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Castle and Mistletoe
“It’s too large,” Ethan tried, a futile protest. “And too…green. Just too much.”
The supervisor of Carisburgh Castle’s holiday decorating onslaught paused to give him a pitying glance. “It’s a garland, isn’t it?”
The garland in question was presently requiring five large persons for support and navigation, while being applied to the main stairs. Ethan had some sympathy regarding the need for support.
He propped a shoulder in the doorway of the drawing room he’d always vaguely thought of as the Home for Wayward Tartan, and gazed out at decorations, happening intensely throughout his inheritance. Twinkling lights, green and silver, red and gold. Freshly cut boughs and the scents of pine and bayberry and fir. Bows and ribbons adorning doorknobs, shelves, the chairs here around the castle’s faux-medieval dining hall, and even—alarmingly—the door to the stairs to his own private apartment.
Ethan had ventured out to make an argument about that last one, had been distracted by forests of spruce and tiny jingling silver bells, and then had been more distracted by rolled-up sleeves and strong arms and a hint of Scottish accent. Glasgow, he thought. But softened by some time elsewhere, more south, perhaps.
He shouldn’t be looking. Rory Kirke, the arms and accent and general luscious holiday present of a man, muscles and red hair and green eyes, technically worked for him. That had been a problem, albeit one entirely on Ethan’s pathetic pining side, for the last two weeks.
He said, “The budget—”
“Is fine, thank you for asking.” Rory turned to give precise directions to a beaming young woman holding bundles of emerald and white greenery, because more greenery seemed to be required. “Did you need something, then?”
“What was all of that?”
“Mistletoe. For your doorways.”
“Do we want people kissing in doorways?”
“Do you want to advertise your antique status symbol as a splendid romantic holiday vacation retreat, or not?”
It’d been Ethan’s idea. They’d needed the money—not desperately, not yet, but castles required upkeep, his parents had indisputably retired to Majorca and informed him that the Holsden family legacy was his problem now, and he’d spent quite a few weeks staring at tourism numbers in the hope that they’d become kinder. Holidays, he’d thought wearily. Surely people liked that.
And their usual head groundskeeper had a son who knew someone who’d gone into a holiday decorating business, a proper one, transforming hotels and manor houses and corporate spaces into fortresses of twinkling cheer; and why didn’t Ethan give him a call, then, the man did good work; and Ethan, who did not have any better ideas, had done exactly that…
And somehow that meant they were now here.
Where they’d been for the last two weeks. At Carisburgh, Himself in theory supervising. Himself in theory attempting a writing retreat, in the updated and cosy family suite upstairs, which he’d always liked. Himself getting absolutely no writing done, in part because of the sprouting armies of trees and bells and nutcrackers, and in part because of the unexpected presence of shaggy auburn hair and powerful gestures, every time he walked into a room.
He’d decided that Rory was, first of all, miraculous—the castle was almost unrecognizable in terms of holiday dazzle—and second of all, a menace. Omnipresent. Directing decorations, getting up on ladders, moving candles if the placement wasn’t just right. Commanding the entire production. Hands-on.
That was also not a helpful thought.
No doubt because Ethan hadn’t answered the question, Rory’s expression changed, shifted, grew less brusquely in charge: thick eyebrows tugging together, gaze traveling over Ethan’s face. “Do you not like what we’re doing?”
“What? No! I mean yes! It’s…lovely. Very festive.”
“Do you not like the holidays, then?”
“No, I—I mean. Well. Yes? About as much as anyone else?” Good God. He wrote words for a living. Bestselling words, even. “Did you need me for anything?”
Rory’s examination of him got even more evaluative. “You came in here to find me, Lord Carisburgh.”
“Oh no. Please don’t.”
“I’m not. I was teasing you.” Rory actually came over next to Ethan’s doorway, and stood there being large and holiday scented, cinnamon and pine and orange, full of muscles and something suddenly a lot like concern. “D’you not like the title? It was only a joke.”
“It is a joke. There’s no money, no real property. It’s only the castle. Anyway it’s still technically my father’s. I just…”
“You just,” Rory said, surprisingly gently for someone who’d been lightly mocking him a moment before, “stepped in to try to rescue it. This place. And to give all your tourists a good holiday experience. Festive. Memorable. You want this to work out, for everyone.”
Ethan, startled by this compassionate vision of himself, avoided it. Glanced instead at his left shoe, and a no doubt historic floorboard, and a coil of greenery that started low and went all the way up and around to frame the door.
“We’ll get it done.” Rory shifted weight, a bit closer. Almost like an offering. “It’ll be grand. It’ll be what you deserve.”
