Mischief by Moonlight (24 page)

If only he knew.

“
Je
plaisante
.”

I'm joking
…French? Why was he speaking French?

She grabbed his hand and tugged him to the stone bench that stood at the backside of the great elm at the edge of the garden, so they wouldn't be seen from the house. They sat down, but he perched on the edge of the bench, fidgeting, as though he would jump up at any moment.

“You must go,” she said again.

“Can't,” he said.

Was he perhaps too bosky to think straight? “What are you doing here, Nicholas?”

He took a drink from the bottle. “Came to see my angel.” He grinned at her and tipped the bottle toward her ironically, as though he expected her to be scandalized.

She'd never liked the idea of ladies being angels, all perfect and sweet and docile. But considering everything she'd done with Colin, she felt so far from angelic she might as well have been a fallen woman. If it ever got out, all that she'd said and done in the last few months, that's what she'd be known as. Though surely Colin would never expose her in this way.

“Do you know,” he continued, “in Spain, I thought of you whenever I was certain that everything was going to
enfer
. Pardon my language.”

He grinned roguishly, and she raised an eyebrow. She'd never seen Nicholas like this. He was drunk, for one thing, which he never had been before in her presence. But more than that, the things he was saying…it was like being privy to his secret thoughts.

“I missed you, too,” she said.

He took another swallow of brandy and let his arm with the bottle rest on his knee. He shook his head. “It was more than missing for me,” he said. “You were my guiding light. Like…like the essence of perfection. Pure and good and sweet. Clever, too.” His words slurred. “Essence of all a woman should be. Fighting for you gave me hope, made the struggle worthwhile.”

His words were making her uncomfortable. She thought of Colin, who seemed to like to tell her all the things he didn't like about her, even while he insisted he liked her. Well, he obviously lusted after her.

“I'm not perfect, Nicholas. I'm just a woman like any other.”

He laughed and took another drink. She felt a surge of contrariness, and perhaps to annoy him since he'd insisted she wouldn't like it, she took the brandy bottle from him and swallowed a generous amount. It burned awfully and made her cough because she'd drunk it too fast.

“See?” he said. “So innocent. That was your first drink of brandy, wasn't it? And it's really not the thing for you,” he said, making a swipe to grab the bottle.

But she suddenly felt she had something to prove, to herself or to him, or perhaps she needed to thumb her nose at something about life that was making her very cross, and she took another large swallow. It burned a little less, doubtless because she'd already done so much damage to her throat with the first guzzle.

“Josie?” he said in a puzzled voice. “You don't like brandy, do you?”

“What if I do?” she said.

But he only laughed, which made her annoyed with him.

How
could
she
be
annoyed
with
him?
He was Nicholas Hargrave, the man to whom she'd been engaged. A war hero. Clearly she was a desperate case. Very likely a lost cause.

Fatigue and a sort of emotional hangover dragged her shoulders downward. Already she could feel the brandy going to her head, and she put the bottle down. She needed to go back to bed.

She started to stand up, but he had other ideas. He grabbed her hand and pulled her back onto the bench. “Need to tell you something.” His words seemed to come out more thickly with each passing minute.

“Very well,” she said.

He cleared his throat and looked at her hand, which he was still holding, then dropped it and fell to his knees before her, startling her.

“Nicholas?” He wasn't going to propose, was he? Hadn't he understood what she'd told him about Mama needing her? Though she hadn't actually mentioned the vow she'd made to Edwina not to get engaged. But that aside, she didn't feel ready to even talk about marriage. She needed more time!

“I need to tell you about Spain. The work—some of my work was with a French spy. A lady.”

Oh, what a relief—not talk of marriage. But spying? A French woman? She felt a little fuzzy in the head.

“I see,” she said, though she didn't really see anything. She wished he would stop kneeling, but she wasn't certain he was even listening to her. From the earnest look on his face, she understood that he needed to tell her something at least as much as he needed for her to hear it.

“We were alone together often. And she's
très belle
. Not like you, but lovely in her way.”

She absorbed his odd, French-sprinkled words with surprise. Had he had some sort of affair while he was in Spain? Something skipped within her; if he'd been involved with another woman, didn't that make her feel a little better about what she'd done?

What if he didn't even want to marry her anymore? The thought brought a wicked rush of relief. But he was squeezing her hand now so affectionately, and she didn't think that was what he was getting at.

