Julia turned her head one way and another, critically regarding her reflection. “Mama offered to send her own maid to me. But she always leaves a frizz in the front.”
Aimée pinned the curl on top of Julia’s head. “I don’t mind helping.”
“As long as you have time,” Julia said.
Aimée popped a hairpin in her mouth before she said something hasty in response. She had been kept running all day. Now that the greenery could be brought indoors, she needed to direct the decoration of the house and the arrangements for the ballroom. She had barely gotten started on the kissing bough when Julia’s summons came.
“It’s very inconsiderate of Finch to disappear like this,” Julia continued. “Ouch, you’re poking. I wonder where she’s gone.”
Aimée had a very good idea where Finch had gone. And with whom. Last night, long after the houseguests were in bed, Finch had come to Aimée’s attic room to ask if Mr. Hartfell’s manservant could be trusted. Aimée had assured the maid she would be in good hands, pressing money on Finch for the journey to London.
Now Aimée wondered how Lucien was faring without his valet.
Her throat tightened. Not that it was any of her business.
She secured another curl, pleased that her hand did not tremble.
“I don’t know how I am to get ready for the ball tomorrow without assistance,” Julia fretted. “Those blasted wings. I don’t know what Mrs. Pockley was thinking.”
They both looked at the dressmaker’s form in the corner. Julia’s gown shimmered, high-waisted and graceful, with a low, square neckline and diaphanous skirt. But it was the wings that raised the costume to ethereal fantasy, extravagant wings of stiffened taffeta with silver ribbons that tied under and across the bodice, exquisite and ephemeral as the promise of youth or a dream of young love.
It made Aimée want to spit. Or cry.
“She was thinking how beautiful you will look.” Aimée forced enthusiasm into her voice. “Like a butterfly.”
Assuming butterflies’ wings were sewn with hundreds of glittering crystals.
“Psyche,” Julia said glumly.
Aimée pinned the final curl. “What?”
“Not a butterfly.” Julia frowned into the mirror. “I’m supposed to be Psyche. Mr. Hartfell is dressing as Eros.”
Aimée swallowed the lump in her throat. They were still a couple, then. Psyche, the personification of the human soul, and Eros, god of love. Not the chubby cherub that infested ceiling corners, but the sculpted young god of the Greeks, naked, winged.
Her heart stumbled. She found it shockingly easy to picture Lucien with a gleaming sweep of powerful wings. But . . .
“Surely Mr. Hartfell is too”—masculine, hairy, large—“old to play Eros?”
Julia shrugged, oddly indifferent. But then, Aimée reminded herself, Julia had never seen Lucien rising naked from his bath, water streaming from his chest and down his thighs. Her face grew hot.
“Tom says costumes are silly, anyway,” Julia said.
Aimée regarded her cousin’s drooping mouth in concern. Yesterday she’d thought Julia and Tom had made up their differences. But perhaps their understanding had not survived the return from the woods.
“You shouldn’t let what Tom says ruin your pleasure,” Aimée said gently. Swallowing her own pain, she added, “It is Mr. Hartfell’s opinion you should care about.”
Julia twisted the bracelets on her arm. “I suppose.”
Aimée tried again. “What matters most is what you want.”
Their eyes met in the mirror.
“You’re right, of course.” Julia’s smile broke like dawn. “Thank you, Amy.”
Aimée smiled back uncertainly, a pang at her heart.
What if what you wanted most was something you couldn’t have?
The pots of rosemary and bay, decorated with silver ribbon and gold paper, had been moved to the ballroom. The buckets of holly branches and ivy vines stood almost empty. But the scent of green, growing things lingered in the potting shed, a promise of life and rebirth in the midst of winter.
Aimée twined ivy around the kissing bough, already heavy with waxy white berries of mistletoe. Each time a man claimed a kiss beneath the bough, he would pluck a berry until they all were gone.
She stared sightlessly at the glossy foliage, remembering Lucien’s kiss, the warmth of his breath, the taste of his mouth, the feeling of homecoming in his arms. Her lips tingled. She pressed them together.
Why had he stopped?
She was an innocent, but she recognized a man’s desire. She had felt him, felt it, hard against her stomach. Her body pulsed, remembering.
She would not have stopped him.
The realization lashed heat into her face. She barely understood her own reactions. She did not understand his at all. Was Lucien truly concerned about the risk to her reputation, as he claimed? Or had he worried that lying with her would jeopardize his courtship of Julia?
Did it matter? Either way, he had demonstrated more honor and restraint than she had.
Either way, she had to live with the knowledge of his rejection.
“Very pretty,” Howard observed behind her.
A chill slithered down her spine.
Her fingers stretched for the pruning shears before she turned. “I thank you for the compliment. I think it will look well in the ballroom.”
“I was not speaking of your arrangement.” Howard’s smile flashed, displaying all his teeth. “Though I like it. A kissing bough, is it not?”
Her heart banged. With Finch on her way to London, Howard had already been deprived of one victim, whether he knew it yet or not. She was not eager to be his next quarry. “Yes.”
“Perhaps we should test its efficacy,” he suggested.
Aimée swallowed. She wasn’t afraid. Not truly afraid, not yet. But he was blocking the door. “I think not. There are only a limited number of berries. Once they are gone, the bough no longer serves any purpose.”
“Then we should make the most of this opportunity.”
She tightened her grip on the shears, reluctant to meet his gaze, afraid he would see the knowledge and disgust in her eyes. “Your absence will be noticed in the drawing room.”
“Not at all. The tea tray is gone. Our guests are all in their rooms dressing for dinner with their servants in attendance. No one will miss either of us for some time.” He strolled forward, running a fingertip down her arm to her elbow, displacing her shawl. She restrained her shudder.