Jack felt his chance to love her dying with every word. She’d spent so long betrayed. Could she ever bring herself to believe again? How could she ever trust him with such overwhelming evidence to the contrary? It was no wonder she thought she could not count on anyone but herself.
She rocked slowly back and forth in silence for a moment. “My parents could not have designed a more thorough punishment. Don’t you see? By locking me away, by keeping me so alone, the child inside me was my only companion. I spoke to her, sang to her, told her every story I could remember. Sometimes when I wept, she would dance in my belly and distract me from my self-pity. When I slept, she would wake me in the night and we would curl up together as I would whisper to her of all the places I would show her and all the wonderful things we would do.”
She brushed at her eyes again. “She was particularly fond of adventure stories. I know it sounds mad, but I swear to you that I could always calm her kicking by telling her tales of—”
“Pirates.”
Her eyes widened. “Don’t tell me that’s still true?”
“She tells them to me more often than the other way about, but she wants nothing to do with any story but ‘Captain Jack and the Wily Crew of the Dishonor’s Plunder.’ ”
Laurel looked at him with a brow raised. “I believe I’ve met this pirate.”
Her faint teasing tone only made him feel worse. “Really?” He glanced aside. “I haven’t seen him for years.”
“No,” she said thoughtfully. “I don’t suppose you have.”
It was blindingly obvious that it was no use, but he had to try. “Bramble, I love you.”
She drew back, suspicion flaring in her eyes. “Lies will not help, Jack. You do not love me. Until a few days ago, you’d forgotten me!”
“Never! I simply—didn’t know who it was I remembered.” He sounded ridiculous. She gazed at him with wary eyes. “It was the dress, you see. . . .” He tried to explain, to tell her about Lementeur’s words and how he’d realized the truth. “I was so blind. It was always you, Bramble. You were the reason I came to that house again and again. You were the one I truly wanted to see, to talk to. You have always been the one whom I loved!”
She stared at him silently. He continued, his words halting but determined. If he had to rip himself open and serve himself up on a plate of eggs and bacon, he would do it. Anything to take that dark suspicion from her gaze.
“I love you, just . . . you. I love the way that you see right to the center of things, the way that you see people for who they really, truly are!” See me, my love; oh, please see me! “I love your beautiful face and your sweet body and I love your true heart! I love the girl who wouldn’t give in and I love the girl who gave in.”
She flinched.
He stumbled on. “I love the look on your face when you hold Melody. I love the way that you lose yourself in a book and can barely remember your own name when you’re interrupted. I love the way that you live, Laurel Clarke, the way that I have never seen anyone live—full speed ahead, damn the pirates, honest and uncompromising with the truth.” He slid naked from the bed to kneel at her feet. “This is the truth, Laurel, my thorny Bramble, my love—this is the only true thing that I know. I love you. I will always love you. How can I prove it to you? What can I do to make you understand what you mean to me?”
Laurel hugged the covers to her chilled belly and stared at Jack. She had never seen this Jack before. She had never seen this man who spoke so passionately, who pleaded so clumsily and endearingly before her.
He was rather wonderful—
If he was real.
However, this was not a natural courtship, this bizarre seduction of tapestries and ball gowns and locked doors. She could not allow herself to believe anything she was feeling under this sort of duress.
If she trusted this, if she gave in to him and he failed her, she did not think she could ever recover herself again. Like a leg too often broken, her heart would never work properly again.
She swallowed hard. “I want Melody. I want to leave this place. I want to go far, far away from here and never return.”
His face went tight. “You wish to leave me?”
Forcing herself to become iron, Laurel met his gaze unflinchingly. “You asked what I wanted. Will you give me that?”
She saw the light die out of his eyes then. The passionately pleading man went away. It was dark Jack who stood up, un-self-consciously naked before her, as detached from the world as ever.
“That is the one thing I will not do,” he said flatly. Then he turned and gathered up his clothing. Still naked, he strode from the room.
