Gentlemen Prefer Mischief (6 page)

“Well,” Delia said, “I suppose you’d like to have the journal back without any blemishes, Lil. But just think that if the bird has spoiled it, no one will want to read it anyway.”

Which supposition caused both girls to collapse in giggles. Lily, meanwhile, was consumed with plans, which occupied her as Roxham and Eloise took their leave amid promises to keep the Teagardens apprised of any developments with the Woods Fiend.

Eloise had mentioned the old tree next to Mayfield, and Lily knew just which one she meant; it grew close to the walls of the manor. And now she knew that the room it was near belonged to the viscount—who would be gone to the woods for much of the evening.

Making tonight the perfect opportunity for her to take back what was hers.

***

On his return to Mayfield, Hal was met by his butler, who was wringing his hands. “They’ve gone, my lord. The Italians—the folly builders.”

“Giuseppe and Pietro?”

“Apparently they heard about the Woods Fiend and it scared them.”

“How could it? They barely speak English.”

“I think that’s part of the problem, that they don’t quite understand. It’s been illustrated to them with wild gestures and looks of fright—the stable boys amusing themselves. The Italians packed up their things while you were gone and left.”

Damn that man, whoever it was that was masquerading as the Woods Fiend. Hal had been hoping the folly would be finished well before Guy Fawkes Night; he meant to have an enormous bonfire at Mayfield then, with ladies clad in togas wandering about the folly. Some of his fellow officers were to be there as well, on leave.

He sighed. “Do you know where they’ve gone?”

“To the village inn.”

“Send someone with funds to tide them over.”

“Very good, sir. I did try to get them to understand that the Woods Fiend is undoubtedly just some local rascal, and that you and the earl are close to catching him, but they made it plain they couldn’t return until he was captured.”

“Which will be tonight, if I have anything to do with it,” Hal said, advancing up the grand staircase with determination growing at every step.

Lily waited in her room that night while Thistlethwaite settled down, her knees bumping together nervously as she sat at her vanity in the dark and went over her plan. She was wearing an old black pair of Ian’s breeches, along with a dark waistcoat of Rob’s. A bag slung across her body held gloves for climbing.

The snugness of the pants across her bottom felt like a warning for what she was about to do, which was certainly far worse than hiding in shrubbery to sketch a gentleman. Her common sense had already tried talking her out of her plan; she knew the risks of being discovered by Roxham or a servant or guest. But she couldn’t seem to make herself want to stop, and she had to admit that the pleasure she might have in besting Roxham was irresistible.

A faint chiming sounded in the drawing room, the notes of the grandfather clock marking half past ten. It was time.

All was silent as she slipped out of the house on tiptoe. It was a brisk twenty-minute walk to Mayfield Hall. The moon was hidden by clouds, and she hoped to be well concealed by the dark. Not that there ought to be anyone about, except Roxham and Ivorwood in search of their quarry. Please God they wouldn’t see her.

She kept away from the woods, skirting them so widely that she tripped over a pile of stones near the half-built folly. So like him, she thought as she crawled over the rocks until she was clear of the site, to want a building whose only purpose was pleasure. Reaching the back of Mayfield Hall, she hid herself among the dense hawthorn bushes that grew along the terrace, the very ones where she’d hidden four years before. All the rooms on the second floor were dark, as was his—she saw it near the tree.

Across the terrace, the drawing room doors were open. Eloise, Diana, John, and Mrs. Whyte, all dressed in evening clothes, stood talking. As Lily watched, Diana went over to the piano and began to play, and Lily recognized a sweet tune that had been popular during her Season.

Longing pierced her unexpectedly, though she couldn’t understand why. They were just a group of fashionable people whiling away the evening with carefree entertainments.

And yet it was that very carefree quality she so scorned that made her yearn. Her life at Thistlethwaite was good; she loved her siblings, and she felt fulfilled by her shawl business and her secret plans for the school. But she never felt carefree. She didn’t think she knew how. She’d always been the responsible one, whether she’d wanted to be that or not.

Even her father had called her that.
You’re my serious one,
he’d say when, drunk from a boozy luncheon, he’d lean on her as he climbed the stairs to his room.
Just
like
your
mother, God rest her soul.

When their mother had died, he’d taken Lily aside and said,
Your
sister
is
only
seven, and she still needs a mother’s care. Nanny has to go, so you’ll have to do your best with Delia.

Nanny’s departure was the beginning of the economies they’d had to make to enable Papa’s investments. Lily had never minded helping with Delia, but a sore part of her had wished that a twelve-year-old might be expected to miss a mother, too.

