April Moon

by Merline Lovelace

  “No,” he said, so appalled that she’d interpret it that way that he couldn’t meet her gaze. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

  “Of course you would,” she said, ever reasonable. “Why, likely your first words to George were to dare him to climb from his cradle, and—”

  “No more, Sophie,” he said sharply. She might not believe in fate, but he certainly did. What other explanation could there be for how George’s ghost was suddenly here between them, directly after he’d had the most earth-shaking sex of his life with the one woman he loved more than any other? “No more dares.”

  “Oh, butter and beans,” she scoffed. “Since when?”

  So this was to be his punishment, too. Before she could tell him she loved him in return—if, God help him, she did—he had to tell her the truth, and risk losing her altogether.

  “Since George died, Sophie,” he said, unable to soften this kind of news. “Seven years this June.”

  She gasped, shocked. “Oh, Harry, Harry, I didn’t know!” she cried, her hair falling forward as she leaned over him. “Not little Georgie, not him! Oh, I am so sorry, but I did not know!”

  “It was my fault, Sophie,” he said, relentless with the truth now that he’d begun. “If I hadn’t dared George that last time, then he’d be alive now.”

  “But how could that be possible, Harry?” she asked, drawing back from him. He could tell she was crying again, but this time for George. “How?”

  “The usual way,” he said, every detail of that night still hideously fresh even after nearly seven years. “We’d been drinking, and George was going off about what cowards the French soldiers were, how any good English gentleman worth his salt could thrash a score of Frenchmen before breakfast, and I said he, for one, couldn’t.”

  “And that was all?” she asked, the horror in her voice so clear that he was surprised she didn’t jump from the bed and leave him right then, the way he deserved.

  “That was enough,” he said grimly. “What more could you wish? Before my head had even cleared, my damned fool little brother had joined a regiment and was off across the Channel, and dead before the month was out.”

  “Poor, dear Georgie,” she said sorrowfully. “Where was he killed?”

  “He wasn’t.” The old bitterness and loss welled up in Harry’s chest again. “That was the blasted irony of it. No hero’s death for George, no glory, no slaughtering Frenchmen by the score. Instead he died in camp of cholera, dumped into the lime pits before he’d a chance to prove himself. And my fault for daring him, Sophie. My damned wicked hell-bent dare.”

  “Hush, Harry, hush,” she ordered gently. “Isn’t this tragic enough already?”

  He turned away to sit on the edge of the bed, not wanting to see the reproach that surely must be in her eyes. “Now that you know the truth, Sophie, and understand,” he said heavily, “you can leave again, and I won’t think the worse of you for it.”

  “Oh, I understand, sure enough,” she said, “but it’s hardly enough to make me leave. What I understand is that for the last seven years, you’ve been blaming yourself for Georgie’s death, as if you wouldn’t have behaved in exactly the same pigheaded fashion if he’d dared you first.”

  “Hell, Sophie, it’s not—”

  “No, Harry, for once you shall listen to me,” she said, slipping her arms around his waist and resting her cheek against his shoulder, her body warm and soft against his. “I am sorry about George, more sorry than I can ever say, for if you were meant to be my lover, then at the manor he was always my little brother, too.”

  “Georgie was the absolute best of little brothers,” said Harry miserably, refusing to be consoled, even by Sophie. “His only fault was following too closely after his useless older brother.”

  “Now you hush,” she said again, refusing to be put off by his gloom. “This is exactly what I mean, Harry. For you to squander your own life, risking it over and over in the foolish hope that someone shall make a dare, or wager, or challenge, that will make you lose your life, too, as punishment for George’s death—why, you cannot do that to yourself, Harry. You simply cannot do that at all.”

  “Why in blazes not?” he said bleakly, recalling how even she had hushed him when he’d told her he loved her. “Who would care one way or the other?”

  “I would care, Harry Burton,” she said slowly. “Ten years is too long to wait to speak my feelings. Perhaps it’s hearing what became of George, or maybe again it’s that impossible moon. But I do care what becomes of you, you great foolish man, and no gloomy nonsense you try to toss in my way shall change my mind.”

  He grumbled, still unwilling to let himself trust, not even her—especially not her. “That sounds suspiciously like fate, Sophie, and I know you do not believe in fate.”

  “No,” she answered promptly. “I don’t. But I do believe in you, Harry. Neither of us has always made the best choices in the past, but I do think together we can make certain improvements in the future.”

  “You would share your future with me?” he asked, his heart racing as he stared down at his fingernails, as if he’d find her reply written there. If she gave the wrong answer, then he’d be done, finished, through. But if she gave the right one, an entire glorious world of possibility would open before him.

  No, not for him. For them.

  “I suppose I must,” she said, rational, reasonable, even with something as irrational as this. “I don’t really have a choice, do I? What else can I do when I love you beyond reason, Harry, and likely always will?”

  “You do?” Stunned, he twisted around so their faces nearly touched. “Then why the devil didn’t you say so before this?”

  She wrinkled her nose and shrugged, smoothing her hair behind her ears as if that should be enough to smooth away his objections, too.

