A Lady and Her Magic

  She tilted her head a little to the left and smiled slowly. “What makes you think I’m innocent?” Her hazel eyes were hooded by heavy lashes that batted at him like those of the best coquette.

  He forced himself to close his own mouth, for fear of doing her fish impersonation. But he was afraid it was too late. He needed more than a minute to recover from the shock of her question. “Are you trying to tell me something, Miss Thorne?” he asked.

  She shook her head, making those auburn curls bounce around her shoulders. Her eyes flashed with mirth. It was quite obvious the chit was an innocent. She may as well wear it like a badge of honor on her gown. “I am untouched” oozed from her very person. And it made him want to touch her even more, particularly when she looked at him like that. God, it had been too long since he’d had a woman. He swiped a hand down his mouth.

  “So, how many bites would it take for me?” she asked with a giggle. Then she held up her hands as though to fend him off. “Just for personal knowledge. It’s not often I meet a dangerous duke. I can’t let the opportunity pass me by. A lady needs to know these things.”

  He could have her disrobed in ten seconds and could be devouring her within…

  “Your Grace.” She jerked him from his reverie with her soft voice.

  “Yes?” he responded, as soon as he was able to draw his gaze back up to her face.

  “While I can understand your reticence, please permit me an opportunity to offend you before you presume I have.”

  “So, what great beast were you referring to, in your touching soliloquy?” He found it difficult to draw his gaze away from those lashes. She closed her eyes for a moment, inhaling deeply. Her lashes lay against her cheeks like dark fans.

  “I certainly wouldn’t call my speech to myself ‘touching,’” she prevaricated.

  “What would you call it?” He went back to working on the poor bush he’d nearly pruned into submission a few moments before. It was much safer than looking at her.

  “I would call it weighing my options,” she said, her voice a bit uncertain.

  He didn’t even look up at her. “And what options would those be?”

  “I look forward to getting to know you better while we’re here,” she replied. She stepped closer to him and the scent of bluebells reached him. He looked around his private garden. Not a bluebell in sight. It must be her. He continued to pick at the plant until her hand landed on top of his own. He drew in a heavy breath as she squeezed it gently.

  “You’ll kill the poor plant if you don’t stop that.” She drew her hand back. “I promise I don’t bite.” She grinned wildly at what must have been a stricken look on his face. “And, although I have it on good authority that you do…” She laughed deeply, a rich sound that made him want to smile with her. She dropped her voice down to a whisper. “Although I have it on good authority that you do bite, I feel fairly safe in your presence.” She eyed the plant. “The foliage, on the other hand…” She let her voice trail off.

  “Tell me why you’re here, Miss Thorne,” he said. It meant a lot to him to have a true answer, but the odds of getting that were slim to none.

  “I’m on a mission,” she said, a grin tugging at the corners of her lips.

  “A mission?” He wanted to kiss her. He hadn’t wanted to kiss anyone in a very long time. It made him feel slightly off balance.

  “Yes, a mission. But I can’t tell you more than that.” She twirled around in his garden, gazing at the sun. If he didn’t know better, he’d say she glimmered there in the sunlight. It had been too long since he’d been in the proximity of a beautiful lass.

  “So, I’ll have to remain ignorant and hopeful. A typical state for a man,” he murmured.

  “What was your interruption?” she asked with a tilt of her head.

  “I wouldn’t call my wife’s death an interruption,” he said before thinking. But she covered those rosebud lips with the tips of her fingers and withheld her laughter. “You weren’t referring to that, were you?” he asked with a chuckle and a self-deprecating grin.

  “I was referring to the noise at the door a moment ago,” she laughed. It was a melodic sound, one that made him feel happy. How long had it been since he’d felt truly happy? A very long time.

  “That was my brother, Phineas, who wanted entrance to my garden,” he explained. “So, he could complain about our mother, no doubt. My footmen kept him out.”

  “So, this truly is your sanctuary, as your daughter explained.”

  “It is.”

  “Why is it special to you?”

  “My problems are not admitted into my garden,” he explained as cryptically as he could. And as he searched for appropriate words to explain it, the need to do so was robbed from him.

  “What’s that beautiful sound?” she gasped as she turned and rounded the corner of his garden.

  He didn’t hear a thing. But he followed her as she disappeared from sight.

  ***

  Sophia didn’t know what the sound was or where it came from, but she knew it was one of the most beautiful sounds she’d ever heard. It was better than raindrops on a tin roof. Better than the songs the crickets chirped at dusk, better than anything in that moment.

  “Can you hear that?” she asked of no one in particular as she turned a corner in the garden and stepped into an open area, with a fish pond directly in the center. She stepped away from the fish. Fish were not a faerie’s friend. Of course, these fish appeared to be small. They probably weren’t a threat at all.

  The wind picked up the hair on her forehead and the tinkling sound began again. It took her attention, so much of it that she didn’t even notice that the duke stood beside her until she heard him breathing harshly beside her.

  “The next time you’d like for me to give chase, Miss Thorne, you need to warn me so I can commit to a full breath.”

