Mischief by Moonlight (18 page)

The corner of his mouth tilted arrogantly. “A participant. I like that. Sounds official.”

A growl of frustration pressed at the back of her throat, seeking escape. “You shouldn't have lost your work at Mrs. Westin's over what happened. It was wrong.”

He shrugged, his hard expression giving nothing away. “It's the way of things. I knew that when I kissed you. Both times.”

She had to know the full impact of her willful behavior on him. “Have you,” she began, but her voice had gone dry and raspy, and she cleared her throat and pressed onward. “Have you lost other work because of what happened?”

His eyebrow crept up—for sheer arrogance, a duke would have had nothing on him. “You can put your conscience to rest, if that's what this visit is about.”

Not an answer to her question; apparently he didn't wish her to know what he had suffered. She shouldn't be surprised. He was the proudest person she'd ever known.

“Well—I'm sorry. About what happened.” She'd forced the words out, though they made her feel terribly vulnerable.

“You don't need to take any blame.”

“Yes, I do,” she said, growing impatient with his calmness. “You tried to warn me off, but I wouldn't listen.”

His eyes were hooded, so she couldn't see their expression as he spoke. “Perhaps I didn't want you to listen.”

He's saying he only wanted your body
, she told herself harshly.
He's attracted to you, and you're attracted to him, and that's all there was to it.

She ignored the inner voice trying to remind her how tender and sincere he'd been with her, how he'd told her she had a good heart. They were words she'd never have used to describe herself. She was judgmental and difficult and pessimistic, and he couldn't possibly know her at all.

Before she could succumb to the urge to beg him to hold her, she thrust her hand into her reticule. “I should like to collect my jewel box if you still have it.”

“If I haven't destroyed it, you mean?” he said with a mocking twist of his mouth. He called over his shoulder for someone to bring the jewel box.

“I would have left it at Mrs. Westin's,” he said to her, “but I supposed leaving just that one thing would only bring more attention to you.”

She gave a curt nod in acknowledgment.

Something caught her eye in the doorway behind him—movement. A child of perhaps seven was standing there.

“Here it is, sir,” the boy said, and Jack turned and took the small box as Edwina looked on, speechless.

“Thank you, Robbie,” Whitby said.

Edwina had frozen at the boy's appearance. He looked exactly like a small version of Whitby.

“I've finished the table leg,” the boy said.

“Very good,” Whitby said. “You can do the chair, then.”

The boy let his glance fall on Edwina for a moment, then he nodded and disappeared.

Whitby had a son? But he'd said he'd never been married. A bastard, then? But how could he be so duplicitous, when he'd mocked gentlemen for that sort of behavior, sworn he'd never do such a thing? She'd believed him.

She didn't know what to think, but a reflex asserted itself and told her she'd been fooled again by a man, made to believe she'd meant something to him when she didn't. Even knowing a future with Whitby was impossible, she'd still felt they'd shared a true connection. She'd been wrong again.

“You have a son,” she said in a voice that suggested everything she didn't say.

His expression turned hard, any hint of angry flirtation now gone from eyes that might as well have been made of sea ice.

“You're asking if I have a bastard,” he said in the coldest voice she'd ever heard.

Though she was trembling, she forced out the hard words that would defend her against the softness she felt for him. “Some people will allow themselves anything. They have no standards.”

“I couldn't agree more,” he said. “Now, if you will excuse me, my nephew requires my help.”

A gasp escaped her. “The boy is your nephew?”

“I don't need to explain myself to you.” He turned to go.

“Wait—I'm sorry! I misunderstood.”

He glanced back, his expression so remote she wanted to cry. “No, you
misjudged
. It's what you do. You judge yourself and everyone else so harshly that you'll never trust anyone.”

“But…but I don't know how,” she whispered in anguish.

Her words had no effect on him as he moved through the doorway to the back room and left her standing in the shop.

She was shaking. The boy was his nephew, but she'd assumed the worst, just as she'd been doing for so long about so many things. Because assuming the worst protected her from being disappointed: she was always already unhappy.

