Once in a Blue Moon (5 page)

Jessalyn picked up the hat and stepped out from beneath the awning to study it better in the fading sunlight. It was tall-crowned, made of midnight blue curled silk and trimmed with enormous rose passionflowers. She smiled at the woman behind the counter. "How much is it?"

"Two pound ten, miss."

"Two pound ten!" Jessalyn didn't need to pretend her shock at the price. "Is this a hat you're selling or the crown jewels?" She laughed, and the sound of her laughter floated over the noise of the fair so that several people turned to stare and then smiled and laughed along with her.

"Don't buy it."

Jessalyn whirled, her fingers gripping the hat's wide brim, crushing the stiff silk. She looked up into a pair of dark, penetrating eyes. "Why are you following me?"

"It's an insanity, you know."

Something swelled inside her chest, making it difficult to breathe. "What?"

"It's an insanity, a mental aberration. Bedlam is full of those who do it."

She wondered why she couldn't make any sense of what he was saying. It was as if she had suddenly sprouted windmills in her head. "Do what?"

"Why, believe that they are constantly being followed by others with evil designs upon their persons. I assure you that I have not been following you, Miss Letty. Nor do I have any sort of design upon your person, evil or otherwise. Fate simply seems to be disgorging you into my path."

"Like Jonah and the whale?"

She had smiled at her own little joke, but he didn't return the smile. He stared at her, and because looking away from him would be the act of a coward, she stared back. His high-boned face held a strange disquiet, and his mouth was set in a thin, hard line.

"My, my," he finally said. "There is a wit beneath all that red hair." He took the bonnet from her nerveless fingers. His hand brushed hers, and a shiver fluttered across her chest, as if a chill wind had come up. Yet the evening had fallen suddenly still. "This hat would not do at all for you," he said. "It is meant for a more mature woman."

Of course, he would think of her as a child. She felt awkward and bedraggled in her speckled dimity frock with its frayed hem and the mended spot on the skirt where she'd caught it on a nail and in her serviceable leather half boots that pinched. She would never be the kind of woman who could wear such a hat and carry it off.

"I thank you for your opinion," she said. "Now if you will excuse me, please, I have business elsewhere."

"Where elsewhere?"

"There." She flung a finger past him, toward the setting sun, and only belatedly noticed where she had pointed. To her horror she saw the Reverend Troutbeck waddling toward her on his fat, bowed legs.

"Miss Letty, here you are at last," the reverend said, panting. "We've been waiting for you." The pastor gestured behind him, where a crowd had started to gather around a gibbet. Suspended from the crossbeam of the gibbet was a row of horse collars. The heads of three widely grinning boys poked out of three of the collars; the fourth was empty.

"A grinning contest!" the Trelawny man exclaimed, shock and laughter in his voice. "You are going to be in a grinning contest."

"No, no," Jessalyn protested. Her cheeks felt so hot she was sure they were on fire. "There has been a mistake. Not a mistake precisely, but a misinterpretation. Of something I said. Or rather, of something I neglected to say..."

The Reverend Troutbeck launched into a discourse about the contest, of how it had become a sort of tradition at the last few Midsummer's Eve fairs, as a way of raising money to reslate the church roof. The congregation, he said, made wagers on whose grin was the widest and whose could last the longest.

Jessalyn couldn't bear to look at the man beside her, but she could feel his gaze on her mouth. She quelled a sudden urge to wet her lips.

"Are you certain you are not mistaken, Miss Letty?" he said, drawling the words. "The good reverend here seems to be of the opinion that you've agreed to be in the competition." He waved a languid hand at the horse collars. "Indeed, he has saved you a place."

The reverend's face, florid and fat as a summer pumpkin, beamed above his grease-stained stock. "Our Miss Letty is a past champion."

"Then our Miss Letty has her title to defend, of course." The Trelawny man bowed at her, mockery in every line of his body. "Please, do not let me detain you."

There was nothing for it. She had to go through with it, to put a brave face on it. Or rather, grin on it. Jessalyn followed the reverend toward the gibbet. She mounted the steps slowly, her head high, her back stiff, as if she were Marie Antoinette on her way to the guillotine. She thrust her head through the horse collar, fighting off a cowardly desire to up and hang herself here and now, since she had a gibbet right to hand. So she had a big mouth. But dear life, only a cork-brained, addlepated wet goose would go and make a spectacle out of herself by entering a
grinning
contest.

The hurdy-gurdy ground out its tinny song as around and around they went—the wooden horses with their legs flying high, tails and manes streaming in the wind. Jessalyn had never seen such a wonder before, and she laughed out loud.

The horses had been painted all the bright colors of a peacock's tail and were anchored to a wooden platform by poles through their middles. The platform turned by means of an intricate mesh of chains and gears that were powered by
a
pair of live donkeys turning a treadmill. A barker dressed in a black checkered coat called out to the passersby to come and ride the merry-go-round.

"It seems we meet again, Miss Letty."

He came toward her out of the falling darkness, limping slightly. He stopped to stand before her, one thumb hooked on his fob pocket, his hip cocked forward. That Trelawny man. She wondered why he kept seeking her out. She wanted him to leave her alone.

"Why are you doing this? What do you want with me?"

He almost smiled. "What do you suppose I want with you?" He paused, and his words hung in the air, full of threat. Or a promise. "I want, as it happens, to chide you for costing me a guinea," he said.

"I cannot imagine what you are talking about."

"The good reverend so bragged of your prowess in flashing your ivories that I laid a guinea on you. He assured me I could not lose."

"That should teach you then, sir—never to bet on a sure thing."

He laughed, and the deep, throaty sound seemed to resonate in her blood. He took a step closer to her. She felt his nearness like the heat of a candle's flame.

