“Oh, I say, Trotter-Smythe,” said a deep voice from behind her, “sorry to miss the notes. Ah, Tess, darling, I supposed you would … be …”
Peaches turned around in time to the winding down of the speech behind her until she was facing the speaker.
He was tall, dark-haired, and … she sighed. She could be nothing but honest. The man standing in front of her was absolutely gorgeous. Not only was he tall, as she had been forced to admit before, he was very finely built and had a killer smile she had fortunately never had used on her. He was currently looking at her from a pair of the most amazing gray eyes she had ever seen, eyes that widened so briefly she probably would have thought she’d imagined it if she hadn’t known what was going through the possessor of those beautiful eyes’ mind.
She wasn’t Tess.
And Stephen de Piaget knew it.
Stephen made her a low bow, then straightened and smiled smoothly. “Dr. Alexander, I should say. Or perhaps Lady Sedgwick. So many titles and so well-deserved, wouldn’t you say, Dr. Trotter-Smythe?”
“Oh, indeed,” Dr. Trotter-Smythe agreed. “Very. So many accomplishments for one so young.”
Peaches would have elbowed Dr. Trotter-Smythe to distract him before he launched into a discussion of Tess’s accomplishments that she would have to elaborate on, but she was saved by the man becoming distracted by Stephen de Piaget’s unwholesomely dazzling smile. Or it might have been the remains of a bruise on his nose. She could hardly believe it, but he looked as though he had recently been in a brawl.
She forced her eyes to remain open and not narrow as they so wanted to do, because despite the fact that Stephen was her archenemy, she was pretending to be her sister, and Tess was rather fond of him.
Peaches couldn’t understand why. She’d heard from reliable sources that Stephen had helped Tess enormously during her academic career at Cambridge without hitting on her once. Peaches could only assume that was because the illustrious Viscount Haulton had already been busy with the harem of very rich, very beautiful socialites and celebrities he dated between bouts of insulting innocent life coaches from Seattle and teaching about pointy things he no doubt wouldn’t have touched if his life had depended on it.
Not that there was anything wrong with being a college professor, especially of that ultra-sexy subject of medieval knights and their relentless chivalry. She just imagined the sharpest things Stephen came in contact with were either a harshly worded review or the business edge of his butter knife at dinner. If someone tried to mug her, he would probably give her a shove toward the mugger so he could dash off daintily and spare his fancy cashmere scarves a brush with grubby fingers.
Stephen removed her plate from her hand. She managed to smile politely instead of baring her teeth, but that took some doing.
“Let’s find you a seat, shall we?” he asked politely. “You look a little flushed.”
“It’s the stockings,” she muttered under her breath.
He only looked at her gravely, which made her want to squirm. Before she could protest, he had put her in a comfortable spot, deposited her drink and plate on the table at her elbow, and had sat down next to her—a very proper and discreet distance away—to no doubt monopolize any and all conversation that came her way.
She supposed that was something of a bonus. All she had to do was sit there and smile, but since that was probably how he liked his women, she was fitting right into his plans.
She felt an unwholesome tingle in her knees that she quickly identified as stress she immediately blamed on Tess. It had nothing to do with sitting next to a man whose face should have been outlawed, whose lovely posh consonants would have made her smile if they hadn’t been coming out of his mouth, who seemed to draw people to him like flies.
He probably had a flyswatter hiding behind his back so he could whack them when least expected. He’d done it to her.
She didn’t want to think about that particular moment of unpleasantness, but since he was there and she was trying to keep herself awake, she decided that perhaps it was best to get it all out of her system right then.
She’d met him in the midst of panic over losing Pippa somewhere back in time. He had been an absolute rock, taking all pressure off Tess, being the perfect knight in trousers and tweed. She had to admit that even though she’d known he was way out of her league, she had … she sighed. The truth was, she’d developed an immediate crush on him and spent the majority of her time in England alternately gaping at him and allowing him to figure prominently in her daydreams.
If he’d noticed, he hadn’t said anything. He had treated her politely, but it had been a stiff sort of politeness, as if centuries of breeding hadn’t allowed him to raise her hopes unnecessarily.
And then had come The Comment.
She’d been talking to a potential client at a Regency-style house party about her degree when Stephen had attempted a polite laugh and said, exactly, Oh, I say, I thought organic was in reference to the manure you put in your garden.
She’d been mortified. He hadn’t even had the grace to look embarrassed as those around them had laughed heartily, then moved on to less smelly subjects. Stephen’s face had shuttered. He had, when the crowd had dispersed, attempted a stiff apology, then been coldly polite to her ever since. She had been happy, on those unhappy occasions when she’d seen him since, to give him a wide berth.
Only now she was stuck.
She leaned back against the couch and let herself relax just the slightest bit only because she knew if she didn’t, she would have a crushing headache. Unfortunately, that gave her nothing better to do than watch Stephen work the crowd.
How he managed to be so charming and such a jerk at the same time was a mystery. Granny was blushing. Other scholars were hanging on his every word. Peaches would have told him he was hogging the limelight, but then she realized he was somehow doing all the talking but giving credit to Tess for the research.
