April Moon

by Merline Lovelace

  “So what will come next for us, Harry?” she asked breathlessly. “Where shall we go?”

  “A place where I won’t have to share you with anyone else,” he said, turning her hand so he could kiss her palm. “We’ll go to Hartshall.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “HARTSHALL?” asked Sophie with a little frown of confusion as she drew her face away from his hand.

  Ah, thought Harry, he’d no right making any suggestions when her thoughts were winding along other, more agreeable, paths. For that matter, he’d little wish to leave those paths himself, as much as he knew he must.

  “Hartshall’s a house of mine,” he explained, “a little hunting lodge not far from here. I don’t know why I didn’t think to go there before this.”

  “Perhaps because it’s not the hunting season,” she said softly, following him now. “I do remember hearing of it, though. You would go there with your father and Georgie.”

  “Yes,” he said, his mood clouding further at the mention of his brother. “We’ve always belonged to the nearby hunt, and when Father was still able to ride, he’d be sure to bring us along. A proper manly adventure, it was.”

  “And you would take me there now?” she asked wryly. “Am I part of the proper manly adventure?”

  “The very centerpiece,” he said, then sighed. The moment for such flirtation seemed oddly gone, as if the same moonlight that had charmed them earlier had changed from silver to dull brass. Now he sensed danger hiding in the shadows of every tree, and heard warnings in every owl’s hoot and cracking twig, and he’d no desire to tempt fate by spending the rest of this night with her on the open road. “But I suggested Hartshall because you don’t have a taste for inns.”

  She shook her head, curling a wisp of hair behind her ear. “You wish us to go to Hartshall instead of Winchester?”

  “For this night, yes.” He took her hand, threading his fingers into hers. “Perhaps it’s having been shot at once this night or maybe because we’ve heard so much of highwaymen and roving thieves, but I’m finding it damned difficult to feel at ease here alone with you beneath the stars.”

  She grinned, but he didn’t miss how her fingers tightened around his. Did she seek reassurance, he wondered, or did she mean to give it?

  “You’re afraid, Harry?” she asked, not expecting him to admit it. But why should she expect otherwise, given how he’d made a name for himself for cheating death however he could? “And here I’d always believed nothing could frighten you.”

  “Nothing did,” he said, daring to hope that Sophie—being Sophie—would realize how rare this next confession was. “But that was when I’d only my own sorry neck to look after. Now I have you, as well, and I’ve turned skittish as an old hen.”

  “Ahh,” she said, understanding even more than he’d intended, exactly because she was Sophie. “But that knife cuts both ways, you know. You have me to watch over, true, but I must also do the same for you.”

  He frowned, reminding himself that the same reasons that Sophie understood him made her speak this sort of nonsense as well. As independent as she could be, even Sophie must realize that men were here on this earth to protect women, not the other way around.

  Or perhaps not.

  “Here,” she said briskly, releasing his hand so she could flip aside the front of his coat. “If you believe we shall be travelling in danger, then you should give me one of those pistols after all. If you wish to play the highwayman, then I can just as well be the highway-woman.”

  Deftly he dodged to one side, avoiding her hand while at the same time taking her arm by the elbow.

  “A highway-woman, hah,” he said as he steered her toward their horses. “Only if the full moon had stolen my wits.”

  “Please, Harry,” she protested, making her steps stubbornly, willfully clumsy. “You know I’m perfectly capable with a pistol. Think of all the wagers you could win at that London club of yours if only you’d lay bets upon my marksmanship!”

  Likely he could, but that wasn’t the point. He helped her up into saddle and handed her the reins.

  “What I know,” he said firmly as he retrieved their hats from the grass, “is that if I’d a shred of common sense, I should have put you into that carriage beside Mrs. Mallon myself, and let you find your way to Winchester with them.”

  “Oh, butter and beans,” she muttered darkly, jamming her bonnet down on her head. “What you should hope and pray is that your final dying thought won’t be that you should have given me the pistol.”

