The Magic of His Touch (May Day Mischief) (3 page)

“I’m afraid so,” Alexis said, opening the door. It was
improper, but this wasn’t the first time Lucasta had seen him in his
shirtsleeves. They’d never stood on ceremony; one didn’t, when one had been
friends since the age of two. “Unlike Elderwood, who has already exchanged
ogling glances with several of the housemaids. Have you come to compromise me
and force a speedy marriage? I warn you, I should make a horrid husband.”

She rolled her eyes, slipped in and shut the door. “As a matter
of fact, I think you’d make a perfect husband—for a woman who wants to get
married. You’re kind and patient and protective and not the least bit
overbearing.”

“Thank you,” he said, after an instant of dread that she might
have decided she liked him a little too much. She was wrong in her assessment;
he wouldn’t make a good husband unless that perfect woman he sought came along.
Oh, he would do his best to be kind, patient, et cetera, but both husband and
wife deserved more than that...affection, for example, and respect—even love, a
rare commodity these days.

Qualities that Miss Whistleby couldn’t have found in her
paramour. Anger and uneasiness roiled together in Alexis’s gut.

Lucasta took a seat on the sofa, a gilt-wood affair of the sort
popular two or three decades earlier. “I’ve got to talk to you about Peony.”

He frowned. “Miss Whistleby? What about her?”

“Her father and Aunt Edna have told her to set her cap at Lord
Elderwood,” Lucasta said, “but she doesn’t want to.”

This hardly came as a surprise. “Because she has a tendre for
some other man.”

She stared. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

He couldn’t bring himself to tell her, so he said, “I assumed
there must be some local fellow she prefers, since most women are only too happy
to set their caps at an earl.” He fetched his coat from where he’d thrown it
over a chair.

“Not at all. The problem is that Peony is too tall and boyish,
so she is socially awkward and has never learned to put herself forward where
men are concerned.”

Miss Whistleby had seemed extraordinarily bold and not at all
boyish this morning, but again, Alexis found himself unable to correct his
betrothed. He tugged his coat on and adjusted it.

“Besides, she took a dislike to Lord Elderwood last Season,”
Lucasta said.

At last, something he could believe. “He does tend to put
people off,” Alexis said, “except the benighted women who throw themselves at
him, whom nothing can deter.”

Lucasta sniffed. “Would you mind asking a favor of him? That
is, if he is capable of suspending both odiousness and seduction for a week or
two.”

Alexis blinked. “Have you taken a dislike to him, as well?”

Lucasta made a face. “I hardly know him. I’m concerned for
Peony, that’s all. I’ve never heard anything to Elderwood’s credit, but since
you’re his friend, I thought he might deign to be helpful if you were the one to
ask.”

It was unlike Lucasta to pass judgment based purely on
reputation, but he let that go. “What do you want him to do?”

“Merely to discourage Aunt Edna and Mr. Whistleby without
making it appear that Peony isn’t doing her best. They make her life miserable,
but it’s not her fault she’s not very appealing to the opposite sex.”

Again, he wondered if he should correct her, but a
disinclination to discuss Miss Whistleby held him back. “I’ll see what I can
do.” He just wasn’t sure about what. He would get Lord Elderwood’s cooperation
easily enough, but the more he imagined Miss Whistleby stripping naked again for
her lover—a secret she’d kept even from Lucasta—the more it ate away at him.

* * *

Aunt Edna hustled Peony upstairs to dress for dinner.
She scolded relentlessly while she and her abigail pinned, tucked, twisted and
turned Peony to the point of dizzy exhaustion.

“I suppose that will have to do,” her aunt said. “You’ll never
be anything but dull, but you could have had the squire’s son if only you’d put
some effort into captivating him. Instead, you made him look like a fool.”

This was entirely unfair. True, the squire’s son had shown some
interest in her, but that had vanished completely after he’d tried spending a
night in the Haunted Bedchamber. He had emerged gibbering after only a little
while, but how was that her fault? It was no use protesting, as Aunt Edna
disapproved of Peony’s friendly relations with the ghosts and bogeys, even
though she claimed not to believe in them.

“Why couldn’t you have been endowed with a proper bosom?” she
demanded, putting a last twitch to Peony’s bodice. “Try as I may, I can do
nothing to disguise such a flaw. One can only pray on bended knee that Lord
Elderwood will forgive that and all your other shortcomings.”

