The anonymous Miss Addams

by Kasey Michaels

  “Perhaps expedition is too harsh a term for it. Let’s just call it a friendly visit,” Victoria corrected, obviously aware she had somehow struck a nerve and deciding to twist the knife a bit, in a friendly way, of course. “It goes without saying that Patrick sends his most profound regrets, as well as his equally profound professions of anguish at not being privileged to see you, his unflappable friend, at sixes and sevens.”

  She set down her teacup and leaned forward expectantly. “You are at sixes and sevens, aren’t you, Pierre? I cannot tell you how depressing it would be to find that you are still your usual self, infuriatingly secretive and most maddeningly heart-whole.”

  “My father has painted you a melodramatic picture of his only son as a brokenhearted swain, perhaps even entertaining thoughts of suicide? I must remember to be kinder to him in future, as it is evident he is fast entering his dotage.”

  “Oh? Then you deny being interested in the poor, nameless girl whom you brought to your father’s house to recover from some accident?” Victoria countered, peering intently at him overtop her spectacles. “When Patrick questioned your father as to your motive, he told us you were already on the way to being well and truly smitten. I haven’t heard my husband laugh so heartily since my uncle Quentin forwarded us a jeweled camel saddle he had acquired somewhere in his many travels, just in case Patrick should ever decide to keep his own dromedary. I cannot tell you how let down I am to know that you aren’t head over ears in love with the girl. And Patrick? Why, it is your dearest friend who might become suicidal at this news! For shame, Pierre. The least you could do is tell me you’ve been turned down by the creature and are even now in the midst of a sad decline.”

  Pierre shook his head slowly. “Hanging is definitely too good for me,” he drawled in his most deliberately maddening way. “Perhaps if I gave myself up to be boiled in oil it might, in some small way, earn me a measure of forgiveness in your eyes. Please, dearest Victoria, tell me how I can make you happy. I should not sleep nights, else.”

  Victoria threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, Pierre, it really is good to be in your company again. Only you can deliver an insult in the form of an apology.”

  He tipped his glass to her, smiling slightly. “Just as it is good to have you here, my good friend, someone who appreciates my feeble attempt at wit without being so thin-skinned as to be insulted.”

  “Oh, dear.” Victoria grimaced comically, then sobered. “Please don’t tell me this Miss Caroline Addams—as your father tells me you call her—has no sense of humor. That really would be too bad of her, wouldn’t it? But it is possible you are wrong, isn’t it? I mean, I was once considered to be totally humorless, but that was only because there was so little to laugh about in my life. I believe I have made great strides, thanks to Patrick. Perhaps your Miss Addams has only misplaced her humor along with her memory? It is merely a thought, something to consider.”

  Pierre lifted a hand to absently stroke the small scar on his cheekbone. “I shall take your thoughts and suppositions under advisement,” he agreed amicably, setting down his glass before rising and holding out a hand to her. “Your chamber should be ready by now, Victoria, if you’d like to refresh yourself.”

  She took his hand and also rose, to stand directly in front of him. “End of discussion, Pierre?” she asked, blighting him with her smile. “Very well, but only for now, and only because the trip has worn me to a frazzle, and I find I would very much like a liedown on my bed. I shall reconvene my inquisition over the dining table tonight, when your Miss Addams is present.”

  “Was there ever any doubt of it?” Pierre countered, lifting her hand to his lips. “I have known you without funds, without future, without hope—but I have never known you without questions. It is good to see that you have brought the best of you into your new life, as I believe I would miss that inquisitive, incisive mind.”

  Victoria impetuously stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek, something she wouldn’t have even considered doing a few months earlier. “And to think that I once didn’t believe I could like you,” she quipped cheekily just as a loud commotion in the foyer turned both their heads in the direction of the doorway.

  “Master Pierre! Master Pierre!” Hartley shouted, racing into the room. “You must come quickly. There’s been a terrible accident.”

  “Accident?” Pierre asked curtly while Victoria noticed that the skin over his high cheekbones was suddenly drawn tight, his hold on her hand painfully snug. “What sort of accident?”

