this. All those eager girls do not present a challenge to you, which is why you are so out of sorts.’ He waved his hand dismissively in the direction of the dancers. ‘Therefore I am prepared to set you an interesting challenge out of family loyalty, to restore some of your missing vigour. A bit of fun to liven up this laboriously festive social season for the both of us, seeing as Connie has decreed we spend it here with your mother, and your mother has such exuberance for society again. Wouldn’t you relish a decent challenge? For our usual stakes, of course.’
‘I suppose...’ It was a sorry state of affairs if a man in his prime was without vigour, yet the plain and simple truth was Hal had not encountered a single woman in well over a year who did not bore him to tears. Even the unsuitable, corruptible ones he favoured were leaving him cold. Although he was prepared to concede fun would be good, if nothing else, as it had been a bit thin on the ground of late. ‘What sort of challenge?’
‘How many berries are on that sprig of parasitic vegetation you are clutching like an amulet?’
‘Five—why?’ Because Aaron had a particular gleam in his eye and as their usual stakes involved the loser mucking out the other’s stables single-handed, or when in town just Hal’s, as Aaron had cheerfully sold his house years before, he was understandably wary. Being bored and being consigned to shovelling excrement for his brother-in-law’s amusement were two very different things entirely.
‘Five berries equal the five separate kisses I challenge you to steal. Each one in a different location and all five before Twelfth Night. Let us call it The Mistletoe Wager, in a nod to the season.’ Their bets always had names and there had been some momentous ones. The North Road Race. The Serpentine Swim. The Fisticuffs Experiment and the ill-conceived and often-lamented Naked Night in Norfolk, when they both nearly froze to death trying to brave the winter weather sitting out in the elements on the exposed beach of Great Yarmouth. They had hastily agreed to end that one early when they simultaneously lost feeling in their gentlemen’s areas. The Mistletoe Wager certainly sounded a lot more pleasant than all its painful predecessors.
Hal felt himself grin at the thought. Five kisses! He could do that in his sleep. ‘To be frank, I think it is only fair to point out I am so confident of my appeal, I believe you will be ensconced in my well-stocked stable tomorrow. Challenge accepted!’
‘Hold your fire, my arrogant young friend. I have not set out my full terms yet. There is one more thing I must insist upon.’
‘Which is?’
‘I get to choose whom you have to kiss.’
Hal felt his eyes narrow suspiciously. ‘No nuns. No dowagers or ladies in their dotage and for pity’s sake spare me Lady Daphne Marsh. I must insist that the ladies selected have teeth! Rumour has it those clattering dentures she wears are made with teeth chiselled out of the corpses on the battlefield at Waterloo.’
‘Really? I had heard they were carved out of a single walrus tusk... Either way, I agree they are distasteful.’ Aaron held up his palm solemnly. ‘You have my word. Only eligible, pretty ladies I would have chased after myself, before I had the great good fortune to be forced into marriage with your sister, qualify. What do you say? Shall we shake on it to seal the wager?’
For a few seconds Hal dithered, before he realised dithering was reminiscent of something his staid father would have done. ‘On one condition. The ladies you choose can only be selected from within the very ballroom we are currently avoiding. Those are my particular terms.’ That would ensure no ridiculous women were chosen. Aaron did like to best him and he would not put it past him to select five girls in the remotest corners of the British Isles just to vex him.
‘Agreed!’
Hal thrust out his hand and the two men did their level best to out-shake and out-squeeze the other, as was their custom, for a solid thirty seconds before they stepped back. ‘Five stolen kisses in five entirely different locations with five very lucky ladies.’ He turned towards the French doors and grinned triumphantly. ‘Choose away, dear brother. I feel guilty for accepting such a ridiculously easy bet.’
‘Your arrogance astounds me! Do you honestly believe every proper young lady in that room would allow you to steal a kiss?’
Hal actually laughed, because really, it was just too funny. ‘There will be no need for stealing, I can assure you. I am the single most eligible man at this ball. I am phenomenally wealthy, devilishly handsome, totally charming and, as you have quite rightly pointed out, I’m an earl. There isn’t a young lady in that ballroom who would not welcome my advances. In fact, I dare say a few of them might try to steal a kiss from me with precious little effort on my part this very evening.’ Which ironically was part of his current problem. They really were all so predictably eager.
‘I refuse to believe you. As the father to two tenacious daughters and husband to a wife of supreme intelligence, I believe you are grossly underestimating the female sex. There must be at least a dozen young ladies currently in the ballroom who are in possession of good sense and taste, and thereby would never consider attaching their lips to yours.’
Hal watched with mounting amusement as Aaron carefully scanned the crowds, his frustration with the eager young ladies beyond becoming more apparent with every passing second. After a full minute, his intense perusal became a trifle desperate, then he straightened and nearly sighed with relief. When he turned back to Hal there was definite mischief in his expression, yet it did not daunt him. ‘Who is the lucky first of the five?’ Because he fully intended to pluck off one of those white mistletoe berries tonight in front of Aaron’s eyes and then ceremonially place it in his hand.
‘I don’t recall stating there would be five different ladies, old boy.’ Aaron was grinning smugly from ear to ear. It was a familiar tactic. Each time one of them proposed a ridiculous wager, the devil was in the detail of the language. Like attorneys they always quibbled about the minutiae of the terms. Hal went back over their conversation himself, preparing to counter, and experienced the first trickle of unease when he realised his irritatingly smug relative was right. There had been no mention of five different young ladies which shifted the parameters of the challenge significantly. To steal a kiss from a young lady once was a relatively simple task, by and large. More than that involved actual wooing and Hal had always been scrupulously careful about where and to whom he wooed. And Aaron knew it, too.
‘I shall not be selecting five young ladies. In fact, there is only the one. All you need to do is find suitable opportunities and locations to kiss her five times.’ He turned and pointed triumphantly through the condensation covered window to the solitary figure sat alone in a corner. ‘I choose Lady Elizabeth Wilding.’
‘Sullen Lizzie?’
‘Now, now. You of all people should know how unfair nicknames can be here in the ton. Wasn’t your own dear sister known as the Ginger Amazonian for years? A dreadful name which was most unfortunate. If people overhear you calling the poor girl that, the name might stick.’
Hal could almost smell the horse manure and realised he had been ambushed. ‘As I recall, dear brother-in-law, it was you who gave my sister that unfortunate nickname, so don’t try to use that against me. Besides, she is sullen. The sullenest woman in Mayfair. Why, she barely casts me a disdainful glance if we happen to pass on the street. You picked her on purpose, you snake! Everybody knows Lady Elizabeth Wilding loathes all men!’
‘How can you say that when the chit was engaged once?’
‘And callously called it off on the morning of her wedding without a thought to the poor groom’s feelings!’ Everyone remembered that juicy titbit of gossip. It had caused quite a scandal,
