All for You (30 page)

“You can’t possibly …” She took a deep breath. “Well, you know.”

He clasped his hands behind his back. It was the only thing—the
only
thing—that kept him from clasping them around her instead. He took a very careful breath.

“I bought you a thing or two because I didn’t want you to go back to Sedgwick,” he said honestly.

“Because you needed me to work for you?”

“That, too.”

She looked up at him miserably. “Aren’t you taking Irene to lunch?”

“Cad that I am, I’m not,” he said mildly. “Too much to do here.”

She closed her eyes briefly, then turned and fled.

He watched the door close behind her, then sat down in his chair and swore. He swore for quite a while, actually, and the Duke of Kenneworth figured prominently in his slander. It made him feel warm and happy inside to eviscerate the man so thoroughly, but that didn’t change the fact that David was enjoying Peaches’s company for lunch whilst he was not.

He rose and began to pace. Perhaps Peaches was right and he needed a brief trip to Scotland. Perhaps she would come with him, so he might enjoy the pleasure of her company in one of his favorite places.

He didn’t admit that to many, that he loved Scotland. His father would have been appalled that anything north of Hadrian’s Wall held any fascination for him at all. But he loved the lochs and the mountains and the feeling of having stepped back centuries in time …

It was a perfect waste of an afternoon. He tried to work on half a dozen things that didn’t hold his interest for more than a moment or two, considered a run, then finally found himself at the nearest juice bar, drinking sludge and beginning to acquire a taste for it. That necessitated a nip into a shop on the way back to school for a steak-and-kidney pie to counteract the adverse effects of too many greens. All those diversions enjoyed, he returned to his office and tried to work.

He looked up as the door opened suddenly. Peaches came in quietly, then shut the door behind her. She looked very serious.

He was on his feet before he knew what he was doing, then across the room before he thought better of it. He had pulled her into his arms before his good sense could scream he was moving too fast with her. After all, he’d already moved too quickly in Bath, hadn’t he? And his lack of patience had driven her into David Preston’s arms for lunch.

He started to pull away when he realized her arms were around him and she wasn’t letting go.

“Did he hurt you?” He realized as the words were hanging there in the air that he’d said them with an anger he hadn’t realized he was feeling.

She pulled back and looked up at him in surprise. “Of course not. It was a public place, after all. And I know self-defense.”

“I would feel better about that if you spent a few days with Patrick MacLeod,” he said grimly. “Was he unkind to you?”

She looked at him evenly. “This is shaping up to be a very weird conversation.”

“And no hope of anything else anytime soon. And whilst I suppose I should worry about your physical state, I was more concerned about your heart.”

She pulled away fully. “David Preston? Are you kidding? The guy’s a total jerk. I never thought he was anything else.”

He caught her before she walked away and gently turned her to him. He searched her face and saw that she had perhaps indeed entertained thoughts that she now found rather less than sensible.

“I have been deceived before as well,” he offered.

“Were you in love with the ones who deceived you?”

He ignored the question. “Are you in love with David Preston?”

“That’s pretty touchy-feely of you, Lord Haulton,” she said sternly. “And appallingly personal.”

He rubbed his hands over his face. “I think I need to run.”

“I’ll just bet you do. Put on your trainers, and let’s go.”

“And have you leave me unable to get out of bed tomorrow?” he asked with a snort. “I think not.”

“Let’s go do the track. I’ll get bored after a few miles.” She started to turn away, then looked at him. “The question still stands.”

“You first.”

She hesitated, then sighed deeply. “I was initially flattered by the attention and thought that it might result in the whole fairy tale.” She shrugged, though he could tell she was feeling less than casual about the whole affair. “That’s the absolute truth of it, and I can’t believe I’m being that honest with you. It must be the stockings cutting off the circulation to my brain.”

He smiled. “No, it’s the thought of running me into the ground. A little pity beforehand is not uncalled for.”

She folded her arms over her chest. “I believe, Lord Haulton, that you owe me an answer to my question.”

“Run it out of me, wench.”