Laurel heard the lock turn. The clunking sound was like the first shovelful of soil into the grave of her hopes.
He would not give Melody up, not ever. Laurel would have to flee with her daughter and live like a fugitive for the rest of her life, scarcely able to pay for a roof over their heads.
It was not enough to stop her, but her heart wept that she must do that to Melody.
Laurel would not admit to herself that her heart wept that she must do that to Jack as well.
Thirty
The mighty Marquis of Strickland paced his room, helpless in the face of his tangled feelings. The entire world was sleeping, even the fast-living, dancing-till-dawn ton. He was the only one who could not bear to shut his eyes and enter the world of dreams.
He leaned one shoulder against the side of his window embrasure and gazed out at the moonlit garden. What was he to do?
If he kept her, she would never trust him.
If he set her free, she would run as far as possible and never return, taking his daughter with her.
He rubbed his face with his hands, trying to force a solution into his brain. How could he get the family who he wanted? How could he make her understand what she meant to him—what both of them meant to him?
When he raised his face from his hands, he noticed a corner of linen poking up from beneath the bottom of the draperies. Bending, he reached for the grimy, knotted thing. Contemplating the stitched-on “eyes” of Gordy Ann, he carried her to join him in his wingback chair by the fire.
“What do you think?” He hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d called Gordy Ann a good listener. There was none better. “What am I to do?”
She flopped limply in his grasp, knot-head rolling back. He gave her a gentle shake. “Come on. I need a bit of help here.”
No reply. Well, how could he blame her when he had no answers himself?
If he squinted, he could still see how Colin had tied a fine cravat into the dandified pattern known as the “Gordian Knot” style. How Melody could have discerned a doll from that was anyone’s guess, but just like everyone else at Brown’s under the influence of Melody’s ferocious imagination, Jack had quickly come to see Gordy Ann as a doll, not a neck cloth.
He held her up by a single grimy “arm” and frowned at her. “You need a bit of a scrub, old thing.” He tossed her over to the little Melody-size chair opposite his and contemplated Gordy Ann’s flopped form impassively. “You are no help whatsoever.”
Stretching his arms over his head, then rotating his neck, did nothing to ease the tension within him. “ ‘And Alexander the Great saw the Gordian Knot,’ ” he recited the story beneath his breath, “ ‘that not even the finest minds of the world could untie. He raised his sword and with a great cry, cleaved the knot in two . . .’ ”
Slowly his voice faded to a whisper. “Cleaved . . .”
What do you do when there is no solution to a knotted puzzle?
Cleave the puzzle in two.
What if the puzzle is your own heart?
In the purple hour just before dawn, Laurel slipped from Jack’s guest room to creep back to her own bedchamber. She’d scarcely been able to walk when she’d risen from Jack’s bed, leaving him quite unconscious with satiation. Her knees might never be the same.
It was a chilly, breathless game to sneak back through her hous
e in her nightdress. Some of the servants were surely already up, for there were guests in the house.
Once back where she should be, safely unseen, she leaned back against her closed door and took a deep breath.
Her room looked odd. It was the room of a child, full of books and drawings and hair ribbons. It felt wrong to her now.
The world would never be the same. She would never be the same. This night she had explored a part of herself that she’d never known existed.
When she was small, she’d had a governess who was one of the only people in the world who preferred her to Amaryllis. The woman had seemed stern and exacting, but upon realizing Laurel’s love of reading and knowledge she’d warmed to her completely.
Still waters run deep, her teacher had told her once, when she moped about being outshone by her sister.
“Still waters,” Laurel whispered to herself now. It was so true. In this house where no one thought of anything but rank and wealth and how to get more of it, she had spent her days simply trying to live alongside her family, thinking that if she could only understand them, she could learn how to make them understand her.
How could she have understood the depths that lay within her?
Now she realized for the first time that she was a person all in her own right. She had taken a step, opened a door, and was now miles away from the young woman she’d been yesterday. The concerns of her family seemed like the wind in the trees, not worthy of her notice.
