Dangerous Joy (28 page)

He should go back downstairs to resume dinner, but he couldn't. He drew up a chair and sat by the bed in a kind of guard and vigil, waiting for his beloved to awake.

A distant clock had just struck one when Felicity stirred and opened her eyes with a faint groan. Miles smiled, knowing what it felt like to have slept too long, even when it was needed. He poured some water from a carafe by the bedside and offered it.

"Faith, and are you guarding me night and day, in addition to the locked door and the watcher on the window?"

"I am not. Do you want the water?"

She sat up, frowning at him, but she took the water and drank it. "Is there food as well?"

"Beth brought a tray before retiring." He carried it over and placed it on the bed beside her.

She lifted the covers and grabbed some bread and cold ham. "Doesn't she think it at all strange that you're lurking here in my bedroom?"

"She's used to strange. Felicity, we have to talk, but it can wait until you've eaten and woken up properly."

She flashed him a wary look which suddenly changed to alarm. "Something's happened. Kieran?"

"Nothing like that. I promise."

She subsided back to wariness. "What is it, then? Trying to guess the problem is likely to turn me gray before my time." She picked up a bunch of hothouse grapes and pulled one off the stem with her teeth, never taking her eyes off him.

Unable to see a better way, Miles resorted to bluntness. "Is Kieran your son?"

Her eyes widened and her chewing stopped. Then she swallowed. "Who told you? Is Rupert here?"

"No, of course not. Blanche guessed. Something similar happened to her as a girl."

He could see the effort it took for her to push back her reaction and pretend calm. She pulled off another grape and chewed it, watching him all the time. "It doesn't change a thing."

"It does. I understand better now."

"How nice for you. Does that mean you'll let me leave tomorrow to marry Rupert?"

"It does not."

"Then it doesn't change a thing, does it? In fact, it makes it worse, because now you'll guard me more closely. That's why I didn't tell you before."

As usual when dealing with this woman, Miles was ready to tear his hair out. "Felicity, we are not enemies. We have to work together to find the solution to this problem."

"A solution that leaves me as Kieran's mother? What can it be other than my marriage to Rupert? I lost my son once. I will not lose him again."

"But I love you and want you. You have to take that into account."

"I do not. Kieran has to come first."

Beth had also brought a bottle of wine, wise woman. Miles poured two glasses and passed one to his bewitching, infuriating ward. "At least tell me the whole story. Knowledge is power."

She took the wine and sipped it, leaning back against her pillows. "I was young and foolish. What more is there to say? It galls me to admit it, but for a while there, I truly fancied myself in love with the weasel. If I hadn't burned them in a rage, I could show you maudlin verses I wrote comparing him to Lancelot and Diarmuid."

"Both famous adulterers, so you had a point."

A ghost of a smile twitched her lips. "The simple fact is that the memory of my stupidity mortifies me."

"You were only...what...fifteen?"

"But I should have known better. Mind you, no one had ever explained anything to me of physical matters between man and woman, so I believed him when he said I could not get with child." She looked at him with a grimace. "I actually believed him when he told me women had to come into season to be fertile. Well, I knew it was true of horses."

Miles managed to stifle a laugh. He could not resist, however, the need to be closer. He hitched onto the bed beside her. "Perfectly reasonable to believe it, a muirnin."

"Not really. If I'd stopped to think, I'd have realized that, though there were always babies about, none of the women of the area behaved like the mares. They didn't get wild-eyed and chase after anything male. Or at least, not often..."

He slid an arm around to hug her. "When we're young, we're always looking for keys to the bewildering world around us. Lacking good guidance, we'll come to some strange conclusions. So, what happened when you found you were carrying a child?"

For a moment she was stiff in his arms, but then she surrendered and rested against his shoulder. "It took forever for me to realize what was happening. My courses stopped, but I hardly noticed. It was Rupert who commented on my swelling belly. Oh, so horrified and repentant that he was! May his toes rot slowly and his rod fall off."

Miles laughed then, though his heart was breaking for her. "And it was his idea, I suppose, that you pass off the child as his wife's."

"Oh, yes. Don't worry. I realized years ago that it was all planned." She drained her glass. "It is very lowering to realize one has been so easily used."

"But how was it arranged? You couldn't have borne the child at Foy... Ah, that other journey you made to England. Annie said you'd been sent away because of your infatuation with Dunsmore. Does she know the truth?"

"I don't know. She's never mentioned it. But she has a way of ignoring what she doesn't care to see."

Miles refilled her glass. "Where did you spend your confinement?"

"Confinement, indeed! In an isolated farmhouse not far from Cheltenham. Kathleen, of course, conveniently chose Cheltenham as the place to cosset her "delicate pregnancy," and the waters proved to be quite miraculous."

Miles rubbed her arm, wishing he had been part of her life then, even though it was a foolish idea. Five years ago, he'd been a heedless young rascal fooling his way through Cambridge, spending more time on horseback than with books. It seemed wrong, however, that he'd had no awareness of her misery.

"Was it a very hard time?"

"It was winter, and dreary. I had Miss Herries-easygoing Miss Herries-to keep me company, and she finally found she had a captive audience for education. She made little headway with my writing, but she did manage to introduce me to some excellent books."

"Who else was there with you?"

"Just the farmer, his wife, his son, and his son's family. The Bittens had a good-enough small holding, but were a taciturn lot. Doubtless why they were selected as my hosts. Oh, and the fact that Babs, the daughter-in-law, knew something of midwifery."

"And when Kieran was born, what happened?"

She looked back through the years. "It was May and very beautiful. It made it quite reasonable for even a heavily pregnant woman such as Kathleen was supposed to be to decide upon a leisurely carriage-tour of the area. When her time came, where else to take shelter than in the only farm in sight? And what luck that there should be a midwife present!"

