Dangerous Joy

by Jo Beverley

  Lucien swung open the door. "It's a bad sign, Miles, when a man grows foolish over a woman."

  "Hah! It's just that Felicity Monahan has a rare ability to tie a person in knots."

  * * *

  The first thing Miles did on arriving in the drawing room was to check with Beth that Felicity's door was still locked. Beth was a bluestocking, and a follower of Mary Wollstonecraft, author of The Rights of Woman. Her libertarian principles were doubtless being severely tested.

  "It's locked," she said. "But will not stay that way without an excellent explanation."

  "Think of it as locking someone up so they won't rush to their death in a hopeless cause."

  "That," said Beth, "raises thorny questions as to who decides what is hopeless and whether a person has a right to sacrifice themselves, hope or not." But she let the subject drop.

  As Miles moved on to greet Hal Beaumont and Blanche Hardcastle, he knew it was only a temporary respite.

  Hal was darkly handsome and as tall and broad-shouldered as the marquess and himself. His left sleeve hung empty, however, for he had lost his arm after a military engagement in the Canadas.

  Blanche was a beautiful woman with clever eyes and a firm chin. She was prematurely gray, and had turned it into a distinction by never wearing colors. Tonight, as always, she wore a white gown. Her heavy silver hair was caught up by pearl combs, and a pearl-and-diamond choker circled her neck.

  She kissed his cheek. "You're not looking your best, Miles. Was your dislocated shoulder such a problem?"

  "My shoulder?" queried Miles. "Recovered from that weeks ago. At the moment, I'm just suffering from a hard journey." Or a dislocated life, he thought wryly.

  Ah, but it was good to be here again with friends. He couldn't help thinking that without Felicity Monahan in his life, he could have been here weeks ago, enjoying some damned fine hunting and the best company around.

  But then, he could no longer imagine life without Felicity, and he dreaded to think what would have happened to her without his intervention, Beth and her scruples be damned.

  Despite the formality of dress for dinner, the meal was relaxed, with servants playing little part and the talk almost entirely of hunting.

  "We've been riding your horses as instructed, Miles," said Lucien. "You've a good number of potential buyers anxious for your appearance. And the one that arrived a few days ago—Argonaut—I've a mind to bid on him myself."

  "He's yours, of course, at a fair price."

  They nodded, sale settled.

  "Ah," said Hal plaintively, "if only I had the wealth to be able to snap up a prime bit of blood without a moment's thought."

  Lucien grinned. "I give the purchase of any horse a great deal of thought."

  When dessert had been served, Beth indicated that the servants were no longer needed.

  Once they were free of interruptions, Lucien said, "Now, Miles, explain this problem so we can decide how best to handle it. Preferably without keeping the girl under lock and key."

  Miles again explained the basic situation—that Felicity was devoted to her friend's child and determined to marry the child's wretched father so as to be able to care for Kieran.

  "But your guardianship ends on February 20th?" Beth asked. "It seems to me you're only putting off the inevitable. And perhaps a person has the right to sacrifice themselves if they know what they're doing."

  "She knows," Miles admitted. "I think she fools herself that she can control Dunsmore, but she knows." He hadn't even mentioned his fear that Felicity's plan included murder. He trusted the Rogues, but if the crime ever took place, he didn't want them to have that knowledge on their consciences.

  "For the moment," he continued "I want your help to keep her safely here while we find a solution."

  "It's no easy matter," said Lucien, "to refuse a father his child. Is there neglect or violent abuse?"

  Miles had to admit that the lad seemed healthy and well cared for. The occasional spanking hardly counted.

  "It seems to me," said Hal, "that the problem is not just that she wants to protect the child, but that she wants the child for herself."

  "True enough. Sometimes I think she's spent so much time with the lad that she's forgotten whose child he is. It's not a particularly healthy state of mind, but she'll get over it once she sees him happy in a good home."

  Lucien refilled his wineglass and sent the bottle round. "Which won't happen as long as his father lives."

  "Miles," interrupted Blanche, her face now as pale as the rest of her. "Have you thought..." As the words failed, they all looked at her in concern.