And now she'd just insulted Whitby terribly and shown her own profound snobbery, a disdain she now realized had little to do with how unsuitable other people might be, and everything to do with her fear that others would find
her
unsuitable.

She could hear the boy's high voice in the back room, and the deeper timbre of Whitby's reply, something about a tool.

Unhappiness rolled over her like a carriage wheel and came to rest on her heart.

She left the shop and walked the two blocks back to where the coach awaited her. She was grateful for the privacy it offered, which allowed her to sob unobserved the whole way back to Maria's.

In Upperton a hot, rough September wind had been raging all morning, and Josie, catching sight of the elderly Rickett trying to stake the rosebushes in the back garden, had gone out to help. The red and pink flowers were in full glory, and ever since coming home a month before, she'd found herself gazing at them with an almost physical need for their beauty. But they would be battered and broken by the wind's rough treatment if they weren't protected.

As she worked, she pondered the letter she'd received that morning from Edwina. Instead of the news of an engagement that Josie had been every day expecting, it had held a brief description of the soirees Edwina had attended and an account of what her sister had worn. The letter held no enthusiasm or excitement, almost as though Edwina were simply going through the motions.

Perhaps, Edwina's earlier letter notwithstanding, being in London was proving awkward even though the scandal was over, and perhaps Mappleton hadn't proposed after all. She would write her that night and gently ask.

Josie and the gardener worked for some time together, tying the roses around stakes, until a particularly violent gust uprooted the ancient, half-dead apple tree near the front drive, and Rickett went around to see to the damage. So she was alone, on her knees among the roses she was trying to gather, when she glanced up to see Colin walking through the tall, misshapen boxwood bushes at the back of their garden.

As he passed the weather-beaten carved wooden elephant statue by the iris bed that had often served as a perch for the Cardworthy children, he gave it a cheerful pat. His long-legged stride, so familiar to her, now looked cocksure whereas before she'd hardly noticed it. He wore a dark blue tailcoat and fawn breeches with shining tall black boots, and he seemed jauntily unbothered by the wind whipping him, only lifting a hand to brush away a leaf that had landed on his black hair.

He looked commanding and handsome, an earl who made whatever place he occupied into his realm. Why had she never seen before that the arrogant jut of his substantial nose, while certainly inherited from bold ancestors, was also just as much a mark of his own power?

Her stomach took a large dip.

She immediately looked back down at the tall white roses, which were being bent nearly in half by the wind, and focused on gathering them with her gloved hands. So Colin had come back to Greenbrier. Why shouldn't he—it was his house. It had to happen at some point, so why not now? He would be stopping by for a neighborly visit. She would be polite. Of course she would—she owed him that, considering what he'd done for Edwina.

Surely he was as eager as she to forget what had happened. She took a deep, slow breath and straightened her shoulders, and decided she would not feel anything beyond politeness for him. But then she had to stifle a bitter laugh as she recalled how well trying to be indifferent to him had worked in London. So she told herself the feelings she had for him were her own business, and with time she would simply root them out.

She made herself look up again with a mild expression. He was close enough now to greet, though the sound of the wind made it necessary to shout.

“You've come back,” she said unnecessarily, but she had to say something. “I hope you are well.”

He crouched down next to her. “As you see,” he said reasonably. “Here, let me help.”

“Oh, no, you needn't. Go inside and they'll give you tea. Mama will be happy to see you.”

But he ignored her and wrapped his arms around the thorny bundle of roses she had gathered, so she could only let go and take the twine and tie it around the stems while he held them.

“Are you doing the rest of them?” he half shouted over the wind, jerking his head toward the patch of red roses she hadn't yet staked.

“Yes, but really, you needn't help. I've got a method. Do go in and make yourself comfortable.”

He gave her a look. “It will take twice as long if you do it alone. And I don't want to go in. I came to see you.”

