Once in a Blue Moon

by Penelope Williamson

  And he loved her. He told her often how much he loved her.

  Yet Jessalyn was frowning as she peered through the drizzle at the prancing line of Thoroughbreds and jockeys in rainbow-colored taffetas. The twenty-five pounds her grandmother wanted to wager was the last of the household money that Jessalyn had set aside to see them through the winter until her marriage next spring. If they lost, they could well be reduced to selling watercress bunches in the grimy London streets.

  But they wouldn't lose. Not this time.

  Jessalyn descended from the carriage into mud that had the consistency of hasty pudding. She turned her face up to the gently weeping clouds, loving the feel of the soft rain bathing her cheeks like spray from an eau de cologne bottle. "Are you hungry, Gram? Shall I bring you back something to eat?"

  Lady Letty sat lost in thought, massaging the blackthorn handle of her cane. In the dim light the skin of her face shone pale and translucent as an eggshell. In that moment she looked more than her eighty-three years.

  "Gram?"

  Lady Letty blinked and focused gray eyes that were as hard as tin ore on her granddaughter's face. But her voice held none of its usual tartness. "Nay, gel." She reached down and brushed Jessalyn's cheek, a touch that was tender and so uncharacteristic that Jessalyn had to swallow around a strange thickness in her throat.

  Lady Letty's hand fell to her lap. It looked boneless against her heavy black skirt, a long and narrow hand with bent fingers, old and frail. Jessalyn was filled with a familiar fear. She felt alone and afraid, six years old again and about to be tossed aside like a suit of old clothes.

  "Now quit your shilly-shallying, and get along with you, gel," Lady Letty said, grimacing a scowl, an expression that was oddly loving for all its fierceness.

  Jessalyn squeezed her grandmother's hand. She felt its reassuring and familiar strength that was there, still, beneath the fragility of age. "This is our lucky day, Gram, I just know it. We'll risk it all, neck or nothing," she said, laughing, and at the squeaky, joyous sound of it people turned to look, and they, too, smiled.

  Whirling around, she set off with a spring to her step to bet their last twenty-five pounds on the next race, neck or nothing.

  "'Ware the sharpers and pickpockets!" Lady Letty called after her.

  Jessalyn walked down a path littered with soggy race cards, past the hazard tables that were sheltered from the rain by a low-slung canopy. Water dripped from the red-striped canvas, bleeding into puddles. A boisterous group of young bucks, barely old enough to shave, pressed around the gaming tables. Any fool who frequented the Turf knew the dice were cogged, the games run by crooked sharpers. But there always seemed to be a fresh flock of pigeons to gull. As she plunged into the crowd of men on foot and horseback, Jessalyn gripped her reticule so tightly the linked steel rings bit through her kid gloves. At racing meets, pickpockets and cutpurses were as thick as crows in a cornfield.

  Smells of jellied eels and ripe cheese and snatches of laughter wafted out the open doors of the many gin tents. A huckster strolled by, hawking penny tots of gin and meat pasties that steamed in the cool air. Jessalyn's stomach growled. She didn't stop, though, for she was intent to place her bet before the runners had all gathered at the starting post.

  The first time Jessalyn attended a racing meet, Gram had accused her of behaving like a gapeseed, staring open-mouthed at every sight. Newmarket was a network of interlocking courses covering four miles over spacious, level meadows of thick, short grass. But it wasn't only a place for horse racing. In many ways it was like a fair, with horror plays and peep shows, dancing dogs and cockfights.

  This afternoon's contest was called the Crombie Sweeps, after the Scottish lord who had organized it. It was a sweepstakes race for two-year-olds. Each owner who subscribed to the race had had to put up fifty sovereigns, and the winner would take the pot. But the Lettys, true members of the Turf, weren't content just to risk their stake money. For one thing, the expense of keeping even their small string of four horses, the cost of fodder, straw, and hay, and the stabling outlay, couldn't be covered alone by the stakes they won. They had to bet to live.