  “What kind of governess has such murderous thoughts?” he asked as he guided his horse alongside hers and back to the road. “Or is that how you keep the peace among your little charges?”

  “It works perfectly well with young boys,” she said, still irritated enough that she kept her gaze on the road ahead and not on him. “I am accomplished at the usual schoolroom studies, but I’m also skilled in such diverse areas as pitching cricket balls and tying flies for fishing—things that all young gentlemen must learn. And, of course, I can catch a frog or tadpole with nothing more than my hands.”

  “Is that what you teach the daughters? How to catch a tadpole bare-handed?”

  “What, instead of a husband?” Finally she laughed, a sound he’d missed so much. She hadn’t bothered to straighten her bonnet, leaving it haphazardly askew with a dash that complemented that laugh.

  “I suppose you could try the same techniques at Almack’s,” he suggested, “and see what kind of toad you can catch.”

  “Precisely,” she said, laughing again. “Which is why I’ve never accepted a place with daughters. I couldn’t, not in good conscience. I could teach girls their French and grammar well enough, but when it came to the skills a young lady needs—fine stitching on linen, playing the pianoforte, genteelly wielding a fan and pouring tea—I would utterly fail. I doubt I could so much as tie a decent bow for a hair ribbon.”

  “I’m sure you could,” he answered loyally, “if you wished to.”

  “But how could I teach what I never learned myself?” she asked with her usual logic. “It’s on account of being a motherless girl, I suppose, and spending too much time running about the manor with you and George.”

  “We always were to blame, weren’t we?” It was reasonable that she’d speak of his brother so freely and with such affection, given that they’d shared so much of their childhood in each other’s company. But each time she’d mentioned George’s name this evening, it had been as if he still lived, even as if he were waiting for them at Hartshall.

  Could she really not know otherwise? It was possible; the numbers of young men, even gentlemen, being killed in these wars with France were numbing, and the notice of George’s death had been only one more among many.

  “You’re very quiet,” she said, making him wonder how long he’d been riding in melancholy silence beside her. “More hobgoblins in the trees?”

  “Their eyes are glowing on every branch.” He forced himself to smile. No hobgoblins, he thought grimly, but ghosts, or at least one freckle-faced ghost in particular who’d died too young. He knew he should tell her of George’s death now, that putting it off would only make the inevitable more awkward and painful, but he wasn’t yet ready to reopen the raw wound of grief and guilt. Coward that he was, he couldn’t do it, not even with Sophie.

  “Then perhaps we might call upon those hobgoblins to show us the way,” she said wryly. “We’re lost, aren’t we?”

  “Not at all,” he said, squinting purposefully up at the moon and all the stars around it. He might not be able to read the night sky with a sailor’s finesse, but he did know enough to find north from south. Although they’d left the woods for open fields, rolling away on either side of the road behind low stone walls, ahead of them lay another copse of scrubby trees and bushes with an ancient oak twisting from the center. He’d recognize that oak anywhere, a gnarled signpost that was unmistakable to him.

  “You see that old oak tree, there, wit
h the branch blasted off by lightning,” he said confidently. “Directly beneath that is the gate to Hartshall.”

  “You’re certain we’re not lost?” She looked to where he was pointing. “This is still the road to Winchester?”

  “Tonight it is,” he said, wishing she would forget Winchester altogether. Hell, he wished he could forget Winchester.

  She sighed restlessly, twisting her hands around her reins. “I hope you’re right, Harry. It’s strange, but grand open spaces like these make me more uneasy than when we were in the woods.”

  “We’ll be safe enough at Hartshall,” said Harry. “You’ll see. The lodge may not be large, but it was conceived like a veritable little castle. Even though King Charles was back on the throne when my ancestor built it, he still designed it as much as a fortress against Roundheads as for hunting.”

  Yet as they drew closer, the twisted old oak seemed hardly welcoming, with the narrow road to the lodge overgrown with last summer’s brambles and moldy leaves.

  “No gate?” asked Sophie warily as Harry’s horse picked his way along the neglected road.

