Mischief by Moonlight (3 page)

“I'll think about it. But simply taking a woman to London won't ensure her happiness, Josephine. Plenty of terrible marriages are made there.”

“I know.” Her blue eyes twinkled merrily. “It's incredibly lucky for me and Nicholas that you brought us together at Greenbrier.”

“Indeed,” he managed to say. He was beginning to wonder how much longer he could stand there talking to her, because once she began thanking him for bringing her and Nick together, the conversation always turned to Nick's fine qualities. And while his friend did have many, listening to Josie sing his praises made Colin wish he were deaf.

“Tell me again how you met him,” she said.

Not that story again. He knew why she loved to hear it—Nick came off heroically, and hearing about him was the closest she could get right now to being with him. Buoyant, roguish Nick, who made Colin laugh better than anyone. Underneath Nick's golden-boy looks and charm lurked a sharp mind and a competitive streak that had lured Colin into all manner of contests, though never once over a woman.

And
they
weren't in competition over a woman now.

A surge of jealousy coursed through him, but he told himself this was the best possible thing, that recounting Nick's deeds to Josie would strike a blow against every wrong thing in him that was yearning for her. He forced himself.

“It was the heady days of university,” he began in a long-winded tone, but she rolled her eyes, a long-suffering smile quivering at the edges of her lips.

“I know that. Get to the good part.”

He sighed theatrically, which made her laugh, thus defeating the purpose of telling the story to make himself face how much she was not for him. He got on with it, this medicine he needed to spoon down.

“I was punting on the Cherwell River and facing backward because I'd caught a fascinating view of some of the university buildings. Unfortunately, I had neglected to notice the low bridge ahead, and was knocked on the head as I passed under it and fell unconscious into the river.

“But fortunately for me, someone was walking by at that moment. This was one Nicholas Hargrave, Cambridge student, and as I was at the superior institution of Oxford, as yet unknown to me. He was strolling purposelessly along the banks, doubtless thinking of mundane things. Unfinished work, dreamy calculations of his athletic prowess, what he wanted for dinner. Old Nicholas—”

“Colin,” she interrupted with a satisfying note of exasperation, “you have to tell it the right way.”

“You mean in which he is thoroughly painted as Sir Galahad? It is painful to gush so about a man. But I suppose to please a lady…Well, Nick saw me disappearing under the water and dove into the Cherwell and pulled me out. And very gloating about it he was, too, when I finally came round, going on about how much better Cambridge punters are than Oxford punters.”

She was laughing heartily now, her eyes all lit up and crinkling at the edges, and even though she was laughing at him and enjoying the past triumph of her hero Nick, Colin was the one who'd made her laugh, and for just that moment, he allowed himself to be happy that he'd given her this pleasure.

“Ungracious of him,” he continued, “with me lying there, an enormous lump forming on the back of my head.”

“You never told me about the lump before. Poor you.”

“You don't seem very sorry for me.”

She put her hand on his forearm and squeezed gently. “Oh, Ivorwood, who could feel sorry for you? You're the perfect person to laugh at because you're the earl, and you already have everything.”

Right.

Something flickered in her eyes. “Except a wife, of course,” she said playfully.

Now here was a conversation he definitely didn't want to have with her.

He was saved by the sounds of someone beginning a lively tune on the pianoforte. It was young Matthew Cardworthy, who'd taken up the piano as a sort of challenge; he liked to play music at a vigorous pace with an ironic tilt of his head, though Colin perceived that the boy did in fact quite love playing, however much it was meant to be the province of ladies.

Mr. Biddle and his brother, with Mrs. Cardworthy calling out encouragement from her divan, were pushing aside the furniture in preparation for dancing, assisted by the boys' hunched, retiring tutor, Mr. Botsford. Colin almost groaned. It was his intention never to dance with Josie—to have her in his arms when she would never be his would be torture. Fortunately, he'd managed to avoid it so far on the few occasions when there'd been dancing.

She tipped her head up at him. A curly lock of her sable hair was bouncing comically against the blue bandeau she'd tied around her head, a small vulnerability that charmed him. The early summer evening was warm, and her cheeks glowed softly apricot. “Now you will finally have to dance with me, Colin.”

