by Jane Feather
“I know this is sudden,” he went on, “but you may be certain I gave this matter the weight of consideration it deserves. We are alike in many ways, in the ways that matter most in a long-lasting relationship. As my wife, you would be free to spend more time on your paintings. You wouldn’t have to perform readings ever again. For my part, you possess the qualities I always hoped to find in a wife. Marriage will suit us both.”
He sounded as if he might be describing the benefits of a particular style of carriage; she would be comfortable on that side, he comfortable on his. At least he had enough sense to avoid the subject of lust, although she had no doubt that it played a large part in the reason for his sudden desire to wed. Men wanted most what they couldn’t have, and didn’t want what they got. They were a mystery to her, Wyatt the greatest of them all.
“Mrs. Carstairs says you wish to marry an heiress.” The words were out of her mouth before she could think better of them. It was a logical argument, so she finished the thought before she lost her nerve. “I do not possess that trait, my lord.”
“A large dowry would ease my worries,” he admitted, “but I can survive without a wealthy wife.”
If he said that she was what he needed to survive, that would sway her mind considerably. She waited for a moment, then decided it was best he remained silent. His silence made her decision much easier. “I cannot marry you, Wyatt.”
He didn’t appear surprised by her refusal, nor overly upset. “Perhaps I spoke too soon. If a courtship will give you the time you need to consider—”
She stopped him before he could make the decision more painful. “A courtship will make no difference. I cannot marry, now or ever.”
“Why …” His hands fell away from hers and his mouth became a straight line. “I am not like your father, Faro. It is not in my nature to abandon my wife and children for any reason. I accept your belief in your abilities. I even accept that you may wish to do readings on occasion. My hope is that you will not feel obliged to do quite so many of them.”
“You are like my father in more ways than you realize.” She tried to smile, but it was a pitiful effort. “He too thought my mother’s abilities were no more than a figment of her imagination.”
“Then prove the truth of your abilities to me now, and I will prove that it doesn’t matter.” He glanced around them, plucked at the sleeve of his jacket. “Tell me something simple, such as the name of my tailor. Or even how that bottle came into my possession.”
Her gaze followed his to the mantel. Just the sight of the bottle made a tingle of fear trickle down her spine. Then it happened. The image of them in bed together came instantly to mind. She lowered her head to stare at the carpet until the vision returned to whatever dark part of her memory it sprang from.
No, the bottle would not help convince him of anything. She knew instinctively that it would work against her. “If I tell you the name of your tailor, you will assume that a servant or someone else mentioned the name to me beforehand. You will find a similar explanation for anything else I might try. Except for that bottle, and I will not touch it again. That means there is nothing I can do to remove all your doubts. When you finally realize the truth, it will be because of some small incident. Perhaps something so simple as …”
“What is it?” He glanced behind him, then his puzzled gaze returned to her. “Why are you looking at me that way?”
“It just came to me.” She stood up and walked toward the desk. “It’s a trick that Hazard and I practiced as children. Do you have a paper and pen? Perhaps a pen that no one else uses?”
“I suppose so.” He moved behind the desk, then took his seat and opened one of the drawers. First he set a sheaf of paper on the desk, then a polished steel pen. “What do you have in mind?”
“A test,” she answered, settling into the chair opposite his. “A test so infallible that even you will know the truth of my abilities. Beyond any doubt. Beyond any measure of skepticism. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier.” She nodded toward the pen. “Does anyone else use that to write?”
“No, it is mine alone.”
“Excellent. All you need to do is write a word, or even a short sentence, on the paper. Then fold and seal it so I cannot see what you wrote inside.”
He gave the paper a doubtful look. “What will that prove?”
“After you seal the paper, let me hold the pen and I will tell you what you wrote on the paper.” Satisfied that he understood his part, she stood up and glanced at the fireplace. “I will stand by the mantel with my back turned so I cannot see what you write. If you prefer, I can leave the room.”
