To Distraction

by Stephanie Laurens

  He’d had enough of it.

  He wanted—needed—surcease. He wanted to relax, to enjoy a woman again—her company, her laughter, her body, her sighs of pleasure—without having the specter of her likely motives hanging over his head.

  He wanted a wife. A lady who would happily be his, who would share his life and remove him from the ranks of the eligible.

  Marriage was, for him, a necessary escape.

  The regular reverberating thuds of the grays’ hooves underscored his thoughts, and his determination.

  The green fields of Surrey flew past. Ten minutes later, he spotted the signpost for Cranbrook Ford. Checking the grays, he turned them south; less than a mile down the lane, stone gateposts appeared, a brass plaque proclaiming them the entrance to Cranbrook Manor.

  He swept through and set the grays briskly trotting. A light breeze rippled through the leafy canopies of the oaks bordering the drive. The manor appeared ahead, a low, wide house in gray stone, its façade whimsically crenellated.

  “Be that where we’re going then?”

  Deverell glanced around at Grainger, his groom-cum-tiger. “Yes.” Deverell faced forward. He’d known Grainger, about nineteen years old, a lanky, good-hearted lad with a quick laugh, for less than a year. He’d discovered him on his first visit to Paignton; a natural with horses, Grainger had nevertheless been something of an outcast—a lowly orphan with no known family, tolerated because of his unusual skill. Deverell had changed that; he’d made Grainger his groom, taking him out of the routine of the larger stables and giving him his prize cattle to tend.

  When it came to horses he had complete faith in Grainger. In other spheres…

  “While we’re here, you’ll behave as if you were at Paignton Hall, under Mallard and Mrs. Mottram’s thumbs. Mind what everyone says and do nothing untoward.”

  He felt Grainger’s gaze.

  “Be n’t I to help you then? Ain’t there nothing I’m supposed to do—beyond the grays, I mean?”

  Deverell was about to disavow any need, but recollection of Audrey’s words had him temporizing. “There may be something I need you for later, but the first thing you must do is be quiet and friendly, helpful and undisruptive with all the other staff. Keep your eyes and ears open so that when I need information, you’ll know who to ask—or more rightly who to encourage to talk to you.” He glanced at Grainger. “Do you understand?”

  The light in Grainger’s eyes assured him that horses weren’t his groom’s only interest. “Oh, aye—I can do that.”

  Looking forward, hiding his grin—his understanding that Grainger was now fantasizing about the maids he might meet and how to encourage them to talk to him—Deverell steered the curricle onto the gravel forecourt before the manor’s wide stone steps.

  A groom came running; Grainger greeted him jovially.

  Halting the horses and handing over the reins, Deverell stepped down and started up the steps. Before he reached the porch, the door swung wide; a large and stately butler waited to bow him in.

  He was shown into the drawing room, a long room with French doors along one side, presently open to the terrace and the manicured lawns beyond. As Audrey had prophesized, Maria, Lady Cranbrook, was delighted—no, aux anges—to welcome him to her home, informing him without a blink that his presence would assuredly cause a considerable stir among her female guests.

  In the face of her enthusiasm he smiled charmingly and cast a sharp glance at Audrey; seated beside her ladyship, his aunt merely smiled back, fondly smug, and nodded her encouragement when Lady Cranbrook directed him to the lawn, on which the bulk of her guests were strolling.

  Stepping out onto the terrace, he cast a quick, searching look around—and very nearly stepped back. There was a small army of young ladies present, and he’d omitted to ask for a description of Audrey’s paragon.

  But most of the guests, both ladies and gentlemen, had noticed him; to retreat would make him appear ludicrously high in the instep, as if he thought himself above their company.

  “Besides,” he muttered to himself as, nonchalant smile in place, he stepped down to the lawn, “how hard can it be to identify one female and run her to earth?”

  Fatal words. By the time he’d done the rounds, been introduced and spoken politely with every female, both young and old, gracing the wide lawn and drifting beneath the trees, and discovered that Miss Phoebe Malleson was simply not there, his patience—always limited—had worn distinctly thin. Spying Audrey descending from the terrace, he excused himself from the matron who, along with her two daughters, had corraled him, and strolled to intercept his aunt.

