“Why, I wonder, are you pitching me this gammon?” Lord Elderwood said with a chuckle, and just like that, he plucked the pistol out of her hand.
“Give it back!” she cried.
“The only mounds of the least interest to me are yours,” he said. “And my muff pistol is much more fun than this one.”
She was no longer an innocent and had no difficulty catching his innuendo. Damn him! The problem with suggestive words from Elderwood’s mouth in Elderwood’s silky voice was that they got her going. Got her heart pounding and her breasts tingling and her blood burning with dark, insistent desires. It made no sense at all. She’d never reacted this way to any other man. Even Alexis, who was good-looking and undoubtedly virile, didn’t arouse such feelings within her.
If she approached and tried to retrieve her pistol, Elderwood would assuredly get hold of her, and this time she would have no way of stopping the onslaught. She didn’t think he would force her, but he would make her want it, and she might well give in.
She would give in, and his smile said he knew it.
She stalked to the copse, swept up a fallen branch and stormed at him, swinging at the hand that held her pistol. “You’re not only disgusting, but a thief, as well. Give me my gun!”
He backed away, uncocking the pistol and slipping it into his greatcoat pocket.
She kept on coming, lashing at him with the branch.
He fended her off. “Don’t make me take that away. You might get hurt.”
She slashed him across the face with one furious swipe. Blood welled up on his cheek. He didn’t even flinch, merely grabbing the branch with one swift tug. With a curse, she let go, and he tossed it aside. She glared at him, panting. Her hand stung, but she ignored it, just as he was ignoring the blood dripping down his check.
Idiotically, her heart wrenched at the sight. An absurd wish to tend his wound surged inside her. What was wrong with her? He didn’t deserve any such consideration.
But she shouldn’t have lashed at him in such a way. What if she’d injured his eye? She wasn’t a violent sort of person. She was civilized and self-controlled...except when she wanted to kill him.
She hated to back down, but she had no choice. Please be done, Peony. Please.
He took the pistol by the barrel and held it out. “If you want your gun,” he taunted, “come and get it.”
“And get raped for my pains? No, thank you.” She took to her heels, pelting down the hill, slipping down the last of the slope to land on her derriere, getting mud on her gown and may blossoms in her hair. She scrambled up. He thundered toward her, murderous rage and a trickle of blood on his darkly handsome face.
Again her heart twisted at the sight of what she’d done. That urge to tend to him assailed her. An apology tried to force itself to her lips, but she bit it back. Yes, she’d dealt him an intolerable insult, but it served him right. She plunged across the stream, picked up her dripping skirts, and ran for the safety of the house, almost frightened at what he might do if he caught her first.
He didn’t even follow her. She heard his shout for Alexis and turned, gasping for breath. He didn’t glance toward her, merely wheeled his horse and rode away.
* * *
Rape? Was that how she saw it? She’d fled pell-mell toward the house as if she seriously expected him to pursue her, throw her to the ground and take her against her will.
Furious and ashamed—which was entirely unjust because whatever she claimed, she did want it as much as he—David Elderwood dabbed the blood from his cheek and headed back to meet Alexis. He didn’t want to want Lucasta Barnes. Wanting her was a damned nuisance. He would far prefer to go back to his old carefree life, where he’d taken his pleasure with actresses and opera dancers and rarely considered marriage. His magical blood had meant women fell in love with him left and right, and he’d been more than happy to take full advantage of that!
Until Lucasta came along, and his long-dead mother’s warnings at last made sense.
“You will enjoy it at first,” his mother had told him, and although he’d only been ten years old at the time, he’d had no difficulty believing her. He already liked the look of women. Besides, his mother was always right. Right about the hobs and bogies—no one in the household saw them except her and David—and right that he could see paths where others saw thickets, and knew by instinct where to seek entrance to the fairy mounds. “But it will pall, if there is no love involved,” she’d said. Right again.
