His Mistletoe Wager

‘I hate hunting.’ Hal’s father had thoroughly enjoyed it and had forced his reluctant little boy to accompany him on far too many of them. He still recalled the first time he had seen a poor, terrified fox ripped to pieces by a pack of dogs and how frightened and appalled he had been when his father had soaked his handkerchief in the still-warm entrails and smeared the sticky blood all over Hal’s face. A hunting tradition, apparently, and one he still could not understand. ‘You know I hate hunting.’

Aaron rolled his eyes. ‘Not foxes, you fool, women! You cannot deny you are a hunter of women. A lone and fearless predator. When they are all so depressingly eager and happy to fall at your feet, you miss the thrill of seducing them.’

‘Perhaps.’ Without thinking he turned his body to gaze through the windows back into the ballroom and watched the sea of swirling silk-clad young women on the dance floor to see if just one of them stood out to him and inspired him to go seduce them. Then sighed when none did.

‘The trouble is,’ his friend continued, far too cheerfully for Hal’s liking, ‘you grew up with Connie.’

‘And what, pray tell, does my tempestuous sister have to do with this?’

‘She has set a standard you have come to expect from all women.’

‘Are you suggesting I yearn for a foul-tempered, flouncing termagant of a woman? Because really, Aaron, I love my dear sister to distraction, but the idea of being married to someone similar terrifies me.’ Not that he was looking for a wife. Heaven forbid! The idea of being shackled for life in matrimonial disharmony, like his parents, filled him with dread. Besides, he was still too young to sacrifice himself to the parson’s trap. His father had often said all respectable gentlemen had a duty to be married before they were thirty. Hal had another three years to go to thwart that edict and had no immediate desire to become respectable. Not when he still had far too many wild oats to sow. And he would, as soon as he shook off his odd mood. He had every intention of making the man spin in his grave for a considerate amount of time as penance for being so awful. At least another decade.

‘Fear not, it takes a real man to deal with a woman like your sister and you are not in my league, dear fellow. What I mean is merely this. All those eager girls do not present a challenge to you, which is why you are so out of sorts.’ He waved his hand dismissively in the direction of the dancers. ‘Therefore I am prepared to set you an interesting challenge out of family loyalty, to restore some of your missing vigour. A bit of fun to liven up this laboriously festive social season for the both of us, seeing as Connie has decreed we spend it here with your mother, and your mother has such exuberance for society again. Wouldn’t you relish a decent challenge? For our usual stakes, of course.’

‘I suppose...’ It was a sorry state of affairs if a man in his prime was without vigour, yet the plain and simple truth was Hal had not encountered a single woman in well over a year who did not bore him to tears. Even the unsuitable, corruptible ones he favoured were leaving him cold. Although he was prepared to concede fun would be good, if nothing else, as it had been a bit thin on the ground of late. ‘What sort of challenge?’

‘How many berries are on that sprig of parasitic vegetation you are clutching like an amulet?’

‘Five—why?’ Because Aaron had a particular gleam in his eye and as their usual stakes involved the loser mucking out the other’s stables single-handed, or when in town just Hal’s, as Aaron had cheerfully sold his house years before, he was understandably wary. Being bored and being consigned to shovelling excrement for his brother-in-law’s amusement were two very different things entirely.

‘Five berries equal the five separate kisses I challenge you to steal. Each one in a different location and all five before Twelfth Night. Let us call it The Mistletoe Wager, in a nod to the season.’ Their bets always had names and there had been some momentous ones. The North Road Race. The Serpentine Swim. The Fisticuffs Experiment and the ill-conceived and often-lamented Naked Night in Norfolk, when they both nearly froze to death trying to brave the winter weather sitting out in the elements on the exposed beach of Great Yarmouth. They had hastily agreed to end that one early when they simultaneously lost feeling in their gentlemen’s areas. The Mistletoe Wager certainly sounded a lot more pleasant than all its painful predecessors.

Hal felt himself grin at the thought. Five kisses! He could do that in his sleep. ‘To be frank, I think it is only fair to point out I am so confident of my appeal, I believe you will be ensconced in my well-stocked stable tomorrow. Challenge accepted!’

