Mischief by Moonlight (21 page)

“Would you mind fetching me a lemonade?”

She watched him go back in through the doors of his grand manor. Tall, with that rangy frame, his clothes hung on him beautifully, the costly, impeccable attire of an earl who could have bought up her family's estate and thrown it away without feeling the least pinch.

Could he possibly feel as unsure and reckless as she did right now?

Could he ever open himself to her the way she dreamed of her husband opening to her? She wanted a union of souls, and she and he had had that in many ways as friends. But the unruly, emotional way she was feeling right now—could he feel that way? Could he love her, and could love grow between them when he seemed to want to avoid undisciplined feelings? She was afraid of getting her heart broken trying to find out.

She gazed out over the garden and wished she were wiser.

As her eyes adjusted to the darker area beyond the light thrown out by the ballroom, she thought she detected some movement at the back of the garden, near the path that led toward Jasmine House. Was someone coming?

The feeble light played tricks on her, so that in one moment she thought she saw movement, and the next she was certain it was only those harmless little floating spots that sometimes appeared in her vision.

“Is someone there?” she called out, though the music had started up again in the ballroom, and it wouldn't have been easy to hear her. Was someone coming along the path from Jasmine House? “Is that you, Matthew? Will?”

No one replied, but out of the deep shadow of the big lilac bushes she was certain now that she saw a figure emerging. Someone tall, she made out as the shadowy figure moved closer, and wearing high, well-shined boots that caught the moonlight. Her brothers didn't have boots like those.

A shiver ran down her spine. Why hadn't the man responded? Was he a party guest just arriving? But why was he arriving at the back of the house, and from the direction of Jasmine House? The Cardworthys weren't expecting any visitors.

And then, as the man drew close, something tugged at her, something familiar about the way he moved. The moonlight caught the outline of curly hair and touched on the military erectness of the man's posture. She understood who it was just as he spoke to her from perhaps fifteen feet away.

“It's you, isn't it, Josie.”

That
voice.
His voice. Yes. It was. It was Nicholas.

But she couldn't reply because it was as though all the air had been sucked out of her lungs. She could only stare as he drew nearer, and take in the now dimly visible details of his face and the forgotten way he swung his arms.

And then he was standing before her at the edge of the terrace. “Josie?”

She stood and found her voice. “Nicholas. You're here,” she said stupidly, her voice hoarse.

His lips slanted ruefully. “The rumors of my death were somewhat exaggerated. I'm sorry to appear like this—it must be rather a shock.”

He paused, and neither of them said anything, but just looked at each other. “I've just come from your mother,” he said finally. “She sent me on here.”

“Yes, of course,” Josie said, drawing in a steadying breath to calm herself from the shock of seeing him. In the greater light afforded by the ballroom candles, his brown eyes shone with something that looked like eagerness. “And it is simply amazing to see you. Astonishing.” Her voice was dry, and she was grateful for the darkness, because she thought guilt must be written all over her features.

She had, only moments before, been kissing Colin.

Never mind what had happened in London.

And here was her fiancé, back from the dead. If ever there were a time to faint, this would be it. She rather wished she could, or that a hole would open up and drop her away to some place where she could sort out everything that had happened in the last few months.

“Josie, Josie,” he said warmly, shaking his head, “I can't begin to tell you how good it is to see you. If you only knew how thoughts of you have sustained me all this time.” He laughed softly. “And how I wish,” he said in a low, private voice, “that we had married long ago.”

She could only stare, unable to speak.

“Nicholas?” said a deep voice behind her.

Oh
God.
Colin.

Josie's thoughts, barely recovered from the shock of Nicholas's appearance, began to race. Colin was standing there holding the lemonade she'd asked for, an astonished expression on his face.

How much had he heard?

“Is it really you, Nick?” he said.

“Colin, old boy,” Nick said with a smile, “you look like you've seen a ghost, and I can't blame you.”

“My God,” Colin breathed.

Josie could only watch as the men stepped forward to embrace, Colin handing her the lemonade as he did so. The heartiness of their embrace could leave no doubt as to how happy each was to see the other.

When they stepped apart, Colin said, “What happened? We were told you were mortally wounded in battle near a burning building, that you were missing but couldn't have survived.”

Nicholas shook his head even as Josie still struggled to take in his presence. He was real, he was here. He was alive and safe, thank heaven.

“I nearly didn't survive. I was wounded in the gut, the kind of injury that's generally fatal, but it seems someone dragged me to safety, and I was still alive when the French came through the field after the battle. Being that I was an officer and thus possibly of use, they carted me off along with their wounded.”

“And for your family and friends to be told you were dead,” Josie said, thinking of all the suffering and trouble that had ensued. “What a thing.”

Colin's attention was all on Nicholas. He seemed calm and clearly so happy to see his friend. As happy as she was. But oh, what a coil.

“Have you been to see your sister and brother yet?” Colin asked. Nicholas's parents were dead.