Go
over
to
Dimble’s for me
, he would say, words that had made her quiver. Dimble was the wine merchant, and the father of her childhood friend.
He
won’t say no to you.

And Mr. Dimble never had, but she saw each time in his eyes that her family paid their bills too slowly. Her father had been a good man, but when their mother died, he surrendered to drink.

With her older brothers away at school, she, as the oldest girl, was the one who’d had to oversee the household. She was the one left to take care of many of the details of life for herself and her father and Delia. Along with duties like keeping the household accounts were never-acknowledged ones, like providing explanations for her father’s sometimes odd behavior to neighbors and servants.

She’d vowed back then that she’d never let herself become like him: out of control, muddled with drink, dependent. Even now, through the blurring of years, she still hated the waste and the shame of that time, which had been crowned with the utter foolishness of giving her a Season they couldn’t afford.

She made herself look away from the scene in the drawing room because she realized that the sight of Eloise—young, beautiful, and cheerfully falling in love with gentlemen—was threatening to engulf her in envy. Why should she envy Eloise when she had a very good life now? Why should she want anything else? What was
wrong
with her?

She trained her eyes resolutely on the viscount’s window and focused on her plan. It was after eleven and the men had to be gone. Aside from the drawing room, there was no sign of activity; most of the servants would have retired, though some would still be about, and she would have to be very quiet. She moved toward the knobby old tree outside Roxham’s window and put on her gloves.

The climbing was harder than she’d imagined it would be, and it was quickly borne in on her that the last time she’d been up a tree she’d been ten. But the thought of Roxham reading her journal was enough to force her past trepidation, so that without quite knowing how she’d gotten herself there, she had reached his tall window. All was silent, except for the tiny sound of the distant piano. She put a foot on the windowsill and stepped inside.

It was very dark in his bedchamber, and she pushed the curtains wide to let in the little moonlight there was and allowed her eyes to adjust to the thicker blackness of his room. Traces of his scent teased her, the cedar notes of his soap coupled with the expensive smell of an immaculately cleaned room full of beeswax-polished furniture. A luxuriously thick rug under her feet absorbed the sound of her movements.

She suffered the despairing thought, which she’d previously refused to consider, that her journal might not even be in his room. But she moved into action and started her search at the small table by his bed. There was a book on it, but it was too small to be her journal. She moved on to the desk, sweeping her hands lightly over it, keeping the journal’s square shape in mind, and the memory of the little strips of fabric she’d glued on it… and there it was.

She slipped it into her bag. At the window, she took a deep breath and put her foot onto the branch just outside. And then she was working her way down the tree, feeling unstoppable.

She returned across the dark grounds wearing a smile of triumph. Back in the safety of her room, she lit a candle and opened the book and read again for the first time words she’d written at a very different time in her life. By the end of the first paragraph her face was burning, and she slammed the cover closed and shoved the book as far as she could in the back of her desk drawer.

Still, she thought as she collapsed onto her bed, she was satisfied with her night’s work. She’d finally gotten her wretched journal back.

***

In Mayfield’s breakfast room, the late-night darkness relieved by the light of four artfully placed candles, Eloise was waiting with the door to the hallway ajar so she’d know when Hal and Ivorwood got back from hunting the Woods Fiend. It was after one in the morning, and she’d been there already for an hour, but she didn’t mind—it was part of the excitement.

She’d been secretive, not setting things up in the breakfast room until the manor was quiet so nobody was around to say she was being inappropriate or any of those other things boring people said when a person tried to do something interesting.

She was wearing her midnight silk gown—she thought it made her eyes look deep and mysterious—with her pearl drop earrings as just the right accent. She’d made the sandwiches herself, filled a jug with ale, and arranged the items on a pretty platter on the breakfast room table along with the candles. When she’d lived at Mayfield, the small breakfast room had never been used at night, and she thought it would be the coziest place for the evening surprise she’d planned for the men. Of course she’d done it all for Ivorwood, but obviously they’d have to include her brother since the men would come back together.

Being together tonight was going to be so dreamy and perfect, just like it had been when the three of them had gone to the Opera in Town. That was the night when she’d first realized how very special Ivorwood was. Best of all, since everyone else was asleep, Hyacinth wouldn’t be around. Eloise wished Hal hadn’t invited the widow to Mayfield. She was always dragging the conversation around to herself, and she seemed to think Ivorwood found her featherbrained conversation and endless gossip fascinating, when any fool could see he was only being polite.

A small commotion sounded in the hallway that led from the back entrance—they were coming!

