by Lynn Kurland
The whole thing was impossible. She was a nobody and he had three given names. She was a lowly clarifier of intentions; he was heir to the most magnificent castle on the north coast of England. She was a vegan; he probably had entire cows wrapped and put into his freezer for use at a moment’s notice.
“I think I need a drink,” she said thickly.
“There’s a juice bar across the street.”
“Thank heavens,” she said with feeling. “Let’s hope they have something green.”
“Let’s hope they have something drinkable,” he muttered under his breath.
But he smiled as he said it and walked with her to the light, good citizen that he was, so they could cross the street without jaywalking. He bought her a green drink, had one himself with extra fruit to mask any hint of springlike taste, then burped discreetly on his way out the door.
“I fear for my digestion,” he said honestly.
She feared for her heart, but she didn’t say as much. She simply pulled her sunglasses down and followed him incognito to wherever it was he was taking her.
The day was magical and indeed very hard on her heart. They walked the streets, took in an exhibit on Jane Austen, nipped into a National Trust property on the Royal Crescent, and avoided the shopping district like the plague. Peaches was actually quite happy, as the afternoon began to wane, to walk into the most organic-looking pub Stephen could apparently find and have a plate of potatoes and veg. Stephen joined her, adding only a rather decent-smelling bowl of stew to go along with it. They were sitting on opposite sides of a table, which apparently gave him ample opportunity to herd her feet between his and keep them there.
“So?” he asked, toying with a cup of tea. “Herding or fussing?”
“Fussing?” she echoed in mock disgust. “You had me working all day memorizing trivia.”
“I fed you,” he reminded her. “Green things.”
She looked at him seriously. “Yes, you did.”
“And?” he asked. “What’s the verdict?”
“The jury says you are a terribly charming man who can’t help but herd,” she said solemnly. “I think it’s in your genes.”
“Eight hundred years’ worth,” he agreed. “It seems to have worked for my relations.”
She shook her head with a smile. “How odd it must be to know several of the sons of the man who built your family home.”
“I’m not sure odd describes it,” he said with a wry smile. “It does tend to put a little pressure on me to see that the place doesn’t fall to the ground under my watch.”
Peaches winced before she could stop herself because that reminded her of all the things she had tried to avoid thinking about on the way to Bath, all the reasons she and Stephen could never be anything at all, all the things that had been driven right out of her empty head when he’d kissed her. But there was no denying the truth. She tried to pull her feet away, but he looked at her first in surprise, then with a frown.
“Where are you going?”
“Back to the sensible side of the table.”
“Peaches—”
“Oh, David, look who we have here!” said a voice brightly.
Peaches looked to her left and blinked. It took her a moment to realize she was looking up at David and Irene Preston. She didn’t look up at either of them for very long because they both immediately slid onto the benches, David next to her and Irene next to Stephen, leaving her with the opportunity to gaze on their wonderfulness at eye-level.
“Isn’t this cozy?” Irene purred, looking at Stephen as if he were a tasty chocolate she intended to ingest at her earliest opportunity.
Peaches could think of many things to call the current arrangements, but cozy wasn’t one of them. She found she was paying far more attention to how Irene was fawning over Stephen than she was to the fact that David had put his arm around her and was groping her shoulder. She pulled away and frowned at him, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“Well, that’s settled, Peachy,” David said with the same sort of brightness Irene had used. “I’ll pick you up at noon.”
It took her a moment to understand what he was saying. “Noon?”
“Tomorrow,” he said, then leaned closer and gave her a conspiratorial smile. “For lunch, if we can’t think of something more interesting. Of course, Irene will be at loose ends, so Stephen will no doubt step up and be a gentleman. Won’t you, Haulton?”
“Of course,” Stephen said with absolutely no expression on his face. “Wherever you want to go, Irene.”
“How fortunate we’re all in Bath today,” Irene said smoothly, “and that we have enjoyed the coincidence of running into each other.” She slid Stephen a look. “Perhaps Miss Alexander would prefer to ride back to Sedgwick with David.”
Stephen opened his mouth to respond, but Peaches kicked him quite firmly on some part of his lower leg that made him flinch—on the off chance he thought he was going to dump her with a man who couldn’t seem to keep his hands off her.
“A pity that isn’t possible,” he said, “given that she’s in Cambridge this week.” He looked at David blandly. “Wouldn’t want to make you fight traffic, old man.”
“But we’re in Cambridge as well,” Irene said. “David has business there, and I thought I should accompany him. How convenient for us all to be in close quarters. This also leaves us with no reason why we can’t switch passengers.”
Peaches would have chosen a different word than convenient, but she wasn’t the one doing the choosing.
“Perhaps another time,” Stephen said in a tone that said very clearly that the discussion was over, at least for him. “We have research to discuss, I’m afraid. Sheep lore, I believe, and other things that are vital to my current interests.” He looked at her. “Isn’t that right, Miss Alexander?”
Peaches nodded, then kept her mouth shut and focused on Stephen’s tapping the side of her boot gently. She wasn’t even sure he knew he was doing it, though a surreptitious glance his way during Irene’s very lengthy extolling of the virtues of the shopping to be found in Bath told her differently.
