He spared a thought for Lady Middlebough now, but he couldn’t make his thoughts linger there, because he was on a mission driven by a compulsion he didn’t understand, and he was a man of singular focus.
It was a long walk to the outbuildings, and his valet would cluck over the condition of his boots when he returned, because the pounding rain had turned the earth to mud and he’d track much of it back with him. The stables were, of course, dark. Soft stable boy snores chuffed in the tack room; one of them must have dozed off over the rubbing of oil into saddles and halters. A spaniel—spotted, this one, not liver-colored—that should have barked upon his approach remained stretched like a small snoring rug on the straw between rows of stalls.
It sensed him, lifted up its fine head, thumped its feathery tail cheerfully three times, and flopped again with a contented sigh.
Miles was terribly glad he was so terrifying.
He gave the dog the benefit of the doubt and decided he’d been recognized; he was here just this morning, after all. He thought of Milthorpe, and Cynthia’s kindness to him, and then shied away from the thought, because it made him feel unaccountably fierce and tender.
He decided the dog could earn his keep tomorrow.
He felt about at the stable entrance for the oil lamp he knew hung from a wall hook. With a flint, he lit the wick; it flared instantly into almost too lively a light. He cupped a hand around to filter it and keep the stable boys asleep.
Ramsay whickered softly. Miles raised the lamp to illuminate his horse’s delicate head, those soft wide-set Arabian eyes; he offered a whispered greeting, gave his smoke-colored coat a pat. But he wasn’t here for a midnight ride.
It was the loft he was interested in.
Because of his height, he needed only scale two steps of the ladder steps to peer into the loft. He stared at the heap of straw, and then did what he did best: waited patiently, and listened, and observed. Miles was brilliant at waiting, brilliant at watching, brilliant at listening. The most fascinating things happened when one was quiet and simply watched without appearing to watch. He often saw falling stars, for instance. He saw animals and insects conducting the quiet business of their lives, learned their habits and customs. And he’d once seen an expression—so fleeting he could have imagined it but knew he did not—on his father’s face when he’d glanced up at Isolde Eversea in church. She was the mother of all those other Everseas, including Colin, who’d nearly been hung of late for allegedly murdering the cousin of a Redmond.
The expression had been so like pain.
It had confused Miles then. He thought he understood it now.
At last he heard rustling. He stopped breathing; held his body very still and scanned for the source of the sound. For a time the world was just his breathing and the breathing of the animals below and the dark.
Until at last he saw the faintest stirring of straw.
He leaned forward and parted the straw gently with his hands. Peered. And smiled.
He reached into the crackling nest and lifted out what he’d come for.
Chapter 10
Cynthia awoke—for the second time—to the sound of a maid building up the fire and to the smell of steaming chocolate. She remembered waking the first time, when she recognized the tangled nest she’d made of her sheets and blankets.
Blast.
The dream of falling had visited with ugly force last night. The slamming of her own heart against her breastbone woke her, and she lay, sweating in the dark, resigned, breathing into the deep silence, waiting for her heart to slow. Furious that everything she controlled and channeled so beautifully during the day could simply have its way with her during the night.
The maid, having coaxed the fire into life, paused before she left.
“Miss…you should know…there’s a…basket…for you here. Outside the door.”
The maid sounded skeptical and a little concerned, which puzzled Cynthia. Was it or wasn’t it a basket?
“Would you bring it in, please?”
The maid brought in a small handled basket in with a hinged lid, left it gingerly in the middle of the carpet, offered a shallow curtsy, and backed out of the room quickly and closed the door.
Cynthia rolled out of the bed, reached for her chocolate, blew gustily at it until she surmised it was a drinkable temperature, then bolted half of it. The rich taste rolled her eyes back in her head in bliss, but it only nudged her slightly closer to full alertness.
It would have to do until she was able to drink an adult-strength coffee downstairs.
