THE MISTLETOE CLAUSE

She has spent eight years guarding her father's ruined name. He has spent eight years believing the worst of her family. A dead man's will is about to lock them in a house together for twelve days and see which grudge survives Christmas.

Clementine Marchmont has no intention of thawing toward a Kilbride, whatever her late godfather's will demands of her. Her father's reputation cost her family everything once already, and she is not about to hand a second chance to the one man with every reason to want her ruined a second time.

Benedict Kilbride wants nothing to do with a fortune he never asked for, and even less to do with a woman his own family swears brought them low. But a snowbound gatehouse, a good deal more honesty than either of them planned for, and one very determined sprig of mistletoe have a way of complicating even the oldest grudge.

There is a cousin who has waited eight years for this inheritance and does not intend to lose it now, an old fraud that was never what it seemed, and a will that requires Clementine and Benedict to stand before witnesses at the stroke of Twelfth Night and declare themselves of one mind, or forfeit Wintermere Hall entirely. Twelve days is not very long to fall in love. It is exactly long enough, if the house has anything to say about it.

Some clauses are written to be broken. This one was written to bring two people home.