Gentlemen Prefer Mischief Read Online Free PDF Page A

Miss Teagarden if there was a particular time this Fiend favored,” the Earl of Ivorwood said quietly to Hal as he shifted to lean against a tree at the edge of the strip of woods between Mayfield and Thistlethwaite. “It’s been a good two hours already. Not that it isn’t romantic, old boy, standing about with you under the moon.”
    Hal tipped the gold watch at his waist at an angle to catch some moonlight. He’d been thinking about Lily, and how perversely pleasing it was to rile her.
    He’d found that journal of hers in an old guest room, though he hadn’t had a chance to look at it yet. She certainly wasn’t happy about him having it, and that made it all the more interesting. If he suffered a twinge of remorse about being in possession of her journal with the intention of reading it, he quashed it with the knowledge that it was obviously to do with him, and also that it was from four years ago and thus practically a history book.
    “It’s getting on for midnight,” he said. “Isn’t that the standard time for evil spirits?”
    “So they say. Almost like the rush of battle, is it, waiting for him to show?”
    “Almost.” Hal had been in Spain, at the forefront of the battle against Napoleon, when he’d gotten the news about Everard’s death. The news had possibly saved his life, because when the letter arrived, he was sitting in a makeshift jail awaiting punishment. His crime: riding drunk through the conquered town, which wouldn’t have been notable except that he’d finished by performing a bitter, mocking serenade under the window of the house his colonel had commandeered.
    Hal had been drinking with some other officers, all of them angered by the summary execution of one of Hal’s enlisted men, who’d stolen a small piece of salt beef from the colonel’s personal stores. The enlisted men were all starving, literally, because of much-delayed provisions, and had been growing agitated in the preceding days. The conquered town had yielded nothing but some barrels of sour wine, and any fool could have seen that, out of desperation, men might be driven to meet the needs which the army that had brought them to Spain could not. But Colonel Burke wouldn’t hear of extenuating circumstances, and he’d marched the soldier in front of the troops and shot him as a lesson to all.
    The letter revealing Hal’s sudden accession to the viscountcy had resolved the question of what was to be done with a well-liked captain who’d shown disrespect to his superior, and had doubtless been a relief to Colonel Burke, who’d already done much to make himself hated.
    Since then, Hal had tried to behave in a way that would have made his brother proud, but the viscountcy had been Everard’s passion, not Hal’s. He hated the blathery, horse-trading world of Parliament, keeping track of the family’s three estates made his head swim, and the social whirl that had once entertained him now felt dull.
    So what did it say about him that he was looking forward to tussling with a fake spirit?
    All had been quiet so far, save for the rustlings of forest creatures. If it weren’t for the fact that his staff was anxious about the Woods Fiend, Hal might have suspected Lily of tricking him into standing around like a fool near his woods solely for her own amusement, though she seemed unlikely to do things for her own amusement.
    The snap of a twig a short distance away made the two men instantly alert. They stilled, listening as the sounds drew closer, a whishing of something against the grass and dry leaves, the sounds of a very inept Fiend if this was their quarry.
    “Who goes there, and what is your purpose on the viscount’s land?” Hal demanded.
    “It’s Miss Teagarden,” a feminine voice whispered.
    “Oh, I say,” Colin muttered.
    “I really think, my lords,” she murmured when she reached them, “that you should lower your voices if you don’t want to alert the Fiend to your presence.”
    Hal sucked his