She pushed her hair out of her eyes, found it lank because the nightmare had made her perspire. She would order up a bath today, she decided. Have a long wallow in a large bathtub with the finest of Mrs. Redmond’s soap.
She eyed the basket with idle curiosity. Then set the chocolate aside and dropped to her knees on the carpet before it. She began to reach for the lid to lift it—
A dark, furry…arm…shot out of it.
Cynthia shrieked and toppled backward on the carpet. “Sweet Mary Mother of—”
She was certainly awake now. Her heart drummed sickeningly.
The furry arm waved around a bit. As if searching for her hand to snatch.
Cynthia stared at it suspiciously. Then crawled on her hands and knees toward the basket and peered. On closer inspection, the furry arm proved to be a paw. A miniature one. Dark gray and feathery-looking, with tiny white curving nails at the end of it.
The furry arm waved around a bit more, then disappeared back into the basket. Almost reluctantly, as though disappointed it hadn’t snatched her.
Cynthia gingerly lifted up the lid and peered in.
She found herself staring right down the little pink gullet of a kitten.
“MEEEEE!” it bellowed.
She jumped back again, dropping the basket lid. What the devil?
She opened it again, and looked down at the wee thing.
“MEEEEEE!”
“Good heavens, you are loud,” she told it. “I thought cats were supposed to say ‘meow.’ There are two syllables in meow.”
“MEEEEEE!” It corrected vehemently and with great singularity.
She carefully plucked it up out of the basket. Its four little paws flailed the air before it settled into her palm. It had a tiny, full round ball of a belly and little birdlike ribs she could feel when she dragged a finger softly across its body. Its fur was puffy soft, like the down of a baby bird or bread mold, and it was the color of rain clouds but for its eyes, which were gray blue and perfectly round. It was, in fact, a comical little thing, all candy floss roundness and triangles: two isosceles triangles for ears, a funny little furry erect pine tree of a tail, minute pointed beads of white for teeth, miniature claws that pricked and itched her palm.
“My goodness,” she said to it softly.
Its whole body instantly vibrated with a deafening purr.
She held the buzzing little animal in her hand and felt it vibrate her entire body. Clearly, this particular kitten did nothing by halves.
She was in awe of it. Enchanted breathless.
“Where did you come from?” she said to it.
It struck her then that she already knew. Because she’d only told one person she’d never had a pet.
“Meeee!” it said. And resumed purring.
Her heart felt as though it might burst open.
She used one tentative finger to rub the kitten’s forehead. Her finger sank into the puffy fur there. It closed its eyes.
First, she eliminated the options she knew were unlikely: Milthorpe would not have given her a cat, of all things. Argosy would not have thought of it…would he? A jest from Violet?
No: she knew. She peered into the basket and saw was a folded sheet of foolscap.
She placed the kitten down before her and shook out the folded foolscap with trembling fingers.
Miss Brightly,
Sadly, as no wild boars were available in the stables, I was forced to settle for this. Y
ou’ll note that its stern is covered with silky gray hair. It is male. And loud.
Yrs,
M. Redmond.
She held the note in her trembling hand and traced with her thumb, absently, Yrs.
The kitten pounced on the hem of her nightdress, and then danced sideways, back arched, tail puffed, and pounced again, looking for a way under. She lifted her nightdress to allow the kitten beneath, and its furry body ricocheted for a time around her ankles. It was having a wonderful time in the wilderness comprised of her nightdress and her long legs.
With a yelp, Cynthia plucked it out again before it could climb her thigh with its pointy little claws.
It blinked its tiny round eyes in the light. It vibrated madly again.
Oh. She was in love. She thought her heart might very well break.
“Spider,” she told it firmly. “I’ll name you Spider.”
She was wholly breathless. Both by the living, purring gift, and at the implications of it. It was the very opposite of a dog, some might say. And perhaps this was the point. And it belonged to her.
