Joan Wolf (29 page)

“We would all enjoy hearing some music,” I said. “If you would not mind?”

“Of course I don’t mind.” She went to the piano and sat down.

Jack began to walk toward the piano to join her, but I stepped in front of him to cut him off.

“Jasper,” I said sweetly, “perhaps you would turn the pages of Miss Stedham’s music for her?”

“Of course,” Jasper said courteously, and he went to stand next to Miss Stedham’s piano bench.

Jack gave me such a murderous look that I was startled.

“Excuse me, Annabelle,” he said in a hard, angry voice.

I stepped out of his way, and he strode to the piano.

“Do you have music that I might fetch for you, Miss Stedham?” he asked the governess, using a very different tone of voice from the one he had used to me.

“I am afraid I do not, Mr. Grandville,” she said with a smile. “I shall have to rely on my memory.” She turned her head a little to look at me. “What kind of music would you like to hear, Lady Weston?”

“I have always been fond of the Mozart A major sonata,” I said, naming a piece that even I had learned in the days when my mother forced me to take piano lessons.

“Do you know that, Miss Stedham?” Jasper asked kindly.

“Yes, Captain Grandville, I know it,” Miss Stedham returned quietly. She flexed her fingers a few times before she placed them on the keys. She began to play.

She was a marvelous pianist. I am not at all musical, but
I could easily recognize the superiority of her talent. I looked over at Stephen, who was sitting on the sofa next to Nell. His eyes were half-closed and he was listening with absorbed attention, Stephen loved music.

Suddenly, as if he had felt my glance like a physical touch, he lifted his lashes and looked at me. The faintest of smiles touched his mouth. Then he went back to listening to the music.

My heart contracted with love, and my stomach cramped with fear.

Could it really be true that someone had deliberately tried to kill Stephen? Someone in this room?

My heart said no, but my brain said yes.

Miss Stedham finished the Mozart and was loudly urged by everyone in the room to play something else. She obliged gracefully.

When I next glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece I realized that we had kept the poor girl playing for over an hour. I mentioned this and apologized to the governess for being so demanding. “I can only offer the excuse that your playing gave us such delight that we did not know how much time was going by,” I concluded.

“It was my pleasure, Lady Weston,” the governess replied. “I am never so happy as when I am playing the piano.”

There was a glow about her face that testified to the truth of her statement.

“A talent such as yours cries out for an instrument to play upon,” Jasper said. He looked at me. “Is there by any chance an extra piano around the house that you could have installed in the nursery, Annabelle?”

I was very happy with this sign of attention to Miss Stedham’s needs, and I gave Jasper my warmest smile. “I am afraid there is not, but there is no reason why Miss Stedham cannot use the piano here in the drawing room.”

The governess had gone very pale, and I realized abruptly how much the use of a piano must mean to her. “I
could not impose upon you like that, Lady Weston,” she said stiffly.

“No one goes near the drawing room until after dinner,” Jack said in a tight voice. “You would not be imposing.”

“Jack is right,” I said. “Nell is the only one who ever plays the piano, and I am certain she will not mind if you play it as well.”

“Of course I don’t mind,” Nell said promptly. “In fact, I would enjoy hearing Miss Stedham practice. I’m sure I can learn something from her.”

A piano was evidently more important to Miss Stedham than a horse. She accepted my offer. “Thank you, Lady Weston. I would very much appreciate having use of the piano when Giles does not need me.”

“It wouldn’t hurt Giles at all to sit quietly for a while and listen to some music each day,” Stephen said mildly.

Aunt Fanny said, “I believe it is time to send for the tea tray, Annabelle dear.”

As I rang for a footman, Miss Stedham rose from the piano and tried to excuse herself, but I refused to allow her to escape. She finally settled gracefully into an upholstered chair. Jasper sat on the sofa on the other side of Nell, and Jack chose a chair where he would have an unimpeded view of Miss Stedham.

The tea tray came in and I poured.

And wondered how long Stephen would wait before he came to me tonight.

Chapter Twenty

Someone was already in my bed, and I knew it couldn’t be Stephen because I had just left him going into the library with Jasper and Jack. Besides, the mound revealed by the bedside lamp was much too small to be a man.

