Moonlight Wishes In Time

by Bess McBride

  Mattie gave up and pushed herself into a sitting position, irritation with herself and angst for her dream lover wreaking havoc with any ideas of serenity. She contemplated getting out of bed to start the book all over again—even at the late hour—just to get back into the warm mood she’d had earlier. She threw a longing glance at the empty spot in the bed next to her. What did Lord Ashton look like without his double-breasted jacket, pantaloons and Hessians, she wondered? Her toes curled delightfully at the thought. What did he wear under those things, anyway?

  No matter what he wore, Lord Ashton would certainly be better than the last man to inhabit that side of the bed—her ex-boyfriend, Tom. Although Tom bore certain similarities to Lord Ashton—tall with dark hair—he lacked the strong, assertive jaw, flashing gray eyes and English accent of her hero. And he cheated—or so she’d found out a year ago—just after her mother’s death. Lord Ashton would never cheat on his beloved. Never. He was too honorable, too chivalrous, too…gentlemanly.

  “You’ve got to snap out of this depression, Mattie. Your mother wouldn’t want this,” Tom had said a week after the funeral.

  “I’m trying,” she’d whispered, helplessly looking for a clean pair of jeans to wear, as Tom wanted to take her out to dinner to cheer her up. It seemed like she hadn’t done laundry in a month—the month her mother had been in the hospital fighting to stay alive.

  “Are you?” he’d said as he stood in the doorway of the bedroom waiting for her. “I have to tell you, I think you’re wallowing a bit. You knew this would happen. You’ve known for months—ever since she was diagnosed.”

  “I thought it would be easier,” Mattie said as she shoved her feet into a pair of sandals. “Knowing. Planning. But it isn’t.” She searched for some sort of shirt to wear, uncaring.

  “Yeah,” Tom said. “Doesn’t look like it.” He looked at his watch. “Are you about ready?”

  Mattie nodded, though she wanted nothing more than to burrow into a corner of her walk-in closet and cry.

  Several hours later, they left the restaurant, Tom in good spirits, and Mattie even more despondent than when they’d entered the seafood joint.

  She’d suspected for some time that Tom had been unfaithful to her, but she hadn’t known for certain until that evening. The waitress, who always waited on them, seemed unable to avoid touching him at every opportunity—from allowing her hand to rub his when she handed him the menu to covering his hand as she took Mattie’s credit card from him. The gestures had seemed inordinately intimate, and Tom had beamed at the waitress throughout.

  “Tom,” she’d begun heavily, almost too depressed to even care, “are you seeing that waitress?”

  “What waitress?” Tom had said after a moment, keeping his eyes on the road.

  “Please,” Mattie had said dryly. Oddly, she had no desire to cry over Tom—not like for her mom. Though they had lived together for about a year, she didn’t feel the sense of loss that she thought she should.

  Tom’s heavy sigh gave her the answer before he spoke.

  “What do you want me to say, Mattie?”

  “Yes or no, that’s all,” she replied wearily.

  “You’ve been gone a lot. You know, staying at your mother’s place, then at the hospital when she couldn’t stay home any longer.”

  “Yes, I’ve been gone,” she agreed with a pang of guilt. “You don’t have much staying power, do you?” she said more than asked. She turned exhausted eyes on his profile. Dark haired, maybe not as handsome as she’d once thought, his face fuller than when they met, his chin sort of weak looking rather than strong and chiseled.

  “No, I guess not,” he said with a feeble half-smile as he glanced at her. “I’m sorry.”

  Mattie turned away to look out the car window. The moon rode high in the sky, bright, round and full. What she wouldn’t have given to be up there.

  “What are your plans?” she asked as she contemplated perching on the moon and watching the world go by.

  “Plans?” he’d asked.

  “You have to leave. You can’t live with me anymore,” Mattie said, too tired to even care about the long nights of loneliness looming ahead.

