by Lynn Kurland
And now to be faced with an evening spent watching that fool slobbering all over a girl without a penny to her name. Well, she might have had a bit, but Tess had intimated that morning when Stephen had called her to double-check sizes that Peaches had spent a decent amount of her savings on the gown that had been ruined.
He rubbed his hands over his face because it broke his train of thought. He wished he didn’t know anything about David Preston, and wished he hadn’t called Tess to find out details about Peaches that weren’t any of his business.
Really, he was going to have to keep his mouth shut more often.
He leaned back against the wall and folded his arms over his chest. It kept his hands from reaching out and carrying him along with them as they made their way across the floor to strangle the current Duke of Kenneworth.
He could see why the man was attracted to Peaches. Who wouldn’t be? But the truth of it was, David had absolutely no bloody idea who Peaches truly was. Her name, yes, and where she was from, but that was the extent of it.
For example, Kenneworth had no idea how profoundly kind Peaches could be. But Stephen did. She had had that kindness on display for him—before he made that stupid remark about organic earth. She had been gloriously wonderful with his uncle Kendrick’s children and his brother Gideon’s daughter. She had been lovely to his parents. And when Tess had gone on her little vacation to points unknown with John de Piaget, Peaches had stepped into her sister’s shoes without hesitation and done what was necessary with grace and skill, and without complaint.
What wasn’t to like about her?
The sticking point was, as he’d told Raphaela, that she didn’t like him. Perhaps that was putting it mildly. She loathed him. It was a rather novel sensation, that. He’d never been shunned by a woman before. He had always done the “oh, so sorry, but I’ve an engagement” kind of thing to let them down easily. Peaches hadn’t let him down; she’d given him the boot.
It was very unpleasant. After all, he was relatively rich, relatively young, and had a pair of titles. His father wasn’t ancient, but Stephen had found himself taking on more and more of his father’s public duties, which left him relatively responsible. His ancestral home had been used half a dozen times as a movie set and was just a minor slog over the dunes from the sea.
If that wasn’t enough to impress a feisty, argumentative, impossible Yank, what would be?
He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
“Don’t suppose you’d want to go for a walk in a wintry garden, would you?”
Stephen looked to his right to find Andrea Preston standing there, smiling an amused smile at him.
“Do I look like I need it?” he asked.
“You do look a little peaked,” she agreed. “And so I thought a walk might be just the thing to bring the color back to your cheeks.”
“You’re too kind.”
“My worst fault.”
Stephen would have taken her up on her offer, but he made the mistake of turning and looking at the door.
He caught his breath.
Then he smiled.
White had been the right color. The woman standing there in the doorway looked like a princess. It helped, perhaps, that she was by far the most beautiful in the room, but he could honestly say that that wasn’t it. It wasn’t the dress, or her hair swept up off her shoulders, or her perfect face.
It was just Peaches Alexander, with her beauty shining through where all could see it.
Not even the sight of the Duke of Kenneworth trotting over to monopolize her was enough to sour his pleasure at just watching her.
She was escorted into the ballroom as if she had been royalty. Stephen was fairly certain he heard the grinding of teeth coming from various quarters, but he ignored it. He wasn’t sure, but he suspected that even Andrea had deserted him for points unknown.
He wondered how it was he would ever get Peaches away from David to have even a single dance.
He imagined the evening would drag on endlessly. He would have been happy for that at another time, for it would have given him the chance to simply stand to the side and watch the absolute perfection that was Peaches Alexander, but at the moment he was too overcome by the desire to help David Preston meet with a crippling accident to concentrate on much else.
He tried to convince himself that he just wanted Peaches to be happy, but it occurred to him as he watched David signal the orchestra, then sweep Peaches into his arms, that he didn’t want her just to be happy.
He wanted her to be his.
He’d suspected that all along, of course, but there was something about seeing her in another man’s arms with her face aglow with happiness that forced him to face the truth. Indeed, it was almost enough to leave him looking for a place to sit down.
Instead, he simply found himself a handy sideboard topped with a few sturdy keepsakes and leaned against it. He put on his usual mask to hide his thoughts and gave himself over to deep thoughts.
He didn’t know if she could learn to love him. He wasn’t sure if she would be willing to take on the duties that would be required of her as the Countess of Artane when the time came. He wasn’t even convinced she could live the rest of her life in England.
All he knew was that he wanted her, for scores of reasons he didn’t dare consider at the moment.
He had another deep breath, then began to plan his strategy. He hadn’t spent all that time in the bowels of various libraries across the world without having learned something about preparing a battle. He also hadn’t endured innumerable defeats at Ian MacLeod’s hands without finally learning a few less-than-gentlemanly tactics.
It was obvious the first step was to see if he couldn’t convince her to set aside her animosity toward him. He would have preferred to have taken a bit more time to contemplate how that might best be accomplished, but the truth was, the battle was upon him and his foe was engaged in a waltzing offensive.
He would have to commandeer her dance card and cross out David’s name at least once.
The night was young.