Besides, their situations hadn't been at all similar. He'd been fighting for his life.

“Nicholas, you don't have to speak of this. I can understand if unexpected things happened during the war.”

He waved his hand, as if dismissing whatever permission she'd been trying to give him. “I was attracted to her. She was exciting. A little hard. Mean, even. But interesting.”

Would he never stop listing this woman's attributes? And why should he like a mean woman?

He gave her hand an urgent, rather hard squeeze. “But nothing happened! Nothing happened with her because of you. Because you were my guiding light, my dream of all that is
bon
et
parfait
.”

Why did he keep lapsing into French? And why did he have to keep saying these things, about her being so good and perfect? It was as though she were some sort of statue that he admired for the grace of its construction.

“Nicholas, you have to stop thinking I'm perfect.”

I'm in love with your best friend, for the love of God, even if I'm struggling every day not to be. I want to deserve you—don't make it harder by thinking I'm so good.

He laughed. “Of course you have your quirks. But the fact that you acknowledge this only makes you more wonderful.”

She wanted to scream. What she was really itching to do suddenly, idiotic though it would be, was to tell him what she'd done with Colin.
That
hadn't been a perfect thing to do.

She stood and grabbed his hand and gave a hard pull to urge him upward. He was immensely heavy and unsteady, but he rose.

“I think you should go now. We'll talk tomorrow.”

He lurched toward her, caught himself, and swayed backward before standing mostly upright. “Then you forgive me?”

“It doesn't sound as though there is anything to forgive,” she said, feeling like the worst sort of hypocrite.

“Nothing happened.
Rien
,” he said quietly. “Nothing.”

***

Nick knew he was terribly drunk, and that he shouldn't be at Josie's house. It was incredibly improper, and she was a gentlewoman. She wasn't from the mixed-up world of war, where people did all kinds of things simply because they needed to or wanted to, and why shouldn't they, with the chance that the morrow might bring death?

But after doing his best to fill their time together that afternoon with other people and activities because being alone with her made him restless, he told himself to stop avoiding what he must do. He'd needed to confess about Giselle, and the brandy had given him courage.

He'd been clinging to the idea of Josie for so long—this had been especially hard once he'd come to know Giselle—and the idea that he might lose Josie now that he'd finally gotten back to her was too much. Yet he knew he couldn't come to her without admitting he'd been tempted.

And now that he had, he felt a little more worthy of her. He would never be as good as she was, but she was a woman and thus more virtuous, so that could never be expected.

She turned him in the direction of the path to Greenbrier, whispered a quiet “good night,” and gave him a gentle push. His bosky mind floated the idea of trying to kiss her, but his long experience of discipline pushed his feet to walk away. Besides, he still couldn't tell himself he truly deserved her, because even if he'd never touched Giselle, he still hadn't told Josie the truth.

***

Colin, up late in his library poring over an early manuscript he'd recently acquired, was finding it impossible to concentrate. He knew Nick had left, having watched his departure through the moonlit back garden. The only question was whether Nick had been able to see Josie. It had, after all, been one thirty in the morning. But Josie was not a conventional miss, and it was easy to imagine her slipping down to meet Nicholas.

He pushed aside the tide of jealousy that had been lapping at him since Nick's departure and forced himself to concentrate on the page before him, only to look up several minutes later as he heard the faint sounds, discernible in the late night quiet, of someone at the back entrance to Greenbrier. It was the very same entrance Colin used himself when he visited the Cardworthys.

He pressed his lips together hard and returned to the words scrawled on the paper in front of him.

Before long the door to the library opened, admitting Nick. He was carrying a brandy bottle, and he moved with a wobble toward the chair across from Colin's desk. Colin raised his eyebrows.

Nick chuckled. “Been visiting Josie, but it's a secret, 'course. All
très
chaste, never mind th' impropriety of a midnight
rencontre
.” His words were thick, his movements sloppy. And apparently being foxed now caused him to speak French.

“I see.”

Nick tipped the bottle up to his mouth, though it didn't look as though much was left.

“Seems as though you've had a lot of brandy.”

“Learned to hold quantities of drink in
Espagne
,” he said. “Sometimes I thought all the troubles behind the war could have been resolved if we could have just sat down to a few bottles with the Frenchies.”

Colin watched him through narrowed eyes. Something was amiss, and it wasn't just that Nick was extremely drunk. “I thought you hated Boney.”