Peaches suppressed a frown. There was obviously something fishy going on.
He only looked at her once. He gave her a quick little smile that would have left her fanning herself if it hadn’t come from him. Fortunately she was a woman with a steel spine and vast amounts of resistance to tweed-covered academics who thought nothing of tap-dancing in stompy boots over the hearts of innocent feng-shuiers.
It was a very uncomfortable three hours.
She was thrilled when Stephen announced that Dr. Alexander had another engagement to get to. Peaches accepted compliments with her best smile and didn’t argue when Stephen managed to get them both out the front door without any catastrophes.
Peaches pulled her collar up to her ears and started out toward the sidewalk. “Thanks, Dr. de Piaget, for the rescue. See you around.”
Stephen had very long legs and apparently knew how to use them. Peaches would have trotted down the street but she was in heels not her sensible Docs, so she had to walk carefully so she didn’t fall on her face and ruin Tess’s reputation.
“Miss Alexander—”
“I’m fine, thank you,” she said politely. All right, so it had come out a bit crisply. He had made fun of her on that fateful night the month before, spent the rest of that particular evening flirting with three of his girlfriends, and now he expected her to be nice to him? “I’ll tell Tess how you saved her this afternoon.”
“Where are you staying?”
“None of your business.”
“Holly’s,” he said with a sigh, taking her by the arm. “Come, I’ll ferry you there.”
Peaches ripped her arm away from his fingers so forcefully, she almost went sprawling. She regained her balance. “I think I’ve managed all twenty-eight years of my life without your help, thanks just the same.”
He clasped his hands behind his back and just looked at her, silent and grave.
Peaches knew she was making a colossal idiot of herself, but honestly, she just couldn’t help herself. She wasn’t going to be a notch on his chivalry belt
just so he could tell his group of nobility pals he’d been nice to some poor Yank.
She walked away, ignoring how slippery it was on the sidewalk and how cold her feet were getting in shoes that should have been limited to summer events.
She had stalked almost to Holly’s before she realized someone was following her. A car, actually. A very expensive-looking, silver gray Mercedes that probably cost more than she would ever make in her lifetime.
Typical.
It waited until she was standing on the porch and had the door open before it drove off. Peaches decided that was probably for the best. She would go into Holly’s, have a lukewarm shower, then put herself to bed and forget about a man who had saved her during a tea that could have been an absolute disaster, then followed her home to make sure she got there safely.
Obviously for his own perverse reasons, which she was sure included storing up amusing anecdotes to entertain his friends with.
She put her shoulders back and headed for the shower.
Her fairy tale awaited. The last thing she wanted was a titled, impossible, steak-eating jerk getting in the way.
Chapter 4
Stephen let himself into his flat, shrugged out of his overcoat, then tossed it and his keys onto the table in the entryway. He glanced at it and for some reason the sight brought him up short. It was an eighteenth-century card table sporting extensive inlay that featured none other than Czar Peter himself. It wasn’t that which had startled him, it was that he had no idea where it had come from or when it had arrived. His grandmother had no doubt deposited it in his entryway. For all he knew, she had given him an extensive history of it at some point, but he imagined he had probably been too distracted by whatever paper he’d been working on at the time to pay attention. He would have to ask the details when next he was in London to have tea at her house.
He bypassed the kitchen and made his way into his study and flicked on a lamp. He started a fire, then sat down in a ridiculously comfortable chair and heaved an enormous sigh of relief.
And then he choked.
But that was probably because he had just noticed the three men standing on the other side of the hearth in a neat little row.
He didn’t bother reaching for any of Patrick MacLeod’s defense training. It was obvious to him by not only their somewhat vintage dress but their slight transparency that his visitors were not exactly of this world.
He regained his composure and bought himself a bit of time by studying his companions. He wasn’t entirely sure he hadn’t seen them before at Artane, but since he tended to avoid the paranormal, he couldn’t have said for certain. The only thing he was sure of was that none of the three had ever jumped out of an alcove and yelled “boo” at him.
He realized with a start that he was starting to babble a bit, but really, who could blame him? He’d already been thoroughly knocked to his knees by an afternoon spent sitting next to Miss Peaches Alexander. Ghosts were the icing on the bun, as it were.
The man—er, ghost, rather—closest to the fire was a Highlander with a very big sword. Stephen felt fairly confident in making that assessment given that he’d spent the previous weekend fighting off just such a lad up north. Tartans hadn’t had a set pattern or color until the eighteenth century—he congratulated himself on being able to produce that bit of trivia under such duress—so identifying that hoary-headed warrior by tartan alone was impossible. Fortunately for his own feeble powers of observation, there was an enormous MacLeod clan badge on the man’s cap. Identification successful.
The man next to him was wearing the crest of the clan McKinnon on his cap as well as what Stephen recognized as the current-day plaid associated with that clan. He was ruddy-haired, ruddy-complected, and looked as if he were currently seeing red. Stephen wondered absently what he’d done to annoy the man—er, ghost, again, rather.
He wondered if he should stand up and offer a bow.
