“Why, Jack,” said the princess when she saw him, “wherever have you been, and what is that burn upon your leg?”
Jack looked down and saw that the dragon had wounded him with its fire. He danced about and performed a silly twirl.
“I am a will-o’-the-wisp,” he cried, “and I have floated on the wind to see the king of salamanders!” . . .
—from LAUGHING JACK
Jasper wasn’t around when Melisande rose in the morning. She pursed her lips when she saw the empty breakfast room. Was he avoiding her? She’d been blunt the day before—perhaps too blunt. He’d loved Reynaud, she knew, and it took time to recover from such a grievous loss. But it had been seven years. Couldn’t he see that his hunt for the Spinner’s Falls traitor had enveloped his life? A–timnd didn’t she as his wife have the right to point this out to him? Surely she was supposed to help him find happiness—or at least contentment—in life. After all the years she’d loved him, after they’d come so far in their marriage, it wasn’t fair for him to pull away from her now. Didn’t he owe her at least the politeness of listening to her?
After a simple breakfast of buns and hot chocolate, Melisande decided she couldn’t bear rattling about the big town house by herself. She patted her hip for Mouse and went with him to the front hall.
“I am taking Mouse for a walk,” she informed Oaks.
“Very well, my lady.” The butler snapped his fingers for a footman to accompany her.
Melisande pressed her lips together. She’d much rather take her walk alone, but that simply wasn’t an option. She nodded to Oaks as he held the big door for her. Outside, the sun had hidden behind a bank of clouds, making the morning so dark it was like evening. But that wasn’t what made her halt in her tracks. At the bottom of her front steps stood Mrs. Fitzwilliam and her two children, and Mrs. Fitzwilliam was carrying two soft bags.
“Good morning,” Melisande said.
Mouse ran down the steps to greet the children.
“Oh, goodness,” Mrs. Fitzwilliam said. She sounded distracted, and her eyes glittered as if from tears hardly held in check. “I . . . I shouldn’t bother you. I am so sorry. Please forgive me.”
She turned to go, but Melisande ran down the steps. “Please stay. Won’t you come in and have a dish of tea?”
“Oh.” A tear escaped and ran down the lady’s cheek. She swiped at it with the back of her hand like a little girl. “Oh. You must think me a wigeon.”
“Not at all.” Melisande linked her arm with the other woman’s. “I believe my cook is baking scones today. Please come in.”
The children looked eager at the mention of scones, and that seemed to decide Mrs. Fitzwilliam. She nodded and let Melisande lead her inside. Melisande chose a small room at the back of the house that had French doors leading into the garden.
“Thank you,” Mrs. Fitzwilliam said when they’d sat. “I don’t know what you must think of me.”
“It’s a pleasure to have company,” Melisande said.
A maid came in with a tray of scones and tea. Melisande thanked and dismissed her.
Then she looked at Jamie and Abigail. “Would you like to take your scones into the garden with Mouse?”
The children jumped up with alacrity. They contained themselves until they were outside, and then Jamie gave a whoop and ran down the path.
Melisande smiled. “They’re lovely children.”
She poured a dish of tea and handed it to Mrs. Fitzwilliam.
“Thank you.” Mrs. Fitzwilliam took a sip. It seemed to steady her. She looked up and met Melisan›and hede’s gaze. “I’ve left His Grace.”
Melisande had poured herself some tea as well. Now she lowered the cup from her lips. “Indeed?”
“He cast me off,” Mrs. Fitzwilliam said.
“I’m so sorry.” How awful to be “cast off” like a worn shirt.
The other lady shrugged. “It’s not the first time—or even the second. His Grace gets into tempers. He’ll stomp about and yell, and then he’ll say that he no longer wants me and I’m to leave his house. He never hurts me; I don’t want you to think that. He just . . . carries on.”
Melisande sipped her tea, wondering if telling someone they weren’t wanted anymore wasn’t in some ways worse than hurting them physically. “And this time?”
Mrs. Fitzwilliam squared her shoulders. “This time I decided to take him at his word. I left.”
Melisande nodded once. “Good.”
“But . . .” Mrs. Fitzwilliam swallowed. “He will want me back. I know he will.”
“You said before that you thought it possible he had taken a new mistress,” Melisande said in an even voice.
“Yes. I’m almost sure of it. But that doesn’t matter. His Grace does not like letting go of what he considers his. He keeps things—people—whether or not he wants them, simply because they are his.” Mrs. Fitzwilliam looked out the window as she said this, and Melisande followed her gaze.
Outside the children played with Mouse.
Shew drew in a breath, finally understanding Mrs. Fitzwilliam’s real fear. “I see.”
The other lady watched her children, a private deep love in her eyes that made Melisande feel like an intruder.
“He doesn’t care for them, not really. And he’s not good for the children. I must get them away. I simply must.” Her gaze turned to Melisande. “I have money, but he will track me. I may’ve even been followed here. I need a place far away. Somewhere he won’t think to look. I thought perhaps Ireland or even France. Except I don’t speak French, and I know no one in Ireland.”
Melisande got up and rummaged in a desk in the far corner of the room. “Would you be willing to work?”
