Moonlight Mist

by Laura London

  “Oh, no,” cried Lorraine.

  “Yes, I’m afraid,” said Kyler grimly.

  Lynden read on: “The days went by; we waited for Master Percy to come to establish the lady in her rightful place. There was no news until one day, two weeks later, when Tom came home much troubled, and told me in private that Master Percy had called Tom to his study and asked how did the lady do. He went on to tell Tom that the lady was not who she claimed, her papers were false, investigation showed that she was no more than an adventuress, had never been to Italy, and Charles could not possibly have fathered her child. He gave Tom money—a hundred pounds! And told him this matter must be mentioned to no one; word of it could bring on his father’s death.

  “We were shocked, frightened for the lady, for one look at her sweet face had told us that if liar there was, it could never be her. We kept the truth from her, and two days later she gave birth, held you, her son, for one golden moment, and then died.”

  Lynden stopped to brush the tears from her cheek, and Lorraine sobbed quietly into her handkerchief. The shutter began banging again, and Kyler went outside to fasten it. When he returned, he filled everyone’s cup.

  Lynden took a deep breath and continued reading: “How like your father you were, Kyler, even in the first moments of your life: not bald, like most babies, but with dark hair, already with its own shine. More dangerous to you, though, my son, were your eyes. The special Crant colors, one brown, one blue. It was on the very day of your birth that Master Percy came and saw you thus, and then took Tom aside, giving him money, money enough to support us modestly for the rest of our natural lives, telling Tom to take the money and go away to live, but first to smother the infant as it slept and bury it with its mother. There were no marriage papers, he said, there had been no marriage, the child was born out of wedlock, and it would kill his father, the marquis, and forever tarnish the memory of his brother should the child’s existence come to light.

  “Such wickedness! What would we not have done to avenge and protect you, my sweet son. And yet we were simple people, without power; and with his father ill, Master Percy ruled our corner of the county like a petty king. If we’d known where to go… where to plead our case for you, we would have done it, but we had no proof of Percy’s villainy save our own words; would any judge have believed us over Master Percy’s word? And if they disbelieved us, might they not take you away from us and put you under Master Percy’s guardianship? The risk was more than we could take. We resolved to flee that night, to leave England bound for Ireland, to raise you as our own child.

  “The rest of the story, of course, you know, my dearest love. Except that I must mention one curious incident. Before we left Crant on that night, Lady Irmingarde visited us. She was an aunt to Charles and Percy, elderly, eccentric; flower gardening was her life’s dedication and she was rarely lucid on any other subject. She lived at the castle and went about her business in her own odd, independent way, never helping, never hindering anyone else’s business; she never seemed aware that anyone else had any business. She stood over your crib that night, your great aunt, and told you in her scratchy, broken accent that you shouldn’t trust your Uncle Percy with your papers, that Percy was not careful with papers, so she had taken them and hid them for you. I remember well how desperately Tom and I tried to make her tell us where the papers were, to coax her into telling us how much she knew—but it was no use. She would only stare at us in her fey fashion and tell us that she was always hiding Percy’s papers. All she said else was that she wrote it on the sundial. We found nothing on the sundial or near it, so we gave up at last in despair, thinking that the shrouds of madness could only be wrapping themselves tighter and tighter around her mind.

  “I still wonder if we failed you then, dear one, if there was something we might have done had we been more clever, less panicked. Please know that the love I’ve borne for you could not have been stronger even had our ties been blood, and I know that your love for me was likewise, so do not worry that I did not know that, after I am gone. Your loving mother, Grania Miller, anno Domini, 1811.”

  Chapter Ten

  The twins, in matching dinner gowns of cherry satin trimmed in tatted lace and with cherry ribbons in their hair, were seated before the fireplace in Fern Court’s music room. Within reaching distance of the girls a snapdragon bowl sat on the hearthstone, filled with a generous scoop of plump raisins swimming drunkenly in a sea of hot brandy and honey. Lynden dipped her thumb and forefinger in the bowl, and quickly popped a sweet, swollen raisin into her mouth.

  “Lorraine, don’t be such a hen-heart. Try some now. You always wait until the brandy is cool and the raisins aren’t so good.”

