Lady Whistledown Strikes Back (4 page)

“Disappointed?”

“Of course. It ought to be spring.”

“Yes.”

“Quite.”

“Quite.”

One-word sentences, Tillie thought. Always the demise of any
good conversation.
Surely
they had something in
common other than Harry. Peter Thompson was handsome, intelligent, and, when he
looked at her with that smoky, heavy-lidded expression of his, it sent a shiver
right down her spine.

It wasn’t fair that the only thing they ever seemed to talk
about made her want to cry.

She smiled at him encouragingly, waiting for him to say
something more, but he did not. She smiled again, clearing her throat.

He took the hint. “Do you read?” he asked.

“Do I
read!”
she echoed,
incredulous.

“Not
can
you,
do
you?” he clarified.

“Yes, of course. Why?”

He shrugged. “I might have mentioned as much to one of the
other gentlemen here.”

“Might have?”

“Did.”

She felt her teeth clenching. She had no idea
why
she should be irritated with Peter Thompson, only
that she should. He’d clearly done something to merit her displeasure, else he
wouldn’t be sitting there with that cat-with-cream expression, pretending to
inspect his fingernails. “Which gentleman?” she finally asked.

He looked up, and Tillie resisted the urge to thank him for
finding her more interesting than his manicure.

“I believe his name was Mr. Berbrooke,” he said.

Not anyone she wanted to marry. Nigel Berbrooke was a good-hearted
fellow, but he was also dumb as a post and would likely be terrified at the
thought of an intellectual wife. One might say, if one were feeling
particularly generous, that Peter had done her a favor by scaring him away, but
still, Tillie did not appreciate his meddling in her affairs. “What did you say
I liked to read?” she asked, keeping her voice mild.

“Er, this and that. Perhaps philosophical tracts.”

“I see. And you saw fit to mention this to him because?…”

“He seemed like the sort who’d be interested,” he said with a
shrug.

“And—just out of curiosity, mind you—what happened when you
told him this?”

Peter didn’t even have the grace to look sheepish. “Ran right
out the door,” he murmured. “Imagine that.”

Tillie meant to remain arch and dry. She wanted to eye him
ironically under delicately arched brows. But she wasn’t nearly as
sophisticated as she hoped to be, because she positively glared at him as she
said, “And what gave you the idea that I like to read philosophical tracts?”

“Don’t you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she retorted. “You can’t go around
frightening off my suitors.”

“Is that what you thought I was doing?”

“Please,” she scoffed. “After touting my intelligence to Mr.
Berbrooke, don’t attempt to insult it now.”

“Very well,” he said, crossing his arms and regarding her
with the sort of expression her father and older brother adopted when they
meant to scold her. “Do you really wish to pledge your troth to Mr. Berbrooke?
Or,” he added, “to one of the men who rushed out the door to throw money on a
horse race?”

“Of course not, but that doesn’t mean I want you scaring them
away.”

He just looked at her as if she were an idiot. Or a woman. It
was Tillie’s experience that most men thought they were one and the same.

“The more men who come to call,” she explained, somewhat
impatiently, “the more men who
will come to call.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You’re sheep. The lot of you. Only interested in a woman if
someone else is as well.”

“And it is your aim in life to collect a score of gentlemen
in your drawing room?”

His tone was patronizing, almost insulting, and Tillie was
this close
to having him booted from the house. Only his
friendship with Harry—and the fact that he was acting like such a prig because
he thought it was what Harry would have wanted—kept her from summoning the
butler right then.

“My aim,” she said tightly, “is to find a husband. Not to
snare one, not to trap one, not to drag one to the altar, but to find one,
preferably one with whom I might share a long and contented life. Being a
practical sort of girl, it seemed only sensible to meet as many eligible
gentlemen as possible, so that my decision might be based on a broad base of
knowledge, and not upon, as so many young women are accused, a flight of
fancy.”

She sat back, crossed her arms, and leveled a hard stare in
his direction. “Do you have any questions?”

He regarded her with a blank expression for a moment, then
asked, “Do you want me to go and drag them all back?” “No! Oh,” she added, when
she saw his sly smile. “You’re teasing.”