“I must certainly dance with Edwina first, as you are wanting me to ‘lend her consequence.' And then,” he said lightly, “there is the matter of the cow.”

This was a game they played, a necessary game for him, through which he'd managed to avoid ever dancing with her by coming up with nonsensical and fanciful excuses. It was part of the joke that each time he had to find a new, polite-seeming reason not to dance.

She inclined her head, joining in the game. “And which cow is this?”

“The one who even now is watching at the window—no, don't look, she's very testy. I shall have to go over and mutter Greek poetry at her. It's the only thing that stops her from charging about. Otherwise, she will certainly vault through the window and run about in here, ruining all your furnishings.”

She laughed and he moved off to find her sister.

Josie watched Colin bow to Edwina and take her hand while Matthew began a new tune that was almost too fast for dancing. How was it that she'd never thought before tonight of Colin as a suitor for Edwina?

The more she considered it, the more she believed she could wish no better mate for her sister. The difficulty was going to be that he was such a contented, solitude-loving bachelor.

He had friends of course—Nick, and any number of other gentlemen. He was not some shy, fumbling rube unable to be in company. No, he was perfectly able to be warm and witty, but he simply didn't much
need
company. And he seemed entirely content that after him the title would go to his cousin. But wouldn't he—wouldn't Edwina, too—be happier with a companion, someone to share life's joys and sorrows?

He was going to be something of a tough nut to crack, marriage-wise. But worth it, if her matchmaking skills could bring it off.

***

Later that night, unable to sleep, Josie took a candle and slipped down to her father's library. The neglected room had a quietude that seemed to welcome her wayward thoughts, and she went to the brandy decanter and poured a small measure and stood there drinking it.

It wasn't quite right, drinking alone, but she felt out of sorts and she didn't know what she wanted, and the brandy seemed to help.

Another sip, and with it a mutinous spurt of truth-telling. She
did
know what she wanted: to leave Jasmine House. She was twenty-two and engaged to the most wonderful man possible, and she wanted to get on with it. Get on with the leaving and the marrying and the life of which she dreamed.

But she was here, waiting. Existing.

She traced a heart in the light frosting of dust on the desk, putting in her initials and Nicholas's. She knew what she needed: patience. He'd been gone for so long, a year—and she was forgetting what he was like, and that scared her.

He sent letters from Spain, very properly addressed to her family. And she treasured them, but apparently they weren't enough. How greedy she was. Any other woman would have been satisfied even to have a fiancé, let alone one as wonderful as Nicholas Hargrave.

His latest letter had said he would be home in July, just over two months away. It had given her a feeling of panic. And maybe that panic
had
had something to do with the hair-cutting.

She took another sip of brandy, glad it burned on the way down, as though it could burn away all the things that were wrong with her. The doubts she shouldn't have about those six blissful weeks she'd spent getting to know Nicholas. The worries that he would feel differently about her now, after a year. And worst of all, the fear that marriage would make her feel like a caged bird.

How could she entertain such thoughts when he'd told her he loved her?

It had seemed brave, his speaking so easily of love. No one talked of love at Jasmine House. Deep emotions were kept hidden in her family, as though they were an embarrassment. The stiff upper lip and deprecating humor prevailed.

Nicholas was offering her a marriage that surely would be entirely different from what her parents had shared, and that was what she dearly wanted. Her parents' marriage might have looked tolerable, but it had never looked like love.

And she loved Nick, of course she did.

She threw back the rest of the brandy and almost cast up her accounts when it hit her stomach. This wasn't helping. Nothing could help because
nothing
was
the
problem
.

All she needed was to stop thinking so much. And not do rash things like cutting her hair off. Or far worse.

She forced herself to bring up the shameful memory, to acknowledge that she'd let a traveling horse trader take her for the ride of her life—and almost been discovered in his arms.

What
a
beauty
ye
are
, the young man had said when she'd happened upon him while out walking in a field.
As
welcome
a
sight
as
the
first
daffodil
of
spring.

He'd been walking his horse, and she shouldn't even have stopped to talk with him. But he'd had sparkling dark eyes and a lilting Irish accent, and she'd accepted his invitation for a gallop on his horse.

