Two Hearts

by Barbara Miller

  Brand felt his mouth drop open.

  “I knew you would be as shocked as me.”

  “Of course,” he said slowly. “Why didn’t I realize?”

  “Are you listening to me?”

  “Yes,” he said, taking his sister’s hand and patting it. “But I already offered to take her home. Besides, Maria will be with us. It will be all right.”

  Since Maria came hurrying by and passed them with a curtsey and a good night, Dahlia could say no more against the plan.

  Grace had been so tired she had sat down in the middle of the broad carpeted stairs and had not been able to make her presence known before Dahlia had made her presumptive remark about Brand having no intention of marrying her. She had waited for him to set his sister straight but he had remained noncommittal. If he did intend marriage would he not confess that to his own sister?

  When he had not Grace had crouched and slipped down the rest of the flight, then made her way to the door. She would have gone out into the night as she was if Stoddard had not come out of the cloak room to bring her pelisse to her. She thanked him and sat on the only chair in the vast hall, wondering how she could face Brand. What a fool she had been. It had been only a game to him, or worse, a play. If she appeared later as some misguided secondary character in one of his creations she would personally throw overripe fruit at the stage.

  Once they were in the carriage, an awkward silence fell, broken only but Maria’s fake snoring.

  “Did you like the play? You haven’t said much about it.”

  “There is much meat in Marlowe’s plays to digest,” Grace said. “I will be thinking over those lines all night. Were you satisfied with the play?”

  “I don’t think I am ever totally satisfied.”

  “No, I imagine not.” And that was the last thing she said to him, hurrying inside with Maria rather than lingering on the steps with him.

  Chapter Seventeen

  There was fog again in the morning, fog outside masking the trees and buildings, making things seem other than they were and fog inside Grace’s head, clouding her judgment. The sleepless night had not helped. Ordinarily she enjoyed fog since it made her imagination leap and her fantasies hold sway for a meager hour. Perhaps she had been spending too much time in the rarified fog of her own emotions and needed to come back to earth. Brand would never ask her to marry him.

  Yet her heart gave a leap when she saw Brand and Robin ride into the stable yard. She stepped back from the window. She had already sent word to Hanson that she would not ride today. After a short conference with the stable lad, Brand glanced up at her house but made no move toward it. Of course not. No one called at this hour of the morning. He had only come because he was being dutiful and keeping to his promise of riding every day it did not rain.

  Little as she wanted to spar with Brand or even talk to him just now, the empty prospect of the day without him made her feel hollow. She went to Jilly’s room to play with the baby for a while. Now she knew why she took them in, these misled girls and it was a selfish reason. She wanted babies in her house but she was afraid to go through everything she would have to do in order to get her own. Trust any man? Absurd. It was not to be thought of.

  * * * * *

  Brand told himself that Grace was tired. If he knew her, she probably had thought of the play half the night. But what if she were falling in love with Lake? He felt his face tighten into a grimace as he galloped through the park with Robin trying to keep up with him.

  “Uncle Brand. Where are you going?”

  “To see Stone. At least there is something I can do about him.”

  “Are you going to get me fired?”

  Brand checked his horse a little so Robin could catch up with him, then eased it to a trot. “You can make a fool of yourself on the stage for all I care. And by the way, your mother did recognize you. I’m assuming Stone only gave you the role thinking to curry my favor.”

  “Now, see here. I auditioned for that role.”

  “But what he did to Grace Montrose was unconscionable.”

  “What?”

  “He talked her into subsidizing the costumes and set designs for my plays. She even painted some of the sets herself and I’ve no doubt helped alter the costumes.”

  “What of it? That just shows how much she believes in William Marlowe’s plays.”

  “I was paying Stone too. I was paying for everything and he took advantage of her.”

  Robin shrugged. “You are going to tell her, aren’t you, that you are William Marlowe?”

  “Not yet and you had better not either.”

  When they arrived at the Pantheon, the front door under the portico was locked but they found a prop boy sweeping the stoop leading to the back door. The lad suddenly found himself holding two horses and with a gold coin in his hand.

  “Stone!” Brand shouted as he thundered up the stairs to the third floor office that also served as Stone’s living quarters. He rattled the door when he got to it, bringing the clerk sleepily out of the small room beside it.”

  “He never gets up so early, my lord.”

  “Do you have a key to this door?”

  “No, sir. Only Mr. Stone. That’s where he keeps the money locked up.”

  Brand lunged against the door and it sprang open easily but he halted on the doorstep, staring at the blood on the floor, the bed, the desk, even on the faded and rotting drapery that blocked the early morning sun from the room.

  “My gawd!” the clerk said. “He’s been murdered. That’s the strongbox and it’s empty. Brand stood in shock as the man shuffled into the room and inspected the broken metal box that lay upended on the gory floor.

  Suddenly Brand realized Robin had crept in behind the old man and was inspecting the horrific scene. “Don’t touch anything.”

