Mischief by Moonlight (12 page)

Color flooded her cheeks. “Oh,” she whispered.

The old man was approaching them at a remarkably improved pace, and he gave Colin a hard look as he passed them, as though calling him a blackguard. Colin could only agree.

She moved closer to him, and something in her eyes seemed to reach for him, as if she were yearning toward him. As if she wanted him.

Desire surged in him, tempting, urging him to sweep her into his arms and kiss her until she melted for him. Told him they might have a future.

God, this was so wrong!

He wrenched his eyes away from her.

“Maybe I shouldn't have admitted this,” he said, disgusted by the hoarseness in his voice. “But I need you to understand now why I can't be around you anymore. Why we mustn't spend any more time together.”

“But,” she said, “I couldn't bear it if you simply disappeared from my life. Something could change. This can be mastered—”

“No, Josie, it can't.”

He left her there. He would always remember the hurt astonishment in her eyes, and how achingly beautiful she looked with her hair falling in soft curls and the green of the arbor behind her creating a dream image of a beautiful future that would never be.

Josie was still shaking half an hour later when she returned to the town house. Maria was in the foyer, speaking with the housekeeper when she came in.

She peered at Josie. “Are you quite all right, my dear? You look flushed.”

She repressed a hysterical sob. “I've been walking, and I think I took too much sun. I shall go lie down.”

Once in her bedchamber, she sat down at the small desk and let her head fall into her hands.

She'd been so happy to reconcile with Colin. Those few minutes they'd spent walking around the pond before he'd spoken so seriously had made her feel better than she had in so long. Perhaps it was his collectedness that always made her feel grounded, or maybe she'd never know what it was, but something about him answered something in her, so that she felt more like herself with him than with anyone else.

You
have
no
idea
how
much
I
want
to
touch
you
. The memory of his words stirred the same hot flush in her now as they had at the garden. Wrong though it was, she'd loved hearing them. She'd wanted to touch him too.

I'm hideously attracted to you.
Hideous. He knew what honor required, and he was right, no matter that she hated the idea of their friendship being truly broken.

She was going to have to forget about him. All she could do was move forward in the right direction, the direction she'd chosen a year before.

She reached into the desk and pulled out the packet of letters Nicholas had sent over the long months, and she made herself read through every one.

And then she began a reply.

Dear Nicholas,

I miss you and thank God each time we have a letter from you, a sign you are still alive. But I don't know how much longer I can wait for you to come back. It is so hard, in so many ways I never expected. I suddenly feel I don't know myself at all, or of what I'm capable. I need grounding, and you would do that for me.

Please, please come back to England as soon as you can. Come back and marry me, and we'll live on your beautiful estate and all will be perfect. Keep yourself safe.

Your affectionate,

Josie

Upon completion, she read the letter over once and stuck it in the fire. Then she dropped her head into her hands and acknowledged that she was in trouble.

***

Colin needed to punch something. He'd never felt more uncivilized in his life.

He settled for several rounds with the fencing master at the school where he sometimes practiced, and when Hal showed up, he went at it hammer and tongs with him as well, until the sweat streamed down their faces and their chests heaved.

“I get the sense there's something you're trying to work out,” Hal said, running the back of his hand over his forehead as they stood by an open window trying to catch a breeze. “You are relentless today.”

Colin leaned an arm against the windowsill and shut his eyes, but that only made Josie's face appear. How was he ever going to forget how it had felt to stand so close to her, to breathe in her rose scent, to feel the hint of her bodily warmth? A life of desperation stretched before him.

He wondered bleakly if he would ever be able to be intimate with another woman when he wanted Josie so much. He couldn't see how. There was far more to what he felt for her than just wanting.

“Just feeling a bit pent up,” he said.

Hal laughed. “Too many parties and balls for your taste, if I know you. Can't avoid them here, can you?”

Colin grunted. Hal knew him well. Though he knew nothing of Colin's fixation on Josie. “No.”

Hal nodded thoughtfully. “And you've been playing the good host to your old friend Cardworthy's daughters. They're very pretty and interesting young ladies. I can easily see what Nick finds to admire in Josephine. And Edwina is one of the most beautiful unmarried women currently in London.”

“The most beautiful
married
one being Lily, of course,” Colin said, referring to Hal's wife.