  The wind stopped and so did the sound. “Where did it go?” she cried, glancing left and right, trying to find the source.

  “Where did what go?”

  “The music,” she tried to explain. But he, a mere human, would never understand.

  “I heard no music, Miss Thorne,” he said, looking at her skeptically.

  “It was there. I promise.” She placed a hand over her heart and regarded him stoically. Then the wind lifted the hem of her gown and the leaves rustled gently. The tinkling began anew. Sophia closed her eyes and hummed with the music. When it stopped, her eyes flew open, only to find the Duke of Robinsworth looking at her with skepticism. “Didn’t you hear it?”

  “Do you mean the chimes blowing in the wind?” he asked, his voice incredulous. He pointed to a nearby post, from which dangled several strings full of tiny, hollow, silver balls. When the wind moved just right, the balls struck one another lightly, each producing a different note that sounded like a sweet symphony to her ears.

  “Wind chimes…” she breathed, closing her eyes as the tinkling sound enveloped her. She listened until the wind shifted and the sound stopped. Then she opened her eyes, only to find the duke leaning against the fountain, regarding her with more than curiosity. She wasn’t certain what else it was, but she sensed something there.

  “Are you quite all right, Miss Thorne?” he asked. He’d caught his breath, and now he looked like he just needed to catch his wits.

  “I should probably explain,” she began with hesitance.

  “That would be nice,” he said rather drolly. She liked the duke more than she’d expected.

  “But first I’ll have to get to know you better.”

  “Beg your pardon?” His jaw dropped.

  “I cannot reveal all of my secrets until I know you better. And even then, I’d never be able to reveal much.”

  He pointed to the silver balls. “But the wind chimes?”

  ??
?My name is Sophia,” she tossed out, prevaricating as she looked for a way to explain.

  He looked at her as though she’d grown two heads.

  “Do you have a name?” she asked casually, still trying to figure out how to tell him about her love of music.

  “Doesn’t everyone have a name, Miss Thorne?” He sighed heavily when she frowned at him, then continued. “My friends and family call me Robin.”

  “No, your real name,” she tried.

  “No one has called me by my given name since I was a boy, Miss Thorne.”

  “Sophia,” she corrected. “I give you leave to use it.” He had a look on his face that made her doubt anyone had given the duke leave to do anything in a very long time. What his rank didn’t afford him, his past did. People feared him because of his rank, and they feared him because of his past. So, by either standard, he was allowed to behave as he pleased. And most people stayed at least ten paces from him, much less getting close enough to afford him leave.

  Then the wind shifted again and she couldn’t keep from twirling as the music in her head began to form shapes. It was odd. She could usually push the music out of her mind, no matter how much she wanted to let it settle inside her. But this music was different. The wind stopped. “And you?” she asked as she stopped twirling.

  “My name is Ashley,” he finally said, very quietly, as though speaking with any force would put a stop to their conversation, no matter how absurd.

  She stepped forward and laid a hand on his chest. “And do you give me leave to use it?”

  “I would probably give you leave to do anything,” he muttered, as he swiped a hand down his face. “Have you enchanted me in some way, Sophia?”

  “Oh, no, I can’t do that,” she began. Then she drew her bottom lip between her teeth and worried it. He didn’t draw his gaze from her mouth. “I love your wind chimes.”

  “I can tell as much.” He studied her. Hard.

  “Do you give me leave to call you Ashley?”

  “If anyone heard you call me by that name, they’d think there’s something untoward going on between us.”

  “But there is,” she said. He had no idea yet of the depth of her involvement in the days to come. But she’d be more involved in his life than he’d ever dream.

  He turned his head and coughed into his closed fist. Probably a stall tactic. Like her own inane ramblings.

  “Ashley, I must go,” she said softly as he took a step toward her.

  But he reached out and hooked his finger beneath her chin to gently tilt her head up. He looked into her eyes. “Did someone pay you to do this?”

  “To do what?”

  “This,” he said sharply, gesturing to what she assumed was the here and now.

  “You’ll have to define this,” she coaxed. Mission faeries didn’t receive payment for their work. It was their lot in life.

  “Did someone pay you to get into my bed, Miss Thorne?” he asked sharply.

  “Oh, no. Absolutely not. Why would anyone have to pay me to do such a thing?”

  She reached out to smooth the lapels of his coat, taking in the sandalwood scent of him that she couldn’t smell until she got really close. She breathed deeply.

  “If someone is guiding your hand in our interactions—” he started.

  But she shushed him with a gentle sound as she laid a hand over his heart. It was beating like mad. “No one has to pay me to like you, Ashley,” she said.

  He inhaled deeply. “You had better go, Sophia. Your family will be worried. And people will talk.”

  “You worry very much about things people say, don’t you, Ashley?”

  “When you’ve lived a life like mine…” He didn’t even finish the thought.

  “When one has lived a life like yours, I bet one has many interesting stories to tell. I hope I get to hear them while I’m here,” she said, then she bobbed up on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek quickly.

  “Until later,” she called over her shoulder. She thought she heard him grunt in response.