“No,” he said. “Dinner will be over by now. It would be best if you stayed here.” He propped his elbows on the desk and studied her over steepled fingers. “I’ll go along with this reading on one condition. If you cannot read the pen, for whatever reason, I want your agreement that we can marry by special license in no more than a fortnight.”
She swallowed a twinge of uncertainty. If she backed down now, she would only confirm his doubts. It was needless to worry. She had never failed this test. “Very well. But what if I do the reading correctly?”
The corners of his mouth tightened. “I told you it will make no difference. I will still want to marry you, whatever your terms.”
“My terms are a courtship,” she said quickly. “A very long courtship.”
He gave her a small nod of agreement. A far too easy agreement. He didn’t think she could pass his test. He smoothed the paper with the palm of his hand, then picked up the pen. “Let’s get this over with.”
FARO STOOD by the fireplace and studied the pattern of the brass fire screen. Almost against her will, she found her gaze drawn to the bottle that sat on the mantel. The silver bands gleamed like molten liquid in the soft lamplight, a deceptively pretty object to contain so many disturbing memories. It seemed to beckon her fingers toward the shimmering surface, teasing her to take another peek at what it offered. She clasped her hands firmly behind her back.
The sound of Wyatt’s pen as it scratched across the paper came to her. The slow, deliberate strokes seemed to indicate his uncertainty. She heard the rustle of paper, then more scratches. This time the strokes were smooth and sure.
A few moments later, he called out to her. “You may return now.”
The cream-colored paper lay neatly folded on the blotter. His elbows rested on the edge of the desk, but he didn’t look at ease. “Are you ready?”
He gave her the pen when she nodded. The steel felt warm and smooth in her hand. She turned the barrel between her fingertips. So much depended on this reading. For an instant she felt an urge to refuse the reading, to tell him she could not sense anything. But that would only make her a fraud in his eyes, and a deliberate liar.
Instead she propped her wrist on the edge of the desk and concentrated. A drop of ink splashed unnoticed onto the blotter as the first hazy vision began to take shape. Her eyes drifted shut and she could see the images more clearly. Amazingly, she saw herself, just as she must appear to Wyatt at that exact moment. She turned the pen between her fingertips and the pen in the image turned as well.
Her eyes flew open and the image disappeared. Wyatt stared back at her, one brow raised in question. She looked at the pen, then back at Wyatt. “Did you feel anything … unusual happen just now?”
“Was I supposed to feel something?”
“No,” she said thoughtfully, “I just wondered if you had.”
Mostly she wondered what was happening to her. Certainly nothing that had happened before. The reading wouldn’t be quite so easy as she thought. This time she focused her attention on the paper, then turned the pen between her fingers once more.
Kiss me.
Faro’s head snapped up and she eyed him suspiciously. “Did you say something?”
“Not a word.” He looked as if he was telling the truth.
She lowered her lashes, then squeezed her eyes tightly shut. Focus
. Concentrate. In her mind’s eye, she willed the paper to unfold itself, to reveal the writing inside.
It didn’t work. Rather than seeing the writing, she kept hearing Wyatt’s voice echo again and again in her mind. He said the strangest things. Then she realized why.
The corners of her mouth turned upward and she opened her eyes. Wyatt still watched her, a hesitant look on his face until he saw her smile. He leaned forward in his chair, his tone almost hopeful. “You know the answer?”
“Of course.” She placed the pen on the desk, pleased that he seemed anxious to believe her after all. “It was the oddest reading. I couldn’t see the words, but I heard them as if you spoke them aloud. It’s a rather cryptic little phrase: To thine own wish be true. Do not follow the moth to the star.”
His look of stunned disbelief was all the proof she needed. She had passed the test. Wyatt picked up the folded paper and stared at it the way a man might stare at his own death sentence, looking torn between the urge to open it and to shred it into tiny pieces.
“I didn’t realize you were such a poor loser, Wyatt.” She tried a sympathetic smile, but his scowl only deepened.
