Moonlight on My Mind (17 page)

Patrick offered her his arm, and together they stepped into the dining room. Julianne normally enjoyed a well-timed entrance, but the rush of eyes felt like a scald of heated water, and her smile faltered. Conversations fell apart and chairs everywhere scraped as the men gained their feet.

Greetings were murmured, introductions hastily made. She spied her father as she made her way to her seat. She caught the ghost of his frown, and mentally sorted through the long list of his likely disapprovals, starting with her inappropriate wardrobe and ending with the fact she had married a man who most of those in attendance suspected of murder.

As she sat down, two young girls watched with openly curious faces. They showed promise of maturing into future beauties, but for now they were still coltish and unrefined. These must be Patrick’s sisters, Julianne realized, trying to refrain from squinting in their direction. They’d run rampant during last year’s house party, but they had grown in the eleven months since she had last seen them, and were sitting perfectly still, hands folded neatly in their laps. She found herself surprised by their maturity. Then again, much else had changed. It should not surprise her that two little girls might change too.

As the gentlemen sat down, Julianne put on her paste smile, the one she adopted when dancing with gentlemen whose hands seemed to sweat through their gloves. She turned herself over to the ghastly business of trying to enjoy herself.

Or at least,
appearing
to enjoy herself.

Apparently, the guests’ lingering grief was to be fed on coddled eggs and pastries, because the table almost groaned under the weight of the food. As she fumbled her way through a plate of a smoked herring, Mr. Blythe, Patrick’s cousin, leaned closer to address her directly.

“Lady Haversham, I find myself curious about the circumstances of your arrival. Has the magistrate been informed?” His voice brimmed with faint hostility. “Given that you’ve been summoned to provide a statement at the inquest, I feel sure he will want to know you have returned.”

Julianne examined her plate as she considered how to respond. She remembered meeting Mr. Blythe during the November house party, and had presumed him a rather uninspiring young man. Her impression had not improved with time. “By all means, you should feel free to share the news with the magistrate,” she finally offered, addressing him with the full force of her disapproval. “Although you should also tell him I will not be providing the statement he seeks. A wife cannot be compelled to testify against her husband.” She could hear the hushed whispers, flowing up and down the table in response to her announcement.

Mr. Blythe, however, appeared to have no use for whispers. “What vile subversion of justice is this?” he demanded. “You were happy enough to accuse the man of murder eleven months ago.” His venomous gaze darted to Patrick. “Has he forced you to it, then?”

“No one has been forced into anything,” Julianne retorted. “But if my decision makes you uncomfortable, you are welcome to leave.”

Next to Mr. Blythe, a heavyset woman in a black turban set down her fork. She addressed Patrick in a familiar manner, her mouth fixed into a straight line. “My brother always welcomed us at Summersby. Are you implying that will now change, Haversham?”

Patrick’s expression remained difficult to read. “Nothing has changed in that regard, Aunt Margaret. You and Jonathon are of course welcome to stay here, as you always have been. My wife, I am sure, speaks only of wanting our guests to be comfortable.”

“I am glad to hear that,” Aunt Margaret said stiffly. “I’d hate to think you’d abandoned your family on account of your wife’s ill manners.”

Julianne gripped her fork, scarcely able to believe that not only had Patrick just openly contradicted her, but that Mr. Blythe’s mother, of all people, had accused
her
of being ill-mannered. And that was when Julianne realized that this was one of those times her mouth was going to quite run ahead of her good sense.

She offered her new aunt a tight smile, three Seasons’ worth of experience coalescing into the oft-practiced gesture. “Perhaps, if my manners are so
ill
, Aunt Margaret, you might feel more comfortable eating elsewhere. Your own dining room in London, perhaps?”

Patrick’s sisters—who, despite their tender age, were clearly scholars of sarcasm—dissolved into giggles. Aunt Margaret’s mouth opened wide enough to catch a three-tined fork. As it were, Julianne felt as though she were being quite magnanimous to hurl only a well-timed insult instead of the cutlery.

The older woman abruptly stood up. Chairs scraped as gentlemen up and down the long table were forced to once again abandon their plates. “I find I’ve quite lost my appetite,” Aunt Margaret said archly.

“Oh dear,” Julianne said with feigned politeness. She, of all people, could recognize a theatrical bid for attention when she saw it. And judging by Aunt Margaret’s girth, she doubted the woman would stay afflicted for long. “I hope you are not taking ill. Why,
that
might force a premature leave-taking, and I can assure you we would all be quite devastated for the loss of your company.”