The subsequent hour was miserable enough that she did her best to forget it. David couldn’t seem to stop touching her, and she couldn’t seem to convince him politely that he should. She wasn’t sure if that was more or less unpleasant than watching Irene hang on Stephen.
She was vastly relieved when she finally found herself sitting in Stephen’s car, heading back to Cambridge, though she wasn’t at all sure why. Stephen was absolutely silent. She didn’t want to know what he was thinking.
And then he held out his hand for hers. She looked at him quickly, but he was watching the road. She studied his hand for a moment or two, then reached out and put her hand in his. He laid her hand palm down on his thigh, then covered it with his own. That lasted until they hit the M25 and he had to negotiate London ring-road traffic. He brought her hand to his mouth, kissed it, then returned it to her lap.
She was happy for the chance to catch her breath and simply watch him as he watched traffic. It gave her the chance to study his face in a way she hadn’t been able to until then. He had perhaps a handful of freckles sprinkled across his nose and very faint lines near his eyes. She would have, if someone had asked her a week ago where those lines had come from, said they were from scowling. Now, she supposed they were from a combination of smiling and many, many hours spent in Scotland, squinting at some crazed, sword-wielding Highlander.
“What?” he asked, after he’d glanced at her and realized she was watching him.
It took her a bit to be able to say what she wanted to. “I don’t remember saying yes to David.”
He chewed on that for a bit. “For lunch, or something else?”
“Either.” She clasped her hands together in her lap. “I didn’t realize I’d said yes to lunch tomorrow, but I couldn’t think of a good way out of it. Not that there’s any reason to get out of it, I suppose,” she added.
“Hmmm,” was all he said.
Peaches wasn’t sure she could be any more uncomfortable. The urge to bolt was strong, but she was unfortunately buckled in and the weather had turned nasty. All she could do was sit in absolute luxury, listen to the BBC station Stephen turned on after he’d smothered one too many yawns, and wish that she were anywhere else. She wasn’t sure where the kiss he’d given her earlier had come from, or where the herding had gone.
Maybe seeing the Duke of Kenneworth had reminded Stephen of his own obligations to get himself involved with a woman of a certain sort.
Like Irene Preston, for example.
Stephen wended his way through Cambridge until he pulled up in front of Holly’s row house. He parked, fetched her out of the car, then walked her to the door. She turned to thank him and found herself in his arms. And once she was there, there was no point in not hugging him back. Which she did. She closed her eyes and tried not to frighten him with how hard she wanted to hold on to him.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said quietly.
She nodded, then pulled out of his arms. That he didn’t stop her told her something. She wasn’t sure what, but it was something. If he had wanted to discuss herding or kisses or plans for the future, he was certainly missing out on the opportunity.
She decided there was no point in waiting for him to speak. She walked up to the porch, let herself in, then looked at him once before she shut the door. His face was in shadows, but she could see he was wearing his customary politely serious expression.
She walked back to her room, not sure if she were more unhappy with David for intruding or Stephen for being so quiet.
The one thing she was sure of was that she was starting to seriously doubt that fairy tales even happened any longer.
Chapter 20
Stephen walked quickly back to his office. He had to admit the one thing he truly loathed about the profession of academia was the meetings. There was nothing worse than sitting in a room full of thinkers who had nothing more pressing to do than endlessly chew on details he couldn’t have cared less about.
Well, he might have cared at a different time, only now he’d recently had a brief taste of history, he had continual access to living fountains of authentic details, and at present he had a woman sitting in one of his chairs that he wanted to see more of before she dashed off to lunch with a man he was truly beginning to loathe.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t disliked David Preston before. Sitting with the man on a pair of charity boards had given him ample opportunity to observe the depths of the good duke’s lack of principles. Distaste had blossomed into a healthy disgust after a particularly egregious display of dishonesty at a gala put on for the benefit of a hospital. The true dislike hadn’t actually begun until a recent weekend party at Payneswick where David had turned his roving eye on Peaches. Perhaps she hadn’t noticed, but Stephen had. Kenneworth had been ridiculously indiscreet about broadcasting his interest in a new potential conquest. Stephen supposed the only reason Peaches hadn’t paid for that socially was that she was the sister of the Countess of Sedgwick, a fact that he had nosed about quite loudly. He hadn’t heard anyone say anything to Kenneworth, but there were few who crossed that unscrupulous duke who didn’t come away scarred.
Stephen could safely say he had never found himself in that group, but that was likely because he had no skeletons in his past. He could thank his mother that he’d never done anything so stupid morally that it could be used against him in the court of public opinion and his father that he had been scrupulously honest in his business dealings. David might loudly call him a bastard, but he wouldn’t be the first to do so. They were just words, and Stephen didn’t pay heed to foolish words.
He reached his office to find the door locked. That alarmed him until he got the door open and realized Peaches was halfway out of her chair. He walked inside and shut the door behind him, sighing in relief. She looked at him solemnly.
“You’re dressed for success.”
He managed to nod.