She was a pure young lady—so how could she have climbed up on a horse in front of a man she knew only as Sean and let him put his arms around her as they raced across fields yelling with joy?

And how could she have allowed him to press his lips against her neck while the horse walked? But she'd
liked
it—and been so caught up that she hadn't seen Mr. Whitaker coming around the bend in his cart.

Falling off Sean's horse as she flailed in surprise was the only thing that had saved her from being compromised in the arms of a stranger who wasn't even a gentleman.

No harm had come of her lapse in behavior. But she'd seen what she was capable of, how the thrill of abandoning rules and propriety might call to her like a siren song. When she met Nicholas a month later, she knew that, as wonderful as it was going to be to spend her future with him, marriage would also save her from her fatal impulsiveness.

She put the glass back with the decanter and resolved in that moment that there would be no more midnight brandy-drinking. She would focus on worthwhile things, the most important of which would be helping Edwina and Colin see how good they might be together.

The next day, Josie got started on her plan. She began by mentioning to Edwina that Colin had said she was looking especially fine the night before. Her sister was not impressed; as she was accustomed to everyone saying she was beautiful, this was nothing.

Josie continued her campaign by trying to steer Edwina toward Colin during his visits in the following days, suggesting to Edwina that he would be especially interested in hearing about the book she was reading, or her thoughts on formal gardens. But Edwina merely looked at her blankly.

Finally exasperated, Josie discreetly suggested that Edwina consider Colin as a suitor. This, unaccountably, made Edwina laugh.

“Ivorwood, courting? I can't imagine it. Can you see him telling a woman she's the light of his life and he must have her?”

Edwina had a point: that fatal reserve of Colin's. Well, fatal if you wanted him to be effusive. Unfortunately, Edwina had the idea that a suitor must treat her like a princess.

“Well, perhaps not those words. But he might say something nice.”

“If a man's not going to say those words or something like them to me, then he's not the man for me. But I think we all know marriage is not in my future anyway.”

Josie frowned. “You can't just give up on marriage because Mr. Perriwell behaved badly.”

Edwina's eyes darkened at the mention of the wealthy suitor their father had produced six years ago. Mr. Perriwell and Edwina had seemed to really like each other, and it had looked as though an engagement were imminent. But then their father had gotten sick with the illness that killed him, and Mr. Perriwell had stopped visiting. They heard later he'd married.

“I don't want to talk about this,” Edwina said, a husky note in her voice.

“But—you have to. I mean”—Josie lowered her voice—“at Jasmine House means dancing attendance on Mama while she refuses to leave the divan. And I know there will be a nice portion for each of us, but everything else will belong to Lawrence. After Mama…do you really mean just to live here with him and be a spinster aunt?”

Edwina shrugged dispiritedly. “I don't like to think too far into the future.”

Edwina was in other ways such a practical person—she kept all the household accounts, for goodness' sake—that her depressed view of her future made no sense.

“Anyway, life is unpredictable,” she continued. “Who says I won't perish before Mama?”

Josie rolled her eyes. “Now you're just being dramatic. But you can't give up on finding a husband before you've even begun. And wanting a fantasy man to sweep you off your feet is just another way of ensuring you don't risk your heart with a real man.”

“Josie,” Edwina said fiercely, “there's no point. I am nice to look at, but that's it. Even Papa told me I'd have to rely on my beauty, that I didn't have anything else to recommend me.”

Josie remembered how their father had sometimes said to Edwina,
You've got no spirit, gel, not like your sister.
Edwina had been prone to tears as a girl, and afraid of dogs and horses, which had annoyed their father—a man who'd valued boldness so much that he'd given his daughters mannish names. But he'd said so many ridiculous things, Josie had early on stopped paying attention—why hadn't Edwina?

“It was wrong of him to say that—surely you see that? Papa said all sorts of wrong things.”

A shadow flitted across Edwina's face, making her look surprisingly vulnerable. “Well, I certainly didn't have enough charms to keep Mr. Perriwell's attention.”

“That's ancient history. Forget about it.” Josie grabbed her hand and squeezed it encouragingly. “You do like Colin, don't you?”

“Yes, of course I do,” Edwina said with a sigh. “He's a lovely man. Smart and witty, and quite nice to look at.”

So Edwina
could
see his virtues.