  “I’m not as quick as you and my fingers always get stung,” protested her sister.

  “Hold your mouth open, then, and I’ll bring them for you.” Lorraine did as Lynden suggested, and, for her compliance, received many more raisins than she had desired. Lynden watched with amusement as Lorraine attempted to remove with her lace hanky the sticky splash of brandy and honey which had fallen down the front of her gown.

  “I didn’t understand Kyler’s explanation for not pursuing the story directly after his mother died, did you?” asked Lynden.

  “I think so,” said Lorraine, her statement muffled by the mouthful of raisins. She held up a finger, signaling “one moment,” chewed valiantly, and swallowed. “At first there was only the grief, about his stepmother’s death, I mean. I don’t think he really believed the story in the letter, either; think how strange it would be to be brought up thinking of yourself as a gardener’s boy and suddenly find you might belong to a great aristocratic family. It would seem too romantic to be true, wouldn’t it? And then, with the war on, I suppose he went army-mad like many boys and joined up. After the war—why, think of how remote the story would have seemed after all he’d done and experienced in battle. There was this, too: even if the story were true, so what? If there had been no proof while his stepparents were at Crant, what hope had he of finding the proof of his birthright so many years later?”

  Lynden took the bowl in both hands and swirled the contents, mixing the ingredients further, speaking as she did so. “But when he came north to deliver that load of contraband with his two cohorts and found that there was a Crant Castle and that he had the Crant coloring, the story at last seemed real and he decided to stay on! What I don’t like, though, is his attitude, as though this were only a crusade to punish Lord Crant for his treachery to Kyler’s natural parents and the agony Crant caused his stepparents. He doesn’t seem the least interested in establishing his own inheritance.”

  “He’s not ambitious. I like him better for it.”

  “Humbug,” answered Lynden. She followed, with her finger, a particularly fat raisin floating in a lazy circle on the surface, and then pounced upon it like a kitten on a pull toy. “He’s not thinking of the future. Smuggling is all very well when you’re young, but barrels of illegal brandy and tobacco bales could get mighty heavy in your middle years. Besides, the best way to pay Lord Crant back is by ousting him from his usurped postion as master of Crant Castle!”

  “Oh, I agree,” said Lorraine. “But I wonder if that’s realistic, Lynden. Wouldn’t Lord Crant have destroyed any papers proving the truth of Kyler’s birth long ago?”

  Lynden sprang from her seat and paced the room thoughtfully, coiling a cherry ribbon around her finger. “He might have. But why dismiss the story of Great-Aunt Irmingarde? If she knew about the papers, perhaps she did take them. Maybe they’re still somewhere in Crant Castle waiting to be found.” Lynden’s voice rose with excitement. “Raine, you and I are going to pay Lord Crant a little visit!”

  Lorraine shook her head. “We can’t, Lyn. If Lord Melbrooke finds out, he’d be furious. You told me yourself that he more or less forbade you to have anything to do with Crant. And don’t say Lord Melbrooke won’t find out, because you’re always saying people won’t find out and they always do. Lord Cran
t is bound to mention it to Lord Melbrooke and we’d be neck-deep in stillwater.”

  “As long as we don’t let it cover our noses, we’re all right,” retorted Lynden. “I already have a plan. We’ll pretend that you’re intrigued with Lord Crant…”

  “Never!” gasped Lorraine.

  “Oh, very well. We’ll pretend that I’m intrigued with Lord Crant. It can’t matter which one of us it is. Anyway, I’ll tell Lord Crant not to mention our visit to Melbrooke.”

  Lorraine carefully tested the temperature of the brandy with her fingertip. “Surely Crant will think you a very odd sort of female?”

  “With that hussy he’s got for a sister?” exclaimed Lynden. “I daresay he’ll think I’m a very usual sort of female.”

  Lorraine at last selected a raisin and gingerly put it in her mouth. “Perhaps Crant wouldn’t tell Lord Melbrooke about it, but I wouldn’t wager a pieman’s tip that Lady Silvia wouldn’t have the story of our visit to your husband quicker than hasty pudding.”

  “Botheration! You’re right. I’ll have to think of something else.” She tapped the piano seat with her palm. “Come, play something from a Handel oratorio. Yes, play Judas Maccabaeus.”

