Page 18 of The Twelve Days of Christmas

‘Let us do the rest,’ said he, pressing the pulse at his throat. ‘The faster you go, the sooner it will be done, isn’t that what you said?’

Ralph frowned but agreed readily enough, and the two men busied themselves with the other garlands until the ballroom, dining room, drawing room, and grand staircase had all been dressed.

With one final flourish Ralph placed a sprig of mistletoe directly beneath the stairs, and in celebration sprang into song:

The Misletoe’s berries are fair and white,

The Ivy’s of gloomy sable hue;

Red as blood the Laurel’s affect our sight,

And the Holly’s the same with prickles too!

‘Join in, Will. You know the words.’

But William, simply relieved the whole matter was done with and in no fit mood for song, deposited the empty bucket and basket in the wheelbarrow, and made to remove it from the entrance hall before Mrs Wilson should commit herself to a fit.

‘Where are you going?’

Turning, William saw that Ralph was standing at the baize door leading belowstairs, one hand holding it open.

‘I just …’

‘No,’ said the valet with a shake of his head. ‘We’re not quite done.’

‘Oh.’

Confused, William followed Ralph down the narrow corridor and into the kitchen.

The smell of roasted meat flooded his nostrils, and he tried not to salivate as he watched Mrs Denby baste a capon, fresh and crisp and golden from the stove.

Ralph appeared oblivious; with a strange sort of smile upon his face, he beckoned William to the pantry with a crook of his finger.

William hesitated. He did not wish to confine himself within a cramped store cupboard with Ralph Hornby.

He was not sure his wits could manage it.

But Ralph beckoned again, and worried that the other servants would wonder what they were about (for Lowdie Lucas was already looking at him, a question on her round face), William rushed across the flagstones whereupon the valet disappeared into the pantry.

‘What are we doing in here?’ he whispered as the door shut behind him, and with a flourish Ralph pulled the second sprig of mistletoe from his pocket.

‘Had you forgotten?’ said he, his voice resonant in the small space. ‘Mol did say we should put some in the pantry where old Wilson won’t find it.’

William watched as the valet proceeded to hook the sprig of mistletoe to a small bolt protruding from the low ceiling.

‘Any excuse, I suppose,’ William muttered, ashamed he should feel even an ounce of jealousy, ‘to get Molly alone for a kiss.’

‘What?’

Ralph, having his back to him thought William, must not have heard, and so he grumbled, ‘Nothing,’ to which the valet tsked .

‘Not nothing. I heard you perfectly.’

He turned to look at William, and the stare he gave him was grave.

‘I have no interest whatsoever in Molly Hart.’

‘Of course you do not,’ sniped William. ‘You have no interest in anyone. The way you flirt with all the maids,’ he continued, ‘just goes to shew how insincere you are. The stories I’ve heard—’

‘Stories are all they are,’ said Ralph firmly. ‘Has it never occurred to you that all my flirtations are merely a front?’

‘A front?’

‘Yes. For how I truly feel.’

Ralph stepped closer. William’s heart clenched in abject panic.

What is he about?

‘I would like to leave.’

‘Really?’ Ralph rested his hand upon William’s arm. ‘There is mistletoe above us. Don’t you know what that means?’ And without so much as a warning Ralph drew William to him and planted a kiss upon his trembling lips.

It was everything William wanted it to be, and more.

The kiss was gentle at first, but the meeting of soft lips soon hardened into a passion William had never once dared to imagine.

The two men pressed against each other in the cramped pantry, and though the door could open at any moment, whereupon it would all be over for them both, two words turned cartwheels in William’s giddy mind: wildly exhilarating, wildly exhilarating, wildly exhilarating!

But, alas, the kiss was over all too quickly.

Dazed, William opened his eyes to find Ralph staring at him.

‘Why did you do that?’

‘Because I wanted to.’

‘Why?’ William whispered. ‘Because you have found me out and wanted to tease me?’

Ralph’s fine eyes widened in surprise. ‘I wanted to kiss you because I recognised in you someone like myself.’

William stared.

Someone like myself .

He understood what the valet meant to say, but his words, William knew, could not be trusted and with difficulty he swallowed.

‘You lie. You are not a nice man, Ralph Hornby. You are not a gentleman. Aside from all those girls you flirt with, what you did to Prue, to Mr Hodge …’

Ralph sighed. ‘Perhaps it was a mite harsh. But you shall soon realise that what I did was a way to seeing the pair betrothed. Just you watch. What you do not understand about me, William Moss, is there is a reason behind everything I do.’

‘And I wonder if your reason now is to play a cruel joke.’ William’s voice caught. ‘They hang men like me.’

‘Like us,’ Ralph said softly.

William shook his head.

‘I do not believe you.’

Again the valet sighed. ‘Have I kissed a chit or two in my time? Of course I have. I had to know , you see. And then, when I realised –’ here Ralph shook his head – ‘the safest course seemed to continue as I always had. That way, I thought, no one would suspect.’

He took William’s hands, rough to the valet’s soft.

‘I always wondered if you shared my …’ Ralph licked his lips.

‘The way I caught you watching me in the servants’ hall when you thought I wasn’t looking.

The way you avoided my gaze whenever I sought you out in the gardens after Wilson or the viscount gave me instruction.

But I wasn’t sure until earlier today when you blushed so delightfully in the forest. And then I had to test it, with Prudence, with Mol.

You looked so jealous, so charmingly angry!

In the ballroom just now … Was I imagining it?

Did you not feel the warmth between us?’

William took an unsteady breath. The valet smelt distractingly of fir.

‘You are toying with me. I know you are.’

Ralph hesitated. Released him. In that moment – despite it all – William felt bereft.

‘I know it must look that way,’ he murmured. ‘But please. Why can’t you give me a chance?’

William hesitated. How could he? But then Ralph looked at him in such a heartfelt manner that he found it in himself to smile, which made the valet smile in turn.

‘A chance, Will,’ he said softly. ‘I do not expect you to trust me right away – I’ve been beastly, I admit it.

But why don’t we go down to the Crown on our next afternoon off as I suggested?

No devilment, no little bit of heaven. Unless, of course,’ he added, his voice seductive, low, ‘it is between you and me.’

William did not know how to respond. He wanted to – oh, how he wanted to – but for so long he had watched Ralph Hornby flirt unscrupulously; would William just be another of the valet’s conquests? Or, worse … was this a cruel and deathly game?

Ralph let out a breath then, leaned in to hover his lips near William’s ear:

Nor black nor ensanguined red for me:

The Misletoe only is my delight:

For pure as love all its berries be,

And to kissing my Will’s sweet lips invite.

William leant away.

‘Those aren’t the words,’ he whispered, and Ralph chuckled low in his throat.

‘Ah,’ he whispered back. ‘You do know them then.’

Both men stared at each other for what felt like an endless moment, until, at last, William dared relent.

‘All right,’ he said, cautious. ‘I shall go with you to the Crown. To get to know one another better. At least … at least at first.’

‘That is all I ask.’ In the confines of the pantry, Ralph’s eyes shone. ‘Believe me, Will, I know what it is we risk. But I would brave it all, if I knew you felt the same as I. How lonely I have been!’

And as Ralph held him close William thought of a pair of blackbirds singing together, high in the poplar trees of Wakely Forest, beneath bouncing pom-poms of blooming mistletoe.