Chapter Three #2
“Sorry, brother dear. Ladies only. It is our club. Much like White’s only admits gentlemen.” She pretended to hide a yawn behind her hand. “Is there anything else? The hour grows late.”
“Yes—forbidding your courtship was primary, but I also wish to address Felicity and Merry’s behavior this evening.
” He homed in on the unsuspecting two like a hawk switching prey, pointing at Merry.
“No more seeking refuge in Lady Atterley’s empty nursery.
It is decidedly odd, and I am not the only one who noticed.
It is bad enough when you sneak off to help the nannies with their charges, but that is explainable.
Everyone knows your love for children. But an empty nursery?
I mean, really? What were you thinking, Merry? ”
“I was thinking I needed some fresh air after Lord Smellington walked by me. If I’d gone to the garden or the terrace, Old Smelly would surely have followed. He gets worse with every Season. You cannot deny it.”
Chance closed his eyes and shook his head as if sorely put upon. Rather than defend the malodorous marquess, he turned to Felicity. “The kitchens. Again?”
“I wanted to speak with the cook. I wasn’t in there all that long.” Felicity squirmed in her seat, then went still at the soft sound of material ripping. “Oh dear. May I be excused, please? I fear I’ve burst another seam.”
Chance waved her away and turned to Serendipity as Felicity hurried from the room. “You must speak with her. Again. Before she eats her way to plump spinsterhood.”
“Leave her alone.” Joy had heard enough.
“She is a dear and perfect just the way she is. If no man can see that, then they can all go to the devil.” She rose and charged toward her brother, backing him up with several hard pokes to his chest. “You are not exactly perfect, brother, and neither are any of the other males of the peerage. Everyone has flaws. It is what makes us interesting.”
“But—”
“Stop being an arse!” She poked him again. “We love you, but you are not Papa and never will be. Be a good brother rather than a mercenary guardian trying to sell your sisters to gain the rest of your inheritance. Grow up, Chance. Why do you think Mama and Papa drew up the will the way they did?”
He opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water, making incoherent sounds as if suddenly struck mute.
“Joy,” Serendipity said, “do you not think that’s a little harsh?”
“Oh, shut your gob, Seri. You are just as bad as he is. I am going to bed.” Joy flounced from the room, charged upstairs, and slammed the door of the sisters’ joint sitting room behind her.
She did the same with the door to her bedchamber.
Since there was naught but the four of them now in the house, they’d remodeled the rooms so each of them had their own private bedchamber.
Thank goodness, because in her dark mood, she wasn’t fit for company.
*
“Nimbus. What have you been told?” Jansen asked the black cat that sat at his feet, proudly holding what looked to be a brand-new hair ribbon in his mouth.
Jansen took it away and tucked it into his jacket pocket.
“You must stay out of Aurelia’s ribbons or she is sure to stop allowing you into her rooms.”
The golden-eyed feline flicked an ear, appearing more than a little uninterested in yet another lecture about his thieving.
Nimbus stole anything he could carry or drag.
More often than not, he deposited whatever he nicked into Jansen’s bedchamber, which made things rather awkward whenever he helped himself to the belongings of visitors.
But Jansen loved the cat. He had rescued him as a kitten from the wreckage of a cannon in Greece, and Nimbus had been with him ever since.
The cat hopped up onto the bed and meowed while kneading his favorite pillow.
Nimbus wanted to go to bed, and the feline was right.
It was only a few hours till dawn, and Jansen had yet to sleep at all.
He hated the nights. The darkness of closed eyes and unguarded slumber allowed the demons to creep back in and attack, making him relive the nightmares of war, nightmares real enough to make his old wounds rage as they had done when brand new.
An hour or two of rest was all he usually salvaged from any night.
Thankfully, he’d conditioned himself to survive quite well on what little sleep he stole from the terrors of his past.
Grudgingly, he shrugged off his jacket and rid himself of the rest of his clothes, then climbed into bed. The cool sheets caressed his nakedness and helped convince him that once again, together, they would reign victorious over the horrifying darkness and steal some much-needed rest.
