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Authors: Connie Brockway

Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Historical, #General

BOOK: So Enchanting
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He was made of sterner stuff than that. Tougher stuff than those who’d broken his father. Than her.
He had only history and experience to use to guide him, and her history was as an admitted bunco artist, and his experience was that cheats cheated. He owed it to his father’s memory not to follow in his footsteps.
“You will forgive me if I doubt you?”
He might have slapped her. Her chin snapped up. “I don’t really care what you believe,” she said. “Just
please
do not tell Amelie. She wouldn’t understand.”
She would not let this point go. He vacillated. He could think of no reason not to keep her secret. “Unless it becomes clear it is in Miss Chase’s immediate and best interest to know, your secret is safe.”
She took a deep, shuddering breath. “Thank you.”
“Of course,” he said, his voice gruff. “And . . . don’t worry.” The words came out of nowhere, surprising them both.
She glanced away, confused.
Whatever she saw caused her eyes to widen. She turned back. “The only thing I am currently worried about is out there,” she said, the familiar suaveness back in her voice. “And I want to know what
you
intend to do about it.”
She pointed out at the deepening twilight, where Hayden had—Grey leaned forward and peered more closely—secured Amelie Chase’s hand. Fanny was right to be indignant; Hayden should know to be more circumspect. But then, Hayden was naive (as only those convinced of their worldliness are naive,) and, more important, susceptible to playing Sir Galahad (as all men are susceptible, even, at one time six years ago, Grey).

 

Still, there was no cause for alarm as far as Grey was concerned. Hayden might be young, romantic, and enamored of his role as white knight, but he had also already spent several seasons successfully eluding the machinations of marriage-minded debutantes—a danger-fraught journey that, Grey flattered himself, his own excellent tutelage in such matters had helped pilot the boy through. Hayden might fancy himself in love with Amelie and flatter her a bit, but he would
never
raise her hopes by declaring himself.

 

“I love you!” Hayden declared passionately. “I love you!”
Amelie didn’t swoon.
This rather disappointed Hayden, who’d been looking forward to holding her in his arms, if only to carry her back inside.

 

Instead, she bit her bottom lip and regarded him with a probing gaze. “You do?” she asked.
This response made him uncomfortable. Generally, when one told a girl one loved her, one anticipated an encouraging response, not suspicion. Not that he’d told other girls he loved them. True, he might have occasionally—and, in hindsight, imprudently—insinuated something similar to love, but only to be polite.

 

Girls, in Hayden’s experience, dearly loved being loved, and occasionally, just to bring that special glow to their adorable faces, he might encourage them to hear in their imaginations what they wouldn’t with their ears. But it went without saying that he would never feign a deeper affection for Amelie Chase than he felt. He could never be dishonest with her—though
dishonest
seemed a rather harsh indictment of the harmless flirtations with which he was now, and forevermore, done.
He truly, sincerely, and most ardently knew himself to be in love with Amelie, and it wounded him that she doubted him. It also presented him with a delicious challenge. He would
prove
his love and make her love him in return.

 

“I do love you! Please. I beg you, tell me there is hope that you could return my feelings. If not now, on some day in the future. And tell me what I can do to make myself worthy in your eyes!” he demanded, though he was having difficulty imbuing his voice with the ardency such sentiments deserved, circumstances forcing him to whisper.
“How can you love me on so short an acquaintance?” she replied. “How do I dare believe you? I may lead an isolated life, but I assure you, Fanny has seen to it that my mind has roamed free. Far freer, I warrant, than those of many of the young ladies you know. I have read all about young swells and how they like to trifle with girls’ affections,” she finished darkly.

