“Is that how you would like me to compliment you?” he inquired, clasping his hands behind his back with a slight bow. “Very well, Miss Asheley, in that shade of red, I find you…”

“Shut up,” she hissed, gathering her skirts in her hands and huffing away from him with a jerk of her head. “That’s not funny.”

When her steps softened in their tread, he said, “It was not an attempt at humor. I take paying compliments quite seriously.”

Elinor scowled at him as she paused at a grand window not far from the drawing room door, but far enough away to avoid being overheard. “I would, too, if I were so out of practice giving sincere compliments.”

Hugh’s mouth twitched into a hint of a smile. “Forgive me, I thought you were, particularly with the male sex.”

“Show me a man worth complimenting, and I will do so.”

Now he did smile, though he kept it restrained. “Shall I fetch your father? Your uncle? Your brother or cousins or Mr. John Winthrop, perhaps?”

Elinor rolled her eyes and knitted her fingers, shaking her head. “Unbelievable. You’re an impossible sot even without the influence of drink.”

“I believe that is called being a Sterling, Miss Asheley,” he informed her, giving a sage nod. “See also my brother Lord Sterling, and our cousin Tony. I believe you know him well.”

This was going nowhere at a breakneck pace.

“Allow me to be quite direct, Mr. Sterling,” she all but barked, her eyes flicking towards the open drawing room door.

“It is your home, Miss Asheley, I will allow you almost anything.”

Elinor paused, clenching her teeth so hard her jaw ached. “You will not ruin Christmas for my family,” she told him.

He lifted one brow. “I have no intention of doing so. It would be quite rude.”

She ignored that. “You will not speak with my sisters unaccompanied.”

Hugh nodded. “That is generally the polite way of things.”

In lieu of screeching, she dug her nails into the palms of her hands. “And if I catch you with any of my relations in an empty corridor, Hugh Sterling, so help me…”

His expression turned into one of complete disbelief. “I didn’t get stranded here deliberately, you know. I had a set destination, and it was not your family’s country home at Christmas.”

“I wouldn’t trust you to not take advantage of whatever situation you found yourself in with the express purpose of furthering your own selfish interests,” she snapped, positively fuming now.

The corridor was almost completely silent, only the echoes of conversation in the drawing room audible as Hugh stared at her, his eyes searching.

“Out of curiosity, how many counts of villainy do you think me guilty of? I’m wondering if I’ve reached the level of ‘demon of hell’ yet.”

Somehow, she found his statement amusing, and the urge to laugh welled up, though she tamped it down quite forcefully.

“It’s difficult to say,” she managed to express with surprising calmness. “You blessed us all by staying away from London for so many months, I hardly know how many sins you engaged in while thus occupied.”