“How about a lemon seedcake, love?” Jack heard Colin plead. “Would you like a nice lemon seedcake?”
Jack raised his eyebrows when he saw Pru punch her husband in the arm. “Cook didn’t bake any today,” she hissed at him.
Colin shrugged. “Sorry,” he muttered back. “I panicked.”
Now Jack heard it, the rapid hitching breath of a child who had cried herself into a frenzy. “I-I-I-want Nanneee!”
Urgently he pushed his way into the crowd. It required picking up Lord Aldrich by the elbows to set him aside and frankly unwrapping Madeleine’s shielding arms with gentle but implacable force, but at last Jack found his daughter at the eye of the storm.
He knelt before her. Melody, whose face was blotchy and tearstained and not a little snotty, wailed and threw her arms about his neck. “I—I want Nanneee!”
Enfolding Melody to his heart, he stood. Without a word he turned and walked away from the milling crowd of concern. They allowed it, for Melody had gone instantly quiet in his arms.
Pru, as always, was not as tentative as the others around him. “Where is he taking her?”
Jack heard Colin reassure her as he strode from the room with his daughter.
“Don’t worry, my love. Jack has always been decisive in a crisis.”
That, at the very least, was true.
Blakely had known that. You had to do it all for him, even down to his own suicide.
Astonishing, how those fierce words had pierced Jack’s gray world with a single shimmering beam of insight. They cast new shading on everything he’d thought about himself in the last four years.
As usual, Laurel saw it all.
Now his daughter was in need. He’d been selfish. He’d kept Laurel to himself long enough.
Carrying his tiny child cradled to his chest, he climbed flight after flight of stairs at a trot. He knew what Melody needed. There was only one person who could fill the hole that Melody had been reminded of today.
What Melody needed wasn’t her old Nanny or even a mob of loving semi-relatives. What Melody needed was her mother.
Twenty-one
Since she had no candles in her attic cell and no reason to remain awake anyway, Laurel had used the last blue moments of twilight to prepare for bed. After a quick wash in the washbowl, she cleaned her teeth with the corner of a handkerchief—an old one, of course, not one of the luxurious wispy ones from Lementeur!—and donned the fine lawn chemise. She was just feeling her way through her dark room to her bed when she heard the lock turn in her cell door.
Turning, she was momentarily blinded by the light of a candle held high. Then, holding her hand up to shield her enlarged pupils, she peered past it. “Jack?” Had she finally caught him improving her room? He carried something. . . .
“Yes.” He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. “I have someone you should meet.”
That’s when Laurel’s eyes adjusted and she realized that small parcel in Jack’s arms was not a thing but a small and sniffling person. Laurel’s heart thumped to see them together, here, right before her. She’d known Melody resembled her, but it surprised her to see that her daughter also resembled Jack. It was less obvious, but she had her papa’s stubborn chin and slant of cheekbone tucked beneath her chubby baby face.
Look what we made, Jack. Isn’t she beautiful?
Laurel said nothing, however, waiting. Did Jack know of Melody’s visits?
He knelt and put Melody on her little booted feet. “Lady Melody, I would like to introduce you to your mama.”
No, he didn’t know. This was simply Jack, bringing her what she’d come here for, bringing her and her daughter together at last. Laurel bit back a damp laugh. Timing had never been Jack’s strong point. “Hello, Melody.”
Melody let out a great, hitching breath. “Mama?”
Laurel melted and held out her arms. Melody ran into them and wound her sticky little arms about Laurel’s neck. “Hello, my Melody,” Laurel whispered. “Did you have a rough day?”
Melody puddled into exhausted tears into Laurel’s neck. Pulling her daughter close, Laurel stood and carried her to the nearest chair. Laurel cradled her baby in her lap, rocking Melody’s body slowly back and forth as though she’d done it all her life. Jack followed and put the candlestick on the table next to them. Laurel looked up at him. “Are you wondering why she came directly to me?”
“No. She ran right to me the first time she met me.”
