Gentlemen Prefer Mischief (2 page)

“I’m sorry about your brother,” she said. “He was a fine man.”

“Yes, he was,” he said, an inadequate reply he’d made countless times in the last six months since acceding to a title that never should have been his. “And how is your family?”

“My sister is well. Rob and Ian are away at present.”

He was about to ask after her father when he remembered that Mr. Teagarden had died some years ago—of drink, it had been rumored, though he didn’t remember the man being a sot.

He presented her to Diana, Hyacinth, and Freddy.

“We’re lighting firecrackers,” Freddy informed her.

“Yes, I heard.”

“Wasn’t it splendid?”

“Splendid.”

“I should think you’d like a demonstration up close,” Hal said. Her primness was irresistible.

“N—” she started to say, but caught sight of Freddy’s eager face. Her stiff smile softened into quite a kind look and she said, “Certainly.”

“Oh Hal, he needn’t do more,” Diana said. “It
is
rather loud.”

“Nonsense, I’m certain there’s nothing Miss Teagarden would like better.”

Hal handed Freddy a firecracker; Freddy pressed it immediately to the slow match and flung the burning twist of gunpowder away. The satisfying crack was followed by an equally satisfying yelp from Miss Teagarden.

“Well done, Freddy,” she said a little tightly. “Most diverting.”

Turning to Hal, she said, “Might I have a word with you in private, my lord?”

A private word with him? “Certainly, Miss Teagarden,” he said, wondering why they were being so formal when it had been Hal and Lily when they were younger. He excused himself from the others and led her toward the shade provided by a copse of trees. Her dog followed them like a furry chaperone.

“It’s about the woods between our properties. The villagers think the Woods Fiend is back.”

“The Woods Fiend?” he said. “By Jove, I’d forgotten about him.” As children, he and his elder brother, Everard, had gone on raids of the woods looking for the Fiend. Everard had always led the way, with Hal his faithful lieutenant.

If only Everard were still here, he thought for the thousandth time.

“People are saying that he’s possessed our sheep, or haunted them, or some such.” She made an impatient gesture as she uttered these bizarre words. “Thistlethwaite is known for the shawls made from our wool, but the rumors are hurting the business. So I ask that you find out what’s going on in the woods at night so this silliness can be cleared up. Please.”

He absorbed this slightly breathless request. Since he’d become viscount, many things had been asked of him, but this was certainly the strangest. “The Woods Fiend is believed to be possessing your sheep?”

“I’m not surprised you know nothing of this,” she said with an air of accusation, as if to suggest that this trouble was his fault. “I’ve spoken to Mr. Prescott, but to no avail.”

Ah. Prescott had managed Mayfield for decades, and as Everard had relied on him, Hal had known he could, too. However, since arriving at Mayfield yesterday, he’d become increasingly convinced that the man was going deaf, despite trying to carry off a charade that he could hear. So that was something else to contend with.

Since becoming viscount, Hal’s respect for his brother had only grown as he’d seen the effort it took to meet all the needs of the role. Everard had been perfect for the task; all his life, Hal had known that his brilliant, unselfish, dedicated brother was the ideal person to be viscount. Hal hadn’t even minded knowing that he himself was lacking in comparison—Everard was such a good man that he’d always wished him the best.

And, damn fate for the cruel idiot that it was, Everard had been carried off by a fever six months ago. Leaving Hal—the unsuitable brother, the one who made mistakes, the one who had so much trouble being serious—in a role that never should have been his. If he could have given the viscountcy to his steady younger brother John, he would have. But hereditary titles didn’t work that way.

He cleared his throat. “Why do people think the Woods Fiend is in the neighborhood? And… tampering with your sheep?”

The flicker in her eyes dared him to laugh about the problem she’d brought to him. They were pretty eyes, of an intense if surprisingly soft blue.

It was funny, he thought, how you could forget a person entirely, and then years later meet that person again and there was that feeling you got from being around him or her. The feeling he’d always gotten around Lily was amusement tinged with irritation; she could be a killjoy.

