So Enchanting (19 page)

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Authors: Connie Brockway

Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Historical, #General

BOOK: So Enchanting
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“And I daresay she liked it. But that is hardly a declaration of undying devotion, is it?”
Unhappily, Fanny agreed. “No.” Perhaps she was overreacting. “I do not want her hurt, Sheffield.”
“No one does. Including Hayden. The boy would never do anything to hurt her. I guarantee it.”
His guarantee did make her feel better. There was no reason Amelie shouldn’t enjoy the company of an attentive young man. It would be good practice for when she did enter society. “If you say so,” she told Grey. “You know the lad well enough to make such an assurance, so I will accept it.”
“I do.”
She nodded. “And now, what was the second reason for your visit?”
He shifted uncomfortably on the balls of his feet, then took a deep breath. “To tell you that I may have misjudged you.”
She blinked. It was the last thing she expected to hear.

 

“I spent the evening assessing everything I know of you and Colonel Chase and his daughter and his will,” Grey went on. “Despite intense scrutiny, I cannot discern how any conspiracy you could concoct would benefit you more than you will be simply by staying the course here. Especially since you have already put in six years of hard labor. You see, I was not deaf to your gilded-cage allusion.” He regarded her with obvious satisfaction.
Fanny stared at him in bemusement. Why, the arrogant bastard actually believed himself to have delivered her a compliment by telling her he didn’t think she was scamming anyone.
He waited. “Well?”
She pulled herself out of her astonished state. “Would you like me to thank you?” she asked.
“No. That won’t be necessary.”
He was amazing. “Good.”
The ass.
She fixed him with an enigmatic smile. “But what if you’re wrong?”
He met her gaze. His expression subtly, almost imperceptibly softened. “It’s a possibility I’m prepared to risk,” he said.
The wind abruptly ran out of Fanny’s sails.
The bastard.
He’d confounded her again. Just when she’d been about to verbally rip him to shreds. Because he’d meant it.

 

This hard, clinical logician was willing to take the chance that she might not be a cheat and a fraud and a schemer, and it melted her heart. He must be crazy about her. She must be going daft. On the face of it, it didn’t seem all that momentous. Or flattering. But it was. Because Grey Sheffield didn’t know how to trust anything other than his reason, any more than she knew how to trust anyone but herself.
Time and experience had set them deep into their molds, and fighting free was a difficult and risk-laden proposition.

 

A terrified squeal rent the silence.
It was Violet. Chances were she was just squealing. She did that when she came upon a spider unawares. Still, Fanny could not ignore the fear in her voice.

 

“Excuse me,” she said to Sheffield, and hurried from the room. At the end of the cluttered hallway, Violet hung from Mr. Oglethorpe’s grip, her face ashen. Fanny stopped, collecting herself.
Even at a distance, Oglethorpe’s eyes looked blood-shot and wild. He glared at her.

 

From the door at the end of the hall, Miss Oglethorpe emerged, drying her hands. Her small eyes darted from Violet to Oglethorpe to Fanny. Fanny welcomed her with relief. She had no standing with Oglethorpe, but his sister would.
“Miss Oglethorpe, please tell your brother to let go of Violet.”
Miss Oglethorpe’s pinched face twisted in disapproval, but she remained silent.
Oglethorpe gave Violet a shake. The girl went as limp as a rag doll, scaring Fanny.

 

“I’ll teach you, witchling!” he ground out.
“Please, Miss Oglethorpe,” Fanny pleaded.

 

The woman regarded her with mute obstinacy. “He’s a man of God. Not fer me to tell him what to do,” she clipped out. And with that, she wheeled around as though afraid she could be pressed into service against her will.
“Vicar. Whatever Violet has done I am sure she is sorry for it.”
“Done? I’ll tell you what this devil brat has done!” Oglethorpe sputtered. “She cursed me!”
“Oh, Violet.” Fanny had no doubt he spoke the truth. Violet was always casting spells. What Fanny couldn’t believe was that the girl was so stupid that she’d cursed the vicar right to his face.
“What the bloody hell is going on out here? Who are you, and what the blazes do you think you’re doing?” Grey spoke from behind her. “Let that girl go.”
Instant relief and gratitude washed through her. Oglethorpe took one look at the giant behind her and released Violet.

