She found herself soon deposited on the front steps, then turned and watched him walk down the three steps to the courtyard. He paused and looked up at her.
“I meant to give you this earlier.”
She wrapped her arms around herself. “Give me what?”
He pulled a shoe out of the inside of his jacket.
It was the mate to the glass slipper she’d completely trashed in medieval England. She took the pristine shoe, then looked at him, mute.
He smiled gravely. “I thought you might want it.”
And then he turned and walked away before she could say anything. She clutched the shoe and watched him walk back across the courtyard. He paused at the barbican, turned, and held up his hand briefly.
She waved back, because it made more sense than running after him and flinging herself into his arms.
“Go inside, Peaches,” came words that floated back over his shoulder as he started across the bridge.
Peaches went inside and shut the door behind her. Work for him? As a research assistant?
It was insane. She would have a ringside seat for all his trysts with his girlfriends, get to watch him prepare for all his society functions, see him living in a world that suited him so perfectly and he managed so well.
Well, she would just give herself a good night’s rest to regain her good sense, then she would tell him no.
“Did he give you a shoe?” John asked as she walked across the great hall.
“Yes,” she said shortly.
“Well, it could have been worse,” Tess offered. “It could have been a ring.”
Peaches glared at them both and trotted toward the stairs, ignoring their giggles. She wasn’t going to chuck her shoe at them, though they certainly deserved it.
A good night’s rest, then a resounding no.
It was the only thing she could do.
Chapter 18
Stephen sat in a chair in front of the fire in his office and tried to concentrate. That task was made substantially more difficult by the addition not of three ghosts, but one very mortal, very beautiful woman sitting across from him, plowing through Regency research items.
He wondered if he should have been surprised Peaches had been willing to help him. She had spent most of the day before at Sedgwick ignoring him. Well, perhaps that wasn’t completely accurate. She hadn’t been rude to him. She had simply said only the bare minimum and found other things to look at. He had actually been stunned early that morning when she’d texted him one word.
Yes.
He would have happily accepted that answer to any number of questions, but he decided he would be wise to take things a step at a time. So he’d sent an innocuous reply and promised to meet her at his office after lunch.
Lunch had come and gone, and he’d begun to wonder if perhaps he was making a serious mistake. After all, his schedule was rather lighter than usual that semester, leaving him more time than he would have normally had to simply sit in his office and read. Inviting Peaches to sit there with him was self-torture of the worst kind. It would have been easier, perhaps, if he’d had lectures or tutoring to keep him busy. Anything to keep him in some other location.
And then she’d arrived, grave and serious. She had walked into his office in clothes he had purchased for her to wear at Kenneworth, clothes he was certain she had chosen because she would have thought they were conservative enough for the locale, and he had been forced to clutch the door to keep himself from falling to his knees and begging her to put him out of his misery and marry him that very day.
“I’m confused.”
So, heaven help him, was he. He grasped for his remaining shreds of self-control and dignity and cleared his throat. “About what?”
“Why you’re doing all this research into the Regency period.”
“I’m not,” he said. “You are.”
“But you’re publishing something on it, aren’t you?”
“Unfortunately,” he said honestly, “but it seems less painful now that you’re here to do all my work for me.”
She eyed him suspiciously. “And if I get it wrong?”
“You won’t.”
“You’re very trusting.”
“I’m going to force you to come sit in the front row when I deliver the paper. You’ll have full credit, of course. I’m hoping the fear of being torn into by ancient female scholars bearing reticules will keep you on the straight and narrow.”
She watched him for so long, he began to grow slightly uncomfortable. He finally put a bookmark in the text he was reading and gingerly closed it.
“Yes?”
She started to speak several times before she apparently cast caution to the wind. “I’m not sure I can do this.”
“Do what?” he asked, feigning ignorance even though he knew exactly what she was talking about. Sitting in the same room with her was terrible. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to pull her up out of her chair and kiss her senseless or bolt for the door. “Spend countless hours poring over musty old manuscripts?”
She looked at him evenly. “It’s not the books that are bothering me.”
He set his book aside, then leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. He clasped his hands and looked at her seriously. “Then what is it, Miss Alexander?”
She let out an uneven breath. “We’ve gotten off on the wrong foot,” she said slowly.
“Today?”
“No, in general.”
He looked at her, that beautiful, ethereal creature who had added a magical warmth to his office he’d never expected, and wondered how in the hell he was going to do anything but frighten her off. He took a deep breath. “Perhaps we should start afresh.”
“And how do you propose we do that?”
“With introductions?”
She smiled and he thought he might have to sit down. He wasn’t terribly surprised to find he was already sitting down. Peaches Alexander had that effect on him.
He stood up, then helped her out of her chair not because his mother expected that sort of thing but because Peaches deserved it. He held out his hand.
