April Moon

by Merline Lovelace

  Only one other time have I seen such a moon. Only one other time, another April night, and that so long ago it could have belonged to another life….

  “There you be, miss.” The carriage’s driver tugged on the front of his broad-brimmed felt hat. “Will you be going now?”

  Reluctantly Sophie looked away from the moon to the man before her. This was a sizable speech for the driver, but it still left questions unanswered.

  “You were able to find an acceptable wheel-wright in this village, then?” she asked briskly. “Is the wheel mended to your satisfaction?”

  “It’ll do,” said the man. “Well enough.”

  “That is not convincing,” said Sophie. “I’ve no wish to have my neck broken in the middle of the night because of a poorly done repair.”

  He shrugged, as if to agree that he wasn’t entirely convinced, either, but what else could be expected?

  “Might I see the wheel for myself?” Dealing with uncommunicative boys was a specialty of hers—she was as good at coaxing them to speak as she was at teaching them to write in a fine, gentlemanly hand without blots—and though the driver was far older than any of her charges, she guessed the same direct approach would apply. “Would you please show me the repair?”

  “Aye, miss.” He led her to the gig in the courtyard, a drowsing horse already waiting in the traces. “There it be.”

  She leaned over to inspect the wheel, though beyond the newness of the replaced spoke, she hadn’t much notion of what she was inspecting.

  “We can stay ’til morning, miss,” said the driver. “On ’count of you not wantin’ to go.”

  “But I do.” She rose, brushing her hands together. “If you are satisfied with the wheel, then we shall leave directly.”

  The man scowled stubbornly. “It don’t be the wheel, miss.”

  Sophie sighed, her impatience growing. “Then what exactly is it?”

  “That moon,” he said, solemnly pointing up in the sky like some Old Testament prophet. “Strange mischief happens wit’ a moon like that one.”

  Strange mischief: was that all it had been with her and Harry beneath that other long-ago moon?

  “Moon like that be same as midsummer night,” he continued. “No matter that it be April. The fairy queens and such will be about, no mistake, ready t’ fright the horses.”

  “Butter and beans,” declared Sophie soundly, folding her arms over her chest to reinforce the strongest oath she ever used. “My father was a cleric in the Church of England, and he would have told you that the only place fairies and goblins and other heathen nonsense exist is in an empty head, especially a head made more empty by a full belly of gin below it. Now shall you drive me as you were hired to do, or must I climb up top and take the reins myself?”

  Grumbling what was doubtless a great many oaths toward Sophie and her ancestry, the driver finally took his place on his seat and Sophie hers inside, and the gig rolled slowly from the inn’s yard and onto the open road. Once again Sophie settled herself as best she could against the flattened cushions, her sore muscles protesting at resuming the same uncomfortable position as they had these last days.

  She drew the carriage robe over her legs against the evening chill, and tucked her hands beneath her arms for good measure. If she hadn’t been so busy arguing with the driver over the fairies and the moonlight, she would have asked at the inn for a jug of hot tea to bring with her, and perhaps a light supper to last her through this final leg of her journey.

  Well, she’d be the one to pay now, not the driver, and it would serve her right if a random fairy or two did cross their path this night. She sighed, curling her feet up on the seat beneath the robe, and gazed out at the moon, still rising in the evening sky. How much her life had changed since that long-ago April full moon, she thought drowsily, and how much she’d changed herself, while Harry—ah, Harry would never change, because he’d never had to.

  She couldn’t remember a time when Harry hadn’t been there for her, whether they’d been hunting frogs in the rushes near the pond, or pretending to translate Latin fables while her father dozed in the next room, or climbing the apple trees for the sweetest fruit in the orchard at the manor. He had been her best friend and companion for so long that when they’d finally, awkwardly, blissfully kissed, the summer she’d turned sixteen, it had simply seemed like one more glorious adventure to be shared with Harry.