“Just a bit,” he demurred.

If he’d been Harry, she would have tossed a pillow at him. If
he’d been Harry, she would have laughed. But if he’d been Harry, her eyes
wouldn’t have lingered on his mouth when he smiled, and she wouldn’t have felt
this strange heat in her blood, or this prickling on her skin.

But most of all, if he’d been Harry, she wouldn’t feel this
awful
disappointment, because Peter Thompson was not her
older brother, and the last thing she wanted was for him to view himself as
such.

But apparently, that was exactly how he felt. He’d promised
Harry that he’d look after her, and now she was nothing more than an
obligation. Did he even like her? Find her remotely interesting or amusing? Or
did he suffer - her company only because she was Harry’s sister?

It was impossible to know—and a question she could never ask.
And what she really wanted was for him to leave, but that would mark her a
coward, and she didn’t want to be a coward. It was what she owed Harry, she’d
come to realize. To live her life with the courage and strength of purpose that
he’d exhibited at the end of his.

Facing Peter Thompson seemed a rather pale comparison to
Harry’s brave deeds as a soldier, but no one was about to send her off to fight
for her country, so if she wanted to continue in her quest to face her fears,
this was going to have to do.

“You’re forgiven this time,” she said, crossing her hands in
her lap.

“Did I apologize?” he drawled, spearing her once again with
that slow, lazy smile.

“No, but you should have done.” She smiled back, sweetly …
too sweetly. “I was raised to be charitable, so I thought I’d grant you the
apology you never gave.”

“And the acceptance as well?”

“Of course. I’d be churlish, otherwise.”

He burst out laughing, a rich, warm sound that took Tillie by
surprise, and then made her smile in turn.

“Very well,” he said. “You win. You absolutely, positively,
indubitably—”

“Indubitably even?” she murmured with delight.

“Even indubitably,” he conferred. “You win. I apologize.”

She sighed. “Victory has never felt so sweet.”

“Nor should it have done,” he said with arched brows. “I
assure you I don’t hand out apologies lightly.”

“Or with such good humor?” she queried.

“Never
with such good humor.”

Tillie was smiling, trying to think of something terribly
witty to say, when the butler arrived with an unsolicited tea service. Her
mother must have requested it, Tillie thought, which meant that she’d be back
soon, which meant that her time alone with Peter was drawing to a close.

She should have paid attention to the keen disappointment
squeezing in her chest. Or to the fluttering in her belly that amplified every
time she looked at him. Because if she had, she wouldn’t have been so surprised
when she handed him a cup of tea, and their fingers touched, and then she
looked at him, and he looked at her, and their eyes met.

And she felt like she was falling.

Falling … falling … falling. A warm rush of air washing over
her, stealing her breath, her pulse, even her heart. And when it was all
over—if indeed it was over, and not simply subsided—all she could think was
that it was a wonder she hadn’t dropped the teacup.

And had he noticed that in that moment, she had been
transformed?

She paid careful attention to the fixing of her own cup,
splashing in milk before adding the hot tea. If she could just concentrate on
the mundane tasks at hand, she wouldn’t have to ponder what had just happened
to her.

Because she suspected that she had indeed fallen.

In love.

And she suspected that in the end, it would be her downfall.
She hadn’t much experience with men; her first season in London had been cut
short by Harry’s untimely death, and she’d spent the past year secluded in the
country, in mourning with her family.

But even so, she could tell that Peter didn’t think of her as
a desirable woman.

He thought of her as an obligation, as Harry’s little sister.
Maybe even as a child.

To him she was a promise that had to be kept. Nothing more,
nothing less. It would have seemed cold and clinical, had she not been so
touched by his devotion to her brother. “Is something wrong?”

Tillie looked up at the sound of Peter’s voice and smiled
wryly. Was something wrong? More than he would ever know.

“Of course not,” she lied. “Why do you ask?”

“You have not drunk your tea.”

“I prefer it lukewarm,” she improvised, lifting the cup to
her lips. She took a sip, faking a gingerly manner. “There,” she said brightly.
“Much better now.”

