All for You (26 page)

She gave up watching her brother-in-law and gave in to the impulse to just watch a man who was nothing at all like she’d originally thought him to be. He might have had his collection of diplomas on the wall and his certificates from nobility school, and while that might have been a good representation of who he was, it wasn’t all he was.

He had bought her a ball gown to make her feel beautiful, endured her snarls at him, watched her drool openly over David Preston. He had hoisted a second-rate sword in her defense, ignored the ruination of the insides of a very expensive car, and taken her to his house where she would be comfortable and safe.

He had bought her green drink, simply because he’d known she would like it.

But he was also the future Earl of Artane, the current Viscount Haulton and Baron Etham, and a full-fledged professor at Cambridge who had earned his posh office not because of his father’s money or influence but by virtue of his own hard work.

She wondered why he wasn’t married.

She wondered why she couldn’t escape the thought that that was maybe a good thing.

Tess leaned close. “You don’t like him.”

Peaches had to take a deep breath before she could answer. “Nope.”

“He’s not your type.”

“Absolutely not.”

“I understand he enjoys a good filet mignon from time to time.”

“Barbaric,” Peaches murmured.

“He’s gorgeous, though, isn’t he?”

“Y—” Peaches shut her mouth around the word and glared at her sister. “Stop that.”

“I like to see where your thoughts are leading you.”

“You’re a busybody.”

Tess only smiled pleasantly and went back to watching her husband. Peaches fought with herself for several minutes, minutes during which swords clanged and medieval verbs were conjugated and corrected, then gave in and leaned close to her sister.

“He has girlfriends. Three of them.”

“Two, now,” Tess corrected. “And he doesn’t like them.”

“Then why does he date them?”

“It keeps Granny off his back.”

Peaches looked into the mirror of her own eyes. “He would never, ever want to marry someone like me,” she said in a miserable whisper.

Tess looked at her as seriously as she ever had during all their years of serious conversations. “Why don’t you, my dearest Peaches, let him be the judge of that?”

Peaches threw her arms around her sister, hugged her until Tess squeaked, then jumped up and ran away.

She didn’t want anyone to see her seriously consider bursting into tears.

B
y
the time the afternoon was over, she was a wreck. Stephen was his normal self … only he wasn’t. He was gravely polite to her, though she could now see that it wasn’t disinterest that made him so, it was solicitousness. He laughed with John over things about the modern day that amused them both, switched gears easily to grill Tess on her meeting with Terry Holmes, then seamlessly continued discussions in medieval Norman French.

He did glance her way briefly during that last bit, one of his eyebrows raised.

She waved him on to his pleasures, trying not to feel flattered that he’d been interested enough in her comfort level with that version of the language that he would think to ask. He was the product of good breeding and the beneficiary of a mother who had obviously taught him good manners, nothing more.

Nothing that meant anything out of the ordinary for her.

She managed to convince herself of that all the way until he asked her politely if she wouldn’t walk him to his car.

She went, because Tess pushed her out the door.

And honestly, by that point it would have been rude to turn and run the other way, so she put her shoulders back, reminded herself she was a grown-up, and walked with him through the courtyard. She was extremely grateful to be in jeans, a warm sweater, and boots instead of one high heel and a Cinderella dress.

He paused at the end of the drawbridge, eyed the marker there, and moved to the other side of the bridge. Peaches looked at him in surprise.

“Why are we stopping?”

“It’s cold,” he said with a shrug, “and I wanted to make sure you got back inside safely.”

She looked at him and frowned. “Then why did we come out here?”

“Because I wanted to ask you something.”

She didn’t dare speculate on what that something might be, so she simply looked at him, mute and terrified.

“Are you going back to Seattle?”

The question was abrupt enough to startle her. She blinked, then took a deep breath. “I don’t know.”

He chewed on his words for a moment or two. “Tess mentioned something in passing about a bit of a blip in your business, but I didn’t ask the details.”

“Blip,” Peaches echoed. “You could call it that.”

“What would you call it, then?”

“Complete destruction. She told my biggest client to shove off. That client took the rest of them with her.”

He studied her in silence for several very long moments, which made her extremely nervous. “That must have been unpleasant.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Peaches said, aiming for lightness but fearing she had only managed to sound as panicked as she felt. “A booming business is highly overrated. Besides, it was just sorting socks.”

Stephen leaned against the iron railing and looked at her thoughtfully. “Well, I suspect it wasn’t just that, but I don’t
know enough about it to comment.” He paused. “I’m wondering, though, if you might be willing to take a day or two for a charitable mission before you go back to rebuilding your empire.”

“Not if that mission requires any time traveling,” she said with a shiver, “and just know I feel as weird saying that as it sounds.”

Stephen smiled faintly. “Nothing so perilous.” He paused, then jammed his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “I have something that needs to be done, and I was wondering if you might be willing to lend a hand.”

“Do you need your socks sorted?”

He smiled very briefly.

The sight about knocked her flat.

“Nothing so lofty, I fear. I was thinking more along the lines of help with research. I was thinking that given your background—”

“In organic substances?” she asked, that time managing a bit of lightness.

Stephen looked at her seriously. It was a different expression from his usual gravely polite one. She wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse, but it was definitely different.

“I was trying to find something to say that evening,” he said quietly, “and succeeded only in offending you.” He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “I would pay you, of course, for the aid with my research.”

“What do you need researched?”

“Oh,” he began slowly, “just things.”

“Sounds pressing.”

“One must publish often,” he said. “That sort of thing.”

She wasn’t sure she would get anything done for him. She wasn’t sure she could sit inside his office and read. Maybe she could hide in the library and send him her notes via courier pigeon. She looked at him frankly.