Nicholas shook his head. “I wrote them, but after stopping to see my commander, I wanted to come here first,” he said, looking at Josie.

To see her.

Guilt stabbed her. She could feel Colin's eyes on her, but she absolutely couldn't look at him. If she'd thought she wanted the ground to open before, that was nothing to now.

Nicholas was here, and he'd had an awful, awful time of it, and right now could only be about him and the welcome he deserved. She took his hand. “I'm so grateful to those who took care of you.”

***

Colin watched Josie take Nick's hand. Relief and happiness ran through him in equal measures, along with the awareness that Nick's arrival also meant complications.

But Nick was back, and thank God for that.

He'd escaped certain doom at the hands of the French if discovered as a spy, which meant possibly that he'd had help from his French lady-spy, Colin thought, then pushed the idea away. He didn't care how Nick had been saved, only that he was alive.

Josie smiled at Nick, and a hideous, profoundly unwanted bolt of jealousy shot through Colin.

“I'm sure you will be giving people apoplexies right and left, Nicholas,” she said.

Nick laughed, and the warm look that passed between him and Josie made Colin wish he were anywhere else. At the bottom of a swamp, alone in a desert—anywhere but here, where he could see the affection between Josie and Nick.

He felt wretched, as though he'd always had designs on Josie and acted on them the minute he was able. It wasn't true—he'd struggled hard against it becoming true, and only succumbed in a moment of weakness—but it felt true, and it would look terrible should Nick discover what he'd been up to with Josie.

He didn't know how he was going to do this—be with the two of them—especially now that he'd touched and known her. Holding himself back with her since he'd returned from London had been excruciating, but he'd done it, knowing he must win her over to the idea of them.

And now all that was smashed. Nick was here. If only he'd come home two months ago, before Colin had touched her, he would have been able to cope, to remain detached.

Damn, damn, damn!

He forced a genial smile. “You two must have quite a bit to say to each other after all these months apart. Why don't I give you some time to catch up while I go play host to all these guests? And then I can make an announcement, and Nick can come in and have a hero's welcome.”

Nick made a wry face. “The public welcome. Not as wonderful as the private one. And I want to hear about everything I missed while I was dead, Colin. Have you solved all of history's riddles? How's the soldiers' hospital doing? And,” he said with a mischievous look, “have you found a woman yet to be your countess?”

Colin could feel Josie's eyes on him, doubtless desperately wondering what he would say, whether he would reveal anything of what had gone between them.

“All in good time, Nicholas,” he said. “You'll stay at Greenbrier of course.”

Nick grinned. “I'd hoped you wouldn't mind. My carriage is waiting at Jasmine House.”

“I'll have someone sent over to bring your things.” Colin took out his watch. “Why don't I give you twenty minutes, and then I'll make the announcement.”

“By Jove,” Nick said exuberantly, “but I can't tell you both how good it is to be here!”

***

“Well,” Nicholas said to Josie with a laugh as Colin disappeared through the doors to the ballroom, “where to begin?”

Josie was glad for his laughter to ease some of the tension she was feeling, though she was afraid that if she started laughing herself, she'd surrender to hysteria.

“Begin by telling me everything,” she said. “Tell me how you got here.”

So he told her about his wounds, and how his recovery had taken weeks and weeks.

“I could barely even speak my name for the longest time, I was so weak. Then it took time to get strong again. But once I was well, a French doctor smuggled me out on a boat to England. The chap didn't care a fig for Napoleon, from what I gathered, and he couldn't stand the idea that he'd saved me only to have me be hanged for a spy.”

“A spy!” Josie said. “And were you?”

“Let's just say,” he replied in a low voice, “that it wouldn't have been good for any of us soldiers if I'd been forced to talk. So I'm doubly lucky to have gotten away.”

A soft look came over his face. “But I've been thinking, ever since I realized I might truly see you again. You've believed these last few months that I was dead, believed that our engagement had been ended by death. I don't think it's fair to you to simply pick up where we left off a year ago, and I have a plan to which I hope you'll agree.”

***

At the end of a set of dances, Colin moved to the center of his ballroom and called for the attention of his guests. Then he introduced Nick as the hero he was, and stepped to the side and watched as his friend received richly deserved, thunderous applause.

With a gracious and humble smile, Nick thanked the guests for their good wishes.

“And I must extend my gratitude publicly to the French doctor who couldn't stand the idea that, I, his patient, would be tortured for information as soon as I was well. He helped me escape, so you see, not all Frenchmen are devils.”

Laughter and a few ironic cheers for “the frogs” amid cries of “
one
good man among 'em.”

Through it all, Josie looked on saucer-eyed. Colin would have given anything to know what she was thinking, but he had to suppose he wouldn't like what he discovered.

Finally, Nick summoned Josie to his side.

“More than a year ago I met dear, beautiful Josephine Cardworthy for the first time. We only had a short time together before I had to return to Spain, and then, after what was a very long year for both of us, she received the news of my death. I'm certain you'll all agree that our path has not been smooth.”

Cheers and shouts of “hear, hear!”