He watched her curiously, and Tillie almost sighed at her
misfortune. If one was going to develop an unrequited fancy for a gentleman,
one would do a great deal better not to choose one of such obvious
intelligence. Any more blunders like this one, and he would certainly discern
her true feelings.

Which would be hideous.

“Do you plan to attend the Hargreaves Grand Ball on Friday?”
she asked, deciding that a change of subject was her best course of action.

He nodded. “I assume you do as well?”

“Of course. It will be quite a crush, I’m sure, and I cannot
wait to see Lady Neeley arrive with her bracelet on her wrist.”

“She has found it?” he asked with surprise.

“No, but she must, don’t you think? I cannot imagine anyone
at the party actually stealing it. It probably fell behind the table, and no
one has had the shrewdness to look.”

“I agree with you that yours is the most likely theory,” he
said, but his lips pursed slightly when he paused, and he did not look
convinced.

“But? .. .” she prompted.

For a moment she did not think he would answer, but then he
said, “But you have never known want, Lady Mathilda. You could never understand
the desperation that might push a man to steal.”

She didn’t like that he’d called her Lady Mathilda. It
injected a formality into the conversation that she’d thought they’d dispensed
with. And his comments seemed to underscore the simple fact that he was a man
of the world, and she was a sheltered young lady.

“Of course not,” she said, since there was no point in
pretending her life had been anything but privileged. “But still, it’s
difficult to imagine someone having the audacity to steal the bracelet right
out from under her nose.”

For a moment he did not move, just stared at her in an
uncomfortably assessing manner. Tillie got the feeling that he thought her
terribly provincial, or at the very least naive, and she hated that her belief
in the general goodness of man was marking her a fool.

It shouldn’t be that way. One
ought
to
trust one’s friends and neighbors. And she certainly shouldn’t be ridiculed for
doing so.

But he surprised her, and he just said, “You’re probably
right. I’ve long since realized that most mysteries have perfectly benign and
boring solutions. Lady Neeley shall most probably be eating crow before the
week is out.”

“You don’t think I’m silly for being so trusting?” Tillie
asked, nearly kicking herself for doing so. But she couldn’t seem to stop
asking questions of this man; she couldn’t recall anyone else whose opinions
mattered
quite so much.

He smiled. “No. I don’t necessarily agree with you. But it’s
rather nice to share tea with someone whose faith in humanity has not been
irreparably injured.”

A somber ache washed over her, and she wondered if Harry,
too, had been changed by the war. He must have been, she realized, and she
couldn’t quite believe that she’d never considered it before. She’d always
imagined him the same old Harry, laughing and joking and pulling pranks at
every opportunity.

But when she looked at Peter Thompson, she realized that
there was a shadow behind his eyes that never quite went away.

Harry had been at Peter’s side throughout the war. His eyes
had seen the same horrors, and his eyes would have held the same shadows, had
he not been buried in Belgium.

“Tillie?”

She looked up quickly. She’d been silent longer than she
ought, and Peter was watching her with a curious expression. “Sorry,” she said
reflexively, “just woolgathering.”

But as she sipped her
tea, watching him surreptitiously over the rim of her cup; it wasn't
Harry she was thinking about. For the first time in a year,
finally, thrillingly, it wasn’t
Harry.

It was Peter, and all she could think was that he shouldn’t
have shadows behind his eyes. And she wanted to be the one to banish them
forever.

… and now that This Author has
made public the guest list from The Dinner Party That Went Awry, This
Author offers to you, as a delicious lagniappe, an analysis of the
suspects.

Not much is known of Mr. Peter
Thompson, although he is widely recognized as a courageous soldier in
the war against Napoleon. Society hates to place a noted war hero on a
list of suspects, but This Author would be remiss if it were not
pointed out that Mr. Thompson is also recognized as something of a
fortune hunter. Since his arrival in town, he has been quite obviously
looking for a wife, although as This Author firmly believes in giving
credit where credit is due, he has done so in a decidedly understated
and unvulgar manner.