“Stephen Phillip Christopher de Piaget,” he said inclining his head, “at your service.”
“That’s a mouthful,” she said, putting her hand into his.
“My younger brother is similarly burdened, but his names are shorter,” Stephen said with a smile.
Peaches only continued to watch him expectantly.
Stephen thought to ask her why, then it occurred to him that he already knew the answer. He tried not to sigh. “Must I recite the rest?”
“Yes, you must.”
He had to sigh then. “Very well. I am the very fortunate possessor of the titles Viscount Haulton and Baron Etham, which means that I can get a decent seat at one or two restaurants in London. My father is the current Earl of Artane, which gets me decent seats at the theater. My PhD is in medieval studies with an emphasis in medieval languages and literature. Now, who are you?”
“Peaches Alexander,” Peaches said, shaking his hand, then pulling hers away. She sat back down and looked up at him. “That’s it. You know the rest. School, closets, intentions, being one step away from a Dickensian level of destitution.”
He sat down and resumed his position with his elbows on his knees. It put her almost within reach, which he thought was something of a boon.
He studied her by the light from his fire and the soft incandescent lights he refused to give up. She was, as could have been said about her sister, remarkably lovely. But he could safely say that he’d entertained the thought of having designs on Tess Alexander for less than five minutes before he realized she was just not the woman for him—and that had nothing to do with her looks, her personality, her passion for his passion, or the issuer of her passport. She had been destined to marry John de Piaget and he’d known that without knowing it.
Peaches, however, was a different story entirely.
“What led you to choose chemistry?” he ask
ed, because he realized he’d been staring at her without speaking.
She sighed. “Because it was the hardest academic thing I could think of, and I was in a houseful of sisters—well, besides Cindi, of course—who were all trying to be as different from my parents as possible. I had originally thought that maybe med school would be the right path, but decided my first year of college that it wasn’t what I wanted.”
“What did you want?”
“I wanted to make a difference,” she said. “Somehow.”
“And you didn’t think that would happen in a lab?”
She looked at him evenly. “Sorting socks isn’t glamorous, but at least I saw the sunrise and sunset every day.”
“I wasn’t criticizing,” he said mildly. “Just curious. What now?”
“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “Regency research, I suppose.”
Which he was happy to let her get back to so he could digest what she’d said and plan his next move. He reached for his book, then stopped when he realized she wasn’t finished with her questions.
“What do you want?” she asked.
You was almost out of his mouth before he had the good sense to engage the filter between his brain and his tongue. His mother had made certain he’d been born with it and his father had honed it from the time Stephen had said his first words, he was certain. He set his book back down and cleared his throat.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what do you want?” she asked. She made a circle with her pointer finger that encompassed his entire room. “This somehow doesn’t jibe very well with the other you. The one that carries the sword. And then there’s the nobility you that I don’t even know, but I understand wears a tux and has a chauffeur and a Rolls. And a valet, as I’ve already seen.”
“Humphreys is my social secretary.”
She only laughed. “I think he’s more your keeper.”
Stephen might have—very well, he most definitely would have taken offense if anyone else had said the like. But somehow, coming from that astonishingly pretty woman sitting across from him—nay, she wasn’t pretty. She was beautiful. But not in a hard, manufactured way. She was beautiful, true, but made even more so by an artless, almost vulnerable aura she projected that he hadn’t had the chance to see until just that moment.
He realized with a start, that she was honestly interested in what he was thinking.
“I’m very content with my life,” he said, because he wasn’t about to say anything else.
“What part do you like the best?”
“Isn’t your degree in chemistry, not psychology?” he asked lightly.
She only stared at him, a smile playing around her mouth, then she bent her head back to her book. “You need to go to Scotland soon.”
“I went to medieval England recently. I think that will last me for a bit.”
She didn’t look up. “You’re crabby.”
That didn’t begin to describe it. She had unerringly found his weakness and exploited it. He had difficulty, he could almost admit, trying to reconcile the different parts of himself: scholar, swordsman, and heir to a pile of stones that made him catch his breath every time he returned home.
He somehow wasn’t surprised how unerringly Peaches had dissected him and left him lying there on the table.
He tried to get back to his reading, truly he did. But it was almost impossible. The longer he sat there, the more anxious he became.
“I never thanked you for the clothes.”
He blinked. “What?”
She shot him a look. “I know you rescued me last weekend, and more than once. The gown was absolutely stunning.”
He could only incline his head slightly. Words were beyond him.
“This is pretty snazzy, too,” she said, fingering the sleeve of her sweater. “And the shoes fit.”
“Humphreys has a good eye.”
“And you have good taste.”
“He does the work and I take the credit.” He took a deep breath. “You looked lovely then, as now.”
She studied him for a moment or two. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“About what?”
“About the clothes. You let me think they were from David Preston.”
