She presented herself before him, chin held high, saying nothing, waiting for him to speak first. He subjected her to a long, grim silence, the weight of a most awful stare. Chloe imagined this must be the method Trent used aboard his ship when he was attempting to intimidate some insubordinate seaman.
At last he rapped out, "You have five minutes to explain what the devil you were thinking of, playing such a cruel and childish jest."
Although Chloe flushed, she said, "I will concede that what I did was rather foolish, but I would hardly call it cruel."
"Truly? I will grant you that Mr. Doughty is not a fellow of great intelligence. He is a simple but good-natured man. I thought you had far more regard for him than to prey upon his superstitions. Was it that amusing to terrify him half out of his wits?"
"I never meant to do that. I thought he would be asleep in his own room. I did not intend for anyone to see me except for. . ."
"Except for me?" Trent finished when she hesitated.
The answer was so obvious, Chloe did not answer, merely setting her lips into a stony line.
"I see," Trent said. "It was only me you hoped to scare senseless."
He stalked closer. Her every impulse called out to her to retreat, but she forced herself to stand her ground. His fingers flicked contemptuously against one of the balloon-like sleeves of her gown. "Did you really think you could frighten me with this ridiculous masquerade? What did you hope to gain? Did you actually believe you could drive me from this house by pretending to be a ghost and moaning 'Go away!'?"
"I don't know what I believed. You made me so desperate that I think I would have tried anything to be rid of you, to send you back to your wretched ship."
Chloe was appalled at herself as she blurted this out. But there was no recalling the blunt words. She tensed, awaiting Trent's answering flash of anger.
But he spoke bitterly. "At this moment, you don't know how happy I would be to oblige you, ma'am. I wish the devil I was back aboard the Gloriana, where I don't have to deal with—" He broke off, raking his hand back through his hair, the gesture rife with frustration. "Go back to your bed, Chloe. This discussion is useless."
He strode away from her, leaning one arm up against the mantel, his profile lost in shadow as he stared into the dying embers of the fire. It took Chloe a moment to comprehend that he was dismissing her She should have felt relief, taken to her heels at once.
But she could not do so, not when she was under some obligation to the man. She cleared her throat. The words were the most difficult she had ever had to say, but somehow she got them out.
"Thank you for not letting the others find out about what I tried to do. Emma would have been so angry and unhappy with me."
"This may be hard for you to realize, Chloe, but I did not come here intending to sow discord between you and your sister."
"No? Well, I thank you anyway."
She had expressed her gratitude. She was free to go now. Yet something held her to the spot. Perhaps it was the glimpse she obtained of Trent's face. His anger had drained away, leaving him looking inexpressibly weary and strangely hopeless.
He was no longer demanding any explanations, and yet somehow she felt driven to explain. "It is not that I bear you any ill will in particular, Captain. I would want to chase away any suitor who came to claim Emma except for Mr. Henry. You see, when Papa went away, he told me to take care of the others. To be the keeper of their dreams."
"Their dreams, Chloe? Or the ones you think they should be having? With great patience I endured watching you thrust Mr. Henry and Emma together. I even tried to observe her more closely on the chance you might be right." Trent shook his head. "I saw nothing but politeness and a little embarrassment."
"Emma is very good at concealing her feelings," Chloe faltered. So good, in fact, there were times when even her own sister did not feel quite so sure she understood Emma.
"I can see why you would prefer Mr. Henry as a brother-in-law," Trent said. "He is a very good man, a description that cannot be applied to me. I have been called a hard man, relentless, aloof—all those things that make for a disciplined officer but not a very congenial companion.
"But there is one advantage to Emma's marrying me, Miss Chloe." He straightened, giving her a rueful smile. "I won't be around that much to plague you. This time next Christmas, I will be back aboard ship, keeping my solitary watch. You might have reflected on that and tried being a little kinder."