Laurel smiled and closed her eyes. “Don’t we all?” she murmured, too low for him to hear. The feeling of her baby in her arms, needing her, clinging to her, rang a bell so far down inside Laurel that she feared she might turn inside out from the eruption of love in her heart. Her own eyes dampened as she opened them to gaze up at Jack. “Thank you,” she whispered.
He shook his head. “Don’t thank me. I ought to have let you see her the first moment you came to the door.” He rubbed a hand across his face. “Just . . . don’t . . . Please try not to hate me when I lock your door again.”
Laurel’s arms tightened about Melody. “No, don’t take her, not yet!”
Jack let out a breath. “No. She needs you tonight. I thought she might sleep here, with you.”
Joy bloomed in Laurel. “All night?” She looked down at Melody and pushed her hair back from her damp little forehead. “Do you hear that, my Melody? Would you like to sleep here with me tonight?”
Melody removed her finger from her mouth and looked at Jack, her brow scrunched with worry. “What about the Badman?”
Jack knelt down to look into Melody’s face. “The Badman is dead. Wilberforce killed him.”
Melody blinked. “Promise?”
Jack took her chubby little hand in his huge one. Laurel’s heart melted to see that their thumbs were exactly the same shape, large next to tiny.
“Melody, I vow to you upon my honor that the Badman is dead. He was shot, dropped off the roof, and then they buried him in the ground. No one has ever been as dead as the Badman is dead.”
Laurel blinked. This was all very . . . graphic. Perhaps the Badman was not the unreal character she’d imagined. She frowned at Jack and mouthed a question. Who?
Jack gave his head a quick shake. Later.
“I am very fond of information,” she said aloud in a conversational tone. “I dearly love to know things. Especially things about people. Especially people I’m fond of.”
Jack slid her a warning glance. “There’s a book I shall lend you. A story about a lady and the wolf who shadowed her.”
Melody nodded. “My Lady’s Shadow,” she chimed in with scarcely a hiccup of remaining hysterics. “Uncle Colin wrote it for me.”
“Oh, that helps,” Laurel replied with only the tiniest caustic hint in her tone. “Since I know precisely who Uncle Colin is.” Her pointed glance at Jack underlined her irony.
Then she looked back down at Melody. “So will you stay with me, my Melody?”
Melody gave one last massive sniffle, then snuggled into Laurel’s body happily. “Can Gordy Ann stay, too?”
“Of course.”
“Gordy Ann is her doll. Sort of a doll.” Jack rubbed his chin as he gazed down at the frankly nasty wad of knotted linen currently residing in Melody’s armpit. “Gordy Ann is a cravat. It’s a long story.”
“Another story!” Laurel squeezed Melody. “I have so much catching up to do!” Then she turned to Jack, her lips forming a question. She halted as she gazed at him, kneeling so close, his handsome face somber. He was looking at the two of them together. Laurel knew what he was thinking, for she’d just been thinking it a few moments ago. How can I keep them apart?
This man had abandoned her, and when she’d found him again he’d locked her up. And yet he’d given her back her daughter tonight. Love and hate fought a tangled battle within her, and she wasn’t sure sometimes which was which.
Then she remembered what she’d wanted to ask him. “Won’t—” Careful. She’d almost said
Maddie and Pru!
“Won’t people wonder where she’s gotten to?”
He blinked at her in bland surprise. “I will not be questioned.”
She frowned. “Really?”
Something wry tweaked a corner of his mouth. “It does little good to question someone who never speaks.”
She raised a brow. “You? I cannot shut you up.”
Melody nodded. “Papa talks to me, too.” She played with the thick braid of Laurel’s hair that hung over one shoulder. “Just me and Mama,” she said sleepily.
Jack stood. “I’ll leave you and Mama to your bed,” he told Melody. “Good night, Lady Melody. Good night, Laurel.”
He turned and left so silently that Laurel began to understand how it was that he could rearrange her room every night without her knowing. She smiled down at Melody, whose sleepy eyes had turned to gleaming little slits in the candlelight. Her bottom lip pooched out and there was a single teardrop still glistening on one round little cheek. Laurel kissed it off.
