Moondrops (Love Letters) (7 page)

“Careful! Yes, Elise is home. That doesn’t mean you should jump like a frog after a fly at her, does it? Goodness, my dear, when will you learn to carry yourself like a lady?”

“Never.” Louise giggled as she opened her arms wide. “Or not tonight, anyhow.”

Elise hugged Louise, then her mother, before settling down on the edge of the chaise.

Lord, but it was good to be home!

Their mother didn’t waffle over details, but cut right to the matter itself.

“How was London? Did you meet anyone interesting? Learn anything worth sharing with us?” Genevieve pulled her lower lip between her teeth and nibbled it distractedly. Her brow furrowed, and she searched so deeply into her eldest daughter’s eyes that Elise felt more like a scrutinized fly now than she had when Louise had lunged at her.

“I didn’t see much of London, actually. Just what I saw passing by the coach windows.” She stuck a hand in her dress pocket. “During the ride to London, at least. Coming home it was so dark there wasn’t anything at all to see.”

“Why did you come home at this hour? It isn’t the safest time to travel, Elise. I am surprised at you. What were you thinking?” Her mother’s lip was red, and somewhat swollen. Her teeth were doing a nasty job on the delicate pink skin.

“My only thought was to get away from the lunatics in London.”

Louise’s interest asserted itself. “Lunatics? You met lunatics?”

“Oh, that is just an expression, dear. I’m sure Elise didn’t meet any lunatics.” Widening her eyes so they looked like saucers, Genevieve turned to Elise and asked, “You didn’t, did you?”

“I most certainly did.” There was no kinder way to tell the story, so Elise went for the unvarnished truth. Her fingers caressed the soft object in her pocket. “Honestly, the woman who wrote the letter might be certifiably mad. She is…” a fast glance at her younger sister, who was sitting on the edge of her seat. Why bother with subterfuge? Louise could not be so guileless that she did not know at least a tad about the steamier side of society.

“She is what?” Louise asked breathlessly.

“The proprietress of…” It wasn’t something that tripped effortlessly off her tongue.
Just
say it
. Elise pulled as much air as she could hold into her lungs, then on the exhalation she blurted, “She is the proprietress of a whorehouse.”

There. It was out.

“Good heavens, Elise—how can you say such a thing?” Genevieve held a hand to her breast, outrage shining from her eyes.

“There is no other way to put it, Mother. You asked, and I told the truth.”

“A whorehouse? What is it like? Did you see anything—” Louise ignored the shushing noises their mother made. She leaned forward, and said in a scandalized tone, “Did you see anything immoral?”

“Lord above, look what you’ve taught her!” Genevieve’s face reddened, until its shade nearly matched her ravaged lip. She swatted the air above Louise’s right thigh, sending the young woman’s nightdress swishing against her skin. It was the closest Genevieve ever got to actually striking her daughters. The air swat had silenced many childhood disagreements but it could not quench Louise’s interest. “Now she is saying such dreadful things, and all because you—”

“I am not to blame,” Elise protested.

“Did you see any whores?” Louise’s question brought a shriek from their mother. “Even one? Elise, did you see even one whore? And what did she look like?”

“Do you see what you’ve taught her?” Genevieve’s eyes were wild as she looked from one daughter to the other. “Whores—my youngest child is talking about whores!”

“Calm down, both of you.” It was up to her to bring reason back into the conversation. “I didn’t see any whores at all—not even one.” She could have tripped over one and not realized, had the house not been almost empty.

What did a whore look like anyhow—well, who could tell about such things?
The thought flitted through Elise’s head.

“Truthfully, the house looked like any other house might. It just had many bedrooms on the second floor. At least, that’s the impression I got from all the doors leading off the hallway. But, no, I did not see anything—or anyone—untoward.”

“That’s dreadful, isn’t it? You actually got inside a—” Genevieve made a strangled noise that cut Louise off. With a sigh, Louise continued, “You were inside…” She glanced at Genevieve. “You gained entrance to an unusual establishment but weren’t fortunate enough to meet anyone interesting. How sad!”

Elise’s fingertips ran over the pouch in her pocket. She hadn’t opened it, so she didn’t know what it held but whatever it was, it was tiny. Two dainty bumps pressed against the blue velvet, too small to give any impression other than they were slight.