A hot blush swept up her neck, along with annoyance that he was ruining her equilibrium. She wanted to tell him he couldn't say things like that to her anymore, but she swallowed the urge. She'd known she'd have to talk to him someday, so she must simply be…mature? Was that the word for braving conversation with the man with whom you'd impulsively had intimate relations in a carriage?

She gathered her composure as he pulled together an armful of the red rose stems. He held them, waiting for her to put the string around them, and she wished doing so would not involve leaning close to him and passing the twine within inches of his chest. She forced herself to do it and kept her hands pressed so close to the roses that the thorns scratched her.

While he moved to gather the next bunch, tying them himself, she sat back on her heels and surveyed the rest of the garden as though he was only there to help with this task and didn't require her attention for any other purpose. She could feel his eyes on her.

“You'll have to look at me sometime, Josie.”

“I know,” she said dully. She let her eyes roam over the groups of tied of flowers and was dismayed to see that the work was all done, because now she supposed she'd have to go inside and have tea with him. Could she plead a headache? That wouldn't look believable, but she didn't think she cared. Why couldn't he have waited longer to have this first awkward visit? A year would not have been too soon.

She finally looked at him, then wished she hadn't. The strong set of his chin, the hard angle of his cheek, the jut of his prominent nose, the silver-green of his eyes…his male beauty made her heart thump. Why hadn't his appearance had an effect on her over all those months of togetherness before they went to London?

His masculinity now felt like a dark and secret force against which she was vulnerable. When she'd touched all those parts of him kept hidden by his clothes, she'd stirred up mystery about a man she'd thought she'd understood.

She wondered if he was still courting the fashionable widows. Perhaps he'd already proposed to one of them. Surely those women had been able to see what she, in her blindness, had missed for so long: that he was an extremely desirable man. Perhaps all those times she'd thought he was off doing research for his books, he was really with fashionable widows. Very possibly what they'd done in the carriage had been just one more pleasurable experience for him.

Except, that wonderful newness she'd known in his arms and the way he'd responded to her had made her believe it had all been new for him as well. But her mind skittered away from the memory of that London night, and she was glad for the brightness and mundane familiarity of her own garden.

“It's been several weeks since you left London,” he started to say, but she cut him off, the blush heating her neck again.

She leaned close so she wouldn't have to shout into the wind. “I am not increasing,” she said. “There's no cause for concern.”

She didn't know what reaction she'd expected, but it wasn't the flicker of disappointment in his eyes. Surely he wanted to celebrate that their ill-advised coupling would have no results?

“Josie, how can you think I wouldn't be very concerned about you regardless?”

She
really
didn't want his concern. “Colin,” she said briskly, “it can't, of course, be the way it used to be between us. I do realize our friendship is ruined. But it's done, and it can't be helped, and we'll both be best served if we simply try to be polite to each other and keep our distance.”

“Our friendship isn't ruined. It's simply been broken open.”

She frowned. She had no idea what he meant, but he was looking at her intently and she didn't like it. Why was he making this so hard? It would have been easier if he were being cold, but instead his eyes glimmered with a hot light that was making her want to squirm. She was annoyed with him for making her feel this way, and at herself for feeling it.

“But it's good you're here,” she continued in a businesslike manner. “I want to say again how grateful we all are for what you did for Edwina. You saved her—us—from disaster.”

“It was nothing.”

The wind threw a scattering of dry leaf bits against them and pulled strands of her now shoulder-length hair out of its knot and whipped them against her face in messy snarls. “No it wasn't. I know you weren't even in London at the time, but you chose to return. You held a party for all the significant people and lent my sister every bit of consequence you could.”

She wanted to look away from his steady gaze, but she would force herself to thank him properly. “And you didn't have to. After what happened between you and me, I'm sure we both felt we'd had enough of each other for a very long time.”

“I spoke harshly then,” he said. “I felt keenly that we'd offended Nick's memory. But on reflection, I've come to believe we ought to be forgiven.”

Her eyebrows shot upward. “Well. This is quite a different tone. We ‘acted reprehensibly' I believe were your words.”

