She broke off at the unmistakable click of a pistol being cocked.
“Rose isn’t here,” said Catherine Carruthers and leveled her pistol at Arabella’s head.
Chapter 27
Crack.
The report of a gun echoed somewhere to Turnip’s right.
“Not yet, you idiot!” someone shouted, flown on champagne and brandy cakes. “Wait until you see the green of their leaves!”
The duchess’s male guests jostled into the forest clearing in a whooping, staggering, gleeful mass. The acrid smell of gun smoke warred with the sickly sweet scents of pomade, cologne, and hot-house fruits. A vast bonfire sent sparks flaring into the sky, turning the faces of the laughing, shouting men into something out of primitive history. They might have been their own ancestors, charging forward to cut down a Roman brigade, rather than a few tree spirits.
Free of feminine oversight, wigs had been discarded, cravats loosened, waistcoasts unbuttoned. Some had liberated champagne from the feast and were chugging directly out of the bottle; others refreshed themselves from flasks. A safe distance from the bonfire, the servants had set out a table, the delicate Irish linen covering the raw boards in stark contrast to the rough pottery casks that had been lined up in two rows on top of the table.
“Cider!” someone shouted, and everyone made a dash for the table, eager to get to the famed Norfolk cider that had been known to lay grown men low.
“Shall we get on?” said the Duke of Dovedale.
Turnip couldn’t have agreed more. The sooner they got this over with, the sooner he could get back to Arabella. She had to like him at least a little bit to kiss him back like that. She wasn’t a Penelope, to cast her kisses on the wind like bread unto the waters. Penelope. Turnip shook his head to himself, eliciting several funny looks from the people around him. How could she have thought he was carrying a torch for Penelope? He wasn’t holding even a very small candle.
Still, if she was jealous, that had to mean something. Rather encouraging, really. Turnip drew in a deep breath. Once they had finished with this ridiculous list, he could put his courage to the sticking point, corner Arabella on a balcony — he’d rather liked that balcony — and make a declaration she couldn’t mistake.
It didn’t matter that she didn’t have a dowry. He had income enough for two — well, for ten, really, if one totted up the numbers and all that, but he didn’t want ten, he just wanted Arabella. He could send her younger sisters to school and find her father a nicer spa and give that cranky sister a season and hire half a dozen paid companions to make demmed sure that Arabella never had to fetch another vinaigrette for Lady Osborne ever again.
Turnip circled warily around the tree. “I say, are we meant to shoot at the tree or away from it?”
For all that it was meant to be stuffed full of evil spirits, it still looked like a tree to him.
“At it, I should think,” opined Lord Freddy Staines, shining the already shiny stock of his pistol. It was as elaborately designed as a lady’s dresser set, polished to a fine sheen and chased with delicate curlicues of sterling silver. “How else are we to kill the evil spirits?”
Good point, that. Turnip nodded intelligently.
The Duke of Dovedale bared his teeth in an unconvincing imitation of a smile. “I’d say shooting at the tree would be a jolly dangerous idea.”
“Why?” demanded Lord Henry Innes, joining the group, a jug of cider in one hand, pistol in the other. “It ain’t going to shoot back.”
Turnip eyed Innes thoughtfully. If Innes were here, he couldn’t be in the house. Which meant, in a rather roundabout way, that now would be an excellent time to dispose of that list. From the size of that jug, Innes should be occupied for a good long while. He wasn’t going to be dragging anyone off behind bushes anytime soon.
Sir Francis Medmenham delicately reached out and turned Innes’s pistol away from the tree. “Ricochet,” he said succinctly. “I, for one, have no desire to breathe my last because of a bullet bouncing off a tree.”
Turnip didn’t wait to hear the rest of the argument.
“Just going for refreshments, don’t you know,” he said to no one in particular, and began to back away, past the bonfire, past the table with the cider jugs, past another table set out with a variety of hearty foods to sustain the tree-hunters on their midnight quest. No namby-pamby lady foods such as were served at the ball, but good, hearty meat pastries, cold meats, the smelliest of cheeses, and hefty loaves of fresh-baked bread. There was also, set out to one side, a neat pyramid of Christmas puddings, each adorned with its own sprig of mistletoe.
Hmm. Struck by inspiration, Turnip snatched up a pudding in passing before bolting back towards the house. It was, he decided, practically a sign. Anyone could bring flowers, but nothing said I love you like a slightly squished Christmas pudding.
It made Turnip feel warm inside just thinking about it. It was a pudding that had brought them together, after all. Amazing, the way the rest of one’s life could hinge on one little ball of suet and dried fruit.
Turnip looked down at the muslin-wrapped ball in his hand and grinned. He was sure they could find excellent use for that mistletoe trimming, too.
The gallery was all but deserted when he entered, save for the silent army of servants sweeping up the last of the feast, scrubbing squished lobster patties off the gleaming parquet floor, setting the room to rights for tomorrow’s festivities. Turnip was about to look elsewhere when one of the long silk curtains shading the ornamental alcoves rustled and Lady Henrietta Dorrington wiggled her way out, still speaking to someone in the alcove behind her.
Phew. Turnip let out the breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. Deuced clever of Lady Hen to hide Arabella away in an alcove, he thought, as he strode towards her across the deserted dance floor. Not that he would tell her, of course. She was the gloating sort, Lady Hen.
He raised his hand in greeting as he approached. There was no need to stand on ceremony with Lady Henrietta; he had known her since she was a chubby-cheeked toddler trying to make her brother’s friends play dolls. He had managed a bally good falsetto, if he did say so himself.
“Hullo,” Lady Henrietta said cheerfully, holding the curtain for someone behind her. “Aren’t you supposed to be tree hunting?”
“Spirit hunting,” Turnip corrected her, craning his neck to try to see around her. “Is Miss Dempsey in there?”
“No,” said Lady Charlotte Lansdowne apologetically, shoving the curtain aside. “Just me.”
Lady Henrietta looked pointedly at Turnip’s hands. “Why are you holding a pudding?”
Turnip clutched his love offering protectively to his chest. “I like pudding.”
“So do I,” said Lady Henrietta, “but I don’t go around embracing it.”
Refusing to let himself be drawn, Turnip fixed Lady Henrietta with anxious eyes. “Thought Miss Dempsey was supposed to be with you.”
Lady Henrietta looked at Lady Charlotte, who shook her head. Lady Henrietta turned back to Turnip. “I haven’t see her since the Fairy Queen.”
“You haven’t?” Turnip had heard of blood running cold, but it was the first time his had actually done it. “Do you know where she went?”
“If I haven’t seen her,” said Lady Henrietta with exaggerated patience, “how could I know where she is?”
If she wasn’t with Lady Henrietta, where was she? Turnip didn’t have a good feeling about this.
“Thanks all the same,” mumbled Turnip, bolting for the doors. “Shan’t keep you.”
“What is it?” Lady Henrietta called after him. “Is something wrong?”
But Turnip was already gone.
There were only a handful of middle-aged matrons playing whist in the card room, none of whom were Arabella. The footman by the garden doors hadn’t seen a girl in a peach silk dress. Neither had the ones napping by the front door, who snapped guiltily to attention as Turnip dashed up to them.