So Enchanting

by Connie Brockway

  The conversation was getting a little stuffy as far as Hayden was concerned. “Well, I think it’s wonderful you’re able to make do with the elderly fellow and the girl,” he said, smiling at Amelie. She pinked up delightfully.

  “We have Miss Oglethorpe, too,” Amelie said.

  “Miss Oglethorpe?”

  “She’s the vicar’s sister.” Amelie nodded. “She cooks.”

  “Little Firkin has a vicar?” Hayden asked, surprised.

  “Oh, no. It’s far too small,” McGowan put in. “The vicar lives in Flood-on-Blot, thirty miles away. It’s the nearest town with a proper church.”

  “How ever did you convince the vicar’s sister to work for you when no one else would?” Hayden asked.

  “God’s will,” Mrs. Walcott explained, favoring them with an unexpectedly impish smile. It was a pity she didn’t smile like that more often. She was really quite young, he realized.

  “Though I suspect Miss Oglethorpe had a say in it, too,” she continued. “Working for us, she not only gets paid but can also bring salvation into our humble lives.”

  Amelie’s brow puckered adorably. “We are not entirely sure how our salvation is to be accomplished, however, as Miss Oglethorpe rarely speaks to us. It is a matter of some debate between us.”

  “She prays over the potatoes and calls good enough done,” Mrs. Walcott said.

  Hayden couldn’t tell if she was attempting to be amusing or not, and so wasn’t sure how to react. McGowan appeared to be slightly embarrassed, but Amelie didn’t seem aware of anything odd about the conversation. Grey looked highly amused. “You approve of such sophistry?” he asked Mrs. Walcott.

  “How can one help but approve of sophistry whose sole goal is to happily delude oneself?”

  A shadow crossed Grey’s face. “Delusions are never happy, because they are not real,” he said bluntly.

  “Only someone who has never been displeased with his reality would say that,” Mrs. Walcott rejoined with equal force.

  Once more the two were engaged in an invisible battle. Hayden regarded them in dismay. Frankly, all the innuendos and undercurrents between the pair were becoming tiresome. He much preferred things to be pleasant. Oh, a bit of wordplay was fine, but all this Sturm und Drang? Bother. Worse, Amelie had begun to feel the effect of their contentiousness. The poor darling looked unhappy. He must do something.

  “Tell me, Mrs. Walcott,” he said with determined cheerfulness, “is your Violet here under similar circumstances as Miss Oglethorpe?”

  Mrs. Walcott regarded him blankly before breaking into a broad grin. “Good heavens, no. Quite the reverse,” she said. “Violet is Grammy Beadle’s great-granddaughter.”

  “Grammy Beadle?”

  “The old woman in town the other day,” Amelie put in helpfully.

  “Violet is our resident spy,” Mrs. Walcott elaborated. “She was sent here expressly to ferret out the secret of our dark power. The only trouble is, she wasn’t a terribly good ferreter. Always popping up in the shrubbery, hanging upside down from the rooftop to listen in on our conversations, clamoring about in the trees to get a better look inside… We were terrified the lass was going to fall on her head and we’d end up being responsible for her care for the rest of her days.”

  “Terrified,” Amelie agreed, nodding vigorously. “She’s not very agile.”

  “Yet, no matter how many times we confronted her, she refused to desist with her lurking and go home.” Mrs. Walcott paused thoughtfully. “I suppose in that she and Miss Oglethorpe are not so dissimilar.”

  “So we hired her,” Amelie finished happily.

  “She arrives at first light and goes home when she’s through spying,” Mrs. Walcott said. “And with whatever cleaning we can convince her to do. All in all it works out nicely.”

  Grey regarded Mrs. Walcott oddly. “You felt hiring the child was your only choice?”

  Mrs. Walcott lifted a shoulder. “It was either that or never see another untrampled pansy again. Violet exhibits an impressive degree of determination. She is convinced that it is only a matter of time before she surprises us in the midst of performing some occult ritual.”

  “And will she?” Hayden drawled, hoping to achieve some of his uncle’s sangfroid.

  Mrs. Walcott turned her dark, implacable gaze on him. Her smile was very slow, very knowing, very enigmatic. A shiver touched the base of his spine.