  As Sophia dashed through the corridors, trying to find her way back to her grandmother, she cursed the fates for putting that wind chime in her path. Ashley probably thought she was a complete ninny at this point.

  She was a ninny. A very big one. A very big and most ridiculous one. Because she liked the duke even more than she’d thought she would. This was good, but she had a feeling it wasn’t good in a good way. Dash it, she wasn’t even making sense to herself.

  Sophia spent half the hour wandering the corridors of the duke’s home, until she found a footman who informed her that her grandmother had been shown to her room for a rest after their arrival. She tiptoed into her own chambers.

  “How was your meeting with the duke?” her grandmother asked anxiously from a chair beside the fireplace. Of course, her grandmother would be waiting for her. She was much too nosy to nap like a normal old lady. She’d obviously been knitting in Sophia’s room while she waited. Their house faerie, Margaret, was busy unpacking the meager trunks they’d brought with them.

  “I don’t know,” Sophia said. And truly she didn’t. She would have to sit and formulate a plan.

  A knock sounded on the door. Margaret moved to open it and stepped aside to admit a footman. Sophia clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle a gasp.

  The footman looked particularly ill at ease, with the long strands of metal balls dangling from his fingertips. “His Grace ordered that these be brought to Miss Thorne and installed outside her window.”

  “Oh, my,” her grandmother said, with a stern look in her direction. Everyone knew music would entrance Sophia. But it didn’t typically overload her senses and make her feel light-headed. Not like these chimes had. For some reason, they had a strong effect on her. She’d be worthless every time there was the slightest breeze.

  “You’ll have to take them back,” Sophia began.

  “One does not send a gift back to His Grace, miss,” the servant informed her, his nose rising in the air.

  Very well. Sophia raised a breezy hand at the footman. “Do what you must.”

  The man set to work installing the chimes, and Sophia dropped heavily onto the settee. She’d have to tie them together to stop their tinkling. But how thoughtful of Ashley to send them.

  “I believe we need to talk,” her grandmother said, her eyes dancing with mischief. If anything, Sophia had expected censure.

  “I suppose we do,” Sophia said as she settled deeper into the settee.

  Six

  The Duke of Robinsworth tapped the table between him and his brother, signaling that he’d take another card.

  Finn looked at him and raised a golden eyebrow. “Perhaps you should join the others below stairs. With luck like yours, you could take all their money before Mother gives hers up to them.” He slid a card across the table to Ashley, and then he cursed when he saw a two and that Ashley had a total of twenty-one. “Damn you, Robin. You may not be lucky in life, but you certainly are in games of chance.”

  “Life is a game of chance, my dear Finn,” he said, recognizing the grim sound of his own voice. “We play the cards we’re dealt.”

  “Unless we stack the deck.”

  Ashley chuckled. “Obviously not the case in my situation,” he said. He’d played the cards he’d been dealt since the day he was born. He’d been raised for greatness. Raised to be a duke. Raised to be respectable. It was unfortunate that his deck had been stacked against him.

  “Yet still you play,” Finn lamented.

  “I sent a gift to Miss Thorne this afternoon,” Ashley suddenly blurted out.

  “Am I familiar with the lady in question?” Finn appeared to search his mind and came up empty-handed.

  “I doubt it. I met her in the park a few days ago.”

&nbs
p; Finn sat back, his eyes opening wide. “Pray tell,” he encouraged.

  “There’s nothing to tell.” Ashley shrugged. “We met very quickly when she took Anne to task over something.”

  Finn laid his cards on the table. “Someone took Anne to task?”

  “Quite effectively,” Ashley continued. “She appeared as though from nowhere and told Anne how a lady behaves.”

  “And…?”

  “And Anne listened. It was quite profound.”

  “And all of this provoked a gift from you?”

  Ashley never should have opened his big mouth. He should have kept his secret to himself. But whiskey did have a way of loosening the tongue. And he’d had more than his share. And Finn’s tongue had been loosened as well. He set his cards to the side. Obviously, Finn wanted to gossip more than he wanted to win his money back.

  “It was nothing, really.”

  Finn shook his head. “Robin, I haven’t heard you speak of a lady in quite some time. It must have been some meeting.”

  “She’s in residence,” Ashley admitted.

  “In London?”

  “Here, at the Hall.”

  Finn sat back and glared at Ashley. “Here? Have I met her?”

  Ashley shrugged. “About as tall as my chin. Dark hair.” He took a deep swallow of his whiskey. When he noticed how quiet Finn was, he looked up to find his brother with his mouth agape. He threw a card at him. “Stop looking at me like I’m bound for Bedlam.”

  Finn chuckled as he gathered the cards into a neat pile. “Someone is interested in a lady,” he sang out loudly. Then he ducked as a whole deck of cards sailed past his head. “And touchy about it, too,” he laughed. “What’s her name?”

  “Miss Sophia Thorne,” Ashley groused good-naturedly.

  “Thorne… Thorne…” Finn repeated as he searched his mind. “It doesn’t ring any bells for me. Is her father a peer?”

  Ashley wasn’t certain. He knew nothing about her. “No idea. She’s traveling with her grandmother.”