“Sprite,” he murmured. “Who are you?” Still caught fast by the soothing incandescence of her violet eyes and the aura of gentleness that surrounded her, he slid his hand through her softer-than-silk hair.
“I am called Splendor.”
He knew no other name in the world would suit her. “So you remember your name now. Is there anything else you can tell me?”
She moved her hand up to the back of his neck, determined not to let this opportunity pass to tell him the things she’d wanted to tell him for so long. “I desire to give you joy, to make you laugh. I wish to be your company when you are lonely, My Grace, listening when you feel the need to speak. And if you needed silence, I would sit by your side and watch your eyes, for in them I would read your every thought. My own eyes would answer, and you would know that my thoughts were joined with yours. I would take care of you.”
He stood motionless, not daring to breathe. Her gentle words sounded so strange to him, almost as if she’d spoken them in a foreign language.
But why wouldn’t they?
He’d never heard anyone say them before.
“And I would grant all your wishes,” Splendor vowed softly. “’Twould make my heart sing to see you happy. And so, while I am with you I shall give you whatever you desire.”
Her promise wrapped around him, and he felt as though he were being embraced by comforting arms that would hold him for as long as he cared to be held.
Being held. Comforted.
Already she had granted one of his oldest wishes.
Compelled by her goodness, which became more apparent to him with each passing second, he leaned toward her, his gaze centered on her mouth. Just as his lips touched hers he felt serenity wash through him, like a gentle wave lapping over dry sand on a hot seashore.
She softened in his arms, and small sounds came from her throat, and although his eyes were closed, he could see the light of her shimmer. And when she curled her arms around his back and squeezed him, he moaned with hunger for her, with a need so fierce that it took control of his every thought and action.
He crushed her to him, his mouth, body, even his soul devouring her warmth and tenderness the way night swallows up day. Deeper and fiercer his kiss became, and from somewhere inside him he heard his inbred awareness of proper conduct screaming for him to stop.
But he could not take heed.
Until someone began banging on the door.
“Your Grace!” Ulmstead shouted.
Fast as a slap across the face, the spell broke. Jourdian pulled back abruptly, then opened his eyes and stared at Splendor.
“Please,” she whispered, “don’t stop. Your kissing makes me feel so strong. ’Tis a strength I never knew before you shared it with me, and now that I have had a taste of it I don’t think I can ever live without it.”
God help him, he felt like pulling her into his arms and kissing her again.
He tightened his hands into fists. He’d found her only four or five hours before, and thrice he’d surrendered to…to…
To whatever irresistible thing it was she had about her. And this time he’d known full well she was not a dream. This time she had not thrown herself into his arms.
This time had been of his own doing.
“Your Grace!” Ulmstead yelled again.
Jourdian unclenched his right fist and pulled the door open. There in the corridor stood the butler, every bone in his skinny body shaking.
“Forgive me for disturbing you, Lord Amberville, but—”
“She’s gone, milord!” Tessie screamed as she arrived, and ran straight into Ulmstead. “The girl—” She broke off when she saw the copper-haired girl at the duke’s side. “I locked the door, Your Grace. Truly I did. But she… And the lotion! She drank it!”
Jourdian snapped his head toward Splendor so quickly that a sharp pain ripped through his neck. “You drank the lotion?”
“Your Grace,” Ulmstead said, his concave chest heaving, “I am your butler. Therefore, the maids are not my concern. However, since Mrs. Frawley is indisposed, I feel I must inform you that one of the maids has—”
“You drank the lotion?” Jourdian asked Splendor again.
“If lotion is what the fruit elixir you sent to me is called, then, aye, I drank it. ’Twas succulent.”
“Are you bereft of all sense? You don’t drink it, for God’s sake, you rub it into your skin!”
Splendor ran her fingers lightly down the length of her arm. “My skin?”
“The maid has left in near hysteria,” Ulmstead continued as if he’d never been interrupted. “I tried my best to understand what happened to her, but all she could tell me was that she’d seen musical instruments playing of their own accord. I was about to ask her more when a donkey ran through the foyer!”