  But her father, his health failing, had seen the peril in such adventure. Sorrowfully he blamed himself for his inattention, and for allowing Sophie to become so familiar with the family at the manor. He understood what Sophie herself was too young to comprehend: that when Harry’s father died, Harry would become the fifth earl of Atherwall, while Sophie would be no more than the penniless daughter of a country cleric, with no fortune or future, especially not with an earl. Sooner or later—more likely sooner—Harry would inevitably leave Sophie and any child she might conceive, and take as his wife a more suitable girl of his own class.

  The bitter, heartbreaking truth of that had hurt, hurt worse than anything Sophie had every imagined. Harry could never be so faithless—to love, to friendship, to her—and she’d tearfully refused to believe such a grim prediction. But she’d been practical even then, hadn’t she? Once her tears were dried, she’d done what was best for everyone. At last she’d listened to her father’s reasoning, and by the time Harry had left for his two years’ tour travelling the Continent, she’d come to see how inevitable their parting must be.

  Her father had written to Harry on her behalf, and returned every one of Harry’s letters unopened and unread. Then to put her father’s worries about her future to rest, she’d accepted her first position as a governess. She didn’t doubt that she’d done what was right, even if it never, ever would be fair….

  It was the jolt of the sudden stop that woke her, tossing her forward clear off the seat into an inglorious heap of petticoats. Still more asleep than awake, Sophie clumsily struggled upright on the carriage’s floor, shoving her hat back from where it had been knocked across her face. Not another broken wheel, she thought with dismay as she struggled to untangle her legs from her skirts. At this rate they’d never reach Winchester.

  But then she heard the stranger’s voice, and froze.

  “Keep your hands where I can see them,” he was ordering the driver. His voice sounded muffled, as if he were disguising it behind a scarf or mask. “No foolishness, or you’ll be the one to pay.”

  Her heart pounding, Sophie kept low, not wanting to draw attention to herself. Through the window, she could see they were stopped beneath the dark shadows of trees, the branches a black tangle against the night sky. They’d been ambushed by some low sort of thief, trapped like a drowsy chicken by a fox, and her temper flared at the foolish indignity of it. Hadn’t enough happened on this miserable journey without this?

  “You bloody thievin’ coward,” snarled the driver. “You’ve stopped th’ wrong carriage, you have.”

  “What, because you’re the brave fellow with the reins?” asked the other man, clearly bemused.

  “Nay, because I’ve only th’ one passenger,” said the driver stubbornly, “and she don’t be what a bastard like you wants, not at all.”

  The man chuckled, and Sophie’s anger simmered, hot with indignation. Though the thief’s voice seemed purposefully disguised, from his manner and words Sophie was sure he’d been raised a gentleman, accustomed to being obeyed. But what sort of gentleman would have become a highwayman, stopping carriages on the road at night? And what gentleman would enjoy distressing a woman travelling alone, laughing at her plight like this one was doing to her this very moment?

  “So you wish to be the fair lady’s champion?” he asked the driver. “You would defend her?”

  “Nay, I won’t do that,” answered the driver quickly, and without a hint of gallantry—not that Sophie had expected any. “She be plain, an’ poor and sharp-tongued, too. If it weren’t for what her master’d say
if I lost his new gov’ness, I’d give her t’ you outright, an’ save th’ horse instead.”

  “A plain, poor governess.” The disappointment in the man’s voice was so palpable that Sophie wrinkled her nose. He was a fine one to show such scorn for her position, considering how dishonorably he earned his living! “Ah, well, better I should judge for myself, yes?”

  Sophie could hear him coming closer, the puffing of the horse’s breathing and the jingle of its harness. The man might be disappointed in the prospect of her, but he still would have an interest in her purse—the purse filled with her hard-earned coins that she’d no intention of surrendering to a lazy rascal like him.

  Think, Sophie, think! Don’t just sit here cowering like a helpless head of cabbage, waiting for the stewpot. Show a bit of backbone. Think of how to save yourself, then do it!

