Page 18 of A Mistletoe Masquerade

Lucas looked at it. It was sodden and the brim was beginning to buckle. 'Thrown it in a snowdrift a couple of times.'

'And the state of your trousers and waistcoat! If I didn't know better I'd think you'd been climbing a tree.' Will reached for the clothes brush and attacked the streaks of lichen and bark on his valet's legs.

'I have been. Ow! Give me that.' He finished the job off himself, only too aware that he was doing it in order to avert his face from his friend's bemused scrutiny.

'Why?' Will demanded, not unreasonably. He went back to paring his nails and looking as relaxed as only a blameless morning in church listening to a soporific sermon could make a man.

'Picking mistletoe.'

'You don't need to pick it. You simply manoeuvre the young lady underneath it.'

'I'm damned if I'm going to freeze in the orchard every time I want a kiss.'

'You'll leave the entire female half of the servants' hall in blind despair when you leave,' his friend remarked.

'Just Miss Daisy. And I doubt if she ever gets into blind despair about anything. She is far too determined.'

'You should not, you know,' Will said reprovingly. 'This is not like you-to get into a serious flirtation with a servant girl'

'This one's different. She was brought up in a gentleman's household-family by-blow, I've no doubt. It's like being with a girl of our own class, but one with spirit and independence.'

'Makes it worse.' Will tossed aside his knife and put his prayer book in a drawer. 'You'll forget the rules and she'll not know whether you're serious or not. Unless you are going to offer her a carte blanche? You haven't got a mistress in keeping at the moment, have you?'

'No.' Lucas felt decidedly snappy. Of course he was not going to offer Daisy a carte blanche. Of course he

was not going to get any deeper into this than he already was. But there was the sprig of mistletoe in his pocket, and the memory of her curves and warmth and sweetness to make his body ache and his groin tight.

He bent and picked up Will's discarded boots. 'Do you need anything else?'

'No. Thank you. Go and get some luncheon while you can. But, Lucas-what are you going to do about the Servants' Ball?'

'They have one here?'

Will nodded.

'When?'

'Christmas Day. You need to pull back, Lucas, let her down lightly. If the pair of you spend all evening dancing and making sheep's eyes at each other there'll be hell to pay in the morning.'

'I won't hurt her,' he said tightly, wondering if it was himself who was going to get hurt. His mind seemed all too full of Daisy Lawrence for comfort. 'She thinks me an amusing rogue, I believe. She's too bright to fall for my blue eyes, Will.'

And Daisy certainly did not appear to be inclined to pay him much attention when he reached the kitchens. She was patiently helping one of the lads unravel a skein of Cook's knitting wool the stableyard cat had knotted into a tangle while the kitchen maids bustled about them laying the table for the upper staff to eat their luncheon.

'Get along out of here.' It was the under-butler, his arms full of bottles, arguing with someone unseen at the back door. 'There's nothing we want here.' The person outside must have been persuasive, for eventually he turned and called, 'The potter's here with a cartload of stuff if anyone's interested.'

The young women, apparently uninterested in any hawker not selling ribbons and furbelows, turned back to their tasks by the warm fire, but Cook, arms floury to the elbow, and several of the men braved the cold to look.

The potter had a flatbed cart laden with baskets and pulled by a skinny nag. 'Presents for your loves,' he wheedled. 'Fine serving dishes for your table.'

'I want a good big ashet, and nothing that' 11 chip and crack at the first hot thing that goes on it, either,' Cook said, peering into the biggest basket.

The men went to dig amongst the mugs and bowls, gaily painted with mottoes and flowers.

Idle, Luca

s looked over their shoulders, smiling at the naive vigour of some of the decoration. There was a little brownish-green mug, almost the colour of Daisy's eyes. Lucas stretched a long arm and hooked it out, twisting it in his fingers to read the slipware motto. 'I'll take this.' He handed over a few coins, starting a flurry of buying, and went back indoors, asking himself what had possessed him to buy something like this.

'Is there anything interesting?' It was Daisy, right by his side.

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