Too Wicked to Kiss: Gothic Love Stories #1

by Ridley, Erica

  Miss Pemberton cocked a speculative brow. “Hasn’t she?” She paused, lifted a hand to his chest. “Susan saw her,” she murmured. “That night. Creeping into her room.”

  He slid away from her touch. “Not a single one of us was abed as we claimed. It proves nothing.”

  Then again, he’d seen her tempting fate at the top of the stairs…but surely that was an innocent farce, and just as easily explained.

  Miss Pemberton stepped closer, placed her fingers against his forearm. “I overheard her the next day. Talking to the girls. She said if anyone should ask where she’d been, they were to claim she’d been in the nursery all evening.”

  Gavin tugged on the twine, jerking the kite against the breeze. “She was just scared.”

  Miss Pemberton inclined her head. “Of what?”

  “I don’t know! But I don’t think she’s a killer.” He released more twine. The kite dipped and fell, causing him to run several yards before the wind once again whipped it skyward. When he stopped running, Miss Pemberton was still at his side. “Neither is Rose,” he informed her. “Rose looks at me like she thinks I did it, for God’s sake.”

  “Does she?” Miss Pemberton asked softly. “Or is she trying to deflect suspicion from herself or her daughter?”

  “None of your speculation is helping,” he snapped. She flinched, but didn’t move away. “Why don’t you go find out who really offed the blighter and be done with it? I saw you touch the Stanton chit a moment ago. I assume it wasn’t her.”

  Anger flashed across her face. “What do you expect me to do—skip from kite to kite, touching all the fliers?”

  Gavin unwound more twine. “If it works, yes. Tell them I made you do it. They think I’m mad anyway.” He tugged on the kite. “And unless we uncover the true villain, the crime will no doubt be pinned on me.”

  “It’s unfair,” Miss Pemberton muttered after she tired of scowling at him. “Virtually everyone here has motive.”

  “Perhaps, but I’m the only acknowledged killer.”

  “Stop it.” She shoved him. She actually shoved him.

  He held up his hands in surrender only to have the spool of twine tumble to the grass. He scooped it back up and adjusted the line before the kite had a chance to fall. “Stop what?”

  “Referring to yourself as a killer.” She glared at him for a long moment before turning away. “It’s not helping.”

  He shrugged and turned to the sky. “What should I say instead?”

  “What did you say to me during the picnic? When I caught your eye. You were mouthing something I couldn’t make out.”

  “You didn’t—Oh. Nothing.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “What?”

  “Nothing.” If she hadn’t caught it then, there was no way he’d admit now that he’d mouthed, Save me from the Stanton chit.

  Miss Pemberton bumped her shoulder into his. “It had to have been something, or you wouldn’t have been trying to tell it to me.”

  “I told you.” He grinned at her. “I’m a madman.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m beginning to believe it.”

  “Is that why you’re so eager to leave me?” he asked, then immediately turned his attention to the dips and whirls of the orange kite. Devil take it, what kind of question was that?

  Several heartbeats passed before she responded with, “Escaping my stepfather is my primary goal.”

  “And your secondary goal?” He held his breath.

  “Using my Gift.”

  Always the bloody Gift. Either she had no idea it was killing him to stay away from her, or she simply didn’t care. He wasn’t sure which was worse, but both thoughts soured his mood. “Then why aren’t you using it right now?”

  She shot him an annoyed look. “First of all, my head is still pounding from having touched Susan. Secondly, the Gift isn’t for spying and crime solving.”

  “Then what’s it for?”

  “Helping the less fortunate.”

  “Won’t it be unfortunate when I hang for a crime I didn’t commit?”

  “The truly less fortunate.”

  “The truly less fortunate?” This time when the kite began to dip, he shoved the spool of twine into her hands. “Who told you that horseshit?”

  “My mother,” she said, then sprinted a few feet to regulate the kite’s flight.

  “Well, mothers aren’t always the brightest stars in the sky,” he called out, not bothering to chase after her.

  She turned and scowled at him. “My mother was an angel!”