  “A riding accident, Master Pierre,” Hartley responded, gasping for air, for he was not a young man anymore and was clearly overset with his news. “With Miss Addams’s horse! She’s been badly hurt. The groom just rode in to tell us that she’s lying in the fields and—”

  Pierre was already out of the room and bounding across the lawns to the stables, not hearing anything more, and Hartley was left to finish telling his story to Lady Wickford, who quickly led the old man to a chair and poured him a bracing cup of tea.

  “Sir John Oakvale is with her, but the groom says she won’t wake up, and she’s terribly pale,” Hartley told her, his hands shaking so badly that the tea slopped onto the saucer. “I shouldn’t be here, my lady, sitting with you. Oh, but it’s wonderful of you to understand. My knees are shaking like dry bones in a sack. Why, if anything should happen to Miss Addams, Master Pierre might have all our heads!”

  “He loves the young lady that much, then?” Victoria asked carefully, handing the butler a pristine white linen cloth with which to blot at the hot tea that had splashed onto his trousers.

  Hartley bobbed his head emphatically. “He loves her dearly, my lady, and so all of us belowstairs say, except that Frenchie valet of Master Pierre’s, Duvall, who doesn’t love anything save his position.”

  “How very interesting,” Victoria mused, turning to look out the window, as if she could see all the way to the field where Caroline lay unconscious, Pierre already racing to her side. “Then for everyone’s sake, Hartley, I do hope she’ll be all right.”

  SHE WAS FLOATING in a truly wonderful dream, mercifully cut off from the world and its less than rosy realities, being carried high above the earth in the most gentle, comforting, safe embrace imaginable. There was no fear, no pain, no reason for worry or doubt. There was just peace, and the heady feeling of being totally and completely cherished. Even loved.

  She hadn’t always felt this peaceful, she knew. First there had been the sickening sensation of falling, of losing her grip, followed by the painful buffeting of her body as her head and shoulders bounced about while her left leg was being pulled from its socket. Then terror had overwhelmed her, only to be superseded by the sure, unspoken, mind-destroying realization that she was about to die without ever having lived.

  All this and more she had known in the space of a half-dozen heartbeats, then just as quickly forgotten at the moment she was lifted high against the chest of the strong angel who now held her to him, keeping her from harm, banishing all her fear, all her pain.

  She moved her head slightly, wishing to press it against his chest, just to see if angels had heartbeats, too, and the pain came back, washing over her in wave after nauseating wave. She groaned aloud, unable to open her eyes but nevertheless sure she was no longer with the angel, but on a bed of nails instead, with a rock for her pillow.

  “Caroline?” The voice she heard was low, masculine, and concerned. “Caroline, you’re coming awake now, much as you would rather not, I’m sure. Open your eyes, Caroline. Please.”

  It was Pierre’s voice she heard, although she was fully prepared to ignore it in the hope she might then be able to return to her lovely dream—that loving embrace. It was his last word that changed her mind, for that single, simple entreaty spoke volumes. He was worried about her. Poor man, she had caused him no end of trouble, hadn’t she? She didn’t want him to worry about her. She didn’t want Pierre’s concern, she wanted his—

  “Pierre?” The vo
ice was a whisper, a female whisper. “How is she? Before he left, Doctor Burgess was kind enough to tell me she should be fine, but that was hours ago. Shouldn’t she be awake by now?”

  It wasn’t Mrs. Merrydell’s voice. Caroline was sure of that. Mrs. Merrydell had an irritating, penetrating voice, like a pieman calling out his wares beneath her window. This voice was too sweet, too cultured to be that of her unfortunate choice of chaperone. Besides, the voice had called him Pierre, not Mr. Standish. No servant would do so, not even the encroaching Mrs. Merrydell.

  Pierre must have turned slightly away from the bed to face the woman, for Caroline felt a slight tug on her hand, letting her know that he had been standing beside her, his hand wrapped snugly in hers. The realization that he had allowed this slight, unconscious intimacy had the effect of bringing stinging tears to her eyes.