Now he bore with the women patiently and tried to be polite, but he couldn’t stomach them for more than a few minutes at a time. Not that he’d been celibate since that incredible coupling with Lucasta three years ago—of course not—but he’d stuck with one woman, an undemanding mistress who appreciated a comfortable income in exchange for satisfying his needs now and then. It was a boring liaison, but he didn’t have the taste for anything else. Lately, he’d had no taste for anything at all.
How could he, when he was bound to Lucasta for better or worse? This captivity was far more constraining than marriage, because it was born of magic and fueled by love and would never, ever fade.
She just didn’t understand. He’d come upon her naked in the dewy grass that morning three years ago, and she’d been as helpless under the spell as he was. Afterward, when it was too late, after they’d gazed, entranced, into one another’s eyes, after they’d given in to their mutually ravenous desire and become inextricably involved, she’d tried to deny the magic.
Because she didn’t believe in it—as if that made any difference!
She’d denied intending any such thing as calling her true love to her side. She’d insisted that she’d come out to make certain her maidservants weren’t being assaulted. She’d said a wasp had flown under her skirts and another down her bosom, and she’d ripped off her gown to get rid of them...but there’d been no maidservants in sight, and just like today, she’d been wearing nothing underneath—no shift and stays.
Rape. How dare she accuse him of anything so vile?
* * *
Lucasta hovered outdoors, wringing out her skirts and shivering, until she’d watched Peony safely enter the house. Her vigil over and her cousin safe, she crept up the stairs, fuming. She wanted her gun back. By hook or by crook, she intended to get it.
But that was for later. Right now, she had to regain her perfect composure. She’d worked hard at it over the past three years because at all costs she had to conceal the turmoil inside. To hide and eventually overcome the restlessness that made life intolerable at times.
The only occupation that helped was the research. In that one activity, she became entirely engrossed. She had to pretend she was doing it in memory of her father, compiling his folktales according to his deathbed wish. Her father had never expressed any such desire, but he would approve of her true goal, to expose the dangers of superstition. He’d put up with his wife’s foolishness because he loved her, but he couldn’t have predicted that her belief in fairies would result in insanity after his death.
Luckily, Lucasta’s Uncle John Barnes believed and respected the deathbed story. She and Peony were distant cousins on her mother’s side. He had allowed her to take up residence at Whistleby because her father had corresponded with Peony’s about the legends there, not because he considered her capable of researching and writing anything useful on her own. To hell with him. She would soon publish a massive volume on folklore, of which she would be justly proud.
More important, she would prove once and for all that magic wasn’t real. If she could save someone else’s mother from going mad, or another girl like Peony from taking such risks, all that work would be worthwhile.
She took off her shoes, tiptoed down the passageway and tapped on the door of Peony’s bedchamber. Peony unlocked it and let her in. Naked, pink with cold and trying to divest herself of the bits of grass sticking to her everywhere, she was obviously miserable, but that didn’t stop her from laughing at Lucasta’s bedraggled appear
ance. “Whatever happened to you? All that mud! Your gown is ruined.”
Thanks to Lord Elderwood’s intolerable ability to fluster Lucasta, she didn’t have a story ready. On the other hand, she could think quickly and clearly and improvise well. She’d cultivated these qualities and had even managed something with that impossible Elderwood distracting her. It had made no sense, of course—she’d mixed traditions in her haste to say something, anything.
“A stray bull,” Lucasta said now, “and it’s all your fault. I saw you were gone and went out to check on you, but the horrid creature took a fancy to me. I’m lucky I arrived home intact.” So there, you vile animal. That was how she thought of Elderwood—as a rampaging beast.
Damn the man. Lucasta had spent years attaining perfect self-control, and in only a few minutes he’d completely overset her. He must believe her a brainless fool to come up with such a nonsensical excuse for this morning and expect him to believe it.
Never again. She wouldn’t give him the opportunity to show his disdain, because she wouldn’t discuss folklore with him. If she was forced to talk to him during his visit, she would discuss the weather. Thank God Alexis would be here. He was her oldest and dearest friend.
