Gentlemen Prefer Mischief (5 page)

“I’m certain they must have been
so
uncomfortable,” Eloise said, “but they were rewarded when they saw the lights of a torch in the trees.”

“No!” Lily said.

“Yes!” Eloise clasped her hands excitedly. She seemed like such a sweet young lady. Lily wondered what it was like for her, having Lord Perfect for a brother. Being so much younger, she probably idolized him.

“Hal was just about to capture our trespasser when a small tree fell on him.”

“Surprising, a little tree just falling in the woods like that,” Lily said.

“Yes—it was some sort of trap.” Eloise shook her head. “And though Ivorwood gave chase, the Fiend escaped.”

“Goodness!” Delia said. “I hope you weren’t hurt, Hal.”

“Fortunately I wasn’t injured by the… trickery that prevented me from catching our trespasser,” he said. Lily could feel him looking at her with an air of accusation.

“So fortunate, so brave,” she said, at which point the Old Duffer made his eyes into slits meant to let her know she was overdoing it. She gave him her most serene smile.

“In any case,” he said, crossing his arms and giving her the kind of look he might once have trained on an enemy spy, “I mean to win that wager. I’ve done some investigating and discovered places in the woods where our spirit has been digging. One can only wonder why. Is something being buried? Or is our Fiend looking for something? What do you think, Lily?”

She forced a smile—he mustn’t see how worried his probing was making her. “Possibly. Though perhaps it’s best not to spread it around, about the digging. People might think the Fiend is preparing fresh graves.”

Delia and Eloise thought that quite funny.

“Do you think,” Eloise said, dabbing at a tear of mirth, “that I could see these sheep that are supposed to be possessed?”

“Oh, let’s do!” Delia said, taking Eloise by the arm. “If you and Hal don’t mind, Lily?”

“Of course we don’t,” he said, not giving her a chance to reply, and the girls departed, heads already bowing together as they chattered.

“I don’t appreciate your speaking for me,” Lily said.

“Viscount’s prerogative. So tell me,” he said, reaching out and giving the spinning wheel a spin, “how much time do you spend in here?”

“A little.” Her stomach took a dip.
Was
he suspicious?

He began wandering around, and she felt he was taking pleasure in invading her space. He took his time, lifting the covers of the dye buckets and asking her how the dyes were created, as if he truly wished to understand how it all worked.

He paused over the crate of shawls Mr. Trent had sent back; she’d refolded them and put the top on, and she told herself it didn’t look suspicious, but it was her work in there, and she was afraid something about the shawls would announce her involvement. But he moved past the crate and peeked into the pot where the moss was boiling.

“And will this be the new color for spring?”

It did look fairly disgusting. “Perhaps not one of my more successful efforts.”

He moved on to the carding paddles, which he examined as though they were some intricate foreign object. Probably for a man like him, they were. This hut, these tools—all of this was inconsequential and mundane compared to his world of liveried servants and echoing halls.

“I’ve never seen these in use,” he said. “It must be fascinating.”

She gave him a skeptical look.

“Show me how to use them,” he said.

“Why? It’s not as if you’ll ever have need.”

“Because I’m curious.” And he stood there with such an innocent, pleasant look on his face that she didn’t want to refuse him.

“Very well.” She took the carding tools from him, pulled out a tuft of wool from a nearby barrel, put it on one of the stiff brushes, and dragged the paddles against each other.

“Ah, I see,” he said. “Ingenious. One feels grateful to one’s ancestors for devising tools that can accomplish such things as the turning of sheep fluff into yarn.”

“One feels that viscounts are too removed from the small realities of life.”

His laugh was a deep rumble. “You forget how I’ve toiled in the muck as a soldier.”

Though his tone was light, there was truth in his words—he would have seen and done things of which she couldn’t conceive. Still, he had been born into a life of silver dishes and velvet cloaks.

“I can’t think there was so very much muck for the brother of a viscount.”

“Only the very best muck.”

But something about his flippant manner niggled her. She cocked her head. “Was the army—the war—what you expected?”

Her question had evidently surprised him; he looked a bit off-kilter, which pleased her. “Was it what I expected?”