  “She stirred slightly just a moment ago, Victoria. Waking up will be painful for her, what with the blow to her head and the bruises on her back, which Burgess told me about, so I imagine she’s fighting to stay unconscious.”

  Victoria. Who was Victoria? Caroline focused all her attention on the voices floating above her.

  “You poor darling, you’ve been standing here all evening long, letting her hold your hand,” Victoria said gently. “Please, at least let me get you a chair before you fall down. And you haven’t eaten a thing.”

  Darling. She called him darling. Caroline didn’t think she liked that.

  “Thank you, but no. I’m fine. I can’t ignore the fact that Caroline’s had two bad blows to the head in such a short time. Stronger persons than she have been rendered permanently damaged. Why don’t you retire now, my dear, you too have had quite a long day.”

  My dear. He called her my dear. Caroline liked that even less.

  “I’m awake,” she said abruptly, and not very civilly, knowing she just had to open her eyes and get a good look at “my dear” Victoria or else go mad. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything, but it’s rather difficult to sleep when people insist on holding conversations within inches of my ear. Who are you?” she ended shortly, glaring up at Victoria.

  Pierre stepped to one side, not letting loose his grip on Caroline’s hand, and introduced Victoria to her.

  “You’re a countess?” Caroline heard herself asking stupidly. “I didn’t know a countess could wear spectacles. At least not one so young and beautiful as you.”

  Victoria laughed and bent to kiss Caroline’s cheek. “André told me you were outspoken, but I think I like you better this way than if you had been a simpering miss. I know I definitely like you better awake. You’ve had us all very worried, especially Pierre, who has stood by your side ever since carrying you home on his horse. How do you feel, Caroline? And, please, call me Victoria. My title is quite new and still makes me nervous.”

  Caroline’s gaze shifted quickly to Pierre’s face, not without pain. “You—you carried me?” she asked him, remembering again how safe she had felt, and marveling that she could ever have believed herself safe in his embrace. Safe was not a word she associated with this disturbing man. “Please allow me to thank you, Pierre,” she said with dull politeness.

  “So grudging, Caroline? One can only suppose you would rather I had left it to that brainless twit, Oatcake? He wanted to bring you home on a gate, doubtless finishing the job the fall began.”

  “His name is Oakvale, as you very well know,” Caroline shot back, wondering if he actually believed it would injure him in some way to accept her thanks and be done with it. “Poor Sir John. He must have been very frightened by it all. I know I was. Not everyone can be as coolly detached as you, you know.”

  “I’ll just leave you two to sort this out,” Victoria interrupted, her voice tinged with humor as Pierre and Caroline glared at each other. “I’ll stop by to see you in the morning, my dear. We really do have so much to talk about.”

  Caroline quickly murmured her good-night to Victoria, still not knowing exactly who she was but content to wait till morning for an explanation. Right now all she could think of was her accident, an event that was more important to her at this moment than either Sir John’s lack of good sense or Pierre’s uncharacteristically gentle treatment of her injured body.

  But any questions she might have had about her fall were to be delayed, for, as Victoria opened the door to the hallway, Mrs. Merrydell charged into the room with, Caroline thought randomly, much the same grace that might be employed by a trumpeting rogue elephant trampling down some unfortunate native village that stood in its path.

  “And it’s about time, too!” Mrs. Merrydell exploded, her long strides eating up the space between door and bed in less than a heartbeat. “Whoever heard of the chaperone being forced to cool her heels in a hallway while the randy son of the household sits alone in a darkened bedchamber with a poor, defenseless girl? I’m half surprised her skirts aren’t over her head, and that’s a fact!”

  Pierre stopped the woman in her tracks by the numbing frost of his black, icy stare. “Don’t be vulgar, Mrs. Merrydell, or I shall be forced to have you removed—from the premises as well as from this room.”

  Mrs. Merrydell blustered for a moment or two, muttering random snatches such as “Well, I never—” and, “If you think for one moment that—” before ending quite humbly, “Please forgive me, sir. I’m quite overwrought with fear for poor, dear Miss Caroline.”

  “Of course you are,” Pierre answered smoothly. “It is just, you see, that we would rather you were overwrought from a distance. You do understand me—don’t you, dear Mrs. Merrydell?”

