Scoundrel in My Dreams

by Celeste Bradley

  “I want to name the kitty.”

  Laurel smiled. “That’s an excellent notion. Names are very important.”

  Melody nodded. “Billy-wick nameded me little Milady, and Maddie and Pru nameded me Mousie, and Wibbly-force nameded me Lady Melody.”

  “That’s a great many names for such a small person.” Laurel’s tone was mild, but inside she ached to belong to this childish world. Lady Madeleine and Lady Lambert and even the staff of this madhouse all had given her child nicknames and gifts and time and affection, while Laurel had been off alone mourning something that wasn’t lost. Years wasted in grief.

  Melody lifted her head and gazed up at Laurel with those blue eyes so like her own. “You can name me Mousie if you want to. Maddie won’t mind.”

  Laurel’s eyes misted at Melody’s sweetness. Then she shook off the wistfulness. “Oh, that’s all right. I already named you. I named you first.” She tentatively ran her fingertips through those dark curls, encouraged when Melody didn’t seem inclined to pull away. “I named you Melody, the moment you were born.”

  “Oh.” Chubby hands continued to tease the kitten with the string but after a moment stilled. Melody turned wide eyes up to meet Laurel’s gaze. “Nanny told me that my mama nameded me.”

  Laurel’s heart thudded, but she managed to smile calmly at her daughter. “Nanny was quite correct.”

  Melody’s tiny brows nearly met as she pondered this development. “Are you my mama? Really, really?”

  Laurel couldn’t help a small, damp laugh. “I am really, really your mama. I always have been.”

  Melody blinked, then turned back to playing with her kitten. After a few moments of giggling at the mad little creature’s antics, she caught him up in her arms and squeezed fervently. The kitten went quite happily limp and soon a thunderous purr filled the room. Laurel laughed out loud. The world had begun to shimmer with joy in the last moments and she refused to question the lightness bubbling up through her soul.

  Melody would come around. It would take time for her to adjust to this new situation, time for her to believe, time for her to—

  “Mama, I nameded the kitty!”

  Laurel’s breath caught. Mama. The name was a healing balm to her scars. Passing a quick hand over her eyes before Melody could see, Laurel took the kitten in her hands and held him up ceremoniously. “Young sir, you have been named! From this point onward, thou shalt be called—” She looked down at Melody.

  “Nanny!”

  Laurel bit her lip, for by the look of his giant ears and paws, Nanny was destined to be a large, rangy tomcat. Then she lifted him high. “Thou shalt be called Nanny,” she intoned. “A name to be reckoned with, in the annals of feline history!”

  Melody giggled. “You’re funny, Mama.”

  She would never tire of hearing it. Laurel deposited the kitten back into Melody’s chubby little arms. “And you are most beloved, Daughter.” She kept her voice soft and Melody didn’t seem to hear her.

  “I’m gonna tell Evan.” Melody scrambled off Laurel’s lap and trotted to the door. “And Billy-wick and Wibbly-force and Papa . . .” The list rambled on until Melody was down the attic stairs.

  So many people to tell.

  Melody might very well tell someone about Laurel, locked upstairs. Let her tell. Let the world know what sort of man Jack truly was.

  Laurel was so bloody tired of secrets.

  I have no one to tell my great news.

  I found my baby.

  Hugging her arms about herself, she leaned back in her chair and contemplated the whitewashed beams of the ceiling. The attic didn’t seem like a prison today. Consecrated by the return of her child, the room felt filled with light.

  And air. Laurel felt her chest expand, as if she’d been living with too little air for too long. Breathing deeply, living deeply, had hurt too much before. Now it felt as if she’d broken her way out of a dark and stifling pit, gasping and filling her lungs for the first time in years.

  Reaching into her bodice, she pulled out the key and contemplated the pebbly iron thing. She could leave anytime she liked.

  She should leave. She would be right to leave.

  Dropping the key back down in her bodice, she turned her unseeing gaze out the large window.

  The fact that she didn’t really want to anymore disturbed her more than any lock on any door.