But one thing had certainly changed in the intervening years. She used to be odd-looking. All the Teagardens had blond hair, but hers had been the palest, a white-blond that had made her seem fragile, a little unearthly, and not in a charming, pixie-ish way. Compared to the rest of her family, she’d been different, because her brothers were handsome and tall. She’d been too thin, which had doubtless been much of the problem with her looks, because the whole effect had been a sort of sickly almost-colorlessness.

That had all changed. Her blue dress was not fashionable—he would have described it as adequate—but it skimmed a very fine figure that started with a set of shoulders held decisively upright. Her face had acquired an interesting definition, and he felt rewarded for his attention by something unique. Those sharply intelligent cornflower blue eyes, which had not seemed remarkable to him when he was younger, now struck him as compelling. In truth, she was a beauty.

“Lights have been observed in the woods at night,” she said, “and people take that for a sign he’s there. Though why a spirit should need lights, no one stops to think.”

He would wager the foolishness of adults believing in spirits would annoy her—she had such a determined air, as if she had things to accomplish and the Woods Fiend was in her way. “Who knows, really,” he said, “how well specters can see in the dark?”

She did not dignify that with anything more than a glare. Even her dog was glaring at him. But what a farce, and undeniably the only truly amusing thing that had been brought to him since he’d left the brotherhood of the army.

A heavy clatter came from the folly site, drawing her attention, and she squinted into the distance at the half-completed building. “What are you building over there?”

“A folly.” The builders were a father and son, Italian mercenaries his men had captured in Portugal. The duo were soon deemed rather tenderhearted, and in the way that his troops often adopted stray dogs, the Italians had been adopted and trusted with small jobs. Not knowing how his replacement would look upon the two men, Hal had brought Giuseppe and Pietro with him when Everard’s death had made him viscount. “It’s to be a miniature ruined amphitheater.”

“Doesn’t Mayfield already have a folly by the lake?”

“Yes, but I can’t see it from the manor.”

She sniffed. “Another folly.”

Her lips pressed together in disapproval; she seemed to have rather a lot of exasperation with him already. It was almost as if he’d offended her beforehand, which was ridiculous, since he hadn’t seen her in…

A smile tugged his lips as he remembered. Her fair brows drew together.

“You know very well, my lord, that there’s no Woods Fiend. It’s obvious someone is up to something in your woods. I would appreciate it if you would please see to this problem as soon as possible.”

“I’m surprised Rob and Ian haven’t gone after the Fiend themselves.”

“The problem developed after they left.”

She was waiting for him to agree to help, and then she would turn on her heel and stride back to Thistlethwaite with her hound. But he wasn’t ready for her to leave yet, perhaps because her acerbic presence was so interesting—he never got acerbic treatment from females, of any age.

“You know, Lily Teagarden, now that I see you here, I’m reminded of the last time I saw you. Because it was here at Mayfield, on the terrace, wasn’t it? You can see the spot quite well from here. Look.” She refused to turn her head, but he’d had his reaction in the spill of pink now suffusing her fair cheeks. A keener alertness sharpened the cornflower eyes.

“It was a fine summer evening, as I recall,” he said. “There I was on the terrace, chatting with friends, not even aware of your presence. Understandable, in that you’d concealed yourself in the bushes.” The color in her cheeks deepened.

“I’m not as entertained as you by memories of that night,” she said tartly.

“Oh, come, it’s amusing now, isn’t it? You’re all grown up, and you can have a laugh about your younger self.”

“As you say, it was a long time ago. Now, if you’ll promise to see to the woods, I’ll be on my way.”

But a commotion by the rotunda drew their attention; it was his brother John returning from a stroll with their sister, Eloise, and Hal’s friend Colin, the Earl of Ivorwood. Everyone was looking at Hal and his visitor, no doubt wondering what they were discussing. Eloise, ever exuberant, came over, trailed by Freddy and the others.

“Why, Lily Teagarden!” she said. “How good to see you. It’s been years.”

Warmth softened Lily’s heretofore stiff features. Cool, small, collected—with her white-blond hair, she was like a petite, pristine snowdrift. “Miss Eloise Waverly, it’s—it’s really quite lovely to see you again.”

“Can we know the secret you were talking about?” Freddy asked.

“Secret?” Eloise said.

