Лорен Уиллиг - The Mischief of the Mistletoe

The dowager raised her cane in a peremptory summons and Penelope Deveraux strolled over, pausing on her way to poke Turnip in the ribs with the easy familiarity of old acquaintance.

Arabella thought uncharitable thoughts.

“Arabella?” Captain Musgrave’s voice was impatient. She was meant to be paying attention to him, not woolgathering.

“Forgive me.” Arabella shook her head to clear it. “The fatigues of the day...”

Captain Musgrave arranged his features into an expression of understanding. She could see the pity in his eyes, a very smug and satisfied sort of pity. “Of course. You need your rest.” He squeezed Aunt Osborne’s arm. “Not everyone can be as young as Celia.”

Aunt Osborne fluttered. “Oh, Hayworth!”

The dowager snapped her fingers at a footman, who stepped forward with a basketful of mistletoe. Penelope Deveraux reached inside, withdrawing a good-sized sprig. Turnip held out his hand for it. Miss Deveraux drew it challengingly back.

Arabella didn’t want to watch.

“Good night, Aunt.” She flashed a quick, tortured smile at her aunt, who looked at her in some surprise, as though she had already forgotten she was there.

Captain Musgrave cleared his throat.

“Good night... Uncle,” said Arabella, and fled in the direction of her room and her writing desk.

“You’ll probably hang it upside down,” said Penelope, yanking away the mistletoe.

“At least I can reach the doorframe,” said Turnip, holding out his hand for it.

“So can a stepladder,” said Penelope scathingly, but she surrendered the sprig.

“The stepladder would make better conversation,” opined the dowager from her lofty post atop her litter.

“Stepladders can’t talk,” Turnip pointed out.

The dowager smirked. “My point precisely.”

Penelope rolled her eyes. “Just put up the mistletoe. I have plans for it.”

“What sort of plans?” asked Turnip warily.

He hoped they didn’t involve him. Every now and again, Penelope got bored and dragged him out onto a balcony. Or under the mistletoe. Smashing girl and all that, Penelope, but she wasn’t the one he wanted under the mistletoe.

Turnip looked around, but he didn’t see Arabella. The people she had been talking to were still there, but she was gone.

“Those sorts of plans.” Penelope sent a sultry glance in the direction of Lord Frederick Staines, who was too busy pounding back claret to notice.

“Drink, drink, drink!” chanted Lord Henry and Lieutenant Danforth, banging their fists against their knees in perfectly syncopated rhythm.

Lord Frederick gave an explosive gasp and set the cup down with a clang, claret dripping bright red drops on the stiffly starched linen of his cravat.

Turnip made a face at Penelope. “Might want to watch yourself there, old thing.”

Clasping her hands to her bosom, Penelope pivoted to face the dowager. “He cares! How sweet.”

Turnip peered past her, at the misrule reigning in the hall. Freddy Staines was passing the cup to Martin Frobisher; Lady Charlotte was diligently tying red velvet bows around sprigs of greenery; and someone had decided to practice sword dancing with axes instead of swords.

There was still no sign of Arabella. Instead, Turnip caught sight of Pinchingdale, who was making his shadowy way towards the stairs.

He had a few questions he wanted to ask Pinchingdale.

“Here.” Turnip shoved the mistletoe at Penelope. “You win. You take it.”

“No gumption,” decreed the dowager and sped him on his way with a well-placed jab of her cane.

Turnip careened into Pinchingdale. “Just the chap I wanted to see,” he said, seizing him by the arm and dragging him off into the next room. It was an anteroom, of the sort used for keeping unimportant people waiting until they were duly intimidated by the ducal decorating scheme. “How important is this list of yours?”

Pinchingdale rubbed his shoulder where Turnip had grabbed him and checked to make sure the door was closed. The walls of Girdings were thick enough to withstand a siege; they wouldn’t be overheard. “Very.”

“Important enough for someone to tear up someone’s room to get it?”

“I’d say that’s the least of what people would be willing to do to get their hands on it. Why? What do you know?”

“I think,” said Turnip, choosing his words very carefully, “that Miss Dempsey might have had it. Or that someone might think she had it.”

“Miss Dempsey?”

“We’ve been through this before,” said Turnip irritably. “You know who she is.”

“I know I know who she is,” said Pinchingdale, and shook his head a little, as though to clear it. “What I want to know is what she would be doing with a highly sensitive government document.”