Mrs. Fitzwilliam’s eyes widened. “Of course. But I don’t know what I could do. My penmanship is very fine, but no family will hire me on as a governess when I have the children with me. And besides, as I said, I know no French.”
Melisande found some paper, a pen, and ink. She sat down at the desk with a determined smile. “Do you think you could keep house?”
“A housekeeper?” Mrs. Fitzwilliam got up and wandered over. “I don’t know much about keeping a house. I’m not sure—”
“Don’t worry.” Melisande finished writing her note and rang for a footman. “The person I have in mind will be quite lucky to have you, and you needn’t take the position long—just until the duke loses your trail.”
“But—”
One of the footmen entered the room, and Melisande crossed to him with the folded and sealed note. “Take this to the dowager viscountess. Tell her it’s urgent and I would very much appreciate her help.”
“Yes, my lady.” He bowed and left.
“You want me to become the dowager Viscountess Vale’s housekeeper?” Mrs. Fitzwilliam sounded appalled. “I really don’t think—”
Melisande took the other lady’s hands. “I’ve asked to borrow her carriage. You said you might have been followed. The carriage will go ’round back and wait at the end of the mews. We’ll smuggle you and the children in disguised as servants. Your watchers won’t be expecting you to take Lady Vale’s carriage. Trust me, Mrs. Fitzwilliam.”
“Oh, please call me Helen,” Mrs. Fitzwilliam said absently. “I wish . . . I wish there was some way I could show my thanks.”
Melisande thought a moment before asking, “You said your hand was very fine, didn’t you?”
“Yes?”
“Then there is a small thing you can do for me, if you don’t mind.” Melisande rose and went to the dresser again, pulling out a drawer and taking out a flat box. She brought it back to where Helen sat. “I’ve just finished translating a children’s book for a friend, but my handwriting is deplorable. Could you copy it out fresh for me so that I can have it bound into a book?”
“Oh, yes, certainly.” Helen took the box and smoothed her fingers over the top. “But . . . but where are you sending me? Where are my children and I going?”
Melisande smiled slowly, because she really was rather pleased with herself. “Scotland.”
MELISANDE WAS GONE when Jasper returned that afternoon. Inexplicably this irritated him. He’d been avoiding his lady wife for nearly a full day, and now that he wanted to see her, she wasn’t here. Fickle woman.
He ignored the voice in his head that said he was being an ass and climbed the stairs to his rooms. He paused outside his own door and then looked down the hall to hers. On impulse, he entered her room. Nearly a month ago, he’d come here for answers to who his wife was and had gone away no wiser. Now he’d traveled with her to Scotland, learned she’d had a lover and been with child, made love to her thoroughly and wonderfully, and still—still—he felt that she held something back from him. God! He didn’t even know, after all this time, why she had married him.
Jasper prowled the room. He’d been ridiculously vain when she’d first presented him with her proposal of marriage. He’d assumed—if he’d thought about it at all—that she hadn’t other choices. That she was on the shelf and had no suitors. That he was her last chance at marriage. But now, after living with her, bantering with her, making love to her, Jasper knew that his first vague thoughts were terribly off the mark. She was a quick-witted, intelligent woman. A woman who flamed to life in bed. The kind of woman a man could spend his entire life looking for and never find. But if he did find her . . . then he would make sure he held her and kept her close and happy.
g fght="0%" width="4%">Melisande had had choices. The question was, why had she chosen him?
Jasper found himself in front of her chest of drawers. He stared at them a moment and then bent and pulled out the bottom drawer to find the little tin snuffbox. He straightened with it in his hand. Inside was the same little china dog and the silver button, but the pressed violet was missing. He stirred the items with his finger. Other things had been added to the little cache in place of the violet: a tiny sprig and a few hairs curled together. He picked up the sprig and looked at it. The leaves were narrow, almost needlelike, and small lavender flowers climbed the stem. It was a sprig of heather. From Scotland. And the hair looked like it might very well be his own.
He was frowning down at the snuffbox when behind him the door opened.
He didn’t bother trying to hide what he’d found. In a strange way, he welcomed this confrontation.
He turned to face Melisande. “My lady wife.”
She closed the door gently behind her and looked from his face to her treasure box. “What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to discover something,” he said.
“What?”
“Why you married me.”
VALE STOOD BEFORE Melisande with her most intimate secrets in his hand and asked her the stupidest question she’d ever heard.
She blinked and because she couldn’t quite credit him with such idiocy, said, “What?”
He prowled toward her, the snuffbox still in his long, bony fingers. His curling mahogany hair was pulled back in a queue that was coming undone; his face was lined and sad, pouches beneath his eyes testament to his sleepless nights. His wide shoulders were covered in a brown and red coat with a stain on the elbow, and his shoes were scuffed. She had never felt so angry at another person and at the same time been aware of how beautiful he was to her.
How perfect in all his imperfections.
“I want to know why you married me, my one and only heart,” he said, his complete attention on her.
“Are you stupid?”
He cocked his head at her tone and her words, as if his curiosity was aroused more than his anger. “No.”