“Do. 'Course I do, hate him with a passion. No fire in hell hot enough for the man. He's caused so much misery.”

“Then?”

Nick shrugged. “Not every French person's like him. Not even close. Some of those men who pulled me off the battlefield—they were kind to me. And the doctor. It's a shame we're fighting against them.”

What exactly was Nick saying? Was there more to it? “And Giselle?”

Nick took a drink from the bottle of brandy he was holding. “We ought to be grateful to her, brother. She hates Napoleon so much that she risked her life to help us. To help England.”

“Yes. And she betrayed her own country.”

Nick turned and threw his bottle—apparently now empty—at the hearth, where it shattered, making a startlingly loud sound in the quiet house. Colin lifted an eyebrow at him, and Nick looked away with a tight expression.

“What would
you
do,” Nick said, “if your country were in the hands of a man like Boney?”

“I don't know,” Colin said quietly. “Certainly, some of the choices we make in life don't look good from all angles. But if a person is comfortable with his choices, if that person feels he did the right thing though others may disagree…” He was wandering into hazy territory here, considering his own doings with Josie and what he wanted from her.

“Exactly!” Nick said, flopping back against the divan and sliding a bit toward the floor.

“Anyway,” Colin said, “I thought you said that nothing happened between you and Giselle.”

“Right,” Nick muttered. “Nothing happened.”

But something about the way Nick said the words made Colin believe there was more to it.

“Nothing?”

“Don't want to
discuter
it,” he said and slid all the way off the divan, his head thunking softly against the carpet. With a sigh, Colin got up, dragged him to his feet, and steered him upstairs to his room.

While Nick slept off the brandy the next morning, Colin paid a visit to Jasmine House.

When he appeared at the garden door to the sitting room, he could see Mrs. Cardworthy on the divan, but things did not look quite as usual. Her white cap was askew, and there were several trays of dirty dishes in the room. Josie was in there with her, but she returned his jaunty wave with a grim look that said she hadn't forgiven him for the bossy way he'd been behaving. She took her time in coming to the door.

“You can't come in,” she said in a peremptory whisper, opening the door only a few inches. “Mama is in a state.”

“I hope she's not unwell,” he whispered back, feeling a little silly.

“Not exactly. We found her hidden stash of elixir and threw it out, and she's furious. It's only quiet now because she wore herself out yelling.” She started to close the door, but he wedged the tip of his shoe in the opening before she could.

She frowned. “I've told you we're not accepting visitors.”

“I'm not a visitor, I'm practically family, as you've told me on many occasions. And you are being appallingly rude.”

“Nothing else seems to have any effect on you of late.”

He smiled.

“Is that Ivorwood?” Mrs. Cardworthy said in a remarkably growly voice, having apparently recovered. “Let him inside! I must have my share in the visit.”

“There, you see?” he said cheerfully. “She wants me to come in.”

“You're not coming in. She just wants to complain to you about how we're abusing her.”

He gave her a knowing look. “And this is not the sort of conversation you want to offer your suitors.”

“You're not a suitor.” A hard light came into her eyes, something he was unused to seeing in those normally lighthearted blue sapphires. “Anyway, suitors are the last thing on my mind now. I've vowed not to leave home until Mama abandons the divan. If you want to court a woman, I suggest you go back to your London widows.”

He laughed. “A vow not to marry? Come, admit that's only a way of avoiding making the choice between me and Nicholas.”

Her shoulders slumped a little. “Hush. Why are you making things so hard?”

“Because you're pushing me away. I want you, you want me, and you won't even listen. You're being obtuse and incredibly stubborn. Nick has released you from the engagement, and as far as I can tell, you two haven't rushed to get engaged again. There's nothing but guilt and societal convention stopping you from choosing the future that will make you the happiest, and you're refusing to do it.”

Josie looked pained. “You wouldn't understand,” she said.

“What? What don't I understand?”

“I—nothing.”

“Jo-sie! Edwina!” Mrs. Cardworthy's shrill voice made his ears ring.

“I have to go,” Josie said. “Please move your foot.”

“You do realize, don't you, that you've only substituted yourself and your siblings for her elixir? If you want to stop her from being on the divan all the time, why don't you just get rid of the divan?”

“
Do
go away,” she said. With a quick movement he didn't see coming, she kicked the tip of his shoe so it jerked backward, and before he could react she'd shut the door.