‘Hold your fire, my arrogant young friend. I have not set out my full terms yet. There is one more thing I must insist upon.’

‘Which is?’

‘I get to choose whom you have to kiss.’

Hal felt his eyes narrow suspiciously. ‘No nuns. No dowagers or ladies in their dotage and for pity’s sake spare me Lady Daphne Marsh. I must insist that the ladies selected have teeth! Rumour has it those clattering dentures she wears are made with teeth chiselled out of the corpses on the battlefield at Waterloo.’

‘Really? I had heard they were carved out of a single walrus tusk... Either way, I agree they are distasteful.’ Aaron held up his palm solemnly. ‘You have my word. Only eligible, pretty ladies I would have chased after myself, before I had the great good fortune to be forced into marriage with your sister, qualify. What do you say? Shall we shake on it to seal the wager?’

For a few seconds Hal dithered, before he realised dithering was reminiscent of something his staid father would have done. ‘On one condition. The ladies you choose can only be selected from within the very ballroom we are currently avoiding. Those are my particular terms.’ That would ensure no ridiculous women were chosen. Aaron did like to best him and he would not put it past him to select five girls in the remotest corners of the British Isles just to vex him.

‘Agreed!’

Hal thrust out his hand and the two men did their level best to out-shake and out-squeeze the other, as was their custom, for a solid thirty seconds before they stepped back. ‘Five stolen kisses in five entirely different locations with five very lucky ladies.’ He turned towards the French doors and grinned triumphantly. ‘Choose away, dear brother. I feel guilty for accepting such a ridiculously easy bet.’

‘Your arrogance astounds me! Do you honestly believe every proper young lady in that room would allow you to steal a kiss?’

Hal actually laughed, because really, it was just too funny. ‘There will be no need for stealing, I can assure you. I am the single most eligible man at this ball. I am phenomenally wealthy, devilishly handsome, totally charming and, as you have quite rightly pointed out, I’m an earl. There isn’t a young lady in that ballroom who would not welcome my advances. In fact, I dare say a few of them might try to steal a kiss from me with precious little effort on my part this very evening.’ Which ironically was part of his current problem. They really were all so predictably eager.

‘I refuse to believe you. As the father to two tenacious daughters and husband to a wife of supreme intelligence, I believe you are grossly underestimating the female sex. There must be at least a dozen young ladies currently in the ballroom who are in possession of good sense and taste, and thereby would never consider attaching their lips to yours.’

Hal watched with mounting amusement as Aaron carefully scanned the crowds, his frustration with the eager young ladies beyond becoming more apparent with every passing second. After a full minute, his intense perusal became a trifle desperate, then he straightened and nearly sighed with relief. When he turned back to Hal there was definite mischief in his expression, yet it did not daunt him. ‘Who is the lucky first of the five?’ Because he fully intended to pluck off one of those white mistletoe berries tonight in front of Aaron’s eyes and then ceremonially place it in his hand.

‘I don’t recall stating there would be five different ladies, old boy.’ Aaron was grinning smugly from ear to ear. It was a familiar tactic. Each time one of them proposed a ridiculous wager, the devil was in the detail of the language. Like attorneys they always quibbled about the minutiae of the terms. Hal went back over their conversation himself, preparing to counter, and experienced the first trickle of unease when he realised his irritatingly smug relative was right. There had been no mention of five different young ladies which shifted the parameters of the challenge significantly. To steal a kiss from a young lady once was a relatively simple task, by and large. More than that involved actual wooing and Hal had always been scrupulously careful about where and to whom he wooed. And Aaron knew it, too.

‘I shall not be selecting five young ladies. In fact, there is only the one. All you need to do is find suitable opportunities and locations to kiss her five times.’ He turned and pointed triumphantly through the condensation covered window to the solitary figure sat alone in a corner. ‘I choose Lady Elizabeth Wilding.’

‘Sullen Lizzie?’

‘Now, now. You of all people should know how unfair nicknames can be here in the ton. Wasn’t your own dear sister known as the Ginger Amazonian for years? A dreadful name which was most unfortunate. If people overhear you calling the poor girl that, the name might stick.’

