A Most Peculiar Season Series Boxed Set: Five Full-length Connected Novels by Award-winning and Bestselling Authors

by Michelle Willingham

  The sheets smelled of him. A wave of nostalgia washed through her. She shot to a sitting position, aghast at the power of the memory. She took a few deep breaths, waiting for it to fade—but the instant she lay down, she would smell him again. Panic assailed her at the thought of spending the whole night beside him, haunted by that heady male aroma.

  She got out of bed, hobbled across the room, and took a large swallow of brandy. She burst into a fit of coughing, but it was worth it if the brandy put her to sleep. She went to the door and softly called Fen’s name, then climbed back into bed. She slid back down under the covers and lay at the very edge of the bed, her face turned away from the door. She shut her eyes.

  And waited, heart pounding. A strange thought entered her head: that her heart would have pounded for an entirely different reason a few days hence, waiting in another bed for her new husband. For if she hadn’t learned he was a traitor, she would almost certainly have married him whether she wanted to or not.

  She should be thankful. At least she was spared that.

  At last Lord Fenimore came into the room. After a minute or two, he got into bed. He said nothing and nor did she. She took deep, slow breaths, hoping he would think she was asleep.

  “You’ll fall off the edge of the bed,” he said. “Come closer.”

  She stiffened, opening her eyes. How dare he?

  “I won’t touch you, I swear. But you drank most of that goblet of brandy, and if wine makes you foolish, brandy will make you worse.”

  Definitely worse. Her head swam, and she groaned. Concentrating, she shifted backward an inch.

  “A little closer won’t hurt,” Fen said. When she didn’t move, he put an arm around her and pulled her toward him. She froze—but she needn’t have done so, for he removed his arm, and she felt him turn away. Good, because she was getting stupider by the second. If he touched her, she might lose control and beg him to hold her in his arms, after which she would weep like a baby when he refused.

  How maudlin. It must be the fault of the brandy.

  “You’ve had quite a night of it, but don’t fret, Andromeda,” he said. “It’s the devil of a coil, but I’ll keep you safe. It’ll be all right in the end.”

  No, it won’t, she thought, but she was too tired to protest and probably drunk as well. She closed her eyes again and immediately fell asleep.

  It was some time before Fen slept. His libido didn’t care that Andromeda had betrayed him years ago. Nor did the fact that she recoiled from sharing a bed with him now discourage his cock in the least. It stood to eager attention, preventing him from thinking about anything but her smooth skin and lithe curves. The aroma of her perspiration and musk made him burn with longing. He waited, intolerably tense, until he was certain she slept, and then rolled slowly off the bed, taking his pillow with him.

  He stretched out on the hearthrug. Cuff crept out of his favorite spot behind the coat cupboard and curled up before the dying fire, his eyes wide and kind. Cuff mightn’t understand the problem—fairies thought quite differently from humans—but he sensed Fen’s pain.

  “What am I going to do about her, Cuff?” Fen whispered. Cuff didn’t answer—he never spoke, and in any event, the question was a rhetorical one. Fen would do absolutely nothing until the time came to take Andromeda home. He did not intend to bed her, and her ruin was not his problem.

  He forced his mind to important matters. He wondered briefly whether the spy they sought really did have to consult his superiors about paying Slough. It might be so or it might be a bargaining tool. Fen could kill two spies or ten as well as Slough—but much as that simple solution appealed to him, it wouldn’t clear Harry’s name.

  Now the problem was much worse, what with Slough about to sell the names of English spies in France. First thing in the morning, Fen would write to his father, however hopeless it might seem. He wondered how he managed to retain any confidence in his impossible parent, but some tenets of his upbringing, such as courtesy and respect, stuck with him despite all evidence that they were unmerited.

  What should he write? That he had learned from a reputable witness that Lord Slough was about to sell the names of two English spies to the French? What if the marquis went straight to Slough, thus giving the game away? Because he would certainly believe Slough over anything his tradesman son said. It might stop Slough from committing further treason, but the French spies would just find someone else to bribe. Damn it, it was Fen’s duty to find Slough’s French contacts.