  He was on one side of the carriage, and she on the other, and swiftly, before that changed, she reached up to unlatch the door, shoved it open, and scrambled out to the ground. With so much moonlight, she’d need to use the carriage as a screen between her and the man as long as she could. She bunched her skirts to one side, freeing her legs to run, and began clambering up the embankment, her shoes sliding in the soft, damp soil. If she could just get to the bushes, she could hide there in the shadows, until the thief lost interest and rode away. She’d already disappointed him by being poor; how much more time would he be willing waste on her, anyway?

  But she’d forgotten her ungallant driver. He’d turned to look when he’d heard her open the carriage door, and as soon as he realized she was fleeing, he lashed his whip over the horses’ backs, making them jump forward in their traces.

  “Stop, you miserable coward!” she shouted furiously after him as the carriage rattled away. It wasn’t only that he’d abandoned her; he’d absconded with the two trunks with her clothes and books and other belongings, as well. “Stop at once, you—you—ohh!”

  Suddenly the man on the horse loomed up in the road before her, a menacing black silhouette made sharp in the moonlight. He was a large, powerfully built man, made larger by the horse dancing lightly beneath him and the dark cape billowing around his broad shoulders.

  What a great blustering bully, observed an unimpressed Sophie, trying to intimidate a lone woman on an empty road. She’d known five-year-olds with better manners—at least after they’d had her as their governess.

  “Stand and deliver,” he ordered through the dark scarf wrapped around the lower part of his face, giving his voice an extra growl for effect. “Now, miss. Be quick about it.”

  “No, I will not,” she answered irritably, folding her arms across her chest to stand her ground on the sloping embankment. After all, he was the one who should be on his guard, not her. Because of him, she was going to be late to arrive at Sir William’s house, and she hated being late to anything. She was tired and hungry and cold and in a perfectly foul humor after watching most of her worldly goods go rumbling off into the night, likely never to be seen again. Oh, yes, he should be the one on his guard from her.

  “First, I will not ‘stand and deliver,’ because I am already standing,” she continued, “and secondly, because I do not oblige great hulking bullies simply because they say I must.”

  Without answering, he shifted slightly in the saddle, turning so she couldn’t miss the moonlight glancing off the long barrel of the pistol in his hand.

  But she also didn’t miss how he’d left the lock on the gun uncocked. She’d grown up in the country, and thanks to Harry, she knew all about guns—far more, apparently, than did this sorry excuse for a highwayman. He was like an oversized watchdog without any teeth, all bark and bluster but no bite.

  “Hand me your money,” he ordered gruffly. “That’s all I want. To give to the poor.”

  “For the poor?” she repeated, incredulous. “You expect me to believe that?”

  “You should, because it’s true,” he said, more than a little defensively. “Give me your pocketbook, and then you shall be free to go.”

  “Oh, butter and beans,” she said crossly. “This being England, I’m free to go now, if I please, and with my pocketbook, too.”

  “Wait,” he said softly. “Please.”

  To her own surprise, she did. She wasn’t exactly sure what it was in his voice that made her pause, but she heard it just the same, and waited as he’d asked.

  “Take off your hat,” he said in the same soft voice, strangely more potent to her than all his earlier menace. “Let me see your face.”

  Instantly her wariness returned. “Why? So you might see for yourself if I’m as plain as that infernal driver deemed me to be?”

  “Please,” he said again. “For the sake of beans and butter.”

  “Butter and beans.” She narrowed her eyes, not understanding why he’d quoted her own nonsensical words back at her. But once again, she found herself obeying, untying the wide ribbons of her bonnet and sliding it back from her head. She wasn’t ashamed of her face, plain though it might have become, and she raised her chin to the moonlight to let him look his full.

  “Sophie,” he said. “My God, Sophie, it’s you.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  FATE, THOUGHT HARRY with wondering amazement. It had to be fate that had brought them back together after so many years.