“Which is why”—Nick turned to Josie, who was smiling stiffly—“I have asked her to set aside our engagement so that I can have the pleasure, and the delightful challenge, of courting and winning her all over again.”

The room erupted into cheers.

And indeed, Colin himself was far from unaffected by this news.

***

Much later, after Josie had danced twice with Nicholas and had a few minutes to talk and laugh with him in between all the people who wished to congratulate him and hear about his experiences in Spain, she saw him speaking with their voluble vicar and knew this was her chance to talk to Colin.

Ever since Nicholas had appeared, she'd been in agony—of happiness at his return, and guilt over all that happened while he was gone, all of which must now be put aside. It was for the best anyway.

The hope dawning tonight that there might really be something between her and Colin had been wishful and foolish, she saw that now. Nicholas had a right to her affections. And she knew that the kind of man she needed for her husband must be open, like him. She'd only been deluding herself over Colin.

Little waves of panic kept washing over her. Colin
must
know that Nick could never learn what had passed between them.

Surely he knew it?

She found him near the door to the entrance hall, having a word with his butler. She waited until they were finished, then grabbed Colin's hand and tugged him through the foyer. He didn't say anything as she led him into the library and shut the door behind them. She flopped back against it.

“What are we doing?” he said.

“We have to talk. Nick can't know anything of what happened between us. No one can know. Everything will have to go back to the way it was before he left for Spain.”

Saying these words felt horrible. What had passed between her and Colin over the last months had been mysterious and sometimes thrilling, but it had also felt as if her heart had been tossed in a cart pulled by a spooked horse. It didn't matter, though, what had happened between them, because Nick was back and she owed him her devotion.

“But Nick's just said that you won't go back to the way things were,” Colin said. “That you are not now engaged.”

She pressed her lips together. “He still wants to marry me. You heard him: he wants to court me all over again.”

He didn't reply but looked at her steadily, those familiar, intelligent, gray-green eyes weighing her. She knew the sudden, insane desire to rush into his arms and weep with emotional fatigue and confusion, but he wasn't her confidant and older-brother figure anymore.

His silence was starting to feel like an accusation. Finally she said, “You know that Nicholas and I were meant to be married—it was only circumstance keeping us apart.”

“Was it.”

He was being so cool, so controlled, and what else should she expect, or even want from him? It was the way he was. And cool control was what they needed. But there was something
leashed
about him now, too, that made her uneasy.

“So you'll promise never to speak of what happened between us.” She tried to read his eyes as she'd once felt able to do, but they were shadowy now, when she so needed to know what he was thinking.

“No. I can't promise that.”

“What?” She blinked. “You have to. It will be a disaster if he finds out.”

“I don't agree with you. In fact, I wonder if we shouldn't tell him right now.”

“Are you out of your mind? He would hate us both.”

Anguish darkened his eyes. “Maybe. Probably at first.”

The muscles of his jaw worked, as though he were clenching his teeth. “He is like a brother to me, and I rejoice that he is here and well. I so want for him to be happy. But things have shifted since we thought he was gone, and it would be false to simply paper over that fact. It would be unnatural.”

“I made a promise to him,” Josie said. “He's told me how that promise was a beacon for him. He's a good man, about whom I care very much.
There's nothing else to say
.”

“Josie,” he said in a hard voice, “you two were engaged for a year, during which time neither of you saw each other. You don't even know him very well, do you? Do you know all that he's capable of?”

“I don't know what you're trying to get at.”

He frowned but didn't say more, and looked away over her shoulder. If anything, his jaw looked harder.

“Obviously,” she said, “I don't know him as well as I might, but we connected deeply enough a year ago to pledge ourselves to each other.”

“Marriage is for life, Josie. It would be wrong to marry a man for whom you didn't care deeply, simply because you once said you would.”

Impatient anger rushed over her, that he, who'd never spoken to her of devotion, should talk about caring deeply. “How dare you think to say whom I hold in my affection?”

Before she could even react, he'd moved closer and grabbed her by the shoulders and leaned in, his eyes penetrating deep into hers. “How dare I? I'm the man with whom you shared the deepest embrace of your life. The man who knows you far better than Nicholas—knows your faults as well as your virtues—and wants you, all of you.”

His eyes blazed into hers, and his words lit something inside her. She wanted to listen to him, but she didn't trust herself. So he wanted her. Wanting wasn't loving.

She tipped her chin up. This was how it had to be.

“I'm not changing my mind, and I shall certainly accept Nicholas if—when he asks again. He's the man I want as my husband.”

She thought his breath gave a hitch at her words. Even now, when she knew absolutely that she shouldn't, she wanted to sway into him and feel the comfort of his embrace.

His eyebrows drew into two black slashes. “I don't believe that.”

His forceful tone startled her, but she crossed her arms and faced him down. “You'll have to.”

He stepped closer. “And you think that just turning away from what we have together is going to work. That you can simply forget it.”

“We don't have anything together but friendship,” she said firmly.