The woman’s face turned as red as the jam waiting to be spread on the toast. And then she swept from the room, and Mr. Blythe was throwing down his napkin and stalking out after her. Julianne heaved a relieved sigh. “Now then. I imagine our digestion will now be much improved. But if anyone else finds their appetites similarly upset, you are welcome to leave as well.”

“Although,” Patrick countered, his eyes flashing a cautionary warning, “we of course welcome those guests who have come to honor my father, and encourage them to stay as long as they wish.”

Julianne battled a flare of anger, though she also knew she had perhaps plunged too far afield of good manners with the last of it. After all, while the table had not been precisely welcoming, no one else beyond Mr. Blythe and his mother had bordered on rude. She dotted her mouth with her napkin, hovering on the bitter cusp on an apology when George Willoughby spoke up to save her.

“As the new mistress of Summersby, your wife is well within her rights to ask us to leave, cousin.”

Julianne experienced again that sense of relief she had known when Mr. Willoughby had so publicly come to their aid yesterday. And again, she felt that odd sense of regret that she had misjudged the young man once upon a time, refusing even to dance with him as she stalked the larger, more promising prey at that November house party. She smiled at him, and this time it was her
real
smile, the one that she could not control in the slightest.

“It is none of your concern, Willoughby.” Patrick’s stern voice nudged in, poking holes in her victory.

Julianne’s smile faltered. “He is only trying to help, Patrick—”

“I do not require my cousin’s assistance,” came her husband’s surprisingly cool reply.

Willoughby’s gaze swept the crowd before finally—almost apologetically—coming back to rest on her. “Someone needs to speak out on your behalf, Haversham. The title has passed to you, and you have not yet been formally charged with any crime. Your wife should know there are those here who do not wish her ill.” His voice rose, this time addressing the table. “Haversham deserves our respect, as does his new wife. And if there are those among you who would disagree, I suggest you follow the way of Aunt Margaret.”

Chapter 18

“J
ulianne, wait.”

But she was off immediately after breakfast, storming up the stairs at a pace that left no doubt at all to her mood. Patrick followed her. Bloody impertinent girl, making him feel as though he had done something wrong, when
she
was the one who had practically ordered his entire extended family to leave. His father had just been buried, for Christ’s sake. Tossing out family who practically lived at Summersby was unthinkable.

The devil take it, she was like an unschooled horse, intent on having her own way, trying to throw him at the slightest provocation. Well, she would soon learn he was an excellent rider.

He caught up with her in the upstairs corridor, just outside their room. He grasped her elbow, but she promptly used it to deliver a swift jab to his ribs.

“What in the devil is wrong with you?” he hissed, rubbing his side and casting a furtive glance down the hallway. A maid exiting one of the rooms several doors down ducked her head in embarrassment and hurried off with her ash bucket. Bloody hell, they were causing a spectacle for the servants. It would be just his luck to have Willoughby or Blythe come across them in such a way, brawling like a fisherman and his wife. “Why are you angry with
me
? I’ll wager it ought to be the other way around, after your performance at breakfast.”

“To which performance do you refer?” Julianne offered him an overly sweet smile that made his teeth ache more than his ribs. “My attempt to defend you against those family members who would spread vicious rumors? Or perhaps my struggle to sit quietly while my husband permitted those same people to speak so disparagingly about me?”

Patrick wasn’t fooled in the least. While she could certainly
be
sweet, when the stars aligned and her world tilted right, the smile stretched tightly across her lips did not begin to plumb the depths of feeling that ran beneath his wife’s skin. She was a consummate actress—this, at least, he was learning. She could control the curve of her lips and the tilt of her brows like a master puppeteer. But her eyes gave her away. At the moment, they were flashing at him like a smuggler’s beacon.

Infinitely more interesting than sweet.

“You do realize I can discern your smiles?” He tried to glower, though he suspected he wasn’t half as good at pretending as she was. “The ones that are genuine versus the ones you use merely to get your way?”

Her brow arched. “Then I encourage you to pay close attention to which I am employing right now.”

He couldn’t help it. His lips twitched, ignoring the signals his brain was sending. Damn it, he couldn’t keep hold of his annoyance with her. She was a woman defined by fierce loyalties, willing to defend to her last breath those whom she cared for. It was difficult not to admire her, or respect her intentions. But the reality of being married to a woman like Julianne was like being tied to a summer storm: unpredictable, at best.

Liable to kill you if you didn’t approach it with caution.

“I apologize if my words hurt you,” he told her. “I know you meant well. But my father prided himself on being generous to friends and relatives. Summersby has always been open to anyone who wished to stay here, for as long as they wish. Aunt Margaret and Jonathon spend every summer here, and George Willoughby has been known to sleep in a guest room for a good six months of the year. Permitting them to stay is an important part of honoring my father’s memory, at least for the near future.”