It was, of course, an absurd gift. And so perfect she felt her eyes burn ridiculously, and she felt fiercely angry again. Had Miles Redmond meant for her to fall in love? With something, with anything? Did he mean for her to look at something she loved and think of him?
How dare he.
He had no right to give her gifts. No right to remind her she was alone by ensuring that she was not. No right to test whether she had a heart. No right to court her, to please her, or to do whatever he bloody well might be doing by giving her a kitten.
She held the little cat up to stare at it fiercely. As though it were Miles Redmond himself.
It laid a paw on her nose.
Cynthia did not go down immediately for breakfast. She didn’t just yet want to see Miles Redmond, or anyone, for that matter.
She wanted to be alone with her pet. Her pet. Hers.
She asked for coffee to be sent up to her and for a bath to be prepared, and then availed herself of a small brick of Mrs. Redmond’s good lavender soap and soaked luxuriously. She washed her body, slowly, languorously, every slim pale curve and angle and hollow of it, and then scrubbed her great length of dark hair, and savored the entirety of her bath ceremoniously. In one week she might be the one fetching baths.
Oh, for heaven’s sake. She gave her head a toss, like a spirited mare flicking away a fly. That was no way to think. She was Cynthia Brightly, after all. She would prevail.
And while the fire and the sun pouring through the window dried her hair to a fluff twice its usual size, she played with her kitten, learning that kittens thought everything could be played with, particularly fingers. And then she tamed her hair by dragging it through her fists three or four times—the kitten also played with her dangling hair—and she pinned the whole mass of it artfully up, and managed to get herself dressed without assistance. She chose the white muslin for shooting.
Funny: even though she’d told herself she wouldn’t foment mischief simply because an opportunity presented itself, she’d promised herself she would good, that she wouldn’t take undue risks—in the span of a few days, she’d managed to kiss the family’s heir, receive a cat, and now she was going on a shooting expedition in order to impress another wealthy man and she hadn’t the faintest idea how to shoot.
It was true: risk sought her out.
She pulled out her brown leather walking boots and began to slip them on, then hesitated. She gingerly turned them over to press with a delicate finger at a soft place where the sole of one was thinning.
She felt that prick of fear again at the back of her neck. Her bravado wavered. Bloody hell. This was about as productive as shaking her nearly empty purse.
She deliberately turned to look herself in the mirror, as if assessing her armory: She saw a satiny glowing complexion, brilliant eyes, lustrous hair, and her lovely slim young body with generous bosom swelling up out of innocent white muslin. Long white arms. Hatched with a few fine kitten scratches now, granted. But graceful nonetheless.
She squared her shoulders. She would go down now. She could face all of them, even Miles.
But what to do with Spider while she was out?
She rang for the maid.
“Oh, I’ve instructions to look after the wee cat, Miss Brightly,” the maid told her. She glanced down warily at the little creature, who was bouncing over the counterpane like a flea, attacking invisible prey. No doubt the maid was surprised to have received such instructions from Mr. Miles Redmond, master of the house as long as his father was absent, as cats belonged in the barn, as far as the maid was concerned. And she knew for certain how Mrs. Redmond would feel about a cat anywhere in the house.
Cynthia did, too. This only added another frisson of pleasure to the gift.
Cynthia found everyone except Miles still at breakfast, and some powerful hybrid of disappointment and relief held her motionless for a moment. But there was a new addition to the house party seated at the table as well, which made her forget Miles and her gift for a moment.
Everyone, in fact, seemed to be watching the new addition rather balefully.
He was a handsome gentleman in his middle years. Crisply dressed in a dark brown coat and a cloud-white cravat. Face weathered in a pleasing way that suited his age. His hair had all but relinquished tenancy on his tall, noble scalp; a palm-sized scrap remained up top, like a rug in the middle of a polished wood floor.
Interestingly, his expression was serene and distant and slightly…pitying? As though he was possessed of some greater wisdom than the rest of the guests and entertained no real hope that they would ever reach his level of enlightenment.