“I didn’t lose.” He held the paper out to her, and she saw something that might be regret in his eyes. “Not really.”
“Of course you lost.” The bolt of alarm that shot through her belied the certainty of her words. She almost dropped the note in her haste to unfold it. Just two words were scrawled in the middle, written in a bold, masculine hand.
MARRY ME.
“I don’t believe it. There must be some mistake. There has to be some mistake.” She turned the paper over, but the only written words were on the other side. Then she knew there was no mistake. She had lost.
“Don’t be upset, Faro. There is more—”
“Of course I am upset.” She stood up and the paper drifted to the floor. “No matter what that paper says, I am not a fraud, and I am not a liar!”
“I know.”
She blinked back the tears that clouded her vision. “You know?”
He opened his desk drawer and removed another piece of paper. There in the middle of the page were the neatly printed words:
To thine own wish
His betrayal washed over her with the force of a tidal wave. She started to back away from the desk. “You meant to trick me. You deliberately tried to deceive me.”
“That isn’t true. If you will just—”
A firm knock at the door interrupted him. Lady Evelyn stepped inside the library, but her smile faded when she caught sight of them. “I … just wanted to make certain Faro had recovered.” Her gaze moved from one distraught expression to the other. “Whatever is the matter?”
“Excuse me, Lady Evelyn,” Faro murmured. She caught a sob behind her hand as she brushed past her hostess. Once she reached the hallway, she started to run.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SOMEWHERE IN THE house a clock struck midnight. Wyatt took a slow, deep breath, then rapped on the hidden panel that led to Faro’s bedchamber. He turned his ear toward the panel, but there was no response from the other side. He released the lever and the panel popped open. Not wanting to startle her, he held his lamp higher and called out in a soft voice. “Faro?”
His gaze moved around the room to take in its feminine luxury, a suite his mother saved for her favorite guests. Striped silk the exact shade of peaches covered the walls and made up the bedding, the pattern repeated in oversized bows that held cream-colored drapes and bed-curtains in place. The painted woodwork glowed the warm golden shade of cream as well. The room always reminded Wyatt of a confectioner’s workshop.
A single candle burned by the bedside, little more than a stub. The draft that came through the paneled door made the fragile flame sputter and die. He reached behind him to close the panel and held the lamp higher.
Faro was fast asleep, curled into a protective ball in the center of the bed. A prim white nightgown cloaked her body, enticing curves and hollows sheathed in lawn and lace. He drank in the sight of her. Her lashes lay like delicate fans against her cheeks, but her eyelids looked swollen, evidence that she had cried herself to sleep. He felt a stab of regret even as he noticed the pencil she held in her limp grasp. His gaze moved to the papers scattered all around her. He set his lamp on the bedside table, then picked up two of the papers and held them closer to the light.
The sketches were not of landscapes or buildings. They were pictures of him—so many that he wondered if she had started drawing them the very day he arrived. In one picture he saw himself staring back from the balcony in the gallery, exactly as he must have appeared to her that first night. The sketch of him in the library looked equally forbidding, his black-and-white clothing as stark and austere as his expression. Oddly shaped tendrils curled away from the bottle he held and his hand looked encased in a strange mist. Was that how the bottle had appeared in her vision?
He turned to pick up more of the sketches. There were drawings of him on horseback, at the abbey, at dinners and gatherings. Each captured a different look or expression. It was as if she meant to record them all.
He sorted through the pictures until he uncovered the last drawing, brought to life with her watercolors. The painting made the breath catch in his throat. Unlike the others, she appeared in this picture with him, their legs tangled in peach-and-cream-colored silk.
They were naked.