  The woman looked about herself distractedly. “But—but—who will stay with her tonight? Surely, sir, you don’t mean to—”

  “Her maid will keep vigil,” Pierre responded, earning himself a thankful squeeze of Caroline’s hand on his. “Your duties do not include nursing, madam. And now, if you don’t mind, Miss Caroline and I have something to discuss—in private.”

  Clearly Mrs. Merrydell was torn. One part of her wished for nothing more than to escape Pierre’s piercing gaze with as much haste as possible, while another part of her dearly wished to remain, whether to protect her charge or to eavesdrop on some clandestine goings-on, Caroline couldn’t be sure. In the end, personal protection won out, and Mrs. Merrydell retired, closing the door behind her so softly that it stayed open a crack.

  Pierre saw the woman’s lapse as well. He raised Caroline’s hand to his lips, kissed it, and then released it to cross the room and firmly shut the door, turning the key in the lock. “The woman is necessary for the moment, but extremely tiresome,” he remarked as he returned to Caroline’s bedside and once more took up her hand, an unconscious gesture that immediately set her heart to pounding in her chest. “Are you up to talking about your accident just yet, Caroline, or shall I call your maid?”

  “No, I want to talk,” Caroline assured him hurriedly, struggling to sit up in bed. “Oh, my back!” she exclaimed as the slight exertion set off a small explosion of pain. “Did Lady step on me?”

  “Doctor Burgess doesn’t think so,” Pierre told her, helping her to sit up by adjusting the pillows behind her head. “You were bruised by the rocks and stones you were dragged over until you were able to free your foot from the stirrup. According to Oakvale, you were a regular acrobat. I believe he has tumbled into love with you as a result, and would think it the best of good fun if you could run away together to join a traveling fair. He would, on consideration, make a tolerable juggler, wouldn’t he?”

  Caroline giggled, then caught herself up short as her chest ached. “That’s not very nice, Pierre. Sir John thinks very highly of you.”

  Pierre let go of her hand to pull a chair over to the bed, but he did not sit down. “Don’t defend him until you hear his latest bit of genius. It is Romeo Oatcake’s considered opinion that, as one bump on the head served to remove your memory, this second bump has just as surely caused it to return. He was truly astonished that I had not thought of su
ch a thing myself and conked you on your noggin a fortnight ago. When last I saw him he was preparing to call on you formally, only if your recovered memory means you have discovered that you are an heiress, of course. Not quite the sharpest knife in the cabinet, is he, poor fellow?”

  “Of course,” Caroline answered distractedly, ignoring his disparaging remarks about Sir John’s brain-power, her mind busy with other thoughts. “Although I certainly wasn’t actively seeking another bump on my head, and appreciate the fact that you abstained from giving me one, Sir John’s idea does hold some merit. What one bump took away, another bump just might return. Except for one thing. I haven’t remembered anything more. As far as I know, my name is Caroline Addams and my life began the day you found me in the roadway.”

  She looked over at Pierre, her clear blue-violet eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “But you couldn’t have known that until I told you. That would be impossible. Wouldn’t it?”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “I DON’T KNOW, Caroline. Would it be possible? Perhaps I am fey. My maternal grandmother was originally from a small village in County Cork, and you know what has been said about the Irish.”

  “Don’t try to fob me off with any of your nonsense, Pierre,” Caroline warned, pouting. “There is just no way you could know whether I had regained my memory or not without me telling you. Unless,”—she stopped for a moment, her features assembling themselves in a thoughtful frown—“unless you know something you’re not telling me.” She sniffed derisively. “Of course you do! It would be just like you, wouldn’t it? Oh yes, that’s you all right, straight down to the ground. Sneaky and underhanded.”

  “How you do go on,” Pierre drawled, resting his palm on her forehead and peering down at her assessingly. “Perhaps you have picked up a touch of fever. It isn’t uncommon, I’m told, in people with delicate constitutions—and those who persist in trying to attack rocks with their heads. Why don’t you get a good night’s rest, and we can talk again in the morning.”