Bewitched by His Kiss (May Day Mischief) (3 page)

BOOK: Bewitched by His Kiss (May Day Mischief)
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Thanks to Lord Elderwood’s intolerable ability to fluster Lucasta, she didn’t have a story ready. On the other hand, she could think quickly and clearly and improvise well. She’d cultivated these qualities and had even managed something with that impossible Elderwood distracting her. It had made no sense, of course—she’d mixed traditions in her haste to say something, anything.

“A stray bull,” Lucasta said now, “and it’s all your fault. I saw you were gone and went out to check on you, but the horrid creature took a fancy to me. I’m lucky I arrived home intact.”
So
there
,
you
vile
animal
. That was how she thought of Elderwood—as a rampaging beast.

Damn the man. Lucasta had spent years attaining perfect self-control, and in only a few minutes he’d completely overset her. He must believe her a brainless fool to come up with such a nonsensical excuse for this morning and expect him to believe it.

Never again. She wouldn’t give him the opportunity to show his disdain, because she wouldn’t discuss folklore with him. If she was forced to talk to him during his visit, she would discuss the weather. Thank God Alexis would be here. He was her oldest and dearest friend.

And, she thought fiercely, she wouldn’t harm a hair on his head, even if she did marry him. Not that she intended to—their engagement was one of mutual convenience, to be sundered next year when Lucasta turned twenty-five and gained control of her fortune. Poor Alexis would once again be subject to his mother’s matchmaking attempts, but he’d enjoyed a few years without them—years during which Lucasta had been at liberty to work on her research. Oh, and free of the threat of being forced by her uncle to marry Lord Elderwood—not that she’d mentioned that little fact to Alexis. He was an excellent friend, but some things he wouldn’t understand.

Lucasta shed her gown, wet a cloth and wrung it out, and set to washing her cousin before one of the maids caught them and tattled. “We can say the mud and grass were stuck on me. I shall explain that I went out to check precisely where the sun first falls on the Enchanted Meadow on May Day. I’ll say it’s significant in an ancient Beltane rite.” That was a far better excuse, but she couldn’t have used it with Elderwood because that would have meant going into the meadow instead of away from it.

“I gather rolling in the dew produced no result,” she said after a while, trying to be kind about it, wishing poor Peony didn’t have to learn the hard way that magic didn’t exist.

“It was freezing cold and sopping wet, and I felt horridly exposed,” Peony said. She’d rolled in the dew out of desperation because both Mr. Whistleby and Aunt Edna wanted her to set her cap at Lord Elderwood. She was far too shy and not at all the sort of woman to attract such a rake.

Nor was Lucasta, or so one would think. She was considered pretty and possessed a good figure, but rakes didn’t usually pursue bluestockings. She snorted at the thought that he might show interest in her mind.

Even if he weren’t a rake, he wouldn’t, especially not after her blunders this morning. With an opponent like Elderwood, one had no choice but to be brilliant.

What, she asked herself, would he do with her gun?

* * *

She was sure to come seeking her gun, David thought that afternoon as he and Sir Alexis Court approached Whistleby Priory. Before she’d accused him of rape, he’d considered holding it to ransom, but now the thought made him sick.

Rape
. His guts roiled. But why, if that’s how she felt, did she burn with passion when they kissed? Did she truly love Alexis and burn for him the same way? How could she?
She
belongs
to
me
.

David cast a glance at his friend, who gazed out the window of the carriage as if eager for a glimpse of the Priory and his betrothed. Could he really be in love with Lucasta? They’d known one another since childhood, but he’d assumed they were more like brother and sister until one ghastly day almost three years ago, a month after that fateful tryst with Lucasta, when Alexis had announced their engagement.

“You can’t be serious,” David had said. Blurted, rather, it had been such a shock. He’d been pondering ways and means of wooing Lucasta, since she’d so adamantly refused to marry him. “You’ve always said you won’t marry for years, if ever.”

“Changed my mind,” Alexis said. “I like Lucasta and she likes me. We’ll have a comfortable time together.” He grinned. “Which is a lot more than I can say for my life lately, what with my mother shoving eligible females at me left and right.”

“Marriage seems an excessive solution,” David said. “Why not just stay away from Almack’s and all the ton parties?”