  “Oh, we’re not so imprudent as that,” she said. “Violet would be off to Beadletown as fast as her skinny little shanks could carry her, and we’d be fresh out of a maid. No, indeed, there’s little chance of that happening.”

  Hayden’s smile froze. She must be joking. Unless his ears were deceiving him, Mrs. Walcott had just insinuated that if Violet were more clever she might surprise them in some…mystical performance. He glanced at his uncle to see his reaction. Grey’s complexion had grown darker. Oh, dear.

  She’d gone too far. Grey had no patience with people who pretended to occult knowledge. Even dabblers incurred his wrath and contempt. If Hayden didn’t do something, Mrs. Walcott might continue teasing and provoke one of Grey’s infamous tongue-lashings, and after that…well, there would be little chance of Hayden seeing Amelie in a congenial setting again.

  “Pray allow me to explain the reason for my uncle’s purple complexion, Mrs. Walcott,” he blurted out before Grey could snarl something inexcusable. “He’s no sense of humor about the supernatural.”

  “You seem to spend a great deal of time apologizing for your uncle, Lord Hayden,” Mrs. Walcott said, turning toward Grey and looking him over carefully, like a suspect bit of beef she was having second thoughts about purchasing. “Do you always?”

  “Yes,” Hayden breathed at the same time Amelie gasped, “Fanny! Your manners!”

  “Oh, rubbish,” Fanny said, reminding Hayden forcibly of Grey, then, “Fine. Forgive me, Lord Sheffield. I didn’t realize you were the sensitive type. Have a bad taste in your mouth from some experience with the Unknown, have you?”

  Grey replied in arctic tones, “I’ve never had any experience with the Unknown, madam. I have always known exactly with whom and with what I am dealing. Indeed, I have a reputation of making mincemeat of those pretending to an otherworldly knowledge.

  “It is my vocation to bring to justice those defrauded through fakery and tricks. It is my avocation to make those who perpetuate cruel hoaxes suffer whilst I do so. And, lest you worry yourself needlessly over my palate, I assure you I find the taste of their humiliation quite delicious.”

  Worse and worse! Grey sounded like half a madman, and a very nasty sort of madman to boot. Mrs. Walcott might think twice about allowing further acquaintance between Amelie and anyone sharing Grey’s bloodlines, and he couldn’t say he’d blame her. If Amelie were in his care, he would certainly be discriminating about the young men he permitted near her. And while any potential suitor for Amelie’s hand needed his father’s approval before she was twenty-one, Mrs. Walcott had the power to ban anyone from this house.

  Amelie looked positively stricken, Grey’s smile looked positively feral, and McGowan looked positively ill. Only Mrs. Walcott appeared unaffected, though he could see her hands were clenched so tightly the knucklebones shone through the skin. Her cool gaze traveled lazily over Grey.

  “I see,” she said.

  “I don’t think you do, Mrs. Walcott,” Hayden said desperately. “My uncle’s zeal for exposing frauds has its roots in a tragic past,” he rushed on, aware of his uncle’s betrayed expression. Grey was an intensely private man.

  “My mother was my grandfather’s only child by his first wife. After my grandmother died, my mother became doubly dear to him. Even later, after Grandfather remarried and had three sons, my mother retained her position as favorite. Not only with my grandfather but with her half brothers, too. Including Grey, who was the youngest.”

  Hayden risked a glance at Grey. He was staring at the tips of his boots, his legs stretched out in front o
f him in a nonchalant attitude. Hayden knew better. He’d thrust his hands in his pockets. Like Mrs. Walcott’s, they would be clenched.

  “She died giving stillbirth to my brother when I was but one. It caused the entire family a great deal of pain, but none more than my grandfather. He could not bear to think he’d lost both his wife and his daughter for the rest of his life. He thus began an unhappy quest, seeking reassurance that she still lived on in some other plane and was safe and happy and awaiting him.”

  Mrs. Walcott’s expression had not changed, but he thought he detected a flicker of some deeper emotion in her eyes. “Grey was only a boy of seventeen at the time of my mother’s death. He, in particular, felt most keenly the crimes committed against my grandfather, being an unwilling participant at the séances his father forced him to attend.”