“Don’t think I can’t.”

He had absolutely no doubt of it. And she proved it to him quite handily not an hour later on the track where apparently she was indeed determined to run him into the ground. He finally begged her to stop, then walked until he had to lean over with his hands on his thighs and catch his breath.

“You’re going to be the death of me,” he wheezed.

“You don’t have to run with me.”

“That would leave me chasing you, which would be much worse, I assure you.” He straightened, promised himself more time in trainers in the future, then looked at her. He pursed his lips. At least she was breathing hard for a change. “Once.”

She blinked. “Once, what?”

“Love,” he said succinctly. “Once.”

She put her hands on her hips. “How did it turn out?”

He dragged his forearm across his forehead and prayed for good sense to return. He looked at her, finally. “Let’s go.”

Her mouth fell open. “That’s all I get?”

“That’s all you get.”

“You—you—” She spluttered for a minute, then glared at him. “I bared my soul to you and
this
is what I get?”

He shrugged. “I’m a man.”

“If we weren’t in a public place, I would punch you right now.”

He smiled, because he doubted it. “What would you like to do tonight?”

“Are you asking me out on a
date
, you perfidious rat?”

He laughed, because she was within reach, she didn’t care for David Preston, and she was interested enough in his heart to call him names.

He was absolutely lost.

“Yes,” he said happily. “I am.”

“Well, I don’t want to go,” she grumbled. “Unless your offer is very good.”

“Supper?” he ventured. “The symphony? A film?”

“Dinner at your house and the rest of the evening listening to you read the
Canterbury Tales
,” she countered. “In the original vernacular.”

He blinked. “Are you in earnest?”

“I think I can more easily wring details out of you when you have that little pucker between your eyes you get when you’re concentrating.”

“I don’t have details—”

She walked away. “Let’s go, sport.”

S
everal
hours later, he was sitting in front of his fire in his own study, wending his way through Chaucer’s finest, acutely aware of the stunning woman sitting next to him on the sofa with her legs curled up underneath her. He finally could bear it no longer. He set the book down on his lap, turned, leaned forward, and kissed her.

He pulled back slightly to see how she was reacting. She wasn’t plowing her fist into his nose or grimacing, so he slipped his hand under her hair and made a proper job of it.

“Details,” she murmured at one point.

“About what?”

“About you know what.”

“Once,” he said, kissing her again.

“How did it turn out?”

“It hasn’t turned out yet.”

She opened her eyes and looked at him with a frown. “It hasn’t?”

He shook his head. “Not yet.”

She leaned her head back against his arm and looked at him seriously. “So, you’re in love with this girl,” she said carefully, “you don’t know how it’s going to turn out, and yet you’re here with me?”

“Reading Chaucer, yes,” he agreed.

“And a few other things, buster. And I wasn’t talking about books.” She looked at him in the vicinity of his chin. He might have thought she was near to bolting, but she had her fingers linked with his that rested on her knee and she wasn’t pulling away. She considered for a bit longer, then met his gaze. “You are many things, Stephen, but you aren’t a cad.”

“Thank you.”

“I don’t think.”

“Thank you,” he said dryly.

“So, since you aren’t a cad, why are you here with me?”

“I imagine,” he said, bending his head and making further inroads into the indulgence of kissing her, “that you’ll figure it out eventually.”

“Are you patronizing me?” she asked sternly.

“Kissing you, rather.”

“Why?”

He thought of half a dozen easy things he could have said, but could manage none of them, so he merely pulled back and looked at her. She was, as he had noted before, a terribly intelligent woman. And whilst he generally made a habit of schooling his features, he didn’t do so at present. He simply looked at her and hoped exactly what he was feeling was showing clearly on his face.

And he saw in her eyes the precise moment that realization dawned.

Her mouth fell open. She pushed away from him and jumped to her feet. He was pleased to see that she wasn’t all that steady on them, but she held him off and stepped a pace or two away. She wrapped her arms around herself and looked down at him in shock.

“You can’t be serious.”