 

The girl threw herself against the wall and edged away from Oglethorpe, tears streaking down her dirty little face.
“Say you’re sorry, Violet,” Fanny said. Even though he’d released her, Oglethorpe still looked capable of violence.
“I ain’t going to!” Violet shook her head. “He come in the kitchen and says ’ow I’m goin’ to hell, along with Gram and all me brothers and sisters and uncles and aunts, and then he goes on to say ’ow everyone in this house is cursed, and so I says he might as well join the party, and I puts the curse on him. And I ain’t takin’ it back!”
Fanny stared, uncertain how to proceed. Violet sniffed, Oglethorpe frothed, and suddenly Grey burst into laughter.
“Good God, Fanny, I see why you keep the chit around! Well done, Violet!”
Oglethorpe’s countenance turned an alarming shade of purple.

 

“Best go, Oglethorpe, before you grow horns or cloven feet or . . . What sort of curse did you say you put on the vicar, Violet?” Grey went on to inquire.
“Bowel troubles,” she intoned darkly.
“Good God,” Grey said, feigning shock, “then you really had better be off, old chap.”
Fanny couldn’t help it. She started laughing and, once started, she could not stop. The vicar, reduced to being the butt of a ribald joke, trembled in impotent rage.
“And, Vicar,” Grey said, still smiling, even though all warmth had left both his eyes and his tone, “do not come back. You are not welcome here.”

 

“I think it got stuck up in those shrubs,” Amelie called to Hayden.

 

Her handkerchief had pulled free of her sleeve when she’d responded to Hayden’s gentle—if frustratingly respectful—embrace. A flirtatious wind had blown it into the slow-moving river, and Hayden had leaped to rescue it and disappeared in the undergrowth beside the bank.
Now she waited patiently for her lover to return. This was her favorite place in the world, a verdant patch of velvety grass spread beneath the emerald bower of ancient oaks. The ground was soft, the light ephemeral, a moss-covered boulder angled just so for leaning against. She always came here when she wanted to think. Or dream.

 

She’d been engaged in the latter when Hayden had hailed her from the road. She’d looked up to see him at a short distance, silhouetted against the dawn sky, his hair gleaming like liquid gold. He might have walked straight out of her daydreams.
Upon arriving, he’d explained that he’d been searching for her, hoping that she, like him, had been unable to sleep after the wonder of the night before. When she asked how he’d known to find her here rather than at the house, he smiled—he had a dimple!—and explained that he’d been attending carefully when Bernard had mentioned her favorite place at the river’s bend. Eyes twinkling delightfully, he’d told her he’d counted five bends in the river before finding her. He was so romantic!
“Miss Amelie! I say, Miss Amelie!”
At the sound of Bernard McGowan’s voice, she spun around. Bernard pulled his pony cart to a halt by the side of the road and jumped out, striding down the embankment toward her, his handsome faced wreathed in smiles. He was a fine-looking man, Amelie thought, but nothing about him stirred her heart. She’d given it to another.

 

“Hello, Mr. McGowan. You’re up early today?” It was a question.
“Yes,” he said. “I had a post yesterday that I was eager to share with you. And Mrs. Walcott.”
“Yes?” She inclined her head, wishing Bernard would share his news and go away. She was suddenly very conscious of the fact that she was alone in the wilderness with Hayden. While she did not mind for herself—after all, she already had the stigma of being a witch to contend with, so being considered a bit of a romp didn’t seem too terrible by comparison—she understood that Hayden might feel awkward. Or, even worse, embarrassed.
“Yes. A representative from the Glasgow Art Workers Guild is arriving in Little Firkin next week. Mr. Edgar Rennie. I recall he quite fascinated you on his visit here last fall.”
“Mr. Rennie is coming back?” Amelie asked. “But he swore never to set foot in Little Firkin again after the townsfolk refused to sell him their mud.”
Bernard chuckled. “Clay, Miss Chase,” he said indulgently.

 

Hayden never looked at her indulgently. He mostly looked awed. Amelie decided she much preferred awed.
“They didn’t refuse to sell him the clay, just their land. He did not want to transport the clay; it’s too expensive. He wanted to build a factory here,” Bernard continued. “His letter says his conscience will not allow him to live with the knowledge that the best clay in Scotland is daily being swept down a river.”
“He was rather frighteningly fervent, don’t you think?” Amelie asked.
“Most visionaries are,” Bernard said. “At any rate, I thought you might enjoy his company again at a little dinner I am hosting. And Mrs. Walcott, of course.”
“Got it!” Hayden’s voice arrived a moment before his hand emerged from the shrubbery, waving about her kerchief. A second later he broke free of the thicket, twigs and leaves in his hair, his collar askew, and a tear in his tweed jacket. He looked extremely virile, even with the handkerchief. “Little blighter was hiding behind some lily—Oh. I say. Hello, McGowan.”
Hayden came up to Amelie’s side and, with a theatrical little flourish, twirled the kerchief and bowed, presenting it to her. “Milady.”
She giggled, taking it from his outstretched hand. “Thank you, sir.”
Only then did Hayden return his attention to Bernard.