  Although Tom had argued weakly, he’d packed his bags that night and left. They’d exchanged a few phone calls, but he had quickly moved in with the waitress, and Mattie heard from him that the younger woman was pregnant, and they were planning to marry. Mattie hadn’t dated since Tom had left, preferring to bury her head into her mother’s old romance novels. And then Lord Ashton had come along: charming, dashing, principled and honorable—everything she longed for in a man.

  Wide awake, Mattie slipped out of bed, grabbed her robe, stuck her feet into her slippers and made her way down the carpeted hallway to the kitchen. The incessantly bright moonlight had found its way into the kitchen as well. Just how big was this moon, anyway? ET size? She slid open the glass doors and stepped out onto the small balcony of her second-floor condominium.

  The full moon shone brightly as it crowned the sky in a large, round sphere of luminescence. Mattie pulled her robe tightly around her as a cool breeze brought goose bumps to her arms.

  “Well, Mr. Moon,” she asked whimsically. “Any ideas? Where do you think I can find a Lord Ashton?”

  She tried again. “How about it, big boy? You can see everything from where you are. Is there any man like that out there for me? Asking you the same question? Do they even make men like that anymore?”

  Mattie leaned her arms against the railing and ignored the lights of the condominiums across the sidewalk—so close she often wondered if she could throw a coin onto the balcony opposite. She was pretty sure, however, that she didn’t want to throw a coin onto the balcony opposite to test the theory. Coins were pretty dear at the moment, especially since Tom had moved out. He’d helped with a few of the living expenses—groceries, anyway.

  “Hey, up there!” she called out. “Are you listening to me? How about a sign? Some hint that this isn’t the rest of my life!”

  A dog barked in the distance and a door slammed somewhere. Mattie waited, half expecting the moon to actually drop the man of her dreams onto her balcony.

  The dog barked once again. Then it was silent. Mattie held her breath and listened. Nothing. No sign. No riding-booted footsteps. No tall figure in yellow silk pantaloons and a blue cutaway coat magically appeared on her balcony. No raven-haired man arrived to pull her into his arms.

  She shivered in the cool night breeze and hugged herself. Living in such a vivid fantasy world wasn’t good for her—she realized that. She was fully aware she had to stop her obsession at some point in the near future, and return the book to the library. Take up knitting, watch TV, study calligraphy.

  Mattie’s mind raced with a number of activities she could and should pursue—activities that would be much more productive than fantasizing about a character in a book who could never exist outside of the imagination of the author…and readers.

  With a last pleading look at the unresponsive moon, she sighed and turned back toward the door. Her knees buckled, and she felt herself falling.

  Chapter Two

  “Good heavens! Madam! Madam? Can you hear me?” William said as he turned the woman over and checked the pulse at her exposed throat. She lived, but seemed to be unconscious.

  He dropped to one knee and scooped her up into his arms. She was light as a feather, and as fluffy as a newborn pup to boot. Her head dangled over his arm and he peered at her face, trying to make out her features, but the light from the moon was insufficient to illuminate her face or to ascertain whom she was. From the appearance of her clothing, though, she was certainly not one of the servants.

  He looked toward the house. What was he to do with the woman? A warm yellow glow at the side of the house caught his eye. The kitchen! Mrs. White would know what to do with her. Perhaps Mrs. White might even know who she was.

  He carried her across the lawn and around the side of the house toward the kitchen.
With his hands full, he gave the door several good kicks. A scullery maid pulled open the heavy oak door and gaped at him with rounded eyes.

  “Let me in, girl!” William pushed past her with his burden, who grew mercilessly heavier by the minute.

  “Susie, get yourself off to bed now, there’s a good girl.” Mrs. White, a plump gray-haired woman who had been with the family ever since William could remember, shooed the young gawking girl out of the kitchen before turning to pull a rocking chair toward the fire.

  “Here, Master William, set her here.”

  William lowered the woman into the rocking chair by the cheery fire and straightened, reaching an unconscious hand to his aching back.

  “Master William,” Mrs. White remonstrated. “You shouldn’t ought to have carried the young lass. You’re not as young as you used to be.”

