Page 2 of The Mistletoe Duke

Anne’s brow wrinkled, as though she might have suffered the same worry. “Probably not. If we were having the party in Devon. But we’re not.” She winked. “If the mountain won’t come to Muhammed, and all that.”

Jonathan was a large man, but far from a mountain.

The dowager frowned and shook her head. “Of course he will come,” she said, to herself, perhaps. “His entire family will be there. He cannot deny his girls a Christmas with their father.” That, of course, was true. If there was one soft spot in the Duke of Pembroke’s heart, it was his five-year-old twin daughters, whom he adored.

Of course, he hadn’t seen them lately…

“We must invite all the best families,” Anne said, waving her hand in the general direction of Mawbry’s poised pen. “Particularly the most eligible debutantes.”

For some reason, Meg’s heart lurched at that. Which was ridiculous. Of course Jonathan needed to marry again. He had not yet produced the all-important male heir. And of course, he would choose a young girl. It was what men did.

“The Pickerings, Mountbattens, and Pecks for certain.” Anne tapped her lip. “Perhaps the Evertons?” She rattled off a plethora of other names, all the best families with the best breeding, all of whom Meg knew, if vaguely, from her own season. With each name, her mood darkened, though it had no cause to. She knew what Jonathan thought of her. He respected her, certainly, and remembered her fondly as the barefoot shadow who had wanted to be a boy and who had followed Jonathan, his friend Arthur, and her brother George on countless romps.

In retrospect, the boys had been rather decent, making her feel a part of the crowd at every turn when she had been, she imagined, a monumental annoyance.

The coach lurched and Meg realized the dowager had moved on from the guest list and was discussing decorations. “We need greens throughout the house,” she told Mawbry. “Oh. And I want mistletoe. Everywhere.”

“Mistletoe, mum?”

“Yes, Mawbry. Everywhere. He cannot know if they are compatible without a kiss, now can he?”

Mawbry’s face puckered even more, but he scratched that onto the list.

“Oh, and a tree.”

The secretary blinked. “A…tree, mum?”

“Queen Charlotte has them. And so shall we.”

“But that is a German tradition,” Mawbry said with a quiver at the end of his pointy nose.

“And now it’s a Royal tradition.”

Mawbry glanced at Meg, then cleared his throat. “What does one do with a tree?”

The dowager pinned him with a sharp glare. “One decorates it, I presume. A tree in the ballroom would be rather absurd otherwise. Wouldn’t it?”

Meg felt the need to step in before this became an altercation. Altercations with the dowager were unpleasant enough when one wasn’t crammed in a coach. “I believe the Germans decorate them with dolls and ribbons. And candles, of course.”

“We must have the largest tree in Sutton, Mawbry. Make no mistake.”

“Yes, mum. Anything else?”

The dowager was precluded from answering when the coach made a sudden stop. She lifted the curtain and peered out the window. Meg peeped over her shoulder to see a smallish inn bathed in moonlight. “Whatever are we doing here?” Anne asked in a stentorian tone.

In response, the coach door flew open, revealing the governess, Miss Friss, who had been riding in the lead coach with the girls. Her hair was askew, her face a’flush and her eyes wild. “They are monsters,” she hissed. “Monsters, I tell you.”

Anne reared back. “I beg your pardon?”

“Those girls are monsters. I refuse to continue this journey with them.”

“I say.” The dowager affected her most formidable expression. “They are children.”

Miss Friss attempted to say a word or two, which came out as gibberish. Then she cleared her throat, threw back her shoulders, and said, in no uncertain terms, “I quit.”

“You cannot quit,” Anne sputtered, for the first time allowing her consternation to show. “We are in the middle of nowhere.”

“I don’t care,” snapped the redoubtable Miss Friss, who had come with all the best references. “I will not be subjected to such…horrors.” And then, without another word, she turned tail, and stormed toward the inn.