Lauren Willig - The mischief of the mistletoe

“But how do we know whether she actually liked her brother?” said Sally, with a relish that made Turnip clutch protectively at his own neck. “That might be nothing more than a… than a…”

“Cunning ruse!” supplied Lizzy triumphantly.

“Not so cunning if one can see through it,” said Agnes, disgusted by the poor quality of villains nowadays. “If it were really cunning, it would be so cunning we’d have no idea at all how cunning it was.”

Turnip’s brow furrowed as he attempted to unravel the tangle of cunning.

“How… cunning,” said Miss Dempsey politely. “But whatever would spies be doing at a young ladies’ seminary in Bath?”

“They’re everywhere,” said Agnes earnestly. As if for confirmation, she added, all in a rush, “My cousin married the Purple Gentian!”

“Did she, by Gad!” Turnip smacked the flat of his hand against one knee as it all became clear. Wooliston… ha! That was where he had heard the name before. His friend Lord Richard Selwick, more dramatically known as the Purple Gentian, had married a young lady of half-French extraction who had spent her youth with cousins named Wooliston. Now that he knew who she was, Turnip could see the resemblance in the younger sister.

Ha! Who would have thought to find Selwick’s cousin by marriage bosom friends with his own little sister. Small world, that, he thought profoundly. He’d have to let Selwick know and they could have a good chuckle over it.

“The Purple who?” said Miss Dempsey faintly.

Sally tossed back her blond braids. “The Purple Gentian. A terribly dashing spy.”

“Not only dashing but terribly dashing, eh, Sal?” Turnip chuckled.

Sally went slightly red about the ears. “Well, a spy in any event,” she said in a dismissive tone, addressing herself solely to Miss Dempsey.

“An English one,” Agnes Wooliston added hastily, just in case anyone might get the wrong idea. “Not French. He married my cousin Amy last year, so we all know a terrible lot about spies now.”

This was obviously a source of both admiration and contention.

Sally shrugged, doing her best to look unimpressed. “There were rumors going about that Reginald might be the Pink Carnation, you know.”

Agnes, with all the distinction afforded by a genuine spy-in-law, gave Sally a faintly pitying look. “But he’s not.”

Sally scrunched her shoulder. “Well, no.”

His sister gave Turnip a look that made it abundantly clear that she considered it nothing short of a breach of his fraternal obligations to have been so remiss as to fail to have been the Pink Carnation.

“And a good thing, too!” said Turnip with feeling. “Some of those French spies can be deuced pushy.”

There had been the Marquise de Montval who had invited him for what he believed to be a coffee and a spot of assignation and then presented him with a pistol and three French thugs, all of whom seemed to be named Jean-Luc, all because she mistakenly took him for the Pink Carnation.

It was enough to put a chap right off dalliance. And coffee.

Since then, Turnip had confined his amorous attentions to English ladies. They might lack that je ne sais whatever it was, but at least one knew exactly where one sat.

Turning to the English lady currently seated beside him, Turnip said, “You probably know the Purple Gentian. Lord Richard Selwick. Jolly good chap, Selwick. He made rather a thing of smuggling comtes and ducs and whatnot right out from under the Frenchies’ noses. Brought back some spiffing good brandy, too.” Turnip shook his head in regret. “Deuce of a pity he had to retire.”

It was his liaison with young Miss Wooliston’s cousin that had forced the Purple Gentian’s retirement, but Turnip tactfully refrained from reminding her of that bit. Deuced silly of Selwick to go about gallivanting beneath Bonaparte’s nose like that, but Turnip supposed that was what love did to one. Cupid’s arrows, and all that. He heard they struck a devilishly hard blow.

“Goodness,” said Miss Dempsey. “You all live such interesting lives.”

The three girls preened. So, he had to confess, did Turnip. But just a little bit.

“Oh, well,” he said modestly. “Can’t take credit for one’s friends. Smashing good chaps, all of them.”

“No,” said Sally, and there was a gleam in her bright blue eyes that struck her older brother as decidedly dangerous. “One can’t take their credit. But one can seize the chance to act oneself when the opportunity arises.”

“Even,” chimed in Lizzy Reid, obviously catching his sister’s drift and running with it, “when the opportunity arises in so unlikely a vessel as a pudding.”

Agnes looked at both of her friends. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

As far as Turnip was concerned, there was far too much thinking going on among the junior set.

Miss Dempsey looked at the three girls with all the trepidation he was feeling. “What are you thinking?” she asked quietly.

Sally tossed her head, setting her earbobs bouncing. “It’s quite obvious. Someone has to go to Farley Castle. To keep the assignation!”

O h, no,” said Mr. Fitzhugh to his sister. “Oh, no, no. Don’t even think it.”

Folding her arms across her chest, Miss Fitzhugh narrowed her eyes at her older brother. “Someone has to go.”

“For the good of the country!” chimed in Agnes, who clearly took her spies very, very seriously.

Neither of the Fitzhughs paid the slightest attention. They were too busy staring each other down.

They really did look remarkably alike, thought Arabella, especially now that they were sporting the same scowl. They were both above the average height, both possessed of the same bright gold hair, the same high cheekbones, the same cleanly cut Roman noses. Mr. Fitzhugh might be frequently likened to a vegetable, but there was no denying that he was an extremely attractive man. One could easily imagine him in a short white robe, about to slay the odd hydra or engage in a short concert on the lyre, while his sister would have made an excellent Athena, beautiful, imperious, and entirely aware of both those features.

“If someone has to go, I’ll go,” said Mr. Fitzhugh, exhibiting admirable brotherly resolve in the face of a decidedly Medusa-like stare.

“How would you know what you were looking for?” demanded his sister.

“How would you?”

Outmaneuvered, Miss Fitzhugh said grudgingly, “Fair enough. But you will report back.”

“Yes, and take you for ices, too,” said Mr. Fitzhugh, generous in triumph.

The ices carried the day. Miss Fitzhugh dropped her arms to her sides. “All right. But if anything interesting does happen, don’t forget that it was my pudding!”

“Was that meant to be a good thing?” muttered Mr. Fitzhugh.

“Right now,” Arabella pointed out with amusement, “I doubt it’s anyone’s pudding. Except maybe the rats’. We left the pudding part lying in the gutter.”

Lizzy Reid jumped up from her chair, clearly ready to go haring out into the street. “What if there was more inside it? Secret messages!”

“There was a secret message,” said Arabella, neatly intercepting the younger girl before she could bolt for the door. This teaching job was certainly going to be no sinecure. Did they bar the school doors at night? She sincerely hoped so. “On the muslin. Why go to the bother of writing another?”

“Oh.” Working out the logic of that, Lizzy subsided. She looked more than a little disappointed, obviously having expected nothing short of codes and treasure maps, all buried within one small mix of fruit and suet. “True.”