Mischief by Moonlight (25 page)

They made no reply, but the three boys assembled around the divan as planned and, together, lifted it to the sounds of their mother's outraged shouts. With Edwina holding the door to the garden open, they carried her out and gently deposited her, facing away from the house and out over the back of the garden she hadn't entered for four years.

She was so angry she was spluttering. “This—outrage! Your father—never—wouldn't— Treachery!”

“Papa would never have stood by while you sat on the divan for four years either,” Josie said gently. “We're sorry, but it's for your own good.”

And they left her there and went back inside and assembled at the table in the sitting room. After a few moments, Matthew reached for a deck of cards.

“Cards?” Lawrence said. “At a time like this?”

Matthew shrugged. “We'll need distracting.”

Mrs. Cardworthy began to moan pitiably, which could be heard fairly well through the open windows.

“Deal the cards,” Josie said firmly. “Surely she can't last long out there.”

But Mrs. Cardworthy had staying power.

“We should have known she'd resist. It's what she's good at,” Edwina said two hours later as the early evening shadows lengthened. It was getting rather cool and would soon be dark, but fortunately the orange and pink India shawl draped over the back of the divan had made the trip outside as well, so their mother wouldn't be uncomfortable. Or at least, not very.

They kept doggedly at whist, and had sandwiches brought to them. The servants had been told to wait to serve the mistress her tea. Already accustomed to strange goings-on in the household, they didn't even blink at the sight of the sitting room divan in the garden, with Mrs. Cardworthy still lying on it and complaining pathetically in occasional sobs and moans.

Lawrence threw down his cards. “We have to go get her. It's clouding over.”

“No,” Josie said firmly.

Will was beginning to look grim about the mouth as well. “It does seem a bit cruel to leave her out there. Maybe she just can't do it.”

“It's more cruel to help her abuse her body by lying there all the time,” Edwina said. “Deal the cards.”

They played on, lighting candles as the light faded. A misty rain began to fall, though the garden was too dark now to watch what they all knew must be a pathetic scene. As the minutes dragged by, nobody could pretend anymore that the cards offered even a modicum of distraction.

The distant boom of thunder finally sent Lawrence to his feet. “That's it. This endeavor is a failure. We're bringing her inside.”

Josie and Edwina said nothing as their brothers rushed toward the door to the garden. But before the boys reached the door, it was flung inward.

Their mother stood in the doorway. She was leaning on the door frame, damp and looking as though she might fall over at any moment. An intense glint lit her eyes.

“Mother!” Lawrence cried, rushing forward and trying to put a steadying arm around her. She avoided his efforts and pushed away from the door frame and slowly, haltingly, moved into the room on her own. Edwina called for Sally to bring towels and blankets.

Watching her mother advance unsteadily by slow inches was making Josie feel ready to have an apoplexy with worry that she'd fall over. But she also rejoiced in the determination that was pushing her mother's progress.

“Mama,” she said softly as Mrs. Cardworthy passed over the vacant, dusty area of the floor where the divan had stood, “you're wet. Let me call for a hot bath for you.”

“Later,” Mrs. Cardworthy said in a hoarse voice. She reached the doorway to the corridor and slumped against the frame. “I shall have a meal in the dining room first. I am famished.”

When her children just stood there staring in astonishment, she said, “Well, are you going to join me?”

They rushed forward, everyone talking excitedly at once. Sally arrived with towels and a blanket, and Mrs. Cardworthy was soon dried off and warmly wrapped.

It was the first time they'd all sat down to a meal together in four years. Looking around the table at her family laughing and talking, Josie realized this was the most lively they'd been together since their father died. It was as though a weight had been lifted from the household.

Their mother surprised them further by expressing a wish to pay a call on Mrs. Phillips.

“She's only recently lost her husband, apparently, and that's a turning point in a woman's life. She needs a new vision for herself. I could be of some help to her.”

Her children were almost unable to believe the change in their mother.

