Chapter Nine #2
“Not tiresome, precisely. But I miss the freedom of Scotland — the ability to walk for hours without encountering another soul, to breathe air untainted by coal smoke.”
“I remember that feeling well,” he said, memories of his boyhood visits to Greenfell Holt rising unbidden. “There is a wildness to Scotland that England lacks, a sense of... possibility.”
“Exactly so!” Her eyes brightened with shared understanding. “Here everything seems so ordered, so constrained by rules and expectations. In Scotland, the land itself resists such neat arrangements.”
They had reached the edge of the wood now, where ancient oaks and beeches stood sentinel, their bare branches etched against the pale winter sky. The gardener, a taciturn man named Jenkins, pointed towards a stand of holly trees some distance away.
“Best specimens be that way, Your Grace. Good berries this year, nice and red. Mind the path though — gets slippery where the snow’s melted.”
Niall nodded his thanks, then gestured for èibhlin to precede him along the narrow track. The footmen followed at a discreet distance, maintaining propriety while allowing them a measure of privacy for conversation.
“Do you recall the holly and mistletoe that we gathered at Greenfell Holt that Christmas?” he asked, as they made their way carefully between the trees. “You insisted on selecting each branch yourself, though some were quite beyond your reach.”
èibhlin laughed, the sound bright in the hushed woodland.
“I was a determined child, wasn’t I? Always convinced that I could manage without assistance, even when evidence suggested otherwise.”
“You were refreshingly independent,” he corrected, smiling at the memory. “Most girls your age would have been content to admire the decorations once arranged, rather than participating in their gathering.”
“My mother encouraged such participation,” she said, her expression softening. “She believed that Christmas preparations should involve the entire household, from highest to lowest. It made the celebration more meaningful, somehow.”
“A wise perspective,” Niall replied, thinking of his own mother’s more formal approach to holiday festivities. “My father felt similarly, though my mother prefers to delegate such tasks to the staff.”
They had reached the holly trees now, their glossy green leaves and bright red berries providing a splash of colour against the winter browns and greys.
Jenkins demonstrated the proper technique for cutting branches without damaging the trees, then stepped back to allow them to make their selections.
As they worked, Niall found himself increasingly aware of èibhlin’s proximity — the delicate curve of her wrist as she reached for a branch, the wisp of breath that escaped her lips in the cold air, the occasional brush of her skirts against his leg as they moved among the trees.
Each small contact sent a jolt of awareness through him, a sensation both unsettling and oddly pleasant.
“This one has particularly fine berries,” she remarked, pointing to a branch just beyond her reach. “Though I fear it is too high for me.”
“Allow me,” Niall said, stepping closer.
As he stretched upward and cut the branch, he was acutely conscious of her standing beside him, close enough that he could detect the faint lavender scent of her hair.
He handed her the holly, careful not to let the sharp leaves prick her gloved fingers. “Will this suit your requirements?”
“Perfectly,” she replied, her voice slightly breathless in a way that part of him hoped had nothing to do with the cold. “Thank you.”
Their eyes met, and for a moment, the years between them seemed to dissolve — they were not a Duke and his guest, not childhood acquaintances reunited by chance, but simply Niall and èibhlin, standing among snow-dusted trees as they had once before.
The spell was broken by Jenkins clearing his throat.
“Beggin’ your pardon, Your Grace, but if you’re wanting mistletoe as well, we should be moving on to the orchard. Light’ll be fading soon.”
“Of course,” Niall replied, stepping back with perhaps more haste than dignity required. “We have gathered sufficient holly, I believe.”
The footmen came forward to take the cut branches, arranging them carefully in the baskets. As they set off towards the orchard, èibhlin fell into step beside Niall once more, though she maintained a slightly greater distance than before.
“Your mother mentioned that the Ball will be held on the twentieth,” she said, her tone carefully casual. “That leaves much less than a fortnight for preparations.”
“My mother is nothing if not efficient,” Niall replied, grateful for the return to safer topics. “The invitations have already been sent, and Mrs Graves has the menu well in hand. The decorations are the final element requiring attention.”
“It is most kind of her to host such an event to benefit me,” èibhlin said, though Niall detected a note of uncertainty beneath her words. “I hope that I do not disappoint her.”
“You could never disappoint,” he said, the words escaping before he could consider their wisdom.
Seeing her startled expression, he hastened to clarify.
“That is to say, you have already demonstrated admirable poise in society. The Ball will merely be an extension of what you have already accomplished.”
She looked unconvinced, but offered a small smile, nonetheless.
“Your confidence is reassuring, Your Grace.”
“Niall,” he corrected impulsively. “When we are not in formal company, I would prefer... that is, as old acquaintances, surely we might...”
He trailed off, suddenly aware of the impropriety that he was, again, suggesting. But èibhlin’s smile deepened, bringing a warmth to her eyes that sent an answering heat through his chest.
“Niall,” she agreed softly. “Though only when propriety permits, of course.”
They had reached the orchard now, where ancient apple trees stood in ordered rows, their gnarled branches bare except for clusters of mistletoe high up.
The parasitic plant formed roundish, green bouquets with trailing tendrils of leaves, high against the winter sky, its waxy white berries gleaming in the afternoon light.
“Finest mistletoe in the county,” Jenkins declared with proprietary pride. “Grows best on old apple trees, it does. Need the long-handled clippers for these, Your Grace.”