***

That afternoon, Josie, exhausted from the night before, left her mother alone for a few minutes while she went to the kitchen to ask Cook to make something especially restorative for dinner. While Josie was there, Cook urged a cup of chocolate on her, which Josie gratefully drank at the kitchen table, feeling ten years old again and temporarily unburdened by cares.

She was surprised to see Sally in the kitchen doorway; the maid had been cleaning upstairs. She looked agitated.

“If you please, Miss Josie, I'm afraid I've done something bad.”

Josie lifted her eyebrows. “Surely nothing so very bad.”

Sally bit her lip. “It's the mistress. She's been pressing me something awful to find her another bottle of elixir, and I knew she wasn't to have any. But when I was dusting the hall table upstairs a little while ago, I found a bottle of liquid in the little drawer and put it in my apron pocket. And just now when I went into the sitting room, she saw the shape of it and demanded to have it—and I didn't know how to say no!”

Sally burst into tears.

Oh dear. Josie knew what that little bottle had to be—the love potion! One of her wicked brothers had surely hidden it there.

She started upstairs but hadn't quite reached the sitting room when she heard her mother burst into song.

“And manly parts to guard the fair!”

The tune was “Rule Britannia,” the verse an unfortunate corruption. Mrs. Cardworthy, though, seemed pleased with it, because she was singing it again as Josie rushed into the room.

Still on the divan but far more upright and vigorous-looking than she'd been in ages, Mrs. Cardworthy held her arms outstretched as she began the verse a third time. The expression on her face was that of a person announcing something deeply meaningful.

Sally rushed into the room, followed by Josie's siblings.

“What on earth is she doing?” Lawrence said loudly, wincing as his mother repeated “manly parts” yet again.

Josie fixed her brothers with a hard look. “She managed to get her hands on that gypsy's elixir, which was supposed to be missing.”

The boys had the grace to look abashed. Mrs. Cardworthy showed no signs of stopping.

“What must we do for her, miss?” Sally said, clearly horrified by the undignified state of her mistress.

Josie sighed, going over to pick up the bottle, which lay on the table near her mother. It was empty. “I think it will just wear off if we let her be. Who knows—it might even inspire her to get off the divan.”

***

“Josie wouldn't let me into Jasmine House at all,” Nick said bemusedly to Colin later that afternoon, having just returned to Greenbrier. “I thought she might make an exception for me, but she came to the door and said her mother was too ill to be seen, nor could she herself come out. Though really, Mrs. Cardworthy didn't sound weak at all—I think I even heard her singing.”

“She is in her way a vigorous woman,” Colin said.

He was hardly disappointed that Nick hadn't been able to visit Josie either, even if he knew it would be for the best if Nick and Josie had a chance to spend time together. He wanted to be fair, but in truth he felt greedy. And there was the matter of Giselle, whose significance Nick had not fully explained.

“Josie seems to think this business with her mother could take quite some time,” Nick said. “And she doesn't want to make any decisions about her own future until it's resolved.”

Colin tried not to feel gleeful. “Let's go for a walk. We can climb Crumb's Peak.”

“Oh, very well,” Nick said morosely.

They set out from the manor at a brisk pace. Autumn had settled in, with its bright red and yellow leaves and cool dampness, and Colin welcomed the vigorous exercise. It wasn't long before they reached the base of Crumb's Peak.

“This won't be too much for you, with the injury, I hope?” he asked as they started upward.

“No,” Nick said. “I'm quite recovered. Though perhaps I'm not in the same condition I was in before I sat about recuperating for several weeks. Still, we spent a fair amount of time when we weren't fighting doing contests of brawn with the Scots, and it made me rather fit.”

And in fact, he had no difficulty in matching Colin stride for stride. They climbed in silence for a while, the countryside offering stunning views of the changing trees, though neither man paused to enjoy them.

Their pace grew steadily brisker. As they scrambled quickly over the loose rocks lining the long, craggy trail to the peak, Nick said, “I have the sense I'm competing with you here, old boy.”

“Not at all,” Colin said, pushing on a bit faster, “or rather, no more than usual.”

Nick laughed and surged ahead, but he was not in the lead for long, as Colin sprang past him. They battled each other to the top, clambering and grunting and occasionally even putting out a hand to keep the other one behind (which was avoided with wrestling moves familiar to each from their younger days).

Finally they reached the summit, heaving and hot.

