The anonymous Miss Addams

by Kasey Michaels

  Caroline looked back and forth between the two faces hovering above her and shook her head. “No, I imagine we wouldn’t. But what if I never remember who I am? I can’t spend the remainder of my life not knowing my own name. I would surely go insane.”

  “Oh, but we can’t count on—that is, we shouldn’t even think of such a terrible thing! Most assuredly not!” Mrs. Merrydell protested, grabbing Caroline’s two hands and squeezing them convulsively. “You will just have to take each day as it comes, my dear. Isn’t that the ticket, Doctor?”

  Doctor Burgess was beginning to tire of his role as acquiescent bystander and walked to the side table to retrieve his bag. He snapped it closed with some force. The Merrydell woman wasn’t a doctor, after all. It was time he took charge of the situation. “I begin to think Miss Addams must have some terrible secret locked inside her memory, some awful event that has made it preferable for her to forget everything that has happened to her. This might be the time to call in the local constable. Perhaps he can shed some light on the situation.”

  “The constable!” Caroline and Mrs. Merrydell cried in unison.

  Now the center of attention, Doctor Burgess nodded thoughtfully. “The constable,” he repeated solemnly. “If there has been any terrible accident in the neighborhood he would know of it, as well as whether or not a young lady of Miss Addams’s description has gone missing. Yes, I think that is a sterling idea. I wonder why Mr. Standish hasn’t thought of it himself.”

  “Ah, good doctor, but he has.”

  Three heads turned to see Pierre Standish standing in the doorway, his arms folded across his chest. “Pierre!” Caroline cried, hopping down from the bed to approach him. “You spoke with the constable about me?” She couldn’t decide if she should be glad that he had exerted himself for her or angry that he had thought she was notorious enough to be known to the local constable.

  Taking her elbow so that he could lead her to a nearby chair, Pierre answered, “Not I, actually, but my father. He ordered a thorough inquiry to be launched throughout the district, but to no avail. So sorry to disappoint you, Doctor, but that is neither here nor there, is it? How is our patient? Will she live?”

  Doctor Burgess cleared his throat and puffed out his chest, clearly taking full credit for what he told Pierre was Miss Addams’s astonishing recovery from a terrible blow to the head. “There is no reason for me to attend her again, unless you wish me to, of course. There is really nothing else I can do for her at this time.”

  Mrs. Merrydell was quick to agree, pointing out that she was in charge now and perfectly capable of supervising Miss Addams’s welfare. “She’s in no danger while I’m about!” she ended determinedly.

  “Danger, Miss Merrydell?” Pierre repeated, his smooth voice tinged with surprise. “Whoever said Miss Addams was in any danger? Surely I haven’t spoken of danger. We were speaking only of unfortunate accidents, I believe.”

  Taking refuge in righteous anger, Mrs. Merrydell placed her hands on her hips and challenged hotly, “And just who was it who saved her from that cheeky dandy in the village, Mr. Standish? There is no end of danger to a well-bred young woman left to fend for herself. Heaven only knows what trouble she could have gotten herself into if I hadn’t been there to save her.”

  Caroline shook her head slowly as she rose to cross to the bed, wearied to death by Mrs. Merrydell’s constant repetition of her bravery in rescuing her at the shoemaker’s. “I think I should like to lie down for a while, if you don’t mind,” she said in a voice all but dripping with maidenly fatigue, hoping everyone would take her hint and withdraw so that she might have a moment’s peace. “We can regroup at luncheon to hear, while eating our stuffed capon, Mrs. Merrydell’s hundredth reenactment of her daring rescue.”

  “Well! That’s gratitude for you,” Mrs. Merrydell said, sniffing. “Not that I’m not used to it, as a chaperone often feels she has taken a viper to her bosom,” she added as she headed for the hallway. “Doctor Burgess, please allow me to show you the door.”

  Caroline stretched out on the satin coverlet, closing her weary eyes. Her headache, which had abated within hours of her awakening after the accident, had returned at almost the exact moment Mrs. Merrydell had entered her life, the constant dull ache behind her eyes showing every indication of becoming a permanent part of her. She would do anything—anything—to be shed of the woman.