Chapter 11
Peaches looked at the grandfather clock standing against the wall and wondered, absently, if it were bolted to that wall or not. If not, she was slightly surprised to find it hadn’t fallen over with all the dancing that had gone on that night.
It was eleven thirty.
All right, so she was used to all kinds of otherworldly sensations—and those weren’t just the ones caused by whatever her parents had been smoking. She’d seen ghosts, had waves of history sweep over her at particular historical sites, known ahead of time things she shouldn’t have been able to. But there was something else going on at present, something magical.
Something that felt a great deal like destiny.
“May I have this dance, Miss Alexander?”
Peaches was certain she had almost jumped out of her very lovely and surprisingly comfortable shoes. That was followed by the immediate desire to curse, which she suppressed because Aunt Edna had never sent her out the door without telling her to be a lady. She took a deep breath, silently told destiny to keep itself on ice, and decided she would get the polite thing to do over with and dance with that damned Viscount Haulton. She turned around and smiled. Politely.
“Of course,” she said, with what she hoped was just the right touch of aloofness and dignity. After all, he’d made fun of her. It wouldn’t do for him to think she’d forgotten it.
And then she made the mistake of touching his hand. That little zing that went up her arm and came close to frying her brain could have been ignored, but she made her second mistake immediately after, which was looking at him.
All right, so it was one thing to lust after him—or, rather, imagine what it would be like to lust after him if she liked him—while getting an eyeful of him in riding clothes. The very sad and unavoidable truth was, the man had been born to wear evening clothes.
She tried to look anywhere but at him, but that made dancing very dif
ficult, so she gave up and gave in. She forced herself to concede that his tailor loved him to fit his tuxedo so well, and that whoever cut his hair had probably lingered over the job far longer than was polite. His dancing instructors—and she was quite sure he’d had a number of them in nobility school—hadn’t shirked their duties, either. She found herself feeling rather more glad than she had felt dancing with David that she had taken so many semesters of ballroom dance in college. She made no misstep, but then again, neither did Stephen.
She glanced at the grandfather clock. Twenty minutes to midnight.
She couldn’t hurry the dance along, but she didn’t linger over polite chitchat with the future Earl of Artane, either. She thanked him politely and escaped while she still had her sanity and time enough to refresh her makeup.
She looked for David, who had been taken in hand, literally, eight minutes earlier by his sister and pulled away. She started to wave at him, but there was no need. He left Irene talking to thin air and immediately came over to her and offered her his arm.
“A walk in the garden?”
Why not? Her trip to the bathroom could wait. She walked with him across the ballroom, her heart aflutter.
Truly. Her heart was aflutter. She surreptitiously put a finger to her neck. Yes, her pulse was elevated. Surely it wasn’t necessary to put a number on how much her pulse had increased, was it?
Her future was almost upon her. She could feel it.
The doors to the garden were open. Peaches felt as if she were walking out into a dream. Well, it was more like a very chilly hallucination, but she wasn’t going to complain. Her fairy tale was about to be written.
The moon was full, the large porch free of snow and ice, and there was no one else to disturb what Peaches was convinced was her magical moment. David reached down and took her hand, then turned her to him and looked at her from perfectly acceptable blue eyes.
Not like those broody, clear gray eyes that looked like storm clouds.
“I know we haven’t known each other very long,” David began, interrupting her thoughts.
She happily left those disturbing thoughts behind and concentrated on the man in front of her. He was wonderful, wasn’t he? And willing to overlook the fact that she was just an untitled, unemployed life coach? He wouldn’t have brought her out for a private, magical moment in the garden otherwise.
Surely.
He released her hand and put his arms around her waist to pull her closer. Peaches held her breath, then closed her eyes to better savor the moment.
“Oh, I say,” a male voice said brightly, “didn’t know anyone was out here.”
Peaches resisted the urge to swear. Would that man never cease to get in the way of her perfect life? If he wasn’t insulting her, he was ruining moments that were none of his business to ruin. She glared at him, but he wasn’t looking at her.
“A little chilly for a walk, isn’t it?” Stephen continued, looking at David pointedly.
“Well, old man, we weren’t exactly walking, were we?” David drawled. “And we’ll be warm enough soon enough, I imagine.”
“Your sister sent me to find you,” Stephen said. “Being a gentleman, I accepted the charge.”
Peaches felt David hesitate, then he released her and stepped back. He was obviously so unnerved by the interruption that he forgot to hold her hand.
“Being a gentleman as well,” he said coldly, “I suppose I shall accept.”
“I think that would be the polite thing to do.”
“And I am always polite.”
Stephen inclined his head. “So you are, Your Grace.”
Peaches thought they should both be clunked over the head with whatever etiquette books they’d both memorized in nobility school. She found herself being towed back into the ballroom with rather less care than she’d been escorted out of it, but since she managed to glare at Stephen on her way by, she didn’t mind. That necessity seen to, she graciously accepted David’s apology for a conversation interrupted, resisted the urge to fan herself over his promise that he would find her the moment his sister was satisfied, then decided that the time to trot off to the bathroom had come.
