Gentlemen Prefer Mischief (9 page)

She was still sitting on her bed when Ian poked his head in her doorway some minutes later. He had the jar of ointment in his hand.

“The oddest thing. I just saw Hal walking off toward the stable, but he forgot this.”

“Oh.” She forced a smile. Her head felt achy, as if it had been poisoned by too much emotion. The discomfort was no more than she deserved.

“I didn’t get the chance to give it to him. He wasn’t outside.”

Ian looked puzzled. “Can’t think what he was doing then.”

Oh, she could.

He grinned. “Rob’s fairly put out that you asked Hal to investigate the Woods Fiend.”

“Well, Hal did agree to investigate, as should have been done at the outset. So, really, it’s just as well I brought it to his attention.”

She’d never spoken more ridiculous words, considering the trouble she’d stirred up by speaking to Hal. Nate, for one thing, might have been left to dig in peace and perhaps would have found what he was looking for by now. And she wouldn’t be struggling vainly against an overwhelming attraction to Hal.

“Do you think I should send the ointment over to Mayfield?” Ian said.

“I suppose that would be a good idea.”

Nate would be eager to get back to digging, and he would still be very much in danger. Maybe more so, now that Hal believed—rightly—that she was in league with the Woods Fiend. If she’d needed proof that Hal didn’t want to lose, she’d only to examine how tenacious he’d been about her journal. Nate meant to dig very early tomorrow morning, as they’d planned, and she must be there to watch.

She felt rather less confident about how easy it would be to fool Hal. And not confident at all that she knew what she was doing.

At dinner that night, Rob said as he cut into his meat, “You seem very preoccupied tonight, Lily, and I didn’t see you all afternoon. A headache?”

What had happened to her reasonable, ordered life?

“A small one,” she replied. “I went for a walk.” She pushed her fork into the beef on her plate halfheartedly, not hungry despite the long walk she’d taken in an attempt to clear her head after the incident with Hal. It didn’t seem to have had any effect. “It was a nice afternoon.”

“I thought it rather buggy,” he said. “Did you perhaps meet our local viscount while you were out?”

Her stomach took a wary dip at his words. Did Rob suspect something? “Roxham? Why should I have met him?”

Her brother arched an eyebrow. “Why should he have come to visit you and talk sheep? Perhaps because he is smitten with you?”

“Oh!” said Delia gaily, putting her fork down on her plate with a clatter. “I knew it! I saw him looking at you intently while we were having tea, Lil.”

Lily let her eyes drift toward the ceiling in supposed exasperation, but it was equally an effort to appear indifferent. “Such an eagerness to pair me off all of a sudden.”

“Of course there’s no rush for marriage,” Rob said carefully. “But over the last few years you ladies have had little chance for the parties and balls you ought to have enjoyed.”

“I don’t feel that I’ve missed anything,” Lily said.

“I do!” Delia cried.

“In your case it’s understandable, as you never had a Season,” Lily said. “I did and am content.”

Rob frowned slightly. “I really do think, now that our financial difficulties are behind us, that you both ought to have more opportunities to meet gentlemen.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Delia said. “As long as they are handsome and eligible.”

Ian cocked his head. “But are you sure, brother, that Lord Perfect is the sort of man Lily should be considering? He’s always been a bit scandalous, and now he’s vowed not to marry until the age of fifty-one, while at the same time enjoying quite a famous popularity among the ladies of the
ton
.”

She debated insisting they stop discussing her as if she weren’t there, but she could see that Ian was enjoying himself, and she didn’t want to display any reaction where Hal was concerned, so she kept quiet.

Rob’s square forehead tightened. “I’d forgotten about that not marrying until fifty-one business.” Which was entirely believable since Rob had little time for any occupation that didn’t involve the running of the estate. Ian, who was far more interested in things like poems and paintings, was the one who took the time to read the paper regularly.

“Surely it’s just nonsense?” Rob said.

“I don’t know,” said Ian. “Now that John has produced heirs for Mayfield, I don’t think Hal feels a pressing need for marriage.”

“In that case, Lily,” Rob said to her, “perhaps you’d better not spend too much time in Hal’s company. You wouldn’t want to develop a tendre for him.”

“Oh for goodness’ sake, I’m not going to develop anything for Roxham. He’s just the sort of frivolous person to whom I should never wish to attach myself,” she said, forcing herself to ignore the conflicted part of her which protested that he made her feel more alive. “And now if we could please have an end to speculating on romantic attachments for me?”

Ian chuckled, and Delia said that she should extremely like to develop a tendre for a handsome man, and Rob said God help them all if she did since she was not in the least sensible, which made everyone laugh.