  “Fine, so now she is the brightest star in the sky.” He pointed heavenward when the kite began to dip again. She raced back toward him, frantically coiling twine. He caught her before she collided with his chest. “That doesn’t mean I understand how ‘helping the less fortunate’ precludes helping me.”

  Her eyes widened. “I am helping you.”

  “You’re talking about helping me, but you’re not actually helping me. And I want to know why. According to my staff—and yes, I did interview them once I realized they knew more about you than I did—you’ve helped a few of them when they wanted something. Retrieving lost articles and so on.” He wasn’t sure whether her guilty expression made him feel vindicated or defeated. “Then what’s wrong with me?”

  “What’s wrong with you? You’re coercing my help by threatening me!”

  “Oh, so if I would’ve just asked you to prove my innocence, you would’ve done so with alacrity?”

  “Yes!”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  She shoved the spool of twine into his chest. The kite careened from the sky, spearing into the earth a few yards from their feet and splintering on contact. “Are you calling me a liar?”

  “I’m calling you naïve. And a liar.” He tossed the spool to the ground, grabbed her by the shoulders, and leaned forward until his nose brushed against hers. “There’s something you’re not telling me, and I want to know what it is,” he insisted quietly. “Why do you use this Gift of yours more freely with some people than others?”

  Miss Pemberton glared up at him, stony-faced, but did not twist from his grasp.

  He leaned closer until his words breathed against the side of her cheek. “All right, then, answer me this: Why do you use it at all?”

  “Because,” she bit out, “I can’t separate myself from it. No matter how I might wish it otherwise, I am the cursed Gift.” She jerked her head away from his, then pounded his chest with her fist. “I cannot link hands or tend the ill or coddle infants or anything else that requires touching. Which means I cannot do anything but use the Gift, whether I want to or not.” She took a deep, hitching breath and shuddered in his arms. “To use it on purpose, for people of my choosing, for reasons of my choosing—my freedom of choice is the one thing that makes it tolerable, the one thing that makes living with such an affliction worth it. My only sliver of free will.”

  “Er…” came a nervous female voice. “Am I interrupting?”

  God damn that infuriating Stanton chit!

  “Yes,” Gavin roared. “Yes, you’re interrupting. Go away.”

  The Stanton chit reeled backward, but the damage was done—Miss Pemberton spun out of his arms and fled.

  While Gavin organized the collection of the kites and ushered everyone to the side lawn bearing the pall-mall wickets, Miss Pemberton cloistered herself well out of speaking distance. He hadn’t been able to catch her attention, much less catch her alone. And with his guests in such high spirits after an hour of kite-flying, it was impossible for him to break away from their shining eyes and flushed faces and incessant chatter about the perfect breeze and cunning kites.

  That was when Gavin realized a shocking fact: they weren’t just blathering at him, they were smiling at him. Including him. Complimenting him. Welcoming him into their circle quite literally, as they surrounded him while bubbling over with which color of kite looked most stunning against the blue of the sky and who had managed to keep theirs up
the longest and did everyone witness Edmund tumble over that stone and get himself tangled up in twine?

  Benedict Rutherford laughed himself into a coughing fit, then clapped Gavin on the shoulder with a jovial “What sport!” before falling back into animated conversation with his wife and Mr. Teasdale. Even Lady Stanton had unfrozen long enough to smile at her daughter.

  Before Gavin had an opportunity to assimilate this new turn of events—much less join his voice with the others—a chest-high blonde launched herself into his arms, squeezed him tightly, then seized hold of his hand to drag him forward through the crowd.

  “Thanks ever so much, Uncle Lioncroft! This is the best birthday! Ever! Oh—look! Are those the mallets we’re to use? Such colors! May I pick any one I want? I want the pink one. No, the yellow. Which one is yours? If yours is the yellow, I’ll take the pink. Unless yours is the pink, in which case I’ll take the—”

  “Jane,” he managed to interject at last. “I have no claim on any particular color, as this is the first time the set has been used. You may use any mallet you wish.”

  “Oh! Truly? I’ll take the pink one, then. It’s lovely. This is so exciting! I’ve never played pall-mall before. May I be on your team?”