He shifted uncomfortably. In fact, he had to fight the urge to get up and pace. “You weren’t—” He paused and tried again. “You didn’t seem—” He set his book aside and rubbed his hands over his face. “Must we have this conversation?”
“I think you need a green drink.”
What he needed was a cold shower and not just for the usual reasons. He desperately needed something to bring good sense back to its normal place of prominence in his life. He looked at Peaches seriously. “I didn’t think you would accept them if you’d known they came from me.”
She rubbed her hands over the knees of her trousers. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I misjudged you. I misjudged quite a few things.”
“David Preston?” he asked, because he was too stupid to keep his mouth shut.
She opened her mouth, then shut it at the ringing of her phone. She sighed. “Sorry.”
“No, go ahead.”
She nodded, then picked up.
Stephen retrieved his book and dived right back into it. It was a fascinating treatise on marriage in the Middle Ages that he paid attention to for approximately ten seconds until he realized that Peaches was talking to none other than David Preston himself, that promiscuous, empty-headed, hard-hearted Duke of Kenneworth, who was missing one of his extremely valuable ceremonial swords.
Stephen wished he’d poached a handful of them.
“David, I really appreciate—”
David interrupted her. Stephen put on a neutral expression and waited for Peaches to sort things as she cared to. After all, he had no claim on her. He couldn’t actually even claim her time as a researcher. He fully intended to pay her, though Tess had warned him the day before that Peaches wouldn’t take any money from him. It was difficult to tell Peaches she couldn’t date Kenneworth when he couldn’t hold her job over her head.
Not that he would have anyway. If she wanted him, he wanted her to want him freely.
He listened to her protest that it really had been a lovely weekend and that she’d simply gotten lost and been rescued and taken home. She had left a message with his secretary to that effect. She protested further that dinner wasn’t necessary and what a surprise it was to learn David was in Cambridge.
“Seven?” she asked. “Well, I might be—yes, that’s true.” She took a careful breath. “I’m doing research for the Viscount Haulton.” She shot Stephen a quick look. “Yes, I suppose you could pick me up at his office if you like.” She paused. “Yes, see you then.”
Stephen buried his nose in his book, because it seemed safer that way.
Silence reigned supreme for several very long, very uncomfortable moments.
“That was David Preston.”
Stephen looked up and smiled. “Was it?”
She was looking as neutral as he was trying to feel. “He wants to take me to dinner.”
“Lovely of him, of course. Did he say how late he would be keeping you?”
She looked quite miserable, which he found very encouraging, actually. “I hope not late. I’ll have to catch a train home—”
“Stay,” he interrupted.
She blinked. “What?”
“I’ll find you a spot within walking distance of the college,” he said, reaching for his phone. “Then you won’t have to travel back and forth to Sedgwick.”
“But I didn’t bring any clothes.”
“Humphreys has excellent taste.”
She looked at him seriously. “Stephen, you can’t buy me a new wardrobe.”
“Why not?” he asked lightly.
“Because I can’t let your butler buy me knickers!”
“He’s my social secretary.”
She didn’t smile. “It makes me uncomfortable. The i
dea of any of it makes me uncomfortable.”
He felt his smile fading. “Does it?”
“Doesn’t it seem a little strange that you’re dressing me to go out with another man?” she asked, looking at him evenly.
“I’ll have Humphreys buy something ugly for tonight.”
She took a deep breath. That didn’t seem to satisfy her, for she took a handful of others. She finally set aside her book and stood up. “I have to run.”
“Run?”
“You know,” she said, making a running motion with her fingers. “Run. As in, moving very quickly along a flat surface in tennis shoes.”
“Trainers.”
She glared at him. “Yes, those.”
He set his book aside. “I’ll go with you.”
She looked at him in surprise. “Do you run?”
“Ian MacLeod suggested it.”
She put her hands on her hips and scowled down at him. “Do you always do what he tells you to do?”
He banked his fire. “Only when he has a sword in his hands.” He brushed off his hands and looked at her. “I started at Eton, actually. One does what one must, don’t you know, to get along with one’s responsibilities.” Or get away from them, as the case had been on occasion. “Do you have gear?”
“I never go anywhere without it.”
He waved her toward his loo. “Make yourself at home.”
She looked at him briefly, then picked up a backpack and walked away. Stephen took the opportunity to make a quick call to Humphreys, who was more than willing to find something exceptionally lovely for Peaches to wear that night.
It was twenty minutes into a run in which Peaches wasn’t even breathing hard that he realized he was perhaps dealing with something he hadn’t expected.
“Enjoying yourself?” he asked.
She looked up at him. “Enormously. You?”
“Oh, yes,” he panted. “It’s brilliant.”
“Should we go on, or are you finished?”
He leaned over and tried to catch his breath. “I’m fine.”
“Did I tell you that I run the Seattle marathon every year?”