“I doubt anyone's ever climbed Crumb's that fast. You were running at the end,” Nick said as they stood next to each other gasping and gazing out over a beautiful view of trees turning red and gold, which Colin knew was wasted on him that day. He grunted in acknowledgment of Nick's words.

Silence, until Nick said, “Is there some reason you're angry with me?”

“Angry?” Colin said.

“You're terse—well, more terse than usual. And you didn't come to the village with us the other day—”

“I was busy with accounts.”

“So you said. But it hasn't escaped my notice that you're not much seeking my company.”

Colin passed a hand over his head. Could any of this be more awkward? Part of him—wrongly, he knew—
was
annoyed with Nick, just for being there, because they were rivals, and Nick had no idea. Mostly he was deeply thankful his friend was alive.

“I simply meant to leave room for you to court Josie, as you said you wanted to do.”

He'd promised not to reveal what had been going on between him and Josie, but his conversation with the brandy-soaked Nick the night before had convinced him that Nick had secrets of his own.

“But I am also…concerned,” Colin said. “As Josie's friend, as well as yours. About Giselle.”

“I told you nothing happened.”

“And yet I get the sense there's more to it.”

Nick kept his gaze on the countryside spread out below them. “I never touched Giselle once. Not once in all the time we were together.
Thrust
together, I might add.”

“But you wanted to touch her.”

“She's French! And as rough as a peasant.” He ran a hand through his hair. “And unutterably noble,” he said miserably.

“You're in love with her.”

Nick turned, his face tight, the line of his jaw hard. “I never said that.” But he hadn't denied it either.

Colin could feel his own jaw tightening. If he hadn't seen the anguish on Nick's face, he would have been tempted to send his fist into his friend's chin. Damn it all. “And so you plan to marry Josie because she's appropriate.”

Nick crossed his arms. “What's with you? This is between Josie and me. Is there something I'm missing? Do you have an understanding of some kind with her? I suppose you got to know her much better while I was away.”

“I already knew her very well,” Colin said through clenched teeth. “And I don't have an understanding with her.”
Not
yet
, he didn't.

“Fine. Then know this: once we've had the chance to remind ourselves of all the things about each other that brought us together in the first place and she accepts my proposal, I intend to be the best husband I can to her. She'll never want for anything, and she'll always have my affection.”

“But apparently not your love. You have to tell her about Giselle.”

Nick turned to look out across the valley again. “I already did.”

That stopped Colin short. “You told her everything? How you feel about Giselle?”

“Colin!” Nick said sharply. “Stop harping on this. Giselle is in the past and I mean to keep her there, so there's nothing more to be said.”

“On the contrary. There's everything to be said if you're courting Josie while you're in love with another woman.”

“You're not to say anything to her about any of this.”

“It's wrong.”

“I disagree. And I must have your word as a friend not to speak of it.”

Colin looked away. This was Nick's affair, and he'd vowed not to interfere. But now, knowing how Nick felt about Giselle, things were different. Clearly Nick meant to do his best to court Josie in spite of caring deeply about a woman he couldn't have.

At that moment, Colin felt himself absolved of any worry that in courting Josie, he'd be acting dishonorably toward Nick. Nick didn't love her, no matter that he meant to care for her.

Which meant that Colin would have to win her first.

“Very well, I will say nothing.” But as soon as he could, he'd tell Josie he meant to court her publicly. She was
not
currently engaged, and he'd had more than enough of secrecy and prevarication.

***

The love potion did not in the end cause Mrs. Cardworthy to get up, though she did exert herself so thoroughly when singing and waving her arms that she fell asleep in the early evening and didn't wake once in the night to ask for anything. Lawrence remarked that the singing episode was likely the most exercise she'd had in ages.

In the morning, she seemed reinvigorated with energy for making demands of her children.

Josie didn't want to admit it, but Colin was right: she and Edwina and her brothers, with all the extra attention they were giving their mother, had filled the hole the brandy elixir had left. They couldn't live this way. Drastic action was called for, and late that afternoon she gathered her siblings and explained her plan.

“But that's cruel!” Lawrence said. He was the eldest son, the child on whom their mother doted, and Josie'd known he'd be the hardest to convince.

“None of us has anything to lose,” she said. “At worst, Mama will be furious. And since she's already furious, she will only be
more
furious. At best—well, shouldn't we have hope?”

With grim faces, the five Cardworthy children came as a group into the sitting room.

“Have you come to your senses then, and brought my elixir?” their mother said.