  Colin tapped on the door to Melody’s nursery. Aidan was waiting out front with the carriage and Jack was . . . well, Colin wasn’t quite sure where Jack was. He did have a tendency to disappear lately. When Colin had thought Melody was really Jack’s daughter, he would have made a joke about the apple dumpling not falling far from the tree. . . .

  Pain twinged through him. He heard Pru call out to enter and he pasted a grin on his face as he opened the door, even though he didn’t feel much like smiling.

  Pru was just finishing up setting Melody’s braids to rights. Her eyes were only a little red, but her nose nearly matched her flaming hair. Still, she managed to put a bright smile on her face when she turned Melody around to inspect her.

  “There. You look good enough to eat, Mousie-love.”

  Colin leaned a shoulder against the door frame. “She looks like a doll. Do you think lace is a good idea for an outing?”

  Pru shot him a reproving look as she straightened the bow on the back of Melody’s tiny frock. “I simply don’t want anyone to think we haven’t been taking proper care of her,” she said carefully. “If you find . . . this N-a-n-n-y person, and she tells us where to find her m-o-t-h-e-r, then you’ll be grateful that she looks so nice.”

  “Goodness,” Colin murmured. “I only meant that with three men looking out for her this afternoon, there’s no telling what she might spill on the dress. I suspect that our hindsight is always better than our foresight in these matters.”

  Pru stood and dusted her hands briskly. “Nothing sticky or wet. Or brown.”

  Colin grimaced. “Not a problem. I’ve no taste for anything like that.”

  Pru gave a damp little laugh. “Caramels. Chocolates. Pork pies.” Her laughter grew much damper all of a sudden. She dropped her face into her hands and turned her back.

  Colin shooed Melody out of the chamber. “Go find Cap’n Jack, Mellie. He’ll take you down to the carriage.” Then Colin took his wife into his arms and held her while she shed the tears she’d been fighting all day.

  “I don’t . . . want her . . . to goooo!”

  “Of course not. None of us want that.”

  She sniffled. “Your bloody Jack does. He’s not upset at all!”

  Colin blinked. “My bloody Jack is practically the walking dead, remember? It will hit him later, and then he’ll get a jolly good brood out of it. Years, probably.”

  She sniffled again. “You think so?”

  Colin pressed her away to gaze down into her lovely, blotchy face. “Are you saying that you’ll be glad that he’ll be devastated later?”

  “Am I?” Her face crumpled slightly. “I think so. I’m a terrible person.”

  “Yes, you are.” He pulled her close again. “An absolute harpy.” He dropped a kiss onto her crown of fiery hair. “I married a monster.”

  When she punched him in the ribs, he laughed, but the sound that came from him was a little damp as well.

  Once Laurel had sent Melody on her way, she had little to do but tidy her cell and ponder her predicament. Her key gave her power over her own destiny, and she ought to exercise it by running far and fast from captivity. Yet her heart wished to stay.

  However, once she’d arranged and rearranged every item in her increasingly comfortable chamber, once she’d stacked Lementeur’s boxes of treasures—the ones she wasn’t yet wearing—in the wardrobe and even smoothed every possible wrinkle from the packing tissue and nibbled away every scrap of food on her bountiful tray, the memories began to eat away at her nerves.

  Four walls. A window far above anyone’s notice.

  A locked d
oor.

  Even the sound of her own pacing footsteps was so familiar as to send shivers of terror down her spine.

  Ten paces by twelve. That was the precise size of her bedchamber in her parents’ house. She’d thought of it as her house until the day it became her prison. Then it was the house of Mr. and Mrs. Clarke, those terrifying beings who looked precisely the same as her own fondly indifferent Papa and Mama.

  If Laurel was one to believe in possession by evil forces, she would have thought her parents had been replaced by demons.

  Instead, she was left with the simple, sane, and irrefutable conviction that her parents simply didn’t give a fig about her. Nothing was to delay or interfere with Amaryllis’s triumphant marriage. No scandal would be allowed to touch their family and the wealth and connections that they would soon achieve. No one would stand in their way!

  Especially not Laurel.