  She carefully laid her knife and fork on her plate. "Let me tell you a story," she said. "Once there was a girl called Maggie Duggins. Her father was a butcher, but he also liked to drink, so there wasn't much money for the seven children. Her mother died when she was five, so there wasn't much care, either. Maggie was a wild child. Not bad, but wild. She sought kindness and attention and, of course, as soon as she was any sort of a woman, she found men would pay kind attentions if she let them."

  Hal reached over and took her hand. She squeezed it and continued. "Inevitably, she ended up carrying a child. She had no way of knowing which of a number of men was the father, but she knew none of them would help her. She also knew that as soon as she began to show, her father would throw her out, probably after beating her black and blue.

  "So she ran to a friend and stayed there until the child was born. Such a pretty baby... a girl..." Blanche's voice faltered, but then she carried on. "She wanted nothing so much as to keep the babe forever, but she could see how little she could give her and how little she could make of her life with a child to care for. When her friend found a well-to-do family willing to take the baby, she gave her up. But as her daughter was taken from her arms, she vowed to make the sacrifice worthwhile by making something of her life."

  Blanche looked at Miles. "I hesitate to suggest that your ward... But..."

  Miles was almost as pale as she was. "Dear God." He rose, tossed down his napkin, and left the room.

  Beth half-rose in concern. "Is he angry with her?"

  Lucien pulled her back into her seat. "He's angry with himself, I think. But, if true, it makes this problem a good deal more challenging."

  * * *

  Miles stopped at Felicity's locked door, leaning against the wall. How could he not have guessed?

  She'd even told him Dunsmore had been her lover. Perhaps she'd been hoping he'd guess the truth without her having to say it, but he'd been too thick-skulled. He'd been so sure she nurtured an obsessive affection for another woman's child that he'd never stopped to think how little that meshed with the Felicity he knew.

  And to add to his self-recriminations was the knowledge that this truth made the whole problem more difficult to solve. Of course Felicity wouldn't be satisfied with merely getting Kieran out of Dunsmore's hands.

  She wanted her child back. Hers, entirely and legally.

  And since Miles loved her, he would have to achieve that for her.

  Or with her.

  He unlocked the door.

  The room was dark and cozily warm, though the fire was burning low. When his eyes adjusted, he put some new coals on the embers, stepping carefully over a small black cat. Someone had provided Gardeen with food, water, and a dish of milk.

  He turned to the bed where Felicity lay sound asleep. He'd expected that, but somehow he'd had to come here, to be with her.

  With her lips relaxed and her lashes making deep shadows on her cheeks, she looked touchingly young and innocent. She was an Irish warrior-queen, though, fighting for her cause with every ounce of her strength.

  Very gently, he brushed a curl from her brow. "I wish you could have found the trust to tell me, cailin," he whispered. "But I wish, too, I'd had the wit to realize for myself. Poor child you must have been when you bore him. We'll keep him safe. He'll be the start of our own family. I don't know how, but we'll do it."
/>   He should go back downstairs to resume dinner, but he couldn't. He drew up a chair and sat by the bed in a kind of guard and vigil, waiting for his beloved to awake.

  * * *

  A distant clock had just struck one when Felicity stirred and opened her eyes with a faint groan. Miles smiled, knowing what it felt like to have slept too long, even when it was needed. He poured some water from a carafe by the bedside and offered it.

  "Faith, and are you guarding me night and day, in addition to the locked door and the watcher on the window?"

  "I am not. Do you want the water?"

  She sat up, frowning at him, but she took the water and drank it. "Is there food as well?"

  "Beth brought a tray before retiring." He carried it over and placed it on the bed beside her.

  She lifted the covers and grabbed some bread and cold ham. "Doesn't she think it at all strange that you're lurking here in my bedroom?"

  "She's used to strange. Felicity, we have to talk, but it can wait until you've eaten and woken up properly."

  She flashed him a wary look which suddenly changed to alarm. "Something's happened. Kieran?"

