Sixth Day of Christmas #2
Andrews began mumbling prayers under his breath. But in the end he agreed. Bobby was a villain, so they must lay a trap of villainous proportions.
After fetching his phone, Andrews and Kestrel hid in the hallway, waiting till they spotted Bobby coming downstairs for breakfast. Andrews propped his phone on a bookshelf, started it recording video, and fled, while Kestrel approached their mark.
“Good morning, Bobby!” she said. And then she smiled the exact right smile for a man of his age—innocent yet knowing, silly but welcoming. “Mr. Charming, can you help me with something?”
She walked down the hall toward the library but looked back over her shoulder, an invitation to follow. And sure enough, he came after her. She closed the library door behind him. That made his eyebrows rise with curiosity.
Again, she remembered the dream: He came closer, pressing his body against hers, and began to kiss her neck and her exposed shoulder . . .
She looked up not into dream-Hank’s blue eyes but the wet, piggy eyes of this buffoon. She wasn’t a good enough actor to do what she needed to do while staring at the man who was manipulating her friend, so she kept her gaze on the cream-and-wine pattern of the rug.
“I wanted to apologize for being so rude the other day. But I have a weird question, and I have a feeling you’re exactly the man to ask.
” She tried to giggle self-consciously but only managed a squeak and a cough.
She glanced up to see if Bobby was thrown off, but he was busy admiring her pendant, judging by the direction of his fixed gaze.
“I love weird questions,” he said.
“I came to Pembrook Park because I have Austen . . . fantasies.” Kestrel turned her face away, as if coy. “I know some ladies are entertained by prim and proper playacting. But for me, the straitlaced trappings are just the means to make everything more . . . erotic?”
She inwardly grimaced, afraid that word was too much. But Bobby growled under his breath and took a step closer. She sidled to the other side of a table, evading his touch.
“I thought the other men would be open to the kind of games I was hoping to play, but they’re all actors and so into their roles! So I thought of you . . .”
She looked up at him again with an attempt at girlish shyness.
“What do you mean exactly?”
He tried to move closer again. She angled herself so he would be clear to the camera.
“I have this fantasy . . .” She ran her finger back and forth across her neckline. “I’m in the library, and I’m trying to be prim and proper, but a handsome gentleman comes in, and I can’t resist him. And right there, in costume, we . . .” She met his eyes. “We lose control.”
He was around that table in a heartbeat, his hands on her hips, his mouth on her neck. He was way easier to reel in than she’d anticipated. She wriggled out of his grasp.
“Oh! Um, not yet! We have to build up to it. It’s so much more fun if we spend the day letting the anticipation grow. Tonight. After dark. When everyone else is in bed. Are you willing to meet me here?”
Bobby nodded.
“Is that a yes?” she asked playfully.
“It’s a hell yeah,” he said.
“So to be clear, you’re willing to have sex with me tonight in the library?” She overenunciated, but she needed the video to be crystal clear.
“You don’t have to ask me twice, honey,” he said.
In her hands. Putty.
“Don’t tell anyone,” she said, finger on her lips.
She backed out of the room, and he followed her, his finger on his lips, too, and then he licked it. Gross.
Kestrel fled, luring him away so Andrews could safely collect his phone. Sure enough, Bobby followed her. Yay! But also, uh-oh. She fled a little faster, hoping to find someone . . .
“Mr. Culpepper!” she exclaimed, spotting him in the front hall. “Be my hero and recite me a sonnet.”
“A sonnet?” he said. Then he saw Bobby rounding the corner after her, and without hesitation, Mr. Culpepper extended an arm dramatically. “‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate . . .’”
Kestrel caught Bobby’s eye and offered an adorable shrug. He hesitated, but as the sonnet dragged on, he eventually lumbered away.
Kestrel went on her tippy-toes to kiss Mr. Culpepper on the cheek.
In truth, the idea of being an unchaperoned Regency maiden in a library with someone like Mr. Culpepper wasn’t unappealing.
In her early twenties, she’d had a shy, nerdy boyfriend like him who had relished her passion. Initially. It hadn’t lasted, of course.
“I am delighted to have saved you with a sonnet,” said Mr. Culpepper. “And I would be happy to aid you in the future with odes and haikus and limericks and anything your heart desired.”
“Oh really? What would a limerick save me from?”
“From unwanted attention. From boredom. From loneliness.” He took her hand and kissed the back of it gallantly.
“Thank you,” she said, and meant it. She wasn’t going to try to lure him into the library, but nevertheless, Mr. Culpepper could get it.
Kestrel ran up the stairs and into Andrews’s bedroom, a simple, tidy room with a single bed and an enormous wardrobe. His top priority was clearly clothing.
