Theory of Magic Read online

  And here was a woman who didn’t flee screaming from his ruined visage or his tantrums, and she was about to run away, if he did not mistake.

  Carrying the lantern he didn’t need, Ash crept into the corridor. His damaged leg ached after a long day, and he stumbled, no doubt startling whichever footman guarded the hall. It wouldn’t do to have the servants gossiping, but he didn’t want to send the mouse he was about to trap scurrying out of his reach again.

  Holding a finger to his lips to indicate silence—hoping there was actually someone to see him do so—he whispered tea in a command that caused rustling by the garden door. A moment later, he heard boot steps descending to the kitchen. Excellent. Living in the back of the house had its conveniences.

  He covered the lantern and listened for the woman creeping down the stairs to turn the landing and squeak the last few steps. When he was certain she was in reach, he opened the lantern.

  She stopped moving, as he’d hoped she would. He didn’t want her to think she was being attacked, but once satisfied she knew precisely who confronted her, Ash took her arm and almost yanked her down the last few steps. He rather enjoyed that she was large enough to fight back against the strength he often forgot he wielded. Tip-toeing around frail delicate misses was a nuisance.

  Her valise bumped against his legs, but he didn’t want to leave a lantern lying about to be kicked over. She’d have to carry the bag herself.

  “Let me go,” she whispered.

  “You’re deserting me,” he accused, leading her past his bedchamber and toward his study.

  “I told you I would,” she said, tugging her elbow from his grip. “How can I feel safe in a household where you feel free to drag me about?”

  “And kiss you,” he said in satisfaction, shoving her into the study and closing the door. The footman would wonder where he’d gone and might come looking, so he locked the door for good measure. He wished he could see Miss Chris’s face as he did.

  He wished he could see her face, period.

  “I am not a lightskirt,” she said unhappily. “You may lie to yourself and pretend that I am the kind of woman men notice, but I am exactly what I say I am, a spinster who hoped to be useful, but not in the way you have in mind.”

  “You are a liar, Miss Christie. I can hear it in almost every word you speak. Not only that, I may be blind, but I am not stupid.” Ash followed the sound of her voice and reached for her hair.

  She’d covered it with what was probably a deuced awful bonnet of plumes and plums. He yanked it off and threw it in the direction of the grate. At last, he had his fingers in the glorious thickness of her hair. He began plucking pins. He could vividly imagine such silk gleaming in the firelight, and it calmed his raging soul.

  She did not smack him away. She was no lowly servant, terrified for her place in his household. One of the things he liked best about her was that she knew how to stand tall and argue with him. Her kiss had conveyed her loneliness and hunger as well as his own. He dared to continue.

  “You have a lush figure of the kind men drool over in their dreams,” he informed her while she irritably grabbed her pins from his hand. “If even a blind man can tell that, then the male population of London must have lost all their wits not to be following you down the street with their tongues hanging out.”

  “I have not met the male population of London, but I am well aware that I am taller than most.” She dodged from his marauding hands in her hair.

  Undeterred, Ash located the river of silk again and drew his fingers through it. “This is blond, isn’t it? I can feel the length and thickness but can’t tell the color. How blond is it? Whitish, gold, bronze? I want to picture it draped over your magnificent breasts like Lady Godiva.”

  This time, she did smack him, on his hands. “Don’t be ridiculous. What is it you want, my lord? Surely you did not come out of your lair just to molest me.”

  He shrugged and wrapped her luxurious tresses around one hand so she could not escape. “I may have. The nights are tedious without company. You said you wished to be useful. You could read to me.”

  “I may be a maiden, but I’m not a lackwit,” she retorted, dropping her valise to pry his fingers loose from her hair. “It is not reading that you want.”

  “Well, no, but I would settle for it. The footman is about to deliver tea. If you’d like to hide behind the coatrack, I’ll let him in.”

  “I won’t fit behind a coatrack,” she said indignantly.