“But it's ridiculous, the idea of him courting me,” she continued.

Only
because
you're not ready to embrace something good for yourself
, Josie thought. But if only Colin might court Edwina in the right way, who knew what might happen?

At least she'd already asked him to help with finding suitors for Edwina; surely this would force him to look up from his books and think about her, and then who knew but that they might really start to see each other?

True to his promise to help, Colin held a picnic on his estate the following week and invited every unmarried gentleman in the neighborhood—and, helpfully, a slightly smaller number of single ladies, making a group of about a dozen.

He was most hospitable at the gathering, deftly finding opportunities to present each gentleman to Edwina throughout the day. Though she was glad for the opportunities this afforded Edwina, Josie felt a little discouraged by the equanimity with which he offered other men to her sister, when he might be seeing Edwina as a prize he now wanted for himself.

But an incident near the end of the picnic luncheon gave her hope.

The guests were all sitting on blankets in the softly dappled shade of an old oak tree, and one of the ladies, Christabel Brown, had been holding court for some time. She was a pretty young woman with a tinkling laugh, and Josie had noticed that the men's eyes were drawn to her as often as they were to Edwina.

Miss Brown was delighting the group with tales of her young cousin. “An amazing, witty child! Only four, and he's already known for his advice. ‘You mustn't arrange your hair like that, Uncle,' he says to my father, ‘combing over the little bits of hair. It makes you look like a walrus.'”

There were shouts of laughter, and Mr. Trilby, a spry, witty young man sitting next to Edwina said, “Ho, the knave!”

“Yes,” she went on, her eyes twinkling, “and he told me I mustn't wear my pink muslin, as it doesn't flatter my figure!” More laughter.

Josie, glancing at Colin, saw him staring off into space as though he weren't paying attention.

Edwina sniffed and said, “He sounds rude. He should be corrected, or he'll end up truly unpleasant.”

A heavy silence greeted these words. Tact had never been Edwina's forte.

And then, murmured into the silence but easily intelligible by all, someone said, “
She
ought to know about being unpleasant. Got a talent for it, she has.”

Josie's eyes flew to her sister's face as titters broke out. Edwina, looking very stiff, opened her mouth, doubtless to say something truly unrecoverable, but Colin spoke first.

“I must agree with Miss Cardworthy,” he said, turning to bestow one of his rare smiles on Edwina. “Disrespectful children frequently grow into the most awful people. Now, who's for cake?”

And just like that, everyone was trotting out stories of people who'd grown up to be rude and selfish. Edwina had several examples to offer from literature, and they were met with amusement and acceptance that made Edwina blink with pleasure and smile her thanks at Colin.

Josie saw him smile back at Edwina, and strangely—it was like being hit with something—she had a momentary, strong reaction to the sight, as though it were wrong. As though, for some unknown reason, she didn't like that Colin had just rescued her sister.

She looked away and gave herself a sort of internal shake. She was
happy
for what Colin and her sister had just shared. It was just the kind of progress she'd been hoping for.

And it was perfect, she told herself sternly, when Colin chose to walk next to Edwina as the party left the picnic grounds, the two of them chatting happily about Shakespeare. Certainly she knew Colin better than Edwina did, and had been particular friends with him these many months. But he didn't
belong
to her—why should she feel funny about seeing him looking at Edwina with such pleasure?

What was important was that now things were progressing.

But over the next days, Josie began to grow impatient again as no more progress seemed to occur.

True, on Colin's visits to the Cardworthys, he now paid Edwina more attention, but his manner was as reserved as usual—in no way the sort of courting Edwina had said she wanted—and Josie began to despair again of their coming together after all. And yet she still felt they each deserved the happiness the other might bring them. Their shared smiles the day of the picnic had been so warm.

By the end of the second week, Josie had grown so frustrated with Colin's reserve that, while sitting with him in the garden at Jasmine House, she spoke more directly.

“Ivorwood, don't you think Edwina looks especially lovely today?”

He glanced at her. “Yes, certainly. Yellow is a most becoming color for her.”

“Why don't you go and talk to her?”

“About what?”

“Oh, anything,” she said as nonchalantly as possible.

His eyes settled on her, and she was startled for a moment by something sharp in them. “Josie, I am not in need of a matchmaker.”

