Christine Merrill - A Yuletide Invitation - The Mistletoe Wager / The Harlot's Daughter

Rosalind turned upon her, hands on her hips. ‘Elise, you have much to explain.’

‘If it is about the logs for the fireplace, or the stuffing for the goose, I am sure that whatever you plan is satisfactory. The house is yours now.’ She glanced around her old home, giving a critical eye to Rosalind’s attempts to recreate the holiday. ‘Not how I would have done things, perhaps. But you have done the best you can with little help from Harry.’

‘You know that is not what I mean.’ Rosalind frowned at her. ‘Why are you here?’

She seemed to avoid the question, taking a sheet of coloured paper and shears. With a few folds and snips, and a final twist, she created a paper flower. ‘The weather has changed and I was not prepared for it. There are some things left in my rooms that I have need of.’

‘Then you could have sent for them and saved yourself the bother of a trip. Why are you really here, Elise? For if it was meant as a cruelty to Harry, you have succeeded.’

Guilt coloured Elise’s face. ‘If I had known there would be so many guests perhaps I would not have come. I thought the invitation was only to Nicholas and a few others. But I arrived to find the house full of people.’ She stared down at the paper in her hands and placed the flower on the tree. ‘The snow is still falling. By the time it stops it will be too late in the day to start for London. We will see tomorrow if there is a way to exit with grace.’ She looked at Rosalind, and her guilty expression reformed into a mask of cold righteousness. ‘And as for Harry feeling my cruelty to him? It must be a miracle of the season. I have lived with the man for years, and I have yet to find a thing I can do that will penetrate his defences.’ The hole in the next gingerbread heart had closed in baking, so she stabbed at the thing with the point of the scissors before reaching for the ribbon again.

Rosalind struggled to contain her anger. ‘So it is just as I thought. You admit that you are attempting to hurt him, just to see if you can. You have struck him to the core with your frivolous behaviour, Elise. And if you cannot see it then you must not know the man at all.’

‘Perhaps I do not.’ Elise lost her composure again, and her voice grew unsteady. ‘It is my greatest fear, you see. After five years I do not understand him any better than the day we met. Do you think that it gives me no pain to say that? But it is—’ she waved her hands, struggling for the words ‘—like being married to a Bluebeard. I feel I do not know the man at all.’

Rosalind laughed. ‘Harry a Bluebeard? Do you think him guilty of some crime? Do you expect that he has evil designs against you in some way? Because I am sorry to say it, Elise, but that is the maddest idea, amongst all your other madness. My brother is utterly harmless.’

‘That is not what I mean at all.’ Elise sighed in apparent frustration at having to make herself understood in a language that was not her own. Then she calmed herself and began again. ‘He means me no harm. But his heart …’ Her face fell. ‘It is shut tight against me. Are all Englishmen like this? Open to others, but reserved and distant with their wives? If I wished to know what is in his pocket or on his calendar he would show me these things freely. But I cannot tell what is on his mind. I do not know when he is sad or angry.’

Rosalind frowned in puzzlement. ‘You cannot tell if your husband is angry?’

‘He has not said a cross word to me—that I can remember. Not in the whole time we have been married. But no man can last for years with such an even temper. He must be hiding something. And if I cannot tell when he is angry, then how am I supposed to know that he is really happy? He is always smiling, Rosalind.’ And now she sounded truly mad as she whispered, ‘It is not natural.’

It was all becoming more confusing, not less. ‘So you abandoned your husband because he was not angry with you?’

Elise picked up some bits of straw and began to work them together into a flat braid. ‘You would think, would you not, that when a woman says to the man she has sworn herself to, that she would rather be with another, there would be a response?’ She looked down at the thing in her hands, gave a quick twist to turn it into a heart, and placed it on the tree.

Rosalind winced. ‘Oh, Elise, you did not. Say you did not tell him so.’

Elise blinked up at her in confusion. ‘You did not think that I left him without warning?’

‘I assumed,’ said Rosalind through clenched teeth, ‘that you left him in the heat of argument. And that by now you would have come to your senses and returned home.’

‘That is the problem. The problem exactly.’ Elise seemed to be searching for words again, and then she said, ‘After all this time there is no heat.’

‘No heat?’ Rosalind knew very little about what went on between man and wife when they were alone, and had to admit some curiosity on the subject. But she certainly hoped she was not about to hear the intimate details of her brother’s marriage, for she was quite sure she did not want to think of him in that way.

‘Not in all ways, of course.’ Elise blushed, and her hands busied themselves with another bunch of straws, working them into a star. ‘There are some ways in which we are still very well suited. Physically, for example.’ She sighed, and gave a small smile. ‘He is magnificent. He is everything I could wish for in a man.’

‘Magnificent?’ Rosalind echoed. Love must truly be blind. For although he was a most generous and amiable man, she would have thought ‘ordinary’ to be a better description of her brother.

When Elise saw her blank expression, she tried again. ‘His charms might not be immediately obvious, but he is truly impressive. Unfortunately he is devoid of emotion. There can be no heat of any other kind if a person refuses to be angry. There is no real passion when one works so hard to avoid feeling.’

Rosalind shook her head. ‘Harry is not without feelings, Elise. He is the most easily contented, happy individual I have had the pleasure to meet.’

Elise made a sound that was something between a growl and a moan. ‘You have no idea, until you have tried it, how maddening it is to live with the most agreeable man in England. I tried, Rosalind, honestly I did. For years I resisted the temptation to goad him to anger, but I find I am no longer able to fight the urge. I want him to rail at me. To shout. To forbid me my wilfulness and demand his rights as my husband. I want to know when he is displeased with me. I would be only too happy for the chance to correct my behaviour to suit his needs.’

‘You wish to be married to a tyrant?’

‘Not a tyrant. Simply an honest man.’ Elise stared at the straw in her hand. ‘I know that I do not make him happy. I only wish him to admit it. If I can, I will improve my character to suit his wishes. And if I cannot?’ Elise gave a deep sigh. ‘Then at least I will have the truth. But if he will not tell me his true feelings it is impossible. If I ask him he will say that I am talking nonsense, and that there is nothing wrong. But it cannot be. No one is as agreeable as all that. So without even thinking, I took to doing things that I suspected would annoy him.’ She looked at Rosalind and shrugged. ‘He adjusted to each change in my behaviour without question. If I am cross with him? He buys me a gift.’

‘He is most generous,’ Rosalind agreed.

‘But after years of receiving them I do not want any more presents. Since the day we married, whenever I have had a problem, he has smiled, agreed with me, and bought me a piece of jewellery to prevent an argument. When we were first married, and I missed London, it was emerald earbobs. When he would not go to visit my parents for our anniversary, there were matched pearls. I once scolded him for looking a moment too long at an opera dancer in Vauxhall. I got a complete set of sapphires, including clips for my shoes.’ She shook her head in frustration. ‘You can tell just by looking into my jewel box how angry I have been with him. It is full to overflowing.’