Mischief by Moonlight (11 page)

“You mean you were curious about passion?” Was Edwina, too, feeling topsy-turvy?

“Apparently! But that's all—it was a sort of exploration on my part.”

Edwina gave her a hard look. “And don't be judging me, when you've doubtless been kissed soundly by Nicholas.”

Josie looked away, feeling like a sneak and a terrible fiancée and sister. She hadn't been thinking of the single, chaste kiss she'd shared with Nicholas, but the too-memorable one she'd placed on Colin.

“Yes, Nicholas kissed me. Only once, behind the oak tree at Jasmine House. It was lovely.”

There were about a hundred other things she could have said about kisses after what had happened with Colin, but listening to Edwina dismiss what she'd been doing with Whitby didn't encourage confidences about her own weakness.

Edwina snorted. “Lovely? I'm certain I shall never feel that way about kissing Whitby, of all people. He's the most arrogant man I've ever met.”

“But…” Josie said, peering at the fading blush on Edwina's face, “you liked it, didn't you? Maybe you like
him
.”

“Like Jack Whitby? A cabinetmaker? Are you out of your mind? In no way is he a gentleman. Never mind that I don't even like him.”

“I suppose,” Josie said. “Though I've often thought you don't like anybody.” She immediately felt terrible for being so blunt.

Edwina laughed, but it was a bitter sound.

“I'm sorry,” Josie said. “That was unkind. And not true, I know. Ever since we've come to London, you've seemed to take more pleasure in company.”

“No, there is truth in what you say.” Edwina dropped her eyes and began to pick at a thread on her cuff.

She knew Edwina would retreat behind her prickliness and reserve, and she felt such a sense that she mustn't. Though she was closer to Edwina than anyone but Colin (and now she didn't even know if she could count him), they never shared their deepest feelings. Josie had never spoken of her fears about choosing Nicholas, and if Edwina had second thoughts about what she wanted for her future, she'd kept them to herself. Mightn't it help if they could really talk?

“No, really, you mustn't think that. I expressed myself badly,” Josie said. “I think it's more that if you think people might not like you, you decide not to like them first.”

A vulnerable look came over Edwina's face. “I know I'm impossibly particular. I sometimes wish I weren't, but I can't seem not to be. Even Mappleton—I like him well enough, but he doesn't
dazzle
me the way ladies in novels are always being dazzled.”

But then she crossed her arms, as though regretting saying too much. As though the two of them couldn't really trust each other.

“What about Nicholas?” Edwina said.

“Yes, I did feel dazzled when I met him.”

“And now? After a year apart?”

Josie was about to admit that perhaps things had changed when Edwina said, “But how could you possibly not? He'll make the perfect husband.”

She didn't want a perfect husband—such a man didn't sound real at all. But she realized that Edwina, with her hopes for a wealthy, important husband, might not understand.

And yet, Josie suddenly felt certain that her sister had been stirred deeply by Whitby.

Was it like the way she herself had been stirred by Colin?

With a feeling of panic, she tried to conjure an image of Nicholas, even something so minor as the shape of his hands. Surely they were long-fingered, like Colin's, if perhaps not quite so long? But she couldn't remember.

“Josie?” Edwina said. “Why are you frowning?”

Josie lifted a trembling hand to push a lock of hair away from her eye. “It's London, isn't it? Ever since we came here, it's been doing strange things to us. You with Whitby. And I…I don't feel quite myself.”

“I am not ‘with' Whitby,” Edwina said tartly. “And I believe Mappleton is going to propose. He told me there's something he wants to discuss when he returns.”

Josie sucked in a breath. “Oh. So soon.”

“But you encouraged me to marry! And now you act as though my getting engaged wouldn't be good news.”

“It's just that Mappleton's so soft,” Josie said urgently. “You'll lose respect for him.”

“You're wrong,” Edwina said in a hard voice. “He's of good family, he's got money, he thinks I'm wonderful, and he can give me children. I don't want anything else from marriage.”