His eyes widened as his gaze moved along the slender curves of painted hips and thighs to the lush swell of her breasts. In the portrait she lay on her side with her hand resting on his bare hip. He could almost feel her touch upon him. He could most definitely feel the hard stir of lust. The erotic picture left little to the imagination. It fired his all the same. He imagined the heat of her body against his, the touch of their skin. Then he noticed the writing along one corner of the picture. It was a date, the same as the night he had arrived at Blackburn, the same night they met. Next to the date were the words, Images from Wyatt’s Bottle.
“Good God!” He dropped the sketch as if it had burned him.
Faro stirred at the sound of his voice. Her eyes opened halfway and she gave him a sleepy smile. That smile faded when she took in his shocked expression. She sat up abruptly and drew the covers to her chin. “What are you doing here?”
“I had to come.” He tried desperately to push the vision of her naked body from his mind. That didn’t happen. The image would be there always. He focused on her mouth, the bewitching curve of her lower lip. “You wouldn’t answer any of the notes I sent earlier.”
She glanced toward the door, where a half-dozen notes lay on the floor. He had sent a servant every half hour to slide one under the door. All remained unopened, his wax seals still intact. Her gaze moved next to the sketches. “Oh, no!”
A flurry of white lace soon followed. First she swept the papers into her arms. After one wild-eyed glance around the room, she leaped off the mattress and shoved the sketches under the bed. A blush covered her from the crown of her forehead to somewhere beneath the scooped neckline of her nightgown. He thought it a nice contrast to the chaste white fabric. “There is nothing you need to tell me that cannot wait until morning.”
He stared at the outline of her breasts beneath the nightgown, then he noticed the small satin ribbons that trailed from the neckline. It took a concentrated effort to force his gaze to her face. “You rushed out of the library before I could explain what happened. Then you ignored all the messages 1 sent to you since then. I could hardly present myself at your door when any of the guests or servants might see me.” He gestured toward the hidden panel. “No one is about at this time of night, but I thought it best to make my entrance through a more discreet passage. No one will know I am here.”
“I know you are here!” She took so many deep breaths that he worried she would faint.
He tried his best to reassure her. “I am here to do nothing but talk, Faro.”
“In my bedchamber?” She pressed her lips
into a straight line. “There is nothing more we have to say to each other. I will not—”
“Faro, please be quiet and listen to me.” The firm tone of his voice startled her into silence. She sat on the edge of the bed and folded her arms across her chest. “I never meant to deceive you. The phrase I started to write was so long that it didn’t seem a fair test. I didn’t realize my indecision would make a difference.”
He dropped to one knee at her side and withdrew the bottle from his coat pocket. She immediately edged away from him. “You don’t have to touch the bottle. I just want to show you what’s inside.” He removed the small leather scroll and unrolled it so she could see the message.
She read the words aloud. “To thine own wish be true. Do not follow the moth to the star.’” She gave him a sharp glance. “What does it mean?”
“It means you can read my mind. You recited even the parts I didn’t write.”
Her eyes widened. She opened her mouth to say something, then changed her mind.
“Have you ever done that before?”
“I didn’t know that I could.” She looked up at him, her expression still dazed. “You know the truth about me now. Why are you here?”
“I told you it would make no difference.”
She didn’t believe him.
“The Gypsy who gave me this bottle said I would understand its meaning when I understood myself.” He gave her a lopsided smile as he stuffed the bottle and its message back into his pocket. “I thought her crazed. Now I realize that what I thought I wanted in my life isn’t at all what I need.” He took her hands in his and turned them over to gently kiss each palm. “You are my wish, Faro.”
Her hands felt stiff and cold; her face was expressionless as she looked away from him. “I am … different. You know I am different.”
“Yes, this pretty much proves that you are the most unique woman I have ever known.” His attempt at humor fell flat. She still wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Everything about you draws me closer, Faro. Haven’t you figured that out yet? You have a true gift, but I will not lie and say it does not worry me. I wonder how you survive in a world filled with skeptics and the likes of Squire Elgin. It makes me almost frantic to think of you alone, even though I know you can manage well enough without me. What I cannot imagine is how I will manage without you.”