  Lorraine went to the piano, wiped her fingers clean on the handkerchief. “But I thought you detested Judas Maccabaeus.”

  “I do,” said Lynden, sitting on a sofa, crossing her arms, and leaning her head across the back. “I won’t be tempted to listen. I’ve got serious thinking to do.”

  Lord Melbrooke entered the room a half hour later to find Lynden, eyes closed, in her place on the sofa and Lorraine attacking Handel energetically. He smiled at Lorraine, and signaled that she should continue playing; she smiled back at him as he crossed the room, leaned over Lynden and kissed her on the forehead. Lynden’s eyes fluttered open and she gave a guilty start.

  “Oh. Good evening, Lord—Justin.”

  Melbrooke smiled. “Tired, my dear? You were out so long today.”

  “Yes, we were—we were walking. On the fellside. But how did you know how long we were gone?”

  “I directed Mrs. Coniston to follow behind you and report your movements to me.”

  Lynden giggled. “I’ll bet you didn’t. She told us at breakfast that she was overseeing the airing and pressing of the antique lace tablecloths, and she’d no sooner leave them to the laundrymaids than Michelangelo would allow his charboy to finish Moses.” She sat up, and Melbrooke took a place beside her, stretching his arm along the sofa back, behind, but not touching, her.

  “Actually, I saw you walking out from my study window,” he said.

  “Did you?” His nearness, combined with the knowledge that he had been watching her, made Lynden’s throat feel strangely tight. What had he felt, observing her from the high window of his study? Casual interest? Did he watch her broodingly as she tripped off with Lorraine, bonnet snugly on her head and cape flying out behind, or had he merely glanced out the window and noticed her? Perhaps he had known they were on a clandestine errand; she knew she could not logically fear such a thing, as her thoughts were her own, after all—but his gray eyes were so penetrating.

  “I thought you worked so hard in your study that you didn’t have time to gaze out the window,” said Lynden against the bright, dramatic background of Lorraine’s Handel.

  “I should have been busy, but I find myself going a little dry at times, lately.”

  “Dry?” repeated Lynden, disconcerted by the sudden warmth in his smoky eyes. “Well. Well, I’m not talented myself, so I don’t know much about it. What is it that they say—you’re waiting for the muse to come?”

  “No.” He was smiling. “Something else.”

  Possible meanings for his words multiplied in Lynden’s mind. As she stared at him, the color slowly blossomed in her cheeks. It occurred to her that she might ask him to clarify his words. She might have, had she not been so afraid of what her own reaction to his answer might be. Disappointment? Embarrassment? Elation? None felt comfortable. She brought her hand to her cheek, feeling the coolness of her fingers as she fought what she considered a quite wanton urge to discover what would happen if she closed her eyes and lifted her face to her husband.

  “I’m sorry your work isn’t going well for you.” She wished that she might have thought of something less clumsy to say. “I’ve been trying to stay out of your way since I’ve come to Fern Court, and not be a distraction for you. That was our bargain, you know.”

  “And you work so hard to keep it, don’t you?” he said, whether serious or satirical, she could not tell. He speculatively fingered a lock of her ebony hair, letting the clean, silky strand slip over his fingers. “Oddly enough, Lynden, it’s your efforts to stay out of my way that have been the distraction.”

  “I—I don’t know why they should be.” She felt inadequate. He was so confident, so much in control. Lynden found herself resenting the advantage ten years in age gave him, ten years intensified many times by the sophistication that came with his status, his birth, and his genius.

  The softening smile left his lips. “Then perhaps you will recall that we made a new covenant on your first night at Fern Court. We agreed that we would try to become better acquainted. Since that conversation, however, you’ve limited our contact to the most transitory. It’s natural that you should enjoy Lorraine’s company, but I think also that you avoid me.”

  “Of course I don’t,” protested Lynden, despising herself for the blush that had stayed under her skin, despite all that she had willed it to leave. “Though if I did, you seemed content enough with that.”