She would have glared at Stephen again, but she didn’t see him. His dastardly duty done, he had apparently slithered back into the hole he’d emerged from. She walked to the bathroom, realizing only as she walked into it that it belonged in a hotel. Maybe David and his family entertained more people than she was accustomed to and needed all that room for the hordes of women who no doubt flocked to Kenneworth House to have a go at its master. There was an outer sitting room sort of affair with a circular seat that looked like a life preserver. Past that and around a corner was the loo proper where she decamped while things looked to be empty.
The grandfather clock tolled a quarter to the hour.
She stood in front of the mirror and looked at herself carefully, wondering if anything was changing. She still looked just like herself, but she had another fifteen minutes to go before the magic went as well.
She had to admit that she had been dressed and groomed by a crew of professionals. She had managed to sneak brunch with Raphaela Preston again in the morning room, then retreat to her room for a luxurious nap followed by a rather lukewarm shower.
All right, so it had been just this side of cold, but she’d been excited enough about her dress and shoes that she’d managed to shiver through it as long as necessary.
And then she’d returned to her room and found herself in the midst of a makeover.
Her bed had been propped up against the wall to provide more floor space for the half-dozen beautifiers who had come to give her the royal treatment. She had been plucked and buffed and sprayed and polished with extreme care and many compliments on the raw materials she was providing. She had sipped delicate tea, partaken of a light, elegant supper, and rested before the final touches were put on her makeup and she was put into her dress.
Which, she had to admit, fit perfectly.
The shoes had fit no less perfectly, which surprised her. She had thought about it most of the afternoon and decided, finally, that it had been David to fork over his hard-earned sterling for the spa treatment and new wardrobe. Raphaela had only smiled when she’d hinted rather broadly that she suspected him of the same, which led her to believe her suspicions were dead-on.
She had to admit her makeup had worn well and her dress looked just as beautiful as it had earlier that evening. She was very grateful she’d been supplied with a small purse big enough for a little powder and a refreshing of her never-come-off lipstick. She hoped it would perform as advertised because she had every expectation that within moments she would be enjoying a midnight kiss.
The door opened around the corner, and the sound of voices floated in to serenade her with their dulcet tones.
“Well, of course I know she isn’t anyone,” a voice snapped. “You can tell that just by looking at her!”
“Then what are you worried about?” said a second voice soothingly. “It isn’t as if she’s trying to steal something that’s yours.”
“I could not possibly care less what sort of dalliances my brother David engages in. I do, however, care what other glances she’s attracting.”
Peaches closed her eyes briefly. That was Irene, obviously. She suspected the other voice belonged to Andrea.
“Viscount Haulton?”
“Yes, Andrea,” Irene said crisply, “the Viscount Haulton, the heir to Artane, which is, if you hadn’t noticed, a rather nice place.”
“You don’t like medieval artifacts.”
“But I do like the man who has the ability to sell them and redecorate his home,” Irene said, “which he will do ten minutes after we are wed. And the sooner I get that nobody out of the way, the faster that wedding will happen.”
Peaches wanted to look around the corner and tell Irene that she didn’t have to worry about anyone of an American persuasion wanting anything to do with the future Earl of Artane, but s
he didn’t have the chance because Irene launched into a scathing attack on gold diggers in general and her in particular.
“But I think David likes her very much—”
Irene’s laugh was like knives cutting through the air. “Don’t be ridiculous, Andrea. He’s toying with her.”
“He arranged this house party for her,” Andrea said firmly. “He told me so himself.”
“Yes, darling, for a particular reason.”
Andrea was silent for a moment or two. “I don’t think I understand.”
“Please, Andrea, don’t be an idiot. He wanted an excuse to play cards with his friends and have his own private entertainment after that. She is here for the second reason alone.”
“But David isn’t like that—”
Irene laughed again, and it wasn’t a pleasant laugh. “You don’t know my brother. He’s practically engaged, or didn’t you know? To Phyllis Milbourne.”
“Really? But she hasn’t any title.”
“But she does have what he wants, which is the ability to look the other way whilst he beds all the pretty girls in the northern hemisphere, and buckets of money.”
“But Peaches—”
“Organizes socks,” Irene said crisply, “has no money, and a face that will captivate him for all of forty-eight hours. You see, that’s why he needs to marry a rich wife. Someone has to pay for his elaborate preparations to get women into his—”
“Shhhh!”
Peaches supposed Andrea might have said that because she had dropped her purse into the sink.
“There’s someone else in here.”
“I wonder who?” Irene said, sounding not in the least bit interested. “Let’s see, shall we?”
Peaches wasn’t sure if she were more humiliated that she’d had to listen to a private communication or that she’d had to listen to a private communication that involved details about her and her would-be boyfriend.
Details she just couldn’t believe. David had been very kind to her, very attentive and generous. After all, he’d bought her what amounted to an entirely new wardrobe, hadn’t he?