His words stung Chloe more than anything else he could have said. It was the first time anyone had ever accused her of being cruel. But then, she also suspected, it was the first time Captain Trent had ever asked anyone for kindness.
"I am sorry," she said. "It's just that everything has changed so. Nothing has turned out the way I ever thought it would be. We were all so happy here before Papa went away. Then one terrible day, your letter came saying my father was dead. It was so hard."
"I understand," he said quietly. "Far better than you realize. I was but ten years old when the admiral summoned me to his cabin to inform me of my own father's death. He read the dispatch to me and expressed his condolences. I saluted and returned to my duties."
"You were given no time to weep?"
"It was my turn on watch. I was lucky, though. There was a storm. When the sea is driving spray over the side, one kind of salt droplets on a man's face very much resembles another."
He spoke without emotion, but his eyes clouded with the memory, and for one moment, Chloe no longer saw a man but glimpsed a ten-year-old boy, trying valiantly to conceal his grief from his mates.
Scarce realizing what she did, Chloe slipped her fingers into his. He raised her hand, looking wonderingly at her hand for a moment. Then, with a heavy sigh, he released it.
"I suppose what you really want to hear is about your father, not mine I should have told you sooner, but you already disliked me so intensely."
Squaring his jaw, he said, "Sir Phineas died saving my life."
He waited for her reaction. When she said nothing, he continued, "The French war ship was so close. It seemed they would be attempting a boarding any moment. I was already bleeding from a wound to the shoulder. Sir Phineas was struggling across the deck, coming to help me, I think. I tried to warn him to go back.
"A sharpshooter from the other deck took aim, most likely at my uniform. But as he fired, your father stepped forward and---and you know the rest. Now you may hate me without compunction. You know exactly how I was the cause of your father's death."
He started to walk away from her, but not before she glimpsed the pain in his eyes and the burden of guilt he must have carried for far too long.
She caught his hand again, saying gently, "I only know one thing—that you are a man whose life my father must have believed was worth saving."
He flashed her a look of such grateful astonishment that it tugged at Chloe's heart. Although she realized how difficult this was for him, she could not help asking, "Do you think it was very painful? Did my father suffer for long?"
"No, the end came very quickly, and such a look of peace stole over him, I shall never forget it. He seemed to stare beyond me at the last and whispered a name. It sounded like Maria."
"Did he?" Chloe raised her head. She looked almost radiant. "That's all right, then."
"It is?" he asked, thoroughly bewildered.
"Yes, don't you see? Maria was my mother's name. She came for him?' Her bright expression momentarily dimmed. "If only we could have brought his body back to rest beside her in the churchyard, where he belonged. That was the hardest thing of all, to think of Papa being tossed into the cold, cruel sea."
"Do you think so?" Trent said. "Myself, I have more of a fear of being buried beneath the hard, unfeeling earth. I would much rather be lowered into the arms of the lady of the sea."
"The lady?"
"Yes. It is a fancy that sailors often have, perceiving the sea as a woman."
"Truly? What does she look like?"
"Well, she looks different to different sailors."
"What does she look like to you?" Chloe persisted, clearly fascinated by anything hinting of legend.
"I never really thought about it, but I suppose she would have delicate features, long flowing hair, and eyes the color of..."
He found himself staring directly into Chloe's wide blue eyes.
"Yes?" she prompted.
"And what a great deal of nonsense you can coax a man into talking, Chloe." He gave a quick laugh. "You will have me as superstitious as Doughty in a minute."
"But no more ghosts, I promise." She favored him with a sudden shy smile. "I am sorry, Captain, about everything, how horrid I have been ever since you first came. I really would be glad to have you for a brother if only I could be sure that Emma will be happy." She paused, giving her head a rueful shake as though determining not to open any old quarrels. "But it is very difficult when you have three sisters and all of you are so close, and a gentleman comes to take one away."
"You will feel differently when it is your turn."
"I fear that will happen only in my dreams. I am not as clever as Agnes or as beautiful as Lucy."
