Aching for Always

by Gwyn Cready

  “One family is mine,” Joss said, she hoped helpfully.

  “Ah, the plot thickens.”

  Hugh said, “But Sir William won’t be back for a week. He has left London for—”

  “Cambridgeshire, aye. He’s gone to the Quarley estate. Why?”

  “We would dearly love a chance to sit down with him to plead our case.”

  “Then you are in luck, my friend. The duchess and I are heading to the same place later this evening. Lord Quarley is hosting a rather extravagant week of hunting and dining. The largest dinner is tomorrow night. We should be happy to include you in our party if you are prepared to make the journey on such short notice.”

  “I am,” Hugh said, then his face clouded. “But Miss O’Malley will need clothes.”

  “Well, she will certainly need something beyond a chemise and coverlet,” Silverbridge said with a twinkle.

  “I . . . We don’t have time, and she has but one dress here.”

  “Hmm.” An apparently unflappable Silverbridge declined to question why a woman in an upstanding inn would have no clothes and instead tapped a thumb against his thigh. “I have a thought. The lady is about the size and height of Kit, my wife. Kit has trunks full of gowns. More than I could count. More than any man should have to count. Would you be willing to borrow one or two from her?” he asked Joss. “She’s at our town house now, overseeing the preparations for the trip.”

  “Will she mind?” Not every woman was willing to share a dress, no matter how many they owned.

  “Kit? No. She was a reluctant entrant into the world of nobility. It took a good deal of persuasion on my part to convince her to marry. I think you will find her more than happy to share her largesse. I will send you with a note. I would go myself, but I am on my way to—late for, in fact—a meeting at Westminster, from which I hope to extract myself by one. We shall leave immediately after that.”

  Joss looked at Hugh. Was he in? Hugh bowed.

  “Thank you, Your Grace,” she said.

  “John,” the duke corrected. “I should never hold a woman in bedclothes to such a standard of formality.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  “I hope you’ve brought a book,” said the duchess, a dark-haired woman of hardly more than nineteen or twenty. “Either that or a soft pillow.”

  Joss laughed. They had settled in the sitting room, where Joss was an amazed observer of the parade of foodstuffs, clothes, gifts and even bedding being brought before the mistress of the house for approval before being packed into a dozen waiting trunks. The town house was huge and exquisitely decorated. It made Joss obscurely melancholy for her own youth.

  “Your husband said there would be a fancy dinner tomorrow.”

  “The dinner will be lovely, I think—they bring in families from around the neighborhood—but the rest of the week . . .” Kit shook her head. “The men are shooting or talking politics or smoking cigars. I should prefer to suffer a lecture on the divine right of royalty by Queen Anne rather than sit through it all, though with my unhappy luck that will happen, too.”

  “But surely the wives . . .?”

  “Oh, there are one or two who are all right—and I know I should try harder for John’s sake—but for the most part they are as dull as their husbands. The best we can do is hope for a scandal. Last year Lord Tanger and his wife were found in bed with not one but two footmen. Or at least that’s what I was told. And to think his wife spent most of the dinner at Viscount Maitland’s house last week bemoaning the quality of country servants.”

  Joss laughed and Kit smiled.

  “Come,” she said. “Let us find you something to wear.”

  Joss fell in love with a red gown with embroidered bat-wing sleeves and bodice and a high open collar that framed her neck.

  “Very oriental, aye,” the duchess said. “This is quite good.”

  There was a decided lack of enthusiasm in her voice. “But?” Joss asked.

  “But I should like to see you in something a little more daring. Try the one at the end. Aye, that one. It almost matches Captain Hawksmoor’s eyes, and I can assure you he won’t bother with a cigar after dinner with you in that.”

  The dress was a gorgeous, shimmering Cinderella blue with mutton-leg sleeves, an A-line skirt, and a low-cut bodice edged with ruffles in a drape of pearls that swung sensuously under each breast. It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen, but it wasn’t until she’d been laced into it that she fully understood the reason it would turn heads.