“Giles?” I said softly as I came all the way into the room.

The mound moved, and a blond head peeked out from under the quilt.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“I had a bad dream, Mama, and I couldn’t find Genie. So I came down here to wait for you.” His voice had none of its characteristic self-confidence. He sounded afraid.

I sat down on the bed and put my hand on his back. “What kind of a dream, Giles? “

“I dreamed that a man was chasing me,” he said. The lamplight turned his hair into a ruffled golden halo, and his eyes looked very gray, always a sign that he was troubled. “He had a gun,” my son said in a very small voice, “and I knew he wanted to kill me.”

My heart ached for him. “Oh, darling,” I said, “it’s because of what happened in the woods yesterday. You’re dreaming about that.”

“I know,” he said in an even smaller voice than before.

I began to rub his back between his shoulder blades. “It was an accident, Giles. Someone mistook Uncle Stephen for a deer.”

“I don’t think so, Mama,” he said in that same strained
little voice. “We were talking and laughing. Deers don’t talk and laugh.”

My hand stilled on his back. “No,” I said, “they don’t.”

“We were loud, Mama. Loud enough to be heard.”

I took one deep breath and then another. “Darling,” I said to my small son, “do you think someone was trying to kill Uncle Stephen?”

His voice was so low that I had to bend my head closer to his in order to hear. “Yes,” said Giles, “I do.” Pause. “And maybe me, too.”

I reached my arms around him and held him close. He pushed his face into the hollow between my breasts and burrowed against me.

“You are just a little boy, Giles,” I said as calmly and as reasonably as I could. “Who could possibly want to hurt you? “

“I don’t know,” he said in a muffled voice. “But I almost drowned, Mama. And then someone shooted at me.”

I bent my head and rested my lips on the top of his golden head. I shut my eyes.

“I’m afraid,” Giles said.

I was horribly afraid that he might have cause to be.

“Can I stay here with you tonight, Mama? “ he asked.

I said what I believed to be true. “You are perfectly safe in your own house, darling. Miss Stedham is in her room now, so you won’t be alone in the nursery, and I will leave the dogs with you if you like.”

“I want to stay here with you,” he said, and burrowed closer.

I didn’t have the heart to send him away. “You can stay here until you fall asleep,” I said. “Then I will have Uncle Stephen carry you upstairs.”

“Can’t I stay here all night?”

“No,” I said. “You can’t.”

“But what if I have that dream again, Mama?”

“Then Genie will make you some hot milk to help you go back to sleep again.”

That seemed to satisfy him. I went next door to my dressing room and let Marianne put me into my nightdress and robe. Then I sent her to the nursery to inform Miss Stedham that Giles was with me and that I would return him after he had fallen asleep.

When I got into bed next to Giles, he reached out and closed his fist around a fold of my robe. I bent to kiss him. “Good night, darling,” I murmured.

Then I settled back against my pillows to wait for Stephen.

* * * *

The library was almost next door to my bedroom, but the walls of the hall were too thick for me to hear doors opening and closing in the passageway. At one point I thought I heard the rumble of men’s voices, but I couldn’t be certain.

Half an hour after I thought I had heard the voices, my bedroom door opened silently and Stephen came in. He stopped dead when he saw that Giles was in bed with me.

“It’s all right,” I said softly, “he’s asleep.”

Stephen crossed to the bed, moving out of the shadows and into the circle of light cast by the bedside lamp. I saw that he was wearing a white shirt without a neckcloth-and the dark trousers he had worn at dinner. He looked for a moment at his son’s sleeping face, then raised his eyes to me.

“What happened?” he asked.

“He had a nightmare.” I recounted what Giles had told me. “He’s afraid that someone is trying to kill him, Stephen,” I concluded. “And he definitely thinks that someone is trying to kill you.”

“If yesterday’s shooter wanted to kill Giles, then he would have come after us,” Stephen said. “I think the very fact that he did not is a good indication that he does not wish to hurt Giles.”

The rush of relief I felt at his words left me momentarily dizzy. “Do you really think so?”

He nodded and sat on the edge of the bed, his eyes still on Giles’s peaceful face.