  “No,” cried two small voices. The twins ambushed him from behind and clung to each of his legs. “We’re Uncle Lioncroft’s team.”

  “You are your own team,” he explained, attempting quite unsuccessfully to continue walking with a five-year-old attached to each thigh. “There are no teams in pall-mall. Everyone gets a wooden mallet and a ball, and everyone takes turns knocking them through the wickets.”

  “What’s a wicket?” the twins chorused.

  “The iron hoops sticking out of the grass.” He pointed them out. “See the little metal arches? Those are wickets. May I have my legs back now?”

  No sooner was the question out of his mouth before the twins were off and running toward the mallets. They tugged the topmost colors from the pile and lurched back toward him, dragging the mallets behind them and leaving a trail of displaced sod in their wake. His gardener might be less than pleased, but Gavin found himself, for the first time in years, tempted by the uncontrollable urge to throw back his head and laugh. Rather than make a spectacle of himself, however, he knelt down to eye level with the twins before shaking his head and chuckling.

  Nonetheless, the sound did not go unnoticed.

  Miss Pemberton glanced at him, then just as quickly away. The Stanton chit stared at him as if he’d grown another head, which was pretty much how she regarded him on a regular basis. Benedict and Francine Rutherford looked from him to the ruined grass to the twins and started laughing themselves. Rose gazed at him with a little half smile and a wistful sheen to her eyes.

  Gavin stopped smiling. No one with such a tender motherly expression could’ve murdered the father of her children. Miss Pemberton didn’t know what she was talking about. He’d have to show her she was wrong.

  He rose to his feet, gave the girls a brief overview of the game, and then steered the twins to the first wicket so they could have the first shot.

  “Remember,” he reminded them as he bent to help each twin swing, “Just because I’m helping doesn’t mean I’m on your team.”

  They dropped their mallets and raced across the grass, using their booted feet to aid their balls’ forward momentum.

  “You’re too nice to them,” came Nancy’s wry voice from behind his shoulder. “They’ll go home spoiled now.”

  He grinned. “What are uncles for?”

  Nancy snorted and adjusted her stance. “Be forewarned—you’re in for it now that you’ve gained favorite uncle status.”

  He stared at her, speechless, as she took off after her ball.

  Favorite uncle? Him? All he did was—was—talk to them. Tease them. Play with them a little. He glanced around the laughing, joking melee with dawning horror. Was it possible that he had caused his own ostracism? That perhaps his peers might’ve tolerated him years ago if he’d bothered to make himself, well, tolerable?

  He searched the crowd until his gaze fell upon a familiar lopsided chignon. He should go to her. Apologize for leveraging his knowledge of her Gift to extort favors when he ought to have tried asking first. Tell her he—

  “Mooncalfing again, Lioncroft?”

  Gavin started to find Edmund smirking at him over the top of a silver flask.

  “I do not mooncalf.” He hoped.

  “Tell that to anyone who laid eyes on you during the picnic. Oh, right, that was everyone. I’d wager if we weren’t about, you would’ve turned up the Pemberton chit’s skirts right there on the grass.”

  Gavin knocked the flask from Edmund’s hand. “Mention her skirts again and I’ll erase your smirk with this mallet.”

  Edmund dropped to the ground and grappled for his open flask. “Easy, easy.” He fumbled to close the lid. “I didn’t know it was like that.”

  “Now you do.”

  Gavin turned, smashed his ball through the wicket, and sauntered off in the direction of Miss Pemberton.

  If she registered his impending arrival, she gave no sign. Instead, she pivoted toward her ball, lined up her shot, and swung back her mallet.

  “I apologize,” he called.

  Miss Pemberton’s mallet came flying backward toward his face. He caught it just before it knocked his teeth out, then stepped forward and handed it back.

  She stared up at him. “What did you say?”

  “I apologize,” he repeated. “You’re right. I should’ve asked you. Will you help me prove my innocence?”

  She frowned, blinked, blinked again. Her forehead cleared. “Yes.”