  As Jessalyn strode toward the betting post, her stomach spasmed with a fear that left her feeling queasy, for their luck had been running so sour of late. A gelding they had planned to race in the Rowley Mile meet last month had been laid low with the colic the night before. Then Nancy Girl, their most profitable runner to date, had mysteriously broken a bone in her knee while turned out to grass and had to be put down. In another race their entry had been leading by three lengths when a handbill had blown across the track, startling him so that he reared, tossing his jockey headfirst into the turf. Two other times this season their horses had had disappointing outings, running sluggishly and finishing well back in the pack.

  Indeed, the Letty luck had truly been abysmal, Jessalyn thought. But it was bound to turn today. Especially in this race, with this horse. From the day the blood bay colt had first put in his appearance in the world, she had known that he would be the one to win them the Derby someday. It wasn't that he had been born with the configuration of a racer. In truth, he still wasn't much to look at, for he had enormous feet and the short cannon bones that denoted more strength than speed. But every time Jessalyn looked into those bright, intelligent eyes she saw burning within the ruthless, driving will to win that made a champion.

  She had named him Blue Moon.

  The betting post, a thin white pole, could barely be seen through the crowd of gentlemen milling around it, most on horseback. They called out their wagers to the blacklegs who made the book, laying and taking bets at varying prices. The legs, sheltering today beneath a large sagging lean-to, shouted back, loudly naming their odds.

  Black Charlie was the only female leg in England. An enormous woman, she overflowed around her stool like a bullfrog sitting on a stone. It was said she was worth ten thousand pounds a year, though she dressed and talked and looked like the Spitalfields washerwoman she had once been. Jessalyn was careful to stop downwind of her, for she smelled worse than a basket of rotten eggs. She had once told Jessalyn that she'd already had a lifetime of soap and water and never intended to get near the stuff again.

  "Come to lay more blunt on yer pretty boy, have ye, Miss Letty?" Black Charlie said, smiling around the bit of a clay pipe she had stuck between tobacco brown teeth. '"Ow much this time?"

  "A pony. To win."

  Black Charlie noted the twenty-five-pound wager on the running tick she kept. Money would not change hands until later. "You and yer granny'll be living high as fighting cocks if yer lay pays off, eh? Pity it is that I can't be givin' ye better odds, but that Blue Moon of yers is a tiptop goer and no mistake. Ye watch if he don't make all them other 'orses look like donkeys."

  Out of habit Jessalyn checked the list of runners and their odds, which was chalked on a large piece of slate posted above Black Charlie's head. Blue Moon was down as the favorite, for in the two contests he'd run in his young life he had defeated all comers. Her eyes scanned the rest. "Who's the late entry?"

  "Eh? Oh, ye mean Rum Chaser. His owner has just now come up to scratch with the stake." Black Charlie jerked her three chins at the men who straddled stools alongside her. "Yon legs're laying five to two on 'im at starting." She heaved a derisive snort that set her chins to trembling. "Rum Chaser's of a showy turn, ye mind. But my tout says 'e ain't fit. E ain't had a sweat for a fortnight." She paused to puff on her pipe and winked a great, fleshy eye. "And he weren't fed on no milk-soaked bread and fresh eggs last night like yer Blue Moon was."

  Jessalyn waved away the malodorous smoke that billowed from Black Charlie's pipe. She was careful to keep her face blank, but inwardly she was torn between laughter and dismay. The Sarn't Major would be furious to know that Blue Moon's dietary secret was out. But then Black Charlie's touts were the best on the Heath at spying on the racehorses in training and picking up tips.

  "Rum Chaser's training has been neglected, ye se
e, ever since the earl popped off," Black Charlie was saying. '"Tis said he put a barking iron in his mouth and blew 'is noddle off, the earl did."

  "Rum Chaser's owner shot himself?" Jessalyn asked, only half listening. She was trying to see if she could spot Blue Moon at the starting post.

  "Aye. 'Twas done in some gaming hell," Black Charlie went on. "Played deep and then got caught playin' dirty and took the 'onorable way out. 'Tis said the earl's heir were once a penniless soldier afore fortune smiled upon 'im. I'll tells ye this, he's as much the deep plunger as his brother ever was. 'E laid a thousand quid on his runner to place, did the new Lord Caerhays."

