In which the Captain suffers a Sleepless Night
I
t was almost midnight when Cole trod wearily up the three flights of stairs from the kitchen to the schoolroom. Above stairs, all was quiet, with no light visible beneath the children’s doors. Jonet, it would seem, had finally managed to ease their worry, at least enough to permit them to sleep a bit. Cole very much feared that he would not be so fortunate. The entire evening had been a nightmare. The ordeal he and Nanna had suffered through had temporarily obliterated the embarrassment of his argument with Lord Delacourt. Now, with poor Rogue asleep downstairs, the horror of it came back in full force.
What had he been thinking? And what the devil had Delacourt meant by his veiled insinuations? Cole did not know. He knew only that he had humiliated himself in his ineffectual, and probably unnecessary, attempt to defend Jonet. And Delacourt, damn and blast him, had seen through it. Yes, Jonet’s scornful young lover had somehow glimpsed what Cole wanted no one—not even himself—to see. That he was already half in love with Jonet Rowland.
There. It was out at last. How mortifying it was to feel such a potent mixture of strong, almost unmanageable emotions for another person. A person one hardly knew, and dared not trust. Tonight, he had been angry with Jonet for drinking too much, aggravated by her capacity to drive him mad with sudden lust, frustrated with her inability to see what a vain popinjay Delacourt was—and yet, he had felt compelled to protect her. And in so doing, Cole had all but accused the viscount of infidelity.
But Delacourt had not bothered to deny it. Cole snorted in disgust. Yes, it would be very convenient for the viscount if Jonet were to turn her attentions elsewhere. Then he could snuggle into his new love nest without that most tormenting of emotions—guilt. Cole realized that he was standing at the schoolroom, one hand clasped over his face as if to shut out the truth. Slowly, he noticed that someone was tugging at his shirtsleeve, his waistcoat and frock coat having been left somewhere in the kitchen. Cole looked down to see Stuart at his elbow. The boy was barefoot, attired only in his nightshirt.
“Sir,” he whispered plaintively. “Is Rogue going to be all right? Mama said we must remember him in our prayers, then go to bed. She said that you’d take good care of him. But I just cannot sleep.”
Gently, Cole encircled the boy’s shoulders with his arm and drew Stuart into the schoolroom. Through the deep windows that fronted the house, Cole could see that the rain had finally begun in earnest. In the distance, lightning flickered, too far away for the rumble of thunder to be heard. Along the walkway below the windows, the watch was calling midnight, his lantern swinging eerie shadows up the walls of the house across the street. Nanna, bless her, had left a lamp burning low on the table.
Cole propped one hip on the corner of the table and stretched out his hand to tip up the boy’s chin. “Listen, Stuart—Rogue is still quite ill. But I do believe he will be all right in a day or two.”
“Can I see him, sir?”
Gently, Cole shook his head. “You need your sleep, as does Rogue. And the dog must rest. He is very weak, because we gave him something which helped him to vomit whatever it was he had eaten.”
Stuart jerked his eyes away and stared across the table. He looked small and very frightened. “What he ate was Robin’s kidney pie,” said the boy softly.
A long, dreadful silence hung in the air. Finally, Cole sighed. “Yes, I know that,” he answered gently. “But no doubt he gobbled down something in the park today.”
Stuart cast up a doubtful glance. “Collies are pretty smart dogs, sir,” he answered
Cole considered it for a moment. It was a very good point, and it nagged at him. “Well, it is very hard to say what it was,” he answered calmly. “Do you think you can sleep now?”
In the pale light, Stuart nodded solemnly, his young face still rather drawn. Affectionately, Cole patted his narrow shoulder. “Then take yourself off to bed, Stuart,” he said softly. “I plan to work a bit, but you have only to call out if you need me. Do you understand?”
Solemnly, the boy nodded, and rose from his chair. Then, like a stealthy ghost in his flowing white nightshirt, the boy drifted out. As the door clicked shut, Cole stared down at his pile of paperwork and immediately gave up. Frustrated by things he did not want to consider, he tore off his spectacles and tossed them on top of the heap. He was weary, but not sleepy, and he could not bear the thought of an empty bed, so Cole simply flung himself across the long, leather couch and dragged an arm across his eyes. Unfortunately, it shut out nothing but the light and did little to calm his tumultuous thoughts.