“A donkey?” Jourdian asked, so bewildered he couldn’t think straight.
“A donkey sir! The beast clomped through the foyer, and then—”
“What happened to the hog?”
“I never caught the hog, your lordship,” Ulmstead admitted, rubbing his bald head. “I couldn’t catch the donkey either!”
“I swear on the soul of my dearly departed mum that I did lock the door to her room!” Tessie wailed, one hand balling up the fabric of her apron and the other clasped over the crimson birthmarks on her cheek. “I don’t know how she got out!”
“She did lock the door, My Grace,” Splendor said, realizing that her escape from the room might cause trouble for Tessie.
“I heard her turn the key in the door. ’Twas an iron key, and I will tell you now that I’ve a profound aversion to anything fashioned of iron. Therefore, you must rid this house of all iron without delay. I would have performed the task myself, but I’ve had nay the time—”
“How did you get out of the room?” Tessie asked. “How—” A loud meow cut the maid short.
In the next moment, Pharaoh padded into the room, his long, snakelike tail swishing.
“A cat,” Splendor whispered, dread skating down her spine. “And—and he says he’s hungry! Sweet everlasting, he’s going to eat me!”
Jourdian hadn’t thought it possible for her to be any paler than she already was. But she’d become so white now that a lily would have looked dirty beside her. “For God’s sake, a cat can’t eat you!” Scowling, he scooped Pharaoh off the floor, then noticed yet a third person standing in the hallway near the door.
“I say, what on earth is happening here?” Emil asked, peering over Ulmstead’s shiny head. “Oh!” he exclaimed upon seeing the girl standing beside Jourdian. “And who might you be, pretty miss?”
“She drank skin lotion, Mr. Tate!” Tessie yelled.
“Did you see a donkey when you came in, Mr. Tate?” Ulmstead asked. “Or a hog?”
“I found her in a meadow,” Jourdian said wearily, wondering if his household would ever be calm again. “Lightning scared Magnus, and I fell—”
“Lightning?” Emil asked. “There was no lightning, Jourdian. I was outside at the Thirlway picnic all afternoon, and I assure you there was no—”
“There was lightning, Emil. And after my fall from Magnus, I found Splendor.”
Emil frowned. “You found splendor in the meadow?” he asked, one eyebrow raised. “What sort of splendor?”
“She’s Splendor.” Using Pharaoh as a pointing stick, Jourdian gestured toward Splendor.
The cat’s front paws brushed her shoulder just as he opened his fang-filled mouth and let out a gruesome hiss. Terror nearly overwhelming her, Splendor raced out of the room.
Emil caught her and lifted her from the floor. “Here now, stop your struggling. I’ll fight that heinous hellcat to the death before I let him eat you. I am Emil Tate, Jourdian’s cousin. Please call me Emil.”
Splendor stilled in his arms and blinked up at him. His hair was the color of warm sand, not quite gold, not quite brown, and his twinkling eyes were nearly the same color, only a bit darker. He had a beautiful, happy smile,
and it created deep dimples on each of his cleanly shaven cheeks.
She knew him. He was the same boy Jourdian used to play with so many years before.
“My, but you’re a bit of a thing, aren’t you?” Emil said, amazed over her slight weight. He examined her face, her lavender eyes capturing his full attention until he happened to glance at her lips.
They were red, a bit swollen, and Emil recognized a recently kissed mouth when he saw one. It would seem that Jourdian had found a tad of splendor in his bedroom as well as in the meadow, he mused, his lips twitching.
“She’s barely clothed, Jourdian,” he said, completely unable to keep from smiling. “And what clothing she is wearing, I believe belongs to you.”
Jourdian saw that the front of the robe Splendor was wearing had parted into a low V. The upper swells of her pearly breasts were visible to anyone who cared to look at them.
And Emil, apparently, cared.
Irritation chewed through him like a voracious caterpillar. He set Pharaoh back on the floor, moved toward his cousin, and took Splendor into his own arms.
