The Mistletoe Wager. Christine Merrill

at the club,’ he said, and his gaze seemed to dart from hers. ‘I am not sure how many will respond to it.’

      ‘And what am I to give them when they arrive? Napoleon had more food in Russia than we have here.’

      ‘No food?’ He seemed genuinely surprised by the idea that planning might be necessary before throwing a two-week party. If this was his normal behaviour, then Rosalind began to understand why his wife had been cross enough to leave him.

      ‘With Elise gone, Harry, the house has been all but shut up. The servants are airing the guest rooms, and I have set the cook to scrambling for what is left in the village, but you cannot expect me to demand some poor villager to give us his goose from the ovens at the baker. We must manage with whatever is left. It will be thin fare.’

      ‘I am sure the guests will be content with what they have. We have a fine cellar.’

      ‘Good drink and no food is a recipe for disaster,’ she warned, trying not to think of how she had learned that particular lesson.

      ‘Do not worry so, little one. I’m sure it will be fine. Once they see the tree they will forget all about dinner.’

      ‘What tree?’ She glanced out of the window.

      ‘The Christmas tree, of course.’

      ‘This is some custom of Elise’s, is it?’

      ‘Well, of course.’ He smiled as though lost in memory. ‘She decorates a pine with paper stars, candles and gingerbread. That sort of thing. I have grown quite used to it.’

      ‘Very well for you, Harry. But this is not anything that I am accustomed to. Father allows only the most minimal celebration. I attend church, of course. And he writes a new sermon every Advent. But he does not hold with such wild abandon when celebrating the Lord’s birth.’

      Harry rolled his eyes at her, obviously amused by her lack of spirit. ‘It is rather pagan, I suppose. Not in your father’s line at all. But perfectly harmless. And very much fun—as is the Yule Log. You will see.’

      ‘Will I?’ She put her hands on her hips. ‘I doubt I shall have time to enjoy it if I am responsible for bringing it about. Because, Harry, someone must find this tree and have it brought to the house. And there is still the question of finding a second goose, or perhaps a turkey. If I am to feed a large group, one bird will not be enough.’

      ‘And you must organise games. Do not forget the games.’ He held up his fingers, ticking things off an imaginary list. ‘And see to the decorations in the rest of the house.’

      She raised her hands in supplication. ‘What decorations?’

      ‘Pine boughs, mistletoe, holly, ivy. Elise has a little something in each room.’ He sighed happily. ‘No matter where you went, you could not forget the season.’

      ‘Oh, it is doubtful that I shall be able to forget the season, no matter how much I might try.’

      He reached out to her and enveloped her in another brotherly hug. ‘It will be all right, darling. You needn’t worry so. Whatever you can manage at such short notice will be fine. Before I left London I filled the carriage with more than enough vagaries and sweetmeats. And on the way, I stopped so that the servants might gather greenery. When they unload it all you will find you are not so poorly supplied as you might think.’

      Rosalind took a deep breath to calm herself, and tried to explain the situation again, hoping that he would understand. ‘A gathering of this size will still be a challenge. The servants obey me sullenly, if at all. They do not wish a new mistress, Harry. They want Elise back.’

      His face clouded for a moment, before he smiled again. ‘We will see what can be done on that front soon enough. But for now, you must do the best you can. And look on this as an opportunity, not an obstacle. It will give my friends a chance to meet you. They do wonder, you know, that you are never seen in London. I think some of them doubt that I have any family at all. They think that I have imagined the wonderful sister I describe.’

      ‘Really, Harry. You make me sound terribly antisocial. It is not by choice that I avoid your friends. Father needs me at home.’

      He was looking down at her with a frown of concern. ‘I worry about you, sequestered in Shropshire alone with your father. He is a fine man, but an elderly vicar cannot be much company for a spirited girl.’

      It was perfectly true, but she smiled back in denial. ‘It is not as if I have no friends in the country.’

      He waved a hand. ‘I am sure they are fine people. But the young gentlemen of your acquaintance must be a bit thick in the head if they have not seen you for the beauty you are. I would have thought by now that there would be men lined up to ask your father for your hand.’

      ‘I am no longer, as you put it, “a spirited girl”, Harry. I do not need you to act as matchmaker—nor Father’s permission should any young men come calling.’ And she had seen that they hadn’t, for she had turned them all away. The last thing she needed was Harry pointing out the illogicality of her refusals. ‘I am of age, and content to remain unmarried.’

      He sighed. ‘So you keep telling me. But I mean to see you settled. And if I can find someone to throw in your path…’

      ‘Then I shall walk politely around him and continue on my way.’

      ‘With you so far from home, you could at least pretend to need a chaperon,’ he said. ‘Your father made me promise to take the role, and to prevent you from any misalliances. I was quite looking forward to failing at it.’

      Her father would have done so, since he did not trust her in the slightest. But she could hardly fault Harry for his concern, so she curtseyed to him. ‘Very well. I will send you any serious contenders for my hand. Although I assure you there will be no such men, nor does it bother me. I am quite content to stay as I am.’

      He looked at her critically, and for a change he was serious. ‘I do not believe you. I do not know what happened before your father sent you to rusticate, or why it set you so totally off the masculine gender, but I wish it could be otherwise.’

      ‘I have nothing against the masculine gender,’ she argued. In fact, she had found one in particular to be most to her liking. ‘I could think of little else for the brief time I was in London, before Father showed me the error of my behaviour and sent me home.’

      ‘You are too hard on yourself, darling. To have been obsessed with love and marriage made you no different from other girls of your age.’

      ‘I was still an ill-mannered child, and my rash behaviour gave many a distaste of me.’ She had heard the words from his lips so many times that she sounded almost like her father as she said them. ‘I am sure that the men of London breathed a hearty sigh of relief when I was removed from their numbers before the season even began.’ At least that was true. At least one of them had been more than glad to see the last of her.

      ‘But it has been years, Rosalind. Whatever it was that proved the last straw to your father, it has been forgotten by everyone else. I think you would find, if you gave them a chance, that there are many men worthy of your affection and eager to meet you. There are a dozen in my set alone who would do fine for you. But if you insist on avoiding London, then I must bring London to you.’

      ‘Harry,’ she said, with sudden alarm, ‘tell me you have not done what I suspect you have.’

      ‘And whatever is that, sister dear?’

      ‘You have not used the Christmas holiday as an opportunity to fill this house with unattached men in an attempt to make a match where none is desired.’

      He glanced away and smiled. ‘Not fill the house, precisely.’

      And suddenly she knew why he had been so cagey with the guest list, giving her rough numbers but no names. ‘It is all ruined,’ she moaned.

      ‘I fail to see how,’ he answered, being wilfully oblivious