And then he noticed Cynthia, and the gentlemen immediately stirred themselves and shook and preened a little.
“Mr. Goodkind,” Jonathan introduced Cynthia. “A business associate of my father’s. “Miss Cynthia Brightly, Mr. Goodkind.”
The man stood and bowed to Cynthia, who offered him a pretty curtsy, and was offered a chair by a footman and accepted gratefully the hot coffee poured for her.
“I came here to discuss an opportunity to invest in a publishing matter with Mr. Isaiah Redmond, when I discovered he was not at home,” Mr. Goodkind explained to Cynthia. “I am abashed to intrude upon a party in progress, but I confess I am pleased to find myself in such pleasant company anyhow.”
Well. This sounded promisingly charming.
Though Cynthia could have sworn that Violet rolled her eyes. She glanced that way quickly, but Violet’s visage was bland again.
“My father maintains that little money is to be had in publishing,” Jonathan said rudely. Forgetting that his brother Miles had made a small fortune from his own writing.
Goodness. Cynthia stared at the youngest Redmond son. Goodkind must have said something to cause Jonathan to lose his manners. She was immediately intrigued.
Mr. Goodkind simply offered a serenely dismissive smile that managed somehow to include everyone and no one.
“Mr. Goodkind was just telling us that drinking is the quickest route to hell,” Jonathan volunteered evenly to Cynthia.
Ah. Now she understood.
“And that joining the army would have made a man of me,” Argosy volunteered laconically. “Because it made a man of him.”
Implying, of course, that Argosy needed to be made into a man. As he wasn’t yet one.
What an eventful breakfast it had been. Pity she hadn’t arrived earlier.
She gave Argosy a little smile meant to reassure him that she thought him every bit a man, but knew she didn’t dare make her allegiance seem too pronounced until she knew more about Mr. Goodkind and his fortune.
She simply couldn’t afford to eliminate any options.
“And…and that shooting is a frivolous pastime.” Milthorpe sounded quietly amazed. His posture was rigid and incensed. He nearly stuttered.
Goodkind sat peacefully as antipathy eddied around him.
> “I think I shall read something inspirational while your party…shoots,” he said pleasantly. He managed to make the word “shoots” sound like something both comical and pitiable.
Which was when a great screech went up as chairs were scraped back in unison. Everyone was in a hurry to escape from Goodkind.
The unfortunate, bloody, misguided, ridiculous shooting party—as Miles had begun to affectionately refer to it in his thoughts—was to take place on the south lawn. Since he was the house party host and responsible for the safety and enjoyment of his guests, he’d enlisted footmen and a few stable boys to help set up targets—apples atop crates—and from there his guests, including Miss Brightly, apparently, would waste perfectly good musket balls by turning perfectly good apples into smithereens.
This absurdity had come about because Milthorpe wanted to impress Cynthia, who allegedly enjoyed dogs and shooting, and Cynthia wanted to impress Milthorpe by shooting something, though he sincerely doubted she could. And he was helping set the stage for this farce.
He began to dislike Milthorpe for being so easily and obviously smitten.
He disliked himself for disliking a man he generally quite liked.
And his mood was due in no small part to the fact that he’d slept badly, mostly because he’d never before given a woman a kitten.
A kitten. Why, in God’s name…?
It was just that the need to give her something had been overwhelming. He’d wanted her to have a pet. And now he felt uncertain and raw and off balance and absurd, and he could not recall the last time he’d felt any of those things. Whimsy seldom survived the scalpel of his mind. The South Seas had made a nearly unshakable thing of his confidence.
Striding back to the house to meet the amassed guests, he decided it might be rather pleasant to shoot something into smithereens, after all.
And there they were, clustered before the house waiting for him, the women airy as clouds in pale muslin, bonnets on snugly and ribbons fluttering beneath. There was Lady Windermere, and Lady Middlebough—
Good God, Lady Middlebough!
Like No Other Lover Page 12