A storm blew in around midnight, and as the lightning and thunder and winds continued, Lily knew that Nate wouldn’t be able to dig in the woods that night, and though she needed the Woods Fiend problem cleared up as soon as possible, she went gratefully to sleep.

She awoke the next morning knowing she’d dreamed of Hal again, which ensured that she started the day vexed.

***

Hal and Colin had gone out to watch for the Woods Fiend, but it had started pouring rain, and they had to abandon their watch. The next morning it was still raining, keeping everyone inside and making Hal restless.

After breakfast, he tried again to broach the subject of deafness to Prescott, but the estate manager grew shrill and took to his room. Prescott had been a valued servant for decades, and it had always been understood that the viscount would provide a cottage for him at retirement, but he seemed unable to accept that his retirement might be imminent.

Then came a to-do about a portion of the roof in the east wing that was leaking, which Prescott could not attend to because he was sulking in his room. Hal conferred with the housekeeper over the best way to deal with the water and, aware that she had more to do at the moment with Prescott sulking, arranged for the carpenter to see about fixing the problem. After which, Hyacinth wanted everyone to play blind man’s bluff.

“Do let’s play,” she said, swatting him with a posy she’d made for herself from one of the vases of flowers. “I’m bored.”

He forced himself to play the genial host, but with Colin keeping to his room because of a sore throat and John playing with his sons, that left Hal alone with the three women. Hyacinth was very happy to be the blind man.

“It’s obvious you can see,” Eloise accused Hyacinth after Hyacinth ended up blindfolded for a fourth time. “You keep pursuing Hal.”

Hyacinth pouted. Hal wondered why he’d never noticed before that Eloise didn’t particularly like her, even though Hyacinth only ever wanted a bit of fun. While he was doing his best to keep the peace, he realized that he was missing Lily—reasonable, plain-speaking Lily. She was, though, unlikely to want to see him for the next decade after that scene in her room.

He, on the other hand, had lain awake much of the night remembering how it had felt to have her in his arms. He told himself he had no right to want her as much as he did, and that he’d been deceiving himself into thinking that he could seduce her
just
a
little
bit
so that she’d tell him the identity of the Woods Fiend. He had no business tangling with a gently bred lady.

And though Hyacinth’s blindfolded patting left him in no doubt as to what she was offering, he could summon no interest. His own company was starting to infuriate him.

By early afternoon the rain had moved on, and he could stand not another moment in the house. With vague plans about checking on how his Italian folly workers were doing, he escaped and made for the village, where he discovered Giuseppe and Pietro in the The White Dove, drinking ale and playing darts.

He joined them, and by the time a number of pints had been consumed, they’d progressed from darts to a series of unusual wagers, with Hal proposing the one that found them standing at a carefully considered distance from Highcross’s small church, which was located just outside the village.

“It has to be done from here,” Hal said slowly. The Italians had picked up a decent amount of English, and he knew a little Italian, so they got on with a mixture. “That’s the wager.”

A burst of too-fast Italian from Giuseppe.

“Well?” Hal said.

Pietro said, “I do it. But if I win and we go back to work on the folly, you will set a guard during we work.”

“Agreed,” Hal said, wondering where he would get such a person now that Prescott was sulking. Mayfield, being generally uninhabited, didn’t have superfluous servants, but surely someone could be found. There must be someone among the locals who wasn’t too frightened of the Woods Fiend to stand around and protect a pair of overly anxious builders. He wanted that folly finished… and he liked the idea of how the completed ruin would outrage Lily.

“And I win,” Pietro continued, “I get five pounds.”

“Right,” Hal said.

Pietro grinned. The rock had already been found—it was about the size of an orange—and now Pietro set his sights on his goal: the bell high in the church tower.

“And it has to ring loudly enough for us to hear.”

“I am understanding,” Pietro said.

He cocked his arm and was just releasing the stone when a female voice rang out.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

But it was too late, as it had already been done. The stone, released at the moment that Pietro was startled, shot not toward the church bell, but sailed far below, through the round stained-glass window of St. Luke above the church door.

Horrified silence, then Pietro whispered, “Madre di Dio.”

The men turned to face the woman who’d spoken, though Hal already knew who it was.

“Lily.”

She was holding a market basket and wearing a simple soft gray gown that fit her neatly; it was the sort of thing a matron might wear. Tidy, presentable, in no way alluring. She dressed as though her femininity were something to hide, but her prim clothes only distracted him with thoughts of the secret curves underneath.

“What on earth are you doing throwing rocks at the church?”