  “I don’t mean to complain,” Joss said, “but I think something’s missing.”

  With the bodice laced tight, she saw the ruffles weren’t decorative so much as the entirety of what was meant to shield her breasts from sight.

  “You need to lace it tighter, my dear.” Kit pulled the laces even tighter and retied the bow. “There’s the something you were missing.”

  And there they were, like two hot cross buns on ruffled blue doilies.

  “I think,” Joss said, pulling the neckline higher, “this can’t be right. I mean, some of the nipple shows.”

  “I told you the cigar would be no match. ’Tis very French. And look. There is a certain way you can turn—lift your shoulder, that’s right—in which it all shows.”

  Joss’s jaw dropped. “And you have worn this . . . in public?”

  “Well, only for a moment or two. Lord Tanger had begun one of his interminable speeches about Marlborough or the Spanish or the state of the red fox in Hampshire, so I bent to reach the gravy boat, and John, who was across the table, immediately excused us both with headaches.”

  “Two headaches at once? My goodness, that is unusual.”

  “We felt much better after lying down.”

  Joss laughed. She looked at the embroidered red gown, then back to the lovely ice blue that sizzled when she moved. “I don’t know. Perhaps one must be an aristocrat to make this work.”

  “That’s what I thought, too, but I’m only a poor soldier’s daughter and it worked for me.”

  Joss looked at the expanse of blue and smiled. “You think I can pull this off?”

  “If I am correct, ’twill be pulled off without you even lifting a finger.”

  Their giggles were interrupted by a knock.

  “Come,” Kit said.

  It was Hugh, and Joss immediately readjusted the bodice. When he saw the gown, his eyes widened. “I beg your pardon,” he said to Joss. “I just wanted to let you know I am going to head back to the Grey Lamb for a bit to collect our things. Is there anything else you’ll need for the journey?”

  Yes. Dinner, a nap, a bath, a mug of hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps and time to think about what just happened in your sitting room. “No. Thank you.”

  He gave her a look that said he had not forgotten what they’d begun. Then he bowed and stepped back into the hall.

  “No, wait,” Kit called. “We have narrowed our choices down to two. The one Miss O’Malley wears and this lovely red silk from the Far East. I prefer the red. What do you say, good sir?” She caught Joss’s eye and winked.

  Poor Hugh. He was a man divided. The wife of his host was suggesting the red gown, but every particle of his being quivered perceptibly for the blue.

  “I think both would do,” he said at last. “Why, I have often seen ladies make use of two gowns: one for day and—”

  “Another for night?” The duchess angled her head innocently.

  “Aye. Exactly.”

  “Then two it shall be.” To Joss she remarked, “I suggest you keep the gravy boat close.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Despite the weariness and pain that seemed to be his constant companions, Hugh floated down the dark London street, buoyed as much by the vision of Joss in that gown as by the still-tingling spot where their hands had touched over dinner. It was like two ships navigating closer and closer on a windswept sea. A moment later and Silverbridge would have blundered into something far more delicate.

>   His feelings for Joss had changed so much in the last week, but the moment he spotted that lifeless body in the water, he was shocked into realizing that she’d captured his heart in a way no other woman ever had. Their days together had shown him what a remarkably brave and spirited woman she was—protective of her father, deeply attached to her mother, willing to help him despite the personal cost to herself. He thought—believed? hoped?—that her feelings for him had deepened during their time together. He believed she was on the verge of two important decisions, perhaps the most important decisions of her life, and he knew her decisions were not yet set in stone. His mind galloped ahead of the facts to a cottage filled with her voice and the laughter of their children. It was a foolish thought, he realized, for a man to have about a woman whose birth had occurred three centuries after his and who wore the ring of a man she had shown no inclination to abandon on her finger. And yet, in that at the Grey Lamb, when her fingers threaded into his, he had felt his life beginning to transform.

  Dangerous, dangerous.