  “Another headache, Caroline?” Pierre questioned solicitously, startling her, for his voice came from directly beside the bed. “I wouldn’t want to think you were going into a sad decline. Father would be so angry with me. Is there anything I can do?”

  Without opening her eyes, she suggested dully, “You could have dear, sweet Mrs. Amity Merrydell bound and gagged and set on a freighter heading for the West Indies at dawn. That would go a long way toward alleviating my pain.”

  “No,” he answered, chuckling softly at her show of vehemence. “As much as I regret it, I cannot do that. I still have need of the woman.”

  Caroline’s eyes popped open and she glared at him. “Whatever for? Or have you not yet wearied of your latest revenge on me? I admit it, the woman was a mistake. I only brought her here to get some of my own back on you. I never thought you’d open your father’s house to her.” Her eyes narrowed as a sudden thought hit her. “What do you know that I don’t know?”

  Pierre reached down to stroke a finger along Caroline’s jaw. “Almost everything, infant, almost everything. Have a nice nap and we’ll take this up later, as I’m sure you will not be satisfied until you have asked me at least a dozen new questions, for which, I regret, I as yet have no answers.”

  AS CAROLINE SUSPECTED, luncheon with Pierre and Mrs. Merrydell did not shed any new light on either her identity or Pierre’s reason for allowing Mrs. Merrydell to continue to run tame in his father’s household. In fact, other than to ask some probing questions concerning her chaperone’s last few employment situations, Pierre kept the conversation very light and very general. All in all, if it wasn’t for cook’s disarming way with capons, the meal would have been a total waste of Caroline’s time.

  Hoping that putting some fresh air and distance between herself and her resident dragon would serve to clear her head, Caroline changed into her riding habit immediately after luncheon and departed for the stables. The first person she met there was Jeremy, whom, she realized, she hadn’t seen in several days.

  “How are you going on, Jeremy?” she asked conversationally while waiting for the groom to saddle Lady, the mare Pierre had set aside for her personal use. Lady was a far cry from Obtuse, but she was spirited enough, and Caroline had already grown to love her gentle ways.

  “Oi’m learnin’ ter be a groom, missy,” he told her proudly, standing tall. “Oi doesn’t like it much bein’ inside, so guv’nor ’as me workin’ ’ere. Oi’ve all but decided not ter go back ta Piccadilly. Did yer ’ear ’ow guv’nor set ol’ ’Awkins ter the rightabout? It waz a rare sight ter see, Oi tells yer, a rare sight!”

  “Guv—er, Mr. Standish routed your former master?” she asked, sorting through Jeremy’s heavily accented slang. “I knew a sweep was coming, of course, but I never thought it could have been your sweep. Oh, this is delicious. Tell me about it.”

  As she urged Lady into a canter that would not out-distance the groom Pierre had assigned to her, Caroline considered all that Jeremy had told her. Even leaving off some of the lad’s sure to be broad exaggerations, Pierre had done a wonderful thing, a wonderfully unselfish thing, by defending the little sweep. “And it was totally out of character,” she mused aloud. “I will never understand the man. Not that I wish to,” she added hastily, the memory of Pierre’s kiss once again entering her mind unbidden.

  Pierre was a puzzle she was not ready to solve, for her own puzzle, the one of her true identity, must necessarily take first place of importance in her mind. All her energies must be—had to be—directed toward learning who she really was. The doctor’s words returned to her, maki
ng her wonder if she could have been involved in some sort of carriage accident, hitting her head and then wandering off, only to faint in the roadway where Pierre had first seen her.

  It seemed a logical explanation, but if there had been an accident surely André Standish’s inquiries would have discovered the event. No, there had to be another reason for what had happened to her.

  She continued to ride Lady across the open fields, the breeze lifting her dark curls and putting an attractive blush on her cheeks. She thought about the cloak she had been wearing, the man’s cloak she had examined without a hint of recognition. Where had the cloak come from? Who had it belonged to? Why had she been wearing it, instead of some cloak of her own?

  “And I was barefoot,” she said aloud, Lady’s pointed ears flicking alertly at the sound of her mistress’s voice. “How far could I have gone on foot without shoes? Not any great distance, surely. After all, my feet were barely bruised.”