It was obvious she was appalled, but he wasn’t sure exactly why. Either she wanted nothing to do with him—which he feared—or she couldn’t believe he wanted anything to do with her—which he couldn’t imagine.

“Can’t I?” he asked seriously.

She pointed at him with a trembling finger. “You’re the bloody future Earl of Artane!”

He set Chaucer aside. “Is that it?”

She lifted her chin. “I am keenly aware, my lord, of our disparate stations.”

His mouth had fallen open. He knew that because it took him a moment to close it. “What absolute bollocks.”

“It isn’t,” she said, lifting her chin a bit more. “I am not willing to be a dalliance. And yes, I’m well aware that is what David Preston had in mind for me.”

“I am not David Preston.”

“No, you’re the bloody future Earl of Artane.”

“You said that already. And you shouldn’t swear.”

“Go to hell!”

He looked at her for a moment in silence, then he bowed his head and laughed.

“Besides,
bloody
isn’t a swear word in the States,” she said crisply. “And neither is
crap
.”

He pursed his lips to keep from laughing again and looked up at her. “I suppose not.”

She stepped back another pace and wrapped her arms around herself. “I need to run.”

The look on her face did it. She looked positively shattered and that had about the same effect as having a trough of freezing cold water poured on him. Only the buckets at Artane were heated, because he and his father valued their horseflesh.

He realized he was rambling, but honestly, Peaches Alexander had him so off balance, he could hardly think straight. He rose and walked over to pull her gently into his arms. She was trembling, but he imagined that wasn’t from the cold. She did, after all, have on a lovely cashmere sweater that Humphreys had so capably picked out for her.

And once she had stopped shivering as much, he was able to face what he hadn’t wanted to before: that she didn’t care for him.

“Do you think,” he asked, when he thought he could, “that you might learn to overcome your dislike for me?”

Her arms were suddenly around his waist. “I never disliked you.”

“So, are you telling me that it had descended to sheer loathing?”

The sound she made was muffled against his shoulder. It might have been a laugh, but he couldn’t have said for sure. It was enough that she didn’t sound as if she were weeping. She stood there in his arms for several minutes without speaking, then pulled away slightly and looked up at him.

“I don’t think this will work, my lord.”

He shrugged. “I’m not a bloody prince of the realm, darling. I can choose my own path.”

“Stephen, you are, as I seem to have to keep reminding you, the future Earl of Artane. You can’t date a Yank.”

“I wasn’t talking about dating you, Peaches.”

She looked at him carefully. “Then what are you talking about?”

“A very medieval sort of wooing, then an incredibly public and overdone wedding.”

Her mouth fell open. “You’re asking me to
marry
you?”

“Well, I thought I would work on the wooing first.”

She pushed out of his arms and backed away. She gaped at him for a moment or two in silence, then turned away and walked to the door. She paused with her hand on the wood, then turned and looked at him.

Tears were running down her cheeks.

He wondered when it would be—if ever—that the woman didn’t leave him almost constantly winded. He took his pride in his hand and walked over to her. He hesitated, then reached out and drew her into his arms. That she came willingly was, he had to admit, something of a relief. He closed his eyes and rested his cheek against her hair.

“Are you sure you’re not mistaking me for my sister?” she asked hoarsely. “She’s the one with all the degrees and the title.”

“No, Peaches,” he said quietly. “I’m not mistaking you for your sister.”

He held her in silence for several more very long, very pleasant minutes, then lifted her face up and brushed away the two stray tears that were still on her cheeks.

“Shall I tell you when it was I first loved you?” he asked quietly.

“Stephen—”

“It was when I found myself standing in Sedgwick’s great hall,” he continued, trying not to enjoy the sound of his name from her lips more than he should have, “wondering just where your sister Pippa had gotten to, and you walked in the door. Of course, Tess had been telling me stories of you for years, but I always held in the back of my mind that you couldn’t possibly be that perfect.”

“She exaggerates,” Peaches managed.

“In your case, she certainly didn’t.”

“No one falls in love at first sight,” she said quietly.