Page 9 of The Mistletoe Duke
“Oh, I do.” She shot him a grin, glad to have pulled him into conversation. He was so prickly, yet she’d caught glimpses of an interesting person behind that coolly cultivated façade. “But that’s not to say the difference can’t be appreciated. Which season do you like best?”
He frowned faintly. “I’ve not given the matter much consideration.”
“Yes, yes, always too busy with your responsibilities.” She kept her voice gentle, however.
It hadn’t escaped her notice that Lord Darton took his duties quite seriously. On balance, she supposed that was better for the estates under his care than ignoring them entirely, as many lords of thetonseemed to do.
Including the duke’s brother.
Still, one could be responsible without becoming an utter stick.
“I prefer the spring,” Abby said from her place beside her sister. “It’s the prettiest.”
“It is, indeed,” the duke said.
He didn’t take the opportunity to make some flirtatious remark about pretty girls liking pretty seasons, Catherine noted. Did Lord Darton even know how to flirt?
She’d continue teasing him and see if she could loosen his stays a bit. Metaphorically speaking. It was the best course of amusement at hand, until his relatives arrived.
“Since you appreciate the winter forest,” he said, “you may help me look for greenery to deck Darton Hall. Johnson here”—he nodded at the groom behind them— “can note the location and come back later with the servants to collect it.”
“We passed a holly tree already,” Abby said. “I know, because it nearly snagged my skirts.”
“It didn’t have any berries, though,” Catherine said, having noticed the same tree. “We definitely need berries. Holly without that bit of red is hardly deserving of the season. It must befestive.”
The duke shot her an unreadable glance, and she narrowed her eyes at him in a mock glare.
“Do you take issue with festivity, Your Grace?” she asked. “You don’t strike me as a complete puritan, but perhaps I’m mistaken.”
“There is a time and place for such things,” he said in a repressive tone.
“But it’s the holidays!” Abby said, leaning past Catherine to look at him. “Surely the most festive time of the year.”
“If one is constantly celebrating,” he said, “then the very act loses all meaning.”
Oh heavens. Lord Darton was an unspeakably lost cause, after all.
Catherine sighed and shook her head. “Neither my sister nor I are suggesting a frenzied state of revelry day and night, Your Grace. But one might unbend alittleduring Christmas.”
He merely regarded her, his expression cold. She stared right back, challenging him to argue.
Their standoff was broken by Abby’s exclamation of glee.
“Look,” she cried, pointing into the trees ahead, “holly with berries!”
The duke looked away, and Catherine let out a sniff. She’d count that as her victory.
“Take note, Johnson,” he called over his shoulder. “And if you come across ivy and pine boughs, gather those up, too, and deliver the whole lot to the housekeeper for Christmas Eve decorations.”
They rode in silence a bit more, and Catherine let her annoyance with Lord Darton drain away. The man couldn’t help being an insufferable stuffed shirt, any more than his brother could stop being an irrepressible rakehell.
The trees thinned and they came out to a meadow, the brown grasses bent into hummocks. On the far side lay the remains of an orchard, the few stalwart apple trees draped with green balls of mistletoe.
“Aha,” she said. “There’s one more thing your man needs to collect.”
Lord Darton glanced at the ground. “Soggy grasses? I thought you had better taste in decor that that, Miss Randall.”
She frowned at him, then spotted the glint in his eye. Why, was the Duke of Darton-on-Rye teasing her? How remarkable.
