A Christmas Gone Perfectly Wrong: A Blackshear Family novella (B 0.5) by Cecilia Grant

Privately he thought an exception really ought to have been made for Miss Sharp, who would undoubtedly have benefited from the routines and regulations of a school. This Aunt Symond sounded a sensible sort of woman, and with any luck would exert a deal of influence over the next twelve days.
    “How did your sister meet the man she’s to marry, then? If it’s not improper to ask.”
    “In London. We have an aunt who lives there. Kitty went to stay with her for the season, went to what I gather is the customary round of balls and parties, and had introductions to a number of gentlemen, one of whom was her Mr. Bridgeman.”
    “I see. I suppose that’s the usual way, for those ladies of good family who have their education at home.” She looked grave. He knew, without her saying so, that Lord Sharp was unlikely to ever think of giving her a London season.
    “Many ladies do make matches in that way. But many others meet their husbands through family connections, or perhaps at house parties.” Why should he feel, let alone act upon, this impulse to reassure and encourage her? She wasn’t his responsibility, aside from this temporary commission to deliver her safely to Hatfield Hall. Whether she made a good marriage or spent her days a spinster was of no consequence to him—indeed, for him to be entering into the topic of marriage at all, with an unchaperoned lady to whose virtues of face and form he’d already devoted too much thought, was probably injudicious.
    She smiled at his words, though, a brilliant warm acknowledgment of the kindness he was already regretting, and he forced his gaze to her hands, that he might not be dazzled into further imprudence.
    “Well.” She lifted her hands and began counting off on the fingers. “Church, you said. Possibly a play or other entertainment. Bobbing apples. The game in which you set raisins on fire and try to eat them.”
    “Snapdragon. Not recommended, remember.”
    “I do remember. You ended with two holes in the carpet and nearly set the house on fire.” Her eyes—he had to look up from her hands, didn’t he, to see that she was taking in his admonition—sparkled with the same unbridled glee she’d shown on his first telling of the tale. It was remarkably similar to the expressions Nick and Will had worn from start to near-disastrous finish of the game, the one year they’d prevailed on him to allow it.
    Probably his brothers would rank that as one of their best Christmases ever, to this day. He’d never quite been able to smother the stubborn spark of pride he felt at having afforded them that memory.
    “And I expect we’ll have a Twelfth Cake.” She counted this pleasure on her thumb, flexing all her fingers and then curling them in, a fistful of holiday diversions in her grasp.
    “To be sure. With a pea and a bean baked inside, to determine who will be king and queen of Twelfth Night.”
    “I suppose you’ve been king once or twice, in your celebrations.” It ought to have been an innocuous comment, but Lord, the way she looked at him. As though she were picturing him in royal robes and a crown, and relishing the picture. What was an honorable man supposed to do with such blatant feminine appreciation?
    “No.” Once more he threw a pointed glance at the maid, who was keeping her face to the window and pretending to hear none of what passed. “No, we observe an older tradition in my house. There’s but a single bean in the cake, and whoever finds it in his piece is crowned Lord of Misrule for the night.”
    “Lord of Misrule!” Her mouth curved and stretched into a smile of truly extravagant dimension. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
    “Well, it’s an archaic tradition, as I said.” He oughtn’t to have told her. There was a deal too much misrule in her life already; he needn’t be introducing notions of more. “There’s very little to it. In a great house of old, where perhaps one of the lower servants might have been crowned, it