Security stole over her until she noticed the cat looking up at her with hungry eyes. Her renewed horror exhausted the last bit of her energy.
Desperately, she wrapped her arms around Jourdian’s neck, and kissed him full on the mouth.
Tessie gasped.
Ulmstead groped for the door frame.
But Emil merely watched.
And deliberated.
There was a donkey loose inside the mansion. And a pig.
Jourdian—a man well known for his equestrian skills—had seen nonexistent lightning, had fallen from his mount, and found a girl called Splendor.
A girl who drank skin lotion. She was practically naked, in His Grace’s bedchambers, giving Jourdian a searing kiss that could have melted a glacier.
Had it been only this afternoon when he’d admonished Jourdian over his stale and overly conservative lifestyle? Emil wondered. In that short space of time, the mausoleum called Heathcourte Manor had become Pandemonium Park.
And Emil couldn’t help but believe that it had been the beautiful girl called Splendor who had somehow brought the gloomy house to vibrant life.
“She’s leaving as soon as I have finished making the arrangements,” Jourdian announced. He signed his name to the letter he’d just finished writing at the small desk in the library, then took a large swallow of straight scotch.
Seated in a large, overstuffed white velvet chair, Emil watched his cousin. “This afternoon you drank because you didn’t have a woman in your life, and now you’re drinking because you do have one.”
“One who will shortly be gone.”
“You’ll throw Splendor out then? Just like that? She has no money, no clothing, and no recollection of who she is or where she’s from. You are a beast of the worst sort!”
“I am not throwing her out, Emil. I will pay Reverend Shrewsbury and his wife to take her in until she regains her health.” Without looking up, Jourdian folded the letter and sealed it with his crest.
“But—but you had silk sheets put on her bed, Jourdian! You ordered freshly baked bread, ripe fruit, and a pitcher of cream brought to her room! And you sent word to the seamstress in Mallencroft to deliver gowns of soft fabrics—”
“What else could I do, damn it all!” Letter in hand, Jourdian stormed across the room, stopping before one of the wall-to-wall, ceiling-high bookcases. “Anything rough irritates her skin, and I’ll not have her clawing at herself or drinking skin lotion again! She won’t touch animal—I mean meat, and if she doesn’t eat something, she will be blown away by the next breeze that hits her!”
“Then why don’t you just sit back and let the wind carry the little waif away?” Emil demanded, bolting out of his chair and marching into the middle of the room. “She’d be out of your life then, wouldn’t she? You wouldn’t have to concern yourself with her anymore, would you?”
“I have no intention of concerning myself with her. That is what I will hire Reverend and Mrs. Shrewsbury to do. The silk sheets, and bread, fruit, and cream meals are to sustain her until she moves in with the vicar and his wife. And I will have the gowns delivered to the Shrewsburys.” Jourdian handed the letter to Emil. “Be so good as to deliver this note to the vicar on your way home, will you? And tell him that I await his answer straightaway, preferably in the morning.”
“I think you’re making a mistake by sending Splendor—”
“Only this morning you tried to convince me to renew my relationship with Marianna, and now you’re trying to match me up with a woman—”
“You kissed her.”
The instant the words were out of Emil’s mouth, Splendor’s image burst into Jourdian’s mind, so real he imagined he could see her shimmer and smell her soothing scent of wildflowers.
He struggled to erase the memories from his thoughts. Instead, he remembered his unbridled need for her and the absolutely feral way he’d kissed her.
“The famished frog,” he murmured. “And the juicy mosquito.”
“Mosquito? Jourdian, I think you’ve had enough to drink. You’re beginning to sound sloshed.”
Thrusting his fingers through his hair, Jourdian retrieved the bottle of scotch and sat down in the chair Emil had vacated. “She compared me to a starving frog and herself to a juicy mosquito.”
“And the comparison so excited you that you kissed her.”
Not bothering with a glass, Jourdian raised the bottle to his mouth and drank deeply. “And silver rain.” He closed his eyes and rested his head on the back of his chair. “She said my eyes were like silver rain and the iridescent dust on the wings of certain butterflies and moths. A peculiar description, wouldn’t you say?”