“Yes, when you bought your commission—I suppose you must have been twenty-two or so?”

“Twenty-three, and why do you ask?”

“I just… I imagine it must be such a different life, especially for the son of a viscount.”

“It’s not that different in some ways. I had servants, good horses.”

“Do you miss it?” she said.

“Pardon?”

“I was just wondering whether it was hard to exchange soldiering for viscounting.”

“It’s far safer being a viscount.”

“That wasn’t what I asked. I asked if it was hard, exchanging one life for another.”

“Only a fool would prefer being shot at to running an estate.”

“Or someone who needs to be thrilled frequently. I remember you at twenty, making your own fireworks and setting part of Mr. Lovett’s fence on fire. But I suppose such exploits weren’t half so thrilling as almost getting court-martialed.”

His eyelids lowered in a lazy, dangerous way. “You seem interested in my serenading episode.”

“I only wonder what made you do such a thing.”

“I was drunk, Lily. People do things like that when they’re foxed. But as I suppose you’ve never overindulged, you would find that hard to imagine.”

She’d seen her father foxed countless times, which had given her ample acquaintance with the foolish things drink could make a person do. But she was hardly going to reveal any of that to Hal. “Drunk people are commonplace,” she said. “I can easily imagine how foolish you looked.”

But now he cocked his head. “Can you? I was angry. I’d lost a good soldier, a good man who was desperate. He stole—only a little—from the colonel’s stores, and was discovered and shot in front of his mates.”

“Oh. How horrible. I…”

“Wouldn’t have ridden drunk and singing through town. No, of course not. It’s not an appropriate action.”

She frowned. “I’m sorry about your soldier. What happened to him was wrong.”

He shrugged. “Ultimately it’s the price of war. Each of us knows that when he signs on.”

“I think it admirable that you served in the army.”

He laughed. “Perhaps, but you don’t think
me
admirable.”

How could he so blithely put such words in her mouth, even if they were true—and care so little whether people had an unflattering opinion of him? “I think you have often preferred diversions to serious undertakings.”

“Lucky for me, then, that viscounting is providing unlimited diversions this week. Like the very interesting words written in a young lady’s journal.”

She forced down the wave of panic and shame that threatened to engulf her. She’d never wanted
anyone
to read those words, let alone him.

“Ingenious code, by the way. I was only able to read a bit, but I’m looking forward to more. Unless, of course, you’d like to trade it for information?”

“I’ve already told you I have nothing to offer you.”

“And yet I don’t believe you.”

She let the silence stretch out.

“So,” he said finally, “you make shawls.”

He’d noticed Delia’s mistake. “I like to knit,” she said vaguely.

“Is that so?” He ran a hand over a partially completed blue shawl that lay folded at the edge of the worktable. “Fine work indeed, the work of a careful, dedicated hand. It makes me think there was a personal reason you asked me to get rid of the Woods Fiend: the business is yours.”

Oh no.

He could make things very uncomfortable for her family. For her. She would lose standing in the community if it were known she was selling her work.

And yet this had always bothered her: that she might contribute to pulling the estate out of debt and make something worthwhile that might allow her to help girls who had so little—and that she would be looked down upon if it were known she earned the money to accomplish these things. Women of her class weren’t meant to be useful but decorative. And she couldn’t bear the thought of a life of being decorative.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re a terrible liar, Lily. It makes you go all stiff. Well, stiffer than usual. In fact, you’re looking more rigid every moment.”

“I don’t owe you explanations.”

“You know,” he started to say, but laughter sounded outside the door just then, and Delia and Eloise appeared in the doorway, much to Lily’s relief.

So the Old Duffer had made some guesses about her involvement in the business. He had no proof, and even if he did, why should he bother to spread rumors about her being in trade? She told herself that the only person’s good opinion she was likely to have lost through this conversation was his, and she could hardly care about that.

She smiled at Delia and Eloise. “Why don’t we all adjourn to the garden?”