He considered that a bit longer as he looked at the third of the little group. Obviously of Elizabethan influence judging by his trousers and the enormous ruff around his neck. The ghost twitched his cloak back over his shoulders, which left Stephen blinking a little at the tabard the ghost wore: a black lion rampant with an aqua eye.
Part of his family crest, as it happened.
The man also looked a fair bit like what Stephen’s father had looked like in his youth, rather more like Gideon, his brother, than he himself.
The de Piaget ghost cleared his throat in irritation.
Stephen pushed himself out of his chair, looked at the three, then made them a low bow.
“Stephen, Viscount Haulton and Baron Etham, at your service,” he said politely.
The Elizabeth ghost looked at his companions and raised an eyebrow. “Me nevvy, don’t you know. Look at them pretty manners. ’Tis in the blood.”
The Scots didn’t offer opinions.
Stephen cleared his throat politely. “If I could offer you seats, my lords—”
“No need, lad,” said the ghost on the left who by his carriage showed himself to have no doubt been an important member of the clan MacLeod at some point. “We come with our own.”
Stephen imagined they did. He waited until they’d conjured up chairs to suit themselves and plucked tankards of ale out of thin air before he dared resume his own seat. He reached for something innocuous to say.
“Isn’t it a little late for Christmas ghosts?” he managed.
The de Piaget ghost dressed in his Elizabethan finery harrumphed. “Ye know, young Stephen, that ’twas me nocturnal visit to young Charles that gave him the idea for his tale full of do-gooding specters, but that isn’t why we’re here.”
Stephen didn’t dare speculate on why they were there. It was one thing to jump a little at ghosts lingering in his father’s passageways, then suppress the urge to curse at their giggles; it was another thing entirely to host a trio of apparently very opinionated souls at his own hearth and attempt intelligent conversation. On his part, of course, not theirs. They didn’t seem to be at all troubled by him.
The red-haired ghost sitting in the middle of the guests frowned at the Highlander on his right. “Ye know, Ambrose, I begin to wonder why we waste our time with these lads south of the border. Look at this one sitting there with his mouth gaping open. There’s plenty of work to do on the proper side of the wall, I say. That young Derrick Cameron, perhaps—”
“We’ll see to that in good time,” the Macleod assured him. “This lad first, however. Perhaps introductions before we discuss business.”
Stephen found himself pinned to the spot by a piercing stare.
“I am Ambrose MacLeod,” the shade announced, “laird of the clan MacLeod during the glorious flowering of Elizabethan times. These are my compatriots, Hugh McKinnon and Fulbert de Piaget.”
“Charmed,” Stephen managed, nodding at the other Highlander and the Englishman who were helping themselves to what he could only assume was ale.
“And now to our business,” Ambrose MacLeod said seriously.
Stephen remained silent. He was not a creator of fiction, so he couldn’t imagine the trio facing him had come to inspire him to greater literary heights as they apparently had a certain penner of Victorian-era tales. He had to admit he was suddenly less than eager to find out, however, just why they had selected his study to haunt. Especially given that one of them was an ancestor. Of sorts.
Fulbert de Piaget smoothed his hand down over his tabard, then fluffed the lace ruff at his neck before he cleared his throat. “Now, you being me brother’s son—”
“Son?” Stephen interrupted.
“Very well, his son’s son’s son’s—” Fulbert frowned for a moment or two, then began to count on his fingers. “His son’s son’s son’s—” He glared at Stephen. “Suffice it to say, yer me nevvy a time or two removed. I am the second son of my father, as it happens, and yer uncle. And as such, I feel a certain sense of responsibility for yer happiness.”
Stephen blinke
d, then gaped.
Hugh McKinnon shot Ambrose MacLeod a knowing look, but said nothing. Stephen cleared his throat after a dodgy moment or two when he thought he might have to go look for a drink.
“I’m happy just as I am,” he protested.
“But unwed,” Laird MacLeod said pointedly. “We’re here to remedy that.”
“I’m here to remedy that,” Fulbert said pointedly.
The McKinnon snorted. “What do either of ye know about this family? If ye’ll remember, I was the one who arranged things the other two times.”
Stephen watched the discussion grow rather warm and realized at some point that he was either losing his mind or that blow to his nose delivered by Patrick MacLeod had knocked something loose inside his head because he was currently watching two ghosts of a rather earlier-than-modern vintage go at each other, and he found all he could do was sit there and gape at them.
“I say,” he protested at one point when swords were drawn.
He was ignored.
Apparently Fulbert and the McKinnon had known each other for quite some time. Their insults were as finely honed as their swords though thankfully just as unable to draw blood. Stephen watched them fight in his den, using furniture and tables to launch themselves off and duck behind, and was very thankful they were ghosts.
Until what Fulbert de Piaget said had sunk in.
“Marriage?” he said incredulously.
Fulbert and Hugh stopped long enough to look at him. Fulbert pursed his lips in disgust.
“Of course, marriage. Why else would we be here?”
“Why, indeed,” Stephen managed. He watched them turn back to their sport—and he used that term loosely—then realized the MacLeod wasn’t joining in the fray. He rose unsteadily and went to put his backside to the fire where he could speak to the clan’s chief privately. “Marriage?”