  Brand did a cursory search and did not discover Stone’s body which was damned strange. Why murder a man then carry him away with you?

  “I’m going for the magistrate,” Brand said. “Robin, sit guard on the steps and don’t let anyone touch anything.” He had asked that so that the boy would be away from the blood but his nephew looked grateful as he took up his position. The custodian was weeping into his handkerchief and slumped against the wall in the hallway. Even as Brand rode to the local roundhouse he felt that something was not right about the whole scene.

  * * * * *

  Grace had already decided to skip the performance that night, though the thought of staying home the whole day made her feel like a prisoner. The rain had stopped and she wondered if she should revert to her old habits. If there was to be nothing with Brand then she still had everything she had before. She sent one of the boys to tell her groom to saddle her horse and the hack.

  After she changed into her habit she realized that she did not have everything she’d had before Brand came into her life. Her complacency had been destroyed. She lived in a prison of her own making but it was a prison just the same. The times demanded certain things of even an unconventional woman such as herself.

  She decided that once Gavin found an estate she would move there and give up on London. Encountering Brand would be much too painful, worse even than the sniggers from the gossips who would say she had set her cap at him and he had played her for a fool.

  She did agree that Regent’s Park, though small, was a more discreet place to ride.

  “Riding alone?”

  What the devil? It was Everson. Grace glanced at her groom, then back to Everson. “I’m not alone.”

  “I meant without Lord Morewood.”

  “We ride together any day it does not rain.”

  Everson made a show of examining the sky. “It is not raining.”

  “No, not now but it was when he called.”

  “Fortune smiles on me at last. You are a hard woman to get to speak to.”

  “Alone you mean.”

  “Aye. I do much admire you.”

  “I can’t see why.”

  “T
here are those like my cousin who would never think of the poor. Yet you go out of your way to help them when you owe them nothing.”

  “But I owe them everything. I did not work for my father’s money. It was made on the backs of hardworking people.”

  “I see, so you are motivated by guilt?”

  She found herself smiling against her will. “It’s not the best of motivations but if it brings about good, it’s better than not acting. I had no idea you were interested in philanthropy.”

  “I have not the means to do anything about it. At least not yet.”

  “You have not said if you will be rejoining your regiment.”

  “No, I shall have to sell out. But that will give me a start and I found out I shall have a steady income from another source. I simply have to figure out what to do with the rest of my life.”

  “Oh yes, teaching,” Grace mused, wondering how a steady income could have materialized so suddenly. If he sold out he would lose his half pay. Had some relative died?

  “Unless you would consent to become my wife.”

  Grace thought he must have heard her sharp intake of breath as an eef or eak. “You don’t beat around the bush.”

  “Rushing my fences has always been my style.”

  “I scarcely know you.”

  “And that is not likely to change with Morewood guarding you every hour of the day. What does he want from you? For sure he doesn’t mean marriage or he would have spoken by now. If you are not careful he will ruin your reputation.”

  Grace felt herself blushing. “I don’t know.”

  “More to the point, what do you want from him?”

  “Perhaps just companionship.”

  “Or children? I saw you holding the baby. You were meant to be a mother. And the years go by and you have no babes.”

  “But I do.”

  “I meant ones you can keep.”

  “Perhaps I don’t want them enough. I have bought my freedom, such as it is, at a great price. I don’t want the sacrifice to be for nothing.”

  “Why can’t you have both?”

  “Because the laws are made by men, the courts are run by men and the deck is always stacked against women.”

  “What kind of freedom is it when you can do nothing to change your fate? It sounds like a trap to me.”

  “If it is, then it’s one of my own making, a comfortable trap.”

  “Why not marry someone you can rule.”

  “Such as yourself? I do not love you.”

  “You could learn to love me. Love doesn’t just happen. It can grow.”

  “But I am content with my life as it is. Why should I change it?”

  “To make yourself happy.”

  “Happiness is not something you can put on like a new coat.” She looked pointedly at his uniform. “It comes from inside.”

  “Will you at least think about my offer?”

  “You argue your case well, better than many a solicitor. And you have already given me much cause to think. I should be getting back now. There is no telling what my brother may be up to.”

  “I will accompany you. Morewood is right about one thing. You should not ride with only a groom.”

  “Why no, anyone might accost me.”

  His laugh was rich and male. If she were a green girl she might be taken in by it.

  * * * * *

  Even though she had made a late start on the day, avoiding the theater left too many hours unoccupied when she might become the prey to any morning callers who chanced by. Lady Charlton and Lucy were two of these, having apparently forgotten their recent condemnation of her. After listening to them preen themselves in her morning room over the favors Brand had showed them the previous night she went to the library with an entrenched headache.

  Wallace, who had been hanging about the house all day, found her there trying to answer an invitation from Lady Morewood. She truly enjoyed talking to the older woman and did not want to slight her because she was avoiding Brand.