She swept out of the library, and Josie knew that, if anything, she'd only made Edwina want to marry Mappleton more. Why could they never
talk
to each other?

She was worried. Edwina saying she wanted to marry Mappleton when she'd just been kissing Whitby seemed an awful lot like desperation. She did realize that, considering what had happened between herself and Colin, this was the pot calling the kettle black, but that was different. She cared about Colin, however wrong that was. What a tangle everything had become.

She needed a walk to clear her head, so she summoned a maid and set out for the modest pleasure garden a few streets away, which was located behind a teahouse. She liked the garden because it had a pond with a graveled path around it, which was overhung prettily in several spots with arbors dripping with grapes and climbing roses. She told the maid she might sit on one of the benches while she, Josie, walked round the pond.

It was mid-morning, and the only people about were those interested in the teahouse. She had the path to herself for several laps, but as she emerged from a thickly vined arbor, she was startled to see a gentleman approaching.

His dark head was down, as if he were concentrating on something, but there was no mistaking who he was. He must have sensed her presence because he looked up and was clearly startled to see her there.

“Josie.”

“Colin.”

They hadn't spoken in days, not since she'd seen him with Lady Denborough, and the memory gave her an unpleasant twinge to go along with the awkwardness of standing there so stiffly with him.

After a moment, he said, “I hope you are well. And your sister.”

“Yes, thank you, we are. And you?”

“Quite.”

He pressed his lips together. She stood there frozen. Silence.

So it had come to this: all they had to say to each other were mundane courtesies. The knowledge stung, but considering what had happened at the ball, she supposed this must be for the best. Their gazes drifted apart, and the only thing left to say was “Good day.”

As they moved past each other, she wished so much that she'd never come to London.

She'd gone perhaps five steps when she couldn't stand it anymore, and she turned and called his name. He turned around, waiting, and she moved closer.

“I hate this awkwardness,” she said. There was so much else, none of which she could say, but this was the essential truth. She couldn't bear the distance that had grown between them.

She thought he wouldn't respond—he didn't move closer—but then he said, “Yes.” His voice sounded a little hoarse.

He was wearing her favorite of his waistcoats, which had a pattern of light and dark blue stripes, and it made her feel even more keenly how she'd missed him. “And I'm sorry that I was unpleasant when I met you at the ball with Lady Denborough.”

“I understood,” he said. “But my change in plans really was genuine. I didn't lie to you about not wanting to court women when you encouraged me to consider Edwina.”

“I know that now,” she said seriously. He looked fairly serious too, and she wished he'd smile, but Colin had never been one to be grinning all the time.

“Will you walk with me?” she asked.

“Very well.”

They set off on the path around the pond. Ahead of them, an elderly man was now strolling as well. The maid who'd accompanied Josie was still on the bench; she appeared to have fallen asleep.

***

Colin was struggling to listen to what Josie was saying. He'd been working hard in recent days not to think of her, and to put his feet on the sensible path of marriage to an appropriate woman. He'd moved on from Lady Denborough and the other fashionable widows, whom he'd found to be far too fashionable for him, and had since met a quiet lady named Miss Susanna Alcott, with whom he'd had a surprisingly enjoyable conversation at the opera. He meant to see her that night, at a dinner being held by his friend Hal.

So when he'd come upon Josie so suddenly, he'd been caught off guard. Her olive branch had touched the weak part of him that still wanted her desperately.

“I must tell you though,” Josie was saying, “that I worry about Edwina. It's wonderful that she's had such success here in Town, but I'm worried she's going to make a bad choice for her future.” She lowered her voice. “Lord Mappleton seems likely to propose.”

“Ah. Well, he's all right. She could do worse.”

“But surely she could do better. He's like a piece of dough. There's no force in him.”

“Perhaps it's a compromise she's willing to make.”

“But I don't think she should compromise on her future.”