Aunt Edna finally went away to her own bedchamber, adjuring
Peony to wait for her before going downstairs, because she was sure to say
something foolish and put up the earl’s back. If only it were that simple, Peony
thought, she would go straight down and play the fool while Aunt Edna wasn’t
watching, but she suspected idiotic rejoinders would be as difficult for her as
clever ones. Perhaps she should go to Lucasta for moral support.

She opened the door to her room and peeked out just in time to
see her cousin slipping out of a bedchamber a few doors down, with Sir Alexis
right behind her. Heavens, that was his room—how improper of them! Lucasta went
up on tiptoe and kissed her betrothed’s cheek.

Envy swarmed over Peony like a cloud of gnats. How she wished
she had a fiancé to kiss! She wondered what it would be like to kiss Sir
Alexis’s cheek.

Or his mouth...

Whatever was wrong with her? She shouldn’t think such things
about her cousin’s betrothed. Yes, Sir Alexis was a fine-looking man with a
highly attractive mouth. She’d noticed it when he’d smiled at her. He’d also had
a reprehensible gleam in his eye. But although she envied Lucasta her fortune in
having a fiancé, she didn’t wish she had Sir Alexis for herself.

To prove it, she imagined Sir Alexis touching and kissing
Lucasta...and envy’s sister, jealousy, blossomed inside her.

Horrified, she tried to withdraw, but it was too late. Lucasta
flitted along the passageway toward her. Desperately, Peony banished the images
insinuating themselves into her mind.

Lucasta peered at her. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” Peony lied.

“Alexis promised to ask Lord Elderwood to help discourage your
father and Aunt Edna,” Lucasta said.

Peony cringed. Lucasta was doing her best to help, while Peony
indulged in traitorous thoughts. “How—how very kind,” she muttered.

“That’s Alexis for you,” Lucasta said. “The perfect fiancé. I’d
better go change, or I’ll be late for dinner.” She hurried across the corridor
and disappeared into her own bedchamber.

Peony shut her door again. Her heart pitter-pattered against
her breast. She took a deep breath. And another. She must control her wayward
thoughts. Such disloyalty to her cousin was intolerable. She wasn’t attracted to
Sir Alexis. She refused to be.

Footsteps approached in the passageway, and somehow she just
knew.

“Miss Whistleby,” said Sir Alexis on the other side of the
door. She stood paralyzed, wishing with all her heart that she was someplace
else, but just like that morning, magic paid her no heed.

* * *

“Open up,” Alexis said. “I know you’re there.”

Miss Whistleby pulled the door just wide enough to scowl at
him. “This is most improper. What do you want?”

“You’re scolding
me
for being
improper?” He tried to look stern but knew he wasn’t succeeding. How could he,
while distracted by the gentle curve of her bosom in a pretty pink gown? He
smiled at her. “That won’t wash, and well you know it.”

She gritted her teeth at him. He couldn’t tell whether she was
furious or on the verge of tears. “What do you
want
?”

He almost laughed out loud. If he let himself think about it,
he wanted her naked again—but this time underneath him.

Which was impossible, since he wasn’t a dastardly lecher like
her so-called lover.

He should be gentler with her. Softly, he said, “Merely to tell
you that I won’t tattle on you to your father.”

Her bosom rose and fell. “Oh.” Pause. “Thank you. And thank you
for agreeing to speak to Lord Elderwood.” She made as if to shut the door
again.

He thrust his boot in the way. “And to suggest that you
reconsider your actions. You may love the fellow you went to meet this morning,
but if he loved you, he wouldn’t run off like a dashed coward when another man
is nearby.”

A furious blush mounted her cheeks. “You have no idea what
you’re talking about.”

An answering anger rose inside him. “On the contrary, I know
precisely how dangerously you’re behaving. As I said this morning, you deserve
better. A man who loved you would marry you before expecting you to take your
clothes off.”

Her bosom heaved. “You know
nothing
!” She kicked him, but her slippers were no match for his boot.
“Ouch!” she cried, hopping on one foot. “It’s none of your business, but I
wasn’t meeting a lover. Now go away!”

“Dash it all, you needn’t lie to me,” he said. “I’m trying to
help you.” A door opened down the passage. Hurriedly, he stepped back.

