by Amanda Quick
PRAISE FOR Mischief
“Witty, charming, sharply written, downright funny … The 19th century has rarely been so much fun.”
—People
“Recommended.” —Cosmopolitan
“Amanda Quick seems to be writing … better and better.” —Chicago Tribune
“Wit is Quick’s middle name.”
—Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“I was carried away by this excellent story.”
—Philadelphia Inquirer
“[Amanda Quick] has created another golden link here in her long chain of bestsellers.”
—Publishers Weekly
“[Amanda Quick’s] Regency-period romances continue to wear exceedingly well.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A fast-paced fun read.” —Oakland Press
Bantam Books by Amanda Quick
Ask your bookseller for
the books you have missed
AFFAIR
DANGEROUS
DECEPTION
DESIRE
I THEE WED
MISCHIEF
MISTRESS
MYSTIQUE
RAVISHED
RECKLESS
RENDEZVOUS
SCANDAL
SEDUCTION
SLIGHTLY SHADY
SURRENDER
WICKED WIDOW
WITH THIS RING
DON’T LOOK BACK
LATE FOR THE WEDDING
Table of Contents
Cover
Other Books By This Author
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Author’s Note
Prologue
Copyright
For my editor,
Beth de Guzman,
with thanks and appreciation.
Prologue
The weak flame of the candle made little impact on the flood of darkness that filled the interior of the deserted mansion. It seemed to Matthias Marshall, Earl of Colchester, that the vast house had absorbed the very essence of the night. It had the aura of a tomb, a place where only ghosts would willingly reside.
The folds of Matthias’s long, black greatcoat swirled around his mud-spattered boots as he climbed the stairs. He held the candle higher to light his path. No one had greeted him at the door when he had arrived a few minutes earlier, so he had let himself into the cavernous hall. It was clear now that there were no servants about, not even a maid or a footman. He had been obliged to take care of his horse himself, because no groom had come forth from the stables.
At the top of the stairs he paused to glance down over the railing into the ocean of night that filled the front hall. The candle could not begin to penetrate the waves of darkness that ebbed and flowed there.
Matthias walked down the gloom-filled corridor to the first chamber on the left. He stopped in front of it and twisted the old knob. The door gave a groan of despair as it opened. He held the candle aloft and surveyed the bedchamber.
It resembled nothing so much as the interior of a mausoleum.
In the center of the chamber was an ancient stone sarcophagus. Matthias glanced at the inscriptions and carvings that adorned it. Roman, he thought. Quite ordinary.
He crossed the chamber to where the coffin stood beneath gauzy black hangings. The lid had been removed. The candlelight revealed the black velvet cushions that lined the inside of the sarcophagus.
Matthias put the candle on a table. He stripped off his riding gloves and dropped them beside the taper, then sat down on the edge of the coffin and removed his boots.
When he was ready, he wrapped himself in the folds of his greatcoat and settled onto the black cushions inside the sarcophagus.
It was nearly dawn, but Matthias knew that the heavy drapes that covered the windows would prevent the rays of the rising sun from invading the dark chamber.
Some might have had difficulty finding sleep in such sepulchral surroundings. Matthias knew that he would have no problem. He was accustomed to the company of ghosts.
Just before he closed his eyes he asked himself again why he had bothered to respond to the summons that had been issued by the mysterious Imogen Waterstone. But he knew the answer to that question. Long ago he had given his oath. His word was his bond.
Matthias always kept his promises. Doing so was the only way he could be certain that he would not become a ghost himself.
Chapter 1
Matthias was rudely awakened by a woman’s bloodcurdling scream.
A second female voice, this one as crisp as the green apples of ancient Zamar, interrupted the horrified cry.
“For heaven’s sake, Bess,” the apple-tart voice admonished. “Must you screech at the sight of every cobweb? It is extremely irritating. I am trying to accomplish a great deal this morning and I can hardly do so if you shriek at every turn.”
Matthias opened his eyes, stretched, and sat up slowly in the sarcophagus. He glanced at the open door of the bedchamber just in time to see a young maid crumple to the floor in a deep swoon. The weak sunlight that seeped down the hall behind her told Matthias that it was late morning. He raked his fingers through his hair and then tested the stubble of his beard. He was not surprised that he’d scared the maid into a faint.
“Bess?” Crisp, fresh apples again. Light footsteps in the hall. “Bess, what on earth is wrong with you?”
Matthias rested one arm on the edge of the stone coffin and watched with interest as a second figure appeared in the doorway. She did not see him at first. Her full attention was focused on the fallen maid.
There was no mistaking the fact that the second female was a lady. The long apron that she wore over her serviceable gray bombazine gown could not disguise the elegant line of her spine or the high, gently rounded curve of her breasts. The determined set of her shoulders bespoke an innate pride and a purposeful air that had been bred into her very bones.
Matthias contemplated the lady in growing fascination as she hovered above her maid. He swept a critical eye over her, cataloguing the various parts of her form much as he would assess the carving of a Zamarian statue.