Tonight Jack had made her chamber most beautiful of all!
Laurel opened her eyes in the dark room and blinked, wondering why she’d woken. There was even more moonlight tonight. Perhaps it was too bright to sleep?
Then soft childish snores came from the pillow beside her. Oh yes. She was not alone. Smiling, she reached out to stroke the mussed curls of her tiny daughter.
Melody slept in a ball, her chubby cheeks softly puffy with sleep, her thick dark lashes peaceful on those cheeks. So quiet and sweet after the bright chatter and tearstained outburst of the day. She was such a beautiful child.
My child. My Melody.
Joy coursed through Laurel yet again. She rather thought it would strike her like for this for the rest of her life, this stunned and blissful recollection that all she’d thought was lost was hers at last.
Melody snuffled, then stuck a filthy corner of her decrepit doll into her mouth. Laurel withdrew it gently. Pooching her lower lip out, stubborn even in sleep, Melody stuck the doll back in.
“Good luck with that.”
Laurel lifted her head quickly, looking past Melody’s sleeping form to find the source of that deep murmur.
A large upholstered wingback chair had appeared in her chamber. It was turned to face out the large window. She could now see long legs clad in snug fawn breeches extending from the chair, and a dark-sleeved arm draped over the armrest. She stared at the broad, shapely hand that dangled open and relaxed from that armrest. It fascinated her, for it was the first time she’d seen any part of Jack at rest.
At least, it was the first time since that unforgettable night.
Images flashed across her reluctant mind, as dazzling and fresh as ever. Some memories burned too hot to ever fade.
Jack, lost and confused in the darkness, gasping out the details of his nightmare that wasn’t a nightmare but his own tortured reality. Jack, gentle and giving, reaching for her in the dark. That hand, doing things—wicked, wonderful things!—to her body that her innocent imagination could have never conceived of. Jack, above her, inside her, thrusting gently, naked and gleaming with sweat, straining to control his passion in order not to hurt her.
He would never harm her. Ever.
So finding him sitting in the dark wasn’t so much alarming as it was anomalous. Why was he here? With his view restricted to the window by the wingback chair, he clearly wasn’t doing anything eerie like watching her sleep.
Her pride bridled slightly. Why wasn’t he watching her sleep?
She sat up. “Why are you here?” she whispered sharply. “Do you not even trust me to watch over her for one night?”
The hand tightened slowly over the end of the armrest and he slowly, wearily gained his feet. As he stood, she drew back, pulling the covers protectively over her bosom. Silly, since he’d seen her bosom before—but she was not going to think about that! Still, it made her feel less vulnerable.
Then he turned toward her and her breath caught at the hollowed grief caught in the moonlight glinting off the planes of his handsome face. A sharp ache bloomed in her heart to see it.
“What is it?” she whispered, forgetting her wariness for a moment. “Tell me.”
“I . . .” He passed a hand over his face. “I cannot . . . I do not dare sleep.”
The nightmares. The dreams that were not dreams but memories. On impulse, her hand lifted, reaching out to him. She gazed at that hand in alarm. What was she doing?
He doesn’t deserve to suffer alone in those horrible memories.
His gaze locked onto her hand. He stared uncomprehendingly, as if he didn’t dare believe it was real. He didn’t make a move toward her, which only made her open her hand and gesture him closer.
I don’t want him closer.
I cannot bear to see him so terribly alone.
He took a single step, halting when a board creaked beneath his weight. He was like a wary wild thing, a strong but gentle creature, unsure of his welcome.
She kept her hand out, confidently now. She had nothing to lose by comforting him. A new gratitude had grown in her this evening. He’d given her Melody tonight. He’d kept Melody safe and he’d sought Melody’s mother in good faith. It still stung that he’d thought himself in bed with Amaryllis, yet Laurel had to admit that the burn had become more of a twinge over the last days.