  But he heard her traipse to a corner of the room, out of view of the door. Ash unlocked it and opened his lantern again to indicate his position. With his bulk, he blocked the area where Miss Chris hid and encouraged the servant to simply leave the tray without hovering.

  He locked the door after the footman’s departure, set the lantern on his desk, and fumbled until he’d found his chair. “Tea, Miss Christie. Now let us sit and converse about your folly in thinking you could go anywhere at this hour of the night.”

  “There are carriages for hire,” she said stiffly, stepping toward the desk and pouring the tea. She served him first, nudging his hand with the cup so he knew where she’d placed it.

  “I’m sure the drunks in the clubs and gambling hells along Pall Mall would be happy to fetch one for you,” he countered. “I shudder at the thought. You are not familiar enough with the city to know where a lady is safe. And without a maid, you will not be seen as a lady. That is all irrelevant. I cannot believe I have made you feel so unsafe that you must sneak out in the middle of the night. So tell me the truth for a change.”

  “I cannot,” she said with a sigh. “Then you would feel compelled to do whatever you consider to be the right thing, and you would become involved in what is none of your affair. It would all be quite calamitous and unnecessary, so I thought to depart before that happened.”

  “And that will happen if you stay here? Even if I promise not to kiss you again unless you ask?”

  “I am not likely to ask!” she said in outrage. “And yes, calamity is likely to happen if you continue with what appears to be an investigation of my reference. You will not find Miss Townsend to confirm it.”

  Ash sipped his tea and considered all he knew and all she didn’t say. Jacques had already told him that Miss Townsend was unavailable, even though her stepfather was offering to sell his votes in exchange for marrying her off. Miss Chris mostly likely knew why and where she’d gone. Interesting.

  If he really wanted Townsend’s vote, he could simply send this impostor anywhere she wanted to go and avoid whatever explosion she feared. That would be politically expedient.

  He didn’t want to be politically expedient. He wanted Miss Chris. He either had to believe his instincts had deteriorated with his eyesight, or that his secretary-general was worth the drama she was about to unfold.

  If no one would read him a good story, then he could enjoy a good drama. “The reference was a fraud?” he suggested.

  She sat so still, he thought she might have evaporated. But finally, she reached for her teacup, muttering to herself as she did. He almost smiled. He hadn’t completely lost his ability to coerce and persuade despite his rustiness.

  “Will you promise upon your honor as a gentleman not to reveal what I am about to tell you?” she demanded.

  “If you are a murderess, I cannot make such a promise,” he pointed out, just to point out her ridiculousness. “But if you are an innocent, I promise to keep your secrets. Who wrote your reference?”

  “I wrote it. Miss Townsend has run away,” she said angrily.

  That had seemed the safest explanation she could manage at a moment’s notice—and it was the truth. Miss Townsend had most certainly run away.

  Harriet sat back and waited for Ashford’s reaction. She wished he didn’t look so delightfully rumpled and almost approachable in wrinkled shirtsleeves and without a neckcloth. The lamplight wasn’t sufficient to do more than throw shadow on the muscled chest revealed beneath the shirt, but he was im
pressive in any light. His dark curls fell on his forehead, almost obscuring his blank, unstaring gaze. As usual, he’d turned the scar away from her view, so all she saw was his angular cheekbone and jutting jaw—probably too strong-boned for true handsomeness but appealing enough to have her wish circumstances could be different.

  Good looking, is he not? one of the spirits said wistfully. But he’s just as stubborn as his father. You must be more stubborn.

  More stubborn than the marquess? She wished she knew how, but again, she felt reassured that she was taking the right course. Or half her mind thought so, anyway, depending on her degree of sanity.

  She really should quit dropping her defenses like this. But it was rather interesting not to have headaches, as she’d always suffered before, when she left her mental door open. Was it this house or the people around her who allowed her to relax and be herself?

