Must Have Been The Moonlight (29 page)

“His fever is back, as I warned,” Blanchard said when she arrived in Michael’s room.

Brianna reached her palm out to touch her husband’s brow. “How the mighty do forget they are human.”

A hand wrapped around her wrist, bringing her to full alertness and a sudden trip-hammer pounding in her chest. The light of the flickering fire revealed Michael watching her. “I haven’t forgotten,
amîri
.”

“You’ve been busy today,” she said, touching his fevered brow.

“I swear I’m going to strangle Blanchard.” Michael’s eyes drifted close. “For…his bloody…potions.”

“You need your sleep, Michael.” Unimpressed with his bullishness, Brianna waited until she was sure her husband was breathing evenly before she stood. “You have my permission to see that he stays in bed,” she said to Blanchard.

The next morning, Michael was still asleep when Brianna had dressed and decided to explore her new surroundings. She fastened her cloak. Then, on her way out, she shoved the silver derringer in her pocket. Gracie was still unpacking.

“If Lord Chamberlain should appear, tell him that you don’t know where I am,” Brianna said.

Behind the house lay the stables, barns, and coach houses, which together with the greenhouse formed a small working village of its own. Brianna rode her mare past the stables. The buffeting wind snatched at her hat and cloak. She did not use a sidesaddle. When she reached the edge of the lake, she turned and looked back at the massive house. Sunlight checkered the serrated rooftop, a dozen smoking chimneys, and turned the mullioned panes of glass to gold. The sight remained extraordinary for a novice duchess and only confirmed her first impression of the size of everything at Aldbury Park.

Later, Brianna found a two-story Tudor cottage in the woods. Tying her horse to a branch, she was as surprised by its sudden appearance rising out in the brambles and thickets as she was to find the door unlocked. This was once an old Elizabethan hunting lodge.

Upstairs, paintings lined the wall or stood on easels, some covered, some unfinished. Someone at the house was an excellent artist. She realized this lodge would make a perfect photography studio.

A voice outside the long window pulled Brianna into an alcove, and wrapping her cloak tighter, she leaned into the glass. A little girl of about eleven sat cross-legged on a fallen tree, tormenting a kitten, watching as it chased its tail. She wore no wrap against the cold, and was soon called to task
for her neglect. A woman wrapped in a heavy cloak and carrying another approached. The two had come from an opposite path to the one Brianna had ridden. As if sensing they were being watched, both turned to look up at the window. The cool light fell on the woman’s lower face before she yanked the girl around and walked back toward the main house.

The whole incident had lasted less than a minute, and Brianna, sole proprietor of the scene, wanted to know who they were. Wrapping the cloak around her slim shoulders, she retraced her steps, only to find that her mare was gone.

Untied and let loose, more like it, she realized as she looked down and saw smaller shoe prints encased in the mud at her feet. The little brat tormenting that cat had sent her horse off.

“Is she a servant’s daughter?” Brianna stood at the sideboard an hour later and saw only porridge for breakfast. For all the glorious architecture of Aldbury Park, the food was terrible.

“That would be Lady Amber Catherine, your Grace,” an older man said. “Edward’s eldest daughter.”

“I see.” Brianna sat at the table, adjusting her skirts. She’d trekked across the field and managed to suffer a blister on her heel. “Will her mother be in attendance at this meal?”

“Lady Caroline rarely takes her morning meal anywhere but in the nursery with the children.”

She suspected Michael would be asleep all day. At least she hoped he would be. He needed his rest. “Then I assume I’m alone this morning?”

“Lord Chamberlain is in the library at this time. And Countess Aldbury dines in her room—”

“Countess Aldbury?”

“Your husband’s mother, your Grace. She lives in the east wing. You might have seen her with Amber Catherine. They take their morning constitutional together. Sometimes to the lodge, where her ladyship used to dabble with paints. She
hasn’t been inside the place since Edward passed away. I imagine it is quite untidy.”

“Has Michael…has his grace seen her since his return home?”

“No, mum.”

“But why ever not?”

“I wouldn’t presume to know the answer to that.”

But they all did. She could tell in that brief glimpse, that every servant present knew the history in this family.

Brianna fidgeted with the corner of the napkin. Finally, she stood. “Where is the nursery?” she asked.

“Up the stairs and to the left corridor.” He cleared his throat. “You will probably hear the little nipper. She hasn’t been feeling well.”

“Has Dr. Blanchard seen the child?”

“I don’t believe so, your Grace. Should I send for him?” He seemed eager to do so, and Brianna could see that he cared for the child.

“Tell him that I said so. I fear he feels his current services are being wasted and this will give him something of importance to do.”

Brianna didn’t hear the baby, so it took her longer to find the rooms in the blaring silence of endless corridors. She was beginning to wonder if there were any signs of life in this house at all when she’d reached the end of the hallway and heard muffled voices behind the last door. The door opened and a servant stepped out.

“Your Grace.” She hastily dipped and nearly dropped the foul smelling bundle she carried in her arms. “I didn’t see you.”

“Is Lady Caroline inside?”

“Yes, your Grace.”

Brianna stepped into the room and was at once struck by the bright yellow and lavender wallpaper that covered the walls. Purple draperies had been drawn and sunlight found its way everywhere into the room. A woman sat on the floor,
gently cooing over a wriggling child. She looked up as Brianna entered. Her face warmed into a smile.

Instinctively, Brianna knew that this was Lady Caroline and not some nanny or caregiver. “Don’t get up, please,” Brianna said.

“Please join me, then. You must be Brianna.” The woman held out a hand. “The new Lady Ravenspur. I’m sorry that I didn’t get to see you downstairs the night you arrived. She’s teething, and when she fell asleep, I fear that I did as well.”

