Once Upon a Kiss (Book Club Belles Society) Read online

  Now, here he was taking ownership of a pig. And seeking methods to keep Miss Justina in his view.

  “Your father agreed that, since you have little else to occupy your time, this might keep you out of trouble,” he added.

  Before she could say anything her little friend chirped, “I would be happy to help too, sir.” She thrust back the hood of her cap and let her yellow hair shimmer in the dappled shade. “It is the least I can do now that you are taking such good care of Sir Mortimer.”

  Her shyness had quickly been set aside, and in its place was a heavy-breathing, saucer-eyed, rosy-cheeked miss. Even Justina looked at her quizzically.

  Darius had not planned to invite both young ladies inside his house, but there seemed nothing he could do now to prevent it. They came together apparently and could not be separated.

  On second thought, perhaps it was just as well. He wouldn’t want Miss Penny to try taking advantage of him again.

  Fourteen

  She realized this was her punishment for trespassing and leaving Sir Mortimer Grubbins in his orchard. Together her father and Mr. Wainwright had cooked up this scheme. But she was not unwilling to enter that old house and pry around inside it. Justina was certain Midwitch Manor held many dark secrets, and she was not afraid of ghosts. In fact she felt her excitement mounting when she considered all those mysterious rolled up scrolls she was likely to find hidden among the old miser’s things. Really, it was hardly a punishment at all, but Mr. Wainwright could not know that.

  He led them into a large study overlooking the orchard. It was a gloomy chamber, all dark wood and stagnant air. Piles of books and stacks of yellowed paper covered almost every surface, in some places slithering to the worn carpet or taller than Justina and leaning precariously as if the slightest draft would be their undoing.

  “Where on earth does one start?” muttered Lucy.

  He walked around his desk, and Justina tried not to look at his exposed forearms. It was very improper of him to wear rolled up shirtsleeves in their presence. She feared not for herself, of course. Good Lord, no. After all, she’d seen him without a stitch of clothing and somehow came out of it unscathed. But the sight of those surprisingly brawny limbs might be the cause of Lucy’s sudden eagerness to enter a house she had previously believed was haunted. Certainly something must account for her friend’s tremulous smiles and breathy sighs.

  Poor child, thought Justina dourly. Lucy still had much to learn about men and life.

  “These papers can be sorted into three categories,” he explained. “Items of business, household matters, and then personal documents.”

  “Is there something in particular that you look for among your great-uncle’s papers?” Justina asked.

  His eyes danced over her with a tentative amusement. “Perhaps.”

  Was that a twinkle trying to hide from her? “But you are not inclined to tell us what it is,” she pressed, her curiosity captured.

  “No. I am not. At present.”

  “Then how will we know when we find it?”

  “We’ll know it.”

  This punishment began to sound more interesting.

  Justina strode up to his desk, and he immediately backed around it, putting more distance between them and in the process stumbling against the corner. When he winced in pain and his eyelids lowered to half-mast, her attention was caught by the surprising length of his eyelashes. It was not the first time she’d noticed their peculiar elegance, but today she was more at liberty to study them.

  “Is it another will?” she demanded. “A diary full of all his wicked confessions? Is it a pile of love letters from a sweetheart who abandoned him to his lonely, miserly life? Or is it a map to buried gold?”

  “Perhaps,” he muttered. “Better get looking, had you not?”

  Aha! A game of sorts.

  “It should not take too long to go through all these if you come every day for an hour,” he added, stern again. “One pile will be for those items that can be burned. One will be for those of more importance. If you are uncertain, please ask me first.”

  “Will there be refreshments provided for our labors?” People seldom wanted her company and looked for other ways of punishment for her transgressions—methods that generally put her as far away from them as possible. She would have expected the same from him.

  He scratched his dark head. “I’m sure Mrs. Birch can provide some tea.”

  She followed his gaze to Lucy, who stared at Mr. Wainwright with dewy-eyed admiration. Her scarlet cloak had somehow, within the last few moments, become unhooked, and since she wore no chemisette under her bodice today, Lucy’s very full bosom overflowed with every deep inhale. Clearly the Wainwright person noted it too, for he fumbled with a pile of books on his desk, dropping one to the dusty carpet.

  When Lucy sneezed she almost came completely out of her dress.

  “What if we can’t come every day?” Justina snapped.

  His eyes flashed back to her face. “You will make the time, Miss Penny. If you want to save Sir Mortimer Grubbins.”

  Grimly, she nodded. “Blackmail. What else might I expect?”

  He merely looked at her, his lips pressed tight, grinding his jaw again. The brief hint of playfulness was gone.

  Justina ran a gloved fingertip along the edge of his desk and made a trail through the dust. “Old Phineas Hawke once told me there was treasure in this house,” she said. “Do you think it’s true?”

  His eyes narrowed sharply. “When did he tell you that?”

  “As a little girl I used to come over his wall to climb the orchard trees and sit among the blossoms. I liked to pretend I was an angel in the clouds.”

  “An angel?” His lips twitched in a skeptical smirk.

  “An angel of vengeance,” she replied proudly. “I wrought lightning down upon those who required punishment.”

