The Trouble With Being Wicked (17 page)

Digging holes in March didn’t usually have him perspiring like a farmhand. Fortunately, his sisters never trailed him out of doors. He was filthy—even for an afternoon in his grove—and they would never allow him to hear the end of it.

The day was beautiful. An early blackcap sang in the scrub. Chipmunks darted to and fro, chasing each other as they hurried to nest. One particularly intrepid creature skirted the hole now too deep for the apple blossom, kicking dirt into the crater.

Ash’s mind was clearly elsewhere. He couldn’t account for his behavior last night except to claim madness. But wasn’t that the truth? His mind was no longer sound when it came to her. He
wanted
to kiss her again. Longed to be near her, to see if she’d come away from their encounter with the same impassioned confusion he had. He wanted to ask her about Montborne.

He couldn’t make sense of his lost control, and he hated the way it made him feel. There was one explanation for Montborne’s warning last night, a new possibility Ash had only thought of in the early morning hours. Montborne feared Ash was like his father. That he would become obsessed with a woman to the detriment of all else. It could happen, couldn’t it? It had already started.

After last night’s kiss he could no longer deny his physical attraction to her. But was it his fault, an artifact from his father’s example? Or was the fault hers? She meant to captivate. It was in the seductive sway of her hips and the proud curve of her spine. The lingering looks she sent from beneath her lashes. She meant for men to want her. What had Roman said? All of London was at her feet. Did that mean he was nothing more than an innocent spectator caught in her game? Or was he a player?

He couldn’t imagine a world where he carelessly coupled with women he barely knew. Nameless, faceless women, one after the other and occasionally at the same time. He couldn’t do it. He was proud to be nothing like his father. He’d worked hard to contain the base nature that drew him to beautiful, seductive women. The trouble was, he couldn’t decide if she was a victim of Montborne’s licentiousness or a wicked enchantress who had appeared in time to bewitch him from his goal. He yanked the shovel from the ground and jammed it into the sod, beginning a new hole.

Ten minutes later, Swan coughed discreetly. Ash scowled at his second hole, now almost as deep as the first. He might as well dig out the dirt between them and create a pond, they were that large.

Frustrated, he nonetheless set out to shovel a third, more appropriate-sized hole. He’d never let himself act so irrationally over a woman before. It was galling.

A woman’s shriek pierced through the trees.

Ash dropped his shovel. After catching Swan’s eye, they both bolted through the oak stand. With his heart in his throat, Ash tore through his carefully planted hedgerows and made for the rear of the property, where a line of sessile oaks proudly overlooked the bay. More shrieks, then laughter. His fright turned to suspicion. Then anger. Holding out his hand, he slowed his man. Together, they eased through the brush and took cover, the better to observe his sisters and their mischief.

Good God. If they didn’t break their necks, he was going to strangle them himself.

Lucy and Delilah stood yards away from the cliff’s edge, poised at the base of an old oak. They were dressed in shirtsleeves and breeches. Not
his
shirtsleeves and breeches, for his sisters were tiny, delicate things, and he was a man. Someone smaller than he, but not as big as his sisters, had contributed to their cause.

If the garments had clung any tighter, he would have asked Swan to turn away. Instead, Ash could think only of their safety. A fierce wind whipped over the cliff and rustled the trees. Twigs and leaves rained from the branches, catching in their hair. They paid no heed. They peered into the tree, shielding their eyes with their hands, and called out encouragement to a third troublemaker backing down the trunk.

The old oak shook as she descended. He could guess who it was. He indicated for Swan to remain at the edge of the clearing. Livid, Ash stormed the tree. “Lucy! Delilah! What in God’s name are you doing?”

They opened their mouths. No sound came out.

“Yes, well, I can barely conjure the words to describe this horror, myself. You could kill yourselves climbing that tree.”

“That is evidently not as likely as you think,” Lucy began.
 

He set his hands on his hips, looking reprovingly at both young women. “Who gave you those breeches?”

Lucy shushed Delilah before replying, “No one.”