And, she thought fiercely, she wouldn’t harm a hair on his head, even if she did marry him. Not that she intended to—their engagement was one of mutual convenience, to be sundered next year when Lucasta turned twenty-five and gained control of her fortune. Poor Alexis would once again be subject to his mother’s matchmaking attempts, but he’d enjoyed a few years without them—years during which Lucasta had been at liberty to work on her research. Oh, and free of the threat of being forced by her uncle to marry Lord Elderwood—not that she’d mentioned that little fact to Alexis. He was an excellent friend, but some things he wouldn’t understand.
Lucasta shed her gown, wet a cloth and wrung it out, and set to washing her cousin before one of the maids caught them and tattled. “We can say the mud and grass were stuck on me. I shall explain that I went out to check precisely where the sun first falls on the Enchanted Meadow on May Day. I’ll say it’s significant in an ancient Beltane rite.” That was a far better excuse, but she couldn’t have used it with Elderwood because that would have meant going into the meadow instead of away from it.
“I gather rolling in the dew produced no result,” she said after a while, trying to be kind about it, wishing poor Peony didn’t have to learn the hard way that magic didn’t exist.
“It was freezing cold and sopping wet, and I felt horridly exposed,” Peony said. She’d rolled in the dew out of desperation because both Mr. Whistleby and Aunt Edna wanted her to set her cap at Lord Elderwood. She was far too shy and not at all the sort of woman to attract such a rake.
Nor was Lucasta, or so one would think. She was considered pretty and possessed a good figure, but rakes didn’t usually pursue bluestockings. She snorted at the thought that he might show interest in her mind.
Even if he weren’t a rake, he wouldn’t, especially not after her blunders this morning. With an opponent like Elderwood, one had no choice but to be brilliant.
What, she asked herself, would he do with her gun?
* * *
She was sure to come seeking her gun, David thought that afternoon as he and Sir Alexis Court approached Whistleby Priory. Before she’d accused him of rape, he’d considered holding it to ransom, but now the thought made him sick.
Rape. His guts roiled. But why, if that’s how she felt, did she burn with passion when they kissed? Did she truly love Alexis and burn for him the same way? How could she? She belongs to me.
David cast a glance at his friend, who gazed out the window of the carriage as if eager for a glimpse of the Priory and his betrothed. Could he really be in love with Lucasta? They’d known one another since childhood, but he’d assumed they were more like brother and sister until one ghastly day almost three years ago, a month after that fateful tryst with Lucasta, when Alexis had announced their engagement.
“You can’t be serious,” David had said. Blurted, rather, it had been such a shock. He’d been pondering ways and means of wooing Lucasta, since she’d so adamantly refused to marry him. “You’ve always said you won’t marry for years, if ever.”
“Changed my mind,” Alexis said. “I like Lucasta and she likes me. We’ll have a comfortable time together.” He grinned. “Which is a lot more than I can say for my life lately, what with my mother shoving eligible females at me left and right.”
“Marriage seems an excessive solution,” David said. “Why not just stay away from Almack’s and all the ton parties?”
“Your mother is dead,” Alexis said bluntly. “You don’t understand how persistent and devious a matchmaking mama can be. Lucasta is well-bred, intelligent and extremely beddable. Why wouldn’t I marry her?”
Because she’s mine. Somehow, David had concealed his fury at the thought of Alexis bedding his Lucasta. He’d sworn, then and there, to abduct her from the church door if that was what it came down to.
Years later, the two of them were still engaged—waiting until Lucasta finished writing her tome, which made no sense at all. If they truly yearned for one another, they wouldn’t wait like this.
Enough was enough. David intended to end the engagement by whatever means necessary. She could write the damned tome while married—to him.
* * *
When Elderwood and Alexis arrived by coach that afternoon, Lucasta had her self-control firmly in place. She curtsied to the earl with perfect composure, but her gaze flew to the newly formed scab on his cheek. For the third time, her heart revolted at what she’d done to him. No, she mustn’t let it bother her; she was entitled to defend herself. She concentrated on his perfidy and gave him her most sarcastic half smile.