Hal could almost smell the horse manure and realised he had been ambushed. ‘As I recall, dear brother-in-law, it was you who gave my sister that unfortunate nickname, so don’t try to use that against me. Besides, she is sullen. The sullenest woman in Mayfair. Why, she barely casts me a disdainful glance if we happen to pass on the street. You picked her on purpose, you snake! Everybody knows Lady Elizabeth Wilding loathes all men!’

‘How can you say that when the chit was engaged once?’

‘And callously called it off on the morning of her wedding without a thought to the poor groom’s feelings!’ Everyone remembered that juicy titbit of gossip. It had caused quite a scandal, from what he recalled, as the announcement was made to the congregation as they had waited for the bride and groom to take their vows.

‘Marriage is for life, Hal. I believe it shows how sensible she is to have refrained from making the wrong choice. And even you have to concede that the dissolute Rainham was a bad choice. Nobody has seen the fellow in years—probably had to run away from all his creditors. Brava to her, I say. It hardly makes her a man-hater to have realised Rainham was a mistake at the last minute—merely choosy. When one has the largest dowry of any young lady in the ton, one has to be very careful.’

‘Ha! By all accounts the dowry is so sweet because her personality is so sour. Her poor father must be so desperate to marry her off to have offered such a ridiculous sum. How many Seasons has she been out now?’ Hal prodded Aaron in the chest. ‘I shall tell you. Too many and that in itself tells me everything I need to know. Even with the dowry she is resolutely dour. She has not, to the best of my knowledge, entertained the overtures of a suitor in years. Her mouth curls in distaste every time she converses with a single gentleman. And when was the last time she accepted an invitation to dance?’ Sullen Lizzie positively glared at any fellow brave enough to get within ten feet of her. Despite her famed beauty, Hal had never bothered being one of them. Gently bred young ladies with pristine reputations were not his type and he sincerely doubted scandalous earls were hers. Kissing the frosty Lady Elizabeth once would be a huge achievement. Managing to do it five times would be a miracle.

‘Are you conceding the challenge then, because if you are I shall send a note to my stable master immediately, instructing him to cease all shovelling for the night. I want you to have a decent pile in the morning. We did shake on the wager, after all, and I must remind you that you are both a gentleman and a peer of the realm, and as such duty bound to honour your word. It is a great shame, though. I had hoped you were made of sterner stuff. Lady Elizabeth is a very beautiful woman and, as you previously stipulated, one who is in possession of all of her own teeth.’

Male pride, Hal mused, was a dangerous thing. Everything about the wager told him he would lose so why bother. However, a bigger, primal part of him wanted to best his cocky friend and in truth Lady Elizabeth was a stunningly beautiful woman and it would be no great hardship to kiss her. Unsociable. Unapproachable. Unreachable. Very definitely a challenge for only the finest, most skilled of hunters, and only where women were concerned he was undoubtedly that. ‘I wouldn’t dream of conceding.’

He watched Aaron’s face fall before staring back at him stunned. ‘Really? Are you completely sure?’ And now his friend sounded nervous, as if he regretted his own choice, too, but was also too stubborn to back down.

‘I shall kiss Sullen Lizzie five times in five different locations before Twelfth Night. And you, Aaron, are going to move a veritable mountain once I win and I am going to crack open a bottle of my finest port and watch, gloating, while you do it!’ The more he thought about it, the more Hal was convinced Lady Elizabeth Wilding was the perfect candidate to test his superior powers of seduction on. At least she wasn’t eager and surely that had to be a point in her favour. Hal would have to be resourceful and tenacious. Like a hunter of old. Already, he could feel the previously sluggish, hot male blood coursing through his veins at the prospect. He clinked his glass against his flabbergasted friend’s.

‘Let the Mistletoe Wager commence!’