  "Nothing like that. I promise."

  She subsided back to wariness. "What is it, then? Trying to guess the problem is likely to turn me gray before my time." She picked up a bunch of hothouse grapes and pulled one off the stem with her teeth, never taking her eyes off him.

  Unable to see a better way, Miles resorted to bluntness. "Is Kieran your son?"

  Her eyes widened and her chewing stopped. Then she swallowed. "Who told you? Is Rupert here?"

  "No, of course not. Blanche guessed. Something similar happened to her as a girl."

  He could see the effort it took for her to push back her reaction and pretend calm. She pulled off another grape and chewed it, watching him all the time. "It doesn't change a thing."

  "It does. I understand better now."

  "How nice for you. Does that mean you'll let me leave tomorrow to marry Rupert?"

  "It does not."

  "Then it doesn't change a thing, does it? In fact, it makes it worse, because now you'll guard me more closely. That's why I didn't tell you before."

  As usual when dealing with this woman, Miles was ready to tear his hair out. "Felicity, we are not enemies. We have to work together to find the solution to this problem."

  "A solution that leaves me as Kieran's mother? What can it be other than my marriage to Rupert? I lost my son once. I will not lose him again."

  "But I love you and want you. You have to take that into account."

  "I do not. Kieran has to come first."

  Beth had also brought a bottle of wine, wise woman. Miles poured two glasses and passed one to his bewitching, infuriating ward. "At least tell me the whole story. Knowledge is power."

  She took the wine and sipped it, leaning back against her pillows. "I was young and foolish. What more is there to say? It galls me to admit it, but for a while there, I truly fancied myself in love with the weasel. If I hadn't burned them in a rage, I could show you maudlin verses I wrote comparing him to Lancelot and Diarmuid."

  "Both famous adulterers, so you had a point."

  A ghost of a smile twitched her lips. "The simple fact is that the memory of my stupidity mortifies me."

  "You were only... what... fifteen?"

  "But I should have known better. Mind you, no one had ever explained anything to me of physical matters between man and woman, so I believed him when he said I could not get with child." She looked at him with a grimace. "I actually believed him when he told me women had to come into season to be fertile. Well, I knew it was true of horses."

  Miles managed to stifle a laugh. He could not resist, however, the need to be closer. He hitched onto the bed beside her. "Perfectly reasonable to believe it, a muirnin."

  "Not really. If I'd stopped to think, I'd have realized that, though there were always babies about, none of the women of the area behaved like the mares. They didn't get wild-eyed and chase after anything male. Or at least, not often..."

  He slid an arm around to hug her. "When we're young, we're always looking for keys to the bewildering world around us. Lacking good guidance, we'll come to some strange conclusions. So, what happened when you found you were carrying a child?"

  For a moment she was stiff in his arms, but then she surrendered and rested against his shoulder. "It took forever for me to realize what was happening. My courses stopped, but I hardly noticed. It was Rupert who commented on my swelling belly. Oh, so horrified and repentant that he was! May his toes rot slowly and his rod fall off."

  Miles laughed then, though his heart was breaking for her. "And it was his idea, I suppose, that you pass off the child as his wife's."

  "Oh, yes. Don't worry. I realized years ago that it was all planned." She drained her glass. "It is very lowering to realize one has been so easily used."

  "But how was it arranged? You couldn't have borne the child at Foy. Ah, that other journey you made to England. Annie said you'd been sent away because of your infatuation with Dunsmore. Does she know the truth?"

  "I don't know. She's never mentioned it. But she has a way of ignoring what she doesn't care to see."

  Miles refilled her glass. "Where did you spend your confinement?"

  "Confinement, indeed! In an isolated farmhouse not far from Cheltenham. Kathleen, of course, conveniently chose Cheltenham as the place to cosset her 'delicate pregnancy,' and the waters proved to be quite miraculous."

  Miles rubbed her arm, wishing he had been part of her life then, even though it was a foolish idea. Five years ago, he'd been a heedless young rascal fooling his way through Cambridge, spending more time on horseback than with books. It seemed wrong, however, that he'd had no awareness of her misery.