  “That’s enough, Hayden,” Grey said.

  Hayden hesitated. Amelie was regarding him somberly, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. He went on. “It has made Grey loathe what most of us would consider a harmless evening’s entertainment. Not only did he witness his father’s descent into despair, but he watched without recourse as his father lost most of the family’s fortune to spiritualists and table rappers.”

  “How terrible,” Amelie whispered. “I am so sorry, Lord Sheffield.”

  “Don’t fret, my dear,” Grey drawled. “After my father’s death, I made sure I recovered most of it.”

  He turned to Hayden. “Now look what you’ve done. You’ve made poor Miss Chase weep.” His gaze shifted toward Mrs. Walcott. “Thank heavens Mrs. Walcott is made of sterner stuff. Such a rarity these days, an unsentimental lady.”

  “Thank you,” Mrs. Walcott replied evenly. “I’ve found sentiment is best left to those who can afford the luxury.”

  “You look to have plenty of luxuries here, Mrs. Walcott,” Grey said. “Foodstuffs from Harrods, Mr. Eastman’s new camera, fine wine, a telescope… Indeed, a nicely feathered nest. Surely you can spare me one small tear?”

  “A gilded cage is nonetheless still a cage.”

  Hayden glanced at Amelie to see how she reacted to Mrs. Walcott’s statement. She was nodding in agreement. The poor darling. The lamb. How terrible for her. Something must be done.

  “Are you asking for my pity?” Grey was saying to Mrs. Walcott. He sounded flabbergasted.

  “Surely you can spare me one small tear?” Mrs. Walcott echoed his earlier words. Her tone was not precisely sarcastic, but neither was it sincere. She was a hard woman to read. Harder to understand. Hayden didn’t even want to try.

  “I fear we are both doomed to disappointment,” Grey said softly.

  “You can’t be disappointed in not receiving what you don’t expect.”

  Their gazes tangled and held tight to each other, bright blue-green and inky black.

  Blast and bloody hell, Hayden thought. He’d had enough. If Grey and Mrs. Walcott wanted to waste precious hours embroiled in some ridiculous and overly intricate verbal fencing match, they could bloody well do so without an audience.

  He stood up.

  “Miss Chase, I imagine the view from the terrace is most wonderful. And I see you have a telescope out there. Might I impose upon you to show it to me?”

  “I’d be delighted!” Amelie said, jumping up and taking the arm he offered. She did not look to Mrs. Walcott for permission.

  Hayden did not waste time wondering whether he was being circumspect.

  They fled.

  Chapter 16

  “I had best say good night. I still have quite a bit of unpacking to do,” McGowan explained a little too heartily, his gaze on the couple standing together on the terrace outside the drawing room.

  In disgust, Grey noted the poor fool’s bewildered expression. Here in this backwater, the banker apparently had thought his suit all but guaranteed, and so had neglected to court the girl. And now her interest had turned elsewhere.

  “Must you, Bernard?” Fanny asked.

  Bernard?

  “I’d hoped to show you an anomaly amongst the stars that I’ve spotted through the telescope,” she said. “It’s out on the terrace. If you’d join me?”

  What was she up to? She was practically purring at McGowan, who was going as red in the face as if she’d propositioned him. Bloody ass. She just wanted to show him a star… Didn’t she?

  Or maybe she saw an opportunity to inveigle McGowan for herself now that Amelie’s fancy had turned, at least temporarily, elsewhere. Though even with a fortune attached to her, why McGowan would prefer a girl to a woman was a mystery. But no greater mystery than how a woman like Fanny could even consider McGowan a potential…anything. She could cow him by asking him to pass the butter. He was simply not her match.

  “Thank you, Fanny. But I am not feeling quite the thing. Perhaps tomorrow?”

  Tomorrow? Did the bloody man intend to live in the woman’s pocket?

  “Of course, Bernard.” Her smile was filled with all the tenderness that had been so notably lacking when Hayden had recounted Grey’s family’s history—which reminded him to have a conversation with the lad about keeping the family skeletons firmly interred. Of course, had she turned those dark, luminous gems on him with any vestige of pity he would have been furious.

  No. You’d have been shattered by mortification.