  He rued the fact that Silverbridge had chosen that moment to appear. Her offer—for offer it had been—had been a test, even if she had not seen it as such. And he would have needed several more minutes with her in his arms to decide if he would guide her toward faithfulness in her engagement or possess her. He knew which he would choose for himself, but he was keenly aware he would be choosing for her, too.

  As he drew closer to the inn, he spotted a familiar profile and, in shock, broke into a half run. “Nathaniel,” he called. “How on earth . . .?”

  “A very unpleasant plunge into a river. ’Tis good to see you, my friend.”

  “From the lions at the bank?” Hugh couldn’t imagine how he had discovered the portal as well.

  “Aye.” Nathaniel gave his friend a look. “Fiona was following you.”

  Hugh thought of the scene with Joss that Fiona must have observed and felt his cheeks warm.

  “Fiona’s upstairs in your rooms, waiting,” Nathaniel said. “We weren’t sure you’d survived until we got here. And the girl is . . .?”

  “Fine. She’s at the home of a friend.”

  “Your landlady mentioned seeing you with a companion.”

  The warmth turned into a full flush. Hugh was glad it was night out. “Aye. I brought her here first. But how did you survive the river? Joss and I barely made it out alive.”

  “A very welcome branch. We nearly didn’t make it. I don’t know how anyone could have survived those rapids. And we walked several miles past the bridge when we got out, and try as we might, we didn’t see your friend.”

  Hugh felt the skin on his neck prickle. “What do you mean, ‘my friend’?”

  Nathaniel’s eyes widened. “I thought you knew, especially as he followed so closely on your heels. Fiona wasn’t the only one following you. Reynolds disappeared behind the lion a moment or two after you and Joss.”

  “Reynolds has known everything all along,” Fiona said. “We were right.”

  Hugh had related the story of the map he and Joss had found secured in Reynolds’s office as Fiona sat tight-lipped. The London, Edinburgh and Manchester maps were spread on the table before her.

  “We don’t know if he knew about the lions at the bank. It’s possible Brand told him, but it’s equally possible that the only reason he knows about them is from watching Joss and me tumble away behind them.”

  “Why do you defend the villain?” she said. “Especially since it’s clear it would be very convenient for you if he were out of the way.”

  “Ours are not the only feelings to be considered in this situation.”

  Fiona snorted. “You’re being led around by your nose, and you don’t even see it.”

  The door creaked as Nathaniel entered.

  Hugh felt his irritation with Fiona rise. “She saved my life. And she gave me this for you.” He pulled the last map from the tube, the one of East Fenwick, and unrolled it on top of the others.

  Fiona took one look at the map and threw her arms around him. “My God! It’s the map!”

  “It’s a copy. Joss found it in an archive.”

  Fiona stepped back and looked from him to the map. “A copy is no different than the original,” she said carefully.

  “In this case, it is. The copy was stored as a very small version. It involves magic of the sort I cannot explain. When Joss found it, she had it put back on the most authentic paper she could find, but if you look closely, you’ll see it’s not been rendered in the same ink.”

  Fiona and Nathaniel examined the map.

  “I think it’s close enough,” she said.

  “Close enough to risk hanging?”

  “But be fair,” Nathaniel said. “Who will know?”

  “Joss, for one.” Fiona crossed her arms.

  “For God’s sake, Fiona. She gave it to me. Why would she reveal it’s a copy?”

  Fiona gave him a long look.

  “You’re wrong,” Hugh said. “She won’t. She’s not in league with him.”

  “Reynolds, for another.”

  “Reynolds is the least of our problems. What are the odds he even survived the river?”

  “Rather high,” Nathaniel said. “I was asking some discreet questions downstairs. A man fitting his description was spotted in the street outside a quarter hour ago.”

  Hugh felt the world moving under his feet. They couldn’t be so close to getting this map filed and fail now. Another part of his mind went to Joss. Was Reynolds here for her? Would he hurt her? “How did he make it to London? How did he find us?”