Hal could see Lily wanted to keep this Woods Fiend business quiet, but that would be closing the barn door after the horse was out since apparently the rest of the neighborhood was already atwitter with it. “Which secret did you mean?” he said innocently.

Eloise’s eyes lit with interest. “Is there more than one?”

“Perhaps,” Hal said. “What do you say, Miss Teagarden?”

Lily sucked her teeth as Roxham’s guests gazed at her with interest. She’d wanted to avoid making a spectacle out of her problem, but nothing, obviously, could have pleased him more. Beyond him, the magnificent presence of Mayfield Hall glowed pale yellow in the afternoon light, a stately, lavish counterpoint to the endless rolling green of his ancestral grounds.

“There’s no secret,” she said, forcing a smile. “Just a little problem with the woods.”

And a problem with that wretched old journal of hers, if he truly still had it.
Would
he mention it? He was enjoying having the advantage, but what else should she expect when he’d always so loved to tease?

Most
disappointingly, he had not become a disgusting wreck of man. No, he was even more handsome now. She’d forgotten the way the flecks of green sparkled in his blue eyes, and how his dark blond hair shone as if gilded. His coat, a vivid green, was distinctively tailored; it whispered of emeralds and glittering ballrooms and gleaming coaches, of luxury and indolence. And yet the easy, athletic grace of his posture bespoke a man of action, and his soldier’s straight, broad shoulders hinted at command.

But something in his eyes said mischief.

Did
he still have her journal?

“A problem with the woods?” John said.

“Apparently,” Roxham said, “Mayfield’s resident bad spirit—you remember the Woods Fiend—has made a return. People have seen lights among the trees at night, and it’s rumored that he’s up to no good.”

“A ghost!” Mrs. Whyte said in a breathy voice. Her large blue eyes widened in her pretty, round face so that, with her golden sausage curls, she looked like a doll. “I hope you will protect us, Roxham.”

“I assure you we shall all be quite safe,” he said in reply to Mrs. Whyte’s ridiculousness. Lily felt smug to see the sort of female companions he chose for himself.

“I forgot about the Woods Fiend,” Eloise said. “But it was just nonsense—it wasn’t a
spirit
that killed Great-Uncle Edmund fifty years ago.”

“Unfortunately,” Roxham said, though he didn’t sound dismayed, “not everyone has outgrown belief in the Fiend. Thistlethwaite’s proximity to our woods has caused many of our neighbors to believe the Teagardens’ sheep are… possessed by him.”

“That’s dumb,” Freddy said.

“Still,” John said, rubbing his son’s head affectionately, “it’s not an advantage to be neighbor to the haunted woods, is it?”

John always had been more considerate, Lily thought. But then, unlike his brother, he wasn’t a veritable feather of a man, morally speaking. He raised his eyebrows at Roxham.

Roxham’s lips ticked up, and there were those dimples she’d forgotten about, tucked into the hard planes of his cheeks; they used to make her insides flip over. She looked away.

“Miss Teagarden,” he said, “nothing will give me more pleasure than to solve this mystery. I envision a night camped out in the dark, doing battle with whoever is disturbing the peace of Highcross.”

“Ha,” John said, “you think it will be so easy, do you? The war hero, ready to take on a new enemy? I wager it will be more difficult than you think to catch a villain in a dark wood at night.”

“I’ll take that wager. Let us say that I’ll unmask the Fiend within, oh, two weeks, or you shall have my new hunter.”

“That is confident!” John said. “Very well. If you succeed, I shall order you ten cases of sherry from our cousin James’s Spanish sherry vineyard.”

“I must insist,” the Earl of Ivorwood said, “on joining this adventure.”

Roxham turned to Lily. “There, you see, Miss Teagarden. Two gentlemen pledged to solve the mystery. We shall make an attempt this very night.”

Mrs. Whyte laughed giddily and clapped her hands. “It sounds like a game! Can we all bring blankets and watch?”

“Perhaps that wouldn’t be a good idea,” Roxham said with indulgent amusement.

Lily gnashed her teeth at the way her problem had been turned into an entertainment, but she wouldn’t dwell on that since they were committed to helping. Though now if Roxham did succeed, he would be rewarded with a prize, a thought that annoyed her deeply.

