April Moon (26 page)

“Not if he don’t be real,” said the red-haired man, still striving to be brave even as he’d let the barrel of his musket dip. “He don’t need a head then. He’s not real, is he, guv’nor?”

But before Harry answered, the wailing moan came down the staircase instead of the chimney, making all three men jump and swear.

No wonder Sophie was such a success as a governess, thought Harry proudly. What boy wouldn’t adore a governess who could do
this?

“He tried to get my head last night,” said Harry, repeating details of the stories his grandfather had used to terrify him and George as boys. “I felt him testing my throat with his very knife, but I woke and ran into the woods instead, where he can’t follow.”

Even the red-haired man had now begun backing away, inching toward the door. “You say he’s bound to th’ house?”

Harry nodded solemnly. “He cannot leave it, not for all eternity, until—”

“There he be!” bellowed the red-haired man, bolting for the door. “Retreat, lads, retreat!”

As the others crashed past him, Harry looked back toward the stairs. There at the top stood old Nolly himself, a long black cloak billowing around his headless shoulders and over the tops of his black boots, and as Harry watched he raised the empty helmet in his hands and let it drop down the stairs, bouncing and clattering so loudly that the three deserters running through the woods would likely hear the sound in nightmares for weeks to come.

“You can retrieve your head now, Nolly,” called Harry, still watching at the open door to make sure the deserters did not return. “I don’t think your audience is going to come back.”

“It worked?” The front of Nolly’s cloak parted, and Sophie peeked out, grinning gleefully. She dropped the cape over her shoulders, and began gallumping down the steps, hiking her shift up over Harry’s riding boots so she wouldn’t trip. “They believed in Nolly?”

“Even more than you did yourself, sweetheart,” he said, slipping his hands inside the long black cloak to find her inside. “I owe you my life, you know. You and Nolly did what I couldn’t.”

“I wasn’t about to lose you like that, Harry,” she said, reaching up to kiss him. “Nolly wouldn’t have it, either. And besides, you did your part, too, with all that nonsense about him looking for his head and being trapped in this house.”

“It’s not nonsense,” protested Harry. “It’s completely true.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, ever skeptical. “Oh, yes,
completely
true. Look, it’s almost dawn.”

Through the open door, the once-glorious full moon had faded to a pale circle low on the brightening horizon.

“It’s done,” said Sophie wistfully, resting her head against his shoulder. “No more moon and no more strange mischief, either. Now instead I must think of Winchester.”

“No, you won’t.” He dropped to one knee, gazing up at her with what he hoped was all the same love he felt in his heart. “Miss Potts, will you do me the honor of being my wife and my lady, never again mentioning Winchester in my hearing?”

She stared at him, too shocked at first to answer. Her once-neat hair was now a wild tangle, his cloak had slipped over one bare shoulder and her shift was twisted across the other, and she still wore his riding boots tall over her knees. Yet he’d never seen a woman more in her glory, and never known a woman he could love more.

“You would marry me, Harry?” she whispered, searching his face with disbelief. “I know you love me, yes, but you would marry me, too?”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way, Sophie,” he
said. “Can I take that
yes
as your acceptance, so I can rise up from my blasted knees?”

“Yes,” she said, laughing with joy as she helped him up. “That is, yes, you may stand, and yes, I will!”

“That is good,” he said, taking her into his arms the way he meant to for the remainder of his life. “And the rest, dear Sophie, I promise, will only be better. For you see, like poor Nolly, I’ve once again completely lost my head over you.”

“Oh, butter and beans, Harry,” she said as she kissed him. “Butter and beans.”