  “Because I was still trying to convince myself of how wrong it was to love you,” she said finally, beginning to sprinkle kisses across his forehead, cheeks and chin. “And it is wrong, too, not that my foolish heart seems to care.”

  “Not a foolish heart, but a wise one,” he said, taking her into his arms to ease her back onto the bed. “Eminently wise, to see that we belong together. No wonder I love you so much, Miss Potts.”

  She laughed deep in her throat, managing somehow to sound joyfully seductive, or maybe it was seductively joyful. He didn’t know, and he didn’t care, though he was willing to be spend the rest of the night exploring the various nuances with her.

  “I love you, my lord,” she whispered. “I love you!”

  And how, really, could he ever want more than that?

  SOPHIE WOKE and languorously stretched her arms over her head. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been asleep, though the silvery light in the room was still from the moon, not the sun, and the fire in the grate had burned down to a glowing embers. Could this really still be the same night? She smiled fondly at Harry asleep beside her, and once again curled herself around him and closed her eyes.

  But then came the sound from downstairs, a thump and a small crash, and now Sophie was instantly, completely awake. She lay as still as she could, her ears straining to hear more over Harry’s peaceful breathing. Harry had promised her that this little lodge was as safe as any fortress, yet though she could remember him unlocking the door with the key from the dragon’s mouth, they’d both been too preoccupied with one another to bother locking that same door after them. Careless, careless, careless!

  Now she was certain she heard voices, one man’s raised in a cross-tempered oath, followed by another trying to quiet him. Whoever they were, she thought indignantly, they’d no business being here, coming to spoil her perfect night with Harry.

  She eased herself from the bed, moving slowly so as not to wake Harry, and retrieved her shift on the floor. Harry’s pistols were still on the chest at the end of the bed where he’d left them, and carefully she tipped one toward the moonlight, making sure it still was loaded.

  “Sophie, love,” sai
d Harry drowsily, “what the devil are you doing with that gun?”

  “Nothing,” she whispered sweetly, quickly tucking the gun away in the folds of her shift. He’d already faced gunfire for her sake once tonight; now it was her turn to save him. “You go back to sleep, and I’ll join you again in a moment.”

  “‘Nothing’, hell,” he said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and reaching for his trousers. “Your nothing is always something, and I—What in blazes was that?”

  “Hush, now, or they’ll hear you, whoever they are,” she whispered briskly. The men sounded as if they’d been drinking, rumbling quarrelsome and swearing. “But I’ll send them on their way.”

  “No, you won’t,” he said, deftly taking the pistol away from her. “This is my house, and I’ll deal with them. You wait here, and for God’s sake keep quiet.”

  She folded her arms over her chest with stubborn resignation. “This is just like under the bridge. Once again I’m allowed to do nothing.”

  “Except that now I can tell you I love you,” he said, kissing her quickly.

  “I love you, too,” she said grudgingly. “And be careful, Harry. At least you’ll have Nolly on your side.”

  He grinned, and headed down the stairs. At once Sophie scurried to gather what she needed: Harry’s riding boots and black highwayman’s cloak, as well as the battered old helmet from the armor. He could take back his old pistol. She’d just find another way to outwit the intruders, that was all.

  Harry yawned, slowly walking down the stairs toward the voices. Likely the intruders were local boys, looking for a place for their drinking. Next time he’d be sure to bolt the door, so he could stay abed with Sophie, where they both belonged, and where he intended to return as soon as possible. He reached the last turning in the stairs, and paused just long enough to level the cocked pistol ready before him.

  Two young men were crouching before a new fire in the fireplace, a bottle on the floor between them. They were unshaven and unwashed, their clothing the last tattered scraps of foot soldiers’ uniforms with the buttons and braid long since cut off and sold: deserters, instantly recognizable, with little to lose.

  “What the devil are you bastards doing in my house?” thundered Harry. Ever since his brother had died, he’d had a contemptuous hatred for deserters, and to find them here in Hartshall tonight struck him especially hard. “Get out now, before I send you to hell first.”

  At once the two scrambled to their feet, their mouths gaping and their empty eyes wide with fear.

  “Go on, out with you,” ordered Harry. “Leave now, and I won’t tell the magistrate you’ve been here.”

  “Oh, aye, and who the hell are you, cap’n, givin’ us orders?” asked a third man with red hair and a scar along his cheek, a man that Harry hadn’t noticed, standing off to one side in the shadows. “We’ve as much a right t’ be here as you.”

  “The hell you do.” It was a shame that Harry hadn’t noticed him first, for the red-haired man was aiming a Brown Bess musket straight at Harry’s chest, and at this range, a musket would always beat a pistol. “I’m Harry Burton, earl of Atherwall, and you are trespassing on my property.”

  But the man only laughed, and so did the other two, following his cue. “Oh, aye, for certain you are, guv’ner. I’m His bloody Royal Highness th’ Prince o’ Wales.”

  Outwardly Harry didn’t flinch. Yesterday he wouldn’t have given a tinker’s dam for what happened to him next, but now, with Sophie upstairs and their life together stretching before him, he cared very much. Silently he willed her to stay hidden and safe; he did not want to imagine what would become of her if she fell in their hands.