  "Was it a very hard time?"

  "It was winter, and dreary. I had Miss Herries—easygoing Miss Herries—to keep me company, and she finally found she had a captive audience for education. She made little headway with my writing, but she did manage to introduce me to some excellent books."

  "Who else was there with you?"

  "Just the farmer, his wife, his son, and his son's family. The Bittens had a good-enough small holding, but were a taciturn lot. Doubtless why they were selected as my hosts. Oh, and the fact that Babs, the daughter-in-law, knew something of midwifery."

  "And when Kieran was born, what happened?"

  She looked back through the years. "It was May and very beautiful. It made it quite reasonable for even a heavily pregnant woman such as Kathleen was supposed to be to decide upon a leisurely carriage-tour of the area. When her time came, where else to take shelter than in the only farm in sight? And what luck that there should be a midwife present!"

  "And as soon as possible, she returned to Cheltenham to recover. Did you even get to hold him?"

  She closed her eyes and shook her head. "They wouldn't let me. They... they drugged me. When I came to, I was empty and he was gone."

  Miles didn't know what to say and just leaned his head against hers.

  "My milk came, though. For days, despite the bindings, I filled and leaked. It s... seemed so wasteful." He thought she would cry then, but she continued with determined briskness. "He had an excellent wet nurse, of course. Kathleen took the best care of him."

  Miles gathered her closer so she was entirely within his arms. "When did you see him?"

  "Not for weeks. After a couple of weeks, Miss Herries took me to Gloucester. We attended some musical events and a lecture or two. I acquired the new clothes I'd need to show off when I returned home. They were needed, anyway. My bust had become larger. As soon as I returned to Foy, of course, I found everyone talking of Kathleen's 'miracle.' Since Rupert was off in London with well-filled pockets, I sneaked over to Loughcarrick, hoping for a glimpse of the baby."

  She was relaxed in his arms now, and he suspected she was entirely lost in that past time.

  "They were out on the lawn," she said softly. "Kat
hleen, the wet nurse, a nursery nurse, and Kieran kicking plump legs on a blanket in the shade of a tree. He was six weeks old, and I can't say I would have recognized him as the tiny scrap I'd seen so briefly when he left my body. I couldn't stop myself from going over. At first Kathleen ordered me away. She feared I'd try to take him back, you see. When she saw I had no thought of that, she became cautiously kind. She even... she even let me hold him." Her arms curled in a cradling movement, and she sighed. "I knew him then. I think it was a smell I recognized. I wonder if all mothers can tell their child by smell."

  When she said no more, he responded. "I wouldn't be surprised. Animals can. Did it hurt a great deal to have to leave him with another woman as mother?"

  "Not as much as you'd think. I'd learned to live with the pain of losing him, and Kathleen was so very, very happy. Once she was sure I wouldn't make trouble, she treated me as the most handsome benefactor on Earth. I was always welcome there, though I stayed away when Rupert was home. It was enough, it truly was, until she died. You know what happened then."

  "Dunsmore discovered you were an heiress and decided to use the child to force you into marrying him. It really would be very easy to arrange his death."

  She stiffened slightly. "But that would not give me Kieran."

  "Perhaps we should just steal him away."

  She twisted to look up at him. "And run off to America to live in the wilderness, just the three of us? Faith, but you're an impractical dreamer, Miles Cavanagh. Do you forget you're heir to Kilgoran?"

  "I never forget I'm heir to Kilgoran. Do you think I value it over you?"

  "You should. Kilgoran has many people dependent on the proper management of his estates. You can't walk away from it all anymore than I can walk away from my son."

  He pulled her back into his arms. "This is beginning to feel too much like an Irish fable, one that ends in blood and weeping."

  "Let me go to Dunsmore, and that'll be an end to it."

  "It would only be the beginning, and you know it. I promised you I would not kill him. Will you give me the same promise?"

  She tensed. "I can't. To protect my son, I will do anything."

  That was what terrified him. "Then we had better find a solution to this mess."