  Out of the corner of her eyes she saw a lone horseman approaching, and shivered in sudden panic, only to relax when she recognized the handsome, vacant face of Sir John Oakvale. She smiled as he waved gaily and “yoo-hooed” her, silently admonishing herself for becoming so skittish over the doctor’s speculative prattling and Mrs. Merrydell’s melodramatic ramblings about danger. She was in no danger; the idea was ridiculous! Of course, there had been that man in the gardens, she reminded herself fleetingly, but the incident had come to nothing. Determinedly widening her smile, she banished her dark thoughts.

  “Good afternoon to you, Miss Addams,” Sir John said, pulling his mount up beside Lady so that the horses could walk together. “I was hoping to pay a call on you before this, but m’ father’s been ill, you understand, so I’ve had to curtail my social activities for a time.”

  “Oh, dear. Nothing serious, I hope,” Caroline returned politely.

  Sir John shook his head. “No, just a small tea party with the aunts and, of course, the dance over at the squire’s. I really didn’t miss anything of importance.”

  Caroline barely suppressed a giggle. “I meant your father, Sir John.”

  “You did? Of course you did!” he exclaimed, hooting with laughter. “How silly of me. Just a touch of the gout, though it makes him growl like a bear with a sore paw. How are you going along with Pierre Standish now that his father has flown the coop? Not that you haven’t got yourself a real dragon of a chaperone.”

  Caroline’s head snapped slightly back. “Gossip, Sir John?” she admonished regally. “I would have thought gentlemen to be above such things. Have I become a topic of conversation in the neighborhood?”

  Sir John cast a wary glance behind him at the groom who was riding in their wake. “No, no! Of course not! Dear me, I wouldn’t think of it. It’s just that it’s so dashed dull in the country, you understand. A nameless young lady is just the thing to set all the biddies to tittering behind their fans. Jealous, too, I imagine, seeing as how you’ve captured the elusive Pierre Standish for your very own.”

  Caroline bristled. “I have not captured anyone, and do not care to do so. It’s the furthest thing from my mind. You will make that perfectly clear to the ladies, won’t you, Sir John?”

  Sir John nodded furiously, knowing he had gone too far. “Oh, look, there’s that stand of trees we visited upon our first meeting. I think my mount can outrun your mare. Shall we race, Miss Adams?”

  Angry that she had allowed herself to be flustered by Sir John’s mention of Pierre, Caroline immediately took up the challenge and, before the groom could utter a word of censure, the two spurred their mounts into a gallop. Sir John’s mount, a showy but heavy-rumped grey, was no match for Lady, and soon Caroline was two lengths ahead of him, turning her head to laugh back at his rapidly diminishing figure.

  Without warning, the sidesaddle began to shift beneath her, and she had to turn her full attention to controlling Lady, who momentarily misplaced her gentle disposition at this startling development. Hauling on the reins with more force than delicacy, for her entire body was now shifting dangerously toward the ground, Caroline clenched her teeth and held on for all she was worth.

  With a sickening lurch, the girth slipped completely sideways and Caroline, her foot still in the stirrups, was flung backwards onto the ground and dragged along the surface of the field, pulled by one caught leg.

  Lady’s hooves flashed dangerously close to her head as clumps of dirt and sharp stones bit into her back. There was no chance to wonder how the girth had loosened, or why. She felt no pain, for there wasn’t time for such an indulgence; she only knew she had to free her foot before she was either trampled or dragged to her death.

  How she did it she would never know, but she raised a hand to grab convulsively onto part of the saddle and levered herself upward until she could swing her booted foot free of the stirrup. Within a heartbeat she crashed back toward the ground, only to roll over and over in the dirt until her soft body was rudely introduced to an unfortunately placed boulder that put a sudden halt to her progress.

  A moment later Sir John was by her side, holding her limp hand in his and moaning, “My God, Miss Addams, please, please don’t be dead. If you’re dead Standish will kill me!”

  PIERRE PACED the sunlit drawing room, idly wondering if he should send word to the stables to have Obtuse saddled so that he could join Caroline on her ride. He could stand the exercise, he knew, for he felt like a caged lion trapped within doors on such a fine day, but still he didn’t pull the bell rope and give the order.

