Gentlemen Prefer Mischief Read Online Free PDF

teeth. “Lily, what are you doing here?”
    “Why, I’ve come to see you gentlemen at work.”
    More like checking up on them. And she’d come alone, apparently, which was interesting. He wouldn’t have thought her capable of something so scandalous.
    “Is this wise,” Colin whispered, “with the Fiend afoot?”
    “But I knew I’d be safe here, with you gentlemen watching over the woods. And if you’re wondering how I found you in the dark, it was the moonlight glinting on your shiny buttons.”
    “Blast,” whispered Colin.
    “Lily,” Hal said in a low voice as the men reversed their coats, “your brothers would not be pleased to think of you out at night like this, in a possibly dangerous situation. The earl will see you safely home.”
    “No, thank you. I should like to see who the Fiend is if you catch him. I have quite a bone to pick with him. Or her.”
    “But look,” Colin whispered. “Our quarry.”
    A light had appeared in a section of the wood about fifty yards away.
    “I suppose you shall have your wish then, Lily,” Hal said. “If you can keep your skirts quiet.”
    “I can.” A brief rustling as she arranged them.
    They began to creep quietly toward the light along the edge of the wood. Hal thought he heard a soft thunking sound ahead of them. When they were perhaps thirty yards from the light, he sent Ivorwood ahead to flush the Fiend toward him. He told Lily to stand back at a reasonable distance for safety.
    “And miss everything?” she said. “Certainly not.”
    Her insistence reminded him of how she’d accompanied him and Ian and Rob on childhood escapades, often wanting to be included but then getting nervous about danger and consequences.
    “If you change your mind, I’ll have to worry about abandoning you in the woods while I go after the ghost.”
    “I’m all grown up now, my lord,” she said tartly. “I never change my mind once it’s made up.”
    He thought about the purposeful set of her sharp little chin. “Very well then. Quietly now,” he whispered, and they moved into the pitch-black woods. As they drew closer to the glow, Lily stuck by his side, and he kept being distracted by thoughts of how she must look with her frock pulled tight against her legs and likely tugged above her ankles. Lily Teagarden, of all females.
    Ahead of them, the light began to dance around.
    “He may realize we’re onto him,” Hal whispered. “Give me your hand.”
    “What?”
    “So we don’t get separated.” He stuck his hand out in the darkness and felt her reaching for him. She swiped at his coat first, his elbow, and, what made his eyebrows shoot upward, his rump, where she lingered a moment before snatching her hand and thrusting it to the side to find his hand.
    “Stop smiling,” she said.
    He was imagining the prim blush that must be creeping over her cheeks. But her hand felt small and warm and dry in his; quite nice, actually. He couldn’t think when last he’d simply held a woman by the hand.
    The light went out and there was a shout and a heavy rustling in the wood—the ghost being flushed. Hal tugged Lily with him as they picked their way past the trees toward where the light had been. Crashing sounds came from various points, some doubtless the trespasser, some the earl. And then the noises were only coming from one area, at some distance off.
    They moved up a small, steep hill and Hal slowed their pace at the top as they came to the edge of a clearing. Bright moonlight picked out stumps and bushes but nothing else as he surveyed the area. He’d been certain someone had been near, but now there was nothing.
    And then, unaccountably, he stepped on something that moved—something hard, like a hand—and he heard a grunt. A streak of moonlight coming through the clearing picked out a dark head writhing under a screening pile of leaves.
    “Got you!” he cried just as Lily gave a funny sort of yelp.
    And though he was bending over, he didn’t have hold of the