  “Thank you.” He moved aside while she took her shot and then followed after her as she tracked her ball. “Have you any other suspects? I mean, besides my sister and my niece.”

  She cast him a don’t-be-ridiculous look. “Everyone?”

  “I meant, specifically. I was thinking about the reasons you gave—which, I admit, are as sound reasons as any—and my belief that they didn’t do it. And I was thinking…What if someone else did it for them?”

  She arched a brow. “Hiring a killer is less evil than killing someone yourself?”

  “Of course not.” He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “I was thinking more like, what if a servant took matters into her own hands, without consulting Nancy or Rose? A servant who, perhaps, found herself frequently on the receiving end of Heatherbrook’s indiscriminate violence?”

  Miss Pemberton leaned on her mallet. “Ginny?”

  “Why not? She could be avenging her own injustices, as well as those of her mistresses.”

  She stared at him. “You think a servant killing her master makes more sense than a subjugated wife doing so?”

  “Be serious.” He glanced at his married guests. “All wives are subjugated to some degree.”

  She harrumphed. “Exactly why I shall never become one.”

  For some reason, this declaration fired his temper.

  “Fortuitous,” he responded, “because nobody’s asking you. Do you or don’t you think the lady’s maid might be involved?”

  A moment passed while she frowned and bit at her lower lip. “It’s possible,” she said at last. “But if Ginny did do it, it’s also possible she was acting on orders. Are you prepared for that possibility?”

  He glared at her. “I don’t think—”

  “Uncle Lioncroft,” Nancy called from across the grass. “Come on, it’s your turn!”

  “I will be back,” he warned Miss Pemberton before jogging over to his ball and taking a swing.

  Nancy tucked her mallet beneath her arm and clapped. “Good shot, Uncle Lioncroft.”

  “I do better than your intended, anyway,” he teased, quirking an eyebrow toward Teasdale. “What happened to his mallet? Did he forget where he left it?”

  She giggled. “I believe he’s striking his ball with his cane. Is there a rule against that?”
/>   He leaned on his mallet. “There ought to be a rule against little girls marrying doddering fools four times their age.”

  Nancy scowled at him. “I’m not a little girl.”

  “But Teasdale is in fact a doddering fool?”

  “Well, yes.” She rolled her eyes. “Look at him.”

  He glanced at Teasdale and gave an exaggerated shudder. “Then why did you pick him?”

  “I didn’t pick him,” Nancy protested. “He turns my stomach.”

  Gavin raised his brows. “But I heard you talking about him to Rose. In the nursery. You said he wrote you poetry, was about to offer—”

  “Not him.” Nancy let out a deep sigh. “Monsieur Lefebvre. My…French tutor. It was nothing. Papa overreacted.”

  Her French tutor. Just as Miss Pemberton claimed.

  “The night your father died,” he asked her carefully. “Did you go straight to your bedchamber after dancing?”

  “No, I…” She blinked, broke eye contact, looked away. “I stopped by the nursery to visit the girls. I-I have to go. It’s my turn.”

  After his niece fairly fled from him across the grass, Gavin made his way back to Miss Pemberton’s side.

  “She told me about the French tutor,” he said. “Sort of. Said it was nothing and Heatherbrook overreacted.”

  Miss Pemberton nodded slowly, hefting the weight of her mallet, but all she said was, “Hmmm.”

  “Hmmm?” Gavin repeated incredulously. “Go—go touch her! I want to know if that blackguard ruined her. I hope Heatherbrook sent him packing with both eyes blackened. She’s seventeen, for God’s sake. Make sure Teasdale hasn’t touched her either. Go see if—”

  “So much for your grand apology.” Miss Pemberton said, fingers clenched around her mallet as if she considered braining him with it. “You’re already back to ordering me around. Here’s some free advice, Mr. Lioncroft. People are far more eager to help those they wish to, not those who command them to.”

  She snapped her mallet up beneath one arm and stalked off.

  Wonderful. He’d managed to alienate his sole ally yet again.

  “If you ask me,” came Rose’s dry voice from behind him, “you need to work on your wooing, Romeo.”