She averted her head, sure that he would be able to read her feelings in her face. She couldn't understand this strange effect he seemed to have on her. She disliked him, in a way he frightened her. Yet her whole body leaped and came alive at the mere sight of him. It was like being given one of those electric charges that she'd read about in the newspaper, which had caused dead frogs to jump across the room. She smiled at the silly thought.

"I never trust people who smile suddenly for no reason," he said.

She looked up at him. He was staring at her with lazy-lidded eyes. "Oh, they always have a reason," she said. "You are only angry because you don't know what the reason is, and you suspect that they are secretly laughing at you."

"All the more reason then not to trust them."

Mesmerized, she watched the creases alongside his mouth deepen as he spoke. There was a bitter conviction in his voice and a tautness to his lips, as if he had learned about trust the hard way.

A silence fell between them. She knew she ought to say something; otherwise he would think her sadly dull. He would make his excuses, bow in that mocking way of his, and depart. A moment ago she had wanted him to leave her alone. Now, perversely, she didn't. She searched for a topic of conversation, but her head was suddenly as empty as the Reverend Troutbeck's collection plate.

The hurdy-gurdy was being cranked to a resounding crescendo, and the spinning horses whirled faster and faster, until they became blurs of color, like streams of spilled paint. Chinese lanterns flickered in the dusk, giving the illusion that the horses were alive.

Jessalyn's breath came out in an unconscious sigh. "That looks like such fun."

"Shall we find out?"

Before she knew what he was about, he had seized her hand, dragging her along after him. "It's for children!" she cried, but he didn't seem to hear. He dipped two fingers into his fob pocket and fished out a couple coins, which he tossed at the startled man in the checkered coat.

He lifted her onto the spinning platform and leaped up after her. He must have put all his weight onto his wounded leg, for he stumbled slightly and a grimace of pain flashed across his face. She reached out to him, to steady him. But he shook off her hand and, seizing her around the waist, hoisted her sidesaddle onto a blue horse's back. Laughing, she grabbed the pole as the world whirled by. He took the mount behind her. His legs were so long he dwarfed the horse. She laughed again, but not at him.

Their gazes met, and he smiled. The first true smile that she had seen from him. It melted the starkness of his face and turned the creases at the corners of his mouth into boyish dimples. She could still feel the imprint of his hands on her waist, like a lingering warmth. Around they went, riding on the wind and her laughter, and the Chinese lanterns became spinning stars. She wanted it to go on and on and on.

The merry-go-round wound slowly down. The music died, along with his smile. Too soon he was beside her. His hand slid beneath her elbow to help her dismount, then let her go. She had to catch her breath, as if she and not the horses had been galloping around and around. She turned to look at him. The dusk had deepened into darkness. The lanterns cast harsh shadows over the fairground and on his face.

The wind snatched at a lock of her hair, plastering it across her mouth. He plucked it free, the rough seam of his leather glove just brushing her lips. He rubbed the lock
of
hair between his fingers as if feeling its texture before he tucked it behind her ear, touching her again, and Jessalyn's stomach clenched with a strange hollowness that was close to pain. Or hunger. She wanted something, but what that something was she couldn't name or imagine.

He stepped back, and Jessalyn released the breath she hadn't even known she was holding. "Thank you for your charming company, Miss Letty," he said. "Perhaps someday we shall go riding together on the real thing."

She stared up at his face, at those piercing eyes and hard mouth.
Dangerous to know...
He both drew and repelled her. There was something dark and seductive about him; to come within his presence was like walking into a spider web. She knew she ought to tell him that it would be improper to call on her when they had not been formally introduced, but her throat and chest were suddenly so tight she couldn't speak.

"Jessalyn!"

She spun around to see a tall young man striding toward her. He waved his hat in the air, and the lanterns gilded his hair into a golden halo. "Clarence!" she exclaimed, laughing with surprise and delight.

"I thought it just possible that I might find you here," he said as he came up to her. "But I didn't dare to hope...." He seized her hands and looked down at her warmly, with eyes that were bottle green and a winsome smile that revealed the small gap between his two front teeth. Then his gaze slid beyond her, and his eyes narrowed.

Jessalyn turned around just in time to see the Trelawny man's broad back disappearing into the crowd. She felt strangely bereft, like a puppy that has been taken to the crossroads and abandoned.

"Were you with McCady Trelawny?" Clarence said, surprise in his voice.

"What?" She became aware that Clarence was still holding her hands and studying her face. She pulled away from him, forcing out a laugh. "Oh, no, I don't even know Mr. Trelawny. Not at all. Not to speak to, that is. Well, perhaps to speak to, but I don't really
know
him, if you know what I mean..."

Clarence was grinning at her. "Jessalyn, you are babbling. You always babble when you're nervous. Or when you have something to hide."

He knew her too well, did Clarence Tiltwell. They had spent so many hours of their childhood together, swimming, fishing, riding. They had shared their dreams and their secrets. But that was long ago; the dreams and the secrets had been those of children. She hadn't seen him much after he had been sent away to Eton and had then gone on to university. She realized suddenly that he was
a
man now, very much the London buck in his snuff brown coat and fawn-colored ankle button trousers. He had always been fair and slender, like his mother.

Cousins.
Clarence and that Trelawny man—they were cousins.

Jessalyn remembered now.... His mother's sister had been married to the late earl of Caerhays. They were all dead now—Clarence's mother, the sister, and the earl. There had been some scandal. The kind of scandal that produces a rush of hot whispers that is always cut off when someone young and female enters the room. It meant, of course, that someone had been caught in the marital act with someone one wasn't married to.

"Jessalyn?"

Jessalyn looked up at Clarence's face, searching for
a
resemblance to his dark cousin. Except for their height, the two young men couldn't have been more different.