“Your mother is dead,” Alexis said bluntly. “You don’t understand how persistent and devious a matchmaking mama can be. Lucasta is well-bred, intelligent and extremely beddable. Why wouldn’t I marry her?”

Because
she’s
mine
. Somehow, David had concealed his fury at the thought of Alexis bedding his Lucasta. He’d sworn, then and there, to abduct her from the church door if that was what it came down to.

Years later, the two of them were still engaged—waiting until Lucasta finished writing her tome, which made no sense at all. If they truly yearned for one another, they wouldn’t wait like this.

Enough was enough. David intended to end the engagement by whatever means necessary. She could write the damned tome while married—to him.

* * *

When Elderwood and Alexis arrived by coach that afternoon, Lucasta had her self-control firmly in place. She curtsied to the earl with perfect composure, but her gaze flew to the newly formed scab on his cheek. For the third time, her heart revolted at what she’d done to him. No, she mustn’t let it bother her; she was entitled to defend herself. She concentrated on his perfidy and gave him her most sarcastic half smile.

And immediately regretted it. Because something in his face flickered, and it wasn’t anger, but hurt. He was right—she did want him, physically at least. Even here, in the midst of introductions and platitudes, with servants bustling about, desire hovered low in her belly. Just because she refused to give in to such dangerous urges, didn’t mean she should accuse him of rape.

But why couldn’t he accept that she was engaged to Alexis and leave her be?

Dear Alexis. He was the opposite of Elderwood: good, solid, and kind—so much so that as soon as she got a chance to speak to him privately, she asked him to explain Peony’s predicament to Lord Elderwood. If the earl could somehow discourage Aunt Edna and Mr. Whistleby without making it appear that Peony wasn’t doing her best to be attractive, the poor girl might not be scolded quite so much. It was all Lucasta could do. She certainly couldn’t venture a private talk with Elderwood. He might or might not cooperate, but that was out of her hands. She went down to the drawing room for dinner, determined to treat him with cool, unwavering politeness.

He descended upon her the instant she entered the room. “Miss Barnes,” he said, “I hear to my delight that you are an expert on abbey lubbers and buttery spirits.”

These were the beings who supposedly stole food from the gluttonous and dishonest. She had certainly done a great deal of research on them. “Who told you that?”

“Why, Sir Alexis, of course,” he said blandly. “I am eager to hear about the Whistleby lubber. I had no idea you had investigated the subject thoroughly until Alexis told me.”

Alexis didn’t know the first thing about her research, but he nodded and smiled. What was going on?

Oh. He had already spoken to the earl about Peony, and this was the result. To save Peony from a scolding, Lucasta was to be plagued by Elderwood. She was to be mocked for her scholarly interests—doubly so, because she was not only a woman, but because she didn’t believe in magic.

Nobody truly approved of her scholarly bent. Alexis and Peony had no opinion one way or the other. Mr. Whistleby put up with it because she discouraged Peony’s belief in magic. Aunt Edna thought it a waste of time. The neighboring gentry never tired of asking when she would marry and get on with living a useful, feminine life.

She’d never cared what any of them thought. She refused to care what Elderwood thought, either.

“Our mutual interest in folklore gives us a great deal in common,” Elderwood said in a tone that everyone else would see as encouraging.

I
have
nothing
in
common
with
you
.

Except
desire
. She thrust that thought away. “There isn’t much to the legend,” she said. “According to the old stories, the abbey lubber left Whistleby after much of the original priory was demolished during the reign of Henry VIII. Once there were no gluttonous priests to steal from, he had no reason to remain.”

“Probably went to join the king’s buttery spirits,” Alexis joked. “There must have been dozens at the palace.” He winked at her, clearly assuming he’d done exactly as she wished, and somehow she managed to smile back. He turned to ask Mr. Whistleby about crop rotation, and she was stuck with Elderwood.

Who asked her about every abbey lubber and buttery spirit in Warwickshire and the surrounding counties from medieval times onward. How dared he, as if he were the instructor and she the pupil? As if he hoped to catch her in some error. He would certainly find one, since she didn’t share his absurd beliefs.