  It would be entirely too dangerous, being alone with Caroline, with none but the birds and the horses to act as chaperones. He was too attracted to her, and she was too attracted to him.

  He smiled at this last thought. Yes, Caroline Addams was attracted to him, even if she would rather die than admit it. This attraction was a comforting yet unsettling thought. Certainly he hadn’t encouraged her; quite the opposite. But it was true nevertheless, and he was secretly pleased.

  It was also an impossible situation. He was years older than she, for one thing, not that anyone put much stock in such things. More important was that no one knew just who Caroline really was. She was a lady, of that he was sure; a very young, very beautiful lady of quality. But was she titled? Was she married? Was she eligible or ineligible?

  And what was she eligible for? he asked himself, still pacing the carpet for all he was worth. Surely his mind wasn’t running toward thoughts of matrimony? The notion was ludicrous. He, Pierre Claghorn Standish, in the role of doting bridegroom? It was past imagining.

  But there was the kiss to consider, that one brief interlude when he had held her in his arms. Her touch had brought with it a startling revelation. He was vulnerable to a woman’s charms—to a certain woman’s charms.

  Perhaps she reminded him of his mother, dressed in his mother’s gowns as she was. But no. He wasn’t that uncomplicated, or that gullible. It was Caroline herself who intrigued him; the Caroline whose astonishingly beautiful eyes were the unknowing mirror of her soul; the Caroline who spat fire and passion and clear, insightful intelligence; the Caroline who championed a young chimney sweep and had no idea what to do with a mouthful of unwanted kippers.

  Oh, he was definitely in serious trouble, Pierre decided, shaking his head in a fine imitation of self-pity. How André would crow if he could but see him now. There was nothing else for it—he would have to ferret out her true identity as soon as possible and then put half a country between them. Perhaps an ocean wouldn’t be far enough.

  “Master Pierre?” Hartley’s voice came from a doorway, interrupting Pierre’s disquieting train of thought. “There’s a lady here to see you, sir. I told her I’d ask if you’re receiving today.”

  “A lady?” Pierre mused almost to himself. “This is unexpected. Does the plot perhaps begin to thicken?” More loudly he bade Hartley to show the lady in at once, and a few moments later a handsome young woman dressed in fashionable traveling clothes sailed through the door. “Victor
ia!” he exclaimed in real delight, holding out both hands to his visitor. “I don’t believe it. Is Patrick with you? Surely he hasn’t let you out of his sight already?”

  Victoria Quinton Sherbourne, now Countess Wickford, was definitely in looks this day, her soft, rose-colored gown giving a decided bloom to her cheeks, the sparkle in her intelligent eyes and the enchanting dimple in her left cheek making it possible for the people she met to forget that she was not a classically beautiful woman. Her appearance was a far cry from the too-thin, drab, sad creature Pierre had first seen in Quennel Quinton’s library the day that unlovely man’s will had been read. It was remarkable how being loved, and in love, could bring such marvelous changes in a person.

  After allowing Pierre to kiss her on the cheek—a display of affection he had never employed with her before—she stood back, used the index finger of her left hand to push her spectacles more firmly onto her nose, and said wonderingly, “Good Lord, Pierre, your father was correct. You have mellowed. I never would have believed it. Patrick will be devastated to have missed it. I must meet the young lady at once and offer her my congratulations.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “AND SO,” VICTORIA concluded as she sat at her ease on one of the satin settees in the drawing room a few minutes later, gracefully pouring tea into a bone china cup, “no matter how great the inducement—and I must tell you that your father has quite a way with explanation, revealing just enough to pique an overwhelming interest and not a jot more—there was just no possible way for Patrick to abandon his project at such a crucial point and join me on this terribly unsubtle, curiosity-satisfying expedition.”

  “Expedition?” Pierre cut in, waving away her offer of tea and hot buttered scones in favor of a slightly stronger liquid refreshment. “Does dearest Patrick believe I am a mountain to be climbed? I assure you, I am the most uncomplicated of men, with nothing to hide.”