“There can be no question.” A secret smile teased the corners of Hal's mouth, the smile of a blissfully married man. As much as Colin wished his friend happy, the sight of it gave him a bitter stab of envy.

“But as for her sister,” Hal said, “I wonder what Nick could have been thinking, not marrying Josie before he left. A year is a long time, and engaged isn't married.”

Don't tempt me to think I can change things
, Colin thought fiercely. Because for one moment by the pond, when she'd drawn closer to him, he'd thought he'd read in her eyes that she needed him, and he'd wavered. A wicked voice had encouraged him to press his suit and let her choose between them
.
It had taken everything he had to force himself to say the right thing.

“There wasn't time for them to marry before he had to return to Spain.”

“And so she waits for him when, charming and pretty as she is, she might throw off the engagement and choose from any number of men.”

“She wouldn't do that.”

Hal arched an eyebrow. “Dunleavy is smitten, and that rogue Kit Standish told me he wants to change her mind.”

Colin's jaw tightened. “Why?”

Hal shot him a look. “Sometimes I wonder about you, Colin. Why indeed would a man wish to spend his days with a pretty, charming, witty wife? Gad, man, you've been keeping to yourself too long, and you're turning into a hermit.”

It would be better if he actually had, Colin thought. Then he wouldn't be doing battle with the dawning awareness that he
needed
Josie Cardworthy. He needed her like he needed water when he was thirsty. Already, knowing he must nevermore be close to her, his body craved just to be in the same space as her. Simply telling her their friendship was over hadn't made him stop wanting to know everything about her.

He'd been so, so close to losing control and pulling her into his arms.

There was nothing he hated more than people who were out of control. He'd had a daily example of this in his parents, a daily view of the stupid and selfish things people did under the influence of emotions.

Go
on
, his mother would taunt his father,
hit
me. You know you want to do it
.

He supposed the saving grace of his father was that he never had. But he'd used words like fists, and there'd never been peace between the two of them.

You're not worth the trouble
, his father would say to her in that cold way of his. Which only enraged Colin's mother, who then threw things. Usually, Colin would have slipped out of the room by the time the throwing commenced, and found his way to one of his many hiding places. One of the benefits of a large home. He'd kept his hidey-holes stocked with books and would disappear there for hours at a time.

He'd had enough of strong emotions to last his whole life. They were like an intoxicant to be avoided, and he knew better than to let them lead him.

“I can hardly be a hermit in London,” he said.

Hal laughed. “Well, if anyone could, it would be you. Though you did develop that out-of-character interest in lonely widows a few weeks ago. Lily didn't approve.”

Oh wonderful, his friends were gossiping about him. “She doesn't approve of lonely widows?”

“She says you are too nice a man for ‘hard, calculating women.'” He grinned. “But she does approve of Kate Alcott.”

“Hal. You know I think Lily is all that is gracious and good…”

“But you don't want any help finding a countess.” Hal laughed heartily, and Colin considered wielding his foil anew. “I shall try to discourage Lily, but it will be difficult because she adores you so. She thinks you are ‘the loveliest, most noble man.' She's always admired you for the way you handled Eloise's infatuation.”

He'd never felt less noble in his life than he had today. “It was nothing.”

Hal made a face. “I'm certain I don't want to hear any more details about that kiss my sister foisted on you than I already know,” he said, clapping Colin on the shoulder.

Later, when Colin, his self-disgust not at all mitigated by the hours spent fencing, reached his town house, a letter from Nick was waiting for him. The sight of his friend's handwriting pierced him and accused him of being treacherous, selfish, a bastard. He snatched the letter and took it to his bedchamber. It was dated May, and from the stained condition of the envelope, it had obviously had a circuitous journey.

Nick wrote:

Colin Old Fellow,

I hope this finds you well. I am for the most part still in one piece, despite Boney's efforts here in Spain. I miss England's cool weather, and so many things about home. Last week I wrote to Josie, letting her know I should return in late July. I so look forward to seeing her—it's been thoughts of her and home that have sustained me at trying times.

But…ah, but. All seems to grow murkier, and I feel the need to confess.

