Jo Ann Brown (16 page)

“Perhaps I shall bring her one of my paintings to cheer her.”

“That would be lovely,” she said, even though she suspected Sir Nigel’s work would never be displayed in her mother’s elegant rooms. “Did you do landscapes or seascapes this year?”

“Seascapes. Moon-shadowed ones, for the most part.” He gave her a roguish grin. “I am sure that does not surprise you, Miss Meriweather.”

Before she could blurt that she had no idea what he meant, a footman rushed up and whispered something to Sir Nigel. Her host’s face grew taut, so different from his usual good humor. He waved the footman away, took a moment to ask her to excuse him and rushed away at a speed she had not guessed a man of his girth could attain.

“I don’t like him,” Gemma said loudly enough to cause nearby heads to turn.

Not wanting to scold the child for her unthinking words when many could overhear, Sophia told the children to come with her. She went through the first open doorway she found, making sure both children came with her. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the stone terrace was empty. The only light came from the ballroom, because no moon hung among the hundreds of stars. Leading the children to a long, low stone bench, she sat with them.

“I am bored,” Gemma said before Sophia could remind her of her manners. “I thought balls were supposed to be wonderful.”

“They are,” Sophia replied. “If you are there to catch up on gossip or to flirt.”

“Flirt?” asked Michael, as always all ears. “What is that? Like flying?” He flapped his arms wildly.

Sophia caught his hands and lowered them to his sides before one struck her or his sister.

Gemma raised her chin and said, “Silly! Flirting is what a lady does when she wants a man to kiss her.” She stood and waved an imaginary fan. In a simpering tone, she cooed, “Oooh, my lord, you are such a dear to say that. Let me give you a kiss.”

“Who taught you that?” asked Sophia, trying not to laugh at the little girl. Her imitation was close to the actions of some women Sophia had seen in London during her brief Season.

“No one,” Gemma said proudly. “I learned by watching Mama. She got lots of kisses from men who came to our house.”

Sophia choked back her shocked gasp as Gemma prattled on innocently about her mother’s far-from-innocent encounters. Praying that the little girl had misunderstood what she had seen and that Lady Northbridge had been faithful to her husband, Sophia reminded herself of the other times the children had misconstrued what they had witnessed.

Lord, let this be like the other times,
she prayed, but she feared it was not.

Charles’s own words burst from her memory.
We are too much the same. Hurt too deeply to see anything but potential pain in every word and action, Sophia.
She had asked him who had hurt him, and he had given her no answer.

Had it been his wife? His partner in what his friends believed was a perfect marriage filled with love and devotion?

Sophia hoped her smile did not look as hideous as it felt. “Listen to the music. Didn’t we come here to dance?”

The children grasped her hands, and she stood to let them spin around her. She wished she could share their pure joy with the music. They released her hands and hooked arms as they pranced around the terrace, completely immersed in their fun. When the music ended, they dropped to sit, panting. They were on their feet and twirling with the first note of the next set.

Where was Charles? It was unlike him to leave his children for long. Someone other than Sir Nigel must have delayed him from returning. But who?

Her heart leaped when a tall man emerged from one of the doorways and walked toward her. Charles? Had he come to look for his children? Had he come to look for
her?
When the man was a few steps from her, hope withered inside her as she recognized her cousin.

“I thought you might like something to quench your thirst.” Cousin Edmund held out a small glass of lemonade and then handed two cups to the children. “Your sister is wondering where you are.”

“It was stifling and stuffy in there, so I thought the children would enjoy themselves more out here. Thank you for bringing us something to drink, but do not feel that you have to keep us company.” She smiled. “I saw you and Mrs. Goodman cutting papers in that lively dance earlier. Few can keep up with her, but you made a good show.”

He glanced at the children, who had gulped down their lemonade. “They still look thirsty. Don’t you think so?”

Sophia guessed he did not want Gemma and Michael to hear what he had to say next. She asked the children if they wanted more lemonade. When they gave an eager yes, Cousin Edmund gave them directions to where they could find it only a few feet from the doorway.

“You will find chairs to sit on that will be more comfortable than this chilly bench,” he added.

“Want to dance with Sophia,” announced Michael.

“And we will dance more,” she assured him. “While you drink your lemonade, I will speak with Lord Meriweather. I will be inside soon to get you, and then we will dance more. Does that sound like fun?”

