Must Have Been The Moonlight (30 page)

His mouth covered hers.

A long intimate exploration surpassed her gasp and her intent to deny him. He’d taken his arm from his sling, and
his fingers extended into her hair as he deepened the kiss, his body making any verbal comments superfluous; then she forgot to think at all.

A part of her wanted to lie trapped against his heat. To accept her duty, bend to convention, and rally behind motherhood. She tasted him, felt her body respond. Panic infused her limbs.

She thought she knew him, but she did not.

“Michael.” She desperately breathed against his mouth. The derringer pained her hip. “Stop.”

Suddenly they were both staring at each other. She was breathing hard with her exertion; he was barely breathing at all, and to her reeling mind, stood in dire need of comeuppance. She would not relent.

“Do you want me to throw Caroline out?” he drawled calmly. “I can send her back to her brother. Or to a remote cabin in Siberia perhaps.”

“Ask sweetly, and I will allow her to stay.” She lay with her hair spread beneath her, looking up into his face. She would never ask that he send her away. He was her children’s guardian.

Besides, this was about more than her jealousy, and he knew it, could read it in her eyes. She had a perfectly legitimate reason to be furious with him, beginning with his lack of information concerning his whole gilded life. Nor did she understand his family. This icy disdain among members of the same family was simply foreign to her. With her kin, at least one understood where one stood and did battle accordingly.

“Go to your mother, Michael.” She took a fortifying breath. “You’re fortunate to have one. Mine died when I was very young. She died before I even understood that she was ill. I never even said good-bye.”

“My mother is a loon, Brianna.”

“That’s a horrible thing to say.”

“Hell, Brianna. Enough already.” Michael turned on his back and she shoved out of bed. The comforter fell like a
ruby waterfall to the floor in her wake. “You’ve made your discontent with me on the topic clear.” He winced when he set his arm back in the sling and met her gaze. “But I’m not asking for bloody approval.”

“Truly, Michael.” Brianna shakily adjusted her skirts and straightened her bodice to some semblance of decorum. “How could I approve or disapprove of something I don’t understand?” Interested only in escaping, she went as far as the door. “Do not worry about me—”

His hand came over her shoulder and shut the door in her face.

“And you can demand that I not breathe, for all the good it will do.” His other arm remained in a sling, but no less a barrier at her back. She squeezed her eyes shut, the scent of him filling her every pore. “You ask about my family,” he said against her hair. “I have never been privy to my mother’s thoughts or her heart. Stiff upper lip and all that. Unlike the Irish, we Brits find any display of emotions coarse.” He tilted a finger against her chin, turning her in his arms.

“My father was a tyrant who would have sold his children if it could have bought him political favors—who did sell off a son who fell far short of his expectations. He was master in his kingdom. One bowed first and last to the ever-present status quo. Men of Chamberlain’s rank stand at the gates of this dynasty like Peter guarding heaven. Despite what you may think, I’m an outsider here as well.”

A knock sounded on the door. Lord Chamberlain spoke from the other side, reminding Michael of an appointment. Annoyed, he lifted his gaze from Brianna’s. “I’ll be down in a moment,” he said through the door.

“You could let Chamberlain handle the estate management.”

“But I won’t.” He brushed his thumb over her lips. “Right now people don’t trust me,” he said, his words focused on her, “but they will.”

“Yes, they will, Michael.” She was insulted for him, infuriated that people could dislike him. “You were born to rule.”

Their faces only inches apart, he abruptly pulled back.

“You have all the traits,” she reassured him.

“You are content, then, to be here?”

“Naturally,” she said quietly, sensing his interest as she weighed the subtle change of topic. “Who wouldn’t be struck with awe?”

Opening the door, he looked back at her standing in his room. Then it occurred to her that she might be overplaying her hand, considering their conversation in London. She wondered if his talk about trust had been more than rhetorical and specifically aimed at her.

“Thank you for the rose.” She could think of nothing else when he looked at her in that way.

“You’re welcome, Brianna.”

Watching his tall form disappear down the corridor, Brianna folded her arms and leaned into the doorway. He was being completely agreeable for once. So why did it strike her that she should be worried?

“I
believe I have several matters of import to discuss with you, your Grace.” Chamberlain stood in front of the desk in Michael’s library. He’d been three weeks in residence and little had changed from their last conversation.

A pile of papers sat on the desk, awaiting his ducal signature. Tenants, bankers, and solicitors all sought his time. For weeks his days had been filled with an endless amount of exhaustive meetings, account reviews, and estate tours. He’d barely finished paying off the third set of death taxes in less than eight years on the Aldbury holdings when Chamberlain presented him with a full accounting of the estate.

Distracted, Michael dropped the paper in his hand. “Do you want to tell me what my brother did with the income from this estate for the last three years?” He waited for Blanchard to stop probing his shoulder before he grabbed another memo and glared at Chamberlain.

s hands clasped behind his back, the man rocked back on his heels. “He built an infirmary in Aylesbury.”

“That was Caroline’s doing. And we’re obligated a fortune to complete the construction. I have to go there this afternoon.”

“He collected some of the finest racing horses in England.”