Andrews was sitting on his bed, looking dismal. The phone was in his hands. Kestrel’s stomach shrank two sizes.
“What?” asked Kestrel.
He met her gaze, his dismal-ness even dismal-er. She gasped in fear.
“I don’t know what happened,” he whispered.
He played her the video. It had a clear shot of the door to the library as Andrews fled, but before Kestrel entered, a book fell in front of it. Even though there was no visual, Kestrel kept watching, hoping at least for audio, but the little conversation it picked up was muffled beyond clarity.
She sat on the bed beside him. They both stared into the middle distance.
“But I . . . I told him . . . Tonight he’ll be expecting . . .”
“We didn’t think this through, did we, love?”
“I have the feeling both of us are used to having friends who temper our more extreme plans.” Kestrel was thinking of her old Ann Arbor friends, who had said boring things like Wait, Kestrel, or Take a breath and count to ten, Kestrel.
The fact that they were always right hadn’t made it any less irritating.
“Next time we draft a caper,” Andrews said hoarsely, “let’s ask Jerome’s advice?”
Jerome was playing chess with Gussie in the drawing room, so they would have to wait.
Kestrel stayed safe and close to Andrews until it was time for the afternoon outing.
She was sorry to see Bobby was among the rest of the Pembrook party, who piled on winter outerwear and exited the house, but she didn’t mourn that unfortunate circumstance for too long.
Her attention was quickly arrested by what was parked out front.
“One-horse open sleighs?” Kestrel clutched her hands to her chest in ecstasy. “ARE YOU SERIOUS?”
Three sleighs stood in the snow, each hooked up to a horse, their exhales making cotton candy–shaped puffs in the chill air. The conveyances were small and light, with a single bench tucked in the trim cart. This was such an unexpected perk, Kestrel felt her eyes get wet.
“Magical,” she whispered.
Gussie was climbing into a sleigh with Andrews and Jerome. Edwin waved to Charming and signaled for her to join him, his hopeful expression twisting to disgust when Bobby climbed in as well. Charming snuggled the lap blanket up to her chin and shouted, “Tally-frickin-ho!”
“Edwin,” said Kestrel, “this must have been a big job to arrange the sleighs. Thank you.”
Edwin shrugged, pleased. “It’s a bit of work, but I don’t mind it. We took our three phaetons and swapped out the wheels for hub runners. Actually, Mr. Kern helped me do it.”
“I’m sure he did,” she said dryly. Thoughts about Hank rapidly turned into feelings about Hank, and the whole swirling mess of it clenched her belly and rose into her chest, setting her heart to pound—
“Kestrel!” Tom stood waiting by the third sleigh, wearing a cloak and top hat and generally looking like the ideal sort of distraction.
Her heart still pounding in her chest, she began to experience again the unsettling delight of existential wonder.
The ground seemed to drop away from under her feet—or maybe she was the snow, a flake of it twirling and falling so slowly.
She was inside an Austen story. Anything was possible.
Feeling enchanted from thick boots to wool cap, Kestrel just wanted to kiss someone. Mrs. Wattlesbrook was standing beside her on the stairs, so Kestrel planted a kiss on her cheek.
“Oh my,” said Mrs. Wattlesbrook. “You Americans are very free with your affections.”
“I was just thinking how very deserving you are of love.”
“Me?” Mrs. Wattlesbrook blinked rapidly. “I am?”
“Of course! There are always people who will treat us rotten, but that doesn’t mean that’s all we deserve.”
Mrs. Wattlesbrook frowned. “I think you are mistaken. I am not . . . lovable. I mean . . .” Mrs. Wattlesbrook blinked rapidly, as if shocked at her own naked moment of vulnerability.
“I think Neville would disagree,” Kestrel whispered.
Mrs. Wattlesbrook’s wan cheeks had the good grace to offer her a pale pink blush.
“Are you coming in a sleigh?” asked Kestrel.
The older lady wrapped her shawl tighter around her shoulders. “No, no. Colonel Andrews has planned an outing fit for young people, I daresay.”
Kestrel leaned close to her ear to whisper, “Remember, if you happen to be standing beneath your kissing bough when Neville comes by your room, you must kiss him. It’s tradition.”
Before Mrs. Wattlesbrook could protest, Mr. Culpepper arrived to escort Kestrel to their sleigh.
She just managed to overhear Neville’s question: “Shall you take your dinner in the dining room, madam?” And Mrs. Wattlesbrook’s shaky response: “Actually, Neville, why don’t you bring it to my boudoir. ”
Kestrel climbed into a sleigh, cozying between her two gents. Sitting three people on a two-person bench had benefits, such as full-thigh contact.