  “So he doesn’t mean to marry you after all?” Wallace growled.

  Her brother had ever been a clumsy oaf and always struck a nerve with his comments. This one set the seal on her displeasure. “Just who are you talking about?”

  “You know very well, Lord Morewood. It’s all over Town that Miss Charlton is in expectation of an offer from him.”

  “She can expect all she likes. I doubt anything will come of it.” Grace wadded up her latest draft and cast it aside.

  “Are you writing to him?”

  “Certainly not. I am turning down an invitation to take tea with his mother. For your information there isn’t the particle of a chance that I will ever marry Morewood, even if he were to ask me, which he won’t. I hope you are satisfied.”

  “Satisfied. I should say I am, to have you finally realize what sort of man he is, a profligate, preying on the romantic nature of women.”

  Grace stared at her brother, for the man he described was not her Brand, who carried his mother up and down the stairs as though she were a fragile bird, who opened a school to educate fatherless children, who wrote wonderful plays that sought the truth even if they had not totally found it yet. The tears that tried to spring to her eyes she sniffed back. “Wallace, Morewood at his most dastardly is still a far better man than you will ever be. Now get out of my house.” She did not shout this but just said it in her normal voice. No, not quite normal. She sounded cold and calculating.

  “What?”

  “I said get out of my house. If you are not gone within the hour I shall have the servants throw you out.”

  “Those old men?” he scoffed.

  “Those old men will have the help of half a dozen strong and healthy women, including myself. How will it look to have yourself cast out the front door by a group of women? I should think it would be all over Town in no time.”

  He frowned which indicated he was actually thinking. “You shouldn’t have written to Ellen. She sent a note that she is coming to Town. What would people think if she arrived to stay with you and you had put me out?”

  “Very well but it will be the last visit either of you make to this house. I am going to sell it.”

  “Sell it. But where will you live?”

  “I’m not sure yet but I certainly will not let you know. So you can just stay here while I pack and remove my effects. The new owners will have to deal with you.”

  “You cannot be serious.”

  “I can be anything I like. But I tell you to your face you have cut up my peace for the last time. Now leave me.”

  After he vacated the room she wrote a brief but sincere note of apology to Lady Morewood and had it sent round. She didn’t know what to do with herself then. So many things seemed to be ending. She wanted to take refuge in Jilly’s room and play with the baby but if she was never going to have any of her own she could not bear that. And she knew that after Brand she would never let another man get close to her.

  She did not hate him. How could she when she loved him so much? She got up and paced the book-lined room, from the cold fireplace to the window that overlooked the stable yard. So much information, so many ideas but no answers for her. She felt isolated even from her books. She had warned Brand about infatuation. Was that it? She loved him but he was not serious about her. Yet, she could have sworn he did love her.

  Of course love for a man might be expressed differently or might only be temporary. But how could Brand have written all those wonderful plays without understanding something about love, about what a woman needed? How could he care so much for orphans, for his nephew and his mother, if he did not understand what love was?

  She was still pacing two hours later when Brand’s carriage pulled down the alley and around to the back of the house. She stepped back from the window. She could not see him. Not as shattered as she was feeling. Finch’s slow footsteps came to the door and he knocked. She did not answer but he opened it anyway.

  “Lady Morewood wants to kn
ow if you would oblige her by taking a drive around the park with her.”

  “Lady Morewood?” Grace ran to the window, then turned to Finch. “Yes, I will go directly.” She glanced down at her gray morning dress, caught up her shawl and ran down the stairs and out of the house without so much as a hat or reticule. The Morewood footman helped her in and closed the door of the carriage.

  “What are you doing here and without even your maid?” Grace whispered.

  “Just an airing,” Lady Morewood said, tweaking her lap robe into place. “I find that Brand is not the only one capable of carrying me and that I do still have the power to command the servants myself.”

  Grace gave a reluctant smile. “How did you know I would come out?” She felt herself pitch forward as the horses made their turn and headed for the street.

  “Your servants might not carry Brand’s messages to you but I had a feeling mine would get through. Now, why are you avoiding him?”

  “Because I love him,” Grace said, then realized how ridiculous that sounded.

  “You love him and that is why you are not seeing him?” Lady Morewood was staring at Grace as though she were insane. “Would you mind elaborating?”

  “When we began seeing each other I think we both acknowledged that neither of us was interested in marriage, that we wanted companionship only.”

  Lady Morewood gaped at her for a full minute. “That is the stupidest thing I ever heard. Brandon would never have introduced you to me if he did not have at least in his heart the hope of wedding you.”

  “But he has never said he would. I feel I have been making a fool of myself over him.”

  “Tell me exactly what has happened between you two?”

  “Oh, I cannot tell you. It’s just that I had unreasonable expectations about him.”

  “Has Dahlia said anything vile?”

  Grace stared her miserably, wondering how she guessed.