  Lucy chirped up suddenly. “She means, sir, that she used her catapult to fire Brussels sprouts at people from the trees. Jussy could see the lane over the wall, but those who passed by couldn’t see her for she was hidden in all the blossoms.”

  Justina glared at her friend. Trust Lucy to lose that shyness in time to squeal about her old childhood crimes.

  “In any case,” she continued, “old Hawke caught me there once in the blossoms. Before he had me chased out, he told me there was treasure in his house. Of course, he was senile. He might as well have said there was an elephant in his attic and mice in his drawers.”

  Wainwright was looking at her in an odd way again. If he wore a wig, she would think it must be too tight.

  “You should search every corner of the house,” she added, “just to be sure. There must be many nooks and crannies, perfect for hiding treasure.”

  “Yes, well…you may start with those.” He thrust a finger at the leaning pile close to her elbow. “The sooner you begin, the sooner you’ll be done, won’t you?”

  She might have known he didn’t believe in treasure, she thought glumly. The man clearly had no imagination.

  ***

  It did not take her long to settle into the task. She was soon seated and sorting through a large stack of papers. He had hoped the job at hand would keep her from chattering while he concentrated on mending one of the household clocks. He was mistaken.

  “I do hope your business is going well,” she said suddenly.

  Darius was still trying to grow accustomed to her proximity on the other side of the desk, but even her breathing pattern was distracting and her soft scent—possibly lavender soap—was such a new addition to the usual mustiness of the room that he found it almost spell-like in its power. “My business?”

  “The one that keeps you here, when you would much rather be anywhere else.”

  “Yes, Miss Penny. It…is developing”—he glanced over at Miss Lucy Bridges, who sat in the light
of the tall window and continually threw him shy little smiles, when she wasn’t engulfed in a storm of sneezes—“well enough.”

  When he looked again at Justina, he caught her eyeing the little brass cogwheels spread over his blotter. “Wouldn’t it be quicker if you helped us with the papers, Mr. Wainwright?”

  He hesitated, unable to find an immediate reply.

  “Or is the keeping of perfect time more important to you than how it is spent?”

  He sniffed. “One task is just as important as the other. I doubt you know anything about clockwork mechanisms, however.”

  “No.” She smirked down at the papers in her hand. “I’m never on time for anything. The worst person in the world when it comes to being punctual.”

  “You sound proud of the fact, Miss Penny.”

  “One has to be proud of something, and there is so little about me that might ever come to any good. I may as well boast of my inabilities since they are plentiful.”

  Darius scowled, shifted in his chair, and rubbed his chamois cloth with increased velocity over one of the cogs. He could never be sure whether she spoke in jest or whether she truly meant what she said. It was most troubling that the woman not only operated in an unpredictable manner, but seemed to thrive upon it.

  “Will no family be joining you here, Mr. Wainwright?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “They are all in London?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have a large family?”

  “No.” He didn’t care to explain all that.

  She exhaled another sigh, as if she was out of breath pushing a heavy wheelbarrow uphill. He tried to look away, but found his eyes drawn to her repeatedly, quite unable to stop their thorough and inquisitive examination of her face. Not knowing what she might do next was a dreadful state to be in. Also strangely alluring. He thought he might quite like to peer inside her mind and study its curious workings. See how all her intriguingly unusual parts fitted together. Yet he could not ask her questions. He did not know where to begin.

  Miss Penny, on the other hand, had no such qualm when it came to her own curiosity. “What is your business? Do you travel a great deal? Why did you never come to visit old Hawke?” The questions tumbled out of her, fired speedily by the trebuchet of her tongue and yet without any particular aim, as far as he could tell. Darius was certain she merely asked to fill the silence. Something that, in his opinion, never needed filling.

  But he did his best to provide answers.

  “My shipping business exports certain items made here, and we also import various provisions…rugs, fabrics, tea, coffee, rum—”

  “And chocolate?” Her eyes widened with a new burst of interest.

  “Yes.” He paused. “You like hot chocolate, Miss Penny?”

  “Is grass green?” She shook her head, huffing. “For pity’s sake, who doesn’t like hot chocolate?”

  Relieved to find he’d had a hand in something for which she might be grateful, Darius took a breath and forged ahead. “So yes, I have traveled extensively.”

  She stared for a moment and then looked down at the papers again.

  “As to your other question, I visited my great-uncle when I was seventeen. Apparently he saw enough of me then, and I was not invited back.”

  “But now he has left you his house.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I….suppose I was the only male relative left.”

  “That’s a very dull reason.” She sighed.

  “You would prefer another?”

  “It could be something mysterious and ghoulish.”

  He was amused. “As in one of those novels that Mrs. Birch tells me the young ladies of the Book Society devour, to their detriment.”

  Up went her prim nose. “I would not expect you to understand, since you have no imagination and are the most boring man that ever breathed.”

  After a pause while they both got on with their work and Darius sought some way to prove he was interesting, he finally managed, “Perhaps you would like a tour of the gallery. There are some fine landscapes and portraits—”

  “Oh, I’ve seen them already,” she interrupted, punctuating her remark with a small, ungracious yawn.

