Chapter 4 #2
But he wasn’t going to admit who that had been, not if his life depended on it.
Because she was absolutely unsuitable. His grandmother would have had an attack.
Even his father might have raised an eyebrow.
He needed a girl with a title and money to match, not a mouthy, linen-wearing, feng-shui spouting, tofu-eating—
“She doesn’t eat tofu,” Ambrose said mildly. “Too processed.”
Stephen kept his mouth from falling open only because he had spent a lifetime being polite. “Whom are you talking about, my good man?”
“Mistress Peaches Alexander,” Ambrose said in that mild tone that was all the more infuriating for serenity. “You recently fed her at your father’s table, if memory serves.”
“Which only added to my dislike of her,” Stephen said, hardly able to believe he was talking about anything with a man who looked like he’d just stepped out of a seventeenth-century Scottish portrait. “I find her culinary judgment suspicious at best.”
“There’s more to life than steak.”
“Ha,” Stephen said, because it seemed like the proper thing to say. “First go the prime cuts of Angus beef, then bangers and mash, then steak and kidney pie. Then where are you left?”
“With unclogged arteries?”
“I’ll take my chances, thank you just the same.”
Ambrose rose and came to stand next to him, clasping his hands behind his back. “She’s beautiful, which you cannot deny.”
“She’s a Yank.”
“She has a generous heart.”
“And an unfortunate lack of familiarity with the necessity of pressing one’s clothes.”
Ambrose looked at him in amusement. “You can admit you fancy her, you know.”
“I don’t,” Stephen lied. He wasn’t sure that had come out quite strongly enough, so he made another attempt. “I can hardly bear to be in the same room with her.”
“Why not?”
Why not? Stephen hardly knew where to begin.
Because even though he’d known her, if it could be called that based only on things Tess had said, for years yet never managed to encounter her despite her numerous visits to England, he hadn’t expected to look at her, fresh-faced Yank that she was, and fall head over heels for her the moment he’d laid eyes on her.
Because after the first hello, his usual smooth, suave conversation had completely deserted him and he’d been left with only an ever-increasing list of stupid things he’d said when he hadn’t meant to.
Because when he was in the same room with her, he found himself turned immediately into a gawky, tongue-tied sixteen-year-old who was so gobsmacked by the goddess within reach that he consistently and thoroughly made an idiot of himself at every turn.
That afternoon had been an aberration in the course of their relationship.
He’d managed to sit next to her on the sofa and keep his composure, but that had only been because he’d been concentrating so fully on making certain that everyone in the room thought Peaches was Tess.
Once they’d been outside, he’d resumed his alter ego as a complete arse and things had proceeded as they usually did.
“Stephen?”
Stephen looked at Ambrose MacLeod. “Ah,” he said, grasping for the thread of the stalled conversation, “I can’t stand the woman because apart from her dietary delusions, she’s a fixer, and I don’t need to be fixed.
She would organize everything from my socks to my files and leave me unable to find either. ”
“And that would be so terrible?” Ambrose asked.
Stephen would have answered, but the other ghosts there had ceased with their bellowing of threats and battle cries, put up their swords, and were now quaffing companionable mugs of ale. He steeled himself for the worst.
He wasn’t disappointed.
Fulbert pulled up his chair and sat down with a contented sigh. “Now the true work’s been done for the day, I’ll turn me mind to yer wee problem, young Stephen.”
Stephen decided resuming his seat was the wisest course of action. He managed to fall into it with a decent bit of grace, but that was, he was certain, sheer luck. “Good of you.”
“Now,” Fulbert said, pointing at Stephen with his mug and looking rather stern, “we understand there’s a bit of hesitation about this fancy entertainment upcoming.”
Stephen felt himself frowning. “Entertainment?”
“The ball,” Hugh said wistfully, looking as if he might rather have wished to be going himself. “The fancy dress ball at Kenneworth House.”
Fulbert shot Hugh a look. “’Tis hardly a house. More like a bleedin’ palace, if you ask me, though tatty around the edges. I’m not sure how the young master affords it.”