  “No gate, nor walls, either,” said Harry. “There never have been any. No clues for Cromwell’s men, I suppose.”

  “No clues for anyone,” she said, her uneasiness clearly growing. “You are certain this is Hartshall, Harry? I promise I will not think the worse of you if you must admit to being wrong.”

  He laughed. “For you, Sophie, I would admit it, if it were true. But it’s not, so I won’t, unless you wish me to lie, which I have never, ever done to you.”

  “Because you swore not to,” she answered promptly. “I would not forget that. You swore that if you ever told me a falsehood, your tongue would turn black and your nose would fall off. At the time, I rather wished you would tell me a lie—just a small one—so I could see the effect.”

  He made a face at the prospect. “Forgive me if I don’t oblige. There’s the lodge now. I didn’t lie about its being a fortress, either, did I?”

  Squat and square, the lodge did look like a medieval fort, and even the wash of the moonlight couldn’t soften the hard gray stone or diamond-paned leaded windows. Severe pointed arches ran along the lower floor, framing a narrow porch and the windows with gothic severity, and the flat slate roof had a small square tower on each corner that seemed better suited for sheltering long-ago archers than its true purpose of masking the chimneys. Carved dragons disguised the rainspouts, and a web of ivy spread tightly over the walls, as if trying to pull the stones back into the ground.

  How long had it been since he’d been back to Hartshall—four years? Five? No, he must be honest: he hadn’t come back since George had died.

  So why, then, had he brought Sophie here? Could he be honest enough to answer that?

  “This lodge had better be manly, Harry, because no woman would be charmed by such a place,” Sophie was saying now, not bothering to hide her misgivings. “Is there a caretaker or other servant?”

  Harry shook his head, and swung down from the horse, then helped her dismount as well. “There’s a man from the village who comes in with his wife every few weeks to make sure all things are as they should be, but no one lives here. No one ever has.”

  He stepped up onto the edge of the porch, balancing on the corner while he reached up into the dragon-downspout’s mouth, ignoring the pointed stone teeth and curling tongue to grope inside the moss and old wet leaves.

  “Here we are,” he said, wiping the old-fashioned iron key to the front door on his sleeve before he held it out to Sophie. “You can go inside, while I see to the horses.”

  “I’ll come with you,” she said quickly, then flushed. “That is, if we tend to the horses together, than we’ll be done that much sooner.”

  “Whatever you please.” He grinned wickedly, his thoughts bounding back to other stables, other haylofts he’d shared with her. “Though I can’t say whether you wish to be with me, or whether you’re scared of the house.”

  “If I’m frightened,” she said tartly as they led their horses to the small stable in the back, “it’s because you’ve made me that way, with all your talk of thieves and hobgoblins and Cromwell’s marauding zealots.”

  “Not you, pet,” he said as he lit one of the lanterns hanging near the door, the practical yellow glow so different from the moonlight that had guided them this far. “You’re the bravest creature in the entire universe, hands down.”

  “Oh, yes, quite the bravest,” she said, bending to unbuckle her horse’s saddle, the rounded curves of her hips and bottom pressing unwittingly against her skirts to tantalize him so badly he nearly groaned. Her bonnet had slipped off and her unpinned hair was a golden tangle down her back. He liked it that way, mussed and disheveled instead of smooth and prim, and he had a considerable need to muss it—and the rest of her—a great deal more. “As if any creature could be brave after you insisted on keeping your pistols to yourself, and making me helpless.”

  “Helpless, hell,” he said, coming to stand behind her. “You, Sophie Potts, have more weapons than any mortal man could survive.”

  “I do not,” she answered promptly, and began to twist to face him.

  “Don’t turn,” he ordered, spanning her waist with his hands, holding her steady before him. “Stay like this. Please. For me.”