  “I haven’t,” her friend meekly piped up from the window seat.

  Darius frowned at the woman across his desk. “You’ve seen them? When?”

  “A few years ago. We had a scavenger hunt.” She chuckled, her gaze skimming the paper in her hand. “One of the items to be retrieved was Phineas Hawke’s pipe. I was the only member of the Book Society that returned with all the items on the list, including the pipe, so I won.” She beamed proudly. “No one else dared come here. They all think the house is haunted, but I was not afraid. There’s nothing wrong with this house that a little cleaning and painting wouldn’t cure. And a little love, of course.” She looked around the dark walls of the room. “This house has been neglected, left unloved for too long. It needs cherishing. It needs a family in it. Children running up and down the corridors and laughing.”

  He sniffed. “There are few things I can think of that would be more annoying than ill-behaved children scuffing and nicking these floors and the walls with their careless games.”

  She shook her head just enough to disturb a curl by her cheek. “Of course. How foolish of me. Children should be seen and not heard. Probably not even seen, as far as you’re concerned.”

  “Badly behaved children, certainly.”

  Exhaling a small snort of amusement, she replied, “I cannot imagine you as a child. Were you born an old man?”

  Darius polished his cog wheel even harder. “May I ask how you gained admittance to the house when you stole my great-uncle’s pipe?” He paused. “It seems you have a knack, Miss Penny, for entering places where you are not invited.”

  “I told Mrs. Birch that my father had sent me to deliver a bottle of elixir for old Hawke.”

  “So you took your time exploring his house while you were here under false pretenses.”

  “When one is bound to be in trouble anyway, one may as well make the most of it, don’t you think?”

  Abruptly he thought of her flying through the air and landing on him as he lay in bed trying to sleep. It was more than a year ago, but he still vividly recalled the sensation of her naked, nubile body tackling his with only a quilt between them. His fingertips accidentally brushing her silk garters as he tried to save himself from the assault.

  “Mr. Wainwright?”

  “Hmm?” He grabbed the clock face to adjust the hands. His tongue felt very thick suddenly, and he feared it would stumble if he forced a reply.

  “When one is bound to be in trouble anyway, one may as well make the most of it, don’t you think?” she repeated.

  “No.”

  Her eyes flashed upward. “Have you never done anything wicked and forbidden, Mr. Wainwright?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?” She licked her lips and fluttered her lashes as artfully as a society miss would wield her fan. He could not be sure it was deliberate, but a flaming arrow of desire shot through him nevertheless. “There must be at least one thing.”

  Darius felt the minute hand slip from his fingers to the carpet. When he bent out of his chair to recover it, he banged his head on the edge of the desk. The resulting cacophony of seemingly uncontainable guffaws proved that Miss Penny found this hilarious.

  ***

  When they left the house that day, Lucy’s step was decidedly jaunty, and she could not stop talking of Darius Wainwright. How he looked, how he spoke, how he walked. Even how he breathed and paused between words—a habit she concluded meant that he considered every word with great care and wisdom. She plainly saw him now as her pet pig’s savior, despite the fact that Sir Mortimer really owed his survival to Just
ina’s resourcefulness.

  At the Book Society meeting that afternoon, Lucy still had not changed her choice of subject.

  “I thought we were here to discuss Pride and Prejudice,” Justina remarked at one point, having heard Lucy’s description of Wainwright’s very plain waistcoat for what felt like the fifty-first time. “Might I remind you, Lucy, that you were violently in love with Mr. Darcy this time last week,” she drawled acerbically. “How quickly he is thrown aside, poor fellow.”

  “But this gentleman is not fictional, and he is right here in our midst,” Lucy replied with a lusty sigh. “He is…” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper, “the embodiment of Mr. Darcy.”

  Clearly Lucy was about to fall victim to another bout of Maiden’s Palsy, if she had not already. Someone ought to give that girl an ice bath.

  “Mr. Wainwright is certainly proud and haughty,” said Rebecca. “Very like Mr. Darcy.”

  “But Mr. Darcy only appears haughty because he is reserved,” Catherine offered timidly. “Elizabeth Bennet is quick to judge him after his insult at the dance in the beginning of the book. Now she is in Kent with the Collinses, she has begun to see him in a different light. I am quite sure we will soon learn that she has been misled, not only by her own impressions but by Mr. Wickham’s tale of mistreatment at Darcy’s hands.”

  “I still prefer Mr. Wickham,” snapped Justina. “He is ten times more fun than that old windbag Darcy.” With a grieved sigh she glanced out of the parlor window and watched speckles of new rain dash against the small panes. So what if he imported the marvelous treat that was chocolate. It was no reason to change her first impression, and she certainly would not tell the others for fear it might weigh too heavily in his favor.

  The conversation did not linger long on the book today. With the harvest dance looming ever closer, this was the topic that distracted the ladies most often, and Mr. Darius Wainwright came a close second.

  “Although he did appear at first to be an arrogant gentleman, I’m sure he has finer qualities,” said Cathy.