The Importance of Being Wicked. Victoria Alexander
manner had returned. She climbed into the carriage and he closed the door after her. “Oh.” She leaned slightly out the window. “There was one other thing you were right about.”
“Twice in one day?” he said wryly. “Whoever would have imagined?”
“Not I.” For the second time today, a genuine smile curved her lips. Amusement glittered in her eyes and the most charming dimple appeared at the corner of her mouth. “But, practical though they may be, my shoes are indeed the most horrendous ever created.” She leaned back in the carriage seat and signaled to the driver. “Good day, my lord.”
“Good day, Lady Garret.”
The carriage rolled off and Win stared after it thoughtfully. He did like to know who he was dealing with. After all, this woman—and her elusive Mr. Tempest—had the future of Fairborough Hall in their hands. He was not about to put the fate of his family’s home in the keeping of a woman about whom he had more questions than answers.
While he considered himself an excellent judge of character, he had long ago faced the fact that that particular skill was only accurate in regard to men. He had no idea how to correctly assess the character of women, a lesson painfully learned through the course of three failed engagements. But even he could see there was definitely much more to the prim, efficient Lady Garret than one might at first suspect. Some of her comments simply did not ring true. This was a woman who was hiding more than she revealed.
Which only raised the question of what did she have to hide?
And what would it take to find out?
Chapter 3
“I want to know everything there is to know about Lady Garret.” Win paced the floor of the library at Millworth Manor.
“I thought you wished to know everything there is to know about Garret and Tempest?” Gray’s mild tone did nothing to disguise the pointed nature of his question.
“That’s what I said,” Win snapped, then caught himself. He was not normally a surly sort. Even in the days immediately following the fire, when even the best natured of men might well be surly, he had managed to regain his usual good humor. But a blazing inferno was a flickering match when compared to that woman. He could lay the blame for his current mood squarely at the sturdily shod feet of Lady Garret.
“What you said was that you wish to know everything about Lady Garret, not Garret and Tempest.”
“You must have misheard me.” Win waved off the comment.
“My hearing is excellent.”
“Then I misspoke. You can’t blame me. The woman lingers in one’s mind. Lurking. Ready to pounce at the first opportunity.”
“Like an unrepentant melody?”
“More like the taste of a new dish that one isn’t certain one likes because it’s so obviously good for the digestion.”
Gray laughed.
Win paused in mid-step and glared at him. “This is not amusing. We are trusting this woman, and her eccentric Mr. Tempest, with the future of Fairborough Hall. If we muck it up, generations yet to come will look back at this very moment. They will say, ‘There, that’s when it happened.’” He shook a pointed finger at his cousin. “‘That’s when that idiot viscount handed the rebuilding of Fairborough Hall off to that overbearing female.’ I shall be known throughout all eternity as the man who allowed a woman to destroy his family’s heritage.”
Gray choked back yet another laugh. “You’re being absurd.”
“Am I?” Win said darkly. “We shall see. One never does give due credence to a prophet in his own time, you know.”
“You’re blowing this out of all proportion. I thought you would get over it by now. If anything you’re more overwrought today than after you met with her yesterday.”
“I’ve had time to think. Mark my words, Gray, that woman is—well, I don’t know what she is exactly beyond annoying and superior and condescending and far too intelligent—for a woman, that is.” Win narrowed his eyes. “Do you know she has surveyors and men taking measurements at the hall even as we speak?”
Gray gasped. “Oh no, not that. Do you mean to tell me the vile woman is . . .” He paused for dramatic emphasis. “Efficient? Competent? Even, dare I say it, organized?”
Win glared at the other man. For a moment he wished they were boys again and he could take his cousin outside and thrash him thoroughly. Or rather attempt to thrash him, as they had always been evenly matched.
“You’re just irritated because she got the upper hand with you yesterday.”
“I allowed her to have the upper hand.” Win sniffed. “It was part of my plan.”
Gray grinned. “You don’t have a plan.”
“No, but if I did this would be part of it.” He resumed pacing, but it didn’t quite help his concentration as it usually did. No doubt because the library at Millworth Manor was not where he usually paced.
His family had arranged to lease the manor through the summer as it was no more than a half hour ride from Fairborough Hall. The owners, Lord and Lady Bristow, had decided to travel the Continent together in an effort to reacquaint themselves with one another after a lengthy separation. A separation in which most of the world believed Lord Bristow to be dead and, apparently, Lady Bristow simply wished he was.
“I am not used to dealing with women in matters of a business nature. Women should not be involved in business.”
“I thought she explained that to you.”
“She did, but . . .” Win shook his head. “Something about her explanation struck me as being . . . not a lie exactly, more like a half-truth. The woman is definitely hiding something.”
“You said that yesterday.”
“It cannot be said often enough.”
“And you know this because you are so very good at recognizing when a woman is hiding something?”
“Well, I should be, shouldn’t I?”
“One would think,” Gray said under his breath in a not too subtle allusion to Win’s three engagements.
Gray had been out of the country for years and had not witnessed firsthand his cousin’s previous failures to wed. Although they corresponded regularly, Win had never written in detail about his ill-fated betrothals. He had made no mention of the third at all. Since Gray’s return to England a few months ago, the cousins had spent long hours, with the appropriate libation in hand, discussing the various incidents, as well as all else that had happened in their respective lives. Win was able now to see the humor inherent in each engagement: the lady who had decided she would much rather marry a man with better prospects, the female who had considered him entirely too lighthearted to be a suitable husband and the very sweet young woman who was unfortunately in love with someone else.
“I did think you liked intelligent women.”
“I do, under most circumstances.” Win paused. He much preferred women who were clever and witty. Who could match him barb for barb. Although he had long considered the idea that that might have been where he had made his mistakes in the past. A less intelligent woman was far more likely to agree with him, to see things his way. Still, in his experience, women who weren’t clever weren’t especially interesting either. Did he really wish to spend the rest of his life bored out of his mind? “What I dislike is a woman who makes me feel stupid. Who looks at me in a pitiful manner as if I were a child who can barely understand two words.”
“I see.” Gray was obviously once again holding back laughter. At least one of them was amused by all this. “Then you found her annoying because she is more intelligent than you and took no pains to hide it?”
“She