A puff of air escaped her lips. “Oh,” was all she said. As if it had never occurred to her he might have a good reason to permit his hanging-on relatives to stay as long as they wished. And then she turned the door handle and plunged into their room with nary another word.

Patrick stalked after her, annoyance winning out over bemusement in his choice of emotional responses. Apparently to Julianne’s mind, apologizing to him—when he had just done the unthinkable and apologized first—approached an act of treason.

He kicked the door shut behind him. The hinges squeaked in protest, and he frowned at the distraction. In Moraig, he wouldn’t have given creaking hinges a moment’s thought. Hell, he wouldn’t have blinked if the bloody door had toppled off its frame. But this gave him an uncomfortable pause. Because it was his door.
His
problem. Probably Summersby had people on staff for this sort of thing, but it bothered him that he didn’t know. All during breakfast, when he hadn’t been contradicting his wife’s sharp tongue, he’d been confronted by the realization that everything at Summersby—from the silver cutlery, to the staff removing their dishes—was now his responsibility. The enormity of the task before him made him twitch.

As did his beautiful, infuriating wife.

He pulled up, unsure of what, exactly, he should say next to her. What few choice words he might have managed became even more muddled as he considered whether he was even in the correct room. It was neat as a pin, for one thing. His clothing had been picked up from the floor and folded neatly on his reading chair. The bed where he had awakened this morning was now made up with military precision. The squared edges of the coverlet sneered at him, proclaiming that any further mischief on its pristine surface would be ruthlessly denied. The various medical supplies that usually stood atop his bureau had been removed, and now small crystal bottles and ivory-inlaid brushes and an entire army of hairpins lay scattered across the top.

“Did you do something to my room?” he asked tersely.

“
Our
room, I should think. I straightened a few things. And I may have asked the maid to unpack my bag.”

An awful suspicion took root.

Patrick strode over to his wardrobe, the one that held his jackets and riding boots and such, things he had left behind when he had departed for Scotland, and threw open the doors. A cloud of sachet-scented air puffed out at him, generated, no doubt, by the sea of gowns that now hung there, glittering like jewels in what heretofore had been an incontrovertibly masculine domain. There had to be at least a half dozen or more, in varied rainbow hues, with lace and ribbons sprouting like weeds from every crevice.

“What have you done with my clothes?” he demanded.

“I am sure the maid folded them away in one of the drawers. I shouldn’t think it would matter. It is not as though you ever hang anything up.”

Damn it to hell and back
. She had invaded his thoughts and his life, like a miasma on the wind, and now she had taken over his bloody room. He turned from the travesty of his repurposed wardrobe, prepared to argue for a return of his space and his things, only to discover that his wife was now working to reach the buttons on the back of her dress.

Well. She’d certainly become more . . .
comfortable
around him. Perhaps there were some benefits to the intrusion he had not considered. And the prolific nature of her clothing and the loss of his personal space aside, he couldn’t deny she looked so bright and tempting and unexpectedly
right
undressing in his room, his bones hurt at the sight of her.

“Can you help me with the buttons?” she asked, seemingly oblivious to the torment she was causing with merely the suggestion that her dress might soon be removed. “I need to change my gown.”

He stalked toward her, irritated with himself for not being more irritated, and regretting the realization she wasn’t expressly undressing for him. He frowned at the gown she intended to shed. “Why, when you have just put it on before breakfast?”

“A countess cannot wear the same gown for afternoon that she wears in the morning.”

“What would you propose to wear instead?” he asked, genuinely confused. Did women really
do
that? Take off one perfectly clean, perfectly functional gown, just to put on another, based on the turn of the hour hand? He’d never stopped to consider it before.

He didn’t want to consider it now.

“I was considering wearing the blue silk, the one with the lace redingote. I know it is ill-suited for mourning, but as the gown I wore to breakfast is the only one I have that might be considered suitable for bereavement, I need to have a care with it.” She turned away from him, offering her back and the buttons waiting there. “Clearly, I need to have more gowns made.”

Patrick knew, in that moment as he began to unbutton her, two distinct things. One: He did not want to know what in the bloody hell a redingote was. And two: His wife needed a caning more than she needed a new wardrobe. The number of gowns she had pulled from her bag in the space of the few days he had known her made him feel vaguely ill.

“If I might beg the question,” he said, trying to circle this conversation back around to something sane, “you knew you were coming to a house in mourning. Did you not give any thought to the matter of what to wear when you arrived?”