  One look into his eyes and Audrey’s lips twitched.

  His own lips thinning, he hung on to his temper. “Your paragon is playing least in sight.”

  “Well of course she is, dear—I did warn you.” Audrey patted his arm, leaned closer, and murmured, “Now she’s twenty-five, she’s determined to go her own way and waste no more time even pretending an interest in gentlemen and marriage. So she’s here at the house, but elsewhere.”

  He frowned. “If she has no interest in gentlemen and marriage, why am I here?”

  “To teach her the error of her ways, of course.” Taking his arm, Audrey drew him around. “Have you met Edith Balmain, Phoebe’s aunt?”

  “Yes.” He glanced to where the sprightly, white-haired widow sat, bright blue eyes drinking everything in, interested and alert. At first glance she appeared the epitome of a little old lady, tiny, slightly stooped, with a soft lined face and a retiring manner, but once he’d met those eyes he’d reassigned her to quite a different category. She was an astute observer—one who saw, detected, and consequently knew everything, including all those private matters people thought they’d concealed.

  Even without the connection to his paragon he would have been drawn to, and interested in learning more of, Edith Balmain. However…“She didn’t know where her niece might be skulking, either.”

  “Well, Deverell dear, if there’s one gentleman in all this gathering with the right skills to hunt Phoebe down, it’s you.” Audrey caught his eye, smugly smiled. “And when you do I’m sure your persuasive talents will be up to the challenge of making her rethink her rejection of matrimony.”

  He let his frown deepen. “One point continues to elude me—why do you think she’s so unquestionably the right lady for me?”

  Audrey’s smile took on an edge—one of understanding and determination. “You’ll have your answer when you find her.”

  He wasn’t going to get any more from her; with a sigh he let her hear, he bowed over her hand and headed for the house.

  In one respect, Audrey was right—tracking down people was one of his fortes. By dint of asking the butler, Stripes, he learned first that Miss Malleson had not called for a carriage or a horse and was consequently somewhere in the house or within walking distance of it but was not in her chamber, and, secondly, where all the places a lady might seek solitude were located.

  He ranked those places in order of the most likely—the conservatory, the orangery, the shrubbery, the maze, the chapel, the billiard room, and the library—and set out on his search.

  When he opened the paneled door of the library, stepped silently inside, and instantly, instinctively, knew she was there, he realized that when dealing with Phoebe Malleson he was going to have to adjust his thinking.

  She wasn’t the average young lady.

  He couldn’t see her from where he stood, but instincts honed through years of constant danger informed him he wasn’t the sole human in the room. That, indeed, there was a female in the room.

  Closing the door silently, he walked forward, smoothly, barely disturbing the air. And saw her.

  He halted.

  Head and shoulders comfortably supported by a large fringed cushion, Phoebe Malleson—he had no doubt it was she—lay reclining on a chaise angled away from a long window. The light streamed in, striking garnet glints from her neatly coiled coronet of dark
red hair before falling on the pages of the book she was engrossed in.

  So engrossed she hadn’t yet noticed him; he seized the moment to take stock.

  She was, he estimated as he eyed the length of leg demurely concealed beneath filmy pale blue skirts, a trifle taller than the average. Her figure was slender, yet, as far as he could judge given her pose, her hips were nicely rounded. Her breasts were too, not large yet promising a firm handful. Her throat was long, her skin pale and fine. Her jaw…

  Even in respose, her jaw suggested determination.

  Indeed, all her features—broad brow, straight nose, wide eyes—he couldn’t tell their color—set beneath finely arched dark brows and framed by lush lashes, and her fractionally too large mouth with its full, red lips, all neatly set in the pale oval of her face—held a hint of the dramatic. The whole projected a sense of aliveness, of vitality and purpose—attributes he’d failed to discern in other young ladies.

  Audrey had been right. Just setting eyes on Phoebe Malleson awoke a compelling curiosity—a wish to know more, to learn what made such an unusual lady tick.