“No one—” he sputtered. “I take it this ‘no one’ is about five feet tall with a waist as trim as a girl’s? Swan,” he called over his shoulder, “find every ‘no one’ who fits this description and line them up. ‘No one’ is about to get an extended holiday courtesy of the heel of my boot.”

“Trestin, no! We stole them.” Delilah could always be counted on to lie when needed. Usually to cover for Lucy’s harebrained scheming.

“And I suppose Miss Smythe stole hers, too?” He enjoyed the near-identical looks of horror on their faces. “Well, then. Off. With. Her. Head.” He made little orchestrating motions as he punctuated the words. Strangely, his outrage at catching his sisters in the middle of yet another lark paled in comparison to his disappointment in Miss Smythe. Hadn’t she promised not to encourage their hoyden ways? What, then, was she doing in the damned tree?

“It was our fault!” Lucy said, closing the distance to seize his hand. “We talked her into it. She’s never climbed a tree in her life. Truly, Trestin, she’s from London. We—” She stopped to peer at the filthy, torn leather of his glove. “What on earth have you been doing?”

He yanked it back. “That is none of your concern.”

“I rather think it is, if you’re going to yell my head off about a little exercise.”

“This isn’t exercise. A light stroll in the morning air or a jaunt to tend the sick is exercise.” In his frustration, he clutched at straws. “When was the last time you tended the sick?”

“
Is
anyone sick?”

“That isn’t the point.”

Miss Smythe’s round bottom suddenly pushed through the leaves over his head. Ash tried not to watch—God, how he tried—but her bottom was a magnet. He was, in a scientific way, like little iron flakes lining up powerlessly in a dish. He couldn’t
not
look.

She dropped to the ground without assistance, wiping her hands on an old red handkerchief tied around her slender waist. “My lord, what a surprise it is to see you.” She regarded him with none of the passion she’d bestowed upon him the previous night.

But that wasn’t to say she regarded him blankly. Her green eyes glowed with mischief and her silken skin gleamed with exertion and pleasure. Her shirtsleeves were untied at the collar, baring the dewy valley between her breasts to the sun—and his sisters’ impressionable eyes.

He dug around in his pocket and turned up his handkerchief, one he’d given up on several hours ago, soggy with perspiration as it was. Damn it. He could hardly stuff a sopping handkerchief down her décolletage.

“Miss Smythe,” he said archly, “you seem to have forgotten to lace your collar closed.”
 

She glanced at the perfect porcelain mounds heaving in his face. Her laugh was husky. “Just so, my lord. How kind of you to notice.”

But he wasn’t kind nor was he having kind thoughts. Just the kind of thoughts he wished he wouldn’t have. She was doing it again, and this time he was
sure
it wasn’t his fault. She was the one in breeches as tight as a second skin. She was the one who hadn’t bothered to cover up key points of her anatomy. She was the one laughing at him with her eyes, as though she wasn’t the least bit embarrassed by her behavior. It was her. Definitely her.

“Lucy, Delilah, go home.”

“Why?” they exclaimed together, as if that weren’t exactly where the afternoon’s events had been heading.

“Trestin, please. We’re just having a spot of fun.” Lucy crossed her arms before her, looking too much like their mother not to raise his ire.

He dismissed Miss Smythe from his mind for now. Every damp, voluptuous inch of her. “‘Fun’ doesn’t include risking life and limb, nor ruining your reputations. Go with Swan to the house and change out of those clothes. I want everything returned. Breeches, truly? Do you not care a whit for your reputations?”

“No one was going to see!” Lucy’s shoulders set. First her refusal to marry, then her desire to open a boarding school, now this. What had he done wrong?

Exasperated, he bit out, “This ‘no one’ is a cheeky fellow. Home. Now.”

They complied, but only because they must. He found himself alone with Miss Smythe, without even the semblance of a chaperone. He didn’t care. “Was this your idea?”

She shook her head, tumbling her mass of red curls from its knot. “No, my lord. I can honestly say this was not.”