“She teaches at Miss Climpson’s. There was — well, long story, but the short of it is that people were blundering about in the middle of the night and Miss Dempsey ended up with a notebook that wasn’t hers. Someone tore her room up the next day. The notebook disappeared.”

Pinchingdale shook his head. “The document I’m talking about is a single sheet of paper, not a whole notebook. The two incidents are probably unrelated.”

“But what if they’re not?”

“If they’re not?” Pinchingdale looked grim. “Then your Miss Dempsey is in a great deal of danger.”

“I say,” said Turnip in wounded tones. “There’s no need to go all melodramatic.”

“Well, you did seem to be fishing for it,” said Pinchingdale apologetically. “I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

“I was being serious!” said Turnip indignantly.

“And so was I,” said Pinchingdale, sobering. “Up to a point. If your Miss Dempsey really did have that document, she would be in grave danger. I, for one, find it highly unlikely. A student notebook is an unlikely means of conveyance.”

“The notebook was in French.”

“The document wasn’t.”

“What exactly is this list? How long is it?”

“Long enough,” said Pinchingdale gravely. “Long enough to cause a great deal of bother. We have a string of Royalist agents posted between Boulogne and Paris. Most are French. They serve as couriers for both information and people. Without them, a vital link to the coast would be cut.”

“That ain’t all, is it?” said Turnip shrewdly.

“Isn’t that enough?” Pinchingdale tapped his fingers against the green marble mantelpiece. “Bonaparte would give his eyeteeth to get his hands on that list. Having to rebuild that network would set us back months, perhaps years.”

“What are eyeteeth?” asked Turnip.

Pinchingdale mustered a tired grin. “I don’t know, but they appear to be uniquely expendable. Some people feel the same way about human life.”

“You don’t need to tell me,” said Turnip. “I’ve met some of them.”

He was fairly sure they were both thinking of the same person: the Marquise de Montval, agent of the dread spy, the Black Tulip. She was, by all accounts, dead. Turnip wouldn’t have believed it if Pinchingdale hadn’t witnessed it himself.

The marquise had had a marked fondness for stilettos. She had worn them in her hair, decorated with diamonds, disguised as ornaments. She hadn’t been all that particular as to where they landed. Turnip didn’t like to think what she might have done to Arabella. The marquise’s motto had been stiletto first, questions later.

Where there was one demented French spy, there would be others. They were a bit like bees, thought Turnip philosophically. Swat one and the whole hive came swarming down on your head.

“Why are you here?” Turnip asked. “Why are you really here?”

Pinchingdale tried the eyebrow trick. “To celebrate Christmas?”

“Ha,” said Turnip intelligently. Pinchingdale couldn’t fool him, not even with that eyebrow. A chap didn’t go off to a Christmas party without his wife. “Where’s Lady Pinchingdale, then?”

“Letty,” said Pinchingdale, “is upstairs sleeping. The trip tired her.”

“Oh.” It sounded reasonable enough on the surface, but it didn’t quite wash. From what Turnip had seen of the new Lady Pinchingdale, she was fairly indefatigable. Unless...

“I say!” he blurted out. “Is she... ?”

Pinchingdale looked up at the ceiling overhead, which was decorated with several overblown nymphs. “You really do say whatever comes into your mind, don’t you?”

“Sink me if that ain’t good news!” Turnip pounded his old school chum on the back so hard that Pinchingdale doubled over, coughing. “Splendid, I say! Make a deuced smashing father. Hope you have ten. Not all at once, of course.”

“Thank you,” said Pinchingdale, when he got his breath back. “I’ll tell Letty you said so.”

“Why aren’t you with her family? Or yours?”

“You’ve met my mother,” said Pinchingdale. “You don’t want to meet Letty’s mother.”

“You’re here about the list, aren’t you?”

“Worse than fleas,” said Pinchingdale, addressing himself to the nymphs. They simpered in sympathy. “Yes. I am. The man who lost it will be attending the party with his wife and daughter. They’re due to arrive just before Epiphany. I gather they plan to announce the daughter’s betrothal to Lord Grimmlesby-Thorpe.”

“So that’s what that old sack is doing here!” exclaimed Turnip. “Didn’t seem the sort the duchess would want to marry off to her granddaughter.”

“No, but there was a scandal about the daughter, and Carruthers is eager to get her off his hands. I gather Grimmlesby-Thorpe was the only one to bite.”

“Carruthers? Catherine Carruthers?”

“You know her?”