  Also, from whom had Slough obtained the names? If Fen found another traitor, he couldn’t allow him to go free. He’d killed before and would kill again if necessary, but he didn’t relish the thought—although his blades would eagerly do his bidding. But was there another traitor, or just another dupe? And if so, whom?

  He fell asleep considering and dismissing possibilities and woke a few hours later to the sound of a faint footstep outside his door. Harry had come home.

  He stretched and stood. To his relief, Andromeda was still fast asleep. Her honey-colored curls lay tumbled against the white of the pillowcase. Her sweet, rosy mouth was slightly open, her eyelashes dark against her pale skin. A few freckles dusted her nose.

  She was ineffably lovely. Once again, his libido reacted powerfully. In his youth, her wantonness—a fairy wantonness with more than a touch of magic to it―had attracted him to the point of madness, and then repelled him when it wasn’t directed at him. He’d been anguished that Donald Crockett had bedded her, but he hadn’t blamed him. Crockett wouldn’t have seen any reason not to take what was offered.

  His own anger was the worst—oh, that had terrified him. Not blaming Crockett hadn’t stopped him from wanting to kill the man. He’d badly needed a peaceful outlet for the magic of his blades. He’d been pondering going into trade for some time, struggling with the certain consequences of such a step. He would become a social outcast, which in itself didn’t particularly disturb him, but marrying Andromeda would be out of the question. Thanks to her betrayal, the decision to leave home and start a furniture business had taken care of itself.

  Andromeda hadn’t acted much like a wanton last night. Maybe it was because she’d had a terrifying evening. Maybe, too, that she just didn’t like him anymore.

  Her chest rose and fell under the coverlet. What a pity they were so incompatible. She had sweet, smallish breasts, but he shouldn’t let himself imagine kissing them, shouldn’t imagine her naked beneath him or over him, shouldn’t imagine possessing her forever. Just for this moment, he allowed himself to dwell on the emotions he’d avoided for years. The anger had faded; now his heart swelled with regret.

  If people found out she’d stayed here, they would expect Fen to marry her—a recipe for disaster. Whatever they’d been to each other years before, now they couldn’t stomach one another. On that charming thought, he grabbed his coat, shoes, and the decanter of brandy, and left the room.

  He tapped on Harry’s door and at a mumbled response, slipped inside. Harry ripped off his footman’s wig. “No luck with Slough, and I don’t know where Stinson went.”

  Fen shut the door. “Harry, I have bad news. Stinson’s dead.”

  Harry gaped at him, his face stark in the candlelight.

  Fen poured his friend some brandy, and in as few words as possible, he explained about Stinson’s disappearance at the ball, then Andromeda’s arrival and what she’d told him. “It’s worse than we thought. There are at least two French spies to contend with.”

  Harry swore. “Fine, I’ll skewer them both.”

  Fen grimaced. “I understand your desire for vengeance, but that won’t help clear your name. I’d much rather you went away for a while. I’ll be happy to kill them for you when the time is right.” Immediately, he wished he’d kept his mouth shut, for when Harry took offense, he nursed his hurt feelings for weeks.

  “Some bastard murdered my friend,” Harry growled.

  “Very well, I knew you wouldn’t leave, but I had to suggest
it.”

  “If you say so, my lord.”

  Fen sighed. He didn’t have the energy to coax Harry out of milording him, so onward to practicalities. “We have to intercept tomorrow’s meeting, not only to prevent the names from changing hands, but to identify at least one of the French spies.”

  “Identify, pursue, and kill,” Harry said.

  “That won’t help clear your name,” Fen said again. “Dispatching Slough would be easy enough, but again, it wouldn’t serve our purpose. We have to find where he’s meeting the spy and get some reputable witnesses to testify against him.”

  “If he doesn’t panic and run like the devil first.” Harry’s mirthless grin said he hoped to be the one to pursue him.

  “He’s not the cool customer he pretends to be,” Fen said, “but I don’t think he’ll panic quite yet.”

  “No? He doesn’t know where the girl has gone. He tried to keep it quiet at the ball, but the aunt was hysterical and there was a lot of whispering going on. He must know she’ll blab the first chance she gets.”