Caught
. Still, perhaps it was best now to be plain.

“But come, Colin, perhaps you are. After all, you are an only child and an earl. And, poor you, an orphan.”

He gave her a dry look. “My parents were still alive and making each other miserable when I was twenty.”

“Nevertheless, there is no one now to press you toward marriage. You ought to have a countess, and yet you behave as though marriage never occurs to you. How can you think of letting the title go to your cousin? Don't you ever mean to fill your nursery with little Pearces?”

He inhaled what sounded like a long-suffering breath, which was odd since it wasn't as though she'd tried to steer him toward marriage before.

“Josephine. Setting aside the fact that you are an unmarried lady of only twenty-two and thus can have little insight into matchmaking, I would point out that a thirty-year-old man need hardly rush into marriage.”

“Rush! I can't imagine you've ever rushed into anything in your life. You're so deliberate.”

“I am not ready to marry,” he said firmly, “and would therefore make any woman a miserable husband.”

He was resistant—what, really, should she have expected?—but Josie noticed that he hadn't said he
didn't
fancy Edwina. She would take that as a hopeful sign. And he had been so particularly thoughtful toward Edwina at the picnic. Sweet, really.

“But
why
don't you wish to marry? Why, when you are all alone at Greenbrier? It must be positively echoing there. And heaven only knows what you do in Town.”

“I do have a
few
friends, Josie.”

“Of course you do. You know very well that
I
think you're a lovely man. The nicest man imaginable.”

There was that sharp flicker in his eyes again. “You don't know that I'm nice.”

A raspy note in his voice made the little hairs on the back of her neck stand up in an exciting way that startled her. She blinked. Was he teasing her? Though he didn't look amused.

“But of course you are nice.”

She thought she heard the sound of teeth grinding.

“You have no idea how many things about me are not
nice
at all.”

“Nonsense,” she said, though she felt another prickling along her neck and supposed she was fidgety from drinking too much tea after lunch. “And you can be completely charming when you wish, only you don't seem to wish to charm the young ladies very often. So I don't see how you shall ever get on with the right sort of women—the ones who will like you for yourself and not for your wealth and title.”

“I assure you I'm content to wait until I'm able to discern who is merely after my money.”

“You are being contrary. Doubtless you're used to doing exactly as you wish, being that you're an only son with no one about to gainsay you. You've likely become spoiled, indulged as you are by your servants.”

“Very likely. And I should therefore be little more than a curse as a husband.”

She groaned. “But you like Edwina.”

“I do.”

She wished he would elaborate, but he didn't.

“A wife would keep you civilized,” she pointed out.

“My cousin Nathaniel may have the title with my blessing. He's a good fellow, and he already has children.”

She tipped her head. “Is all this because your parents didn't have a happy marriage? I was so much younger when they died, and you never speak of them.”

He gave a bark of laughter. “Who knows how many dishes they broke against the walls over the years?”

“Oh, Colin, I didn't know,” she started to say in a soft voice, but he cut her off.

“I've no need of sympathy. A person can develop great self-reliance in such situations, so I would say that I thank them.”

She slid a glance toward the house, where on the other side of the sitting room window her mother could be seen reclining on the divan with a plate of cake. The bright pink and orange shawl that had been draped over the back of the divan the night of the party was still there, giving Mrs. Cardworthy the look of some raja's indulged wife nibbling sweetmeats.

“My parents didn't have a wonderful marriage either, but I have hope for myself. I think we
must
have hope that we will do better.”

He didn't say anything for a moment, and her fervent words hung in the air. Finally he said, “I'm sure you're right.”

She narrowed her eyes. “No you're not. Why, Colin Pearce, I never realized what a pessimist you are.”

“Yet another reason I'd make an unpleasant spouse. So,” he said briskly, “I trust I'll hear no more of matchmaking.”

“Oh, very well,” she said with an ill grace that seemed to make his lips twitch, “I shall say no more about it.”

***

Josie was walking through the woods the next day with a basket of things she'd bought in town. Pretty blue wildflowers decorated the path generously to either side, and she was glad she'd taken the long way home, though now she was remembering that the gypsies who sometimes stopped in the woods had returned.