Mischief by Moonlight (4 page)

Her mother was afraid of them, but they seemed peaceful to Josie, and as she drew near their camp, she heard the cheerful sounds of laughter and music being played on a stringed instrument. It was a pretty tune, and as she walked, it made her smile. Nicholas had written that he and his men had been trading with gypsies, and perhaps he'd heard similar music.

Her wandering thoughts were doubtless why she didn't see the old woman sitting on a rock until she was practically in front of her. Obviously one of the gypsies, she wore a kerchief over her hair and a dusty man's waistcoat over her dress. As Josie drew near, she wished the woman good day.

“Mistress,” the woman said, dipping her head. “Tell your fortune?”

“Oh—no, thank you,” Josie said, meaning to keep walking.

The old woman chuckled, then started to cough and cough, and it seemed uncaring to simply continue on. Josie was on the verge of pounding her on the back when the woman sucked in a long breath and the coughing abated.

“Give me your hand, girl, and I'll look into your love-future.”

“No, truly,” Josie began, but then the gypsy's words caught her attention. “What do you mean, my love-future?”

“Your hand, my lady, and I'll tell you what is in the heart of your true love.”

The idea that looking at Josie's hand could allow the woman to know anything about Nicholas's heart made her want to laugh.

But. There
were
those restless, doubting feelings about Nicholas that nagged her no matter how she tried to avoid them. Tentatively she held out her hand.

The crone stroked a fingertip across it. “All is not well,” she said after a few moments.

“Pardon?”

“The man. He does not understand love.”

This was hardly what she'd expected—she'd imagined some cheering story meant to inspire a tip—and she tried gently to pull her hand back. But the gypsy held on firmly.

“Oh, well,” Josie said carelessly, “who does understand, really? Isn't love supposed to be a mystery?”

The gypsy flicked her a glance, as if irritated that she wasn't properly concerned. “There is trouble ahead. The course of love may not run smooth. It may not run at all.”

These words sent a shiver down Josie's spine, as if this woman had looked into her heart and seen the hesitation there. Seen down to the untrustworthy part of her that had felt bottled up for so long and that yearned for something she couldn't name.

She told herself not to be stupid. The woman's words were meaningless, made up to create an illusion.

Yet she couldn't let go of the unsettled feeling that had come over her. What if, when she and Nicholas could finally be together, being together wasn't as wonderful as she'd remembered it? What if her dreams for their future were all wrong?

“Oh,” she said quietly.

The gypsy's eyes narrowed. “You can help it along.”

“How's that?”

“The course of love. I have a potion.”

Oh, good heavens, a potion! But this silly suggestion had at least broken the spell. “Thank you, but no.”

A piercing green gaze met hers. “You scorn what you do not understand. But the ways of your people are complicated, and often the wrong people marry each other.”

Well, that was certainly true. But why was she standing here getting advice about life from someone who lived in the woods?

“I really must be going.” Josie tried again to pull her hand back, but the older woman had a very firm grip.

“Don't be a fool!” the crone said vehemently. “He will never be able to love you if you don't act. And you will miss out on the love of your life.”

The words poked deeper at that little seed of anxiety.
The
love
of
her
life.
That was what she so hoped for, what she dreamed about. Nicholas was the love of her life, of course he was.

He'd said he loved her.

She was foolish and weak to doubt their future, to be listening to this woman who knew neither of them.

Before Josie could speak, the woman reached into a pocket in her coat and pulled out several objects: a root and two small bottles. Finally releasing Josie's hand, she selected one of the bottles and pushed the other items back into the pocket.

“Take this,” she said, grabbing Josie's hand again and pressing the bottle into it. “All that is needed is to put three drops—no more!—into the man's drink, then let him see the one he is meant to love.”

Josie stared at the bottle with its tea-colored liquid. Even though she hardly believed in such things as love potions, an idea was forming in her mind about what this potion might do.

An idea that had nothing to do with the connection she and Nicholas had formed.

But no, it was beyond ridiculous.

“Thank you,” she said, “but I don't believe in magic.”

“Is something magic because we cannot explain it?” The gypsy shrugged. “The potion is made partly from the seeds of a beautiful vine from the hot climates across the southern ocean, given to me by a friend who journeyed there. There, people take the seeds to open their minds. Here, we have nothing similar.” She tapped the bottle. “Except in your hand.”

