His Mistletoe Marchioness. Georgie Lee

descended, but she hadn’t expected this compliment and it almost rattled her surety, especially when Lady Tillman laid Clara’s hand on Hugh’s arm.

      The sight of her satin-covered fingers against the black fabric of his coat brought back a hundred memories. They were of Alfred escorting her into dinner or a ballroom, the two of them chatting and laughing while they walked. It’d been two years since she’d stood beside a man like this and loneliness and loss overwhelmed her. It should be Alfred beside her, but it wasn’t and it never would be again.

      ‘Are you all right, Lady Kingston?’ Hugh laid his hand comfortingly over hers.

      She raised her face to his, having forgotten for a moment to keep her chin up. She offered him a weak smile, trying to be regain her composure, but it was difficult with his warm hand covering hers. If she could let down her guard long enough to tell him the truth, she would, but she couldn’t, not here and certainly not with him. ‘Yes, only sometimes I find it difficult at this time of year.’

      It was the most she could say.

      ‘I understand.’ He squeezed her fingers, his thumb lightly brushing hers, the steady motion soothing her. There was nothing calculated in the gesture or his words, only a desire to ease her pain in a way very few had tried to do since the weeks surrounding the funeral.

      ‘Are you ready to lead them in?’ Lady Tillman asked, drawing Clara’s attention away from Hugh.

      ‘Yes, of course,’ Clara stammered, everything she’d intended to do tonight from walking regally like a queen to ignoring Hugh thrown into confusion. For a long time, her grief had been hers alone to bear, expected by all to grow fainter as time passed, but he’d seen it and for a moment he’d helped her to shoulder it. This was a greater comfort to her than all the showing up of Lady Fulton and Lord Westbook, and it stunned her that it should come from him. After the way she’d spoken to him in the library, she’d expected derision instead of kindness.

      They started off down the hall and she raised her head high, concentrating on the pearls woven in their hostess’s coiffure and not Hugh’s steady steps or the shift of his arm beneath her palm. His hand remained covering hers, the pressure of his fingers distracting. She wished he’d acted like a rake instead of a gentleman. It would make it so much easier to decide how to behave with him tonight. While his kind words were appreciated, it didn’t change their past or her opinion of him and this unfortunate seating arrangement.

      They all strolled into the dining room. The table was bereft of treats and laid out in its splendid china and silver which glistened in the high polish of the table’s finish. Everything about this room was sumptuous with the walls done in a deep red wallpaper covered with numerous gilded frames of hunting portraits and the English countryside. Along the edges of the room, the guests moved past fine burled oak sideboards with marble tops and elaborate candelabras, vases and other adornments. At the other end, a large fire roared in a hearth decorated by white moulding similar in shape to the classical front of Stonedown Manor. Clara pitied Lord Tillman who would sit with his back to the blaze and likely roast as much as the meat course. If he did mind the heat, he never said anything, enduring it so the guests at Clara’s end of the table would not shiver through the meal.

      Despite the formality of the setting, everyone except those newest to the party approached their seats in leisure as if they were in their own homes. When they reached their places, Hugh finally let go of Clara and she took her place beside Lady Tillman, conscious of every move Hugh made when he sat down on her right. With Lord Worth on Lady Tillman’s other side and dominating her attention with conversation, Clara realised she would either have to slurp her soup in silence or find a way to speak with Hugh. She didn’t wish to converse with him at all, but to be alone and think about what had just happened. He hadn’t behaved at all as she’d expected and she’d been foolish enough to allow a touch of kindness to make her almost slip and reveal to him something of the lonely woman beneath the confident Marchioness. He didn’t deserve to see that woman or to know the details of her heart, both good and bad. He deserved nothing but her disdain, but it was difficult to find the resolve to deride him so severely again.

      Unable to decide what to do, she did nothing except remain silent and listen to the conversations around her while she ate. Hugh was in no hurry to break the stalemate either. Where he’d been quite free with his words in the library and then again on the stairs, he’d gone mute now, focusing on his plate as if it was the most important thing in the room. He didn’t even make an effort to speak to Lady Pariston who sat on his other side. The manners her mother had instilled in her urged Clara to at least mention the weather, but she couldn’t bring herself to do even that. She didn’t want to appear like an overeager debutante and force him into a conversation he clearly didn’t want. Instead, she continued to eat her soup, thankful that with the balls and other events, there wouldn’t be too many similar dinners to endure this week.

      Clara swirled her soup with her spoon, leaving a quickly disappearing trail in the thick, pale green surface, the tension between them ruining the taste of her food. This was not at all how she’d imagined this week unfolding and she wondered, if she chose to go with Anne and Adam to London, if that experience would be any better. There had been moments of delight during her first Season in London, but they’d quickly faded while she’d stood against the wall at dances or watched her mother send yet another young man with a pile of debts in search of a rich wife packing. Returning to London as the wife of a peer in the House of Lords had been so much better. She’d been proud of Alfred’s accomplishments and had done her best to help him by hosting dinners for his political friends and attending balls. She hadn’t returned to town since his death, not wanting to face all its pitfalls alone. She would have to face it if she wanted to find a new life, for the society of the country was very limited if Hugh’s presence was any indication. Lady Tillman must be hard up for guests to have invited him.

      She glanced past Hugh to thin Lady Pariston with her lace shawl and tweedy-coloured dress, the weight of the large diamond necklace she wore making her hunched posture more pronounced. While Clara used to enjoy sitting with Lady Pariston by the fire in the evenings and listening to her tales of Stonedown Manner in the old days, she wondered if becoming a similar little old lady was to be her fate. She was a dowager, too, and glancing around the table, it was clear there would be no Alfred to rescue her this time from an ignoble future. It made her lose her appetite.

      Then she caught Hugh’s gaze and her heart made a little flutter. No, he wouldn’t rescue her either, unless he deemed her purse large enough to make her more attractive. It would be up to her to find some other way of moving on long after this party concluded, but, touching her gloved hand to where the imprint of Hugh’s heaviness still lingered, it was difficult not to remember a previous Christmas that had been full of potential, until it hadn’t been.

      * * *

      Hugh set down his soup spoon and sat back against the chair, allowing the footman to take away the half-eaten dish and replace it with the next course. Beside him, Clara began to eat her fish, her gloved hand moving the silver fork elegantly back and forth from the plate to her full red lips. Every now and then she’d lean forward in her seat, lengthening the line of her back, her pert chin pressed out a touch above the long line of her neck to where it curved down to her supple chest. The whiteness of her skin was a stark contrast to the deep green of her gown. The colour matched the richness of the emeralds in her necklace and the jewels sparkled with each of her movements. The cut of her bodice, although modest, still revealed a touch of the soft creaminess of her chest. She was finely attired even if it whispered of mourning, but the heavier material flattered her more than the wispy gowns of the women who’d come up from London for the house party. The gown added grace to her once-awkward movements and told him that she had grown a great deal since the last time he’d seen her.

      She set down her fork and frowned a touch when she could not catch all the words of Lord Worth’s conversation with Lady Missington from across the table. That Clara longed to be sitting next to him and taking in every story about the last session of Parliament instead of beside Hugh was clear. If it were in his power to release her to do so, he would, but they sat where precedence dictated and they were beholden to it, and to each other to make conversation, except they