“Thank you.”

She was about to take her leave when he said, “And I’ll take a look around for that little book of yours as well, Miss Teagarden.”

She froze. Unwanted memories pressed in on her, a remembrance of that old
sickness
.

“I’m sure I have no interest in it,” she said as casually as she could.

“What book is this?” Roxham’s sister-in-law asked.

Lily tried surreptitiously to read his face. Did he truly have it?

“Oh,” he said, “just a book Miss Teagarden left here some years ago.”

“A journal, wasn’t it?” said Eloise, squinting her eyes as if trying to see into the past. Eloise would have been perhaps twelve at the time. “Wasn’t there some incident…”

Lily was certain she couldn’t stand there while these elegant people probed her for a second longer. She thanked them for their hospitality and commended the gentlemen for their pledge to try to apprehend the ghost that night.

She set off across the lawn with Buck at her side, almost certain that she heard Lord Perfect chuckling. Blast the man.

***

Hal watched Lily’s departing figure, disappointed that she was leaving.

“What do you say to a swim in the river, Ivorwood? John?” he asked.

“Oh,” Diana said, “not a good idea. Freddy and I were down there earlier, racing leaf boats, and with all the recent rain, it’s running very fast. You’d much better swim in the lake.”

“Sorry, can’t,” Colin said. “I’ve a few letters that must be sent off to my secretary.”

“And I’ve some affairs to attend to myself,” John said.

There were things Hal was meant to be doing as well, but they could wait. Mayfield was, as far as he could see, in fairly good shape, even if Prescott was not in top form.

“I’ll just have a look round,” Hal said. “Assess the state of things.”

Diana frowned as he turned to go, but he merely winked. He was fond of his sister-in-law and relieved that the birth of his nephews had eliminated the need for him to set up a nursery himself.

The river was high, he saw when he reached it, perhaps thirty feet across at the point where he stood assessing the water. Its rough swirls indicated strong currents. Just the sort of thing he wanted.

He tugged off his boots and stripped off his coat and shirt and dove in.

The rushing water pounded him instantly, driving against him. Fear and courage rushed up in that battle he’d missed, and his furious thrashing through the current was the cannon he shot into the void.

If he surrendered, he’d be carried away, with no one the wiser for some time. The thought gave him an unexpected, pure sense of connection to men hundreds of miles away striving on battlefields, to others on fighting ships submitting to the surgeon’s knife.

Pushing through the water with all his might, his mind tightly focused, he welcomed the struggle. When he finally reached the opposite bank, he hauled himself out and lay in the grass with his chest heaving and his heart pounding.

As soon as he’d caught his breath, he dove back in.

By the time he got out again on the opposite bank, the river had carried him some distance, onto Thistlethwaite property. He lay in the grass for several minutes, staring up at the sky and feeling the water running off him and his soaked breeches sticking to him.

He ought to ride out and visit some of his tenants that afternoon. Everard would never have been swimming when there were tenants to visit. But Everard had never seemed to need what Hal needed. He’d always been content with his lot and happy to be viscount. Hal had even secretly thought, when he’d become a captain in the Foot Guards, that soldiering was the one thing he did better than his brother. Camp life was useless stretches of time to fill with horseplay that took his men’s minds from their wounds and troubles. The battlefield was smoke and noise, glory and agony—life in all its intensity. Surging to meet the enemy, dispatching him any way he could—Hal had been good at that.

Not a talent that much lent itself to being a viscount.

He got up and started walking upstream toward his clothes.

***

Lily craved the solace of her favorite thinking spot by the river.

Roxham
meant
to
look
for
her
journal. What if he found it?

She tried to push away the memory of the silly fabric decorations she’d affixed to its cover in the throes of besotted affection, but she couldn’t. That book glowed in her memory with the power of shame. In it, she’d set down all her adoration and desire—desire, dear God!—for Captain Hal Waverly, the man who was now Viscount Roxham.

Even now, at twenty, she could hardly bear to think of that summer evening four years ago when she’d slipped into the bushes around the Mayfield terrace in the hopes that he’d appear. And when he had, with a party of friends—for he was always with people—she’d begun sketching him in her journal. He’d been almost unbearably handsome in his scarlet uniform.