  William gave the cook a withering look that did not seem to bother the short woman in the least. He continued to rub his back and returned his gaze to the young woman.

  “What do we have here, master? Wherever did you find her…and what is that garment she is wearing? Is she one of your guests? Did she…em…imbibe overly much?”

  “Mrs. White! Do you actually think I would bring an inebriated guest down here to the kitchen? And a woman at that? What do you take me for?”

  “Well, Master William, you have pulled some pranks in your time,” she said dryly.

  They both regarded the unconscious woman draped in the chair, her head lolling to the side. Reddish-brown hair the color of cinnamon spilled over her shoulders and onto the pink confection she wore.

  “Are those slippers, Master William?” Mrs. White wiped her hands on her apron and bent to peer closely at the fuzzy shoes on the young woman’s feet. “My goodness, they are indeed!” She turned to William with a faint accusing look, bright red spots coloring her full cheeks.

  “Master William, the young lady is in her sleeping garments. You never took her from her bedchamber, did you? Is she a local girl?”

  He thrust out his hands in defense. Mrs. White could be a formidable woman when she thought an injustice had occurred.

  “Now, just a moment, Mrs. White. I found the…ah…young woman on the lawn out there.” He nodded in the direction of the garden. “Fainted, I presume. In point of fact, I fell over her. I have never seen her before in my life. I was hoping you would know who she was. Perhaps a new servant?”

  “None to my knowledge, Master William. Is she a guest of Miss Sylvie? They look to be of an age.” Mrs. White turned away to grab a clean white cloth and run a pitcher of water over it. She returned and pressed the cold compress onto the young lady’s pale forehead.

  “Well, Mrs. White, I will leave her in your hands. She is not a guest of Miss Sylvie. I am certain you can sort her out and return her to her proper abode.”

  William turned away, but felt his arm grasped in a vise grip.

  “Oh, no, sir. She isn’t one of your stray puppies you have always been so fond of leaving here in the kitchen for me to see to. And here’s one of them now. Rufus!” The older woman acknowledged the red setter that trotted into the kitchen and came to a halt at William’s feet, wagging his tail and staring up at him with adoring eyes.

  William bent to scratch the dog behind the ears.

  “But Mrs. White, I must return to our guests. I have been gone far too long as it is. Mother will have my head.”

  “Oh, I think you know your way around your mother, Master William.”

  He gave her a cheeky grin, pulled a fob watch from the pocket of his vest and stiffened.

  “It is almost eleven o’clock. The guests will soon be leaving. Watch over her for me. I will return within the hour to discuss what is to be done with her.”

  Mrs. White sighed and pressed the cool cloth to the young woman’s forehead once again.

  “Don’t bat your gray eyes at me, Master William. I’ve known you too long to be taken in by that. I’ll see to her for the next hour, don’t you worry, but I hope you aren’t leaving me with a lunatic from some asylum.”

  He grinned, bent near to kiss the older woman’s cheek and strode out the door with a sigh of relief, allowing himself the pretense of believing he would not return to the kitchen. He clasped his hands behind his back as he walked around the side of the house to the grand balcony and climbed the curved stone steps. Of course, he would return. He had promised.

  William reached the balcony fronting the large French doors, which led into the ballroom. Before entering, he turned to survey the moon once again. He remembered wishing for his heart’s desire just before he had stumbled over the woman. The strange apparition in his garden was not what he had envisioned.

  He strode through the house to reach the drawing room where he had left his mother, sister and the guests playing cards and drinking coffee after dinner. He winced as he recalled his mother had yet another rout planned for the next evening, so insatiably was she bent on finding him a suitable wife. So far, he had managed to thwart her best efforts.

  “Will! There you are!” His sister, a vision in a lilac silk gown, approached. “Where have you been? Several of the young ladies of our acquaintance asked after you. As did our mother.” She turned her back on the room, gave him a wink of one of her bright blue eyes and grinned. “Were you hiding, brother?” she whispered as she tucked her gloved hand through his arm and turned back to the room with a polished smile for public eyes.