“Yes!” Michael shouted as he ran after his sister who took his hand before they went into the ballroom.

“Where is Northbridge?” her cousin asked the moment the children stepped inside.

Sophia stood. “I was going to ask you the same thing. I have not seen him since you took him to meet Sir Nigel.”

“He had little interest in what our host calls paintings. Nor did I. Most of them looked as if they had been caught in the rain. I assumed Northbridge would look for the children and you as soon as he excused himself.”

“We have seen no sign of him.”

Cousin Edmund sighed. “Maybe he fell asleep somewhere. He had another bad night.” He leaned one hand on the low stone wall and stared out into the darkness. “What are those lights?”

Sophia looked where he pointed, and she saw small pinpoints of light slowly rising and falling far out in the sea. “Fishermen in their cobles.”

“Or smugglers?”

She nodded. “That is possible. With the local peerage and gentry being entertained by Sir Nigel, it is the perfect night for them to be about their nefarious business.”

“Should we alert the authorities? The constable can be waiting when they return.”

“One man against a half dozen or more?” She wrapped her arms around herself to keep out the sudden chill. “Hardly a fair fight, and it is altogether possible that the constable is allied with the smugglers. But enough about smugglers. You said Charles had a bad night, and you look like you got no sleep yourself.”

“None of us did.” He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles as if he were no older than Michael. “When Charles has one of his nightmares, he can wake the dead with his shouts.” His face blanched in the moonlight. “Maybe he is hoping to bring back the dead who fell in battle.”

“Nightmares? Like Michael’s?”

He drew in a deep breath, then let it sift out through his clenched teeth. “Not exactly.”

Sophia put a calming hand on her cousin’s arm, which quivered like a sapling in a high wind. He looked down at her hand, then up at her as if he could not believe she would touch him. When she asked him to explain about Charles’s nightmares, he nodded.

It was as if she had loosened a dam. He began to relate what Charles endured in his nightmares, talking faster and faster until she struggled to understand him. She listened, shocked that the stern, composed Lord Northbridge shattered inside his dreams. Edmund revealed that it was not the first time Charles had acted so, waking them with his shouts and being found nearly bound to his bed by sheets and blankets from his fighting whatever filled his nightmares. He did not know the exact events in the nightmare, but he had seen the results.

As Cousin Edmund became more agitated, Sophia guided him to the bench. He remained sitting when she perched beside him and gestured for him to continue.

“Thank you for telling me,” Sophia said when he was done. She wondered how Charles had managed to hide his horror from everyone but his two closest friends. No wonder he kept a crusty exterior in place. It allowed him to conceal his suffering.

“I thought you should know.” He jabbed his toe at the edge of a stone in the terrace. “Since he met you, he has been less volatile.”

“Less? Really?”

His smile was weary. “Yes, really. When we first met, he was the most even-tempered man I had ever met. Even if everyone else was discomposed, Northbridge was serene. It was a trait we admired. We asked him how he could remain unperturbed by the chaos around us. He told us that he was blessed by a strong faith and a strong marriage.”

“What changed?”

“Each time we faced Napoleon’s men,” he said, his voice again unsteady, “it was as if the battle went on and on inside of him.”

Sophia guessed Charles was not the only one haunted by what had happened. Her cousin’s face was drawn, and she saw lines in it that she had never noticed before.

“We first believed,” Edmund went on, “that the fury of the fight lingered within him. That is not unusual among the soldiers, and other men were quick to anger in the hours after the fighting ceased. He never got into fisticuffs as some did, and his temper diminished quickly. We were exhausted and drained from the battle, so we gave each other leniency in such matters.

“Then, he took leave to go home for a fortnight. His wife had sent letter after letter pleading with him to come to her, and he did as soon as he could. Something must have happened, because a short time after he returned, his temperament had changed.”

“How?” she asked.

He sighed and pushed himself to his feet. “Where before he had been filled with anger after a battle, he became as cross as crabs all the time. He would rip and tear into anyone for the slightest reason. Or no reason.” His gaze turned inward.

Sophia guessed he was recalling a specific occasion.

“But,” Cousin Edmund said, his good cheer returning, “since we arrived at Meriweather Hall, he has been much more forgiving of us.”

“But he cannot forgive himself.”