“It’s that way,” Miss Whistleby said after the briefest of
pauses. She stuck her arm out, pointing. “Take the first left and the second
right, go down one flight of stairs, then left and left again. Whatever you do,
don’t go upstairs instead of down, or you might end up in the Haunted
Bedchamber. If you can’t find your way, ring one of the bells. They’re installed
all over the place for visitors who get lost.”

* * *

It was only a footman in the passageway. To lend
credence to the exasperating Miss Whistleby’s ploy and still fulfill his promise
to Lucasta, Alexis pretended he’d changed his mind about going to the drawing
room and needed directions to Lord Elderwood’s bedchamber instead.

Then, because he couldn’t resist, he asked, “And how would I
get to the Haunted Bedchamber?”

The footman shook his head. “You don’t want to do that,
sir.”

“No?”

“Not even the master will venture there. Only Miss Peony, who’s
done it since she was a child. She gets on fine with the ghosts and bogeys, she
does.” He lowered his voice. “Now and then a young fellow begs the master to let
him spend a night there, but they never last long. A matter of a hundred years
or so ago, a visitor stayed in there all night and went stark raving mad.”

Alexis had already heard that ridiculous story from Lord
Elderwood, but he pretended to be suitably impressed and proceeded to his
friend’s room.

“She doesn’t want to set her cap at me? That’s unusual,”
Elderwood said after Alexis explained his errand. “I can’t help but be thankful.
I couldn’t tolerate another young fool flinging herself into my arms, protesting
that she will die without me.” He chose a cravat. “I fancy I saw Miss Whistleby
in London last Season, but she’s not the memorable sort.”

“She isn’t?” Alexis didn’t think he was likely to forget Peony,
and not only because he’d seen her naked. “I find her quite attractive.”
Very
attractive, as a matter of fact, even when she
was berating him. Something about her mattered to him. Maybe that was why her
lack of proper judgment distressed him so.

“There’s nothing precisely wrong with her,” Elderwood said,
“but I’ve always found fair hair to be insipid, and she’s colorless as a ghost.”
He paused to tie an intricate fold in his cravat. “Too tall, as well. Not
entirely unbeddable, but close.”

Fury, as unexpected as it was powerful, boiled up inside Alexis
at this heartless analysis. Peony Whistleby was the perfect height and
wonderfully fair.

Elderwood met his friend’s eyes in the mirror. “Why do you look
so appalled?”

“If you’re going to wrinkle your nose at Miss Whistleby as if
she’s a garden slug, then you may as well go home now.”

“Dear me,” Elderwood said, “how unexpectedly hot under the
cravat you are! I shan’t be so rude, I promise you. I shall merely make it clear
that my only interest in Whistleby Priory is its heritage—as long as you promise
not to get annoyed if I monopolize your knowledgeable Miss Barnes. No offense
meant, but what do you see in her? Apart from the pretty face and curvaceous
figure, needless to say.”

This was far safer ground. “She’s intelligent and capable, and
she doesn’t need cosseting.” Actually, she was too independent for Alexis’s
taste, but in this instance it was a good thing Lucasta could take care of
herself. She wasn’t the sort to succumb to the charm of a rake. In fact, she
would probably run circles around Elderwood. It would serve him right.

* * *

Peony had noticed more and more about Sir Alexis when
he’d stood so close to her. He was lean but powerfully built, with deep brown
hair and warm dark eyes. Something about the way he looked at her, about the
sound of his voice and the intentness of his gaze...made her go all soft and hot
inside.

And she’d been so rude to him! He made her utterly furious,
which was awfully unfair of her. Insulting as he was, she knew he meant well. It
must be the conclusion he’d drawn that upset her so. She didn’t have a lover and
probably never would. She’d become almost resigned to that dismal fact...until
now.

What would Sir Alexis be like as a lover?

A wave of yearning poured over her, so powerful she had to sit
down and take several minutes to compose herself. How could she have such
treacherous thoughts about her cousin’s betrothed? She waited in her bedchamber,
trying to read a novel, but thoughts of Sir Alexis kept sidling into her mind.
By the time Aunt Edna came to fetch her, Peony’s head ached from reminding
herself that he belonged to Lucasta, and that she heartily disliked him
besides.