  Ashford sipped his tea while apparently working his way through the implications of her revelation. She almost held her breath but realized the folly. No matter how much she tried to fool herself, she couldn’t live here. Sooner or later, Townsend would realize she’d fled, and he’d raise a hue and cry. It would be horrid.

  “And Townsend is such an imbecile as not to have noticed his stepdaughter has gone missing?” Ashford asked with a hint of incredulity.

  “As long as he believes he can find her when he wants her, he does not care. You read his letter. She is a pawn on his chess board. I cannot blame her in the least.” Her tired mind had difficulty trying to think about herself in the third person, so she spoke about timid Harriet with the voice of the bold Christie.

  “So knowing Townsend will have your head on a pike when he finds out his heiress has fled, you have taken this opportunity to search for a new position? Very enterprising.” He didn’t sound totally convinced. She could almost hear the cogs in his formidable mind spinning, looking for his own advantage.

  “Yes, my lord.” She was completely telling the truth, from top to bottom. She had written the letter. And her stepfather really did not notice if she was in the house. She had just left out the fact that she was the heiress.

  Thank goodness he couldn’t see her face to judge her expression.

  “Do you know where she has gone? Is she safe?”

  “She is with friends and safer than with Townsend,” she acknowledged truthfully. She felt the ladies of the household were her friends.

  “Amazing,” he continued. “The truth really is stranger than fiction, is it not? It’s rather like one of those gothic tales women read, with a runaway heiress. If only I were poor and could take advantage of that . . .”

  She wanted to both laugh and cry. She had been terrified that the intimidating marquess would roar and thunder and humiliate by raising the entire household. But the impossible man was probably imagining Miss Townsend as a sylph-like romantic heroine in need of rescue. “Now who’s being ridiculous? If all you want is someone to read tall tales for you, tell me which volume you’d like, and I’ll gladly read it to you this evening. But in the morning, I must leave.”

  “Where would you go?” he asked with seeming interest, while staring at the wall and drinking from his cup.

  “To one of Miss Townsend’s properties, I assume. Dorchester is a few days away. I’ll come up with a story by the time I arrive.”

  More truth. She had done the bookkeeping, but those were just numbers. She had no real idea of the location of her properties or what condition they were in. She hadn’t been to Dorchester since childhood and couldn’t precisely say what roads she must take to get there. She’d been left in the dark the better part of her life. But she knew the steward’s name and the village, and she’d work it out, somehow. She had to.

  “You’re lying again,” he said, making her squirm. “I don’t know about which part, but you have no idea what you’ll find when you reach wherever you’re going.”

  How could he be so certain? And she really wasn’t lying about her plans, just about her certainty of explaining herself once she arrived.

  “Lying will not do, Miss . . . is your name really Miss Christie?”

  “It is.” That wasn’t entirely a lie either. Calling her by her given name was not acceptable had he known what it was, but perfectly suitable as a surname.

  He frowned. “Are you related to Townsend then?”

  She swallowed a bit of panic. “To Harriet’s family,” she said, again, without lying.

  He narrowed his eyes as if hearing the half-truth but nodded acceptance. “All right, Miss Chris, if you will find an interesting volume on the shelf over there, we will discuss your predicament in the morning, when we’ve both had time to think on it. I recommend you reconsider telling any more lies, though. I know it when you tell me one.” He gestured at the ceiling-high bookcase in the corner.

  Bold Christie wouldn’t crumple into a weak-kneed, weeping infant. A strong independent woman didn’t have that luxury. Feeling defiant, she set aside her cup and studied his shelves, deliberately taking out a female writer. “I have not read this one, Germaine de Staël’s Corinne. I did not even know it had been translated from the French.”

  “It is politics concealed as a woman’s travels,” he said. “I should be interested in hearing your interpretation.”

  By all the heavens above, this was what she’d hoped to find someday—a husband who could be her friend, with whom she could enjoy a cup of tea and a pleasant conversation.