Perhaps she could tell that Josie was a little tempted, because she folded Josie's fingers over the bottle. “Where it is needed, it can help. Where it is not needed, it will do no harm.”

Where
it
is
needed
. Josie did know somewhere a love potion might be needed. If such a thing might really work.

She felt a little charmed by the fairy-tale quality of the whole thing. What if she did try—with Edwina and Colin? What if this potion might be just the little push needed to get Colin to wake up to the idea of courting Edwina?

He seemed to have something against marriage, and with parents who'd apparently been very unhappy, that was somewhat understandable. But he was too good a man to be so grim on the subject of companionship, too good a man to be always alone. And he'd showed that he cared for Edwina.

Using the love potion was a wild idea. And yet, what did she—or any of them—have to lose?

Josie dug in her reticule for a coin for the gypsy, ignoring the voice of reason that pointed out she was spending her money on plant juice. If there were even the slightest chance it might help, it was worth it.

Now she just needed to find the right moment to give the potion to Colin in Edwina's company. Perhaps she could do it at tea the next time he stopped by Jasmine House.

“One more thing,” the crone said. “Do it tonight—there will be a full moon.” She winked. “We gypsies respect the power of the moon. It will enhance the potion.”

“Oh. Very well.” Josie would send him a note then, and invite him to come for an evening visit that night. Perhaps the shadowy cover of night was better anyway for using potions—she didn't want to be caught looking as though she were trying to poison him.

Colin had been happy to receive Josie's invitation to come for an evening visit, but now that he was sitting with the Cardworthys drinking a late-evening cup of tea, he knew himself to be a fool. Not because the conversation kept threatening to divert to a discussion of fichus, though it was a topic that would never fascinate him, but because Josie looked so beautiful tonight in her plain cream gown he'd seen a hundred times that it was making him contemplate writing to Nick to say that he'd better hurry up and return.

What the devil was taking Nick so long, anyway? He ought to have found some way to return months ago and made Josie his wife and taken her away. Nick was a fool.

Josie was talking about the merits of poetry now—he guessed she didn't want to discuss fichus either—and he felt tempted to start a debate with her, to rile her and make the color come into her cheeks and her blue eyes flash. To make her lose her composure and engage with him, if only in words, which was the only way he could connect with her. It was a wrong idea, but he still wanted it, the way a hungry person yearned for food.

He dragged his gaze away from the pink scarf she'd tied in her hair, which echoed the rosy color of her lips, and settled them on Edwina, who was sitting in the chair next to him. Mrs. Cardworthy was, as usual, draped on the divan.

“Have some more tea, Colin,” Josie said.

He gave her his cup and forced himself to think of topics that would take his mind from her: Henry the Eighth, the Puritans, his tenants.

“Oh,” she said, standing up with his cup, “I think there's a tiny crack in it. Let me just see.”

She went over to the window, apparently to use the light of the full moon, which was spilling in through the glass and brightening the room considerably in addition to the candles. She stood there, facing away from them and examining the cup for what seemed like a long time, but then she turned around and said, “No, I was wrong. It's perfectly fine.”

She came back to the table and poured him some tea. She knew just how he liked it, and he watched her stir in the milk. He'd once found a glove of hers that had been left behind one winter evening when her family had come to Greenbrier, and held it up against his own hand and marveled that anything so small and slim as her hand could accomplish tasks.

He accepted the tea but refused the plate of biscuits she held toward him because he knew he wanted to take one only because
she
was offering it. The biscuits were some Indian confection that Mr. Cardworthy had called sweet
kachoris
. They weren't bad, though they were extremely dense, and Colin wondered at the faithfulness of the recipe Cardworthy had provided his cook. The Cardworthy children, who'd grown up with them, ate them happily. He sipped his tea and looked at the carpet and thought about the Puritans some more.

In the middle of listening to Mrs. Cardworthy talk about the shocking cost of linen, he began to feel a little strange. A bit drowsy, though not exactly as if he were tired. More like dull-headed.

Josie's voice forced him to focus. “Ivorwood, have you seen the beautiful painting of violets that Edwina made yesterday?”

“I…no, I haven't had the pleasure.” What was wrong with him? Blurriness teased the edges of his vision.

“Do go show it to him this instant, Edwina,” Josie said with cheerful enthusiasm. “Then we can discuss it.”

“Whatever would there be to discuss?” Edwina said. “It's a picture of flowers.”