“For not being there when Michael was born and Lydia died.” He kneaded his hands together. “He and Lydia seldom quarreled, and they adored each other.” He shook his head. “But maybe all was not as it appeared. Obviously some rift had opened between them, a rift he blamed himself for. When she wrote to tell him she was going to have a baby, he seemed to withdraw more and more into himself. Except when his temper exploded out at the slightest provocation.”

“You don’t know what happened?”

His mouth twisted. “No, but not through lack of trying. Both Bradby and I asked him several times quite bluntly. Each time, he told us quite bluntly to mind our own business.”

“Thank you for telling me what you can,” she said and put her arms around him for a quick hug.

He looked startled at her action, then smiled. Not the smile of a man who wanted to marry her, but the smile of a man who could become a good friend as well as a beloved cousin. She hoped that was what he would be for many more years to come.

Chapter Fifteen

C
harles wished he had not come to Sir Nigel’s assembly. First he was dragged away to look at what had to be the worst paintings he had ever seen. The canvases were gritty with sand and salt, and he guessed Gemma would be more skilled with a paintbrush. He had made excuse after excuse to try to leave Sir Nigel to his admiring devotees. Finally when their host was expounding at length to a group of elderly ladies who crowded around him, Charles had slipped away to return to the ballroom.

There a gauntlet of mamas with marriageable daughters awaited him. One, a lady whose name he had forgotten as soon as he heard it, refused to accept no for an answer when she asked him to dance with her daughter, a simpering chit who giggled each time he looked at her. She did not stop tittering through the whole set, and she had clutched on to his hand longer than the dance allowed, nearly ruining the pattern several times. The other dancers had given him cool frowns.

He would have thought his apparent clumsiness a way to escape from the dance floor, but another matchmaking mama latched on to him and introduced him to her daughter. This young woman was charming and did not giggle. Under other circumstances, he would have enjoyed footing it with her.

But he wanted to find Sophia and have the conversation that was far too overdue. He searched the ballroom. No sign of her or the children. Where could they be? By his third circuit of the ballroom and evading a few other women intent on catching his attention, he was thoroughly discouraged. Sophia would not have gone home without leaving a message for him, would she?

Charles stopped a footman and asked if he had seen Sophia. He had not. Charles intercepted another footman and asked the same question. He got the same answer. Finally the fifth footman mentioned seeing Miss Meriweather on the terrace with a man, but not the children.

“Who?” he demanded before he could halt himself. The strength of his jealousy drew Charles up short.

The footman shrugged. “I did not recognize the man. Not too tall, well-dressed. I saw him with you and Sir Nigel earlier.”

That description soothed him. The footman must have seen her with Herriott.

Thanking the footman, he hurried toward the door the footman had pointed to as the quickest route to the terrace. He ignored the calls of his name and even the woman who planted herself directly in his path. He swerved around her, greeting her politely and continuing on his way.

Charles emerged from the ballroom and onto the terrace. He halted at the lovely sight of Sophia whirling his children about in a simple country dance. Even Michael had mastered a few steps and kept pace with his sister and Sophia. She spun Gemma around gently, then did the same for Michael. Both children laughed with excitement before they caught sight of him. Michael rushed to fling his arms around Charles’s legs, but Gemma remained by Sophia.

Both his daughter and Sophia watched him with wary eyes as he walked toward them, but Sophia said, “You are welcome to join us, Charles.”

“That sounds like a wonderful idea.” He bowed first to her, then to Gemma. “Ladies, may I have the pleasure?”

“Me, too?” piped up Michael, dipping his head as his father had.

“Certainly you, too,” Sophia said before he could reply. “But a gentleman doesn’t bow quite like that to another gentleman. Only to a lady.”

“And this is how a gentleman greets a special lady,” Charles said. Taking her hand, he raised it to his lips. His gaze held hers while he kissed her knuckles. Her eyes softened, and he longed to lose himself within them.

She started to withdraw her hand and turn toward the children, but he flipped her fingers over. Slowly, not relinquishing her gaze, he drew off her glove. Her fingers quivered as he tossed the glove toward the children.

“And this, son,” he said, his voice as ragged as her breathing, “is how a gentleman greets a
very
special lady.”