And immediately regretted it. Because something in his face flickered, and it wasn’t anger, but hurt. He was right—she did want him, physically at least. Even here, in the midst of introductions and platitudes, with servants bustling about, desire hovered low in her belly. Just because she refused to give in to such dangerous urges, didn’t mean she should accuse him of rape.
But why couldn’t he accept that she was engaged to Alexis and leave her be?
Dear Alexis. He was the opposite of Elderwood: good, solid, and kind—so much so that as soon as she got a chance to speak to him privately, she asked him to explain Peony’s predicament to Lord Elderwood. If the earl could somehow discourage Aunt Edna and Mr. Whistleby without making it appear that Peony wasn’t doing her best to be attractive, the poor girl might not be scolded quite so much. It was all Lucasta could do. She certainly couldn’t venture a private talk with Elderwood. He might or might not cooperate, but that was out of her hands. She went down to the drawing room for dinner, determined to treat him with cool, unwavering politeness.
He descended upon her the instant she entered the room. “Miss Barnes,” he said, “I hear to my delight that you are an expert on abbey lubbers and buttery spirits.”
These were the beings who supposedly stole food from the gluttonous and dishonest. She had certainly done a great deal of research on them. “Who told you that?”
“Why, Sir Alexis, of course,” he said blandly. “I am eager to hear about the Whistleby lubber. I had no idea you had investigated the subject thoroughly until Alexis told me.”
Alexis didn’t know the first thing about her research, but he nodded and smiled. What was going on?
Oh. He had already spoken to the earl about Peony, and this was the result. To save Peony from a scolding, Lucasta was to be plagued by Elderwood. She was to be mocked for her scholarly interests—doubly so, because she was not only a woman, but because she didn’t believe in magic.
Nobody truly approved of her scholarly bent. Alexis and Peony had no opinion one way or the other. Mr. Whistleby put up with it because she discouraged Peony’s belief in magic. Aunt Edna thought it a waste of time. The neighboring gentry never tired of asking when she would marry and ge
t on with living a useful, feminine life.
She’d never cared what any of them thought. She refused to care what Elderwood thought, either.
“Our mutual interest in folklore gives us a great deal in common,” Elderwood said in a tone that everyone else would see as encouraging.
I have nothing in common with you.
Except desire. She thrust that thought away. “There isn’t much to the legend,” she said. “According to the old stories, the abbey lubber left Whistleby after much of the original priory was demolished during the reign of Henry VIII. Once there were no gluttonous priests to steal from, he had no reason to remain.”
“Probably went to join the king’s buttery spirits,” Alexis joked. “There must have been dozens at the palace.” He winked at her, clearly assuming he’d done exactly as she wished, and somehow she managed to smile back. He turned to ask Mr. Whistleby about crop rotation, and she was stuck with Elderwood.
Who asked her about every abbey lubber and buttery spirit in Warwickshire and the surrounding counties from medieval times onward. How dared he, as if he were the instructor and she the pupil? As if he hoped to catch her in some error. He would certainly find one, since she didn’t share his absurd beliefs.
Grimly, she answered his queries in minute detail, citing everything she could bring to mind—names, dates, locations, sources. All facts. No magic. It wasn’t easy, because she had to concentrate hard to ignore the intense masculinity of his presence and the constant simmer of desire in her belly. She hoped it bored him to tears.
Finally, Peony arrived with Aunt Edna, who interrupted just before Lucasta’s stream of information dried up. “I hope you found your way without too much difficulty, my lord.”
“No difficulty at all,” he said with his vague, distracted air. It was all a pose. Lucasta hardly knew the man—a disastrous coupling and a few arguments during the London Season were the closest they’d had to a conversation until now—but even so, she saw through his polished attire and manners to the dangerous lunatic beneath.
Bewitched by His Kiss (May Day Mischief) Page 2