"And yet you have one of those winsome faces, the kind that must have sent knights of old out on quests to slay dragons."
She blushed prettily. "Pooh. Now you are indeed talking nonsense, Captain, and this time it isn't my fault."
"If we are indeed going to be friends, I wish you would call me something besides Captain."
"All right," she said, and then with a soft hesitation, "Will."
He had meant for her to call him Trent, as his friends did. No one had ever addressed him as William, let alone Will. But he didn't correct her, the sound of that single syllable on her lips strangely sweet.
When they were on the verge of retiring from the parlor, she startled him by standing on tiptoe and suddenly kissing his cheek, her lips warm, whispering perilously close to the corner of his mouth.
Chloe must have perceived his astounded expression, for she pointed upward. "The mistletoe," she said. "Merry Christmas, Will."
"Merry Christmas, Chloe," he replied gravely.
She left him then, making her way up the stairs, smothering a tiny yawn. After such a night, things had a way of working out most strangely, he thought, as he watched his newest sister vanish into the darkness.
There was only one problem. He touched his hand to where he yet felt the sweetness of her kiss. For one moment there, when her lips had grazed so near his own, his impulses had been far from brotherly.
Chapter Six
Chloe awoke late next morning after what had proved a deep sleep. As she sat up in bed, coming to a state of drowsy awareness, she stretched and yawned. Lord, but she had had the most incredible dream. It had been so vivid, so real. She had dreamed she had kissed Captain Trent under the mistletoe, touched his hand, and called him "Will."
But as her gaze roved about the nursery, she focused on the old-fashioned gown crumpled into a heap upon the floor, and memory of last night's escapade flooded back to her, her disastrous misadventure and its aftermath with Trent in the parlor.
Chloe felt her cheeks wash hot with confusion and was glad she was alone in the bedchamber. It had been no dream. She really had kissed the enemy. No, not the enemy, she was obliged to correct herself. She could not call the captain that any longer, not after the way he had spared her the humiliation of being discovered in her foolish masquerade, not after all the confidences they had shared before the fireside.
She was forced to acknowledge that Trent was not such a coldhearted man after all. For all his sternness, there was a gentleness and a gallantry about him very much like that of the knights of old.
Never would she forget the haunted look in his eyes as he had described the way Papa had died, the captain most bitterly blaming himself. For the first time since she had lost her father, Chloe had felt the need to give comfort rather than receive it, to soothe away the pain shadowing Trent's features. In that instant, she had realized that hers had been the cold heart, set against Trent from the start.
If she had not feared that Emma was still so much in love with Mr. Henry, Chloe could have wished her sister joy of her engagement to the captain. He was indeed a fine man. But it was most strange. Her coming to know Will better, even to like him, only seemed to strengthen her opinion that his marriage to Emma would be very wrong.
Drawing up her knees beneath the coverlet, Chloe rested her head against them. Everything was so confusing. How much less complicated her life had been only a week ago, when she had been in blissful ignorance that Captain William Trent had been about to descend upon them. And yet she found she could no longer wish he had never come to Windhaven.
He had brought with him the winds of change, whether for good or ill she was still not certain. She only knew that she felt more alive, more quickened with excitement than she had for a long time. It was almost like winter melting into spring. This morning she would not have been surprised to hear birds chirping among green leaves outside her window, to feel a flood of sunlight pouring into the room. But as she glanced up, she saw something that gave her far greater pleasure.
The windows were half frosted over with a crystalline substance that sparkled like diamonds. Beyond the glass, a few stray snowflakes danced through the air.
With a glad cry, Chloe flung back the coverlets and darted to the window, never minding the cold feel of the floorboards beneath her bare feet. She pressed her nose against the glass, shivering with delight.
After so many wretched, gray mornings of nothing but dampness and fog, it had snowed at last. The world was bright and new again. Not a deep snow, but enough to cover the gardens and the roof of the stables with a dusting of fairy white. There was always something magical about the first snowfall. The bushes would be frosted like icy cakes, and the pond must be frozen over.