Grimly, she answered his queries in minute detail, citing everything she could bring to mind—names, dates, locations, sources. All facts. No magic. It wasn’t easy, because she had to concentrate hard to ignore the intense masculinity of his presence and the constant simmer of desire in her belly. She hoped it bored him to tears.

Finally, Peony arrived with Aunt Edna, who interrupted just before Lucasta’s stream of information dried up. “I hope you found your way without too much difficulty, my lord.”

“No difficulty at all,” he said with his vague, distracted air. It was all a pose. Lucasta hardly knew the man—a disastrous coupling and a few arguments during the London Season were the closest they’d had to a conversation until now—but even so, she saw through his polished attire and manners to the dangerous lunatic beneath.

So did Peony, interestingly enough. She, too, didn’t understand what appealed to so many foolish females. Yes, he was darkly good-looking, with plenty of charm if he chose to wield it, but... How had Peony put it, when she’d explained why she would never consider marrying him? That his uncanny effect on women gave her the shivers.

He didn’t scare Lucasta, or at least not usually. Very little frightened her, and certainly not this man. She’d been uneasy for a few minutes this morning, but only after she’d so gravely insulted him.

No, rather than frightening Lucasta, he made her want to—to crawl all over him, to bury her nose against his skin and inhale him, to lick his naked flesh and—

Without meaning to, she glanced at Lord Elderwood. His eyes caught hers. His lip curled. He knew!

He didn’t frighten her, he infuriated her. She squashed the unacceptable lust as if it were an ant.

Aunt Edna simpered. “Sometimes, guests become quite lost in this rabbit warren of a house.”

Elderwood turned his smile on the older woman, so obviously in perfect control that Lucasta wanted to scream. “Yes, they would do. It’s because of the magic. It is by nature convoluted, so it prefers this rambling sort of environment.”

Magic again? Thank God for the reminder that he was a lunatic. She couldn’t possibly desire someone so unhinged. She couldn’t take such a fool seriously.

Not Peony, who giggled her delight at this frank assumption that magic was real. Aunt Edna fluttered her fan and said, “My lord, you mustn’t encourage our Peony in such nonsense, even in jest.”

Elderwood smiled at Peony, his expression almost kind for once. “You believe in magic, Miss Whistleby?”

“Of course not!” Aunt Edna burst out, batting her eyelashes at him sickeningly, like some green girl.

“We live in the modern world,” Mr. Whistleby said. “The Priory has a history of unusual occurrences, but my daughter knows it is naught but superstition.” He tried to change the subject, hurrying them toward the dining room with talk of the carp from the ponds on the estate.

When it came to magic, Lord Elderwood wasn’t so readily put off. “Surely you can’t dismiss your heritage so easily,” he chided. “Well, Miss Whistleby?”

“I don’t know what I believe,” Peony said unhappily. Thank heavens the morning’s disappointment with rolling in the dew had gone a little way toward convincing her that magic didn’t exist.

“I hear Whistleby Priory has a haunted room,” Lord Elderwood said. “I daresay the ghosts wail from time to time, and everyone tries to assure everyone else it’s the wind.”

Trust him to encourage Peony’s stupid beliefs! Alexis looked pained—rightly so.

“Because it
is
the wind,” Aunt Edna said predictably.

“Yes, often it must be,” Elderwood went on, “which makes matters even more confusing. Even after growing up in several haunted houses, I’m not always certain which is which.”

Elderwood was admitting to uncertainty? Lucasta stifled a snort.

“Nor am I,” Peony said, “but I keep the Haunted Bedchamber clean and tidy because no one else will go there.” A note of defiance entered her voice. “And I made a point of thanking the ghosts when they scared a horrid governess away.”

“Quite right,” Elderwood said. “It is far wiser to err on the side of belief.”

This startled Lucasta so much that she gaped at him for a full second before clapping her mouth shut. Her mind stuttered, while Alexis protested, as did Mr. Whistleby in his weak way. For a second time the earl seemed, astonishingly, to be admitting that he might sometimes be in error.

Impossible.

“An open mind is always preferable to a closed one,” Elderwood said.

Much as she wished to disagree with everything he said, Lucasta couldn’t deny that. Closed minds refused to believe she could do the same scholarly work as a man.

BOOK: Bewitched by His Kiss (May Day Mischief)
9.63Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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