All for You (2 page)
LL FOR
Y
OU
Chapter 1
SEDGWICK CASTLE, ENGLAND
PRESENT DAY
I
f
life were a set of scales, Peaches Alexander could safely say that Fate had just dumped a load of bricks on the opposite balance.
She didn’t like the feeling of being flung off the proverbial pan and not so much into the fire but up into the air without a clue as to where she would land. She liked being in control of her life, having her ducks in a row, her shoes organized by color, her spices waiting obediently in the cabinet, secure in their alphabetical sorting. This business of having events spiral out of control without her permission was just not in her plans.
She scowled. Very well, so she’d been needing a bit of a change. She had known for quite a while that she was just marking time and not using her gifts. But having Fate tinkering with things to this extent, well, this was not at all to her liking.
She stood in the courtyard of her sister’s castle and looked around, frowning and wishing there was somewhere she could hide until she’d figured out how she was going to get out of her current mess. She had already gone for a run that morning, but that had felt less like clearing her head and more like scampering away from her problems. No, she needed something constructive
to do with her hands so her mind could work on other more pressing problems.
She looked toward the gatehouse and saw her salvation. She walked across the finely laid stone and winter-brittle grass and stopped in front of the door leading to her sister’s prop room. Since it was really nothing more than a big closet—and she was used to organizing big closets—it would provide not only the hiding place she needed but a very welcome distraction. She didn’t dare hope that while she was there she would manage to distract herself from Fate’s handiwork that she held in her hand.
A very thick stack of faxes spelling the end of her life as she knew it.
She walked into the former guardroom and had to pause for a moment and admire. That she was standing in what centuries before would have been a rather fragrant haunt of the front-gate guards was actually rather amazing. It was all due to her twin sister, who had decided to come to Cambridge to study, then remained in England long enough to find herself the owner of a castle boasting a guardroom turned into a prop room for the use of guests that wanted to pretend they were going back in time and thought dressing the part might help the process.
Peaches had her own thoughts on the notion of pretending to travel through time and what sorts of
accoutrements
might be necessary, but she supposed it would be wise to just let those thoughts continue on into the realm of the ridiculous where they belonged.
She glanced at the faxes in her hand, then set them down on a trunk near the door. She knew what they said; reading them again would only get her stirred up. There was plenty to keep her busy, most notably in that long rack of men’s costumes she’d almost finished arranging before she had decamped for France to leave her sister and her new husband a bit of privacy. She was happy to see that everything was where it should have been.
Well, everything but the notable exception of a medieval-style tabard bearing a black lion rampant who looked down his nose superciliously from a turquoise blue eye.
Peaches scowled as she returned the feisty lion to its rightful place. She knew who had worn
that
the last time around. That he had failed, in spite of his academic credentials and apparent ability to organize all sorts of interesting facts and tweed suit
coats, to put it back where it went didn’t surprise her in the least.
She continued to grumble about the inconsiderate nature of some people as she worked her way down the rack to the end. She looked at the various types of hats sitting on the shelf above her, turned away, then stopped and looked back. She reached and pulled down a Scottish cap with some sort of creature holding a bone in its mouth. She was certainly no expert in heraldry, but she was quite proficient in translating Latin thanks to a rather austere upbringing at her aunt Edna’s.
Audentes Fortuna Juvat
.
Fortune favors the bold. Too bad she wasn’t feeling particularly bold at the moment, in direct contrast to the McKinnon who had chosen that as his clan motto. She knew all the clan mottos because along with a copy of Burke’s Peerage she had appropriated from Aunt Edna’s vast library of obscure and dusty books, she had also memorized the contents of a very small tome on Scottish clans. Who would have thought any of it would come in handy—
A hanger squeaked.
Peaches froze, rolled her eyes, then blew out her breath and put her shoulders back. There was absolutely nothing odd about what she’d just heard because she was in a room full of hangers that could possibly have squeaked. The castle was drafty. In fact, she wasn’t altogether sure she hadn’t been talking to herself and that certainly would have set up enough moving hot air that a hanger could have—
The hanger squeaked again.
All right, now that was taking things too far. She wasn’t above entertaining the thought of paranormal activity in her sister’s castle for reasons she didn’t care to examine too closely at the moment, but the thought of entertaining said activity
now
was anything but entertaining. She had important things to contemplate, solutions to come up with, her entire life that she was holding together with a very thin thread to gather up and wrap up a bit tighter before it completely exploded around her.
Unfortunately, she had the feeling she wasn’t going to have a say in current events because the uncomfortable truth was that while Sedgwick might have been overlooked on a few Supernatural British Locales lists, she could personally verify that it was haunted.
By, for example, the red-haired, bekilted Scotsman standing ten feet from her with his hand on a hanger, apparently using quite a bit of energy to wiggle it—and the tabard draped over it—around. She didn’t really want to have a little tête-à-tête with a ghost, but when in England …
“Is it heavy?” she asked, because it was the first thing that came to mind.
“Nay, but ’tis an Englishman’s tabard,” he said, breathing heavily. “I’m breathless with distaste.”
She almost laughed, but then she realized just which Englishman’s tabard the ghost was shaking and her amusement vanished abruptly. Even from where she stood, she could see that rearing lion of Artane eyeing her with disapproval. She pursed her lips.
“I can understand your feelings there,” she said.
“’Tis a good family,” the ghost said. “For Englishmen, that is.” He looked at her and scrunched up his face. “Don’t ye think?”
His purposeful look was profoundly unsettling. She would have preferred to believe he had simply taken hold of a random hanger, but the way he was hanging on to it as though his continued existence depended on it led her to believe the selection was a deliberate one.