“I packed a gown appropriate for attending a funeral.” Her eyes flashed a green warning over her shoulder. “But I certainly didn’t expect to arrive as mistress of Summersby. Convention calls for six months of mourning.” She stepped out of the gown and laid it carefully across the bed, leaving her clad only in her crinolines and corset. “Perhaps we could take a trip into Leeds tomorrow to find a seamstress. I would like to invite a few close neighbors over for dinner at the end of the month, but I would need something appropriate to wear.”

His response was instinctive, rather than well-considered. “Have you forgotten my father just died? A dinner party seems a poor idea just now.”

Julianne moved toward the wardrobe. “I disagree,” she argued. “You’ve been tried and convicted in the eyes of your own relatives, and that does not bode well for your eventual defense. This morning’s breakfast has shown me we need to plan an offensive strike, to turn public opinion. Surely you will need character witnesses to stand up for you if you are charged.”

“And you think a dinner will change their minds?”

She paused, her fingers running over the blinding array of gowns before finally settling on one. “A small dinner that includes neighbors and acquaintances from town will help us sort out who among your family’s friends might be relied upon for support. But I certainly agree we need to tread carefully and respectfully. That is why I’ll need just the right gown for it.”

That reference to “us” and “we” again. By the devil, but his new wife was a meddler. “Are you claiming the right gown does not exist among the hundred or so you have stuffed into my wardrobe?” he asked dryly.

“
Our
wardrobe.” She turned and smiled far too sweetly, a swath of blue silk clutched in her hands. “And no matter how many gowns I may own, none are appropriate. I need mourning gowns, not ball gowns.” Her smile softened into something warmer, and marginally more real. “It is the way it is done, Patrick. It will be expected of your wife.”

He stared at her a moment, struck again by that earlier sense of not knowing the way of things in the world into which he had been tossed. He knew almost nothing of social matters, having spent his life mostly in the company of books and animals. This was, admittedly, Julianne’s area of expertise. But did they have to have this conversation while she was standing in her corset and stockings? Because it was damnably hard to think when his brain was being denied its fair share of blood.

He forced his fingers to unclench. Perhaps a dinner party wouldn’t hurt. Indeed, there were elements to Julianne’s arguments that made perfect—if reluctant—sense. “Aunt Margaret will probably have an apoplectic fit when she hears you are planning to honor her brother’s memory with a dinner party,” he warned. “She is a martinet about such things.”

Julianne smiled, and this time it was her real smile, the one that made him feel as though the sun were breaking over the horizon. “I don’t give a fig for what Aunt Margaret might think, or her detestable son. With any luck, they have already departed.” She stepped into the new dress she had chosen, some complicated thing that he could now see came in several pieces. “Do you think George Willoughby will stay, though? I hope I did not imply that I wished
him
to leave.”

Patrick sighed as his wife’s bare skin disappeared into yet another gown. “Yes, well, while you certainly put some effort behind it, I don’t think you can count on anyone leaving, at least not as far as my aunt and cousins are concerned. They spend practically half the year here, and autumn is a favored season in Yorkshire.” And given Willoughby’s mooning looks toward Julianne during the latter half of breakfast, Patrick half suspected she had unwittingly ensured the young man’s stay had just been extended until Christmas.

“Aunt Margaret usually stays through the start of snow, if memory serves. She is not such a bad sort,” he added. “You might try being a bit more understanding of her.”

An unladylike snort escaped Julianne’s lips, one he was quite sure her swains in London had never been permitted to hear. “The way she has tried to understand
your
position? She has been quite quick in her judgment. And her son clearly hates you.”

He hesitated, wondering how to explain the odd mix of family politics that always swam just below the surface at Summersby. There was jealousy at the heart of it, to be sure. Perhaps a vein of cruelty. But his trouble with Blythe was more complicated than that.

“I do not believe he hates me. Or if he does, he likely believes he has good reason. Blythe has always been . . . difficult.”

Julianne raised a brow, clearly waiting for more. Patrick sorted through which pieces to share. Amid the usual family squabbles, one, in particular, teetered at the top of the list. He’d always considered his earliest memory of arguing with Jonathon Blythe to be trite. Almost silly. But when he trotted it out for a new inspection, it still made his fingers curl in objection.

“When I was nine years old, I loosened one of my father’s courser bitches in with the foxhounds because I was curious what sort of puppies would result. I confided what I had done to both of my cousins. Willoughby kept silent, but Blythe told his mother, who in turn told my father. But when my father showed no inclination to punish me for the deed, Jonathon set about ensuring I suffered what he felt was a fitting punishment for dishonoring my father.”