Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

P hin woke with a smile, a stretch, and a yawn. Satisfied and sated, basking in the stream of sunlight winking between the folds of the indigo curtains. Waking up to sunshine, next to a woman named Sunshine, couldn't be more ironic if he'd written his own story. He breathed in the lingering scent of lovers locked in bed sport all night and twisted on his pillow, swinging his arm over his companion.

But his hand came down empty on wrinkled sheets. He instinctively patted the pillow next to him where her head had left an indentation. Panic seized his pulse for a second before he considered that she was probably behind the privacy screen taking care of her morning ablutions. What woman wouldn't wish to wake early for a bit of privacy?

He listened for water, for humming, for the sound of dropping hair pins, but heard nothing. It was too quiet. "Sunshine?" he asked, sitting up and hoping he was wrong. No answer came. He felt the pillow and the space near him. Both were cold. How on earth had he slept through her leaving? Dressing alone would have made enough noise to wake him. Except he had gone to sleep more satisfied than he'd ever been in the aftermath.

Had she gone back to her room? That would be understandable under the circumstances. Perhaps she rose early to avoid censure. They fell asleep an hour before sunrise. Or… he had fallen asleep an hour before sunrise. It made more sense that she did not sleep at all.

As the reality of her departure hit him, he threw his legs over the side of the bed, and his feet hit the floor with a thud. Not even the shock of the cold polished wood stalled him. He shuffled into his wrinkled trousers, haphazardly tucked in a shirt, and rolled up the sleeves. He didn't bother with shoes. He rushed down the corridor, choosing the back stairwell as opposed to the conspicuous grand staircase that led to the gallery above and to every proper room of entertainment below. The breakfast room shouldn't be teaming with guests this early, but he did expect his aunts to be there.

If he had been wearing shoes, he would have come to a skidding stop at the threshold of the breakfast parlor. However, without so much as a pair of hose, his bare feet solidly connected wherever they landed on the cold tile.

"Aunt Vada? Who's in charge of the guest accommodations?" Belatedly, he ran a hand through his undone hair.

"Lord Davies, you are not dressed. Nor have you made a proper greeting." His aunt pouted, an affectation he had no defense for.

"Aunt, you must call me Phineas. Otherwise, I'm not like to answer. In my heart, it's still grandfather's title."

"But you're the viscount, now. Such an exciting time for us all, wouldn't you say?" Aunt Vada's plump fingers patted his cheek. She stood at her full height of five feet nothing.

"Yes, of course. Now, who is in charge of the guest list?"

"I'm not certain. Nora saw to the hiring." Aunt Vada's short gray curls, piled into a little topknot, twitched every time she bounced a finger off her lip in contemplation. Her brows were drawn together, and normally, her general look of confusion made Phin smile. This morning it made his nerves outstretch their authority and sent his heart into a frenzy of frustrated panic.

"What hiring?"

"Of the solicitor who organized the extra staff and selected the guest list. Why aren't you wearing shoes?"

"I'll explain another time." He looked over Aunt Vada's head, daring a glance at the room, checking for a familiar face that, in truth, he'd only seen by firelight. No one was there, save a woman over the age of fifty who wasn't likely to accost him. It wouldn't do to be seen half-dressed.

"Nephew," Aunt Nora called, sweeping across the floor, her starched skirts working up a rustle the closer she got. It couldn't be said that Nora was the complete opposite of Vada, but she was taller and thinner, and her coiled hair had a touch of pepper in it. He attributed it to her spicy, smartly daft observations. "Where were you last night during the unmasking? I missed you," she said, sidling up to him and slipping her arm through his, extending her cheek for the usual kiss.

He complied. He even managed a smile despite the effort to keep his patience in check.

"Aunt Nora, Aunt Vada tells me you helped with the solicitor and the guest list."

"No, dear. Just the solicitor. I'm sorry. Truly I am Phineas. It was such a task for us two old birds to take on, and we wanted it to be a grand success. Did you enjoy yourself? I don't believe I saw you dance more than twice."

"I had a wonderful time. Thank you. And you know dancing is not my specialty."

"No, I believe it's seduction."

He had to chuckle at that, not because of last night but because his Aunt Nora was a romantic at heart and a little too free with her words at times. Her whimsical opinions were entertaining more often than not, but just now, he needed some answers. Most importantly, where was Sunshine's room?

"Right now, I've misplaced something, and I need to find your solicitor or the guest list?"

"Was it your shoes?" Aunt Vada asked.

"What?" His head snapped around. He feared it would take all day to get the needle of an answer from the two haystacks crowding him. Both women were of the same age, a number he'd lost count of after they turned seventy. One a widow, the other never married and both very dear to him. They managed to be smart as a whip when needed and remarkably forgetful when it suited them. They'd lived under the same roof for so long they looked more like sisters rather than not-quite sisters-in-law.

Nora had been his grandmother's sister, and his grandfather had seen to Nora's care when her husband passed at a young age. As for Vada, she was his grandfather's unmarried sister, and he had always cared for her. The women weren't exactly related by blood, but they were passably related by marriage and certainly related by sheer determination, something that neither lacked. Phin was happy the two women had each other. Right now, however, he needed them to forget the weekend party and help him find Sunshine, without having to reveal her name for the sake of his sanity and Sunshine's privacy.