“I thought you didn’t have any classes today.”
He shrugged out of his overcoat and set his portfolio on the chair by the door. “I don’t.”
“Then what’s your hurry to get here, Mr. Verbose?”
He smiled in spite of himself as he cast himself down in the chair opposite her. “I was eager to see if you had found any Regency-era delights to share with me.”
She studied him in silence for a long moment, long enough that he had to remind himself that he never squirmed. She was just so lovely, sitting there with the light from his fire caressing her flawless skin and—
He frowned. “You put your hair up.”
“It matched the conservative skirt and sweater.” She smiled, then her smile faded. “I have to go soon.”
“Lunch with the charming and debonair Duke of Kenneworth?” Stephen asked with a lightness he most certainly didn’t feel.
“It would seem so.”
“You’ll have a lovely time. No need to rush. It will all be here when you get back.”
She smoothed her hands down her skirt. “I’m a little embarrassed.”
He maintained a neutral expression. “Do the clothes not suit you?”
“Well, of course they suit me,” she said crossly. “But I still think it’s a little impolite to go out to lunch with one man while wearing the clothes another man bought for you.”
“I wouldn’t know,” he murmured.
She glared at him, then rose and went to fetch her purse—a very lovely thing Humphreys had done a fine job selecting. Stephen rose only to find himself standing nose to nose with her.
“You can’t possibly …” She took a deep breath. “Well, you know.”
He clasped his hands behind his back. It was the only thing—the only thing—that kept him from clasping them around her instead. He took a very careful breath.
“I bought you a thing or two because I didn’t want you to go back to Sedgwick,” he said honestly.
“Because you needed me to work for you?”
“That, too.”
She looked up at him miserably. “Aren’t you taking Irene to lunch?”
“Cad that I am, I’m not,” he said mildly. “Too much to do here.”
She closed her eyes briefly, then turned and fled.
He watched the door close behind her, then sat down in his chair and swore. He swore for quite a while, actually, and the Duke of Kenneworth figured prominently in his slander. It made him feel warm and happy inside to eviscerate the man so thoroughly, but that didn’t change the fact that David was enjoying Peaches’s company for lunch whilst he was not.
He rose and began to pace. Perhaps Peaches was right and he needed a brief trip to Scotland. Perhaps she would come with him, so he might enjoy the pleasure of her company in one of his favorite places.
He didn’t admit that to many, that he loved Scotland. His father would have been appalled that anything north of Hadrian’s Wall held any fascination for him at all. But he loved the lochs and the mountains and the feeling of having stepped back centuries in time …
It was a perfect waste of an afternoon. He tried to work on half a dozen things that didn’t hold his interest for more than a moment or two, considered a run, then finally found himself at the nearest juice bar, drinking sludge and beginning to acquire a taste for it. That necessitated a nip into a shop on the way back to school for a steak-and-kidney pie to counteract the adverse effects of too many greens. All those diversions enjoyed, he returned to his office and tried to work.
He looked up as the door opened suddenly. Peaches came in quietly, then shut the door behind her. She looked very serious.
He was on his feet before he knew what he was doing, then across the room before he thought better of it. He had pulled her into his arms before his good sense could scream he was moving too fast with her. After all, he’d already moved too quickly in Bath, hadn’t he? And his lack of patience had driven her into David Preston’s arms for lunch.<
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He started to pull away when he realized her arms were around him and she wasn’t letting go.
“Did he hurt you?” He realized as the words were hanging there in the air that he’d said them with an anger he hadn’t realized he was feeling.
She pulled back and looked up at him in surprise. “Of course not. It was a public place, after all. And I know self-defense.”
“I would feel better about that if you spent a few days with Patrick MacLeod,” he said grimly. “Was he unkind to you?”
She looked at him evenly. “This is shaping up to be a very weird conversation.”
“And no hope of anything else anytime soon. And whilst I suppose I should worry about your physical state, I was more concerned about your heart.”
She pulled away fully. “David Preston? Are you kidding? The guy’s a total jerk. I never thought he was anything else.”
He caught her before she walked away and gently turned her to him. He searched her face and saw that she had perhaps indeed entertained thoughts that she now found rather less than sensible.
“I have been deceived before as well,” he offered.
“Were you in love with the ones who deceived you?”
He ignored the question. “Are you in love with David Preston?”
“That’s pretty touchy-feely of you, Lord Haulton,” she said sternly. “And appallingly personal.”
He rubbed his hands over his face. “I think I need to run.”
“I’ll just bet you do. Put on your trainers, and let’s go.”
“And have you leave me unable to get out of bed tomorrow?” he asked with a snort. “I think not.”
“Let’s go do the track. I’ll get bored after a few miles.” She started to turn away, then looked at him. “The question still stands.”
“You first.”
She hesitated, then sighed deeply. “I was initially flattered by the attention and thought that it might result in the whole fairy tale.” She shrugged, though he could tell she was feeling less than casual about the whole affair. “That’s the absolute truth of it, and I can’t believe I’m being that honest with you. It must be the stockings cutting off the circulation to my brain.”