Ruthlessly, Cole kicked off his shoes and stretched out his legs. Stuart’s remarks had raised a chilling issue. There was no escaping the fact that his altercation with Delacourt ought to be the lesser of his concerns this night. Cole’s pride would not kill him. But something had very nearly killed Rogue.
Neither Nanna nor Cole had spoken the words aloud, but it had been plain that they’d both realized, just as Stuart had, that the dog had eaten food intended for Robert. Stuart had thrown his away, and the scraps from dinner were long since gone. Another quick conversation with Cook had indicated that the meat had been bought fresh at the usual butcher’s the previous afternoon, and had been served in one form or another at all three meals. Had there been complaints?
Why indeed not!
Was there anyone ill among the staff ?
Heavens no!
And it had required all of Cole’s charm and a touch of Nanna’s authority to smooth Cook’s feathers following that little exchange.
Cole forced himself to recall that not six months ago, someone in this house had likely been poisoned, and if so, the murderer was still at large. It was of some comfort that these dreadful happenings exonerated Jonet, at least in Cole’s mind. Jonet’s face when she spoke of her sons was lit by a maternal light so bright that there could be no mistaking the depth of her devotion. With the lamp still low, Cole lay on the sofa, listening as the wind whipped the rain back against the glass in spattering sheets. Summer rainstorms always left him melancholy and restless, even under the best of circumstances.
Another discomfiting memory stirred in the recesses of his mind. Yes, it had been just such a night—a rainy summer’s evening—when he had gone to his late wife’s house to ask for her hand in marriage. How far away it all seemed now. And yet, not far enough. God, no. Never far enough.
Cole had known Rachel only as the daughter of his mentor, a man whom Cole had both admired and emulated. Her father, Thomas, had taken Cole under his wing during his early years at Cambridge. Cole, ever hungry for a father figure, had been glad when their friendship had deepened into something more when he joined the faculty. He and Thomas had shared much, and when his old friend had lain dying, Cole had been stricken by a grief more profound than anything he had felt since the death of his own parents almost twenty years before. Of course he had asked what he might do to alleviate Thomas’s suffering. Strangely, it had come as no great surprise when his friend had asked him to look after Rachel and—if he could find it in his heart to do so—to take her as his wife.
It had seemed like a small thing to do for a man who had given so much. As trustee of Thomas’s perfectly adequate estate, Cole had made it plain to Rachel that he would always be there for her; that she need not wed him in order to be assured of his care and friendship. And so five days later, when she’d said yes, Cole had sincerely believed that Rachel harbored some secret affection for him. He had been pleased. He had been genuinely fond of her, although he had not known her well. Rachel had seemed perfect; serene, lovely, and gently feminine. When her mourning had ended, they were quietly wed.
Cole had begun the marriage with hope in his heart, but too late, he’d realized that Rachel had married because she viewed it as God’s intended role for women. What he had taken for serenity went well past that, and into an emotion so restrained he could ill define it. Rachel had had no interest in cultivating any sort of mutual passion. It was, he soon learned, an emotion that made her acutely uncomfortable. In Rachel’s view of marriage, gentle subservience was a wife’s duty, and she had summarily placed housekeeping and lovemaking into that same category, with considerably more enthusiasm attached to the former than to the latter. Yes, Cole’s bed had been almost as warm as his hearth, but neither had felt especially welcoming.
Rachel had loved him with half a heart, seeking only a contented existence. Inexperienced in the ways of love, Cole had come to believe that the fault was his; that he was incapable of stirring true passion in a woman. Now, despite a good deal more experience, he secretly feared it still might be true.
But good God, how Rachel haunted him. Even in the dimly lit schoolroom, he could almost see her, the crisp white nightrail tied at the throat, the long plait of cool blonde hair that fell across one shoulder. He could see her face, too. Full and pretty, with wide-set blue eyes filled with a childlike innocence. But Rachel had been four-and-twenty, hardly a child. Cole swallowed hard and looked into the lamplight, willing away the vision. Many men would have been happy with a quiet, undemanding wife. He, however, had not been. After three years of such a placid existence, Cole had realized that he still did not know his own wife, and the knowledge had left him sick with disappointment. Again, that had been his failing. But why now, of all times, should Rachel torment him?