“Which clearly assisted him to his demise. Every horse will be sold, and it still won’t pay off his markers in London alone.”

“I was not the keeper of your brother’s conscience, your Grace.”

“Only the executer of his funds. Ouch…Christ—” He winced as Blanchard rotated his arm to shoulder level. “Do you want to warn me before you do that?”

Blanchard merely looked over the bridge of his nose. “Your patience is still required to heal completely, your Grace.”

“My patience?” Michael snatched up his shirt and shrugged into the sleeves. “I’m a living example of patience.” He eased the shirt into his trousers. “Hell, most would consider me a bloody saint for my exemplary patience. But my arm needs my shoulder to work.”

“I recommend exercises. But it could still be weeks before you have full use of both your arm and shoulder, your Grace.”

“Would you care for some brandy, your Grace?” a servant inquired from the doorway.

Michael’s fingers worked the jet-black buttons on his burgundy vest. His trousers were black with a thin gray strip running down the crease. His jacket remained off. “Yes.” He waved the man in as Blanchard packed his leather bag.

Michael slapped the cravat around his collar and worked the cloth into a knot at his throat as he sat. He stared at the papers on his desk. His expertise was not in finance or farming, but even he recognized a poorly managed estate and the shocking hemorrhage of operable funds that seemed magnified because of three consecutive crop failures and a multitude of poor business investments.

Somewhere in the corridor a vase shattered.

“It is she!” Blanchard stepped back into the room, his face pale. “Someone will have to fetch her governess.”

“Fetch her mother, more like it,” Chamberlain snorted. “Lock the bloody door before she comes in here.”

“You can use the veranda door,” the butler suggested, his expression plaintive.

Michael looked in disbelief at them all. “Send someone to clean up the mess, Blanchard. And shut the door on your way out.” He added, “How the hell is it that someone can’t manage a bloody eleven-year-old?”

“One doesn’t
manage
Lady Amber, your Grace,” the butler said.

“Doesn’t she have any friends?” But he knew before Chamberlain said anything that their only suitable neighbors lived an hour away and had no children. Even if they did, Michael was convinced they’d have locked them away from his niece. His brother’s eldest child was what one genteel servant generously described as a rambunctious little shaver. Michael was considerably less optimistic. His niece was a spoiled brat. People ran when she entered a room.

He took the snifter from the silver tray the servant offered. Noting the letters on the lace doily next to his brandy, he lifted them from the tray. They were addressed to Brianna, and at once he felt the tightness slide away.

“I can take those upstairs, your Grace,” the butler said.

Michael set down the glass of brandy. One letter was from Lady Alexandra, two from others who bore the Donally name, but the fourth was from a Mr. Smith on Bond Street. Michael edged a thumb over the sharp corner of the letter. “Is this name familiar to you?”

“Yes, your Grace. Your Grace?” The butler’s voice lifted Michael’s head. The man’s gaze pointed to the letters in his hand. “Should I tell her, then, that you have intercepted her mail?” The gray-haired butler shifted his gaze over Michael’s shoulder. “I mean, she’ll ask about the letters when she goes to her chambers, your Grace. I always put her mail on her desk.”

“Does she always receive this much mail?”

“She has a large family, and they seem to be very passionate in their correspondence.” He cleared his throat and flushed. “She told me, your Grace.”

“And in her discourse, did she also share with you what she does along the way when she goes to Wendover to visit my grandmother, or to Aldbury for that matter?”

“No, your Grace.”

“Is my wife back from the stables yet?”

“Yes, your Grace. I expect that she went to the lake again.”

Michael walked to the glass doors that overlooked the distant lake. He wouldn’t see Brianna until later.

“Your wife discharged her music instructor, your Grace,” Chamberlain said, “or she would be in the conservatory at this time.”

From Gracie, he’d learned that Brianna kept herself occupied with projects and seemed determined to make her way without Chamberlain’s help and without his. But in the evenings, he knew he could always find her in the library. On that score at least, Michael had earned her sincerest gratitude. Aldbury had a magnificent library, and he’d given her the freedom to explore every tome. But too often he’d found himself watching her rather than working, not understanding this insane fellowship of disjointed emotions.

He thought of her constantly.

He had allowed her space only because he’d been handicapped with his injuries. But he realized it was more than that. He wanted her to come to him.

“Your carriage will be brought around in fifteen minutes, your Grace,” his butler informed him. “Shall I fetch your coat? It looks like snow on the way.”

Which would probably force an overnight stay someplace.

Movement in the doorway stopped the conversation in the room. The butler turned. Chamberlain, sensing the ominous silence, looked over his shoulder. “Countess Aldbury.” He snapped to attention as if caught by Napoleon sloughing off while on the front lines. “My lady.”

The countess acknowledged Lord Chamberlain with a small nod, but she looked at Michael, standing by the glass
doors. “James.” Opening her fingers, she smoothed out the bunched material on her black skirt, followed by a moment of awkwardness as she seemed flustered by the attention of so many.

Michael didn’t move, except to nod his dismissal to those present.

Easing the letters into his pocket, he was curious what monumental occasion finally drove the countess from her quarters to seek him out. As always, she was flawlessly neat, adorned in black, though Edward had been dead for over a year.

