Free The Mischief of the Mistletoe: A Pink Carnation Christmas by Lauren Willig

making the crimson plumes on her hat dance. “Why bother with root vegetables when there are roses to be had?”
    Lord Vaughn regarded his wife from beneath half-closed lids. “Too humble for you?”
    Lady Vaughn’s gaze shifted to Mr. Fitzhugh’s dangling watch fobs, all decorated with exaggerated enamel carnations. “Too tasteless.”
    Arabella remembered the hot bricks and the cold chocolate and the solicitude with which Mr. Fitzhugh had tucked blanket after blanket around them in the carriage. When had Lady Vaughn, for all her vaunted good taste, ever performed a kind deed for anyone? Turnips might be plain, but they were certainly nourishing.
    â€œEven humble fare has its advantages,” said Arabella defiantly.
    â€œYes, thirty thousand of them a year,” said Lady Vaughn with a knowing arch of her brows. “And all in gold.”
    Arabella looked at Lady Vaughn, at her crimson-dyed feathers and watchful eyes. “Not everyone counts a man’s worth in coins.”
    Lord Vaughn lifted his quizzing glass. “Who said anything about a man? I spoke merely of cultivating one’s garden.”
    Arabella could feel Mr. Fitzhugh step closer to her, ranging himself protectively beside her. It was a sweet thought, even if misplaced. Lord Vaughn’s weaponry was something other than physical.
    The French mistress backed away, eager to be gone. “If you will excuse me . . .”
    â€œAh, Delphine!” Another man joined them, fashionably dressed, but without the ostentation of Mr. Fitzhugh’s costume. His voice had a slight French lilt to it, although less so than Mlle de Fayette, whom he addressed in tones of familial intimacy. “Have you found your lost lamb yet? Sebastian, Lady Vaughn,” he added, with a nod to the others.
    Mlle de Fayette subsided, with a worried look over her shoulder. “Mr. Fitzhugh, ladies. I do not believe you know my cousin, the Chevalier de la Tour d’Argent.”
    The chevalier directed his smile at Arabella and Jane. “It is a mouthful, is it not? I am Argent to my friends. Nicolas to my very, very close friends.”
    â€œAnd scamp, scapegrace, and limb of Satan to his relations,” said Mlle de Fayette. She did not seem to be entirely joking.
    â€œAll terms of endearment,” explained the chevalier complacently. “It is simply their way of saying ‘I love you.’ ”
    â€œWhy not simply say it, then?” suggested Mr. Fitzhugh, with a tinge of asperity. “They could save a lot of bother that way.”
    â€œBut they would lose so much face,” the chevalier returned. “Ladies don’t like to make their affections too generally known. Do they, Miss . . . ?”
    â€œDempsey,” Mr. Fitzhugh provided for her, folding his arms across his chest. “Miss Dempsey. And that is Miss Austen.”
    Ignoring him, the chevalier continued to direct his smile at Arabella, carrying on as though Turnip had never spoken. “What do you say, Miss Dempsey? Have hearts gone out of fashion as ornaments on one’s sleeve?”
    Arabella glanced away. “I’m sure I couldn’t say.”
    Through the castle gate, she could see the fashionable set milling about. There was Lord Frederick Staines and Mr. Martin Frobisher, both tricked out in the latest of multi-caped coats; Percy Ponsonby and his sister; Lord Henry Innes, Lieutenant Darius Danforth, and a group of their cronies; others she recognized from her many years on the fringes of London’s elite.
    A dimple appeared in the chevalier’s cheek. “Have you no affections, then, Miss Dempsey? Would you, as your poet says, sooner hear your dog bark at a crow than a man say he loves you?”
    â€œThe problem has never arisen.” The crowd shifted, blocking her view. “I have no dog.”
    There was a moment of silence and then the chevalier laughed, a genuine, rolling laugh of the sort that made