Without wishing to think on it too hard, he also wondered if her name was a farce. Finding her gone this morning made it all seem more plausible. He couldn't allow himself to wander down that path. Not yet.

Would Sunshine have left the property? It made more sense that she'd be in her room, didn't it? Standing barefoot at the threshold of the guest's breakfast parlor suddenly seemed foolish and silly. His heart had muddled his mind.

An hour later, cleaned up, minus a shave, Phin cursed himself for ignoring his gut instinct. Getting through breakfast was like wading through sludge, going table to table, speaking with the guests, and hoping to see or hear of Sunshine. If she had been telling the truth, then none of the partygoers would have been familiar with her had they even seen her. But that red hair. The dress. These were things that could not be missed, and yet it was as if she had never been there. A figment of his libido's overeager imagination.

Perhaps he would believe it more if his bedsheets didn't still smell of lemon and Sunshine—literally, Sunshine.

In the privacy of the library, there was no longer any need to play doting bachelor. By the afternoon, the guests who had worn a look of morbid hostility had changed back into young women who wore the standard look of unveiled hunger. He hid behind the pocket doors of the library, in as much as Sunshine had hidden last night, behind the plant. He smiled at the furniture and wondered if anyone last night had, in fact, found a spot in the library to liberate a wall, or a chair, or the sofa.

But not her. She had followed him to a coach and then into bed. He couldn't shake her. Not the memory of her kisses or the bed sport. But most of all, he couldn't shake the feeling he had in her presence. More than lust. With his libido completely satisfied, he was still looking for her. He wanted to know where she grew up, who she was, and what she wanted to do with her life. And for the first time in his life, he wanted to tell someone else his wants and desires, even his fears.

He poured a brandy, pulled out a sheet of paper, and started strategizing how to find Miss Sunshine Price. He decided to start from the beginning.

His aunts. The solicitor. The guest list. His room.

* * *

"She was not a figment of my imagination, Aunt Vada," Phin said three days later, standing in the family parlor.

"I'm not saying she was. Oh, I wish that dratted Mr. Finch would show. He has an office in London. If the weather holds up, perhaps you can find him there."

He had kept his relationship with Sunshine a secret from his aunts and wondered if the day would come when he would have to reveal it in order to find the woman.

Aunt Nora sauntered into the room at the end of Vada's suggestion. "Is it possible you hit your head, Phineas? I knew a woman once who hit her head and forgot her own name for two years."

"She forgot it for two hours," Aunt Vada corrected. "And there was a fainting couch not a foot away where she lay posed most provocatively feigning the headache. I doubt she hit her head at all."

"I choose to believe she did since she married Phin's father."

Phin paused long enough to give Aunt Nora a stalling look.

"Don't look at me that way. She was a crafty one, your mother."

"But a kind soul," Vada finished.

Everything he knew of his parents came from the stories his aunts told, but he'd never heard that one.

"Vada, she was a tart. The boy is old enough to know that much." Aunt Nora turned an innocent smile on Phin. "But she was a tart who loved your father most convincingly. No harm done."

"None at all," Phin said, his voice drifting into a haze of confusion. A part of him wanted to laugh and congratulate his father for finding the diamond among the coal. His aunts spoke as if the conversation were ongoing and not at all improper. At least their demeanor held no malice, which told him either the story was true in the most beguiling way, or it was a stretch of the imagination, which made perfect sense as to why Aunt Vada would assume he'd imagined Sunshine's presence.

Phin reached into the inside breast pocket of his jacket. "This, my dears, is proof that she's real and proof that she was here." He laid down a short, red ostrich feather from Sunshine's fan. He'd found it under his bed. She had warned him about pumpkins at midnight. Now, if he could just locate her fairy godmother. Or the damned solicitor. Hell, at this point, he'd settle for the cat, whom she touted as the fairy godmother.

"What was her name again?" Aunt Nora asked, opening a folded sheet of paper. "I found the guest list."

"Lord, God Almighty, why didn't you say so?"

Nora gave him a chastising look. "With your language, it's no wonder God is teaching you patience."

"It's not working," he said. "May I see it?" He impatiently put out his hand for the list.

"After you tell me her name."

He had given his aunts only her first name since Sunshine could hardly belong to anyone else.

"Sunshine."

"No Sunshine here."

He sucked in a calming breath, holding out his hand. "If you don't mind, Aunt Nora?"

Vada added, "What is her surname?" Vada sat primly on the sofa, hands patiently clasped in her lap.

"Price," he said absently. "Sunshine Price." He scanned the paper, his eyes following each name, registering the surname first.

Vada straightened. "You mean Mrs. Richard Price?"

"No. Not Mrs." Then it dawned on him how much he didn't know.

Mrs. Price. His finger found the name. Mrs. Richard Price. He swore under his breath. No wonder she skipped out. No wonder she showed up at a party where no one would know her. He never considered this angle. It was a liaison. An affair. One he'd now prefer to forget. He'd spent three days on a conniving seductress.

A silent storm brewed inside him. He tossed the paper on the tea table, watching it slide across the polished wood, off the edge, and float to the floor out of sight.