It's to do with a woman I've met, someone who's come to fascinate me though she should not, and not only because of Josie. She is not English, and truly the most ill-mannered woman I've ever known. Yet she delights me. This is wrong, I know. But though I would choose to avoid her, I am required to spend time with her constantly. It is a sort of torture.

There's really nothing to be done about this, is there? I only needed to say this aloud, in a manner of speaking, to someone who would listen. I know which is the right direction—the only direction. Only now I'm not certain I'm worthy of it.

Nicholas

Colin's first reaction was anger. He had no trouble reading between the lines of what Nick couldn't write—he knew his friend had sometimes been called on to conduct dealings with French spies, and that the spies were both men and women. That had to be what he meant about someone he was required to spend time with: a French lady-spy. And now he was apparently tempted by her.

While also wanting Josie. Josie, who looked on Nick with such stars in her eyes, this man who'd dabbled and played with women from the moment he was able. Nick was a good-hearted man, yes, but he was also something of a rogue used to having whatever woman he wanted, and happily accustomed to enjoying the adoring attentions of beautiful females. Colin had thought Nick had stopped all that when he met Josie.

Hell.
He scrubbed his eyes. How could Nick have sent such a letter? How could he be wavering when he was engaged to Josie of all women? Colin felt tortured by the Fates, mocked, tormented. Bitterness clawed at him.

Nick was wavering. He was tempted, just as Colin was tempted by Josie.

But Nick was in a difficult situation nothing like the peaceable existence Colin knew. Nick was being shot at, living often miserably among the elements, forced into extra danger in his work with spies. Some days he surely wouldn't know whether he would live or die. He had likely already lost many friends to battle and disease, and seen men wounded and suffering. It wasn't surprising that he might yearn for comfort.

But if Nick truly loved Josie, how could he yearn to find comfort with another woman?

Along with his anger on Josie's behalf was the unwelcome knowledge that part of him was rejoicing in Nick's weakness. That he secretly wanted Nick to stumble and fall off the pedestal on which Josie had placed him and open a way for Colin himself.

It was weakness that he allowed such thoughts for even a second, and he despised this in himself. He'd closed the door on his friendship with Josie, but he would always care about his friends' happiness.

He wished Nicholas were there so he could shake some sense into him. Nor would a letter likely reach him before he might leave for London.

“Come back to her,” he murmured fiercely. “Come back to her as soon as ever you can.”

The days passed somehow for Josie, days of waiting for Mappleton to return and propose to Edwina and for Nicholas to come back and their marriage to take place. A thousand times a day, she replayed her conversation with Colin, and each time she came to the conclusion that, however much she missed him, he was right that they mustn't be together.

She saw him across ballrooms and made no attempt to greet him. At a dinner party, he sat across from her, and they managed not to speak a single word to each other while also appearing congenial. She and Edwina encountered him walking in Hyde Park, and they greeted one another with casual cordiality and nothing more. If Edwina raised an eyebrow at their bland conversation, at least she said nothing.

Colin didn't know that Josie was powerfully attracted to him as well, and that was the one thing for which she was grateful. He wanted her sexually, and, oh yes, she wanted him that way too. But there was lust, and there was love, and nothing about the way he'd behaved had spoken of love.

He'd said he was “hideously attracted” to her. But of tenderness, affection, openness—all the things she knew she wanted from a man, he had expressed none.

Nicholas was open. He'd talked freely of love and emotion with her. She'd chosen him with all the wisdom she'd gained growing up with a view to a marriage devoid of tenderness and openness.

Colin was hidden. He'd always kept a portion of himself to himself, with his books and his research and his solitude. Since coming to London, he'd been withdrawn and dark and inscrutable. And while a reckless part of her was thrilled by the excitement of the challenge and puzzle that he was, the reasonable part of her knew what happened when she reached for thrills.

She did, though, find it bitterly ironic that Colin, whom she'd once considered as predictable and comfortable as an old chair, had turned into an enigma—and one who was dangerous to her heart.

In her more generous moments, she forced herself to hope that he would soon meet a woman who might be his wife, or at least that he was enjoying the company of his fashionable widows, but it was a very unenthusiastic hope.