  She should have sought out a blind man from the first. With a sigh at her own foolishness, she turned the lamplight to fall on the book and began to read.

  Ashford was not only endangering her virtue, he endangered her battered heart. And she knew how badly that would work out.

  9

  “Christie! By all the bilious blowhards of Hades . . . where is that insolent female?” Ash shouted the next morning, stomping down the corridor from his suite to the front rooms. If the woman had slipped out when he wasn’t looking . . .

  He was never looking. She could escape any time. She’d made that quite clear last night. When she chose to finish reading, she had simply shut the book, said good-night, and walked away. He had no hold whatsoever over her, which drove him insane.

  “In the kitchen,” Moira muttered through what sounded like a mouthful of pins. “If you have a moment, I’d like to discuss—”

  “I don’t have a moment,” he grumbled, only momentarily relieved that the elusive Miss Chris might still be about. “What is she doing in the kitchen? She knows I won’t find her there.”

  “I don’t believe she knows you wish to find her.” She must have removed the pins to spit this out. “I told her I didn’t need her this morning, so she is teaching mathematics to your servants. It’s not as if she has designated duties, and she likes to be useful.”

  Ash could hear her amusement but refused to rise to it. His life had become too boxed in to argue over vagaries. Had he eyes, he’d simply go to the kitchen and terrify everyone into doing as he wished. That he must send a servant was demeaning—and even he understood the irrationality of that thought. Most men preferred sending servants.

  He couldn’t read his correspondence. He couldn’t walk down to see whoever was speaking in the Lords when he wished. He couldn’t even go to his damned clubs without looking like a pathetic has-been. What the devil was he supposed to do on his own without a nanny watching over him?

  Tup a woman came to mind, which brought him right back to the eminently tuppable Miss Christie—a damned lady he couldn’t have without marriage. Not that he was considering marriage anyway. It was too . . . humiliating . . . not to even know what his bride would look like.

  Besides, Miss Chris was an enigma to be solved. He had refrained from asking too many questions last night for fear he’d drive her off. He needed to study the situation in the new light of her creative untruths.

  Why the devil was she teaching mathematics to the servants?

  The knocker rapped as he reached hi
s study. Bored, knowing the staircase hid him, he waited to hear who it might be. He grimaced on recognizing his Uncle Pascoe’s voice. “If you’re here to dump your toddlers on us, it’s too late,” Ash called irascibly, stepping from his hiding place. “The twins have taken their tutor out to visit schools with dogs.”

  “Schools with dogs?” Pascoe asked with interest. “That has possibilities. A dog trainer might manage my brats.” He approached, carrying the scent of damp air and pipe tobacco.

  Ash recognized the silence of the second pair of boot steps as his brother Erran. “Have you brought interesting news or just more complaints?” He led the way into the study, taking his chair and leaving the others to find their own.

  The memory of Miss Christie in here, reading to him in that delicious voice of hers, was marred by the presence of male intruders. She had left too soon, after his comments on Madame Stael’s lascivious life had grown too rude. He was fairly certain she’d been as aroused as he, but he hadn’t tested that theory for fear she would run off.

  That her previous employer had run away from her idiot of a stepfather, and Miss Christie had taken advantage to find a new position, made a certain amount of logical sense and fit with what he knew as truth. He still didn’t fully trust the not-so-little liar. He needed more information.

  “A little of both,” Pascoe said with good cheer while servants stirred the fire and delivered a tea tray.

  The moment the door closed, Erran spoke. “Caldwell has brought Margaret to town.”

  Ash snorted. He had no sympathy for his traitorous neighbors, especially since evidence pointed at Caldwell being behind the accident that had caused his blindness.

  He’d known the baronet was in financial difficulties. He’d offered to help. But Sir George had delusions of living in the past. He’d wanted Ash to follow his suggestions for their adjoined lands. Ash hadn’t been drunk enough to let him run Iveston into the ground as Caldwell had his own property. They had not parted company on friendly terms.