Page 40 of A Holiday By Gaslight

“Yes?”

“When I kiss you under the mistletoe—and I am going to kiss you—would you rather it be in front of your parents and all of creation? Or would you rather it be somewhere private?”

She met his eyes, fully conscious of the heat sweeping up her neck. It was impossible to remain composed under such circumstances. Not when he was looking at her so intently. Not when the butterflies in her stomach were unfurling their wings and soaring into flight.

Good gracious. Was it possible to swoon from the mere mention of kissing?

She moistened her lips. “The mistletoe is only in the drawing room, the doorways, and the main hall. We didn’t hang it anywhere else. Certainly nowhere that could be called private.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

Her heart skipped a beat. And then another. She tried to ignore it, endeavoring to be sensible about the situation. Businesslike, even. “I’d rather you not kiss me in front of my parents if you can help it. But it’s Christmas, so I don’t see how—”

“Look what I have.”

Sophie watched, breathless, as he reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and withdrew a sprig of mistletoe adorned with three small white berries.

“I’m going to place it just here.” He put it on the edge of the shelf above her head. “Unless you object?”

She couldn’t seem to summon her voice. When she spoke, the words were the merest whisper. “I don’t object.”

Ned withdrew his hand from the shelf, but he didn’t lower it back to his side. Instead he brought it to her cheek, the back of his fingers tracing a delicate path from her temple to the edge of her jaw. “How soft you are,” he murmured. “Even softer than I imagined.”

“You’ve imagined…touching me?”

He gave a dark chuckle. “Often,” he said. “Too much for my own good.”

She inhaled a tremulous breath. His fingers were warm on her cheek, his touch almost reverent. She’d never dreamed he would handle her with so much care. Not that he’d ever been a brute, but he was so much bigger than her, so tall and strong. She marveled that such a man could be so gentle.

He tipped her chin up on the edge of his hand. Then he bent his head and kissed her very softly on the mouth.

Sophie’s eyes fluttered closed as his lips met hers. She’d been kissed beneath the mistletoe before. Childish pecks administered during the Christmases of her youth. But this was no childish peck. Ned’s lips were warm and firm, molding perfectly to hers. She listed against him, their mouths clinging together for an endless moment.

And then it was over.

She opened her eyes and blinked up at him, as if waking from a dream that had ended far too soon.

His hand still cupped her chin. He was regarding her intently. “Was that all right?”

She nodded, still incapable of speech. It was more than all right. It was a revelation. Every nerve ending in her body was humming with she knew not what. And all he’d done was caress her face and press a chaste kiss to her lips.

“Do you think you can bear to repeat the experience when next we encounter a sprig of mistletoe?”

Her cheeks burned. A more sophisticated lady might play coy. Might pretend that what had just happened hadn’t shaken her to her core. But Ned wasn’t blind. And they’d promised to be honest with each other. She saw no reason to prevaricate. “I can more than bear it.”

A flash of triumph gleamed in the depths of his blue gaze. “It’s hanging in all the doorways, isn’t that what you said?”

“And in the drawing room and the main hall. Everywhere in full public view.”

He plucked the mistletoe from the shelf above her head and tucked it back into the pocket of his waistcoat. “Then I’d better keep this on hand. Just in case.”

The next day the tree arrived. Some men from the estate drove it up to the front of the house in a long wooden cart. The tall, handsome fir had wide, full branches of deep green. It was so big that part of it dragged on the ground behind the cart, leaving a deep furrow through the snow.

The servants wrestled it into the house and installed it in the main hall where the ceiling was high enough to accommodate its great size. The newly-mended tree skirt was draped round its bottom and then—fortified by cups of tea and glasses of mulled wine—Ned and the other guests were invited to help trim it.

“I expect a woodland creature to crawl out of it,” Walter said under his breath. “It’s mad to have it in the house.”

“Haven’t you ever had a Christmas tree, Mr. Murray?” Emily asked. She was established nearby on a straight-backed wooden chair, her injured ankle propped on a tufted footstool. A small wooden crutch leaned at her side. She’d been using it to hobble about.