I felt my eyes widen in surprise and I stopped, catching him by the jacket sleeve. “Kicked out?”

A big inhale and exhale. “I should probably start at the beginning,” he murmured. I waited as he chose where to begin. “I met Astrid when Polly brought Lord Blanchard and his family to my parents’ home in St. George’s Hill, which is close enough to London to be convenient but not so close as to be too convenient.”

“The riffraff are kept out.”

“Nearly everyone is kept out.”

“But not the Blanchards.”

“Oh, no,” he murmured dryly. “Definitely not the Blanchards.”

I searched his face, which was difficult to do in the heavy shadows, but enough of the festival’s light made its way over to us from the four huge, white snowflakes marking the far end of the pond that I could see the hint of bitterness.

“Did you crush on her right away?”

“Sadly, yes. But in my defense, she’s quite attractive. Superficially. She attended Raleigh School and at the time I was at Jarrow Academy. They’re not far from each other, which I took to mean fate. But it didn’t. Not in the way I’d hoped. We flirted madly over two weekends in August and exchanged numbers so the flirting continued well into the school year, even though we didn’t see each other.”

“That must’ve been difficult.”

“Yes. So much so, I decided to take it upon myself to remedy the situation by calling on her at her school.”

“Is this where the mistletoe comes in?”

“Not yet. Don’t be impatient.”

“Sorry. Continue.”

“When I arrived at her dormitory at Raleigh, she refused to come down to meet me.”

“After you’d come all that way?”

“It wasn’t that far, really. Our two schools were affiliated and there was quite a bit of cross-dating between Jarrow and Raleigh.”

“Still.”

His lips quirked. “Yes. My disappointment was acute. Until she texted her apologies.”

“Oh. Didn’t see that coming.”

“We started texting all the time afterwards.”

A terrible thought tickled the back of my mind. “Just texting?”

He wagged his finger. “Ah, look how quickly you caught on.” He placed the flat of his palm to his chest. “I, however, was a bit too credulous.”

A sense of dread bloomed in my chest. “Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes.”

“What happened?” I whispered, even though I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to hear.

“Christmas. Raleigh was hosting a Christmas party and Astrid invited me to attend. With her.”

“This feels ominous.”

“Only because you know part of the outcome. Young, blissfully ignorant sixteen-year-old Arthur took the time to research mistletoe—this is where it’s finally pertinent—and decided to disregard all the unromantic aspects of its origins to concentrate on the romantic ones. Thus, I secured a bunch, wrapped it in red ribbon, and made my way to Raleigh for the Christmas Dance.”

“There was no Christmas dance!” I guessed.