 

“Out for a morning jaunt, are you, McGowan?” he said pleasantly, not in the least ill at ease.
Bernard glanced back and forth between Hayden and her, clearly uncomfortable. “Not exactly. I was coming to extend an invitation to Miss Chase and Mrs. Walcott and thought I saw Miss Chase here. I didn’t realize you were with her.”
“Didn’t you?” Hayden asked casually.
“No.”
“Ah.”
The two men sized each other up.

 

“Well, Mr. McGowan,” Amelie said to break the silence. “Thank you for the invitation. I am sure Fanny and I would be pleased to accept.” She glanced at Hayden. “Perhaps Lord Sheffield and Lord Hayden . . .” She let the suggestion hang.
“Of course!” Bernard said, color rising in his face. She shouldn’t have done it, but she would have breached any line of etiquette to spend another entire evening with Hayden. “I assumed our current visitors would be gone by next week. Apparently I am wrong?”
Hayden shrugged, tucking his hands into his vest pockets and striking a noble pose. “Can’t say.”
“Then your investigations into the anonymous letter have not met with success?”
“No,” Hayden said. “We have no idea.”
“Please, Mr. McGowan,” Amelie said. “We have made a pact, Lord Hayden and I, not to spoil our conviviality with speculations about nonsensical and unpleasant things,” Amelie cut in swiftly. She did not want to talk about that letter. It could only ruin her pleasure.
Bernard blinked at her. “But that is the purpose of his trip—”
“No buts,” she said firmly. “We are determined to be jolly. Are we not, Lord Hayden?”
Hayden turned his warm gaze on her. “How can I be anything else when I am with you?”
Chapter Nineteen
Grey stood on the banks of the creek meandering through his brother-in-law’s property, his hands on his hips and his shirtsleeves rolled up over his forearms. He’d forgotten how bracing the Highland air was. A crisp afternoon breeze riffled his hair as he lifted his chin and drank in the springtime elixir. By his feet lay a tackle kit, the contents a jumble of jigs and lures, flies and feathers. It was a perfect day to go angling for a pretty little trout.

 

The sun spangled on the creek, and the rush of springwater escaping the mountains played backdrop to the sound of birdcalls. Beyond, the orchid-tinted Highlands rose against a clear blue sky, bracing and valiant.
Like Fanny Walcott. He liked it. The way he liked Fanny Walcott. He liked her prickliness, her independence, her courage, and her coolness under fire.

 

He’d witnessed it yesterday, when she’d stood in the hall before that idiot vicar. He’d watched her gathering her courage to confront Oglethorpe, and he’d been visited by a sudden insight: She was this little makeshift family’s knight in shining armor, because there was no one else to be. And just like six years ago, the compulsion to go to her rescue, like his own daft version of a knight errant, had swept over him. He’d indulged the compulsion, a simple enough task, given that the vicar was just a common bully.
When he’d heard her laughing at Violet’s curse . . . Well, it had been the sweetest sound in his recollection.
“Is that you
humming
?”
Grey jumped at Hayden’s sudden appearance.
“What’s that?”
“I asked if you were humming.”
“What of it?”
The lad lifted one brow at his tone. “Nothing. I’ve just never heard you hum before, is all.”
“Balderdash. I’m an inveterate hummer. Hum all the time,” Grey said without the least bit of guile, despite the fact that this was an out-and-out lie. He wasn’t in the mood to be interrogated by someone with only one foot in the realm of manhood.
“It’s the scenery,” Grey said, waving his hand toward the mountain. “It’s inspiring.”
He turned his attention to the tackle box. His fingers moved idly over the surface of the lures: hare’s ear, ginger quill, red spinner, stone fly, and greenwell. Behind him, he heard Hayden take a deep breath.
“Grey,” he said, “I am in love with Miss Chase.”
“Hmm?” Which lure to use? It was early in the season, so something bold would be called for—
“I said I am in love with Miss Chase.”
—a challenge as well as a lure, something to awaken her fighting instincts as well as her appetite. He hummed another snatch of a music-hall ditty.
“Aren’t you going to say something?”
The question really wasn’t what lure to use, he realized; it was how to present it. As in much of life, enticement was all a matter of presentation—
“Well?”
“Yes, yes, I heard you,” Grey said, snapping down the lid of his tackle box. The boy was not going to leave him alone until he’d spilled his heart out. Youth. They could not resist sharing every page of their internal diaries. “You’re in love with Miss Chase. I heard you the first time. That’s splendid.”
“You mean, you approve?” Hayden asked, wide-eyed. Quickly, he regrouped. “Not that I need your approval.”
“Of course you don’t,” Grey agreed, fervently wishing the boy would go moon about under Amelie Chase’s window. He had important matters to consider, a slippery little fish to entice.
“You don’t seem very surprised.”
“Not in the least. Of course you’re in love with the girl. What red-blooded young man wouldn’t be? A pretty princess ensconced in a tower—I realize their house is hardly a tower, but you see what I’m getting at—by a dastardly father—though, in all fairness to Colonel Chase, I wouldn’t call him so much dastardly as a world-class crackpot,” he finished. “Indeed, I should have been surprised if you hadn’t fallen in love with her.”