Or better put, why was he deliberately torturing himself? Initially, he had not loved her, it was true. But he had wanted to. Many good marriages began with less. Cole had always believed that love was like a delicate flower that required cultivation and warmth. Had he been so wrong to think that his love for Rachel would grow? This wild, hot thing that bloomed in his heart for Jonet Rowland was no tender, delicate rose. That emotion had sprung quickly to full flower, its blood red petals unfurling as if impelled by a tropical heat beneath a searing sun. More passion than reverence, more lust than admiration, it was a desperate emotion, one that was beyond Cole’s realm of understanding.
Restlessly, he shifted his weight on the sofa and watched another bolt of lightning split the sky. A shaft of fire. Yes, that was precisely what he felt in his gut—and in his loins—when he touched Jonet. Such a thing could not be love. A man could not love with such mad desperation a woman he did not fully understand. A woman who, at times, made him wild with anger and reckless with lust. Perhaps Rachel had been right all along. Surely this sense of having one’s heart torn out of one’s chest was worse than a safe and tepid affection. He could not be at peace in the same room with Jonet, and yet, when she passed from his sight, it was as if a part of him had been torn away.
Last night, Cole had slept poorly. In his imagination, he had been driven to a heated madness by sultry dreams of Jonet, when he should have been worried about the children. That was his job. And yet, twice he had awakened bolt upright in bed, wondering where their
mother
was. Then he would find himself obsessively wondering if Delacourt had somehow managed to creep into her bed. Damn it, he wanted to
know
. And as he had begun to drift back to sleep, Cole had unwittingly begun to fantasize about the wicked things he would do to Jonet Rowland if he were to share her bed.
In the whole of his life, Cole had never been in love with anyone, not even the woman he had married. And now he was beginning to fear that he had allowed himself to do what everyone—Lauderwood, Madlow, and yes, even his insensible Uncle James—had warned against. Suddenly, the rain increased its tempo, rattling wildly through the downspouts. In the western sky, lightning flashed again, and this time, the low rumble of thunder could dimly be heard. On the table, Nanna’s lamp sputtered and went out, submerging the room in darkness. Cole dragged his arm over his eyes once more, and his awareness of the storm melted away.
“Psst—!”
The soft, insistent sound roused Lord Robert Rowland from a near dead slumber. One fist screwed into his eye, the boy sat up in bed and peered into the darkness. “Iszat you, Stuart?” he managed to mumble. Robert listened as his elder brother’s footsteps trailed lightly across the carpet to the edge of his bed then paused.
“
Psst
—
!
” came the sound again. “Robin, did you hear a noise?” Stuart’s whisper fell somewhat short of brave. Robert felt his brother’s weight settle onto one corner of the mattress as he continued explaining. “Because I thought I heard voices. And then a
thump
! It might have come from the attic. Didn’t you hear it?”
“All I heard,” grumbled Robert sleepily, “was you jabbering to Cousin Cole.” Robert collapsed back into a heap of feather pillows with a breathy
whoosh!
“Now, for pity’s sake, Stuart! Go to sleep! You’ve been hearing things in the night since Papa died.”
Stuart crept a little further up the mattress. “No, honest, Robert! I heard more noises after I left the schoolroom. I think someone is hiding in our attic. Probably in that closet near the maids’ rooms.”
“Oh,
go back to bed, Stuart!
” groaned his brother, dragging the covers over his head. “It’s just a thunderstorm.”
“I swear there was a noise, Robin!” insisted Stuart. “Anyway, you sleep like the dead. A herd of vicious elephants could come in here and eat you alive—”
“Awww
—elephants don’t—”
“And you would never hear it!” insisted Stuart, ignoring his younger brother’s interjection. “I daresay I ought to sleep in here with you. It would be safer, don’t you think?”
“Noo—!” wailed his brother. “I don’t
think
. You kick, and you steal the sheets. Now go back to your own bed. We’re safe. Cousin Cole is just down the corridor. Depend upon it, Stuart! He will catch anyone who comes skulking down the hall.”
The squall of newly tightened door hinges slowly stirred Cole to a hazy wakefulness. He had no notion what was wrong, just the vague sensation that something was not . . .
right
. How long had he slept? And where the devil was he? Silently, he listened, trying to bring his senses to full alert.