 

“I am not a young swell. I don’t trifle.” He caught the hard glint in her eyes. She’d heard the hint of hesitation in his voice.
God!
It only made him love her all the more! Already she knew him better than any woman ever had. She would be the making of him. He was sure of it.
“I’m not trifling now. Not with you. And never again. You are unlike any woman I have ever met, and yet I feel I have known you forever. You are clever and artless, vivacious and adorable, unspoiled and elegant.”
“You really think I’m elegant?” she asked.
“Intensely.” He seized on the slight advantage, tugging her gently away from the doors.
“I say,” he announced loudly. “Is that a cat down there, do y’suppose?”
Clever girl, she understood at once.
“Perhaps. Or a fox. Let us try to get a closer look, shall we?” she answered in a carrying voice. “You’d best stay inside, Fanny!” Amelie called over her shoulder. “I think there’re some foxes out here.”
She looked up at him from the shadows. “Fanny doesn’t care for animals,” she whispered. “They unnerve her.”
He didn’t care what unnerved Mrs. Walcott. He had Amelie well away from the door now, her small hands still clasped in his. All traces of the unsettling skepticism in her face had vanished.
“Say you can love me.”
“I dare not.”
“Why?” He’d meant to sound commanding; he feared he sounded petulant.
“You don’t know me.”
“I do. I know you in my heart. My soul is mate to your own. I was unwhole until now. I did not know how bereft I was until I looked into your eyes and—”
“But, Hayden, you don’t understand. I really may be a witch.”
Chapter Seventeen
Anxiously, Amelie twisted her hands together. Hayden did not look quite so dashing with his jaw hanging open, though in his defense surprise hadn’t opened it. It had opened when he’d begun his wonderful, romantic speech. Surprise had simply kept it open.

 

To his credit, Hayden didn’t actually stutter or squint or flee, all of which Amelie considered very good signs. Especially since she had fallen head over heels in love with Hayden and decided that since he loved her (and not for one instant did she believe otherwise, at least not after she’d caught him fudging a bit and he’d staunchly forfeited his part in any and all future flirtations), it would be smashing if they were to wed. She felt confident she would be the perfect wife for him.
But first, while there were some things she had no intention of revealing, she felt strongly that she must tell him about those things that made her unique. It only seemed cricket, and despite Fanny’s adamancy that she ignore her exceptionalness, she knew otherwise.

 

Being different was what, well, made her different. As a child on the Indian frontier, she’d gained notoriety as a good-luck talisman because of her bright red hair. She’d quite liked it. And later, in London, she’d never been frightened of the odd falling picture or sliding vase. It had been a wee bit exciting, truth be told.
She had no choice but to tell Hayden, really. It would be dishonest to do otherwise. Besides, if he could not love her as she was, then it really wasn’t love, was it? She might as well know now, when the blow would be only devastating but perhaps not fatal. But, oh, she so hoped it was true love! She waited in breathless anticipation.
His smooth, manly brow wrinkled in consternation, he tipped his head to regard her soberly, cleared his throat, and said, “Ah . . . come again?”
She took a deep breath, telling herself she had nothing to fear. Love would conquer all. Even witchhood. Or whatever it was. “Well, not a witch, exactly, but I have certain attributes other young ladies do not.”
“Most decidedly,” he averred at once. She sighed. He was so lovely.
“Not
those
sorts of attributes. I do things. Or, rather, affect things.”
He’d released her hands, she noted, and clasped his own behind his back
. Oh, dear. Not
a good sign.
“Such as?”
“Well, objects occasionally have moved when I am nearby. Without my touching them.” At his expression, she hurried on. “But that sort of thing hasn’t happened in, oh, years.”
He stayed silent.
“Lord Hayden?” she ventured worriedly. “Hayden? Please. Say something.”
“What sorts of things do you affect now?” he asked.
“Animals,” she replied weakly. “I . . .” She searched for the appropriate word but couldn’t find it, so she made do. “Sometime in the last six months or so, I have acquired the ability to talk to animals.”
His smile faltered, true, but then he drew a deep breath, expelled it, and, without a blink, said in an almost normal voice, “How unusual. Pray, what do they have to say?”

