The Magic of His Touch (May Day Mischief) by Barbara Monajem

 
    Warwickshire , 1804
    “I’m going to roll naked in the dew,” said Peony
Whistleby. She set down her broom, flung herself onto the ancient tester bed and
said it again.
    She had just finished sweeping, dusting and airing the Haunted
Bedchamber at Whistleby Priory. None of the servants would venture near the
room, so if she didn’t take care of it, no one would. Besides, this was the only
place in the house where she could be alone—except for the ghosts and bogeys, if
they happened to be about. She thought they would approve of the step she was
about to take.
    Her father and Aunt Edna wouldn’t. Nor would her cousin
Lucasta, but she might understand what had driven Peony to take such a drastic
step. Peony followed the maze of stairs and corridors to the library where
Lucasta was hard at work on her research. Peony seated herself on the sofa,
folded her hands in her lap and promised it aloud for a third time. “I’ve
decided to roll naked in the dew.”
    This time, said before a living witness, it truly felt like a
vow.
    Lucasta spattered ink on her precise, perfect notes and cursed.
It was she who had told Peony about the custom of rolling in the dew on May Day
to call one’s true love to one’s side. “Have you lost your wits?”
    “That would be another solution to my problem,” Peony said,
“but only as a last resort.”
    Lucasta tore the page out of her notebook and began a fresh
one. “Peony, this is no laughing matter.”
    “Nor is being paraded before one eligible bachelor after
another when none of them are interested in me,” Peony said. “The instant Aunt
Edna heard the Earl of Elderwood was coming here, she starting planning
entertainments. Dinners, card parties and even an evening party with dancing,
not to mention everyone in the county coming to call day after day after day. It
will be as bad as a London Season, only I shan’t be able to cry off any of the
engagements.”
    Lucasta made a face. “I don’t know what possessed Alexis to
invite Lord Elderwood here.” Sir Alexis Court was Lucasta’s long-time fiancé.
Peony had never met him, but he sounded like a wonderfully reasonable and
patient man. He had already agreed to postpone their wedding several times, as
Lucasta wanted to finish her magnum opus on folklore before embarking on a new
career as wife and mother. “I wish neither of them were coming. They will
interrupt my work at a most critical time.”
    “But don’t you want to see your betrothed?” Peony asked. In the
three years they’d been engaged, he had never come for a visit. They’d seen one
another briefly during the London Seasons, but surely that wasn’t enough.
    “Yes, of course,” Lucasta said testily, “just not right
now.”
    Peony couldn’t imagine choosing to be separated for so long
from a man she loved.
    “I daresay it won’t be so bad,” Lucasta said. “Aunt Edna has
already tried foisting all the locals onto you. She must know by now that none
of them are going to come up to scratch.”
    Men seldom were interested in Peony; she was too tall, with an
almost boyish figure, pale flyaway hair, boring blue eyes and what Aunt Edna
described as no conversation. This was most unfair, as Peony had plenty to say
to other females, but she had no notion of how to flirt. “That’s never stopped
her before,” she said. “But this time it’s much, much worse. She wants me to set
my cap at the earl!”
    Lucasta went into a peal of laughter, quickly suppressed. “I’m
sorry, Peony, but that’s absurd. You’re incapable of setting your cap at anyone,
and Lord Elderwood is a rake without the slightest interest in marriage.”
    “I know that.” Peony twisted her hands together. “But she has
got it into her head that this is a God-given opportunity, and that I should be
grateful and do my utmost to catch him, as I would become a countess. What do I
care about that? I want to marry a man I can love, and I could never love the
earl. There is something