  A plate of fruits sat on a low table before the chaise; it had clearly been sampled at length. As he watched, her eyes never leaving the page, Phoebe Malleson extended one slender arm, searched, located a bunch of grapes, deftly plucked one, then carried it to her mouth, hesitated while she finished a section, then slowly eased the plump grape between her luscious lips.

  Deverell watched it slide into her mouth.

  Inwardly grimacing, he shifted his weight.

  She looked up.

  Phoebe Mary Malleson glanced across the room and quite unexpectedly found herself gazing at a nattily striped waistcoat. She blinked, then lifted her gaze…slowly.

  The man—gentleman—was tall. And large.

  How had he got so close?

  He had the most gorgeous green eyes she’d ever seen.

  Fascinating green eyes…and a direct gaze that was, even more to her surprise, frankly disconcerting. She wanted to look away, to break the contact, yet some part of her didn’t dare….

  Who the devil was he?

  More to the point, her inner self whispered, what was he?

  A peculiar little shiver slithered down her spine. She continued to stare, mesmerized, hypnotized—caught, trapped, within his green gaze. Alarmed, and not a little disgusted at such ridiculous and newfound susceptibility, she forced herself to blink and succeeded in wrenching her eyes from his.

  Lying all but supine in the presence of a dangerous man wasn’t wise; clearing her throat, she swung her legs over the side of the chaise and sat up.

  She quickly swallowed her grape. “Good afternoon.” Her voice, at least, was her own, firm and even. Reassuringly steady. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

  Her last sentence carried commendable hauteur—polite but coolly distant. A trifle censorious. Encouraged, she risked lifting her eyes to his again, only to find the mesmerizing green screened by long dark lashes. She should have been relieved, only she could feel his gaze still on her, still watchful, assessing, in a distinctly predatory way.

  He was indeed tall, and large, but his broad shoulders and chest were entirely in proportion with the long, lean lines of his legs. Her brain registered his fashionable, quietly elegant attire—expensive and select—and the aura of leashed power that hung about him even as her gaze, without conscious direction, rapidly scanned his face.

  Clean, well-defined angles and planes, his features stamped him as one of her kind, her class, but there was a hardness there she didn’t miss or mistake, a strength in his well-shaped nose and squared chin, and a certain cynicism in the set of his mobile lips.

  As her gaze settled on those lips, they lightly curved.

  “I fear I have the advantage of you, Miss Malleson.” His lids rose; startled, she met his gaze again. “I’m Deverell.”

  The amusement she glimpsed in his distracting eyes was more than enough to prick her temper. She frowned lightly, shifting her gaze from him. “Deverell…” She tapped one fingernail on her book, then quickly looked back at him as he came forward. “You must be Audrey’s nephew.”

  He drew near and offered his hand. She glanced at it, sorely tempted to remain seated, but having him towering over her wasn’t worth the minor victory. Surrendering her hand, she rose.

  Clasping her fingers firmly, he assisted her to her feet, then bowed, the action smooth and graceful. “Indeed. I’m Paignton.”

  She bobbed the obligatory curtsy; far too conscious of his largeness, the strangely overwhelming—strangely impressive—wall of masculinity a mere foot away, she refused to again meet his eyes. “Ah, yes—I heard that you had come into the title.”

  Why was he there disrupting her peace? Intending to dismiss him, she glanced pointedly at the shelves. “Were you after a book?”

  “No.”

  He hadn’t let go of her hand. Forced to it, steeling herself, she lifted her gaze and met his eyes. Now much closer, more alluring, even more mesmerizing.

  She was staring again.

  Into the fascinating emerald depths.

  At the edge of her vision, the curve of his lips deepened.

  “I came for you.”

  It took a moment or three for his words to reach her brain. Even when they did, they made no sense—not when matched with the tenor of his voice. Deep, reverberating, it seemed to suggest…a meaning far more primitive than could possibly be the case.

  With an effort, Phoebe harried her brain into action. “Is my aunt asking after me?”

  His brows, dark, slightly winged, rose. “Not that I know of.”