  She shook her hair back over her shoulder, but as he’d asked, she didn’t turn, still bending slightly with her hands resting on the mare’s curving side. Gently he ran his hands along the sides of her body, tracing the differing outlines of her waist and hips, back up across her ribs. Even through the rough woolen fabric he could feel the warmth of her skin, the vitality of her flesh, full and ripe and waiting for him. His fingers grazed the undersides of her breasts, his touch making her shudder even through the layers of clothes.

  “Harry,” she whispered, her breathing ragged. “Oh, Harry, I—”

  “Shhhhhh,” he said, drawing her against his body, her back snugged against his chest. He guessed she was wearing some sort of stiffened linen corset or stays—he could trace the whalebone channels—but even so he could also feel how her nipples had tightened, hard little knots of desire jabbing at his palms. His touch grew bolder, his fingers spreading to caress her more intimately, and she rested her head back against his shoulder, her eyes fluttering shut with surrender.

  “There you are, lass,” he whispered, kissing the shell of her ear for good measure. “You know how good we are together.”

  Yet suddenly she frowned, her eyes opening. “What was that, Harry? Didn’t you hear it? Footsteps, someone running, or—”

  “Or no one,” he whispered, striving to reassure her. “All I hear is the sound of your heart, Sophie. Listen to it, lass, how it’s beating as fast as if you’ve run clear from that house at Iron Hill to be here, to be with me. Your heart doesn’t lie, Sophie, and neither do I.”

  “Very well, then,” she said, twisting around to face him. “My heart and my head, too, are both telling me not to stay out here with the stable door yawning open, but to go inside your little fortress to be safe.”

  He laughed, pulling her back against his chest. “There was a time when you liked stables and lofts filled with sweet hay.”

  She shrugged uneasily, slipping her hands over his shoulders and around the back of his neck. “Lofts filled with hay were well enough when we were stealing an hour here or there. But we have the rest of the night, Harry, as long as that moon outside shall last.”

  “That is all?” he asked, his voice turning moody with his unhappiness. He didn’t want her setting limits by the moon and the dawn, and he didn’t want her to choose Winchester over him.

  He didn’t want to be left alone.

  “Damnation, Sophie, that’s not—”

  “Now you hush,” she said, a teasing scold, as she covered his mouth with her fingertips to silence him. “Once we’re inside the lodge, Harry, I’ll be able to think of nothing other than you, and you should recall that I have
quite monstrous powers of concentration when I wish it. It will be vastly to your advantage to oblige me.”

  That made him smile, in spite of his melancholy. He couldn’t help it. Even if she stayed only as long as the moonlight, a concentrating Sophie could make any man smile. One minute at a time, he told himself. Make every minute with her stretch and last, and perhaps the moonlight would, too.

  He took her hand from his mouth and turned it gently so he could kiss the inside of her wrist, letting his teeth graze lightly across the veins showing through her pale skin.

  “Then come inside, Miss Potts,” he whispered hoarsely. “Inside, and I vow we’ll put on the devil of a show for your hobgoblins.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  WHENEVER SOPHIE had let herself imagine a reunion with Harry, she’d always pictured the scene as if she were still a lighthearted seventeen, with balmy sunshine and fields of wildflowers and fragrant waving grasses for her and Harry to lie upon, with a singing thrush or two and perhaps even butterflies dancing in the sky above.

  Never, even on the grimmest, dreariest days, had she pictured such a joyful reunion taking place in a miniature stone fortress like Hartshall. By the light of the lantern in Harry’s hand, she could just make out the furnishings in the large hall that seemed to be the entire lower floor: wooden shutters barricaded the windows, dark, heavy chairs and tables were studded with nailheads, battered old shields hung along the walls and a morose stuffed stag’s head staring down from over the fireplace.

  “So this is the famous Hartshall, Harry?” she whispered unconsciously, almost as if she feared the stag might overhear. “Perhaps you and George had manly adventures here, but I feel like some poor fairy-tale princess trapped inside the ogre’s castle.”

  Harry laughed, his arm around her waist hugging her closer. “If you will be my princess, Sophie, then I promise I shall be only the most agreeable of ogres. Especially when I carry you up these stairs to my lair.”