“I have visa issues,” she said, “but John’s working on it. He knows a guy.”

“I imagine he knows several.”

“Don’t look at me,” she said, holding up her hands. “He’s
your
uncle.”

“So it would seem.” He looked at her. “And your answer?”

“Can I think about it?” she asked.

He nodded slowly. “Of course.” He stepped up on the bridge, looked at her, then extended his elbow. “I’ll walk you back.”

She looked at him in surprise. “Wasn’t I walking you?”

“That was just an excuse to have you alone,” he said seriously. “Let’s go, love, before you catch your death.”

Love
. She had listened to John call Tess that dozens of times and smiled every single time. Having a de Piaget lad use that term on her was slightly more knee-weakening than she’d thought it would be. She took Stephen’s proffered arm, because it seemed like the best way to get herself back inside the gates while remaining on her feet.

She found herself soon deposited on the front steps, then turned and watched him walk down the three steps to the courtyard. He paused and looked up at her.

“I meant to give you this earlier.”

She wrapped her arms around herself. “Give me what?”

He pulled a shoe out of the inside of his jacket.

It was the mate to the glass slipper she’d completely trashed in medieval England. She took the pristine shoe, then looked at him, mute.

He smiled gravely. “I thought you might want it.”

And then he turned and walked away before she could say anything. She clutched the shoe and watched him walk back across the courtyard. He paused at the barbican, turned, and held up his hand briefly.

She waved back, because it made more sense than running after him and flinging herself into his arms.

“Go inside, Peaches,” came words that floated back over his shoulder as he started across the bridge.

Peaches went inside and shut the door behind her. Work for him? As a research assistant?

It was insane. She would have a ringside seat for all his trysts with his girlfriends, get to watch him prepare for all his society functions, see him living in a world that suited him so perfectly and he managed so well.

Well, she would just give herself a good night’s rest to regain her good sense, then she would tell him no.

“Did he give you a
shoe
?” John asked as she walked across the great hall.

“Yes,” she said shortly.

“Well, it could have been worse,” Tess offered. “It could have been a ring.”

Peaches glared at them both and trotted toward the stairs, ignoring their giggles. She wasn’t going to chuck her shoe at them, though they certainly deserved it.

A good night’s rest, then a resounding no.

It was the only thing she could do.

S
tephen
sat in a chair in front of the fire in his office and tried to concentrate. That task was made substantially more difficult by the addition not of three ghosts, but one very mortal, very beautiful woman sitting across from him, plowing through Regency research items.

He wondered if he should have been surprised Peaches had been willing to help him. She had spent most of the day before at Sedgwick ignoring him. Well, perhaps that wasn’t completely accurate. She hadn’t been rude to him. She had simply said only the bare minimum and found other things to look at. He had actually been stunned early that morning when she’d texted him one word.

Yes.

He would have happily accepted that answer to any number of questions, but he decided he would be wise to take things a step at a time. So he’d sent an innocuous reply and promised to meet her at his office after lunch.

Lunch had come and gone, and he’d begun to wonder if perhaps he was making a serious mistake. After all, his schedule was rather lighter than usual that semester, leaving him more
time than he would have normally had to simply sit in his office and read. Inviting Peaches to sit there with him was self-torture of the worst kind. It would have been easier, perhaps, if he’d had lectures or tutoring to keep him busy. Anything to keep him in some other location.

And then she’d arrived, grave and serious. She had walked into his office in clothes he had purchased for her to wear at Kenneworth, clothes he was certain she had chosen because she would have thought they were conservative enough for the locale, and he had been forced to clutch the door to keep himself from falling to his knees and begging her to put him out of his misery and marry him that very day.

“I’m confused.”

So, heaven help him, was he. He grasped for his remaining shreds of self-control and dignity and cleared his throat. “About what?”

“Why you’re doing all this research into the Regency period.”

“I’m not,” he said. “You are.”

“But you’re publishing something on it, aren’t you?”

“Unfortunately,” he said honestly, “but it seems less painful now that you’re here to do all my work for me.”

She eyed him suspiciously. “And if I get it wrong?”

“You won’t.”

“You’re very trusting.”

“I’m going to force you to come sit in the front row when I deliver the paper. You’ll have full credit, of course. I’m hoping the fear of being torn into by ancient female scholars bearing reticules will keep you on the straight and narrow.”

She watched him for so long, he began to grow slightly uncomfortable. He finally put a bookmark in the text he was reading and gingerly closed it.

“Yes?”

She started to speak several times before she apparently cast caution to the wind. “I’m not sure I can do this.”

“Do what?” he asked, feigning ignorance even though he knew exactly what she was talking about. Sitting in the same room with her was terrible. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to pull her up out of her chair and kiss her senseless or bolt for the door. “Spend countless hours poring over musty old manuscripts?”

She looked at him evenly. “It’s not the books that are bothering me.”

He set his book aside, then leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. He clasped his hands and looked at her seriously. “Then what is it, Miss Alexander?”

She let out an uneven breath. “We’ve gotten off on the wrong foot,” she said slowly.

“Today?”

“No, in general.”

He looked at her, that beautiful, ethereal creature who had added a magical warmth to his office he’d never expected, and wondered how in the hell he was going to do anything but frighten her off. He took a deep breath. “Perhaps we should start afresh.”

“And how do you propose we do that?”

“With introductions?”

She smiled and he thought he might have to sit down. He wasn’t terribly surprised to find he was already sitting down. Peaches Alexander had that effect on him.

He stood up, then helped her out of her chair not because his mother expected that sort of thing but because Peaches deserved it. He held out his hand.

“Stephen Phillip Christopher de Piaget,” he said inclining his head, “at your service.”

“That’s a mouthful,” she said, putting her hand into his.