 

Amelie marched down the hall toward a familiar whooshing sound coming from the breakfast room. It was eight o’clock in the morning, and she’d been up two hours preparing what she would say. Because she knew that at the first opportunity, Bernard would tell Fanny about seeing her and Hayden at the river’s edge. He would doubtless consider it his “duty.” She needed to prepare her response to Fanny’s hearing of this news.

 

And Fanny, being Fanny, and therefore overly cautious of intense emotion and mistrustful of spontaneous attachments, would object and caution and fret and stew and perhaps even turn Hayden away. Which wouldn’t do a thing to dampen Amelie’s love or keep her from seeing him, but would cast a pall over her romance. It was time Fanny abdicated her role as teacher and caretaker, and assumed one of friend. In Amelie’s mind, they were peers, no longer pupil and instructor.
Bolstered by these thoughts, Amelie opened the door to the breakfast room to the sight of Fanny taking practice swings with her golf club, her head bent over an imaginary ball. She was humming.
“Fanny,” she said firmly and without prelude, “we need to talk.”
Fanny didn’t look up. “Must we?” she murmured.
“Yes. About the night before last.”
Fanny blushed.

 

What did Fanny have to blush about? Unless . . . Could Fanny have witnessed the precise five seconds (after hours of reliving the event, Amelie had determined that it had lasted exactly five seconds, no more, no less) when Hayden had held his lips to hers? Heavens, how embarrassing! Heat welled up into her cheeks.
“I’m sorry if you are shocked, Fanny,” she said, “but I feel no remorse, nor can anything you say induce me to regret one second of those lovely five seconds, and they
were
lovely, Fanny. Truly.”
“Five seconds?” Fanny raised her head from scrutinizing her imaginary golf ball. “What five seconds?”
Ah! Fanny hadn’t seen The Kiss. “Never mind. I have something important to tell you.”
“By all means, proceed,” Fanny said, returning to her phantom golf shot.
“Fanny, I am in love with Lord Hayden Collier.”
Fanny swung through, barely brushing the thick pile of the oriental carpet beneath her, her head lifting to follow her shot and her gaze fixed on an imaginary ball flying over an imaginary lawn. “I see.”
She reset her golf club’s head on the carpet, adjusted her stance, and was about to take another swing when Amelie said, “ ‘I see’? That’s all you have to say about—- Would you
please
stop swinging that golf club? This is important.”
Fanny straightened and leaned nonchalantly on her club like a dandy on his walking stick.
“You must have some opinion,” Amelie said plaintively. She’d expected Fanny to raise objections, to caution against hasty attachments, at the very least to question the legitimacy of a love formed in the course of one short evening. Had their roles been reversed,
she
certainly would have.
“Well, Amelie,” Fanny said mildly, “you’re a healthy young woman. He’s a very comely young man, and he has that knight-in-silver-armor effect working for him, doesn’t he? Quite dashing, and a bit of a young blade if I read him correctly. If I were of a romantic disposition, I might have fallen in love with him myself.”

 

“You misunderstand me, Grey. I am not only
in
love with Miss Chase. I
love
her. Truly,” Hayden said somberly.
“But,” Grey said slowly, his attention finally engaged, his left eyebrow arched, “you haven’t said as much to her?”
“Of course I have.”

 

“You think I’m just a child, Fanny, but you are wrong,” Amelie said forcefully. “I love Hayden and he loves me. And should he ask me to elope, I would do so in an instant, even knowing that I risked my inheritance.”

 

“What?”

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