He pressed his mouth to her palm. Her quick intake of breath sent shivers along him. Not icy shivers, but heated ones. He drew in the scent of her skin as his mouth roved from her palm to her fingertips. Her other hand curved along his face as he raised his eyes to see the yearning in hers. A yearning only he could satisfy with his lips on hers.

“Let me!” shouted Michael.

For a moment he considered ignoring his son as he had the eager mamas in the ballroom. Then Sophia, with an apologetic glance toward him, held out her other hand to his son. Did she guess how he longed to send the children away so he could be alone with her long enough for one kiss, though he knew he wanted more than a single kiss?

Music rippled outward from the ballroom, and he asked, “Do you waltz, Sophia?”

“I have, but only with my sister.” She grinned, setting her eyes to twinkling like the stars overhead. “And I led.”

“May I—and I alone—have this next dance, Sophia? You may lead if that makes it easier for you.”

“No, I will leave that to you, but remember that is my excuse if I step on your toes.”

“That will not happen, for you are always graceful.”

Sophia started to give Charles a sassy retort, but she paused when she saw the intensity of his expression. It was almost identical to when they had stood on the beach two weeks ago, and she had believed he would kiss her. If she had the sense God gave a goose, she would turn and run, but she took her glove from Michael and drew it on before she raised her hand to place it in his father’s.

The texture of his gloves was far smoother than his palm, but the heat of his skin oozed through his gloves and hers. When he put his hand at the back of her waist, she stepped closer. She settled her other hand on his broad shoulder as she gazed up into his dark eyes. He turned her into the waltz, and her feet followed his as if she had danced with him countless times.

As she had in her dreams.

Twirling in his arms from illumination to shadow and back, she watched light play across the stern angles of his face. He possessed a stark beauty that amazed her, for she never had considered that a man might be beautiful or make her feel beautiful as his eyes held hers. His eyes glittered as they caught the candles’ glow and sent that flame spiraling along her. When he drew her even closer, she leaned her head against his broad shoulder. It was, she was thrilled to discover, exactly the perfect height for her.

“I hear,” he murmured, “that I am not the first man you have been seen with here on the terrace tonight. Have you changed your mind about your cousin?”

“Yes.” When he tensed, she hurried to add, “I have changed my mind after realizing what a good man he is. I think we could be very good friends.”

“Nothing more?”

“You know I have a duty to my family.” She missed a step, but he drew her into the pattern.

“Forgive me, Sophia,” he whispered. “I should not have asked that question.”

“You are forgiven, of course.”

“Will you forgive me again for what I said to you during the clipping of the church?”

She tilted her head so she could see his face. “You need not apologize. Your request on behalf of the children was reasonable. I do not want them hurt either.”

“That is not why I am apologizing.” He grimaced when she arched her brows. “All right. It is part of the reason why I need to apologize. In my fervor to keep my children from being hurt, I wounded you. I let you think that I did not want you in their lives. Or in mine.”

“And you do?”

“Yes.” His lips brushed her forehead.

Suffused with joy, she rested her cheek against him again. Charles and the children would be leaving Meriweather Hall soon, but that could not change her feelings.

She loved him.

So simple, and yet it complicated everything. How could she marry Edmund, if her cousin asked her, when she was in love with his best friend?

* * *

“Thank you for keeping them entertained tonight when I could not,” Charles said as he, Sophia, and the children were driven toward Meriweather Hall. He sat beside her because the children were curled up on the other seat, sound asleep. In the dim light of a small lantern in the carriage, Gemma snored lightly, and Michael sucked his thumb.

Sophia heard the regret amidst his gratitude. Even though both of them would have preferred spending the night dancing beneath the stars, it had been impossible. Too many people wanted to meet the dashing war heroes, and dozens of toasts had been drunk to their health. Many women wanted to dance with Charles and his friends. Sophia had been consigned to the sidelines along with her sister and Vera. Catherine and the pastor’s sister had a few invitations to dance, but they chose to remain with her.

“The children had a wonderful time,” she said quietly, so she did not disturb Gemma and Michael.

Charles laughed, the sound low and husky. “So wonderful that, for once, Nurse Alice will not have to coerce them into bed. Maybe I should let you take them dancing every evening.”

“I suspect they soon would become bored.”

“Dancing with you? I doubt that.” He lifted a strand of her hair from her shoulder and slid it behind her ear.