Brown eyes looked from him to the library shelves filled with leather-bound tomes. His brother had never been a connoisseur of literature, but every year since he was in the schoolroom, she’d purchased books for Edward. Michael, however, had been the one to read them all.

“Since you have chosen to ignore my presence these past weeks, I thought it time to find you,” she finally said when the door shut. “You are the only person who can exercise any control in this matter.”

Michael’s brow arched. “I don’t know how far-reaching my control is.” It certainly hadn’t seemed like much lately.

“It concerns your wife. The servants are talking, James. It’s never good when the servants talk.”

He just watched her. “What about my wife?”

“She has taken…she has
stolen
my summer cottage and made it into a…a lodging to take photographs.”

Michael resisted pinching the bridge of his nose. Twelve years without a spoken or written word between them and his mother’s first dictum demanded that he throw his wife out of the cottage she’d been working so hard to repair these past weeks. “She develops photographs there, Mother. The cottage wasn’t being used. It was falling down.”

“I paint there in the summer months. The cottage is mine.”

“Would it be so difficult to share? Have you talked to her?”

“I’ll not share. The idea is preposterous. And I’m talking to you. It’s time that we speak. Don’t you think?”

Michael’s hands went to his hips. His shoulder stitched, and he welcomed the pain as he looked away. He didn’t bother to ask her where she’d been when he’d spent four days of his first week at Aldbury in bed with a fever. Nor did he point out that in all the years he’d been exiled from this family, not once had she ever written a single word to him.

Ever.

“She has painted the rooms, James. She had no right.” Agitation brought fire to her eyes. “Tell her that she doesn’t belong there.”

“I’ll see what I can do, Mother.”

“Edward…he would have known what to do,” she whispered.

“Edward isn’t here. I am.”

The room grew silent. A log snapped in the fireplace. Seeing her so confused created an unexpected surge of compassion in him. “I know that you are not Edward,” she said, her gaze going to where his hair had grown out over the scar on his scalp. “But he would know what to do.”

After his mother left, the butler returned with Michael’s coat. He shrugged into it and walked out onto the terrace. With his chin down against the stiff chill, he looked at the horizon. The clouds were darkening into what looked to be an approaching late winter snowstorm.

“Uncle James?”

Amber Catherine stood at his side, looking up at him, her blond curly hair like a wild nimbus around her head. He’d noticed that she always followed him, and more than once he’d nearly stepped on her. She held an orange kitten in her arms. Decked out in little red bows, it peered up at him through glassy eyes begging to be put out of its misery. “Do you think your cat enjoys being dressed like a doll, Amber?” he asked.

“His name is Sam.” Her arms defiantly wrapped the kitten tighter.

“Return inside, Amber. It’s cold out here.”

Her expression fell, and something about the crestfallen mien stabbed at Michael. He suddenly felt sorry that she was eleven years old with no friends or father, and had lived with her grandmother’s crap every day of her life. He pulled the collar up on his coat. “Only because it’s cold, Amber, and you’re wearing no cloak.”

“Papa used to come out here after he talked to Grandmama, too,” Amber said. “He would smoke. Sometimes he drank. Lots of times he swore. Grandmama didn’t like him to swear. She said he would go to hell like you. Are you going to hell, Uncle James?”

Despite himself, Michael grinned. “Not any time soon. And Amber…” he said as she started to turn away. Her big eyes rose to his. “I like the name of your cat.”

Brianna was standing on a spindle-back chair, cleaning the windows in what would be her sanctuary, when she glimpsed Michael coming into the yard. Her hand automatically went to the red kerchief over her braided hair. Bending nearer to the glass, she watched as he stopped and talked to one of the lads hauling out a bucket of dirty water. Wearing his heavy military-style cloak, the collar snuggling his neck, Michael looked very British Foreign Service. Christopher had been an intelligence officer long ago, and Brianna always considered it a romantic profession.

These last weeks with Michael had been both confusing and difficult. While he’d been recovering from his wounds, he’d begun to court her as he’d never done, and in the evenings, she spent her time with him in the library while he worked. She would stare at him bathed in the lamplight, and sometimes he would catch her watching. She knew uncertainty beneath the weight of her heart.

Already his household staff had informed him that she had rearranged the Green Room, where she slept; sacrilege, to be sure, in quarters that had not had a single piece of fur
niture moved in a hundred years. And he’d said nothing when she’d changed the daily menu last week.

Seeing that he was also on his way inside the cottage to see her, Brianna leaped from the chair, her feet thumping on the floorboards, wondering what had finally brought him to her. Servants had carried every movable object outside, since sanding and varnishing the floor had begun that morning. She’d carefully stored the beautiful watercolors and paintings out of the way in what would eventually become her darkroom.

Hearing Michael’s voice, she rolled down her sleeves and hurried out. She’d been in a closet earlier, an old burlap apron tied around her dress and now noticed that her bodice was covered in cobwebs. She was still brushing at her apron when she met Michael at the bottom of the stairs.

She looked into his deep silvery eyes, surrounded by dark lashes that rose slowly with his brows as he surveyed her with a slow smile.