A Lady And Her Magic (5 page)

Very well. Sophia raised a breezy hand at the footman. “Do what you must.”

The man set to work installing the chimes, and Sophia dropped heavily onto the settee. She’d have to tie them together to stop their tinkling. But how thoughtful of Ashley to send them.

“I believe we need to talk,” her grandmother said, her eyes dancing with mischief. If anything, Sophia had expected censure.

“I suppose we do,” Sophia said as she settled deeper into the settee.

The Duke of Robinsworth tapped the table between him and his brother, signaling that he’d take another card.

Finn looked at him and raised a golden eyebrow. “Perhaps you should join the others below stairs. With luck like yours, you could take all their money before Mother gives hers up to them.” He slid a card across the table to Ashley, and then he cursed when he saw a two and that Ashley had a total of twenty-one. “Damn you, Robin. You may not be lucky in life, but you certainly are in games of chance.”

“Life is a game of chance, my dear Finn,” he said, recognizing the grim sound of his own voice. “We play the cards we’re dealt.”

“Unless we stack the deck.”

Ashley chuckled. “Obviously not the case in my situation,” he said. He’d played the cards he’d been dealt since the day he was born. He’d been raised for greatness. Raised to be a duke. Raised to be respectable. It was unfortunate that his deck had been stacked against him.

“Yet still you play,” Finn lamented.

“I sent a gift to Miss Thorne this afternoon,” Ashley suddenly blurted out.

“Am I familiar with the lady in question?” Finn appeared to search his mind and came up empty-handed.

“I doubt it. I met her in the park a few days ago.”

Finn sat back, his eyes opening wide. “Pray tell,” he encouraged.

“There’s nothing to tell.” Ashley shrugged. “We met very quickly when she took Anne to task over something.”

Finn laid his cards on the table. “Someone took Anne to task?”

“Quite effectively,” Ashley continued. “She appeared as though from nowhere and told Anne how a lady behaves.”

“And…?”

“And Anne listened. It was quite profound.”

“And all of this provoked a gift from you?”

Ashley never should have opened his big mouth. He should have kept his secret to himself. But whiskey did have a way of loosening the tongue. And he’d had more than his share. And Finn’s tongue had been loosened as well. He set his cards to the side. Obviously, Finn wanted to gossip more than he wanted to win his money back.

“It was nothing, really.”

Finn shook his head. “Robin, I haven’t heard you speak of a lady in quite some time. It must have been some meeting.”

“She’s in residence,” Ashley admitted.

“In London?”

“Here, at the Hall.”

Finn sat back and glared at Ashley. “Here? Have I met her?”

Ashley shrugged. “About as tall as my chin. Dark hair.” He took a deep swallow of his whiskey. When he noticed how quiet Finn was, he looked up to find his brother with his mouth agape. He threw a card at him. “Stop looking at me like I’m bound for Bedlam.”

Finn chuckled as he gathered the cards into a neat pile. “Someone is interested in a lady,” he sang out loudly. Then he ducked as a whole deck of cards sailed past his head. “And touchy about it, too,” he laughed. “What’s her name?”

“Miss Sophia Thorne,” Ashley groused good-naturedly.

“Thorne… Thorne…” Finn repeated as he searched his mind. “It doesn’t ring any bells for me. Is her father a peer?”

Ashley wasn’t certain. He knew nothing about her. “No idea. She’s traveling with her grandmother.”

“But you’d like to learn more about her.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.

Ashley sighed and pushed back from the table. “She doesn’t quake in fear at the sight of me, if that’s what you’re wondering. In fact, she has told me on more than one occasion that she’s not afraid of me at all.”

“Well, there’s a fortunate turn of events. Mother was ready to find a comely, blind, deaf widow with whom you could while away your days.”

“Mother should mind her own matters.”

“But she has such a good time minding yours.” Finn cleared his throat loudly. “What are your intentions with Miss Thorne?”

“I intend to launch a full investigation into her character,” Ashley said without even cracking a grin. “If I’m to marry the chit, I’ll have to find out how many skeletons are in her closet. If she has more than one murder in her past, then she outdoes me, and I simply cannot have that.”

“You can be such an arse,” Finn said.

“I do try,” Ashley drawled. He hit the table gently with his open palm. “Deal the cards.”

Finn regarded him stoically. “Would you like for me to investigate her?”