Josie cleared her throat. “Ivorwood is a connoisseur of art. Doubtless he'll have thoughts to offer. Just go look at it, you two.”

Colin couldn't think why Josie kept going on about this painting, but he seemed to lack the focus to come up with any direction of his own. He stood up.

“Edwina?” he said, offering her his arm. She stood and walked with him over to the far corner of the room, where an easel held her painting.

“It is indeed very handsome,” he said, feeling that his words were now blurry as well. Could words be blurry? Why was he thinking about this? He must be coming down with something. He forced himself to offer some compliments about the composition, though it smeared before his eyes into shifting purple blobs.

“Thank you, Ivorwood. But I don't know why Josie sent us over here. She's being strange.”

“Actually,” he said, “I'm beginning to feel strange myself.”

He closed his eyes, focusing his thoughts. When he opened them, Josie was coming toward them.

“Are you all right, Ivorwood?” Mrs. Cardworthy called from her divan.

“Just finding myself quite tired all of a sudden. I'd best go. If you will excuse me please, ladies?”

“Colin?” Josie said in a voice that seemed oddly urgent. He couldn't think what was so urgent. He couldn't really think at all.

He said good night and made his way in a stupor to the back garden. As soon as he was outside, he felt, bizarrely, as though the enormous full moon were focused solely on him, as though it were somehow his special companion as he stumbled along the path to Greenbrier.

Somewhere along the way, though, the fatigue pulling at him shifted into a surging feeling of delight and a wonderful sort of freedom the likes of which he'd never known before. Suddenly he felt empowered and infinitely alive, and he began to run, on fire with urgent purpose, the pulsing energy of the big moon spurring him on.

When he reached Greenbrier, he tore through the front door and hardly took note of anything as he rushed euphorically upward, taking one staircase after another until he reached the top.

***

Colin rolled and tossed uncomfortably, not quite awake as the images of a dream tormented him. His bed was hideously uncomfortable, and he felt strangely damp, but it was the piercing brightness battering his eyes that finally dragged him from a heavy sleep.

A bright ray of sun burned into his face, and he shifted his head and blinked as his vision adjusted to a wide view of sky and a stone wall. No, it was
battlements
, which the sun's rays were just now cresting.

Good God. He was lying on the roof.

He'd apparently
slept
on the roof of Greenbrier.

He lay there, blinking up at the blue morning sky.

And that dream. He'd dreamt of Josie, and it had been more than a dream; it had been a vivid erotic fantasy. Josie, in a diaphanous blue gown, crawling toward him, her small, soft breasts catching fascinatingly on the fabric as she went.

He swallowed hard.

From his right came the sound of a throat clearing.

He sat bolt upright. His butler stood by the door to the roof.

“My lord,” he said. “I trust you are well.”

Colin paused. More memories of the night before were crashing over him, and they weren't good. No, surely he hadn't…

“Ames, yes, I am well.”

Neither of them said anything as Colin stood up and brushed himself off.

“I'm afraid I had some bad tea,” he said.

But no, that couldn't be it—the effect had been immediate, and the Cardworthys had seemed fine. He could remember being at Jasmine House vividly now—the initial fatigue, leaving quickly (thank God he had), and the feeling of exultation that had come over him as he made his way home in the extra-bright light of that full moon. Maybe some kind of moon madness had come over him. Lunacy, certainly.

“Or something,” he continued. “Perhaps some temporary fever I picked up in town. In any case, I wasn't feeling quite myself last night.”

“No, my lord,” Ames agreed equably.

“Did I…” Colin said, “that is, did you happen to hear anything last night?”

Another throat clearing. “I believe you shouted several times. You had already stopped by the time I arrived to make certain all was well.”

“I see.”

“You insisted you wished to ‘sleep under the moon that shelters us all,' was how I believe you put it.”

He'd spoken that drivel? What had
come
over
him last night?

“Could you hear what I was yelling?”

“It was rather hard, but it sounded like ‘Posy.' Or”—there was a pause—“might have been ‘Josie.'”

“It must have been Posy,” Colin said firmly, pushing down a bolt of horror. “I saw a very nice posy at the market yesterday. Must have taken my fancy.”

“Very good, my lord.”

Colin sent Ames away and leaned out over the battlements, needing to understand how he'd broken nearly every bond he'd placed on his behavior.

