Two Hearts

by Barbara Miller

  “It’s deep. I’m going for a surgeon. It must be stitched.”

  He turned from her and she suddenly did not want him to leave.

  “Tonight?” She stepped toward him missing that gentle touch already when she had only just discovered it.

  “Yes, now. He can also discover why your friend is not waking up.” He came back to place his hands on her arms. “You are not going to faint as well? Perhaps you should sit down.”

  “Of course not. I have never fainted in my life.”

  “Good girl. I will have a surgeon here within the hour.”

  He was gone then so quickly that Grace almost thought she had dreamed the whole encounter except for the embroidered handkerchief tightly bound around her hand. She stared at it in amazement. An hour ago her life had been quite ordinary, under control and dull. Now there would be two more reasons for the gossips to prey on her if any of them had seen her enter his coach or him enter her house. But somehow, she did not care. Morewood was the most interesting man she had talked to in months. And she desperately wanted to continue their discussion of Marlowe, wringing an introduction from him if at all possible.

  “Ohhh,” Maria groaned. “He will murder us,” she said dramatically.

  “Of course not. We are home.”

  “How did we get here? Who rescued us?” She sat up slowly with a hand raised to her cheek.

  “Lord Morewood, as you well know. For all your experience of the theater you are a terrible actress.”

  “I do not know what you mean.” Maria scooted to the edge of the bed and stood up to shake the wrinkles out of her dress.

  “You are too florid by far to have been in a dead faint.”

  “Well not everyone faints the same. My God, Grace. You are bleeding like a stuck pig. Why did you not say something?”

  Grace shook her head. “I was too stunned.”

  “Does he really mean to come back? Let me see your hand.”

  “I suspect Lord Morewood does whatever he says he will whether you want him to or not.”

  Chapter Two

  Several hours later Brandon White, Earl of Morewood conducted his friend Thomas Pierce into the second-floor library of his large townhouse for a nightcap.

  “How did you leave Miss Montrose?” Morewood held up the brandy decanter with a lift of his eyebrow and Thomas nodded.

  “I put seven stitches in her hand and she never so much as squeaked.” The young surgeon came to take the glass and studied his friend. “And that without benefit of brandy. How could she not have noticed she was wounded?”

  Morewood eased himself into a leather-covered chair on one side of the desk and Thomas did likewise on the other side.

  “She was more concerned for her friend and her outrage with me.”

  “What did you do to her, Brand?”

  “Rescued her.” He blew out an impatient breath. “I got the feeling she would rather I had not. She thanked me more profusely for silencing the fool who was talking over the lines of my play.”

  The dark-haired Thomas grinned at him. “What do you mean by silenced? You didn’t strangle him, did you? I know how you are about your plays.”

  “I suggested he leave.”

  “The last night of Blackwell’s Revenge must have been an even bigger success than The Grass Widow.” Thomas raised his glass in a toast. “You should have let the play run the whole season.”

  “Always leave them hanging. We can revive it later. I have another ready.” Brandon took a sip of brandy and sighed audibly. “A better one.”

  “What’s it called?”

  “Two Hearts.”

  “Let’s see, the first was a comedy, the second a tragedy. What will this be about?”

  “It is a love story,” he said. “What I was trying to write all along.”

  “True love? Now there’s a subject of which I would have guessed you had no experience.”

  “You mean because of all my near misses with marriage?”

  “Brand, for the past five years, except for an occasional flirtation, you have led the existence of a monk.”

  “That is because a certain physician made me aware of the dangers of trusting women to be frank about their conditions.”

  “I’m not a physician yet. I’ve a year of study ahead before I can practice my trade on pampered nobility beyond your household.”

  Brandon nodded. “My celibacy also has something to do with finding my opera dancer in bed with another man. I was keeping her. He was keeping her. God knows how many other men were keeping her at the same time. She had a full calendar.”

  “Hence The Grass Widow plot. And Blackwell’s Revenge, that would be based on your duel over the lovely debutante, Cloris, who as I recall, married the man who shot you. How is the arm by the way?”

  “Well enough, thanks to you.” He smiled at his friend wondering why the most valuable lessons were usually the most painful.

  “So where did your experience of true love come from?”

  Brandon rocked back in the chair and sighed. “My dreams. I try to create the perfect woman in my sleep. Unfortunately she does not exist.”

  Thomas chuckled. “Does anyone besides me know you write these things?”

  “Only Stone the theater owner and I told him it would be worth his life if he reveals the truth.”

  “But why hide this, an admirable achievement?”

  “To come forward as the author would ruin everything.”

  “Ah, the critics.” Thomas nodded and emptied his glass.

  “Worse yet, the sycophants.” Brandon pushed the decanter across the desk and Thomas reached to replenish his brandy.

  “What was she wearing?” Brand asked, picturing Grace Montrose with her hair undone.

  Thomas swallowed his mouthful and coughed. “Oh a fusty nightgown of flannel.”

  Brand glared at his companion. “I meant Miss Montrose, not her companion.”