She would wed Jack as soon as possible. She would leave here with him and live with him and love him always. He would take her away and take her to bed every night and they would work dark and beautiful magic there, transformative magic. She would be his wife, best friend, and lover.
He would be her everything.
Abruptly she yawned. Pulling her aching, exhausted body upright once more, she staggered to her bed. As she sat on the mattress, she winced.
Well, perhaps they would not do this every night. Surely once or twice a week they ought to sleep instead. Giggling at the thought of her shimmering, jewel-toned future with her Jack, she fell back onto her pillow and slipped into the heavy sleep of the most thoroughly satisfied.
It was only four hours later that she ran to the front door in her dressing gown, clutching her wrapper about her, and watched Jack being thrown from her house onto the gravel drive outside.
Wide-eyed, she turned to her sister, who stood watching the drama unfold with haughty disinterest.
“What has happened? Why has Papa done this?”
Amaryllis’s sharp eyes swept over her and Laurel became aware of her tangled hair and her kiss-bruised mouth. She pulled the neck of her wrapper high to hide the rash of stubble burn on her neck. Amaryllis’s eyes glinted malevolently as she turned back to where Jack stood, cursing and shouting in the drive.
“Jack refused to release me from our silly little engagement. He thought I should choose him instead of my darling earl! Can you imagine?” She smiled archly at her sister. “He begged me to wed him straightaway. Poor Jack. I was bored with him weeks ago.”
Amaryllis sauntered away, leaving Laurel to stare out at the drive where two Clarke footmen were forcibly shoving Jack onto his saddled horse and whipping it until it raced from the estate, Jack clinging to its back.
He would come back. Laurel dashed the tears from her eyes and lifted her chin. She trusted Jack with her life. He would never leave her now.
As soon as he calmed his horse, he would come back for her. It was all a misunderstanding. Papa had thought Jack wanted Amaryllis when it should have been perfectly obvious he truly loved Laurel instead!
Putting a hand to her face, she felt her tangled locks hanging over her brow. Oh, heavens! She looked a mess! She ought to go and dress. Jack would be coming for her soon!
He’d as much as told her he loved her last night!
Hadn’t he?
In the early-morning hours Jack moved carefully past the bed containing sleeping Aidan and Madeleine and entered Melody’s nursery. Pulling her limp and warm from her bed, Jack took her to the chair and held her in his lap while she slept.
She wiggled into him, little elbows pressed firmly into his belly. On her small bed, the kitten woke and shook his oversized head. Then he proceeded to cleanse his bottom, one scrawny mutton leg high in the air, toes spread wide.
Jack held his tiny daughter, listening to her wispy breathing. She was growing so fast. Her feet had begun to hang over the side of his lap. He kissed the top of her shining head and breathed in that clean, childish scent that she would not keep for much longer.
Finally, she stirred in his lap. Her big eyes blinked open, unfocused and confused. She gazed at her bed for a long moment, possibly wondering why she wasn’t in it. Then she looked up at him, her baby cheeks flushed and round. Her eyes were Laurel’s eyes. They would remind him forever of the love he’d ruined with his own two hands.
“Papa, did you sleep in my bed?”
Her bed was not much more than a yard long. Jack imagined himself bent like a kipper in a jar, stuffed into the tiny bed. “No, Lady Melody, I—” did not sleep. “I did not sleep in your bed. I only wanted to say good morning and say hello to your very fine cat.”
Melody scrubbed at her eyes. “Papa, I can’t find Gordy Ann. She went away.”
Jack reached into his pocket and extracted his secret confidante. Melody grasped her with a sigh of relief and tucked her beneath her little chin. “She came back!”
“Oh, thank goodness,” said a husky voice in the doorway of the nursery. Lady Madeleine stood there in her dressing gown and mussed hair. “I rose early to start the search once more. We were up late in a panic, I can tell you. Colin even vowed that he could tie another cravat, but Aidan didn’t believe him.”