  “One would think so,” Fen said, “but consider what he has to lose. His estates will be forfeit. He’ll have only what money he has on him. I can’t see him scrimping and saving in exile.”

  “Maybe he’s got some gelt ferreted away elsewhere.”

  Fen shrugged. “I doubt it, but it’s not just money, either. He would lose all status and prestige as well. He would have to give up everything but his life, and since we’re sure to defeat Napoleon in the end, running to the Continent wouldn’t be enough. He’d have to go to America, which wouldn’t suit him any better than it would you.”

  “You think he’ll play the scapegoat card.” Harry took a sizeable swallow of brandy, which he had so far left untouched.

  “Not if he doesn’t have to, but it’s a distinct possibility. We knew it was his fallback plan.”

  “Won’t do him much good, will it? They won’t find me, and we know your old man will protect you if Slough tries to implicate you.”

  Yes, to avoid a scandal of massive proportions, Fen would be shuttled off to the ancestral estates—an entirely different sort of prison, but at least he’d be properly clothed and fed, and he wouldn’t face the hangman. Fen didn’t blame Harry for resenting aristocratic privilege, but he refused to apologize for his birth. They were what they were, and it was a miracle he and Harry got on together, but he’d never had a better friend.

  Fen opened his mouth and shut it again. No point in asking Harry to hide properly rather than in plain sight.

  Harry wasn’t fooled; he narrowed his eyes. “I’ve got a lot to lose too, my lord, even if it isn’t a title or a precious estate, my lord, and I’m not giving it up without a fight. Not only that, my lord, it’s my friend who’s dead. My lord.” He downed the rest of the brandy.

  “I shall never understand,” Fen retorted, “why it’s perfectly acceptable for you to try to protect me, but if I want to protect you, you go all bristly and milord me to death. If you really believed in equality, you would let me be your equal.”

  Harry said nothing. They would never quite overcome the hurdles of their vastly different stations in life. Fen poured his friend another brandy, and Harry graciously accepted it. Better than nothing.

  “I don’t think Slough will play the scapegoat card yet either,” Fen said after a while. “If he does, he’ll have to cease all treasonous activity for a while, just for safety’s sake. He won’t want to give up whatever he’s about to be paid for the names of our spies in France. He’ll go ahead and meet his French contact and then play the card.” He paused. “We’ve got one reputable witness, but she’s only a woman, and from what she told me, she didn’t actually see Slough, because she was hiding behind a curtain. Theoretically, she could have mistaken the voice she heard. I have to find some other witnesses.”

  “Typical useless aristocrats, I suppose,” Harry said, which wasn’t fair but not worth arguing about.

  “I don’t possess any aristocratic friends at the moment.” Fen sighed. “I’d better write to my father and let him know that some names are about to be sold to the French. That will at least give him time to alert our people in France—if he believes me, that is.”

  “My old man was a pickpocket, and he treated me better than that.”

  Fen had no answer for this, and he couldn’t afford to let it eat away at him now. “Also, I’m going to split one of the legs on that bed for Slough.” It was an uninspired design; his magic had deserted him at the thought of Andromeda and Slough together. “I’ll tell Slough the bed needs repair and we can’t deliver it tomorrow. That will prevent him from setting a trap for us for a couple of days.”

  Harry yawned and lay down, fully dressed. “I need a couple of hours’ sleep. What are you going to do with this girl who came tonight? A childhood friend, you said.”

  “Yes, we grew up on neighboring estates. I thought about bringing her to my father, but he’ll say she’s hysterical and send her home... and then, one way or another, she’ll be at Slough’s mercy. She’ll have to stay here for now. I told her this room belonged to my valet. You can see to her needs—better you than I.” Too late, he realized the derisive tone he’d used.

  Harry raised a brow. “You have something against her?”

  “I’d just rather she wasn’t here,” Fen said.

  As usual, Harry wasn’t fooled. “There was more to it, wasn’t there?”

