She nodded. "I shall feel unwell in the evenings and miss all the social entertainment. But it is bound to be difficult with the upcoming festivities. I shall have to fall very ill to miss all that."
It wasn't a bad idea. That would give her time to seek out Kit. They still had much to discuss. She hadn't even told him half of it.
Her heart lurched at the mere thought.
"What on earth are you thinking, Miss Taylor? You've buttered both sides of your toast." Princess Florentina shook her head.
"I'm afraid I'm somewhat scatterbrained today," Mira said. "My thoughts seem to be all over the place."
"I recommend you cease thinking altogether. Too much thinking is not good for a lady," Lady Randolph observed.
Lady Evangeline jumped up and ran to the window. "Look! It's snowing!" She clapped her hands. "How marvellous!"
Indeed, thick snowflakes were falling from the sky, powdering the landscape.
"We must make snowmen and snow angels, and skate on the lake when it freezes over. And, oh! We have not collected any greenery yet. We must hang mistletoe everywhere! It will be a fabulous Christmas this year. Miss Taylor, tell me, how do you celebrate Christmas in Cornwall?"
The question brought up a pang of wistfulness. Christmas in Cornwall had always been magical. "We have pasties and fairings and stargazy cakes," Mira told her. "There is guise dancing during the twelve days of Christmas, with mummers singing and dancing on Montol Eve as they move from door to door in return for money and food."
"Disguises and stargazing? What on earth could that be?" Lady Randolph wondered.
"Fairings are ginger biscuits, and stargazy pie is a fish pie. It has the heads of pilchards peeking out of the pastry," Mira explained.
"To have fish eyes looking at you out of the pie! Not my idea of Christmas." Lady Randolph pulled a horrified face.
"It may sound odd, but it is what I grew up with back in Cornwall."
Kit used to buy her fairings as gifts at the Launceston fairs, because it was customary for men to buy the gingerbread biscuits with sugared almonds for their sweethearts. They were delicious and Mira would always associate them with Kit. But Kit had always claimed that her homemade biscuits were better. At Christmas time she and Miss Pearson baked up a storm of sugar biscuits, not only for themselves but also for their pupils and their families. These had been special biscuits in the shape of a snowflake. Kit had designed and made the biscuit cutter himself, so they were the only biscuits of this particular shape in all of Cornwall...
"I do prefer some proper English wassail, mince pie, and Christmas cake," Lady Randolph proclaimed.
"We shall have to collect greenery, and hang up some mistletoe," Lady Evangeline said and clapped her hands. "Let that be our plan for today."
Mira thought it was a good plan. If they were to be outside the entire day gathering holly, ivy, mistletoe, and fir branches, she would surely be able to find an opportunity to slip away and find Kit.
ChapterNine
The opportunity arosewhen Lady Evangeline and Rose went into the woods to gather mistletoe. To their delight, there was plenty of mistletoe hanging from the trees.
"I could kick myself a thousand times," cried Lady Evangeline, "for forgetting that we need a ladder and shears. One of us needs to go back and ask for a footman to help us, for the gentlemen, who are grossly neglecting us in this endeavour, are nowhere in sight. Fie!"
Mira offered to return to the house. She informed a footman of the exact location of Lady Evangeline and Rose, with a request for assistance. She waited a moment for the footman to leave, then made her way to the outbuildings.
Her heart hammered irregularly at the thought of seeing Kit again.
Yet the smithy was empty. The fire in the forge was cold, and there was no sign of anyone working in the workshop.
She knocked on the door of the blacksmith cottage, but no one opened, either.
Wondering where else to look, she wandered around the buildings to the stables, where there was much activity, with grooms and stable hands rushing about to tend to the massive stallions that stood huffing and steaming in the yard.
It appeared the men had just returned from the hunt.
Mira ducked behind a stable door just in time to hear the sound of swift footsteps and Aldingbourne's deep voice, "I dare say the deer will be easier to track in the deep snow." Another voice, probably Lindenstein's, uttered some sort of reply.
She waited a moment for them to pass, then made her way carefully around the back of the building, pausing at the entrance to a small, empty stable. Just as she was about to return to the smithy, a hand shot out of the open door, clasped around her mouth, and pulled her into an empty stall.
Her first instinct was to bite, struggle, and kick, then she felt herself being pulled against a hard chest. An old, familiar smell of leather, smoke, and heated iron filled her nose.