“But you meant to give them ideas.”

She grimaced, her first sign of remorse. “Nothing that would harm them.”

“Nothing like climbing the tallest oak on the outermost edge of my steepest cliff?”

“What a fanciful imagination you have, my lord. I see only a medium-sized, sturdy tree set well away from a breathtaking vista. What can be the harm in that?”

“Breeches,” he gritted. “Respectable young women do not wear breeches.”

“Ah, yes. Well, as I am neither young nor respectable, I must have forgotten. Or perhaps times have changed.”

“Not that much.” But he paused.
Times have changed
. He peered at her closely. She wasn’t exaggerating. Tiny crows’ feet kissed the outer corners of her eyes. “How old are you?”

Her throaty chuckle sent shivers along his spine. “Old enough.”

Old enough to be thrown to the ground and entangled in a hot embrace. Old enough to brazenly stare him down.
 

He caught himself.
Older than he.
Definitely older than his young, impressionable sisters. How had he missed that? Her age was a sudden shock that he needed time to digest. “Then you should know climbing trees is for boys in the schoolroom. Not young women or…” He raised his eyebrows at the feathery lines edging her eyes. “…otherwise.”

She nodded, still smiling. Those oddly adorable little crows’ feet laughed at him. “Completely unacceptable. Horribly inappropriate for anyone over the age of twelve.”

“Then why…?” Did women exist merely to torment him?

The corner of her delectable mouth lifted. “It’s fun, my lord.”

“Fun?” The single word resounded with all the pent-up frustration in him.

She shrugged, a common gesture at odds with the lady he wished her to be. “If you tried it, you’d understand the draw. There’s a certain thrill to it many find addictive. Even women.”

Thrill.
Everything about her was thrilling. He could see himself becoming an addict. He stepped closer, aware that the scant distance between them was the only thing stopping him from kissing that smug look off her face. “Fine, then.”

Her lips curved at the corners. “Fine, then, what?”

“I’ll climb the damned tree.” It was either that, or kiss her.

Her smirk broke into a grin, lighting her face. “You will?”

Warmth spread through him, irritating him. How could he make her that happy with such a small capitulation? Why the hell did her being happy have to make him happy? “Yes, and after I’ve proved what a great load of nonsense tree climbing is, I’m escorting you home. Stay here.”

He stormed the tree with his hackles raised. When he was toe-to-trunk with it, he stopped to inspect his boots. They were an old pair, scarred from afternoons working beside his head gardener. As his sister had so kindly pointed out, his leather gloves had seen better days. Well, then. He may as well get this over with.

He rolled up his shirtsleeves and flexed his hands then toed his boot into a gnarled whorl and grabbed a sturdy branch over his head.

Up he went. Leaves rattled as the tree dipped and snapped under his weight. His muscles protested when he strained to reach a higher branch or gain a firmer foothold. He paused to inspect a robin’s nest, but quickly scrambled up another few branches when the angry mother squawked at him.

After wrestling fifteen or so feet, he wondered if he shouldn’t have been more specific. Foliage and twigs melted into each other, obscuring his view. Was he climbing all the way to the top? Where was the top? Branches shot out in every direction. Most seemed too spindly to hold his weight. He opted to follow the trunk as closely as possible and refused to look down when he sensed he was higher up than he had supposed from the ground. So this was climbing. It seemed a lot more work than he remembered.

And still… Indescribable victory flooded him as he popped up through the last smattering of canopy. The moors stretched before him, rolling in mismatched squares. The onion dome of Worston Heights peeped like a cloud between the trees. Behind him, the bay stretched to infinity. A light breeze rocked the tree.

He laughed out loud. Perhaps there was something to climbing, after all.

An answering chuckle alerted him to the tree just behind his. He carefully repositioned himself. Naturally, his warning to stay put would go completely unheeded. Miss Smythe was high in the next oak. Oddly, he wasn’t provoked. Suddenly—suddenly, he wondered why he hadn’t thought to strike a deal with her.