  “He may have gold ingots, the same as we do. For all we know, he was on a post chaise, too.”

  Aye, probably the one that left right after yours. Reynolds had probably followed Nathaniel and Fiona right to the door of the inn downstairs.

  “We have to kill him,” Fiona said.

  “No.”

  “The time for compromise is over. He’s a risk we cannot bear.”

  “No, I say!” If it was possible to keep Joss ignorant of the darker side of her fiancé, Hugh knew he must do it. For Joss, but also to serve his own selfish interests. If Reynolds died and Joss could trace a path, direct or indirect, to Hugh, his chances of winning her would be gone forever. “Swear to me you will not touch him,” he said, willing his hands not to throttle Fiona as he said it. “Swear to me, or I will reveal the map’s a copy.”

  The door creaked again, and Joss stepped inside dressed in that eye-catching blue gown under a long wrap. Hugh backed away from Fiona, and the three shipmates gazed wordlessly at the addition to their party.

  Joss took in the room and the maps. Hugh knew how it must look to her: a conspiracy unfolding behind her back. He saw her shoulders stiffen. He also saw the calculation in Fiona’s eyes as she appraised the expensive gown.

  “How . . .?”

  “Fiona and Nathaniel came the same way we did,” Hugh said quickly. “A branch saved them from our fate. They were here at the inn when I arrived. How did you get here?” He wondered if Reynolds had seen her.

  “Silverbridge’s carriage. They’re outside.” She turned to Fiona. “Did you see what I brought?”

  Hugh gave Fiona a scorching glare, and Fiona hesitated. “I did,” she said with some effort. “Thank you.”

  “Do you understand I did it knowing what it would do to my family?”

  “Aye.” Fiona shifted her weight from foot to foot. “I appreciate it.”

  “I hope it works. I am sorry for your grandfather.”

  Fiona ducked her chin, which Hugh hoped would be enough. It was more gratitude than he had expected from her.

  “I think it should work,” Fiona said. “You can hardly tell the difference.”

  Joss said, “Well, let’s just hope my mother didn’t put any trap streets on it—” She started and clapped a hand over her mouth. “Trap streets!” She ran to the maps, handed the East Fenwick one to Fiona and gathered the three that shared the same cartouche
into her arms.

  “I should have thought of this ages ago. Bring the lantern closer.”

  As he collected the lamp, Hugh said, “You’ll have to enlighten us. What is a trap street?”

  “I run a map company, you see. And we have competitors.” She arranged the maps in her hands so that the edges of all three were lined up. “In the map world, the worst thing you can do is copy your competitor’s map without doing your own surveying. To guard against that, we put a couple streets on our maps that don’t exist in the real world. They don’t do any harm. None of our customers look for them on the map, and if they happen to stumble across them on a map while looking for a street that does exist, they just assume we made a mistake.”

  Hugh had placed the lamp in the center of the table, and Joss turned the flame up.

  “But we can see if a competitor has copied our map without doing his own surveys,” Joss said, “because without a survey, he won’t know the fake street is fake. That’s why we call it a trap.”

  Hugh said, “But we’re not in competition for the making of these maps.”

  “No, but the way we spot the copying may very well be how my mother chose to hide a clue.” She held the three maps up to the light. “You see, to find the trap street, all you do is overlay one map on top of the next—or, in our case, on top of the next two—and look at them either projected through a strong light source or with a strong light source behind them.”

  She tried turning the flame in the lamp higher, but it was as high as it would go. “I wish this were brighter, but we’ll have to make do.”

  Hugh watched her eyes flicker back and forth across the cartouche. “Look!” she cried. “These are words! The dashes and slashes and arcs and upside-down Vs make words when you put them all together and line up the edges!”

  Hugh looked where she was pointing.

  “‘An arrow for the fire, a warrin’ man’s tower,’” Hugh read, “‘safe may you find it, a reluctant bride’s dower.’”

  She looked at Hugh. “What does it mean?”

  “I don’t know. Is it one of your mother’s puzzles?”