“The rock was intended for the bell, but as you distracted Pietro, he missed. I will, of course, pay for a new window.” He could feel the Italians slipping away behind him.

“What a thing for grown men to be doing. And you a viscount and a leader in our community.”

“It was a reasonable enough idea until someone startled Pietro,” he said. “In any case, it was for a wager, an attempt to get them to come back to work on the folly.”

Her neat, pale eyebrows rose as though he’d said something depraved. She was almost too easy to shock. “So you’ve destroyed the church window in an attempt to get your folly built.”

“In a manner of speaking. But come, it was a hideous window anyway. St. Luke looked as though he’d just sucked a lemon.”

The corner of her mouth quivered for a moment, but she forced it back into seriousness.

“Shouldn’t you go find the vicar and confess what you’ve done?”

“He’s away—someone said so in The Dove. If you’re going home, wait a few minutes for me to leave a note and I’ll walk with you.”

She frowned slightly. “I don’t have time to wait.”

“But surely you have more time to yourself now that the shawl business is at a standstill.”

“I have other things to do as well,” she said. He could see she was trying to edge away from him, but he refused to acknowledge it.

“I’m sure you do. Probably a long, neatly written list.”

Mrs. Trelawny, the vicar’s housekeeper, appeared just then, coming around the corner of the church with a basket of folded linens. She started to smile at the visitors, but her eyes widened as she caught sight of the broken window.

“Dear heaven, what’s happened?” she said.

Hal cleared his throat. “I’m afraid there was a mishap with a rock, Mrs. Trelawny. Entirely my fault. Will you please convey my regrets to the vicar on his return, and tell him that I will replace the window? I would also like to discuss with him a bequest in my brother’s name.”

Mrs. Trelawny’s dismay melted away. “Why, my lord, I’m certain he’ll be pleased.” She blushed, and Hal smiled at her, confident of the effect it would have. “I mean,” she babbled, laughing a little, “not that the window is broken, but I’m sure everyone will understand. Accidents happen. You are very good, my lord.”

“He’s not,” Lily muttered under her breath.

They bid Mrs. Trelawny good day and began walking.

“I wasn’t planning to walk with you,” she said.

“It’s good to do impulsive things. You seemed to be feeling impulsive yesterday.”

“I don’t want to talk about that. And you ought to be ashamed, breaking church windows and throwing money around and charming matrons. It’s all so easy for you, isn’t it? You just smile, and people let you get away with anything.”

He shrugged. “She’s happy, and Vicar will be happy when I’ve given him a large donation.”

“So easy for you. Easy to avoid paying any real price.”

He kicked hard at a rock in his path. “You know, Lily, I’ve been wondering why it was that my brother wasn’t the one who interested you. He was such an admirable person and handsome, too. A knight in shining armor. Why didn’t you write about him in your journal?”

Lily shifted the basket full of apples on her arm and wished she hadn’t lingered talking with Anna Cooper, but they’d needed to fix another meeting time for the girls to come for a lesson.

Hal’s question unsettled her. She’d liked his brother very much and respected him, but for some reason she couldn’t explain, Hal, with his mischief and his flashing eyes, was the one who had fascinated her.

“Obviously I was too young to know any better.”

He laughed. “And now?”

“Now?”

“Meaning yesterday?”

“I told you it was just a mistake. I got carried away.”

“It was your first kiss, wasn’t it?”

She could feel the blush spreading over her face. “Why are you plaguing me about it?”

“Because I think you would be happier if you let yourself enjoy things now and again.”

“Things? If I kissed men in my bedroom frequently, I would be held up as a loose woman.”

“I didn’t necessarily mean kisses. I’m not suggesting you start kissing other men.”

They’d reached the pebble path that led to the gate to Thistlethwaite, and they stopped. She sighed. “That journal was a mistake in my path—it doesn’t mean anything. Nor did what happened yesterday. We shall simply have to go on as if it never happened.”

There, she thought as she walked up the path, she was glad they’d had that conversation, because now everything was clear and sorted. All done. She wouldn’t think about him anymore.

Except for making certain she and Nate outsmarted him while Nate was digging in the Mayfield woods, which he would be doing that very night.

***

Hal lay in bed unable to sleep. It was perhaps four o’clock in the morning and he ought to be damned tired after standing around the woods again that night with Colin, who was, he suspected, growing weary of their fruitless watch. Hal was growing weary of it, too, and was enormously annoyed that their trespasser had slipped through his hands that first time and had since been absent. Of course, the Woods Fiend’s absence might mean he’d already been scared off, but Hal couldn’t feel satisfied since the man hadn’t been caught.