  “Do you blame me?” he edged out through an even smile as he surveyed the large room. “I cannot abide these gatherings that mother must always host in her unrelenting pursuit of a daughter-in-law.”

  “Not a daughter-in-law, dear brother,” Sylvie said softly. “An heir for the estate, as you well know.”

  Their mother spotted them and made her way across the room. A tall, elegant, golden-haired woman who had passed her beauty onto her daughter, Mrs. Sinclair tapped her closed fan against her left hand in a sign of irritation.

  “There you are, William. You have been neglecting our guests, I think. I have not seen you this past half-hour.”

  “Forgive me, Mother. I stepped out to the garden for a bit of fresh air. I did not think to be away so long. Time simply flew by.”

  “Moon gazing again, were you?” She quirked a well-groomed eyebrow at her son, the gesture elegant and graceful on her.

  “Oh, the Roberts are leaving,” Sylvie said. “I shall bid them good night.” She drifted away. William watched her easy escape with envy.

  “It is a full moon tonight, Mother,” he quipped. “Who knows what magical mysteries might happen on a full moon?” He nodded and bowed slightly to a matron in purple satin and matching feathers in her silver hair, accompanied by a young woman of nondescript coloring and expression.

  His mother inclined her head. “Lady Spencer, Miss Spencer, it was so good of you to come tonight. I do hope we shall see you tomorrow evening?” The women responded with delight and moved away.

  “I thought you had outgrown such fancifulness, my son,” his mother continued. “Nothing will occur on a full moon that cannot occur on any other night. Specifically, a decision by you on one of these young ladies as your wife.”

  William gritted his teeth.

  “I do not think so, Mother. I will decide when I am ready. Not before.”

  She raised her closed fan to her mouth and sighed for his benefit.

  “There will be other opportunities. Perhaps the right young woman was not at our small gathering tonight but will attend the dance tomorrow night. If not, I shall widen the search.”

  William lifted a finger to his cravat. It seemed to be choking him at the moment.

  “Please do not put yourself out, Mother. Were the right woman to come along tonight, I would not recognize her in any event, as I wear blinders in an effort to resist your scheming. I do not wish to be coerced in this matter.”

  “You are thirty now, my dear. And I am considerably older. How long shall I wait for grandchildren?”
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br />   William turned to eye his youthful-looking mother. No wrinkles lined the corners of her blue eyes, no strands of gray dulled her bright golden hair, no plumpness marred the elegant figure in dark blue silk.

  “Mother…please. You have many years ahead of you. Perhaps you should consider remarriage yourself. It is no secret that Lord Hamilton has held a fondness for you these many years.”

  She snapped open her fan to hide the heightened color in her cheeks.

  “Do not be silly, William. I am a merry widow. I have no intention of ever remarrying.”

  “I see.” He bowed as a portly gentleman passed. “Well, then, why can you not extend the same courtesy to me? Perhaps I do not want to marry either…ever.” He knew the inexorableness of his duty and berated himself for his childish retort.

  Mrs. Sinclair turned to him, her public smile curving into a more intimate one of affection and empathy.

  “I sympathize with you, my dear, I do. But do you honestly think that you have that choice, William? What will happen to the estate when you die? Will you pass it on to some as yet unborn niece or nephew bearing another man’s name? You owe your father more than that. You owe your ancestors more than that. The land has been in your father’s family for centuries.”

  She turned to incline her head to another departing guest—a short, rounded woman in a satin emerald green gown.

  “So pleased to see you tonight, Mrs. Brookfield. Please stop by for tea soon.”

  “I would be delighted, Mrs. Sinclair. Perhaps Thursday?”

  “Thursday would be lovely, Mrs. Brookfield. I look forward to seeing you then.”

  Mrs. Brookfield passed on.

  William straightened from his bow to the older woman.

  “I apologize for my boorish behavior, Mother. You are right, of course. I know you are, but I despair of finding a woman who holds my interest, a woman with whom I could envision a palatable future.”

  She closed her fan and tapped William’s arm with it.