"And as soon as possible, she returned to Cheltenham to recover. Did you even get to hold him?"

She closed her eyes and shook her head. "They wouldn't let me. They...they drugged me. When I came to, I was empty and he was gone."

Miles didn't know what to say and just leaned his head against hers.

"My milk came, though. For days, despite the bindings, I filled and leaked. It's...seemed so wasteful." He thought she would cry then, but she continued with determined briskness. "He had an excellent wet nurse, of course. Kathleen took the best care of him."

Miles gathered her closer so she was entirely within his arms. "When did you see him?"

"Not for weeks. After a couple of weeks, Miss Herries took me to Gloucester. We attended some musical events and a lecture or two. I acquired the new clothes I'd need to show off when I returned home. They were needed, anyway. My bust had become larger. As soon as I returned to Foy, of course, I found everyone talking of Kathleen's "miracle." Since Rupert was off in London with well-filled pockets, I sneaked over to Loughcarrick, hoping for a glimpse of the baby."

She was relaxed in his arms now, and he suspected she was entirely lost in that past time.

"They were out on the lawn," she said softly. "Kathleen, the wet nurse, a nursery nurse, and Kieran kicking plump legs on a blanket in the shade of a tree. He was six weeks old, and I can't say I would have recognized him as the tiny scrap I'd seen so briefly when he left my body. I couldn't stop myself from going over. At first Kathleen ordered me away. She feared I'd try to take him back, you see. When she saw I had no thought of that, she became cautiously kind. She even...she even let me hold him." Her arms curled in a cradling movement, and she sighed. "I knew him then. I think it was a smell I recognized. I wonder if all mothers can tell their child by smell."

When she said no more, he responded. "I wouldn't be surprised. Animals can. Did it hurt a great deal to have to leave him with another woman as mother?"

"Not as much as you'd think. I'd learned to live with the pain of losing him, and Kathleen was so very, very happy. Once she was sure I wouldn't make trouble, she treated me as the most handsome benefactor on Earth. I was always welcome there, though I stayed away when Rupert was home. It was enough, it truly was, until she died. You know what happened then."

"Dunsmore discovered you were an heiress and decided to use the child to force you into marrying him. It really would be very easy to arrange his death."

She stiffened slightly. "But that would not give me Kieran."

"Perhaps we should just steal him away."

She twisted to look up at him. "And run off to America to live in the wilderness, just the three of us? Faith, but you're an impractical dreamer, Miles Cavanagh. Do you forget you're heir to Kilgoran?"

"I never forget I'm heir to Kilgoran. Do you think I value it over you?"

"You should. Kilgoran has many people dependent on the proper management of his estates. You can't walk away from it all anymore than I can walk away from my son."

He pulled her back into his arms. "This is beginning to feel too much like an Irish fable, one that ends in blood and weeping."

"Let me go to Dunsmore, and that'll be an end to it."

"It would only be the beginning, and you know it. I promised you I would not kill him. Will you give me the same promise?"

She tensed. "I can't. To protect my son, I will do anything."

That was what terrified him. "Then we had better find a solution to this mess."

Suddenly a small black creature leapt up to pad around the jacquard coverlet, occasionally catching threads.

"Watch your claws, Gardeen," said Felicity, picking up the cat and stroking her.

"I wonder if she's telling me it's time I left. It's true enough that last time I fell asleep in your bed, it didn't work out well." Miles took a piece of bread from Felicity's tray. "I missed most of my dinner for you, cailin."

"Oh, the bitter sacrifice." But she smiled at him, and the truth had torn down some of the barriers between them.

Miles slid his arm from behind her and rolled off the bed. "Leaving you now is a bitter sacrifice, a muirnin. But I'm determined to be a good guardian from here on."

"Good as in firm?"

"Indeed." Though he knew she understood the other meaning-that he would not make love to her.

"Then we are destined to battle. I will not stay here and wait on your pleasure. I intend to escape."

Miles leaned on one of the end-posts of the bed. "Felicity, think. There really is no point in your running off. Where would you go? You have no idea where Dunsmore is. He's doubtless following you, but he could be anywhere between here and Ireland."

"But how can we be sure he will follow me, not Kieran? What if he's stolen him..."

"He hasn't. Trust me on that. I'd back my mother against Dunsmore any day, and clearly you have never visited Kilgoran Castle."

"It's fortified?"

He laughed. "Far from it. It's a cold, classic monument. But it fair crawls with servants and is run on rigid lines. No one could sneak in there."

"It doesn't sound like a pleasant place for a child."

"It's not too bad. The nursery still contains the toys bought to amuse me and my brother and sisters. There's a fine fishing stream and a small ornamental lake ideal for children to go boating on, since it's barely two feet deep. But the grounds are always crawling with servants chasing down every weed and every blade of grass that dares to grow taller than its fellows. Your son is safe."

"I want to believe you."

"You can. My mother promised a letter as soon as she arrived. It should reach us within days. So, why not declare truce for a little while and wait for Dunsmore to contact you?"

She eyed him with a frown. "Truces seem to serve us no better than battles."

"This one will. I'm your guardian, and that's the only role I'll play for the next few weeks."

She raised a brow, as if disbelieving. "But how will Rupert contact me, held prisoner as I am?"

"If you give me your parole, you won't be a true prisoner. Once you receive a message, we'll know where he is and what he plans. So, until then, will you rest easy here?"

She looked at him steadily, still stroking the cat. It was a fierce pain that she could not trust him, but like a poorly handled horse, she would need time to let go of wariness. It wasn't Felicity he blamed but those who had hurt her through abuse and neglect.