“Well,” Matthew whispered to his siblings after the meal as they all watched Mrs. Cardworthy make her way in infinitesimal steps out of the dining room, “she did have plenty of time to
think
on the divan.”

The family stopped in the sitting room to gaze into the dark garden, unable to see the divan that was still out there, but aware it had long since been ruined by the rain. Edwina grabbed Josie's hand and gave it a celebratory squeeze.

“We'll buy a new one,” Mrs. Cardworthy said as she stood by the window, leaning against Lawrence. “In fact,” she said, turning to look at the sitting room, “I think we should redecorate this room entirely.”

“It was a sort of desperate hope, putting her out there,” Josie said quietly to Edwina once their mother, with the boys offering support, had started up the stairs. “I still don't quite understand how it worked.”

Edwina didn't reply at first, and Josie saw that some deep emotion had stirred her.

“She did it one step at a time,” Edwina said. “We forced the first step on her, but it had to be her choice to leave the divan. It's the only way anything ever gets accomplished, isn't it—one step at a time?”

“Yes. She was so attached to that divan, to that just-existing life. Staying safe, refusing to take any chances.”

“Living like that is deadening,” Edwina said in a husky voice that made Josie peer at her more carefully. “I think now—well, I've come to think that we ought to do our best to resist whatever keeps us from bearing the risk of really living.”

“I have a feeling we're not just talking about Mama.”

“No,” Edwina said and wiped at the corner of her eye. “I was thinking of Jack Whitby. There was something so special between us, and I was afraid of it. I never allowed myself to dream it could be possible to be with him.”

“He is not a gentleman,” Josie said gently. “To choose someone like him would be to break with everything you'd ever known or wanted.”

“I loved him,” Edwina said with a catch in her voice. “Love knocked on my door and I wouldn't open it because I didn't like the way its knock sounded. I was afraid of what was different.”

“Don't be so hard on yourself. It would have been a very bold step to choose him.”

“It would have. And I've never been bold, have I?”

“Don't tell yourself mean things like that! It's telling yourself a lie and believing it's true. How can you know what you might do? You were bold in London—didn't
you
kiss
him
?”

A rueful bent teased the edge of Edwina's quivering lips. “I did, didn't I? I hadn't thought of it that way before. Even if kissing Jack led to disaster, it was also bold, wasn't it?”

She gave a watery smile. “I did something bold,” she said, sounding surprised.

Josie gave her a hug. “And you shall do again, I make no doubt.”

But Edwina only sighed. “I'm afraid chances for boldness don't come along too often.”

Josie was sadly inclined to agree. A woman's place was in the home, sheltered from harm—and opportunity.

The following morning very early, though, she heard the sound of a cart approaching, and when she looked out the window to see, she felt a spike of hope that a chance was about to present itself.

***

Edwina heard the cart coming too. The morning was cold, but she always kept her bedchamber window cracked for freshness into December, and it looked out over the front drive. It was very early for a delivery of any kind, and she had to finish pulling on her stockings before she could satisfy her mild curiosity as to the identity of their visitor.

Having plaited one side of her hair, she was just pinning it up when she wandered over to the window and saw a familiar brown-haired man setting a piece of furniture on the drive. Her heart lurched.

A second later she was rushing down the stairs and out the front door, where Sally was just directing Rickett to pick up the piece of furniture. It was a desk like the one she'd admired at Maria Westin's. And there, climbing back into the cart just as though he had no interest in seeing her, was Jack Whitby.

“Wait!” she called, and he turned. She rushed toward the cart, just catching sight of the exquisite petite desk as Rickett was carefully lifting it. She reached the cart as Jack took his seat, so that he was somewhat above her because of the height of the cart. He seemed uninterested in her arrival.

Behind her, Sally was lingering in the doorway as Rickett carried the sweet little desk inside. Mama was just appearing as well, and in the window above, Matthew was looking out. She supposed it would be only moments before Josie and Will and Lawrence were watching too, along with the kitchen maids. But Edwina didn't care who was watching. She'd had enough of hidden doings.