She moved to stand in the doorway so they’d see her as they drew close. Lit candles had been left out for the men’s return, and the play of light and shadow in the corridor made her think of how she’d never done something like this before. Little thrills danced around inside her.

“You still up, Ellie?” her brother said when he caught sight of her. Ivorwood was right behind him, yawning adorably. His teeth flashed white in the semi-darkness as he came to stand next to Hal. They were both tall, and of course her brother was disgustingly handsome—she sometimes felt with irritated affection that it was wasted on him, like the water that overflowed a cup if you kept pouring when it was full—and they looked extremely well together, like some kind of masculine force. A matched pair of handsome, the dark and light versions.

But Ivorwood,
oh
he was special. How dear was his gorgeous face, with his black hair all windblown around it from standing outside. She knew the exact color of green his eyes were, even if she couldn’t see them in the dim light: clear, silvery green, exactly the look of sunlight when it dappled the Ionian Sea at dusk.

“Yes,” she said a little more breathlessly than she would have liked. She smiled in what she hoped was a sophisticated manner. She knew Ivorwood thought of her as his friend’s younger sister, but she was determined to make him see her as a man sees a woman. “Did you catch the Fiend? I want to hear everything!”

“Nothing to tell,” said Ivorwood with a rueful grin. He had the most knee-weakening grin. Almost, the sight of it now was enough to take to bed with her and dream on. “The fellow never showed.”

“Not surprising,” Hal said, “as he knows we’re onto him. I shouldn’t be surprised if we’ve seen the last of the Woods Fiend.”

Ivorwood covered his mouth as he yawned again, and Eloise sighed inside. She loved his long-fingered hands, the hands of a sensitive man.

“Though I rather think,” he said, “that I’ll be disappointed if he’s never caught and brought to justice. And there’s Hal’s wager to consider.”

“Yes!” she agreed. She always agreed with him, even when she didn’t exactly agree—she couldn’t seem to help herself.

“Well,” she said in her best gracious voice, “there are sandwiches in the breakfast room. Won’t you come in and refresh yourselves?” Even as she said them, the words sounded stupid, like something an elderly lady would say to weary travelers. Her smile felt a little stiff.

Hal’s eyes settled on her in a kind look, and the compassion in them made a lump start forming in her throat. “That was thoughtful, Ellie. But I think we’re both for our beds.”

“Right,” said Ivorwood. “Most thoughtful of you, Eloise. I’m afraid I’m just about dead on my feet, what with all the standing about.” He gave her a sweet smile that almost made up for the disappointment pinching her heart. So stupid of her, to think they’d want a snack when it was so late.

The lump in her throat threatened to make her mouth quiver, and she swallowed hard, forcing it down. “Of course. It was just a trifle. I couldn’t sleep anyway, and it gave me something to do.”

She refused to meet her brother’s eyes because she felt certain they were looking on her with pity, and she wouldn’t have it. She quickly blew out the four candles in the breakfast room while Hal extinguished the ones in the corridor, and she followed the men up the stairs.

There had been, anyway, another reason she’d stayed up late, and after Ivorwood bid them good night and entered his bedchamber, she followed her brother down the corridor toward the family rooms.

“I want a word with you, Hal.”

“Yes?” Hal said, making sure to keep the exasperation out of his voice, because the frustration wasn’t with his sweet, love-struck sister but with the Mayfield trespasser. Perhaps the man had been scared away by them last night, but Hal was annoyed that he’d been prevented from capturing him, especially now that work had been stopped on his folly because of him. Too, there was the possible loss of his new hunter, since the terms of the wager had specified he must catch the Fiend within ten days.

And he’d had not a free minute all day, what with his hosting duties, and then there had been an awkward conversation with Prescott, who’d refused to acknowledge hinted suggestions that his hearing was going. Everard would doubtless have handled the situation better.

So he hadn’t yet had a chance to poke around in that journal of Lily’s, which was, actually, the thing he was most looking forward to at the moment.

His sister bit her lip. The poor thing obviously had a tendre for Ivorwood, never mind that the man was a good fifteen years older than she was and rightly saw her as merely the charming sister of his friend.

“It’s about that journal of Lily’s,” she said. “But before I say more, Hal, I want you to swear you won’t speak to her of it again or tease her about it.”

He blinked. “Eloise, my dear, I can’t think why any of that should concern you.”

“It concerns me because I like her very much, and she’s not happy that you have her journal. And, really,” she said, drawing her slim form up stiffly in a way that made him want to smile, “I find it most uncomfortable that my brother has in his possession something private that belongs to a lady which he is not returning.”