Chapter Two

Lizzie gazed wistfully at the ormolu clock on the Renshaws’ opulent fireplace and stifled a groan when she saw the time. It would be at least another hour before her father relented and allowed her to summon the carriage. His insistence that she maintain this silly façade after five long years was beyond tiresome. Initially, he had insisted she return to society to maintain appearances. Her continued presence gave credence to the lie that she had chosen to terminate her engagement to Rainham, as was a woman’s prerogative, and therefore she had nothing to be ashamed of. It was necessary, he explained, to keep her scandalous, dirty secret a secret.

Back then, she had readily agreed to keep her baby a secret and spare her family the scandal. The wonderful Wildings had rallied around her, fiercely protective, and their loyalty was something she would always be grateful for. So many girls ‘in trouble’ were cast out and shunned by their families, even more had to suffer the horrendous grief of giving up their child and never seeing or daring to mention the poor thing again. Fortunately, she had been spared both of those ordeals. For the first year she stayed largely at the family estate in Cheshire with her brother, his wife and their young son Frederick, venturing back into town to keep up the necessary appearances when the need arose, but after her mother had died, Lizzie and George were summoned back to Mayfair to live with her father, something she had agreed to do temporarily because she could not stand the thought of him being all alone.

Aside from the bothersome London Season and the shorter Christmas one, where she was forced into a society which would instantly turn on her if they were ever appraised of the truth, she got to live her life exactly as she wanted to.

Almost.

Yet to all intents and purposes, little George did not exist outside their Mayfair house. Small children, it turned out, were very easy to conceal from the prying eyes of the world. For the longest time it had been surprisingly easy to behave in public as if nothing untoward was going on. Back when he was a baby, Lizzie had only been too pleased to comply. It would have caused the most horrendous scandal for both their family and the Government to have done otherwise. As the most senior man at the Foreign Office, the King’s chief advisor on the delicate art of global diplomacy, her father had to be seen to be above reproach and she had not wanted to bring his ambitions to a shuddering halt because of her foolish indiscretion. She had returned to society after her clandestine confinement and nobody was any the wiser. All in all, they had done such a good job that even now, remarkably, her pristine reputation was still intact and, to all intents and purposes, she was just another single young lady on the marriage mart.

Except she wasn’t.

Despite her father’s steadfast refusal to give up the hope Lizzie would find a suitable man to marry, there was nothing which would ever tempt her to take a trip down the aisle again. Once bitten, twice shy, and Lizzie had been bitten too hard. So hard she was certain she still bore the treacherous Rainham’s teeth marks. From the outset, she had rebelled against her papa’s misguided belief she would soon snare another man who could be convinced, or bribed by his powerful father-in-law, into claiming the new-born child as his own. Instead, she actively repelled any man who dared to come within six feet of her. And, for good measure, any woman, too. The last thing she needed was allowing anyone to get too close, just in case she inadvertently let slip something which might embarrass her family or, more importantly, bring unwarranted shame and censure on her son.

Heaven forbid she would consider the alternative and marry a man who was shallow enough to be bribed to take on her child. Georgie deserved better than that and Lizzie would never allow him to be an inconvenience to a husband who would prefer her delightful little boy did not exist at all. As a wife, she would be bound by her husband’s edicts. What if Georgie was banished to boarding school or some remote property to be brought up by strangers? Unloved and all alone. She would protect him from that with the last breath in her body. No, indeed. The very last thing she could ever risk, for the sake of her beautiful boy, was marriage.

However, her dear papa refused to acknowledge her fears or that the trusting, foolish girl she had been had died the day Rainham had jilted her. What had emerged from the wreckage was a stronger, harder woman who would never be seduced into the merry dance of courtship again, no matter how charming or handsome her would-be suitor was. If she could thank the scoundrel Marquess for something, other than the fruit of his lying, deceitful loins, then it would be for opening her eyes to the harsh realities of life. Lizzie had been a hopeless dreamer then; now she was a realist. Her papa called it pessimism. It was much better to always expect the worst, that way you were guaranteed never to be disappointed. Being at the mercy of fate, or fickle men, was not a situation she would ever allow again.