It seemed so inevitable now that he’d discovered her there. He’d snatched her book and playfully refused to give it back while his friends laughed, and she’d had to stand there with her face, her whole being on fire, pretending it was something she’d done for a lark.

At least the incident had begun to make her see him for what he was: a shallow golden fellow only interested in having a good time.

Deep in thought, she rounded the edge of a stand of trees near the banks of the river—and almost crashed into Roxham.

She yelped in surprise, then drew in a gasp.

His chest was bare, and he was soaking wet.

“Why, Roxham, did you fall in the river?”

“Just went for a swim.”

“A
swim
?” The river, swollen with recent rains, swirled behind him dangerously.

The expanse of his naked chest tempted her eyes to move downward, but she kept them on his face. Though that was hardly better, since his tousled wet hair and skin gave him the intimate look of someone who’d just emerged from a bath, a very handsome someone with a strong jaw and glittering blue-green eyes.

She reminded herself that good looks were just a wrapping, that if what was inside was no good, they were empty. She could almost feel sorry for him.

“Concerned for my safety?” he asked.

“Certainly not. Anyone foolish enough to jump in there deserves whatever befalls him.”

He laughed.

It was annoyingly awkward standing there with him in his wet, half-dressed state and finding herself far too interested in learning more about the muscular contours teasing the edge of her vision, but since she had this chance for a private word with him, she must take it.

“About that book of mine you mentioned—should you discover it, I ask that you return it to me immediately.”

“Your journal, you mean?” he said in a lazy tone. The dark mockery glinting in his eyes unsettled her. She sensed he was aware that she was trying to look anywhere but down. “I seem to recall there were drawings of me in it. I’d say that gives me a certain right to examine it.”

“It does not!” she said far too forcefully. She mustn’t let him see how badly she wanted it back. At least she’d written it in code, so it was entirely likely he’d never even read it. She was in fact fairly confident that he hadn’t, because he seemed to have forgotten about it until now, and it would have been hard to forget if he’d read it.

“I meant, even if it
did
have a drawing of you in it,” she said—and it had far more than drawings of him—“it wouldn’t matter because it doesn’t belong to you. So you have no right to look at it. You never should have taken it to begin with. But I would think that now you are a viscount, you’d feel yourself called to a higher standard of behavior.”

Something shifted in his eyes. “It seems you have me confused with other viscounts.”

With those puzzling words, he left her. As if she knew any other viscounts aside from him and his brother Everard. Though if he was referring to his brother, she knew Everard would never have kept her journal. But then, he never would have taken it either.

***

In the early evening, Lily took a few supplies and set out for the large flat rock beyond the orchard, which the Teagardens called Table Rock. Mary and Anna Cooper were already there.

“We only have half an hour tonight, Miss Teagarden,” Anna said after Lily greeted them. “There’s a heap of sewing to be done for our brother before he goes to school.”

Tall and thin and a little grubby about the hands, the sisters had alert expressions and sensitive lights in their eyes.

“I see,” Lily said, that familiar impatience stirring in her. Many would say it was unnatural of her, but she couldn’t accept that girls—even poor ones—weren’t meant as much as boys to use the gifts of intelligence they’d been given. Mr. Cooper certainly saw little purpose in his daughters’ meetings with her to learn reading and writing and arithmetic. Even Lily’s brothers and sister thought it little more than an amusing hobby for her.

“It’s generous of you to make the effort,” Rob had said, “but those girls will be needed to cook and clean and sew. What difference will it make if they can read and write?”

“All the difference!” Lily had said with a vehemence that had made Rob’s brow rise.

“Suit yourself,” he’d said with a careless shrug. “Though I don’t understand why you want to spend your time on that and on the shawl business now that the debts have been paid. You’re wasting your youth in toil.”

She’d bristled. “It’s not wasted. And it’s not toil for me.”

She didn’t expect him to understand—how could he? As a man, his life was too different from that of the Cooper girls, and even from that of his own sisters.

Anna and Mary were fourteen and twelve; hardworking, bright, and poor, they had everything before them, and Lily didn’t intend to stand by while their potential for a richer life—for something
more
—was squandered simply because they were girls.