“On the other hand, he might have been afraid that you had a gun with you,” I said. “His retreat might have had nothing to do with Giles at all.”

“Anyone who knows me knows I never go out with a gun,” Stephen said.

I thought about that for a minute.

“Does that mean you think someone you know is trying to kill you?” I demanded at last.

“I’m not sure yet,” he said.

I was feeling physically ill. “Stephen,” I said, “I keep thinking that if something happened to you and Giles, then Jack would be the next earl. He would inherit Weston. And Jack needs money.”

He repeated, “I do not think that Giles is in danger.”

“He
has
been in danger. Twice,” I snapped.

“I think that was because he was with me.”

I said a word that I occasionally heard around the stables when the men didn’t know I was within earshot,

Stephen gave me a startled look, and then he began to laugh.

“It’s not funny,” I said furiously.

The laughter drained from his face. “I’m sorry, Annabelle. Believe me, I know it isn’t funny. I have instituted inquiries and I should know something shortly. I’d rather wait until I had some facts before I said anything.”

“You can tell me,” I said.

“Of course I can, but I’d rather wait. I may be wrong, and then I will have upset you for nothing.”

I debated within myself whether or not I wanted Stephen to give me a name and decided that it would be too difficult to try to act normally toward someone whom I suspected of being a murderer.

Stephen said, “I suppose you told Giles he could stay with you for the night?” His face and voice were so glum, it was almost comical.

“Actually, I told him that he could stay here until he fell
asleep. I said that you would carry him upstairs to his own bed.”

Stephen’s lugubrious expression disappeared like magic. “I will be happy to do that,” he said.

“I thought perhaps you might be,” I said with amusement.

“Poor little fellow,” Stephen said, able to feel pity for Giles now that he knew his rival was being evicted.

“He is quite certain that whoever shot at you meant to kill you,” I said grimly. “That is what has made him think that someone may be after him, too.”

“I’ll keep away from him until we have this... problem ... resolved, Annabelle.”

Stephen gently pulled the quilt off Giles and lifted his son into his arms. Giles stirred and half opened sleepy eyes. “Where’s Mama?” he said.

“I’m right here, darling,” I said softly, coming around the bed to stand next to Stephen. “We’re going to bring you up to your own bed now. Just go back to sleep. You’ll be perfectly safe with Genie and the dogs.”

Giles’s eyes closed and his head nestled against Stephen’s shoulder. I opened my dressing room door and called to the sleeping spaniels to come. Then we all exited into the passageway and climbed the two flights of stairs to the nursery.

Giles was asleep when Stephen lowered him carefully into his bed. I pulled the quilt over him and tucked it in. Then Stephen and I stood side by side next to the bed and looked at our sleeping son. I felt Stephen’s hand close around mine.

Warmth and happiness filled my heart, except for that one small cold place that couldn’t—or wouldn’t—forget the pain of his silent departure and the five long years I had endured without him.

“This room brings back so many memories,” Stephen murmured in my ear.

“Yes,” I breathed.

We were in Stephen’s old bedroom, and the bed where
Giles was sleeping was quite probably the place where he had been conceived.

I wished, with sudden and painful intensity, that we could turn back time, that we could become once more those two young innocents who had embraced each other with such eager passion inside the sheltering walls of the Weston nursery.

I won’t think about the past, I told myself. Just for tonight I would forget Stephen’s failures and think only that he was alive, and beside me, and that I loved him. I swayed a little and felt his arm go around my shoulders.

“Let’s go downstairs, Annabelle,” he said.

“Yes,” I replied.

The house was perfectly silent as we went back down the stairs and let ourselves into my bedroom. The lamp was still burning on the bedside table, and moonlight was coming in through the open window. We neither of us needed help to get out of our clothes. I was going to get into the bed when Stephen stopped me, turned me around, and simply stood there, drinking me in with his eyes.

I had hated it when Gerald had looked at me like that. It had always made me feel as if he were admiring a possession.

Stephen, I knew, was looking at me.

“I thought about you all the time,” he said in a shaken voice. “And the most amazing thing is—you’re even more beautiful than I remembered.”