Nicholas hadn't sent any more letters, but the last one she'd gotten months before had said he'd be back in England in late July, which it now was. Edwina would likely become engaged any day, and when that happened, the sisters would return to Jasmine House with the good news and begin preparing for the wedding. In which case, if Nicholas still hadn't come, she would await him at home. When he finally returned, she meant to welcome him with nothing less than enthusiasm, and she'd make sure she deserved him.

***

The ladies were together in Maria's pretty drawing room one hot and sunny morning, trying to keep cool with lemonade and debating which to accept of the invitations that had arrived. Josie's contributions to the conversation were few. She was standing by one of windows that had been opened to catch a breeze, watching a robin peck at a spot of bare earth near a shady patch of lilies of the valley and wishing life were as simple as the birds must find it to be.

A maid appeared in the doorway to announce a visitor.

“So early for a caller,” Maria said with a hint of disdain.

“It's Lord Ivorwood,” the maid said.

“Why didn't you say so? My nephew is always welcome.”

Something stirred in Josie at the news he'd come, but she forced herself not to acknowledge it. They weren't friends anymore, and she must treat him as an old acquaintance whose presence provoked only mild interest, however much she yearned for just the sight of him.

He appeared in the doorway, tall and dark and so handsome she could hardly bear it. But his expression looked oddly grim, and the knot of his cravat was askew, as though it had been hastily tied. He lingered in the doorway, and a tingle of alarm coursed through her.

“Colin?” Maria said, standing. “Is something amiss?”

He pressed his lips together. “I'm afraid so.” He moved into the room but didn't meet Josie's eyes. “Perhaps it would be best if we all sat down.”

The alarm tingle grew to a clang. The ladies sat on a divan, and the earl took a chair across from them. He ran a hand through his black hair, disheveling it, and Josie saw that his eyes looked haunted. Something was very wrong. Her stomach dipped and she gripped the arm of her chair.

“There's no easy way to say this, so I will just say it: I had a letter this morning from Nick's commander. Nick is missing and believed dead. He was mortally wounded with his troops as they were trying to take a farmhouse held by the enemy. The house caught fire, and there were no survivors.”

Silence met his speech. Josie blinked, his words repeating in her mind until she felt as though they were being muttered at her from the far end of a long tunnel. She forced herself to speak.

“I don't accept this,” she said. “He could still be alive. People survive all sorts of injuries.”

She was vaguely aware that on either side of her, Edwina and Maria seemed both to have frozen, because neither of them was saying anything, neither was contradicting these awful, unwanted words.

Colin reached out and took one of Josie's hands. His grip was cold, and when their gaze finally met, she almost crumpled at the anguish that passed wordlessly between them.

“The battle occurred almost three weeks ago,” he said in a hoarse voice. “He was seen lying in the doorway of the house with a crippling injury to the gut, the kind of injury that would never have allowed him to escape the fire. I'm so very sorry.”

Unable to bear the compassion in his eyes, she looked away and let her hand fall from his. Edwina slipped an arm around her and hugged her hard.

“Oh, Josie,” she said in a raw voice, “I'm so sorry.”

“He was a fine man,” Maria said. “What a loss for us all. Words are inadequate.”

“Yes,” Colin said.

They all sat there silently with the news. At some point Josie realized Colin had left, though she found she didn't care who was present or where she was.

Maria brought her a glass of brandy, which she drank with shaking hands. Then Edwina guided her up to her room and loosened her gown and helped her lie back on the bed.

Josie looked up at her sister's dark head hovering over her. The emotions roiling within her felt like poison. Sorrow, guilt, anger, remorse, and confusion crashed through her like waves, threatening to drown her.

“I wanted to know him so much more,” she said through the tightness in her throat. “I wanted there to be time.”

“I know, dearest.” The tender compassion in Edwina's voice tugged at the last bonds Josie had on her emotions. “Life is cruel.”

“I'd like to be alone now,” Josie whispered. Edwina nodded and slipped quietly out of the room.

Josie lay on the bed on that bright, sunny English afternoon with robins chirping outside her window, while miles away Nick was gone from where he'd been and the battles raged on without him. Just as she would now have to carry on without him and the future of which they had dreamed.

***

Colin stepped out of his carriage in front of his town house and walked up the steps as though in a dream. He was dimly aware of the sounds of someone knocking at a door down the street, a carriage rolling by, the angry barking of a dog in the mews. Life carrying on as usual.