  “A dressing gown all covered in frothy lace. Very feminine. Not at all in character for such a woman.”

  “I could see her in it.” Brandon imagined the finest hazel eyes he had ever seen looking at him with a challenge and the shimmering fall her dark chestnut hair would make if it were loose. But he also saw firm breasts, peaked with arousal, a tiny waist, trim hips and slender thighs. There was no dressing gown in his fantasy.

  “Brand, are you listening to me?”

  “Yes—no. What did you say?”

  “You should have come inside instead of waiting in the carriage.”

  “What possible reason could I have given?”

  “Stopping her from paying me, for one thing.”

  Brand glared at his friend. “You didn’t take it?”

  “She insisted. I suppose to keep you from paying me.”

  “You could have collected from both of us.” He rested his chin on his knuckles as he studied Thomas and wondered if he was making this up.

  “Your cases are so interesting I would do them gratis. Besides, I am your houseguest which saves me paying for squalid lodgings.”

  There was silence for a few minutes. “Her hair?” Brandon asked.

  “She had taken it down, a dark brown mane reaching halfway down her back. Lovely by candlelight.”

  Brand groaned and lay back limply in the chair.

  Thomas chuckled. “Since you are so obviously attracted to this lady why not make a push to get to know her? One way to keep a woman faithful is to marry her.”

  “That doesn’t hold true. Besides she is afraid of me,” he said. “Afraid but too proud to show it.”

  “Afraid? Miss Montrose? I cannot picture it. She looked disappointed to me.”

  “With your work?”

  “With your absence. She didn’t put on that dressing gown for me.”

  Brand stared at him, wondering if there could be any truth in the remark.

  He gave his head an impatient shake. “But I am like to be disappointed. She would probably be like all the others. Perhaps I
should let things rest as they are. I had rather she was perfect in my mind than imperfect in reality.”

  “How can you say that without knowing her?”

  “The only place I see her is the theater. I cannot visit her box without causing talk and she certainly cannot come to mine.”

  “You must have friends in common. Think, man.”

  “Oh, that would fly. Cozying up to her at some ball with half of London watching.”

  “Why not just call on her?”

  “A single gentleman calling on a single lady?”

  “Then invite her here.”

  “Even worse.”

  “Not if you invited others. All these objections only matter if you have no intention of marrying her. If it is a possibility then no one would think the less of either of you.”

  Brand nodded slowly as he pictured Grace Montrose a part of his life, sweeping down the stairs of Morewood House to greet guests, presiding at his dinner table or sitting at his side in his theater box. He could even see her tending his aged mother. Those were all comfortable images that raised no red flag of warning the way thoughts of marriage usually did for him.

  Then he thought of her coming shyly to his bed, of him slowly slipping the gown from those silken shoulders, that long ropy hair of hers falling forward to hide her breasts, to tickle his chest and entangle his thoughts.

  “Brand?”

  He jumped, then shook his head and leaned forward to set the tumbler on the desk. He missed and the thick glass thudded to the carpet but did not break. Brand looked at it numbly.

  Thomas waited a moment then yawned and sighed. “I’m for bed. I leave you to devise a plan.” He walked to the door, then paused with his hand on the knob. “But a lady with no less than three riding crops on her bedroom mantel must be something of a horsewoman. It surprises me you have not run into her in Hyde Park.” Thomas arched an eyebrow at him for a reaction. “Just an observation.”

  * * * * *

  Grace woke with her hand aching and a slight feeling of disgruntlement. She rolled over and stared at the Paris confection she had put on the previous night after trying on three other dressing gowns. She had finally decided there was nothing suitable in which to confront a gentleman in the middle of the night when he had possibly just saved your life. Why had she put it on? It had clearly amused the surgeon though he tried not to show it. She got up and washed her face one-handed, then managed to tie her hair back. It was an indifferent brown that held red highlights in the sun or by candlelight. Her eyes were light brown, in this light, but might be termed hazel by a generous person.

  Vanity. She thought she had vanquished that flaw but apparently not. Let her notice an attractive, virile man and she was as apt to make a fool of herself as the next woman. Well, it was spring. Perhaps that was it. She always got these notions in the spring but by the end of the season she was so totally bored with every man in London that a progress around the country was a welcome relief.

  Probably she should send word to her groom that she would not ride today. The coachman, who was nearing seventy and shared a room over the stable with her groom, had come to the house the previous evening before the surgeon to apologize for falling asleep. Maria had rung a peal over him but Grace had reassured him that his position was safe.

  Of course, if she wanted to convince her servants that all was well, she should not omit a ride on such a beautiful morning. There, she had talked herself into it. She always felt better after a romp through the park.

  She put on her blue riding outfit today since it was the easiest to button one-handed. She could have called one of the house maids to help her but she did not for the same reason she did not employ a dresser or personal maid. She guarded her privacy, her solitude, her freedom. She did not want to depend on anyone. As she slipped quietly down the back stairs she realized marriage was certainly out of the question for her. She did not want to share her life with anyone.

