speculating, cogitating sort of look. “Would a woman growing vague and easily disoriented know to stop by the kitchen for carrots and sugar before she wandered off toward the stables?”
The question made no sense and had no discernible context. “Sindal, have you spent a little too much time at the punch bowl fortifying yourself for the kissing bough?”
“There is no adequate fortification for such an ordeal. It’s enough to make a man repair to heathen climes permanently.” He set the contents of the cupboard out on Rothgreb’s estate desk, came around the desk, and took the seat beside St. Just. “I have been manipulated by a pair of old schemers. The question is why?”
“Finish your drink.” St. Just pushed a glass closer to his host. “You are not going to remove to distant parts, but I gather you divine some sort of conspiracy from what’s here?”
“My aunt’s letters suggested Rothgreb was misplacing valuables; his letters informed me my aunt had started wandering.”
“And you came home to investigate?”
“Exactly. I suppose that was the point, though one wonders if they were conspiring with each other or intriguing individually.”
“And until you come home to stay, the old guard will not retire nor step aside for any younger replacements. Your uncle’s regiment has decided they’re going to fight this battle as a team.”
“One suspected such faulty reasoning was at work.”
They fell into a companionable silence while St. Just tried to formulate a question that would pique but not quite offend. “I’ve wondered something.”
Sindal turned to regard him. “If you’re going to invite me to Her Grace’s Christmas party, spare your breath. That is the very last place I’d seek to spend time.”
“Yes, but one wonders why. If His Grace did you a disservice by preventing you from dueling with Horton all those years ago, then why not take the opportunity to read the old boy the Riot Act? Why not beard the lion in his very own den?”
“The old boy is one of the most powerful men in the Lords, the highest title in the shire, and the father of the woman I happen to l—”
St. Just went on as if he hadn’t heard the very thing no man ever admitted to another. “And every year that you dodge and skulk about, avoiding His Grace’s hospitality, you enlarge the magnitude of what was not intended to do you any harm whatsoever. I was there, Sindal, and I saw exactly what happened. Come over tomorrow night, have a cup of eggnog, smile, and hang about in your finery under the mistletoe until Sophie comes swanning down the steps. You need a chance to make a grand exit with your head held high.”
Sindal scrubbed a hand over his face and stared at his drink. “What do you mean, there was no intent to do me harm? The lady and I had an understanding, and half the shire knew it. His Grace might have handled the thing a thousand different ways that didn’t involve making me a laughingstock. I regretted the loss of the lady’s hand at the time, but more I bitterly resented that Moreland prevented me from defending my own honor.”
The man believed he’d simply been elbowed aside by the collective papas of the shire for the better title, which would have been a bitter blow indeed, had that been the case.