She had made a valiant attempt to confine a voluminous mass of tawny brown hair beneath a practical little white cap. Several tendrils had escaped imprisonment, however, and bounced around her fine-boned face. That face was turned partially away from Matthias’s view, but he could make out high cheekbones, long lashes, and a distinctive, arrogant nose.
A strong, striking face, he concluded. It conveyed the essence of the forceful spirit that obviously animated it.
The lady was no young chit fresh out of the schoolroom, but on the other hand, she was not nearly so ancient as himself. Then again, few people were. In truth he was thirty-four, but he felt centuries older. He estimated that Imogen was five and twenty.
He watched as she dropped a leather-bound journal onto the carpet and knelt impatiently beside her maid. There was no sign of a wedding ring on her hand. For some reason that fact pleased him. He suspected that the apple-tart voice and the commanding manner had had a great deal to do with her apparent status as a spinster.
It was a matter of taste, of course. Most of Matthias’s male acquaintances preferred honey and chocol
ate. He, however, had always favored something with a bit of a bite when it came to after-dinner delicacies.
“Bess, that is quite enough. Open your eyes at once, do you hear me?” Imogen produced a vinaigrette and waved it briskly under the maid’s nose. “I really cannot have you screaming and swooning every time you open a door in this house. I warned you that my uncle was a very odd man and that we were quite likely to come across some rather strange items when we inventoried his collection of sepulchral antiquities.”
Bess moaned and rolled her head on the carpet. She did not open her eyes. “I seen it, ma’am. I swear it on me mother’s grave.”
“What did you see, Bess?”
“A ghost. Or maybe it were a vampire. I’m not sure which.”
“Nonsense,” Imogen said.
“What was that earsplitting noise?” another woman called from the top of the stairs. “Is something amiss down there, Imogen?”
“Bess has fainted, Aunt Horatia. It is really too much.”
“Bess? Not like her.” More footsteps in the hallway announced the impending arrival of the woman who had been addressed as Aunt Horatia. “Bess is a sturdy girl. Not at all prone to fainting spells.”
“If she has not fainted, she is doing an excellent imitation of a lady suffering an attack of the vapors.”
Bess’s lashes fluttered. “Oh, Miss Imogen, it was dreadful. A body in a stone coffin. It moved.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Bess.”
“But I seen it.” Bess groaned again, raised her head, and glanced anxiously past Imogen into the shadows of the bedchamber.
Matthias winced as she caught sight of him and screamed again. Bess flopped back down onto the carpet with all the grace of a beached fish.
The third woman arrived in the hall outside the doorway. She was dressed in the same practical fashion as Imogen, a plain gown, apron, and cap. She was an inch or two shorter than her companion and considerably broader about the waist and hips. Her graying hair was pinned beneath her cap. She studied Bess through a pair of spectacles. “What on earth is upsetting the girl?”
“I have no notion.” Imogen busied herself with the vinaigrette. “Bess has an imagination that is easily overheated.”
“I warned you about the dangers of teaching her to read.”
“I know you did, Aunt Horatia, but I cannot bear to see a sound mind go uneducated.”
“You’re just like your parents.” Horatia shook her head. “Well, she’s not going to be of much use if she continues to start at every unusual sight in this house. My brother’s collection of funereal oddities is enough to give anyone a fit of the vapors.”
“Nonsense. Uncle Selwyn’s collection is a bit morbid, I admit, but rather fascinating in its way.”
“This house is a mausoleum and well you know it,” Horatia retorted. “Perhaps we ought to send Bess back downstairs. This was Selwyn’s bedchamber. She was no doubt startled by the sight of the sarcophagus. Why my brother insisted on sleeping in that old Roman coffin is beyond me.”
“It is a rather unusual sort of bed.”
“Unusual? It would inspire nightmares in anyone possessed of normal sensibilities.” Horatia turned to peer into the shadows of the darkened bedchamber.
Matthias decided that it was time to rise from the coffin. He stepped over the edge of the sarcophagus and pushed aside the thin black draperies. His greatcoat swirled around him, concealing the breeches and badly wrinkled shirt in which he had slept. He watched with amused resignation as Horatia’s eyes widened in horror.
“Sweet God in heaven, Bess was right.” Horatia’s voice rose to a shriek. “There is something in Selwyn’s coffin.” She staggered back a step. “Run, Imogen, run.”
Imogen leaped to her feet. “Not you, too, Aunt Horatia.” She whirled to glower into the darkened bedchamber. When she caught sight of Matthias standing in front of the coffin, her lips parted in amazement.
“Good heavens. There is someone in there.”
“Told ye so, ma’am,” Bess whispered hoarsely.
Matthias waited with keen curiosity to see if Imogen would scream or succumb to the vapors.
She did neither. Instead, she narrowed her eyes in unmistakable disapproval. “Who are you, sir, and what do you mean by frightening my aunt and my maid in this nasty fashion?”
“Vampire,” Bess muttered weakly. “I heard tell of ’em, ma’am. Suck yer blood, he will. Run. Run while ye still can. Save yerself.”