The roof offered him an expansive view of a large swath of countryside, but all too close was Jasmine House, with its unruly garden and unusual jasmine-covered chimneys. So close they might have heard him yelling. Though probably not
what
he was yelling.

Josie was there, possibly still sleeping, innocently unaware that nearby was a man who wanted to do wicked things to her. She would be there at Jasmine House until Nick finally came back and took her away, a daily temptation.

Had he not left the Cardworthys abruptly last night, he might easily have revealed what must never be spoken. This was appalling.

All this time, he'd thought himself in control, believed he could take for granted that no matter the temptation, he would resist. He was used to self-discipline, and he expected nothing less of himself. But last night, he'd behaved like a fool. A fool at the mercy of his emotions.

Just what he'd learned from his very earliest memories was a mistake.

He thought of his tempestuous mother, how whenever she'd fallen into a fury with his father, she'd thrown the fact of Colin's existence against him
. The child
, she'd called him; she'd called him by name rarely enough as it was, but when she was angry, she stirred up her grievances, and at the top of the list was being forced to marry the wrong man and bear his child.

Inevitably such scenes would end with his mother doing something like spitting in his father's tea, and the earl throwing it at her. Even as a young boy, Colin had realized that some people never grew up, and he'd known he never wanted to be like that, which meant never letting himself be ruled by emotion.

Clearly, despite his years of self-control, he harbored an appalling potential for emotional indulgence that he'd never suspected. And now he knew that he could no longer trust himself.

He wanted Josie badly, she belonged to his friend, and last night, with the shouting and the dreaming, he'd been given a warning that his own code of behavior was not inviolable. How could he trust himself around Josie, knowing this? What might he say to her? How might he allow himself to be ruled by emotions that would push him to find out if it was really love that she shared with Nick?

He had to get away from her.

He got up and began preparations to remove himself to London.

***

Josie was puzzled and a little hurt when she discovered that Colin had left Greenbrier suddenly, and without telling her. But mainly, she missed him. She missed their conversations about history, the simple walks they took together, and how easy it was to talk to him about Nicholas. His absence had shown her how much she'd come to rely on his presence, and now she was lonely when she hadn't been before she'd gotten to know him so well.

Of course she had her family, but that was not the same. Between her and Colin was something different and deep, as if, despite their differences, they were alike in the substance of which they were made. Which made sense, since they both cared for Nicholas—they would have to have quite a bit in common, wouldn't they?

But she was also disappointed he'd left because she'd had such hopes that he and Edwina might be growing closer.

Not surprisingly, the ridiculous love potion seemed to have been a failure. She'd actually been concerned that the doctored tea had made him ill, because she'd accidentally put in rather more than three drops. And then she'd felt quite guilty about having given herself permission to be putting things in people's drinks.

But she'd sent over to Greenbrier early the next day to ask after him, and apparently he was fine, because he'd already left for London.

He'd been gone almost a week, and each day seemed longer than the one before.

Nor were things around Jasmine House very cheerful. Will and Matt, while practicing fisticuffs, had gotten out of hand, with the result that Will had broken his arm. And Edwina seemed to have settled into a dispirited acceptance of her future that worried Josie.

“I heard from one of the maids that there's to be an assembly in town in two weeks,” she said to Edwina as they sat in the garden sewing one afternoon. “Wouldn't it be lovely to go? Mr. Trilby and some of the other gentlemen we met at the picnic might be there.”

Edwina shrugged, which made Josie press her lips together impatiently. “Edwina, you
must
make an effort.”

Edwina gave a mirthless laugh. “Oh, Josie, you are such a dreamer. I shall finish out my days here at Jasmine House. And really,” she said seriously, “I'm grateful to have a family and a roof over my head and steady meals.”

Just then their brothers burst through the doors to the garden. Will was howling, with Matt following. Their tutor had gone out for the afternoon, and they'd been running wilder than usual.

“Blast you!” Matt shouted at Will. “You've ruined my best horse figure.”

Will only laughed as he vaulted over a line of bushes, ignoring Josie's warning that he stop before he hurt his broken arm.

The yelling continued until Will tripped over a broom that had been left lying in the grass and landed hard on the stone path. He gave a pained yelp that caused Josie to jump to her feet in concern. Edwina merely rolled her eyes.

“Serves him right,” she said mildly, continuing to sew. “He was the one who left the broom out there to begin with.”