 

“Well, what do you have to say about that?” Fanny repeated, glaring out toward the terrace.
“Calm yourself, madam,” Grey said. “They are simply viewing the wildlife.”
“Oh, for the love of all that’s sacred. They most decidedly are
not
viewing the wildlife. They are canoodling.”
“Canoodling,” Grey repeated blankly.
“There’s hanky-panky going on out there, mark my words.”
“Are you under the delusion that you are speaking the King’s English? Do you think you might communicate without resorting to vulgar slang?”
She set her hands on her hips, looking magnificent. She had buried her momentary vulnerability and was once more ready to do battle. He had never met a woman more bracingly audacious. . . .
Be damned.
“Perhaps this is clear enough,” she said now. “Your nephew is outside dallying with Amelie.”
“Well, yes. I expect so. Strapping, red-blooded young man, pretty girl. Natural as breathing.”
Her jaw slackened before snapping tightly together. She covered the distance between them with one long stride that sent her skirts swirling, giving him a glimpse of slender ankles and shapely calves, before stopping just short of him.
The scent of her surrounded him, disturbing and breath-stealing . . .
Aha! That
was why he found her so formidably distracting. Some opiate in her perfume coupled with her mesmerist’s tricks would account for his inability to concentrate on anything important when she was close, like discovering what she was up to, and who—if anyone—was threatening Miss Chase.

 

He wouldn’t have it. He would overcome this irrational fascination with the woman. He was a man of reason. She was all about illusion and deception. Why, even this persona, this formidable, dazzling hellcat, was probably just another construct.
But what to do about it? And what to do about
this
?

 

Whatever accusation, demand, or protest she’d been about to make had died on her lips. Her head had tipped back so she could look him more directly in the eye, and hers had grown luminous. Her lips softened, parting slightly, releasing on her breath. It carried the slightest hint of cloves. She blinked, like a sleeper trying to rouse herself from a dream but without much success.
“I will not have it,” she whispered, echoing his thoughts. For a fateful instant, he thought she’d read his mind. From outside came the distant sweet, trilling song of a nightingale.
“Won’t have what?” he asked, struggling to retain his composure. But he could see the pulse shivering in the elegant niche nestled above her collarbone, almost feel the velvet-silk texture of her fine-grained flesh, the silkiness of her glossy sable locks. “A bit of dalliance? Pray, do not act the prude with me,
Mrs. Walcott
. I recall quite clearly the interesting dishabille in which you displayed yourself in your husband’s salon, even if you choose not to.”
“I was fully clad,” she said with a gasp.

 

“Your
hair
was down, madam,” he said in his most quelling tones. Ever since he’d seen her wet hair hanging down her back, he’d been haunted by the idea of her long black tresses rippling across his palms. And every other part of his person.
An expression of befuddlement replaced her ire. More nightingales added their voices to the first. “What?”
“Don’t play the innocent with me, madam. Your appearance was planned to distract men’s attention whilst your husband plucked violin stings with his toes. And a damn good distraction it was. Who could spare a glance for a whey-faced spiritualist when a dark beauty was disporting herself so decorously?”
“You cad!”
“If stating a fact makes me a cad, I plead guilty,” he said, feeling like an utter cad but refusing to back down. If she gained the upper hand for one instant, she would take advantage of it.
He’d known dozens of charlatans and frauds and confidence tricksters. He’d hunted them, exposed them, chased them from their dark salons and séance parlors into the merciless light of public scrutiny. He’d broken more of them than this woman had years. They were all the same, preying on grief and tragedy, exploiting their fellow man when he was at his most vulnerable. Her husband had been one of them, a pale, effete poseur with no more blood in him than a blancmange.
But she . . . ? A volatile, passionate nature roared for release beneath her icy exterior. A Valkyrie—
“Please leave.”
“What?”
“Are you deaf as well as—” She bit off the last word. A dog outside began snarling. A cat answered with a hiss. “I am asking you—No. I am
telling
you to leave. Now.”
Good Lord.
She was throwing him out.
Now, Grey had been thrown out of places before, but never a private home. At least, not in recent history. And most certainly never by a confidence artist.
“Why are you looking at me like that? You cannot really expect to remain welcome in this house after saying such things?” She gave a short, astonished laugh. “By God, you do. You are beyond amazing.”
Hurriedly, he regrouped. He wasn’t ready to call it quits yet. The battle had barely begun. “You are only throwing me out to evade detection.”
“Detection? Of what?”
“Exactly,” he said. “Why all this hand-wringing and drama over a little—what was that word? Canoodling? Miss Chase is obviously languishing for want of some male attention, and if all she’s been offered is that stick McGowan, I daresay Hayden’s gallantries will do her a world of good. That banker reeks of postage paste.”
“Oh!” Fanny huffed as the dog outside began his barking more emphatically. “Mr. McGowan is
not
a stick. And he does not smell like paste! He is a gentleman. With excellent manners. And refinement. He wouldn’t appear at a dinner table in a—” Her scathing gaze raked over his person. “Rumpled shirt and limp tie.”
Involuntarily, his hand rose toward his collar. He snatched it back.