Unable to stand still, Chloe glanced eagerly about, longing for someone to share her pleasure. But Agnes had likely risen and crept out of their chamber long ago. And as if Agnes would have done anything more than look down her sharp little nose, declaring that the wonderland outside was but a natural consequence of the season, nothing to make such a fuss about. Then she would dive back into some musty old book.
Chloe sighed, but she did not waste time repining over her lack of companionship. Instead, she stripped off her nightgown and hastened to get dressed. By the time she scrambled into a soft woolen gown the color of primroses, she felt the want of Agnes in a more practical manner. There was no one about to help her lace up the back of the gown.
Holding the material closed as best she could, Chloe crept cautiously down the hall to Lucy's room, certain of finding her in her chamber, still abed. She was only half-right. Lucy was still in the room she shared with Emma, but surprisingly up and stirring. She stood before the dresser mirror, arranging an elegant shako upon her golden curls, the hat complementing the military cut of her new, blue velvet riding habit.
Chloe gaped in astonishment, but Lucy only laughed and spun Chloe about to fasten up the back of the gown, all the while chattering gaily. "There you are, at last, Miss Slugabed. I told Emma someone ought to check on you, make certain you had not slipped into some trance, like that unfortunate princess Papa used to tell us about. You never even woke during all our excitement last night. What do you think? Captain Trent's steward was thrashing about in the throes of some horrid nightmare. It startled me so. I thought the house was being overrun by brigands."
Chloe felt a telltale blush rise into her cheeks, and she was glad she had her back to Lucy. As soon as Lucy had finished with the fastenings, Chloe peeked around, her gaze tracking from Lucy's riding habit to the riding gloves and fur-trimmed cape slung carelessly over a chair.
"Lucy," she said in accents of undisguised astonishment. "You are going out riding?"
"Mmm," Lucy said absently, taking one more peek in the mirror, adjusting her hat to a saucy angle.
> "But didn't you notice? It snowed."
"Of course I noticed, you goose."
Chloe was thoroughly nonplussed, knowing that Lucy was far more wont to curl up before the fire like a sleek cat on a day like this, rather than risk the frost nipping her nose to an unbecoming shade of red. Then a thought occurred to her.
"Oh!" she said. "Mr. Lathrop would not also happen to be going, would he?"
It was Lucy's turn to blush. She tossed her head in a manner of affected carelessness. "It so happens that he is. Charles—I mean, Mr. Lathrop—is quite mad about riding. I think he'd go out even if there were a blizzard. And someone must go with him to make certain he doesn't get lost again."
As though feeling the weight of Chloe's earnest stare, Lucy whipped about to glare at her. "And you needn't go thinking I am falling in love with the man."
"Why I didn't," Chloe stammered in protest. "I mean, I never—"
"Good! Because I am not. He is a very charming man and quite good-looking. But he is possessed of only a modest fortune and no title worth speaking of. I can do much better for myself in London."
"Perhaps you can, but—"
"I am glad we have that settled, then," Lucy said, jamming her fingers into her gloves. "Your romantic imaginings can be very tiresome sometimes, Chloe."
Scooping up her cape, she swept majestically out of the room, leaving Chloe nigh incoherent with indignation and bewilderment. She was not quite sure what had just taken place, only that she had been most unjustly accused and Lucy was behaving very strangely.
But she was in far too sunny a mood to be disconcerted for long. Slipping out of Lucy's room, Chloe headed downstairs, eager to discover what the rest of the household might be doing this morning.
The rest? She brought herself up short with an abashed half smile. She was honest enough to admit there was only one person whose whereabouts aroused her curiosity—that being a certain sea captain.
Below, she heard distinctly masculine voices coming from the region of the breakfast parlor. But before she could reach for the handle, the door swung open, and Mr. Doughty, on the point of charging out, nearly blundered into her.
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