  “More to what?” growled Fen, but after a moment, he admitted, “Oh, very well, we were enamored of one another for a while, but that was years ago.” He laughed without mirth. “She turned her nose up at me tonight.”

  “She could have fled to someone else. Why did she choose you?”

  “Out of desperation,” Fen said. “We met tonight, she saw my card, and therefore knew where I could be found. It was clever of her to go the opposite direction from what Slough would expect, but if I hadn’t been at the ball, she’d have sought out some other fellow.” Such as Donald Crockett, but he didn’t say it aloud.

  “Still, she must trust you, or she wouldn’t have come here.”

  “Why shouldn’t she? I never did anything to betray her trust.”

  “Ah,” Harry said. “Cuckolded you, did she?” He’d always been annoyingly sharp.

  “I didn’t own her,” Fen said shortly.

  “Then how could she have betrayed you?”

  “This isn’t a topic for discussion,” Fen snapped.

  Harry gave a mockery of a bow. “Of course not, my lord. I beg your pardon, my lord. Whatever you say, my lord.”

  “Stubble it,” Fen said. “What matters is that there’s nothing between her and me now. Therefore, Lord Slough isn’t likely to suspect she came here.”

  Harry grunted, but that didn’t mean he’d accepted Fen’s explanation. “But if she stays, someone may see her. Many of our customers would recognize her. Word may get out.”

  “We’ll keep her hidden. Better yet... we’ll disguise her as a boy.”

  Harry eyed him skeptically.

  “You’re good at disguises, so why not?” Fen asked.

  “Aye, but most women aren’t built for playing a male part.” He moved his hands in the shape of a lush female figure. “Does your Miss Gibbons have big tits?”

  “No,” Fen said shortly. “She’ll make an acceptable boy. It will only be for a couple of days, and then I’ll take her home.”

  Then what would happen to her? Fen didn’t like to think of it—ruined, without prospects for marriage, unable or even forbidden to explain to society at large why she’d fled. Not that the explanation would matter much, since a disappearance meant ruin regardless of what had really happened. She would be relegated to the country forever, shunned and lonely through no fault of her own.

  He shouldn’t care about her fate—he didn’t—and yet the prospect made him sick. He got downstairs to the workshop just before the cabinet makers arrived, and took great pleasure in splitting apart one of the le
gs of Lord Slough’s marriage bed.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ANDROMEDA WOKE TO stealthy rustling sounds. The events of the night rushed over her, and she opened her eyes with a gasp.

  The other side of the bed was empty. She sat up, blinking, but there was no one else in the room. Maybe she hadn’t been quite awake yet, but just emerging from a dream, and therefore the rustling wasn’t real. Her mouth tasted foul, unnerving her, perhaps at the thought that Fen must be somewhere nearby.

  What a stupid thought—as if he might want to kiss her.

  She slid out of bed, wincing at her sore feet, and looked about her for the goblet that held the remains of the brandy. She would pour the last bit out—she would never touch the stuff again—and drink some of the water from the kettle.

  She found it on the floor by the wall, next to a little plate and a tin cup. It was empty now. Fen must have drunk the rest, but whose were the plate and cup? She rinsed her mouth and drank some of the tepid water, then brought the rest to the washstand. She poured it into the bowl and dipped her cupped hands into it, wishing it were warmer.

  Actually, it was quite warm. She splashed some on her face; no, delightfully warm. How strange; it had seemed almost cool when she’d drunk some. She frowned uneasily, but then the obvious explanation occurred to her. One’s mouth was accustomed to hot liquids such as tea, so what seemed cool to her mouth might feel warm to her face.

  That settled, she eyed her reflection in the looking-glass. What a disheveled mess—not a sight to invoke an urge to kiss.

  In the corner of her eye, she caught a subtle movement, but when she turned, nothing was there—not even a mouse. It was then that she noticed that the mirror frame was carved all around with quaint little faces, fairies and hobgoblins and such. One hob in particular watched her with mischievous eyes.

  Nostalgia rushed over her. Mama had told her stories of these creatures; stories so vivid that Andromeda had believed them—as all children did, she supposed. She turned away, and that flicker of movement arrested her again.