“I did meet two unusual people, just not any…well, you know. Oh, I met Henry, too, although he was rather ordinary.”

“Henry?” Genevieve’s voice didn’t sound as strained now.

“Yes, the butler.”

“A butler? I have never met a butler,” Louise said. “What did he do?”

“Well, he opened and closed doors, for one thing.”

“With all those bedrooms, I suppose someone has to be responsible for keeping them either open or closed,” Louise said. “Did he do anything else?”

“He brought tea once. Oh, and whiskey.” The minute the words were out, Elise wished she could recall them. Her mother’s eyes widened again, a hand flew to her chest but before she could speak, Elise added, “The whiskey was only for the swooning.”

Louise pounced. “The swooning?”

“It was just a little swoon…”

“You swooned?” Genevieve cast a dubious head-to-toe look that made Elise feel the way she had on the infrequent occasion she’d told a childhood fib. “You have never swooned. Neither have I. Nor Louise, either. We are not a family of swooners, Elise. Are you all right?”

“I am fine. It was not a large swoon, only a quick buckling of my knees. Besides, Hugh caught me before I could hurt myself.” The memory of being in the strong man’s arms brought a surge of heat to her middle. Of their own accord, Elise’s nipples pebbled and gooseflesh broke out on her arms.

“Who is Hugh?” Louise demanded. She was obviously much more intrigued by the man than she had been by even the whores. “And why didn’t you tell us about him before?”

Elise shrugged. “There is nothing to tell. Hugh is Emmaline Byrd’s cousin. She’s the woman who runs the…ah, you know. She runs the house.”

“Does Hugh help her with her, ah, business?” Louise smiled, smugly, when their mother kept quiet.

“I didn’t get that impression at all.” Thinking back, Elise could not pick one instance where either Hugh or Emmaline acted as if he helped her in any way. In fact, she had been sure he was something entirely different, not a relation at all, but now that the story unfolded it seemed to make sense that he was present to assist Emmaline. Perhaps he contributed financially, since without any patrons a manse of that size must require a good deal of funds to operate.

“Is Hugh an old lunatic also?” Louise had settled back against the chintz cushions. She pulled the book back onto her lap, rescuing it from the floor where it had fallen when she’d jumped up to hug Elise. Absently she flipped through the pages, her disinterest in two elderly lunatics clearly less rabid than her desire to learn about prostitutes.

“No, he is neither old nor crazy.” But what was he, exactly? The man was an enigma, cruelly teasing one moment and kind the next. How to describe someone like that? She settled on remembering the physicality of the man. “He has dark, dark eyes and loads of black curls covering his head. Broad shoulders and a grin that comes unexpectedly. He—”

The book pages stilled. “You sound smitten, sister.”

Elise’s breath caught, her mind blank for an instant. Then, she shook her head from side to side, knocking some pins from her travel-worn updo. “I am not smitten. Believe me, he is incorrigible and teased me heartlessly. No, Hugh is not the kind of man I would become smitten over. Not that I intend to ever be smitten—”

It sounded like she’d already stuck her spoon in the wall but a life dictated by the whims of a deceitful man seemed far worse than becoming a Tabby.

Elise’s fingers curled around the bundle in her pocket. She pulled it out, pressing it into her mother’s hand.

“What is it?” Genevieve held the pouch as if it contained a cobra—a very tiny cobra. “Where did it come from? And whom?”

“I don’t know what is inside, but Emmaline told me to give it to you. She said you would tell the rest of the story, although the first part of her ‘secret’ is so preposterous I’m not even going to dignify it by repeating it to you and Louise. If my guess is right, there isn’t anything of any value—either monetarily or otherwise—in that pretty little pouch. The woman was queer in the attic, Mother. Truly, she was, but I took the thing because I could see she wasn’t going to let me go until I did. So, here I am—now with a mystery pouch instead of a mysterious letter. Not much progress, is it?”

Louise cast aside her book. She reached out, took the pouch from their mother’s palm and untied the ribbon holding it closed. Then, she upended it over Genevieve’s palm, tilting the contents out.

Elise stared at the objects in Genevieve’s hand. Her guess had been wrong—very wrong. The pouch’s contents were both valuable and meaningful.