Jack gazed down at that slim white hand, glowing almost ghostly in the moonlit room. It was a small, frail thing, a weak and useless weapon in his darkened, bloodied world.
It was a lifeline. It was his last and best hope.
His hand was moving.
Astonished, he watched his own flesh reaching across the space, across the void, across years of emptiness and black despair, reaching out—
Her gentle fingers wrapped around his, warmth to his chilled skin, softly at first, only touching, only holding.
Then she began to pull.
She towed him in, step by halting step, until his knees touched the bed. Then she released his hand and patted the mattress on his side of Melody’s sleeping form. Like a sleepwalker himself, he lowered his body onto the mattress, lying atop the covers, and slowly let his head rest upon the unused half of Melody’s pillow.
Laurel gazed solemnly at him and then tucked her own dark hair behind her ear as she considered him. “You don’t have to sleep,” she said softly. “But you should rest.”
Then she lay back down, curling herself around Melody and closing her eyes.
To Jack, the attic had swiftly become a secret little world where time and history did not seem to weigh so heavily upon him. With Laurel, he was as alive as he was with Melody. He could speak and think and feel as he had not been capable of for years. When he was with her, he could breathe.
When I’m with her, I am real.
If he could only, somehow, win back Laurel’s trust. He hardly dared think it, but the idea would not leave him. It shimmered on his horizon like a sunrise long awaited. Dangling just out of his grasp was a future of such warm and sweet possibility, a future where he could actually have everything he’d ever dreamed of.
Jack lay quietly for a long time, listening to Laurel’s breathing go from awake and careful to sleeping. He would not sleep. He wouldn’t want to subject Laurel and Melody to his nightmares. That was fine, however. He didn’t need to sleep.
And yet he did. Deeply, effortlessly, and without a single dream.
Twenty-two
“Jack? Jack, slow down! I want to walk with you!”
Laurel picked up her skirts and ran down the lane to where Jack had halted to wait for her. She was panting by the time she came even with him, but she brushed her hair back out of her face and smiled up at him. Had he noticed that she wore her hair loose, not braided? Did he realize that her bust had grown considerably and her new gowns showed it off admirably? Was he even aware that while he’d been away at war her seventeenth birthday had come and gone and that she was more than ready to be courted, but only by him?
/>
“Do you not wish to go shooting with Papa and the others?”
Jack didn’t meet her gaze. “I don’t care to hear the rifles.”
“Oh. I’m not fond of the sound myself.” Laurel fell into step with him, taking a little skip now and then to match his long-legged stride. Occasionally she would sneak a glance up into his narrow face. He was so drawn and thin now. He’d only recently come back to England, and although Mama had been a bit too boisterous in her urgings to “eat up, my lord; you’re wasting away,” Laurel thought he looked like a sad angel.
They’d walked together before, but those moments had been full of laughter and teasing. Jack had been fond of threatening her with insects of various types, while she had discovered that he truly had no desire to ever be within a mile of a spider. They had spoken of books and plays and music. Laurel confessed her desire to attend the opera in Covent Garden. Jack confessed that he’d found it most relaxing and sure to help one catch up on one’s sleep.
Now they walked in silence, as if they each walked alone, although Jack did eventually shorten his stride for her benefit.
When they came to the footbridge that crossed the river, they saw that a recent storm flood had washed out several of the center planks. Jack instantly turned back, but Laurel had tried for several days to gain his notice and wasn’t about to let their walk end so soon.
“Oh, do come on, Jack. It isn’t all that bad. We can just jump across the missing ones.”
She started without him, knowing that he would follow rather than leave her in a risky situation. When she gained the center of the footbridge, she realized that it was indeed worse than she’d thought. A good six feet of planks were missing, leaving a gap crossed only by the narrow long beams. Those were no more than a few inches across and green with moss and decay.
“Well, that explains why the nails didn’t hold,” Laurel said cheerfully. “I’ll cross first, shall I?”
Danger seemed to be the secret for rousing Jack from his benumbed state, for he grabbed her hand urgently. “It isn’t safe, Bramble! Don’t try it.”
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