“It’s not necessary,” Ashley began. The lady would probably never speak to him again once she spent some time at the Hall and heard all the stories about him from his mother’s guests. It would be no great loss either way. At that very moment, dinner was going on below stairs. He’d refused to attend. But Miss Thorne was probably there. And she was certainly being informed about his past.

“What kind of gift did you send her? Flowers?”

“A wind chime,” Ashley replied without even thinking. “The one from my garden.” At Finn’s perplexed look, he kept going. “She admired it greatly.”

“You allowed her into your garden, did you?” Finn said as he began to deal. “You don’t even let me into your garden.”

“I don’t allow problems in my private space. And you carry a lot of baggage.” He laughed. “Like Mother.” He pretended to mull over his cards, but he wouldn’t know twenty-one if it bit him on the arse, not now that the subject of Sophia Thorne had arisen. “She’s charming,” he said quickly. Then he waited for Finn’s response.

Nothing. Absolutely no response at all.

“Don’t you have a comment? An unsolicited suggestion? An unwanted barb?”

“An uncommon quiet. Take it for what it’s worth.”

“And what might that be?” Ashley hated it when people were cryptic about their feelings.

Finn laid his cards on the table. Literally. “I think you like the lady. And I, for one, am damned happy to see it. So, don’t go scaring her off with your scowls and dark looks.”

“I do not scowl.”

“You look as though you’ve sucked a lemon most days, Robin,” Finn said good-naturedly. “Or two.”

“You don’t know what it’s like…” Ashley began.

“No, I don’t. And I probably never will. But I know what it’s like to be lonely. And I think you’ve been lonely long enough.”

Ashley snorted. “Lovely. Now you’ve become some great philosopher.”

“You could think of a better name to call me.”

“They’re all rolling around in my head, waiting for an opportunity to bruise your pride.”

Finn said, “Pride… hide… As long as something is bruised, I know I’m alive.”

“One must hurt to be alive, is that it?” Ashley watched Finn’s face.

“Then you have been alive for a very long time, have you not?”

Ouch. Perhaps his brother would do him the honor of pulling the knife from his chest after that one.

“Apologies, Robin,” Finn said with a heavy sigh. “It’s nice to see you interested in someone. Something not involving your land, tenants, or business interests. Something recreational.”

“Bedchamber activities are not for recreation. They’re for procreation.”

“Ha!” Finn exploded. “I knew we’d get to the meat of the matter. You want the chit in your bed.”

It was better to let Finn think his interest was entirely carnal. That couldn’t be further from the truth. “Bed, corridor, against the wall,” he said as drolly as he could, pretending to ponder his hand. “It matters not where.”

Finn shook his head slowly. “You’re a terrible liar.”

“Am I?” Ashley asked innocently. Let Finn figure it out for himself. His imagination was much more entertaining than Ashley’s life. “Let’s finish up this hand,” he directed. “I have to go and deliver a gift to Anne.”

“Isn’t she asleep?”

“She should be. But that German governess we had a few months ago told her tales of a faerie that comes and takes a tooth from beneath a child’s pillow and leaves a gift in return.” Finn looked at him like he had two heads. “Some fluttery little being.”

“The German governess? Wasn’t that the one who found frogs in her bed?”

“I don’t recall.” Ashley scratched his head. Anne had done so many terrible things to the people charged with her care that they began to run together after a time.

Finn threw his cards down when he saw that he’d been beaten. Then he rose, took one long swallow of whiskey, draining his glass, and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow. Mother has threatened my life, not to mention my stones, if I should dare to desert her during the party. I think it’s ballocks, since it’s your house and I am the one being made to suffer.”

“Better you than me,” Ashley said as he watched Finn slip out the door. It was much better that his mother call upon Finn to entertain her guests. Anyone would be better than Ashley himself.

***

Sophia sighed heavily as she closed the door to her bedchamber and discarded her wrap. Margaret gave her a scolding glance. “How many times do I have to ask you not to throw your things on the floor?” the house faerie said with a disgusted shake of her head.

“I thought dinner would never end,” Sophia groaned as she sat down on the edge of the bed and began to unlace her shoes. “You’ll have to help me get out of this gown,” she warned, just in case Margaret had decided to leave. “I don’t know why they make their clothes with so many hooks and loops and layers.”