“There is no such thing as a vampire,” Imogen announced without bothering to glance down at the stricken maid.
“A ghost, then. Flee for yer life, ma’am.”
“She’s right.” Horatia plucked at Imogen’s sleeve. “We must get away from here.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Imogen drew herself up and regarded Matthias down the length of her very fine nose. “Well, sir? What have you to say for yourself? Speak up, or I shall summon the local magistrate and have you clapped in irons.”
Matthias walked slowly toward her, his eyes fixed on her face. She did not retreat. Instead, she fitted her hands to her waist and began to tap the toe of one half-boot.
An odd but unmistakable sense of awareness, almost a thrill of recognition, went through him. Impossible. But when he was close enough to see the intense clarity of Imogen’s wide blue-green eyes, eyes the color of the seas that surrounded the lost island kingdom of Zamar, he suddenly understood. For some whimsical reason he could not explain, she made him think of Anizamara, the legendary Zamarian Goddess of the Day. The mythical lady dominated much of the lore of ancient Zamar and a great deal of its art. She was a creature of warmth, life, truth, energy. Her power had been equaled only by Zamaris, the Lord of the Night. Only Zamaris could embrace her brilliant spirit.
“Good day to you, madam.” Matthias pulled his fanciful thoughts back under control and inclined his head. “I am Colchester.”
“Colchester.” Horatia took another startled step back and came up against the wall. Her eyes went to his hair. She swallowed heavily. “Cold-blooded Colchester?”
Matthias knew that she was staring at the icy white streak that lanced through his black hair. Most people recognized it immediately. It had identified the men of his family for four generations. “As I said, I am Colchester, madam.”
He had been Viscount Colchester when he had earned the appellation of Cold-blooded. The fact that both of the family titles went by the same name, Colchester, had made things convenient for the gossips in the ton, he thought bitterly. There had been no need to lose the alliteration.
Horatia’s mouth worked. “What are you doing here in Upper Stickleford, sir?”
“He is here because I sent for him.” Imogen favored him with a blindingly bright smile. “I must say, it’s high time you arrived, my lord. I dispatched my message more than a month ago. What kept you?”
“My father died several months ago, but I was delayed returning to England. When I arrived, there were a number of matters pertaining to his estate that required my attention.”
“Yes, of course.” Imogen was acutely embarrassed. “Forgive me, my lord. My condolences on the death of your parent.”
“Thank you,” Matthias said. “But we were not close. Is there anything to eat in the kitchens? I am feeling quite famished.”
The first thing one noticed about the Earl of Colchester, Imogen decided, was the swath of silver in his midnight-dark hair. It burned in a cold white flame through the unfashionably long black mane.
The second thing one noticed was his gaze. His eyes were colder than the icy silver in his hair.
The fourth Earl of Colchester was magnificent, she thought as she waved him to a chair in the library. He would have been altogether perfect had it not been for those eyes. They glittered in his hard, ascetic face with the chillingly emotionless light of an intelligent and very dangerous ghost.
With the exception of those spectral gray eyes, Colchester was exactly as she had envisioned. His brilliant art
icles in the Zamarian Review had accurately reflected his intellect as well as a character forged by years of harsh travel in strange lands.
Any man who could calmly lie down to sleep in a sarcophagus was a man who possessed nerves of iron. Just what she needed, Imogen thought ebulliently.
“Allow me to introduce myself and my aunt properly, my lord.” Imogen seized the teapot and prepared to pour. She was so excited to have Colchester at hand that she could scarcely contain herself. Wistfully she toyed with the notion of blurting out the whole truth concerning her identity. But caution prevailed. She could not, after all, be entirely certain how he would react, and at the moment she needed his willing cooperation. “As you have no doubt concluded, I am Imogen Waterstone. This is Mrs. Horatia Elibank, my late uncle’s sister. She was recently widowed and has kindly consented to become my companion.”
“Mrs. Elibank.” Matthias nodded once to acknowledge the introduction.
“Your lordship.” Horatia, perched stiffly on the edge of her chair, darted an uneasy, decidedly disapproving glance at Imogen.
Imogen frowned. Now that the initial fright had passed and proper introductions had been made, there was no reason for Horatia to look so anxious. Colchester was an earl, after all. More significantly, at least so far as Imogen was concerned, he was Colchester of Zamar; the distinguished discoverer of that ancient, long-lost island kingdom, founder of the Zamarian Institution and the prestigious Zamarian Review, and trustee of the Zamarian Society. Even by Horatia’s high standards, he should have been eminently acceptable.
For her part, it was all Imogen could do not to stare at him. She still could not quite bring herself to believe that Colchester of Zamar was sitting there in the library, taking tea as though he were an ordinary man.
But not much else was ordinary about him, she thought.
Tall, lean, and powerfully built, Colchester was imbued with a sinewy masculine grace. The years of arduous travel in search of Zamar had no doubt honed his physique to its present admirable state, Imogen reasoned.