  "Lord who?" Jessalyn's voice cracked as her heart thrust up into her throat. "Rum Chaser belongs to the earl of Caerhays?" Dear life... She sucked in a deep breath and felt her heart begin to beat again in loud, hard thumps like a Cornish tin stamp. "Is he here? Is Lieut—is Lord Caerhays here?"

  "Standing right behind ye, he is." Black Charlie's cackle split the air. "'E looks a rum un. The sort of man ye'd trust to guard yer back, but not yer daughter's virtue, eh?"

  Jessalyn whipped around so fast she nearly stumbled. Her gaze was filled with the wide back of a tall man with a caped greatcoat slung in a negligent fashion over his shoulders. Just then he turned half toward her, and Jessalyn felt a wrenching pain in her chest, a pain so sharp and thrusting so deep she nearly cried aloud.

  The years had hardened his high-boned face, but he was still disdainfully handsome. A woman catching a glimpse of him from across a ballroom would look again. And then again.

  But for Jessalyn just to see him once was more than she could bear. Yet she could not have looked away, not even if the whole world had ignited into a blazing conflagration behind her. His skin had been bronzed by the sun, and his hair hung in shaggy strands from beneath his glossy high-crowned beaver. He lifted his head slightly, looking toward the starting post, and something glinted like a bright coin beneath the curved brim of his hat. A thin gold loop that pierced the lobe of his left ear. He hadn't changed, oh, he hadn't changed... Still wicked and dashing and irreverent. A scapegrace Trelawny to his very bones, and to the devil with you if you didn't like it. She imagined how Society's matrons must swell up like frogs at mating time at the very idea of a peer of the realm sporting a pirate's earring.

  And then the inevitable happened. He turned his head, and their gazes met. He stared at her a long time, his face dark and intent. He made a movement as if to leave, then changed his mind and came toward her.

  He still walked like a lazy cat, with that sauntering sway of lean and manly hips, ruined at the last moment by the hitch in his stride. He hadn't changed, hadn't changed....

  When I marry, it will he to a woman, not a scrawny, carrottop barely out of the schoolroom. She'll be a woman with breeding and money, not some provincial miss without even two beans to boil together to make soup.

  But I love you.

  Too bloody bad, Miss Letty. Because I don't love you.

  Humiliation washed over her, as fresh as if it had happened only yesterday. She had laid her heart at his feet, and he had walked away. How amusing she must have seemed to him, how he must have laughed—silly Miss Letty with her moony ways, falling over cliffs and down mine shafts, and begging him to marry her. Silly child... How she had loved him then.

  And how she hated him now.

  Her first instinct was to turn and run, but she made herself stand tall and straight until he was almost upon her. He had left her so little pride that summer, had left it tattered and in shreds, but she wrapped it around herself now like an old mended cloak. She lifted a composed face, and the heavy serge skirt of her walnut brown redingote, and sailed past him, cutting him dead.

  A footman in purple and gold satin livery dashed past her, nearly knocking her down. Suddenly she was enveloped by a whole gaggle of running footmen. Some gentlemen, bored with waiting for the sweepstakes to start, were matching their servants in a human race.

  One of the footmen, his roly-poly body sausaged into tight crimson and silver satin, his periwig askew over one eye, lagged far behind the others, and his master was riding along beside him, ordering him to pick up his legs and move his bloody arse, dammit. The footman, puffing like a locomotive, leaped high and landed in a puddle. Muddy water splashed through the air. Jessalyn stood, stunned and dripping, until a hand closed around her elbow, guiding her out of the way.

  "Well, well, if it isn't Miss Letty in trouble as usual. Somehow I always thought that if I should ever see you again, it would be in a place where you don't belong."

  She had to swallow before she could speak. Her tongue felt rough with rust, and it seemed she had forgotten to breathe. She looked up into his face, so handsome above his tall, starched collar and cleverly tied cravat. Into his eyes, so dark and compelling. At his mouth, a mouth that she knew could be hard and then sulky by turns.

  A mouth that had once kissed her.