  “If that was how I seemed to you, Lynden, then I’ve been at fault, and I should be even more at fault to allow you to continue thinking in that mistaken vein. My desire was that you have time to make some adjustment in your own mind to our relationship without pressure from me.” There was no cruelty in the gray eyes, but neither was there license. “The result has been for you to grow increasingly uneasy in my company and to misinterpret my motives. Lynden, I would do anything to bring back the natural lack of constraint you showed me on our first meeting at your home in Yorkshire. Circumstances have spun this tension between us, but to go on as we have been solves nothing. I can’t allow it to continue; surely you must see that?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Lynden, feeling an uncomfortable vulnerability.

  He let one hand slip gently to her shoulder. “We could talk about it.”

  There was no pressure in his touch, but she felt as though he was drawing her to him; she put her hand on his chest to keep her distance.

  “No, I—oh, that is, perhaps we can. I—I don’t know, I… I’ll have to think about it for a few days first—whether I want to talk about it, I mean. But it’s late now.” She spoke quickly, the words tumbling against each other. “And I’m tired. From the walk today. I was practically asleep when you came into the room. Raine, Raine, stop pounding that poor old piano to death and leave Judas Maccabaeus to rest in peace. We were about to go to bed, don’t you remember? Good night, Justin. I hope you find yourself less dry tomorrow.”

  He shook his head. “In a few days. Then, perhaps.”

  During the night a west wind rolled in from the sea, as quick and vocal as a jolly old sailor visiting the homefolks. It scattered rain on the fells and lakes like pennies tossed to children, and sang a lively wind-song chanty that echoed through the valleys. Even the tall black clouds might have been puffed from the bowl of a walrus-bone pipe.

  Early that morning, having discovered that new wax candles were to be molded, the twins invaded the kitchen and aggressively offered their assistance in the project. Never before had Fern Court seen such candles, tinted ingeniously by experimental dyes into virulent pinks and a livid lime green, and scented with Lynden’s special mix of herbs that gave the burning candles what Mrs. Coniston termed “the scent of damp socks.” The girls tired of pouring the wax into traditional long, slender taper molds, and sought to achieve unusual shapes by molding wit
h a crystal wine goblet (one of a fifty-year-old set which unfortunately cracked under the hot wax), a teapot (also a casualty, as it had to be broken to remove the finished product, which did, after all, turn out to have an interesting shape), and a soup tureen, Lorraine’s piece de resistance, which produced a candle of large and stable proportions that Mrs. Coniston at once honored with a proclamation that it should be forthwith taken to Lorraine’s bedroom and there placed upon her mantel.

  Lynden was about to argue that Lorraine’s candle should go in the center of the table, replacing the detested silver epergne, when a young chambermaid ran into the kitchen and made the exciting announcement that the men were back. John Coniston and one of the grooms had taken the wagon into Penrith the day before on miscellaneous errands. Despite what had no doubt been an early start home, it had taken him the whole of the morning to make the return to Fern Court, through roads as muddy as a river bottom. The twins elected to join Mrs. Coniston, and the three slipped their feet into wooden pattens, took the big black kitchen umbrellas, and hurried through the rain to the carriage house, their running feet shooting knee-high streams of spray fountaining from the glassy puddles.

  The air in the carriage house was warm and humid, smelling sharply of the polishes Mr. Coniston used to keep the coaches shining—beeswax, white wine vinegar, and oils of lemon and linseed. The stableboys had scattered fresh bedding straw on the hard earth floor to absorb the drippings from the wagon’s huge iron-rimmed wheels, the straw reflected olive and gold in the cloudy light from the four storm lanterns.

  When the ladies arrived, several grooms and a stable-boy were unloading the wagon, a task punctuated by Mr. Coniston’s stringent remarks on the state of the Lake country roads, be they ever so scenic. A respectful audience was gathered around him, comprising the better part of those persons employed at Fern Court including two laundrymaids, the gardener, a chambermaid, a kitchenmaid, and the august person of the French chef himself, who had abandoned the kitchens, as soon as the twins had arrived there that morning, for the quieter environs of the servants’ parlor where it had been possible to engage Lord Melbrooke’s valet in a companionable game of hazard. But the carriage house held a greater lure for him now, Mr. Coniston having returned with an order of those delicacies, not readily available in the barbarous vicinity of Fern Court, that would provide some challenge to his culinary skills.