  Had she known about his father? Had she suspected? Was her seeming indifference an act of charity? Of…compassion? He shook off the odd notion. It was hardly the point.

  “Well, if you must, you must,” she was saying. “I’ll just go fetch Lord Hayden and the three of you”—she paused for emphasis—“can be off.”

  She started toward the terrace doors, but McGowan stopped her. “Oh, no! Don’t spoil the evening on my account. I will send the carriage back for your guests.”

  “No, no. No need for that,” she clipped out.

  “Please,” McGowan said, all earnestness. “I would never forgive myself for depriving Miss Amelie of company. She so seldom gets the opportunity to socialize with young people.”

  Fanny gave a start, though McGowan didn’t seem to realize he’d implied she was not “young people.” The man really was an imbecile. Fanny couldn’t be thirty yet.

  “Your generosity is heartwarming.” Fanny’s tone had notably cooled. “We’ll see you tomorrow, I hope?”

  McGowan’s gaze drifted once more toward the terrace. “If I’m feeling better,” he said.

  “Certainly you will be well enough to—”

  “For the love of God, let the poor chap go home,” Grey broke in.

  Like those of an infuriated cat, Fanny’s eyes narrowed into slits, but she refused to look at him. Well, she couldn’t avoid making eye contact all evening. Was she going to stare at the wall once McGowan shoved off?

  “Of course,” she said. “Good evening, Bernard.”

  McGowan did not need any further encouragement. He shot one more yearning glance at the terrace, tendered a tremulously brave smile at Fanny, nodded at Grey, and strode manfully from the room. Or as manfully as a fellow who wore his heart on his sleeve could manage. Which, to Grey’s mind, wasn’t much. Not manfully at all, actually. Fanny couldn’t be interested in him.

  Fanny watched him go.

  “He seems a nice enough fellow,” Grey commented. Finally they were free to return to their conversation. “Bit of a ponce, though. Were I to encounter a rival for my lady’s affection, I would hardly stand aside and let it happen.”

  “Oh?” Fanny’s tone was remarkably mild. She was still looking at the door through which McGowan had left, waiting for something. “You are not sympathetic to his situation?”

  “Not in the least. But should you be, you could always present him with some sort of love charm,” he said slyly. “If you only knew a witch who could make one.”

  She didn’t reply.

  “Mrs. Walcott?”

  Nothing.

  “Fanny?”

  The sound of the front door closing behind McGowan
broke the spell holding her in place. She swung on him, her skirts belling out and a long tress of black hair flying free of its tidy constriction.

  “Oh, for the love of God, Sheffield,” she declared. “Do cease with the heavy-handed innuendo. You don’t honestly think you are being subtle with all those gibes and taunts, do you? I have rarely met a less subtle man. Honestly.” She tsked lightly. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

  Grey gaped at her, for the first time in his adult memory completely at a loss for words. He scrambled for a comeback. “So, you admit you are Francesca Brown?”

  “Yes, yes, of course I am,” she said impatiently.

  “But—” He was still scrambling. “If you knew I’d recognized you, why did you not say something earlier?”

  “Because,” she said, gesturing toward the terrace. “Amelie doesn’t know. No one does.”

  “You must think ours is a terribly odd household.” Amelie shook her head, and the light spilling out of the open terrace doors caught on her fiery locks.

  “No,” Hayden whispered, transfixed by the beauty of her profile against the majestic lilac and indigo twilight.

  She gave a little laugh, unconvinced. “I must strike you as being quite uncouth. Not at all smart and dashing, like the young ladies of London.” She glanced at him from beneath her lashes.

  “I think you are absolutely enchanting,” Hayden breathed. And he meant it.

  The time they’d spent together yesterday afternoon had been the most enjoyable of his life. She was jolly and sweet and altogether swell. She had no idea of how to flirt, and so everything she said was fresh and genuine. After all the posturing and studied manners of his London set, she was like a breath of fresh air, and he couldn’t bear the thought of going back to the stale confines of society.

  She frowned. “I am sure you would not be speaking so boldly to one of those London young ladies.”

  “I wouldn’t,” he admitted, “but only because I would never want to say such things to them. I have never said such things to anyone before. Because I have never been enchanted before.”