  Lord Morewood’s handsome face swam before her eyes and she paused on the outside steps for a moment to wonder if it were possible for a husband to make her life richer rather than more inhibited. She shook her head. Of course not. All men, all but her father, had sought to limit her, to hem her about with protections and rules, to exercise control over her. Marriage. What an absurd idea.

  Hanson was already saddling her gray mare and the cover hack he rode. She stopped to pet and praise her elderly gelding in his stall. Lightning pricked his ears forward at the prospect of an outing. Sometimes she got up early enough to go by herself and she would take the old horse on a lead behind the mare. They would not gallop those times and she would let them both graze in the park. Of course she would encounter Hanson’s condemning glare when she returned. But today she was glad to have someone tighten the cinch for her. Was riding such a good idea? She might open the wound on her hand. But the bandage was thick and her gloves were tight.

  “I s’pose you want to take the old’um for an airing?” Hanson asked.

  “Yes and we won’t gallop today. Can you lead him?”

  “O’course.”

  Was that a smile Hanson turned away to hide? If he felt compassion for a horse past its prime then she had no need to feel embarrassment at wanting it to enjoy its last years. If Hanson was sixty, then Tom Coachman must be seventy. Yet she could not bear to retire them.

  When he led Dawn out she grasped the reins and used the mounting block to get on. She was surprised by the tug of pain in her hand. Finally she put both reins in her right hand and urged her horse along the alley toward Brook Street rather than taking Oxford Street to the park.

  As they passed through Grosvenor Square she looked toward Lord Morewood’s house trying to remember how she knew which one was his. Oh yes, he had thrown a rather noisy party there several years ago the same night as the Conklin’s ball where she had gone. That had been a dull affair since all the most eligible men had been at Morewood’s place. For a woman with no intention to marry she realized she thought about men a great deal. At least about Morewood. And what did she mean by riding past his house. She need not think he would see her and come out. Most gentlemen drank far into the night and never rose until noon.

  A rumbled whinny reminded her of her purpose. Since Lightning seemed eager to do something, she urged her mare into a trot as she thought about Morewood. He was the first man she had studied in a long time. There was something wrong with them, all of them. Could a species which needed to be fixed so badly bring a woman anything but heartache and worry? Beyond a brusqueness bordering on rudeness what was Morewood’s flaw? He was a rake of course but that had been years ago. Then he had courted each year’s crop of green girls as though he really intended to marry. She knew because she had seen them paraded through his theater box. But this season he had kept to himself. Had he given up on marriage as she had?

  She sighed when she got to Hyde Park in all its dewy freshness and picked a secluded piece of green to let the horses have their heads and crop grass. It wasn’t so bad steering with one hand. Mentally she fixed most of the men she knew including her brother by adding some sensitivity and common sense. All except Morewood. He seemed, to her surprise, to have both those qualities besides an uncanny knowledge of what she was thinking.

  The horses knew the usual routes they took and set out at a comfortable walk around the perimeter of the park. For the space of half an hour Grace was able to put men out of her head completely and pretend she was riding about in the country. In her mind the buildings that hemmed in the expanse of green was a dark wood. The rides that intersected the park were roads to distant lands, paths to adventure.

  She pointedly led the way back home along Oxford Street to try to avoid thinking about Morewood by not passing his house. But she was wondering if she owed him a note of thanks. Her verbal appreciation seemed inadequate in the light of day now that she realized she might have been killed.

  She broached the subject over breakfast with Maria as she focused on pouring the tea o
ne-handed so that her companion would not attach any significance to the question.

  “Oh, I think you should write to him. Perhaps an invitation to dine.” Maria popped a bit of toast into her mouth.

  “He is single. I cannot invite him here.”

  “I’m sure you have invited other single men.”

  “But only with a party of people.”

  “So what is the problem? You will make up a theater party. It would be perfect.”

  “But I shall have to ask some single women if it is not to appear as though…”

  “What?” Maria asked as she spread jam on another piece of toast.

  “As though I had invited him as my escort.”

  “Only the small-minded would think that. I shall make a list for you but we must write the invitations today before we leave for the theater.”

  While Maria composed the list and even arranged the seating for the dinner table Grace labored over the invitations. During the subsequent shopping trip to pick up last minute ornaments to refurbish the Twelfth Night costumes Grace was haunted by the image of Morewood opening her card of invitation and laughing wildly. He would think her just another of the foolish women who were forever trying to trap him. When all she wanted to do…was thank him? She had to admit to herself that she was also curious about him. He had seemed so kind, so concerned for her and Maria. She could not reconcile that image of him with the tales of orgies at his house, the mistress he had used and discarded and the duel he had fought.

  Wait, he lived with his mother. How could there possibly be any orgies at Morewood House? What if his actions, like all London events, were bubbled out of proportion by the lens of gossip? Perhaps he was not such a desperate character but only misunderstood. As the carriage put them down at the rear entrance to the theater Grace gave herself a mental slap. Or perhaps he was like other men, extremely good at lying even to his mother.