He produced a tool with extended handles and a cutting mechanism at the end, designed to reach high branches from ground level. Niall took it, assessing the nearest clump of mistletoe with a critical eye.
“Perhaps this one to begin with,” he suggested, positioning the clippers. With a deft movement, he severed the mistletoe from its host, catching the falling cluster before it could hit the ground. “Perfect.”
He handed it to èibhlin, who examined it with evident admiration. “It’s beautiful,” she said, running her fingers over the smooth leaves. “So much finer than the mistletoe that grows at Felldale.”
“The mistletoe at Greenfell Holt was particularly abundant the year you visited,” Niall recalled, moving to the next tree. “You were determined to gather some yourself, as I recall, despite the difficulty.”
èibhlin laughed, the sound bright in the cold air.
“I was forever trying to prove that I could do whatever the boys could do. My mother despaired of ever making a proper lady of me.”
“And yet here you are,” Niall observed, glancing at her over his shoulder, “every inch the proper lady, despite your youthful rebellions.”
“Appearances can be deceiving,” she replied, with a hint of mischief in her eyes. “The rebellious spirit merely hides beneath a veneer of proper behaviour.”
The admission, lightly made but unexpectedly revealing, sent a surge of heat through Niall’s chest. It was this quality — this blend of proper decorum and underlying spirit —that he found so compelling in her, so different from the calculated charm of London’s marriageable young ladies.
As they continued through the orchard, gathering mistletoe from tree after tree, their conversation flowed with increasing ease — memories of Scotland interwoven with observations about London society, shared recollections of that long-ago Christmas at Greenfell Holt emerging naturally into their exchange.
In one such moment of reminiscence, èibhlin stepped backwards without looking, her foot catching on a frozen furrow in the ground. She stumbled, losing her balance with a small cry of surprise.
Niall moved without thinking, dropping the clippers, and catching her before she could fall.
For a heartbeat, she was in his arms, her hands gripping his coat, her face tilted up to his in startled gratitude.
He was acutely aware of her warmth against him, of the rapid rise and fall of her breath, of the way that her eyes widened as they met his.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice barely audible, even in the quiet orchard. “How clumsy of me.”
“Not at all,” he replied, his own voice oddly constrained. He should release her, should step back to a proper distance, yet he found himself reluctant to do so. “The ground is treacherous.”
For a moment longer they remained thus, caught in an embrace that propriety would condemn, but which neither seemed willing to end.
Then, belatedly conscious of the footmen’s presence some yards away, Niall gently set èibhlin upright, ensuring that she was steady before removing his hands from her waist.
“Are you quite all right, Miss èibhlin?” he asked, his tone deliberately formal as he retrieved the clippers from the ground.
“Perfectly, Your Grace,” she replied, matching his formality, though her cheeks were flushed with more than cold. “Merely startled.”
They resumed their gathering with renewed attention to proper distance, though Niall found his thoughts repeatedly returning to that brief moment of contact. The impression of her in his arms lingered like a physical memory, warming him despite the increasing chill as the afternoon waned.
All too soon, Jenkins announced that they had gathered sufficient mistletoe to fill all of the baskets. As they made their way back towards the house, baskets laden with greenery, èibhlin paused to select a small sprig of mistletoe leaves from one of the clusters.
“For my diary,” she explained, seeing Niall’s questioning look. “A remembrance of the day.”
The simple statement, innocent in itself, stirred something deep within him — a sense of connection, of shared experience that transcended their current circumstances.
He watched as she carefully tucked the sprig into her reticule, handling it as if it were something precious rather than a common parasitic plant.
“I kept a pine cone from our expedition at Greenfell Holt,” he found himself admitting. “It sat on my desk at Oxford for years. A reminder of Scotland’s wilder beauty, I suppose.”
Her smile in response held a brightness that warmed him by its existence.
“We are neither of us entirely civilised, it seems, despite our best efforts.”
“Perhaps that is not entirely a fault,” he suggested, returning her smile with one of his own.
As they approached the house, where lights now gleamed in the windows against the gathering dusk, Niall found himself reluctant to return to the formal constraints that awaited them.
Here, among the bare trees and frozen earth, with holly and mistletoe gathered by their own hands, they had recaptured something of their earlier connection — a natural ease, a shared understanding that seemed to exist outside the rigid structures of London society.
Yet return they must, and as Miss Murchison appeared at the door to greet them, her expression a mixture of relief and suspicion, Niall felt the moment slipping away.
By the time they had taken their leave of Lord Dearborn and settled into the carriage for the return journey to London, propriety had reasserted itself fully.
Still, as the carriage rolled through the darkening countryside, he was conscious of èibhlin seated opposite him, her face occasionally illuminated by passing carriage lamps, her hands resting quietly in her lap.
And when, at one point, a particularly sharp jolt caused their knees to brush briefly beneath the fur rug, neither made any effort to increase the distance between them.
It was a small thing, perhaps meaningless in the grand scheme of their respective positions and obligations.
Yet as Stonemont House came into view, its windows blazing with welcome light, Niall found himself treasuring the memory of their afternoon — the shared laughter, the casual touch of hands as they passed holly branches between them, the brief moment when she had been in his arms.
Treasuring it, and wishing, against all reason and propriety, for more.