The only thing that strengthened his sanity was the memory of Joy’s visiting him on the battlefield.
That vision had been so real. Her smile, the caring in her touch, and her lilting voice had saved him from madness and death there on that muddy field.
Praise the Almighty, he had spotted her at that ball, and every other ball thereafter, for the few months before he’d gone off to war.
Of all the women he’d bedded, flirted with, and barely spoken to, only Lady Joy had come to him on the battlefield as he lay there waiting to die.
As he’d told her, she was and always would be his saving angel.
Nimbus walked onto his chest, leaned forward, and licked the tip of his nose with his dry, rough tongue.
Jansen gently moved the cat back to the pillow on the lower part of the bed. “Mind your manners, old man. With any luck, we shall soon have our angel sharing our bed. I have it on good authority that she likes cats. What say you about that?”
Nimbus yawned, obviously bored and sleepy.
“I know. Time to fight the demons.” Jansen pulled in a deep breath as he lay back and folded his hands behind his head. Tomorrow, he would call on his precious Lady Joy. That thought made him smile and relaxed him even more. He closed his eyes. Then all hell broke loose.
Deafening cannon fire exploded all around.
Men shouted, and some even screamed as they fell to the ground in what had once been a grassy meadow, now turned into a sea of churning sludge by horses’ hooves, wagon wheels, and blood.
His shoulder burned as if a red-hot brand had been shoved through it, skewering him to the wooden cannon wheel he lay against for cover.
Shouts in a language he recognized as the Ottomans made him check his supplies.
He was out of both ball and powder, helpless except for his saber and bayonet.
He dragged himself even tighter against the wagon and fell back, gasping.
Blast it all. He was too weak to pull himself under it.
Besides, that would be the first place the enemy would look for survivors.
The voices drew closer, gleeful and laughing as they made his fellow soldiers cry out with agonizing screams as they murdered them with a final thrust of their bayonets.
Lightning flashed, splintering the sky. The clouds opened up, releasing a deluge.
Thunder shook the ground as they reached him.
The ominous black shadows closed in, reaching for him.
He gritted his teeth, refusing to give them the satisfaction of crying out when they ended him.
Then something nipped his nose, lightly at first, then harder, making it sting.
It rumbled on his chest with a low, throated growl, making the wound in his shoulder ache even worse.
He couldn’t see. Blinded by more lightning. Something bit his nose again.
Jansen fought through the darkness and opened his eyes to find himself nose to nose with Nimbus. Drenched in sweat, gasping to catch his breath, he cradled the cat’s enormous head between both hands and rubbed its ears. “God bless you, old man. Thank you for saving me once more.”
Nimbus rumbled with loud purring, butted his head against Jansen’s chin, then curled up on the pillow next to Jansen’s shoulder and flipped his tail down across his chest. Jansen allowed him to remain there, finding comfort in his old friend’s deep, vibrating purrs and soft, silky tail contentedly brushing across him.
“I have to think of a way to rid myself of these demons,” he told the cat as he watched the shadows from the sputtering night candle dance across the ceiling and walls.
The deep blue of the darkness filtering in with the breeze through the window was softening with the faint blush of the approaching sunrise.
He had survived another war with the terrors of his past, with Nimbus’s help.
“I’d hoped for Lady Joy to share my bed rather than take a room of her own once we married.
But if I’m unable to overcome the darkness that overtakes my mind, how can I ask her to share that? ”
Nimbus flipped his tail harder as if to say, Be quiet and try to sleep some more.
Perhaps the cat was right. He needed to be as rested as possible when he called on Lady Joy.
He pulled in a deep, relaxing breath, held it for a moment, then released it.
Closing his eyes, he held her vision foremost in his mind, praying she would keep the devils of his past away long enough for him to feel refreshed when he rose from the bed that had been a battlefield ever since his return from the war.
He prayed his angel would save him from all that and change the battlefield into a place of peace and love.