“I need to talk to you,” Turnip said urgently.

“. . . which shall be to...” The Angel of the Lord raised her voice, ruffling her feathers in warning.

Turnip grabbed Arabella’s hand. “Outside?” he urged.

“. . . ALL PEOPLE! Except my brother.”

“That wasn’t in the script,” objected a sheep.

A shepherd poked the sheep with her crook. Turnip caught a glimpse of bronzy curls beneath her headcloth. “Neither is a talking sheep.”

“Miss Climpson!” whined the sheep.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” snapped the Angel of the Lord, snatching up the crook. “They didn’t have Miss Climpsons in Judea. I’ve just brought you good news. Look happy.”

“Wise men!” bellowed Arabella. “Wise men, onstage! Angels and shepherds, off.”

“Wait!” exclaimed Sally. “I haven’t given my tidings yet. Down!”

The sheep cowered.

The shepherd held out a hand. “May I have my crook back?”

“No,” said Sally. Turning back to the audience, she held the crook aloft. “For unto you is born this day, in the city of David...”

Turnip tugged at her hand. “Arabella?”

“. . . a SAVIOR, which is Christ the Lord.”

“All right,” whispered Arabella, snatching her hand away. “All right.”

“And this shall be a sign unto you...” Sally was rattling right along, determined to get through her piece without further interruptions.

“That was a yes, wasn’t it?”

“Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes...”

“In the drawing room,” muttered Arabella. “Ten minutes.”

“. . . and lying in a manger.”

“I’ll meet you there.” Did she mean in ten minutes or for ten minutes? Turnip decided it was wiser not to ask. He’d figure it out as he went along.

“And suddenly, there was with the angel,” Arabella prompted, and a chorus of auxiliary angels thudded heavy-footed onto the stage. A makeshift orchestra scraped out the first few bars of Handel’s arrangement of “Glory to God” as the shepherds and sheep jostled their way offstage.

Even with all their interruptions, Turnip reassured himself, this performance was going better than last year’s. Last year, the manger had collapsed in the first scene and wiped out the Friendly Beasts, three of whom had to be brought to the infirmary. Couldn’t compete with that.

“Good will; good will; good will towards men,” sang the chorus of angels.

Turnip looked at Arabella, but she wasn’t looking at him. They would sort it all out in the drawing room. Hopefully she would have some goodwill for him.

Since she didn’t seem to want to talk about personal matters, he would start with the pudding and lead up to the kiss. They could get all the serious bits out of the way, and then move on to the dramatic reenactments. As theatrical productions went, a kiss ought to be easier to stage than a Nativity scene. Fewer camels, for one thing. And no sheep.

Under cover of the hosannas, Turnip saluted Arabella and hopped out of the booth. All he had to do was get to the drawing room and everything else would follow from —

“Ooooph.” Turnip caught his foot in a shepherd’s crook and went spiraling over a camel, landing with a clang on a pile of discarded morris bells.

He blinked blearily up at a very small shepherd.

“Sorry,” said Lizzy Reid.

Through the screen, he could see Arabella bury her head in her hands.

“Baaaa,” said Turnip.

Chapter 16

Arabella resisted the overwhelming impulse to bang her head into the lectern. Hard.

Onstage, Handel’s chorus had reached its final crescendo, although Arabella doubted that Handel would have wanted to lay claim to this particular rendition.

“Excellent job, beautifully played,” she called out indiscriminately as the angels thudded past, trooping heavily off the stage. They beamed back at her, still angelic in their white robes and pasteboard halos.

Arabella could hear the rustling from the audience as parents and guests stirred in their seats, beginning to move and talk again, the more adventurous among them making their way to the refreshment table. Sally was still on her ladder, enjoying her place in the heavens too much to relinquish it quickly.

Ten minutes, she had told Turnip.

The Handel chorus had taken up at least five, maybe more. Turnip was probably already waiting in the drawing room. Alone. In the semi-darkness of a single candle.

Thinking about it, Arabella felt an entirely inappropriate tingle of anticipation.

Sally peered over the edge of the booth. “Where did Reggie go?”

Arabella mustered a very unconvincing shrug. “Oh, um, somewhere.”

“Hmm,” said Sally.

Were angels allowed to look that skeptical?

