Teach Me Under the Mistletoe by Kay Springsteen

daft? Lost what was left of her mind?
    Hugh leaned in for a closer look. “What’s the matter with ye?”
    “N-nothing,” she said through a spasm of low chuckles. “It’s you. I’ve n-never h-heard you sound s-so Scot-Scottish before!” And the storm of laughter returned. She stumbled backward but thankfully remained on her feet.
    He tried. With the saints as his witnesses, he tried not to join her in her jovial moment at his expense. But soon laughter was bubbling up from deep inside and rolling across his lips. “Aye… yes,” he said ruefully, after the guffaws subsided and he caught his breath. “I’ve learned ‘tis better for employment prospects to sound like a far northerner rather than a ‘heathen Scott’. Most times I manage it just fine. Or I did until…” Until I began thinking of you, wanting you…
    It had happened even before that first kiss, he realized. But that barest brush of the lips had sealed his fate. If he did not mind his way, he was in danger of falling in love with the wrong woman.
    “Until I asked you to help me with a fool’s mission?” she asked gently.
    Did her eyes have to regard him with such luminosity? Did her every vulnerability have to be right there for the world — for him — to see? Was she aware of how difficult it was to refuse her anything with her eyes pleading so?
    “‘Tis the gentleman who’s the fool for overlooking ye.” A chill spun its way through Hugh’s blood, and his gut tightened. He softened his tone. “It’s this particular man ye’ve set yer cap for?”
    “I… yes.” She nodded but without her earlier enthusiasm. Was he imagining a slight hesitation? Did it matter? Whoever ended up as her husband, it could never be him. Daughters of earls didn’t marry stablehands who had no prospects of aspiring to anything more than a life spent in service to the titled nobility.
    But he didn’t have to be a part of it. He’d not do it.
    “Fine.” He stopped breathing. Had he just agreed to her scheme? “Let’s get to it then.” It seemed he had.

Chapter Eight
     
    Kitty blinked. He’d agreed. Finally agreed without further argument. Only… why did her middle insist on churning and tightening? She set the thought aside. She was getting what she wanted after all. “What shall we do first?”
    “It’s rather like training a horse for a task, I imagine.” Hugh rubbed his chin as he studied her, this time with a more dispassionate air than he’d used previously. “If ye want him to pull a carriage, ye train him to the harness and then set him to a cart. If ye want him for the hunt, ye first put him to his stride and then run him over the hurdles.”
    Training a horse! Kitty opened her mouth to castigate him for his rudeness but snapped it closed before the words were out. She had asked for his assistance in the matter. If he chose to regard it like training a horse, so be it. But if he thinks I’ll prance about and jump stone walls…
    Kitty tilted her head and sent him her most regal and condescending smile.
    Too bad he stood with his back to her.
    “Right then.” He whirled about. “I won’t pretend to know what constitutes manners for a holiday ball.”
    And from the sour look on his face, he had no desire to change that fact.
    “So tell me what it is ye do at such a function.”
    “Wh-what I do?”
    “What ye do… what other people do…” He shrugged. “I’ve never attended a ball.”
    “I…” Kitty frowned. How could she explain something that had been such a part of her life from the beginning that she accepted it all without giving much thought to any of it? “We… that is, people arrive—”
    “Arrive where?”
    “To… to the place where the event is b-being held.” She expelled a harsh breath in frustration. “During the season, the balls tend to be very large — so large the host and hostess hold them in great halls. It’s all very grand and lovely.”
    Hugh scuffed the toe of one boot along the edge of a