As if anything could be usual again.

He'd known Nick for ten years, during which time they'd grown into men. Buoyant, playful, roguish Nick, who'd been part of so many of the best moments of Colin's life.

And now he was gone.

Colin hadn't realized how much his idea of the world had depended on his friend being in it.

He trudged up the stairs, his whole being heavy and stupid with grief. It had taken all he had to pay the visit to Maria's, to speak the words that Josie had never wanted to hear. To break her heart.

And he had, he'd seen that. The devastation in her eyes had nearly killed him.

As he passed through the foyer and up the grand marble stairs, ignoring the carefully quiet movements of his staff, he suffered the bitter realization that now he and Josie were finally sharing a truly deep connection, though one he'd never have wanted: grief.

He entered his bedchamber, threw off his coat, and reached for the brandy bottle. He didn't even like brandy in quantity, but now he welcomed its harsh intensity.

He thought of Nick's letter, and, guiltily, how furious it had made him. But the letter had also stirred a craven spark of hope, because part of him had—even if only for a second—rejoiced in Nick's attraction to that lady-spy.

He'd
doubted
Nick, however momentarily.

And now Nick was gone, just as if he'd wished him away.

Had
he? Dear God, he didn't know himself anymore. Maybe he had. And now Nick was gone and he was left with nothing but bitterness and sorrow.

He had no sense of time, no awareness of it passing. All was gloom and shadow.

Alone in his grief as he deserved to be, he kept to his house, for once glad to be so important that his order not to be disturbed was obeyed scrupulously.

***

Mornings, afternoons, and evenings slipped by, but Josie, lying on the bed in her chamber at Maria's, had little awareness of them beyond the waxing and waning light. Occasionally sounds penetrated, or someone would come to see if she wanted something, but it was all muffled and distant.

She'd come to understand what it meant to hate yourself.

With a part of herself that had seemed to detach when she heard the news of Nicholas's death, she acknowledged that she'd always thought this phrase overly dramatic: How could a person truly hate herself when our instincts drew us toward survival and pleasure? Of course she'd been angry with herself before, and disgusted with mistakes she'd made. But nothing had ever been like this.

There she'd been, frolicking around London, delighting in discovering new joys, questioning her engagement, finding other men fascinating. Kissing Colin
.

How stupid and silly and useless it all had been. Childishly, selfishly, she'd been indulging herself while Nick was off fighting, his days and nights fraught with suffering and tragedy. And now he'd given his life for his country. For all of them.

She was unworthy of him. Unworthy of his memory.

And she couldn't even cry.

She understood why this was. It was because she was a terrible person, a reckless, selfish person, driven by greedy desires.

Cold fury bubbled inside her, mingling bitterly with sorrow for Nicholas, and she forced herself to lie still, to not give in to the need to distract herself from what she was feeling by seeking the company and solace of her sister. It was just as well that Colin had broken off their friendship. She deserved to suffer.

***

By the end of the week, Edwina and Maria had become very concerned. They stood in the corridor outside Josie's chamber after lunch, talking in whispers.

“I've never seen her like this,” Edwina said.

“She's had a terrible shock.” Maria's sharp, petite features were drawn with worry.

“It's a tragedy,” Edwina said, not for the first time since they'd heard the news. The grimness of it all just kept washing over her. But while her heart was wrung with sorrow for her sister, Josie was beginning to scare her.

“She still won't leave her room under any circumstances, and she's taken nothing in days but water and a bite of toast I made her swallow. She just turns away when I come in to see her.”

Maria nodded grimly. “She looks awful. Haunted. The frozen way she lies there, with that empty look in her eyes.” She shook her head. “She's going to waste away or fall ill if she keeps this up.”

Edwina wished for the hundredth time that none of this were happening. Josie had always been such a resilient person. She was the optimistic one of the two of them. For Edwina, filling the role of someone who might give another hope was as foreign as it would once have been for Josie to lie in bed all day with a dull look in her eyes. She knew her sister was terribly sad, but this seemed like something more, as though there were some particular force behind her grief.

“Maybe we should send for Colin,” she said. “Perhaps they have grown a bit apart in London, but they were always so close before, and he shared her deep affection for Nicholas.”

Maria agreed, and they dispatched a note to the earl.