She reached up, fingering the pearl studs in her earlobes. Looking across her mother, she saw Louise’s fingers were on her earlobes, as well.

The tiny raindrop shapes engraved in the gold surrounding the pearls in Genevieve’s palm were identical to the ones she and Louise had worn their entire lives. Their mother had always told them the earrings were priceless, part of a duke’s cache that had been sold to pay gambling debts. She had said there were no others like theirs, not anywhere in the world.

Well, that had been a falsehood, because the truth was right before them in black and white. Rather, in pearl and gold.

Genevieve clasped her fingers tightly, pulling the earrings against her chest. She had gone white, but before either Elise or Louise could ask if she was ill, she gasped, “No! It can’t be!”

Then, she did what none of them “ever” did.

Genevieve swooned.

****

“How can you be so certain she will return?”

Emmaline stood in a pink morning gown before her bedroom window. The drab sky matched her dreary mood. Hugh had spent the better part of the past hour trying to coax her to eat but she couldn’t get one morsel of food past her tight throat.

She only had had one thing to do, one mission in life left to her, and she had failed miserably. It tore at her already broken heart.

How could she live knowing she had let him down? He had never done that to her. Never. Yet here she was, an absolute disappointment. It was more than she could bear.

“Take me at my word, dear cousin. She will return. If I were to wager a Sovereign on it, I’d bet our Miss Fulbright shall be back before dinnertime.”

Hugh leaned back in the smallish side chair where he had crammed his full-size male figure with no room to spare, patted a hand on his belly, and then crossed one leg across the opposite knee. He left standing and staring to Emmaline, choosing instead comfort by the hearth in the cozy room. The breakfast trolley held enough for a quartet, perhaps more, so he felt no guilt plowing through a full serving of fried eggs, rye toast and juice.

The meal was mindless, and filled time. He, like Emmaline, was anxious to see their houseguest again. The sooner, the better.

Women had fallen at his feet, offered themselves up to him because of his charisma and, of course, his wealth. They acted as if their bodies were currency, used freely to purchase his interest. For a while, when he was a much younger man and his breeches were more insistent than his head, he had allowed the folly, using women to satisfy his desire without letting them near his heart. Not that they wanted his heart. No, that was never what any of the so-called “lovers” he’d taken was after.

Lover. He was a skilled sexual partner but he had never been loved, or loved in kind. He’d never been anyone’s lover, not in the fullest sense of the word. The essence of lovemaking, the melding of mind, body and soul, was still foreign to him.

His parents’ sham of a marriage, coupled with the desire of every woman he had been involved with, showed him that women were only interested in where a man could take them. The man didn’t matter; the destination on the social ladder was of utmost importance.

“Hugh! Are you listening to me?”

He hadn’t even been aware Emmaline was speaking. He forced his head to focus on his cousin, even though his body was still on a certain young woman in Essex.

“Sorry?” She had turned from the window, crossed the room and stood, arms crossed over her bosom, staring down at him. He hadn’t been aware she was on the move, and felt foolish that he’d allowed her to sneak right up on him—in broad daylight, even. It was clear she knew he’d been daydreaming. Composure came with breeding, so he shrugged nonchalantly and asked, “What was that you said? I seem to have missed it.”

Emmaline gave a very unladylike snort. “I should say so. You were woolgathering, my dear. Something has got you at sixes and sevens. What is it? Or should I ask who is it?”

Transparency. After a lifetime of closeness, she could read him as well as any of the books in the downstairs library. Emmaline’s professional choices had been on the shady side but her mind was bright, her reading taste eclectic and her insight keen.

There was no use trying to lie. Why bother? She saw the truth anyhow.

“So I may have taken a fancy to our Miss Fulbright.”

“Your Miss Fulbright, perhaps,” Emmaline said softly. She tapped a fingertip against her bare cheek, studying him as she would have a potential client for one of her women. “You are enamored, I think.”

“Interested.”

Emmaline sat opposite him, looking at the breakfast trolley between them. She chose a triangle of toast, brought it to her lips and took a bite. She chewed thoughtfully before swallowing.

“You wish her back as much as I do. Your reasons are different, but you want her to return.”