Since Colin was heading in the direction of compromise himself, he had nothing to offer to this. They walked in silence for a few minutes, overtaking the old gentleman and passing under a long arbor that was heady with the scent of grapes.

He realized she'd been very quiet for a while, and when he glanced at her, she had an unhappy look.

“Colin,” she said softly, “I can't forget what I did at the ball. It was such a bad mistake.”

They couldn't talk about this. He couldn't. But he hated that she was suffering over it.

“We both made a mistake,” he said. “I know it can be hard letting go of mistakes, as if thinking about them over and over would allow us to go back and undo them. But we can't, and sometimes you just have to refuse to think about them anymore.”

She sighed heavily. “I think perhaps men are better at forgetting things than women. And I feel I've made quite a few mistakes of late. I feel quite flawed.”

“You just have to shrug and move on. For instance, last week I stopped to visit a friend and left with someone else's horse.”

“What, really?”

She laughed a little, and the sound made him realize how much he'd missed her liveliness. His life seemed so dull without it.

“That's so unlike you. Still, it wasn't intentional.” She paused. “I feel I ought to confess another stupid mistake, because it involved you.”

He glanced at her. “I can't think what you mean.”

“It really was a very silly thing, and I hope you'll see the humor in it.” She cleared her throat. “It happened at Upperton, back when I was thinking you and Edwina would make such a fine match.” She paused.

“Yes?”

“I'm actually fairly embarrassed to tell you this.”

“I'm sure it will be fine. Clearly it can't have been such a terrible mistake if I didn't even know about it.”

“Well…I happened upon a gypsy one day, and she told me this ridiculous but amusing business about a love potion, and how it was the very thing to help people find true love, and I thought of you and Edwina and decided to try it.”

He didn't like the sound of this. “You didn't.”

“I did. The gypsy assured me it was only some plant juice, completely harmless, and it sounded like a lark. So I put it in your tea one night when you came to Jasmine House.”

“You gave me a
love
potion
?”

“It was an idiotic thing to do, but I thought that, as you two had some very good things in common, it might work. And I didn't like the idea of either one of you being lonely in life, without a spouse.”

He was actually quite furious. He'd been nothing more than a pawn to her, to be moved around as she thought fit. Or kissed when the mood struck her, as it had at the ball. While to him she'd been the star shining in his sky, however much she shouldn't have been, she'd been making a fool of him.

“I'm so terribly sorry,” she continued. “It was incredibly high-handed of me, and I hope you didn't experience any ill effects of the potion.”

When he didn't respond, she said in a small voice, “Colin? Can you forgive me?”

He must be grateful she'd confessed about the potion. It was what he needed to hear—it would make him remember what he'd done after she'd given it to him, how it had released the bonds he kept on himself. He needed to remember himself yelling like a fool from the roof of Greenbrier, how his need for her had made him give in to emotion and indulge himself.

He needed to be reminded of how he might stumble, because knowing the way she'd responded to his kiss, he couldn't trust himself never to try for more.

“It was a mistake,” he said.

She nodded eagerly, a look of relief coming over her face. “I'm so glad you see that. I've worried about what that potion might have done to you,” she said ruefully. “My brothers gave it to Mr. Botsford—”

He stopped. They were just about to enter the grape arbor again. “I don't mean the potion,” he said, “though it certainly was a ridiculous thing to do. I mean that it was a mistake, our talking like this. The distance that had grown between us—it was for the best.”

The smile fell away and her eyes darkened unhappily. “How can you say that? I thought we were going to forget past mistakes. And…I hated how it felt, the distance between us. I missed you. I miss you still—I miss the way things used to be.”

He closed his eyes, needing to shut out her face, because he so wanted to touch her cheek and smooth all this away. “Don't. Don't miss me.”

“But—”

“Josie.” He must trust her with the truth. It would at least be an explanation for all those times when he would have to turn away from her. “I'm attracted to you. I'm
hideously
attracted to you. You have no idea how much I want to touch you.”