  She blinked, and glanced through the French doors at the lawns beyond. “I take it it’s time for tea?” She eased her fingers from his firm grip.

  Allowing her digits to slide from his clasp, he glanced over her head at the clock on the mantelpiece beyond the chaise. “Soon, I daresay.”

  Phoebe suppressed a frown. If he hadn’t come searching for her because of her aunt, or to summon her for afternoon tea…

  Sudden suspicion bloomed. Narrowing her eyes, she fixed them on his. “Why did you come looking for me?”

  His light smile was charming; behind it, she sensed, he thought quickly.

  “Audrey suggested I do so.”

  She frowned, hard, at him. “Audrey?” She hoped she conveyed her disbelief that he was so malleable that his aunt could direct him.

  His lips quirked. “Indeed.”

  “Why?”

  “I gather she believed I would benefit from making your acquaintance.”

  She raised her brows haughtily. “And have you?”

  His smile deepened, genuine, warm—and subtly teasing. “Time will no doubt tell.”

  Her instincts flickered. She held his gaze while thoughts milled in her head, recollections of what she’d heard of him—little by way of specifics, nothing that had prepared her for the impact of his physical presence, yet of his station speculation had been rife. He was wealthy, titled—and undeniably required a wife.

  His aunt Audrey was her godmother, and a close friend of her aunt; it didn’t require much mental effort to discern why he’d been pointed in her direction. Yet despite her aunt’s and her godmother’s fond hopes, she wasn’t interested in filling the position he had vacant.

  She refocused on his eyes and noted the intensity, the acuity behind his green gaze. How best to get rid of him? Tell him plainly to go away? In her experience such tactics rarely worked, especially not with men like him. He would either not believe she was serious, or worse, decide to interpret her refusal as a challenge.

  No. In their current location there was a much more effective way of dealing with him.

  “Perhaps,” she said, very conscious of his nearness and more, of his attention being completely focused on her, “we should join the others for afternoon tea?”

  His lids flickered, then he searched her eyes. A moment passed, then he inclined his head. “If you wis
h.”

  Before he could offer his arm and leave her compelled to take it—and thus be far closer to him than she needed to be—she flashed him a smile and turned to the French doors. “We can go this way.”

  With determined brightness, she led the way outside.

  Chapter 2

  Bemused, surprised, Deverell followed his quarry from the library, stepping out through the French doors she’d set swinging wide onto a narrow terrace.

  He’d sensed the connection, that indefinable spark that had flared between them the instant their eyes had met. He knew she’d felt it, too, but she’d merely blinked and ignored it. And him.

  He wasn’t accustomed to being ignored, let alone having a lady so dismissively resist an attraction of that degree. Indeed, he couldn’t recall any female who had so focused his attention at first glance.

  Without looking back, she descended to the lawn.

  “You haven’t visited here before, have you? Maria—Lady Cranbrook—always gathers a lively crowd.”

  She set out along one side of the large house; stepping down from the terrace in her wake, Deverell looked about, noting the line of mature trees that faded into woodland on the opposite side of the lawn. The other guests were congregated on the lawn at the rear of the house; Phoebe led him in that direction, determinedly blithe and gay.

  “I’m sure you’ll find plenty to interest you during the next few days. Maria usually organizes a picnic on the downs, and there’s some lovely rides.”

  She spoke over her shoulder as she walked briskly on, as if she saw him as something not quite civilized, certainly not safe—the sort of companion that made returning to the herd seem a good idea. A sufficiently compelling idea to make her forget her book; she’d dropped the tome on the chaise without a glance.

  Despite her clear hope, he wasn’t about to let her slip from his sights.

  She prattled on, extolling the pleasures of the gardens and a nearby folly. Unhurriedly lengthening his stride, he closed the distance between them, enjoying the view as he did. His earlier estimation of her figure had been pleasingly exceeded by the reality; she was a touch taller than he’d imagined—no Long Meg, yet the top of her head was level with his chin. Most of the unexpected length was in her legs, and while she was indeed slender, the curves beneath her muslin skirt held definite allure. As did those that more than adequately filled her bodice.