“You weren't going to leave without seeing me,” she said. He didn't turn to look at her.

Her eyes drank in his dear profile, with that hint of a smirk that seemed to linger permanently at the edge of his mouth and those light blue eyes like none other. She'd missed him every single day.

“I didn't see the need,” he said coolly. “I merely came to deliver the desk. Mrs. Westin knew you'd admired it, and she wanted you to have one just like it.”

“You made it for me,” she breathed in wonder, coming to stand in front of him so he'd have to really look at her. His expression was stony, but still the sight of him filled her with joy and hope. “I admired it in her sitting room, and she told you, and you made it for me.”

“She placed an order, and I filled it. I'm only here to deliver it.”

“But you made it with the care and artistry that you bring to everything you do. I know I shall always treasure it because you made it for me.”

His eyes betrayed no reaction to the eager warmth of her words. He looked so distant, the sharp set of his chin forbidding, his blue eyes icy and closed off to her. He was a proud man, and she'd insulted him terribly, and overlooked so many of the fine values he held dear. She couldn't expect him to be glad to see her.

She grabbed at the pinned-up side of her coiffure and pulled it free to hang loose with the rest of her hair as she hurried to make him understand. “I know I behaved terribly to you. I was wrong.”

He regarded her impassively, the mouth that had teased her and playfully kissed her set in a hard line.

“No, you weren't.”

He dropped his gaze to the horses and lifted his hand to crack the whip as if that were all that could be said between them.

Before her disaster, this rejection would have been more than enough to make her feel spurned, to make her decide she didn't want what she couldn't get. But she was bold now, and she quickly put a foot on the cart and swung herself up to stand precariously next to him.

Now he was very close, and she towered above him as he sat. She might be bold, but she was also quivering in fear that he wouldn't bend—he was such a proud man.

“What on earth are you doing?” he said, but she'd cracked his cool a little, even if now he sounded angry.

“You can't just leave, Jack. Please don't throw away what's between us.”

“There's nothing between us, and there can't be. We've already established that.”

“All we've established is that I can be stubborn and you can be arrogant. They're qualities that can be positive or negative—it depends on what you do with them.”

“Edwina,” he said through clenched teeth, refusing to look up at her, “you've been raised all your life to marry a gentleman. I'm not a gentleman, which means that the way we are right now, with you hovering above me, is the way it would always be.”

“I disagree. We always have choices. Move over.”

And before he could even shift, she was dropping onto the small space between him and the end of the bench. She was slim, but still, only half of her backside fit on the small available section of the cart bench. She turned and smiled at him, her heart in her throat.

“Won't you please move over a bit?”

He drew in a breath that gave her a little hope, because it sounded tormented. He made room, although they were still touching all along their sides.

She welcomed the warmth of his body and sent up a little prayer that her own body was having an effect on him as well. She'd take whatever worked, if it would soften the resolve in the stiff spine beside her. It amazed her when she thought of how she'd once considered him capable of rough behavior, when in truth he was the most upright man she'd ever met.

“Edwina, this is a terrible idea,” he said, still not looking at her. “We had a chance in London to try things out, and it worked out badly. I'm sure neither of us wants a repeat of that.”

“There wouldn't be a repeat. If we were together, it would be the two of us as one. No one would find it very interesting at all.”

“It wouldn't work, Edwina. You want a gentleman, a prince to make you feel royal.”

She touched his arm, feeling the hardness of tendons and muscles held in tension.

“I only thought I did,” she said softly, “until I met you. Darling Jack, you
are
a prince, in the only ways that truly matter. But I couldn't see that at first. I didn't know what I really wanted because I'd been so focused on what I thought I needed. When I found myself so drawn to you, I fought it. I was afraid. You showed me how much more life might offer, and it scared me because it was different from everything I'd ever thought I needed.”