She shivered as his touch set off a firestorm within her. When he reached for another loose tress, she grasped his finger. Her motion shocked her as much as it had him, if she were to judge from how his eyes narrowed slightly. Did he think he could hide his thoughts from her like that? No longer. His touch connected them in a way that words could not express.

Slowly she drew his finger down and enfolded it between her hands. She gazed into his shadowed eyes, wondering if even a lifetime would be enough to explore the secrets within them.

“Sophia...” A yawn interrupted him. “Forgive me. I am not suffering the least bit of ennui, but rather from fatigue. It is exhausting playing the triumphant hero and meeting everyone’s expectations.”

“Especially when you did not sleep well last night. I am sorry a bugaboo intruded on your sleep.”

“Bugaboo?” he asked, drawing her head down to his shoulder.

“It is a silly word that means someone has had a nightmare.” Sophia nestled closer to him. “I know there was probably nothing silly about a nightmare.”

“No one can control what appears in a dream.” Charles started to shrug, then stopped, not wanting to push Sophia away when she was where he longed for her to be.

“Or a nightmare.”

“You
were
there.”

She drew back, and, in the dim light, her pretty face showed her bafflement. “Where?”

“The first night I had a nightmare at Meriweather Hall, you...” He let his voice trail away, realizing that she would have said something before now if she had come into his room with his friends that night.

“We never heard a thing in the family’s wing that night or last night. I am glad that Mr. Bradby did hear you and fetched Cousin Edmund,” she said, her smile returning.

Disappointment dropped like a lead weight into his belly. Then he asked himself why he had wanted her to be there, to witness the mewling mess he was when the war burst into his dreams. The answer came quickly. If she had seen that and had not turned away from him, maybe she cared for him. Truly cared for him, not pretending as Lydia had.

He frowned as his fist tightened on the door. “How do you know about my nightmares?”

“Cousin Edmund told me.”

He was astounded that Herriott had blown the gaff about Charles’s nightmare. He would have guessed Bradby would be the one who could not keep the secret to himself.

“He is a good friend,” she added.

“I agree, which is why neither Bradby nor I hesitated when Herriott asked us to come to North Yorkshire.” He ran the back of his fingers along her soft cheek. “And I am glad we did.”

She leaned away from his touch. “Do not try to distract me,” she said, slightly breathless.

Was that what he was doing? He did not want to talk about his nightmares when he had Sophia to himself with only his sleeping children as chaperones.

“Why are you embarrassed by your nightmares?” she asked.

Embarrassed? No, he felt anger, frustration, disappointment, terror.

“I am not embarrassed.”

“Really?” she fired back. “I have noticed that, if I ask you something that you would prefer not to answer, you try to distract me. You do the same thing with your children and your friends. It is as if you believe that by you distracting us, we will forget what we have asked.” Sadness crept into her voice. “But those who truly care about you don’t forget, Charles, because you cannot.”

He hung his head. “I wish I could. I had hoped leaving everything familiar to come here would clear my mind.”

“Cousin Edmund thinks that it has.”

Could she surprise him any further tonight?

She took his hand and folded it between hers again. “What I told Michael holds true for you. If you talk about what you experienced in your nightmare, you will come to see that it is not as frightening as you believed when in its throes.”

“It is not the same.”

“No? Your son told me that he dreamed in part about being in the out-of-control carriage again, and you dreamed about something out of control during the war. I see no difference.”

“That is because you don’t know what I dream.”

“You could tell me. Your son trusts me enough to tell me. Do you?”

Yes,
called out his heart, but that part of him was too trusting. It had trusted Lydia until she had paraded the truth in front of him.

She stroked his hand as she had Michael’s back when a nightmare had woken his son. Gently, offering solace and a reminder that she was willing to listen. No matter what he had to say.

“Your son,” she whispered, “regrets what he did so much that he dreamed about it. We all have regrets.” Even though he could not see her face well, he heard the sorrow in her voice. “If you did something...”

“It is nothing I did, but something I was asked to do and could not do.”

She waited, but when he added nothing more, she asked, “If you had to make the same choice again, would you?”

“Yes!” His shout routed the children, but they snuggled into the seat and went to sleep when Sophia blew out the lantern. Lowering his voice, he said, “Not that it mattered. The man died anyhow.”