“Perhaps they like all the layers to warm their icy hearts,” Margaret said as she spun Sophia around none too gently and began to work at the fastenings on the back of the gown. Sophia was well aware that Margaret held a severe dislike for the human world and those who occupied it. But she had no idea why.

“Are you going to tell me what has you tied up in knots? Or will you force me to suffer along with you?” Sophia shoved the gown down over her hips and stepped out of it. Margaret made a move to pick it up. “What is it about this world that has you up in arms?”

“It’s not that I dislike it here,” Margaret began with a sniff. “But Ronald says—”

Sophia held up a hand to cut her off. “You’ve been talking to Ronald?”

“He came to see you a little while ago, but you weren’t back from dinner yet.”

Sophia shook her head. That gnome would be the bane of her existence.

“He means well,” Margaret said. “And I think he may be right.”

Well, even if he was, Sophia would never admit it.

“He says the duke wants you in his bed.”

He wanted no such thing. They’d barely spoken more than a few words to one another. Sophia scoffed. “He doesn’t even know me.”

Margaret sent her a pointed glance. “A man does not have to know you to want you in his bed, miss,” she informed Sophia.

“How did Ronald get up here?”

“He climbed the trellis. He was in the foulest of moods.” Margaret covered a giggle. “I did hit him with a fireplace poker when he tried to lean his body out the window and take down those chimes.”

“I’m very proud of you. What made you do it? I know you hate the chimes as much as he does.” Everyone worried about Sophia and chimes. Or music of any kind.

“I assumed the duke would be none too happy to see his silver balls smashed to bits on the garden floor.”

“Good point,” Sophia encouraged.

“Ronald’s legs are too short to reach them, anyway. You should have seen the look on his face when the poker hit his backside.” This time, the house faerie chuckled loudly.

“Shh,” Sophia reminded her gently. “Or Grandmother will feel the need to come and interject herself into the conversation.”

“What if Ronald’s right, miss?” Margaret asked gently.

“A rest in the duke’s bed is not on my agenda for this mission.”

“I doubt he’d want you to do much resting.” Margaret held out Sophia’s nightrail, but she waved it away.

“I need to go out. Can you get my blue dress?” The webbed dress was her favorite, made from the softest strands of a spider’s web, laced together to form cloth. Then it was conditioned by the same spiders to be formfitting, which allowed Sophia to slide through keyholes with ease, and the trailing bits of fabric that covered her legs were made in such a way that they would simply fall off the overskirt of the dress, should she snag it during one of her escapades.

“If you damage this dress, I’ll not be the one to go back to the spiders and barter for a new one,” Margaret said. She hadn’t even gone the last time. Sophia had gone herself. And barely come out of it with a new dress.

Sophia fluffed the tendrils of fabric that fell, making it tickle around her knees where it stopped. “Do I look all right?” she asked as she regarded herself in the looking glass.

Margaret reached up and began to pull the pins from Sophia’s hair, letting it fall down around her shoulders. “Good idea,” Sophia said as she massaged her scalp. She certainly didn’t want to leave hairpins behind if she had to make a mad dash for safety.

“Be careful,” Margaret warned as Sophia willed her wings into existence. Then she shrank to the size of a child’s toy.

“Can you get the window?” Sophia asked, as she fluttered in the air. She could get the window herself, but it would take time that she didn’t want to waste.

Margaret opened the window and Sophia glanced at the chimes. No breeze broke the stillness of the night, and the chimes were uncommonly silent. It was almost as if they were a great sleeping beast just waiting to wake and steal her concentration. She shook herself from her reverie. “I can let myself back in, if you want to go to bed. Just leave the window cracked.”

“Your grandmother would never forgive me if I left while you’re on a mission. I’ll wait.”

“Well, take a nap. Your disposition could certainly use it.” Margaret was often cross, but never cross and obnoxious, not unless she was tired.

Margaret harrumphed. “I can plan my own night’s activities, thank you very much.”

Sophia flittered out the window and into the damp night air. Sophia loved the night air and everything that came with it. She circled the house quickly, fairly certain she’d be able to find Lady Anne’s chambers from the exterior of the house. Then she’d just have to find a way inside, once she had her bearings, so she could go through a keyhole or slide beneath a door.

But as she went from window to window looking inside, she finally came upon a window that was partially open. She landed gently on the windowsill and bent to slide beneath the crack. She very nearly got stuck. If her bottom wasn’t so big, she wouldn’t have any trouble at all. But such was her cross to bear.