  “You will leave,” he began again. “And you—”

  But his words were drowned out by an unearthly moan echoing down the chimney and rising to a terrifying wail, the cry of a lost soul seeking solace.

  “God—God preserve us,” stammered one of the first men as they staggered back from the fireplace. “What demon is that?”

  “It’s the ghost of this place,” said Harry with hushed awe, trying to look equally terrified instead of laughing out loud. He thought Sophie had been teasing when she said Nolly’d be with him, but bless her clever little soul, she hadn’t. “One of Cromwell’s men, looking for the head that the Royalists lopped off on this very spot.”

  “Ghosts don’t be real,” said the red-haired man faintly, just as the heavy footsteps began to drag slowly overhead. “They’re only fancies.”

  “Fancies don’t scream like that, Will,” said the first man, crossing himself as he stared up at the ceiling. “Fancies don’t come after th’ living, t’ steal their souls.”

  “Not this ghost,” whispered Harry raggedly, backing down the stairs and away from the heavy footsteps above. “This one wants a new head, and he’s not particular whose.”

  “Not if he don’t be real,” said the red-haired man, still striving to be brave even as he’d let the barrel of his musket dip. “He don’t need a head then. He’s not real, is he, guv’nor?”

  But before Harry answered, the wailing moan came down the staircase instead of the chimney, making all three men jump and swear.

  No wonder Sophie was such a success as a governess, thought Harry proudly. What boy wouldn’t adore a governess who could do this?

  “He tried to get my head last night,” said Harry, repeating details of the stories his grandfather had used to terrify him and George as boys. “I felt him testing my throat with his very knife, but I woke and ran into the woods instead, where he can’t follow.”

  Even the red-haired man had now begun backing away, inching toward the door. “You say he’s bound to th’ house?”

  Harry nodded solemnly. “He cannot leave it, not for all eternity, until—”

  “There he be!” bellowed the red-haired man, bolting for the door. “Retreat, lads, retreat!”

  As the others crashed past him, Harry looked back toward the stairs. There at the top stood old Nolly himself, a long black cloak billowing around his headless shoulders and over the tops of his black boots, and as Harry watched he raised the empty helmet in his hands and let it drop down the stairs, bouncing and clattering so loudly that the three deserters running through the woods would likely hear the sound in nightmares for weeks to come.

  “You can retrieve your head now, Nolly,” called Harry, still watching at the open door to make sure the deserters did not return. “I don’t think your audience is going to come back.”

  “It worked?” The front of Nolly’s cloak parted, and Sophie peeked out, grinning gleefully. She dropped the cape over her shoulders, and began gallumping down the steps, hiking her shift up over Harry’s riding boots so she wouldn’t trip. “They believed in Nolly?”

  “Even more than you did yourself, sweetheart,” he said, slipping his hands inside the long black cloak to find her inside. “I owe you my life, you know. You and Nolly did what I couldn’t.”

  “I wasn’t about to lose you like that, Harry,” she said, reaching up to kiss him. “Nolly wouldn’t have it, either. And besides, you did your part, too, with all that nonsense about him looking for his head and being trapped in this house.”

  “It’s not nonsense,” protested Harry. “It’s completely true.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him, ever skeptical. “Oh, yes, completely true. Look, it’s almost dawn.”

  Through the open door, the once-glorious full moon had faded to a pale circle low on the brightening horizon.

  “It’s done,” said Sophie wistfully, resting her head against his shoulder. “No more moon and no more strange mischief, either. Now instead I must think of Winchester.”

  “No, you won’t.” He dropped to one knee, gazing up at her with what he hoped was all the same love he felt in his heart. “Miss Potts, will you do me the honor of being my wife and my lady, never again mentioning Winchester in my hearing?”

  She stared at him, too shocked at first to answer. Her once-neat hair was
now a wild tangle, his cloak had slipped over one bare shoulder and her shift was twisted across the other, and she still wore his riding boots tall over her knees. Yet he’d never seen a woman more in her glory, and never known a woman he could love more.

  “You would marry me, Harry?” she whispered, searching his face with disbelief. “I know you love me, yes, but you would marry me, too?”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way, Sophie,” he said. “Can I take that yes as your acceptance, so I can rise up from my blasted knees?”

  “Yes,” she said, laughing with joy as she helped him up. “That is, yes, you may stand, and yes, I will!”

  “That is good,” he said, taking her into his arms the way he meant to for the remainder of his life. “And the rest, dear Sophie, I promise, will only be better. For you see, like poor Nolly, I’ve once again completely lost my head over you.”

  “Oh, butter and beans, Harry,” she said as she kissed him. “Butter and beans.”

  ISBN: 978-1-4603-0626-0

  APRIL MOON

  Copyright © 2004 by Harlequin Books S.A.

  The publisher acknowledges the copyright holders of the individual works as follows:

  SAILOR’S MOON

  Copyright © 2004 by Merline Lovelace

  WHITE FIRE

  Copyright © 2004 by Susan King

  THE DEVIL’S OWN MOON

  Copyright © 2004 by Miranda Jarrett

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.