And, on the subject of plans, soon she would put her most audacious one into action. This would be her last foray into polite society. One more month of maintaining this ridiculous charade for the sake of propriety, and her dear papa’s career, before she withdrew from the ton for ever. Georgie was not a baby any more. He could run around, talk and asked an increasing amount of questions about everything, the most consistent one causing her the most sleepless nights. Where is my papa? There was only so long her darling boy would accept her blithe answer of far, far away without complaint, yet she knew she was being unfair to him by keeping him the dark.

Her little boy needed to go to school and experience the sort of childhood all little boys deserved. He needed to play outside, not be restricted to twice-weekly jaunts to Richmond Park with his mother. The infrequent visits with her brother’s son were not enough and, as good a grandpapa as her dear father was to George, or no matter how many hours he spent playing with him, her son needed to be with children his own age, not adults. She wanted him to grow up feeling confident and secure in who he was. It was hardly his fault he was the Wildings’ dirty little secret.

Her dirty little secret.

After Christmas was done and dusted, and after she had found the right words to tell her beloved father of her decision, Lizzie was going to leave the sheltered safety of their Mayfair house. The spacious cottage in Yorkshire had already been purchased in the name of Mrs Smith with the small inheritance she had been left from her grandmother and via an attorney sworn to secrecy. It was already decorated and comfortably furnished in readiness. The well-paid attorney had seen to that, too. In a few short weeks, Lizzie would, to all intents and purposes, cease to be Lady Elizabeth Wilding for as much of her life as possible.

Instead, she would pretend to be a young widow—lord knew there were enough of them thanks to the carnage of decades of war—and Georgie would grow up like a normal boy, free from the stain of illegitimacy. Nobly fatherless because of Napoleon. Just the two of them. In quiet, peaceful, utter bliss. No more questions. No more lies—all bar that one.

Even so, she dreaded telling her father. He had stepped into the breach all those years ago and still believed his protection was necessary, until she learned to trust again and found a man to relieve him of the duty. Hence, she was at the Renshaw Ball at her misguided papa’s request, miserable and beyond bored, and would no doubt have to attend all manner of so-called similar entertainments for the next, interminable, miserable month.

In desperation, he had even taken to approaching potential husbands on her behalf. Sensible, staid men who were nothing but upright and no doubt he had significantly inflated her dowry as bait. Luring them with the enticing scent of money, encouraging them to come and talk or ask her to dance. Refusing to believe her insistence that she was done with men and never wanted another one, no matter how dull, staid and annoyingly persistent the fellows he selected were.

So pathetically, because she could not bear to hurt her papa’s feelings, she was hiding in the furthest chairs reserved for the most committed of wallflowers, attempting to be invisible. A sorry state of affairs, indeed, but easier than upsetting her father with yet another argument.

Why couldn’t he see that time was running out and the scandal he had vehemently suppressed for years was in danger of blowing wide open? They could not keep George sequestered in the house for ever, or wire his talkative mouth shut, and hell would have to freeze over before she would allow the rest of society to judge her innocent baby based on the circumstances of his birth. Lizzie would never regret George, regardless of how he had come to be in her life, and she was so very tired of hiding him. Poor Papa. His eagerness to find her a husband was beginning to drive a wedge between them and that broke her heart as well. The last five years of nonsense could not be allowed to continue much longer.

‘A penny for your thoughts?’

The deep male voice from behind startled her, yet Lizzie hid it instinctively. Sometimes, particularly arrogant young bucks still attempted to flirt with her for sport. Something which was always ruthlessly nipped in the bud. A slow, calculated glance to the side revealed Henry Stuart, the newly minted Earl of Redbridge. Handsome as sin and with a sinful reputation to match. She did not bother hiding her irritation at recognising him.

‘Do not trouble yourself, my lord. I can assure you that whatever misguided impulse sent you my way, it was most assuredly futile. I am in no mood to engage in polite conversation or anything else this evening.’ She flicked her eyes back towards the dance floor and turned her body away from his, allowing the uncomfortable seconds to tick by. Men were like wasps. If you ignored them, they eventually went away.

She heard the slight creaking protest of wood and realised he had eased his big body into the chair alongside. She gave him her best unwelcoming frown and curtest tone. ‘I do not recall inviting you to sit.’ This insect clearly needed swatting.