Jack nodded at Gordy Ann. “I think she’s become something beyond a simple cravat now, don’t you?”
Madeleine blinked at him. Then she shook off her surprise. “My apologies, my lord. I simply cannot get used to you actually answering me.”
Jack tilted his head. “Then why did you continue to speak to me as if you expected one?”
She shrugged. “I hoped, I suppose. And . . . well, it seemed rude not to.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “My friend is a lucky man.”
She flashed a lovely smile and dropped a casual curtsy. “Thank you, my lord.”
Melody looked up. “Did Papa say a commple-mint, Maddie?”
Madeleine smiled at the new word. “Indeed he did pay me a compliment, Mousie.”
“Commple-mints are nice things.” Melody snuggled into Jack. “Papa, say a nice thing to Gordy Ann.”
Jack gazed down at the filthy linen knot-head. “You’ve been a good friend to me, my lady.”
Satisfied, Melody yawned, much like the kitten had. “Gordy Ann says thank you, Papa.”
Madeleine gazed thoughtfully at them for a long moment. “Something is different, isn’t it? What did you learn yesterday?”
Yesterday seemed like a dozen years past. Jack gazed at Madeleine. “Melody is indeed mine,” he told her. It didn’t matter any longer.
Her eyes widened, then filled with joy. “Oh! But that is wonderful! I must tell Aidan! And Pru!” She turned and bustled back into her room.
Jack preferred not to take part in any further discussion on the matter, so he plunked Melody back into her little bed, making the kitten jump in surprise and making Melody giggle. Then Jack slipped quickly away while Madeleine was hidden in her bed curtains.
“Aidan! Aidan, we may keep her! Isn’t that wonderful?”
Was it wonderful? Or was it simply another betrayal?
Sometime later that morning, when everyone had heard the glad news and had raised their coffee high in a toast, despite the fact that Jack had missed breakfast, Evan wandered through the parlor.
“Where’s the monster?” he asked his sister casually.
Pru put down her book and frowned. “Do you know, I haven’t seen
her for a while.”
Evan rolled his eyes. “Hiding again.”
It soon became clear that if Melody was hiding, it was not in any of her usual haunts. Feeling a bit guilty, Evan even checked the dumbwaiter, only to find that someone had secured it down in the cellar and it would no longer move at all.
Wilberforce came upon Lady Madeleine and Lady Lambert checking the window embrasure at the end of the upper hallway. Bailiwick was farther down, peering into the large Ming dynasty vase on the hall table. Lady Lambert frowned at him. “Have you seen Melody, Wibbly-force?”
Wilberforce gave Lady Lambert a long-suffering gaze, but she didn’t even realize she’d said it. “I believe Lady Melody is prone to playing in the attic.”
Lady Madeleine shook her head. “I don’t think so. She doesn’t like it up there any more than I do.”
Wilberforce bowed. “I do not wish to contradict you, my lady, but I believe she plays there daily.”
Lady Lambert turned to regard the door at the opposite end of the hallway. “Really?”
Thirty-one
Laurel’s eyes went wide and she sat very still as her door opened and an unfamiliar man stood in the doorway. He blinked at her for a long moment, his patrician face revealing nothing but bland surprise.
Then this elegant figure in livery backed out and bowed two ladies through the door. Two heads, one dark and the other red, peered from opposite sides of the door.
Laurel stood and smiled. “Good morning, Lady Madeleine, Lady Prudence.”
The redhead straightened and stepped into the room. “Lady Lambert,” she corrected absently as she gazed about her in astonishment. She waved a hand at Lady Madeleine. “Born posh.” Then at herself. “Married posh.”
Laurel smiled nervously. “Thank you for your clarity.” She held out her hand. “I am Miss Laurel Clarke.”
Lady Madeleine entered, shrinking away from the walls and staying near the door. “You are a prisoner here?”
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