 

“Nor would Bernard McGowan ever,
ever
say reprehensible things to me,” she continued.
McGowan’s name on her lips sent a rush of unreasonable jealousy rippling through Grey. Unreasonable, but irrefutable. And ungovernable. He spoke before he could think better of it. “Doubtless true. But neither would I. To Francesca Brown, however . . .”
Her hand shot out to strike him across the face. He didn’t move, didn’t flinch, the feeling that he deserved being slapped eradicating any satisfaction at having scored a point. But then, at the last instant, she jerked her hand away, staring at it in horror. Outside, another dog joined in the barking. A fox must be skirting the property.
“I will never forgive you,” Fanny whispered with shaming dignity.

 

Luckily, Grey was not easily shamed.
“For reminding you of your former trade?”
“No. For nearly making me forget I am a lady and lowering myself to your level.” It would have been fine had she stopped there. She didn’t. “
And
for offending our good, our only friend here, Mr. McGowan.”
Why the bloody hell did she have to keep bringing up McGowan?
“You cannot really have set your sights on that monosyllabic stamp collector?” he asked. “One would think you’d had enough of milquetoasts. Or is that the reason you don’t want Hayden flirting with Amelie? Are you jealous that she might experience something you have never known?”
He waited for her to refute any attraction to McGowan. Instead of firing back a response, she narrowed her eyes, and just as he was about to ask her what she was thinking, she muttered, “To hell with being a lady,” and took a swing.

 

Had Amelie declared herself a leprechaun, the Queen of Siam, or an American sharpshooter, Hayden would have supported the notion. Therefore “not a witch exactly” and “certain attributes” seemed relatively minor obstacles for his love to overcome. Besides which, she’d said that the objects-moving-about thingy hadn’t happened in years. Perhaps it had been nothing but idiosyncrasy, simply a phase. As for talking to animals, well . . . he liked animals.
“Oh, it’s not exactly like that. There’s a connection between us. I have always been fond of them, but I understand now that the affinity is closer. Last fall, I diverted a team of horses from running Fanny and me down, and . . . well, did you see the ravens in Little Firkin?”
Ravens seemed harmless enough. And as for diverting stampeding draft teams, well, one couldn’t object to that. “Can you read their minds?” he asked.
“Oh, no. I don’t hear anything or see anything. I don’t even feel much of anything. I just have witnessed how they react to me.”
“Amazing! Anything else?”
“Once in a while, when I am feeling very sad, like when I’ve had words with Fanny, a vixen comes and stands beneath my window and whimpers.”
“That’s extraordinary. You are extraordinary,” he said, looking down at Amelie.
She gazed at him as though he had just ridden on his white steed over the ogre guarding her moat. She gave him a radiant smile, and his heart thudded in response. “Thank you.”
“Thank me? For what?”
“Most people would have said, ‘Coincidence,’ ‘It’s your imagination,’ or something like that. But you didn’t. You believed me.
In
me.”
“Of course I believe you. That’s what people in love do. Believe in one another,” Hayden replied, quite sincerely. “Besides, why ever would you lie about something like that?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t exactly
lie
,” she said, pinking up prettily. “But you might think I was deluding myself.”
“Why would you do that? Clearly, you are a stable, levelheaded sort of girl. Normal as pie. Not at all the type to go all vaporish over some silly story she’d invented to make herself interesting. Believe me, I know.”
She smiled tremulously. “Oh, Lord Hayden,
Hayden
, I do believe I love you, too!”

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