  Odd Laurel, whom no one in Society seemed to understand. Strange, serious, all-seeing Laurel, who held up a mirror to their own ridiculousness. The girl who never gossiped or giggled or flirted with her fan. The girl who always asked the questions they were least willing to answer.

  She was the girl who saw Lord John Redgrave come home from the war and didn’t turn away from the loss and darkness emanating from him.

  And she was the girl who became with child and never, ever named the father, not even when her meals consisted of bread and milk and her candles burned down and weren’t replaced and her chamber was emptied of anything but a bed and a dressing gown.

  This time her attic cell was luxuriously appointed compared to the monastic starkness in which she’d spent those long months of her life.

  She put her hand in her pocket and squeezed the iron shank of the key. This time she was the gatekeeper.

  This time she was the one who decided her own fate.

  It seemed like hours that she stood by the window and gazed unseeing at St. James Street below. She didn’t leave the dark room of her memories until she saw a tiny figure clad in petal pink lace hop down the steps of the club, hand in hand with a tall, lean man clad in black.

  Jack.

  Laurel forced her gaze away from him, concentrating on her daughter instead. Melody was walked to a carriage, a majestic black-lacquered vehicle with a crest on the door.

  Was he taking her away? Had he learned of Melody’s illicit visits and decided to remove her from Laurel’s vicinity?

  Surely not. Surely if anyone would be removed it would be Laurel. This was Melody’s home, strange situation though it was. That lovely nursery, all those devoted strangers—no, there was no sign of luggage or belongings. Her panic was unjustified. It was simply an excursion.

  Laurel watched the pantomime below, imagining Melody’s bright chatter, imagining that the servant bowing low as he opened the carriage door was saying, “Enjoy your outing, my lord,” or some such politesse.

  Jack would only nod, she knew. If he responded even that much.

  She watched in astonishment as Jack turned to the servant and spoke to him. The man’s face brightened and he smiled at receiving such attention from the marquis himself. Then her eye was caught by the little figure in pink, ambling around the back of the carriage while Jack was busy in conversation.

  Melody skipped along the safer edge of the street for a moment. Then she seemed to spot something across the way. She held still for a long moment, gazing at whatever it was with a finger in her mouth.

  Watching from above, Laurel felt a chill of warning. Jack didn’t see it. He turned to glance toward Melody but seemed to see nothing wrong and turned back. How could he not see that Melody was poised to move, like a kitten waggling its back end before it pounced?

  Laurel’s fingers scrabbled at the catch of the window. It creaked stubbornly and for a long moment refused to open. The breath stilled in her lungs as Melody took a tiny step out into the street, intent on some strange attractant on the other side. Then she took another step. And another. Laurel broke a nail and then another until finally the catch turned and she pushed frantically on the glass.

  Melody went up on her toes in excitement and then she took another quick step—

  Right into the path of an oncoming horse pulling a gentleman’s gig smartly down the street. The window gave beneath Laurel’s panic at last and she filled her lungs.

  “Melody!”

  Sixteen

  “Melody!”

  Laurel’s cry was lost in the shrieking neigh of the startled horse. The high-strung creature reared in its traces, hooves pawing the air above Melody’s head.

  Then Jack was there, scooping Melody into his arms, taking an iron-shod hoof to the shoulder as he rolled both of them out of the street. The blow spun him about, yet he kept Melody safe in the curve of his body, pressed to his heart.

  Two men scrambled out of the carriage and ran to help. The fair-haired one helped Jack to his feet while the dark one swept Melody into his arms for a brief hug before he set her down and began checking every inch of her for harm. Laurel waited, fingers tight on the edge of the window, unable to draw a full breath until she saw the dark man drop his shoulders in relief and send a reassuring wave toward the other two.

  Then Laurel looked down at Jack. He had one hand on his other shoulder, absently massaging it. An inch or two to the left and the blow would have come down on his skull.

  He hadn’t hesitated. He’d thrown himself between their child and the deadly hooves and taken a blow that might have killed him.

