"Who will be the shepherd?" Freddy asked. "For the nativity, that is. Do you think we could borrow Lady Guinevere?"
"You could, but she's too big," Charles said. "Oh, I forgot to tell you. I fed her a carrot yesterday without help." He grinned at the boys. "She's to be my mount, as soon as we become friends," he confided.
"Excellent, Charles. I told you it wasn't hard," Randy said. The duke beamed proudly.
The three, and their woolly friends, wandered off to the barn, arguing about what animal might stand for a shepherd. Randy argued correctly that Bertha, who was a sheepdog, would be the logical choice. "But she's going to be Mother Mary. If we make her a shepherd, where will we be?" Freddy insisted, lobbying for the loan of a horse.
When the barn door closed, Chadbourn and Catherine convulsed in laughter.
"Oh, my lord," Catherine laughed, tears rolling down her cheeks. "However am I going to keep from laughing on Christmas morning? I will disgrace myself during services."
"Will."
"I beg your pardon?"
"My name is William. Two people who laugh so hard together certainly ought to make use of given names, Catherine." His expression held a challenge.
She looked to the house, as if she could hear her father's fervent admonition about trusting titled blackguards, from the yard.
"Say it. Say my name."
"Will," she whispered. She felt a blush heat her cheeks. "For this moment. For the laughter, but not?—"
"—not when I talk with your father? Have you convinced him I'm right about your brothers?"
She shook her head, a sly smile appearing only briefly. "Not quite. I'm wearing him down, though."
When he took her hand, she let him. When he drew it toward his lips rather than bowing over her fingers, she let him. When he cupped her cheek and leaned in to kiss her, she almost let him.
"Unhand my daughter, you damned rakehell!" Papa stood in the doorway in full outrage. She felt bereft when his warmth pulled away.
"Ah, Lord Arthur, just the person I came to see."
Papa looked skeptical, but he held the door. "Come in, then, and get at it." He glared at Catherine.
She watched the door close behind the two men. It was the third such visit. She suspected her father had come to enjoy sparring with the earl, and was holding out just for the fun of it.
The boys would be in school the following fall. The thought dampened her spirits. The earl would leave sooner. That thought depressed her thoroughly. One attempted kiss notwithstanding, the bastard daughter of a country scholar did not aspire to be Countess of Chadbourn.
"Will this do?" the earl—she would not let herself think of him as Will—called from the top of the tree. He waved a large sprig of mistletoe triumphantly.
"It certainly will. Now, come down before you break your neck," Catherine said in her best older-sister voice. He had visited her father twice more. The second time, he brought his friend, the marquess, who frightened both of her brothers into awed silence, no small feat. The elegant and reserved marquess confirmed Catherine's belief that the earl's world lay far outside of her experience or ambition.
The marquess also leant a firm hand and logic to the earl's persuasion of her father, however. Papa, she thought, was poised on the brink of capitulating.
When Chadbourn heard they were going to gather greens to decorate Songbird, there was nothing for it but to invite the young duke along. His uncle had to accompany him, of course. The marquess wisely declined. Her father snorted about nonsense, but didn't forbid it.
"Isn't he grand, Cath?" Randy exclaimed. "He climbed up there like he does it every day, not like some stuck-up earl." He did, at that. She tried to imagine the Marquess of Glenaire at the top of the tree and failed miserably.
The not-so-stuck-up earl grinned down at her. "Catch!" he shouted, and she scrambled to obey. He climbed down with the same grace and alacrity with which he climbed up. Catherine watched in rapt fascination, mistletoe clutched to her breast.
"Cath won't usually let us get the mistletoe. We make do with holly," Freddy told Charles. At least the earl's efforts kept her brothers from breaking their foolish necks.
Will leapt down from the lowest branch, landing on his feet, with laughter in his eyes. "Mistletoe is the best part, Freddy," he said. "Let me demonstrate." He moved toward Catherine, a predatory look taking the place of laughter in his expression.
Catherine took a step back, still clutching the mistletoe. She tried to control panic. Don't be a ninnyhammer. What can he do in front of the boys?
When Will pulled her hands forward and took a sprig, she couldn't take her eyes from his. "When a lady finds herself under mistletoe," he told the boys without looking away from Catherine, "she must pay the forfeit." He leaned in, and her eyes focused on his lips, his fine, chiseled lips. Her mouth parted in amazement just as he closed the distance between them. He took her lower lip in his gently, before moving over her mouth in a caress that took her breath. Before she could disgrace herself by clutching his neck and drawing him closer, he pulled back and smiled knowingly.