Lady Caroline had fine blond hair rolled in a bun at her nape. Her eyes were the color green of a rare piece of jade. She was neither exotic nor breathtakingly beautiful, but she possessed something far more attractive than looks. With her freckled nose and cheerful deportment, she was like a daisy in a bed of roses—something Brianna would find appealing in a friend. Her smile was genuine, if not reserved, as she invited her to sit on the floor.

Was this Michael’s Caroline, then? The woman who had sent him oceans away? The woman he’d written to from Southampton?

“You have another daughter?” Brianna asked.

“Yes, Amber Catherine,” Lady Caroline said.

Brianna sat on the floor. “I saw her playing with a kitten outside the lodge beside the lake. There was a woman with her.”

Caroline’s face lifted from her baby. “That would be Countess Aldbury.” Her voice hesitated. “Did she see you?”

“A glimpse perhaps.”

“You’ll have to get used to her. She doted on my husband. I fear she’s been a recluse since Edward died. You’ve met the dowager?”

“She left yesterday.”

“Don’t let that gruff exterior worry you. It broke her heart when James left England.” She traced a finger over the baby’s nose. “It took us three years to learn that he no longer went by the name of Aldbury. Did you know that Michael
was the name borne by the archangel closest to God? There is irony in that, I think.”

“Why is that?” The masculine inquiry came from the doorway.

Michael leaned with his good shoulder against the frame, clearly measuring the situation as Brianna tried to ignore the escalating beat of her heart. He was dressed in knee-high boots and casual attire, his arm in a sling. He’d not shaved and looked as if he had just awakened.

“Because you were the least saintly person I ever knew, James Michael Aldbury.” Caroline climbed to her feet. Her hands brushed at her skirts almost self-consciously. “You were terribly wicked. If there was trouble to be had, you found it, and the rest of us would not be able to sit for a week after the thrashings we received because of you.”

Michael had not taken his eyes from Brianna.

“He always led a terribly dangerous and exciting life compared to the rest of us,” Caroline said, drawing Michael’s gaze, a dull recognition growing inside Brianna that these two had a long history. “I envied you your freedom.”

“I saw two campaigns, Caro. Freedom was a luxury I
didn’t
have.”

“I heard what happened in London.”

“A moment of inattention that won’t happen again.”

Michael walked past Caroline and dropped to his haunches beside Brianna. She was aware of his crystalline eyes focusing completely on her. “You’ve been busy,
amîri
. My apologies for missing supper with you last night.”

“Not at all,” she said, unashamed that she’d ordered Blanchard to knock him out. “I was glad to provide you with the opportunity to sleep.”

“Remind me to thank you properly.”

Brianna’s confident smirk faltered. The infant cooed prettily and Michael dropped his attention to the baby, leaving Brianna to ponder the promise of his words. “Have you been practicing holding her?” he asked, with such smug certitude that a hot flush of color burned her cheeks.

“Her name is Edwina.” Caroline hovered as any anxious mother would around a one-armed uncle. “She and Amber Catherine both have the Aldbury eyes. Aldbury children are famous for the trademark.”

As the Ravenspur bride expected to produce one of those, Brianna squirmed. The certainty that the current owner of those translucent silver eyes would do his duty by her in that regard leaped to the forefront of her mind, especially when that thoroughly gray gaze slowly raked her. He was so close she could smell the clean scent of his soap.

Suddenly she had to escape from this room.

“She’s my angel.” Caroline lifted her child, looking oddly at Brianna and Michael. “Have you been to see your mother yet?”

“No,” Brianna heard Michael say.

The air had chilled. The mood changed, and Michael stood.

“For the record, I thought that you should have been summoned home sooner,” Caroline said. “It wasn’t my idea to wait.”

“What do you want me to say, Caroline?” Michael helped Brianna to her feet. He was not going to let her flee. “That I wished everything could have been different? Trust me. I do.”

“Dammit, Brianna, I didn’t bring you in here to bleed me—”

“Don’t move.” She bent Michael’s head to the side and clipped the second stitch above his ear. “How could you not see your own mother?”

Brianna stood caged between Michael’s legs as he sat on the corner of his bed. A pair of scissors and tweezers, one in each hand, she faced him like an army field surgeon. He lifted a dubious brow. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

“I would be worried, too, if I were looking at me with scissors in my hand. Especially after I’d just left the room of
my husband’s former true love. Do you think she’s still pretty?”

Michael caught her wrist. “You have a temper,
amîri
.” He removed the scissors from her grip, his dancing eyes passing over hers. “I’ll wait for Blanchard to finish the job, before you drain me of more blood.”

“I’m trying to discuss something important, Michael.”

“So am I.” In one fluid motion, he pulled her down onto the feather mattress and turned her squirming beneath him. She realized then that she’d forgotten to take the derringer from her pocket. That it was still loaded from when she’d taken it on her ride that morning. “Maybe I should have Blanchard feed you the same potion he’s giving me,” he said.

“I’m sorry if you were upset about that.”

“Upset?” he scoffed. “I need my senses about me more than I need a few extra hours of sleep. Don’t do that again. Unless you care to test my stamina.” The subtle threat sent a dangerous thrill through her veins, for he had kept his distance from her. Or she from him. She didn’t know.

No matter, her hands surged to his chest. “You are high-handed with your attentions, Michael. You always end an argument like this.”

His mouth paid intimate homage to the pale mounds of flesh that pushed above her bodice. “Are we arguing?”

The confusion and hunger eating at her tightened her stomach. He so easily manipulated her, and his injuries made it that much easier for him to get his way because she worried about him. Indeed, she’d spent too many days and weeks worrying about him. “I won’t lie down with you because you snap your fingers, Michael.” She gave him her cheek. “I won’t.”

He put the side of his thumb to her face and turned her toward him. “Did you hear my fingers snap?”