  Laurel stepped back from her strained pose half out of the window and pressed her palms to her midriff. She felt sick and a bit dizzy from the fear that had flooded her veins. She watched as Jack went to Melody and went down on one knee before her. There went the knees of his trousers, too. He took Melody’s little chin between his fingers and gazed into her face, speaking to her.

  Laurel frowned, but he wasn’t being overly stern. Melody didn’t cry or cringe away. She simply nodded solemnly, with her thinking finger in her mouth. Then Jack pulled her close, tucking her tiny head under his chin and holding her that way for a long moment. Laurel stared, unable to deny the catch in her throat at the sight. He was a good father, not at all like her selfish, uninterested parents.

  Then Laurel saw him swipe a quick, secretive hand over his eyes. In her heart, tenderness warred with anxiety.

  He loves her.

  And then . . .

  He’ll never let her go.

  Inside the luxurious carriage of the Marquis of Strickland, Melody had her pick of laps to ride on. A wealth of papas, all for one bighearted little girl. As usual, she chose Jack’s lap. Snuggled into his warmth with his arm loosely crooked about her plump little tummy, Melody explained her venture into the street.

  “There was a boy,” she said. Then she stuck her finger in her mouth.

  Jack gently extracted it. “You ran into the street to talk to a strange boy?”

  “He’s not a strange boy. He’s a nice boy. Like Evan.”

  Colin hooted. “Better not let Evan hear you call him a nice boy, Mousie. He’ll be sure to do something not so nice to prove you wrong.”

  Aidan raised a brow. “That’s rather harsh, Colin. He is your brother now.”

  Jack gazed down at the top of Melody’s shining head. “What is the nice boy’s name?”

  Melody twisted her ankles to better admire the new little white boots that Pru had put on her feet. “I don’t know. He’s the running boy.”

  Jack frowned. “Where does he run?”

  “Where are we going?” Melody bounced in Jack’s lap. “I want to go to the park! The park!”

  Aidan leaned back in his seat. “I didn’t see a boy, but there are a number of messengers trotting up and down St. James. She’s likely seen him before from the window.”

  Jack let the bouncing Melody leave his lap to stand on the black velvet seat with her head sticking out of the carriage window, her carefully arranged curls tangling in the breeze. He kept a grip on h
er sash, just in case. Though his shoulder burned like fire, he wasn’t about to let go of her anytime soon.

  Colin watched him with narrowed eyes. “It wasn’t your fault, Jack.”

  Jack said nothing. Aidan sat up straighter, his gaze sharpening on his friend. “Oh no. Don’t you even think it! Jack, you saved her!”

  Jack kept his gaze on Melody. She was laughing in delight at the speed of the horses’ trot. “I almost killed her,” he whispered.

  “No,” Colin said firmly. “You’re brilliant with her. Children wander off. It’s practically written in their maniacal little rule book! Chapter one, page one: ‘Must wander off at every opportunity.’ ”

  Memory made the bruise on Jack’s shoulder twinge sharply. Imagination only made it worse. A blow like that could have killed his tiny daughter. He could see it now, her little body broken and still on the cobbles. Jack shook his head. “I should have watched her.”

  Aidan leaned forward. “You were watching,” he said softly. “You saw her start to cross.”

  “No.” Jack met his friends’ eyes for the first time since the rescue. “I didn’t see it. I heard—” He looked away. “Never mind.” He let out a breath. “So, we are off to the market near Threadneedle Street.”

  Colin nodded. “Loads of people about today. If that’s where N-a-n-n-y originated, then there’s bound to be someone who recognizes Melody.”

  Aidan turned his gaze out the small square window. “Perhaps.”

  Colin glanced at Aidan but, with unusual sensitivity, did not tease him about his gravity. “Today is simply information gathering. No need to do more than that. These things take time, after all.”

  Jack said nothing. Information was precisely what he was after. The need to know what had happened to Laurel burned within him. What chaos had he caused? How could he start to make amends until he fully understood his crimes?

  Nanny Pruitt had the answers that Jack desperately needed. Of course, when the truth came out, he was going to have a great deal of explaining to do.