“You do realize that’s the de Piaget crest,” she said, on the off chance he didn’t.
The ghost looked at what he’d recently stopped shaking, then looked back at her. He blinked in surprise that wasn’t at all innocent. “Why, lass, I believe it is.”
“Why did you pick that one?” she demanded.
He shifted nervously. “Weel, ye see, lass, with ye being as yet unwed …” He peered at her from under bushy red eyebrows. “Do ye see?”
Peaches felt her mouth fall open. “Are you
matchmaking
?” she asked in astonishment.
“Shhh,” he hissed frantically, doffing his cap and clutching it with his free hand. “What would the other shades think if they knew?”
“They would think I was the most sensible mortal they’d ever encountered because I’d told you I wouldn’t be interested in
anyone from that family if he were the last eligible bachelor on the planet.”
The ghost blinked. “Are ye meaning young Stephen de Piaget?”
“That’s the one,” she said grimly. “I have no doubt that women all over the island are sighing in relief that he doesn’t have a twin.”
“To vex them with his handsomeness?” the ghost ventured.
Peaches suppressed a snort. “It isn’t exactly his handsomeness he would be vexing them with, but maybe we should just not speculate on what that certain something might be.”
The ghost wore a perplexed frown and his mouth worked silently, as if he repeated her words to attempt to unravel their meaning. Peaches would have given him a hand by enumerating for him the future Earl of Artane’s numerous flaws, but she was interrupted by the sound of the door opening behind her. She turned and found her sister standing just inside the door, looking hesitant.
At least she wasn’t looking terrified. Peaches glanced over her shoulder and saw the reason why. The ghost had disappeared, no doubt to spare his proprietress any undue distress. Peaches was happy to see him go, especially if it meant she didn’t have to discuss the last de Piaget bachelor again. She walked over to her sister and realized with a start that Tess’s face had a rather green tinge to it. Peaches reached out and put her hand on her sister’s arm.
“What’s wrong?” she asked in surprise. “Did something happen to you?”
Tess took a deep breath. “Unfortunately—but no, not to me or John.”
Peaches frowned. She had just seen a ghost in a kilt. How much worse could it get than that? “I’m sure it can’t be all that bad,” she said easily.
“Oh, it could,” Tess said. She took a deep breath. “I have a confession to make.”
Peaches smiled. “What terrible thing did you do?”
Tess sat down on the trunk. She didn’t seem to notice she had sat down on that rather thick stack of faxes. “It’s a long story with an interesting ending.”
“I can hardly wait to hear it.”
“Well, it starts with you forgetting your cell phone when you went to France.”
Peaches shrugged. “I left it behind on purpose.” She had left her phone behind because when one was having a time-out from life, it was best to do it unplugged. Tess had had the holiday rental office’s number for emergencies, which had seemed like more than enough accessibility.
Tess shifted uncomfortably. “Well, I didn’t think your phone should go unanswered.” She paused. “So I answered it.”
Peaches resisted the urge to scratch her head. She knew her sister was gearing up to tell her something she obviously considered important, but she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what that something might be. She didn’t have a boyfriend to dump, or a landlord to appease, or rational clients to deal with. All she had was a collection of loonies who had apparently decided to jettison her
en masse
via the aforementioned faxes. None of that explained what had left Tess looking so green. She studied her sister for another moment or two, then frowned again. “Did you say something to a client?”
“I didn’t say anything,” Tess said quickly. Then she paused. “Well, I tried not to say anything.”
Peaches sat down abruptly on the trunk, crunching the parts of the faxes her sister hadn’t already done damage to. Things were getting clearer, but not more pleasant. “Who did you not say anything to?”
“Whom,” Tess said miserably.
Peaches found it in her to glare. “
Whom
did you not say anything to?”
“Brandalyse Stevens.”
Peaches felt the room begin to spin. She suddenly found herself with her head between her knees. That didn’t help any, and it was exacerbated by Tess’s unwillingness to let her up.
“I tried my best,” Tess said, sounding rather faint herself, “I really did. But when she started in on your coming back to England and not being there to help her sort her thongs … well, I had to say something.” Tess paused. “I suppose I probably shouldn’t have started off by telling her she had a stupid name.”
“Probably not,” Peaches wheezed. So much for hoping all the communiqués she was sitting on were just a bad joke. “And?”
“I told her it was probably about time she learned to sort her own damn thongs.” Tess began to pat her absently on the back. “And really, Peach, once I started, I couldn’t seem to stop myself.”
Peaches fumbled behind her for her sister’s hand only because Tess was getting a little too enthusiastic in her patting. She thought she might have bruises soon. She sat up, waited until the stars cleared, then leaned her head carefully back against the stone and looked at her sister. It was difficult to believe that Tess had been the catalyst for the utter ruination of a very large part of her life, but it was very hard to deny.
“You couldn’t stop yourself?”
Tess shook her head slowly.
“What else did you say?” she managed.
“I’m afraid I might have expressed an opinion or two on how many great guys Brandalyse has stolen from me—er,
you
, rather, because I was pretending to be you. That took a while.”
Peaches closed her eyes briefly. “Great.”
“I also might have insulted her blog.”
“Did you criticize font or content?”
“I told her that her font was ugly and the pictures of all the interiors she’d designed were Photoshopped.” Tess swallowed convulsively. “She asked me if that was it.”
“And you told her no, that wasn’t it, because she had the single worst highlight job you’d ever seen and that it really showed up on camera during every morning show she did.” Peaches looked at her sister. “Is that about right?”