Emil wondered if indulging Jourdian would keep him talking. “Quite the oddest I’ve ever heard.”
“Of course I’ve never seen the color of wing dust,” Jourdian said, his words becoming a bit slurred. “Butterflies were your forte, not mine.”
“You helped me chase one once. It was the day we raced through those wildflowers and—”
“And I found the small diamonds.”
“Yes. Jourdian Amberville, finder of diamonds in the flowers and beautiful women in the meadows. She’s gorgeous, cousin. Flawless skin, amazing eyes… And her hair! I’ve never known a woman with such wonderful hair.”
“You’re taken with her.”
Emil detected a slight note of sourness in Jourdian’s voice, and he stifled a smile. “I don’t imagine there’s a man in existence who would be immune to her charms. You have everything, don’t you, Jourdian? A respected title, more money than you could spend in ten lifetimes, and now you have in your keeping a woman whom men would fight over.”
“Careful, Emil. Your envy is showing.”
“Since when have I tried to conceal it?”
“Never.”
“She is beautiful, cousin. Admit it.”
Jourdian admitted nothing; he drank more scotch instead. “Imagine believing a mere house cat could eat you. Her terror was genuine.”
“As is mine when I’m near that cat. Why did you kiss her, Jourdian?"
Jourdian didn’t answer. The truth was that he still didn’t know why he’d kissed Splendor. He simply hadn’t been able to resist.
And now he couldn’t forget.
Every second of his encounter with her came back to him now. He remembered sliding his hand through the tumble of red curls that fell down her back. Satin had slipped through his fingers then, warm, soft, and scented by nature.
He thought of her shimmer of happiness, the tender glow in her eyes, and her goodness, that sheer sweetness she wore the way other women wore perfume.
And he remembered her promises to him.
I wish to make you laugh.
“She can’t make me laugh, Emil,” Jourdian slurred. “Indeed, I don’t find her strangeness at all amusing. She said she would try to forgive me for eating meat! What sort of tosh is
that? She drinks skin lotion, too, and what of her flighty emotions? Happy, then instantly sad. Sad, then immediately happy. She goes from mood to mood in much the same way fingers flit from key to key on a piano.”
I desire to give you joy.
Jourdian released a long, slow breath. “And what joy did she plan to give me, I ask you?” he mumbled. “She’s done naught but infuriate me since I found her in the meadow. Joy. She thinks to be the woman who gives me joy? Ha! If indeed such a woman exists, she’s from another world, for I’ve certainly never found her in this one.”
Emil looked down at the letter in his hand. “You’re sending Splendor away because you care about her, aren’t you? Somehow, some way, she’s managed to slip past your guard, and she’s done it in an astonishingly short amount of time. The problem is that you don’t want to care about her. So your solution is to send her away so you can forget about her.”
Jourdian didn’t answer, didn’t open his eyes, didn’t move a muscle.
Without a sound, Emil crossed to the fireplace and tossed the missive into the blazes.
“Good night, Jourdian.”
“Good night. Don’t forget the letter.”
Emil left.
And behind Jourdian’s chair, in the fireplace, fine ivory paper turned to ashes.
Chapter Six
Dressed in the purple satin robe, Splendor sat at one end of the long dining-room table and watched Jourdian, who sat at the other end. He was so far away. And what with the two tall candelabra and the huge arrangement of flowers in the middle of the table, she could barely see him.
“You’re certain you feel well?” Jourdian asked. “Dr. Osbourne ordered bed rest for you, and you did not rest at all yesterday, but only roamed about my house.”
“I feel supremely wonderful, My Grace, and ’twas ever so kind of you to invite me to breakfast with you on this glorious morning.”
A guilty feeling came over Jourdian; he couldn’t meet her gaze. Kindness had nothing to do with his inviting her to eat with him this morning. He only wanted her downstairs and ready to leave when Reverend Shrewsbury arrived to collect her.
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