“He’s probably gone to the refreshment table.” Lies, lies, all lies. God was going to strike her down any moment now. “I’m just going to, er. Um.”

Arabella fled the booth, leaving Sally perched on her ladder like a contemplative stork. If Miss Climpson wanted that ladder back, she was going to have to pry Sally down by force.

The room was thronged with a bizarre mixture of relatives, friends, and livestock. On the far side of the room, Arabella could see Margaret standing with the elder Austens. Jane and Cassandra were talking with Mlle de Fayette, while Lavinia appeared to have made the acquaintance of Lizzy Reid, who was still wearing her shepherd garb, the headdress tossed nonchalantly back over one shoulder.

Arabella had hoped that this would be a good time to introduce Lavinia and Olivia to both the school and Miss Climpson. Arabella looked at Lizzy and Lavinia. From the way Lizzy was gesticulating with her crook, Lavinia was certainly getting an introduction to the school. Lavinia looked absolutely fascinated.

Arabella rubbed her damp palms against the skirt of her dress. She was feeling as nervous as a schoolgirl, tense with a combination of anticipation and apprehension. She had never expected him to seek her out. Certainly not so assiduously. He might merely be doing the gentlemanly thing, apologizing in person, but he didn’t have the air of a man about to recant a kiss, all dragging feet and shifting eyes.

Arabella had seen that before.

It had been three months ago, a chance kiss stolen in the dark corridor between the drawing room and the dining room. She had been giddy for days, all optimism and certainty — until he had avoided her at the Selwick musicale. And again at the Belliston ball. It wasn’t until a dinner at her aunt’s that he had deigned to speak to her of it. It had been a mistake, he had told her, all shifting eyes and dragging feet, an accident. His betrothal to her aunt had been announced that same night.

Mr. Fitzhugh’s demeanor couldn’t have been more dissimilar. He had seemed... well, happy to see her. Not as though he were trying to hide or pretend the kiss had never happened. There had been no dragging or shifting, none at all. Instead, he had made every effort to get as close to her as possible.

Which in a small prompting booth was very close indeed.

Taking deep, shallow breaths, Arabella hurried past the refreshment table, which had been set up along the back wall of the dining hall. She was nearly to the door when someone turned away from the table, directly into her path.

Arabella clapped a hand to her mouth in horror as a small mince pie went launching through the air. “Oh dear. I am sorry.”

The Chevalier de la Tour d’Argent pressed his now empty plate to his chest and bowed. “The lady who launched a thousand pies?”

“It lacks the cachet of ships,” said Arabella, preparing to pass. “I am sorry.”

“No. I am sorry. If I had known you had an aversion for pies, I would have flung something else in your path instead.”

Arabella shook her head. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

The chevalier flashed his dimple at her. “One ends up in far more interesting places that way.”

Arabella looked dubiously at the long board in front of them. “Like the refreshment table?”

The chevalier gave a particularly Gallic shrug, one that encompassed the inevitability of refreshment tables in the great scheme of the world. “Even so.” Having resolved the great philosophical issues of life with three syllables and a shoulder wiggle, he turned the force of his considerable charm on Arabella. “Since you are here, perhaps you might settle a question for me.”

“Yes?” Arabella let her skirts fall, since she obviously wasn’t going anywhere quickly.

Arabella glanced as inconspicuously as possible over her shoulder. The hallway on the other side of the entry hall lay dark, but she thought she could see a tiny glimmer of light all the way at the end.

The chevalier held up another of Miss Climpson’s miniature mince pies. “These... pies. Are they intended for eating?”

Arabella let out a surprised chuckle. “Intended, yes.”

“But... ,” prompted the chevalier.

“Miss Climpson is my employer and these are made to her own recipe. You really cannot expect me to say anything more.”

The chevalier tapped the side of his nose. “Understood. Pity,” he added, surveying the refreshment table. “I had hoped there would be pudding.”

“Pudding?” Arabella looked at him sharply.

His attention on the table, the Chevalier appeared not to notice. “Yes,” he said mildly. “The English Christmas pudding is a source of endless fascination to me.”

“It is? I mean, is it?”

For heaven’s sake. There was no reason to get all twitchy just because he had said “pudding.” It was a Christmas party. Discussion of Christmas pudding followed naturally, as the night did the day. Besides, there hadn’t been any more pudding appearances since the one at Farley Castle, well over a week ago.