by Liz Carlyle
Jonet had risen from her chair to join him at the window, and she shivered at the chill which pervaded the glass. She leaned closer to David’s warmth, and in the murky light of a street lamp below, she could see that a silvery fog had settled over Mayfair, riming the cobblestones with a dull sheen of ice and shrouding the scene in a cold, depthless beauty. It made her think of her brother’s heart, and for a moment she wanted to cry.
Lightly, she laid one hand against his back, feeling the tension which thrummed inside him, and slowly, David turned from the window, his face suddenly stripped of all pretense. For one brief instant, Jonet feared he might truly lash out at her this time. But then, almost reluctantly, he opened his arms, and drew her hard against his chest. “Ah, Jonet—!” he sighed into her hair. “Have we no secrets from one another?”
“No,” she softly admitted. And, indeed, they had not. Few siblings were as close, even those who shared both parents instead of just one dissolute father.
For long moments, the book room fell silent as David listened to his sister’s low, rhythmic breathing. Against his chest, Jonet felt warm and comforting. But it was not enough. In truth, it never had been. Why did she torture him so? Jonet knew better than anyone why he ought not wed. His estates, his titles—and yes, even his very blood—felt alien to him. He was not Delacourt. He was nothing. Not noble, not titled, and barely even respectable. Though admittedly, his reputation was his own fault.
Oh, he knew—yes, he knew—that something was missing from his life. But it most assuredly wasn’t marital bliss. But he was two-and-thirty years old, and the years since Jonet’s second marriage had been hard ones, for he’d somehow lost his grounding. Jonet had found true happiness. But David, deprived of his best friend—indeed, his moral compass, and the only person whom he’d ever really taken care of—had found himself painfully alone. He’d somehow let himself run to dissolution. And he had done it quite deliberately, too, in some futile hope of outrunning the darkness which chased him ever more intently with every passing year.
He really had no wish to think of it further. Suddenly, Nanna threw open the door and presented him with a reprieve. A tide of little girls burst in, surging about David’s feet in a froth of white nightclothes.
“David, David!” Six-year-old Arabella threw one arm about his thigh and looked up. “My toof fewl out!” she announced, pointing inside her gaping mouth. “Can I have a guinea for it?”
“Heavens, what a greedy little Scot you are!” proclaimed David, grabbing her up and lifting her high in the air. In response, Davinia tried to clamber up his leg. David fell back into the nearest chair, taking both girls with him.
“Bella cried when it came out,” tattled four-year-old Davinia, grunting as she scrabbled onto his left thigh.
“Did not!” protested Arabella, scowling across David’s lap.
“Did too!” challenged Davinia, turning her warmest smile on David and raising her lips to his ear. “Have you brought my pony?”
Alone on the floor, and clearly feeling neglected, little Fiona fell back on her rump and burst into tears.
“Davinia!” said Jonet in a chiding tone as she leaned down to pick up Fiona. “Don’t carry tales! And don’t wheedle gifts from your godfather!”
“Hush, goose!” David whispered to Davinia. “You weren’t to say a word yet. Now! Why do we not all move to the sofa, where we may safely sit together? Your mother wishes to tell a new bedtime story.”
“Do I?” asked Jonet archly, bouncing Fiona on her hip. “Which one would that be?”
Look for
WOMAN OF VIRTUE
Coming March 2001 from
Sonnet Books
Published by Pocket Books