Gentlemen Prefer Mischief Read Free Page B

by Freddy and the others.
    “Why, Lily Teagarden!” she said. “How good to see you. It’s been years.”
    Warmth softened Lily’s heretofore stiff features. Cool, small, collected—with her white-blond hair, she was like a petite, pristine snowdrift. “Miss Eloise Waverly, it’s—it’s really quite lovely to see you again.”
    “Can we know the secret you were talking about?” Freddy asked.
    “Secret?” Eloise said.
    Hal could see Lily wanted to keep this Woods Fiend business quiet, but that would be closing the barn door after the horse was out since apparently the rest of the neighborhood was already atwitter with it. “Which secret did you mean?” he said innocently.
    Eloise’s eyes lit with interest. “Is there more than one?”
    “Perhaps,” Hal said. “What do you say, Miss Teagarden?”

Two
    Lily sucked her teeth as Roxham’s guests gazed at her with interest. She’d wanted to avoid making a spectacle out of her problem, but nothing, obviously, could have pleased him more. Beyond him, the magnificent presence of Mayfield Hall glowed pale yellow in the afternoon light, a stately, lavish counterpoint to the endless rolling green of his ancestral grounds.
    “There’s no secret,” she said, forcing a smile. “Just a little problem with the woods.”
    And a problem with that wretched old journal of hers, if he truly still had it. Would he mention it? He was enjoying having the advantage, but what else should she expect when he’d always so loved to tease?
    Most disappointingly, he had not become a disgusting wreck of man. No, he was even more handsome now. She’d forgotten the way the flecks of green sparkled in his blue eyes, and how his dark blond hair shone as if gilded. His coat, a vivid green, was distinctively tailored; it whispered of emeralds and glittering ballrooms and gleaming coaches, of luxury and indolence. And yet the easy, athletic grace of his posture bespoke a man of action, and his soldier’s straight, broad shoulders hinted at command.
    But something in his eyes said mischief.
    Did he still have her journal?
    “A problem with the woods?” John said.
    “Apparently,” Roxham said, “Mayfield’s resident bad spirit—you remember the Woods Fiend—has made a return. People have seen lights among the trees at night, and it’s rumored that he’s up to no good.”
    “A ghost!” Mrs. Whyte said in a breathy voice. Her large blue eyes widened in her pretty, round face so that, with her golden sausage curls, she looked like a doll. “I hope you will protect us, Roxham.”
    “I assure you we shall all be quite safe,” he said in reply to Mrs. Whyte’s ridiculousness. Lily felt smug to see the sort of female companions he chose for himself.
    “I forgot about the Woods Fiend,” Eloise said. “But it was just nonsense—it wasn’t a spirit that killed Great-Uncle Edmund fifty years ago.”
    “Unfortunately,” Roxham said, though he didn’t sound dismayed, “not everyone has outgrown belief in the Fiend. Thistlethwaite’s proximity to our woods has caused many of our neighbors to believe the Teagardens’ sheep are… possessed by him.”
    “That’s dumb,” Freddy said.
    “Still,” John said, rubbing his son’s head affectionately, “it’s not an advantage to be neighbor to the haunted woods, is it?”
    John always had been more considerate, Lily thought. But then, unlike his brother, he wasn’t a veritable feather of a man, morally speaking. He raised his eyebrows at Roxham.
    Roxham’s lips ticked up, and there were those dimples she’d forgotten about, tucked into the hard planes of his cheeks; they used to make her insides flip over. She looked away.
    “Miss Teagarden,” he said, “nothing will give me more pleasure than to solve this mystery. I envision a night camped out in the dark, doing battle with whoever is disturbing the peace of Highcross.”
    “Ha,” John said, “you think it will be so easy, do you? The war hero, ready to take on a