  "But I do belong here," she said, pleased that her voice betrayed none of the turmoil within her breast. "My horse Blue Moon is entered in the Crombie Sweeps, and I am here to see him run away with the prize, Mr.... Pray forgive me, but though your face is familiar, your name has slipped my memory—no, I have it. Trelawny. Lieutenant Trelawny."

  Anger flashed in his eyes. Raw and ragged anger that was swiftly covered up. "It is Lord Caerhays now, and you remembered damn well who I am, Jessalyn. You didn't used to be so good at nasty, cutting sort of games."

  "I was taught how to play by an expert." She gathered up her skirt again. "Do accept my condolences on your brother's death, and now if you will excuse me..."

  She took a step, but he took a larger one, planting himself in front of her. His lips curled up at one end in an arrogant smile. "No, I will not excuse you. Miss Letty. At least not until we exchange a few more polite banalities. You shall ask me how I am faring, and I shall say: 'Tolerably well, thank you.' Then I shall ask how you are faring."

  She made her eyes go wide and guileless. "I beg your pardon. I hadn't thought to be rude. I merely assumed that the state of my health is a matter of utmost indifference to you... since I harbor not the slightest interest in yours."

  He leaned into her, so close she could see the beginning shadow of a beard on his lean cheeks and the shadows stirring in the dark pools of his eyes. "Now there you are wrong," he said, drawling the words in a deliberately seductive fashion, "for I have thought of you often in the last five years."

  "I thought of you, too, my lord. In the beginning. But then I came to see that you were right: We did not at all suit. And so my thoughts moved on to other things."

  To her shock his head fell back in laughter. "Well put," he exclaimed. "Cut to the bone, I've been. Skewered like a Christmas goose, pricked like a pincushion, sliced like an onion, stabbed like a—like a... dear me, I seem to have run out of metaphors. Tell me, Miss Letty—it is still Miss Letty? Or should I be addressing you as someone more matronly? Mrs. Respectable, perhaps? Mrs. Dull?"

  The words built in her mouth to tell him about her betrothal to his cousin, for more than anything that would show him that she had survived what he had done to her heart and to her pride. But as she tilted her head back to speak, she caught his gaze upon her. The twin exploding suns blazed bright in his eyes, as disturbing as ever, and even after all this time she felt her heart pick up a beat.

  She stared up at him, hating him for doing this to her— for knocking down in five minutes all the walls she'd spent five years building. "You've grown up, little girl," he said, his voice husky but with an underlying edge that promised a danger she was, oh, too familiar with.

  Grown up... she must remember that she was a woman now, no longer the silly barefoot girl who had once made such a fool of herself over him. She had acquired a bosom that filled out her redingote. Beneath her fanciful Gypsy hat, her hair was pulled neatly back into a braided chignon. But it was still red, and her mouth was still too big for her face.

  When I marry, it will be
to a woman, not a scrawny, carrottop barely out of the schoolroom....

  Jessalyn's stomach clenched into a tight knot. Away... she had to get away from him before...

  But before she knew what he was about, he had taken her arm and was leading her over to the painted white markers that lined the home straight. His touch was light, impersonal, but she felt it deep within her like a bruise on the bone.

  His hand released her to wrap around one of the posts. He gripped the wood so tightly the veins and sinews of his wrist stood out and the leather of his tan gloves pulled taut across his knuckles. She shot a quick glance at his face. He was staring at the tall white pillar that marked the starting point where the runners were gathering. A muscle jumped in his cheek.

  The jockeys, bright as popinjays in their taffetas, were jostling for position. Through the misty drizzle, the horses were barely distinguishable from one another, their coats all dark and sleek like otters with the wet.

  Out the corner of her eye she saw him move. He even started to walk away from her, and she let out a soft breath of relief. Then he whirled and took two hard, jerky strides. His hands fell on her shoulders, pulling her around. "Why did you name him Blue Moon?"

  Whatever she had expected, it was not that. For a moment the shrill cries of the hawkers and legs faded away. She saw herself dancing before him, laughing, picking a moonflower to tuck behind his ear. She heard the sigh of the surf and felt the sea wind... that night of the blue moon, when he had taken her in his arms and kissed her the way a man kissed a woman he wanted. Hard and rough and hungry.