  She’d changed, of course. Who wouldn’t, in that time? The angles in that lithe, coltish body he’d remembered so well had softened and grown more womanly, her movements less impulsive and more assured. She’d grown into her face, too: the passionate mouth that was too full for accepted beauty, the tiny crescent-shaped scar on one cheek left from a childhood fall from an apple tree, the quizzical dark brows that still didn’t match her fair hair. But even before he’d seen her face, he’d known it was her. He hadn’t believed it at first, his heart racing even as he’d denied the possibility to himself, but still somehow he’d known.

  But what had given fate such a damned peculiar sense of humor as to play this sort of trick on him? To deposit Sophie Potts back into his life here, on this deserted road, with him gotten up as a highwayman for the sake of some infernal wager and her dressed as—well, he couldn’t put a decent word to the hideous, unflattering way she was dressed, could he?

  But it was her, and that was really all that mattered.

  “Sophie,” he said again, tucking the pistol back into his belt and swinging down from the saddle to join her. “Sophie, I—”

  “Stop,” she said sharply. “Stop where you are, sir, and come no closer.”

  Belatedly he pulled the scarf from his face and pushed back his hat so she’d recognize him. “Sophie, look,” he said. “Look at me. I’m not a ‘sir.’ I’m Harry.”

  Her frown became more perplexed as she searched his face. Even in the moonlight her eyes were exactly as he’d remembered them, a deep, intense blue framed with thick golden lashes, beautiful eyes, but intelligent, too, and always filled with questions.

  Including, it seemed, now. “Harry? It cannot possibly be you, can it? Can it? Harry?”

  “The same.” He grinned, unable to help it, and scarcely able to wait for the moment she’d throw her arms around him like the old days. He almost—almost—expected next to see his brother George come bounding from the trees. Indeed, seeing Sophie again was making him feel as if the past ten years and all their sorrows had magically vanished, a grim weight lifted from his back. “Tell me you’d know me still, lass. Tell me I’m not so vastly different as all that.”

  “Actually, you are,” she said evenly, frowning a bit as she looked him up and down. “You’re a great deal larger than I recall.”

  “I’m not the stripling I was at eighteen, no,” he admitted confidently. He was still lean, but now there was muscle and strength to his body and limbs, as well. “But that isn’t such a bad thing for a gentleman.”

  For the first time she smiled, her face softening with amusement: another reminder of what he’d lost when she’d disappeared from his life. “
You haven’t changed so very much after all, have you, Harry?”

  “Seeing you again makes all that time feel like nothing.”

  “Nothing?” she asked, the bittersweet regret in her voice unmistakable. “It’s been nearly ten years, Harry. So much has happened to us both since then, hasn’t it? I was only seventeen when you sailed, you know, and you’d just passed your nineteenth birthday.”

  “The fifth of May.” He smiled crookedly, wondering exactly how much else she was remembering along with his birthday. God knows it was all coming back to him: her taste, her scent, the way she’d laugh with gleeful triumph when she’d outrun him through the orchard, then sigh with contentment afterward when they’d lie in the tall grass and he’d hold her close. “You would remember the dates and such. You were always far better than I at ciphering and logic.”

  “Yes,” she said, smiling still as she glanced down at the gun in his belt, “and I always knew enough to uncock the flintlock on a pistol if I intended to use it.”

  He followed her glance down to the pistol, as if seeing it for the first time that evening. “But I didn’t intend to use it,” he said sheepishly, “not truly, and never against you.”

  “Then what precisely were you doing, Harry?” she asked, her smile fading. The breeze was tugging at the tight knot of her hair, pulling tendrils free to dance across her temples and cheeks, and impatiently she brushed them aside with her gloved fingertips. “What manner of cruel masquerade would reduce you to stopping hired carriages to rob the women passengers?”

  “I don’t know how to explain it, Sophie,” he said slowly. She’d scoff at his wager with Walter as foolish and idle, and though she’d be right, he didn’t want to spoil things by hearing her tell him so.

  But how could he have guessed that when he’d stood at the window at White’s, watching the moon rise, that it would somehow lead him back to Sophie Potts?