Once outside, they passed the crab apple trees that grew at the edge of the garden, the lingering warmth of September occasionally giving way to little wafts of cool that presaged October, and followed the stone path among delphiniums and larkspur. The back of Thistlethwaite, which was more of an overgrown cottage than a manor house, made a pretty picture of stone walls overrun by pale pink climbing roses and ivy. Overhead, a flock of starlings frolicked in the endless bright blue of the sky.

Eloise talked about a recent visit to Spain, where she and Hal had visited their cousin James and his new wife, Felicity, at their vineyard.

“Felicity and James met when he won her family’s estate in a card game. And now they’re blissfully married. Isn’t that just like a fairy tale?”

They’d then journeyed on to France and Italy, which made Delia cry, “Unfair!” with cheerful frustration, as she’d never been much beyond Highcross.

The Thistlethwaite estate manager passed through the garden then, and Roxham asked if they might discuss a stream the two properties shared. The ladies continued strolling the garden without him.

As soon as the men were out of earshot, Eloise linked her arms with Delia’s and Lily’s and leaned her head in close to theirs. “I must tell you,” she said, “that I shall probably, before the autumn has come to an end, have broken my heart for Ivorwood.”

Delia blinked at this poetic confidence. “You mean the earl?”

Eloise sighed exquisitely. “I do. Oh, he is divine. Handsome, debonair—even his voice is heavenly.” She gave a heavy sigh. “But I’m afraid he has yet to really
notice
me.”

“But, Eloise,” Delia said, “I don’t see how any man could not admire you.”

A twinkle lit Eloise’s eyes. “I will confide that I enjoyed some enthusiastic attention this Season from certain gentlemen. I’d rather hoped Ivorwood would take notice of them, and me.”

“You mean that he would be jealous?” Delia said. This talk of enticing men was slightly wicked, compared to what life in the country had been like for Delia and Lily. “How thrilling! It’s just like a novel. Did it work?”

“Unfortunately, no. But I haven’t given up.”

Listening to their chatter, Lily was amazed at how free Eloise was in discussing her attraction to Ivorwood. Lily had never breathed even one word to anyone in her family about her feelings for Hal, and though he might have said something to her brothers years ago, she didn’t think he had, because neither of them had ever said a thing to her.

She realized that Eloise was squeezing her arm. “I was hoping to do you a favor, Lily.”

“A favor?”

“Yes. About that journal of yours.”

Lily blinked. Well.

“What journal?” Delia said.

Eloise looked surprised. “Don’t you know about how Hal took Lily’s journal when she was our age?”

Delia looked at Lily with something bordering on accusation. “No.”

Lily sighed. “That’s because I wanted to forget about it. It
was
four years ago.”

“Yes, but your personal journal! It had to have been embarrassing.”

“Rather,” Lily said, wanting only for the subject to be dropped.

“Anyway,” Eloise said, “it’s been forgotten all this time at Mayfield. But I think he’s found it, because I saw him coming out of one of the guest rooms with a volume. I could tell it upset you, his reminding you about it yesterday.”

“Well, I suppose I can get him to give it back to me soon,” Lily said, though she believed nothing of the sort.

Eloise bit her lip. “My brother has the best heart in the world, but I’m afraid he’s always been a terrible tease. And I rather think he might not give the book back if you asked. But I thought that
I
might secure it.”

Lily wasn’t willing to allow that Roxham had anything like a good heart. But the thought that Eloise might get hold of her book—well, she didn’t know if it was better or worse than Roxham having it. It was so private, and Eloise was so… not. She forced herself to be casual. “So have you had a chance at it?”

Eloise’s pretty lips pressed together in disappointment. “Unfortunately, no, because the door to his room was locked. Which it never is. But,” she said with a little grin, “here’s what’s amusing. There’s a nest in the tree outside his window, and I saw a bird fly into his room just as our carriage was pulling away to come here. So it will be only what he deserves if desperate things have happened in there because no one could get in to chase the bird out.”

Delia gasped with naughty glee, which caused Roxham, still speaking with the manager, to glance their way. The ladies quickly stepped to the side of the path to inspect a white rosebush.

Lily whispered her thanks to Eloise for trying, but she hardly knew what words she used because she was so excited by something Eloise had just revealed.