“He’s always looking out for a rich gel to wed,” Hugh said, stroking his chin thoughtfully with his free hand. “’Tis always the case, isn’t it? A hall is a very hungry mistress.”
“He’ll have enough lassies with sires who have deep pockets to suit him,” Fulbert said with a snort. He turned to Stephen. “But we’re here to see to your future, nevvy.”
“My future,” Stephen said weakly. “There’s nothing to see—”
The ale in Fulbert’s mug splashed over the sides and landed silently on the floor where it disappeared. “Pull out that invitation from that young rogue from Kenneworth.”
“What invitation—”
“The one in your gear!”
Stephen looked to Ambrose for aid, but the laird of the clan MacLeod had only resumed his seat and was watching the goings-on with an amused smile.
Stephen sighed and supposed there was no use in arguing further.
He reached over for his portfolio. The invitation was there, of course, burning a hole in the leather.
He waved it wearily at Fulbert. “This one?”
“Send your acceptance over your wee mobile phone,” Fulbert instructed. “Now, before it grows any later.”
Stephen considered the three sitting across from him.
He could say no, of course, because he was quite certain there was nothing they could do to him besides haunt him endlessly.
Avoiding that, however, might be enough to induce him to suffer through a long weekend of rich food and deadly dull conversation.
He pursed his lips and looked at Ambrose.
“Is there a reason you’ve chosen this event as your means of torturing me?”
Ambrose only smiled.
He turned to Hugh McKinnon. “Surely you’re not interested in healing the breach, as it were, that lies between the Prestons and the de Piagets.”
Hugh rolled his eyes. “Of course not. We’ve more important business here!”
Stephen suspected he knew just what that important business was. He looked reluctantly at Fulbert. “Is there someone there I’m supposed to meet?”
“Ye’ve already met her!” Fulbert exclaimed.
“I’m not sure I follow—”
“Mistress Peaches Alexander!”
Stephen frowned. It was one thing to be bellowed at in his own study by one of his ancestors.
It was still that one thing to even be in his study looking at one of his ancestors.
It was another thing entirely to be told by that same percher in his family tree that he was supposed to go to a fancy weekend party so he could become involved with a woman he couldn’t bear to be in the same room with.
For all the reasons he’d gone over before.
“I’m busy,” he said firmly.
“Unbusy yourself,” Fulbert demanded.
“I—”
“Nay!”
“But—”
Fulbert stood and twitched aside his cloak to put his hand on his sword. “I’m prepared to prod ye there with me sword, nevvy.”
Stephen looked at Hugh, who was looking equally fierce. Ambrose MacLeod, however, was just looking at him, smiling slightly. Stephen pursed his lips.
“Nothing to add, my laird?”
Ambrose lifted a shoulder briefly. “You know how things will proceed there, I imagine. It isn’t as if you would leave any woman to David of Kenneworth’s clutches now, is it? Not even, I imagine, a wheatgrass-drinking lass who turns your knees to mush.”
“She doesn’t turn my knees to mush.”
“De Piaget men do not lie,” Fulbert said sternly.
Stephen blew out his breath. It was preferable to throwing up his hands.
An entire weekend spent trying to avoid being slandered by David Preston whilst keeping Peaches out of Preston’s clutches.
He exchanged another long, meaningful look with his uncle the appropriate number of generations removed, then sighed deeply.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and texted Kenneworth’s social secretary.
He set his phone down on the side table, then looked at Fulbert.
“Satisfied?”
“’Tis a start,” Fulbert conceded. “We’ll see how events proceed.”
Stephen could hardly wait.
Because David Preston was a reprobate with no morals or scruples, his sister, Irene, had a list of men she intended to bag like helpless fowl—a list he himself headed, actually, to her brother’s disgust—and Kenneworth House was large enough to accommodate all manner of paranormal participants.
He looked at his ghostly companions. “Tell me you aren’t planning to come along.”
Fulbert sat back down stiffly. “I daresay you won’t know,” he said ominously, “unless ye stray from the path we’ve laid out for ye.”
Stephen sighed.
It was shaping up to be a fabulous weekend.