“I spoke too harshly then. Come, Josie, it wasn't such a bad thing we did. And I believe Nick would have understood our need to…connect as we did.”

When he said “connect,” the corner of his mouth tucked back a bit, as though there was something about the memory of that night that made him feel smug.

But of course: men wanted sexual relations. It was just that she'd never thought of Colin wanting them, and certainly not with her.

She had, before London, so handily dismissed any thought of him wanting such things. He'd been available for conversation and friendship with her, but she'd never imagined him having unknown or mysterious desires of his own. Because he was reserved and kept to himself and spent so much time alone reading and writing, she'd assumed he wasn't much caught up in the bodily urges that consumed other men. She'd actually thought herself more worldly than he was.

How casually arrogant she'd been. But she'd thrown herself at him in the carriage, practically forced herself on him. Shame burned in her chest as she remembered how she'd told him so fiercely not to stop when he'd tried. How she'd torn at his clothes.

“I suppose,” she said, “what I so freely offered was irresistible.”

He flinched. “That is needlessly harsh toward both of us. It's true that I never had intended to do such a thing with you. And I never would have dreamed, with the news of Nick so raw…” He looked as though he were blushing, though surely it was just the wind reddening his skin.

“But I told you the truth in the garden that day: I wanted you. I'd wanted you from the day I first came back to Greenbrier and saw you all grown up. And I still want you.”

At these words, something decidedly wicked glittered in his eyes. In
Colin's
eyes. Wickedness. The world had gone upside down.

A lock of Josie's hair blew across her eyes and she pushed it away impatiently. “You were confused by grief, as I was,” she said. “That's all it was.”

“I wasn't confused. I want to marry you.”

No.
She couldn't take this. She wanted to shout for him to stop being so considerate and forgiving and persevering. It was just a pose he'd adopted, as though he believed it was the considerate way to behave—because she didn't believe what they'd done had really touched the heart he kept so guarded.

“Look, Colin, I've…I have a tendency to do dramatic things on a whim. That's what happened in London. I was overwhelmed with emotions I didn't want, and it suddenly seemed that what accidentally started up between us would take them away. We've agreed it was a mistake. And now I don't want to talk about it anymore.”

His jaw hardened. “You're being absurd. There was more to what happened between us than happenstance. We get along famously, and as someone who's seen firsthand the disaster caused by two incompatible people marrying, I can tell you that friendship is the best possible foundation for marriage.”

So he wanted her body
and
her friendship.

“Stop talking about marriage!” she said. “I don't want to marry you. Just forget what happened. You don't need to feel guilty or as though you owe me anything.”

His brows slammed together. “Why are you being so unreasonable?”

“Unreasonable?” she said, wishing her voice hadn't gone a little shrill. “Does a woman want to be reasoned into marriage? I don't. You just think reason and compatibility are the most important foundation for marriage because your parents didn't behave well toward each other.”

“That's right, they didn't, and it was a mess. They couldn't agree on anything or forgive each other a single mistake. My mother could never forgive my father for being the man she was forced to marry, and he could never respect her. It was the perfect example of how people at the mercy of emotion behave like idiots. Why would you want to take a chance on marriage being like that, when you could have companionship and peace?”

She just looked at him. Finally she said, “I understand perfectly, Colin. The last thing you want in a marriage is emotion, because unruly feelings, to you, are inherently something to be avoided. In which case, and considering how emotion clearly carried at least me away in London, I can't see why you would want to marry me.”

He frowned. “I didn't mean it that way.”

“What did you mean, then?”

His jaw clenched.

“Never mind,” she said when he didn't immediately reply. “We're going to simply forget about all of this.”

“No, we won't,” he began with an ominous note in his voice. But at that moment the door to the sitting room opened and Matthew called across the garden to them.

“Mama asks if you won't come in for tea, Ivorwood. She says she's longing to see you after so long.” Matthew grinned. “Do come and have tea. We can always use another fellow.”